Jokes and Stories from this months issue.

* EDWARD MOORE KENNEDY, youngest of the famous trio of Kennedy Brothers, was born on 22 February 1932. Whilst at Harvard College, he was suspended for cheating in a Spanish examination. Ted Kennedy stood for the Democratic nomination in 1980, but haunted by the spectre of the Mary Jo Kopechne scandal; found that his political career was forever stalled. In July 1969, whilst allegedly drunk, he had driven off the Chappaquiddick bridge on the millionaire's playground of Martha's Vineyard on Cape Cod. Though he swam to safety, Kennedy left his passenger, Ms Kopechne, to drown. He did not report the incident for ten hours, an oversight that he later admitted was "indefensible". At least he fared better than his elder brothers John Fitzgerald and Robert Kennedy, who were both assassinated - JFK in Dallas on 22 November 1963 and Bobbie in Los Angeles on 6 June 1968.
* THE GREAT singer-songwriter, John Winston Lennon, lead voice of the Beatles, was born in Liverpool on 9 October 1940. The famous British pop star Sir Cliff Richard was born just five days later in Lucknow, India, and christened Harry Roger Webb. Lennon was sadly murdered in New York City on 8 December 1980, whilst Sir Cliff, who has enjoyed a lengthy career in the British entertainment industry, will be 62 on 14th October this year.
* THE ACADEMY of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which zealously guards Oscar's golden image, has filed a federal trademark suit against a company that offers anatomically exaggerated copycat statuettes over an Internet porn site. The academy alleges that Pipedream Products is selling obscene items making unauthorised use of the academy's Oscar copyright. The problem? Pipedream's replica closely resembles the famous Hollywood Oscar, with one major difference - the "Stud of the Year" statuette is err, very generously endowed. The real Oscar is 32 centimetres tall, weighs 3.8 kilograms and is plated with 24-carat gold. And it has no sex organs. Says Mr Bruce Davis, the academy's executive director, "Anyone who owns a trademark does not want an obscene version of it circulating." (Los Angeles Times)
* LOUIS BLERIOT (1872-1936), the French aviator, was the first person to fly across the English Channel on 25 July 1909. The journey took thirty-six-and-a-half minutes and ended when Bleriot crashed landed his aircraft near Dover Castle in Kent. The story goes that as he scrambled from the wreckage, a British Customers' officer asked him if he had anything to declare.
* ON 8 AUGUST 1963, one of the most daring crimes in British legal history occurred when the Glasgow to London Mail train was stopped at Sears Crossing and robbed of over 2.5 million pounds sterling. The incident became infamous as the Great Train Robbery and the perpetrators became instant celebrities. Though nearly all the men were subsequently caught and brought to justice, only £350,000 of the stolen money has been recovered.
* THE FAMOUS midget 'General Tom Thumb' was born on 4 January 1838. Though he came from a normal family, he stopped growing at the age of six months, and was signed up by the circus owner P T Barnum when he was only five years old. Courted by celebrities and royalty, he became famous throughout Europe and America. Tom Thumb's adult height was a mere forty inches.
* CARY GRANT, one of Hollywood's most successful actors, was born and Christened Archie Leech in Bristol, England, on 18 January 1904. Grant was notorious for being evasive about his true age. When a journalist once sent him a telegram asking: "How old Cary Grant?" He replied with another stating: "Old Cary Grant fine. How you?" As a cinematic in-joke, John Clees was given the character name 'Archie Leech' for his role as an English barrister in the comedy movie 'A Fish Called Wanda'. Grant died in 1986.
* PROHIBITION BEGAN in the United States of America in 1920. Inevitably, the illegal practice of bootlegging alcohol became a boom industry in almost every state. Organised criminal gangs spotted a ready market, and quickly moved in. Citizens achieved a forbidden thrill by quaffing beer and spirits in hidden drinking dens, known as 'speakeasies'. Bootlegging derived its name from the cowboys' practice of hiding bottles of whiskey in their boots and then selling them to Indians in the 19th century.
* JOHN L SULLIVAN, who died in 1918, was perhaps England's best known bare-knuckle boxer. His fistfights usually carried on until either he or his opponent collapsed, sometimes from a liberal use of alcohol between rounds, or from exhaustion. Sullivan once knocked out Jake Kilrain in the seventy-fifth round of a savage and bloody contest.
* IN 1677 A MAN in Boston, USA was sentenced to two hours in the stocks for obscene behaviour. His crime was to kiss his wife in public on a Sunday. With his hands and ankles secured in the stocks, his fellow citizens pelted him with rotten eggs, fruit and excrement. That's what they call Puritan Justice.
* AFTER DEFEATING the Greek armies at Thermopylae and sacking Athens in 480 BC, the great Persian King Xerxes reached the terraced city of Amphiplois. There, at a spot known as The Nine Ways, he had nine Greek boys and nine girls, all aged 9 years old walled up alive in a special tomb. This was seen as an especially mystical and symbolic sacrifice to his gods. Through the centuries it seems that such acts of extreme cruelty have usually been invoked in the name of religion.
* GREAT QUOTES: "Please don't talk to me about Russell Crowe. The man is a hooligan. When I saw 'Gladiator', I was cheering for the lions in the coliseum." (Joan Rivers. Joan dear, what film were you watching? In 'Gladiator', Russell Crowe as 'Maximus' fought TIGERS, not lions).
"I love it when our ignoramus President, George Walker Bush, gabs on about 'Democracy'. This is the man who was handed the American Presidency by the US Supreme Court when the 2000 election was deadlocked between himself and Al Gore. I guess that 'Democracy' was out of town that day." (Author Gore Vidal)
"If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf."(Bob Hope)
"Not only did we play the race card; we dealt it from the bottom of the deck". (Robert Shapiro, part of OJ Simpson's defence team during his trial for the brutal 1994 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Shapiro also said that he could never again work with F Lee Bailey and Johnnie Cochrane, the two other senior members of the so-called 'Dream Team').
"It is NOT our duty to pass judgement on Osama bin Laden. God will do that. It IS our duty, however, to arrange a meeting between God and Osama bin Laden." (Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary)
* PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN (born 6 February 1911) was shot and badly wounded outside the Washington Hilton hotel by John Hinckley on 31 March 1981. Before going under the sleepy juice on the operating table, he said to the doctors working on his wounds, "I hope you guys are all Republicans."
* THE ONLY British Prime Minister thus far in history to be assassinated was Tory leader Spencer Perceval, who was shot dead by John Bellingham as he walked into the House of Commons lobby in 1812. It's safe to say that Mr Bellingham was probably nursing a grudge.
* THE FAMOUS 1897 Klondike 'Gold Rush' in Yukon, Canada, attracted over 100,000 gold prospectors anxious to become overnight millionaires. Of that figure, less than 4,000 actually found any gold, and most of those gambled, whored and drank it away almost as quickly as they had found it. Shanty mining towns grew up almost overnight, and the crime rate soared. The Gold Rush finally died out in 1904.
* DID YOU KNOW that 2,000 men every day die from smoking-related lung cancer in China (population: 2.1 billion)? The World Health Organisation estimates that this figure will rise to around 8,000 a day by the year 2010 in the People's Republic, where four out of every five men smoke at least 20 cigarettes per day. Much of the tax revenue raised from tobacco sales is ploughed back into hospital treatment for cancer patients.
* THE ALTERNATIVE World Cup in Soccer was held last June at Bangkok's notorious Klong Prem Central Prison, known as the 'Bangkok Hilton'. It was a chance for the inmates from many countries to take a fun break from their grim lifestyle behind bars. The facilities may have been a bit sparse, but everyone attending had a good time. The tournament winners won a bar of soap (each) and the beauty queens at the opening ceremony were katoeys (transvestites) - well, this is Thailand, ladies. Thailand was in the torrid grip of World Cup Fever.
* THE FIRST man in history to clear 6 feet (1.83m) in the High Jump event was Marshall Brooks in the Oxford v Cambridge Inter Varsity match in 1861. Brooks, a whiskered 19th century English sporting 'toff', used the 'scissors' technique, and did not even bother to remove his top hat as he soared over the bar!
* CORRECTION: In the June issue, I referred to Clint Eastwood's character, 'Dirty Harry' as a 'ruthless LA detective'. Please note that the 'Harry Callaghan' movies are set in San Francisco, not Los Angeles. My mistake, ladies and gentlemen. So go ahead, punk - make my day.
davidcox@loxinfo.co.th

Round Up Of World News

Smelly feet man fined over library complaint
A man has been fined around 10,000 baht for breaching the peace at a Dutch library because his feet smell so much.
Teunis Teun drove people away from the University of Delft library by taking his shoes off on repeated visits. He refused to put them back on and returned to the library despite officials banning him from the building. Teun later created commotion at his trial by taking his shoes off in court.After being given the 250 euro fine, the 39-year-old told the Gelders Dagblad newspaper he would apply for political asylum in Germany, adding: "People are against me because I prefer to walk barefooted."
A month ago he wrote to the German chancellor Gerhard Schr?der after seeing him posing in a German magazine seated on a bench next to a barefooted woman. He wrote: "I'm happy to see that you are not so shortminded as the Dutch people."
As part of his trial, judges ordered Teun to take part in a smell test. His feet were examined alongside other volunteers in an unusual identity parade to see if they did smell much worse.
After an earlier interview with Teun, another journalist reported that he had to hold his nose during the interview and compared the smell to a bag of rotten potatoes that had been kept in a cupboard for two weeks.

Drag queen's name too frivolous to go on electoral roll
An Australian drag queen has lost an appeal against a decision to remove his name from the electoral roll because it's frivolous.He says he won't vote at all unless he's allowed to do so under his legal name of Tamara Tonite.Mr Tonite, of Brisbane, formerly known as Roderick Patterson, changed his name by deed poll.The aspiring politician and chat show host says the decision to enrol him under his old name is discriminatory.
Mr Tonite told ABC: "It really opens a can of worms for me because they're now saying when I go to vote I have to give a name that is no longer my legal name so I can vote, which I will not be doing.
"I will not give that name at any polling booth anywhere in Australia."
He said the panel ruled that he had changed his name solely for political reasons.
He has stood as an independent candidate in state and local elections on a platform of human rights.

Art thief mugged during escape
A Hungarian cat burglar who stole 15,5000,000 Baht worth of paintings from an art gallery was mugged by homeless people as he escaped.The man slipped on wet grass as he ran off and his cries of pain attracted the attention of tramps who were sleeping nearby.Instead of helping they hit him, took the paintings, his tools, his wallet and most of his clothes.He was left lying in the same spot for more than a day until passers by telephoned the police.When he was interviewed he told officers his attackers had been smelly and he thought they had been sleeping rough.
A police spokesman said: "He had been lying there for 30 hours. He was not that far from the gallery in some bushes and could give us no clear details of those that had attacked him."
A spokesman for Budapest's Kiscelli Museum said the paintings will not last long outdoors. Art experts fear they may even be used to start a fire.

Chewing gum leaves Romanian bride stuck on the toilet
A Romanian bride spent much of her wedding night in the toilet after chewing too much gum.Irina admitted she hadn't read the warning that chewing too much gum had a laxative effect.She said she had chewed gum constantly on her wedding day because she was nervous.The groom, named in Romanian newspapers as Costel G, looked for his bride for several hours when she disappeared after midnight.
He was also helped by many of the guests at the wedding at Ciortesti in Iasi county.
Costel told the National newspaper that he began to wonder if his wife had left him for another man when she returned and told him she spent the last few hours on the toilet.

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