THE WEEK: Anti-terrorist cats

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It's elementary

It's a clue that only a billion people can crack! Sherlock, the British TV drama based around the adventures of super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr Watson, is releasing a special Christmas episode set in the Victorian era and there is a special treat for Chinese fans of the show.

While the extended episode will contain many clues and hints to help viewers solve the case, there will be one clue that only Mandarin speakers will understand. Sherlock is huge in China, attracting around 98 million viewers per episode. Chinese fans refer to Sherlock as Juan Fu, meaning curly Fu because of his hair. Dr Watson gets the less flattering name of peanut, thanks to the Chinese translation of the character's name.

Daredevil takes a dive

How insane do you have to be to jump from a hot air balloon without a parachute? Pretty insane, there is no way you would survive that right? Well, wrong. Finnish "Extreme Artist" Antte Pendikainen was about to sky dive off a hot air balloon earlier this week, when much to the shock of his friends he says, "when I woke up this morning I feel like I am not going to need my parachute," takes it off and throws it to the ground. When I woke up this morning I felt like maybe I didn't need a coffee, I was wrong and and that was foolish. I still regret it. Never trust your instincts.

Pendikainen, showing a certain amount of self awareness at the very least, looks to the camera and says "I am stupid enough to do it without a parachute" And then he jumps!

If you think this is all sounding a little grim, don't worry, he survived, he joined hands with another diver, one with a parachute and they landed together, safely. Pendikainan's first words on the ground? "It was cool." Don't try this at home kids.

Anti-terrorist cats

These are dark days in certain parts of the world, and the recent attacks in Paris have shown that the insidious reach of extremist terror can strike just about anywhere. Western Europe is on edge, and in Belgium, the capital city of Brussels was in lockdown for much of this week as police carried out operations to apprehend the masterminds behind the Paris shootings. Authorities requested the public to refrain from posting anything on social media that might alert the terrorists to police actions, so the people of Belgium responded with the only logical thing - cats. Lots and lots of cats. In order to confuse any would-be terrorists, the people of Belgium flooded social media with pictures of cats, their own cats, other cats, superhero cats suicide bomber cats, all the cats. ISIS may have hatred and death, but we have love, hope and cat memes. Everything is going to be OK.

（中國日報網視頻部出品）