Hello Forty

Hello Kitty, the cat that isn't really a cat, recently turned 40. After entering the world on Nov. 1, 1974, the iconic character produced by Sanrio Co. has been loved by millions of people around the world, regardless of gender and age. Kitty, whose real name supposedly is Kitty White, is a girl who is five apples tall (two more than the Smurfs), weighs three apples, and has blood type A. She lives in the London suburbs with her parents and her twin sister Mimmy, according to Sanrio. Her favorite food is the apple pies her mother bakes, and she dreams of becoming a pianist or poet in the future. Speaking of apples, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver admits he once spiked his daughter's apple with spicy chilli after she misbehaved. Oliver made the admission while appearing on the BBC Good Food Show. The father of four said his wife Jools was outraged at the method, but that "it worked a treat". "I give them chillies for punishment," The Daily Mail reported Oliver saying. "It is not very popular beating kids any more ... and if you are a celebrity chef like me it does not look very good in the paper. So you need a few options." Oliver said he had prepared the chilli-ridden snack in reply to his tween's rude and disrespectful behaviour. "Five minutes later she thought I had forgotten and I hadn't," he told the crowd. "She asked for an apple. I cut it up into several pieces and rubbed it with Scotch bonnet [chilli] and it worked a treat. She ran up to mum and said, 'This is peppery'. I was in the corner laughing." For those of you not in the know, Scotch bonnets are a very spicy chilli, not as spicy as the bhut jolokia (aka ghost pepper) but way spicier than jalapenos. This just screams of bad parent, much like that tiger mother Amy Chua or the judge who beat his daughter while the whole thing was being taped without his knowledge. And besides, Oliver is not the only celebrity to use chilli to discipline his child. US actor and public speaker Lisa Whelchel, who was Blair on The Facts of Life, recommends a technique known as "hot saucing", where "tiny" amounts of chilli or pepper condiments are placed in a child's mouth as punishment.