BONDAGE AND BURGLARY: A middle-aged man had to be cut free from a tangle of chains after a bondage session with a woman who took advantage of him in more ways than one.

As he lay clad in a black rubber mask and matching bondage outfit, with handcuffs around his wrists and ankles, the woman let two friends into the house and they burgled it, the Yorkshire Evening Post reported.

The couple had met earlier that night and he had invited her back to his home, where she poured boiling-hot candle wax over parts of his body. Neighbours heard his screams for help and alerted the police.

PET’S CLIFF PLUNGE: Lady Luck smiled on Smiler the former racing greyhound when she plunged 150ft down a cliff.

Smiler was being taking for her evening walk when she hared after a rabbit and went over the cliff at Niton, Isle of Wight. William Mordue, who was exercising her for owner Freda Pollard, returned home with the grim news.

But bushes had broken the dog’s fall and her cries were heard by local residents, who alerted the Coastguard, the Southern Daily Echo reported. Smiler spent a freezing night on a tiny ledge 200ft up before climbers rescued her.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON: Six-year-old James Dobson has become one of the youngest cricketers to have taken a hat-trick.

He achieved the feat in an under-11s match and was featured in the based Northern Echo alongside a photo of him holding a cricket ball of special family significance.

Only a week earflier, dad Tim had been presented with the inscribed ball by Darlington CC for taking a hat-trick last season.

James is the third generation of Dobsons to bowl leg breaks and Tim hopes hopes his son will one day be able to send down a googlie.

SURVIVOR POPS THE QUESTION:Cancer survivor Sue Tosh took to the catwalk at a fashion show…then proposed to boyfriend Dave Nelson in front of 2,000 people.

Sue, a cancer nurse, was among models taking part in A Celebration of Life After Cancer, at Yarm, Cleveland, when she called Dave on to the stage and popped the question, the Evening Gazette, Middlesbrough, reported.

SAVE OUR BOOZER: Drinkers have threatened to chain themselves to the cellar doors of their favourite pub in an effort to save it from closure.

The Plumpers Hotel, Tinsley, is set to be turned into an American-style golf shop. But drinkers have launched a protest petition and told the Sheffield Star that they were prepared to to obstruct development.

Ex-miner John Charles told the paper: “As far as we are concerned, golf if just a load of balls and sticks, a game for middle-class men who aren’t fit enough to play football any more. In here, we play pool and we sink pints – not holes in one. And that’s the way we think it should stay.”

NO HONOUR AMONG THIEVES: An exhibtion of art by prisoners has fallen victim to crime.

The Northern Echo reported that a light-fingered visitor to Stockton’s Arc complex walked off with a painting of a woman’s stiletto stubbing out a cigarette.

The work was one of 75 created behind bars by prisoners at the town’s Holme House jail.

A DUSTMAN’S LIFE FOR ME: Daniel Cook may be only two years old but he has his heart set on a career – as a dustman.

The Grimsby Evening Telegraph reported that on the odd occasion when he’d missed the dustman, Daniel had spent half an hour crying.

MEAL ON THE HOUSE: A homeless man, described as an eccentric with a free-spirit lifestyle, ate a hearty meal in a Chinese restaurant and then refused to pay for it.

Magistrates in Lincoln were told that Paul Eagleton (46) had 130 previous convictions for similar offences. He admitted obtaining services by deception and was jailed for half a day, the Lincolnshire Echo reported.

READING ABOUT IT AGAIN: During the launch week of HoldTheFrontPage – back in early February – we reported the shocking news of the kidnapping of “Sammy”, the Huddersfield Daily Examiner’s most famous newspaper seller.

The statue of a shouting newspaper boy, holding an Examiner billboard, vanished from outside a Sainsbury’s store. The evening paper demanded his return and said it had received ransom notes made up of letters cut from the paper.

Now, we are happy to report, there has been a joyful reunion between “Sammy” and Examiner newspaper field sales manager John Armitage after staff from an agrochemicals firm found “Sammy” standing alone and forlorn in the middle of a cricket pitch.

ELVIS WAS IN THE BUILDING: Staff at a Liverpool music store have told the Echo of their surprise when rock star Elvis Costello walked in and bought a £179 keyboard.

The star told the manager of the keyboard and piano department at Dawson’s that he was in the city because his ferry to Ireland had been delayed.

Roger Lathom added: “I showed him an inexpensive keyboard and then played Oliver’s Army on the more expensive one and he just asked for it to be wrapped up and off he went.”

DOING THE BACKSTROKE: Watersports teacher Karen Webb-Jones had a new water meter fitted – and then realised it was running backwards.

She told the Grimsby Evening Telegraph: “Every time I have a bath or put the washing machine on, my water consumption just keeps on going down.”

While she waited for Anglian Water to visit and put things right, she mused: “Maybe I will start holding watersports in the bathroom.”

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