Doctor Spells Divorce G-a-m-e

The popular board game Trivial Pursuit could put terminal stress on strained marriages because of the mental competition and possible embarrassment, says psychotherapist Teal Bennett. Couples with a healthy marriage should not be disturbed by the competition, she said, but might prefer to avoid a battle of wits in front of other people. “A healthy couple accepts their differences and doesn’t let it become a contest. Where there’s a marriage where there is an imbalance, it’s one more thing that can put it into more difficulty. But when couples go to play Trivial Pursuit, they are unguarded and taken by surprise when one mate outshines the other,” she said. Bennett, a professor at Tulane University Medical Center in New Orleans, says people have three basic fears--”dying, going crazy and making a fool of yourself”--and playing Trivial Pursuit “can charge directly into that third one.”

--Author Mark Twain once scolded a young neighbor for reading “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn” because they were “books about bad boys.” Coley Taylor, a retired editor and publisher and former neighbor of Twain in Redding, Conn., told American Heritage magazine the author said he instead should read his “best book, ‘Recollections of Joan of Arc.’ ” Taylor said he met Twain in 1908, when Twain was 73 and he was 8. He told Twain how much he loved “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn.” “He listened to me and then, to my surprise, he bent over and shook his finger at me and scolded: ‘You shouldn’t read those books about bad boys! Why, librarians won’t allow them in the children’s rooms in the libraries! Now don’t you go and imitate those rascals Tom and Huck,’ ” Taylor said. “I never had seen him so cross. I can see him yet, shaking that long forefinger at me.”

--Actor Sir Michael Redgrave, 76, who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, was in “stable but very frail” condition at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. Sir Michael is the father of Vanessa, Lynn and Corin Redgrave, each of whom followed in his stage footsteps.

--Comedian Red Skelton says Eddie Murphy is a wonderful comedian and “doesn’t need to use four-letter words.” Skelton, 71, speaking at a news conference in Milwaukee, also said there is no place for sex scenes in movies. “And I don’t think we need sex education in schools, either. If we have a population explosion now and don’t know what we’re doing, just think what’ll happen when we know what we’re doing. Why teach it?” he asked.