How much is that wife in the...

How much is that wife in the window? Embarking on what they called “the wonderful adventure of our new life together,” Malibu residents John McDonald and Cricket Blake decided to marry in Nepal.

The ceremony followed the tradition of one Nepalese tribe, which dictated that the families involved bargain over the price of the prospective bride. The Malibu Times reports that McDonald won the right to marry Blake in exchange for “one bottle of whiskey and two bottles of beer.”

That, of course, is the Nepalese equivalent of one Malibu Colony home and two Mercedes-Benzes.

List of the day: City & State, a newspaper published for local government leaders, ranked Santa Clarita No. 5 on its list of the nation’s “up-and-coming cities.”

The report took into account population, employment and property value growth. It’s too bad quirkiness wasn’t a criterion or Santa Clarita might have moved to No. 2. (Equally quirky Las Vegas was No. 1.)

Some recent adventures of the Santa Clarita City Council:

* Met with 50 hairdressers, explaining that beauticians know what the people in town are really talking about.

* Won a grant from the California Prune Board--consisting of $1,000 and 600 packages of prunes--to persuade Santa Claritans to eat the fruit.

* Defeated a proposal by a member upset over the city’s “illogical” numbering system that would have changed all 60,500 addresses in the 43-square-mile city.

* Invited then-Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to speak at a city symposium. (He couldn’t make it.)

* Held a civic slogan contest that drew so many satirical entries (i.e.: “Land of the Golden Dweeb”) that no winner was declared.

We still think the city should have chosen our slogan suggestion: “Santa Clarita: Land of Prune Lovers.”

More civic honors: City & State newspaper, by the way, also ranked Glendale fourth among its “up-and-coming cities.” Glendale obviously was in no hurry, having celebrated its 105th birthday this year. The Land of the Golden Dweeb is just 5.

Tailoring the pitch: “I play saxophone but I had to hock it,” a downtown panhandler said to a passerby. “I need your help getting it out.” Just a coincidence that the panhandler collared the passerby as the latter was about to enter the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for a symphonic concert.

Multi-service eatery?Ginger Durgin of North Hollywood found an eye-catching sign in Burbank (see photo).

To L with it: Noting our item about the bizarre theft of the two-foot-tall letter “L” from Nick Agid’s exhibit at an art show, Elyse Verse of West L.A. commented: “Well, this is the season of No-el.”

miscelLAny:

L.A. ranks 38th in the nation in percentage of the population that subscribes to tennis magazines, according to the “Book of American City Rankings.” Rainy San Francisco was No. 13. San Jose was No. 1.