Britian’s Missing Top Model

Blond hair, blue eyes. 5 foot 11, 130 pounds.

One arm.

They’re not the typical stats of a would-be model. But “Britian’s Missing Top Model” hopes to change all that. The reality competition, premiering tonight in Great Britain on BBC Three follows eight hopefuls vying to prove they have what it takes to make it in the mainstream fashion world. The deal: Contestants pack into a Chelsea penthouse and, over the course of three weeks, get whittled down through a series of challenges. The prize: a high-fashion photo spread in the British edition of Marie Claire magazine.

The difference between this show and “America’s Next Top Model”: All the women have a disability.

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● ● ● â–¬ â–¬ â–¬ ● ● ● – Turns 100

“Send SOS,” one of the Titanic’s radio operators supposedly said to another after the famous ship struck that infamous iceberg. “It’s the new call and besides this may be your last chance to send it.”

That “new call” is 100 years old today, and people around the world who owe their lives to that piece of Morse code may reflect this morning on its importance.

In the past century, “SOS” has become a firm part of popular culture used in everything from DIY programme titles to Abba hits. But it began life in a far more serious setting after being adopted by the international community on July 1, 1908, as the globally recognised distress signal for ships at sea.

At that time voices could not yet be carried across the airwaves and sailors needed a standard means of saying, in Morse code, that they were in trouble.

Until then, the most commonly used distress call was the “CQD” signal, which was open to misinterpretation. After much deliberation, SOS was chosen to replace it because the signal – three dots, three dashes and three more dots – is such a clear message to send in Morse code.

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Democratic convention to be no-fry zone

DENVER — Warning to Southern delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver this August: it will be a no-fry zone.

As part of the effort to make the August 25-28 convention the greenest ever, the Democrats’ guidelines for food catering include one that strikes at the heart of Southern cuisine: no fried food.

No fried chicken. No fried catfish. No fried green tomatoes. No fried okra. No fried anything.

In promoting healthy eating habits, the Democratic guidelines say every meal should be nutritious and include “at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, purple/blue and white.”

“It’s the new patriotism,” says Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, the driving force behind the greening of the Democratic convention.

However, if presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain starts gaining in the polls on Barack Obama, who will accept the Democratic nomination in Denver, the Democrats may find they’ve got bigger fish to fr? – uh, make that – bake.

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