Some News Items You May Have Missed

Saliva sells -yes, believe it or not, there’s a market for saliva or spit or gob or whatever you wish to call it. It seems that in Asia you can actually buy somebody else’s saliva on the black market and then submit it as your own and be signed off work and receive loads of financial benefits for having TB. Makes you wonder why they don’t collect it from the person in person (so to speak)?

Anti-Swine Flu Hand Wash – this was installed in some British prisons when the so-called pandemic was at its most virulent – anybody know anybody who had it – and within a couple of weeks, prison staff were congratulating themselves on the fact that within hours of the jars being filled with the green jelly-like liquid, it had gone. It made them think that all the health education classes they’d held had actually done some good. And then they noticed that quite a few of the inmates were decidedly inebriated and the more hand-wash they put out, the drunker they got. An enquiry eventually found that the ever resourceful cons had worked out that the hand-wash was alcohol based and, mixed with soft drinks it was just like a soapy Bicardi Breezer!

Black Plague – not so nice this one. A scientist who was working on some spores originating from the Black Plague which killed around 100 million people in the 13^th century, has died of the disease or a close derivative of it. Despite the numerous precautions which his lab had taken to ensure maximum protection, it seems a spore got out and he developed the spots, sores, rashes and purple patches of skin associated with the disease which originated in Asia and spread rapidly throughout Europe in the 1300s. Isn’t it amazing that (a) the plague still exists in labs and (b) some people are exposed to it as part of their jobs?

Air India Pilots – it seems like some Air India pilots, engineers and cabin staff got into a bit of an argument over sexually suggestive remarks made by one of the male staff about a stewardess. The argument started on the flight deck but quickly spread into the passenger cabin as more and more of the flight crew got involved. And it wasn’t just an argument – punches were thrown and people were knocked over and all the while there was not a single person on the flight deck. Good thing the auto-pilot decided not to get involved!