Posts from — April 2007

Photographer Ian Whittaker told the Daily Star tabloid that he and Grant, 46, clashed near the home of the “Four Weddings and a Funeral” star.

Whittaker said Grant abused and kicked him on Tuesday before lobbing the beans. The paper printed photos of Grant with a plastic tub of food raised over his head.

Grant’s lawyers Schillings said an incident had taken place and was now under investigation. His agent in the United States said he had no official statement at this stage and London representatives could not be immediately reached for comment.

A police spokeswoman, when asked about the incident, said a 46-year-old man had been arrested on Wednesday evening and questioned at a London police station after an allegation of assault in west London.

Grant had a previous well-publicized run-in with the law – in 1995 he hit the headlines after being arrested during an encounter with a Los Angeles prostitute.

In 2000, Grant split with his girlfriend of 13 years, actress and model Elizabeth Hurley. Hurley married Indian businessman Arun Nayar last month.

The actor announced in February that he had ended his relationship with British socialite Jemima Khan.

JOKESTARTERS:

• Mr. Grant sure knows how to keep his name in the news – either get busted with a hooker in LA or throw beans at the paparazzi. “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” right Hugh?
• I see a lucrative, major endorsement deal from Hormel coming from this.
• Perhaps Hugh could combine his two arrests and make a new film: “Four Beans and a Hooker”?

SOURCE:

• BBC News

YouTube Video of a Female Fan Handcuffing Herself to Hugh:

They expected to find a prim and proper package from the nifty 1950s, but what they got was a faceful of pornography, dirty underwear and an old condom.

The older, tamer items — snapshots of men with crew cuts, reel-to-reel recordings of School of Communications alumni cracking wise — still lay in the steel box, as they had since the capsule was sealed into the wall of the then-new Communications Building in 1957.

But they had company. Erotic, irreverent company.

Sometime in the early 1980s, the pranksters — unknown as yet — laid a pornographic centerfold atop the pile, and added other odd and obscene mementos to the mix. That was the image that greeted researchers, when they opened the capsule in preparation for a dinner Thursday evening with alumni who packed the original.

Before displaying the capsule’s contents to the crowd gathered at the University Alumni Club, Department of Communication Chairman Jerry Baldasty had to break the strange news.

“The good news is that all the things that were in there are still there,” Baldasty said. “The interesting news is that some other things were added.”

Including, Baldasty said, “one of Hugh Hefner’s publications.”

As alumnus Mike Peringer pulled items from the box, he drew giggles and a few gasps from the crowd of aging Huskies. With more than a little haste, he held up an antique condom pulled from a leather wallet, prompting one attendee to point out that the artifact was not part of the original batch.

Removed as part of a 50th anniversary of the university’s communications program, the capsule is being replaced by another created by a student-faculty team.

The new capsule will be filled with digital media focusing on “communication from a global perspective,” said Coma Te, a 20-year-old senior who was one of six students who created the new capsule.

Carrying images of graffiti and video titled “Slang Flashcards,” the new capsule was meant to have a sharper edge than its predecessor. But after Wednesday’s discovery, it seems unlikely to be quite as shocking.

The contents of both capsules — well, most of the contents — are set to be publicly shown Saturday during a celebration at the UW.

JOKESTARTERS:

• Ironically, if the antique condom had been used properly, this reporter might not have ever come into existence.
• To commemorate the unusual find, all the alumni did beer shots off each other’s flabby and scar-filled tissue, then they all piled into a VW Bug where they performed prostate and colon exams on each other.

SOURCE:

• Seattle P-I

EDITOR’S NOTE:

• If you were one of the wacky pranksters who added to this time capsule, or you know who did it, please contact Jokestarter so we can do a follow-up (and don’t worry – you can remain anonymous). We just love excellent pranks…

RELATED STORIES:

• McDonald’s Happy Meal Gets Even Happier With Free Condom
  
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• Effigies of Richard Gere Burned By Indians Angry By His Kiss
• Chinese Giving Viagra Pill Replicas To Dead Stiffs

The condom was discovered Tuesday night in a bag that came with Maia Whitaker’s meal, which her grandparents bought at a McDonald’s in the city of Wellington.

Grandpa Rowan Hutch told The Dominion Post newspaper it was lucky his wife was first to look inside the small sports bag that came with the meal.

She was aghast when she found the green condom and its packet inside the bag, he said.

“I was pretty horrified really. The fact my granddaughter was going to look in the bag and find this thing. It would be difficult to explain, she’s only seven,” said Hutch.

The restaurant quickly swapped the Happy Meal for a hamburger and pencil case. McDonald’s is investigating the find.

Spokeswoman Joanna Redfern-Hardisty said because of its popularity, the previous happy meal gift had sold out at the outlet and prepackaged sports bags were substituted as children’s gifts.

One was left unsealed for display purposes and “somehow” had ended up with the customer, she said, without explaining why the condom was present.

JOKESTARTERS:

• Now we know the real reason they call ‘em “Happy Meals.”
• It’s too ding-dang bad Ronald McDonald’s parents never got one of these prizes.
• Finally…the source of the infamous “secret sauce”!

SOURCE:

• WRAL

[UPDATE: It appears that this story is actually a hoax! Oops.]

JAPAN — Thousands of Japanese have been fleeced in a scam in which they thought they were buying expensive, designer poodles, when in reality they were actually sold sheep.

Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable poodles, available at $1,200 each, which is about half of what the little yappers sell for there.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.

Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new “poodle” was also a sheep.

One couple said they became suspicious when they took their “dog” to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Japanese police believe there could be 2,000 people affected by the scam, which operated in Sapporo and capitalized on the fact that sheep are rare in Japan, so many do not know what they look like.

“We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company were selling sheep as poodles,” Japanese police said, the The Sun reported.

“Sadly we think there is more than one company operating in this way. The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas – Britain, Australia.”

Many of the sheep have now been donated to zoos and farms.

JOKESTARTERS:

• That is one heckuva baa-aaad scam. BOING.
• In a related development, thousands of perverts were fleeced into thinking their inflatable sheep were actually women.
• Can you imagine being a movie star going on TV complaining about your designer poodle, only to find out it’s a sheep? I mean, how ignorant do you have to be to fall for this scam?

SOURCES:

• TheDenverChannel.com
• Snopes.com

Contestants in this Saudi-style beauty pageant have all the features you might expect anywhere else in the world, but with one crucial difference — the competitors are camels.

This week, the Qahtani tribe of western Saudi Arabia has been welcoming entrants to its Mazayen al-Ibl competition, a parade of the “most beautiful camels” in the desolate desert region of Guwei’iyya, 120 km (75 miles) west of Riyadh.

“In Lebanon they have Miss Lebanon,” jokes Walid, moderator of the competition’s Web site. “Here we have Miss Camel.”

While tremendous oil wealth has brought rapid modernization to the desert state of Saudi Arabia, the camel remains celebrated as a symbol of the traditional nomadic lifestyle of Bedouin Arabs.

Throughout history camels have served multiple purposes as food, friend, transport and war machine. They were key to the Arab conquests of the Middle East and North Africa nearly 1,400 years ago that brought Islam to the world.

Camels are also big business in a country where strict Islamic laws and tribal customs would make it impossible for women to take part in their own beauty contest.

Delicate females or strapping males who attract the right attention during this week’s show could sell for a million or more riyals. Sponsors have provided 10 million riyals for the contest, cash that also covers the 72 sports utility vehicles to be awarded as prizes.

“Bedouin Arabs are intimately connected to camels and they want to preserve this heritage. The importance of this competition is that it helps preserve the pure-breds,” said Sheikh Omair, one of the tribe’s leaders,

“We have more than 250 owners taking part and more than 1,500 camels,” he said inside a huge tent where the final awards ceremony takes place.

Over at the camel pen, the contestants are getting restless as the desert wind howls and whips up swirls of sand in the hot afternoon sun.

Amid a large crowd of Bedouin who have gathered to watch, the head of the judging committee emerges to venture into an enclosure with some two dozen angry braying camels.

Camel-drivers sing songs of praise to their prized possessions as they try to calm the animals down.

“Beautiful, beautiful!” the judge mutters quietly to himself, inspecting the group. Finalists have been decorated with silver bands and body covers.

“The nose should be long and droop down, that’s more beautiful,” explains Sultan al-Qahtani, one of the organizers. “The ears should stand back, and the neck should be long. The hump should be high, but slightly to the back.”

The camels are divided into four categories according to breed — the black majaheem, white maghateer, dark brown shi’l and the sufur, which are beige with black shoulders. Arabic famously has over 40 terms for different types of camel.

Some females have harnesses strapped around their genitalia to thwart any efforts by the males to mount them. One repeat offender called Marjaa has been moved away.

“This one would fetch a million!” says Hamad al-Sudani, a camel-driver, admiring the heavy stud, or fahl.

JOKESTARTERS:

• I wonder why Camel cigarettes doesn’t sponsor this? Seems like a natural…
• One of the more provocative contestants was disqualified after showing a bit too much camel toe.
• As the musical entertainment, the winning contestant sang “My Humps.” Okay, she brayed it, but she won.

SOURCE:

• Reuters