According to a recent USA Today report, Zodiac Seats France has patented a new idea for even more sardine-can airline seat designs. It’s called "economy class cabin hexagon." Only math majors can understand the format.

The squeezed layout sets the middle seat backward. Zodiac says it will "increase cabin density (more people per flight) while also creating seat units that increase the space available at the shoulder and arm area. This creates an overlap in the shoulder areas of adjacent seats." In other words, tighter sardine-can stuffing.

If you haven't been on a cruise yet, and consider sailing, many thoughts will go through your mind. For the new senior sailor, there are the typical fears we’ve all heard before. Most are just rumors or old wives’ (and old husbands’) tales. To put your mind at ease, let’s look at ‘em. 

1. First timer’s seasickness: This is an old myth that may have been true for passengers in 1620 on the bounding Mayflower. Modern cruise ships, even on rough seas, have stabilizers that regulate the ship movements. You’ll feel about as much shaking as you’d experience in a bus or car on a smooth highway. Actually, you’ll probably find the gentle motions of the ship will lull you to peaceful sleep at night in your comfy cabin.

2. Cruise ships are unclean: They’re at least as clean as any luxury hotel. When on a cruise, you’ll see crew members daily scrubbing all areas of the ship. The news about colds and flu spreading on some cruises are usually because passengers bring them aboard, as happens on airplanes, buses and trains. If you take normal health precautions, your chances of having a healthy cruise are excellent.

Your travel4seniors.com editor photo'd this sign on a recent Welsh venture. If you think the town name above the railroad station shop has a lot of letters, consider nearby Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, also in Wales. The Guinness Book of World Records lists that one as the longest place name in the world, and we can’t argue. Not that they’re the only strange name places in Wales. Consider Bully Hole Bottom, Penisarwaen, Tarts Hill, Three Cocks and Lord Hereford’s Knob.

.... your shoe, airline seat, aisle floor, arm rest or toilet seat overflight? Remember that old song? According to the Moscow Times, the Russian airline Pobeda has had it with sticky chewing gum. It claims to be spending thousands of rubles to clean up squashed wads from the passenger sections of their airplanes.

Therefore, the subsidiary airline of Aeroflot has banned Spearmint and all other forms of gum from its flights. Russian airport security is already super tight when passengers go through the line. So, just imagine what the guards will do if you show up as a suspicious chewer.