And another nice photo from UK MetroBoy's best friend is a 4.8-metre-long python
By Sally PeckLast Updated: 2:40am GMT 29/11/2007While many children might wish to curl up with a dog or cat, a young Cambodian boy prefers to spend his time with a 4.8-metre-long python.
In the village of Sit Tbow, 50 kilometres east of Phnom Penh, Sambath Uon, seven, reportedly refuses to go to sleep without the company of his pet, Chamreun, or Lucky, in Khmer.
Telegraph TV: Sambath and his pet are the same age The snake slithered into town in 2000, when Sambath was just a few months old.
While the boy's father tried to return the snake to the forest three times, the Burmese python loyally returned to her young master and has earned the acceptance of villagers, who think she brings good fortune.
Young Sambath said of his faithful companion: "I love the python like my sister."
The affection appears to be mutual, despite the fact that pythons are typically afraid of people and avoid humans if at all possible.
One of the world's largest snakes, the Burmese python, which is found throughout Southeast Asia, can grow up to 8 metres long and weigh up to 180 kg. Females like Lucky are typically longer than males.While its attractive skin patterns and colours have made the Burmese python popular with the fashion industry and reptile keepers, they make unpredictable pets.
The python's seemingly docile nature conceals the snake's true power; Lucky would be capable of inflicting fierce bites or easily killing a human by constriction.
The cardinal rule with British royals: Don’t speak unless spoken to. “An absolute no-no,” Higgins says. The first time you meet a royal on any given day, use the highest applicable official address: “Your Majesty” for the queen; “Your Royal Highness” for a prince. For a complete listing of royal and noble titles, consult Burke’s Peerage or DeBrett’s Peerage. The rest of the day, use “sir” or “ma’am” (which rhymes with ham, not hum). Women should curtsy; men can nod their heads. Royals proffer their hands first, and handshakes should be short and not too hard. Avoid turning your back on the queen unless it can’t be helped, as when you’re being introduced in a group setting or if you’re at one of the royals’ large garden parties.Now that I know, I should expect an invitation to dine at Buckingham Palace.
At a meal, the head royal begins to eat first unless there’s a visiting sovereign, which has led to some amusing confusion when the king of Country X waits for the queen to start while she’s waiting for him. Take a bit of each dish, and don’t ask for anything; what you see is what you get. When the head royal is done with her course, you’re done too. If you drop something, pretend nothing happened; servants will discreetly tend to it.
But as scholars can testify, what gives meaning to some is an anathema to others. Just ask the four young graduate students who gave a presentation at the American Academy of Religion on the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster grew out of a backlash against biblical creationists in Kansas who wanted intelligent design taught in public schools as an alternative to evolution. The movement's founder dashed off a letter to the state school board demanding his theory also be taught: that the world was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Fueled by the Internet, the craze became a pop culture hit. Its followers are known as “Pastafarians.” Its icon is a spoof of Michelangelo's “Creation” portrait, with Adam reaching out to touch a noodle.
Spoof? Why is this faith any less valid than any of the others?
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I mowed the rest of the lawn after I returned home from work today.
Don't say you weren't warned!The Establishment
ZombiesAreComing.com is an online organization, established in 2007, for the purpose of promoting zombie awareness and preparation for the coming tides of darkness.
While outbreaks have been limited in the past to controllable levels, this trend is changing, and we must be proactive in defense of our homeland. Those in power have been able to contain and downplay any and all outbreaks, despite underground movements to inform the general public of pending danger. This site will help you take matters into your own hands and regain your options for self-defense against any ghoulish outbreak. Here, you are free to discuss with other survivalists about tactics, equipment, weapons, buildings, and any other methods to prepare for the days that the dead walk the face of the earth.
We have to take matters into our own hands, folks. It is us or them. This is our time to be prepared. This is our time to live.
And all the tracks are free.The KFC Hitmaker: Knowing Foul Cynicism
KFC is 'giving back' to its consumer fanbase by releasing an album. This is more than a gimmicky publicity stunt - it's downright dangerous
James Donaghy
November 16, 2007 4:00 PM
A Pizza Hut! A Pizza Hut! Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut! Photograph: Getty
We know how KFC likes to take the definition of soul food literally. Marlena Shaw wasn't complaining about the royalty cheque when they adopted California Soul in one of their adverts and they have aggressively targeted the black community in their recent campaigns. Their latest scheme should give everyone pause for thought, though.They have released an album, available for download here, that's a compilation of the best entrants from their Pride 360° competition, a scheme they ran in the summer to unearth musical talent as part of Black Music Month.
Intriguingly, the aspiring urban artists were instructed to record a song creatively incorporating the words "individual", "family", "community", "heritage" with KFC, the winner getting a recording opportunity and some publicity. Hip-hop blogger Byron Crawford comments on the irony of an album featuring "nothing but black people singing about fried chicken". He's got a point.
And it's got to be said that no matter what the winner D Mawl (who hails from Kentucky) does with the rest of his career he will forever be known as The Fried Chicken Guy. While it's a nice idea for KFC to throw a half-gnawed bone back to its black customer base, it's difficult see the exercise as anything other than a gimmicky publicity stunt, and I hope this doesn't set a precedent. Commercial sponsorship of the arts is inevitable - but there have got to be limits. And KFC don't got none.
Robert Cialdini, in his book Influence, identifies association as one of the most powerful and successful principles in advertising and compliance. Weaving those positive concepts ("individual", "family", "community", "heritage") with KFC is an act of breathtaking cynicism and you've almost got to admire the brass balls it takes to pull it off, all the while posing as a benefactor.
So apart from offering patronage to a crappy rapper who's sold out before he's even got a contract, what exactly is KFC promoting in the black community? The high fat, high cholesterol, high sodium KFC diet, of course.
Ebony magazine calls heart disease "the ultimate destroyer in the black community, killing more people than Aids and cancer combined". The American Heart Association concurs.
Hypertension, obesity, clogged arteries and an hour-long commercial masquerading as talent scouting is KFC's legacy to black America. You don't have to be Chuck D to ask "how low can you go?"
Historia Krzywego Domku
W sercu Trójmiasta tuż przy uroczym sopockim deptaku Monte Cassino znajduje się Krzywy Domek- najbardziej nietypowa nieruchomość w Polsce. Taka, której pozazdrościć nam może niejedno miasto. To tu mieszczą się restauracje, kafejki, sklepy i biura, wszystko wygląda jak z bajki. Inspiracją stały się rysunki Pera Dahlberga.
Man in India Marries Dog As Atonement
NEW DELHI (AP) — A man in southern India married a female dog in a traditional Hindu ceremony as an attempt to atone for stoning two other dogs to death — an act he believes cursed him — a newspaper reported Tuesday.
P. Selvakumar married the sari-draped former stray named Selvi, chosen by family members and then bathed and clothed for the ceremony Sunday at a Hindu temple in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, the Hindustan Times newspaper said.
Selvakumar, 33, told the paper he had been suffering since he stoned two dogs to death and hung their bodies from a tree 15 years ago.
"After that my legs and hands got paralyzed and I lost hearing in one ear," he said in the report.
The paper said an astrologer had told Selvakumar the wedding was the only way he could cure the maladies. It did not say whether his situation had improved.
Deeply superstitious people in rural India sometimes organize weddings to dogs and other animals, believing it can ward off certain curses.
The paper showed a picture of Selvakumar sitting next to the dog, which was wearing an orange sari and a flower garland.
The paper said the groom and his family then had a feast, while the dog got a bun.
Married ... P Selvakumar garlands his 'bride'.
Photo: AFP
LONDON (Reuters) - Wedginald, the English cheddar cheese that has become a star of the Internet as it matures live on screen, is up for auction with the proceeds going to charity.The 44 pound cheese that has attracted 1.65 million viewer hits on www.cheddarvision.tv since it first went on the web late last year has nearly completed its 12-month maturation and will be ready to eat by Christmas, the owners said.
"As a fitting end to the first year of Cheddarvision we at West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers are going to auction Wedginald to the highest bidder and donate all the proceeds to BBC Children in Need," they wrote on the website.
Cheese lovers can get not just a slice of the action but the whole lot by placing their bids on ebay before November 19.
I like a well matured cheddar. The more mature the better, preferably aged 24 months - vintage.
Authorities are trying some new tactics to stop street racers, including forcing repeat offenders to watch as their cars are crushed into scrap metal and using smog laws to go after people who have souped up their cars.The New South Wales government has just announced a similar measure, and will go one step further and use hoon cars for crash tests. Unfortunately, they won't be using hoons as crash test dummies. From Sydney Morning Herald
We'll destroy hoons' cars - and video it'I think this approach is called public shaming and a punishment, not a deterrent. The stakes are now just that much higher.
November 12, 2007 - 8:05AM
Car hoons will be penalised and humiliated under a NSW government initiative to wreck the vehicles of offenders and publish video footage of the destruction.
Premier Morris Iemma says the plan proposes to destroy hoons' cars in demonstration tests under controlled conditions.
"Car hoons engage in potentially lethal, property destroying, anti-social behaviour," Mr Iemma said in a statement today.
"We're turning the tables. We'll destroy their property - but do it for the right reasons."
Police Minister David Campbell said film of the cars being destroyed would be publicly released.
"Video footage of these once-prized possessions being turned into splintered, twisted scrap will be the clearest message yet to hoons that we're serious about stamping out their behaviour and saving lives in the process."
The comments come after a weekend when police confiscated four cars whose drivers were allegedly racing on suburban Sydney streets.
In separate incidents on Saturday night, two 23-year-old men, one a provisional licence holder, a 19-year-old man and 29-year-old man had their cars confiscated by police and were ordered to face court for street racing.
Mr Iemma said the plan to destroy hoons' cars would provide valuable controlled crash statistics, and footage of the destruction would be used as a deterrent to wannabe hoons, while also educating young drivers.
"The modified, loud and often illegal vehicles confiscated from car hoons will be smashed to pieces in our crash labs, the results filmed and analysed, and the wrecks shown to other young drivers as a warning," Mr Iemma said.
"The RTA will also use the unique tests to investigate the potential effects of certain modifications on overall crashworthiness.
"And we'll show the wrecks at education days for young drivers, or at other RTA presentations."
Offenders would have to be convicted of street racing before the vehicles could be destroyed.
AAP
A little soiree for Sydney's alphabet of nationsI'm glad Sydney is not a place where everybody is the same. That would be so boring.
Adam Spencer
November 8, 2007
"Thirty-eight year old Sydneysider seeks temporary companion. Must be free this Friday morning, living in Sydney and originally from Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe … "
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Everyone says Sydney is a pretty diverse place. Well, let's see how diverse, I thought to myself. Let's try to track down people from as many countries as possible then assemble them in one spot. Now we are throwing a little soiree for about 500 of my nearest and dearest from more than 150 countries around the globe.
The response has been overwhelming. Within the first couple of days I'd spoken to Casey de Periera from the Seychelles, an island nation north-east of Madagascar. He even ran for the Seychelles at the Moscow Olympics. "The stadium had more people than my country," he said. And then there was Lolo Fernandez from Peru who told me: "I love Sydney … your roads are just so good".
I've been amazed by the range of people living in this city, their backgrounds and their stories. This week I spoke to Brigitte Wilkinson from Silesia, which you know and I know is situated between Germany and Poland and was seized by the Russians and given to the Poles after World War II. And then Iceland's Hanna Sigurjonsdottir, whose last name means "daughter of the son of Sigur", joined the team.
If you want an ambassadorial feel, we've even got Nadine Vernon coming along. "Who is she?" I hear you cry. Well, no less than the honorary consul of Belize, which you and I know is a former British colony which until 1973 was known as British Honduras and is the only Central American country with English as its official language.
In a world city whose mainstream media is too often too vanilla in every sense of the word, this just feels like it might be a lot of fun. And it's not too late to be part of it. In particular, if you're from Ukraine, Bermuda, Paraguay or even Vanuatu, give us a bell. Or Liechtenstein, Haiti, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Syria, Mongolia, Djibouti …
I should stress, this has never been an exercise about me telling people what constitutes a country - if you've come from somewhere else to live in Sydney, let us know about it. We have Garry Braude of Lane Cove representing East Prussia, which his family fled in 1939. There is no country called East Prussia now. But if he says he's from East Prussia, he's from East Prussia.
What I've realised is the amazing range of people who make up Sydney are just that. They're people, not percentages or pie charts. Everyone has a remarkable human story and the common thread is they've ended up here.
Adam Spencer is breakfast presenter on ABC 702. The World in Sydney will be broadcast live tomorrow from 6am to 7.45am. See www.abc.net.au/sydney for a list of nationalities still being sought.
I can relate to some. I can't wait to get the book once it is published here (26 November 2007).Kaelling - Danish: a woman who stands on her doorstep yelling obscenities at her kids.
Pesamenteiro - Portuguese: one who joins groups of mourners at the home of a dead person, apparently to offer condolences but in reality is just there for the refreshments.
Jayus - Indonesian: someone who tells a joke so unfunny you can't help laughing.
Kanjus Makkhicus - Hindi: a person so miserly that if a fly falls into his cup of tea, he'll fish it out and suck it dry before throwing it away.Giri-Giri - Hawaiian pidgin: the place where two or three hairs stick up, no matter what.
Pelinti - Buli, Ghana: to move very hot food around inside one's mouth.
Hanyauku - Rukwangali, Namibia: walking on tiptoes across warm sand.
Tartle - Scottish: to hesitate when you are introducing someone whose name you can't quite remember.
Vovohe Tahtsenaotse - Cheyenne, US: to prepare the mouth before speaking by moving or licking one's lips.
Prozvonit - Czech and Slovak: to call someone's mobile from your own to leave your number in their memory without them picking it up.
Hira Hira - Japanese: the feeling you get when you walk into a dark and decrepit old house in the middle of the night.
Gadrii Nombor Shulen Jongu - Tibetan: giving an answer that is unrelated to the question, literally "to give a green answer to a blue question".
Poronkusema - Finnish: the distance equal to how far a reindeer can travel without a comfort break.
Baling - Manobo, Philippines: the action of a woman who, when she wants to marry a man, goes to his house and refuses to leave until marriage is agreed upon.
Pisan Zapra - Malay: the time needed to eat a banana.
Physiggoomai - Ancient Greek: excited by eating garlic.
Baffona - Italian: an attractive moustachioed woman.
Layogenic - Tagalog, Philippines: a person who is only goodlooking from a distance.
Shvitzer - Yiddish: someone who sweats a lot, especially a nervous seducer.
Gattara - Italian: a woman, often old and lonely, who devotes herself to stray cats.
Creerse la Ultima Coca-Cola en el Desierto - Central American Spanish: to have a very high opinion of oneself, literally to "think one is the last Coca-Cola in the desert".
Vrane Su Mu Popile Mozak - Croatian: crazy, literally "cows have drunk his brain".
Bablat - Hebrew: baloney, but is an acronym of "beelbool beytseem le-lo takhleet" which means "bothering someone's testicles for no reason".
Vai A Fava - Portuguese: get lost, literally "go to the fava bean".
Rombhoru - Bengali: a woman having thighs as shapely as banana trees.
Mariteddu Tamant'e Un Ditu Ieddu Voli Essa Rivaritu - Corsican: a husband must be respected even if he is very short.
What's Behind the Hollywood Writers' Strike?I reckon that obscenely over-paid actors should really take a pay cut. Honestly, their livelihood depends on good writing.
Film and television writers are going on strike, as talks have not produced a new contract between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The writers' demands include a percentage of DVD profits, plus a cut of money from new-media distribution. NPR.org offers this explainer.Why have Hollywood writers called a strike?
TV and movie writers, represented by the Writers Guild of America, had been negotiating with studios and the entertainment industry off and on since the summer about compensation issues. Many issues were on the table, but the parties reached an impasse over the writers' demand for a larger share of profits from DVD sales and revenue from viewings of their work on the Internet. They also want a percentage of growing revenue in new distribution channels — mobile viewing, for instance, and other new ways of watching the shows they write.
Where do the studios stand?
The studios, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, say it's still unclear how much revenue those new-media distribution channels are going to produce — and where the money will be coming from. They proposed a study to look for answers, but the writers reject such studies as irrelevant. They say they're entitled to a share of the profit on any material generated through any new technology, even if that compensation is small.
What happens now that a walkout has been called?
The immediate effects will be apparent on TV, where viewers are likely to start seeing more reality shows, which don't fall under guild jurisdiction, in place of regular scripted programming. (Think singing, dancing and weight-loss contests.) Some networks will show reruns, while some are looking at programming that hasn't been on their air before. NBC, for example, has considered running the original British version of The Office.
But the networks can't immunize themselves entirely, or so the writers argue. They say that running heavy loads of reality TV on all the major networks will have broadcasters stepping on each others' toes, competitively speaking.
As for movies, the effects will be less obvious in the short run, since big-screen production takes longer. The strike probably won't affect what you see at the multiplex for more than a year.
When was the last time this happened?
The last time writers went on strike was in 1988. The walkout lasted for five months.
Compiled by Andrew Prince and Trey Graham from reporting by Kim Masters.
I had no idea who this Bill Nighy person is when I saw this in the (Brisbane) Courier Mail website.
BRITISH actor Bill Nighy can't say he's not a serial offender when it comes to wearing his glasses at strange angles.
