Counterfeit Clooney clothes line pulled

Brian Tracey Associate editor • Profile

This may be world's biggest fashion faux pas: Two people are being investigated for alleged fraud after attempting to launch a clothing-and-accessories line with a brand using George Clooney’s name, police in Milan said this week.

Tax police said they seized garments and watches Wednesday, as well as fake documentation. The ANSA news agency said the line was to be launched in Milan next week.

Police said the probe stemmed from a complaint filed by the actor.

The Hollywood star said someone is pretending to be him to launch the line of clothes.

"If someone tries to sell you clothes or watches that are based on me, don’t buy them," Clooney, 46, told reporters Wednesday in Rome, where he was promoting his new film, "Leatherheads."

Too bad, because we think there are plenty of fashionistas out there who have dreamed of being George Clooney clones.

Big Brother in the bathroom
A British pub's clientele may going elsewhere after the establishment installed closed-circuit TV camera's in the tavern's toilets, a U.K. newspaper reported this week.

The cameras are supposed to catch drug users snorting cocaine off the top of the toilet tank, The Sun newspaper said.

But female customers at The Rose & Crown in York were horrified. "It made me feel uncomfortable," Deborah Styles was quoted as saying. "I definitely wouldn’t go back."

We knew one day that reality TV would go too far.

Japanese politician: Use our noodles!
Junichiro Koizumi never hosted a G8 summit while in office, but this week the popular former Japanese prime minister popped up at the "World Ramen Summit," where he touted the tasty noodles as a universal treat.

"Ramen is not just for Japan, but it is also for the world and the universe," Koizumi, whose colorful ways made him one of Japan's most popular leaders ever, told business people from about 20 countries in Osaka, western Japan, this week.

Koizumi, prime minister from 2001 to 2006, was attending a biannual gathering organized by the ramen noodle industry aimed at improving noodle quality and boosting consumption.

This year's summit coincided with the 50th anniversary of the invention of instant noodles by "Cup Noodle" King Momofuku Ando, who died in January 2007 at the age of 96.

Ando, founder of Japan's top noodle maker Nissin Food Products Co. Ltd., created his now famous "Chicken ramen" noodles in 1958 to feed the masses in post-World War Two Japan.

About 92 billion packs of instant noodles were consumed in the world in 2006 including about 47 billion in China, 14 billion in Indonesia, 14 billion in the United States, and 5.4 billion in Japan, according to industry figures.

Mr. Koizumi shouldn't worry about the state of the ramen industry — if the U.S. economy goes into a recession, we'll all be eating a lot more of the stuff.

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