StrangeSights

• Now that’s hot! The Indian army believes it’s found the world’s hottest chilli pepper - the bhut jolokia, which is reportedly said to be 100 times hotter than a jalapeno and 200 times hotter than tabasco sauce. They’re apparently harnessing all that heat to create ‘chilli stun grenades’ which they intend using in the fight against terrorism. Reports suggest the chilli packs has a rating on the Scoville scale of more than a million compared to 10,000 for a jalapeno chilli.

• Ireland has a new national museum for leprechauns. The new museum, which opened in Dublin earlier this month, is apparently aimed at changing the way people view leprechauns, moving them away from the familiar kitsch images of little green men smoking pipes and wearing green. But don’t expect to find a leprechaun at the museum (although apparently there is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow) - according to reports the exhibitions actually consist of sculptures based around some of the themes commonly represented in leprechaun mythology.

• It’s a title to be proud of. The dung beetle species known as Onthophagus taurus has reportedly been named the world’s strongest insect after scientists found it can pull a load of 1,141 times its body weight. It apparently needs all this strength to fend off rivals when looking for a mate, using it to push them out of tunnels.

• The @ symbol has come of age with news the Museum of Modern Art in New York has inducted it into its Department of Architecture and Design (along with the likes of the Volkswagen Beetle and the Bic Pen). The symbol apparently has a long list of nicknames - from the ‘monkey’s tail’ to the ’snail’ and even the ’strudel’.

• It sounds like an ideal job. A UK-based company has reportedly advertised a position for someone to eat - and more than they usually would. Proactol Ltd, which makes a weight loss product, says the successful candidate will be paid £23,000 a year to eat 16 per cent more calories a week than they usually do while introducing its weight loss product in their diet at the same time. “The ideal candidate should not already be on a diet but eat a healthy balance of carbohydrates, fats and proteins and be prepared to increase their existing calorie intake by 16 per cent a week by eating fatty foods such as Chinese takeaways, fish and chips, pizza or McDonald’s,” says the ad. How does someone prepare a resume for that?

• It was an unusual piece of real estate to say the least. A Cold War bunker in Derbyshire, England, has sold for more than £20,000 after it was placed on online auction site eBay. Reportedly built in 1959, the bunker was designed as a post from where fallout from a nuclear bomb could be monitored and was operational until the early Nineties.

• They’re called the ‘Kangatarians’ - a group of people who reportedly normally shun meat but who make an exception for kangaroos given they’re free ranging animals that are killed humanely - with a single shot to the head. University of Sydney academic Peter Ampt - himself an advocate of kangaroo meat - says he’s not sure how many people are in the group but that their numbers are slowly growing.

• Forget old sayings about raining cats and dogs, it’s been quite literally raining fish in the Northern Territory. Fish have reportedly fallen twice from the sky in the town of Lajamanu, located about 550 kilometres southwest of Katherine. Local Christine Balmer told the Northern Territory News that “hundreds and hundreds” of small white fish fell from the sky, adding that she was happy it hadn’t rained crocodiles. The town had apparently been bombarded by fish twice before - back in 2004 and then in 1974. Experts have suggested a tornado may have caused the rather odd phenomena.

• A controversial new phone service has been launched in France for Catholics. The ‘Line of the Lord’ service, which is charged on a per minute basis, has been established for ‘minor sins’ to be confessed with a voice on the hotline warning people that more serious sins should still be confessed to a priest. Callers are not connected to a living person but provided with an “atmosphere of privacy and reflection”. The hotline, which does not have the sanction of the Catholic Church, has angered some officials who say a priest is indispensable to the confessional process.

• Fancy tackling the high seas in a…vegetable? Welsh farmer Medwyn Williams, chairman of the National Vegetable Society in the UK, has announced plans to grow a 725 kilogram pumpkin which he then intends to fit out with a seat and outboard motor before he and his son ’sail’ it to the Isle of Man. It’s all for a good cause - the Williams’ are hoping to raise money for Help for Heroes, a charity aimed at helping British soldiers wounded on duty. The name of the vessel? The HMV Cinderella (HMV as in Her Majesty’s Vegetable).

• Cat stew anyone? Beppe Bigazzi, host of an Italian cooking show, has been suspended for suggesting just that. The segment - in which Bigazzi offered the recipe for ‘casserole of cat’ - apparently sparked scores of complaints from viewers but the chef has reportedly refused to apologise, saying that cat was “a lot better than many other animals”.

• As spelling mistakes go, it was a big one. Some thousands of 50 peso coins were issued in Chile in 2008 - with the name of the country spelt as Chiie. The mistake apparently wasn’t picked up until late last year and the coins have since become collectors’ items. Needless to say, the general manager of the mint has been sacked.

• A new website launched earlier this month which provides updates on when people aren’t at home has sparked concern that it could be used by burglars to target properties. But the Dutch makers of ‘Please Rob Me’ reportedly say the website - which draws on information provided by people on social networking websites - is simply about highlighting the dangers of posting too much information online and came after the launch of a social network application which pinpoints where people are at a given time. “We’re not trying to get people robbed, but helping them not to get robbed,” co-founder Frank Groeneveld was quoted as saying in the UK’s Daily Mail. “We’re just presenting this information in a more obvious way. And that’s our point: Everyone can see this on Twitter.”

• ‘Crabzilla’ has reportedly been unearthed off the coast of Japan. The two-metre Japanese Spider Crab, which is being transported via Britain to Belgium where it will go on display, is two metres long but experts have apparently said the species can grow as large as four metres long.

• It was reportedly billed as the biggest event of its kind - a camel beauty contest. Thousands of the animals were brought to a desert location in the United Arab Emirates at the end of January for the 10 day event which saw camels compete in some 48 different categories. The camels, which can cost well into the thousands of dollars, are apparently bought for their beauty - head size, a shapely hump and leg shape all count - as well as to race or for producing milk.

• An Australian man has recently achieved a new world record for, wait for it, swallowing the most swords. Chayne Hultgren, 31, has beaten his own 2008 record of 17 by swallowing 18 swords at once in a feat performed outside the Sydney Opera House. “I don’t just straight away grab 18 blades and shove them down my throat,” he was quoted as saying. “You’ve got to practice a lot and build up to it.” Quite.

Meanwhile, in case you missed it:

• One in three British children aged between five and 16 reportedly believe their teacher could be an alien. The startling poll of 1,000 children, conducted by 20th Century Fox to mark the DVD release of Aliens In The Attic, also found that two-thirds of the respondants believed in alien life.

• And the UK’s Daily Telegraph recently ran a story about an emerging sport - rabbit jumping. It involves, apparently, egging on rabbits to jump over barriers much as a horse does in a steeplechase.

It’s a New Year and StrangeSights is back to bring you more of the weird and wonderful. Here are some of the stories which have crossed our desk so far in 2010:

• An unusual ceremony in London to see in the New Year earlier this month. A symbolic pile of smart phones were ‘blessed’ in a service at St Lawrence Jewry church in the city’s financial district in what said to be an updated version of the tradition known as Plow Monday, in which villagers would gather to have a symbolic farming implement blessed. Some of the congregation, who included the Lord Mayor of London, held phones up in the air as Rev Canon David Parrott blessed the phones.

• The days when astronauts had to be content to eat out of tubes may be over. Harald Wohlfahrt, a three star Michelin chef, has been appointed to take fine dining into space and the International Space Station has apparently already taken its first delivery. But Mr Wohlfahrt apparently had to be careful not to include sauces which can cause havoc in a weightless environment.

• A Filipino man fishing off the deck of a ship off the coast of Queensland was reportedly stung by a irukandji jellyfish - despite 25 metres above sea level. The tiny jellyfish was apparently contained with sea water when it splashed on his face.

• 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.

• Help out NASA by counting some craters on Mars. The US space organisation and Microsoft have joined to create the ‘Be a Martian’ website which allows websurfers to help in improving maps of the red planet, take part in research tasks and assist studying data. NASA says that counting craters, for example, may help scientists to determine the relative ages of small regions on Mars. “We’re at a point in history where everyone can be an explorer,” says Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA HQ in Washington. “With so much data coming back from Mars missions that are accessible by all, exploring Mars has become a shared human endeavor. People worldwide can expand the specialised efforts of a few hundred Mars mission team members and make authentic contributions of their own.” Sound like fun? Visit http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov.

• “Unfriend” - a word which describes what happens when you remove a person from your Facebook ‘friends’ list - has taken the honors as the New Oxford American Dictionary’s “word of the year“. It beat, among others, ‘intexticated’ (being distracted because you’re texting while driving); ‘funemployed’ (making the most of your unemployed status by pursuing recreational interests); and ‘deleb’ (a dead celebrity). The blog post announcing the news also includes a list of some ‘Obamaisms’ - everything from ‘Obamanomics to Obamalypse’.

• It was a case worthy of Seinfeld’s library detective, Mr Bookman. US high school librarian Georgette Bordine reportedly recently received two overdue books which were originally checked out 50 years ago along with a cheque for $1000 to cover the overdue fees.

• Looking for the “second best job in the world”? In the wake of the hunt for someone to fill the “best job in the world” - as a caretaker on an island in Queensland - the website letsbuyit.com has launched a competition for an “international shopping consultant” whose mission involves travelling to the premier shopping cities of the world - everywhere from Paris to Milan, New York to Tokyo. The job - which involves visiting the cities, finding unique and cheap products and then blogging about it - carries a monthly salary of 5,000 euros as well as a 10,000 euro shopping budget, business class travel and stays in prestigious hotels. Only drawback - the job’s tenure only runs for a month. Apply here if you think you’re up to it!

• A human billboard? American Jason Sadler has found a novel way to make money by selling space on the back of his T-shirt. A former marketing professional, he charges companies the face value of the day - that is, $US1 for 1st January and $US365 for 31st December - to wear their T-shirt on that day. 2009 has sold out - netting him more than $US66,000 - and, at the time of writing only 121 days of 2010 remain. Not a bad way to make what is quite a good living!

In other news:

• A near miss? The UK’s Daily Mail reports that an asteroid passed within 8,700 miles of Earth last Friday (the moon, in contrast, is 250,000 miles away) - but at only 23 feet across, it would have almost completely burned up on entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

• Now that’s perseverance! A Korean woman has reportedly finally passed her driving theory test after 950 attempts. Sixty-eight year old Cha Sa-Soon had been trying since April 2005.

• The UN headquarters in New York has seen some powerful and distinguished figures pass through its doors over the years and the elderly southern American gentleman dressed in the white suit at first glance seemed to be one of them. But after officials took a second look they soon realised that the man in question was actually Colonel Harland Sanders, of KFC fame (or, more accurately, a Colonel Sanders impersonator, for the real Colonel Sanders died in 1980). The impersonator reportedly even managed to pose in a picture with Libyan Ali Treki, the new president of the UN General Assembly, before he was tossed out. It was all apparently part of a new promotional campaign by KFC which has also included the company asking for an official seat at the UN. UN officials were not amused.

• Wallace and Gromit would think it was a cracking invention! A team of designers have come up with an automatic breakfast machine which can do everything from preparing an omelette to spreading butter and jam on toast and grinding coffee beans before making a fresh brew. The machine has reportedly been built in Amsterdam.

• Ever wanted to direct and star in your own version of Star Wars? A website - Star Wars Uncut - offers the chance to do just that - it’s split the entire movie into 15 second clips and is calling on people to film their own version to fill one of the 472 gaps. The film will then be spliced together to create a single homage to George Lucas’ original creation. Better be quick, may of the scenes are already done.

And just before we go,

• Looking for something to buy for the person who’s got everything? Harrods in London have announced they will now be selling bars of gold bullion to customers.

• Who could have predicted that a pitch-black art installation at the Tate Modern in London would lead to someone walking into a wall? Anyway, that’s what reportedly happened at an exhibition earlier this month. The injured man apparently just walked away with some blood on his nose.