Supershorts: Looking down barrel, girlfriend grabs kudos

Looking down barrel, girlfriend grabs kudos, Ashes to ashes, when a pedicure goes bad and soccer shockers.

Shot down

A German biathlete was disqualified from a World Cup event in his home country last week after pointing his rifle at his head.

Florian Graf was attempting to take aim at the target when he inexplicably turned the gun towards himself and blew down the muzzle.

"I had a drop of water in the front sight. I just reacted wrong and had something like a blackout in my thought process. I make no excuses. Of course I did not want to put myself or others in danger," he said.

British biathlete Mike Dixon added: "The bullet's exit speed is 500mph. It's deadly, and you absolutely do not want to be looking down the sharp end of that barrel."

Outdone by girlfriend

You've got to feel for College American football player AJ McCarron who led the Alabama Crimson Tide to their third national title in four years on Tuesday only to be outdone by his girlfriend who claimed instant fame after the television coverage showed her in the crowd. Katherine Webb, Miss Alabama USA 2012, went from around 500 Twitter followers last week to more than 190,000 followers less than 24 hours after the game. LeBron James even started following Webb while snubbing McCarron.

@theashes are back!

Sticking with Twitter, spare another thought for Ashley Kerekes (@theashes) who made headlines during the 2010-11 Ashes series because she got constant replies on the social media site with people thinking she was attached to the famous cricket series. With the Ashes now only a few months away she's already started to cop it from Twitter users. With back to back Ashes series this year it could be a long 2013 for Kerekes. Last time she got a free trip to Australia.

Fire that pedicurist

Defending Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka had a less than ideal warm-up for the first grand slam of the year thanks to a bad pedicure.

The 23-year-old was forced to withdraw from her Brisbane International semifinal against Serena Williams this week after one of her right toes got an infection. The Belarusian reportedly suffered a broken nail during a pedicure treatment, which was not immediately noticed, which later caused an infection.

"I don't know in medical terms, but I had to get a piece [of nail] out of my toe because it was jamming into me and got infected," she said.

EPL snubbed

The English media were quick to react to the Fifa's World XI announced at the Ballon d'Or awards which snubbed the English Premier League by featuring all 11 players from the Spanish League, across just two cities (Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid). All of the major UK news sites came up with their own Premier League XIs, featuring the likes of Robin van Persie and Luis Suarez, which would give the World XI a decent run in a game that would never happen.

However the Daily Mail went one step further and pitted the two teams up against each other on computer game Football Manager 2013. For the record the World XI won 2-0.

Starting them young

A childcare centre in Norway is doing its best to boost Arsenal's fan base by creating a Gunners-themed nursery. On Twitter (@Arsenal - Nursery) it is described as "A 'culture pre-school' in Oslo: a massive part of our culture is The Arsenal!" Children wear Arsenal kit to the nursery and are also taught songs sung by the Gunners fans.

But the children haven't been completely brainwashed. In a TV interview when asked where Arsenal are based one child said Norway, while when another was asked what his father thinks of Arsenal he answered "He says 'they are a crap team'." After being shown a picture of Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger one child stated it was "Obama".

In past years the nursery has had a Bob Dylan theme.