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24/01/2011

A report on the micro pigs that have grown more than expected, following the training of potential waterskiing champions in Norfolk, and the rise in public funerals.

Micro pigs are the latest in unusual pets. Often sold as the perfect household animal that will grow no bigger than a cat, they sound ideal. When Gillian bought her micro pig the last thing she expected was that it would grow to the size of a Great Dane and weigh 250lbs. Nick Conrad meets the owners who've ended up with far more porker than they bargained for, and of course the pigs themselves.

Think of world champions in a sport like waterskiing and you don't tend to think of people training in the cold North Sea off the Norfolk coast, but they do. The Hunstanton Waterski Club is the training ground, or water, for Kim Lumley from Somersham in Cambridgeshire. She's the Women's World Waterskiing Champion. She last won the title in 2009, the next championships will be held in Sydney, in 2011. But for the moment Kim is recovering from an injury, so she's taking the opportunity to train some young waterskiers with champion potential. Ben and Georgina, two teenagers who belong to the club in Hunstanton, are just days away from their first major competition, the British Championships. Find out how they get on with Kim's guidance in the North Sea on the biggest weekend in the waterskiing calendar.

Every year thousands of recently deceased people are buried not by their loved ones but by their local council, often because they have no known family to make the arrangements. Jane Jackson works for Great Yarmouth where the number of public funerals has risen by 50 percent in the last five years. It takes all of Jane's tact, diplomacy and detective work to uncover the story behind the death of a gentleman in the town.

29 minutes