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American Morning

News Making Headlines 'Over There'

Aired August 09, 2002 - 07:48   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: In this country, it's called Classmates.com. In Britain, they have one of those Web sites that's designed to reunite you with your old classmates, old friends, a huge success over there. But it turns out many of these reunions are people getting in touch with their old flames, and it's wrecking some marriages.
Joining us now with more about that and some other things making news "Over There," my buddy and yours, Richard Quest.

Good morning, sir. How are you doing?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, this is a goody, Jack, Classmates.com, or as we call it over here, Friends Reunited. You see, once again, typically, you go for the slovenly way of speech. We prefer the correct form of grammar and dictum. FriendsReunited.com, this is what it is.

And this where, indeed, you can reunite yourself with many of your classmates from school. As actually you can see there, I have logged myself in. I went to King David School, I went to Roundhay School (ph), and a whole lot of other places.

However...

CAFFERTY: Did you go to reform school?

QUEST: ... what is interesting about this is the number of people who have gone back to their lost loves.

For instance, Jack, Shirley Bell (ph) earlier this year left her husband of 25 years -- she had been with him 25 years -- for an old flame within two weeks of receiving an e-mail from Friends Reunited. In another case -- how about this -- a husband was deserted by his wife of more than 18 years, when she met up with a former love life from Friends Reunited.

So be very careful, Jack, before you start popping your name into Classmates.com.

CAFFERTY: Yes, well, I don't do that, so I'm safe.

What else you got?

QUEST: Ah.

CAFFERTY: I love this story about the film censors, the people who have to decide whether films have to be edited. Some of them, it's just too much, isn't it?

QUEST: They watch 10,000 movies a year, and a large part of those movies are very violent, have strong adult content, and they are not the sort of thing that you and I would describe in any shape or form as family viewing.

Now, the British Board of Film Censors has had to hire a therapist. One woman who has been watching -- one woman who has been watching these sorts of adult movies with violence for about the last 15 years says after her first day on the job, she was -- she had seen so much horrific stuff, she was very wobbly when she went home on her bicycle.

CAFFERTY: Well, that would be a risky bit of business.

And finally, a job to die for, especially if you have a sweet tooth, which I and my colleagues on this side of the pond here in this studio have...

QUEST: Right. Are you...

CAFFERTY: ... tasting chocolate.

QUEST: Are you a soft-centered sort of man, or do you like a nut in the middle?

CAFFERTY: No, I like the creams...

QUEST: Right.

CAFFERTY: .... just the soft centers, yes.

QUEST: Well...

CAFFERTY: I've got bad teeth.

QUEST: You keep your problems to yourself (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

Listen, Fortnum and Mason, the Queen's grocers, has decided that it needs a new chocolate taster, somebody who is going to travel the world and basically do nothing else other than taste chocolates in the name of this shop. The shop has been receiving thousands of applications -- keep going please, do try and keep up. They have had thousands of applications.

These are the ones with the nuts in them. People who just normally mend cars or -- oh, no more chocolate, have another one, soft centered or hard -- and people who really have got no experience of tasting anything at all have now been saying, we can do it. And by the way, Jack, the thing pays the princely sum of $50,000 a year.

CAFFERTY: That's not...

QUEST: All of that for a chockie (ph).

CAFFERTY: That's not bad, Richard. I'll see you next week. Thank you very much.

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