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We are approaching the time of year often known in the British media as 'silly season'. There's usually relatively little real national news, and so a variety of completely daft things end up in the papers. Oliver Burkeman, writing in the Guardian this week, offered a wonderful "sneak preview of some of the other scoops you'll be reading over the coming weeks".

Extracts:

Gatwick terror panic

The government has banned airline passengers from wearing green hats after a man in a green hat was arrested at Gatwick airport carrying a bottle of potentially lethal hydrogen peroxide. Holidaymakers who flout the new rule face severe penalties, although hats of other colours will still be permitted, as will rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Bohemian Rhapsody triumphs in 'Top 100' lists

Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen, has been named the greatest film of all time following an administrative mixup among Sunday newspapers preparing this weekend's plethora of "Top 100" lists. The glam-rock band's celebrated anthem also won the title of funniest British comedy of all time, and most powerful person in the British media. A source at the polling company contracted to produce the lists blamed human error. However, a corrected version of the Best Musicians list still showed Arctic Monkeys several places ahead of the Beatles and Johnny Cash, a result that pollsters attributed to people these days having absolutely no taste whatsoever.

There's an article about Ndiyo in the Technology section of today's Guardian.

It's not bad - a few mistakes, but no more than the typical column. My main concern is that it sounds as if I did everything singlehandedly! Apologies to everybody else!

Interesting - I didn't know that such services were generally available yet...

For a cost of about 35-50p, Trace A Mobile will tell you the location of a mobile phone. You need to sign up for a monthly subscription, and you need to have the advance approval of the phone user (usually established by sending them a text message) but for nervous parents, or for spouses who need to know how close their husband is to home, this could be a good service.

Of course, it would generally be cheaper just to call them and ask. So this may be better used for locating your lost Irish Wolfhound, or your stolen Ferarri.

Reading about the Iraqi post-football celebrations last week, I couldn't help but be reminded of a nice spoof piece in The Onion: Iraq, Kentucky Vie For World Shooting-Into-The-Air Supremacy.

Wow, that was four years ago! It was rather easier to write humorous stories about Iraq back then; there was a greater underlying sense of optimism. What a lot has changed...