Jokes and Stories from this months issue.

* A PIG was tried and executed by public hanging in Kent, England in 1386 after being accused of murdering a child.
* REMEMBER WHEN streaking was all the rage back in the seventies? Well, over 1,200 college students streaked simultaneously in Bolder, Colorado on 16 March 1974.
* THE TUNA fish never stops moving in the water, and can swim millions of miles in its lifetime. No spare body fat on this tasty seafood.
* MARY, QUEEN of Scots (1542 - 1587) read the time from a watch placed in a human skull. What you might call passing time in the dead of night.
* LORD JEFFREY ARCHER (born 1940), the world famous author and politician, was sentenced to two years in jail in July 2001 for perjury. During a long career as a con man, Archer has fabricated credentials, and smooth-talked his way into positions of influence, such as chairman of the Conservative Party. He must be the only President of Achilles Athletics Club who never actually studied at Oxford or Cambridge University. Archer was on a teacher training course at a college attached to Oxford University in the early 1960's, and simply walked into the university athletics team by befriending Adrian Metcalfe and others who were also training every night at the Iffley Road track in Oxford. Though a good sprinter (clocking 9.8 seconds for 100 yards) who gained a "Blue" for representing Oxford against Cambridge, Archer did not compete for Great Britain in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics as he often claimed.
* OLYMPIAS OF EPIROS, the mother of Alexander the Great, used to sleep at night with her pet python curled around her waist. She claimed that her snake was better than any human bodyguard.
* JOHN WAYNE, the famous all-American cowboy film star, was born Marion Michael Morrison on 26 May 1907 and died of cancer on 11 June 1979. An icon of right wing Republicans, Wayne stood staunchly for conservative American family values. Slugging a commie sinner was a sacred duty, and all part of a day's acting. He once gave Britain's Michael Caine some valuable advice: "If you want to stay a star", he said, "talk low, walk slow and don't say too damned much".
* MORE QUOTES: "Man, that Hatchet Jack was a wild one. He was living with a female panther in a cave up there in the Musselshell. She never did get used to him." ('Del Gue' from the Sydney Pollak/Robert Redford movie 'Jeremiah Johnson')
* BACK IN the 1970's, the Irish Athletics Federation purchased its' first automatic timing system. (Yes, this one is true - it's not an Irish joke). The equipment was a portable 'black box' device that could be set up by the finish line of any track and linked to a photo-finish camera. Officials proudly tested it at Santry Stadium, Dublin just days before an important international meeting featuring eight Nations all fighting for qualification to the European Cup Athletics Final. The photo-finish black box was carefully set up well before the meeting began.
The first event, taking place on its' own for safety reasons, was the Hammer at 11am. And guess what? The first man into the throwing circle was the Irish competitor. He wound up aggressively and threw his 7.26-kg implement high into the sky. You can guess the rest. The Hammer snaked out over the infield outside the throwing sector, and finally came down - smashing into the brand new timing equipment just 60 metres away from the hammer circle. The black box exploded; put out of use before it had ever been used in earnest. "There was a loud bang and a blue flash", said a competitor warming up for the 400 metres hurdles; the first track event of the afternoon. "My first thought was that the IRA had let off a bomb right in the stadium!" Nothing so sinister. It was just that the auto-timer had been literally hammered. Amid sighs and sad shaking of heads, the timekeepers dusted off their good old fashioned manual stop watches for the upcoming track events, commencing at 1pm (13.00 hrs).
* THE BRITISH two-fingered V-sign is a well-known insult. It originates from the 100 years war between England and France. English (and Welsh) archers proved a formidable foe to the French cavalry, who were virtually wiped by out by these deadly projectile weapons at the battle of Agincourt on 25 October 1415 when Henry V's bowmen carried the day against a much larger force of armoured French knights. The hissing sound of hundreds of arrows in flight became known as "whispering death". Whenever French forces captured a British archer; their first act was to cut off the man's bowstring fingers (on both hands) so that he could never shoot arrows at them again. The British knew this, so the act of waving V-signs at the French armies was a silent taunt: "Look here, Frenchies, we still have our bowstring fingers. Watch out!"
* AS MOST people know, the world-famous Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood (born 31 May 1930) was elected Mayor of Carmel, California for a term from 1986-88. Carmel is an exotic West Coast seaside location famous for its' scenic beauty and wealthy local inhabitants. The population there is an elite 4,750. Many Eastwood fans purchased T-shirts bearing the actor's image as "Dirty Harry", the ruthless LA detective. A snarling Harry is pointing his Magnum 44.40 handgun straight at the onlooker. The caption reads, '"I said curb your dog!" - the Mayor of Carmel, California.'
* AS REPTILES were laying eggs millions of years before the first bird appeared on Earth, we can safely say that the egg actually came BEFORE the chicken.
* THE INFAMOUS Rodrigo Borgia (born 1431) bribed enough cardinals to be elected Pope Alexander V1 in Rome on 11 August 1492. During a tempestuous reign in The Vatican, this corrupt leader of the Catholic Church openly enjoyed a series of mistresses and fathered several illegitimate children before his death on 18 August 1503. His son Cesare (1476-1507) was a ruthless warlord feared throughout Italy and Spain, and his daughter Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519) became infamous for using deadly poisons to rid herself of various enemies and obsolete husbands. All in all, a charming family. Though it should have been entertaining and historically educational, the BBC TV serial "The Borgias" was a monster flop - one of the great television turkeys of all time.
* WITHIN EIGHT years of Christopher Columbus discovering America, (also in 1492), pioneering Spaniards had killed over one and a half million of the local population of Indians. In seeking to export their own values of education and culture, they instead brought pestilence and death to the natives.
* ERIC THE RED discovered a country in the tenth century and named it 'Greenland' in order to encourage settlers. As we all know, Greenland actually has little in the way of lush vegetation. Only a few people were fooled.
* DID YOU KNOW that the Vatican Council at Rome banned the crossbow in 1180 as a heinous weapon "unfit to be used by God-fearing Christians"?
* MILITARY QUOTE: "Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavour shrink into insignificance" (American World War II General George S Patton, 1885-1945)
* ALL HIS LIFE, the famous comic actor W C Fields (born 29 January 1880) had been an atheist. Asked why he was studying the bible on his deathbed, he replied "I'm looking for loopholes, m'boy". He died in Pasadena, California, on Christmas Day 1946.
David Cocksedge davidcox@loxinfo.co.th

Did you know ...

It is impossible to lick your elbow.
A crocodile can't stick its tongue out.
A shrimp's heart is in their head.
People say, "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond.
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
Between 1937 and 1945 Heinz produced a version of Alphabet Spaghetti especially for the German market that consisted solely of little pasta swastikas.
More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
Rats and horses can't vomit.
The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture blood vessel in your head or neck and die.
If you keep your eyes open by force, they will pop out.
Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants.
Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
If the American government has no knowledge of aliens, then why does Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, implemented on July 16, 1969, make it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles?
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.
Most lipstick contains fish scales.
Cat's urine glows under a black light.Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.
The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of varieties of pickle the company once had.
A rat can last longer without water than a camel.
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks, otherwise it will digest itself.
The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
I bet you tried licking your elbow !!!

Got a virus?

There is a new virus going around called "Work". If you receive any sort of "Work" at all, whether via email, post or simply handed to you by a colleague ... DO NOT OPEN IT.
"Work" has been circulating around our building for months and those who have been tempted to open "Work" or even look at "Work" have found that their social life is deleted and their brain ceases to function
properly.
If you do encounter "Work" via email or are faced with any "Work" at all, then to purge the virus send an email to your boss with the words "I'm off to the pub". The "Work" should automatically be deleted from your brain. If you receive "Work" in paper-document form, simply drag and drop it into your rubbish bin. Put on your shoes, skip to the nearest bar with two friends and order three pints of beer or bottles of wine. After repeating this action 14 times, you will find that "Work" will no longer be of any relevance to you.
Send this as a message to everyone in your address book. If you do not have anyone in your address book, then I'm afraid the "Work" virus has already corrupted your life.

On a more serious note if you have any computer related virus problems or questions (there have been a few nasties around recently) email or call me for assistance.
Martin Young (01 8367701)

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