StrangeSights

• The Anglican church of St Hilda’s in Ellerburn, North Yorkshire, has been running Sunday services for more than 1,000 years. Until, that is, the bats drove them…well…batty. An infestation of hundreds of bats has led to the suspension of services for the first time in the church’s history with the unwanted inhabitants reportedly covering the altar with guano, annoying worshippers and filling the church with a disgusting smell. The congregation have spent thousands in creating a new home for the bats in nearby woodland but the protected species just keeps on coming back. They are now seeking permission to have the bats removed for good.

• Over planking already? Now comes the next weird fab from the world of social networking - owling. While planking involves getting a photo of yourself lying horizontal on all manner of objects and in all sort of places, owling takes the same concept but simply replaces the lying down with assuming a crouched position, like an owl on a perch. The mind boggles at what comes next.

• Just how high is Mt Everest? The answer is that no-one knows, not exactly anyway (or rather several groups claim to know but none of their measurements has the acceptance of everyone). In 1856, the mountain was found to be 8,840 metres high. Surveys since have come in with different heights - Indian surveyors put the height at 8848 in 1957 while in 1999 a US expedition found it to be 8,850 metres high with an ice-cap of another metre and in 2005, a survey by China in 2005 put it at 8,844.43 metres tall (plus an extra 3.55 metre high ice-cap). In the hope of settling what is at times a controversial debate, Nepalese authorities have reportedly launched a two year survey to measure the peak and ascertain its height for themselves. We wait to see who’s proved right.

• 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.

• The South Pacific island nation of Samoa is reportedly jumping ahead a day in a bid to facilitate better business with neighbours Australia and New Zealand. The country intends jumping the International Date Line, from the east side, where it currently lies, to the west side on 29th December. This will see the country go from being 21 hours behind Sydney to three hours ahead. The move isn’t unprecedented - in 1892 Samoa jumped the dateline to the eastern side in an effort to help business links with the US and Europe.

• The Home Alone house has reportedly gone on the market in the US with an asking price of $US2.4 million. The red brick house in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka was seen in both the 1990 film and its sequel, Home Alone 2. The couple who are selling the house bought it just 18 months before it was spotted by the film’s director John Hughes.

• It took seven years to build and reportedly cost $4.8 million. The world’s largest model airport recently went on display in Germany. The model, based on Hamburg Airport, includes moving vehicles and plans that fly with the use of wires along with 15,000 figurines, 10,000 trees and 500 cars.

• Roman Catholic Capuchin monks in Switzerland have taken to advertising in the newspaper’s classifieds section to recruit new monks. An advertisement reportedly appeared in the banking and insurance’s classifieds of a recent Saturday edition of the Alpha newspaper, asking for “bankers, journalists, teachers, theologians, tradesmen, lawyers and communication experts” aged between 22 and 35 to consider signing up. While the ad makes it clear there’s no pay for the job, it says the monks do offer “spirituality and prayer, contemplation (and) an egalitarian lifestyle” as well as freedom from personal material riches. The Franciscan order in the country currently boast only 200 monks and the average age is apparently 70.

• Caution: this article could contain a spoiler. News this week that David Prowse, who played Darth Vader in the ‘original’Star Wars movies, let slip the secret that Darth was Luke Skywalker’s father two years before the Empire Strikes Back came out during an autograph session with fans. But, as was the case in the days before social networking, no-one seemed to pay much attention - even a newspaper report of the autograph session didn’t pick up on the revelation, saying only that Prowse in his comments - “Father can’t kill son, son can’t kill father” - “offered a glimpse of a possible plot for the second sequel”. Ah, for the good old days.

• Paying $1 a week to rent a farmhouse isn’t a lot these days. That’s what the New South Wales community of Trundle, about 50 kilometres north-west of Parkes, are offering in a bid to attract new families to the district and save the local schools. Applications for the positions close on 12th December, 2010. Five farmhouses are available to rent straight away but, be warned, they do require some work.

• We’ve already heard of island archipelagos designed to resemble palm trees or maps of the world. So why not a city shaped like a rhino in Africa? That’s the design planners in southern Sudan have reportedly come up with for their capital, the city of Juba, while a second city, Wau, is to be designed around the shape of a giraffe.

• We love words on StrangeSights, so we’re bringing you a couple of word-related stories. First up, comes the new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English complete with freshly added words. The latest group (what to call a group of words - a paragraph?) include the ‘vuvuzela’, that annoying horn from South Africa, ‘cheeseball’ (something lacking taste, style or originality), ’staycation’ (a holiday at home), and the probably overdue term ‘climate change’. Meanwhile, staff at the Oxford English Dictionary have revealed some of the ‘words’ which never made it onto the hallowed pages. These reportedly include ‘wurfing’ (surfing the internet at work), ‘polkadodge’ (that awkward dance we have when trying to go around someone in the street), and ‘nonversation’ (a pointless chat).

• OK, it’s a little overdue but still worth mentioning. Seen on a sign outside a church in Wimbledon during the tennis championships this year: ‘What’s Jesus’ favorite score in tennis? Love all’. Have you come across any clever signs outside churches (or anywhere else for that matter?) Why not let us know?