Back at Ya: Convicted hotelier Leona Helmsley...

Back at Ya: Convicted hotelier Leona Helmsley called real estate magnate Donald Trump “a sick, sick, sick, sick boy . . . I wouldn’t believe Donald Trump if his tongue was notarized.” Her slap is in the November issue of Playboy magazine, where in March Trump had called her “a disgrace to humanity” and a “vicious, horrible woman.” Sentenced for tax fraud to four years in prison, Helmsley is free pending her appeal.

Street Life: Japan’s justice minister said late last week in Tokyo he couldn’t believe what he saw on a midnight stroll through Tokyo’s steamy red light district populated by foreign prostitutes. Seiroku Kajiyama donned casual dress last week for the trek. “I heard there were foreigners standing around there but I was in deep shock nonetheless,” Kajiyama said. Police later rounded up 45 women from Thailand, South Korea, Brazil and Colombia.

Sleigh Slight: Despite playing quarterback in the pros and boxing against a champion, writer George Plimpton, 63, said his scariest adventure in “participatory journalism” was playing percussion with the New York Philharmonic. After one Plimpton performance with the sleigh bells, conductor Leonard Bernstein told him he had destroyed the symphony.

Cartoon People: The Cookie Monster, Goofy and the Smurfs ride again. Their images had been taken off the sides of school buses in Jefferson County, Mo., earlier this month because a state rule allowed only safety signs. Cartoon signs help youngsters find their buses, said state Sen. Jay Nixon, adding the rule “makes people believe that government is run by a bunch of idiots.” The state board of education withdrew the rule last week.