We learnt today about censorship currently being imposed by Iranian State Television.
And no it’s nothing as potentially erotic as images of women eating cucumbers, but rather pictures of the outlines of ears hidden under headscarves and the rear ends of buffaloes!
A local TV writer said he never appreciated that the sight of a female ear seductively covered by a headscarf could be so inflammatory.
Meanwhile a screenwriter and documentary director was shocked to be told to cut the scene of buffaloes walking out of the water from behind as it was “provocative”.
Ironically however censors would only allow images of the lower parts of the body of the former Shah to be screened, but not his head or face.
The broadcaster has now been forced to comment on the issue, admitting that whilst censors might occasionally make mistakes and that decisions sometimes resulted from personal choices, it was nevertheless of first importance to “maintain social circumstances and morals”.
So there!
On a brighter note we heard about the man who’s come up with a mathematical formula that’s helped him win the lottery and not just once either!
Using this method, Stefan Mandel – a Romanian economist, claimed that he could accurately predict five of the six winning numbers, thereby reducing the number of possible combinations in a lottery from millions to mere thousands.
Together with a group of friends he purchased large blocks of lottery tickets with the combinations his formula has deemed to be most likely – and won first prize.
After paying off his expenses, Stefan walked away with around £3,000. It was enough to start a new life abroad and try his formula again.
He then persuaded a pool of investors to put their cash together to build a lotto syndicate and invented a clever system where computers filled out tickets automatically using every possible number combo.
They won 12 lotteries and thousands of smaller prizes across Australia and the UK.
After lottery officials cottoned on to the scheme they banned computer-printed forms and the bulk buying of tickets.
But Stefan had a back-up plan and used his profits to place clued-up scouts around the US so he could determine which lottery would be a good bet for his next scheme.
He set his sights on Virginia because its numbers only ranged between one and 44, which meant the total number of possible combinations was far lower than others – increasing his chances of winning the big bucks.
He set up an official company, Pacific Financial Resources, persuaded investors to pour in the required cash and employed 16 people from a warehouse in Melbourne to print millions of tickets.
They won the jackpot and plenty of other smaller prizes.
All US states have since passed laws banning the use of Stefan’s zany strategy.
Stefan says he’s a man who takes risks but in a calculated way.”Trimming my beard is a lottery: There is always the possibility that I’ll cut myself, get an infection in my blood, and die — but I do it anyway,” he said.
“The chances are in my favour.”
Any ideas anyone?
Assuming that I didn’t win at the weekend, I’ll see you again tomorrow,
Scott
