Jokes and Stories from this months issue.

*THE MOST FAMOUS scandal in Olympic history arose from the drug-positive urine sample returned by Canada’s Ben Johnson after winning the 100 metres final at Seoul in world record time. But Johnson’s fall from grace served to overshadow Amateur Boxing’s most notorious episode of match fixing at the same Olympics. This was highlighted when American Roy Jones Junior was robbed of a gold medal. Judges decided that he had been beaten by South Korea’s Park Si-hun in the Light Middleweight final. Jones had landed 86 punches to Park’s 32, and completely dominated his Korean opponent but lost on a 3-2 vote as spectators and press at the Boxing Stadium erupted in a near riot. There were other mysterious decisions – all in favour of Korean boxers.
According to author Andrew Jennings in his book ‘The Lords of the Rings’ South Korean politicians and sports officials held an important meeting when they had secured the 1988 Games for Seoul. The politicians said, “We must ensure that we win many gold medals at ‘our’ Games. In which sport do we have the best chance?” The sports officials replied, “In Boxing.” The politicians then said, “Okay then. Now how can we guarantee gold medals in Boxing?” Answer: by bribing the judges. And that’s just what they did. But the blatant hometown decisions began to stink so much that they threatened to destroy the Sport’s credibility. So local officials hastily scaled back on their projected number of wins. One South Korean boxer who had been assured by his own top brass that he would win a gold medal was enraged when he lost his semi-final. He petulantly refused to leave his corner of the ring. And he was still sitting there, looking devastated, when everyone had left and stadium staff had switched the lights off.
*QUOTE CORNER: “These new voting machines that register votes by touching would not go down well in California. At least one of them would be certain to file a suit on the grounds that that they had been ‘touched inappropriately’” (Jay Leno)
*VICTORIAN JOURNALISTS certainly knew how to accentuate the positive. After native Zulu tribesmen wiped out an entire force of some 1,300 British troops at Isandhlwana on 22 January 1879; London’s newspapers concentrated on the heroism of Britons at the hamlet of Rorke’s Drift just hours later. Here, 147 men of the 2nd Battalion, 24th foot Welsh Fusiliers plus some local white South Africans fought off over 8,000 Zulu warriors for two days, winning eleven Victoria Crosses, a record for one military engagement. Lieutenants’ Gonville Bromhead and John Rouse Merriott Chard led the British soldiers, and the classic siege was the basis for the 1964 movie ‘Zulu’ starring Michael Caine (Bromhead) and Stanley Baker (Chard). This film was a breakthrough for Caine, launching him as a major movie star.
Says Chard (Baker) after the battle “If this was a miracle, it was a short chamber, Boxer Henry four point five calibre miracle.” The Zulu chief Cetewayo and his forces were subsequently defeated at Ulundi, Zululand (now Eastern South Africa) on 4 July 1879 by a British army under Lord Chelmsford (Frederic Thesiger), and a peace treaty was signed between the two nations. Thus ended the famous ‘Zulu War’ of the 19th century.
*AN OLD WOMAN about to board an Uzbecki airlines flight was told by a steward that she could not bring livestock on board. She promptly strangled the trussed up chicken she was carrying and waved its’ body triumphantly at the steward as she climbed the steps to the aircraft.
*WHEN ABRAHAM ZAPRUDER took his new cine camera along to record President John F Kennedy’s visit to Dallas, Texas on 22 November 1963, he had no idea that he was going to capture on film one of the most dramatic events of the 20th century. A computer-enhanced version of Zapruder’s epic few seconds of film was used extensively by Oliver Stone in his movie ‘JFK’, and experts have poured over the cine footage in the 39 years since the brutal assassination of America’s youngest President, aged 46. Zapruder’s footage disproves the conclusion of the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, acted alone. The film clearly shows that Kennedy was hit by rifle rounds fired from at least two different directions; whilst Oswald was above and behind the Presidential cavalcade as he supposedly crouched by a window at the Texas schoolbook depository that fateful afternoon. Most people now agree that Judge Earl Warren presided over a whitewashing exercise in political expediency, possibly on the orders of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was sworn in as President later that day.
The persons who planned Kennedy’s assassination obviously did not reckon on a bystander shooting the whole event on cine film. Nowadays, of course, such an occasion would be broadcast live on local and national TV, whilst hundreds of spectators would be getting everything down on videotape, thanks to modern lightweight camcorders. Zapruder sold his cine footage to Time-Life International for $150,000 in December 1963. The United States government then purchased the copyright of this historic film clip for 16 million dollars in August 1999 - ironically on the very day that JF Kennedy (Junior) was killed when the aircraft he was piloting crashed into the sea off Cape Cod.
* “AMERICANS SEE history as a straight line and themselves standing at the cutting edge of it as representatives for all mankind. They believe in the future as if it were a religion; they believe that there is nothing they cannot accomplish, that solutions wait somewhere for all problems, like brides.” (Frances Fitzgerald; Fire in the Lake, 1972)
*HERE’S A DOGGY STORY. An English expat couple took their pet canine along with them to a restaurant in Seoul, South Korea, recently. As they were being seated, they asked a staff member to take care of their dog, and give him something to eat in their kitchen. The waiter nodded wisely, took the leash and led the trusting animal away. Now the man had a limited command of English; but the words “dog” and “eat” were clear enough. You can imagine the rest: an hour later, faithful Fido was served up to the couple on a silver platter - freshly cooked and suitably garnished with vegetables and rice. Now does red or white wine go down best with a hearty meal of roasted dog?
*THE CATHOLIC CHURCH has not always concerned itself with lofty affairs of the soul. On 4 February 1559, Pope Paul IV issued the papal bull cum ex apostolatus, which decreed that “all sovereigns who support heresy shall be deposed”. This edict was specifically aimed at England’s Queen Elizabeth I. The Vatican thus officially sanctioned what in modern parlance would be called a ‘hit’ on a foreign monarch. To the papacy in Rome, England’s new Protestant Queen was a heretic. The Catholic Queen Mary 1 had persecuted Protestants unmercifully, and church officials in Rome were concerned when she died childless in 1558, with her half-sister Elizabeth the only heir. During the brief five years reign of “Bloody Mary”, many innocent English people had been burned at the stake for their religious beliefs. After Mary died, it was secretly made known to professional assassins that the Pope would pay them handsomely if they were to kill her successor, and thus help restore the ascendance of the Catholic religion in England. There were several attempts to assassinate Queen Elizabeth 1 before her death in 1603; most of them approved and sponsored by the Vatican.
*SEVERAL WAGS in the USA have been fined for ordering internal flight tickets in the name of ‘O. Bin Laden’. It seems that following the tragic events of 11.09.2001 airline companies do not much appreciate black humour.
*WHAT DID the katoey say to the plastic surgeon? “Thanks for the mammaries!”
*THE ENGLISH actress Jane March was the original “Sinner from Pinner”. Her steamy role in the Jean-Jacques Annaud movie ‘The Lover’ made her an overnight sensation whilst still a teenager. She refused to give a direct answer when BBC’s Terry Wogan asked her on his chat show if it was true that she and co-star Tony Leung had not faked their torrid sex scenes. The film, from the famous Marguerite Duras novel, is remarkable for its beautiful scenery and atmospheric portrait of indolent Saigon in the 1920’s – all shot on location in what was then known as French Indo-China, or Indochine. Picking an English actress for the main role proved to be a masterstroke. And of course Ms March sizzled. Just re-issued on DVD, it is perhaps worth a re-visit.
*THE BIG TEXAN walked through Passport and Immigration control at Ben Gurion airport and hailed a taxi. “Ah want yew to take me to where yew people are weepin’ and wailin’ and rockin’ and beatin’ yer heads against the wall”, he drawled.
So the taxidriver took him to the Taxation Department in Tel Aviv.
*THE ENGLISH JUDGE presiding over a criminal case in Dublin was shocked when the accused pleaded guilty to the charge, only to be acquitted by the jury.
“Now just how did you arrive at that verdict?” he asked the foreman of the jury later.
“Well, begorrah, sor”, said the man, “everybody here except you knows him to be the biggest liar in Old Ireland.”
*MARTHA’S VINEYARD, July 1969. Says Mary Jo: “Ted honey. I think I may be pregnant.” Ted: “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, darlin’. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
*BEST QUOTE from the 17th Commonwealth Games in Manchester last July/August came from English hurdler Natasha Danvers. The Sydney Olympic finalist was a clear third with just 40 metres left to run in the 400 metres hurdles when she hit the last barrier with her lead leg, and crashed to the track. She got up to limp in last as the rest of the field dashed past her. What had happened? “Me knickers went up me bum”, she explained simply to 1992 Olympic Champion Sally Gunnell who was working as a trackside interviewer for the BBC.
*WE UNDERSTAND that there is no truth in the story that Jonathan Swift once wrote a satire about an unhappy tourist in Thailand known as ‘Gullible’s Travails.’
*NEW FROM Japan is a dog language translator. No kidding. The device is attached to the pet’s collar and transmits messages to a home computer loaded with the appropriate software. The translator is programmed to recognise over 200 variations of barks and whines to tell a dog owner just what his/her pooch is saying every time the creature makes a sound. The ‘translated’ messages then appear on the computer screen in any of five languages, and can also be heard as an audible signal through speakers. Always crazy about technical gadgets for their pets, Japanese dog owners have snapped up the device. After first going on sale in Tokyo, it reportedly sold out within two hours.
*SIR THOMAS MALORY (1430-1471) became famous for his fifteenth-century Arthurian romance Le Morte d’Arthur, published in 1485. This treatise on the semi-legendary King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table dealt largely with noble ideas of chivalry and courtly love. Malory himself was not so noble. He was imprisoned eight times for crimes ranging from rape to armed robbery.
davidcox@loxinfo.co.th

Fancy a new name?

A man from England, has agreed to change his name to Mr Yellow-Rat Foxysquirrel Fairydiddle in exchange for a pint of beer. Richard James's friends all wrote stupid names on the back of a beer mat. They then paid 2,220B to change his name using their laptop. He got a pint in exchange. But James, who is unemployed, doesn't have the money to change his name back.
"It was funny at the time but now I'm brassed off with all the jokes," he tells The Sun.
"I said I'd do it for a laugh if they bought me a pint. I enjoyed it for a while and had a credit card in my new name and informed my bank. But now I just want to be called Richard again."

Man breaks record by clipping 153 clothes pegs to his face

A man has broken his own world record by clipping 153 clothes pegs to his face.
Garry "Stretch" Turner smashed his previous record by 20 pegs in front of amazed onlookers in York.
The feat took place at WH Smith's store in the city to celebrate the launch of the Guinness Book of Records 2003.
Ben Potter, who works as an assistant in the store and helped organise the event, told The Northern Echo "He looked like he had a very good technique - as though it had been practised many times.
"Garry said that attaching the pegs to his cheeks hurt the most and afterwards you could see he was in a lot of pain. There were marks on his skin that he said would last an hour and he had to keep rubbing his face."
The rules stipulate that there are certain areas of the face where pegs cannot be placed, including the lips.
Mr Potter told the paper: "I think it's a lot easier for Garry to attach the pegs to his face because of the type of skin that he has. He just kept popping them on and they held on to the smallest amount of his skin."
Mr Turner told the crowd his success was due to his elastic skin and large pain threshold.
Members of the public tried to set a record by eating as many Smarties as possible in three minutes using chopsticks. The best attempt saw 54 Smarties eaten, far short of the record of 93 held by Sebastian Pinski, of Leicester.

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