Urgently in need of a quota post to maintain this blog’s something every day however crap rule, I encountered this news story, from last week:

FIVE “adventurous and very intelligent” monkeys have escaped London Zoo into nearby Regent’s Park.

The pack of squirrel monkeys made their bid for freedom early this morning before the zoo opened.

“The squirrel monkeys have managed to gain access to some of the taller trees in their enclosure and from there, have leapt into the higher branches of a tree in Regents Park,” a London Zoo spokeswoman said.

They spent the morning exploring the park, but by 1.30pm all but one of the monkeys had returned to their enclosure.

Oh that I could have photoed them.  Just imagine what the heading of the blog posting would have been like!

This is apparently only the latest in a succession of bizarre things that have happened in London.

Here is my favourite previous weird thing:

A bag of icing sugar sparked a chemical scare that closed off a busy Wimbledon road during rush hour.

Police officers and four fire engines sealed off Lower Downs Road at 6pm last Monday after an unknown white substance was found in a woman’s home.

The woman raised the alarm when she began to feel unwell, with symptoms including vomiting, diarrhoea, sweating and the shakes.

Concerned that her symptoms were linked to a bag of white powder that been hurled through her window and split on landing, the woman contacted police.

And who could resist this headline?

It was the invaluable Dave Barry (whom I have been neglecting of late) who got me on this trail.  If it wasn’t for Americans, we Londoners would probably never realise how weird London can sometimes be.

And, isn’t copying and pasting great?  Think of all the bother you now don’t have to go to, when copying a word like “diarrhoea”.