Pole Dancing in the Olympics?

Before you read on, please keep in mind that curling is an Olympic sport.

Carolyne Braid, owner of Pole Dancing Winnipeg, is part of a global community that would like to see pole dancing -- the activity commonly associated with strip clubs and a wad of small bills -- included in a future Summer Olympic Games.

"What we really are trying to do is take it out of the clubs, trying to bring it more mainstream," Braid said yesterday. "We're trying to get people to recognize the fact that there truly is a lot of skill and athleticism required to do this.

"It really isn't that different than gymnastics from a training perspective, it's just that this happens to be vertical."

While pole dancing is making its way into the living rooms of suburbia thanks to operations like Braid's, it still has a long way to go when compared to Europe. There, the European Pole Dancing Championships is an event judged not from the round of applause from the spectators in the front row, but on the athletic ability of the participants.

Obviously, losing the sexual element is the biggest hurdle facing the activity in gaining Olympic status, but Braid feels not many can appreciate the skill needed when assuming the pole position. It is a gymnast discipline, one that takes a unique strength and agility.

And all the clothes stay on.

"Not everyone has the opportunity to try to pick up their own body weight on a pole, but what I've found is once people experience touching the pole, be at a home party or formal fitness classes, the first reaction that we always get is 'Wow. This really does take a lot of work,' " she said.

"Until we get more people experiencing it first-hand, making it more mainstream and more accepted, we're still going to have that issue.

"People say that it really isn't a sport and it shouldn't be in the Olympics, but there are so many other things where people look at them and wonder how they are sports."

What could she be referring to?

Diamond in someone else's rough...

PHOENIX - So you've just flushed your $70,000 diamond engagement ring down the toilet: who are you going to call.

Well, first the city, but if that doesn't work try a commercial plumber.

Just ask Allison Berry, whose expensive, seven-carat wedding ring slipped from her hand just as she was flushing the toilet in the restroom of the Black Bear Diner in Phoenix, on Jan. 14.

Restaurant shift manager Elena Castela says city workers opened a pipe outside the restaurant and tried to flush the ring into the open.

When that didn't work, the city called a local office of Mr. Rooter, a plumbing services franchise.

"This is going to be like dredging for a treasure chest in the ocean," Mike Roberts, general manager of Mr. Rooter, said at the time.

Roberts guided a tiny video camera into the pipe with an infrared light attached. He eventually spotted the ring less than two metres over from where it was flushed.

Then it took 90 minutes of jackhammering and pipe removal before Roberts and a technician could recover the ring, eight hours after it fell in the toilet.

"They always say diamonds are a girl's best friend. In this case, a plumber is a girl's best friend," Roberts said. "She was just so excited, she had tears in her eyes. She gave us a hug and said 'Thank you so much."'

The Mr. Rooter bill came to $5,200 and the city's bill was $1,000.

Berry, of Eureka, Calif., and her husband also tipped Roberts and the technician $400 each and gave $200 to a diner employee for staying late.

Mexico: Giant Cheescake

MEXICO CITY - Mexico has long been known for tacos and tequila - but cheesecake?

Chef Miguel Angel Quezada says 55 cooks spent 60 hours making the world's biggest cheesecake - a two-tonne calorie bomb topped with strawberries.

The monster cake used nearly a tonne of cream cheese, the same amount of yogurt, 350 kilograms of pastry, 250 kilograms of sugar and 150 kilograms of butter.

Carlos Martinez of Guinness World Records declared the cheesecake the world's largest on Sunday at an event sponsored by Kraft Foods, maker of Philadelphia cream cheese.

There wasn't much competition. Guinness had no previous record for cheesecakes.

Organizers gave out 20,000 slices around Mexico City.