FROM A HOTEL FOR GOLDFISH TO .........

+ A goldfish hotel has opened in Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, for holidaymakers worried about what to do with their pets while they're away. The fish have a tennis court and a swimming pool.

- Hmm sounds a bit fishy to me (pun intended), someones idea of a joke? No, there it is IN WRITING.

Perhaps not so 'barking mad' .......

+ A dog hotel with an artificial beach in Berlin has proved such a success that two more branches are to open. Each dog has a private air-conditioned booth, a sun lounger and access to the theatre, cinema (to see the movie Reservoir Dogs perhaps), exhibitions and classical music (Bach, I presume.)

+ Forget ants in your pants. German animal smuggler Hans Kurt Kubus, 58, was jailed for 14 weeks after boarding a plane in New Zealand with 44 lizards, worth £200 each, stuffed down his trousers.

+ Faced with the threat of not being able to keep his pet lion, a 35-year-old man in Poland registered his house as a circus so he could legally house his four-legged friend.

+ A couple of birdwatchers spent days looking at owls - only to discover they were plastic fakes. Ken and Fay Jackson, from Devon, were left red-faced after taking photographs and even contacting a local wildlife expert for advice on the birds.

+ Performing Shakespeare to cows helps them produce more milk.
Renditions of the Bard's prose were found to relax dairy herds and boosted production by as much as four per cent.
Researchers have previously claimed that cows produced more milk when they HERD slow MOOsic which is thought to alleviate stress.
In the latest Bizarre experiment, a theatre company set out to see whether the same principle would apply with drama.

Obviously cultured creatures. How about these Shakespearean plays?

• The Taming Of The Moo.
• The Winters Pail.
• The Milkman Of Venice.
• As Moo Like It.
• The Dairy Wives Of Windsor. *

And if that doesn't work, how about .....

+  A car wash for cattle? The industrial-sized device features a swinging car brush roller similar to those used to clean cars. The loofah-style brush is fixed inside a milking parlour or barn - the brushing motion, it is claimed, increases blood circulation and improveds milk yield. (VIEW PICTURE)

+ UnBEElievable. 16-year-old Nellie Odam-Wilson (pictured BEElow) is raising money for a charity trip to Africa by keeping the art of 'bee beards' alive.

* Please don't blame me for these suggestions, they are the thoughts of Telegraph columnist, Andrew Hough. Can you come up with anything better, Shakespeare or otherwise?

And to finish, how about this cow joke?

A farmer was milking his cow. He was just starting to get a good rhythm going when a bug flew into the barn and started circling his head. Suddenly, the bug flew into the cow's ear. The farmer didn't think much about it, until the bug squirted out into his bucket. It went in one ear and out the udder.