To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People Nov. 4, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/1999/11/04/np114 Cow lubricant triggers e-mail stampede! Howard Stern offends the Brits; readers riot over bovine nipple grease; Judge Judy -- goin' ballistic over toilet paper placement. Plus: Rupert Murdoch deems topless tasteless. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter Howard Stern might think he has it bad. No fewer than 222 people complained about British ads for his TV show, which featured trademark Howie quips like "It's OK for a man to commit adultery if his wife is ugly." The public outcry caused the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) this week to label them "offensive" and demand their removal from the sensitive public eye. The ad featuring the Stern quote "I like animals as much as the next guy, but if I am hungry, I'll eat a panda sandwich," however, escaped ASA condemnation. Don't they have PETA chapters over there? But Howard's got nothing on me. I write an innocent item casting vague aspersions on Shania Twain's use of Bag Balm -- the stuff dairy farmers rub on cow teats to keep 'em soft and moist -- as a face cream and hair moisturizer, and what happens? E-mail overload. From Omaha to New York, the alarm sounded; you'd think Miss O'Leary's Windy City livestock had set to kicking over lanterns again. Everyone, it seems, has a kind word to share about the varied virtues and multiple uses of the bovine-friendly goop. One reader says he uses it "before a long run in cold weather." Another writes, "Most seamstresses I've met claim it has antiseptic qualities." Yet another says, "It's effective against stretch marks, crow's feet and such." "It's great on burns from the oven!" "I swear by it for softening hang nails!" "Better than Vaseline!" "Tastes great on a Panda sandwich!" (OK, I made that last one up.) My e-mail in-box hasn't seen the phrase "chapped cow teats" this many times since the last time I wrote about Anna Nicole Smith. - - - - - - - - - - - - More fun with homonyms! "I just don't understand how they can really believe their word is at all similar to mine." -- Colorado relationship counselor Madelene Sabol, on the vast difference between the title of her book about Internet dating, "You've Got Male," and the AOL catch phrase "You've Got Mail," after the company blocked access to her Web site. - - - - - - - - - - - - And you thought your mom was judgmental What was it like to grow up with Judge Judy as a mom and Judge Jerry as a dad? On an upcoming "Extra," four of the TV judges' five kids -- Adam, Nicole, John and Greg -- spill the beans about life under the gavel in the Sheindlin household. Judy was no pushover. "She would sit you down and just brutalize you verbally ... and just guilt you to death," says Adam (jokingly). Jerry, on the other hand, was always a soft touch. He "does not have the word 'no' in his vocabulary," says Greg. Adam chimes in, "That's what Judy's for." The couple's biggest fights took place in the bathroom. "If Jerry put the toilet paper on the roller the wrong way ... there was hell to be had. That was big. That was huge." She's the boss, applesauce. - - - - - - - - - - - - Mommy Spice or Daddy Spice? "That is like choosing between two parents." -- Erstwhile Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, emoting on why the decision to release her and Baby Spice Emma Bunton's singles on the same day is cruel to the kiddies. - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits According to a new Entertainment Weekly poll, most Americans think Gwyneth Paltrow will be the most successful actress in the next century, and Kevin Spacey the most successful actor. Am I the only one to consider the possibility that the most successful star of the next 100 years might not have been born yet? The market for Cindy Crawford's eggs has probably just taken a dive. The supermodel recently told a U.K. magazine that she's always longed for a different body. "I think the fact I'm not super-skinny has added to my popularity with women ... it makes me more real, but I do wish I was naturally thin, like Kate Moss." No more Page Three girls? Rupert Murdoch says he'll stop running those famous photos of topless women in his British tabloid the Sun in order to "change with the times and popular tastes." But if the paper's sales were to drop without them, he says, "they'd return pretty quickly." Gotta keep those sales perky! salon.com | Nov. 4, 1999