The Reluctant Whore

This was the week that Anna Nicole Smith reacted to the revelation that her son died because he took a cocktail of psychotropic drugs by doing what anyone in her situation would do: she immediately married her lawyer. If you were reading the important headlines this week you’d already know that Star Jones claimed to be emotional and stressed out because for some reason the tabloids keep reporting that her husband, Al Reynolds is gay and you probably also noticed that Dustin Diamond of Saved by the Bell fame this week released a Dirty Sanchez sex tape. On purpose.

But here’re the things you probably didn’t know that happened during this the 40th week of 2006.

Three records were broken this week in the areas of hair, nails and lobster rolls when 65 year old Lee Redmond, from Utah, qualified for the 2007 Guinness World Records after her fingernails reached a combined length of 7.5 metres. 16-year-old Massachusettes native Aaron Studham achieved the same when his mowhawk reached a height of 53 cm, and famed Japanese professional eater Takeru 'Tsunami' Kobayashi came out on top in Boston's first-ever lobster roll eating challenge. Kobayashi ate 41 lobster rolls in 10 minutes - the previous world record was 22.
But the inexplicable eating didn’t stop short in Boston with reports emerging from India this week that 80 year old grandmother Ram Rati has been eating 3 and a half pounds of sand every day since she was a kid and doctors say she’s completely healthy. "When young, I tried it for fun once,” she said. “Since then, I am used to it.”

Barbie and Hitler both went under the hammer this week when the world's biggest private collection of Barbie dolls were put to auction in London for £111,000 and so were collection of 21 watercolours thought to have been painted by Adolf Hitler before he went into politics and attempted genocide.

In Stateside art news, it was reported this week that a graffiti artist is recreating the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel through graffiti art in a warehouse in Iowa. So far he’s spent 7000 dollars on cans of spray paint alone.

A team of Canadian scientists this week claimed to have solved the mystery of the odd nature of the Mona Lisa’s smile. Apparently the model had just given birth. And when you think about; if there’s one thing that would make a woman smile it’s giving birth to a child during a period in history which more or less predates all painkillers, medical sterilization standards, and while we’re at it ALL civil rights for women. Investigators say that it’s clear she had given birth because underneath the final layer of paint on the Mona Lisa she was painted to be wearing a bonnet. And if Amish people and the witch trials is Salem taught us anything at all it’s that, no matter what the scenario is, a bonnet makes everything hilarious.

Speaking of hilarious antics, this week a disgraced army goat (the more disciplined cousin to the infamous Party Goat), who was stripped of its rank after running amok during the Queen's birthday parade, was reinstated after shining on parade.

The goat: Honorary Lance Corporal Billy Windsor, who when you think about, outranks other military personnel despite being a goat, was demoted for refusing orders to march and stay in line during the parade - and for trying to headbutt the drummer in front of him. Human Captain Simon Clarke, of the Battalion, said: "Billy performed exceptionally well because he has had all summer to reflect on his behaviour at the Queen's birthday and clearly earned the rank he deserves."

In further animal news, reports out of Germany this week claim that a rare black swan has fallen in love with a plastic swan paddle boat that is for hire on a German lake which essentially makes this the German swan equivalent of a human falling in love with a blow up sex doll prostitute.

Research in Australia this week that claimed that 76 per cent of women who slept with another woman reached orgasm, compared to only 69 per cent who did so when they slept with men. Reasons behind the findings were that men were selfish and concentrated mostly on themselves.

As our hearts bleed relentless empathy after finding that out, a parsnip resembling a science fiction creature, won the title of Ugliest Vegetable in England this week. Food Choices Officer for the National Trust in England was quoted as saying, "This competition was designed to show that we shouldn't judge a vegetable on its looks and we should challenge the image of the cosmetically perfect and well-formed vegetables found in many of our supermarkets.”

And during this time of war, political corruption and global warming, isn’t it nice to know that an entire government organization in the UK has allocated extensive resources to ensure we know the importance of mildly unattractive vegetables?

Following in the theme of political statements, the president of Tajikistan this week announced he would ban state employees from wearing gold teeth to improve the country's image.

"Teachers complain about small salaries, but still wear golden teeth," he said. "How can international organisations believe in your poverty, when the mouth of a teacher is full of gold?

If the decree goes through 50% of state officials will have to resign or have teeth replaced.
And finally, engineers are investigating what went wrong this week when Members of Parliament in Scotland were treated to a shocking display of breasts and penetration as Adverts for adult channels such as Red Hot Wives, Playboy TV and Spice Extreme popped up on 320 TV monitors in the Scottish parliament’s TV system.

"The channels have now been removed," said a Parliamentary spokesperson. "There is no way anybody could watch porn in parliament any more."

Yeah. There sure isn’t.