No. 2

A 59-year-old German woman has had most of a pencil removed from inside her head after suffering nearly her whole life with the headaches and nosebleeds it caused, Bild newspaper reported today.

Margret Wegner fell over carrying the pencil in her hand when she was four.

"The pencil went right through my skin – and disappeared into my head," Wegner told the newspaper.

It narrowly missed vital parts of her brain. At the time no one dared operate, but now technology has improved sufficiently for doctors to be able to remove it.

The majority of the pencil, some 8cm (3.1 inches) long, was taken out in an operation at a private Berlin clinic, but the 2cm tip had grown in so firmly that it was impossible to remove.