There were two feather boas, a motorised leopard-skin sofa and a spangly silver jacket but the man affectionately described by his fans as a "raving queen" sprang a surprise yesterday. Leaving high camp to the crowd, Sir Elton Hercules John registered his civil partnership with David Furnish wearing an impeccably restrained dark suit.

Civil, understated and in the shadow of Windsor Castle, it was a partnership the Queen would probably approve of. The house of Windsor could also learn a trick or too from the celebrities that increasingly eclipse it. Bowing before his audience like a portly stationmaster pleased to have won a tidy platform award, Sir Elton blew kisses and waved back the crowd's affection.

*****

This was largely a girls' day out. "My husband is totally against it," said Mrs Hewett. "When we got up at six this morning he said 'you're mad'. He knows I'm here but he doesn't want anything to do with it."

*****

"I'm not into his music but I like his style," said Bob Charles, 66, who with Roy Williams, his partner of 39 years, was one of the few gay couples outside the Guildhall. "He's just a typical raving queen." They agreed that as gay activists in the 1960s they would never have imagined a day like this would come. "If old Quentin Crisp had been alive now - and I remember sitting with him in the 60s - he would have been over the moon," said Mr Williams.

The lack of kitsch disappointed some. "I like reading about him - his wobblies and tantrums," said Kelly Trevisani. "I thought he would wear a more flamboyant suit, all glittery and white, but it doesn't matter," said Melanie Freezer. "It was better than Prince Charles' wedding. He just seemed to get in the car. Elton wanted to be here."

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Santas Compete in the Santa-thlon

Playing the role of Santa is now an annual sporting event thanks to the new annual Santha-thlon sponsored by Powerade. Powerade did donate $10,000 to The Salvation Army as part of the event so it was all for a good cause. Amateur Santas competed in several different events including delivering a plate of cookies, carrying 50-pound bags of toys, the fruitcake shot put and the chimney chute shuttle. Don't ask us to explain them.

First the Santarchy and now the Santa-thlon and both events we didn't hear about until they were over. Seriously these events with rampaging, running and fruitcake throwing Santas need better publicists. It's a disgrace.

Posted on December 20, 2005
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Santarchy Hits New Zealand

CNN International reports that 40 drunk people dressed up as Santa Claus went on a wild rampage throughout Auckland, New Zealand. The Bad Santas assaulted security guards, robbed stores, used public places as restrooms and generally made a complete nuisance of themselves.

The rampage, dubbed "Santarchy," began early Saturday afternoon when the men, wearing ill-fitting Santa costumes, threw beer bottles and urinated on cars from an overpass, said Auckland Central Police spokesman Noreen Hegarty. She said the men then rushed through a central city park, overturning garbage containers, throwing bottles at passing cars and spraying graffiti on office buildings. One man climbed the mooring line of a cruise ship before being ordered down by the captain. Other Santas, objecting when the man was arrested, attacked security staff, who were later treated by paramedics, Hegarty said.

The remaining Santas entered another downtown convenience store and carried off beer and soft drinks. "They came in, said 'Merry Christmas' and then helped themselves," store owner Changa Manakynda said.

*****

Alex Dyer, a spokesman for the group, said Santarchy was a worldwide movement designed to protest the commercialization of Christmas.

Santarchy? We had never heard of this group of drunken, Santa costume-wearing activists. Perhaps they need better publicists.

Posted on December 20, 2005
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It's Panda Birthday Time

The celebration of all things panda-related continues unabated. In China, the 25-year-old panda Basi was feted with flowers, fruit, a birthday cake and a tablet carved with the Chinese character "shou" which means "longevity."

Yesterday hundreds of visitors swarmed into Panda World in the capital city of east China's Fujian Province to join in a special birthday party for Basi. Across the park everyone could hear a special song specially written for the occasion. The panda walked around her pool and later, maybe shy in the face of so many enthusiastic visitors, went to her little cave to enjoy the cake.

Basi is well-known at home and abroad. In 1987, she was sent to San Diego in the United States for a six-month exhibition. She was also what "Panpan," the mascot of the 11th Asia Games, (held in Beijing in 1990) was based on. Basi has already lived quite a long time; the average life of the giant wild panda is only 12 years. "Mom is coming to see you!" called out an old woman. She saved the panda's life 21 years ago in Baoxing County in Sichuan Province.

Li Xingyu, now 50, recalled that when she was working on her farmland on a snowy day in 1984, she saw a panda floating down a stream, unconscious. Li immediately pulled the creature up to the bank and warmed it with her thick jacket. The panda came to and was treated well by villagers. The next day, the panda was sent to a professional breeding center and was named after the Basi Creek, where she was saved. "I haven't seen Basi since I saved her," said Li. "I'm so happy to be invited here to see her and celebrate her birthday. I have four children, but Basi is my fifth child, my little daughter," Li said. She brought fresh bamboo, apples and water from her home in Baoxing County as birthday presents for Basi.

Last month began the Second Fuzhou Panda Culture Festival, which just ended with Basi's birthday celebration. Special stamps, postcards and calendars were have been issued in commemoration of the birthday.

We're so fired up about the end of the Panda Festival that we think we're going to take the rest of the week off to celebrate. Time to order refreshments!

Posted on December 19, 2005
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Mona Lisa Smile is 83% Happy

Computer imaging has now solved the mystery of the Mona Lisa's smile.

The smile of the Mona Lisa may seem enigmatic because she is, in fact, a blend of many different emotions. A computer analysis of the Renaissance masterpiece has found that she is 83 per cent happy, 9 per cent disgusted, 6 per cent fearful and 2 per cent angry.

Leonardo Da Vinci's most famous portrait has been scrutinised by a software programme or algorithm designed to tease apart the different emotions behind a facial expression. The result is that the smile of the Mona Lisa is broken down into its constituent parts, said Nicu Sebe of the University of Amsterdam.

*****

According to New Scientist magazine: "His algorithm examines facial features such as curvature of the lips and crinkles around the eyes, then scores each face with respect to six basic emotions." Dr Sebe said he drew on a database of young female faces to derive an average or "neutral" expression which he used to compare the work against.

Although the overwhelming emotion was one of happiness, the computer found that the second most important was disgust, which could explain why the Mona Lisa may seem to some people to be expressing a sense of irony, said Dr Sebe. "But no one really knows for sure why she looks so enigmatic. We don't know the context of why she was smiling, so it will remain ambiguous," he said.

We thought they said they solved it -- so why will it "remain ambiguous"? Is this some kind of scientific prank or something?

Posted on December 16, 2005
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Japanese Zookeepers Put Penguins on a Diet

Some Japanese penguins are being put on a diet, according to the Associated Press.

It's wintertime and the king penguins at a zoo in northern Japan are putting on weight. But the keepers there have a solution: exercise. Authorities at Asahiyama Zoo are taking the penguins on 500-yard walks on the snowy grounds twice a day, said zoo spokesman Tetsuo Yamazaki.

"Just like in humans ... the fat accumulates during the winter months, and the blood-sugar level rises," Yamazaki explained from the zoo, 570 miles northwest of Tokyo. The zoo's 15 king penguins aren't exactly obese. Penguin winter weight varies from 33 pounds to 40 pounds, said zoo official Kazunobu Maru. So far, only one of the flock is 40 pounds, he said.

The reason for weight gain is natural, zoo officials say. "In order to withstand the cold, the penguins have a habit of standing very still during winter months," Yamazaki said, while in the summer they can walk around and swim as much as they want. To fend off obesity, the zoo instituted the winter exercise program in 2003. The penguins have tender webbed feet and can only walk significant distances on snow, so the program can only take place during the colder months. The zoo, on the northern island of Hokkaido, takes the penguins on strolls from December until April. The first walk of the season was Thursday.

Boy, those Japanese zookeepers at the Asahiyama Zoo really crack the whip. What if the penguins don't want to go on forced walks, but just huddle together in the cold like in March of the Penguins? At least they won't get eaten by killer whales, though. March on, little penguins!

Posted on December 15, 2005
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MIT Scientists Create Robot Snail

Scientists are making progress on the ultimate goal of having a robot match for every creature on Earth. The latest invention comes from scientists at MIT. It is the robosnail, a robotic gastropod that can climbs walls and stick to the ceiling. The scientists tried to make the robot snail as realistic as possible. A Nature article says the scientists even recreated snail slime trails using Laponite.

The team tested out their snail on a tilting platform, covered with a 1.5-millimetre-thick layer of slime made from Laponite, a type of clay that forms a clear, sticky gel when mixed with water.

As the engineers increased the incline, they saw that the snail took the hill in its stride, continuing to plod along even when the surface was vertical. When the platform was flipped over so that the robot was upside down, it still made steady progress.

The secret to this gravity-defying stunt is apparently to keep the snail as light as possible (just 31.6 grams), while ensuring that the Laponite has just the right stickiness. They publish their findings in the November issue of Physics of Fluids.

Slime made from Laponite with "just the right stickiness"? Well if there is goo or slime involved then the commercial possibilities are endless. Just turn the Laponite slime purple and Nickelodeon will order a few thousand robosnails and kids at home will probably want one too. (Via Robots.net)

Posted on December 14, 2005
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Make Your Own Snowflake

If you have some time to kill there is a nifty little snowflake maker online called Make a Flake. Don't get too excited because you can't create a real snowflake at Make a Flake -- only Mother Nature and ski resorts can do that. But you can make a digital snowflake on the website using virtual paper and virtual scissors. By cutting sections out of the piece of paper you are given you can create different snowflakes. If you really like one of the snowflakes you make you can even store it online in the gallery or download it to your computer. It's December so enjoy snowflakes while you can because you will be really tired of them by February.

Posted on December 13, 2005
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Give the Gift of the Remote Control Toilet

MSNBC reports on a hot new gift idea for the home: the remote control toilet.

For a mere $5,000, the Neorest toilet from Japanese company Toto automatically lifts its lid when you approach it, and automatically flushes and lowers the lid upon completion. (We can hear wives and girlfriends applauding everywhere.)

A remote control sets the temperature of the seat and also activates a gentle cleansing process with a wand that extends from the back of the rim and sprays water upward, followed by an air dryer. Who needs paper? The Arizona Republic reported that sales of the Neorest have been slow at a local retailer, possibly because it costs more than a low-mileage used car.

But the costly commode reportedly has found some converts among Hollywood celebrities, including actor Will Smith, who gushed about it during an interview on Access Hollywood. The high-tech toilets are also installed in the main headquarters of Google, possibly the end result of the $400-a-share company being flush with cash.

Last we checked, you could pick up the toilet on Ebay for a mere $2,987, although that price could rise as the bidding gets fast and furious. Question: what happens if the remote control unit malfunctions? Or if the "cleaning" function goes awry? We're just asking.

Posted on December 12, 2005
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Tia Carrere to Dance With the Stars

ABC has announced the new contestants for the second season of Dancing With the Stars, which premieres on January 5th, 2006 at 8:00 pm ET. Here's the list:

Wayne's World star Tia Carrere
Journalist Giselle Fernandez
George Hamilton
WWE's Stacy Keibler
ESPN's Kenny Mayne
Super Bowl champ Jerry Rice
Rapper Romeo
Oscar winner Tatum O'Neal
Soap Talk's Lisa Rinna
98 Degrees singer Drew Lachey

OK, Tia Carrere was not just the star of Wayne's World. She also played university professor by day, adventurer by night Sydney Fox in the TV show, Relic Hunter, which -- alas -- prematurely cancelled by an uncaring network. She just had a baby in September, and is clearly on the comeback trail. Oh dear, did we just give away who we'll be rooting for? Because it sure won't be Lisa Rinna.

Posted on December 9, 2005
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The Attack of the Giant Jellyfish

It's really happening: the giant jellyfish are everywhere and they're really hard to kill. The Times (U.K) reports on the appearance of mysterious giant jellyfish in the Sea of Japan.

They are called echizen kurage and they sound like monsters from the trashier reaches of Japanese science fiction. They are 6ft wide and weigh 450lb (200kg), with countless poisonous tentacles, they have drifted across the void to terrorise the people of Japan. Vast armadas of the slimy horrors have cut off the country's food supply. As soon as one is killed more appear to take its place.

Echizen kurage is not an extraterrestrial invader, but a giant jellyfish that is devastating the livelihoods of fishermen in the Sea of Japan. Nomura's jellyfish, as it is known in English, is the biggest creature of its kind off Japan and for reasons that remain mysterious its numbers have surged in the past few months.

The problem has become so serious that fishery officials from Japan, China and South Korea are to meet this month for a "jellyfish summit" to discuss strategies for dealing with the invasion. Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has formed a jellyfish countermeasures committee and fishermen are at work on technology to keep the marauders out of their nets.

The problem first became obvious in the late summer when fishermen chasing anchovies, salmon and yellowtail began finding huge numbers of the jellyfish in their nets. Often the weight of the echizen kurage broke the nets or crushed the fish to death; those that survived were poisoned and beslimed by their tentacles. Fishermen on the northern tip of Honshu, Japan's main island, were forced to suspend work at the height of the lucrative salmon season. In Akita prefecture some communities saw their incomes fall by 80 per cent. The gizzard shad fishers of South Korea have also been plagued by the Nomura's.

Apparently the area where China's rivers run into the sea is where the monsters came from. But we're sure that the fact that China sends huge amounts of toxic chemicals down those rivers out to sea has absolutely nothing to do with the rise of the behemoth jellyfish.

Posted on December 8, 2005
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More Bad News For the Depressed and Anxious

In the "life is not fair" category: a new study shows that geeky men who have social anxiety are more likely to die of a heart attack. The study seemingly proves that men who are lonely, depressed and avoid social interaction are more likely to have a heart attack -- and presumably die alone, totally miserable.

Men who avoid social interaction -- not bothering to say hello or even discuss the day's activities with friends or co-workers -- face an increased risk of death from heart disease.

"Social avoidance was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular death independent of the men's baseline heart risk factors," Jarett Berry, MD, of Northwestern University, Chicago, told those attending the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions.

When men who scored high on a social-avoidance scale were compared with men who clearly were more socially involved with co-workers and friends, the researchers found that men with social avoidance were 38% more likely to die from cardiovascular disease.

A 30-year study on 1,947 healthy men found that social avoidance was associated with age-adjusted increases in cardiovascular and heart disease deaths.

So presumably, that really obnoxious loud guy who's always hitting on the secretaries, telling bad jokes and slapping everyone on the back is going to live forever. That's your uplifting news for the day.

Posted on December 7, 2005
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Jennifer Aniston Sues Over Topless Pics

It's that time of year again: for holiday sales and for Jennifer Aniston to sue someone for taking topless pictures of her. Yes, one of those stalkerazzi has been at it again. The AP reports:

The lawsuit filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges that photographer Peter Brandt must have observed Aniston "from a great distance through invasive, intrusive and unlawful measures." The photos "could have been taken only by means of trespass" and were shot in a place where she had reasonable expectations of privacy, the 36-year-old actress claims.

Aniston, star of the NBC television hit "Friends" and movies including "Bruce Almighty," "Derailed" and "Along Came Polly," is seeking monetary damages and a court order to stop Brandt or anyone else from making money off the photos.

*****

Aniston previously sued a different paparazzo for allegedly scaling a neighbor's 8-foot wall and photographing her sunbathing topless in her backyard. The photos ran in several publications. Francois Navarre, owner of the biggest Los Angeles paparazzi agency, X-17, paid the actress $550,000 two years ago to settle an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit but admitted no wrongdoing.

Here's an idea: if you're a celebrity, stop sunbathing topless in your backyard and use Mystic Tan like everyone else. Just a thought.

Posted on December 6, 2005
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King Kong Looks Real Says Zoo Director

Everyone's waiting to see how Peter Jackson's King Kong stacks up against Lord of the Rings. We know at least one thing: King Kong looks quite real, according to the Director of the Bronx Zoo.

Gorilla expert Dan Wharton, director of the prestigious Bronx Zoo, saw a preview screening yesterday and said Jackson's gorilla looked entirely authentic.

"Jackson has achieved the impossible," he said.

In addition to creating a realistic giant gorilla, Weta Digital had to use 5,000 computers to recreate New York in the 1930s, by digitally erasing all buildings built after that time. In fact, they had to get their own substation because their power needs were impacting the nearby town of Miramar.

Posted on December 5, 2005
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The Attack of the Marshmallow Gun

We know what we want in our stockings this holiday season: a giant marshmallow shooter. Available at MarshmallowShooter.com, this handy weapon of choice retails for $24.95. It would also make a great gift for any child that you like who has parents that you can't stand -- because they're not going to be pleased with a gift that shoots sticky marshmallows all over the house. But hey, that's not your problem, is it? Be sure to load up with extra marshmallow ammo.

Posted on December 2, 2005
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Scientists Invent Robot Arm Wrestler

Robots.net reports that Korean scientists have developed a robot that arm wrestles.

The arm-wrestling robot was developed by Professor Chul-Goo Kang and his colleagues at the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent System (IRIS) of Konkuk University. Robo Arm-Wrestler greets people when they are approaching by saying "Hello", "Nice to meet you", or "Please take a seat for a match", and so on. Robo Arm-Wrestler has some artifical intelligence which automatically adjusts its strength for the challenger and it also considers its competitor's attitude and reflects his will and tenacity in deciding who wins.

Hello. Nice to meet you? Now come on that's no way to challenge an opponent. Those of us "fortunate" enough to watch Sylvester Stallone in Over the Top know that you must be very aggressive and accept nothing but first place.

John Grizzly: "When I get to the table, that person, I don't care who they are, they're my mortal enemy. I hate them."

Harry Bosco: "My whole body is an engine. This is a fireplug" [makes a fist] "... and I'm gonna light him up."

Bob 'Bull' Hurley: "I drive truck, break arms, and arm wrestle. It's what I love to do, it's what I do best. Being number one is everything. There is no second place. Second sucks."

Robo Arm-Wrestler should be reprogrammed with some of those lines from Over the Top.

Posted on December 1, 2005
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