Silly season top 10

It's the fourth, and final week, of the silly season hitlist. Here are the last entries for BBC News Online's Silly Seasonally Adjusted Top 10.

10. IN A PALE imitation of news the tabloids have gone albino crazy. Baldrick the snow-white magpie has learned to scare off cats with his dog impression - for us to hear on a premium rate phoneline. (The Sun, 21/8/00.)

Ariel the albino lobster could have done with an alarm call. The rare crustacean was nabbed by robbers from an aquarium - destined, it's said, for the barbecue. (Nominated by Claire Powell, The Mirror, The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Express, 24/8/00)

9. DAVID GINOLA, Aston Villa footballer, has bucked the trend by colouring his famous "silver blond" locks. Does his "rich chestnut" dye job risk tempting the scorn of fans in the terraces? (Daily Star, 24/8/00.)

George Best, victor in the 30-year telephone-number stand-off

8. SHEFFIELD UNITED players seem to care what the crowds say. They've supposedly asked the club to dump their gold and lilac kit "because it makes them look gay!" (The Sun, 23/8/00. Nominated by Paul Baird.)

7. GEORGE BEST has had his share of trials on and off the pitch, but Gillian Best has had to endure the fall out. Though no relation to the Belfast Boy, the 59-year-old's number in the phone book is often mistaken for that of the football legend. After 30 years she's decided to change her directory entry. (The Sun, 21/4/00.)

6. A FIVE-POUND NOTE scribbled on by a six-year-old girl was spent by her dad in Cheltenham only to be given back to him in change a fortnight later in a shop 200 miles away. What are the chances of that? 209 million to one, we are told. (The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Star, 22/8/00. Nominated by Claire Powell)

Ecstatic: Tara Palmer Tomkinson

5. TARA PALMER TOMKINSON has been spotted reading a book. (The Sun, 25/8/00.)

4. BEWARE SHELLFISH! Ravenous gulls are bombarding holidaymakers walking on a Dorset breakwater with whelks in an attempt to break them open - the whelks, not the tourists. One woman has received an inch-long gash from a flying mollusc. (Daily Express, 23/8/00.)

3. A MUTANT TOMATO has been discovered which looks, ever so vaguely, like a duckling, if you squint and hold your head at an angle. Gardener Helen Pucknell added little eyes to help convince her husband of the likeness. (The Sun 23/8/00.)

2. GARLIC WORMS for anglers have been developed by a Canadian chemist. Their smell and fluorescent glow attract fish, he claims. (Daily Star 24/8/00.)

"Oh, they taste of garlic. Well then of course I'll try one"

Fishermen tempted to taste the worms for themselves should learn from Nick Tagliarini. The supermarket garlic taster has been given a £2,000 mint allowance to help fight his pungent breath. (The Sun 24/8/00. Nominated by Jonathan Walsh.)

1. ROUNDING off the last hit list of this summer's most inconsquential, bizzare, weird and banal stories, is the tale of a hapless balding surfer who received an agonising sting from a Lion's Mane jellyfish in the sea off Scarborough. Balding man, mane jellyfish, get it? Mane ... as in hair ... but the man's balding. Hilarious. (The Sun, 22/8/00.)

Thank you to everybody who suggested stories for the top 10 over the past four weeks.