Hong Kong cabin crew get kung fu training

HONG KONG (AFP) — A Hong Kong airline is making all its cabin crew take kung fu lessons to help them to deal with drunk and unruly passengers. Hong Kong Airlines said all staff had been invited to undergo training in wing chun — a form of kung fu used in close-range combat — but it was only compulsory for cabin crew, the Sunday Morning Post reported. The airline had around three incidents involving disruptive passengers every week, said Eva Chan, the carrier’s deputy general manager of corporate communications. Two weeks ago a crew member had to put her martial arts training into practice on a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong. New recruit Lumpy Tang, 22, said she never imagined kung fu would be part of the job. “We were surprised in the beginning, but after a few lessons we really liked wing chun,” Tang told the Post. Wing chun instructor Katherine Cheung said the martial art was ideal for airline crews. “Wing chun can be used in small, confined spaces so it’s suited for an airplane,” Cheung said. “It’s easy to learn but difficult to master.”

‘Wake up’ drink for Aussie students on ice

SYDNEY (AFP) —– An Australian state government Monday dropped a “bizarre” idea to develop a drink for high school students designed to aid their mental alertness. The Victoria government had advertised for businesses interested in developing a non-caffeine energy drink for students aged 12 to 19 as part of a broader Aus$28 million ($29.6 million) grants programme. “There is a need for a pleasant-tasting, attention-sustaining, low-priced drink that enables secondary school students to work safely and with sustained alertness all day,” it read. Education Minister Martin Dixon said the idea had come from students, and while the Department for Business and Innovation had advertised to gauge interest in developing the product, it would go no further.

Sarkozy could play roles like Humphrey Bogart — Allen

PARIS (AFP) — Film director Woody Allen could see French President Nicolas Sarkozy playing a role like those of Humphrey Bogart, who was famous for his cynical and hardboiled anti-heroes. Allen has already directed Sarkozy’s wife, supermodel turned singer Carla Bruni, in a cameo role in his latest movie “Midnight in Paris”, which will premiere next month at the Cannes Fim Festival in southern France. Asked by the French weekly “Journal du Dimanche” whether he could imagine casting Sarkozy himself in a future production, Allen said he could. “If such an idea ever came into my head, I could no doubt find him work. I could see him in a Bogart type role,” he said. Bogart appeared in at least 75 films in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, but was best known in the roles of tough guy private eye Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and reluctant resistance hero Rick Blaine in Casablanca.

Vegetarian magazine defends meat photos

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A US vegetarian magazine has defended its use of pictures of meat to illustrate vegan dishes as a necessity brought about by cooking up a publication on a tight budget. “Yes, from time to time, after exhausting all options, we have resorted to using stock photography that may or may not be vegan,” VegNews, which claims more than 200,000 subscribers, said in a letter to readers. “In an ideal world we would use custom-shot photography for every spread, but it is simply not financially feasible for VegNews at this time,” the magazine said in the letter on its website, VegNews.com. The use of meat dishes to illustrate vegan treats was revealed on Wednesday by the vegan food blog quarrygirl.com, which showed pictures of several “vegan” dishes alongside the original stock photos. In one case, bones were photoshopped out of a dish presented in VegNews as “Vegan Spare Ribs”.

US man proposes in crossword puzzle: answer ‘Yes!’

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Washington Post newspaper’s crossword puzzle had special meaning this weekend for one local couple. With the complicity of the daily broadsheet, Corey Newman, 28, of Alexandria, Virginia, proposed to his live-in girlfriend, Marlowe Epstein, 31, through clues buried in a specially crafted puzzle. The clue for 37 Across, for example, asked for the name of a role in the movie “Shakespeare in Love”. The answer — Marlowe. 39 Across asked for the name of a “Casablanca” screenwriter. The answer —Epstein. The clincher was 51 Across: “Words with a certain ring to them.” As soon as Epstein came up with the answer — “Will you marry me” — Newman got down on one knee, whipped out a diamond ring and repeated the question, the Post reported. “Yes, of course!” Epstein said.”I was sort of blown away,” she told the newspaper. “I was so impressed that he managed to pull that off!”