'Unexploded Second World War bomb' turns out to be huge courgette

A panicked pensioner in Germany called the police after discovering what he believed was an unexploded Second World War bomb in his garden, but when officers rushed to the scene they instead discovered a particularly large courgette.

In a statement, police in the southern town of Bretten did concede that "the object really did look very like a bomb" when they found it on Thursday.

The offending vegetable - which police believe was thrown over the fence into the 81-year-old's garden - measured in at a hefty 40cm (16in) and weighed a whopping 5kg (11lbs).

Unexploded wartime bombs are frequently found during construction work in Germany, often forcing police to evacuate tens of thousands of residents while they are defused.