A car has slipped into a sinkhole and council officials have been unable to remove it – in case rescue vehicles fall in too. The Mini Cooper became trapped after old mine workings in Redruth, Cornwall, opened up outside a bakery, creating a 10ft-wide hole. “I’d just put it through its MOT two weeks ago,” joked the owner of the car, Malcolm McKenzie. “I’m just glad that we weren’t in it – literally at the time it happened I didn’t feel like going out.”
Metro (Richard Fearn)
Underlay! Underlay!
Britain’s only carpet museum is closing after visitors dwindled to six per day. The Museum of Carpet in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, featured hundreds of rug and underlay samples from the last 300 years. Locals expressed their sadness at the decision, with one saying it was “a pity to lose it” and another hailing it as “the jewel in the crown” of Kidderminster.
BirminghamWorld (Michael Meadowcroft)
Deerly departed
A reindeer called Buddy sparked a huge search operation after he went on the run from a Christmas celebration. Armed police officers, the Coastguard and members of the Royal Marines were called in to track him down after he fled Santa’s Enchanted Forest in Formby, Merseyside. But Buddy’s winter escape soon wore him out and Santa’s exhausted key worker was found fast asleep in nearby sand dunes.
BBC Wales (Kate McIntosh)
[Further reading: Who killed Pasolini?]
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This article appears in the 12 Dec 2025 issue of the New Statesman, All Alone: Christmas Special 2025
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