LONDON (Reuters) – A British bus company has apologized to a girl who is led around on a leash by her boyfriend and describes herself as a human pet after one of its drivers threw her off a bus.

Tasha Maltby, 19, told British newspapers she was the “pet” of her 25-year-old fiance Dani Graves.

Pictures showed her dressed in black Gothic-style clothing with silver buckles on a silver chain — which the driver of a bus from the firm Arriva took exception to.

She told the Daily Mail newspaper Wednesday she was thrown off and told: “We don’t let freaks and dogs like you on.”

Arriva would not comment on specifics but said it apologized if the couple felt they had been discriminated against. It added, however, that the driver was worried about safety and the company told Maltby to take the leash off in the future.

“We have spoken to the driver who has talked about health and safety,” a spokesman said. “Should she be attached to a chain and something happens on the bus, that could be dangerous. All we are saying is that she is very welcome to use the buses but not when she is on her lead.”

Maltby — who lives on state benefits and got engaged in November — said her choice of lifestyle might seem unusual but was harmless.

“I am a pet,” she told the Daily Mail. “I generally act animal-like and I lead a really easy life. I don’t cook or clean and I don’t go anywhere without Dani. It might seem strange but it makes us both happy. It’s my culture and my choice. It isn’t hurting anyone.”

TOKYO (Reuters) – Lovelorn staff at a Japanese marketing company can take paid time off after a bad break-up with a partner, with more “heartache leave” on offer as they get older.

Tokyo-based Hime & Company, which also gives staff paid time off to hit the shops during sales season, says heartache leave allows staff to cry themselves out and return to work refreshed. “Not everyone needs to take maternity leave but with heartbreak, everyone needs time off, just like when you get sick,” CEO Miki Hiradate, whose company of six women markets cosmetics and other goods targeted for women, told Reuters by telephone.

Staff aged 24 years or younger can take one day off per year, while those between 25 and 29 can take two days off and those older can take three days off, the company said.

“Women in their 20s can find their next love quickly, but it’s tougher for women in their 30s, and their break-ups tend to be more serious,” Hiradate said.

Hime & Company staff can also take two mornings off twice a year as “sales shopping leave”, so they can race to stores to hunt for bargains.

“Before, women could take half-days off to go to sales, but you’d have to hide your shopping bags in lockers by the train station,” Hiradate said.

“But with paid leave, we don’t have to feel guilty about bringing our shopping bags to work, and we can enjoy the best part about sales shopping — talking about our purchases afterwards.”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A tale of online love inspired usually cynical New Yorkers this week to help a young man find the girl of his dreams after he spotted her on a crowded subway train.

For Web designer Patrick Moberg, 21, from Brooklyn, it was love at first sight when he locked eyes with a rosy-cheeked woman while riding in Manhattan on Sunday night. She was writing in her journal.

The train was so full that he lost her in the crowd when they both got off, so he set up a Web site dedicated to finding the mystery woman.

He drew a picture of the girl, who was wearing blue shorts, blue tights, and a red flower in her hair, and posted his cell phone number, e-mail address and an appeal for help finding her.

It worked.

Within hours Moberg’s inbox was overflowing with e-mails and his phone ringing non-stop. He told the New York Post that he even received e-mails offering him love. “Some people said I’m not the girl but you’re so adorable, pick me instead.”

Tuesday night a friend of the woman contacted him and sent him a picture so he could confirm her identity. “Found Her! Seriously!” a notice on his Web site said.

“We’ve been put in touch with one another and we’ll see what happens.”

The mysterious subway brunette was named Thursday as Camille Hayton, an intern at magazine BlackBook from Melbourne, Australia, who also lives in Brooklyn.

“This is crazy. I can’t believe it’s happening,” Hayton, 22, told the New York Post.

But Moberg said he is now pulling the shutters on his love life, scribbling out the cell phone number on his Web site and leaving a message on his phone saying he will do no more interviews.

“In our best interest, there will be no more updates to this website,” he wrote.

“Unlike all the romantic comedies and bad pop songs, you’ll have to make up your own ending for this.”

Some New Yorkers may already, wondering if Moberg had made it sound too easy to find a needle in a haystack in this city of eight million people

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Twenty Chinese men, including several on the country’s richest list, paid $8,000 a head to attend a matchmaking party with 30 “single young beauties,” state media said Monday.

Saturday’s controversial party was held at a luxury European-style villa in Shanghai, the birthplace of China’s Communist Party in 1921, with guests arriving in stretch limousines and getting the full red-carpet treatment.

“To disguise their identities from photographers’ cameras, all guests scurried into the venue wearing a face mask, some even using a paper bag,” the China Daily said.

Market reforms in the past three decades have lifted China out of dire poverty, but they have also fostered a culture of quick wealth and money worship and as the income gap widens, resentment of the rich grows.

Each male guest paid a 58,800 yuan ($8,000) entrance fee, while the women, chosen for their “looks, kindness, thought and taste,” were selected from tens of thousands of candidates, according to the social network Web site (www.915915.com.cn) which organized the event.

The site, which boasts a membership of 100,000, held a similar party on a boat in Shanghai last year, drawing criticism from many observers for treating women as objects.

Tan Chao, the site’s marketing director, said the company provided different services, including dating arrangements.

“For those who pay most, we will try different means, not within our own club, until we find them the right one,” he was quoted as saying.

BLOOMSBURG, Pa. – Marriage proposals have been displayed on billboards, announced on scoreboards and even written into newspaper crossword puzzles.

Kevin Weaver’s engagement to Karen Slusser got off to a smashing start — he painted his proposal on a car and drove it in a demolition derby.

“Every woman I know says she wants to announce it to the world when she gets engaged. I figured I’d announce it for her and make it well noted,” said Weaver, 34, of Danville.

Slusser, 47, of Mifflinville, knew Weaver was entering the derby. She saw him paint the car white and light blue, then top it with a stuffed bunny to advertise her rabbit-breeding business.

But this past week, Weaver moved the car to a friend’s garage, saying he needed to keep it out of the rain. While it was hidden inside, he painted “Karen Slusser will u marry me?” from the hood along the driver’s side and up the trunk.

He also attached a large stuffed ring — with fabric diamond — to the bunny’s paws.

When the car appeared in the derby arena Saturday, Slusser read the message and her family cheered.

Weaver finished third, then met Slusser at the gate to the drivers’ pit and asked for her answer.

“Yes!” she said with a laugh.

And with that, Weaver handed her a real diamond ring.

RACINE, Wis. – Melody Kloska and Matt Behrs take it as a sign they were meant to get married.

After tying the knot on a Lake Michigan beach on Aug. 18, they released a bottle containing their wedding vows. A few weeks later, the bottle was found by Fred and Lynnette Dubendorf, of Mears, Mich., who were also married on a beach — exactly 28 years before Kloska and Behrs.

“It was meant to be,” Kloska said. “This was a sign to me.”

Kloska, 46, and Behrs, 41, have been together for five years, but with several failed marriages between them, they had doubts about remarrying.

They finally did it in a sunrise ceremony near the Wind Point Lighthouse in Wind Point in southern Wisconsin. They invited a few guests, read their own vows and released two balloons.

When it was time to throw the bottle sealed with their name, address and wedding vows into the lake, Behrs went to the rock farthest out in the water.

He threw it underhand, but the bottle landed back on the sand where Kloska was standing.

“After laughing so hard, I tossed it back to him to release it again into the lake,” she said. “It landed not too far from where he threw it. My thought was that with our luck, it would wind up in front of the house next-door to the lighthouse.”

Instead, it floated across Lake Michigan and landed in the path of Lynnette Dubendorf, who was scanning the beach for trash to clean up while she walked her dogs. She spied the clear plastic bottle partially buried in the sand and noticed the note inside.

“I opened it and read it and said, `Oh, this is pretty cool, it’s somebody’s wedding vows,’” she said. “I thought, `Wow, how funny, we were married on the beach, too, and on the same day.’”

She initially didn’t plan to respond, thinking an answer would only encourage people to toss litter into the lake.

“Then I thought, `That’s selfish, I really should respond,’” she said. So she wrote Kloska and Behrs to tell them of her discovery.

The letter read, “We thought you would want to know where your message in a bottle ended up! We picked it up on the beach between Pentwater and Silver Lake on Sept. 19. An ironic note, we were also married on the beach! Here in Michigan by Pentwater. Even more ironic, it was on August 18, 1979. We wish you both the best of luck in your new lives together.”

Behrs and Kloska had to read the letter several times to believe it. Kloska was surprised the bottle made it across the lake.

“I took it to mean that there’s hope yet,” she said.

HOYOCASERO, Spain (Reuters) – Cupid can always use a little encouragement, especially in a remote Spanish village.

With that in mind, about 150 women traveled by bus to Hoyocasero on Saturday in response to an Internet plea from men tired of being alone.

Commonly known as “una caravana de mujeres” (a caravan of women), the travelers were met with flowers by cheering men eager for a love match — or at least a good party.

For the 400 residents of the isolated mountain village of Hoyocasero, a mass invite seemed like a good idea in the face of a declining population. The “caravan” appeal was first tried 20 years ago by a similarly love-lorn Spanish village and has since been used in dozens of places across the country.

“Meeting someone this way, it’s more rustic and authentic … it’s easier to get to know someone face to face,” said 32-year-old farmer Cesar del Rio, whose family has lived in Hoyocasero for centuries.

He hopes to be able to offer some lucky woman a new life in this village located about 100 km west of Madrid.

“The idea that living in the country is all work is just a myth … this is a slow simple life, and there’s not a lot of hard work.”

The young people in Hoyocasero, along with many other rural communities in Spain, have quit the countryside in favor of jobs in towns. Some villages have been abandoned completely.

To show prospective partners their rural skills some of the men, who are mostly cattle farmers, leapt onto horses to demonstrate riding skills. The display was followed by a feast of regional culinary delicacies — beans, a meat stew and locally-made sweets — before a dance late into the night.

The organizers hope some couples will hit it off, settle here and eventually have children. The local school is already under threat of closure because there are not enough pupils.

In the days of Internet dating, some people feel such “caravans” are no longer needed.

“It’s not really necessary to (meet people) this way any more. The thing is, it’s more fun,” said Laura Martin, 27, who was hoping for “a laugh, friendship, maybe something more.”

“It seems to me that there are lot of older men who are interested but we younger women want our freedom and, here in the village, the men want to come straight down to business,” she said, surrounded by a group of giggling girl friends.

Others had stopped off at the village to watch the party.

“There are a lot of single people in this village, but they’re all getting on a bit … we’ll see if anything juicy comes our way,” said Jose Maria Martin, a 45-year-old construction worker, dressed in bikers’ leathers.

YORK, Pa. – A man who proposed to his girlfriend at a New Year’s party allegedly knocked her out with a steering wheel lock just hours after she said yes, police said.

Stephen Mujerm, 40, of Lanham, Md., and new fiancee Victorine Taboh began arguing about 6 a.m. Monday as they drove home from the party in northern York County.

Taboh, of Laurel, Md., and another passenger were complaining that Mujerm was driving recklessly, police said. He then stopped the vehicle beside Interstate 83 in Springfield Township, where he and Taboh got out and began to argue.

As the confrontation escalated, Taboh began breaking the windows of Mujerm’s car with a steering wheel lock, police said. Mujerm then punched Taboh and hit her in the head with the lock, knocking her unconscious, said police.

Emergency medical workers took Taboh to a hospital, where she was treated and released, police said.

State police charged Mujerm with aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangering and driving while under the influence of alcohol.

A phone number for him could not be located.

CANBERRA (Reuters) – A 150-year old Australian public library has a new true-romance section after introducing speed-dating nights for lovers of classic texts.

The state library of Victoria in Melbourne introduced dating with a literary twist after the idea was raised at a staff party.

Those who attend must bring a book they either love or loathe as a conversation starter, ensuring there are no uneasy silences during the series of five-minute dates.

“It’s speed dating with books. It’s designed to bring book lovers together,” the library’s project manager, Jackie Felstead, told Reuters Wednesday.

The library’s first event was quickly sold out with 52 book lovers taking part, and 13 couples linking up for further dates.

It proved such a success that more speed-dating nights have been organized for 2007.

Felstead said books taken to the first dating night included Susan Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, and several novels by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

LONDON (Reuters) – Was your father a thief? Because he stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes.

Equipped with that pick-up line, you can be certain to score in the universal language of love. So say the authors of a new top 10 list of pick-up lines which have been translated from English into Czech, French, Italian, Spanish and German by the publishers Chambers.

Taking inspiration from its new range of pocket-sized phrasebooks, Chambers compiled its own list of the definitive top 10 pick-up lines.

The UK publisher picked the lines from the assorted phrase books and compiled their own light-hearted list, to assist vacationers heading out to European destinations this summer.

Anna Stevenson, from Chambers Harrap, said “The French and Italians are especially renowned for their romantic ways but it seems that chat-up lines are the same no matter what language you are speaking.”

“Our chat-up lines show budding English- speaking Romeos how to impress the girl of their dreams whatever country she is from, but it also allows British women to wise up to the charms and cheeky ways of foreign suitors,” said Stevenson.

If their top-rated suggestion does not have the desired effect, then try in one of six languages to say: “Didn’t it hurt when you fell from heaven?”

Or maybe: “You must be tired because you’ve been running through my mind all day.”

Scraping in at Number 10 in the romance parade comes “The only things your eyes haven’t told me is your name.”