"Although my girls did their best, they gradually became more and more clapped out."

"I was horrified when I saw the skull and skeleton appear on my monitor."

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Ms Kenworthy, the madam of Langtrees brothel, was speaking after a huge influx of American sailors (from the USS Port Royal, the USS Bridge, and the USS John C Stennis) had suddenly overwhelmed her prostitution business. "5,500 sailors disembarked at the docks on Sunday, most of whom had been taking part in the war against terror. They were stressed, because they'd been in a war zone, and they were a lot more agitated sexually than is usual, because they'd been at sea too long. There were queues round the block, and although my girls did their best, they gradually became more and more clapped out. I have a reserve list of 30 girls, but even they were exhausted and there still seemed to be no end in sight. By the third day, many of the girls were unable to walk, and were refusing to have sex, and were asking for money just for taking their clothes off. That's immoral behaviour in my book, and that's when I decided to close the doors."

"We usually find the Yanks are hard work, but lots of fun, but I wish the navy would dribble-feed them in. Couldn't they fly them in a thousand at a time, instead of unloading them all at once? That way we could cope. And I wish they wouldn't bring along their bloody chewing gum and tights. That sort of thing no longer impresses the girls."

[...]

"I was horrified when I saw the skull and skeleton appear on my monitor," Police Officer Gurmej Marzouki told a hastily-convened press conference at Dubai Airport, "and I immediately signalled for assistance. I initially assumed that someone was trying to smuggle a dead body in a suitcase through the security scanner. But once we'd shut down the machine and begun to investigate, we found Mr Artine sitting patiently on the conveyor belt, inside the machine, amid a row of suitcases."

An airport spokesman later explained what had happened when Artine W., a Somali national, had approached the baggage scanner. "This was his first-ever flight, and he was transiting Dubai on his way to Qatar. He knew that all passengers had to go through a security check with their luggage before boarding the plane, and apparently he did not realise that the X-ray machine is only for baggage. So he put his suitcases on the conveyor belt, and dived in after them, disappearing inside the machine. He'd heard of body scanners, and thought that's what everyone was supposed to do. When we told him that it was an X-ray machine, he became agitated, and began asking us `Did you find anything? Have I got cancer??' To quieten him down, we told him we weren?t certain, and that he ought to get a second opinion."