And finally…kick in the teeth

A man who dressed as a shark to drum up business for an Austrian electronics store called McShark has had his promotional efforts thwarted after he was fined for falling foul of the country ‘s full-face burqa ban.

Police confronted the man in central Vienna after an anonymous tip-off and gave him a €150 fine (£135) when he refused to remove the shark head.

PR agency Warda Network later claimed it deliberately set up the incident to “prove a point” about Austria’s relatively new ban on the full-face burqa, part of a package of controversial new laws affecting Muslims and migrants.

The new law came into force at the start of October, but its “religiously neutral” language has led to confusion over enforcement. One cyclist was reportedly stopped by police for covering her face with a scarf.

The company that had employed the man in a shark costume posted a picture of him on Facebook and announced the fine, saying officers had forced the man to take the costume head off. “Life isn’t easy,” they wrote.