Ooh L.A. L.A.:The next time someone puts...

Ooh L.A. L.A.:

The next time someone puts the knock on Los Angeles, you can respond by asking: “Oh, yeah, well how many other cities are honored in the Guinness Book of World Records?”

The tender tribute to the City of Angels appears on Page 367:

“The 55-letter full name of Los Angeles (El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula) is abbreviated to L.A., or 3.63% of its length.”

L.A., in short, is the world’s shortest civic abbreviation, percentage-wise at least.

Top that, S.F.

We mention this distinction as a lead-in to Wednesday’s opening of the Hollywood Guinness World of Records Museum. The event attracted such champs as Sandy Allen, the world’s tallest woman at 7-foot-7; Scotty Wolfe, the world’s most married man with 27 trips down the aisle, and TV commercial star John Moschitta, the world’s fastest talker at 586 words per minute.

Come to think of it, Wolfe must be a pretty fast talker, too.

List of the Day:

What bothers us about the Guinness museum, though, is that there is no special L.A. wing for local heroes, such as:

1--Pascal Leclerc, who created the tallest structure made entirely of Champagne glasses (10,404 of them stacked 24 feet, 8 inches tall) at the Biltmore Hotel, June 18, 1984.

2--Plennie Wingo, who walked 8,000 miles backward from Santa Monica to Istanbul, Turkey (or was it Istanbul to Santa Monica?), 1931-1932.

3--Leonard Muise and Gabe Ontiveros, who set a distance record for throwing a flying disc 362.4 miles during a 24-hour period, Sept. 21-22, 1988, in Carson.

4--John (Hercules) Massis, who prevented a helicopter from taking off using only a tooth-bit harness in L.A. on April 7, 1979. (He had permission; it was for the taping of a TV show.)

5--And Timothy Roy, who climbed up a tree and stayed there for 431 days, from July 4, 1982, to Sept. 8, 1983, apparently smitten with the matchless view of surrounding Norwalk.

We can assure you of one thing. When we build our Only in L.A. Museum, we’ll have a special showcase for the above five.

It had become a familiar sight for TV viewers in recent days: the electronic “gray dot” blotting out the face of a person being questioned.

But, wait a minute. This wasn’t the William Kennedy Smith trial. This particular interview aired on sardonic KCBS sportscaster Keith Olbermann’s show, and the subject was a member of the Rams’ organization. In fact, the voice sounded suspiciously like that of coach John Robinson, attempting to discuss the team’s eighth straight loss.

“I’m sympathetic to John’s situation,” Olbermann mischievously explained.

Too bad the “gray dot” can’t be used to hide the Rams’ offense. On the other hand, they don’t really have one.

Club Chateau, a North Hollywood bondage parlor that county supervisors are trying to shut down, was profiled several months ago by The Times’ Josh Meyer. When Meyer knocked at the door, he was asked: “Dominant or submissive?”

When he hesitated, he was asked: “You wanna spank or be spanked?”

Back to you, Josh.

miscelLAny:

Author James Jones wrote the last chapter of “From Here to Eternity,” set in Hawaii at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, in a North Hollywood trailer park on Lankershim Boulevard.