Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland Part 6

1984 Astrid Carolina Herrera, Venezuela.

1985 Holmfriur Karlsdottir, Iceland.

1986 Giselle Laronde, Trinidad and Tobago.

Miss USA, Halle Berry, provoked gasps and complaints from the audience and fellow contestants when she appeared in her national costume-a skimpy flesh-coloured body stocking, embroidered with beads and a few carefully-placed stars. She said that it was supposed to represent 'America's advancement in s.p.a.ce', although she later admitted that she wanted to 'catch the eye from the start'. Miss Holland, Janny Tervelde, said 'we think it's very unfair. I'm totally concealed by wearing the Dutch traditional costume with clogs'.

1987 Ulla Weigerstorfer, Austria.

1988 Linda Petursdottir, Iceland.

1989 Aneta Krglicka, Poland.

The broadcasting rights to the pageant previously held by Thames Television of the UK were not renewed after Thames bowed to pressure from feminist movements. Eric Morley told press 'they said it was outdated, s.e.xist and not appropriate for modern Britain. I've heard that for the last twenty-five years'.

1990 Gina Tolleson, United States.

1991 Ninibeth Leal, Venezuela.

1992 Julia Kourotchkina, Russia.

1993 Lisa Hanna, Jamaica.

When Israel's Tamara Porat and Lebanon's Ghada Turk were photographed smiling shoulder-to-shoulder, there was political uproar in their respective countries, with Lebanon's top public prosecutor Munif Oueidat stating that he intended to try Miss Lebanon for 'collaborating with the enemy'. Turk argued that she did not realize she was standing next to Miss Israel when the photo was taken. It was four months before she was allowed back to her country, where she immediately faced a military judge on charges of treason.

1994 Aishwarya Rai, India.

1995 Jacqueline Aguilera, Venezuela.

Hours after winning the Miss Personality award, Toyin Enitan Raji, Miss Nigeria, was barred from the contest following worldwide condemnation of the execution of nine dissidents, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, by the Nigerian government of Sani Abacha just days earlier.

1996 Irene Skliva, Greece.

Concerned at the apparent commodification of the female form and the undermining of Indian culture, the contest-held in Bangalore, India-was marred by ongoing violent protests. One man committed suicide by setting himself on fire. Five days before the contest, protesters including activists of the All India Women's Democratic a.s.sociation (AIDWA) were beaten by the police during a demonstration, with at least 400 being detained until the evening. Police swung bamboo canes, fired rubber bullets and launched tear gas at the protesters. Members of the Forum for Awakening Women threatened its members would mingle with spectators and immolate themselves after taking poison. The protesters argued that the contest benefited only plastic surgeons and cosmetics manufacturers. Its TV audience for this year was one of the highest ever, at 2.2 billion viewers worldwide.

1997 Diana Hayden, India.

1998 Linor Abargil, Israel.

1999 Yukta Mookhey, India.

2000 Priyanka Chopra, India.

Organiser Eric Morley died at the beginning of November, weeks before the contest. His wife and co-organiser, Julia Morley, took control of the event and one of her first tasks after the t.i.tle was awarded to Miss India was to issue the statement, 'there is no fixing in the Miss World beauty contest'. This was because of intense media speculation at the time over the dominance of India in the contest in recent years and the surge of multi-national companies investing in the region. In the final round of questioning, Chopra had been asked to name the living woman she admired the most. She answered 'Mother Teresa', who had been dead for three years. The answer won her the crown but increased speculation of contest-rigging. Justifying her answer, Priyanka, who had previously revealed that she wanted to be a clinical psychologist so as 'to understand why people turn demented', said, 'for me she is a living legend. She does live on for me'.

2001 Agbani Darego, Nigeria.

2002 Azra Akin, Turkey.

Scheduled to take place in Abuja, Nigeria, the contest was boycotted by several nations in protest at the death sentence by stoning imposed by an Islamic Sharia court on Amina Lawal, a Nigerian woman who had been accused of adultery after having a child outside of marriage. Protests then erupted in Kaduna, Nigeria, after a Lagos-based journalist wrote that the Prophet Muhammad would have approved of the Miss World contest and might even have wanted to marry one of the compet.i.tors. Rioting left an estimated 220 dead, 1,200 injured and 12,000 homeless. The contest was relocated to London, where British writer Muriel Gray said 'these girls will be wearing swim wear dripping with blood'.

2003 Rosanna Davison, Ireland.

2004 Maria Julia Mantilla, Peru.

2005 Unnur Birna Vilhjalmsdottir, Iceland.

Miss World 1983 finalist, Unnur Steinsson of Iceland, was three months pregnant during the pageant. This violated the pageant's rules and ordinarily warranted disqualification; however, it wasn't discovered until after the pageant. Her baby, born on May 25, 1984, was the 2005 winner.

2006 Tat'ana Kuchaova, Czech Republic.

2007 Zhang Zilin, China.

2008 Ksenia Sukhinova, Russia.

Acknowledgments.

To the many magnificent and strange advertisers of the LRB personals column-thank you. You have refused to listen to any dating advice other than mine for more than a decade and, as a result, are probably doomed to wander the earth alone like love zombies. I accept no responsibility whatsoever. I'd also like to thank the business and editorial staff of the LRB for nurturing such a committed audience. Belated thanks are due to Kate Griffin at Profile for her Olympian work on the previous volume, They Call Me Naughty Lola, and to Ginny Flynn for letting me wear her clothes and make-up. At Scribner, I'm grateful to Nan Graham and Susan Moldow for indulging this nonsense, to Kate Bittman for indulging my constant whining and to Anna deVries for lurking in the shadows with me to help fas.h.i.+on this book from the lava and sediment of so many broken hearts and dreams. To Nicola, Alannah and Edith Rose, I owe far too much to express here, but in the context of this book-thank you for eating dinner while I banged on about how awesome it would be to be put in a choke-hold by Phil Fondacaro. To my unofficial biographer/priest and personal chef, Reverend Tim Johnson, I'd like to offer my eternal grat.i.tude for often cutting short his evenings watching The Real Ghostbusters to volunteer an unending stream of military aircraft trivia, which has served me well in the making of this book and, indeed, my evolution as a man. Thank you to Ramone's bakery and cafe in Eureka and the Ya Habibi dance troupe in Arcata, California, for letting me mooch from their wi-fi signals more times than I ever had the guts to admit to. I'd especially like to thank the following individuals, whose marks, wisdoms and insights are firmly impressed upon the LRB personals and the forgotten wishes of lonely people throughout the intellectual world: Laird Barrett, Howard Bromelow, Ben Campbell, Bryony Dalefield, Vera Huebner, Kate Parkinson, Louisa Sommerville, Nicholas Spice and Sara Tsiringakis. But the biggest thank-you of all goes to Nina Stegeman, who waved her crooked wand and suffered far too many rewrites, far too much of my angst, and an excess of general bulls.h.i.+t so that this volume, and my literary reputation, could stake their rightful claim in bathrooms across the United States and beyond.

* G. F. Miller, The Mating Mind: How s.e.xual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature, Anchor, 2001.

1 Allegorical epic poem first published in 1590 and written in praise of Queen Elizabeth I. It was published as six books in 1596 (having originally been published as three), with each being an exploration of different virtues. The third book is an examination of chast.i.ty.

2 100 grams of onions typically contain 12 percent RDA of vitamin C.

3 Calamity Jane (18521903)-born Martha Jane Cannary Burke. North American frontierswoman and the eponymous heroine of the 1953 Warner Bros. musical starring Doris Day.

4 Richard Dudgeon-born in Scotland in 1819. Immigrated to the United States in his youth, where he took a job at the Allaire Iron Works in New York City. He established his own machine shop in 1849 and achieved industrial fame with his portable hydraulic jack (patented in 1851). Prior to the hydraulic jack, the less efficient screw jack was the prevalent lifting device.

5 186165.

6 Quorn is a brand of mycoprotein-based foodstuffs made from the soil mould Fusarium venenatum strain PTA-2684. Currently it is the leading brand of vegetarian meat-replacement food in the UK. Joan Baez (b. 1941)-folk singer known for addressing topical and social issues with her music.

7 'This Wheel's on Fire'-written by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko. Performed by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and The Trinity (1968, Marmalade Records). It reached number five in the UK charts. Also recorded by Bob Dylan on his alb.u.m The Bas.e.m.e.nt Tapes (1975, Columbia), and The Band's Music from Big Pink (1968, Capitol). Siouxsie and the Banshees recorded a version on their alb.u.m Through the Looking Gla.s.s (1987, Polydor).

8 Mario Gabriel Andretti (b. 1940)-Italian-American racing driver. Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss OBE (b. 1929)-retired English racing driver.

9 Paternoster-progressive Austrian Krautrock band largely unknown beyond circles of Krautrock enthusiasts. They realised one (self-t.i.tled) alb.u.m in 1972 (Ohrwaschl Records). Gil Scott-Heron-American poet and musician considered one of the earliest pioneers of political rap music and best known for the poem and song 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised'. Boards of Canada-one of the musical projects of Scottish brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin. The name is taken from the National Film Board of Canada (see p. 41, n. 34).

10 US retailer of women's lingerie.

11 Happy Days-US sitcom that ran from 1974 until 1984. The show was set in the 1950s and 1960s and centred on the Cunningham family of Milwaukee. A supporting character, Warren 'Potsie' Weber, was one of the few characters to run the entire course of the series and was played by Anson Williams, second cousin of Dr. Henry Heimlich, known for the Heimlich Manoeuvre for treating choking victims. The show's theme tune (composed by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel) included the line 'Feels so right, it can't be wrong'.

12 East Ham is a built-up urban district in the London Borough of Newham and not, in fact, in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, which is a county in the southwest of England.

13 Muriel Spark (19182006)-Scottish novelist whose works include The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Mariella Frostrup (b. 1962)-television presenter, panellist and critic. Germaine Greer (b. 1939)-Australian writer, scholar, critic and author of the 1970 international best-seller The Female Eunuch.

14 White Lightning-fermented corn syrup marketed as cider by brewers Scottish Courage. Synonymous with British hooligan youth culture and vagrant street-drinking in the early 2000s due to its low price, wide availability and high alcohol concentration (7.5 percent alcohol by volume).

15 They Call Me Naughty Lola, a collection of personal adverts from the London Review of Books. Published in 2006 by Profile in the UK and Scribner in the US. The third chapter was called 'Last time I had this much fun, I was on forty tablets a day'.

16 The advert references the opening sequence of NBC TV series The A-Team, which ran for five seasons between 1983 and 1987.

17 'Sweet Caroline'-written and performed by Neil Diamond and taken from the alb.u.m Sweet Caroline (1969, UNI/MCA). It reached number four in the Billboard charts. 'Silver Lady'-written by Tony Macaulay and Geoff Stephens and performed by David Soul on his alb.u.m Playing to an Audience of One (1977, Private Stock Records). The song reached number one in the UK singles chart. 'Lucky Stars'-written by Dean Friedman and performed by Friedman and Denise Marsa. Taken from the alb.u.m "Well, Well", Said The Rocking Chair (1978, Lifesong). Reached number three in the UK charts.

18 Anton von Webern (18831945)-Austrian composer and conductor and a member of the Second Viennese School. He was accidentally shot and killed by a US soldier on 15 September 1945.

19 Research figure published by Celera Genomics in 2001. The figure was disputed in 2004 by a team from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and by Stephen W. Scherer, et al, in results of a study published in the magazine Nature Genetics, putting similarities at between 99.7 percent and 99.8 percent. President Bill Clinton used the statistic in a speech in 2000, stating 'All human beings, regardless of race, are more than 99.9 percent the same'.