5 things Wanderlust learned this week
29th July 2010
From cows who like to be scrubbed to Brits who prefer sweeties to travel insurance... these are five of the things Wanderlust learned this week
It’s been a good news week for bulls in Spain and cows in Sweden, but rather less flattering for men in India…
1. Bullfighting has been given the red flag
To the delight of many a bull and animal-lover, the taunting and jibing ‘sport’ of bullfighting has been outlawed in the Catalonian region of Spain.
Catalonia’s politicians, in either an attempt to outlaw a barbaric sport or further distance Catalonia from the rest of Spain, passed the ban with a vote of 68 to 55.
Josep Rull, a Convergence and Union spokesmen said, “The suffering and death of a living being cannot be turned into a public spectacle.”
The first Spanish region to outlaw the practice was the Canary Islands in 1991.
2. Cows like a good old scrub-a-dub-dub
The designers at Swedish company DeLaval appear to have made the right mooooooove after creating a carwash for cows.
Already 30,000 cow washes have been sold in Sweden and the product will soon be available in the UK.
The swinging cow brush is believed to boost milk production by 3.5% by improving the animal’s blood circulation and preventing spread of disease.
But we think it also makes total and udder sense that a cow is simply happier, and therefore more productive, after a bit of pampering.
3. MPs wants you to holiday in Britain
Be wary of media propaganda encouraging you to swap Bogotá for Bognor after the government set new holiday targets.
David Cameron wants 50p in every Briton’s holiday pound to be spent at home.
To ensure the 50/50 split, Cameron is heading to Cornwall for his summer break whilst Nick Clegg is off to Spain.
Wanderlust can see only one way to please everybody and that is to make sure you have a holiday in the UK and overseas. Works for us anyway.
4. Indian men are shocked at survey findings
Although the news may not have been publicised much in India, a survey has found that condoms made according to international sizes are too big for the majority of Indian men.
The Indian Council of Medical research surveyed 1,000 men in India and found more than half of the men measured were, ahem, shorter than international standards for condoms.
The findings have led to calls for condoms of mixed sizes to be made more widely available in India.
But Indian men have nothing to be embarrassed about, said Sunil Mehra, the former editor of the Indian version of men's magazine Maxim: "It's not size, it's what you do with it that matters".
5. Britons prefer sweets to travel insurance
And cleaning to researching says the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in its annual British Behaviour Abroad report.
Britons spend nearly twenty minutes longer cleaning their homes before they go abroad than researching the local laws and customs of their travel destination. Brits also spend an average of £12.00 on magazines and sweets at the airport, more than double the cost of a standard single trip insurance policy.
In fact, 19% of Britons travel without any insurance at all. But after Wanderlust Editor Dan Linstead overheard a man in the chemist saying he didn’t need insurance in Spain because ‘the worst thing that could happen would be getting covered in tomato’, we weren’t too surprised at the findings.