Tête-à-tête

Tête-à-tête
Thought of the week:
"TIGERS EAT WALLABIES FOR TEA"
-- One of many MSN screen-names following Bangladesh's win against Australia.

Yay! We showed the Aussies! Tigers roar, fanfare galore…poetry purists, please don't egg the Girl Next Door. Right, you can see why I missed that A in English Literature. Zulquar does a better job of capturing the mood on cover, so I suppose I'll leave it up to the experts.

Moving on, on Sunday, June 19, we celebrated Father's Day, a little more quietly than we did Mother's Day, although I'm sure the card stores did brisk business. I'd love to kick off a discussions on whether these occasions are really special ones that celebrate the different human relationships, but I fear there's no time…you'll find out why soon enough. In any case, I don't think it's too late to knock on the good people of the Shout Out column with wishes for the important men in your lives.

Right now, we're having a very difficult time trying to narrow down the applicants to the fifteen finalists who'll be called to the interview. We will be announcing a date for that within the next two weeks, Inshallah, so I'd like to request our RS Team hopefuls to please be patient.

Well, I'm sure you'll notice that we have yet another new column on the Switchboard, and it's run by none other than our returning king of controversy, that obnoxiously funny fellow we all love to hate. That's right, Hamdu Mia's back, and he's as rib-ticklingly nasty as ever. So let's hear what he has to say, why don't we? Well, I'll keep this short and sweet, so I'll sign off here this week. Till our next tete-a-tete, take care!

Send your inquiries, polls, questions and comments to thegirlnextdoor1@hotmail.com, or mail me at teteatete_tgnd@yahoo.com

By The Girl Next Door

Oddly Enough…

Man claiming to be "too disabled to work" found wrestling alligators, taking martial arts classes and selling pirated CDs and DVDs.
A British man who claimed he was too disabled to work was jailed for fraud after police found out he had wrestled alligators and trained in martial arts while claiming state benefits.

Martin Crowson, 53, who said he was "virtually unable to walk", was jailed for a year for falsely claiming 17,000 pounds (1922000 Tk) in social security payments.

Despite insisting he was unfit to work, Crowson ran a market stall selling pirate music and DVDs. The scam was discovered after investigators searching his home discovered holiday photographs of Crowson wrestling an alligator and riding a camel.

Other papers found at the home also suggested his injuries were not as serious as he claimed. A large amount of documentation was found -- a series of certificates showing this defendant's progress from a white belt to a black belt in the sport of ju jitsu. news.yahoo.com

Woman begins cleaning son's fish tank. Since you are reading this on Oddly Enough, you can probably guess that it didn't contain cute little goldfish
A woman almost lost her hand after putting it into a tank filled with piranhas. The woman from Russia was trying to clean the tank when the carnivorous fish attacked her in a feeding frenzy during which they stripped the flesh from two fingers.

The predators only let go when the woman smashed them against the side of the tank. Doctors said the woman was lucky not to lose her hand which required surgery to save it. The woman had thought the tank, which belonged to her son, only contained goldfish. A neighbor said: "She had no idea the pet fish in the tank were predators." Femalefirst.co.uk

17-year-old angry with parents over argument, turns them in for theft
A teenager seething after an argument with his parents about school turned them in for allegedly trying to get him to steal appliances from a house under construction.

Cody Quillen, 17, told police that his mother woke him up one night last month and asked him to help his stepfather steal a dishwasher and stove from the house next door. Officers found the appliances installed in the family's Port St. Lucie kitchen, and the parents confessed to their involvement.

His step-father was taken into custody. His mother was cited on the law-breaking charge. The boy, however, was not charged. ap.tbo.com

Woman stabs boyfriend 42 times in self-defense. Boyfriend had polio, a wheelchair and use of only one hand
A woman was charged with second-degree murder in connection with the fatal stabbing of her disabled boyfriend, whom she claims instigated the incident by attacking her.

She stabbed him 42 times at his apartment. He suffered wounds to the head, neck and upper torso.

Medina told investigators that he attacked her with a knife while she was in the bathroom. She claimed a struggle ensued in which she wrested the knife from Ramos and stabbed him. The second-degree murder charge states that she killed him while believing her actions were justified, but that belief was "unreasonable."

Her boyfriend was disabled by polio. He used a wheelchair and only had the use of one hand at the time of the struggle.

She said her boyfriend stabbed her in the shower after she told him she was going to leave him. He threatened to kill her, but she grabbed the knife away.

She said she was examining her wounds when he tried to regain the knife and threatened to kill her. She stabbed him in the head and neck but couldn't remember how many wounds she inflicted. She said she was frightened because Ramos had previously abused her and threatened to kill her. pantagraph.com

Compiled by Ahmed Ashiful Haque

Hamdu's Helpline

Note: Dear old Pintu had his own helpline a long time back and was going along with it in full flow when something unfortunate happened. The pressure of handling so many problems made him schizophrenic. He now thinks he's an orangutan and is currently busy hunting lice in his armpits at some remote jungle in Africa and awaiting his big debut on a major Discovery documentary. You could say dealing with other people's woes is not his problem anymore. Then came Riyana who was kind of OK, but sounded a lot like Mother Goose forbidding little kids to play with fire, smoke cigarettes and watch fTV. However, like Pintu, she too lost it, supposedly because she watched too much fTV herself. Classified sources say she's on her way to check out some clearance sale of tribal wear this man-eating tribe in Africa is offering. Ain't it funny that both Pintu and Riyana ended up in Africa? Anyway, after this amazing turn of eventful disappearances, you have Hamdu's Helpline, yet another addition in the RS's series of futile attempts to address the problems of the pathetically depressed.

Disclaimer: Hamdu Mia denies having anything to do with the disappearances of the previous two help columnists and denies allegations of any act of sabotage that he might have committed in the process of coming up with his own help column.

Dear Hamdu,
I am a kajer bua living in Jinjira who is in love with a darowan living in Hazaribagh. We are deeply in love and the world seems to be a beautiful bed of cauliflowers since we started going out. However, our relationship is being tested by the transportation problems in Dhaka city. There is no direct murir tin service from Jinjira to Hazaribagh. So we have to go through a lot of trouble while going on dates. Mr. Hamdu, would you kindly tell us what we can do to solve this problem and continue to keep our relationship strong like the defence of the Italian football team?
Jorina Begum

Dear Jorina Begum,
For a kajer buwa, you appear to be quite educated and well-informed about football. Anyway, I guess the concept of long-distance relationships is unknown to you. Thanks to the Internet and low calling and messaging rates of phone companies, long-distance relationships are just a walk in the park. I'd suggest you and your loverboy get logged on to the Net and experience the wonders modern day IT can do for desperate lovebirds. Nowadays people ask one another out on the Net and later have dates as well as fights on the Net. Hell, people even break up on the Net! I hope I've been able to make you understand how great the Net is! Go and get it Jorina! It's waiting for you!!!

Dear Hamdu,
I am a young boy who is madly in love with this girl Lisa. She is extremely sweet and immeasurably talented. She always thinks for the poor and unfortunate, gets top grades in class and even knows how to play the trombone. Never before have I met such a great girl. However, the problem is I can't tell her about my feelings, not because I'm afraid she'll discover that I still wear diapers, but because I'm afraid of her family members. Her sister's cool and so is her mother. The horrible ones are his brother and her father. Her brother Bart is an ill-mannered imp who has no respect for elders and will never let the people around him live in peace. Meanwhile, her father Homer is the most irresponsible and worthless person walking the face of the planet. I just can't stand these two people! They're obstructing the great times Lisa and I are destined to have together. Please advise me on how to deal with this rather peculiar problem of mine.
Cable TV Freak

Dear Cable TV Freak,
Dealing with one's partner's eccentric family members is part of many a relationship. Thank God that you don't have to deal with the eccentricities of your own partner! That's an even bigger pain in the @$$. Anyway, you haven't told me how old you are. From the look of things, it seems that you are still quite young and haven't had your wisdom teeth yet. Well, don't worry, neither have I. So there isn't much out-of-the-world wisdom that I can share with you. However, what I can tell you is that it is quite normal for people of your age to be deranged and insane, taking into consideration all the thought-provoking stuff you guys watch on TV. Being stressed with problems is just another part of life, and being enough of a loser to ask for advice from unknown help columnists is a very normal occurrence as well. So keep your cool, reflect clearly on your life and stay focused. And one more word of advice: STOP WATCHING TOO MUCH TV!

Good advice is hard to find. So if you're insane enough to think I'm someone worth asking advice from, feel free to send in pathetic tales of your pathetic problems at helpline@hotmail.com

New Z Club
Zonta Club IV is sponsoring and mentoring a new club called Z Club. It is dedicated to providing career guidance, leadership skills and international fellowship to young people. It was officially launched on 18th June by District Governor Dilruba Ahmed. Sunbeams School is the main sponsor AND THE PRINCIPAL Mrs Niloufer Manzur is the chief coordinator of the club. 20 students have been enrolled so far.