Jokes and Stories from this months issue.

* I HAD ALWAYS assumed that the term “saved by the bell” came from the noble sport of Boxing, but I have recently learned of a more macabre version. Apparently in 16th century Britain cemeteries were dug up after 50 years to save space and the bones of the dead carefully re-interred in jars. It was discovered that, on average, one in every twenty-five coffins had scratch marks on the inside lids. This meant that some people had been buried alive. To prevent this happening in future, all interred bodies had a string tied to one wrist, which led through a hole in the coffin lid to a bell on a stick by the graveside. Should an unfortunate person wake up from a deep coma and find that he (or she) had slept through his/her funeral service and was now buried in the sod, all he/she had to do was move a wrist to ring the bell above. Watchmen would then quickly summon a digging party to free the “corpse”. I don’t know how many people cheated death in this way, but I guess it was a fine story to tell the grandchildren.
* AN ITALIAN WOMAN was recently arrested at the port of Brindisi as she tried to smuggle her Serbian boyfriend into the country. Immigration officials observed her struggling with a large suitcase, and hurried over to render assistance. As the agitated woman tried to push them away, the case fell open and out sprawled her lover, a 26-year-old man weighing around 70 kilos. Nice try, darling.
* CAN ANYONE GIVE me a plausible reason as to why we never see women competing directly against men in televised Darts and Snooker tournaments? These are skill activities - no strength factor is involved, so, in theory, women can surely compete on equal terms with men. My guess is that top male players only tolerate women as spectators, not opponents. These guys are still old-fashioned enough to feel that losing to a woman would instill an unbearable loss of face. Remember Allison Fisher? The former snooker star from Brighton now plays professional Pool in the USA, where she has been welcomed. Ms Fisher only went there because top British male snooker players disapproved of a woman in their ranks, and froze her out of the circuit.
* EVERYONE KNOWS that citizens of the United States of America have a constitutional right to bear firearms for self-protection. The legislation varies from state to state, however. In Alaska, for example, people with permits can carry guns anywhere, provided they are in open view. Only undercover police are allowed to carry concealed weapons. Thus a man can strut about town with a revolver holstered to his hip like Wyatt Earp, and nobody can object. But if that weapon is tucked away in a shoulder holster under his coat, he is committing a felony. Alaskan drivers pulled over by police have adopted the habit of reaching into the glove compartment, removing their trusty handguns, and placing them on the dashboard or passenger seat before the officer(s) can reach their windows – almost as a reflex action. The American NRA (National Rifle Association) has a powerful lobby in Washington, and will not tolerate any curtailing of what its’ members feel is a fundamental civil right.
* COLOMBIA, THE COCAINE and murder capital of the World, also has a gun-loving society. At discos and nightclubs, patrons queue to hand their weapons to security staff before being allowed entry. They also take their soccer very seriously out there. At one infamous football match at Cali in 1967, the referee red-carded a player following a savage foul. The angry player refused to leave the pitch, and as tempers flared, suddenly felled the ref. with a punch to his jaw. The official picked himself up, produced a handgun from his pocket, and shot the player dead. A riot then erupted among the spectators, with enraged fans of the dead player storming the pitch intent on grabbing the referee and pulling his head, arms and legs off. The gun-toting official was allowed to flee the scene: he galloped away from the stadium on a horse, provided by mounted guards policing the match. Yes, it actually happened. Believe it or not, but that is a true story.
* WILLIAM H. BONNEY, a psychopath who became infamous as “Billy the Kid”, was born in New York City on 22 May 1859. His family moved to Silver City, New Mexico in 1873, where the young man found gainful employment under a prosperous and kindly farmer named John Tunstall. When men employed by local cattle baron Bob Chisholm murdered Tunstall in 1878, Billy and his friends went on spree of vengeance. Bonney adopted a taste for violence, and soon became head of an outlaw gang, wanted for murder, bank robbery and cattle theft. After a shoot-out in an old farmhouse near Fremont, Nebraska on 20 December 1880, Billy was captured by lawmen under his former friend, Sheriff Pat Garrett of Lincoln County. Sentenced to death for his crimes, Billy was held in captivity awaiting sentence in Lincoln Jail. Here he was constantly threatened by deputy Bob Ollinger, a religious fanatic who had his shotgun loaded with $1.80 worth of silver dimes; “enough to spread you out like a crazy woman’s quilt”, said Ollinger, praying that Bonney would give him an excuse to use it. Ollinger once clubbed the shackled Bonney to the floor, loudly urging him to repent his many sins as he held the shotgun to the Kid’s ear. Spitting blood, Billy refused to do so.
On 28 April 1881, friends smuggled a gun into the outhouse, and got a message to Billy that it was there. Whilst Ollinger was on his lunch break, Billy asked leave to use the facility, and was taken in his shackles to the outer toilet. On the way back to his cell, Billy pulled the pistol and ordered his jailer to unlock him. When the deputy went for his gun instead, Billy shot him and freed his hands. He then went to the gun locker and removed Ollinger’s shotgun just as the latter came running out of the local saloon. As many horrified witnesses looked on, the Kid fired both barrels and blew the unfortunate Ollinger all over the main street of Lincoln with his own gun. “Best dollar eighty I ever spent! Keep the change, Bob!” shouted Billy, laughing over Ollinger’s shattered and bleeding corpse. He then made his escape on a horse.
Two months later, Sheriff Pat Garrett traced Bonney to a sleazy flophouse in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Billy had been sleeping with a Mexican woman of the night, and when he walked out of his room almost naked and unarmed, Garrett promptly shot him dead. (Contrary to Hollywood myth, there was precious little gallantry or fair play in those lawless days). William H Bonney (a.k.a. Henry McCarty), who had lived by the gun, died by the gun aged just 22, having killed 21 men during his sort life. Garrett himself died from bullet wounds following a gunfight at Lincoln in 1908. Here ends today’s history lesson on America’s Wild West.
* DID YOU KNOW that the nose on the statue of Liberty in New York harbour is 1.4 metres (4 feet 7 inches) long? Well, in might come handy in a quiz sometime.
* A QUEEN BEE can lay 3000 eggs in 24 hours. Now that’s fertility.
* TWO BROTHERS INVENTED the ballpoint pen. They were George and Lazio Biro, hence the name.
* MEMORABLE QUOTES: “The man knows nothing, but thinks he knows everything; which are excellent credentials for a career in politics.” (George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950) “I get my exercise by acting as a pall-bearer for those of my friends who choose to exercise regularly.” (Winston Spencer Churchill, 1874-1965)
* ON 25 MARCH 1964, the British Government set aside an acre of the famous turf at Runnymede, England, where the Magna Carta had been reluctantly signed by King John on 15 June 1215. The turf became a memorial to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas on 22 November 1963.
* A FUNCTIONAL FLUSH toilet was found in the palace of Knossos. The amazing factor here is that the city dates back to 2000 BC.
* PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN was assassinated on 15 April 1865 by the actor John Wilkes Booth as he sat in a Washington theatre. Booth was so nervous before the event that he drank a whole bottle of brandy during the hours leading up to the shooting at 10.15pm (22.15). Less well known is the fact that Booth’s accomplice, who was also there to kill Vice-President Andrew Johnson, consumed so much “Dutch courage” that he couldn’t even pull his handgun from his coat pocket at the critical moment.
* OZZIE THE FLYING cat was reunited with his family after flying around 100,000kms recently. A British couple adopted him whilst working in Bahrain, and paid to have the feline shipped home with them on their return to England. But Ozzie busted out of jail during the flight to London and was not in his cardboard box in the cargo hold when his owners went to reclaim him at Heathrow airport. He was found on the same aircraft ten days later, however, having made the flight back and forth between London and Bahrain ten times. We understand that Ozzie is ineligible for any extra free air miles.
* A HAPLESS CAR thief in California, USA, was horrified when the vehicle he had broken into fought back. The car automatically locked all its doors, trapping him inside, and set off a loud alarm. When police arrived to arrest him, the man attempted to hide. Said an officer: “He was all scrunched up under the back seat, obviously hoping that we couldn’t see him there.”
*SOME CLASSIC TV COLEMANBALLS: “This is an interesting football match of two halves, and it could go either way.” (Alan Parry)
“And there is Sebastian Coe, getting ready for our first sight of him later this afternoon.” (Jim Rosenthal)
“These Kenyans are all gifted runners, and they learn their trade whilst on the job.” (Tim Hutchings)
“I can’t quite make them out in this fog, but either Oxford or Cambridge are winning this boat race.” (John Snagg)
“Boostie (Bustamante) missing that shot has handed the rack to ‘The Pearl’ (Earl Strickland). It’s like giving Count Dracula the keys to the blood-bank!” (Sid Waddell)
* SOME MEMBERS of India’s famous Gandhi family became bullet magnets thanks to a history of assassinations. Born in 1869, Mohandas Karamachand (“Mahatma”) Gandhi was India’s most revered spiritual leader, leading the vast country to independence from Britain in 1947 after a long campaign of civil disobedience. He was shot dead by a Hindu fanatic in Delhi on 30 January 1948. At New Delhi on 31 October 1984, Gandhi’s daughter-in-law, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (born in 1917) was murdered by Sikh extremists in vengeance for the storming of the Golden Temple at Amritsar earlier that year. Indria’s son, Rajiv Gandhi (born in 1944), then took power, only to assassinated at Tamil Nadu on 21 May 1991 whilst campaigning for re-election. In trying to curb India’s population explosion, Rajiv had become very unpopular for urging most of India’s men to be sterilised in exchange for a radio (each). “Is this the price of our manhood?” shouted angry critics as they held transistor receivers aloft. In volatile India, it is the bullet, not the ballot, which often brings about political change.
* EXPERTS SAID that the Titanic was “unsinkable” yet the British luxury liner struck an iceberg off Newfoundland just before midnight on 14 April 1912, and slipped under the waves on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Of the 2,220 persons on board, 1,513 drowned. Five of her sixteen watertight compartments were punctured by the ice, and the vessel sank in less than three hours. The great ship’s name has since become a byword for disaster. Similarly, the Japanese supercarrier Shinano, launched amid tight wartime secrecy on 1 November 1944, was also said to be “unsinkable”. At a displacement of 72,000 tons, she was also the largest aircraft carrier built up to that time. But guess what? On her maiden voyage she was sunk by the American submarine USS Archer-Fish, commanded by Captain Joe Enright. Just after 3am on 29 November 1944 off the island of Honshu, Shinano was struck by four torpedoes from a spread of six fired by the sub. Listing heavily, she went to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean seven hours later, losing almost two-thirds of her crew of over 3,000 men. During her brief existence as a military vessel, the Shinano never fired a shot, or launched an aircraft in anger. Icebergs and torpedoes are best avoided on maiden voyages.
davidcox@loxinfo.co.th

Man Wearing Cooler On His Head Tries To Hold Up A Store

A man wearing a cooler box on his head tried to hold up a store in Bangkok.
Police say Sombat Kriengchai entered the store in Minburi and grabbed a polystyrene foam container. He punched a hole in it so he could see, placed it on his head and approached the counter.
The shop assistant says she heard him say something but couldn't make out the words because of the cooler.
A witness told police that the man came around the counter and said something like: "Everybody get your hands up."
The Minburi local paper reports that the witness saw the man was armed with a bb pistol. So he took it from him and pushed him out of the store.
Police arrested Sombat who was later charged with attempted armed robbery.

Bin Laden Hit Hard By News Of His Death

Washington, D.C. — News this week from the FBI's top official for counterterrorism that Osama bin Laden was "probably not with us anymore" has shaken the al Qaeda leader, who had spent the past 10 months believing he was alive.
The late bin Laden however, urged his followers not to jump to conclusions. "The Americans are known for spreading false information to throw us off guard," he said. "This could be another one of their tricks."
Despite that skepticism, however, word of his demise spread quickly through the secret caves along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where the terrorist mastermind has been hiding since dying in Tora Bora in October. While many were surprised and saddened by the revelation, some top aides were angry at their chief for keeping them out of the loop.
"You said you only had a shrapnel wound in the shoulder, and we believed you," said confidante Masir Mousawi. "Now I guess we know the real reason you haven't made a videotape lately."
Other followers were attempting to decide who should take over as leader, and what direction the terrorist network should go in. "I did not have a chance to speak with Osama until after he died," said al Qaeda official Abdul Atwar. "But we have to ask ourselves, what would he have wanted us to do?" Bin Laden's continual pleas of "You could ask me," fell on deaf ears.

When You've Been Here Too Long ...

Wear a smart suit with lime green flip-flops.
Ask a person where they have been when they are carrying 6 Robinsons shopping bags.
Use the expression ‘Lot Tit’ (traffic is bad) more than 20 times in the same day.
Go swimming with all your clothes on.
Put sugar on the sweetest fruit.
Carry your bus fare in your ear.
Watch a whole movie through the window of a video shop.
Stand at a bus stop, but run towards the bus when it appears on the horizon.
Irritate everyone on the sky-train by talking loudly on your mobile phone and saying ‘khap’ or ‘kha’ a lot.
Actually start smiling while watching a game show on TV.
Enjoy looking at other people’s crappy holiday photos.
Carry a little poodle around the supermarket.
Stand in the express checkout line at the supermarket with enough shopping to feed an army.
Buy the largest box of popcorn physically possible, and go into the movie theatre ten minutes after the film starts.
Spend 5 hours choosing a lottery ticket.
Read all the books and magazines in a book-shop before deciding not to buy anything.
Listen to the TV or radio about 10 decibels louder than it needs to be.
Cover your head with a sheet of soggy newspaper during a rain-storm.
Order a Big Mac, large french fries, massive Coke, and an ice-cream, and only finish the ice-cream.
Walk on the footpath as slowly as you can in a zig-zag pattern.
Produce about 50 different kinds of plastic at a supermarket check-out before realising the one you want is still at home.
Dilute your whisky with enough soda to render it virtually colorless.
Stand at the mouth of an escalator and have an in-depth conversation.
Get into an elevator before everyone else gets out.
Order the hottest dish on a menu, and then spend the next ten minutes telling everyone dining with you how hot it is.
Put a toilet roll in a gaudy looking box on the coffee table instead of up in the kharsi.
Stand around and gawp at a supermarket display of shampoo because there’s 2 baht off.
Manage to fall asleep on the washing line.
Adopt the same routine for 52 weekends a year.
Pride yourself on not knowing where the southern bus terminal is or where Malaysia is.
Own a tape cassette collection of 120 tapes, of which 119 of them are soundtracks.
Have posters on your wall which include two babies kissing each other, and one of that tennis girl scratching her arse.
Park your car in the living room of your shop-house.
Organise a trip to Pattaya, which includes a guitar, an enormous ice-box, and five people who all turn up three hours late.

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