Funny old world: Cat-astrophe as cat is put under house arrest

_______________

From a kitty being treated like a criminal to why it is no good trying to reason with seagulls... Your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.

Cat-astrophe

A French cat has been put under house arrest after a neighbour complained he kept jumping into his garden.

Cat lovers are worried the court order banning a ginger called Remi from going outside could set a dangerous precedent.

Owner Dominique Valdes from Agde on France's southern coast said Remi's roaming has already cost her €2,050 in fines and damages to her neighbour "because my cat supposedly stops him from enjoying his garden".

France's animal protection society fears the ruling could mean "cats will have to be kept on leads" to stop them wandering.

Robots really do rock

In another sign that we should just make way for the robots, a new survey has found it is now impossible for people to tell the difference between music made by humans and that generated by AI.

"Ninety-seven percent could not distinguish between music entirely generated by AI and human-created music," a study commissioned by streaming platform Deezer found.

Even country and western music, that last bastion of redneck authenticity has been taken by the machines.

"Walk My Walk" by Breaking Rust -- an artist apparently generated by AI -- made it to the top of the Billboard magazine's chart this week.

Gulled again

British scientists believe they have made a breakthrough in the fight against seaside seagull terror attacks.

The birds have long harassed holidaymakers, swooping down to snatch their chips in scenes straight from Hitchcockian horror.

Now animal behaviourists at the University of Exeter have come up with some earth-shattering findings.

They found that a recording of a man yelling, "No, stay away, that's my pasty!" was more successful in scaring off gulls than the same voice speaking calmly or of a robin singing.

"Gulls were more likely to fly away at the shouting and more likely to walk away at the speaking," said Neeltje Boogert of the university's Centre for Ecology and Conservation.

Wakey, wakey

Japan's new prime minister Sanae Takaichi may have vowed to fix the country's work-life balance, but that did not stop her ordering her staff into the office at 3 am last week.

In a country where people regularly die from overwork, a phenomenon known as "karoshi", she admitted that "I sleep about two hours now, four hours at the longest."

Takaichi models herself on Britain's Margaret Thatcher -- who was also notorious for waking aides in the middle of the night -- and likes to see herself as Japan's "Iron Lady". Thatcher suffered from dementia for the last decade of her life.

On your bike

A new law to impose a snail's pace speed limit on cyclists and scooter riders by Slovakia's right-wing government has been widely mocked.

They will not be allowed to go faster than six kilometres per hour (3.7 mph) on pavements from January.

But campaigners have pointed out that it would effectively ban children's bikes from the country's sidewalks.

"At such a low speed, it's hard to maintain balance and even three-year-old children routinely exceed" that, walking and cycling advocate Dan Kollar told AFP.

"Children will break the law every day," he warned.

Knot as silly as you think

British artist David Shrigley is asking an awful lot of money for old rope.

The artist -- who has a huge following for his quirky and mordantly humorous posters -- wants £1 million for 10 tons of old rope he has piled up in a London gallery.

"I decided to act upon the British aphorism, 'Money for old rope', which means" being paid for something that "has no value", Shrigley said.

"It turns out that people are quite willing to give you old rope for nothing because it's not recyclable," he said.

The "high" price tag is part of the joke, he said.

"You're not going to get an awful lot of art for a million pounds," he said, so a lot of old rope "represents quite good value for money".