StrangeSights

• A German travel agency is reportedly selling tickets for an comet fly-past. Bonn-based Eclipse Travel has joined with charter agency Air Partner and airline Air Berlin to offer 88 people the chance to be among those on a two hour flight aimed at giving them a relatively close-up view of comet Pan-STARRS as it passes within 100 million miles of Earth on 16th March. The plane will zig-zag at a height of 11,000 metres where the atmosphere is clearer and cleaner (and hopefully above the clouds).

• Could your grass do with a coat of paint? Pictures have reportedly emerged from the town of Chengdu in China’s south-west showing local government workers spray-painting some grass green with a chemical solution called the ‘Top Green Turf Greening Agent’. The dye - which is apparently non-toxic - has also been used in a range of other localities including golf courses.

• If you see a Yeti while in the Himalayas, you may capture or film them but do not shoot them (unless you need to in self-defence). Such was the advice issued by the US Embassy in Nepal in 1959. A memo released by the National Archives in the US late last year detailed a series of three regulations for would-be Yeti hunters to abide by. They include the amount needed to be paid to the Government of Nepal for a permit to hunt the Yeti (5000 rupees); that the Yeti should not be shot at; and, that any news and reports which may “throw light” on the existence of the creature should be surrendered to the Nepalese Government.

• Scientists have reportedly said they are 95 per cent sure that the mythical snow-monster, the yeti, is living in Siberia in Russia. A recent two day expedition in the region found “irrefutable evidence” of the existence of the yeti, it was claimed by the Kemerovo government which oversees the region. This included footprints and hairs. The conference had attracted scientists and enthusiasts from as far afield as Canada and the US, Sweden and Estonia. The yeti, also known as the abominable snowman and sasquatch, are also said to exist in the Himalayas and in North America.

• Don’t worry about trying to get the ball back. News has swept around the world of a golf course in Brisbane which has a rather unusual hazard - half a dozen bull sharks in the course’s 21 hectare lake. The shark’s, then juveniles, reportedly moved into the lake at the Carbrook Golf Course when the nearby Logan River flooded in the 1990s. The golfers are apparently unfazed - the club now hosts a monthly competition called the Shark Lake Challenge.

• Getting the silent treatment for your local traffic director? It could be because, like in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, they’ve reportedly employed 120 professional mimes to take on the job. Wearing clown outfits, the mimes were charged with reprimanding bad drivers in a bid to encourage politeness on the road. And they’re apparently not alone with mimes being put to good use in controlling traffic and pedestrians in Brazil and Colombia.