A daffy trip

You couldn't make this up - 29,000 bright yellow rubber ducks that spilled from a container ship in the Pacific in 1992 have become the object of academic research, gained a cult following and can change hands for up to £1,000 each.
Now about 10,000 of the hardy little critters are heading for the UK, having been frozen in ice for up to five years as they passed 6,000 miles from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Arctic and the North Pole. Scientists predict the Gulf Stream will send them bobbing to our shores some time next year.
When they arrive, they will have travelled a staggering 21,800 miles.
The remainder of the flotilla which stayed stuck in the Pacific will soon complete their fifth circuit of the great ocean, caught in a current called the Pacific Gyre, having travelled around 30,000 miles.
Scientists have been able to follow their journey and thereby track the ocean currents in a novel and unprecendented way. Meanwhile, Radio Four is broadcasting a programme about the ducks this Sunday.
The ducks have won a cult following and some people have started collecting them - or at least the ones that occasionally drift ashore and get picked up on beaches. It's not surprising really - the darn things are just so lovable. We all have fond bath time memories of them from childhood, and the mental image of thousands of little yellow ducks happily bobbing across the vast blue ocean is wonderfully appealing.
Personally, I'll never look at my daughters' rubber ducks at bath time quite the same way again.