STRANGE BUT TRUE; L-TEST FOR REAL LIFE GLADIATORS.

Byline: KEITH CHALKEY

GLADIATORS who pose for pictures outside the Colosseum in Rome will have to pass a strict test before they can don the ancient Roman garb.

The gladiators - dressed like Russell Crowe in the film of the same name - charge tourists pounds 3 a snap and some rake in pounds 300 a day.

But the city council want to eradicate dud gladiators and have devised a test that includes knowledge of local history and an ability to speak English. One gladiator said: "The good ones are all in favour of this."

Jag and bone man

A BUSINESSMAN who wanted to combine his love of fish with his love of cars has turned his Jaguar X36 into an aquarium.

Lawrence Ng, 43, ripped out everything from the pounds 11,000 Jag, sealed it and put in eight flower-horn fish - costing pounds 3700 each - to pull in the punters at his Cichlids World Fishing Pond and Aquarium in Singapore.

Beggars belief

A BEGGAR in Ventimiglia, Italy, is so fed up with small change he is refusing to accept donations of less than a euro.

He said: "Life for us beggars has become more difficult with the euro. People are still getting used to it."

Raising the tone

MOBILE phone users are being offered 15 different religious ringtones by the Catholic Church in Holland. They are based on psalms and hymns, including Ave Maria. Church leaders say the tones will give "inspiration each time the phone rings".

Bad spell

A MAN who went to a witch doctor for a spell to protect him against bullets was persuaded to try it out by letting an assistant shoot him.

Unfortunately, William Potogi died of a chest wound, say police in Paramaribo, in the South American republic of Surinam.

Out of his head

A THIEF was scared witless when he opened a package he stole from Norway's Ulleval University Hospital - and discovered it contained a human brain.

It was found abandoned in an Oslo street by two teenagers going home after a party.

Ear, that's sore

A BOY tried to remove a marble which had got stuck in his brother's ear by pushing it further in with a pencil.

The eight-year-old, from Drobeta Turnu Severin, in Romania, told his mum: "Teacher told me everything goes in one ear and out the other, so I wanted to push the marble through." A surgeon removed the marble.

Sick as parrots

A PARROT saved a couples' flat in Altai, Russia, from being destroyed by squawking "Fire, fire" until neighbours heard.

But police want to know how the bird knew the word "fire." The couple are suspected of an attempted insurance scam.

GOURMET ROBBERS FEASTED ON SPAM

A GANG of gourmet robbers are breaking into trendy restaurants and cooking themselves slap- up meals - scoffing fine wines and luxuries such as caviar - then making off with the day's takings.

But they came unstuck at a restaurant in Wieselberg, Austria - all they found was a loaf and four tins of Spam. "I got off lightly," says owner Walter Mischelburger.