Poppers and dog shampoo – the new pumpkin spice options
And other stories from the stranger side of life

Pumpkin spice season has begun and has spread beyond the Starbucks latte. The Guardian said the “increasingly unlikely and downright gross products now offer pumpkin spice options,” including “bone broth protein, deodorant and poppers” have shown “there’s nothing that can’t be pumpkined”. Although Americans purchased more than $236m in pumpkin-spice-flavoured grocery items in 12 months, this doesn’t include “myriad” pumpkin spice household items like scented candles and dog shampoo.
US spy website pranked
Spy chiefs in the US have been victims of an insider prank after a new logo was published on an official government website featuring flying saucers as one of the leading aerial threats facing the US. The image of a flying saucer appeared over a map of the US on an intelligence logo but the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has now taken down the image, noted The Times. A spokesman for ODNI said the “unofficial and incorrect” image had been published “erroneously”.
‘Purge’ to start next year
A self-declared time traveller on TikTok claims a worldwide “purge” will begin next year. The user, named @timevoyager, said that on January 1, 2023, the US state of Illinois will pass the first law that will lead to a global purge. However, noted the Daily Star, not everyone in the comments was convinced by that and other claims, such as that dragons will soon be discovered in Mexico. “At least make them believable,” they wrote.
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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.
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