Captain Moonlight: Cut out and keep catch-up service

SCISSORS out for the Captain's renowned Catch-up Service, a digest of the week's news which will build up into a unique record of 1994 . . . Stephen Powelson, 76, a retired accountant of Amherst, Massachusetts, is memorising The Iliad . . . Dustin Hoffman was spotted roller-skating in Kensington. 'I couldn't believe it. I almost crashed,' said driver Dean Keyworth . . . A bad week for robbers: John Smart, of Sunderland, picked up a manhole cover to hurl through Woolworth's window, overbalanced, and fell down the manhole. Franco Berlinni, of Sora, Italy, burglar, was caught when his wooden leg got stuck in the door he was kicking down. And, in Ossett, West Yorkshire, a man pulled on a mask, leapt from his car and dashed up to the post office only to find it had been locked up for the night . . . James Smith, 72, of Chilhowie, Virginia, won dollars 10m in the state lottery and then died the next day from a heart attack . . . The Pope has 12 pairs of K Swiss Classics trainers. The laces are in gold and white, the papal colours . . . Paul Howard, 10, of Fareham, Hants, has recaptured his six pet cockroaches, six weeks after they escaped and hid in his bedroom . . . and, finally, staying with schoolboys, Mark England, 15, of Gloucestershire, discovered that his 30 centimetre ruler was only 29.2 centimetres long.