Danny Puff

By Christine Murray

LONDON (Reuters) - Revered or reviled, history shows that the placement of a public statue of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher anywhere in the capital risks becoming a lightning rod.

Reactions to the idea of Thatcher atop the empty fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square mirror the emotions stirred up by the death of Britain's "Iron Lady" on Monday.

Some mourners left flowers outside her home, while others "celebrated" with a street party and buying so many copies of the 74-year-old "Wizard of Oz" song "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" that it surged into a top 10 spot in the UK charts.

One small indication of the future prospects for a public statue of Thatcher happened more than a decade ago.

Theatre producer Paul Kelleher decapitated a statue of Thatcher in 2002, saying it "looked better that way".

The work, created by sculptor Neil Simmons, was on display at the time at London's Guildhall, just a short walk from St. Paul's Cathedral where her funeral will be held on Wednesday.

In a telephone interview with Reuters, Simmons laughed as he recalled hearing of the attack on the statue, adding that he knew it was a "poisoned chalice" when he took on the commission.

"I thought it might be sprayed with graffiti, maybe a few eggs thrown at it, but the decapitation was something else," he said.

Conservative London Mayor Boris Johnson said his office would do everything it can to ensure Thatcher gets a high profile London memorial.

A tribute in Trafalgar Square would put Thatcher on equal footing with King George IV and British army generals Henry Havelock and Charles Napier who occupy the other plinths. Though she would still be some way below the 50 meter-high monument of naval hero Horatio Nelson, who won the Battle of Trafalgar.

London Labour leader Len Duvall said on Thursday that such a gesture would be "crass triumphalism", particularly as the popular tourist spot was one of the sites of the riots over a deeply unpopular "poll tax" which contributed to her downfall.

Visitors to the square on Thursday were split over the idea.

"It would become a monument of hatred, you'd have a deluge of people coming from the north to vent their anger," said 57-year-old Glasgow-born Laurie who declined to give his last name.

But 20-year old Mia Cook said Britain's first female prime minister did a lot for the country.

"I think it would be a good idea and right now there's only men around here," she said.

Kelleher's first attempt at the Thatcher statue in 2002 with a cricket bat failed to get the job done, but a second swipe with an iron pole took its head clean off.

"Mr Kelleher was an Englishman armed with a cricket bat and inevitably destined to fail," the prosecution noted. Kelleher was later sentenced to three months in jail.

Simmons's original 2.6-metre likeness of Thatcher was designed for the Members' Lobby of Britain's House of Commons where a new larger-than-life bronze statue was placed in 2007.

"I might have preferred iron, but bronze will do," Thatcher quipped to laughter and applause at the statue's parliamentary unveiling. "It won't rust. And, this time I hope, the head will stay on."

(Additional reporting By Dasha Afanasieva, editing by Paul Casciato)

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By Tara Oakes

PARIS (Reuters) - A little-known French sports doctor who spent 16 years studying the busts of about 300 women sent a scare through a country known for its love of lingerie this week when he suggested bras were useless.

Jean-Denis Rouillon, 62, was thrust into the limelight after he told a student radio station that his work suggested wearing a bra weakened the natural muscles that hold up breasts and women should consider going bra-less.

National radio picked up the story and Rouillon, based at the small University of Franche-Comte in the eastern town of Besan on, was soon being hounded by newspapers and TV.

France Info radio interviewed a 28-year-old volunteer in the study, Capucine, who said abandoning her bra had liberated her in more ways than one, improving her breathing and posture.

"You breathe better, you stand up straighter, you have less back pain," she told the national news station.

Even the highbrow daily Le Monde weighed in, offering an historical insight into the origins of the bra dating back to the 14th century.

Rouillon told Reuters that his unpublished work is still in the early stages and he is hesitant about giving one-size-fits-all advice to women, despite the media circus.

His preliminary results on 330 women aged 18 to 35 suggested that wearing a bra from an early age does nothing to help a wearer's breasts and going without could improve firmness.

"The suspension system of the breasts degenerates," Rouillon said, explaining that bras also unnaturally hamper circulation.

"But a middle-aged women, overweight, with 2.4 children? I'm not at all sure she'd benefit from abandoning bras," he added.

(Reporting by Tara Oakes, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) The pool of potential jurors to hear a case filed over Michael Jackson's death has grown to 104 people.

Attorneys and a judge concluded their second week of hardship screening on Friday.

In-person questioning of the panel will begin on Monday. It is expected to take multiple days for attorneys to select a panel of 12 jurors and several alternates to hear the case. Jurors must be available for 90 trial days.

The group of 103 has been given a 24-page questionnaire assessing their knowledge about the case.

The lawsuit was filed by Jackson's mother against concert giant AEG Live. The suit claims the promoter of Jackson's planned comeback concerts failed to properly investigate the doctor convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the singer's death.

AEG has denied all wrongdoing.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedian Jonathan Winters, whose manic, improvisational genius never seemed to take a rest, has died at the age of 87 after a more than 50-year career in stand-up comedy, on television and in film.

The burly, moon-faced Winters, a major influence on contemporary comedians like Robin Williams and Steve Martin, died on Thursday of natural causes at his Montecito, California home, surrounded by family and friends, said long time family friend Joe Petro III.

Winters had standout roles in 1960s comedy films "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming."

He also made regular appearances on "The Tonight Show" with hosts Jack Paar and then Johnny Carson, "The Andy Williams Show" and his own TV variety shows, "The Jonathan Winters Show" and "The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters," in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Winters' outlandish riffing style and repertoire of madcap characters made him a leading stand-up performer in the late 1950s but the pressure of being on the road led to a mental breakdown in 1959. He spent time in mental hospitals and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Winters was a comedian who rebelled against telling jokes and entertained in a stream-of-consciousness style that could veer into the surreal.

"I love improvisation," he told Reuters in an interview nearly 13 years ago. "You can't blame it on the writers. You can't blame it on direction. You can't blame it on the camera guy. ... It's you. You're on. You've got to do it, and you either sink or swim with what you've got."

Actor Robert Morse, who starred with Winters in the 1965 movie "The Loved One," marveled at the agility with which Winters could transform an ordinary object into an instrument of rapid-fire gags.

" Most of us see things three-dimensionally," Morse once mused in The New York Times. " I think Jonny sees things 59-dimensionally. Give me a hairbrush and I see a hairbrush. Give Jonny a hairbrush and it will be a dozen funny things."

Steve Martin paid tribute on Twitter on Friday: "Goodbye, Jonathan Winters. You were not only one of the greats, but one of the great greats."

SALTY MAUDIE, DRAWLING SUGGINS

His characters included Maudie Frickert, the salty old lady with a razor for a tongue, and Elwood P. Suggins, the drawling, overall-clad hick who "was fire chief a while back until they found out who was setting the fires."

Winters joined the U.S. Marine Corps at 17 and fought in the Pacific during World War Two. After the war he returned to his native Ohio, attended art school and married Eileen Schauder.

At her urging he entered a talent contest, which led to a show on a Dayton radio station on which he would create characters and interview them using two voices.

Winters moved to New York and with his many impressions, facial expressions and sound effects, quickly made a reputation in the city's stand-up comedy clubs, leading to high-profile appearances on television variety shows.

Winters' career derailed in 1959 when he began crying on stage at a nightclub in San Francisco. He was later taken into custody by police who found him climbing the rigging of a sailboat, saying he was from outer space.

Wrung out from the solitude of the road and stress of performance, Winters spent eight months in a psychiatric facility.

"I almost lost my sense of humor," he said in the interview with Reuters, recalling that his role as furniture mover Lennie Pike in the 1963 ensemble comedy film "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" marked a turning point in his recovery.

"I was fresh out of the hospital. I didn't know if I was up to doing a picture such as this," he said. But he took the part at his wife's urging, and "I finally opened up, I realized I was back, and I was in charge of myself and my mind."

Winters once admitted he felt the need to be "on" at all times - staying on the set after filming was done to entertain the crew, breaking into characters to amuse strangers on an elevator or joking with customers in a store.

"I was the class clown," Winters told The New York Times in recounting his high school days. " Other guys had more security, steady dates and all that ... I didn't. They only thing that kept me together was my comedy."

In 1981 Winters was cast in the sitcom "Mork and Mindy," teaming him with Williams, an ardent admirer whose own gift for off-the-wall improvisation made him the Jonathan Winters of his generation.

Winters also became familiar for his commercial work on behalf of such brands as Hefty trash bags, Good Humor ice cream and the California Egg Commission.

He won an Emmy in 1991 for his work on the short-lived sitcom "Davis Rules" and was given the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1999.

Recent work included providing the voice of Papa Smurf in the 2011 live action "The Smurfs" movie, and a sequel due for release in July.

His wife Eileen, with whom he had two children, died in 2009 of breast cancer.

(Reporting By Bill Trott, Eric Kelsey and Steve Gorman; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Vicki Allen and David Brunnstrom)

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KLAIPEDA, Lithuania (AP) A Lithuanian woman says she has been raising three pumas in her three-room apartment after fearing for their lives at the local zoo.

Rasa Veliute, a 23-year-old volunteer at the zoo in Klaipeda, a Baltic Sea port town, says she took the cubs home four months ago after their mother began neglecting them.

The pumas also known as mountain lions or cougars are named Kipsas, Gipse and Kinde. Veliute says they eat a lot of chicken and get along well with her East European shepherd dog.

There is no Lithuanian law barring keeping the animals at home, and the zoo did not object to Veliute's actions. But Veliute told reporters Friday that the pumas have grown fast and will likely return to the zoo this summer.

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CHICAGO (AP) Maria Tallchief, one of America's first great prima ballerinas who gave life to such works as "The Nutcracker," ''Firebird," and other masterpieces from legendary choreographer George Balanchine, has died. She was 88.

Tallchief died Thursday in Chicago, her daughter, Elise Paschen, said Friday.

Tallchief danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1942 to 1947, but her career was most associated with the New York City Ballet, where she worked from 1948 to 1965. Balanchine, the Russian-born dance genius, was not only the company's director; in 1946, he became Tallchief's husband for some years.

She told Women's Wear Daily in 2003 that when she first worked with Balanchine she thought, "'I am seeing music. This is it!' I was a musician myself, and I thought, 'I am in my place now.' I knew that that's the way I wanted to dance."

Tallchief was one of five Oklahoma natives of American Indian descent who rose to prominence in the ballet world from the 1940s through the 1960s. She retired in 1965, when she started teaching the next generation of dancers.

"My mother was a ballet legend, who was proud of her Osage heritage," Paschen said in a statement. "Her dynamic presence lit up the room. I will miss her passion, commitment to her art and devotion to her family. She raised the bar high and strove for excellence in everything she did."

Tallchief created roles in many of Balanchine's ballets, including "Orpheus," in 1948, and "Scotch Symphony," in 1952. She was the Sugar Plum Fairy in his original production of "The Nutcracker" in 1954.

Jacques d'Amboise, a former New York City Ballet dancer who partnered with Tallchief in many performances, said she was the Mount Everest of dance.

"She was the perfect representative of the American ballerina," said d'Amboise, who with the National Dance Institute in New York. "There is one word for her: Grand. She was absolutely grand."

In the 1970s, Tallchief served as artistic director of the Lyric Opera Ballet in Chicago. She later founded and was artistic director of the Chicago City Ballet.

Kenneth von Heidecke, founder of the Chicago Festival Ballet, studied under Tallchief during the 1970s in Chicago. Tallchief was an honorary artistic adviser with the ballet. He said he owed Tallchief his career because of her meticulous training.

"She would teach classical ballet not just technically ... but she would go beyond that and tell you how the laws of physics help you achieve great elevation or great velocity," von Heidecke said.

In 1996, Tallchief became one of five artists to receive the Kennedy Center Honors for their lifelong contributions to American culture.

Tallchief was born Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief in 1925, on a reservation in Fairfax, Okla., a small town about 60 miles northwest of Tulsa. Visiting teachers gave her lessons, and her mother later moved the family to Los Angeles so that she and her sister could receive additional training.

Tallchief's sister, Marjorie Tallchief, became the first American ballerina to join the permanent star roster of the Paris Opera Ballet.

In her 2005 memoir, "Maria Tallchief: America's Prima Ballerina," Tallchief wrote that her first ballet lesson was in the basement of the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colo., when she was 3-years-old.

"What I remember most is that the ballet teacher told me to stand straight and turn each of my feet out to the side, the first position," Tallchief wrote. "I couldn't believe it. But I did what I was told."

Ashley Wheater, artistic director with Chicago's Joffrey Ballet, said Tallchief served as a role model to future dancers.

"She's an inspiration for young kids today that come from all different ethnic backgrounds to know that they too can have that opportunity," Wheater said.

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AP writer Jocelyn Noveck contributed to this report from New York.

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Follow AP writer Caryn Rousseau on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/carynrousseau

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) The British and the Americans are quarreling albeit with tongues in cheek over territory again, this time over who has the world's smallest park.

One, in Portland, Ore., is essentially a concrete planter, 2-feet in diameter, with soil and some vegetation, and the Guinness Book of World Records says it's the smallest.

The other is about 5,000 miles away, in England. Those guys don't claim to have a physically smaller park theirs is 15 feet by 30 feet. But they are disputing whether Portland's is a park at all.

What started as two Brits' stunt to drum up publicity for a charity run at their park sparked some cross-pond banter. One online commenter wrote: "If that's a park then my window box should take the title."

Someone who said they were from Portland replied: "Yes, but our park has leprechauns. Does yours?"

Leprechauns? Yes, that's right. The faux-feud has helped unearth the curious story of a Portland newspaper columnist's quest to get the park declared the smallest and his claim that it was home to leprechauns.

The tale stretches back to 1946, when newspaperman Dick Fagan returned from World War II. From his office at the Oregon Journal newspaper, he could see a hole in the street where a light post was supposed to be erected. Fagan got tired of looking at the hole and planted flowers in it.

An Irishman with a vivid imagination, Fagan wrote about the park in his columns spinning tales about leprechauns who lived there. Somehow, Guinness proclaimed Mill Ends Park the world's smallest park in 1971.

Jamie Panas, the record-keepers spokeswoman, said she didn't know how that determination was made. But she said the entry in the Guinness database reads, in part: "It was designated as a city park on 17 March 1948 at the behest of the city journalist Dick Fagan (USA) for snail races and as a colony for leprechauns. "

Snail races? That's right. Snail races.

Over the years, Portland has been kind to the tiny park, giving it equal care as that afforded to the 200 or so normal-size parks scattered around the verdant city.

St. Patrick's Day ceremonies have been held there. It has plants and other vegetation. Strange objects have appeared mysteriously within it a miniature swimming pool with a diving board, a tiny Ferris wheel and a UFO.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, those protesters against income inequality, gave the park some recognition. In December 2011, a small group put miniature protest signs and toy tents in the teeny park and held a protest (a month earlier they had been evicted from a very real park they had occupied for six weeks). One of the protesters was arrested for refusing to leave.

And now, Portland's littlest park is getting big headlines. It started with a British sports management company called KV Events, based in Lichfield, north of Birmingham. It was promoting the "world's shortest fun run," around Prince's Park in Burntwood.

The park has the Guinness title of the United Kingdom's smallest park. It has a fence, a bench and three trees. It was founded in 1863 to commemorate the marriage of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, to Princess Alexandra of Denmark.

Promoters Paul Griffin and Kevin Wilson decided to have some fun, launching a faux challenge to Portland's claim figuring that would generate publicity for the race and for the charity the race is intended to benefit.

The gauntlet was thrown down when Wilson told LichfieldLive.co.uk, a local website, that the Portland park was just a "glorified flower pot." Griffin followed up with interviews on Portland broadcast stations.

"We understand the definition of a park to be a fenced area, usually in a natural state, possibly for recreation purposes," Griffin said on KPAM radio's "Bob Miller Show."

Parks, said Griffin, are places where you can take family and friends for a picnic.

"We don't think you can do that in your fair park," Griffin quipped.

Portlanders have come to the defense of their Lilliputian park. Someone put a toy soldier with a bazooka in the vegetation as well as a fence a defensive perimeter.

"We Americans have a pretty good track record when it comes to taking on the Brits. Perhaps they're still smarting over that whole American Revolution thing," said Mark Ross, spokesman for Portland Parks & Recreation.

Wilson says he has no intention of actually asking Guinness to take away Portland's title. There is talk, however, of a North Atlantic alliance: A sister-park relationship between the two, whatever that might look like.

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LONDON (AP) The BBC came up with an awkward compromise Friday over "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead," a song that is zooming up the music charts in a posthumous protest against Margaret Thatcher.

The online campaign to drive the "Wizard of Oz" song to the No. 1 spot on the U.K. singles chart was launched by Thatcher critics shortly after the former prime minister died Monday of a stroke at age 87. Opponents have tried to buy as many versions of the song as possible to protest the former British leader's divisive policies.

As of Friday, the song was No. 1 on British iTunes and in the top five of the music chart used by the BBC to compile its weekly radio countdown.

The song campaign strongly divided opinion in the U.K., with many people saying it was in bad taste and calling on the BBC to promise not to broadcast the song.

The BBC usually broadcasts the best-selling hits on its official music chart show, but some lawmakers from Thatcher's Conservative Party had urged the state-funded broadcaster to drop the song from its countdown. Others warned that such a move would be censoring dissent.

Under pressure from all sides, the BBC came up with a decision that can be criticized by both Thatcher fans and critics. It said it would broadcast only part of the song on Sunday's radio show, along with a news item explaining why it was a hit this week.

John Whittingdale, a lawmaker from Thatcher's Conservative party, told the Daily Mail tabloid that many would find the ditty "deeply insensitive."

"This is an attempt to manipulate the charts by people trying to make a political point," he said.

But not all Tories agreed that the song should be yanked.

"No song should be banned by the BBC unless its lyrics are pre-watershed," said former Conservative lawmaker Louise Mensch, referring to British restrictions on adult content.

Mensch, a prominent Conservative voice on Twitter, said in a message posted to the site that Thatcher, famously known as "the Iron Lady," would not have wanted it any other way.

"Thatcher stood for freedom," she wrote.

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By Tara Oakes

PARIS (Reuters) - One of the grandest luxury hotels in Paris will put most of its of furniture and fine wines under the hammer next week to help raise funds for a lengthy restoration.

The sumptuous Hotel Crillon, hushed after the departure of its last guests in March, has been transformed into a buyer's wonderland as it closes its doors for a two-year renovation.

Full suites of furniture are on display ahead of a series of auctions scheduled for April 18-22, with about 3,500 lots including carpets and curtains expected to raise hundreds of thousands of euros.

Buyers seeking to recreate a little bit of the hotel in their homes can even stock up on reception counters, staff uniforms and bathrobes.

"A sale like this is a unique moment, a real cherry on the cake," auctioneer Stephane Aubert from auction house Artcurial said.

Such vast hotel sales are rare, with once-in-a-lifetime treasures available.

A highlight is the hotel's mirror-encrusted bar designed by 20th-century French sculptor Cesar, who gave his name to the annual French film awards where, similar to the Oscars, miniature reproductions of one of his works are distributed.

The artist's signature is inscribed on the twinkling glass front of the bar - protected beneath a perspex panel ever since a cleaner unwittingly took the first version for graffiti and scrubbed it off. Cesar was able to return and sign again before his death in 1998.

Dominating one side of Place de la Concorde, the Crillon has housed the great and the good since its construction as a private home under French King Louis XV in 1758.

The ill-fated Queen Marie Antoinette took music lessons on its first floor only to be guillotined years later in the shadow of the palace's grand neoclassical fa ade.

Since its conversion into a hotel in 1909, it has welcomed U.S. pop singer Madonna, former president Bill Clinton and was the site of the formal founding of the League of Nations.

U.S. composer Leonard Bernstein regularly set up home in a top floor suite with a view onto the Arc de Triomphe. One anonymous client rents that same suite every year to watch the finale of the Tour de France with friends and an unspecified amount of champagne.

Bidders with deep pockets can fork out for the piano Bernstein is believed to have used during his stays, while fans of lesser means can still hope to go home with light fittings and rugs.

A large part of the Crillon's vast wine and spirit cellar is likely to be snapped up by connoisseurs, including a rare Louis XIII Black Pearl Remy Martin cognac with a list price of 7,000 euros ($9,200). Mini-bars and chairs customized by artists are also being auctioned for two French charities.

Profits raised from the auction will fund a sweeping modernization to bring the hotel up to date while preserving its character, with work due to last until 2015.

The Ritz in Paris is also out of action for a revamp, with both hotels aiming to reinvigorate their classic grandeur and poach customers tempted by high-end newcomers such as the Shangri-La opened in Paris in 2010.

A sad tale of a grand old dame selling off her jewels? Not at all, according to Aubert.

"It's part of the story of these objects that they go and have a new life," he said, eyeing up his favorite lots - the silver-plated cocktail shakers from the bar.

($1 = 0.7642 euros)

(Reporting by Tara Oakes; Editing by Catherine Bremer and Paul Casciato)

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TORONTO (Reuters) - BlackBerry said on Friday it would ask securities regulators in Canada and the United States to probe a report about retail return rates for its new Z10 smartphone that it called "false and misleading."

The Canadian company, which has pinned its turnaround hopes on its new BlackBerry 10 line, said return rates were at or below its forecasts and in line with industry norms.

"To suggest otherwise is either a gross misreading of the data or a willful manipulation," Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said in a statement. "Such a conclusion is absolutely without basis and BlackBerry will not leave it unchallenged."

BlackBerry said research and investment firm Detwiler Fenton had said Z10 smartphones were being returned in unusually high numbers, and had refused to share its report or its methods.

The company said it would present a formal request to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Ontario Securities commission over the next few days.

Shares of Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry fell 8.0 percent on Thursday.

(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Janet Guttsman and Bernadette Baum)

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