SIDELINES...

SMALL FRY TARGETED

In a bid to disrupt international travel across the Western world, hackers claiming to be based in Tunisia and the Ivory coast replaced TravelWest’s website with a sinister black page in the style of Da’ish (ISIL), Arabic music, and the message: “Hacked By darkshadow / Arab Security Team / Muslum [sic] Hackers”. The Western world withstood the onslaught as the website was merely a journey-planner for people in the Bristol area. D.Telegraph, D.Mirror, 3 Jan 2015.

YULETIDE LUNATIC

On 17 December, a man approached a woman outside her house in Street, Somerset, waving what appeared to be a long-barrelled weapon and a rubber chicken. He pointed the weapon at her and said he was going to eat her alive. She ran inside and he started banging on the front door and broke a window. He failed to get in and fled before police arrived. Sun, 19 Dec 2014.

DIVINE IGNORANCE

Fewer than half of 3,412 adults surveyed in the US by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life could identify Buddhism as the Dalai Lama’s religion. Astonishingly, almost half of Catholics didn’t know that their own church taught that the bread and wine in Communion actually became the body and blood of Christ; while a majority of Protestants could not name Luther as the main driving force of the Reformation. D.Telegraph, 28 Sept 2010.

MELODY MALADY

For years, Susan Root, 65, from Coggeshall, Essex, was plagued by hearing “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?” in her head [ FT300:24]; she has finally shaken off that earworm – but now has “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” jammed on repeat in her internal hi-fi instead. “I also hear ‘Happy Birthday’ now and again, and ‘Auld Lang Syne’,” said Ms Root, who suffers from a severe form of tinnitus. Metro, 8 Oct 2014.