She was the 18th century celebrity who made men faint in awe of her beauty by her very presence. But her beauty - and her vanity - led to her demise as the lead-based make-up she insisted on plastering on daily resulted first in the loss of her looks, then deadly blood poisoning. Now the grand 7ft mirror in which Maria Gunning, the former Countess of Coventry, admired her stunning reflection has been auctioned off for more than £300,000. Labelled the first victim of vanity, Maria died aged 27 in 1760 after her love of make-up resulted in her untimely death. The 253-year-old mirror sold well above its estimate even though her condition meant she the society hostess used it for a matter of just months. A glorious George II giltwood overmantel design, it was bought for her by her husband The Sixth Earl of Coventry in 1759, who is said to have been so frustrated by his wife's love of make up that he would chase her around the dinner table with a handkerchief, trying wipe it from her face.
Sam Notaro built his own flood defences to protect his four-bedroom home in Moorland, Somerset Flooding is likely to get worse around Somerset as groundwater levels continue to rise .
NOT YOUR everyday selfie, this plucky diver poses with some of the scariest predators in the ocean .
A little caterpillar fearlessly scampers down a branch and confronts a praying mantis .
AN anorexic woman whose heart stopped after she starved herself to 3st has revealed that ‘dying’ for a minute helped shock her into recovery .
A BABY-faced burglar is starting a seven year stretch in custody after being nabbed by a Jaffa Cake .
TENNIS was a game made for three according to the first Victorian rule book .
A Romanian woman is celebrating her new job as a knife-thrower’s assistant after leaving her family behind to move to the UK .
FLAUNTING its new accessory, a fashionable green dumpy tree frog poses for the camera while wearing a SNAIL as a hat .
Something appears to have tickled this baby owl as he seems to be having a real HOOT .
HOTSPOT MEDIA - EVANDER HOLYFIELD VISITS SICK KIDS: Evander Holyfield in Birmingham children's hospital, where he was giving presents to sick kids .
A pair of snarling foxes go paw-to-paw and brawl after unexpectedly crossing paths .
FOR someone who hates milk, pensioner Steve Wheeler has got an udder-lot of it - nearly 20,000 bottles in fact .