Over a decade after the Playboy Club closed on the West End here, the Bunnies are bounding back: Ladbroke Casinos plans to develop a Playboy casino in the upmarket Mayfair area, saying it believes the Bunny image "is a timeless one. What is new... is the mix of tradition and glamour and a modern setting. It is not intended to be a stag club." And they may have less trouble making it a reality than people might think, given that the enduring Playboy Bunny image is tame when compared to lap dancing. Ladbroke Casinos hopes to get the Playboy casino - including a bar and nightclub - open by the second half of 2001. The original Playboy Club left London in the 1980s over license challenges, after having been a fixture since the Swingin' London days of the 1960s. Playboy Enterprises CEO Christie Hefner told Reuters they "anticipate Playboy becoming the gaming experience destination of the new Millennium," adding the operation was "thrilled" at the idea of returning to London.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Canada's Flirting Juror, Gillian Guess, returned to court April 12 - as a witness, telling the story of her courthouse affair with a murder suspect on whose jury she sat. It involves her appeal of an obstruction of justice conviction she drew at a 1998 trial stemming from that murder case. Testifying in the British Columbia Court of Appeal, Guess testified she and defendant Peter Gill planned to have sex only once, "to get it out of our systems." Gill was cleared of murder charges. However, that verdict was appealed in part because of Guess's behavior during the trial. Guess's obstruction of justice trial in 1998 brought world headlines. But she now denies she ever wanted the publicity and testified she won't try selling film or book rights until she clears her name in the courts, according to Reuters. Guess and Gill first kissed passionately during a break in his trial, at a Vancouver park, she testified this week, but maintained their trysts influenced her vote in the case. Gill and five others were accused in the killing of two men, allegedly in a dispute over drugs, Reuters says, with Gill free on bail throughout his trial. Guess testified earlier this week she felt afraid of Gill and that he initiated the affair, which continued for a short while after his acquittal. She called it "the worst mistake of my life" and testified Gill persuaded her to stay on that jury.
LONDON - Is the best way to prepare for long-distance running making love for distance? It depends on whom you ask. A survey for London Marathon organizers says yes. "Every competitor planning to build a last-minute lovemaking session into their training program will run faster than those who don't," they told Reuters Tuesday, saying 30 percent of those they questioned added that marathon running is likewise good for the sex life. They based the survey, reportedly, on the finishing times of 2,000 who entered last year's race, probing their likes, dislikes and habits. On the other hand, most of those they questioned turned down making love the night before the big race; though those who had sex the night before finished best, the survey concluded. Still, one of those against sex before the big race is the racer considered the favorite for this year's London Marathon, set for April 16: Khalid Khannouchi, a Moroccan who lives and trains in the United States. Says his wife and coach, Sandra, no sex before the race - not even a week before he runs. "(W)e just concentrate on the marathon," she told Reuters. "After the race is over we have a party. But not before. It doesn't work for us."
LONDON - Maybe you should pay a little more attention to body chemistry, after all. That's what British researchers are saying about chemical signals secreted from the pores that increase perceptions of attractiveness in both sexes. These pheromones are known to influence social or sexual conduct in animals, but the British Psychological Society's annual conference offered new research demonstrating pheromones play similar roles in humans. "Male pheromones can, under certain circumstances, improve female perception of certain aspects of male attractiveness," Dr. Nick Neave, of the University of Northumbria, tells Reuters. Odorless chemicals, pheromones are produced from an area below the armpits. Neave says he and his colleagues believe increased exposure on the part of women to male pheromones can heighten their perception of male attractiveness. "In the presence of the pheromones, all the faces were rated more attractive, but in particular, the face that had been pre-rated as being least attractive," Neave told Reuters. "Other studies have shown in the past that the presence of an oral contraceptive pill can dampen down female perceptions of certain things, like pheromones."
--- Compiled by Humphrey Pennyworth
