by David Rose
To the guy with the wild grey hair and thin pony tail and bow-tie and white socks and chewed copy of Rimbaud164 and the lisp and excessive spittle and over-use of the word ‘platitudes’ and faint odour of taco meat who will no doubt reply to this advert much like he’s replied to every other advert I’ve ever placed in here: ‘eccentric’ is only a favourable adjective when it’s wrapped in an attractive package or earns over £200,000 a year and owns a holiday retreat in Tuscany. Other LRB-reading men should also note this. Replies from ‘normals’ or the stupidly rich only please to woman, 45, currently down to 37 seconds on her ‘tolerance of idiots’ metre. Box no. 4722.
No. You cannot show me your interpretation of what our love-making might look like if animated by Ray Harryhausen in an early Sinbad film.165 You know who you are. F, 39. Croydon. Box no. 4811.
‘Lait. Oh Dieu!’ Woman, 51, seeks LRB reading man to 55 whose social skills and language acquisition are somewhat in advance of those of the Wild Boy of Aveyron (you know who you are).166 Box no. 7901.
My last affair ended with a round of applause from a crew of stand-by paramedics. If the next one has to end I’ll settle for a text message. Woman, 39. Seeks man who knows when to wear his Medic Alert Badge, carries his own emergency injectable adrenaline kit, and isn’t too scared to say ‘actually, I don’t feel like lobster tonight’. You know who you are. Box no. 7942.
Woman, 36, WLTM man to 40 who doesn’t try to high-five her after sex. You know who you are. Box no. 7438.
Woman, 38. WLTM man to 45 who doesn’t name his genitals after German chancellors. You know who you are and, no, I don’t want to meet either Bismarck, Bethmann-Hollweg, or Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, however admirable the independence he gave to secretaries of state may have been.167 Box no. 5739.
Appendix
A chronology of Miss World title holders, 1951–2008
1951 Kerstin Håkansson, Sweden.
Originally called the Festival Bikini Contest and part of the 1951 Festival of Britain, the beauty pageant created by Eric Morley (Public Relations Officer of festival organisers Mecca, Ltd.) attracted so much publicity that it soon became known as ‘Miss World’ by the international press, prompting Morley to trademark the title. Håkansson would, in fact, be the only winner in a bikini as future competitions switched to the one-piece bathing suit. Morley said some years later that Håkansson ‘filled a bikini more perfectly than anyone I have seen, before or since, and among all the Miss World winners she ranks as just about the most delectable’. She received a cheque for £1,000 and a pearl necklace.
1952 May Louise Flodin, Sweden.
Belgian entry Anne-Marie Pauwels was disqualified after refusing to be separated from her boyfriend during the contest.
1953 Denise Perrier, France.
Runner-up Marina Papaelia (Egypt) collapsed screaming as Perrier was proclaimed Miss World. She recovered, continuing to participate in subsequent news interviews and photo sessions, although, when asked by a news reporter to comment on the winner, she remarked, ‘I think she stink!’ Perrier, who was a convent schoolgirl prior to the contest, appeared in an uncredited role in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, where she was strangled with her own swimsuit by Sean Connery before revealing the location of Ernst Stavro Blofeld
1954 Antigone Costanda, Egypt.
1955 Susana Duijm, Venezuela.
1956 Petra Schürmann, West Germany.
1957 Marita Lindahl, Finland.
1958 Penelope Coelen, South Africa.
‘It’s just wonderful. Just think—I was only Miss South Africa yesterday’. Penelope Coelen speaking on the telephone to reporters after winning.
1959 Corine Rottschafer, Holland.
Non-finalist Miss United States Loretta Powell accused Rottschafer of ‘padding her bra’. Rottschafer disproved this after changing into a one-piece swimsuit for the measuring ceremony, which confirmed her 37-22-37 statistics. Miss Bermuda was found to be an impostor and was disqualified.
1960 Norma Cappagli, Argentina.
Cappagli was threatened with disqualification after revealing that she liked to unwind at the end of a long day of rehearsing by drinking a glass or two of Scotch whisky. She defended herself by asking ‘where does it say in the rules that I can be disqualified for having a late night drink if I want one?’ Fourth runner-up Judith Ann Achter (Miss United States) only came second in her national event, but was flown to London two days after the original entry, Annette Driggers, had been disqualified for being underage.
1961 Rosemarie Frankland, United Kingdom.
Frankland suffered depression and panic syndrome throughout her life and died in December 2000. It was never confirmed whether her death was a result of suicide or an accidental prescription drug overdose, although she had told a newspaper not long beforehand that ‘beauty queens are dressed up and paraded down the catwalk just so some fellow can get a quick thrill. They should shove it [Miss World] in the archives and forget about it’.
1962 Catharina Lodders, Netherlands.
‘I don’t think I’m the most beautiful girl in the world.... I am the most beautiful girl here’. Catharina Johanna Lodders to reporters after winning.
1963 Carole Crawford, Jamaica.
1964 Ann Sydney, United Kingdom.
1965 Lesley Langley, United Kingdom.
Langley was almost dethroned after nude photos of her surfaced during her tenure as Miss World. However, because they were taken before her entry into the pageant, she was allowed to keep her title. The same controversy and conclusion would appear again in 1969 during the reign of Eva Rueber-Staier.
1966 Reita Faria, India.
Uzor Okafor of Nigeria was disqualified because there had been no Miss Nigeria contest. The Nigerian Deputy High Commissioner in London stated ‘our government does not sponsor beauty contestants’. Paquita Torres Pérez of Spain withdrew from the contest because of the presence of Miss Gibraltar. She told newspapers ‘as an Andalusian the British flag over the Rock offends me’. Meanwhile Priscilla Martenstyn admitted, ‘I am not the real Miss Ceylon. I am a schoolgirl in London’. The real Miss Ceylon—Lorraine Roosmalecocq—was in the USA for the rival Miss Universe pageant.
1967 Madeleine Hartog Bell, Peru.
1968 Penelope Plummer, Australia.
Miss Philippines, Cecilia Amabuyok, was a novice Roman Catholic nun. At a banquet given before the Miss World contest by Britain’s Variety Club, the men wolf-whistled, stamped their feet and hoisted her onto a table. She finished in fourth place. Spain’s Maria Amparo Rodrigo Lorenza walked out the night before the finals when Miss Gibraltar refused to apologise for saying that she was glad Miss Spain was in the contest. Spain had declined to participate in Miss World for several years due to the presence of Miss Gibraltar. On the same evening as Miss Spain’s withdrawal, Lebanon’s Lili Bissar was disqualified after it was discovered she was only fifteen years old.
1969 Eva Rueber-Staier, Austria.
See 1965.
1970 Jennifer Hosten, Grenada.
The 1970 contest began with a row over South Africa being allowed to enter two contestants; one white (Miss South Africa), and one black (Miss Africa South). In the evening of the event itself, Women’s Liberation activists protested and threw flour at host Bob Hope. He was heckled after making sexist jokes on stage (‘it’s been quite a cattle market—I’ve been back there checking calves’), then later remarked, ‘anyone who would try and break up an affair as wonderful as this has got to be on some kind of dope’. The protesters were arrested and their subsequent trial was billed as ‘The first Women’s Lib. trial since the Suffragettes’. Argument also centred on the title being awarded to the Miss Grenada contestant, Hosten, who won having received just two ‘first’ votes compared to Sweden’s nine. Prime Minister of Grenada Sir Eric Gairy was on the judging panel. In 1979, Gairy was overthrown as prime minister because of charges of corruption and human rights abuses.
1971 Lúcia Petterle, Braz
il.
1972 Belinda Green, Australia.
1973 Marjorie Wallace, United States.
Sacked as Miss World 104 days after winning the title because, according to the organisers, she had ‘failed to fulfil the basic requirements of the job’. Elsewhere it was suggested that the real reason behind her losing the crown was her alleged statement during a public engagement, ‘as Miss World I can get laid with any man I pick’.
1974 Helen Morgan, United Kingdom.
The second Welsh woman and fourth UK candidate to win the Miss World lost her title within four days of being crowned after it was discovered she was an unmarried mother. Although this didn’t break the rules of the contest (which stipulated only that contestants must be unmarried) she was forced to resign. Miss Venezuela, Alicia Rivas, said, ‘In my country, a girl who has a baby without being married is regarded as a bad girl, not pure and undefiled as we are led to believe Miss World should be’.
1974 Anneline Kriel, South Africa (replacing Helen Morgan).
1975 Wilnelia Merced, Puerto Rico.
During an unscreened preliminary round in the swimsuit event, four of the French-speaking competitors (from Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Mauritius) refused to turn to be judged from behind, with Mariella Tse-Sik-Sun (Miss Mauritius) later stating, ‘It is degrading for a girl to have to show her bottom to the judges. We refused to be treated like slave girls’.
1976 Cindy Breakspeare, Jamaica.
Seeing the continued indulgence of South Africa to enter a white and a black contestant (under the titles Miss South Africa and Miss Africa South respectively) as a tacit endorsement of apartheid, nine contestants withdrew (India, Mauritius, Liberia, Malaysia, Philippines, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Swaziland and Yugoslavia).
1977 Mary Stävin, Sweden.
Miss Italy, Anna Kanakis, and Miss Malta, Janice Galea, were both disqualified for being only fifteen. ‘They never told me anything about it in Italy’, protested Kanakis. ‘I didn’t know you had to be seventeen’. The protests against the presence of Miss South Africa continued, leading to South Africa being banned from competing until the end of apartheid in 1991.
1978 Silvana Rosa Suárez, Argentina.
Miss Tunisia, Malek Nemlaghi, was disqualified for refusing to take off her traditional Muslim veil and pose in a t-shirt and shorts. She eventually changed her mind and was reinstated.
1979 Gina Ann Swainson, Bermuda.
Miss Venezuela, Tatiana Capote, was disqualified after one of her breasts became exposed during a preview of the swimsuit round.
1980 Gabriella Brum, West Germany.
Brum resigned within a day of winning the title. Her boyfriend, pornographic film-maker Benno Bellenbaum, was accused by pageant organiser Julia Morley of ‘enticing Gabriella to give up her title’. Bellenbaum, describing himself in interviews at the time as being a ‘very young fifty-two’, told reporters ‘I won’t deny that I would be relieved in many ways if she isn’t Miss World’. He added ‘she wants to come home... our love is so strong and so young and we want to be together. Her home is here with me. We just love being together, staying in, cooking and reading’. Brum (who was eighteen at the time) meanwhile described the other contestants as ‘a bunch of bitches’. When it was suggested that she had posed nude for magazines, Bellenbaum explained ‘she has posed nude only for me, not for anyone else. She’s just a fun-loving girl who has never done anything wrong’.
1980 Kimberley Santos, Guam (replacing Gabriella Brum).
1981 Pilín León, Venezuela.
1982 Mariasela Álvarez, Dominican Republic.
Miss Bermuda, Heather Ross, was charged with illegally importing cocaine valued at £200,000 into Britain. She was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport after stopping off a plane from Amsterdam, nine days after the Miss World contest in which she was unplaced. She served thirteen months of a three-year sentence. Of the winner, Miss Germany, Kerstin Paeserack, remarked ‘they might as well rename the contest Miss Virgin World. All they want is a safe little virgin who will trot around visiting hospitals for them. And that is what they got. It was a farce’. Miss Italy, Raffaella del Rosario, offered ‘there is something strange about her face. Her mouth is too big, and her chin sticks out’.
1983 Sarah-Jane Hutt, United Kingdom.
Miss Jamaica, Catherine Levy, boycotted the coronation ball in protest at being placed fourth. Miss Barbados, Nina McIntosh-Clarke, said of the winner, ‘she was not the prettiest girl. We all think the judges were wrong’.
1984 Astrid Carolina Herrera, Venezuela.
1985 Hólmfríɛur Karlsdóttir, Iceland.
1986 Giselle Laronde, Trinidad and Tobago.
Miss USA, Halle Berry, provoked gasps and complaints from the audience and fellow contestants when she appeared in her national costume—a skimpy flesh-coloured body stocking, embroidered with beads and a few carefully-placed stars. She said that it was supposed to represent ‘America’s advancement in space’, although she later admitted that she wanted to ‘catch the eye from the start’. Miss Holland, Janny Tervelde, said ‘we think it’s very unfair. I’m totally concealed by wearing the Dutch traditional costume with clogs’.
1987 Ulla Weigerstorfer, Austria.
1988 Linda Pétursdóttir, Iceland.
1989 Aneta Krglicka, Poland.
The broadcasting rights to the pageant previously held by Thames Television of the UK were not renewed after Thames bowed to pressure from feminist movements. Eric Morley told press ‘they said it was outdated, sexist and not appropriate for modern Britain. I’ve heard that for the last twenty-five years’.
1990 Gina Tolleson, United States.
1991 Ninibeth Leal, Venezuela.
1992 Julia Kourotchkina, Russia.
1993 Lisa Hanna, Jamaica.
When Israel’s Tamara Porat and Lebanon’s Ghada Turk were photographed smiling shoulder-to-shoulder, there was political uproar in their respective countries, with Lebanon’s top public prosecutor Munif Oueidat stating that he intended to try Miss Lebanon for ‘collaborating with the enemy’. Turk argued that she did not realize she was standing next to Miss Israel when the photo was taken. It was four months before she was allowed back to her country, where she immediately faced a military judge on charges of treason.
1994 Aishwarya Rai, India.
1995 Jacqueline Aguilera, Venezuela.
Hours after winning the Miss Personality award, Toyin Enitan Raji, Miss Nigeria, was barred from the contest following worldwide condemnation of the execution of nine dissidents, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, by the Nigerian government of Sani Abacha just days earlier.
1996 Irene Skliva, Greece.
Concerned at the apparent commodification of the female form and the undermining of Indian culture, the contest—held in Bangalore, India—was marred by ongoing violent protests. One man committed suicide by setting himself on fire. Five days before the contest, protesters including activists of the All India Women’s Democratic Association (AIDWA) were beaten by the police during a demonstration, with at least 400 being detained until the evening. Police swung bamboo canes, fired rubber bullets and launched tear gas at the protesters. Members of the Forum for Awakening Women threatened its members would mingle with spectators and immolate themselves after taking poison. The protesters argued that the contest benefited only plastic surgeons and cosmetics manufacturers. Its TV audience for this year was one of the highest ever, at 2.2 billion viewers worldwide.
1997 Diana Hayden, India.
1998 Linor Abargil, Israel.
1999 Yukta Mookhey, India.
2000 Priyanka Chopra, India.
Organiser Eric Morley died at the beginning of November, weeks before the contest. His wife and co-organiser, Julia Morley, took control of the event and one of her first tasks after the title was awarded to Miss India was to issue the statement, ‘there is no fixing in the Miss World beauty contest’. This was because of intense media speculation at the time over the dominance of India in the contest in rec
ent years and the surge of multi-national companies investing in the region. In the final round of questioning, Chopra had been asked to name the living woman she admired the most. She answered ‘Mother Teresa’, who had been dead for three years. The answer won her the crown but increased speculation of contest-rigging. Justifying her answer, Priyanka, who had previously revealed that she wanted to be a clinical psychologist so as ‘to understand why people turn demented’, said, ‘for me she is a living legend. She does live on for me’.
2001 Agbani Darego, Nigeria.
2002 Azra Akin, Turkey.
Scheduled to take place in Abuja, Nigeria, the contest was boycotted by several nations in protest at the death sentence by stoning imposed by an Islamic Sharia court on Amina Lawal, a Nigerian woman who had been accused of adultery after having a child outside of marriage. Protests then erupted in Kaduna, Nigeria, after a Lagos-based journalist wrote that the Prophet Muhammad would have approved of the Miss World contest and might even have wanted to marry one of the competitors. Rioting left an estimated 220 dead, 1,200 injured and 12,000 homeless. The contest was relocated to London, where British writer Muriel Gray said ‘these girls will be wearing swim wear dripping with blood’.
2003 Rosanna Davison, Ireland.
2004 María Julia Mantilla, Peru.
2005 Unnur Birna Vilhjálmsdóttir, Iceland.
Miss World 1983 finalist, Unnur Steinsson of Iceland, was three months pregnant during the pageant. This violated the pageant’s rules and ordinarily warranted disqualification; however, it wasn’t discovered until after the pageant. Her baby, born on May 25, 1984, was the 2005 winner.
2006 Tat’ána Kuchařová, Czech Republic.
2007 Zhang Zilin, China.
2008 Ksenia Sukhinova, Russia.
Acknowledgments