Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber said churches across the country should be fitted with Wi-Fi in a bid to make them a more integral part of the community.
Lloyd Webber, who sits as a Conservative member in the House of Lords, indicated that discussions over installing internet for the general public at churches have already taken place with the Government.
He told the Mail on Sunday magazine Event: “I want to get every church in the country on Wi-Fi. Once you do that, the church becomes the centre of the community again. They should go back to the medieval traditions, which is that the nave of the church is always used for local businesses.”
Year in space for two astronauts
Like characters in a sci-fi movie, two astronauts will soon learn what it is like to spend a year orbiting Earth on board the International Space Station (ISS).
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft will carry Scott Kelly, of the US space agency Nasa, and Michael Komienko, from the Russian space agency Roscosmos, to the ISS in March.
The aim is to see how the human body will bear up on future voyages to a distant asteroid or Mars, which might last several months but, unlike the residents of many fictional space stations, the two volunteers will not enjoy the benefits of artificial gravity as extended periods spent in microgravity are known to cause increased bone and muscle loss, reduced heart and artery function and impaired sensory motor performance.
Falklands new tourist attraction
As Britain marks momentous events 100 years on from the First World War, UK tourists are being invited to visit battlefields from a more-recent conflict.
The Falklands Islands Tourist Board is expecting a rise in the number of British visitors in 2015 with tourists able to learn more about the 1982 Falklands War with Argentina.
Trips will include tours of the battlefields of Goose Green and Mount Tumbledown while a recently-opened museum at Port Stanley features an exhibition recalling the 1982 conflict in the South Atlantic.
Sopranos club is raided again
The New Jersey strip club that was the real-life stand-in for the Bada Bing on TV’s The Sopranos has been hit by criminals for a second time.
Satin Dolls in Lodi was robbed by two armed men a few days before Christmas, costing the club about 30,000 dollars (£19,600), and now it has again been targeted, this time by would-be thieves.
The raiders smashed the club’s glass front door and prised open the office door to reach a safe, but did not take anything. The Bada Bing was seen frequently on The Sopranos, which ran on HBO from 1999 to 2007.
US town nails its bicentennial
A Pennsylvania town nailed its New Year’s Eve and bicentennial celebrations by dropping some major hardware to mark the occasion.
West Fairview dropped a 7ft nail as the clock ticked down at midnight. Local artists constructed the 50lb nail out of wood in homage to the defunct Harrisburg Nail Works, a local mill that once employed many residents. Organisers said the event also served to commemorate the town’s 200th anniversary this year.
Burglar shows barefaced cheek
Police in the US nabbed a naked man after he broke into two homes, helped himself to drinks – and rounded off the evening with a hot tub soak and a shower.
They received an emergency call from a woman who was house-sitting in Keizer, near Salem, Oregon, when she was woken by noises coming from the utility room. Officers who arrested the suspect noticed that screens had been removed from windows at a neighbour’s home, where it emerged he had raided their drinks cabinet before using the hot tub and shower.