Quiz contestant to sue over length of the Amazon

Warrington, England, Sunday June17th 2007 - Terry Copthorne, a laboratory technician, of Warrington, Cheshire, England, today announced that he had started proceedings to sue Celador, makers of the popular television quiz programme Who wants to be a Millionaire? for £1million, which represents the amount of money he could have received had the company been aware of the true facts concerning the actual relative lengths of the Amazon and Nile rivers. "My geography teacher, Earl Bretton, had always taught us that although the common perception was that the Nile was longer, there was enough evidence available, even then, that the Amazon was the longest river in the world". "He taught us that in 1972 and I have always used it as a yardstick in quizzes and tests ever since, and argued the case when challenged". " I did so in this case, and as a result lost £250,000, which was the value of a correct answer at this stage in the game. However, my principles were just as important to me as the money. Now I have been fully vindicated and I want a reward for my integrity".

In the show, broadcast in August 2004, Terry had to choose between four options. The host, Chris Tarrant, sought the answer to the question "Which is the longest river in the world?" The options presented were:

• A The Nile
• B The Yangtze
• C The Amazon
• D The Po

Terry prevaricated and gave his reasoning for choosing the Amazon after much thought. His answer was rejected, as the prevailing knowledge at the time was that the Nile deserved this distinction. As a result, he feels that he not only lost £250,000 directly, but that he also missed the opportunity to go for the ultimate quiz show prize of £1million.

There were other consequences for Terry: "This lack of knowledge on behalf of Celador also led to the death of my brother-in-law, who was bludgeoned to death following an argument in a South Manchester pub the day the quiz was aired"."I will have to live with the consequences of that until the day I die.", said Terry. Terry also blames the show for the break up of his fourth marriage and the death of his dog Mr. Dahl, named after the famous children's author.

PA

Survey finds that exclamation marks are overused!!!!!

Tuesday 5th June 2007 - Exeter, England - A survey conducted by boffins at Exeter University has discovered that bloggers, on average, use 37% more exclamation marks in their writing than those who use other written forms!! Further, the Internet in general causes an increase of 19% in the use of the punctuation mark!!!

Professer Tim Hatton, who was the lead researcher on the project, said today that he was not surprised by the results!!!! "Anyone who has taken anything more than a cursory glance at the web cannot fail to notice that it is littered with surplus and totally redundant re-enforcement!!!!" "The exclamation mark is slowly losing its ability to mark out a title or passage as special or worthy of extra attention!!! As a result, we are entering an era where the only way to clearly emphasise the importance of a phrase or block of speech or make it stand out is to raise the stakes by adding more and more marks!!!!!!"

Over 4,000 blogs were examined, in addition to the 8,000 web-sites tested earlier in the year!!!!!
PA