APRIL FOOL is tomorrow so watch your step until high noon! Meanwhile, in a break with tradition, we bring you these 'stranger than fiction' stories.

Wirral butcher Stephen Muff has officially become the Black Pudding Knight. He won the knighthood at the international gourmet tournament in Normandy, France, where British knights once did battle with their French rivals.

Stephen, of Bromborough, will be inducted into this ancient order for his award-winning black pudding. He has also just won gold for his British sausages, which have been officially adopted as a Euro Wirral 2000 product. Now armed with black pud and gold sausage, he plans to launch the new Millennium with a big banger.

Pyramid Director Mel Glasby came up with a novel idea to fill a gap in the Pyramids while mall units are prepared for a new tenant. He filled it with shops and people! The mural street scene has a car in it. The car door is the entrance to the unit. The cartoon character walking by is reading the Globe and the Pyramids are open as normal on Good Friday.

Lord Leverhulme is celebrating 50 years as president of Wirral Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Members made a special presentation at the annual meeting - a portrait of Lord Leverhulme's dog called Seventy. Leverhulme and his 'best friend' first met on the owner's 70th birthday.

A Tulip factory is growing on Wirral's International Business Park. When it opens this Spring, and the Tulip meat factory in New Brighton closes, the Wallasey plant will open again. We exclusively reveal Birkenhead-based Hurstwood Meats plan to use the old Tulip building as a meat factory.

Wirral Globe help give a sad story a happy ending when mean thieves stole fencing at the entrance of newly-built Claire House children's hospice. After reading about it, Laser Nails, of Birkenhead, generously donated new fencing for the official Royal opening. Redrow Homes has also helped to buy security cameras to keep a watchful eye on the new fencing.

A Wirral bachelor could soon become the most eligible man in the world! Wirral Globe has teamed up with organisers of the Mullingar International Bachelor Festival to find a contender for Britain.

Competitors from all over the world compete for the title while enjoying the best of Irish hospitality in the Emerald Isle.

Watch this space.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.