World Vignettes

But Chum Tony Dangerfield’s blood hound Charlie crept into the room and greedily wolfed down the mobile phone, leaving only a pile of torn paper. After a frantic search for the phone, Murray obtained the number from the telephone company, dialled and heard muffled ringing from sleeping Charlie’s stomach. The dog was rushed to a vet, who advised Murray and Dangerfield to let nature take its course. Twenty four hours later the phone duly emerged – in perfect.

Frank Muir dead

LONDON: Frank Muir died on Friday at the age of 77, his wife said. He became famous as one of the participants of the British TV quiz show Call My Bluff. Muir, born in Ramsgate, Kent, in 1920, enjoyed a partnership lasting a quarter of a century with Denis Norden. Together they produced such classics as Take It From Here, The Glums, My Word! and My Music

.In the 1960s, Muir ran the BBC’s sitcom department and was involved in producing some of the best TV series of the time, including Steptoe and Son and Till Death Us Do Part.

Neo-Nazi terror

POTSDAM: Neo-Nazi youths terrorised a teenage girl at a New Year’s Eve party, spray-painting swastikas on her chest, cutting off her hair and beating and kicking her, police said on Friday. The girl was hospitalised after the attack in Mahlow in the former East Germany. Two girls and five boys have been arrested.

Effective poison

WASHINGTON: Deadly poison from the skin of a frog in Ecuador has provided researchers a clue to a powerful new painkiller that may have all the benefits of morphine with none of its damaging side-effects. The frog, identified as epibpedobates tricolor, makes the poison kill predators.

Russian currency

MOSCOW: Russia introduced a new currency system on Saturday under which thousand rouble currency will be equivalent to one rouble only, containing the same value that the four digit currency possesses.

In Love and WarDUBAI: Italian soldiers were spared from attacks in Beirut in 1983 because of a Syrian general’s crush on Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida. Syrian Defence Minister Mustafa Tlass said he had been an admirer of Lollobrigida since his youth. During Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Tlass told his leaders to do whatever they wanted with other forces, but not to hurt the Italian soldiers. When asked why , he replied, “I do not want a single tear falling from Gina’s eyes.”