Burglar jailed after leaving Fanta can in victim’s home

Cambridge Crown Court has sentenced a burglar to four years’ imprisonment after he was proven guilty by a DNA test which matched him with a Fanta can he had left behind during his raid on a home.

Jason Turner had stolen £37,000 worth of silverware, jewellery and currency and a Land Rover from the house, abandoning the latter at a nearby church along with the jewellery boxes.

Judge David Farrell said that Turner was a professional burglar who had been caught only thanks to “pure luck and one slip-up”.

Woody Harrelson visits Cambridge

Actor Woody Harrelson came to Cambridge on Sunday for a screening of his new film Lost in London.

The Hunger Games star also participated in a Q&A session about the venture, which is his directorial debut.

The film, a comedy based on one of Harrelson’s own experiences in Soho in 2002, in which he ended up being pursued by police and spending a night in prison, caught the attention of critics for its ambitious style. The entire film was filmed in a single take on a single camera and broadcast live to cinemas.

Porters’ portraits go under the hammer

Portraits of nine head porters at Cambridge colleges have been sold at auction.

The portraits are the work of Louise Riley-Smith, who said that porters deserve “more glory” for the work they do, describing them as “unsung heroes”. She said that the porters she spoke to in her two years of painting them “often talked about pastoral care – if the students were depressed or upset or drunk, which was very often, they look after them in that way.”

The rest of the 26 porter portraits completed by Riley-Smith have been bought by Sidney Sussex, Clare Hall, Corpus Christi, Jesus, Trinity Hall, Homerton, Newnham, Gonville & Caius and Churchill Colleges.

History Faculty café closes

The café serving the Junior Combination Room of the Faculty of History has closed due to lack of demand.

An e-mail from the Chair of the Faculty, Dr Lawrence Klein, informed students that the café had been closed as a result of its “financial viability”, which he said had “long been questionable”, in spite of “various consultations” with students to improve its services.

History students are apparently being drawn instead to the ARC Café, the Law Faculty café and the Buttery, as a result of which the café has become a “drain on resources”.

The news will come as a disappointment to aficionados of the café’s toasties, and perhaps also to the Cambridge Universities Labour Club, which customarily holds its meetings in the JCR

Campaign cocker-up

While Theresa May managed to smuggle the phrase “strong and stable government” into PMQs six different times this week, Tim Farron has managed to coin one of the more unusual election slogans: “smell my spaniel”.

While visiting Cambridge to support Julian Huppert’s campaign, Farron was distracted by Bonny, who appears to be a labradoodle. Farron invited Bonny to “smell my spaniel, maybe”, a quote that has received exposure that would be the envy of any spin doctor.

Referring to recent publicity regarding the Lib Dem leader’s attitude to gay sex, one Twitter user said “let he who is without sin smell the first spaniel”.