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A MESSAGE IN a bottle cast into the sea by a holidaying British couple on the island of Rhodes has washed up on the blockaded Gaza Strip,
Fisherman Jihad al-Soltan retrieved the bottle while fishing on 15 August.
Using the email address supplied, his family contacted the senders of the letter, Bethany Wright and her boyfriend Zac Marriner.
They had thrown the bottle into the sea during a romantic holiday on the Greek island two months earlier. The note read:
We are currently on holiday in Rhodes and we would love to know how far this bottle got – even if it’s just the next beach.
It had travelled a lot further, around 800 kilometres (500 miles), before Soltan retrieved it.
“They never expected it to reach Gaza!” he said.
The crowded coastal territory is largely closed off to the world under a crippling, decade-long Israeli blockade aimed at isolating Hamas, the Islamist movement which runs the territory.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since 2008.
Egypt, the only other country that shares a border with Gaza, has also largely sealed its frontier.
Fishing off the northern part of the strip, adjacent to Israel, is limited to six nautical miles offshore and the Israeli navy regularly fires at Palestinians at the zone’s outer limit.
Post to Gaza usually goes through Israeli security measures.
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well Im very wary of use by dates, best before dates though are a different story, if it looks ok and smells ok, and tastes ok, its usually ok, well Im my opinion anyhow.
I have to laugh at some people do you honestly think something goes bad the minute it turns midnight on the day it says on the package. It’s about how you store it, the shop stored it, how it’s been transported and how the manufacturer made it, you control only 1 element of it so check it taste it eat it I say
It depends on the product. I’d never chance flaunting the best before date on meat but things like cheese, milk, jam, marmalade etc. are fine unless they’re visibly or smellably past their best. To me, to waste perfectly good food is a greater crime than using my own discretion to evaluate the relevance of a mathematically- and cautiously-calculated use-by date.
I like how this article tells us that 50% of people don’t know the difference between a best before date and a use by date, how this is alarming, and yet fails to make an attempt at actually explaining the differences to the reader…
Then you’d better re-read the article!! Cos it does tell you!!
Or that 50% of people make up half the population !
Ha, to be fair, that was added to the piece after it was published – we’d assumed that our readers were in the 50% who knew the difference between use-by and best-before but we’ve clarified it, just to be clear :)
I think to a large extent, shops are covering themselves with the dates they put on food and I’m actually glad that people are using their own judgment more rather than wasting food.
The real shocker is that a third of the population don’t currently have food poisoning.
My mother is a great one for this, turns my stomach, I throw stuff out the day before use/bf date, real fear of pouring out scummy milk
These kind of things always amaze me, despite the name, common sense isn’t that common. It’s all very well saying that sell by labels or eat by labels are just advisory and if you reckon it’s ok then it’s safe to ignore them, a load of rubbish. Supposing you were to be walking along a cliff and you see a sign warning of the danger, telling you to go no further, as you gaze at the crumbling edge try ignoring that one. Mind you, some do, the same sort of person who ignores road signs.
Those dates on products are there for a reason, they’re primarily there to protect the comsumer by guaranteeing a product is safe and of course they protect the retailer from any litigation too. If you ignore them and become ill it’s your own fault, if you decide to examine your food, judge its colour, texture, smell and the “look of it” to judge if it’s safe to eat, this is guesswork, I’d prefer to take the guesswork out of what’s safe and what’s not safe to eat.
The problem is, it’s all guesswork, Brian. The dates are arbitrary. I’ve bought food that has turned out to be manky well before it’s use by date. But most of the time, I find that food is fine beyond it’s use by date. I trust my own judgement on a lot of food types well above the retailer… who in my opinion are thinking of themselves primarily.
But you’re right, if I get ill, it’s my fault. It hasn’t happened so far.
yeah but even with HACCP mistakes are made with perishable goods, so id sooner abide by use by dates, no point in a visit to the hospital over a two euro chicken fillet that’s gone
That’s where common sense comes into it. Anyone who ignores the use by date on a 2 euro chicken fillet will probably fall victim to something meritorious of the darwin awards sooner or later.
Don’t eat processed food, I eat paleo, and regularly eat food past it’s use by date, be it meat, veg or fruit. Never made myself sick.
have your say