Underground map of London with the locations of various movie settings substituted for stations.

Yum yum

"The flavor and chic style of the brand make this a natural fit for female audiences," said Stephanie Miller, the company's new-products manager.

"This" = Brutal Fruit, an alcoholic malted drink in four flavours: Sultry Strawberry, Kinky Kiwi, Manic Mango and Luscious Litchi.

Richmond Times-Dispatch, 7 March 2005.

Oh, Chris.
"The best way to develop self esteem is to teach children to read and write, to add up and to know something about the world," he [Chris Woodhead, ex-chief inspector of schools] told BBC Radio's Today. BBC, 7 March 2005.

That may be the way you developed your self-esteem, Chris.

Film Studio in Surbiton
The ballroom in Regent House, an old mansion, provided the setting for this one-stage studio formed in 1918 by the Stoll Film Company Limited. Their first production was Comradeship, produced by Maurice Elvey, starring stage actor Gerald Ames and Lily Elsie. By 1920, Stoll had moved to a larger studio at Cricklewood, and cinematographer Geoffrey Malins had formed the Garrick Film Company and was using the Surbiton Studio. Although Malins made a number of comedy films, in the main his productions were shorts and educational films, which included Our Girls And Their Physique. Stoll retained the ownership of the studio until 1923 when it was taken over by British Instructional Films.
Patricia Warren, British Film Studios: an illustrated history, Batsford, second edition, 2001.

White Migraine
I've had Classic Migraine since my teens, and the occasional (and very horrible) period of cluster headache (for which I prefer the spookier-sounding name "migrainous neuralgia"). But in the last few years my CM has mutated to pretty much exclude the headache part of the deal. I get the aura (zigzags etc) and the postdrome (feeling like you've been hit by a bus) but very little in the way of a drum solo. So I think I need a name for this condition, and I think that name had better be White Migraine. I don't know why; it just sounds right, don't it?

Three Things That Have Increased By 61 Percent

Over the course of the last 10 years, from 1991 to 2000, the percentage of obese Americans has increased by 61 percent. Today, there are over 60 million people in this country who are considered to be obese.
James Swierzbin, Fighting obesity in America, The Berkeley Beacon, 17 February 2005

Another major crop that has shown impressive growth as a result of the policy reforms is maize. [...] Production has increased by 61 percent from 3.3 million tons in 1982 to 5.4 million tons in 1994.
Egypt State Information Service

Revenues generated per employee increased by 61 percent between 1993 and 1997.
Solar Turbines Inc.

The Great Debate: Plastic Bags

In addition to exacerbating the mosquito problem, plastic bags block gutters and drains, choke farm animals and marine wildlife, pollute the soil, can ruin Kenya's dramatic natural vistas and can take 20 to 1,000 years to decompose.
Tribune de Geneve, 23 February 2005

But it's plastic bags that really define my lifestyle. I love plastic bags. I love them almost as much as I love my cats. On some days, I love the bags more.
Harriet Cooper, A Woman of a Certain Age, 26 June 2002

"I love plastic bags because my customers can really see my logo. I use the bags as giveaways at trade shows and other meetings -- and put gifts and materials for my customers and friends inside." - A Satisfied Customer.
OnlineOrganizing.com

i hate plastic bags
Title of a review of American Beauty at Epinions.com, 26 October 1999

Goat hair from General Bailey Homestead Farm.

On this day in: 1905
Three thousand pounds of goat hair came to Redding from the ranges of G. Williams & Sons of Bella Vista. The ranges were to receive about 35 cents per pound for the goat hair.
Redding Record Searchlight, 23 Febraury 2005 (registration required)

History In The Making
Floor and Decor Outlets of America opened its first Phoenix location last month to record-breaking sales, making it the retailer's strongest opening in history.
eReleases.com, 22 February 2005

Say What?
"I thought they were ridgy-didge," he said.
Daily Telegraph [Australia], 21 February 2005

Now Lenten observances are less rigorous, and they certainly didn't inhibit the Grilled Cheese-Eating Championships from being held last week in Venice Beach, Calif., where renowned gurgitator Sonya Thomas walked away with the $3,500 grand prize after eating 25 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes. Weighing in at only 105 pounds, Sonya is prominent among the new type of athletes known as competitive eaters, or gurgitators, and she holds numerous titles, including asparagus (5.75 pounds of fried tempura-coated spears in 10 minutes), lobsters (38 in 12 minutes), and cheesecake (11 pounds in 9 minutes).
These and many other gorging contests are sanctioned by the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which disallows people younger than 18 from competing and discourages speed-eating at home, even for training.
The IFOCE considers speed-eating a sport. Their pantheon of athletes includes 409-pound Cookie Jarvis (one gallon, 9 ounces of ice cream in 12 minutes), the cornbread-loving Yellow Cake Subich and Carlene LeFevre, "a fierce and highly focused competitor who releases excess energy by popping up and down as she eats," which "helps to tamp down the food in her stomach."
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 21 February 2005

I Could Do This Job Single-Handed
Mobile phone company 3 are looking for an Entertainment Project Manager with attributes that include: "Enthusiasm for adult entertainment, broad minded & customer savvy ".

Pod User's Manual.

Translation

They say:

The project is examining how spaces between buildings can be used to create a streetscape matching the cosmopolitan feel of the location and improve the pedestrian experience in accordance with the Urban Realm Strategy for the city centre. Aberdeen City Council, 16 February 2005.

They mean:
We're going to repave Thistle Street.

Headlines That Make History

Americans still like thicker towels

Charlotte Observer, 17 February 2005 [subscription required].

According to that shining light of reason, Princess Michael, the Queen relaxes by exercising her Cockney accent. This news comes hot (or not) on the heels of the revelation that Buckingham Palace lacks double-glazing, and is oozing heat into the Mall.

Who'd have guessed that the royal family were so common? My sources tell me that Princess Michael has done her own secondary glazing at her pad in Kensington. Perhaps she used clingfilm, and a hair dryer.

Cheese theft
Police were called Sunday to Cub Foods, 2600 Rice Creek Road, on a theft report. A Cub security officer said she saw a man entering and leaving the bathroom of the store several times. The man then left the store, and allegedly tried to break into three vehicles, including the security officer's vehicle. She confronted the man, who told her he had cheese in his pocket and it was not paid for. Police asked the man why he was trying to get into the vehicles, and he said he was cold. The man was cited for shoplifting and motor-vehicle tampering. Police gave him a ride home.
St. Paul Pioneer Press, 28 January 2005 [subscription required]

British Culture Triumphs in Hollywood

"I am ashamed of the drink-punch-smash-vomit culture which has spread like an ugly acne on the face of our once proud towns and cities." Steve Green, Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police. The Scotsman, 22 January 2005.

"I'm too scared to put on a dress in case the baby vomits on it." Cate Blanchett, Oscar (R) nominee. Ananova, 1 February 2005.

"Yeah, I'd love to be skinny like you, but I couldn't give up eating vinyl."

Picture: The Virtual Radiogram

Skip, Surbiton. (Or "skip Surbiton", if you're in a hurry.)

I'd like to think this Walton-on-Thames firm was founded by Mr Fox, and then he brought his daughters into the business. I'm too timid to call them and ask them, but look - the number's there if you want to have a go.

We thought it was mould, but it was just a jay cloth that had got shredded, and baked into the loaf. Yum yum.

...the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty did not steal any steak last week. Instead, they stole — or rather they claim to have stolen — chicken, diapers and razor blades; two tins of salmon; a jar of peanut butter; also some cheese.
Toronto Star, 7 October 2004

BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Sept. 27, 2004 -- Canadian author,columnist and entertainer Gordon Kirkland announced todaythat his next book, "When My Mind Wanders It Brings Back Souvenirs," will be released by U.S. publisher AuthorHousein the spring of 2005.
eReleases Newsbureau

When My Mind Wanders I Tack Photocopied Appeals For Its Return On Neighbourhood Trees.

B-LOONY LTD
Acquired By BIMBO
Sector: Promotional Products
T/O: £4m
Oasis Europe

Q: Anything to add to the Trite List for 2003?
The poster child for tired branding buzzwords would have to be “Extreme,” which registered an inexplicable 20% increase in 2003. Among the wild-and-crazy products that fancied themselves extreme were cake mix, beef jerky, fishing lures, conveyor belts, tricycles, refrigerator magnets, clip-on sunglasses and pudding. Please put this one out of its misery.
The Naming Newsletter, Rivkin & Associates, 21 September 2004

"If you have 844 paper clips in your drawer, take some back to the storage unit," she said.
South Bend Tribune, 11 September 2004.

BOZEMAN (AP) — Vandalism at the Gallatin County Republican headquarters has been under investigation by police.
Damage included a shattered window, and on the outside walls, spray-painted messages against President Bush. The front door was coated with eggs and a substance resembling cottage cheese.
Helena Independent Record, 5 September 2004.

EL PORTAL
Someone stole a dolly from a front yard in the 100 block of Northeast 87th Street, sometime between 9:45 and 10:25 a.m. Aug. 1. The homeowner said she left the dolly near the roadway after putting her trash out.
Miami Herald, 19 August 2004.

Daniel Mainwaring
His first whodunnit novel, published in 1936, was The Doctor Died at Dusk. Written under an English-sounding and, in the future, often used nom de plume, Geoffrey Holmes, it featured journalist Robin Bishop. In his 1938 Then There Were Three, Mainwaring summoned up a new investigator, the milk-drinking, accordian-playing private detective Humphrey Campbell. Four years later, in The Street of Crying Women, he introduced Hispanic cop, Jose Manual Madero, a Zapotec Indian who knits socks and smokes cigarettes after flipping them in the air and catching them between his lips. Robin Bishop would go on to feature in The Man Who Murdered Himself (1936), The Man Who Didn't Exist (1937) and The Man Who Murdered Goliath (1938).
from Heartbreak and Vine: The Fate of Hardboiled Writers in Hollywood by Woody Haut (2002)

Important Stats
The James Bond film Licence To Kill would have been called Licence Revoked, only 85% of Americans tested didn't know what 'revoked' means. But in another survey, 93% did know what the Betty Ford Clinic was, and what it does.

[Sent to Harry Hill's TV Burp]

Hello,

My stapler looks like Phil Mitchell from Eastenders.

Here's a shot of the stapler duetting with my mobile phone in a stunning tableau-style tribute.

Do let me know if you'd like me to add ketchup.



Phil Mitchell?

Phil Mitchell...

"Every once in a while we get some of the beautifully colored paper clips," Lipps said. While the company doesn't purchase them, staffers "hold onto them for very special things."
http://www.coshoctontribune.com/news/stories/20031228/localnews/126040.html

Cheese In History: The Captions
#001

Several young men of the village joined the parmesans in the hills.

Haven't heard from me? Well, I switched off mail reception from cupcake.com a month or so ago because the spam was becoming intolerable, and I'm too cheap to pay for a decent spam filter. But I just switched it on and it's now downloading 85,497 messages. So, I'll be getting back to you, obviously.

At the age of 90 he was given a doctor's certificate of fitness to drive and promptly drove 500 miles to an origami conference.

Wrong map, buddy.

"Even though they sat in the wet seats, they were still in high spirits," said Tina Semon the Stand for Children chair. "It was an amazing accomplishment. It shows the American spirit."
Indiana's living flag

Foster, arguing with Daniels's earlier statement, said that the first thing people want is a gun, not Coke or Disney. Anthropologists studying New Guinea highlanders in the 1930s found that while the highlanders thought the phonograph interesting, what they wanted were guns. The second thing everyone wants is a chain saw, he added. (Later, someone in the audience suggested that the reason guns and chain saws were popular is because they are analogues of existing tools.)
(c) Evelyn C. Leeper

Cheese Blackout
"I'm still trying to restock," he said. "I am going to get up very early in the morning and go to New Jersey and get more cheese. We lost hundreds of pounds of cheese. Maybe about $50,000 worth."
New York Post

From the ever-entertaining British Library catalogue:

Must we introduce Monogamy? A study of polygamy on a mission problem in South Africa.
HELANDER. Gunnar
pp. 69. Shuter & Shooter: Pietermaritzburg, 1958. 8o.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pizza products without tomato sauce, cheese or bread crust can still be sold as pizza under new government regulations, the U.S. Agriculture Department said Thursday.

Not Me
What a shame.

Great Moments in Customer Service #2
Me: You tried to deliver a package just now, but he's put an invalid waybill number on the card.
DHL: What's the route number?
Me: WN06...
DHL: ...Oh blimey, he ain't got a flipping phone. Fat lot of use that is.

Lovely Street Names #2 to #8

Acting on details provided by an informant, police have seized several dozen street-name signs at a local residence, which allegedly had been stolen by a teenager from street intersections during the past several months.

The purloined green-and-white signs were stolen from places across town, including Cricket Trail, High Rock Road, Great Ring Road, Chipmunk Trail, Chimney Swift Road, and Poverty Hollow Road, among dozens of others.

Newtown Bee (CT)

That's a matter of opinion

Almonds and pistachios are the only nuts mentioned in the Bible.

The dairy area is a gold mine if you love yogurt.

This must be a fertility cocktail:

IVF Martini

Into a shaker 2/3 filled with ice add a small (30 ml) shot of absinthe, a small shot of Kahlua, and a large (60 ml) shot of cold (but fresh) espresso (or filter coffee). Shake and strain into a Martini glass, and float a small shot of single cream on top. Garnish with three coffee beans.

ViewLondon

Maybe "Truffle" Is Code For "Missile"?

"Daddy, daddy, look what I found," cries Rana, one of his daughters, running up to Saddam with a truffle in her hand.

The Cape Argus (and everybody else) on Reuters' Saddam Hussein home videos.

Lovely Street Names #1

Reed slammed into a tree along Pine Products Road as he was trying to outrun a sheriff's deputy.

St Petersburg Times [Florida]

Surprisingly dull compilation of exclamations and arguments (on a bus) caused by spontaneous traffic-related nudity in Nigeria.

"So. What about Tim?"

Mustn't-Haves #342
Inside was a set of beautiful, hand crafted metal and wood hot dog sticks! [...]They're very affordable and come in a beautiful cloth case.
Writers Weekly

She waited through the courses until the end when her pungent surprise was brought out. Floating in the bowl of soup were gelatinous rubber band shapes.

Yeltsin paused dramatically before announcing: "Moose lips."

from Hillary Clinton's memoirs, apparently.

Great Moments in Customer Service
Us: Our milk delivery hasn't come today.
Dairy Crest: Yeah, Sean's been really unreliable lately.

6:30 am - Jump on the computer and type in a few names I dreamed up during the night for a new agricultural herbicide. After 21 years of full-time freelancing, I do this work in my sleep!
Star Lawrence, a real star.

DISGRACED doctor Jack Freeman claimed about $670,000 for services he never provided in a sophisticated bulk-billing fraud, a court heard yesterday. [...]The biggest item in the fraud was $388,113.50 Freeman claimed for treating 3595 in-grown toenails. On average, Victorian GPs treated only 19 in that period.

Herald Sun [Australia], 16 May 2003

PS: They mean doctors in Victoria, not doctors from the reign of Queen Victoria. Sheesh.

Drippy Ice Cream Cones?
Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice cream drips.

What kind of a name is "Stakeknife"? If I was a double agent, I'd want a cool name like "Mellon Baller".

"I was at a party in Oakland last weekend with some friends," Sabathia said, "and several of them said that I should raise the pants legs and expose the socks."

The Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association reported that drinking beer and other alcoholic beverages increases a person's appeal to mosquitoes. Mosquitoes also love socks and limburger cheese.

Washington Post, 6 May 2003

· Now that you are supporting art projects, perhaps you can help with my latest conceptual masterwork? I intend to place a little blue bag of plain crisps in a deserted salt mine. Which won't come cheap, believe me. If it helps, I can arrange for the crisps to be naked.
Paul May

The Guardian, 3 May 2003

· Why is internet domain name registrar Network Solutions one of the world's least loved companies? It's a long story - a reputation like that is not gained overnight, some real effort has to be put in. Like randomly freezing an internet address for a year, as happened to reader Paul May's cupcake.com site, and then - after a stream of pleas and complaints - unfreezing it without a word of explanation or apology. An illustration of the company is seen in the case of the person who recently found a blank, signed cheque from Network Solutions blowing around on the pavement near Liverpool Street railway station in London. Being an honest type, the finder contacted Network Solutions, and after some effort managed to speak to someone, who told him not to bother. He duly destroyed the cheque, but others might not have been so honest.

Right on. The Guardian, 2 May 2003

Dire advertising, masquerading as local news:
And while you wait, check out The Cheese Shop's eclectic selection of sodas or browse through their candies from around the world [...] The Cheese Shop is a deli with a difference.

Enter into the world of LCD technology with the generous features of the AL511 which enhances the standard office desktop workplace fulfilling the needs of office workers or professionals working in the creative industry enjoying the outstanding performance of a modern TFT Display for a guaranteed return on investment.
Ad in DABS catalogue

Cupcake Canasta will return in full glory to www.cupcake.com on 1 May 2003...

How to get a panther out of your factory:
Thinking she was stuck inside, authorities prodded her with a stick.

Poor Gephardt: put a microphone in front of him and he sounds like he's trying to climb the down escalator. He also has the coloring and demeanor of macaroni and cheese. Recently, he compared himself to a pair of old sneakers.
Time

The Mecca bingo name is derived from the Mecca Smoking Cafe, which opened in London in 1884.
David Backhouse

My other role is I'm on the volunteer fire department in Tomales, where I live. Here I'm surrounded by women who are passionate about cheese, and there I'm surrounded by men who care nothing about cheese.
Cheesemonger Kate Arding in the San Francisco Chronicle

The holy trinity lego brick.

This guy collects toasters.

For my tombstone:

Occasional profanity, sexual candor and comic vulgarity; fleeting nudity, with a facetious emphasis.

Typical movie synopsis from the early 21st century.

Trivet Trivia Time
Here is a fascinating project from MIT:

This project includes an understanding of oven cooking practices in an oven mitt by designing it to remark verbally on its temperature. The Talking Trivet uses a thermoresistor to remark on the temperature of foods and containers which are placed on it. For example, it exclaims "FIRE!" when left on a surface ove 600 degrees, informs you that the food "Needs rewarming." or affirms that the food is "Hot and ready to eat!". In addition, it sets an automatic timer for cooking which is based on the temperature of the oven. Therefore, a 275 degree oven exclaims that the food should be checked in 40 minutes, whiles a 500 degree oven recommends that it should be tested in 10 minutes.

You heard it here last: this story is vintage July '99:

PASTA GOES CYBER
You heard it here first: A British e-deli has invented a new pasta shape...
the "@", also known as La Chiocciola. According to Best Fratello, the
producer, the pasta has been accepted at the National Museum of Pasta Foods
in Rome (http://www.professionalpasta.it/). The museum chose to add this
shape because it "successfully combines a long-standing tradition of
handicraft pasta making, with a creative shape and the crafted inventiveness
of a modern 'pasta master'." See this pasta for yourself: either buy a
package or order a sample-- you will receive a single handsomely wrapped
piece. A perfect addition to a cybermeal could be the Pasta Shoppe's
"Surfin' the Net" pasta, which features little computers in orange and
natural colors!
Get your "@" pasta sample or package at:
http://www.thebestraffaello.com/uk/cyberpasta.htm
Purchase the "Surfin' the Net" pasta at:
http://goshoppingonline.bfast.com/goshoppingonline/click?sourceid=970674&bfp
id=14_NET700&bfmtype=14

VirtualItalia.com

What I really want is pasta shaped like the Enron "E".

Sarah Ferguson, interviewed on a visit to Milwaukee:

Q. Is this your first time to Milwaukee? Are you planning to sample any of Milwaukee's delicacies, like beer and bratwurst? Or are you going to eat more sensible fare while you're here?

A. I've been here before. I like Wisconsin. We like the cheese curds. Where are the cheese curds? I haven't seen a cheese curd in sight (looking over to a nearby buffet). I won't do beer and bratwurst, but I would quite like to try a cheese curd. We like the fried cheese curds. As usual, (the food during her visit) will be quite sensible. (She rolls her eyes.)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 20 January 2003

John Lennon Goes Mobile
Moviso announced mobile content licensing deals that make celebrity graphics, animation and sound effects available for mobile devices worldwide. Moviso is also the first company to make John Lennon photographs and graphics available to the mobile market. Moviso is working with a range of content companies to deliver the broadest selection of mobile media content worldwide to both carriers and consumers directly.
Click here for full text

Your free-to-air channels tonight:

The Cloning Channel
Old documentaries copied from other channels. (Formerly UK CheapLoans.)

Clone + 1
Special version of Cloning Channel for people watching with their own clone.

UK Cod
Previously unseen colour war footage from 1975, plus recipes. Nudity: YES. Violence: PARTIAL. Vinegar: SOME.

Snow
Random pattern of grey dots. (Analogue only after 2006 or 2008 or 2010.)

Your free-to-air programmes tonight:

7.30 - 8.00 Going for a Thong
A panel of celebrities guess which piece of underwear belongs to which celebrity, and how much it would fetch at auction

8.00 - 8.02 Whose line is it anyway?
A panel of celebrities snort at the week’s news

8.02 - 4.00 Scrapheap Challenge
A panel of producers tries to assemble a programme schedule from a pile of clapped-out celebrities and creaky formats

Business doesn't get any more exciting than this:

CHICAGO -- McDonald's Corp. is planning to intensify the price war -- and attempt to boost U.S. sales -- by adding the grilled flatbread sandwich and a chicken nugget meal to its new Dollar Menu.

Several Chicago franchisees and owner operators said they plan to add the grilled flatbread sandwich to the Dollar Menu in January, while Los Angeles-based operators said a five-piece McNugget meal is scheduled to be added next week.

Chicago Tribune, 27/11/02

Hungry? Me neither.

Bulletin for friends of Cupcake Canasta:

The domain cupcake.com is still frozen. Network Solutions, now part of Verisign, disabled the domain in February 2002 without issuing any notices. They won't reply to my communications. My ISP, who is listed as technical and administrative contact, won't do anything. Still nothing from any court in any land suggesting that the domain's ownership has been disputed. No trace of a dispute in any of the arbitration bodies' listings. Computer Weekly in the UK published my letter about the situation in November 2002.

The full archive of Cupcake Canasta is still available at www.cupcake.co.uk.

The latest helpful advice from Amazon:

Customers who wear clothes also shop for: [...]

No mention of what Amazon's nudist customers have bouight recently.

The house used for external scenes in "The Good Life" (U.S: "Good Neighbors") is in Northwood, Middlesex, not Surbiton. It was up for sale in March 2001, though I don't know how much it went for.

All these domains are taken:
yada.com
yadayada.com
yadayadayada.com
yadayadayadayada.com

But not this one:
yadayadayadayadayada.com

Imagine:

“Lennon” and “John Lennon” are trademarks of Yoko Ono Lennon.

http://www.jlsc.com/

"Yes, here are plenty of attractions worth your while!"

Lovely description of Bergen.

The Fall's Mark E Smith has a side-project: as a positioning consultant. (Or "consultant-uh".)

You can't go to "Rainbows" until you're five. (And I think you're supposed to be a girl.) So I think I'll start a club called "Little Grey Clouds".

The uniform will be grey. You'll be encouraged to take your pre-schooler along, where they'll sit on the floor and cry and/or wee for an hour. The group's leader will be known as "Cumulo Nimbus".

Practicing Free Love of Books
Bookcrossers read 'em and leave 'em for strangers to enjoy

By Susan Carpenter
LOS ANGELES TIMES.
The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Co. newspaper.

September 17, 2002

If you happen to find "On the Road" at a gas station or "Who Moved My Cheese?" next to a hunk of Gouda in your grocery store, it might not be an accident. You could be the unwitting beneficiary of a "bookcrosser" - a person who intentionally leaves books in public places, hoping they will be found by strangers.

And, if you really want to make the day of the person who left it, you will not only pick up the book and read it, you will log onto a Web site and let the bookcrosser know.

The idea of leaving a book for someone else to find and enjoy is not new - some folks have been leaving just-finished books in airports and on buses since the dawn of hurry-up-and-wait. Creating a system for book-leavers to find out what happened to those books adds a new twist to the practice - and raises the stakes. Would you rather be known as the person who left behind a steamy Danielle Steel novel or the magical realism of "One Hundred Years of Solitude"?

Something of a phenom among readers with a taste for mischief and a touch of altruism, bookcrossing.com, the Web site that tracks books "released into the wild," has accumulated more than 18,000 members since its inception last year, and averages 112 new participants daily.

Its members have scattered more than 42,000 novels, self-help books, memoirs, technical manuals and biographies in 45 countries, leaving them in public rest- rooms, movie theaters, coffee shops or anywhere that tickles their fancy. The result: a worldwide living library.

Robin Payton, a St. Louis homemaker, has let go of more than 400, mostly in self-service laundries and restaurants.

Peri Doslu, a Santa Monica, Calif., yoga instructor, has dropped three - one on top of a telephone booth, one on a rock wall at remote Mono Lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada, and another in one of the studios where she teaches.

"I'm always looking for places to pass on books," said Doslu, 39. "To think my book's going to go off and have this future, and I might even get to know a little bit about it down the road, I really find enchanting."

Enchanting? This called for a test case.

I signed on and logged in, giving myself the screen name MissPaigeTurner, then registered four novels. After receiving identification numbers for each, I wrote them on bookmarks that explained how bookcrossing works and placed them between the pages of each book. I spent the rest of the afternoon looking for spots to leave my books.

My first drop was on the bus I rode downtown in Los Angeles: I left Lemony Snicket's "The Bad Beginning" on the back seat. A few hours later, I dropped Iceberg Slim's "Mama Black Widow" on a sidewalk. Next, I stopped in at Banana Republic, tried on a shirt and left a copy of "The Nanny Diaries" in the dressing room. Later, I stopped at a coffee shop for a lime rickey. After downing the last slushy bits and looking around to make sure no one was watching, I put a copy of "Madame Bovary" on the table and made a quick exit.

No one ran after me to say, "Hey! You forgot something!" No one looked at me as if I were the Unabomber. In my mission as the phantom book leaver, I was, as far as I knew, completely unobserved.

I checked my e-mail the following day, expecting to find a message from the Web site telling me my books had been found. No such luck.

Ditto for the following day - and the next two weeks.

I still haven't heard a peep.

That's typical, said Ron Hornbaker, a 36- year-old software developer from St. Louis, who came up with the idea for BookCrossing's Web site. Only 10 percent to 15 percent of the books people release are "successful," meaning they have been picked up by a stranger who then logs on to the site.

My books might have had better luck if, when registering them, I had penned a release note for the Web site, giving "hunters" details on which books I'd left, where and when.

That's what Lydia Ruark, a West Los Angeles psychologist, did when she released "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" in a Nordstrom dressing room in May. Within a week, she received an e-mail from BookCrossing.

A Canadian woman, who had been with her daughter trying on clothes, found the book. Twelve hours later, Ruark got a second e-mail, saying her copy of "The Lady and the Monk" by Pico Ayer had been found in the sushi section of a Wild Oats grocery store.

"I thought I'd hit the jackpot," said Ruark, 49, who signed up for BookCrossing because "it sounded fun and a little bit subversive."

Half of the fun for bookcrossers is figuring out where to leave the books, said Hornbaker, who left his first book, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," in a deli. His ideas have since evolved.

Now he's reading Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," which he plans to "throw out the window to a hitchhiker."

The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Co. newspaper.
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.

That's the way (uh huh uh huh) I like it.

That's the way (uh huh uh huh) I like it.

That's the way (uh huh uh huh) I like it.

The "Our Lady of Surbiton" meme is now at www.blocate.com

Need to look in a hard copy archive for this:

07-02-99 The Sunday Telegraph Review, p.4. Our Lady of Surbiton by Leanda de Lisle.
http://www.catalyst-uk.freeserve.co.uk/art_rc.htm

Mr de Menezes gave up his job as banqueting head waiter in a London hotel and started to study theology. According to Mr Kelly, ‘He’s taken to theology like a horse to oats.’

from Our Lady of Surbiton

May 2002 - Divine Innocence: Some Concerns

Perhaps the most persistent local 'apparition' of recent times is that of 'Our Lady of Surbiton.' Operating as the Divine Innocence Trust, it has been the subject of many reports in the secular press over the years, including a very sympathetic article in The Spectator early this year. Its founder, Patricia de Menezes, lays claim to 2,000-3,000 followers in 42 countries. Patricia alleges that around 1984 she began seeing the Virgin Mary and Jesus in a pine tree located in a new housing development in Surbiton, south London, where, she says, Our Lady continues to appear to her at 12 noon Monday-Friday and 9pm on weekends. She also claims to have been personally catechised by Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

http://www.christianorder.com/features/features_2002/features_may02_bonus_1.html

The Virgin Mary is appearing every day in Surbiton, just south of Kingston upon Thames, the Spectator said on January 12. "Only Patricia the visionary" can see her and Patricia de Menezes said that the apparitions began "in all sorts of places" in the mid-80s. The first took place in her home. The Archdiocese of Southwark issued a statement that the "authenticity of the alleged apparitions has not been accepted by the Archdiocese of Southwark, and the Archdiocese has not given its authority to publicly promote it."

www.udayton.edu/mary/news02/20020125.html

Drunk on technology

Intel next week plans to announce a new mobile media player with WLAN Internet access. The plans are for a reference design Intel plans to lush to OEMs.

FierceWireless 24/07/02

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