Mind the biscuit

Can it really be true that 25 million Britons have been injured while eating biscuits? And that the worst offenders are those innocent-looking custard creams?

A new survey claims biscuits are pretty dangerous objects. You could be hit by flying fragments, scald yourself while dunking them, poke yourself in the eye, or fall off your chair getting them from a shelf.

Is this really credible? Have you personally ever been injured by a biscuit? Do you know anyone who has? Do you know anyone who's ever heard of anyone who has? Or is your life mysteriously free of biscuit-related catastrophes?

I suspect the whole unlikely scenario was invented by a bored teenager on work experience, munching a particularly unexciting and nondescript custard cream.

The research company however insists its results are absolutely genuine and painstakingly gathered. "We tested the physical properties of 15 popular types of biscuit, along with aspects of their consumption such as dunkability and crumb dispersal."

So there you have it. How thorough is that? So thorough that no doubt several researchers were themselves injured as they tested dunkability and fragmentation-potential. Some of them are probably still in intensive care right now, martyrs to exhaustive scientific inquiry.

Oh, and I haven't even listed all the possible dangers of biscuit-handling. You could also break a tooth or filling, be bitten by a pet competing for the biscuit, choke on the crumbs, or slip on a crushed digestive. Believe me, it's lethal out there.

Next up from this diligent research team: the mounting death toll from pot noodle. Hospitals overwhelmed as popular snack proves fatal. Could you be at risk?

Something amiss

Have you ever met someone whose experiences are so weird and outlandish you're never sure they're telling the truth? You wonder whether anything they say can be relied on or whether they're making it all up from start to finish.

I knew a woman like that once. She should tell me these stories with complete conviction, stories full of quite plausible details and incidents, and yet I would always be thinking "She's lying. I just know she's lying."

She would tell me about the umpteen men she had slept with, and their odd habits and obsessions. Not a single one was normal, she said, they were all screwballs under the surface.

She had been fired countless times from jobs for absurd reasons. Her bosses were all cranks who would sack her on a whim, just because she never smiled or her clothes weren't smart enough.

She was once thrown out of a car in a horrific smash. It was touch-and-go whether she would survive. She was in hospital for months having one operation after another but she eventually recovered.

I just couldn't believe her though. Everything she said seemed too extraordinary, too far-fetched. Nothing routine ever happened to her, her life was one long, uninterrupted drama. It simply didn't add up.

I asked a friend of hers about some of these stories, but she insisted they were true. She had known H for years, she said, she was just one of those people who attracted oddity and sensation.

I never did find out if she was inventing it all. But what I do know is that there are plenty of very convincing liars out there, so fluent with their pretences that they can fool practically everyone.

After all, why let the truth stand in the way of a good story?
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At the last count, well over 2000 people had visited my old post Gay Cure, which concerns the beleaguered Northern Irish MP Iris Robinson and her belief that homosexuality can be cured by psychiatric treatment. All I can say about this phenomenal interest is - thanks for visiting, guys!