All the news that's fit to print

In shock news which has horrified the entire nation, the Office for National Statistics has removed slippers from its list of items used to determine inflation levels. Spontaneous demonstrations broke out in town city centres as slipper lovers protested the notion that their comfy footwear was no longer popular or essential.

The Times reports on an employment tribunal focussing on a farting chair:

Mrs Storer, who had been an art teacher for 26 years, says that she was subjected to four years of overwork, intimidation and stress after joining the 1,000-pupil school in April 2001. She said that her "farting chair" was a regular joke.

She said: "It was very embarrassing to sit on. I asked for a chair that didn't give me a dead leg or make these very embarrassing farting sounds. It was a regular joke that my chair would make these farting sounds and I regularly had to apologise that it wasn't me, it was my chair."

She said that when a consignment of new chairs arrived in May 2002 she was not allocated one. She said: "I had specially requested a chair under health and safety regulations and I didn't get one."

It's official: it's good to be a left-hander (if you're a snail). We sinister types will take over the world one day, just you wait and see...

In a clear travesty of justice, Rainbow, with evil Zippy, wimpy George, inept Bungle, and their peculiar living arrangements with human companion Geoffrey, has been voted as the best ever children's show. Apparently I'm the only one whose childhood was scarred by the singalong sensations Rod Jane and Freddy. And whatever happened to the mustachioed Roger (on the left below), strangely airbrushed from the scene in a Stalinistic purge to make way for Freddy? Was there some incident with him and Bungle which had to be hushed up? I think we should be told

Sharon Osbourne is apparently celebrity Mum of the year, fighting off stiff competition from the likes of Doherty-shagging, coke-sniffing Kate Moss and BBC ratings-destroyer Davina McCall. For some reason, last year's winner, Kerry Katona, failed to make the top ten. I simply can't think why...

The latest "let's start a health scare panic" research claims that uneven breast size can increase the likelihood of cancer. Reassuring news for the 0.0001% of women with perfectly symmetrical breasticles then...

Lead researcher Dr Diane Scutt told the BBC News website the average female breast in the study was about 500ml in size, so a variation of 100ml was quite big.

She added that almost all women had some degree of breast asymmetry - just one woman who took part in the study had perfectly symmetrical breasts.

She said: "Breast asymmetry should not be considered in isolation, it is important to consider a woman's entire risk profile before assessing her breast cancer risk."

And in news which shocked absolutely nobody at all, Vladimir Romanov's latest move at Hearts has been to sack Graham Rix. After all, he'd been in the job for a few months, clearly it was time for him to go...