Drunk on vacation? Don’t harass people, or someone will set fire to your penis!

Here is a story that is bound to make you think twice about harassing the locals when you are drunk.

When 20 year old Stuart Feltham tried to assault a 26 year old local girl on the Greek island of Crete, she first politely asked him to stop.

Like most people, she was not impressed by a drunk British tourist dropping his pants and waving his genitals around.

Her requests went unanswered, so she poured a glass of Sambuca on him. Even that wasn’t enough for this guy to get the message, and when he continued harassing her, she set fire to the alcohol (and his genitals) – causing severe second degree burns.

Mr. Feltham was rushed to a private clinic where he is being treated. Thankfully he was smart enough to pay for travel insurance, and his policy had no exclusions for burned penis.

The British Home Office (like our State Department) is of course embarrassed by the whole thing, especially since they have been campaigning to reduce the number of Brits getting in trouble when they are abroad.

Reveling tourists are such an annoyance to local residents of Crete, that Miss Fanouraki is being called a hero. She’s claiming self defense and the local magistrate has already hinted that they’ll most likely accept that, and let her off easy.

Lesson learned today: no means no, and when someone pours flammable liquid on your private parts, run to the bathroom for water.
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Brief California U.S. Highway 1 report

For those of you planning to take Highway 1 from San Francisco to LA (or visa versa), you probably already know right now is not the best time to do it. Because of the devastating wildfires, the highway is closed to all traffic in some of the most picturesque areas, such as Big Sur.

I just completed the drive and here is what I found.

You can take Highway 1 from San Francisco all the way to Carmel without a problem. In fact, we didn’t see or smell any fires in that area. We actually took extra time to drive the 17-mile Pebble Beach loop that, roughly speaking, connects Monterrey and Carmel “the long way”. You pay $10 to drive the loop, but since such a big portion of Highway 1 is closed, it is money well spent. It is a beautiful piece of the country.

From Carmel, it gets tricky. We had to cut across to Highway 101 and take it all the way to San Louis Obispo. Soon after SLO, the highway starts hugging the coast again. You can get back on Highway 1. Far south around Santa Barbara, we saw the most dramatic wildfires. It looked like the mountains were spewing smoke (which they were). All the roads, however, remain open in that area.

If you can postpone the road trip, I would definitely postpone in order not to miss Big Sur. If you, however, are ready to go, you can still make the most of it.

(Picture taken on Mulholland Drive, somewhere in the Hollywood Hills, yesterday. Firefighters were busy putting out fires around the greater LA area. The air definitely smells of smoke up there.)