The week that was at a glance
Naked lunch
Even the liberal Germans were shocked this week when a US tourist went sight-seeing in the nude. Having seen the locals sunbathe nude in a Berlin park, where nudity is condoned, the 41-year-old tourist packed his clothes up in a bag and decided that "when in Rome" was the best policy. A police spokesman said: "We have been having unusually hot weather here lately but, all the same, we can't have this."
The man was fined €200.
Fagin's bunch
Fagin's Den is a "soft play area" with no pick-pockets allowed at the US-style Dickens World Theme Park, which opened yesterday in Kent. No amount of animatronic wizardry and wet fun rides can disguise the fact that urban Victorian England has been sanitised and bowdlerised to a degree Dickens wouldn't recognise.
Quote...
I'm flabbergasted . . . genuinely humbled. It shows that everybody has a book in them
Former Limerick prison officer Philip Bray on winning a 10,000 book deal
We now know
Actor Keira Knightley (right) won £3,000 (€4,434) in damages from the Daily Mail this week for implying that her svelte physique should carry a health warning.
It used to be only overweight people who got insulted.
Irish tourists are among the worst, ranking 22nd out of 24 countries in a survey by Expedia. Only the British and the Danes are ruder and more penny-pinching.
The Numbers
60Age of mother who gave birth to twins in New Jersey this week
6The number of weeks' gestation at which a new test can determine the sex of a foetus
7%Rise in Chinese divorce rate last year, blamed on women's growing financial independence