StrangeSights

• 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.

• The dogs recently hit the surf in California for the 7th annual Loews Surf Dog Competition. This year saw more than 50 dogs showing their moves on the waves at Imperial Beach in San Diego - they are judged in a range of categories including small dogs, large dogs and tandems (sounds like a page out of Dr Seuss’ Go Dogs Go!) - as well as the setting of a number of new world records including one for the most dogs ever to ride on one board - 14.

• The Welsh community of Monmouth - famous for being the birthplace of King Henry V - has become the world’s first “Wikipedia town”. The move, dubbed Monmouthpedia, means Wikipedia now hosts more than 700 articles about the town and means visitors can use their phones to scan barcodes at places like historical sites, schools, museums and pubs to bring up relevant articles in a range of languages.

• The word ‘bogan’ has reportedly officially entered the Oxford English Dictionary. The dictionary’s June list of new word entries has apparently included the word which it defines as being Australian and New Zealand colloquial “depreciative term for unfashionable, uncouth, or unsophisticated person, esp. of low social status”.

• Remember when, some time ago, StrangeSights ran a piece about odd theme parks? We may have a new contender with the proposed Napoleonland near Paris in France. While the focus of the proposed park will reportedly very much be about the victories of the former Emperor Napoleon (and built on the site of his last victory at the Battle of Montereau against the Austrians in 1814), a re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo (in which Napoleon lost to the Duke of Wellington) has been mooted as has a water show celebrating the defeat of his fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar (it was won by the British Admiral Lord Nelson, but at the cost of his life). Other proposed attractions include a re-creation of the guillotining of Louis XVI and a ’ski run’ through a battlefield.

• First there was a Lego man in space. Now a model of a space shuttle has flown close to the edge of space in an experiment involving a helium balloon. Built by a Romanian man, Oaida Raul, with the backing of Melbourne venture capitalist Steve Sammartino, the Lego space shuttle, which was superglued together, reportedly took off from Germany after failing to receive clearance to take off in Romania and soared almost 40 kilometres into the sky before returning to earth.

• Around 850 ‘human mattress dominoes’ gathered in New Orleans in the US earlier this month to smash the record for, you guessed it, the largest game of dominoes involving humans falling back onto mattresses. Apparently the previous record of 550 was set in Belgium in 2011. The record aside, another positive outcome was that the mattresses involved had been donated and were destined for charities.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• In a case of life imitating art (or a cartoon, in this case), a team of scientists in the US have replicated the scene in the movie Up in which grumpy old man Carl Fredricksen’s attaches hundreds of helium balloons to his house to lift it into the air. The house reportedly didn’t get blown to South America like Carl’s, it did reach as high as 10,000 feet and set a new record for the largest cluster balloon flight ever attempted while doing so. The experiment was conducted by National Geographic as part of a TV series.

• When you get lemons, make lemonade. That’s what one Christchurch resident has done after a 30 tonne boulder crashed into his house during the earthquake which shook the city last month. Phil Johnson decided to raise some money for the the victims of the earthquake and auctioned off Rocky - for such was the boulder named - online. The sale reportedly raised more than $NZ60,000.

• Ever wondered what it would be like to drive a giant shoe? Your chance may yet come - a footwear maker in China has created an electric car which resembles a giant shoe. The shoe company is planning to make 40 more of the oversize clogs and use them as promotional tools. It’s not the first time we’ve seen a shoe car - a high heeled shoe car made headlines which it appeared in Washington DC back in 2007.

• Bats have “accents” which vary depending on where they live, according to scientists at the Forest Science Centre, part of Industry & Investment NSW. The research, which involved recording 4000 calls from 30 different species, reportedly found that while the same species of bat may live on the north and south coast, they had distinctive dialects.

• Heading for a night out and want to stay in touch but don’t want to carry a phone? Help is at hand. British fashion company CuteCircuit has developed a little black dress - the M-Dress or Mobile Phone Dress - which comes with a built-in mobile phone. The SIM card goes under the label and the phone using gesture recognition software, so that calls are answered when the wearer raises their hand to their ear and hung up when they let their arm drop. The dress will be released next year.

• It’s more than even the greatest sweet tooth could eat. A chocolate bar weighing 4,410 kilograms has reportedly broken the world record for the biggest chocolate bar. Made in Armenia by the Grand Candy Factory using cocoa beans from Ghana, the result was apparently officially recorded for Guinness World Records. Lucky members of the public will be eating it next month.