MECHANICS at a garage in Poole Keynes in the Cotswolds reckon squirrels are the reason a Honda Civic car wouldn't go above 40mph.

For, says the Daily Mail, when the car's owner took it in, the garage found a hoard of nuts under the bonnet.

ADMIN worker Vicky Worrall, from Runcorn in Cheshire, claims she has found the world's longest Hula Hoop in her lunch-time snack.

It measures almost five inches and was discovered by Vicky when she tucked into a packet of cheese and onion-flavoured Hula Hoops, says the Daily Mail. She now plans to sell it on eBay to raise money for charity.

You could be in for a spot of bother if you are caught short and need to go the loo in England, because nearly one in five public lavatories has been closed in the past three years as councils try to cut costs, says a Daily Express story.

A survey of 252 local authorities in England shows 18 per cent of all council-run lavatories have been shut since 2010.

In a bid to attract more Chinese visitors, over 100 places of interest in the UK have been given Mandarin names, says the Daily Mail.

It's part of a £1.6 million campaign to get more Chinese tourists to come to Britain.

HOW about this for a coincidence? A Daily Express story tells of how grandmother Sue Ellis was reunited with her French penpal 40 years after they lost touch when they bumped into each other in a supermarket and found out they lived less than a mile apart.

Sue recognised Yvette Pearson when she overheard her Parisian accent while waiting at the checkout at the supermarket in Hednesford, Staffordshire.

THE Daily Mirror salutes collie dog Hazel, who warned her owner and walker that a cliff they were sitting on above Great Western beach in Newquay, Cornwall, was about to collapse.

Aimee Jones was on a bench just a yard from the landslide when it happened.

“We were just sat there chatting when Hazel started sniffing a little crack at the top of the cliff. Suddenly she bolted away and both Matt and I got up to see what was happening and that's when the cliff went.