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 LOUVRE, PARIS - The recent restoration of Ary Scheffer's famous painting Les ombres de Francesa da Rimini et de Paolo Malatesta has completely back- fired upon museum curators. The three-year, painstaking restoration of the the nineteenth-century work has uncovered a figure to the right of the picture poking his nose, which the artist appears to have painstakingly painted over.
Museum curator Claude LeChatelier has confessed to being highly embarrassed by the incident. 'We have succeeded in removing the zephyr of greying varnish from the surface of the painting, returning the colours to their original lustre, and recalibrating the tension of the canvas to prevent fissures from appearing in the paint' he told reporters at a press conference yesterday. 'But we didn't expect to accidentally put a man poking his nose into the picture.'
LeChatelier yesterday explained how museum staff first noticed something in the background behind the figure of Francesca's husband, and proceeded to investigate further. 'Gradually the figure of a man began to emerge' he said. 'but we noticed two things about the man's hand - that it was placed at an awkward angle to his chin, and that it seemed to have only three fingers, as though the artist had taken special pains to conceal the fourth. We began to tease out the base of his index finger, and kept following it upwards, but by the time we realised with horror where it was going, it was too late.'
Spatial geometer Burt Kieslowski has been flown in from the U.S. in the hopes of introducing some doubt as to whether or not the figure's finger is actually placed within his nostril, but by last Friday hopes were fading fast. 'We were hoping that a perspective expert would be able to at least introduce the possibility that the figure was merely pensively stroking the side of his nose,' LeChatelier explained. 'as though contemplating the scene before him. But when we heard Burt say "Yeah, he's got it jammed in there pretty good all right", we knew all was lost.'
Since becoming the laughing stock of the art world by spending three years effectively ruining a masterpiece, LeChatelier has hardly had time to consider how this figure was painted in to begin with. 'When you think about it, many modern photographs are ruined by people suddenly doing something they shouldn't, and this, though involving a more extended time-frame, is not very different.' When it was pointed out to him that since Scheffer spent five years working on the painting, the offending model would have to have spent approximately seven months with his finger in his right nostril without Scheffer noticing, LeChatelier became irritable.
'All of a sudden you're all art experts' he thundered. 'So what if Scheffer lost concentration for a few months - I suppose the next thing you'll be telling me is that we should photoshop the guy back out.' More disquieting is the 'uncovering trend' that this ill-fated restoration has sparked. Already there have been reports of people seeing a steam engine in a Carravaggio, the logo for ExxonMobil in a Rembrandt, and traces of talent in a Mark Rothko. | | | |  |
Two character flaws? You have a disorder
LOS ANGELES - At the annual conference of the American Personality Disoder Foundation this week it was unanimously agreed that a person exhibiting two or more disagreeable character traits has a deleterious, though treatable disorder. 'These findings confirm the great advances made in the field of psychotherapy over the last thirty years' explained Dr. Thomas A. Harris, author of I'm OK, You're OK. 'Ten years ago all we were able to isolate was General Personality Disorder. Then after years of painstaking research we discovered Borderline Personality Disorder. Now that we have generous funding we have been able to identify and treat Impatient in Traffic / Slightly Unfriendly Disorder, a disease that has devestated the lives of millions.' Dr. Seamus Schweitzer, author of I'm Grand, You're Grand - That'll be Five Grand, concurs: 'We're now moving into a more enlightened era where people with serious psychiatric illnessses such as snappishness in slow-moving supermarket queues are recognised for what they are: just ordinary people who happen to suffer from a debilitating mental disease.' The Foundation has dismissed criticism that it has overnight diagnosed 100% of the population as insane. 'We now know more about Americans than we ever did before' claims Harris.
Christo sells Wrapped Reichstag
BERLIN - Controversy has erupted in Germany as conceptual artist Christo, whose now-famous mode of artistic expression is in wrapping various large objects, has found a buyer for his famous 'Wrapped Reichstag'. The unnamed American purchaser is currently attempting to negotiate the shipping costs for the building. Apparently the furore is over the conflicting claims of the artist on one side that his Wrapped Reichstag is an original work of art, and of the German government on the other that the German House of Parliament is not for sale. The controversy has had urban planners and lawyers gathering around the linen-swathed seat of Government all weekend, stroking their chins all week asking themselves But is it art? While the row continues, German shipping companies are considering what to wrap the artwork in.
Racing industry running out of names for horses
Following the spectacular win of WhateverYou'reHaving at the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Irish racing officials are considering introducing a versioning system for horses' names. This suggestion was prompted by the confusion generated when six other horses in the race had the same name as the winner. 'We ran out of three-syllable horse names as far back as 1967,' explained jockey Peter Dorney, 'and the situation's been getting steadily worse ever since.' Since unclaimed domain names now outnumber unclaimed horse names, the Irish Racing Association last week began to use IP addresses, but following 194.125.54.12's victory at the Navan Steeplechase, commentators complained that by the time they had announced that it was edging ahead, the horse had won the race. Further confusion was generated by the fact that this horse's website, www.194.125.54.12.ie, generates a DNS error when accessed.
Kissinger memoirs claim two more victims
DUBLIN - Doctors working around the clock last night were unable to save the right foot of Mike Ward, who was injured in a Dublin bookstore by the writings of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. 'When I tried to lift White House Years off the shelf it weighed a ton', Ward explained. 'I tried to grab it with my other hand but it was too late'. The volume crushed Ward's left foot and went down through the floor and into the History section, where it struck Marie Hogan, who was leafing through The Truth about East Timor at the time. Hodges Figgis are not accepting responsibility for the incident. 'Dr. Kissinger's memoirs come with specific safety instructions for preventing back injury' said manager Kenneth Graves today. 'Mr. Ward should have read our notices and used the hydraulic lifting arm provided'.
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The Russians are coming 
