New Zealand airline to weigh passengers

New Zealand’s national airline will weigh passengers before they board flights, reported The Telegraph. As part of plans to make sure its planes have enough fuel for flights, Air New Zealand wants to weigh 10,000 passengers during a four-week survey so pilots can better know the weight and balance of their planes before takeoff. Health data shows New Zealanders are becoming heavier, noted the paper.

Men take condoms to funerals ‘just in case’

One in eight men aged 35 and under have taken a condom with them to a funeral “just in case”, a survey has found. Commenting on the surprising stat, sex expert Patti Britton told MEL that “it’s really about filling the void — literally and figuratively”. She added that “the grief trajectory is about a loss of closeness” and “that’s why our libido kicks in”. However, she warned that the resulting sense of intimacy may be false. “Many people think, of my penis is inside a cavity of her body, we must be close,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean you actually are”.

Bohemian Rhapsody was nearly Mongolian Rhapsody

A newly unearthed draft of the Queen hit Bohemian Rhapsody shows that Freddie Mercury “toyed” with calling the song Mongolian Rhapsody, said The Times. Among the 15 pages of drafts, on one page Mercury wrote the words Mongolian Rhapsody near the top but crossed the first word out and added Bohemian above it. The handwritten draft is among 1,500 Mercury items being auctioned in September by Sotheby’s.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

For more odd news stories, sign up to the weekly Tall Tales newsletter