Meanwhile, in post-Soviet Russia...

Professor Dvorkin is worried that kundalini yoga, which has roots in Hinduism, "could lead to uncontrollable sexual arousal... and in consequence to the development of homosexual relationships between inmates," according to the Moskovsky Komsomolets report. He said this raised security concerns, as some prisoners "might go on hunger strike in protest" if they thought inmates serving their food were gay, the paper says.

I mean, those yoga pants... DAAAAMN !

Fortunately, even Russia isn't quite that mad :

But the prison authorities have decided to disappoint both of these moral crusaders, as official research shows that yoga is beneficial to inmates and has no links to homosexuality.

Prison Service Deputy Chief Valery Maximenko told Govorit Moskva radio that inmates who practice yoga need less medical attention, and that "nobody is being drawn towards homosexuality by it. But, even if they are, we have democracy in our country, and everyone has the right to choose their own path... within the law," he added, in an unusually candid statement for a senior Russian official.

And as a bonus there's a second weird story from Russia today on how to declare victory over General Winter :

"You can't be serious??? A photo from 3 April (!!!) to show you dealt with the mounds of ice at the bus stop I complained about on 25 January!!!," she tweeted to the council's Our St Petersburg customer portal... An unimpressed Natalya Vakhlova tweeted the photos, noting that "given it's been well above freezing for some time now, it's not hard to work out that the ice melted on its own."

Council official Sergei Malinin told the site that the street cleaners simply hadn't had time to take photographs while on the job, and acknowledged that sending victory reports with sunny pictures "could look like making fun of citizens". He said the council would try to do better, but one St Petersburger had a better idea. "They should wait until June and declare all the problems solved in one go," he told Fontanka.

Normally I could point and laugh at the silly Russian monkeys. I can't very well do that with half the UK thinking that getting out of the world's largest economic bloc would be a good idea though, now can I ? Stupid Brexiteers won't let me have any fun !

Russian jails drop yoga ban

Russia is reinstating prison yoga classes that were suspended after a complaint based on the concerns of a leading opponent of religious minorities. Senator Yelena Mizulina asked the prosecutor-general to check the legality of kundalini yoga classes introduced on a trail basis in Moscow remand centres, and they were duly suspended during the subsequent investigation, Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper reports.