The cruise-ship operator P&O has apologised, under pressure, for running a series of advertisements in Australia featuring bikini-clad women and the slogan “seamen wanted” (how they laughed in the playground). But only just, saying that the ads ran in 2003 “and are not the way we represent our company today”. How things have changed in three years.
Slovenia and Austria both claim the famous Lipizzaner horse as a national symbol (but only the Austrians house ministerial offices above their stables). The rivalry has been a source of friction over the centuries. The latest round seems to have been won by Slovenia, which has sneakily chosen a dancing Lipizzaner to adorn its euro coins.
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Not everyone in Los Angeles is relishing the new trend for “pre-funerals”, parties to which friends are invited for the not-yet dead to show off their plots over a glass or two. “Morbid,” said Shelly Lehrer of her invitation to the dedication at the Hollywood Forever cemetery by Bernardo Puccio and Orin Kennedy of their final resting place. “I’m not going.” Anyway, after-parties are always the best.
Tests on Mount Everest of clothes that are replicas of those worn by George Mallory and Sandy Irvine on their ill-fated expedition to reach the summit in 1924 — both died — show that the gear is just as protective as clobber worn today. The mountaineer Graham Hoyland wore the old-style clothing for two days on Everest as part of an effort to discover whether Mallory reached the peak 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Sir Chris Bonington says the finding at least shows that the pair “had a chance” of completing the ascent. So, 80 years of effort put into designing all-weather textiles and Twenties kit still cuts the mustard.
Jennifer Love Hewitt seems to find all the public attention garnered by her body rather stressful (the actress’s chest has an internet fan site and is ranked seventh in a magazine’s Best Cleavage in Hollywood list). “My naked body shouldn’t have to be out there in the public,” pleads the 27-year-old. “I need something that’s mine alone.” Perhaps, just as a start, she might stop modelling an American underwear range.
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Sources: The Sydney Morning Herald, BBC News, Los Angeles Times, BBC News, World Entertainment News Network