The Tribune Online - First international erotic fair

First international erotic fair to be held in Belgrade

BELGRADE, May 21: The first ever erotic fair will be organized in Belgrade next weekend with the participation of international pin-up stars led by Playboy bunny Dita Von Teese, according to an official. More than thirty movie distributors, erotic magazines, sex-shops and lingerie designers will take part in a three-day long fair, to be opened on May 26, Andjelko Tripkovic, manager of the Belgrade fair, told reporters on Friday.

The decision to organize such fair came after a survey conducted in January, which has showed that a majority of those questioned backed the idea, Trpkovic added.

The event was also supported by three Hungarian agencies -- X-clusive, Model and Bella model -- whose stripteasers will entertain the public, as well as the Serbian edition of Playboy. Hungary, which borders Serbia in the north, has become an important player in the international erotic and sex industry.

College girl proves that sex sells!

WAYNE (New Jersey), May 22: A 21-year-old college business major living in this northern New Jersey community has proven a basic lesson of marketing: Sex sells. Courtney Van Dunk posted a bikini-clad picture of herself on eBay about two weeks ago, auctioning off space on her body for advertisers.

The auction ended on Thirsday with a winning bid from a New Jersey wine retailer offering $11,300 for a month's worth of advertising. Van Dunk, though, says the offer has been retracted, but she's confident she's made contacts with enough companies to still earn some cash.

When she finds a buyer, Van Dunk plans to place temporary tattoos on her abdomen while she's at the beach, or on other body parts when she's at the mall, sporting events, amusement parks and other public places. Her butt and chest are off limits. "I got the idea from a marketing class I had that did a short segment on body advertising," Van Dunk said. "I was wondering how advertising could get through to our TV-savvy generation, and I thought this would be an excellent way to do it."

Van Dunk says the first round of bidding drew inquiries from as far away as Zambia. The Web site halted that auction because she had links to other sites promoting her efforts, so Van Dunk then held a second auction, which lasted seven days. Van Dunk credits moderate exercise and healthy eating for the fit figure that has earned worldwide interest. "We never ate a lot of fast food or greasy things growing up. My mom is an excellent cook."

Britney's sex tale bombs on TV

LONDON: Singer Britney Spears put her private life on show, including the love story with her current husband, in the first part of the documentary Chaotic broadcast late Tuesday on UPN cable television channel.

The 50-minute film, often shot with a hand-held camera by Britney herself, raises the curtain on the pop star's daily life while on tour in Britain, including her make-up and warm-up sessions and excerpts of the show itself.

But between the images of her work-filled routine, filmed before she met her husband, the loneliness shows through. "Do you believe in marriage and engagement?" she asks her hairdresser, make-up artist, bodyguard and driver.With no great hits and chartbusters to her credit,

Britney Spears hasn't stopped hogging the limelight and leaves no opportunity that comes her way to hog the limelight. If she's not getting sued for possibly singing someone else's song, she's getting ready to produce and star in a terrible-sounding film.

And now, to add to all the madness, Tuesday saw the premier of her reality television show, Britney and Kevin: Chaotic..., who has had no hits in the past year. MSNBC says "it makes Survivor look like cinema verite", and report that Britney only ever talks about sex, all the time, like a filthy man in a raincoat on a park bench.

USA Today reveals that the opening shot of the show was a close-up of Britney's knees. "They look like boobs, but they're not. They're my knees", Britney points out, finally putting an end to the age old 'are they boobs or knees?' debate.

The critic from The Washington Post notes the profound philosophy of Kevin Federline when asked about love. "Love is love", he tells us. There's a chance he went on to declare "a pen is a pen" and... ... "a lapdancer is a lapdancer". The Boston Globe called it "a tedious public exercise in self-importance" and show a small amount of pity for Felicia, Britney's assistant/servant/performing monkey/whipping girl.

Though there are people who do believe that the show would be panned even if it featured tap-dancing elephants and an appearance from Zombie Princess Diana. When one of them puts the same question to her, Britney answers: "I don't believe in marriage. You know, I was married," referring to her wedding in Las Vegas to her childhood friend Jason Alexander last January. It lasted a mere 55 minutes before it was annulled.

Britney says she is looking for "someone kinda sweet and nice and that loves me a lot." But there's also the argument that watching a young woman pushing a video camera inches from her own face and talking self-absorbed claptrap doesn't actually constitute entertainment. Like we said, we have no clue about chaos that has romped the television, but we would like to know more about it from the people who have seen it.

Pop princess Kylie diagnosed with breast cancer

SYDNEY, May 19: Australian pop star Kylie Minogue has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will undergo immediate treatment, her management said on Tuesday, announcing the postponement of her Asian and Australian tours.

The 36-year-old singer, who once auctioned one of her bras to promote breast cancer awareness, flew into Australia last week to spend time with her family before the start of the Australian leg of her Showgirl tour.

Minogue, who first found fame in the 1980s in the soap opera Neighbours before launching a pop career which has seen her sell an estimated 40 million records, apologised to fans for the postponement of the shows but said she hoped to be back performing soon. "I was so looking forward to bringing the Showgirl tour to Australian audiences, and am sorry to have to disappoint my fans," she said in a statement issued by the Frontier Touring Company.

"Nevertheless hopefully all will work out fine and I'll be back with you all again soon." Minogue was said to have been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer while at home with her family in Melbourne this week. "She's a pretty fit girl and a strong girl, and hopefully it (the cancer) is pretty early," her promoter Michael Gudinski told a press conference.

Gudinski said Minogue had a "tough few weeks ahead of her" but had the support of all Australians. "The one thing I know about Kylie is, she's a fighter, and we're all thinking very, very positively and can't wait for the day she is smiling and back in action."

Billy Leung, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for Minogue's record company EMI, said shows in Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong would also be cancelled. She has just finished a long European tour and was scheduled to headline the prestigious Glastonbury music festival in southwest England in late June.

Accompanying Minogue in Melbourne is her French boyfriend, film star Olivier Martinez. Her sister and fellow pop star Dannii was also expected to fly home from London. Minogue, who turns 37 next week, rose to fame in Australia and Britain in the 1980s playing a girl-next-door role in Neighbours but found spectacular success in a pop career launched in 1987.

She has since scored more than three dozen hit singles worldwide, including over 20 top 10 hits and seven number ones over three decades in Britain, as well as nine top-selling albums. In the process she transformed herself from a gawky teenager with frizzed hair to a svelte sex symbol with a penchant for raunchy videos, appearing as cover girl on dozens of glossy magazines and even launching her own lingerie line.

Her first major hit was a cover of Little Eva's 1960s hit "Do The Locomotion" in the early 1980s. After a lower profile 1990s, her career was given a boost when the disco-influenced "Can't Get You Out of My Head" topped the charts worldwide in 2001. Her sometimes turbulent love life has also been popular tabloid fodder, notably her relationships with late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, Neighbours star Jason Donovan and current Hollywood heart throb Martinez.

Kylie has been a promoter of breast cancer awareness and in 2002 one of her bras sold for 6,880 dollars (5,685 US dollars) at an auction to raise money for research into the illness. Commentators have said that Minogue was prompted to campaign against the disease once her childhood idol, Olivia Newton-John, was diagnosed with the illness.

"Kylie is very much like Olivia Newton-John. Olivia has had breast cancer and dealt with it," music journalist Molly Meldrum told Sky News. In 2002 Minogue's father was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Australians, who initially viewed Minogue's pop career with scepticism, have grown to respect the ever-changing icon. More than 290,000 people flocked to a three-month exhibition of her outfits, including gold lame hotpants, in Melbourne last week.

Hundreds of people registered their sadness on the star's official website after hearing news of her illness. "I don't know how to accurately describe how I am feeling right now. SHOCK is the best word that comes to mind," wrote Matt from Queensland.

Karisma's marriage on the rocks?

NEW DELHI, May 18: Bollywood actress Karisma Kapoor's marriage to Delhi-based industrialist Sanjay Kapur is on the rocks, according to media reports. The actress, who had moved to Mumbai for childbirth, had been living in Delhi with her husband post marriage.

The reports say that the actress has no intentions of reconciling with her husband. She had been very unhappy with Sanjay for the last six months and didn't want to share her life with him anymore. A close friend confided the couple had been in a tumultuous married life for sometime.

When approached, neither the actress nor her family were ready to speak about it. Before her marriage to Sanjay Kapur, Karisma was engaged to Abhishek Bachchan.

Mallika dazzles at Cannes Film Festival

CANNES, May 18: Mallika Sherawat charmed one and all when she appeared at a packed press conference in Cannes, alongside Jackie Chan, the producer and star of her debut international movie, The Myth. She wore a low-cut golden dress and posed with Chan for the photocall, minutes before the press conference began.

Sherawat wore enough jewellery in keeping with her status as an "Indian princess". She said she plans to wear some thing "outrageously sexy" for the Cannes party. Sherawat began by graciously commenting: "I would like to thank Jackie Chan and Stanley Tong for giving me this opportunity to star in this film. It's a very big break for me. Bollywood will always be very important (for me) because that's my bread and butter. But the whole world is becoming global now."

While Sherawat shone and sparkled, her co-actress, Kim Hee Seon, a Korean, was equally elegant and exquisitely beautiful. Also present in the conference were The Myth 's director, Stanley Tony, and the actor, Tony Leung Ka Fai. Chan explained that although he was keen to collaborate with Bollywood - and if he ever made a film himself he would go into partnership with India - the Indian involvement in The Myth was for him "a coincidence".

Mallika said that "India and China coming together" also appealed to her. She added, "It's a great opportunity for me to be working with a superstar like Jackie Chan (and also with) Stanley Tong. It's a role to die for. (For me) it's a great debut internationally."

Mallika's postcard from Cannes

CANNES, May 19: As I board my plane to unexplored anthropological territory - there aren't enough documentaries on TV on the French - I'm experiencing simultaneous feelings of trepidation, anticipation and exhilaration.

But what does all this mean to me? Cannes is not only the oldest film festival in the world, having started in 1939, but is, and has been for quite some time, the most famous. I remember Clint Eastwood saying, "There's nothing else quite like it" and I can't wait.

This is where Brigitte Bardot strutted around in that famous, flowery two-piece bikini on the Croisette in 1953, and where Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1955, and where they got married the following year, continuing the tradition started by Rita Hayworth in 1949, when she married Aly Khan, the flamboyant son of The Aga Khan.

I think back to Madonna's outrageous appearance in her conical bra in 1991, and Coppola, Polanski, Almodovar and the Coen Brothers walking up to receive their Palme d'Ors, and slowly the magnitude of this grand festival and the significance of the hallowed turf I'll be walking on sinks in.

I'll be staying at the Hotel Martinez, where Dustin Hoffman stayed while he was here (maybe the same room?) and sharing space with Robert Rodriguez, John Woo, Sharon Stone, Bruce Willis and most of all Jackie Chan!

Cannes is a place where art and commerce clash and embrace. Where auteurs and moviestars walk shoulder to shoulder and I thank heavens I'm here as Jackie Chan's leading lady. Jackie Chan, a true original - as artistically gifted as Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin and as commercially popular as James Bond.

Norse Code: Sex, orgy & stubbies

OSLO, May 14: Having sex with 17 people in as many days, downing a case of beer in 24 hours and making out with a student of the same sex are just a few of the escapades many Norwegian high school students get up to each May in a well-established pre-graduation tradition.

Every year, some 30,000 teens about to graduate from high school take part in massive celebrations that go on unabated from May 1 until they culminate in a huge blow-out on Norway's national holiday on May 17.

"These festivities have the same feel of liberation as a carnival in a Mediterranean country: you take a break from everyday existence, you put on a mask and you do everything that is off-limits the rest of the year," anthropologist and author of a thesis on the subject Allan Sande said.

Recognised by the red or blue uniforms that indicate what high school they attend, the "russ", as these near-graduates are called, attempt to carry out a number of feats to earn small "trophies" tied to the tassel and the brim of their caps.

Staying awake for 72 consecutive hours earns you a black ribbon tied to the tassel, taking a dip in an icy fjord before May 1 earns you an ice cream stick, having sex in a tree earns you a twig, while abstaining from sex for the entire 17-day period earns you a safety-pin.

"It is true that some of the challenges are 'border line' but we have toned down a number of the rules this year due to health reasons," Oslo's russ president Anette Sophie Fuglesang said. "Earlier, one had to drink a case of beer in six hours instead of the 24 today" to earn the right to a beer cap, she pointed out in a cracking, whiskey voice. And all references to sex are now accompanied with a recommendation to use a condom," she added.

The word 'russ' comes from the Latin 'Cornua Depositurus', or removing the horn, which refers to an ancient tradition in which a censor removed a horn that had been attached to a student's forehead to indicate that he had passed his entrance exam to university.

Considering the huge amounts of alcohol consumed by the high school students who have just reached the legal drinking age of 18, it is also ironic that "russ" phonetically resembles "rus", the Norwegian word for "intoxication". For many russ, the celebrations throughout the month of May serve as an initiation rite marking their first foray into sexual relations and heavy drinking.

This sometimes has a tragic outcome. Over recent years, a number of youths have died of meningitis, which spreads rapidly among the russ indulging in intimate relations and beer-sharing.

There are also numerous car accidents as the students drive from party to party, and a number of girls are raped each year by other students or by men who gravitate to the huge gatherings of young and intoxicated russ.

While the festivities often get out of hand, the money some students spend on the celebrations, and especially on transportation to and from the parties, can be even more shocking.

The russ get together in small groups and invest in red or blue-painted vans or busses that they equip with huge loudspeakers and loud, melodious horns to keep the party rocking and neighbors awake all night.

This year, 28 high school students from the upscale Baerum suburbs near Oslo spent a whopping 800,000 kroner (127,000 dollars, 99,000 euros) on buying and outfitting their "russebuss".

While the wild parties and crazy pranks are hotly debated in Norway each year, many feel that the most disturbing element of the celebrations is that they take place as the students are writing their final exams.

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