Death In Paradise

Sometimes a story requires no comment, and others require utter condemnation. Occasionally one just shocks beyond comprehension.

In the United Arab Emirates, Arab women are allowed to swim in the sea, as long as they are suitably covered up in an Islamic swimsuit. As you might guess this is often a very conservative and cumbersome covering, which can make swimming difficult, but not impossible (just so that Westerners can't criticise the Muslim treatment of women).

Still A Hundred Years Behind In Clothes ... Or Maybe Fourteen Hundred Years In Attitudes

Prussian Pirhanas

You can always tell when we are approaching what the UK press call the 'Silly Season' (a term by the way, that the German Press have adopted as 'Sommerloch' literally 'silly summer'), because you get the sort of stories that just maybe wouldn't make the main news normally

Not These Sorts Of Prussian Piranhas .....

In Germany, the stories follow much the same style as those in the UK. In 1994, there was 'Sammy the Cayman', a small crocodile who escaped from its owner and made it in to a quarry in the Lower Rhine near Dormagen. he remained 'on the run' for several days, but was eventually was recovered from the lake. He was then presented to the local zoo when no one claimed him.

 

Silly Season

In August we have what's know as the Silly Season in the way UK newspapers report stories ..... this all stems from the belief a century or more ago that with politicians on holiday, all news died for a month. There are variants of this idea across the English speaking world.

This being the case news stories of a strange kind are often given a prominence that they would never get any other time of the year. .... so you get pictures like this posted by newspapers as 'news stories'.

God Giving The Finger, Or Just Clouds - Your Choice.

This slightly odd cloud formation was interpreted by some newspapers as looking like a hand with the middle finger straight out .... which if you squint a bit it does, but its hardly unusual, or worth a news story, except in August in the UK.

Incidentally, the idea that nothing could happen in the late European summer months, is not confined to just the UK's Newspapers .... whenever a foreign crisis unfolds in August/September, such as the recent Syria 'nerve gas' event, the Kenyan Mall attack, etc etc, the British Prime Minister invariably has to be recalled from holidays .... it happens every year .... you would think by now that that the press would know better.