Scottish cities scuffle over 'birthplace' of Star Trek character

LONDON (AFP) - It is an unusual spat to say the least: four places in Scotland all vying to be the recognised home of someone not even due to be born for another 200-plus years.

Nonetheless, a spat has broken out over boasting rights to fictional "Star Trek" engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott following the death last month of the actor who played him, James Doohan, The Times reported Tuesday.

Linlithgow, central Scotland, was first off the mark, claiming as its own the character from the science fiction series set two centuries into the future -- the recipient of famous command "Beam me up, Scotty" -- soon after Doohan's death.

Local councillor Willie Dunn told the newspaper that Linlithgow had "information" Scotty was supposed to have been born in the city in 2222, and that a plaque honouring him would be put up to boost tourism.

But now, the cities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Elgin have all made their own claims on the character.

Aberdeen believes Scotty was born there in 2220, citing a fan website which lists an episode in which the USS Enterprise's engineer refers to himself as an "Aberdeen pub crawler", or serial bar drinker.

Doohan, who died on July 20 aged 85, was open about the fact that his occasionally shaky Scottish accent was based on someone from Aberdeen he met during military service in Britain in World War II.

However, Edinburgh has its own claim, based on another website which lists Scotty's birthplace as "Edinburgh, Earth", while Elgin bases its boast on an interview with Doohan in which he supposedly names it as his character's home.

Linlithgow's Dunn, who has accused his city's rivals of "boldly clinging onto our coat-tails", had a solution, he told The Times.

"We should all agree to meet up in 2222 and see who was right," he said.

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'Carburetor' breasts work wins pathetic prose award

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) - A software analyst who wrote of a woman's breasts inspiring visions of carburetors in a British sports car, won a contest for the lousiest opening line in a fiction novel.

Microsoft computer company employee Dan McKay won top honors for bad writing on Thursday at the 23rd annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest in the California town of San Jose with the following prose:

"As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual."

McKay was visiting China when San Jose State University contest officials dubbed him the year's worst writer, prompting judges to speculate he wanted "to escape notoriety for his dubious literary achievement."

The international literary contest was created in the memory of novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who died in 1873.

Bulwer-Lytton coined the phrases "the pen is mightier than the sword" and "the almighty dollar" as well as the perpetually maligned "It was a dark and stormy night".

X3's Kitty Pryde Cast

ELLEN PAGE, an eighteen year old actress best known for Hard Candy and Trailer Park Boys, has been cast as KITTY PRYDE in X-MEN 3.



According to Filmforce, the part of Angel's father has not yet been cast, but Daniel Cudmore will return as COLOSSUS. However, Alan Cumming will NOT return as NIGHTCRAWLER.