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Mexico's Festival of Apathy 'not bad' admit organisers

Mexico's famous Fiesta de la Apatía passed off at the weekend without very much happening. Millions of Mexicans from all parts of the country didn't bother to converge on the capital over the weekend in an unprecedented display of national insouciance.

Organiser Alonso Gutierrez Guzmán said, "I don't remember such a large participation before - in fact, I don't remember organising this year's event. I'm not sure if I did, actually. Did I? ...whatever."

A total of thirteen people turned up on Saturday and Sunday for the celebrations in the Parque 5 de Mayo, many of them by mistake. A further crowd of four festival goers went to the Parque 6 de Mayo, at the other end of the Avenida 12 de Febrero, where they sat on the grass for the entire afternoon unaware that the festival was not taking place around them. Even so, all of them thought it was "alright".

Fears that the ancient festival might not take at all place were allayed last month when President Vicente Fox Quesada threw his government's full weight behind the organisers. In a speech to visiting UNESCO Cultural Commissioners he declared that he "wasn't really bothered one way or the other about it, whatever it is", and pledged that his government would continue to disregard it if they could be arsed to do so.

In Peru, meanwhile, thousands of pilgrims have been flocking to the Peruvian village of Arrampipampi to bear witness to what locals believe is an apparition of Jesus Christ.

Ten-year-old Atahualpa Yupanqui was eating a simple meal of vegetables and chicken when he noticed an extraordinary shape in a slice of cucumber which appeared to be an uncanny likeness of Jesus Christ. The local priest Padre Jose-Maria Fuentes confirmed that it could only be the Saviour. Word has spread like wildfire among the neighbouring towns and beyond, causing an huge influx of visitors to the sleepy mountain village.

The cucumber bearing the face of Christ has been installed in a specially sanctified glass-fronted beer fridge in the village's small church. At some point in the next week a Vatican specialist will visit the scene to make his own assessment of the miracle. Informed sources say that the investigator is likely to be Cardinal Gilberto Ze who has already this year examined appearances of Christ on the Moon, in a piece of toast, on a damp patch in a kitchen, on the soft skin of the inner thigh of a Bolivian virgin, on the fur of a cat, in a Wiltshire corn field, in the ash from a monster spliff, in a pool of vomit on a ferry to Santander, behind the desk in the manager's office at Stamford Bridge, in the pattern of a flight of zebra finches and on a rock face in the New Zealand Alps. He has dismissed all of them, except the Stamford Bridge case, as mere chance.

Previously

• Government attempts to combat voter apathy
• Public unmoved by apathy over Golden Jubilee celebrations
• American libido hits all-time low

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