War of the worlds over signing DIY filmmaker

A Uruguayan producer who uploaded a short film to YouTube has been given a multimillion-dollar contract to make a Hollywood blockbuster. Fede Alvarez made a film just under five minutes long called Panic Attack! about robots invading the capital city of Montevideo. The film clocked up 1.5 million hits in a month. The director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man) will sponsor the €20m contract. "I uploaded Panic Attack! on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of emails from Hollywood studios. It was amazing," Alvarez said.

We wish you a merry ex-mas and a less crappy new year

A London law firm is offering gift buyers struggling to come up with ideas for Christmas – and dreading the festive family get-together – a divorce voucher. So far, 60 of the vouchers have been sold, costing £120 for half an hour with a top divorce lawyer.

Chinese woman at last to come out of her shell

A woman from Inner Mongolia will finally have a 25kg tumour removed from her back after doctors agreed to operate for free. Sun Fengqin – dubbed 'Tortoise Woman' – will need three times the amount of blood in her body available for transfusion throughout the operation.

Achtung Billy

Pictured is a goat in jail in Bremen, Germany, after it was arrested for disrupting traffic.