So much quoteable goodness in this reasoned look at holiday stomach bugs

I'll just pick out a couple of salient points:

The average Briton spends nine days a year sleeping away from home while on summer holidays. Seventeen million of us go on package holidays and spend around £46 a day on board and lodging - a modest sum. Appreciably more is spent by those who book their own accommodation and travel.

However, whether heading to a B&B in the Mediterranean, or a five-star hotel in the Caribbean, a quarter of holiday investment is wasted because of health problems. A recent report by Boots Travel Probiotic suggests that British holidaymakers spend £391 million a year sitting on foreign loos. Nearly half, 48 per cent, of those surveyed suffered from gut problems overseas. Even one in four of those holidaying in the UK picked up something nasty.

...and

It is now scientifically established that eating away from their usual neighbourhood is the relevant factor in causing travellers' diarrhoea. The holiday trade would prefer that everyone believed this was because emotional tensions were raised by battles at airports, anxieties over luggage, niggling doubts as to the hotel booking and the discovery that the reserved bedroom was next to a building site. Travel agents will admit that water can be responsible - not because of bacterial contamination from glasses rinsed in dirty washing-up water but, they suggest, because the geological structure of the local mountains makes a mysterious difference to the water's chemistry so that it becomes mildly laxative.

Travelling stress does undermine the immune system and lower resistance to infection, but in most cases the principal cause of traveller's diarrhoea is bugs from dirty hands of waiters, filthy, bacteria-laden dishcloths and cutting boards in unhygienic kitchens, and the organisms that live around plugholes in sinks. Most people, wherever they come from, have an immune system that is able to deal with the local bacteria. However, if they travel even 100 miles, the neighbourhood strains of E. coli and salmonella encountered are different, so that usually benign bugs upset the stranger's guts.

You know somewhere nice that's within 100 miles of your house? Somewhere that's already got all your stuff in it, perhaps?

As the Breakfast Club taught us - if you mess with the bull, you get the horns

When will people learn that an adrenalin rush is your body's way of letting you know you're in trouble?

Amazon has spoken - It's official!

I'm funnier than SpongeBob Squarepants. Although not as funny as being Engulfed in Flames

(edit - Now officially funnier than Hitler!)

The 7 Scariest Airports on Earth

As enumerated by Richard Green for the Sunday Times.

Saba, in the Dutch Caribbean
Gibraltar

Funchal, Madeira

Barra, Scotland

Lukla, Nepal

Courchevel, France

St. Maarten, Dutch Caribbean

I'm pretty sanguine about flying, I know all about the relative safety of airliners compared to (say) hot hatches driven by dim young boys on a testosterone high, but seriously: There's such a thing as tempting fate you know...

This is fabulous

In a break from my normal programming I present a song that impressed the bejeezus out of a 22-year old Michael Moran. I haven't heard it in years but it still sounds great now. Check it out...

More half baked nonsense about disappointing holiday experiences tomorrow, I promise. If you're desperate for more why not buy the book? 

Venice the Menace: Tourism done right

Why go to California when you can see all the finest sun-baked nutjobs on your very own computer?

Click over to Venice the Menace for some illuminating insights into...well...whatever these fruitcakes think they're talking about.

Picture of the Day

From the always super-sized TrendHunter