Dangerous games

Despite it's appearance as an almost romantic pasttime in Titanic (the James Cameron version) and its widespread practise in China, I have never been a fan of spitting. But I never realised how dangerous it could be. Today's The Daily Telegraph carried a piece on a 29-year-old Swiss man who, while in a spitting competition with a friend, died when he lost his balance and fell 6.4m from a hotel balcony. Their report omitted another detail gleaned from the web - that the man had taken a run-up from inside the hotel room to help give him the advantage. (Does this mean he's a contender for this year's Darwin Awards?) While searching for further details on the web I found news of a similar incident last June - where a German man was seriously injured while trying to out-spit his 12-year-old son - it appears he was leaning forward over the hotel balcony to get an extra bit of distance on his effort when he fell. The moral of the story - spitting kills - or maybe it's not spitting - but trying to "cheat" that can be harmful to your health.