This blue lobster was caught near the Isle of Man. He is unusual because only one in every two million has is blue. The unusual colouring is caused by a genetic defect that causes the lobster to produce an excessive amount of protein. This particular lobster has been deemed too interesting to eat. The fishermen are now looking for a suitable home for him.

According to this article people in who live in Egham receive a more junk emails than anywhere else in the country. On average people in Egham receive 189 junk emails every day compared to 167 in Alton and 116 in Petersfield. What the article fails to explain is why Egham appears to be the spam capital of Britain. Living in Egham myself, I certainly receive much more than 189 spam emails every day, my total is closer to a thousand.

Collins will drop some little used words from the next edition of its paper dictionary according to this article. The compilers of the dictionary have decided that some words are are rarely used and are rather obscure will need to be dropped from the next edition of the its dictionary in order to make room for modern additions. The list includes 24 words that Collins are proposing should be dropped. There is hope however, if you feel they are wrong. If evidence of their popularity emerges before February some of the words could be saved. Some of the words and their definations are listed below. So if you feel strongly about any of the following words you might want to start using them a little more.

Abstergent Cleansing or scouring
Agrestic Rural; rustic; unpolished; uncouth
Apodeictic Unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration
Caducity Perishableness; senility
Caliginosity Dimness; darkness
Compossible Possible in coexistence with something else
Embrangle To confuse or entangle
Exuviate To shed (a skin or similar outer covering)
Fatidical Prophetic
Fubsy Short and stout; squat
Griseous Streaked or mixed with grey; somewhat grey
Malison A curse
Mansuetude Gentleness or mildness
Muliebrity The condition of being a woman
Niddering Cowardly
Nitid Bright; glistening
Olid Foul-smelling
Oppugnant Combative, antagonistic or contrary
Periapt A charm or amulet
Recrement Waste matter; refuse; dross
Roborant Tending to fortify or increase strength
Skirr A whirring or grating sound, as of the wings of birds in flight
Vaticinate To foretell; prophesy
Vilipend To treat or regard with contempt

This is interesting, its a firm that allows companies to produce pictures of their advertising in space. What the company called JP Aerospace does, is launch a billboard into space that contains the advertisers logo and message and then take pictures of it. They use specially constructed balloons to send the billboard 20 miles into the air. Then they take hundreds of pictures of it and return it to Earth by parachute. The result is something like the picture on the left.

I have mentioned screaming frogs on my blog before when my cats have caught them. For those who are unfamiliar with them, frogs tend to let out a high pitched scream when cornered by a curious cat. Today Oliver caught a frog and brought it back through the cat flap where he decided to deposit it in his food bowl. I'm guessing he was then about to eat his latest victim. What actually happened was I heard the now familiar high pitched scream of a cornered frog and found that I had a very large frog hopping around my dining room with four cats in pursuit. This frog was lucky I got to him whilst he was still alive and he is now safely back in the pond.

According to the Royal Mint there are now around 30 million fake £1 coins in circulation meaning that one in 50 is now counterfeit. The question is, how do spot a fake one? This article should help. It contains this diagram which compares a fake and a real coin. Signs that you have a fake are a poorly defined ribbed edge, the wrong typeface and an indistinct or blurred design.

Maybe I'm missing the point of the whole exercise but David Blaine's latest stunt which involves hanging upside down for 60 hours seems a bit dumb. Apparently he has been warned that the stunt could make him go blind because hanging upside down for long periods of time increases blood pressure in the head. There is also a risk of swelling and cramps to his internal organs. So the question is, why do it?

This is quite interesting. Its an article about a smuggling operation that involved a mile long vodka pipeline. Enterprising criminals were using it to pump vodka out of Russia into Estonia to avoid paying tax. Eleven suspects have been charged after an investigation which took four years. The pipeline was eventually discovered when customs officers in Estonia seized 1,159 litres of vodka which they claim came through it. It is estimated that the man pumped a total of 6,200 litres of vodka through the pipeline in total and avoided paying £46,000 in excise duty.

Regular readers will know by now that I hate spiders, so I read this article with horror. Obviously I know that spiders have lots of babies but the article mentions a tarantula at Longleat wildlife park that successfully hatched 95 babies. My first thought was have any those giant spiders I keep finding in my house left behind any baby ones. Perhaps I am being paranoid.

I watched a documentary last week that looked at what goes into some of the leading brands of wine. The results were rather disturbing. Many leading brands of wine and champagne were found to contain flavourings and additives that are added to disguise the poor flavour of inferior grapes. Wines are also bulked up with water, sugar and hydrochloric acid and often oak chips are adding to give an the impression that the wine has been fermented in oak barrels. The main problem is that because the wine industry does not have any regulations forcing manufacturers to list the ingredients of a particular wine, you can never be entirely sure what is in it. Some examples included traces of fungicides in champagne made by Moet, Veuve Clicquot and Lanson. The well know brand Hardy's adds yeast to its merlot and egg, milk and gelatine to the wine to make it less cloudy. Jacob's Creek uses tartaric and ascorbic acid in its Chardonnay and Blossom Hill also uses tartaric acid, enzymes and tannins to the grape juice. It does make me wonder how the consumer can be sure what is in a bottle of wine when these ingredients are not listed on the label.

I came across this article which suggests horizontal stripes can make you appear thinner. It had previously been thought that vertical stripes gave a slimmer effect but an experiment has now disproved this theory. The University of York Psychology Department asked a group of people to decide which women looked slimmer in 200 pairs of pictures, some of which had horizontal stripes and some vertical. The result was that even though the women were the same size the horizontal stripes made the model appear thinner and further research found that the ones wearing the horizontal stripes were 6% wider. I'm off to buy some stripy clothes.

This two headed turtle has been found at the Water World aquatic farm in eastern China. It arrived in a shipment of babies from a local farm and is now growing faster than all of the other turtles because it can more food with its two heads. The aquatic farm plan to keep the unusual turtle and study him as he grows bigger.

I was reading this article about a cat called Dixie that was reunited with its owners after a surprising nine years. Dixie went missing nine years ago and her owners assumed that she was dead. She was later found by the RSPCA less than half a mile from home on the 24th of August. Because Dixie had been fitted with a microchip she was returned to her owners within half an hour of being found. No one except Dixie knows where she has been for the last nine years but she appears happy to be home. I have microchipped all of my furry friends and will continue to do so with any further additions to our family. At a one off cost of only £20 it gives the peace of mind that if they ever get lost there is a good chance they will be found and returned to us.

For those who have always wanted to become a Jedi (lets face it, we all want to) you might want to check out this new course offered by Queen's University Belfast. The course starts in November and the organisers are hoping to attract Star Wars fans and introduce them to open learning. The course in entitled Feel the Force: How to Train in the Jedi Way and teaches the "real-life psychological techniques behind Jedi mind tricks". No prior qualifications are needed for the course but unfortunately it does not appear to include light sabre training. The course lasts one day and costs £23. It all sounded great until I read the part about no light sabres.

I read this article today about a firefighter who revived a cat by giving it mouth to mouth resuscitation. He has rescued the moggy from a burning apartment in Massachusetts but finding that it needed air he performed mouth to mouth on it as he carried it outside. The cat soon revived and recovered soon after. Asked what it tasted like to give mouth-to-mouth to a cat, the firefighter laughed, grimaced and said: "Like fur." I'm not sure I would fancy doing this, my cats always smell of fish.

A fisherman in Birmingham got a surprise when he caught a snapping turtle. He was fishing for carp in Earlswood Lake and thought he had just caught a big one. It turned out to be a rather vicious snapping turtle. The turtle ripped through two nets whilst the fishermen were trying to remove the hook from its mouth. They managed to get this picture of it before releasing in back into the lake. Experts later identified the creature as an alligator snapping turtle which is native to the US. It is thought this particular turtle was imported as a hatching and either escaped or was dumped in the lake.

This article highlights what it claims are the ten best umbrellas. If not entirely convinced by the recommendations. The first umbrella mentioned (pictured left) costs a rather expensive £115 and has a crafted marble handle, now you wouldn't want to leave that on the train. Some of the others are just simply basic umbrellas. The article does however feature the Senz gale proof umbrella. As an owner of a pocket sized version of this umbrella I do find it quite good as its designed to move with the wind rather than blowing inside out, so its quite practical. Small enough to be portable but quite able to stand up to gale force winds, not bad at a quarter of the price.

A delivery of beer meant for the Windsor Castle pub in Maidenhead ended up instead at Windsor Castle. The Royal staff had no record on the delivery which contained 12 barrels of larger. The mistake was resolved after a police officer made a call to the pub to see if they were expecting a delivery and the beer finally arrived at it correct destination 3 hours late. A Windsor Castle spokesman said: "It was very funny. But there's no way the Queen sits down in the evening with a pint."

A cream has recently gone on sale at Selfridges that mimics the venom of an Asian snake. The anti wrinkle cream stuns the skin in a similar way to a snake bite and in doing so helps to keep the face smooth. It is supposed to give results similar to what you would expect if you had Botox. At £60 a pot its not cheap but it appears to be selling well at a rate of 50 pots a day. I wonder if it works.

A man from Fond du Lac claims to have eaten 23,000 Big Macs since 1972. He usually eats two Big Macs a day and has saved all of his burger receipts. Despite his unusual diet Don Gorske says he is in good shape and claims to weigh 185 pounds. He also used to order fries with his burgers but cut back during the 90's and now just sticks to the Big Macs. During the last 36 years there have only be eight days in which he has not eaten his daily Big Macs, one of which was when his mother died. The other times were down to emergencies at work and not being able to fins a McDonald's whilst he was travelling. As a precaution he keeps a stock of frozen Big Macs in case of emergencies.

This giant ice penis was photographed by a man called Andy Rouse in Antarctica. The article that accompanies the picture gives assurances that it is a genuine picture rather than a photoshopped job. What do you think, giant ice penis or clever Photoshop work?

A dog which has been nicknamed Scooby is thought to be the first animal witness to appear in a murder trial. The animal is believed to have been present when his owner died. She was found hanging from the ceiling of her Paris flat and although police believed the death to be suicide Scooby was called on as a witness. He was led into the witness box and asked to identify a subject. Scooby "barked furiously" in response. The aim was to decide if there is enough evidence to launch a full murder investigation.

A herd of wrongly imprisoned goats have been released from a Congolese prison. The goats were found during a routine prison inspection. They had been imprisoned for being illegally sold on the roadside and were awaiting trial. Deputy Justice Minister Claude Nyamugabo who found the goats said the mistake had arisen because police office had gaps in their knowledge of the law and that they would be sent for retraining.

A worried dog owner took his pet to the vet after he a heard a rattling noise from the dog. It later emerged that Oscar the Labrador had a total of 13 golf balls inside this stomach. He has apparently been eating the balls when he went for walks near a golf course and has swallowed them over a period of several months. Oscar now wears a muzzle when he goes for walks to prevent him eating more balls.

With all the stories in the news about identity theft I am very careful about sorting and shredding all my mail. I tend to shred anything that has my address on it and put everything else in the recycling bin. What I do find particularly irritating is junk mail from credit card companies. I get at least 1 credit card application every day and they will insist on filling in the name and address details on the application form. We still receive these application forms for previous occupants of our house even though we have lived here for 5 years. It seems to me the credit card companies are making it rather easy for people to submit fraudulent application forms. I wonder if there is a way to stop this rather annoying deluge of junk that regularly arrives through my letter box.

I hate spiders so have had a rather nervous couple of days. It appears that as the weather has got a bit colder all the spiders in the local area have decided to move into my house. Whilst that may be a slight exaggeration we have certainly found a lot of spiders this week. It started two days ago when I was sitting watching the TV. My husband (with none of the sense of urgency needed where spiders are involved) said "move your foot". Looking down I saw the most enormous spider about to crawl over my foot. Naturally this led to much screaming whilst my husband moved all the furniture trying to locate the spider which I guess must have been scared off by the noise. Later that night I got ready for bed and was fast asleep when I was awoken by my husband pottering around the bedroom for no apparent reason. Thinking nothing of it, I quickly fell asleep again. The next day my husband informed me that he had "found another one of those giant spiders on the wall above your head" and that "he didn't want to wake the neighbours" so had removed it discretely. Whilst he was probably right not to mention it at 1am ever since then I keep thinking there are spiders crawling on me. I'm probably just being paranoid as I have found no more giant spiders, only smaller ones which to me are just as bad. I just hate spiders.

For the last few weeks the majority of the spam I have received has been Paris Hilton or Brittany Spears related so has been fairly easy to filter to my junk mail folder. I have noticed over the last couple of days a new spam trend. The email generally follows the format below and has a zip file attached to it. It tries to convince the recipient that malicious programs are being sent from their email address and threatens legal action if the matter is not resolved. I'm not sure what's in the zip file but I am guessing it is one of those malicious programs mentioned in the email.

-------------------------------

To Whom It May Concern:

I am tired of receiving messages containing malicious computer programs (viruses) from your e-mail address!!!

If within 1-2 days you do not stop sending messages to my e-mail address, I will have to address this issue to the Police!...

Today I received a hard copy of your data logs from my Internet service provider. The copy contains your IP address, logs of sending malicious programs and your e-mail address details...

I am sending you the copy of the document containing your data and logs of sending malicious programs as the proof of your fault!!!!!!

You must print the document containing the list of your data and logs of sending malicious programs and pass it on to your Internet service provider with, so that they could find out why the viruses are sent from your computer to my e-mail address!!!!

Ask your Internet service provider to resolve this problem!!!!

Do this now!!!

Once again!!! If you don?t stop sending the letters, I will address to the Police and file a lawsuit against you!!!

This is interesting, its a contraption that could make Yves Rossy the first man in history to cross the Channel as a human jet. That's if it works. If it fails then he could end up swimming in the Channel. The device is powered by four small engines from a model aircraft and the wings are made of carbon fibre which is strapped to his back. The flight is planned for around the 24th of September depending on weather conditions.  I wonder whether he will make it.

I had to laugh when I cam across this quote from Russell Brand who is currently in the US. Whilst hosting the MTV awards he instantly made himself the most unpopular man in the country with the following:

"Some people, I think they're called racists, say America is not ready for a black president.

"But I know America to be a forward thinking country because otherwise why would you have let that retard and cowboy fella be president for eight years?

"We were very impressed. We thought it was nice of you to let him have a go, because, in England, he wouldn't be trusted with a pair of scissors."

What a great quote.

I am being to think that I might suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) because the last few days I have felt very run down and depressed with little energy to do anything. The constant rain means that even with the lights on in the house it still seems dark and dingy. Its easy to take the sunlight for granted but when you don't see any for a couple of days its amazing the negative effect it can have on your mood. Its also been too wet to go running which puts me in a bad mood. Its days like this you just want to eat a big bar of chocolate, bring on the sunshine.

Three polar bears at a Japanese zoo have been dyed green after swimming in water contaminated with algae. The bears have been attracting rather a lot of attention from visitors due to their unusual colour but are expected to go back to normal once the algae growth subsides in November.

I came across this article about a man who has had surgery to make himself look like a cat. Dennis Avner has had his lip spilt and has undergone surgery to change his face to try and look more like a tiger. He also files his teeth to give himself a more cat like appearance and has piercings on his cheeks that he can attach whiskers to. I'm not really sure why someone would want to do this.

I was running a bit low on wine so decided to do an order from Majestic. I haven't ordered from them in a little while mainly because I have had plenty of wine from my various wine clubs. I had actually forgotten what a great service Majestic provide. Within 30 minutes of placing my order on the website a lady called me from my local Majestic outlet in Sunningdale to find out when I wanted my order delivered. They were able to deliver between 6 and 8 that same evening. The fact that they can offer evening delivery is unusual in itself but means you can have the order delivered to suit you rather than during business hours as with most companies. At around 6.05 my order arrived. Great service and so far really good wine.

When you find a nice pair of trousers it is often hard to get rid of them even when they are no longer in fashion. Prince Philip sent a pair of his trousers to his tailor to be unpicked and restyled into a more up to date style. Either the credit crunch is starting to hit the Royal family or he simply wanted to hang onto his favourite pair of trousers for a little longer. The trousers will be converted from a baggy style that was popular in the fifties to a more trendy straight legged cut. His tailor also commented "One of the most remarkable things is how he has managed to maintain his waist size when most of us have seen it expand."

If you have a lot of spare cash lying around burning a hole in your pocket then you might want to splash out of some co-coordinated dog accessories. A Cheshire based company has launched a range of dog collars and matching belts. They cost around £10,000 for a collar and lead which is studded with real jewels and garnished with gold but you can also get a matching belt for yourself. The products are made by the Gladstone Collar company and are being billed as the present for the dog owner who has everything.