LONDON (Reuters) – Staff at the Dinnington library are used to people bringing books back late but the package they received last month was in a class of its own.

It contained a paperback first edition copy of “Quatermass and the Pit” by Nigel Kneale which had been borrowed on September 24, 1965.

“I thought at first it was just a normal return, until I saw the color of the pages: They were very brown around the edges,” said Alison Lawrie, the Principal Library Assistant.

“It’s true that some people like to take their time with a good book, but 45 years is an incredible amount of time!”

Staff believe the book was borrowed from the old Dinnington Library in Sheffield, South Yorkshire which opened in 1936 and is close to the current building which opened in 2000.

However, the identity of the borrower remains a mystery because records do not go back that far – and there would have been no danger of a huge accumulated fine because all fines are capped at $9.

Cops sorry for pounding couple's door

NEW YORK (AP) – Cheesecake in hand, the police commissioner personally apologized Friday for the 50 or so mistaken, door-pounding visits that police have made to the home of a bewildered elderly Brooklyn couple in the past eight years.

It seems a glitch in computer records had led them over and over to Walter and Rose Martin’s modest home in the Marine Park neighborhood, about 12 kilometers southeast of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The most recent intrusion came Tuesday, with officers pounding on both the front and back doors, yelling “Police, open up!”

On Thursday, detectives from the NYPD’s Identity Theft Squad went to see the Martins again — this time to apologize. “And we wanted to be sure perps weren’t using that address for identity theft,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne told The Associated Press.

The detectives told 82-year-old Rose and 83-year-old Walter that Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had ordered them to solve the problem, which started eight years ago and was first reported this week in the New York Daily News.

To bring home the sincerity of the NYPD’s contrition, Kelly showed up at the Martin’s house with a gift: New York cheesecake.

The couple first complained about the harrowing police visits in 2007, when Rose Martin wrote a letter to Kelly.

Topless gardener prompts new rules

BOULDER, Colorado (AP) – A woman gardening wearing only a yellow thong and pink gloves has brought neighborhood complaints and new rules from a housing authority in Colorado.

Boulder Housing Partners plans to amend its rules so that tenants cover up when they’re outside.

Several passers-by told Boulder police earlier this week that 52-year-old Catharine Pierce was topless while tending to her yard. Last year, she was threatened with eviction for gardening wearing only pasties and a thong.

Police responding to Wednesday’s reports decided Pierce wasn’t breaking any laws.

Robert Pierce said he’ll fight changes that would keep his wife from gardening outside topless, which is legal under state and city law.

“They’re making a big mistake,” he said.

Boulder Housing Partners Executive Director Betsey Martens didn’t return a phone call Friday seeking details on how covered residents would have to be.

She told the Daily Camera newspaper that people have complained for years about the couple often going outside wearing only thong underwear.

Robert Pierce said the new rules wouldn’t discourage the couple. “We’ll stay the way we have to stay,” he said.