A review of recent news for those who might have been looking the other way...

A KILLING at Kabul Airport in Afghanistan last week must have sent shockwaves through Stephen Byers' Transport Department as it reeled from its own bout of in-fighting.

A group of pilgrims had been waiting at the airport for two days for a plane to take them to Mecca, when the Afghani Transport Minister, Dr Abdul Rahman, turned up and immediately boarded a plane bound for India. Incensed, the pilgrims stormed the runway, preventing the plane from leaving. Dr Rahman appeared at the top of the steps in an attempt to assure them he was not stealing their plane. So, in their air rage, they killed him.

Poor old Mr Byers will be very wary indeed should he arrive at King's Cross for his journey back to his Tyneside constituency and find on the platform a belligerent group of nuns whose train has just been cancelled.

SO how much does it cost to change a lightbulb? Health and safety guidelines meant that when a bulb blew at Ardgour Primary School (pupils: 30) on the isolated Ardnamurchan peninsula on the west coast of Scotland, only a council authorised electrician could change it. Total cost of call-out: £144.

BOBBY Robson must be tearing his hair out finding ways to keep his players out of Newcastle's Quayside. Here's a solution. In Sofia, Bulgaria, a bear which was tethered to a pole mauled a 27-year-old inebriated passerby because, in the words of his owner, "he cannot stand drunk people". Bears along the Quayside might well keep errant Magpies at home.

A 14.8 per cent rise in council tax in Durham; a 12.5 per cent rise in Darlington; a 9.75 per cent rise in North Yorkshire - "we're paying through the nose for our services", is a common complaint. But did you know that the phrase "paying through the nose" is believed to have originated in the 9th Century when Viking invaders levied an unpopular tax on the Irish in Ireland? Those who refused to pay had their noses slit and so were said to have paid through the nose.

THE Millennium Dome cost £740m to build, plus about another £179m in Government grants. Because of its undoubted great success, Tony Blair's Government was given another five years by the electorate in June 2001. For their failed attempts to steal diamonds worth a paltry £200m from the Dome, gang members were given a total of 71 years in prison by the Old Bailey on Monday. So which was the real daylight robbery?

THE great scientific advancement of the last few days is proof that mountaineers break wind. Most people do it surreptitiously (did you know that an adult can pass up to 2,000 millilitres of flatulence a day?), but not mountaineers. Scientists have identified the High Altitude Flatus Explosion. When climbers reach more than 11,000ft, the reduced atmospheric pressure allows gases in the stomach to expand and so come parping out. This gives a whole new meaning to the mountaineering expression "feel the wind on your face".