StrangeSights

• We’ve only just become used to the idea of posting pictures of yourself lying down online, but now there’s another craze that’s grabbing worldwide attention - bed jumping. The idea is get airborne over a bed - presumably by jumping on it - and then making sure a snap is taken which can be posted on the web, in particular on a blog hosted on the hotelsbycity.net site. Poses range from everything from the classic ‘Superman’ to an array of ‘levitation’ style poses.

• The Campbells - Sir Malcolm and his son Donald - are known around the world for breaking land and water speed records while piloting a series of increasingly sleek machines. Now Sir Malcolm’s grandson, Don Wales, is reportedly hoping to join them in the record books - by setting a new speed record for riding on a lawnmower. Mr Wales, who already holds a number of speed records for electric and steam cars, hopes to shatter the current record of 80mph by travelling at more than 100mph.

• The Global Language Monitor has announced that ‘Twitter’ is the ‘top word’ for 2009. Others among the top 15 include Obama, H1N1 (that’s Swine Flu to most of us), stimulus and vampire. The top phrases included ‘King of Pop’ (aka Michael Jackson), Obama-mania, and climate change.

Elsewhere,

• Some embarassment, no doubt, in Italy when a police ’supercar’ - a $US200,000 Lamborghini donated to them by the manufacturer to help in high speed chases - reportedly crashed into a line of parked cars;

• It was called the ‘world’s worst photofit’ but a very plain sketch of a man accused of murder reportedly resulted in two suspects being arrested.