And now the pièce de résistance. This is Ness City, home not only to the so-called skyscraper of the plains but of a woman - name unknown - who sat on the toilet so long that she started growing around it.

The tale broke after the sheriff got a call in March 2008 from a man who said her girlfriend had become attached to her toilet seat after sitting on it for two years. In all that time, she had eaten there, slept there and, well, generally made the best of the situation. The boyfriend told the sheriff that there was "something wrong" with his friend, who was 33 when she got on the loo and 35 when she climbed off it.

This would be funny - well, OK, it is funny - if it weren't so tragically bizarre. The police found her with her trousers round her knees. But they couldn't detach her. Not by pulling, anyway. They had to get a crowbar and wrench her off, carrying both her and the seat to hospital.

It seems the boyfriend kept suggesting that she may have finished in the toilet but the woman said that, no, she liked it in there. "Maybe tomorrow," she used to say.

Both police and doctors were interested to know more. But she said nothing to either and just wanted to go home. And buy a new loo seat, probably.

The last I heard was that the woman, Pam Badcock, was faring well and living down her notoriety and that the police were wondering what charges they could impose on the boyfriend, Kory McFarren. Is there, in fact, a law in Kansas against letting your girlfriend sit on the toilet or too long?

If there is, it's no wonder the jails are so full...