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SCMP Reporter

Something strange is afoot. Laziness and stupidity seem to have fallen out of fashion.

 It used to be that if you wanted to prove your incompetence, those two were all you needed. But not any more.

 Over the past couple of weeks, the downwardly mobile appear to have been vying for some sort of international screw-up award, with points awarded for originality and chaos.

 And even if that award doesn't really exist . . . Lai See thinks it should.

 So we decided to host our own little contest. Here's our list of winners from the various screw-up categories: Most Pornographic Button-Press:    Philippine Teletubbies fans got a chance to follow the adventures of their favourite show's five stars: Laa Laa, Po, Tinky Winky, Dipsy and Boobie.

 That last one was the result of a computer repair guy accidentally pressing a button on a panel.

 Children gaped in amazement as the cuddly Teletubbies and their merry band of rabbit friends suddenly vanished - to be replaced by a still picture of a woman with one of her breasts exposed.

  Not surprisingly, the Philippine censors were unimpressed by the sudden arrival of 'Teletubbies: The X-Rated Version'.

Most Idiotic Drug Trafficker:   If you can't spell, avoid cocaine trafficking. A drug dealer learned that one the hard way after shipping US$14 million worth of black cocaine from Los Angeles to Sydney in air freight packages.

 They were labelled 'arganick' (rather than 'organic') and addressed to an inner-city apartment.

 Black cocaine is chemically altered to a pungent, soil-like substance that has to be reprocessed into a white powder before it can be sold on the street.

 Drug squad officers were alerted to the find not only by the 'arganick' label, but also by the ridiculous notion that someone in a small city-centre apartment would need 115 kilograms of organic fertiliser.

 The mistake spelled the end of the trafficker's career.

Most Insightful Police Analysis:   Ah, youth. Tired of hanging out at the mall, bored French high school students have taken to killing time running counterfeiting rings in their basements.

 Several 15 year olds have been questioned in connection with trafficking of 50-franc bank notes made with a personal computer and a scanner.

 The teenagers were part of a group of students that distributed the bills in video arcades and a school, Agence France-Presse tells us.

 The French police described the counterfeit bills as being 'of good quality' but 'relatively easy to spot because they all had the same serial number and were printed on ordinary paper'.

 We'd love to see what poor quality stuff looks like.

Most Outrageous Egomaniac:   A Manhattan obstetrician was charged with intentionally carving his initials with his scalpel into the belly of a woman whose child he had just delivered by Caesarean section.

 Dr Allan Zarkin, 61, has admitted etching 7.5 centimetre initials, 'A. Z.' into the skin of a new mother as she lay sedated on the delivery table at New York's Beth Israel Medical Centre.

 'I did such a beautiful job, I'll initial it,' Dr Zarkin told stunned hospital workers in the delivery room.

 When word got out, his career went belly-up.

Most Outrageous On-Air Comment By A Newscaster:   After tripping over a couple of words, Canadian anchor Avery Haines said this:  'I kind of like the stuttering thing. It's like equal opportunity, right?'  (She was referring to Canada's myriad 'affirmative action' programmes to promote employment of minorities).

 'We've got a stuttering newscaster,' she continued. 'We've got the black, we've got the Asian, we've got the woman. I could be a lesbian, folk-dancing, black woman stutterer in a wheelchair . . . with gimping, rubber legs.

 'Yeah, really. I'd have a successful career, let me tell you.'  The stuttering didn't do much for her career though. She was sacked.

Most Outrageous On-Air Comment by a Sportscaster:   British journalist Steve Smith, who referred to a French rugby world cup player as a 'stroppy little frog'.

Most Outrageous Comment by a Columnist Other Than Lai See:   Canadian editorial writer John Robson of the Ottawa Citizen had to apologise to the whole of Russia after describing their nation as 'a lump of dung'.



Teletubbie boob rates well in screw-up stakes