This is something of a shock revelation, but it's come to our attention that not all Americans have a keenly developed sense of irony.

This is particularly true of the men and women of the FBI, who spectacularly failed to spot that the www.bonsaikitten.com website is a pisstake.

"A bonsai plant achieves its miniature yet mature form through a long and delicate process of trimming during the formative years of the tree," reads the introductory blurb. "It is not possible to trim a kitten! However, the Oriental artists of yore were also expert in the modification of animal forms. Both foot-binding and head-binding were practiced in the Far East, for the purpose of miniaturising the feet and moulding the head into attractive shapes."

There then follows a full 'How To' guide, which includes a list of such essential equipment as rectilinear vessels, tubular constrictions, antagonistic animal shapes, shoehorns, calcium-sequestering agents, muscle relaxants and - don't ask! - superglue.

Concerned about this threat to animal liberty, the Feds mounted a three-month operation, which eventually concluded that the site was the work of a 22-year-old student who has far too much free study time.

There's more feline fun to be had at www.cat-scan.com, a site dedicated to those "who love art as much as their cats. So much so, they combine the two!"

Far from being cruel, 8 out of 10 owners tell us that their cats prefer being stuck in a photocopier to any other kind of electrical appliance.

Fans desperate for a sneak preview of the new Nick Cave album will be pleased, nay, delighted to hear that 40 second snatches of all the songs are available at the long-legged one's www.nickcave.net website. Judging by the excerpts we've heard, No More Shall We Part is right up there with such Bad Seeds classics as The First Born Is Dead and The Good Son.

She comes in for a lot of stick, but personally we think that Billie Piper is as smart as she is pulchritudinous. Proof of this can be found at www.switch2.net where Miss Piper - or someone who does a very good impression of her - has this to say about the assassination of JFK:

"All my pop mates have their own theory about who killed Kennedy, except Mel B. She's just a (deleted for legal reasons). Ronan reckons it was the FBI, jealous that the President had entered Marilyn Monroe. While Richie from 5ive told me the Mafia did it using a trained monkey. That's probably not true, Richie. Lee Harvey Oswald was the man the cops had, but then he was shot by Jack Ruby in full view of press, the police and The Fonz."

With the Manics' visit placing Cuba in the rock 'n' roll spotlight, you might want to check out the Real Thirteen Days site, which resides at www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/

Billed as "the hidden history of the Cuban missile crisis", its 400-plus pages show just how close we came to World War III.

After that, the Cold War turned to farce with the CIA attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro with - among other things - poisonous clams and an exploding cigar. More preposterous still is the plan outlined at www.historyhouse.com/stories.castro.htm

"Perhaps the most visionary proposal came from the fertile mind of General Edward Lansdale, who supervised the Kennedy Administration's covert war on Castro," it says. "The general hoped to spark a counterrevolution by spreading the word to devout Cuban Catholics that the Second Coming was imminent and that Castro was none other than the anti-Christ. At the appointed hour, Christ, Himself, would surface off the shores of Cuba aboard an American submarine as star shell flares illuminated the heavens. In a pique of Cold War rapture, it was hoped, the Cubans would rise up and spontaneously overthrow their satanic leader."

Monty Python doesn't come close!