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/ 4 September 2006

Madness and women

It takes a special sense of irony to appreciate the Hobson Hall Women’s Day challenge. This annual celebration brings the houses in our university hall together in friendly competition over all things sporty. The rifle challenge is my particular favourite. In this event a row of inflated condoms is strung in a line, where they blow picturesquely in the breeze.

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/ 4 September 2006

Meet the Anti-Germans

Early last month, thousands of demonstrators attended a rally in Berlin to show support for Israel. Germany’s Jewish community was there, of course. There were also members of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party. But as well as politicians in suits, another group had turned up to express their enthusiasm for Israel’s attack on Lebanon — the Anti-Germans.

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/ 4 September 2006

Let’s declare 2007 ‘The year of the dog’

Imagine you are watching Zizi Kodwa, described as “spokesperson of the African National Congress Youth League”, outside the court where Jacob Zuma was recently on trial. Kodwa was reported to have issued a call for “dogs to be hit very hard until their owners and handlers come out into the open”. My name, according to the reports, was one of four on a list of “dogs”.

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/ 3 September 2006

Eel jumps into Taiwan toddler’s mouth

Doctors at a Taipei hospital are fighting to save a girl’s life after an eel jumped into her mouth and ruptured her esophagus, a newspaper said on Sunday. The Apple Daily said a three-year-old girl was attacked by the eel a month ago and has been kept at the intensive-care unit at the Mackay Memorial hospital ever since.

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/ 3 September 2006

Mexico mops up after Hurricane John

Hurricane John ripped tin roofs off homes, knocked out power and sent billboards flying in the southern tip of Baja California before weakening to a tropical storm that could still bring flash floods and mudslides as it crosses the peninsula. No deaths were reported as the storm blew through the city of La Paz.

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/ 3 September 2006

Gerrard in, Beckham out

If David Beckham was hoping for an early return to international football, the Real Madrid midfielder will have watched Steven Gerrard’s inspiring display in England’s 5-0 defeat of Andorra with a growing sense of gloom. Asked once again to fill the right-hand position that Beckham had for so long made his own, Gerrard responded in sterling fashion.