When I was a kid, our TV repairman was named Mr. Ford. We had one of those big console TVs, probably as chock-full of radiation as Chernobyl, and it was a ritual in our house that someone would come home and immediately turn on the TV, as if it were an elderly household member that needed to be awakened. It would then be left to natter on all evening, until bedtime. Thus it was under a lot of stress, so it would break down fairly frequently, and then we would call Mr. Ford. He was an eccentric gentleman of advanced years (once he fell asleep behind our TV) with a limited amount of things he'd talk about: TVs, of course, and when you asked him how he was doing, he'd say, "I'm fine, but a lotta people are dyin'." He said this every time we'd see him, for more than ten years.
I sort of feel like Mr. Ford these days, with the "lotta people dyin'" happening in my life and in the world, and I am beginning to feel like this blog is becoming the death blog (I've decided, for example, not to comment on Madeleine L'Engle's death for awhile just because of this). So, I searched News of the Weird and came up with an old standby, outdated and strange laws that are still on the books. Click on the link to see them, and here are a few for immediate gratification:
In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on Sundays can be jailed.
The head of any dead whale found on the British coast is legally the property of the King; the tail, on the other hand, belongs to the Queen - in case she needs the bones for her corset.
In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon more than six-feet long.
In Alabama, it is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while driving a vehicle.
In London, it is illegal to flag down a taxi if you have the plague.
In France, it is forbidden to call a pig Napoleon.
And so forth....
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