Ms. Blair’s tirade against Chirac
‘secured’ 2012 Games for London
l LONDON: A blistering tirade by Cherie Blair, the wife of ex-British Premier Tony Blair, against former French President Jacques Chirac played a key role in winning the Olympics for London, organiser Sebastian Coe has claimed. In extracts from Coe’s book published in the Times yesterday, the former London Organising Committee chairman revealed that Mrs Blair rounded on Chirac at a crucial Olympic reception over comments he made about Britain’s cuisine. The leader’s wife went at Chirac “like a banshee” at the 2005 event in Singapore, causing the embarrassed French leader to leave the function before he had chance to lobby potential voters on behalf of the Paris 2012 bid, said Coe. “I spotted Cherie heading like a heat-seeking missile towards the French contingent,” he recalled. “Above the hubbub her voice rang loud and clear. ‘I gather you’ve been saying rude things about our food’, she said, at a volume that would have done justice to a packed courtroom. “Her husband, who could hear as well as I could, had assiduously turned away,” added the former Olympic champion.Three days earlier, Chirac was heard telling Russian leader Vladimir Putin and German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that “you can’t trust people who cook as badly as that,” at a G8 summit in Scotland. “After Finland, it’s (Britain) the country with the worst food,” he added. Coe believes that Chirac’s hasty exit from the Singapore event gave Tony Blair more time to press London’s case, according to extracts from “Running My Life”. Paris arrived in Singapore as favourites to secure the 2012 summer Games but was edged out by London in the final eliminator by 54 votes to 50.
Catching the fugitive flamingo
l TOKYO: Zookeepers in northern Japan are racing against nature to catch a fugitive flamingo before it freezes or migrates south for the winter. Bird experts have tried to net the escapee on the lake it has made home using captive flamingos as bait, and have even donned diving gear to sneak up on the pink-feathered bird from underwater. But every time they get anywhere near it takes to the skies, said Akihisa Kato from Asahiyama Zoo, on the northernmost island of Hokkaido. “We want to capture it ourselves if possible. But if we don’t, it can survive the winter if it flies south to warmer places with migratory birds such as swans and geese,” he told AFP by telephone. “But if it goes to the main island of Honshu, it will be difficult to continue our hunt because of the costs involved.” The bird, a member of the greater flamingo species, usually found in northern Africa and Mediterranean Europe, is currently surviving on a diet of plankton and seaweed. But with the mercury falling in Hokkaido, where winter temperatures regularly reach minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 Fahrenheit), the bird’s options are narrowing. “We guess the flamingo will make some kind of move before the lake freezes,” Kato said. The hunt began in July — an altogether more pleasant time of the year to be out and about in Hokkaido — when the metre- (three-feet) high bird, hopped a fence at its enclosure. After initially flying south, the creature — which was never given a name by keepers — made its home on a brackish-water lake by the Sea of Okhotsk, some 130 kilometres (80 miles) east of the zoo, among a flock of less colourful herons. One attempt to recapture the bird saw the zoo’s director put on a wetsuit and snorkel in a bid to approach without being seen, said Kato, adding that his boss had only managed to get within 100 metres (yards) before the entire flock took fright.Earlier this year the escape of a penguin from a zoo in Tokyo captured worldwide attention. Humboldt penguin No. 337 spent 82 days at large in and around Tokyo Bay after bolting his enclosure and evading aquarium staff, an army of public onlookers and even Japan’s well-equipped coastguard.
He handled the glasses with
care and broke the record
l BEIJING: A British waiter Saturday smashed the world record for the number of glasses held in one hand, according to organisers of the event, handling 51 glasses to surpass the previous record of 39. Philip Osenton, a 43-year-old, based in Beijing, began handling dozens of glasses at a time early in his career working at major London hotels like the Ritz and Savoy, which he said laid the groundwork for the feat. “The carrying of glasses is a sommelier thing. When I worked at the Ritz hotel, I’ve had a 140-cover restaurant to set up in the morning between breakfast and lunch, so basically with two glasses per setting I had got 280 glasses to put out with a very short amount of time,” Osenton told AFP. “You have a lot of pressure to get the room ready.” In his first attempt Osenton managed 45 glasses in one go, but made it to 51 on a second try, stacking the glasses on their side on top of each other in his left hand. The previous record of 39 glasses was made in 2007 by a Filipino man in a Barcelona restaurant, according to Jim Boyce, founder of the China wine blog grapewallofchina.com.
n Compiled from agencies
He handled with care and broke the record
