Weekly Weird: The Disembodied Head of Richard Branson

Want to drink with Richard Branson, feel like an Outbreak victim, or fly with a giant cat? Should have taken one of this week’s weird flights!

Thirsty? You may lose your taste for a drink when you look down at your in-flight drink and find the creepily lifelike, grinning ice-head of Richard Branson bobbing about. Yes, the billionaire CEO has begun offering ice cubes shaped like his head in the Virgin America upper-class drinks (even ice-Branson won’t deign to put himself on coach class, we guess). According to the Daily Mail, it took four designers six weeks to make the molds for the cubes.

In other crazy billionaire news, an Australian mogul announced this week that he plans to build a high-tech replica of the Titanic. According to the AP, Clive Palmer’s Titanic II will sail from England to New York City (the planned version of the original voyage) in 2016. Brace yourself now for all the cheesy Jack and Rose photo reenactments, the rearranging the deck chairs joke, and the general tackiness of resurrecting a human disaster as a pleasure cruise.

We hope the in-flight movie on this Delta flight to Chicago wasn’t Contagion—the plane was greeted on the runway by health officials who came aboard in protective gear and face masks due to a potential Monkeypox outbreak scare. The Huffington Post reports that passenger Lise Sievers had been visiting children that she hoped to adopt in Uganda, and that one of had “pus-filled red bumps.” Siever had contracted some small bumps of her own that she feared were bed bugs. During a layover in Detroit, Siever called her mother, who in turn called a local hospital to ask about treatment for her daughter, who she mentioned was on a flight back from Uganda. The hospital alerted the CDC, which, fearing it was Monkeypox, met the flight when it landed in Chicago. The passengers were quarantined on the flight until officials figured out it was bedbugs (potentially a worse fate?) and rescued everyone. We hope this incident turns into a hilarious rom-com mash-up of Snakes on a Plane and Contagion, featuring Samuel L. Jackson and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Hope you like cats and pink! MSNBC reports that Taiwanese airline Eva has launched three Hello Kitty-themed planes in an effort to boost the country’s tourism economy. The outside of the plane is printed with the cartoon character, and inside everything from the headrests, tissues, and in-flight meals are Hello Kitty-branded.

Packing for an explosive demonstration? Leave the landmines at home, as one traveler learned the hard way this week. CBS News reports that a woman was traveling from Newark to an explosives demonstration in California, when the TSA found landmine casings in her checked luggage (two of which contained shrapnel). Luckily, there was no explosives or detonators along with the mines. Unsurprisingly, explosives and explosive replicas are not allowed on flights, but the woman was eventually allowed to fly (without the land mines).

Did you see anything weird during your travels this week? Leave a comment below!