StrangeSights

• Insects already form part of the diet of an estimated two billion people but they may well be on even more menus in the future as experts look to alternative means of feeding people. The Food and Agriculture Organisation says that insects (and there are about a million known species) could provide a “readily available source of nutritious and protein-rich food”. To whet your appetite, the most consumed insects at present include beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps and ants, and grasshoppers, locusts and crickets. But there are many issues that need to be dealt with first - including legal hurdles against eating insects in many countries. For more, see www.fao.org.

• A Canadian astronaut has created the first music video recorded in space, singing the David Bowie song, Space Oddity, while free floating inside the International Space Station. Chris Hadfield made the video, which has gone viral, a few days before he returned to earth after his six month stint in space. The astronaut did alter some of Bowie’s lyrics to better suit his circumstances.

• A Zimbabwean man surprised mourners when he reportedly came back to life. One of those at his funeral noticed one of the man’s legs twitching and called an ambulance. The man, who had suffered from long illness before his funeral, has no recollection of the event.

• A four-year-old boy has reportedly been elected mayor of a town in Minnesota in the US. Dorset’s mayor is apparently chosen through the process of drawing a name out of a hat and this year it was Mayor Robert ‘Bobbie’ Tufts turn. The good news is that Mayor Tufts apparently does like talking to the townspeople.

• Ahhh, that satisfying feeling of popping bubble-wrap. Students at a US high school reportedly took it to the extreme recently when they broke the world record for the largest amount of bubble-wrap popped in two minutes. More than 350 students took part in the attempt (part of Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, of course), popping as much as 8,000 square feet of bubble-wrap.

• A tortoise has survived for 30 years after it was accidentally locked in a storeroom. The tortoise, Manuela, reportedly went missing from her home in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1982, and search efforts proved fruitless. Until, that is, a clean-up of the house following the death of its owner, resulted in the storeroom being unlocked and Manuela being found still alive inside a box.

• A US brewer has come up with a new beverage for pooches - a non-alcoholic beer. Dawg Grog, as it’s named, is reportedly the work of Daniel Keeton who, as well as working as a taster in a brewery in Oregon, also makes his own home brew. The first batch of the beer - made from ‘wort’ left over in the process of brewing alcoholic beer - went on sale in the middle of last year.

• Think you look like Superman? Or perhaps it’s Batman that you reckon you resemble? Whichever you choose, it’s now possible to create an action figure of your favorite superhero complete with your face. Online firm Firebox say they just require you to send through two photos of your face - one from the front and one from the side. They will then use these to create a custom made head bearing your face which can be put on top of your favorite action figure character - everyone from the Joker to Catwoman. The figures could make a great conversation piece - after all they all come with a supplied plinth upon which to stand, and, where they will “remind you (and others), who you really are”. You can see a picture on Sight’s Pinterest page here…

• Can’t decide between a pizza and a cheeseburger? Why not have both. Pizza Hut’s Middle Eastern stores have reportedly released a new pizza which features 12 mini cheeseburgers placed on top. There are apparently no plans to introduce the Crown Crust Pizza to the US as yet. You can see a picture of the pizza on Sight’s Pinterest page here…

• It’s all a bit exciting - well, for these towns anyway. The Scottish town of Dull recently reportedly announced that it was seeking to become a twin town to the US town of Boring. The twinning, which apparently becomes official on 5th May, was the brainchild of a Scot who cycled through the town of Boring - which was named after its founding family.

• Ever wanted to live like a hamster? A hotel in France has been designed to allow humans to try out life as a hamster. Villa Hamster, located in a modernised 18th century building, reportedly features cages for rooms, haystacks in place of beds and human-sized running wheels. Guests are served organic “hamster grains” and water and have the option of wearing hamster hoodies as well. The hotel in Nantes has apparently been open for three years.

• Riding the elevator may never be the same again. UK biscuit maker McVities’ Jaffa Cakes has created a lift with lickable walls in a London building. It reportedly took food technicians and artists a month to stick more than 1,300 Jaffa Cake-flavoured stickers to the walls. The stickers are apparently removed once licked.

• A new cable channel has been launched in the US aimed solely at dogs. The on-demand channel DOGTV was originally launched in California with the aim of helping stay at home dogs stay out of trouble while their owners are at work. The content is specifically tailored for dogs with sound, colors and camera angles all apparently adjusted accordingly. And the stars of the shows are, of course, dogs. See http://dogtv.com.

• A woman in England is offering people the chance to sleep in a stable - complete with ‘optional’ donkey - to experience the “true meaning” of Christmas. Fiona Turton, who lives in Sussex, has reportedly fitted out the stable with a double straw bed, manger and tea making facilities. Shepherd costumes are available for an extra charge. “By providing guests with an authentic nativity experience, I hope they can rediscover the true meaning of Christmas and all money goes to a great cause,” Ms Turton told the BBC.

• The world’s tallest Lego Christmas tree was unveiled in London last month. Standing 12.2 metres high, the tree at St Pancras Station in the city’s north features 600,000 bricks and took two months to build. It’s 172 branches are decorated with 1,000 baubles which are also made of Lego.

• Eighty chefs in Shanghai have created the world’s longest yule log - and it measures more than a kilometre. The 1,068 metre long cake was more than five times longer than the previous record-holder and reportedly contained more than 1,000 kilograms of flour, 904 eggs, 209 kilograms of sugar, 401 kilograms of chocolate and 34 kilograms of vanilla. It was unveiled at the city’s Pudong Shangri-La Hotel.

• There was no trouble finding Wally in Dublin, Ireland, this week. More than 3,500 people (3,657 to be exact) reportedly turned out in Merrion Square on Saturday dressed up in the stripey shirt and hat typically worn by Wally, the key character from the Where’s Wally? books. The event was aimed at setting a new Guinness World Record for having the most Where’s Wally’s in the one place. Known as Waldo in the US, the character was created by British illustrator Martin Handford and the first book was published in 1987.

• The world’s largest sculpted human form is being created in the north of England. Artist Charles Jencks has designed the figure, named Northumberlandia, which will be 400 metres long and up to 34 metres high and use 1.5 million tonnes of soil and clay taken from a nearby mine. He has been commissioned by the mine operators and the landowners to create the landform which will sit within a 14.5 hectare public park near the town of Cramlington in south-east Northumberland.

• It’s certainly irritating when you order takeaway only to find that when your orders arrives it’s wrong. But calling the police is probably going a step too far. That’s what reportedly happened in the US city of Savannah, Georgia, when an apparently irate woman dialed 911 after a Chinese restaurant mucked her order up and requested police force the business owners to give her a refund. Police were, understandly, not amused.

• A Spanish village has been painted blue for the premiere of the new Smurfs movie. Homes, shops and even a church have reportedly been daubed in the color in the village of Juzcar in southern Spain - selected by Sony as the site for the film’s world premiere. Locals are hoping for a tourist boom but how long the color remains on the buildings at this stage is unknown.

• Cicada icecream is now off the menu. A shop in Missouri in the US starting selling icecream containing cicadas recently (they were dewinged and boiled before being coated in brown sugar and chocolate) but has reportedly now decided to pull them off the menu after concerns were raised about their inclusion by health authorities. No apparent concerns among consumers, however - the first vats of the icecream had apparently sold out in just a few hours.

• Conspiracy or simple mistake? The Australian Department of Defence have reportedly admitted that its files on UFO sightings - dubbed the X-Files, after the TV series - have been largely lost or destroyed. The admission came after the Sydney Morning Herald lodged an freedom of information request with the department. The defence force no longer takes reports of UFOs. Conspiracy theorists enjoy!

• It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for animal spotting. First there was the pony which reportedly tried to board a train in Wrexham, North Wales, having first accompanied it’s owner as he bought a ticket and then caught an elevator (and having previously visited a hospital accident and emergency). Now comes the cat that likes to ride on its owner’s head. One New Yorker, dubbed the Cat Man of Manhattan, has reportedly been spotted several times walking around the city with his black and white cat sitting on his head (search You Tube to have a look). Not a bad way to travel, for the cat anyway.

• It’s taken three months of work and involved using extremely sophisticated equipment but yes, we now know that the sub-atomic particles known as electrons are not just round but almost perfectly so. In findings published in Nature, scientists in London have reported that electrons are a perfect sphere give or take less than one part in a million billion. So now you know.

• American Don Gorske recently celebrated a big milestone in his life. He ate his 25,000th Big Mac. Mr Gorske, you see, has been eating Big Macs since 1972 and in all that time, there’s only been eight days when he hasn’t partaken of the McDonalds’ burger. That means 400,000 mouthfuls (he estimates each one takes 16 bites). “I really do enjoy every Big Mac,” Mr Gorske reportedly said before chomping into number 25,000 in his home town of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.