Briefly...

Obviously the Pope deserves our special prayers again. The 'flu going around Rome this winter is no laughing matter - it seems to be sticking around for longer than usual and I've heard of healthy young men confined to hospital beds with a fever because of it, so the Pope's relapse is a worry.

On a lighter note, whilst looking for something else, I came across the story of a WWII female Russian fighter pilot - the White Rose:

[She] painted a white lily on either side of her aircraft. The Germans mistook the lily for a rose (understandable, as floral arrangement is usually the last thing on your mind when someone is trying to shoot you down) and she became known to the Luftwaffe as the White Rose of Stalingrad. Litvyak's love of flowers made her decide on the emblem. She would often pick wild flowers near the airfield before the mission and take them with her into the cockpit. An extremely aggressive pilot, Litvyak's confidence in her flying ability was often the deciding factor in her victories over the Germans, surprising them with her seemingly reckless manuevers and aerobatics.

It's part of a military oriented website called Buster's Baghdad. Here's an index of his Military Trivia pages - some fascinating stuff there.