In another blast from the 80′s, here’s Israel’s Izhar Cohen singing 1985′s Ole Ole:
Nothing says 1985 like those back-up dancers who were rumored to be in the running for a spot in Olivia Newton John’s video Physical. Another rumor, though totally unconfirmed, is that Cohen’s shirt was the inspiration for the Seinfeld ‘Puffy Shirt’ episode.
Cohen won the 1978 Eurovision Song Contest with A-Ban-I-Bi.
A nude portrait of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife Carla Bruni will go under the hammer in New York next month, according to auctioneers Christie’s.
The 13 x 10 1/8 inch gelatin silver black and white photograph was taken in 1993, when Bruni was one of the world’s top fashion models, and is being sold by art collector Gert Elfering.
It is expected to fetch $3,000 to $4,000 when it is sold in New York on April 10, according to the Christie’s web site.
Sarkozy married Bruni, 40, in February after a whirlwind romance that began shortly after his divorce from his second wife Cecilia.
Their relationship has coincided with a sharp fall in Sarkozy’s approval ratings which have tumbled as voters judged that the president’s glitzy lifestyle jarred with his responsibilities and status as head of state.
Sarkozy and his new wife are due to pay a state visit to Britain this week during which they will be hosted by Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle.
A letter from the city of Seattle that took Daniel Johnson by surprise.
“The charge is for indecent exposure,” he said. If convicted, he could be sentenced up to 365 days and fined up to $5,000. And it’s all for a bike ride he took in the buff back in September.
Johnson was among many others who also participated in the World Naked Bike Ride. But it appears the group’s “nude, not lewd” message has hit a bump in the road. “Sometimes it’s a big pain in the butt — that’s figuratively,” he said.
He doesn’t know who filed the complaint, but he says it goes against his quest for conversation. “Simplify their lives, consider cycling. It makes such a huge difference in our carbon footprint,” he said.
Johnson says he’s disappointed there’s now a legal reaction to a years-long practice in the city. “Kind of a sad waste of taxpayer’s money, especially right now. The city doesn’t have money for this kind of thing,” he said. “We’ll see how far they want to take it, I don’t know. The ball’s in their court.”
And if it comes to fighting back, Johnson is ready to ride.
A man allegedly killed a dog, ran naked through a tennis club and poured hot coffee on his head before he was finally arrested, Orange County, California sheriff’s deputies said.
Bayron Reyes Lopez, 26, of San Clemente, was hospitalized after being captured at the tennis club where he worked as a maintenance man, sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino said.
Deputies got the first call about the man at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday when there were reports of a loud radio at his apartment. Amormino said deputies believe he jumped from a third-story window to get away, and was unhurt.
Just after 6 a.m. Judy Donnelley reportedly called to say a “strange” man had approached her, and when her 5-year-old mini schnauzer named Coco intervened, the man allegedly killed the dog, hitting, choking and “repeatedly beating her on asphalt in front of me.”
“She saved my life,” Donnelley told KCAL-TV. “I don’t know how to thank her.” She put flowers on the street where her dog died.
Minutes later, other callers reported a naked man running through the Rancho San Clemente Tennis Club and pouring hot coffee on his head. That’s where deputies caught up with him, Amormino said.
He was initially hospitalized but “will be, at the least, booked for cruelty to animals,” Amormino said.
He was being tested to determine if he was under the influence of any drugs or narcotics, Amormino added, so other charges were also possible.
Roman Polanski has thanked people who have sent messages of support during his battle to avoid extradition from Switzerland to the United States over a case of having sex with a 13-year-old in 1977.
“These messages have come from my neighbors, from people all over Switzerland and from beyond Switzerland — from across the world,” the Oscar-winning film director wrote in an open letter published on the website of French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy.
“I would like every one of them to know how heartening it is, when one is locked up in a cell, to hear this murmur of human voices and of solidarity in the morning mail,” he wrote.
Polanski, who holds dual French and Polish citizenship, was arrested at the request of U.S. authorities when he flew into Switzerland on September 26 to receive a lifetime achievement award at a film festival.
The 76-year-old director is now under house arrest at his chalet in the ski resort of Gstaad, facing extradition to the United States where he could be sentenced for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
He fled the country in 1978 on the eve of sentencing because he believed a judge might put him in jail for 50 years, despite a plea bargaining agreement.
The Swiss Justice Ministry has said it would decide next year whether to extradite the director, whose films include “The Pianist,” for which he won an Academy Award, “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Chinatown” and “Repulsion.”
South Dakota authorities say a woman found passed out in a stolen delivery van earlier this month registered a blood alcohol content of .708 — nearly nine times the legal limit and a possible record for the state.
Meade County State’s Attorney Jesse Sondreal said that 45-year-old Marguerite Engle was found slumped over the van’s steering wheel along a highway on Dec. 1.
He says the highest blood alcohol content state chemists he spoke with could recall was a .56. The state’s legal limit is .08.
Authorities say Engle missed an initial court hearing Dec. 15, but that they found her in another stolen vehicle, and that she had been drinking.
She was being held on two counts of driving under the influence. It wasn’t immediately clear if she was facing other charges.
Her attorney declined comment.
A southwestern Pennsylvania man received a Christmas Eve lesson in the old adage, “Let the buyer beware.”
Billy Joe Sanders, of Pittsburgh, said he bought a home in Canonsburg during a Washington County tax sale in August. When he went to check on the property on Christmas Eve, he learned that it had been torn down by the county’s redevelopment authority — and has since learned his $5,500 won’t be refunded.
County officials said tax sales all include a “buyer beware” clause, and owners are responsible for doing a title search and otherwise checking on the property’s status.
Officials said buyers of homes slated for demolition are usually notified, but sometimes it doesn’t happen.
Sander said he plans to bill the county or sue to get his money back.
Here they are! The UK’s Bucks Fizz singing 1981′s Making Your Mind Up:
Making Your Mind Up became a major hit around Europe, reaching No.1 in the UK as well as eight other countries. It charted highly in other territories such as Australia, eventually selling four million copies worldwide.
The Dutch government says it will immediately begin using full body scanners on flights to the United States to prevent future terrorist attacks like the Christmas Day attempt allegedly by a young Nigerian.
Authorities say Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab managed to board a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport carrying explosives but failed to successfully detonate them.
In a preliminary report, the Dutch government says his plan to blow up the Detroit-bound aircraft was professional but its execution was “amateurish.”
An earlier Dutch investigation said all security checks were correctly carried out in Amsterdam and American authorities had cleared the passenger list.
A Web designer says she was struck by the decor at a New York City restaurant — when it fell on her head.
Raina Kumra says in a negligence lawsuit filed last week that a 150-pound stuffed moose head with 3-foot-wide antlers plummeted off a wall at the Scandinavian-themed White Slab Palace on Oct. 4 and hit her. She says she suffered a concussion and other injuries.
The owner of the Manhattan restaurant hasn’t returned a telephone message left by The Associated Press. Nor has Kumra, who’s representing herself in the case.
Kumra filed her lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Manhattan. She’s seeking unspecified damages.
