Credit: Rickard Ignell/Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Traumatic insemination is worth mentioning as a follow up to my post on bed bugs in hotels. Male bed bugs, ScienceNews reports, “ignore the opening to the female reproductive tract and inject sperm with a needlelike appendage directly through the outer covering of a mate’s body.” Yikes!
The report also explains that the male insects will happily mate with well-fed individuals of either sex until an accosted male sends out a special pheromone causing the aggressor to back off.
The pheromone can actually be detected by humans. It smells
a bit like almond, but not particularly pleasant. “Older people say that you used to be able to tell whose house had bed bugs because it had a peculiar smell.”
Graffiti in Stockholm: Lucky Thief proved to be an artist collective.
Beware, pickpockets are working here. That’s the first thing an international visitor sees when entering Sweden at Stockholm Arlanda Airport. Face level signs are pasted on the glass doors you pass through at immigration. Show me your passport. Welcome! Oh, and watch out for pickpockets—you’re in Stockholm!
Street crime in Stockholm
For a big city, Stockholm has very little street crime. For a city with so little street crime, there sure are a lot of warnings about it. Maybe that’s why there’s so little street crime in Stockholm!
Stealing in Stockholm
Digital platform signs in the city’s super-efficient subway system run frequent text warnings, in Swedish and English: watch your personal belongings, pickpockets are around.
Restaurants post reminders about watching your bags. I heard bus drivers on routes to Djurgården, where amusement parks are located, warn about pickpockets.
The Stockholm police have volunteers hand out little warning cards in the streets, and they thought it important enough to gather for a Bob Arno lecture last summer.
Is it a case of hysterics?
Graph from www.bra.se
Let’s not compare Stockholm with other cities. Let’s compare it with itself over time. According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, crime in general peeked in 1990, stayed rather constant for 16 years, and is now on a new rise. Specifically, bicycle theft is down and fraud is up. No surprise there. Burglary is holding steady, while assault is on the rise.
Reported robberies have remained fairly steady at about 9,000 incidents per year for the past ten. The Council includes shop and bank robberies in the figure, but says about 86% of the figure is robbery from the person. Remember, these are reported incidents. My research with Bob indicates that, as people lately tend to work hard and play hard, they also don’t sweat the small stuff. Who has time to file a police report?
Police handouts, multilingual.
I’ve already written about ATM crime, skimmers, and pseudo-cops in Sweden. The latest concern is criminal gang activity. Neighborhoods “have been hit by a wave of violent thefts recently.” Children 14-17 are conducting violent robberies in what seem to be initiation rites as they join the Black Scorpions. The Black Scorpions are starter gangsters who’ll graduate to become Black Cobras. Like Cub Scouts become Boy Scouts. The gang crept in from Copenhagen, and seems to be immigration-related.
Immigrants to Sweden, 1975-2008
The twin upward slopes of crime and immigration might lead one to believe that foreigners are perping on the Swedes. Ah, a politically sensitive theory. I can’t touch it.
Bottom line is that, for a capital city, Stockholm has very little street crime. The Swedes are rather trusting and naive and therefore make excellent victims, especially when they travel to places with significant street crime.
But speaking of Swedish victims of foreigners, here’s a vaguely related, rather humorous report. A woman in Thailand recently conned five Swedish men into sending her money “for a plane ticket to Sweden.” The five met at the airport arrivals hall when they found themselves alone together still waiting for the woman, who never showed up.
“Hand Picked Golden Dragon” RAM wrapped in gold silk brocade! Cleaning the garage, I found these gorgeous packages perfectly preserved in an airtight box. What the hell are they? One package still holds a 512 MB memory chip nestled in a bed of rich, red, synthetic suede, with a pretty pink ribbon for conveniently extracting the delicate thing. The other package is empty.
We can’t think of what they were for. An old Epson wide-format ink jet? A Panasonic video recorder? A camera? The packages are too nice to throw out. I guess that’s why the garage needs excavation.
Wondering about street crime in Nassau, Bahamas? First we witness a tourist robbery, then meet another tourist just robbed at gunpoint.
We’re standing on Bay Street, the main drag, while I’m checking email on my iPod.
“Hold onto your stuff, these guys are targeting us,” Bob said. I had the iPod in one hand, a good camera in the other. We’d planned to stroll down the beach to where we spent our first three years together. A seven-mile stroll, but one we’d done daily in the eighties, often on bikes.
I glanced up and saw the two suspects crossing toward us. Suddenly they caught sight of a better-looking target. A pair of men, one shirtless, who were cutting through the parking lot of the Hilton British Colonial, heading back to their room. As the scruffy suspects approached the tourists, Bob narrated: “They’re offering drugs,” he said. A tourist is offered drugs in Nassau as often as tourists are offered “copy watches” in Italy or Singapore.
Scene-of-the-crime
“Crack or weed,” was the actual offer.
“Weed,” the shirtless one said.
A deal was struck. $60 for an eighth, the victim later told us, twice what he pays in Canada, “but what the hell.” He pulled out the cash. The “dealer” grabbed it and ran. He dashed between cars in the parking lot, cut through a lush tropical border planting, jumped a five-foot wall, and ran down a side street. His partner had disappeared during the deal-making.
In terms of street crime in Nassau, this was pretty tame.
The victim, a Canadian, was both mad and bemused. A Bahamian man who’d also witnessed the robbery dragged the victim off to the police station. Interesting to see the story as slanted in the Nassau Tribune.
We gave up on visiting our old home and beach cove in Cable Beach. We wandered the streets and fended off a few more offers of pot. Do we really look like the target market?
Real street crime in Nassau
Then we met the Ad Koens, a visitor from Holland. He’d gone on a Segway tour. At 11:00 in the morning his entire group, eight tourists and one Bahamian tour leader, were held up at gunpoint and made to spread-eagle on the ground. Another group of nine was already down.
The bandits wielded shotguns. They tied one man’s wrists to a long wooden plank placed across his back. Ad was kicked in his ribs, others were kicked in the head. “It was very, very professional,” Ad said. They demanded everything of value: cameras, video cameras, iPods, wallets, purses, GPS devices—everything the tourists had on them. One man lost a Rolex and a laptop. Eighteen men and women robbed, and the two scruffy thieves got away.
After the ordeal, all eighteen victims were taken to the police department to file reports. They were shown 500 mug shots, 25 to a page, each the size of a postage stamp. When Bob asked the victim how he’d rate the police-reporting experience on a scale of one to ten, the answer was “Zero to one. It was a joke.”
The two robberies were front-page news in Nassau on Saturday, November 21.
I’m mortified to remember the time I refused to shake hands with an Egyptian.
It’s a sad commentary on the state of the world when one must look at every stranger with distrustful eyes, and in some ways it defeats the whole purpose of leisure travel. Spectacular landscapes, ruins, markets, shops, and food are only the skin of a culture. Its people are its core. Around the world people are attracted to people; locals are warm and welcoming to travelers, and swell with national pride. In many countries, to refuse a gift is to insult your host. In some countries, insulting your host is provocative indeed.
After a long hot morning interviewing the Cairo police, we returned to our hotel to wash up. We then intended to visit the American Express office at the Nile Hilton, and from there, we’d hunt down an excellent Egyptian lunch at the Khan el Khalili Bazaar. Refreshed, we made our way through thick air, deafening noise, and teeming crowds to the 6th of October Bridge, which spans the Nile.
Policemen at attention stood the length of the bridge, perfectly spaced every thirty feet, rigid and regular as toy soldiers. They were armed, however, like real soldiers. I asked an important-looking officer who appeared to be supervising the formation. “Is it always like this? Are there this many officers every day?” No, President Mubarak is coming, he said. At the end of the bridge we paused and looked up to locate the Nile Hilton.
“You can’t cross the street here,” a friendly local volunteered. “If you try, the police will only stop you. Our president is coming, you see.” He was curly-headed, short, chubby, and a bit rough.
“How do we get across to the Hilton?” Bob asked.
“You must use the underpass. Come, I’ll show you.” As we turned, the entry to the underpass became obvious. We thanked the man, but he wasn’t finished with us.
“Hello,” he kept saying. “How are you? Where are you from? You like Cairo?” He offered his hand, and Bob shook it politely as the three of us walked toward the underpass.
“Lady, what’s your name?”
“Bambi,” I said, walking ahead. I smiled at him over my shoulder, hoping he’d find me friendly but in a hurry. I had no wish to offend him, but I am not fond of shaking hands with any stranger on the street.
“Hello!” he persisted. I increased my pace slightly. That turned out to be an unwise move; thoughtless and undiplomatic.
“You don’t want to shake hands with an Egyptian? I am your host! Do you think I’m dirty?”
“My wife has a cold,” Bob lied, “she doesn’t want you to get it.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t like Egyptians! What kind of visitors are you!”
I felt terrible by then, and regretted my rude and tactless behavior when I should have been on my best. But now I was concerned about the man’s escalating verbal assault. He was still walking with us and, as the underground passage loomed ahead, the chicken in me pecked holes in my nerves. I should have turned and apologized. Instead, I sped up.
I heard Bob behind me, trying to explain the transference of germs from hand to hand to mouth and the Cairene not getting it. As I entered the tunnel, Bob not far behind, the agitated man gave up and dropped us. I was relieved and ashamed at the same time.
Later, we unwound in a barely-lit alcove of the cave-like back of the elegant Khan El Khalili Restaurant. The front of the restaurant, called the Naguib Mahfouz Coffee Shop for the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, was all about unwinding. Customers slouched among pillows sucking on hookahs, dark coffee and sweet smoke scented the room, narrow shafts of harsh sunlight illuminated the thick swirling air, and waterpipes burbled like aquariums.
In the back it was quiet, private, and dramatically lit. Over little plates of olives, babaganoush, hummus, and flat bread, we reflected on the encounter. It could have gotten out of hand; we were lucky. But why had I behaved so badly? What had repelled me from the one-man welcome committee? Was I just too street-smart, smelling a scam? Had years of thief-patrol put me off all humanity?
No, I lacked any credible excuse. I had just washed, was on my way to eating lunch with my hands, and just plain didn’t want to shake hands. Shame on me. I felt miserable, but allowed myself to be soothed by the atmosphere and luscious meal.
Encounters with locals can offer the deepest, longest-lasting memories of a trip. But when cultures collide, sensitivity and caution must be in balance. Judgment is critical, but how can we determine what our own behavior should be, with little understanding of foreign sentiment? A majority of Americans, cocooned as we are in our huge world of a nation, have a myopian global perspective, as limited as that of an Amazonian tribesman or a Mongolian herder. Our collective ignorance of political issues stuns smaller nations, which can’t afford to know only their own business.
Our naiveté may occasionally lead to confrontations such as mine with the Egyptian. It can also foster dangerous hostility, and it allows us to walk into scams, swindles, and set-ups.
If your room number is printed on your key, complain.
The Hilton Tokyo-Bay, aka Japan’s Disneyland Hilton, was shockingly behind the times when we visited. Our paper electronic room keys had our room number printed right on them, instead of on an envelope. That’s a serious security risk. This was two years ago. Anyone know what their keys look like today?
Barcelona visitors experienced 6,000 thefts per day during 2009’s tourist season.
115,055 pickpocketings and bag snatches in Barcelona were reported in the 12 months ending August 2009, police said. Newspapers did the math and trumpeted “315 thefts every day!” But take away the off-season, when thefts are way down, and add in unreported thefts to get the real number “per day.” More like a million in a year.
Barcelona authorities have finally, officially, admitted that the level of theft in the city is “extremely high.” This came only days after Barcelona made headlines around the world as “worst city for pickpockets,” thanks to TripAdvisor’s proclamation. It’s long been an open secret that otherwise lovable “bcn” has rampant thievery, but potential visitors and, more importantly, the conference business, have begun to wonder if there aren’t safer destinations. Hotels, tired of wiping the tears of robbed guests, must have been screaming for relief.
Police estimate there are 200-250 full-time thieves at large. That makes me laugh. The police, at one time, showed me their profiles of more than 300 pigeon poop pickpockets alone! “La Mancha,” the stain, is what they call them, because they dirty their victims. In my 15-year history of observing thieves in my favorite city, I find that the pigeon poop perps are but a small subsection of the thief pool. If there are 300+ pigeon poop pickpocket specialists, how many other bag snatchers and pickpockets lurk about?
Spot the thief. Answer: he’s holding the bag
Although I think 250-300 is a low estimate, it’s still a huge number of criminals who each make any number of efforts throughout the day to gather other people’s valuables. For each thief, there might be 10, 20, or 30 attempts to steal, each day. With each attempt, lots can go wrong to blow it. The victim may suspect something, and turn. He may move, though he suspected nothing. The thief may think someone is watching. Someone may be watching and shout out. The pocket or purse might be difficult to get into. the getaway may become blocked, a cop might be spotted… It’s a delicate balance; attempted thefts are derailed far more often than they’re completed. You may never have had your wallet stolen, but you may have been a target. Does that make you part of Barcelona pickpocket statistics?
And after the thief’s success? Even then, the deal’s not done. The victim may whirl around and accuse the pickpocket, who’ll then drop the goodies on the ground and pretend he had nothing to do with them. That’s a theft—but not counted in Barcelona pickpocket statistics.
The police finger North Africans and Romanians. I’ll agree that these groups are prominent among the perps, along with certain South Americans, other East Europeans, and an unmentionable group. Not that it matters to the victim. Not that visitors would know the difference.
Let’s not forget the transient thieves, either. For the past month Bob has been communicating with a pickpocket in Paris who enjoys lucrative field trips where the moolah is mucho and the heat’s not so hot. At this very moment, he’s shopping for wallets in Brussels. Next stop, BCN. “Barcelona police are easy, but there’s not much money there,” he explained. Yet, he’s making the trip. And he’s not alone.
The police claim that pickpockets try to steal less than €400 per person, because the perps know that stealing less than that will land them a fine if caught, rather than jail time. Uh-uh. No. Pickpockets steal wallets. Bagsnatchers steal purses. They don’t stop to ask how much cash the vic has. They don’t stop to look. And if they get a windfall, they don’t cry about it. “Son-of-a-bitch good,” is the feeling pickpocket Kharem described when he nabbed a briefcase filled with thousands of dollars. People who spend their days stealing expect to get caught and pay the consequences. They know it will happen. It’s part of their own pickpocket statistics. For them, the reward is worth the risk. If they get a lot of money in one hit, they can stay home and thereby cut their risk for a day or two.
A pickpocket’s fines
And they need all that cash to pay their fines. For each theft of under €400 for which he’s arrested, the thief “pays a fine of €200 and then returns to the street,” said an official of the City police who asked for anonymity. “But they work so much that it’s worthwhile to them to keep doing it and pay the occasional €200 fine.” Some of these thieves have hundreds of arrests in their records and are released over and over again; presumably to collect cash to pay their fines. Looking at the fistful of fines Kharem showed us, this is a pretty lucrative system for the city. A stupid-tourist tax perhaps, or a licensing fee for thieves.
“315 thefts each day,” another headline reads. In August 2009, the year-to-date total was 115,055 reported thefts. But why average them over a full year? Most of the tourist activity is from May to November. Pickpocketing is easier when people are in summer clothes rather than bundled up with coats that cover pockets. I’d say most of the 115,055 reported thefts occurred in the six good-weather months. That means about 600 each day that you’re likely to be there, sharply dropping off as the weather cools and the tourists dry up.
But that’s reported thefts. In Barcelona, I’d multiply the reported thefts by a factor of 10 to get actual thefts. That brings the number up to 6,000 each day of the tourist season.
Why by a factor of 10? Lots of cruise ship passengers get a single day in BCN. I’ve personally interviewed at least 1,500 of them. When they’re robbed, they don’t have time to file a report because they have to be on their ship. They tend to be of a certain type, too: mouth-breathing obliviates with protruding wallets and gaping purses who advertise their naiveté with every particle of their beings.
And lots of carefree youth visit; when they’re robbed, and their loss is small, they just chalk it up to their carelessness and don’t bother filing. Lots of drinking in the bars and pubs, where victims just assume they lost their wallet, phone, or camera.
And lastly, for those who do attempt to file a police report, the process can be long and arduous. Bob and I have assisted or accompanied many victims through the ordeal. It can take hours. It can be daunting: waiting for one of the few police officers who can take a report in English or French or whatever, going from one police station to another. It can suck up half a day or more. It’s very tempting to give up when the police tell you to come back in two hours to complete the process. Or even at the start when the lineup to file reports is out the door. And if a tourist has lost his passport, getting a new one is the priority. He may not file a police report at all. After canceling credit cards and figuring out how to get some quick cash, the victim is exhausted.
I know something about the rate of reporting losses from speaking to thousands of travelers over the years (around the world). I’ve conducted an informal survey on how often police reports are filed. Of the hundreds of victims who tell us their sad stories each year, a minute fraction say they bothered to file a police report. They don’t want to ruin even more of their trip. They, like the police, throw up their hands and blow air.
Did you filed a police report, if you were robbed while traveling?
This new, official recognition of the problem is laudable. Now it will be interesting to watch the coming season, hear the numbers, and do the math. Will Barcelona pickpocket statistics continue to rise?
Yes, I’m postulating that only about 10% of personal thefts in Barcelona get reported to the police. But the days are long in BCN, so that’s only, say 300 an hour. In the high season.
Yeah, this story’s everywhere, about the Phoenix couple who made a living stealing luggage off the airport carousel. Police found almost a thousand suitcases in their house.
Almost 1,000 bags found at home of thieves. Almost all black.Luggage stolen from Phoenix airport. Almost all black.Stolen luggage is gathered and moved from home of thieves. Almost all black.
Not a single report has pointed out that the stolen luggage is almost all black. I described this strategy in a post more than a year ago, and in my book way before that. This is an M.O. This is something to notice and learn from.
Thieves prefer to steal black luggage because so much of it looks alike. If the thief is caught red-handed by the bag’s owner, he only has to say sorry, it looks just like mine. And he’s out of there. Scot-free.
Look at the photos on the right. This is just a fraction of the bag booty as it was gathered on the thieves’ property. The bags we see are almost all black.
The bag-boosters are not rocket surgeons. Not a lot of brain power goes into concocting a brilliant strategy. These two, Keith and Stacy King, traipsed into the baggage area straight from the parking lot. They might not have been caught had they walked up a level, then come down the escalators as if from the gates.
They’re not the first to steal baggage off the conveyor belts. Earlier this year, a man was arrested at Dallas Fort Worth airport. He admitted taking over 400 bags, and police linked him to at least 600. He also “worked” at airports in Houston and Tulsa, allegedly stealing a number of suitcases every day. And long before that, a Las Vegas man regularly supplied a second-hand clothing store with the stuff from bags stolen off McCarran’s baggage belt. [Linked to above.]
Which is yours?
After 9/11, airports moved security staff from arrivals to departures. With no bag tag checkers, anyone can saunter out with anything. We passengers have minimal control. We can get to the carousel promptly, but what happens when bags get lost or delayed, or the bags make it but we are late? You’ve seen the jumbles of suitcases massed outside baggage service offices in arrivals halls. Do they look protected? At the most, they’re penned in by a crowd-control ribbon. No one will take responsibility. Not the airlines. Not the airports. Not TSA. Not police.
So here’s the obvious lesson. Buy pink luggage. Or green, or silver. If you have black, decorate it.
A member of the Raskol gangs of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Photo by: Stephen Dupont (Contact Press Images)
After further research, I feel compelled to write a little more about Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. For all the pretty pictures in my last post, I think I missed the real story.
Bob and I behaved quite like the typical tourists we seek to educate. We did not read up in advance about the dangers of the city. We strolled naively throughout the town and along deserted roads outside of town. We did leave our watches and jewelry behind, and we did dress down to the extent we were able. (We didn’t have torn jeans with us, the garb recommended in an old Time magazine article. And we were not out after dark. But I went out with a good camera and an iPod in a purse. Bob carried a new, $4,000 video camera. Were we nuts?
Crime in Port Moresby
Absolutely. And stupid. We did not know about the vicious criminals called the Raskols. Usually referred to as gangs, the Raskols are more accurately described as loose associations of thieves, according to tavurur, a Port Moresby native blogger. Practically anything you read about Port Moresby credits them for the city’s astronomical crime rate, then mitigates the blame by citing an unemployment rate of anywhere from 60-90%.
Numerous lengthy articles online detail the safety and security precautions necessary to lessen the risk of misfortune. Drive carefully, because the locals react emotionally and violently to accidents. But don’t drive too slowly or you’ll increase the likelihood of being carjacked. Carry cash to hand over when you’re accosted. Move about with a certified escort. Women, don’t wear shorts or pants if you don’t want to be raped or gang-raped. The lists go on and on, one of which even advises (jokingly, I presume) chewing betel nut to look like a local.
Eric Lafforgue's Papua New Guinea photos are phenomenal. Click this image to go to all 466 of them.
In retrospect, Bob and I presented a tasty target. Alone, smiley, swinging our cameras… I’m thinking of the minutes we spent at a secluded dead-end high above the shore, looking down at a christening ceremony. We watched the formally dressed witnesses on the sand and the participants wading chest-deep in the sea. We looked across to a far village of houses on stilts over the water. It never occurred to us that we should be watching our backs.
It’s easy to be seduced by the sheer exoticism of Papua New Guinea, by the natives in traditional costumes, the spectacular flora and fauna of the highlands and ocean reefs. Travel enthusiasts I’ve spoken with have been quick to say oh, I want to go there. Local dangers are defined in guides and online, easy to be found, but still—Bob and I managed to get there oblivious to the status quo. Not all tour operators or trip providers are forthcoming when it comes to negative publicity. The burden, in the end, falls on the traveler. Know before you go, as they say. Do your homework.
Would a slathering of Dijon tempt the formerly (?) (supposedly) cannibalistic highland villagers? I couldn’t get myself to attempt the experiment. While on a visit to the north of Australia, Bob and I made a quick trip to Papua New Guinea. We were awed by traditional dancers from the highland villages. Only one of the men spoke English; he told me they are Huli “wigmen,” and that it took four years to grow his wig of human hair (presumably made of his own hair).
Though cannibalism and human sacrifice are reportedly no longer practiced here, Papua New Guinea does have a scarily high rate of crime and, just a year ago, Port Moresby was ranked among the top five murder capitals in the world. Hotels and local guidebooks warn of sudden, unpredictable, and violent eruptions of inter-tribal conflict.
“Papua New Guinea has a high crime rate. Numerous U.S. citizen residents and visitors have been victims of violent crime in recent years, and they have sometimes suffered severe injuries. Carjackings, armed robberies, and stoning of vehicles are problems in and around major cities such as Port Moresby, Lae, Mount Hagen, and Goroka, but can happen anywhere. Pickpockets and bag snatchers frequent crowded public areas.…Individuals traveling alone are at greater risk for robbery or gang rape than are those who are part of an organized tour or under escort.”
The U.S. Embassy in Port Moresby “emphasizes that there is no way to guarantee personal safety during a visit to PNG, only to minimize the chances of becoming a victim.”
Bob and I failed to do our homework. Had we read the above before wandering alone all over, we certainly would have changed our behavior appropriately. The fact that we traipsed back roads and the city center unmolested only proves that anecdotal evidence is not the whole story. We might have reported “we were fine!” But that doesn’t mean it’s safe.
As we explored the hilly roads of Port Moresby, Bob commented on the rolls and rolls of razor wire, the hefty security at housing complexes, and the number of security vehicles that followed residents into the complexes. Bob assumed the residents were high-profile mining executives, hence the security. After further study, it seems that these were simply foreigners working in the country, with the usual security detail.
A great number of the people we met, in the city as well, had the red gums and worn-to-stubs blackened teeth of the betel nut-chewer.
Betel nut, a mild stimulant, is sold everywhere in town, literally every few yards on some streets. It’s chewed with a pinch of lime (the mineral—in a jar in the photo below), a pinch of tobacco, and sometimes a favorite spice. Gutters are littered with betel nut shells and practically run red with spit juices.
As a great contrast to the ubiquitous promises of doom and crime to the tourist, Bob and I, in our naive wanderings, quickly considered Port Moresby the most friendly city we’d ever walked. Every single person, without exception, said good morning or good afternoon, and those we stopped to speak with immediately offered their hands, touched our arms, or both.
The Crowne Plaza Hotel in Port Moresby has a stunning collection of masks, some seven feet tall. I’m showing great restraint by posting only one mask photo.
I know what you’re thinking. This photo, below, looks fake, like we’ve stuck our heads through holes in a painted backdrop. Uh-uh. No. And the men’s faces are painted, not masks. Through an unofficial translator, a wigman told that the yellow pigment is dug out from “between the gas and the oil.” We’d asked because it looks so unnatural.
Yellowcake, uranium oxide
“What do they use for the yellow?” my mother, a painter, asked on seeing this photo. I explained what the wigman told me. “It doesn’t look natural to me,” my mother said.
“Let me Daddle that,” I said. My sisters and I have always asked our brilliant chemist father whatever curiosity needed an answer. As he was already on the line, my father said it sounds like they use “yellowcake,” a kind of uranium oxide. “Can’t be too good to rub on the skin,” he added.
