Jokes and Stories from this months issue.

IT HAS gone down in historical myth that President John F Kennedy made a German language blunder in his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in Berlin , West Germany in 1961. The story goes that he should have said “Ich bin Berliner” (“I am a citizen of Berlin ”) and that “Ich bin ein Berliner” really translates as “I am a jelly doughnut.” A ‘Berliner' is indeed a type of jelly doughnut made in Berlin .

But this is just another of history's famous myths. President Kennedy said the phrase quite correctly. If he had said, “Ich bin Berliner” with his heavy east coast American accent he would have sounded very odd as he could not possibly have come from Germany and anyway, everyone knew of his Irish Catholic heritage. So when he uttered the words, “Ich bin ein Berliner” he was professing that he was at one with the people of Berlin .

Linguist Jurgen Eichoff confirms that if JFK had used the shorter phrase; he would have literally meant that he was a Berliner, which would clearly have been nonsensical. When the charismatic president used the famous phrase, it is true that he was also speaking of jelly doughnuts, but no one in the audience of Germans would have taken it that way. In reality Kennedy was well coached and practiced the phrase in the West German chancellor's office right up until he delivered the speech. By the way, JFK used reading glasses, but never allowed himself to be photographed wearing them. Like his father Joe, he was obsessed with image and such details were important. The Kennedys considered themselves to be America 's glittering First Family and when seen in public could never be anything less than perfect.

American author David Halberstam once said, “The Kennedys were rather like a Chinese meal. After eating one, you feel full for an hour, than you are hungry again. They were all about east coast Ivy League style with little substance to go with it. But we Americans desperately wanted to believe in the myth of a New Camelot, and so we did.”

Hours after JFK's death in 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy gave Theodore H White of ‘Life Magazine' an exclusive interview – provided he toed the Kennedy line. Says Halberstam, “In White's story Jack and Jacqueline had not been merely President and First Lady of a republic which chose its leaders through a democratic process of election; but king and queen of a mythical kingdom. They reigned during ‘a magic moment in American history, when gallant men danced with beautiful women, when great deeds were done, when artists, writers and poets met at the White House, and the barbarians behind the walls were held back.' Only Jackie Kennedy was comfortable with this over-heated nonsense.”

*QUESTIONS: (a) Is a ‘Cardinal Sin' something that is only committed by Cardinals? I have petitioned the Vatican about this, with no result.

(b) How on earth does Tarzan stay clean-shaven in the jungle? I have never seen any shaving tackle in his tree house, but Jane never has to bother about beard itch when she snogs him at the end of movies. And have you noticed that he always has a fresh supply of freshly-laundered thongs to wear? Does Jane do his laundry, or does he wash his togs himself? I bet he's a male chauvinist, and leaves such chores to his live-in girlfriend.

*THE FIRST man in history to seriously challenge the Catholic Church was Martin Luther (1483-1546). Luther was a professor of biblical interpretation at the University of Wittenberg in Germany . In 1517, he drew up his famous ‘95 theses' condemning the Catholic Church in Rome for its corrupt practice of selling ‘indulgences' or forgiveness of sins. Luther also followed up his revolutionary work with more groundbreaking theological works which set off religious reformers across Europe including John Wesley, founder of The Protestant movement in England .

Pope Charles V excommunicated Luther and in April 1521 the German theologian was called to Worms to appear before the Diet or Assembly of the Holy Roman Empire to answer charges of heresy. Luther argued well against the inquisitional jury of cardinals and bishops and pointedly refused to recant or rescind his views. Predictably, he was then declared ‘an outlaw and a heretic'. His stand against the Catholic Church was also supported by England 's Henry VIII who had his own dispute with The Vatican when he tried to dissolve his first marriage. Powerful German princes protected Luther and by his death in 1546 his ideas had significantly altered the course of western religious thought. In short, he was the father of The Reformation. Ardent Catholic conservatives still considered Luther to be a dangerous heretic, as some do today.

*ONE OF the great philosophical frauds in modern history is Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. His famous biography, ‘The Third Eye', published in 1956, purported to be the journey of his study and mastery of Tibetan Buddhism. ‘Rampa' claimed that he had been born into a wealthy Tibetan family and had studied at Lhasa to become a lama. He had then had an operation to open up the ‘third eye' in the middle of his forehead which had bestowed on him amazing psychic powers.

Not surprisingly this bizarre claim caused some concern among serious students of Tibetan culture. A group of scholars in Britain went to the trouble of hiring a detective named Clifford Burgess to investigate Lampa's claims. Burgess quickly discovered that Rampa had never been to Tibet and of course never had an operation to open up his forehead to a third eye. He was actually Cyril Henry Hoskins, born in Devon on England 's west coast, and was the son of a local plumber named Joseph Henry Hoskins. Cyril had always been fascinated by the occult and studied a lot in his spare time. In 1954 he grew a beard, shaved his head and began to refer to himself as ‘Doctor Kuan-suo'. When confronted by Burgess, Hoskins said although he had been born in Devon to a plumber he had become Tuesday Lobsang Rampa because his body had been taken over by the spirit of the dead lama. Therefore, he stated, all information and spiritual advice in his book was an accurate recounting of Lampa's views. Hoskins never admitted to being a phoney and until his death in 1981, he wrote twelve more books on the same subject of Tibetan spiritualism. But none of them sold so well as his first blockbuster – ‘The Third Eye'.

*THE ITALIAN Fire Service has begun recruiting a whole new breed of firefighters – sheep. The woolly beasts are used to contain forest and grass blazes by simply munching firebreaks. A grass-free firebreak will stop a fire from spreading and will enable human firefighters to get to the heart of a blaze. Scientists at Italy 's National Research Centre have employed sheep in trials in Sardinia and say their use helps cut down costs by replacing expensive bulldozers and mowers normally used to construct fire barriers.

A spokesman said, “The sheep are easier to find, are more cost-effective and are less prone to cause soil-erosion than expensive machinery”. He added that the sheep were also more environmentally friendly as they left fewer scars on the landscape. Each year Italy is ravaged by hundreds of grass fires, which devastate thousands of acres of forest and woodland. The majority of them are started deliberately by arsonists. (AP)

*QUOTES: “A commuter is one who spends his life, in riding to and from his wife; a man who shaves and takes a train, and then rides back to shave again.” (Elwyn Brooks White 1899-1985, writing in ‘The New Yorker')

“We mortals cross the oceans of this world. Each in his average cabin of a life.” (Robert Browning 1812-1889)

“The world's oldest profession used to be prostitution. Now it's Elvis impersonation.” (Mark Dapin, Sydney Herald)

*APT NAMES. During the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton , Canada , a man named Adrian Leek represented Wales in the 5000 metres event. Eunice Barber, formerly from Sierra Leone, represented France as she won the World Heptathlon title in Seville, Spain in 1999 (sports sub-editors had a great time with this name - The Barber of Seville; get it?) Two fitting names for British athletes are Janis Wilderspin, who throws the discus, and Alan Leaper, a pole vaulter.

*RESEARCHERS HAVE discovered that taking four tablets of regular strength aspirin each day will do a better job at safely preventing strokes caused by narrowed arteries in the brain than the potent blood thinner named Warfarin.

They estimated that if all American doctors switched to aspirin for patients at risk for blocked arteries, it would save more than 20 million dollars a year because aspirin costs less and patients on Warfarin must have their blood checked regularly. The partial blockage of arteries in the brain is caused by fatty deposits that build up on the inner walls of the arteries and restrict blood flow.

This new study, conducted at 59 US medical centres, tried to resolve a long-standing debate over whether aspirin or Warfarin was the better treatment against cardiac arrests and heart disease. The results indicated that while both drugs were equally effective at preventing strokes caused by intracranial stenosis, aspirin was far safer.

Said John Marler of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, “A simple low-cost drug works just as well as one that requires complicated and expensive monitoring and dose adjustments.”

Chief author Marc Chimowitz of Emory University in Atlanta estimated that half of neurologists use Warfarin while the rest prescribe aspirin or similar drugs to treat blocked arteries in the brain. Chimowitz and his team found that the death rate among the 289 study volunteers taking Warfarin was more than twice the rate for the 280 aspirin recipients.

Serious bleeding, a common side-effect of Warfarin, was two and a half times more common among patients taking this drug. So was the risk of heart attack and sudden death. “We think that everyone should be switched to aspirin,” said Chimowitz. But patients prescribed Warfarin for other conditions such as irregular heart rhythm or clots in the legs or lungs should not stop taking the drug. (Reuters)

*WHILST YOU are in The Land of Smiles it may be important to know just what the famous ‘Thai smile' conveys. Well, everything and almost nothing, depending on the circumstances. That indispensable guide ‘Culture Shock! Thailand' (by Robert and Nanthapa Cooper) states: “The observant will quickly realise that a smile is the correct mechanism here for repairing minor breaches of etiquette. It may take longer to realise that the smile can also be used to excuse conduct that, in his/her own culture, may require elaborate explanations and, possibly, monetary compensation. For example, if a person inadvertently jumps a queue, a quick smile from the transgressor to the people ahead of him/her will sort out the situation quickly. Of course, the transgressor should immediately return to his/her original place in the queue.

“If the visitor thinks that he or she is in a difficult cultural situation in Thailand, they can perhaps spare a thought for the Thai student in a London public house standing at a crowded bar covered in identical pint mugs full of bitter beer. Unintentionally, he picked up the wrong mug and drank from it. Upon this fact being pointed out to him in very clear terms, he smiled….” (In his country this would be taken as an apology; but in London it would get the response, ‘You're really taking the piss, mate!')

*PROVERBS FOR the millennium (1) Home is where you hang your @. (2) The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail. (3) A journey of a thousand sites begins with just a single click. (4) You can't teach a new mouse old clicks. (5) Great groups from little icons grow. (6) Speak softly and carry a cellular telephone. (7) In some places, C:\ is the root of all directories. (8) Oh, what a tangled website we weave when we first practice. (9) Pentium wise, pen and paper foolish. (10) The modem is the message. (11) Too many clicks spoil the browse. (12) The geek shall inherit the earth. (13) Don't byte off more than you can view. (14) Fax is stranger than fiction. (15) What boots up must come down. (16) Windows will never cease. (17) Virtual reality is its' own reward. (18) Modulation in all things. (19) Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you again for weeks. (20) There's no place like your homepage.

*MOVIE FLUFF. Have you seen Steven Spielberg's 2003 release ‘Minority Report'? The story is taken from Philip K Dick's short story about a ‘Precrime' unit of the future (2054) which can prevent murders by using gifted psychics known as ‘precogs' (pre-cognition filters) who dream about the killings before they happen. The star, Tom Cruise, gets to one Washington murder scene in the nick of time to prevent a husband from plunging a pair of scissors into his wife's chest. Cruise (as John Anderton) runs in through the front door of the house, but why does his backup team of Precrime policemen come crashing through the glass roof by roping down from a futuristic helicopter shaped like a giant snail shell? Seconds before, they had been standing alongside Cruise outside the target house. Why not use the front door as Cruise did? A major bo-bo, Mr Spielberg.

Wolfgang Petersen's major 1982 work, ‘Das Boot' (The Boat – Colombia Pictures) has now been released in VCD format and dubbed into English. In spite of that, it still comes over as one hell of a powerful war flick. All the boredom, grit and dangers of fifty submariners living in cramped conditions on a patrol in the Atlantic in the autumn of 1941 are vividly shown. The original version was nearly four hours long and in German with English subtitles – and all the more realistic for that. This offering has been shaved to 2 hours in length and severely sanitised.

The blurb on the back cover tells us that this is the ‘original, uncut version', and that new scenes have been added. Frankly, this is horse manure - all the salty language has been cut, and many scenes edited. The captain, Jurgen Prochnow, is still unforgettable as a cynical but proudly professional man performing his duties to the best of his ability in spite of his loathing for the Nazi regime that he serves. And the attrition rate was incredibly high: out of 50,000 submariners who served on German U-Boats 40,000 were killed in action. The story comes from the book by Lothar Gunther Buchheim which is a masterpiece in itself.

*SPORTS QUOTES: “That was a perfect backhand cross-court – except that it went into the net.” (Virginia Wade, Wimbledon Singles Champion in 1977)

“Of course, Lleyton Hewitt is an evergreen on grass.” (Vijay Armitraj)

“Maria Sharapova's grunt has been recorded at 103 decibels; the highest in these Championships. That's equivalent to the sound of a 747 jumbo jet passing over London, South West 19.” (Alan Wilkins

“They think it's Sharapova. It is now!” (Nick Halling)

“Every morning I get up, do some stretching and then run for four minutes or one mile – whichever comes first.” (Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City)

davidcox@loxinfo.co.th

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