Even people who live in more ordinary settings sometimes can’t resist doing something to make them stand out from the crowd. One extreme example of this is Bill Heiners’ house in Headington, Oxfordshire. Until one morning in 1986, his house looked much like all the others in his street, when suddenly overnight a 7.5 mlong fiberglass shark appeared to have crashed through the roof. The shark was a sculpture by local artist John Buckley. At first some people complained that it might be dangerous or that it spoiled the look of the neighbourhood, but engineers checked that the sculpture was safe and the ‘Headington shark’ has become a well-known and popular landmark. It seems that no matter where you live, you can always do something to make sure your house says something about who you are.