QUIRKY WORLD... ’Sorry for just robbing your house — can I offer you some heroin?’

USA: Prosecutors in Montan say a man caught leaving a house he had apparently burgled apologised to the homeowner and offered him some heroin.

The Billings Gazette reports Christopher Dayell Bittner made an initial court appearance on felony burglary and drug possession charges.

Authorities say the homeowner and his seven-year-old son came home as Bittner was leaving on Saturday.

Yellowstone County Attorney Paul Adam says Bittner apologised and offered the drug.

He was found nearby, and court records say a search of his backpack turned up 31.5 grams of heroin, drug paraphernalia and items belonging to the homeowner.

Public defender, Roberta Drew asked that Bittner be released without bail because he wanted to attend his father’s funeral.

Bail was set at $7,500, but Bittner was allowed to attend the service.

WALES: An arts company has said sorry after a 100ft poem on Welsh mountain range, Snowdonia accidentally ended up looking likegraffiti.

Verses penned by national poet Gillian Clarke were written in clay pigment on Gladstone Rock as part of an arts project celebrating the region’s sheep farmers.

But the words, which were supposed to wash off in the rain, ended up being “baked” on to the rockface following a hot and dry September.

Bosses of the National Mountain Centre in Snowdonia hoped the poem would not cause permanent damage, and National Theatre of Wales has promised to puts things back the way they were.

ENGLAND: A new café serving meals made from food rescued from the bin has opened in Bristol.

Customers at Skipchen are not charged a set price for items on the menu but asked instead to “pay as you feel”.

Every scrap of food served at the 20-seat venue was due to be wasted, having reached its sell-by date or been surplus to the needs of restaurants and organisations.

A group of volunteers staff the not-for-profit café, in Stokes Croft, overseeing a menu which changes daily depending on what has been obtained. Skipchen, which opened on Monday, has already served meals including lobster, gorgonzola omelettes and Mediterranean platters.

ENGLAND: A standard English accent is the most popular, regarded as the most friendly, honest, and romantic in the UK, according to new research.

So-called received pronunciation came top of 19 different accents played to 750 adults, ahead of popular regional variations such as those in Edinburgh, Yorkshire, Manchester, Glasgow and Wales.

Relationship site, eHarmony.co.uk said its study showed that standard English was regarded as the most intelligent, friendly, interesting, sophisticated and reliable.

The only category it failed to top was humour — which was headed by a Geordie accent, followed by Liverpudlian and Irish.

USA: A would-be robber was beaten up when he found out the hard way that a convenience store worker on the University of Pittsburgh campus was also a former Golden Gloves boxing champ.

Eric Sydnor said he just did what he had to do when 45-year-old Leverett Johnson walked into the convenience store with a gun: “He got slammed.”

Police said Johnson was still in hospital.

Sydnor was the Western Pennsylvania Golden Gloves champ two years ago and still boxes at a gym in nearby Sharpsburg.

He said: “The fact that I’m a boxer had nothing to do with anything. It’s just what’s right and what’s wrong.”

USA: A fox that sneaked into an electrical substation in Utah electrocuted itself and briefly knocked out power for about 8,000 people.

St George energy resource manager, James Van Fleet, told The Spectrum that the critter slipped into the substation in the southwestern Utah city of St George and touched some of the live electrical equipment.

That caused a short circuit that cut power in several neighbourhoods.

Van Fleet said crews got power flowing again within about 45 minutes.