TOILET HUMOUR.

Mention the English to anyone from another country and surveys show they generally think of these three things:

(1) Our teeth. Ok so we haven't got the best teeth in the world and aren't exactly known for our 'Hollywood' smiles but things are changing.

(2) I'll give you this one, yes, the weather is of national interest to us - in fact I'd even go as far as to say, if moaning about it became an Olympic sport, we'd be up there with the best of them.

(3) Our sense of humour which people of other nations tend to think of as quite lavatorial in nature.

And so, not wishing to disappoint I give you these fine examples which are weirdly wonderful and yet true.

* Jennifer Bliss was shot in the leg in Florida, USA, while sitting on the loo, when the gun belonging to a person in the next cubicle fell out of a holster. Fortunately she wasn't badly hurt.

** A girl in Hungary had an amazing escape after she was saved by ...... a wee! Beata Goenzc, nine, got up in the middle of the night to go to the lavatory when a lightening bolt struck her home in the town of Kisbarapati - turning her just frequented metal bed into dust.

*** George Hudson, an 80-year-old chorister, sang himself free when trapped in a toilet in a Tumbridge Wells hospital. No one responded to the emergency cord so he sang a hymn to be heard.

And meanwhile in an attempt to be environmentally friendly ......

**** In a bid to combat water shortages, the Brazilian conservation group SOS Mata Atlantic have launched a series of tv adverts encouraging people to urinate in the shower. "If a household avoids even one flush a day, it could save 4,380 litres of water annually," said a spokesman.

***** In Japan, All Nippon Airways (ANA) has come up with a unique way of reducing carbon emissions - by insisting passengers take a wee before flying! "Passengers with empty bladders weigh less, so we use less fuel," said a spokesperson.