Yesterday was a ...

Good Day for Brenda Gaskin, who gave birth to her second child on the back seat of her Mercury Topaz just outside the doors of St Vincent's Medical Centre in Jacksonville, Florida. She had got closer to the maternity ward than she did two years ago, when her first child was delivered on the back seat of the same car in a parking lot on the way to hospital.

Bad Day for nightshirts, as a row erupted over quotas. After imports of women's nightshirts had been blocked by customs officials, it emerged that nightshirts had been included in the EU's administrative classification as blouses, for the purposes of textile imports. "It's ridiculous," declared London Euro MP Michael Elliott. "Surely these people know that a nightshirt is not a blouse. This kind of red tape can cost firms money."

Sterile Day for pigeons, as a new ordinance in Venice instituted fines for anyone feeding the pigeons. Under the regulations, the city's pigeons - which number more than 100,000 - will be fed only at special distribution centres with a special feed treated to sterilise their eggs and free them of internal parasites.