Team plans cemetery for die-hard fans

BERLIN - A German soccer club plans to open a cemetery next to its stadium so that die-hard fans can rest in peace alongside their favorite team.

Hamburg SV, a Bundesliga side from the northern port city, aims to open the graveyard some 50 feet from the stadium's main entrance, said deputy chairman Christian Reichert.
"For a large number of people, it's important to be close to the club after their lives are over," he said. "The cemetery will have the look of a small, open stadium."
With 42,000 registered supporters at the club and just 500 graves up for grabs, competition for places promises to be fierce. Officials have already begun taking reservations.
"I don't know of any other place in Germany where this is done, so it's a unique opportunity for our fans," Reichert said, adding that teams like England's Everton FC have been known to inter fans' ashes around playing fields.
Fans get 25 years in the turf and can choose from a range of burials: ashes in an urn from 2,500 euros ($3,150), a single grave at 8,000 euros and a two person plot at 12,500 euros.
Plans for the 70,000 euro graveyard, due to be completed in September, include a war memorial from the team's former stadium, as well as commemorative stones honoring former Hamburg players, who include ex-England star Kevin Keegan.
Not everyone is happy about the cemetery though.
"Some people, especially from churches, have said that it's not appropriate," Reichert said. "It's not for everyone but a lot of people are interested. Even if only one percent of our members take a place, that would be enough."
Hamburg hosted five matches at this summer's World Cup, including a quarter final between Italy and Ukraine.

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Does this sound familiar ?

London - Britons are spending as much as 83 billion pounds a year without knowing where the money went, according to research by Visa.

A survey of over 1,000 people revealed that the average UK adult spends 33 pounds ($61) every week with no recollection of what the money bought.
With that amount, Visa said, the average household could have paid for the following:
-- everyday power and water bills for the whole year.
-- 96 percent of traveling costs for the year
-- all the weekly grocery shopping for three quarters of the year.
-- 72 percent of home improvements costs each year
-- three months' mortgage payments.
Monitoring money through online banking and keeping a record of what cash withdrawals are used for could provide much needed assistance.
So too could greater use of direct debits or separate bank accounts for bills or family holidays. But it appears the UK consumer is just not that organized.
The survey shows that the three occasions when people are most likely to mystery-spend are when they are shopping for food or other groceries (51 percent); out and about with children or grandchildren (48 percent) and on a night out (47 percent).
Men are more likely to mystery-spend than women -- averaging 36 pounds a week versus 29. But women are twice as likely to forget what they spent after shopping with friends than men.
The survey also pointed to a degree of recklessness in youth, with 18 to 24-year-olds confessing to mystery spending 50 pounds per week, closely followed by 25 to 34-year-olds who can't account for 48 pounds of their weekly spending.
The best age category was the over 55s who put the rest of the nation to shame by losing track of just 15 pounds per week.
As 75 percent of people make a habit of checking their bank or credit card statements, it is clearly just their cash spending that remains a mystery.
KEEPING TRACK
Eva Chapple, a mother of two from Lincoln, said that over the years she had learned to keep a track on where the money was going.
"From my student days in London until our first child was born, I seemed to make endless trips to the cashpoint and not worry too much about where the money was spent -- usually on a night out!"
Things changed when she started a family.
"When I took time off work to have kids, we were suddenly on one salary so we were forced to keep track of where the money was going," she said.
"We used direct debits as much as possible and tried to budget our use of cash a lot more. We also set up a separate joint account, which we pay into each month, to fund our summer holiday.
"Allocating money in this way makes it far easier to keep track of spending. Money is only used for what it is set aside for."
Anthony Grimes from Shrewsbury said online banking had made it much easier to see where his money was going.
"I think being able to check your bank balance 24 hours a day from home is a huge benefit and shows where your money has gone," he said.
"But it is where the cash withdrawals are spent that cause the confusion. I tend to take out cash for specific things that I can budget for rather than just keep my wallet well stocked."

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what kind of tourists do they want?

Fancy sex on a fishing boat? Then visit the Lake Balaton resort, say Hungary's authorities in a recently launched campaign aimed at attracting young people to its main lake resort.

The tourism authority is sending around an email with an internet link http://abalatoninyar.fw.hu/, leading viewers to a short cartoon film which features a young blonde woman having sex with a married man on a fishing boat on the lake.
The film, accompanied by a popular song from the 1980s, shows the tourist hiding his wedding ring while in bed with the woman. It also shows her wowing him after taking off her bra.
"The marketing campaign is aimed at selling Balaton as a travel destination primarily for the young generation," the tourism authority said in a statement.
Under communism Balaton was a popular tourist spot of Germans and east Europeans, but its popularity fell in the past few years as Hungarians choose to spend the summer abroad.

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They're felons, and they've got ur number...

Rome : The next time you call directory inquiries in Italy, you may speak to a convicted murderer.

Italy's biggest phone operator, Telecom Italia, Thursday presented its new call-center in Rome's largest prison, where 24 inmates are glued to a computer screen to answer thousands of requests for phone numbers and addresses every day.
"This is a unique initiative in Europe and it helps the detainees get some work experience and prepare for when they'll get out of prison," said Telecom's Chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera as he toured the Rebibbia jail, a huge concrete block housing 1,600 inmates on the northern outskirts of Rome.
"Good afternoon, this is Gianluca speaking, how can I help you? Thank you for calling Telecom Italia," said Gianluca Descenzo, who is serving a 13-year sentence for a drug-related murder, politely answering the umpteenth call of the day.
"It's good because people don't know who we are, so we don't feel like we are in a ghetto anymore," he told Reuters as he paused before taking another call.
Rebibbia's call-center follows a similar Telecom operation in Milan's San Vittore jail and runs from 8 a.m to 8 p.m. every day except Sundays.
The detainees get paid 12 cents ($0.15) per call answered and on a normal day each one of them deals with around 200 requests for information.
"Jails should not only be a place for punishment. They need not be a permanent hell, they must also give opportunities to people," said Justice Minister Clemente Mastella as he visited the call-center.
Telecom says there is no security risk in having detainees consult a nationwide database of phone numbers and addresses.
The prisoners cannot dial outside the jail and the company's computerized switchboard randomly directs each call to any one of Telecom's 45 call centers scattered across Italy.
"This may seem like a boring routine job, but for people who would otherwise spend the day sitting in our cells and doing nothing, it actually gives a sense to your life," said 34-year old Salvatore Striano, who has been convicted for Mafia crimes and also works in the call-center.
"It allows us to have some contact with the outside world. And it also makes you feel like you're being useful. People often need the address of a hospital or a pharmacy. Sometimes they'll ask the weirdest questions, like what day is it today or my dog is sick, what should I do?."

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Reports of big fortune a "huge lie" star says

Mexican big-screen siren Salma Hayek Friday dismissed as nonsense reports that she has a $100 million fortune, and said if she did she would retire and use the money to help the poor.

Local media in Mexico and Latin America reported this week that the Oscar-nominated actress had been ranked by Fortune magazine as the second-richest Latin American in Hollywood, with nearly half as much money as singer Jennifer Lopez.
"It's a huge lie. It's very, very far from reality. I don't have that amount of money," Hayek told Reuters, after reading an article in Mexican daily El Universal about a list of "Latino millionaires" in the United States.
"Somebody sent me it and I laughed. It's a bit like a joke. Obviously I have never earned $100 million and I wouldn't even want to," she said in a telephone interview from her Los Angeles home.
A spokesman for Fortune said he was not aware the magazine had published such a list. "It's certainly not a list we've done. It seems somebody got their facts mixed up," he said.
Hayek, 39, a smoldering beauty and former star of a top Mexican soap who seduced Hollywood when she appeared opposite Antonio Banderas in the 1995 movie "Desperado," is not known for flashy big-budget productions.
While famed for her curvaceous figure, she makes as many headlines speaking on violence against women and discrimination toward Hispanic migrants in the United States as she does twirling on the red carpet.
"With things as they are in Mexico, it bothers me that they put me in a group of millionaires with $100 million I don't have when there are so many people dying of hunger," Hayek said, pausing the interview in a brief panic to scoop a drowning rat out of her swimming pool.
Born to a Lebanese businessman and a Mexican opera singer, Hayek is one of Mexico's highest-profile celebrities and has raised awareness about issues like Mexico's failure to solve a spate of brutal murders of women in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez.
"If I had $100 million I would have retired and would be doing more things on an altruistic level than I can now. I would have opened centers in Mexico for violence against women and many other things," she said.
Hayek was nominated for an Oscar for her passionate 2002 portrayal of Frida Kahlo, the legendary Mexican painter who spent much of her life in bed in a plaster cast while her artist husband dallied with other women.
Despite her reputation as a straight-talking feminist, Hayek insists she is not trying to create a do-gooder image.
Her latest project is somewhat lighter: co-producing a TV series called "Ugly Betty," an American version of a Colombian soap about a plain and dumpy woman's quest for love.

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