A Stranger's London
Fantasy airline of schoolboy
An eighteen-year-old schoolboy set up a make-believe airline with a bogus 50 million dollar bank certificate. Neil Robertson opened negotiations to buy two DC 10 jets to fly pilgrims to Mecca and produced the 50 million dollar draft to convince an Arab airline boss.Robertson also asked television personality Raymond Baxter to be a consultant for his company Halcyon Airlines.
And when the story of the fantasy airline was told in court a judge singled out Robertson's "exceptional drive and above-average intelligence."
Robertson of Sussex was chairman and chief executive of his airline and its only employee. His office from where he made phone calls around the world, was the Student Union common rooms at Chichester College of Technology and the 50 million dollar bank certificate was a forgery.
If music be the food
The code of practice about gifts from drug companies to doctors says that such gifts must be "relevant to medicine." So Janssen Pharmaceuticals Ltd of Wantage, Oxon are offering all Britain's G.P.s a free cassette of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, wrote Paul Foot in the Daily Mirror. He continued: "The attractive brochure which announced the new gift also advertises a new anti- nausea drug. It explains the relevance like this:"The concept of harmony is based upon different parts working together to create a co-ordinated whole. This is as true of gastric harmony as musical harmony. When the movement of the centrum is not co-ordinated with the duodenum, we lose our gastric harmony, and we feel nauseous."
"I'll break off there, if you don't mind," concluded the columnist, the movement of my centrum is becoming unco-ordinated with my duodenum and I think I'm going to be sick!"
Birth control tip to Charles
Mother of eleven Lil Hill had some family planning advice for Prince Charles. "Keep your pyjamas on", she said. Charles who had stopped to chat to Lil in Bristol told her he and Diana were "having a bit of trouble with William."Lil, 64 said later: "I told him I have eleven of my own and he said he had better come round to my house for some advice. I told him "the only advice I can give is to keep your pyjamas on."
He can't stop laughing
A man who cannot stop himself laughing after a road accident won £22,298 damages in the High Court last week.Former council depot manager Keith McGregor was awarded the money to compensate him for the pain, suffering and financial loss he has experienced since the crash six years ago.
"He is very liable to burst out laughing at inappropriate moments," said the judge. "He doesn't go out because of his inability to control his laughter and his quick temper."
Parable of the villagers with talent for money
When it comes to making money, there's not much the villagers of Grundisburgh need to be told about the Parable of the Talents, reported The Mail on Sunday.The Rev Norman Davis put the Bible story to test to raise funds for church restoration.
He gave 100 of his villagers a £1 coin each and they returned six months later with 13 times that amount - considerably more than the most enterprising servants in the parable, who only double their money. "It was a great success, observed the vicar of the 13th century church of St Mary's in Grundisburgh, Suffolk.
The Villagers found many novel ways to reap where the Vicar had sown.
One of the most enterprising was the local hair-dresser who bought £1 worth of material to make pots at the local college and, reinvesting the profits to buy more material, eventually raised £93.50.
Unlike the master in St Matthew, Chapter 25, Rev Davis had no need to reproach any of his flock for burying their talent. "One of our ladies put her £1 in a fruit machine, he said. "I suppose I ought not to approve but she did double the money.
The brother-in-war?
In the Weekend People column of The Mail on Sunday were two pictures one of Mr Arthur Scargill, the National Union of Miners leader and a striking look-alike wearing a wig. The accompanying caption read: "No it is not a picture of Arthur Scargill at the Grimethorpe Colliery fancy dress ball but an engraving of a remarkable French look-alike, the beady-eyed Duc D'Orleans. It was discovered in an Oxford antique shop by a Manchester schoolteacher, Richard McEwan, who points out further similarities.The Duc was known as Philippe Egalite, and he supported the French Revolution during its early stages. His enthusiasm flagged when the ungrateful populace fell out with him and later he was beheaded. A French lesson to remember, perhaps.
Catch phrase: new words for old
"While discussing parrots' eggs and associated topics in this column recently" wrote Philip Howard in the Times, "I made a rash assertion that Legionnaire's Disease and AIDS had not yet inspired any pop catch phrases in the English Language. Now I am sick as a parrot in a budgie's cage myself. I have been sent persuasive evidence from a number of sources in Glasgow, that fertile seedbed of slang that, Legionnaire's Disease at any rate, has started to produce new usages. The bacterium is reported to have been found in the cooling water system of one of the city's best known breweries.""This is the sort of rumour that runs through the bars and saloons like, well, like the plague. I'm told that the latest jocularity in that great city is for a Glaswegian to saunter into his local tavern and irrespective of what brand of heavy is on offer, to call for "a pint o' Legionnaires.”
