The Lexicographer's Rules

"Convinced he was not drunk, his gestures were more sweeping, and his urge to talk to the French women at the next table was overwhelming. Yet, crucially, his rate of drinking had not slackened. He had nonetheless proved that women have not evolved sufficiently to handle more than three, or four pints at a time. In conclusion, it is clear ladies should stick to the white wine and leave beer to men."

—This Is London. Luke Leitch and Harriet Arkell square off in a man versus woman beer drinking experiment at the Elephant and Castle pub in Kensington.

"Commuters, by their nature, are creatures of habit. They get to the station, come down the escalators, and wait for the train at the spot which will drop them at the most convenient place at the other end. Unfortunately, for all concerned, this means there is a huge bottleneck at one end of the platform. The other end, as the adjacent monitor indicates, is completely empty. But as each individual ignores the request to move up the platform, the collective result is that a dangerous mass of bodies is crammed into one place. To avoid an accident the station assistants stop letting people through the barriers. Now there is a bottleneck in the concourse. Anxious people in three-quarter-length coats are fuming. The concourse fills up. Back at the platform the trains keep coming, but it will take several more before it is safe to let more people down."

—Guardian. The London tube serves a billion riders a year and is hard-pressed by ever-increasing usage.'

"In late 1989 staffers in the House Legislative Counsel office, located in Room 136 of the Cannon Building, discovered that a foot-long rat had been living inside a 9-foot-long, 4-foot-high Xerox machine, chewing apart wires and leaving behind a trail of droppings, banana peels, corn cobs and a sealed plastic baggy with a Hostess Twinkie. It cost $107,000 to replace the copier."

—Roll Call. It's not rats (elected or otherwise) this time, but mice in Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell's Capitol Hill office.'

"Understand this: Even though I am of Chinese descent, I am no stool pigeon for the People's Republic of China or its leaders. I am not privy to their thinking or strategizing about positioning China in the unpredictable geopolitical landscape of the 21st century."

—Common Dreams. William Wong is appalled and enraged by the free flow of racist, bigoted and ignorant comments that have appeared since the Chinese-American dispute over a spy plane began. He is the author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America.'

"Twelve hours after floating in space on my first mission, I was queued up at a fried-chicken outlet in Houston. That brings you down to Earth pretty quickly."

—Montreal Gazette. Marc Ganeau was the first Canadian astronaut in space in 1984. He now lives in Montreal and is an executive vice-president of the Canadian Space Agency.