Amazing tales from Planet Tabloid

This week on our regular trip to the outer fringes of the news agenda: the man who wants to marry a pub and the meteor that just missed a dog walker. But first...

Burning issue of the week...

Who shot Phil Mitchell?

Answer:

Oooh, could be quite a few people. Dan Sullivan is the odds-on favourite at William Hill. But every paper has its own theory.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THAT...

Next time one of your pals sidles up to you in the pub and offers to flog you a framed patch of Wembley's hallowed turf, think again.

"Let's just pretend it's Wembley"

While downing a pint or two, Leeds United fan Alex Sykes also swallowed an unlikely story told by one of his pals, who claimed to have a framed patch of grass cut from the footballing Mecca.

Not only that, but Alex's pal said it was the very same spot from which Leeds struck their winning goal in the 1972 FA Cup final. Alex duly handed over £200 for the "artwork", according to the Daily Star.

But when he woke up the next day, Alex spotted a hole in his lawn the same size as the turf in his sitting room. The game was up.

Prankster pals also got the better of Kevin Hudson, while he was enjoying a weekend away from home, The Sun reports. Kevin's pals lopped off the chimney pot from the roof of his house and cemented on an old porcelain toilet.

TAKE MORE WATER WITH IT

A devoted drinker is going to marry his local pub. Tom Sissons is to be joined in holy matrimony to the Railway Inn in Mansfield after his wife told him he spent so much time there he might as well be married to it.

Here comes the bridesmaid

Hmm. Sounds a bit fishy? Well, Planet Tabloid can EXCLUSIVELY reveal that this is the very same pub which made headlines around the world in 1998 when drinker Geoff Smith beat the world record for surviving underground - buried in a box in the pub garden.

Two theories spring to mind. 1. Drinking too much makes you do stupid things. 2. Stupid things happen when you drink too much.

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE

Cartoonist Pugh, in The Times comments on the week's serious terrible news by picturing a couple on a park bench reading a newspaper.

One remarks to the other: "On the bright side things can't get any worse" while, only inches above them, a meteor plummets to Earth.

"Here boy, fetch the stick"

But the tabloids can trump that, with real-life stories of things falling from the sky.

The Mirror tells the story of how pensioners Ron and Brenda Mills became trapped in their hotel room in Cape Town, South Africa, by a boulder wedged against the door.

The 15-ton rock had fallen off a mountain and already partially destroyed two rooms.

Equally unsettling is the experience of fellow pensioner Sylvia Mercer. While out walking the dogs in Hopgrove, near York, Sylvia heard a bang followed by a fizzing sound, and saw smoke rising from a hole in the ground two feet away.

Police put the blame on a meteor.

LOW-CUT KATE

The combination of Britain's top two showbiz award ceremonies - the Baftas and the Brits - in one week makes for even more pictures than usual of famous people.

Kate Winslet's revealing Baftas outfit

Jamie Bell, the 14-year-old star of Billy Elliot, is conveniently forgiven his moment of indiscretion last week - he gave photographers "the finger" on leaving a nightclub - after winning the best actor gong.

Goldie Hawn is variously referred to as "glittering" and "shimmering"; Russell Crowe is "jet-lagged"; Michelle Yeoh is "stunning" and a "screen tiger" and Juliette Binoche is "stylish" and "cutting edge".

Despite not even being nominated for an award, "curvy" Kate Winslet stole the show for having the chutzpah to wear a revealingly low slung dress.

BLAME THE TEXT MESSENGER

Is there no end to the nefarious uses to which text messaging can be put?

Does your personnel department have one yet?

Ever since mobile phone users discovered they could spend five times longer "typing" out a message than just making a normal phone call, text messaging has got out of control.

Children bully other children through text, adults stalk other adults in the same way, people have even left suicide notes using their mobile's keypad.

And now the story of a woman who was sacked by text message, reports the Daily Star. Office worker Zoe Halls' weekend was ruined when, on Sunday night, she got the message: "We don't need you in at work tomorrow. I'll call you am to explain - John".

The follow up call never came.