A Perak Order on Goats

Source: Straits Times, Wednesday January 1, 1965

IPOH, Tues - Perak, which has the second highest goat population - 55,455 - in Malaya has banned the slaughter of females goats in the state - except under licence - for 3 years as from this month.

A State Government gazette announcing this said people wishing to slaughter female goats must have a licence from the State Veterinary Officer or from an officer delegated by him to issue such licences.

Bottle of Love

Source: Straits Times, Monday March 1, 1965

Love and marriage - via message in bottle

LONDON, Sun - Twenty-year-old Elizabeth Kaye was married yesterday to the boy she caught with a lemonage bottle 10 years ago.

The bottle with a message, thrown into the sea off the Yorshire coast, washed up at the feet of 13-year-old Erik Brekke in Hyide Sande, Denmark.

A pen-pal friendship started and blossomed into romance after they met in 1963. Later that year Erik asked Elizabeth to become his bride.

After the ceremony, Elizabeth said: "It's almost like a fairy story. I never expected the bottle to arrive anywhere, never mind receiving a reply like I did."

- Reuter

A Loose Screw : £1.5 Million Claim

Source: Straits Times Monday, March 1, 1965

LONDON, Sun - A British instrument-making firm said here last night their insurers would be "confidently resisting" a £1,500.000 claim by the state-owned British European Airways arising from a comet jet airliner crash in Turkey three years ago.

B.E.A. said on Friday, it would sue the instrument firm, S. Smith and Sons (England) Ltd., to cover passengers' claims and the loss of the aircraft's hull.

The crash killed 27 people.

A spokesman for Smith's said they were fully insured against the risk, and added: "Apart from the legal issue involved there is now considerable doubt as to whether the Smith's director horizon, in which a screw is alleged to have been loose, had anything to do with the accident."

- Reuter

Arithmetic - "The Cuba Way"

New official public school text-books in Cuba contain arithmetic problems such as this:

"Of the 180 million inhabitants of the United States, one ninth are discriminated against for being Negores and one-sixtieth for being Latin Americans. How many millions of Negroes suffer discrimination in the U.S. and how many Latin Americans?"
- A.P.

Source: Straits Times, Dec 3, 1964

A 25-cent Dutch Coin

A 25-cent Dutch coin has been delivered to the British Aircraft Corporation's treasury at Filton, Bristol, where Concordes are built.

Dutch boy, Little Hans, anxious in case the Anglo-French project might not pay its way, donated it through his Rotterdam MP.



Source:
Straits Times, Monday, January 1, 1973

Whims For Rent

One man wanted a talking robot to deliver a marriage proposal to the woman he loved.

Another devillish soul sought a horse to leave in a friend's apartment as a gag Christmas gift.

A mother wanted a marching band to strut down the street on her son's birthday.

All these people were customers of Whims For Rent, a Philadelphia firm that caters to these flamboyant people who love jokes and crazy parties.

"Our motto is: We fulfill your fantasies, just as long as it's legal," said Joseph Ball, president of Americal Advertising Services Inc., which created Whims For Rent.

The unusual 4-year-old firm has the contacts to supply a belly dancer for a club picnic, a football star to serve as a butler at a dinner party, or a man dressed in a gorilla suit to deliver a bouquet of flowers.

Whims for Rent has so many requests for girls to jump out of cakes, that the company built its own cardboard cake, 2-metre in diameter. "Sometimes we can't get it through doors," Mr Ball said.

"A common request that we have to say 'no' to is the pie in the face," Mr Ball said. "That's assault and battery. A lot of people want to do it as a joke to people they like. They think it's funny." - UPI


Source: Straits Times, Monday, January 12, 1981

The BBC announcer ran out of news

London, Monday, January 5, 1959

The BBC announcer reading the 1 p.m. news yesterday came to a sudden pause.

The pause went on...and on...and on. Then the announcer said: "I am sorry for the delay, ladies and gentlemen, but I have run out of news, and no one has supplied me with any more."

There was another, shorter pause. Then the announcer said: "Here it is now" and the BBC 1 p.m. news continued.


Source: The Straits Times