Cutlasses, daisies, octopuses and dragons. A strange collection of items have turned up on the beaches in Cornwall and Devon over the last 17 years.

Another human foot was discovered today on Canada’s British Columbia shoreline, the second one this week and the sixth within a year in a bizarre mystery that has confounded police.

More than 30,000 Nike basketball shoes – enough to kit out every high school team in Alaska – are drifting through the Pacific Ocean towards the state after spilling from a container ship off Northern California.