An aircraft almost hit a ride-on lawnmower as it landed at Dublin airport last May, according to a report issued on Wednesday.

"I could have sworn I saw a man riding a lawn mower", the co-pilot of the Boeing 757 is reported to have said during the night touchdown.

The captain immediately reported the sighting to air traffic control, where a controller said: "I don’t believe it. They told me they were clear of the runway".

The groundskeeper on the machine moved off the runway seconds after the aircraft passed him.

The plane was carrying 198 passengers on a flight from Egypt.

An air investigation report issued Wednesday said the incident could have had catastrophic consequences.

It said pilots had reported that runway lights were being obstructed by tall grass, which had not been cut because of bad weather.

It was decided that mowing needed to be done as a matter of priority and night cutting was being undertaken during flight operations.

London has been voted the UK’s worst-smelling city by respondents to a poll conducted by makers of household cleaning product ‘Flash with Febreze’.

Car fumes, rubbish and public toilets contributed to the city’s unsavoury odour.

Birmingham is considered second-smelliest, followed by Coventry, Swansea and Glasgow.

Residents of Paris have been labelled snobbish, arrogant, aggressive and self-regarding - by the French themselves.

The views were expressed in a survey undertaken by political magazine Marianne.

Commenting on the findings, the magazine said the Parisians were found to be "hard-working and cultivated".

But above all, they were far more "arrogant, aggressive, flirtatious, stressed, chauvinistic, snobbish and self-regarding" than other French people.

At the same time, the survey found that Parisians were under more stress than other people, worked harder and travelled longer distances to work, so they were perhaps entitled to be unpleasant to one another and to other people.

It seems even animals can’t stand British football fans.

A plan to set up a giant screen near London Zoo during the coming FIFA World Cup in South Africa is being opposed by zoo management because of the harm it could cause the occupants.

"We believe that 24 days of exceptional noise adjacent to the zoo could create a serious animal welfare issue", zoo director Ralph Armond has said in a letter to the local council.

The huge screen is one of seven planned by FIFA for cities around the world, other than in South Africa.Sydney is one of them. The others are Berlin, Paris, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and Rome.

One of America’s leading museums has declined an offer to display the suit high-profile criminal O.J. Simpson was wearing when he was found not guilty in 1995 of the murder of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington said the suit was not appropriate for its collection.

Simpson’s former sports agent Mike Gilbert and Ronald Goldman’s father have been arguing ownership of the suit for 13 years.

Gilbert finally came up with the museum donation plan as a way of ending the dispute.

"It’s part of Amrican history", he said this week.

"People should be able to see it and reflect on what went wrong for someone who had everything".

Simpson is currently in jail in Nevada, two years into a nine-year term for armed roberry and kidnapping.

A drunk airline passenger has been fined after disembarking from a plane and trying to walk down the runway at Sumburg airport in Scotland’s Shetlands Islands.

A court was told that Ian Flaws followed other passengers down the steps of the plane, but then turned in the opposite direction and walked towards the runway.

He stopped only when a fire engine raced after him and blocked his path.

A magistrate called his actions "arrogant and stupid" and said they could have had far more serious implications at a bigger airport.

A train driver in Scotland has been jailed after drinking a bottle of whisky during his shift.

At one stage, Richard Whitworth, a driver for First Scotrail, fell asleep in the cabin of his train while it was at a station, causing a delay.

Later, when he was seen to be stumbling, a concerned manager prevented him from boarding his train.

Police were called and Whitworth was found to be three times over the alcohol limit.

Sentencing him to 135 days in jail, a judge said: "The potential for death and destruction does not bear thinking about.

"In my view this case raises profoundly disturbing questions regarding the safety of the public and the arrangements for monitoring the fitness of train drivers."

A mosque in Edinburgh selling $8 meals to the needy has been shortlisted for a restaurant award.

The Edinburgh Central Mosque kitchen was set up after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US to counter negative feelings towards the Muslim community.

Now it has a chance of being voted best Indian restaurant at this year’s Scottish Restaurant Swards.

The kitchen is run by 50 volunteers and profits go to charity.

Japanese airline All Nippon is going to install women-only toilets on its planes.

The move follows a survey of women passengers showing it would be the second most attractive inflight service after being offered desserts.

An ANA spokesman is quoted as saying: "Many women said they feel uncomfortable taking their time in the lavatory knowing that a male is waiting in line just behind them".

There’ll be one women-only toilet per aircraft.

ANA made headlines late last year when it asked passengers to help the environment by going to the lavatory before take-off.

A female undertaker who uses hire cars to carry bodies through WA’s Kimberley region is in the news again.

Imelda Agars had her funeral licence for the East Kimberley region revoked late last year after admitting to driving bodies for hundreds of kilometres in the back of cars without using dry ice or refrigeration.

She told the ABC she could not afford to buy a refrigerated car at a cost of $30,000 until her business developed, otherwise she’d have to charge clients "an arm and a leg".

She believed a system of icepacks and hermetic sealing was a perfectly acceptable alternative to refrigeration.

She said that although she often drives 400kms from the morgue to various remote areas, she always uses the car airconditioning and bodies are not affected.

Though her funeral director’s licence was revoked, Ms Agars still held coronial contracts for the East and West Kimberley.

After meeting with her last week to discuss concerns about her work practices, the WA government decided that she can retain those contracts, though her performance will be monitored, the ABC reported today.

It says Ms Agars has assured the government that she will be using hire cars only till the end of the month, by which time her own car will be repaired.