Bored with Pearl, the cursing toddler landlord demanding rent money? Not amused by those cutesy pictures of cats with the baby-speak captions?

The Web is full of clever blogs and funny sites, including many that find comedy in real life.

Maybe you need some fresh sources of Internet humor. The Web is full of clever blogs and funny sites, including many that collect amusing gags from users and find comedy in real life.

Click away from the cats and replenish your list of favorite bookmarks with these 10 new or lesser-known humor sites:

Awkward Family Photos

Snapping the perfect family photo creates stress for anyone involved. Should we go casual and wear blue jeans with polo shirts on a beach or be a bit crazy, wear matching outfits and — wait for it — lean toward the camera? Ah, choices. This user-powered blog highlights the most well, awkward, family photos submitted by its contributors. Just don’t show this to your mom for portrait suggestions.

My Life is Average

Breaking news: Your life is most likely mundane and not glamorous or melodramatic like “Gossip Girl.” Thankfully, someone has finally created a Web site for average people to commiserate about their average-ness. For a taste, here is a recent posting: “Today, I ate a “Fun Size” Snickers bar. I think that the regular size is more fun. MLIA (My life is average).”

My Parents Joined Facebook

Logging on to Facebook, one is bombarded these days with pointless quizzes, embarrassing photos and a friend request from … Mom? The inevitable has happened — your parents are on Facebook. Using submissions from users, this site highlights just what a foreign place Facebook is to parents. If you think associating with them in person is uncomfortable, this blog highlights the awkwardness that comes when your mom takes a “What porn star are you?” quiz.

Garfield Minus Garfield

Someone has found a way to make the Garfield cat comic strip funny: edit out Garfield. The author, who recently released a book of these comic strips, digitally edits out Garfield for a less-than-flattering portrayal of Garfield’s owner, Jon Arbuckle. Without his lasagna-loving cat, he looks like a lonely man who talks to himself — and whose life resembles that of “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” Remember, if you are having a bad day, it could be worse — you could be Jon.

Laser Portraits

The 1980s brought great advancements in the photography world, such as the first SLR camera, the BetaCam and … laser backgrounds. It was a magical world back then, where little Jimmy posed for his school picture not against a typical light-blue background but a “Tron”-like video game gone awry. Looking at these pictures, one has to wonder if the use of those dangerous lasers injured any kids.

Historical Tweets

Who needs high school when history can be explained in 140 characters? Did you know the origin of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech? @martinlkjr tweets: “Bought a sleep journal. I keep having dreams but forget to write them down.”

Safety Graphics

Safety signs are supposed to protect us from the dangers of big, scary machines and equipment. But most of the time, the signs turn out to be a parody of themselves. This blog gathers photos of actual safety signs with symbols of people being electrocuted, crushed by garage doors and so on. The “No Weapons Allowed” sign would not deter any killer from shooting the place up.

Someecards

These electronic greeting cards offer wry commentary on everything from birthdays to topical events such as swine flu and the death of Michael Jackson. A recent Father’s Day card said, “You’re the best father I can imagine unless you lost my inheritance in the economic meltdown in which case I can imagine better.”

Graph Jam

The task of illustrating a depressing point, like a company’s plunging profits, always lands on the poor graph. But no one said the lowly graph always has to be bleak — or boring. This Web site displays the best user-submitted graphs on a variety of oddball topics, from the percentage of people who dislike Michael Jackson to things people want to do in New Jersey (No. 1 option: Leave). Although GraphJam has been around for awhile, it remains one of the cleverest sites on the Internet.

This is Why You’re Fat

Feeling regretful about those French fries you had with lunch? Here is a site that makes those greasy treats look healthy. Witness the chicken finger bacon pizza, which is drenched in Thousand Island dressing and baked to golden perfection, or the Pattie LaBurger, a triple-bacon cheeseburger that uses deep-fried burger patties as buns. If you dare to eat any of these, make sure you have a cardiologist on speed dial.

Vice President Joe Biden celebrated American patriotism and mocked the ghost of Saddam Hussein during a Fourth of July visit to Iraq on Saturday.

Vice President Biden congratulates a soldier who became a U.S. citizen on Saturday.

He presided at a naturalization ceremony at one of Hussein’s former palaces, where 237 U.S. service members were sworn in to become American citizens.

“We did it in Saddam’s palace and I can think of nothing better. That S.O.B. is rolling over in his grave right now,” Biden said of the former Iraqi dictator, who was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and executed by the Iraqi government in 2006.

Standing in the shadow of a 50-foot American flag, the service members recited the Oath of Allegiance and the Pledge of Allegiance in the rotunda of the Al-Faw Palace, now part of the U.S.’s Camp Victory complex in Baghdad.

U.S. military officials called it the largest naturalization ceremony ever conducted in Iraq.

Biden extolled America’s diversity and its destination as a refuge for immigrants, saying newcomers are the “lifeblood” of the country and that “there’s always room for more.”

“As corny as it sounds, damn I’m proud to be an American,” he said. “Thanks for choosing us. You are the reason why America is strong.”

Thanking the troops from their military service, Biden said “you are the source of our freedom, you and all who came before you.”

“What a sight you are today. What a powerful symbol for the rest of the world you are,” he said.

Mentioning America’s founding fathers, Biden told the new Americans from across the world that “as of today they’re your founding fathers.”

Biden visited Iraq days after U.S. combat troops formally left the country’s urban centers and handed security duties over to Iraqi forces. U.S. involvement in Iraq will continue to decline, he said.

“Next summer our combat troops will leave Iraq itself, and we will be on track to remove all U.S. forces from Iraq at the end of 2011,” he said.

But a roadside bomb on Saturday underscored Iraq’s instability. It exploded in an outdoor market in the Yusifiya area south of Baghdad city, killing a civilian and wounding 15 people.

Biden later met with troops from his home state of Delaware, including his son, Beau, and he visited the mess hall where a Fourth of July feast was served.

Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, also lauded the newly naturalized troops, saying the Fourth of July and Iraq were the appropriate time and place for a naturalization ceremony.

Invoking the words “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” from the Emma Lazarus “New Colossus” poem inscribed at the Statue of Liberty, Odierno said, “to be honest I’m not so sure that its legendary inscription is applicable to this group here today, because when I look at the men and women sitting out in front of me here, I’m having a hard time because I don’t see them in terms of tired, poor or huddled.”

He said if he had to write an inscription he would say “give me your best your brightest and your bravest. Give me your warriors, your heroes who will enhance our great nation and strive to keep her free.”

Many of the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen were from places like Mexico, the Philippines and Haiti. Some were from Iraq.

In a news release about the ceremony, the military quoted Spc. Ammar Al Khalidi, an Iraqi native and interpreter for the 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team.

“It is an honor and a privilege to be invited to a ceremony for citizenship and to receive a letter from President Obama, the first African-American president,” Al Khalidi is quoted as saying.

“I’m making history and when I have kids, I plan to show the letter to them with pride.”

Every drink served in the US usually contains lumps of ice

As the US is marking its 233rd anniversary of its independence, the BBC’s Kevin Connolly gives his own list of reasons why America should be celebrated.

I have left out such obvious American inventions as electrical light, water-skiing, space travel and the pop-up toaster on the grounds that someone else would probably have come up with those sooner or later.

This is more about the American genius for making daily life more convenient, more entertaining or just more fattening.

First - air conditioning - testament to the American ability to conquer the harshest physical environments and to expand American life towards improbable horizons.

For more than a century now, America has been making machines that blow cold air into hot places - without it Florida, Arizona and southern Texas would be uninhabitable.

Florida’s population has gone up 10-fold since air conditioning became affordable. It caught on as a way of cooling cinemas when hot projection equipment made them unbearable in July and August.

Without aircon, going to the pictures would be as seasonal a pastime as ice-fishing.

Ice cubes, too, reflect the same happy knack for making light of the hostility of circumstance.

Every floor of every motel building in the country has an ice machine; every convenience store sells it by the sackfull, and every drink you are served contains lumps of ice big enough to sink a battleship.

All cold drinks in America are served at a temperature which could cryogenically freeze human tissue. I know you find ice cubes elsewhere, too, but in Europe bar staff hoard them as though they were precious stones. In America, they flow in rattling abundance.

Third - valet parking. President Barack Obama says America invented the car, which it did not. But it did invent motoring, and the pinnacle of the American motoring experience is the practice of having someone else park your car when you arrive at a restaurant or hotel.

It makes the list to symbolise the American genius for making money out of simple services done well.

I have paid people to valet my car and then watched mesmerised as they proceeded to park it just a few feet away from me. Somehow, I never feel I am being ripped off.

Chewing gum is one of America’s more enduring gifts to humanity

Item Number Four is aviation. America did invent the aeroplane but it was rather a dull device at first and spent its early years being flown short distances in wobbly straight lines by plucky pioneers.

Before long though, America had invented barnstorming, and intrepid entertainers were performing the Charleston on the wings of bi-planes as they were flown under low bridges. A pointless but brilliant feat.

I put it down to the manner in which the Declaration of Independence promises the right to the pursuit of happiness.

Fifth - chewing gum. One of America’s more enduring gifts to humanity requiring no comment or explanation.

Except, perhaps, to note its surprising antiquity - juicy fruit flavour gum was invented in 1893. Odd to think it would have been a familiar taste already to the Americans who came to Europe to fight in the Great War.

1893, in fact, was a bumper year for people who do not worry too much about their fillings since it also saw the invention of Cracker Jack, a mixture of popcorn and peanut coated in toffee which is the baseball fan’s snack of choice.

It is really on the list representing all processed food since the genius of it lies in a manufacturing process that prevents all the small lumps from sticking together in one big one.

And while we are on the subject of food, achievement number seven is American cheese - an industrially processed foodstuff chiefly valued for its ability to melt evenly on to a hamburger.

American cheese has a hyper-plasticity quality

Often sold in a shade of orange - also used on motorway workers high-visibility coats - it exhibits a quality which I think is called hyper-plasticity which means once its ever been melted it never quite returns to its solid form again.

That is a lot of science behind the cheeseburger.

For anyone travelling through an airport this weekend I thought I should also mention the invention of metal detector in 1881 by Alexander Graham Bell, he of telephone fame.

One of its first deployments was a failed attempt to find a bullet in the body of the assassinated President James Garfield as he lay dying from a gunshot wound. Might have worked too if he had not been lying on an iron-framed bed.

Finally, for this year anyway I give you the space pen - a miracle of engineering which allowed astronauts to write in outer space.

Do not believe the urban myth that says Russians achieved the same effect as the Americans without spending millions of research dollars by sampling using pencils in their spacecraft.

Actually, pencils are dangerous in space because wood is flammable. The Russians use the space pen, too, apparently.

I leave it there because I have run out of time [space] rather than because I have run out of examples of American ingenuity.

Indeed so lavishly have the blessings of providence and the bounty of human ingenuity been bestowed here that by the time America’s 234th birthday rolls around, I might well have compiled an entirely different list.

We will see - but for now, happy Independence Day.

A teenage girl is in hospital after suffering gunshot wounds to her leg in an incident being linked to the discovery of a man’s body nearby.

Police were called to Fosters Gardens in the Potterhanworth area near Lincoln on Friday evening following reports of a disturbance.

They found the injured 17-year-old girl and the body of the 51-year-old man in a field nearby.

A gun was found close to the man’s body, Lincolnshire Police said.

A police spokeswoman said: “Police were called to Fosters Gardens at 2118 BST after reports of a disturbance.

‘Serious condition’

“Upon arrival officers found a 17-year-old girl with serious injuries to her leg, believed to be the result of a gunshot.

“She was taken to Lincoln County Hospital for immediate treatment, where her condition is currently described as serious but stable.

“An area search commenced and officers located a male in a field to the rear of the property. A gun was found with him.

“The man, believed to be a 51-year-old from the Grantham area, was deceased.”

Police said they were not currently looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.

“A scene guard remains in place while officers conduct their investigations,” a police spokesman added.

Police would not comment on the nature of the man’s injuries, declining to confirm or deny reports that he had been shot.

The US space agency’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has returned its first images since reaching the Moon on 23 June.

The probe’s two cameras returned images of a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds).

LRO blasted off on 18 June atop an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Its data will help mission planners select future landing sites and scout locations for lunar outposts.

There are two cameras on board, a low-resolution wide-angle camera and a high-resolution narrow-angle camera.

These are known collectively as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) instrument.

“At the time we took the images, we were in the ‘terminator’ orbit. This means that when you look down for a whole orbit, all you see beneath you is the boundary between night and day,” Mark Robinson, from Arizona State University in Tempe, US, told BBC News.

We waited a couple of hours for the images to come down to the ground. When they appeared on the screen, they were gorgeous Professor Mark Robinson, ASU

This meant that light levels were low and that much of the surface was in shadow - not ideal conditions for photography.

“In some areas where we thought we’d see the surface, we didn’t, because local topography caused some things to be shadowed. While in other areas, we were able to see the surface,” explained Professor Robinson, who is the principal scientific investigator for LROC.

The images were taken over two orbits on Tuesday, during an engineering test of the LROC instrument. Though they are not part of the formal imaging campaign, Mark Robinson described them as “spectacular”.

“It was a huge relief. You spend four years making this incredibly delicate, sensitive instrument. Then you bolt it on a rocket, which vibrates for eight minutes,” he said.

The pictures are of cratered terrain near the Mare Nubium region

“It’s maybe an illogical nervousness, because everything is designed and tested to withstand that. But there are hundreds of people that want it to work.

“We turned it on, and held our breath. Then we waited a couple of hours for the images to come down to the ground. When they appeared on the screen, they were gorgeous.”

The test was designed to check parameters on LROC such as the exposure. Scientists also wanted to see whether the camera was in full focus.

LROC uses a telescope structure made of carbon fibre. Though lightweight, this material absorbs water from the Earth’s atmosphere, causing it to expand. The team had to build the camera so that it was out of focus on Earth.

But once in space, the carbon fibre telescope can be baked to drive the water out. This causes the structure to shrink and bring the instrument into focus.

LRO’S SCIENCE INSTRUMENTS CRaTER - will characterise the global lunar radiation environment Diviner - is to measure lunar surface temperatures LAMP - will map the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions LEND - measures the flux of neutrons from the Moon LOLA - will provide a global lunar topographic model LROC - LRO’s camera will help select future landing sites Mini-RF - uses radar to search for evidence of water ice

“It’s roughly a three-week process, and we had only been baking out for 10 days when we turned (LROC) on,” said Professor Robinson.

Nevertheless, he said the pictures suggested the camera was about 80% of the way to being in full focus.

On Friday, LROC will begin taking images “in earnest”. Over two-and-a-half days, and 32 orbits, it will photograph some of the least known regions of the lunar surface, on the Moon’s far side.

On Sunday, engineers will switch the LROC instrument off again to resume the baking process.

The spacecraft is currently in an elliptical orbit around the Moon, with a low point of 30km above the south pole and a high point of 199km over the north pole. This means the resolution of pictures will be lower in the north and higher in the south.

In mid-August, the spacecraft will perform a burn to bring it into a circular orbit of 50km above the lunar surface. This will give LROC a resolution of 50cm per pixel.

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. LRO will start flying over the Apollo landing sites in mid-July.

However, the spacecraft will still be in its checkout phase at this time. If LRO does manage to take images of any Apollo sites in July, the pictures will not be at the best possible resolution.

When the orbiter flies over the Apollo 11 site it is likely to be at an altitude of 100km - allowing the camera to capture images at a resolution of 100cm per pixel.

LRO will spend at least one year using its six instruments to collect detailed information about the lunar environment.

The orbiter was one of two payloads launched on the same Atlas V rocket.

The second mission, called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), will send a rocket crashing into the Moon to scour the debris plume for evidence of water ice.

Rio Tinto has suffered as commodity prices have fallen

A call for cash by Rio Tinto has seen a strong take-up from its existing Australian shareholders - a day after similar success in the UK.

The mining giant saw 95% of the heavily discounted shares available in Sydney taken up. It had earlier reported a 96.97% take-up of London shares.

The firm was trying to raise $15.2bn (£9.3bn) in its dual listings.

Rio Rinto is seeking to reduce the $38bn of debt it took on to buy the Canadian aluminium group Alcan in 2007.

‘No-brainer’

In February, the Anglo-Australian firm announced that it would be receiving a $19.5bn investment from China’s Chinalco, which would have increased its stake in Rio to 18% from 9%.

However, in June, Rio Tinto said it was scrapping the deal with Chinalco in favour of a tie-up with rival giant BHP Billiton, and also announced its plans to raise funds from investors.

Chinalco remains Rio’s biggest shareholder, and on Thursday, Rio confirmed that the Chinese firm had taken up its full entitlement of new shares in the rights issue.

“It’s positive that the rights issue has been completed - it certainly takes a lot of stress off the balance sheet,” said Michael Bush, head of credit research at National Australia Bank.

“It was a fairly heavily-discounted rights issue so it was a bit of a no-brainer in terms of whether people should take it up. It’s positive for Rio that the money’s in the door and they can now pay down debt.”

Nationalisation is a major policy of Hugo Chavez

Venezuela has taken formal control of its third largest bank, the previously Spanish-owned Banco de Venezuela.

The first instalment of a $630m (£387m) price tag was made amid much ceremony in the capital Caracas, with nearly all the shares passing to the government.

The rest of the agreed price of $1.05bn (£645m) for the institution will be paid in October and December.

Both sides have declared themselves to be satisfied with outcome, but for very different reasons.

For Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the acquisition of the bank, the country’s largest in terms of deposits, is an important addition to the government’s financial portfolio.

It comes quick on the heels of nationalisations in the energy, steel, cement and ceramics sectors.

For Spain’s Grupo Santander, it has sold Banco de Venezuela to Mr Chavez for significantly more than it bought it for.

The move will be seen as an significant return on their investment amid the global economic crisis.

Self-help mantras are a common therapeutic technique

Bridget Jones is not alone in turning to self-help mantras to boost her spirits, but a study warns they may have the opposite effect.

Canadian researchers found those with low self-esteem actually felt worse after repeating positive statements about themselves.

They said phrases such as “I am a lovable person” only helped people with high self-esteem.

The study appears in the journal Psychological Science.

A UK psychologist said people based their feelings about themselves on real evidence from their lives.

The suggestion people should “help themselves” to feel better was first mooted by Victorian Samuel Smiles 150 years ago.

Repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, such as individuals with high self-esteem, but backfire for the very people who need them the most Joanne Wood University of Waterloo

His book, called simply “Self Help”, sold a quarter of a million copies and included guidance such as: “Heaven helps those who help themselves”.

Self-help is now a multi-billion pound global industry.

‘Contradictory thoughts’

The researchers, from the University of Waterloo and the University of New Brunswick, asked people with high and low self-esteem to say “I am a lovable person.”

They then measured the participants’ moods and their feelings about themselves.

In the low self-esteem group, those who repeated the mantra felt worse afterwards compared with others who did not.

However people with high self-esteem felt better after repeating the positive self-statement - but only slightly.

The psychologists then asked the study participants to list negative and positive thoughts about themselves.

They found that, paradoxically, those with low self-esteem were in a better mood when they were allowed to have negative thoughts than when they were asked to focus exclusively on affirmative thoughts.

Writing in the journal, the researchers suggest that, like overly positive praise, unreasonably positive self-statements, such as “I accept myself completely,” can provoke contradictory thoughts in individuals with low self-esteem.

Such negative thoughts can overwhelm the positive thoughts.

If people are instructed to focus exclusively on positive thoughts, negative thoughts might be especially discouraging.

Real life

The researchers, led by psychologist Joanne Wood, said: “Repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, such as individuals with high self-esteem, but backfire for the very people who need them the most.”

However, they say positive thinking can help when it is part of a broader programme of therapy.

Simon Delsthorpe, a psychologist with Bradford District Care Trust and spokesman for the British Psychological Society, said self-esteem was based on a range of real life factors, and that counselling to build confidence - rather than telling yourself things are better than they are - was the solution.

“These are things like, do you have close family relationships, a wide network of friends, employment and appearance.

“If you’re not close to your parents, don’t have many friends, are unemployed and are unhappy with your appearance, it might be hard to have high self-esteem.

“But if your experience is the reverse of that it would be much easier to say ‘I’m OK’ and believe that.”

More than half a million Michael Jackson fans have already applied for 17,500 free tickets to the singer’s public memorial service next week.

Jackson, who died last week aged 51, will be remembered at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Tickets will chosen at random from names registered at staplescenter.com.

Police in Los Angeles expect as many as 700,000 people may try to reach the arena but it will be sealed off to those without tickets.

As of 1730 on Friday (0030 GMT Saturday), more than 524,330 people had registered for tickets, Jackson family spokesman Ken Sunshine said in a statement.

A total of 11,000 free tickets are to be issued for the service. Fans from around the world can apply.

Another 6,500 tickets will be issued for a simulcast of the service at the nearby Nokia theatre. It means a total of 17,500 fans will be able to see the events free.

Officials said 8,750 pairs of tickets would be allotted to the successful entrants after 1800 Saturday (0100 GMT Sunday) and notifications would go out later on Sunday.

Those selected will be able to get their tickets via Ticketmaster on Monday, officials said.

Originally, the Staples Center website said only US residents could apply for tickets, but AEG’s Randy Phillips later told the BBC that that was not the case.

Officials appealed to other fans to watch the memorial service from their own homes, amid fears that thousands of people without tickets could flood the area.

“If you do not have a ticket, if you are not credentialed, not only will you not be allowed at these venues, you will not be allowed in this area,” said Los Angeles assistant police chief Earl Paysinger.

Big screens

Jackson had been rehearsing for his London concerts at the Staples Center.

In a press conference, family representative Ken Sunshine said they wanted to accommodate as many fans as possible.

“It is all about the fans,” he said.

Officials said that no funeral procession would take place and the memorial service would not be shown on big screens outside the venues. Free pool feeds will be made available to media organisations for broadcast, they said.

Earlier, a lawyer for Michael Jackson’s former wife Debbie Rowe said she was undecided about whether to fight for custody of her two children with the star.

The Staples Center was where Michael Jackson’s rehearsals were held

On Thursday, Ms Rowe won a delay in a custody hearing while she decides if she wants to raise Michael Joseph Jackson Jr, known as Prince Michael, 12, and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11.

The singer’s youngest son - seven-year-old Prince Michael II - was born to a surrogate mother whose identity has never been revealed.

In his will, Jackson stipulated that his mother, Katherine, 79, should have permanent custody of all three children. She currently has temporary custody of them.

A judge has delayed a guardianship hearing - scheduled for Monday - until 13 July at the request of Ms Rowe and Katherine Jackson.

Mystery death

It is still not known what caused Jackson’s death last week at the age of 50.

He collapsed at his home and was pronounced dead two hours later at the UCLA medical centre.

An autopsy was conducted but results are not expected for several weeks. The Jackson family had a second autopsy performed and those results are also pending.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office has said there is no evidence of foul play.

It added that the results of toxicology tests could take weeks to come back.

Two late wickets gave Sri Lanka the slight upper hand

Sri Lanka were reduced to 292 all out by Pakistan on the first day of their first Test but hit back by reducing the visitors to 15-2 by the close of play.

Pakistan’s pace debutants Mohammad Aamir (3-74) and Abdur Rauf (2-59) had given their side the upper hand.

Sri Lanka had been 21-2 but Tharanga Paranavitana (72) top scored to give them more of a total to defend.

The hosts started promisingly as Salman Butt and Khurram Manzoor were quickly dismissed to give them the initiative.

Nuwan Kulasekara bowled Butt for a first-ball duck and Thilan Thushara trapped fellow opener Manzoor leg before wicket for just two.

There was a strong security presence in Galle for a Test which came four months after the Sri Lanka team’s bus was attacked by gunmen in Pakistan.

It was their first meeting on the subcontinent since the attack, although the pair did meet when Pakistan beat Sri Lanka in the ICC World Twenty20 in England.

And the touring side started well as they met again, with Aamir sending Malinda Warnapura back to the pavilion in his first over.

The pace and movement of Aamir was causing problems and he soon had Kumar Sangakkara, captaining Sri Lanka in a Test for the first time, caught at third slip by Shoaib Malik.

Malik dropped Paranavitana on four and keeper Kamran Akmal put down a chance from Mahela Jayawardene as Pakistan’s fielding let them down.

Paranavitana went on to anchor the Sri Lanka innings as he steered them to some sort of respectability, while Jayawardene reached 30.

Jayawardene’s innings epitomised most of those by the Sri Lankans, without the injured spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, as they got themselves in before falling.

With Prasanna Jayawardene injured and Sangakkara concentrating on captaincy, batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan took the wicketkeeping gloves.

Meanwhile, Pakistan recalled experienced batsman Mohammad Yousuf, making his return to international cricket after a spell in the unsanctioned Indian Cricket League.