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man who annoyed the new leader of North Korea was vaporized, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper of South Korea reported. Kim Chol, vice minister of the army, was caught partying during the mourning period for Kim Jong-il, angering new leader Kim Jong-un. (Everyone in this item is called Kim, as the name Kim appears to be compulsory for everybody and everything in North Korea, including rocks and trees, or, as I should say: Kim Rock and Kim Tree.)

Anyway, Kim Chol had a mortar (a missile) fired at him, the paper said. This caused him to be destroyed so thoroughly not one molecule remained, a bit like Lance Armstrong’s credibility. I don’t want to be morbid, but it would be mega cool to have your tombstone epitaph saying: “There’s no corpse here. This dude was vaporized.”

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Meanwhile, A few kilometers away in South Korea, scientists found that eunuchs (men who have been castrated) live 14 to 19 years longer than normal men. Well, thanks for that news, guys. I’m planning to live a very short, very happy life.

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Movie industry friends tell me Hollywood is putting the final touches on an ultra-violent horror version of Hansel and Gretel. Don’t these filmmakers have kids? “What did you do today, Daddy?” “I turned one of your favorite bedtime stories into a blood-drenched slasher pic which you will probably encounter on the Internet one day and which will traumatize you into taking weapons to school and perpetuating the circle of violence, darling.”

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On a flight last summer, one of my bags broke, so I had to divide my stuff between two smaller bags. For having an extra bag, Ryanair fined me US$100, more than the cost of my ticket. In other words, it ended up costing more for my underpants to travel than for me!

Revenge is here. Irish engineer John Power just invented Jaktogo, a garment with so many pockets you can store a whole suitcase worth of goods in them. He strolls past airline ground staff, then reassembles it on the plane into a shoulder bag, ending up with a free second carry-on.

I’m ordering extra large, see if I can get a kid or two in there.

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You know how bad movies often start with an innocent guy finding a corpse, and unaccountably deciding not to do the obvious thing, which is to call the police? Well, Jason Shapley, 29, found a corpse in a toilet and decided not to tell police, because he would lose weekend business at the UK pub he ran. He hid it in a bedroom and then put it back in the toilet the following Tuesday. Bad screenwriters everywhere can feel vindicated. Whenever I face a tough ethical dilemma, I look to my role models, asking: “What Would Wile E Coyote do?”

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An animal lover sent his toenail clippings to Chinese government officials last week. Mark Wilby was trying to humorously make the point that rhino horn (sold in China as having “magical” powers), consists of exactly the same material as human toenails. Not sure if this is a good idea, Mark. Next: A billion addicted consumers send out poachers to forcibly collect Wilby toenail clippings.

The writer is a columnist and journalist.