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A hardy pensioner who has beaten cancer eight times now has so much radiation in his body that he sets off supermarket alarms. Geoffrey Jones, 80, was first diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1971 when he was 26.
He has since survived prostate cancer, lymphoma, a tumour on the spine and four bouts of skin cancer. But all the radiotherapy he has received over the decades means the security guards at his local Sainsbury’s now turn the alarm off when he comes in to stop him triggering it.
@kibcol1049 UK supermarkets have radiation alarms?!
@blp @kibcol1049 Well obviously, we can't have the populace just walking out of Sainsbury's with a lump of uranium without paying for it. 
Who on earth would want to buy plutonium at Sainsbury's?
@Waxingtonknee @losttourist @blp @kibcol1049
Are asda doing it cheaper?
@ravensrod @Waxingtonknee @losttourist @blp It's only the plutonium alarms that go off there! 
@Waxingtonknee @losttourist @blp @kibcol1049
It's on special offer this week. BOGOF
@Waxingtonknee
I'm sure in 1985 plutonium was available by ripping off every Libyan terrorist group you could find, but in 2025 it's a little hard to come by...
@losttourist @blp @kibcol1049
@nowster
We are very much in the Biff Tannen future...
@Waxingtonknee @losttourist @blp @kibcol1049
@gareth @nowster @losttourist @blp @kibcol1049 I had this very thought the other day!
Lemme guess... It's selling like hot yellow cakes?
The special offer is going off like a bomb?
If he fancies a curry, I know just the place for him...
@lproven @blp @kibcol1049 love that Curry Skłodowska pic. That's going straight out to a couple of my Polish/Brit friends 
Edit for those who are unfamiliar, the scientist we know in the UK as Marie Curie (from her husband's surname) is proudly known in Poland by her maiden name, Maria Skłodowska, or sometimes by both names i.e. Marie Curie-Skłodowska
@kibcol1049 have some questions... Radiation from therapy is not supposed to accumulate in the body, and supermarket alarms use RFID
@peturdainn @kibcol1049 My dad had prostate cancer & metal radioactive ‘seeds’ were implanted. He was not to get near pregnant women or small children for the 90 half-life of the isotope. USPS sorting centers have radiation detectors & x-ray packages.
@stevewfolds wow I didn't know about the implants... #TIL thanks
@kibcol1049
@kibcol1049 "When asked about his long life he said, 'I dunno, just lucky I guess'".
@kibcol1049 So one can safely steal when this man comes and the alarm is switched off!
@kibcol1049 might be smoke alarms. They work because they contain radioactive Califorium which ionises the gap between two contacts just enough not to let a current flow but the ions in smoke push the level higher and complete the circuit
"Americium-241 is the most common material used as the alpha emitter in a domestic smoke alarm.'
It makes sense that Americium-241 is the radioactive emitter, given the US geopolitical situation - it's alarming!
@kibcol1049 but is it safe to stay around him?
@Disputatore it all sounds like a slow newsday story. I reckon the alarms are set up incorrectly. My local supermarkets go off all the time for no reason, yet when they forget to remove a security tag, the alarm doesn't go off!
@kibcol1049 really? That's odd. I'm picturing people facing a wall while being frisked and in the meantime there are other people leaving the store dressing multiple layers of unpaid clothes and no alarms go off.
@Disputatore perhaps I exaggerated slightly. The alarm does usually go off at least once for someone every other weekly shop i make. The security tags have not gone off when they should on my items about twice a year. Still pretty poor IMO.
@kibcol1049 I like the picture I created in my mind and there is no amount of words you can write that could ruin that.
@Disputatore I like your image, too. I can see it clearly, but in mine, the people in layers of clothes have pockets stuffed with food too. A string of sausages trailing from an old lady's coat: bottles clanging as they walk; childrens faces smeared with chocolate; a trail of flour and smashed eggs etc. 
@kibcol1049 ok, I stand corrected. There's a specific amount of words you can write for which I'm willing to change the picture in my mind. And that was it.
@kibcol1049 @Disputatore thank you now I have a Giles cartoon in my head