A Stranger's London
JINXED BRONZE STATUE
Scotsman Bill Spinks thought he had struck it lucky when he unearthed a bronze statue. And why not considering the fact that a mere bottle of wine had been auctioned off at Christie's for an incredibly huge sum of money. Local experts said it could date from the first century and be worth £2 million.So for the next ten years Bill hung on to the figure of Greek Goddess Narcissus which he found in the New Forest. But his lucky find didn't bring him any luck. First. 46-year old Bill, an Army Computer expert at Winchester had a heart attack and lost his job. Then he was divorced and spent three days in the cells suspected of stealing his own statue.
After being reduced to living in an old chicken house, he decided to sell the statue. But his run of bad luck hadn't ended. The statue turned out to be a 19th century copy worth £500. And at the auction no one bid.
Said Bill: "I'm shattered. It's been my whole life for ten painful years."
LIVING IT UP
Robert Champ, 32, who spent £68,000 on sex, booze and gambling with an American Express credit card cannot pay his £15-a-week rent on his bedsit. At a London Bankruptcy court where Champ appeared, he was reported to have said that he had no regrets living that kind of life at the expense of American Express.Champ, who had a £10,000 a year job in Saudi Arabia ran up a debt of £72,778.
MRS FERRARO'S STAND ON ABORTION
Mrs. Ferraro, Democratic Party's vice-Presidential candidate is a Roman Catholic and the Roman Catholic Church is against abortion. Naturally, being in the nation's public eye demands that her views on all controversial issues are known.She certainly carried a huge chunk of the nation with her at the Democratic Convention but one statement over the abortion issue is threatening her campaign.
Mrs. Ferraro is reported to have said that individual members of the Catholic Church should be allowed to choose whether to have abortions or not. "This statement," according to a local Catholic in a London parish after church service, "is going to cause her a lot of headache which would demand every aspect of political astuteness to overcome."
IN THE BEST TRADITIONS OF HOLLYWOOD
BBC-1 has rightly dubbed itself the Olympic games channel as it is the only station to carry the all-action international sporting event after ITV had pulled out. The opening ceremony of the XXIIIrd Olympiad in Los Angeles in the early hours of Sunday was without doubt a spectacular showcase "in the best traditions of Hollywood," as the commentator put it. And a spectacular Hollywood extravaganza it was. Some of us who are not sportsmen but were determined to stay up and watch the Los Angeles spectacle were not disappointed.The gloom that the MacDonald killings and the young black who ran his car into pedestrians killing one and hospitalising about fifty, cast over the Los Angeles games, the massive police/security presence and the fear of a possible disruption by terrorists were dispelled when the show got on the way.
The pomp and pageantry, the sound and act of America captured in song and dance of Broadway with 750 trumpets, 75 grand pianos and lithesome dancers were simply exhilarating but not necessarily ostentatious. Maybe the Soviet Union and her allies which boycotted the Los Angeles Games had a point after all. With this kind of tempting show which they claimed, was steeped in capitalism. Goodness knows what the poor athletes would have done by the time the games ended.
Anyway, the British contingent, as the games kicked off, were finding their feet and if the Zola Budd, Ovett, Cram, Elliot and Daley Thompson' hopes are to be fulfilled, then perhaps mother nature would have to do some- thing about the excruciatingly hot weather which has been soaring into the 90's much to the discomfort of "our athletes who are used to the cooler European weather."
