G'morning Heather onamatapei, 

 HL>> You'll have to buy your own gas mask.
 MM> No fair - last time, They issued me with one for nothing....
 HL> Oh... and don't drink Park's coffee. That stuff turns skin bright
 HL> orange and makes you sing old Donny Osmond songs.
 HL> Lethal stuff.

Strong, too ... I can't sing a note ordinarily...

 HL>  - Bad or missing coffee, user halted.

And they say it can't get worse...

But then I read in The Cork Examiner, 14 October 1864, that -

              MR. ALDERMAN MECHI'S WEIGHT.
                     ------------
               TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
      SIR,--There can be no doubt about the fattening properties of
   sugar. It is well known that during the sugar-cane harvest in our
   West India Colonies everybody, human and animal, gets rapidly fat,
   especially the negroes and their children. The same remark applies
   to the ladies of the harem in Turkey, who are expected--and, in
   fact, compelled--to eat a great variety of sweetmeats to produce
   rotundity. As a juror in the exhibition of 1851, I was much struck
   with the variety of sugar preparations in the Turkish department, and
   ascertained the cause. Your correspondent "F.R.S." is right as to
   the admixture of starch, but he should remember that we eat
   potatoes, bread puddings, &c., abounding in starch. There was no
   mistake about my increase or decrease of weight. Probably I am
   what in agriculture we call a "good doer," like many very corpulent
   friends, who get fat upon a little, while certain very great feeders
   are as lean as rakes. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
                                           J. J. MECHI.
      Tiptree-hall, near Kelvedon, Oct. 11.
      My usual weight is 15 stone, to which I mean to try to limit myself.


This latest news could drive me to diet-tea...

:-((

--- Maximus/2 3.01