Egyptians, The New Irish ...

Two Egyptian men are patiently awaiting trial in Russia after numerous escape attempts, digging tunnels under various European borders using the tool of choice - shoehorns.

The men, apparently both in their mid-20s, started digging along the Belarus border with Poland. However, once in the land of the UK-bound plumber, they lost their way in a matter of hours and were confronted by more barbed wire. Now thinking that they were now looking across at German soil, the pair started digging again ... and ended up back in Belarus.

The pair were arrested by Belarussian border guards and a court later sentenced them to 10 days in jail. Prosecutors said that the would-be migrants didn't go for the easy option of using a spade as they thought that buying one in a shop would immediately bring them unwanted attention. Our intrepid tunnelers travelled to Belarus from neighbouring Russia a few months ago where they had nothing more than tourist visas.

But wait, it goes on ... when Belorussian authorities released the men from chokey, they put them on a train to Moscow, hoping that the Egyptians would never return. The two men got off the train hundreds of miles west of the Russian capital and decided to have another crack. Their second attempt was at the Russian and Ukrainian border. Clearly, these two were one spade short of a garden shed as those happy-go-lucky Russian border guards arrested them long before our escapee's hole got ankle-deep.

Something tells me they'll be back in the Egyptian desert giving camel rides to fat Americans in the very near future ...

Stu