Sideline Chatter
Contest winner no sleeper pick

	Pete Rose
	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

Snooze, you lose? Not Clare Southern.

Southern, a 19-year-old police trainee, was proclaimed the winner of "Shattered," a British television endurance show, by staying awake for 179 hours 10 minutes — nearly 7-½ days — to capture the $180,000 prize.

To break a three-way tie, the finalists were put to bed in a dark room to make staying awake even more difficult, and Southern, whose resolve has earned her the nickname of "The Terminator," fended off sleep nearly two hours longer than the others.

"In the final sleep-off I didn't think I'd last a second," she told the Mirror of London, "but for some reason I just seemed to wake up, and towards the very end I was dying for the toilet, which kept me from relaxing too much."

But Southern disagrees with criticism that the show is exploitive and endangers contestants' health. In other words, she doesn't plan to lose any more sleep over it.

He'll sink to that

Dan Svitko of McKeesport, Pa., has been proclaimed the 2003 winner in Boating magazine's annual best-name contest. Svitko's 23-foot Sea Ray Sundancer proudly bears the moniker "Sotally Tober."

The flip side of Rose

Times copy-desk colleague Jerry Faull came up with a bettor solution for Pete Rose's latest Hall of Fame gamble.

"Just flip a coin," Faull said. "Heads you're in, and tails you go away and never bother us again. Would that be a made-for-TV event, or what?"

Oh, and just one other detail:

"Phil Luckett and Jerome Bettis have to perform the coin flip."

Canadian bakin'

• Cam Hutchinson of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, on the inevitable pay-per-view pairing of the planet's two most pilloried baby-danglers: "For his next trick, Steve Irwin will feed a crocodile while holding Michael Jackson."

• Gavin McDougald of Ontario's couchmaster.ca, on Newsday's report that Matt Dillon, Brad Pitt or Nicolas Cage might play the lead role if Pete Rose's new book becomes a movie: "Unfortunately, Moe Howard from 'The Three Stooges' is no longer available. But maybe his hair is."

• Randy Turner of the Winnipeg Free Press, envisioning the Tonya Harding story going Hollywood: "Don't know what the movie would be like, but here's predicting it'll have a pretty good trailer."

Naked aggression

News item: Former outfielder Otis Nixon, 44, was charged with aggravated assault last week after his bodyguard claimed that Otis — wearing nary a stitch — pulled a knife on him at a Norcross, Ga., motel.

Defense lawyers, citing a 1973 Nixon precedent, are reportedly demanding that 18-½ minutes of the police tape be erased.

— Dwight Perry, The Seattle Times

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company