Here's an interesting response I got from an editor via email today:
For the record, stories that involve bowel movements, toilets, airports and flying are rejected out of hand.
I subsequently queried this comment, since none of my writing makes reference to toilets or bowel movements...and it's bizarre that the Travel section of a newspaper would ban writing on the grounds that it refers to 'airports' and 'flying'. One presumes there is a word checker (as opposed to a spell checker) which blitzes the article into oblivion if any of these words come up.
So, for example, you'd have to write: "I watched seagulls fly...err...walking beside the sea." Or: "I got up and went to the toi..to the loo, actually."
It turned out the editor in question hadn't even read the piece, but had noticed in the opening sentences a reference to an airport, and so came up with this epithet of rejection.
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