Saturday 25 June: Coldplay headline Glastonbury, it's the first Saturday of Wimbledon, and . . . Global Smurfs Day. Yes, you read that right: this Saturday is Global Smurfs Day, a celebration of everything small, blue and Smurf-like, and incontrovertible proof that those pesky miniature Belgians are riding the crest of an international wave.

It may have started as a blatant marketing exercise from Columbia and Sony Pictures ahead of the release of their new 3D film, The Smurfs, which is out in the US next week (we Brits will have to wait until 10 August), but Global Smurfs Day appears to have been greeted with resounding enthusiasm. Fans from all over the world are preparing to don white trousers and caps, daub their torsos with blue paint, and congregate everywhere from London (at the O2, in case you're interested) to Panama City, Warsaw, Moscow and Athens, in an attempt to set a new world record for the catchily titled "Largest Gathering of People Dressed as Smurfs within a 24-hour period in Multiple Venues".

And that's not all: the characteristically white-washed Spanish village of Juzcar has been painted blue to mark the occasion; Taiwan's famous Red House, a market hall and theatre built in 1908, will be transformed into a Blue House and filled with Smurfs; and Smurf figurines will go on display in Paris, Reykjavik, Bogotá, Geneva and Zurich. As anyone familiar with the hilarious Smurf sketch from Family Guy – another example of the current resurgence of love for all things smurfy – will surely agree, it's all totally smurfing brilliant.