WARNING: Herring may contain fish:
Tinned herring has been recalled from Lidl branches because its label does not warn consumers the cans contain ingredients including fish. The budget supermarket’s Herring Fillets were being sold without warnings that they contain allergens including fish, milk, egg, mustard and gluten. Under Food Standards Agency rules, potential allergens must be labelled in English on food products.
Source: London Evening Standard
No, like I told my wife, I ordered plumbing parts:
On Sunday afternoon, a resident on the 300 block of North 11th Street in Grover Beach opened a package that arrived in the mail and called 911. While the recipient was expecting plumbing parts, the package contained men’s briefs, hot sauce, ladies’ stockings and a loose dusting of a white powder.
Source: Cal Coast News.com
WARNING: Crimes may be discussed during criminal-law class:
Undergraduates studying law at Oxford are being told before lectures on cases involving violence or death that they can leave if they fear the content will be too “distressing.”
The revelation marks the arrival from the US of “trigger warnings”—the politically correct notion that students should be warned before they encounter material that could elicit a traumatic response.
Lecturers have been asked by the director of undergraduate studies for law to “bear in mind” using trigger warnings when they give lectures containing ‘potentially distressing’ content.
Source: Daily Mail
I assume this also arrived from the US:
A British university said Wednesday that its students will no longer be allowed1 to throw their mortarboards into the air at graduation because of fear of injuries—but offered to digitally add the caps into photos for free.
“The decision… follows a number of injuries over recent years to graduates hurt by falling mortarboards,” the University of East Anglia said in a statement. “This is an unacceptable risk and we want to ensure no student’s graduation day is ruined by the potential for avoidable injury,” it said.
The official photographers have asked students to mime throwing their hats and have offered to add the mortarboards in digitally at no extra cost.
Source: AFP
Usually they’re satisfied with the decoy bag:
THE COURT: Now, listen to me, Mr. Dabney. If you got it on you it’s going to be a felony when they strip you over there so I’ll give you one last time to tell me if you have any unburnt marijuana on you. I’m giving you—oh, ah-ha.
(Defendant pulled a bag of marijuana out of his pants.)
THE COURT: Okay. So finally you came clean. If there’s anything else, this is your opportunity. We’re going to destroy it. Are you sure?
(Defendant pulled another bag of marijuana out of his pants.)
Source: WOIO News
If you see something, say something:
Maybe it was code, or some foreign lettering, possibly the details of a plot to destroy the dozens of innocent lives aboard American Airlines Flight 3950. She may have felt it her duty to alert the authorities just to be safe. The curly-haired man was, the agent informed him politely, suspected of terrorism.
The curly-haired man laughed.
He laughed because those scribbles weren’t Arabic, or another foreign language, or even some special secret terrorist code. They were math.
Source: Washington Post
1 The university has since issued a statement saying this isn’t a ban, just an attempt to discourage the practice:
UEA has not introduced a policy banning the throwing of mortarboards—we have simply asked our photography supplier not to encourage it during large group sessions. We have taken this step because in each of the last two years students have suffered facial injuries…. If individuals or small groups want to throw their mortarboards they can but we don’t think doing it in groups of around 250 students is sensible.
This apparently came after the UK’s Health and Safety Executive issued its own statement saying that if some university had banned it, that would be stupid:
The banning of mortar board tossing on supposed ‘health and safety’ grounds is one of our most popular myths and actually appears in our Top 10 all-time worst health and safety excuses…. As far back as 2008, HSE made clear the law does not stop graduates having fun and celebrating their success in the time-honoured fashion. The chance of being injured by a flying mortar board is incredibly small and it’s over-the-top to impose an outright ban. We usually find the concern is actually about the hats being returned in good condition.
The order in which these happened isn’t entirely clear, but let’s give the university the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, it hasn’t denied making the suggestion that students should mime throwing their hats in the air and have said hats Photoshopped in later, so I’m still going to hold it responsible for that one.