Speed sheep outruns pigs

Faster than a speeding police dog. Able to leap police cars in a single bound. It’s super sheep! A truant ruminant in the German village of Guester, wearing nothing but a thick woolly coat, has defied round-up attempts by the local law.

The sheep ran at over 30mph through town streets, outrunning pursuing police cars. It also waylaid police dogs, giving them a well-placed head butt. Eventually the wild woolly maggot was apprehended in a field when it stopped to eat some grass.

Police are now looking for the sheep’s owner.

IYP Writer Jeroen van Marle in The Guardian

Paris-Stuttgart - now 6hrs; from June 3hrs 50.

It hits you as soon as you emerge from the cavernous Hauptbahnhof. There on the roof, a massive three-pointed Mercedes badge revolves against the skyline: welcome to Germany's Motor City, birthplace of the car industry, home of Daimler, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. The next thing you'll notice, however, is not blocks of brutalist factories, but a city defined by its museums (admittedly, two are for Porsche and Mercedes), pristine parklands, leafy hillsides and neighbouring vineyards. And also the rewards for all this industry: smart shops, weinstubes and restaurants.

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg (think Black Forest, wooded hills) and is Germany's third largest metropolitan area, but feels more village-like than Berlin and Munich, with districts spread over several cosy valleys.

The historical centre, partly reconstructed after the war, is a few hundred metres south of the station along Königstrasse, the pedestrianised main shopping street. The tangle of streets and squares around here are nice enough to wander through, but just across busy Holzstrasse lies the Bohnenviertel (Bean Quarter), which is Stuttgart's prettiest and oldest surviving district, built outside the city walls in the 14th century for the town's craftsmen, wine growers and Jewish community and named after the staple food grown in the gardens at the time.

Stuttgart is at the centre of a wine region and it's possible to do vineyard walks in the hills immediately around the city centre. If you're feeling lazy, though, sample some of the local rieslings in the Ratskeller, below the city hall at Marktplatz 1, where you can also try authentic regional Schwabian food including the ravioli-like maultaschen. The Alte Kanzlei at Schillerplatz 5a serves everything from late breakfasts to salads and steaks.

Once you've refuelled, hit the bars on Theodor-Heuss-Strasse and the surrounding streets such as Mezzanin (Bolzstrasse 8b) and Scholz (Marktplatz 12). The younger, wilder crowd is to be found in Bar Waranga (Kleiner Schlossplatz) with its fantastic interior design. Even hipper is the hotel Der Zauberlehrling (Rosenstrasse 38, zauberlehrling.de, from €145), which translates as The Magician's Apprentice. Whatever gets your motor running.

Jeroen van Marle
Editor of Stuttgart In Your Pocket

Knut case: show us your growler

Polar Bear
Originally uploaded to Flickr by LongWilly.

Knut (careful how you spell that) is the first polar bear to be born in Berlin Zoo for . . . oh, ages. Thirty years, in fact. Knut was rejected by his mum, 20-year-old Tosca, but has been looked after for the past couple of months by zoo staff. Knut is, it has to be said, adorable. Go on, look at the pictures and see for yourself.

The thing is, Knut won't always be adorable. A polar bear isn't just for Christmas, and soon Knut will grow up and want to maul Arctic explorers and eat cute little seals. And he won't be adorable then, will he? He'll just be another polar bear with grubby fur and a bad temper.

So - we reckon the zoo should show off Knut as soon as they can. Apparently, however, they are a bit concerned that public display will freak him out somehow. You know, stress or something. He might get famous and then go bonkers like Michael Jackson. Anyway, we're keen to see Knut, so we hope zoo staff find a way to show off the cute little growler while he's still so cute.