Monkeys on guard!

DO you know what special security measures were taken by authorities during the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India?

They hired 38 trained langur monkeys to team up with the security forces to keep — not terrorists — but other monkeys in check at public places! Those who have had close encounter of the wild kind of monkey will vouch for the fact that monkeys can be no less terrorising than terrorists, and the Indian capital is prone to having monkeys messing around the streets and buildings.

These trained monkey guards were charged with defending athletes and spectators from attacks by smaller, wild monkeys.

There was definitely no ‘monkeying’ around during the Games! n

Muhammad Ali vs Superman

IN one of the weirder melding of sports and popular culture, DC Comics put out a Superman vs. Muhammad Ali comic book in 1978.

The plot dealt with hostile aliens, but the real highlight was Superman’s sparring match with the king of boxing Ali. Later the two team up to defeat an alien invasion of Earth.

This 72-page comic book was reprinted in 2010 with one edition containing the original story and a deluxe edition with additional content and a new cover, making it definitely a collector’s item

Where did the word ‘soccer’ come from?

WE all know that the British call it ‘football’ and the Americans call it ‘soccer’ but do you know that the British coined the word soccer and not the Americans? The credit for the word soccer goes to British school boys, who liked to nickname everything. Rugby was popularly called ‘rugger’ and the newly-formed Association Football was nicknamed ‘Assoccer’ and sometimes “Soccer Football”. Legend has it that in 1863, Charles Wredford Brown, an Oxford student, was asked by some friends if he played ‘rugger’, to this he replied he preferred ‘soccer’. Thus the evolution of the name can also be explained thus: AS-SOC-IATION -> “SOCCA” (1889) -> “SOCKER” (1891) -> “SOCCER” (1895). Courtesy: http://bleacherreport.com