October 23, 2007
Nude sleepwalkers set off alarm for hotel
LONDON (Reuters) - A surge in naked sleepwalking among guests has led one of the country's largest budget hotel groups to re-train staff to handle late-night nudity.
Travelodge, which runs more than 300 business hotels in Britain, says sleepwalking rose seven-fold in the past year, and 95 percent of the somnambulants are scantily clad men.
"We have seen an increased number of cases over the years so it is important that our staff know how to help sleepwalking when it arises," Leigh McCarron, the chain's sleep director, said in a statement.
One tip in the company's newly released "sleepwalkers guide" tells staff to keep towels handy at the front desk in case a customer's dignity needs preserving.
The company said naked wanderers often ask receptionists such questions as "Where's the bathroom?", "Do you have a newspaper?" or "Can I check out, I'm late for work?"
Studies have found that sleepwalking can be brought on by stress, alcohol, eating cheese or consuming too much caffeine. It generally takes effect an hour or two after going to bed, when people are first slipping into a deep sleep.
Asked on Thursday why she thought 95 percent of its sleepwalkers were naked men, a Travelodge spokeswoman said: "We have more men staying with us than women, so that could be a factor."
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August 16, 2007
Naked TV news stripped of subsidy
TOKYO (Reuters) - An embarrassed Japanese government has cut the subsidy, but a Tokyo TV company said on Friday it would carry on making a striptease news show with sign language for hearing-impaired viewers.
The government made grants totalling 400,000 yen (1,800 pounds) to help cover production of the weekly five-minute programme on satellite TV, which features a newsreader who removes her clothes between news items that she delivers in sign language.
The funding dried up when the government, under fire for supporting "Naked Sign Language News", changed funding guidelines for programming aimed at the disabled to exclude pornography, local media reported.
"Of course we will continue making the programme," said Shinichiro Fukuyama, a spokesman for makers Paradise Television. "We weren't doing it for the subsidy, we just wanted to make something viewers would enjoy."
Most people who had contacted the station about the programme were supportive, saying deaf people had the right to enjoy the same programmes as other people, he added.
Posted by ronnie at 04:05 PM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2007
China law blind to nude Web chats
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese prosecutors have dropped a case against a housewife who organized online chats in the nude, after discovering there was no basis in law to bring charges, state media reported on Wednesday.
The 36-year-old woman, surnamed Li, had been charged with "organizing pornographic activities" for using a Web cam to chat with people on the Internet in the buff and for organizing online chats for nudists.
But law officers investigating the case found that nude chat rooms were not defined in China's pornography laws, an oversight the official Xinhua news agency described as a legal "blind spot."
"Under existing laws, it is inappropriate to treat this as a criminal offence," Xinhua quoted a prosecutor in the western Beijing district of Shijinshan as saying.
The Shijinshan district court found there was little legal basis for the charge and turned down the case, forcing prosecutors to withdraw the charge.
Once nearly wiped out under the puritanical rule of Mao Zedong, pornography is now readily available in China despite periodic government campaigns against it.
Last week, the public security ministry announced a new campaign against Internet pornography, saying it had "contaminated cyberspace and perverted China's young minds."
Posted by ronnie at 06:54 PM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2007
Coach apologises for starting to undress
CAIRO (Reuters) - Manual Jose, the Portuguese coach of Egyptian and African champions Al Ahli, apologised on Sunday for starting to undress in public in protest against a referee's decision.
Jose took off his jacket and started to unbutton his shirt after referee Nasser Abbas booked Al Ahli's Tunisian midfielder Anis Boujelbene during the team's 4-0 win over Haras el-Hodoud on Friday.
The referee expelled Jose after the incident, which sparked a hostile media campaign against the 60-year-old coach.
"After analysing my reaction...I found out that it was inappropriate and I apologise to all fans in general and to Al Ahli's fans in particular," a statement on the club's Web site quoted Jose as saying. "I forgot at that moment that I was in a country whose traditions are a little bit different than my country."
Posted by ronnie at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)
February 01, 2007
'Bare Nekkid Mainers' enjoy buff bowling
OLD TOWN, Maine - When members of the Bare Nekkid Mainers rent the Old Town Bowling Center, all they really need are the shoes. "Hey, you can't go skinny-dipping at this time of year," Hessa, who organizes the gatherings and wanted to be identified only by her first name, told the Bangor Daily News.
Self-described naturist nudists, the Bare Nekkid Mainers belong to an international organization and participate in nudist events throughout the year.
The group used to bowl in Albion, but their venue there closed.
During the three events held at the Old Town center since September, the one-story building was closed with its windows and doors covered. Signs announced that a private party was in progress.
"I have absolutely no problem with it, and I hope nobody else does," Charles "Chip" Carson, the center's owner, said Monday. "They just happen to like having a good time without their clothes on."
Still, on one occasion earlier this month, a man apparently ignored the signs and entered the center with his 8-year-old son.
"I tried to stop him," Hessa said Monday. "He walked through two doors that were covered in paper and had signs."
He apparently saw a nude male playing pool and went to police.
"One of our officers went over there to check," Old Town police Capt. Kyle Smart said Monday.
Police found no violations, and after checking with the city attorney and municipal officials, concluded there has been no wrongdoing.
"We're not doing anything sexually explicit, and we're not out there doing it on Main Street," Hessa said.
About 60 households belong to Bare Nekkid Mainers, and several dozen people have participated in each bowling event in Old Town, the newspaper said.
Carson turns the thermostat up to make his patrons more comfortable and says the events are handled like any private party.
"Everybody's laughed at it, to be honest with you," he said.
Posted by ronnie at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2006
Art teacher's naked lecture denounced
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese culture ministry official has denounced a university professor who stripped naked in front of students and teachers during an art class, a Chinese newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Mo Xiaoxin, a 56-year-old assistant professor at a university in Changzhou, in eastern Jiangsu province, shocked students by stripping during a lecture on "body art" to emphasise the "power" of the body and to "challenge taboos", the Beijing News said.
"There are no taboos in the field of research, but to do this directly in the course of teaching is obviously not appropriate," the paper quoted Tian Junting, a culture ministry official, as saying.
The lecture was part of a course within a newly established "human body art and culture" research institute -- China's first -- at Jiangsu Teachers University of Technology, the paper said.
Mo arranged for four other models, including a man and woman in their seventies or eighties, and a younger couple, to strip naked in front of the class while he lectured, the paper said.
During the nearly hour-long class, Mo also invited students to take their clothes off.
"Professor Mo appeared emotionally excited at the time," the paper quoted a student as saying. "As he was talking, he undid his belt and took off his pants, and stood naked in the middle of the lecture podium."
The naked lecture made many of the 30 or so students feel "uneasy", the paper said. "Some kept their eyes trained on the ceiling, some awkwardly bowed their heads and stared at the ground".
Tian, the culture ministry official, said the course was still in a "research phase" and it wasn't yet known whether it had produced "positive or negative effects".
Posted by ronnie at 07:29 AM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2006
Gutsy City traders to strip for cancer relief
LONDON (Reuters) - City traders are set to raise eyebrows by posing for a nude calendar to raise money for a cancer charity.
The calendar will feature 12 people posing naked but with their modesty preserved, the KatCanDo charity for colon cancer told Reuters.
KatCanDo, which was set up by Kate Coles in 2004, is still looking for more people to fill the slots.
"It's a very serious attempt to raise money," said Stephen Coles, the husband of the charity's founder. "It will be tastefully done."
Kate Coles was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2003 and died in March 2006.
But some traders -- a breed not renowned for being shy and retiring -- were bashful.
"I think I give the world enough amusement without taking my clothes off," said one London-based dealer.
Nude calendars of ordinary people with strategically placed objects covering their modesty has become a popular way of raising money.
The phenomenon reached a wider audience with the film Calendar Girls, which was based on the true story of Women's Institute members who posed nude for a naughty charity calendar to raise money for leukaemia research.
The project follows a similar calendar in 2005 that featured hospital doctors and which sold around 5,000 copies, raising several thousand pounds to buy equipment and facilities not normally provided by the NHS.
Posted by ronnie at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)