Lunchtime Capsules

No, I'm not eating some sort of space-age nosh shaped like One-A-Days(TM). Rather, I'm sitting here on a frigid day, bundled up like a Sontaran, reviewing the news of the week.

Well, the news I'm interested in, at least.

• Ricardo Montalban has passed on. Whether you knew him as a frequent cast member of MGM musicals, Mr. Rourke from ABC's Fantasy Island, the impossibly charming pitch artist who sold millions of Americans on the virtues of Corinthian leather (and to a lesser extent, the Chrysler Cordoba), Senor Senor from Kim Possible, the really cool villian (Vincent Ludwig) from the funniest of the The Naked Gun movies, or "Khhhhhhan!" from Star Trek (series and film), he left a stylish, indelible mark on whatever he did. He radiated class the way plutonium radiates... well, radiation. Even when he was playing a villian, you couldn't help but admire the graceful and congenial way in which he had things blown to bits.
  
  Also, let's face it, if the muscles he dispalyed in his sixties in Wrath of Khan were real, and from all reports they were, the bloke was ripped. ...Hope for us all in our golden years, eh? Well, maybe you.
  
  He will be missed.
  
• Football/Soccer officials are concerned that some Brasilian clubs will be using Viagra to improve their players performance on the field. One consolation for sports officials is that the violators will be quite easy to spot.
  
• The mayor of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania has offered proof that he is totally mental for the Steelers by officially changing his name from "Luke R. Ravenstahl" to "Luke R. Steelerstahl." The change is only temporary, while the Steelers are playing the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL playoffs. Get it? "Raven"stahl to "Steeler"stahl? I'm just as amused as you are, perhaps even less so.
  
  Apparently, he has a history of sudden, whimsical nom de plume alterations. In 1977, he changed his name to "Luke R. Skywalker" in honor of Star Wars. Then, in 1979, he was taken with the CBS programme The Dukes of Hazzard and changed his name to Bo and Luke R. Dukenstahl. In the eighties he fell in love with the programme The A-Team and changed his name to Luke R. Baracusstahl. This particular change was accompanied by a sudden scarcity of chains and neck jewelry in the Pittsburg area as the future mayor bought up everything in sight.
  
  The nineties was a quiet period where he simply went by the moniker "the artist previously known as Luke," but he welcomed the Millenium with a sudden change to "Luke R. Y2Kenstahl" and then, on January 2, 2000, "Luke R. Veryrelievedenstahl."
  
  Now this. Well, given the man's apparent loathing for the Baltimore NFL franchise, he can't very well go back to "Ravenstahl" if Pittsburgh loses. Luke R. "Loserstahl" has a nice ring to it, don't you think? ...at least until next season.
  
• The U.S. Academy of Motion Pictures and Science has decided to spice up the awards by not revealing in advance which A-list celebrities will be the awards presenters at the Oscars. This now guarantees that 100% of viewers will have no clue as to who is presenting, which is a drastic increase from the 97.4% who couldn't give a flip in previous years. (That's an average by the way.) The suspense is not exactly killing us.