When It Comes to Pie Throwing, Clowns Face Up to It

--It was a fight to the very messy finish as 120 clowns fired 500 shaving cream pies at each other to mark the 20th anniversary of the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus Clown College in Venice, Fla. Although the assault was not an official attempt at a record, Ringling officials called it the biggest pie fight ever. The graduating class of 1987 launched the first assault, aiming squarely at the faces of a row of veteran clowns. The veterans returned fire and the battle raged for five minutes until all 120 were dripping with white foam. Each clown was armed with aluminum pie tins heaped with whipped soap, the preferred pie filling for such battles. Real pies are too heavy and can cause injury. “You can tell an amateur. He uses real pies,” said Leon McBryde, who clowned with Ringling for seven years. Pie throwing is among the skills taught during the school’s 10-week course by master clown Glen (Frosty) Little. “It all looks so easy. It is very hard work,” Little said. “You get hit with it and it stings your eyes. We have to teach them how to wipe it off without ruining their makeup. We have to teach them timing. Timing is everything.”

--Willy, a three-ton bull elephant seal, has fallen in love--with a herd of dairy cows. The 15-foot-long mammal lumbered ashore on New Zealand’s Coramandel Peninsula three weeks ago at the start of the dairy cows’ mating season and has been chasing the reluctant cows ever since, said farmer Allan Bridson. Willy has flattened fences, smashed gates and upset the cows so much that their milk production has dropped, Bridson said. Ted Atkinson, of the Conservation Department, said tranquilizers failed to slow down Willy and that seals have been known to stay out of water for up to two months by living off stored blubber.

--Another type of aquatic mammal put on a royal show for Britain’s Prince Philip. The prince watched from the sailboat Island Roamer as a pod of about 15 killer whales swam, dived and cavorted off the Pacific Coast at Vancouver, British Columbia. Philip was accompanied by about 30 guests, most of them members of the “200 Canadians for Wildlife” Conservation Trust. The prince then flew to Vancouver to attend a reception for Commonwealth senior ministers along with Queen Elizabeth. The royal couple are in British Columbia for a meeting of Commonwealth nations.