XL underwear smothers fire

According to CNN and the Associated Press, (dateline: London) "From baggy briefs to the ultimate hotpants: A British woman's underwear saved the day by doubling as an emergency fire blanket when her kitchen caught fire.
John Marsey and his cousin Darren Lines were frying bread in Jenny Marsey's kitchen in Hartlepool, northeast England, on Sunday when their meal caught fire.
Lines grabbed the nearest thing from a pile of laundry to put it out: his aunt's billowing, powder blue, size XL underpants.
He ran them under the faucet and tossed them onto the flames, successfully smothering the fire, a spokesman for the Cleveland Fire Brigade said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.
Lines' swift thinking saved the kitchen -- but left his aunt's underwear slightly scorched.
"It could have been a lot worse," she said. "My family could have been in hospital but the knickers saved the day. I'm just grateful to the boys."
The fire official said the general principle of using a large, wet cloth to cover a grease fire was a sound one.
As for using underwear: "Clearly it depends on what size you are -- but I don't want to go there.""

Hope those fence posts weren't too cold...

First it was a Scotish dude getting too friendly with his bicycle, now the London Telegraph reports "A drunken man broke into a central London park and attempted to have sex with a fence, a court heard.

Daniel French, 24, made "sexual motions" towards metal railings in Leicester Square Gardens after being challenged by police in the early hours of Sunday morning, Westminster Magistrates' Court was told.

"He said words to the effect of: 'I'm going to have sex with that fence'," said Philip Lemoine, prosecuting.

"The gardens were locked and police asked French to leave. He was drunk and there were some sexual motions - drunken silliness - to the railings."Mr Lemoine added: "French said he had a relative who was a solicitor and would teach the police a lesson."French, of Verity Way, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, admitted being drunk and disorderly after a night out in the West End, but angrily denied making romantic overtures towards the fence...

Romantic liaisons with inanimate objects are not as uncommon as one might think. Last week a "cycle-sexualist" caught half-naked in a compromising position with his bicycle in a Scottish hostel was put on probation for 3 years."

And for my anonymous commenter on the Dude! post, this fence guy was English...

Would you fly on a plane missing its wing tip?...

According to the Daily Mail, Daniel Boffey reports that a SriLankan Airlines crew "faced a rebellion when they told passengers they were going to fly on a jet that had lost its wing tip in a runway crash.

[The] customers had been on the Airbus A340 a day earlier when it sliced through a wing of a stationary British Airways 747 at Heathrow, delaying departure by 24 hours.
So they were amazed to be boarding the same plane next day for the ten-hour flight to Colombo.

When cabin crew then admitted there was still a 5ft wing tip missing, there was "a minor revolt" as seven passengers demanded to be let off the aircraft.
A further two-hour delay followed as their baggage was removed before the aircraft could take off.
Club-class passenger Ian McKie, 54, from Loughton, Essex, said: "We were put up in hotels the night of the crash and next morning we were told we would be on a different plane that day.
"We only realised that we were actually going on the same aircraft when we got to the Club lounge and saw the plane but without its wing tip."
The former policeman, who was jetting off for a two-week holiday with his partner Gill Stone, 52, added: "On board, the cabin crew admitted that it was the same one as last time and that the tip had been ripped off.

"They assured us it didn't matter but a number of the passengers insisted that they would rather get on the next flight."
The collision happened shortly after 10pm two weeks ago when the BA011 flight to Singapore was waiting on a runway, followed by the SriLankan Airbus.
The SriLankan aircraft wing ripped through the BA flight's wing, tearing off a huge chunk and resulting in the BA jumbo being grounded.
SriLankan Airlines insisted there was no danger in flying without a wing tip.
It added: "They are purely for aerodynamics and to keep fuel costs to a minimum. There is no impact on safety at all. Safety is our absolute priority." "

It's possible for the plane to fly with the wing tip damaged; however, I believe the airline should have taken more time to examine the plane for structural damage.

And as one reader put it: "Apart from missing the wing tip, would you fly with a pilot who cannot even steer his plane on the ground without hitting another one?"

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