Fun_People Archive
7 Oct
WhiteBoardness - 10/7/97

Content-Type: text/plain
Mime-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2)
From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Tue,  7 Oct 97 12:02:34 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: WhiteBoardness - 10/7/97

Excerpted-from: WhiteBoard News for Monday, October 06, 1997

New York, New York:

America's shortest and most annoying radio show is also fast becoming one
of the most popular.

This week, The Annoying Music Show will be offered to commercial radio
stations across the US, less than two months after it was offered to public
radio stations and was snapped up by 110 of them.

The show lasts only three minutes and features what Jim Nayder, its
presenter, says are the worst records ever made. "People should be grateful
it's only three minutes," he says, "because three minutes feel like 30."

The playlist for the weekly show includes Leonard "Mr Spock" Nimoy's
rendition of Proud Mary, Bing Crosby slaughtering Hey Jude, and Mae West
doing an impossibly bad version of When a Man Loves a Woman.
==========

Istanbul, Turkey:

Turkish rodents and bugs are nibbling on perfumed historical records from
the Ottoman era, Anatolian news agency said.

"The Beyazit warehouse in particular has become a home for mice and
insects," the agency said, referring to the Istanbul home of 19th century
financial records from the Ottoman Empire.

It said that curators employed by Grand Vizier Mustafa Resid Pasha in 1846
had wrapped the documents in leather and bathed them in oleander perfume to
put off the moths and mice.

But years of neglect and a tiny preservation budget had reduced the archive
to a home for mice, it said. The Turkish Ottoman Empire at its height in
the 17th century ruled much of the Middle East, North Africa and the
Balkans.
==========

Budapest, Hungary:

Italians left Budapest's Ludwig arts museum in a cloud of smoke after
winning both first and second places in the World Team Pipe Smoking
Championship.

Contestants could light their pipes, each filled with three grams of
tobacco, only once and had to smoke it as long as they could.

The champions, Corsellini Club won the trophy with the three most successful
team members smoking for a total seven hours, 17 minutes and 12 seconds.
==========

London, England:

About 2,000 new British tax inspectors are to target prostitutes to ensure
their earnings are fully taxed.

The inspectors, dubbed "Ghostbusters" by the Inland Revenue, will even prowl
round telephone booths to check the numbers of call girls advertised in
them.

But the crackdown on the world's oldest profession may not be all one-way
traffic.

Authorities say prostitutes may be able to claim that some of their
expenses, such as protection money, bodyguards, medical insurance and
"special work attire," are tax deductible.

© 1997 Peter Langston