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A dancing street sweeper has left Britain fearing for his life, saying he was beaten up by racist thugs.

Ziggy Dust, from Poland, told friends he was leaving because National Front members had attacked and threatened to kill him.

The London cleaner shot to public attention when YouTube clips showed him dancing as he collected rubbish in Chiswick.



Film crews descended on the borough to see the 47-year-old strut his stuff and one national newspaper used him in its advertising campaign.

But after three years in Britain, Ziggy - christened Zbigniew Colbecki - is now back in Poland.

Writing on a web forum, he said: 'I'm outside of England because someone wanted to kill me before New Year.

'I feel very sad. Not everyone was happy.

'Someone hated me very much and my dancing. I miss Chiswick. I left England without choice.'

Ziggy, a former circus juggler had also been DJ-ing in a Chiswick bar owned by Sam Harrison.

Mr Harrison said: 'Ziggy came to see me last week and collected his equipment. He had decided to leave for Poland the next morning.

'He told me that he had been attacked and threatened by a faction of the National Front and felt unsafe.

'He said that it had happened over the Christmas period and that he did not think the police could help him.

'Somebody had scared him. I could see the fear in his eyes.'

Chiswick resident Kieran Loughran, 39, said: 'It was extraordinary how famous Ziggy became but it didn't change him and he was always happy to show off his moves.'

Hounslow council said it had not been aware of any threats against Ziggy.

A snake that was swallowed alive by another snake has pulled off what must be one of the greatest escapes in the animal kingdom.

Determined to survive, the would-be snack managed to turn itself around inside the other snake's belly - and slither its way back out to freedom.

At least, that's what Australian Tony Barton claims he witnessed in his garden.

And he snapped these images as proof.




'When you tell these stories, no-one believes you,' said Mr Barton, who lives in the small rural town of Gundagai, south west of Sydney.

'But I have the pictures to prove it.'

The images, he says, show how the toxic red-belly black snake got its fangs around the far more poisonous eastern brown snake and began to swallow it.

It took almost 15 minutes for the 5ft.6in brown snake to disappear down the black snake's throat. The shape of the victim could be seen in the bulge in the body of the attacker.

The black snake, its lunch totally consumed, then slid away, very sluggishly, to a spot of shade 'for a snooze,' said Mr Barton.

A little later Mr Barton decided to have another careful look at the black snake.



What he saw next left him stunned.

'The black snake opened its mouth a little bit and I spotted this beady eye and the head of the brown snake peering out at me from the mouth,' he said.

'So I got my camera ready again and took a picture as the brown snake came out a few inches. Then it fastened itself onto the black snake's lower jaw and pulled itself completely out.

'It was covered in mucus, as you might expect, but seemed to be completely undamaged. Then the two of them parted ways, slithering off into the bush in different directions.

'I must admit that at first I thought someone was playing a practical joke on me because what I'd first noticed was what I thought was a very long snake with two tails - before I realised that one snake was swallowing another.

'There's only one explanation for what happened - having been swallowed head first, the brown snake must have been able to turn itself around inside the other snake's body for it to be able to emerge head first.'

As he admits, his story is going to take some believing.

But he has the photographs - and he hopes they will silence all the critics.

It looks like a scene from a surreal post-apocalyptic film - a polar bear and her cub stranded on an iceberg float past the Houses of Parliament.

But the creatures floating down the Thames today were sculptures launched in the river to raise awareness of climate change.

The polar bear stranded on the ever-receding icecaps has become the iconic image of the effects of global warming.



The 16ft-high structure was launched in Greenwich, south east London and travelled upstream to Tower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament.

A team of 15 artists spent two months working on the piece which aims to draw attention to climate change and its effect on the Arctic mammal.



The work was commissioned by Eden, a new digital television channel devoted to natural history programming.

Wildlife broadcaster Sir David Attenborough said: 'The melting of the polar bears' sea ice habitat is one of the most pressing environmental concerns of our time.'



'We need to do what we can to protect the world's largest land carnivores from extinction.'

The sculpture will travel to other UK cities including Birmingham and Glasgow.

A football referee was forced to send off a parrot during a match - after the bird began imitating his whistle.

Nine-year-old Me-Tu was taken to the match in his cage by eccentric owner Irene Kerrigan, 66, because he enjoys watching the players run around.

But the game descended into farce when the rare Senegalese parrot began copying the referee's whistle, causing confusion on the pitch.




He also started shouting 'pretty boy' as some of the players showed off their silky skills.

Referee Gary Bailey, 45, had no choice but to stop the game and order Irene and Me-Tu to leave the touchline.

Gary said the game between Hertford Heath and Hatfield Town in the Hertfordshire Senior Centenary Trophy was the most bizarre he has ever overseen.

'I've sent a few people off in my time but I 've never sent a parrot off before,' he said.

'It was a tough game and the lads were kicking lumps out of each other on the pitch.

'About 10 minutes into the second half one of the lads was running with the ball and then all of a sudden he'd heard a whistle and then stopped.

'The whistle wasn't even anywhere near my lips!' After a brief stoppage Gary let the amateur game continue but as the second half went on the parrot continued to make the noises and play was interrupted.

So he approached Irene, who lives near the ground at Hertford Heath, and asked them to leave the touchline and retreat into the stands.

Gary, of Hodderston, Hertfordshire, added: 'I was forced to go over to this woman who I thought was making the noises and ask her to stop.

'When I confronted her she said "It's not me, it's my parrot". I got a hell of a shock.

'The woman told me she was just taking it for a walk and giving it some air. I didn't have a choice I had to sent the bird off because it was ruining the game.'

But Irene has vowed to return to the stadium. She said: 'He loves his football and I'll take him back down there again on Saturday.'

The 150-strong crowd looed on as the pair were forced to beat a hasty retreat.

Hatfield Town Manager, Trevor Lloyd, 36 watched his team wing it into the semi finals winning the cup tie 5-2.

Trevor said: 'It's a shame the parrot didn't manage to hang on into extra time because we scored three goals.'

A 140-year-old lobster is to be reunited with the ocean after being liberated from a New York seafood restaurant.

The 20lb crustacean was the focus of tug of love between animal rights activists Peta and staff at the City Crab and Seafood.

She hasn't quite expanded her family to 101, but Button has still produced a pretty impressive number of little dalmatians.

The three-year-old dog has given birth to a litter of 18, just a year after having 16 pups.

Her litter is thought to be the largest born to a dalmatian in the UK. The average is about eight or nine.

Something seems to have put a smile on this piglet squid's face.

The tentacled creature has developed what appears to be a smiley face, believed to be caused by an unusual alignment of skin pigments.

This happy specimen, known as helicocranchia pfefferi to scientists, was caught during a deepwater plankton trawl in the Pacific Ocean between Los Angeles and Catalina.



Piglet squids are about the size of a small avocado and are found at depths of more than 100m (300ft).

The creatures have a habit of filling up with water and have large light producing organs behind both its eyes.