A hospital has apologised after asking elderly patients to use a tambourine instead of a buzzer to attract attention.

The tambourine was put in a day room at Cardiff Royal Infirmary after elderly patients feared it was too far for nurses to hear any cries for help.

“It is ridiculous. These people are pensioners not members of the Monkees or Mick Jagger,” said one resident – “Where is the dignity in asking old and frail people to bash on a tambourine if they are in trouble? It makes the NHS look like a laughing stock.”

He claimed that earlier there was a pair of maracas in the day room for patients to use – in case the tambourine was broken. Patients in the hospital’s West Wing complained they were “too scared” to use the day room in case staff do not hear their calls for help.

The hospital is well-known for its long corridors and has even been used to film episodes of TV’s Dr Who.

Steve Allen, chief officer of Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan Community Health Council, said: “This is totally inappropriate.

“Patients shouldn’ t have to resort to shaking a tambourine to get a nurse’s assistance.”

Ruth Walker, executive director of nursing for Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, apologised for the tambourine – and said a new emergency bell will be installed

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That’s right, the Czechs have apparently found a way to turn mounds of crap into piles of cash, by selling it in 1,5 kg plastic buckets, for 70 koruna ($4.20) each . The idea belongs to zoo director Miroslav Bobek, whose last name actually means ‘piece of dung’ in Czech, and believe it or not, it proved a big success.

The stinky souvenirs were only introduced last month and sold just on weekends, but sales have been so brisk that management has decided to offer them to the public all week long. It’s estimated the zoo sells around 200 ice-cream-like dung containers every week, most of them to Czech gardeners who use it as fertilizer.

The Prague Zoo isn’t the first one who adopted the idea of using elephant dung as souvenirs, the Schoenbrunn Zoo, in Vienna, has been doing it for years, but if sales keep up, Bobek and his team are thinking of introducing other kinds of animal excrements, or special Asian and African mixes. Each of the zoo’s elephants produce between 140 and 180 kilograms of dung every day, so I don’t think they’ll run out of supplies any time soon.

Love is in the air for Germany’s most unlikely couple: a swan besotted with a blue tractor.

According to Reuters, the eight-year-old swan called Schwani (Swanny) has become so obsessed with the vehicle that every time the engine starts up, he waddles over to say hello.

This affection is not a short-term fling, according to observers from the village of Velen in north-western Germany: Schwani has been devoted to the blue tractor for years.

‘He follows me around all the time,’ caretaker of the hotel ‘Sportschloss,’ Hermann-Josef Hericks told Reuters. ‘No matter where I go, whether I cross the street or go deep into the animal garden to take care of the path ways, the swan comes along.’

Hericks says that even if he takes little breaks the swan waits next to the tractor, ready to jump in if he would let him.

Hericks says he doesn’t know why the swan is so besotted.

‘Experts are puzzled why he has fallen in love with the tractor. But they think that he was in close contact somehow with machines, with very loud machines when he was very young and that made its mark. And so he fell for the tractor now.’

Schwani’s confusion is not the first one of its kind, though: five years ago, a black swan named Petra made headlines when she fell in love with a plastic pedal boat – in the shape of a swan.

Germany seems to garner a reputation for curious animal stories. First there were the gay penguins of Bremerhaven zoo, near Bremen. Then there was Knut and the drama of the abandoned cup, the loving keeper and the untimely death. Then there was of course Paul the Octopus who became a sensation when he allegedly picked out World Cup winners for South Africa with his tentacles before each match.

When Adele Edwards is hungry, she doesn’t bother with the kitchen. She just heads straight for the furniture. Her bizarre diet is killing her but she says she just can’t stop.

Incredibly, the mother-of five from Florida can’t stop eating household items, such as rubbers and elastic bands. But her favourite snack is the ­polyester filling from sofa cushions. To her, man-made foam is more delicious than biscuits or cakes.

Adele, 30, is suffering from recognised medical condition, Pica. Having munched her way through eight sofas and five chairs, she ­estimates that she’s digested nearly 16st of synthetic foam in her ­lifetime.

She simply can’t stop and now she’s terrified of eating ­herself into an early grave. In recent months, she’s had­ ­emergency treatment for intestinal obstruction after eating chunks of polyester foam which she refers to simply as “cushion”. Doctors have warned that she will leave her children motherless if she doesn’t give up, but she says she’s powerless to stop.

Football ‘fanatics’ took the body of a murdered teenager into a stadium in Colombia’s Norte de Santander department. The body of 17-year-old Christopher Jacome was taken in a coffin to the General Santander Stadium in Cucuta, the capital of Norte de Santander, during the Sunday match between Cucuta Deportivo and Envigado.

The boy, a loyal fan of Cucuta who belonged to the fan group “Barra del Indio” – a group known in Colombia for their aggressive antics at soccer matches – was shot several times Saturday while playing football in a local park. After his wake, friends from “Barra del Indio” took the cadaver from the funeral home and paraded it around and then into the stadium in an attempt to pay homage to the slain soccer fan.

The medic for the soccer club, Julio Rivera, said, “They don’t let in the “barras” (fanatics) but yes, a cadaver. This is the only part of the world where this has happened.” Colonel Alvaro Pico, a local police said that the boy’s death had nothing to do with his love for the football team rather it was a consequence of criminal actions in the area where he lived.

The event has generated controversy in Cucuta and stadium officials will hold a meeting to find out who permitted the entry of the cadaver and what punishment will be given. Colonel Pico said they have identified some individuals who took the body from the funeral home.