P&G not in league with Lucifer

The Devil is not in league with global consumer brand Procter & Gamble, a US court has ruled.

P&G won a $19m (£9.7m) lawsuit against four distributors of rival Amway over rumours tying it to Satanism.

The court concluded a 12-year lawsuit in P&G's favour, after it ruled that the four had spread a false accusation that P&G subsidised Satanic cults.

The case is one of several unfair competition suits P&G has brought refuting the Satanism slurs.

According to P&G, the four distributors had passed on to customers the notion that its logo - featuring a bearded man looking over a field of 13 stars - was a symbol of Satan.

"This is about protecting our reputation," said Jim Johnson, P&G's chief legal officer.

For its part, Amway pointed out that it had successfully defended itself in an earlier case brought by P&G that had been connected with the rumours.

It had also, it said, done everything it could to get the rumour stamped out.

Six sixes

Herschelle Gibbs said hitting six sixes in an over in South Africa's World Cup win over the Netherlands was "up there with the best things" he has done.

The 33-year-old said: "I never thought about getting six in a row, but if it's your day, it's your day.

"After the first three I thought I was in with a chance, but I decided I wasn't going to charge him [Daan van Bunge], I'd wait to see what he did.

"I just stayed in my crease and luckily they fell into the right slot."

Sir Garfielad Sobers also hit 6 sixes.

Also May he rest in peace , Bob woolmer who died today

Two faced Pig

A newborn piglet with one head, two mouths, two noses and three eyes is held between two mirrors in Xi'an, China

Free land

Alaska -- Anderson, a little town in Alaska's interior, has no gas station, no grocery store and no traffic lights, but it does have plenty of woodsy land - and it's free to anyone willing to put down roots in the often-frozen ground.

In a modern twist on the homesteading movement that populated the Plains in the 1800s, the community of 300 people is offering 26 large lots on spruce-covered land in a part of Alaska that has spectacular views of the Northern lights and Mount McKinley, North America's highest peak.

And what's an occasional day of 60-below cold in a town removed from big-city ills?

"It's Mayberry," said Anderson high-school teacher Daryl Frisbie, whose social studies class explored ways to boost the town's dwindling population. Students developed a Web site and Power Point presentation, then persuaded the City Council to give it a go.

"Are you tired of the hustle and bustle of the Lower 48, crime, poor schools, and the high cost of living?" the Web site asks. "Make your new home in the Last Frontier!"

The 1.3-acre lots will be awarded to the first people who apply for them and submit $500 refundable deposits beginning at 9 a.m. Monday. Each winning applicant must build a house measuring at least 1,000 square feet within two years. Power and phone hookups are already available.

City Clerk Nancy Hollis said people who apply in person or have someone stand in for them will have the best shot, since the post office doesn't open until noon and deliveries are even later from the regional hub of Fairbanks, 75 miles away.

People seeking more information are calling from such places as California, Texas, Idaho and Florida.

Locals eyeing the sites include 15-year-old newcomer Brittney Warner, a student who worked on the project. The 10th-grader, her parents and three siblings moved to Anderson two months ago from Boise, Idaho, when her father got a job at nearby Clear Air Force Station.

Warner calls her new community "very nice, small, very outdoorsy" - a place that would be even better if it brought in some new businesses. Residents now have to drive at least 20 miles for gasoline or groceries.

Her family is now living in a rental home and planning to apply for one of the lots.

"We already have a house design," she said.

Cory Furrow, a 26-year-old electrician, said he will be in line, too. Anderson has everything he enjoys - good terrain for snowshoeing and skiing, fishing, and hunting for moose and grizzly bears.

"I've lived here my whole life, so when free land comes up in my hometown, I can't pass that up," said Furrow, who lives in his family home.

Folks in Anderson say there are some job opportunities within driving distance, including a coal mine, a utility, major hotels and the air station, a ballistic missile early-warning site. Locals also would like to see entrepreneurs among the newcomers.

In addition, they are hoping for families. The high school basketball team had to go coed this year because there weren't enough boys.

Among the other advantages of Anderson: no property taxes, state income taxes or sales tax, virtually no crime, and no traffic. There are magnificent summers with temperatures as high as 90 degrees and plenty of wide-open space.

"One of the resources that we have is land," said Mayor Mike Pearson, a mechanic at the air station. "If this works out well, the city's got lots more property."

Blair has a sense of humour

This is a clip from COMIC RELIEF ( who have raised over £40m so far this year) where Blair met Catherine Tate (AKA Lauren Cooper)



You can see another of Catherine Tate's funny COMIC RELIEF'S sketches here With Dr.. Who

Crying over spilt milk

THERE is no use crying over spilt milk, the saying goes. But what if it costs you £18,000?

That's the question facing a Scottish couple who have been left with a substantial legal bill after losing a five-day trial that centred on an alleged milk stain on an Egyptian silk rug.

Property developers Duncan and Sandee Gregson took the rug home "on approval" in September 2005 but tried to return it two months later.

However, shop owner Mervat Walton noticed a stain on the rug and took the couple to court to force them to pay.

The dispute centred on whether the stain was from milk, as Mrs Walton claimed, or the result of the silk rug "shimmering" in certain light, which was the Gregsons' defence. Sheriff Robert McCreadie ruled in the shopkeeper's favour and ordered the couple to pay the full price of £3,500.

They were also ordered to pay the cost of the case at Perth Sheriff Court.

Last night, Mrs Gregson, 48, said fighting the court case had left her and her husband £18,000 out of pocket. She added: "I wish we could appeal but we can't afford it. We still haven't got the rug back because it is at the court. We will probably sell the bloody thing because I don't want to look at it anymore. It is driving us insane."

Tasteless and offensive !

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- An art exhibit that shows a Confederate flag hanging from a noose on a gallows will be allowed to remain on display at a museum in Tallahassee.

Artist John Sims called his work, "The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag." It's part of a larger exhibition of art from six African-American artists entitled "AfroProvocations."

The Florida chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans objects to the display. The group calls it tasteless and offensive.
Click here to find out more!

Spokesman Bob Hurst asked the museum to take it down.

Hurst said it's an example of hate speech. He thinks the display violates a Florida law that said it's illegal to defile or cast contempt on the Confederate flag.

The law said it's OK to use the flag in a decorative fashion. The museum's executive director believes the exhibit falls under a decorative display.

Utah Merlot No-no

SALT LAKE CITY - Merlot can be a variety of grape or a type of red wine, but not an acceptable personalized license plate in the state of Utah.

Glenn Eurick's 1996 Mercedes has had the license plate reading "merlot" for 10 years. He says the plate never got a lot of notice until the Utah Tax Commission told him last week that he had to remove it because the state doesn't allow words of intoxicant to be used on vanity plates.

Six or seven-letter words like liquor or whiskey probably wouldn't make it through the state screening process before the plates are issued. But merlot did and Eurick was fine until an anonymous caller told the state that merlot was also an alcoholic beverage.

Eurick's car with the offending plate is dark red, like the wine. He said few people who asked about the plate made the connection. Though one man did ask "if we chose merlot because there were too many letters in cabernet sauvignon," Eurick said.

Eurick said he will challenge the state's decision.

Wiki is an official English word

If you think wiki doesn't sound like English, you are right. But it's English now.

This word born on the Pacific Island of Hawaii finally got an entry into the latest edition of the online Oxford English Dictionary along with 287 other new words.

It has earned it.

"Words are included in the dictionary on the basis of the documentary evidence that we have collected about them. A while ago this evidence suggested that wiki was starting to make a name for itself," OED chief editor John Simpson said in a statement.

"We tracked it for several years, researched its origins and finally decided it was time to include it in the dictionary,"

But "Wiki Wiki", meaning "quick" in Hawaiian, has a very different meaning in its new host language: a type of Web page designed so that its contents can be edited by anyone who accesses it.

That the word acquired a new meaning is attributed to the fact that commenting and editing on Internet Web sites became faster, the OED's principle editor of new words, Graeme Diamond said.

"There was no delay in submitting a comment," Diamond said.

The most famous example is the popular Internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia. Diamond said new Internet-age concept of "wiki" fits well with the 120-year-old dictionary's own methods.

"Its long tradition of working on collaborative principles means it has welcomed the contribution of information and quotation evidence form the public over 150 years," he said.

Out of order

SkyWest Airlines apologized to a passenger who said he wasn't allowed to use the restroom during a one-hour flight and ended up urinating in an air-sickness bag. James Whipple said he had two "really big beers" at the Boise, Idaho airport. While on a flight to Salt Lake City on March 7 he wanted to use the cabin restroom.

The captain had declared it off-limits during the short flight because a light wasn't working. Whipple said he had used the cabin restroom before the plane departed but had to go again and finally reached for the air-sickness bag.

"It was like I had no choice," Whipple told The Salt Lake Tribune, which posted the story on its Web site Friday.
No other passengers noticed Whipple using the bag, but a flight attendant asked him about it and told the captain, who called airport police.

Whipple was questioned and took a taxi home to Sandy, a Salt Lake City suburb.

The airline sent him a letter of apology and a flight voucher, SkyWest spokeswoman Sabrena Suite-Mangum said Friday.

She said SkyWest decided to go ahead with the flight and get the light fixed in Salt Lake City, rather than delaying it or canceling it for repairs.

"For such a short flight, we really felt we were trying to inconvenience the least number of passengers possible by operating that flight," Suite-Mangum said.

Get over it !

Paul Trinder, 54, a businessman from Brackley, Northamptonshire, spent more than £3,000 for a first-class ticket from Delhi. He awoke during the flight to find that cabin staff were propping up a dead woman almost next to him. "The stewards just plonked down this body without saying a thing," he said. "I remember looking at this thin, sparrow-like woman and thinking she was very ill."

The woman had been in economy class when she died soon after the plane left Delhi. "She kept slipping under the seat belt and moving about with the motion of the plane," Mr Trinder said. "When I asked what was going on, I was shocked to hear she was dead."

Mr Trinder, who was kept on board the plane when it landed and questioned by police and a coroner, contacted British Airways to complain, but was told to simply "get over" the experience.

British Airways says the dead woman was taken into first class because the rest of the plane was full. "When a customer passes away on board it is always difficult and we apologise for any distress caused," a BA spokesperson said.

Mr Trinder remains unimpressed. "I just kept thinking to myself: 'I've paid more than £3,000 for this'."

Celery hotline

A British football club has warned their fans against throwing celery during matches, saying it was a criminal offence and that anyone caught lobbing the popular salad vegetable could be banned.

The unlikely warning follows referee reports mentioning celery-throwing at two recent Chelsea football club matches.

The reports are being investigated by the Football Association (FA), the club says on its website.

The FA's investigation could result in sanctions being taken against the club, who says "the throwing of anything at a football match, including celery, is a criminal offence for which you can be arrested and end up with a criminal record".

"In future, if anyone is found attempting to bring celery into Stamford Bridge they could be refused entry and anyone caught throwing celery will face a ban," it said.

"The club also urged fans who spot anyone throwing celery in the stadium to call a telephone number, adding that "all calls will be treated in confidence".

Vertigo

The explorer and adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes has conquered vertigo to reach the summit of the Eiger.

It took the Exmoor-based explorer some five days to reach the top of the Swiss mountain.

He wrote on his MySpace blog:I'm 63 years old. I'm terrified of heights. I've had a double heart bypass. This March I will be climbing the North Face of the Eiger. Why? Well, I've been an explorer for more than 25 years, but this is my challenge of a lifetime. The North Face is 6,000ft of vertical rock and ice. It's claimed the lives of 50 climbers since the first ascent in 1938 and is notorious for rockfalls, avalanches and unstable weather.

But I'm determined to get to the top-vertigo and all. "It felt pretty good to reach the summit. We started yesterday with the Traverse of the Gods. I knew it was going to be a difficult climb."

Sir Ranulph aims to raise £1.5m for to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer's Delivering Choice Programme, which allows terminally ill people to be cared for, and to die, in their place of choice.

R2-D2 Post boxes

Postboxes across the US are to be dressed up as Star Wars robot R2-D2 to celebrate 30 years since the release of the sci-fi series' first outing.

Some 400 boxes will get the new look, including outside Hollywood's Grauman Chinese Theatre, one of first cinemas to screen the film in 1977. The makeover is part of a post office campaign for the announcement of a surprise stamp on 28 March.

The public have been urged not to tamper with the droid mail collectors.

A special stamp to commemorate the release of the first film was issued by the US Postal Service in May 1977.

Chief marketing officer Anita Bizzotto said the robot postboxes are a "little teaser" for its announcement later this month. When you look at a mailbox, the resemblance to R2-D2 is too good to pass up," added Ms Bizzotto.

The USPS website is running a clip from Star Wars in which robot C-3PO asks: "R2D2, where are you?"

In the next shot, someone is seen slotting a letter into the little beeping robot.

During the six films of the Star Wars series, R2-D2 - regarded as a more courageous robot counterpart to C-3PO - was responsible for saving his human counterparts.

Gold block knocked off

Three masked men have stolen a massive block of gold bullion on display in a museum in Japan.

The gold bar, valued at £870,000, weighed about 220 pounds (100kg) and was kept in an open safe.

The museum, in the central city of Takayama, said the gold was not protected by sensors as they wanted visitors to be able to touch it.

But the group of thieves went one step further, helping themselves to the precious metal and dragging it away.

The gold was lugged past an employee alerted by the noise, down a staircase and out of the museum where the three men were driven away by a fourth accomplice.

"The gold was exhibited on the second floor, which was monitored by a security camera from the first floor," said 59-year-old Hisao Nakahagi, the owner of the gold.

ATM dogs

UK charity Canine Partners is training dogs to use ATM machines in a bid to help disabled consumers withdraw cash, according to reports. The charity is said to be teaching the dogs to insert and withdraw cards at the machines, as well as to give the receipt, money and card to their disabled owners at the end of the transaction.

Finextra reports Karen O'Donoghue, a spokesperson for the charity, as saying that, while some disabled consumers can stretch up to the unit to insert their card and enter their PIN, many are unable to remain in this position for the duration of the transaction. The dogs are therefore being trained to rest their front legs on the machine and finish the transaction if the owner is unable to do so.

Although Metro has speculated that the system may only work if the ATM machine is standardized across all banks, it does offer an alternative when disabled ATMs, a lowered version of the standard machines, are not available.

A total of 30 of the so called 'assistance dogs' are trained each year, although, according to Metro, Canine Partners hopes to double that figure in 2008.

Beer catapult fridge

For couch potatoes, it is the perfect invention -- a fridge that catapults cold cans of beer to lazy drinkers.

U.S. inventor John Cornwell had his eureka moment when sitting on the sofa having a few beers as you do.

"I thought 'What if instead of me going to get the beer, the beer came to me?" the 22-year-old graduate from Duke University in North Carolina said on his Web site..

So he invented a fully automated, remote-controlled, catapulting, beer-launching mini-fridge. It holds 10 beers with 14 more in reserve to store a full case.
The fridge is activated by a remote control which starts off a lift mechanism in the fridge.

The beer gets hurled to the grateful drinker who can then sit back and relax, enjoying a full "cartridge" of 24 beers from the fridge before having to stir from the sofa.

Wathch the beer launcher here

Churchgoers mourn grinchy turkey

A tiny church congregation in rural Michigan will observe a moment of silence on Sunday to mourn the death of a valued member - a wild turkey that terrorised children but never missed a service.

Rev James Huff said the turkey had become part of the regular Sunday service at Lamb United Methodist Church, greeting parishioners each week in the parking lot.

When he did not show up for church last Sunday, churchgoers knew something was wrong, Rev Huff said.

A local paper broke the news: the turkey, who had a predilection for chasing cars, had become road kill.

"It was kind of sad. Some people rejoiced, because he was a mean turkey. But he was also comical ... and he was so well-known, he drew a lot of recognition to the church," said Rev Huff.

"Every time there was a function, he was there."

The turkey arrived at the tiny crossroads of Lambs, near Port Huron in eastern Michigan, a little before Christmas and quickly made himself at home.

He chased children who waited for school at a nearby bus stop, and spent Sunday mornings asleep on a parishioner's car while Rev Huff delivered his sermon.

Rev Huff has rewritten his sermon to reflect the death of the turkey, who, like the Biblical prodigal son, showed up and drew a lot of attention and was resented by some.

But the reverend said he'll be glad when the fuss is over. Local media have become obsessed with the turkey, and not everyone is thrilled Rev Huff is commemorating his death.

"I'm a bit worried about what my bishop is going to say," said Rev Huff.

"It's become an albatross over my head."

Concert bugged

HIGHLAND PARK, ILL. — The longtime Ravinia Festival has revised its summer concert schedule because of the buzz created by a certain red-eyed bug. Cicadas, known for their loud hum and unique 17-year life cycle, are expected to make a debut this June.

So officials from the almost 103-year-old music festival will move several outdoor concerts indoors. They also pushed the date of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's annual summer concerts back to July 6, later in the season than usual.

By then, the chirping critters should cease.

The subtleties of the music "would get completely lost and drowned out," said Welz Kauffman Ravinia Festival president and CEO.

The 1 1/2-inch-long black bugs, which can number several hundred thousand per acre, don't sting or bite. Once they emerge, they spend their two-week lives climbing trees, shedding their crunchy skins and reproducing — and making lots of noise.

While some types of cicadas hatch each year, others arrive in 13- or 17-year cycles. Many of the insects also appear localized in different parts of Illinois.

Often mistaken for locusts, periodic cicadas last emerged in large numbers in the state in 1990.

In anticipation for this year's appearance, several museums, including Chicago's Notebaert Nature Museum, are planning special exhibits.

"They're really cool to watch," said Doug Taron, Notebaert's curator of biology. "They have these bright red eyes. And you can eat them."

What are the odds on that ?

Wales -- A Cwmbran man has won almost £700,000 from a £2 stake after picking six horse race winners. Ladbrokes said the odds of Archie Evans' successful accumulator bet were nearly 350,000 to one.

It is the bookmaker's biggest payout in Wales and a bonus bet this Saturday could even see Mr Evans, 59, increase his winnings to over £1m.

The father-of-three has been invited to be a VIP guest of the bookies to the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Friday.
Ladbrokes described Mr Evans' correct six-horse bet last weekend as "extraordinary".

"This is the most phenomenal betting performance we've seen in many years," said a spokesman.
The regular punter won £695,911 last Saturday on the Totescoop 6 - an accumulator bet which involves picking the winner of six nominated races - at the Sandown Park meeting .

He could add another £330,000 with a bonus bet at Uttoxeter's Midlands National this weekend.

Mr Evans said: "It's fantastic to have won and it's so exciting to think I could be a millionaire by Saturday night. It's a huge amount of money and if I'm honest it's not sunk in yet."

He said everyone kept asking him how he planned to spend the money, adding: "I've not decided yet but I know I'm going to take my wife on a bloody good holiday."
If he is successful with his next bet at Uttoxeter, staff at the Ladbrokes branch in Fairwater, Cwmbran, where he placed his wager will also pick up a £5,000 bonus.

Deputy manager Lisa Evans said: "We're absolutely delighted Archie has won - and not just because we could be in the money too. "He's one of our regulars and is a great character. After all the years he's been coming in here he deserves his big break. It couldn't happen to a nicer bloke."