Can he get permission from She Who...

Can he get permission from She Who Must Be Obeyed?Simpson defense attorney Gerald Uelmen told the court last Friday, “I was watching [TV’s] ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’ last night, and I am going to borrow a line from him. He suggested in the case he was litigating that there was a real danger of ‘premature adjudication. . . .’ ”

We understood the pun, though not his legal point. But, more importantly, we wonder if Uelmen was hinting at a new stratagem.

PBS viewers may remember that in “Rumpole’s Return,” the portly, claret-swigging barrister came out of retirement when his colleagues wrote to say they needed his special talents. Mainly, he is “someone who really knows about bloodstains.”

And Rumpole helped secure an acquittal for a murder defendant named Simpson--Percival Simpson, a government clerk.

Is the O.J. Simpson team now thinking of adding Rumpole? Sure, he’s a fictional character. But some would say unreality is the hallmark of this trial, anyway.

Desert delight: Mae Woods of Studio City found a restaurant that thought of an unusual topping for ice cream dishes.

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Fight on for old Southern Branch!Here are some former names of educational institutions, with their current name in parentheses.

* Occidental University of Los Angeles (Occidental College). It was originally located in Boyle Heights.

* St. Vincent’s College; Loyola College (Loyola Marymount University).

* Southern Branch--University of California (UCLA). When the school’s campus was on Vermont Avenue, its weak athletic teams were known as the Cubs. Only later would they graduate to Bruin status.

* Throop University; Throop Polytechnic Institute (California Institute of Technology).

* Claremont Men’s College (Claremont McKenna College). It was only a coincidence that when the school began to admit women, it chose a name that would preserve its initials.

* Cal State Los Angeles, San Fernando Valley Branch; San Fernando Valley State College (Cal State University Northridge). It was only a matter of time before a Southern California school would settle on a name with SUN initials.

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Attention disenchanted baseball fans:

Here’s a World Series offer that even you won’t be able to pass up. No, really! Keep reading. Asahi Beer is inviting fans to fill out entry blanks for a drawing that has, as its first prize, two tickets to the Japan Baseball Championships. (For forms, write Asahi, 15520 Rockfield Blvd., Suite G, Irvine CA 92718).

Sure it’s a long shot. But you probably have just as good a chance of winding up at the Japanese World Series as the Dodgers do of playing in the U.S. World Series.

miscelLAny “I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky,” which recently opened at UC Berkeley, is an opera about the 1994 Northridge quake. We plan to see it if it plays at the Southern Branch.