From Sauvignon Bark, the new wine for dogs, to the nuttiest of combat sports... Your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.
They stoop to conker
Shocking scenes at the World Conker Championships, the vicious sport that has sharpened the martial instincts of centuries of British schoolchildren.
The single combat involves swinging a conker -- a hardened horse chestnut -- on a string at your opponent's nut with murderous venom, until one is smashed to pieces.
Combatants try to get any edge they can in the contests, which can be painfully hard on the knuckles.
After last year's world champion was accused, and then cleared of using a steel conker (though one was found in his pocket), organisers took no chances this year, making competitors pass through an "airport-style" scanner.
"We also had a hand-held scanner, and sirens and flashing lights should anything untoward be detected," said championship committee member St John Burkett.
And they were needed, with one man disqualified for trying to smuggle a non-conforming conker in.
The lady's not for quitting
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan loves to give women the benefit of his advice: that they should have at least three children, that they don't need equality nor birth control and that "motherhood is now easy" with disposable diapers.
But he outdid himself at the Gaza summit in Egypt by telling Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni that she should stop smoking.
"You look great," he told her, taking hold of her hand and towering over her. "But I have to make you stop smoking." While French President Emmanuel Macron laughed at the thought, declaring "Impossible!", Meloni put Erdogan on warning of what might happen if she did.
"I don't want to kill somebody," she quipped.
In for a hounding
Dog owners are baring their teeth on social media after the European Union's top court ruled that pets are not passengers just baggage if they get lost in transit.
A Spanish dog owner had sued the Iberia airline for losing her dog as she flew home from Argentina. The mongrel called Mona escaped from its pet carrier on the way to a plane, running off across the runway in Buenos Aires, pursued by three vans. When an airport worker eventually caught her, she bit him and bolted again.
"Many people laugh because they don't understand what Mona means to me," said Grisel Ortiz, who watched the chase from inside the plane.
The dog hasn't been seen since despite searches and a reward being offered. "All I do is cry and stay glued to my phone, waiting for a miracle," she Ortiz.
Wining dogs
If Mona ever returns they'll surely break out the Champawgne, the new wine for dogs from the New Zealand company Muttley's Estate.
It also offers such tempting canine tipples as Purrno Noir, Sauvignon Bark and Pawt (doggie port)
The company bills its catnip-infused non-alcoholic concoctions as a mood-enhancing luxury.
"It's good for stressful situations," said owner John Roberts. He began crafting pet wine after seeing beer for dogs overseas.