THE QUEEN'S SPEECH 2012

For the first time, the Queen's message will be broadcast in 3D - a technological advance the Queen was happy to embrace.

GANGNAM STYLE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

After becoming the most watched youtube video ever and after hundreds of spin-offsand parodies, ‘Gangnam style’ is  now inspiring amazing Christmas light displays.  A house in Perth, Australia, has been decorated with 41,000 bulbs which flash in time to the famous tune.  It is part of a project to raisemoney for the local community.  A video of the display has had over 60,000 views on you tube.  Its creator says that the neighbours love it and that it only adds 10$ per week to his electricitybill.

SONG:JINGLE BELLS WITH LYRICS

Believe it or not Jingle Bells, one of the most famous American Christmas songs, was originally written for Thanksgiving! The author and composer of Jingle Bells was a minister called James Pierpoint who composed the song in 1857 for children celebrating his Boston Sunday School Thanksgiving. The song was so popular that it was repeated at Christmas, and indeed Jingle Bells has been reprised ever since. The essence of a traditional Christmas is captured in the lyrics of Jingle Bells and the sound effects using the bells have become synonymous with the arrival of Father Christmas or Santa Claus to the delight of children of all ages!

POPE BENEDICT XVI JOINS TWITTER

Pope Benedict XVI has launched an official Twitter account with the handle @pontifex. But he won't tweet before Wednesday, Dec. 12, according to the Vatican.

The move was announced in November, when a Vatican official said the Pope (or, more precisely, whoever handles his Twitter account) would be tweeting fairly infrequently, with his tweets "not veering far from his texts."

The Pope's account currently doesn't have any tweets. It follows 7 other accounts, which are all versions of the same account in different languages: German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Italian, French and Arabic.

The new account is not the Pope's first encounter with Twitter; last year, he sent a tweet from the Vatican's official account, coinciding with a new Vatican information site, news.va.