TERRORISM HITS FARMERS

Now that may read like a true tabloid headline. But it's true. Terrorism fears have been blamed for fertiliser shortages in Australia over the past month. And the country's farmers are not too pleased with the situation.

Apparently supplies of ammonium nitrate, which can be used to build bombs as well as being the major ingredient for fertilisers, have more than halved recently -- and it's expected to be a major talking point when the country's fertiliser industry holds its national conference in the Tasmanian capital, Hobart, this coming week.

I would think that national conferences on fertilisers are usually fairly boring events, I mean how much can you say about the subject? (No jokes about politicians being able to talk crap incessantly, please). The Hobart gathering, however, looks like discussing some explosive issues.

Nick Drew from the Fertiliser Industry Federation of Australia, says farmers have been forced to find alternatives -- and the mind boggles at that: I remember what we used to put on the rhubarb patch all those years ago.

But don't worry -- the shortage has not come about because terrorists have cornered the market in ammonium nitrate to manufacture their bombs. The main reason for the shortage is evidently the new Australian laws restricting sales of security-sensitive fertilisers.

Would I be right in predicting that it's only a matter of time before Indian Cow Dung is traded on the world's commodity futures markets?

HOLES IN ONE

Forget about Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, VJ Singh or whoever, if it's real golfing genius you are looking for, head for Pyongyang, where according to the North Korean official website Uri-Min-jok-kiri (which means Among our People), the country's leader, sorry, Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, shot no less than 11 holes-in-one during his first round of golf.

I hope the Guinness Book of Records editors took notice of this phenomenal achievement.

As if that was not enough, the official North Korean website goes on to tell the world (well, at least those who understand Korean) that Kim Jong-il never forgets a phone number -- or a line of computer code. It seems he gets up every morning at the crack of dawn for a session of intensive memory training.

When he is not putting his golfing buddies to shame with his on-course skills, the Dear Leader evidently kills time by piloting jet fighters, writing operas and producing films.

What a great advert for ginseng -- and for my money, an ideal candidate for Big Brother (or was that Dear Big Brother?)

THE RISING COSTS OF HANGING

As Tony Blair sets out his latest plans for deporting potential Islamic extremists from the UK, my attention has been drawn to an article in the Kuwait Times by the Arab kingdom's former oil minister Ali Ahmad Al Baghli, who is less than pleased with the quality of ropes used for judicial hangings in Kuwait.

It seems that Kuwait now imports its hanging rope from Egypt, as its former supplier, the UK, no longer makes this specific type of rope (you learn something every day..) -- and the quality is not nearly as good (good to hear favourable reports on British workmanship).

Mr Al Baghli -- or as he might be called on the letter's page of some English paper's: Concerned of Kuwait City -- says that the Kuwait Ministry of Interior signed a KD 16,000 contract (that's around 44,000 Euros) with an Egyptian company to supply new ropes for hanging, but they were not good enough for what he terms 'human use'.

He asks how it is that the expensive Egyptian rope does not do the trick (is that the Egyptian rope trick?), pointing out that some poor condemned Kuwaiti had his neck badly cut by the imported rope, while "every day, weak Asian labourers hang themselves from tree branches by ordinary Kuwaiti ropes used to dry clothes."

Now I am not saying that Tony Blair should consider bringing back hanging, but surely he might consider reintroducing the manufacture and export of hanging rope for humane reasons.

IT'S ONLY MONEY

The massive Euro lottery win of Dolores McNamara of Limerick, a cool 115 million Euros, has overshadowed a story from the United States, where 110 players from 29 states all became winners of $500,000 -- the second-rang prize of the country's popular Powerball Multi-State Lottery.

The lottery authorities raised their eyebrows at the amount of winners, all of them picking the same five numbers that gave them a second dividend (22, 28, 32, 33 and 39), and started to investigate a possible fraud. They argued that statistically there should have been no more than four or five winners with the second-tier numbers.

As the 110 winners began to turn up to claim their prizes, the truth emerged. Every one of them had eaten in Chinese restaurants located around the country, and had chosen their numbers from a fortune cookie. All the cookies came from Wonton Foods in Long Island City, close to the Queens area of New York.

Getting back to dear Dolores, who is probably by now regretting that she let people know she had a winning coupon, her windfall is estimated to be worth something in the region of 13,000 Euros a day pre-tax in interest.

What will she do with her new found wealth? It will be interesting to take a look at her lifestyle a year from now -- and I don't for one minute give any credence to the remark by one of her children that he wants to "carry on and be a bricklayer, like dad."