FIRST AND THIRD MONDAY

The Sip of Life Smile Café is a fortnightly column to bring a smile on your face. It offers you a recent interesting happening in some part of the world, which is funny yet

95 Years of Smoking 1.7 Lakh Cigarettes

Smoking is injurious to health but for Winnie Langley, the oldest smoke of UK it was a long companionship with cigarettes, as she dies at the age of 103. In fact it was just a month of her 103^rd birthday after having smoked 1, 70,000 cigarettes for over 95 years.

She had started smoking at the age of seven, say reports adding it was just after the World War I that she had started smoking. Interestingly she maintained a maximum of five cigarettes a day and had to quit smoking last year as she could not see the end of the match to light it as she was losing her eyesight.

She hit headlines when she celebrated her 100rd birthday and the interesting photograph of hers made her a celebrity of a kind as she was seen lighting a cigarette with a candle. She even claimed that she did not suffer from any health hazards because of smoking and had even beaten cancer at the age of 90!

Monroe’s chest X-rays for $45,000

Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe’s chest x-ray a week back fetched 45000 dollars at auction! The X-rays from her 1954 hospital visit were auctioned at the Hollywood Legends auction at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

As per a news report the X-rays, captured at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, features the then-28-year-old Monroe’s chest and lungs. The X-rays were taken at the time when she was believed to be pregnant and rumour has it that she had a miscarriage.

Before the auction took place, Julien’s Auctions had estmated that they would only fetch a total of about $3,000. Interestingly a chair from her last photo shoot that went for $35,000.

Other items which fetched good price at the auction included a pair of earrings worn by Kate Winslet in Titanic that sold for $25,000 and a dress Audrey Hepburn wore when she starred opposite Fred Astaire in the musical “Funny Face” that fetched $56,250.

Giant Pen – A Tribute Not For Writing

The Smile Café today features a social studies teacher M. Srinivasa Acharya on The Sip of Life today. This 50 year old man has ‘constructed’ a 16-foot-tall, 1-foot-wide brass-plated pen. It’s not for writing but is a tribute to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to help make way for the 2010 ratification of India’s Right to Education bill.

It is said to be the world’s biggest pen and is made of 10 cylindrical structures that were connected and weighs 40 kilograms. He is an teacher-cum-artist from Hyderabad and wants to spread the message of compulsory education for all Indians through his creation.
Bharatiya Pali is the name of the pen, and it means India’s Pen. It took 56 days and about 450 man hours to shape the sheets of brass into pen. There whole structure has been carved with illustrations of Indian culture and it cost Acharya Rs 2.5 lakh.

Animal Look-Alike Dogs In China

This time smile café is sure to bring a smile on your face to see pet owners in China painting their dogs to look like other animals. A news story on www.telegraph.co.uk recently said it’s the latest craze in the country.
In a recent dog show in Zhengzhou, Easter China, people turned out in large numbers to have a look at dogs turned into pandas and tigers. In one of the pictures which appeared on the website, a retriever looks like a tiger and a small puppy is a panda look alike!
As per the report, this trend is catching up because of an American fad of painting poodles to look like other animals at dog shows. But yes surely its an innovative idea and can be a good crowd-puller if we have something same in Indian dog shows as well!

Osama On Board British Airways Flight!

An interesting incident came to light last week when it was discovered that British Airways’ in-house magazine was carrying the photograph of a boarding pass, which had the name of Osama bin Laden. The photograph carried on the cover of LHR News, the name of the magazine, had a iPhone showing the electronic boarding pass for bin Laden flying from London to Washington D.C. as per a report in the Daily Mail.

The airlines had to apologise for the same and the authorities even said they were working on to find out how it happened, but it was meant to highlight a new service which allows passengers to download paperless boarding passes on their iPhones. The ticket shows the person by the name of Laden to fly on October 26 this year and booked on seat number 7C in the first class.

When Man Became A Bride

Here’s an interesting incident of a Chinese man who pretended to be a bride! Yes, Wang Mou, 18, was recently arrested in China when

Image and content source: http://www.weirdasianews.com

he was caught in his pink wedding dress. Taking advantage of his slim physique, he used to fool men by posing as a girl who marries men for their money.
Soft-spoken Mou would easily win men blushingly and fled with the wedding money of three men till he was finally held. Three months ago Mou was cheated by a woman on the pretext of giving him a job, but sold him instead as a wife for about 1000 US $ after which he realized he could also use the same shortcut to make money.
He later sold himself to one Liu who paid about 2000 US $ and before it could turn sexually revealing, he fled with the money along with his group. He later befriended Zhang who paid about 2000 US $ as engagement fee but he was caught the next day by women who handed him over to the police after discovering he was a man and not a woman.