Honolulu Lite

CHARLES MEMMINGER

This humor competition
was no joke

ALO-HA FRIDAY

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Last week, we ran in this space what British researchers said was the funniest joke in the world and asked readers if they agreed. The results are still coming in, but local humor connoisseurs found the joke -- about a hunter who shoots his injured buddy after a telephone emergency services operator advises him to "make sure he's dead" -- decidedly unfunny.

Readers did send in jokes they thought were funnier, but they were either incomprehensible or too filthy to print. The competition for best joke remains open.

And now the news:

Pilot dives into history

LONDON (Reuters) >> A man who trained Japanese kamikaze pilots had a friendly meeting with some of their former targets here.

Hichiro Naemura, visiting war veterans at London's Imperial War Museum, described kamikaze fliers as "fun-loving ordinary young men, the type you might meet on the streets of London or Tokyo. These young men chose to join the ranks of suicide pilots out of patriotism and willingness to sacrifice their lives for the crown, motherland and their families.

(Naemura did not answer the age-old question, Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?)

Flushing out new market

FRANKFURT, Germany (Reuters) >> Germans who like to read on the toilet no longer need to take newspapers with them. Instead, they can turn to novels printed on toilet paper.

"We want our books to be used," said Georges Hemmerstoffer, head of the company that publishes the toilet paper books.

(Some favorite titles include "The Wrath of Grapes," "The Old Man and the Seat" and the triple roll special "War and Feces.")

Yodel breaks record, ears

BERLIN (Reuters) >> A band of 937 yodelers at Ravensburger Amusement Park set a new world record for the "largest simultaneous yodel" by holding their melody for a full minute, as required for entry into the Guinness Book of Records.

(The yodel ended after several thousand park attendees set a new record for the simultaneous yelling of "SHUT THE HELL UP!")

'Honolulu Lite' on Sunday:

Alarming new statistics reveal that one out of every three Hawaii residents are obese. Something clearly has to be done. First of all, we must obviously change the meaning of the word "obese." Read "Honolulu Lite" on Sunday for other drastic solutions to the problem.

Quote me on this:

"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history -- with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila." -- Mitch Ratcliffe

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Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com

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