A British pig has swallowed the diamond from a woman's £1,500 ring.

Ginger, a Kune Kune pig, took the jewel after Anne Moon put her hand into its pen at Easingwold Maize Maze in North Yorkshire.

She said: "The pigs were in a pen and when I walked over to the fence, one of them walked over to me. As a natural instinct I put my hand out to it. It grabbed the ring in its mouth and started tugging at it.

"It was pulling at it for ages before I got my hand away. I had some mud on my hand off the pig and when I brushed it away, I noticed the big diamond out of the middle was gone."

So farmer Paul Caygill, who owns the animal attraction, has now been given the task of sifting through Ginger's sty to find the diamond.

Moonshine honeymoon

A drunk German bride spent her wedding night passed out in a car.

The 30-year-old newly-wed - who was still wearing her bridal dress - was rescued by Cologne police who discovered her unconscious next to a crate of vodka in the back of an overheated BMW vehicle.

The intoxicated woman didn't even stir when officers smashed through the window to get to her.

A police statement said: "Only after being shaken several times did she eventually regain consciousness."

The confused woman was forced to clamber out through the broken window because she had lost her keys and new husband.

Toll of silence

A tourist caused havoc when he requested an Italian village stop ringing its church bells.

While Father Alfredo De Simoni heeded to the village of Mezzema's only visitor's request not to ring the church bells between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., angry residents were upset they had missed their 7 a.m. wake-up call.

Taking to the streets with pots and pans, they locals started banging them in a cacophonous replacement to the usual bell ringing.

In a further move to express their dissatisfaction with the priest, they boycotted Sunday Mass. The regular schedule of bell ringing was reinstated days later, much to the delight of the villagers.

It is not known if the tourist stayed much longer afterwards.