StrangeSights

• ‘Bring your gun to church day’ probably isn’t the sort of idea that will catch hold in Australia but in the US, a pastor did ask his flock to do just that. Pastor Ken Pagano, of New Bethel Church in Louisville, as people to bring their guns - in holsters, mind - to church to celebrate the Second Amendment (that’s the bit in the US Constitution that guarantees the right to bear arms).“But for a deep-seated belief in God and firearms, this country would not be here today,” Mr Pagano - who said the event was not a worship service - reportedly declared from the church’s pulpit.

• Meanwhile in South Africa, debate has broken out over whether the vuvuzela, a plastic trumpet that’s often heard in South African soccer crowds, should be allowed at matches. Apparently sounding something like a foghorn, the instrument - which can range up to a metre in length - is considered by some to be part of the local culture.

• It’s the house that tweets. UK inventor Andy Stanford-Clark has reportedly rigged a network of sensors in his house to monitor activity taking place in each room - has a heater been left on too long? - and then notifying him of its findings via a tweet which comes through to his mobile phone.

• When first set it had to be one of the oddest world records. Some 1,253 gathered in Castleblayney, Northern Ireland, last year to set a world record for the greatest gathering of people dressed as smurfs. And now it’s been broken. Some 2,510 gathered in Swansea, Wales, to break the record earlier this month. The challenge is out there…

• Escaped pets or Loch Ness mystery? A French village is reportedly on watch for crocodiles after several were reported as being seen in a local pond. Locals have even gone so far as to leave a chicken at the side of the pond to entice the maneaters. No luck so far.

• It’s a big job. With rising sea levels threatening Britain’s heritage, a consultation paper has reportedly proposed that in exceptional circumstances they could be moved inland - brick by brick if need be. It’s not without precedent - others include a 17th century tower in Dorset which was apparently recently moved 25 metres inland.

• ‘Web 2.0′ became the millionth word of the English language last week, according to website The Global Language Monitor. The website, which has been monitoring words and phrases added to the English language since 2003, announced on 10th June that ‘Web 2.0′ had beaten ‘Jai Ho’ and ‘Slumdog’ (both Indian terms popularised in Slumdog Millionaire) and ‘n00b’ (a mixture of letters and numbers that is a derisive term for a newcomer) to become one million. Word 1,000,001? ‘Financial tsunami’.

• Meanwhile our own PM Kevin Rudd copped a battering last week when he mixed up his strine, using the phrase ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’ instead of the accepted ‘fair suck of the sauce bottle’. It didn’t stop him having another go a few days later, reportedly calling on the media to give him a ‘fair crack of the whip’ and telling them not to ‘come the raw prawn’ with him. While we’re on Australianisms, it seems not everyone’s a big fan of our barracking callsign ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi’. A survey of 2500 people by McCrindle Research found that almost a third felt negative or very negative connotations towards the catchcry. But it’s not all bad news - phrases like ‘true blue’, ‘Down Under’ and those ending in ‘mate’ still resonate with people.

• It’s called ‘host in the post’ and is a new service in which you can receive a pre-consecrated communion wafer through the post (as long as you pay for postage and packing). The Open Episcopal Church is reportedly offering the service for people who can’t get to church or who have drifted away.

• This truly would be a strange sight. Bill Turner, a Dorset racehorse trainer, gave his neighbours something to talk about when he rode his zebra, Zebedee, to the local pub. “The first time I did it a few people outside the pub ran back in thinking their beer was a bit strong,” he told Sky News. The 51-year-old reportedly paid £4,500 to import the zebra from a Dutch game reserve.

• No private jets for the Spanish royals. Queen Sofia has shown that a crown doesn’t stop someone from being frugal in these times of economic hardship - she reportedly recently flew from Spain to London (where she was reportedly visiting her brother, former Greek king, Constantine, who is recovering from heart surgery) aboard a budget Ryanair flight for just £13.

• It’s a wedding venue for the romantic. The Italian city of Verona is allowing weddings to be carried out at the 13th century mansion of the Capello family, believed to be the same as the Capulet family in Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet. A local soccer star was reportedly the first to exchange rings on the balcony where Shakespeare had Juliet mooning over her Romeo.