His Monopoly Is Breathtaking

--Ikuo Hiyakuta passed Go and collected the eighth world Monopoly championship in London. “Most pleased!” said Hiyakuta, gasping for breath after his victory. “I really wanted to win. I was determined.” The 36-year-old trading company employee from Chiba City, Japan, defeated Chen Shabtai, 13, of Israel, to win $15,140 in cash, the same amount that comes in each Monopoly set. At 2 hours, the final game, which began with five players, was the longest of the championships held so far, organizers said. The game ends when one person has forced everyone else into bankruptcy. Hiyakuta has been playing Monopoly seriously for four years and is Japan’s national champion. The championships are held every three years.

--M&M;/Mars Corp. has unwittingly added another color choice to its famous candy. In addition to the usual red, green, orange, brown and yellow M&Ms;, there is one albino. A surprised George Vorsheim said that, instead of eating the bare peanut M&M; in his bag of otherwise normal candies, he studied it and found it carried the trademark “m” imprint but no chocolate and no color coating. “It has me boggled. The first little critter out of the bag was a snow-white M&M;,” said Vorsheim, corporate liaison for Environment-One in the Albany, N.Y., suburb of Niskayuna. Only two other albino M&Ms; had ever been reported, and they were not confirmed, company officials said. Hans Fiuczynski, an M&M;/Mars spokesman, said 100 million plain and peanut M&Ms; are manufactured each day, seven days a week, and every one of them should be painted. And while Fiuczynski said he had not done the arithmetic, he estimates the odds of an albino M&M; were probably about 100 billion to 1. “I’ve eaten thousands of M&Ms; over the years and one day, a white one,” Vorsheim said. “It makes you feel so special.”

--It wasn’t a pretty picture as beauties who lost out in the Miss Thailand contest in Bangkok ransacked the winner’s victory suite and stuffed her scepter and cape down the toilet. A pageant source said the victory by Paphassara Chutanupong, 19, infuriated some contestants who thought themselves better suited to represent Thailand in the Miss World competition in London. A golden Buddha, cash and personal papers were stolen from Paphassara’s luxury hotel suite. This is not the first time that Miss Thailand losers have expressed their displeasure at the outcome. In 1986, contestants snatched the tiara and sash off the winner as she was being crowned in a live television broadcast.