HOW about this for getting your money's worth... the Daily Express tells us that a balloon bought to celebrate a baby boy’s birth is still flying high... on his 18th birthday.

It was bought to celebrate the birth of Zachary Starr in 1999 and his mother Louise Preece, of Littlebourne, near Canterbury in Kent, said: “They usually disappear within a fortnight but it is still there.

“It is exactly the same size as when it was blown up - it was one of the small ones you can buy and it just has not changed.

“It is a bit tatty now but we have always kept it and we are going to leave it and see how long it lasts.”