BRISTOL: A team of 17 British cooks, armed with tonnes of ingredients and a specially-made baking tin, on Sunday cooked up the world's biggest meat pie, weighing the equivalent of three elephants. The jumbo steak and kidney pie weighed 10.25 tonnes as against the world's previous record-holder a 10-tonne US-made chicken pie. It was cooked at Clevedon Football Club near Bristol in southwestern England after a series of setbacks were overcome, notably a race against time to thaw 4.5 tonnes of frozen beef.

A true `fire-ball'

SALT LAKE CITY: A woman climbed into a 25-tonne fire pumper truck, drove away with the emergency lights flashing and led police on a 90 km chase before she was arrested. Police accounts say the hour-long chase began after Shirley Jean Shay, 41, walked up to police officers during a domestic dispute on Saturday morning, asked them to help her find a car and was told to wait for a taxi. Instead, she climbed into a 3,50,000 dollarfire truck idling nearby and drove off.

Can't `soak' it in

LONDON: Sophie Rhys-Jones, the girlfriend of Prince Edward ``astonished'' the Duchess of York when she asked her to make a public appearance, being sprayed with water in an empty swimming pool, The Daily Telegraph reported on Monday. The Duchess, who is the former wife of Prince Edward's brother, Prince Andrew, was said to be ``amused, if a little hurt'', according to one of her friends, quoted by The Telegraph. There is no prospect of the Duchess accepting the invitation from Rhys-Jones who has been hired to do public relations work for a London health club, the newspaper added.