Spare Room Be our guest…

FOR those making the pilgrimage to the dawn prayer service at Te Whare Runanga at Waitangi in the early hours of Tuesday, an empty carpark should have rung alarm bells. A black, late model Chrysler pulled up at the lower carpark and several serious, black-suited gentlemen alighted and made their way briskly to what they thought was the meeting house only to hit a dead end at the locked reserve reception building. A small group following with a torch realised something was amiss and found a track that led uphill to the grounds. It was only later that our torch bearers realised Brian Tamaki didn’t know his way to Te Whare Runanga.

A TEENAGE reader wishes to publicly but anonymously (very wise) admonish his parents for their unreasonable attitude towards household fruit consumption. Sideswipe predicts a legal career. He writes: “While most parents would be thrilled to have their teenage sons voluntarily eating fruit, two brothers’ decision to eat half of a rapidly expiring pineapple did not go down well. Also not well received by the parents was the older brother’s decision to make his own lunch, which included piling three pieces of fruit into his lunchbox along with a fresh salad and snack bar. First, a note was left on the fruit bowl banning the boys from eating fruit without first asking, soon followed by a further note requesting the replacement of what they had eaten. When the replacement was not forthcoming, a `fruit ration’ chart was put in place. The brothers did not approve so in protest destroyed it. Parents duly responded in the logical way you would expect of any rational, mature adults and locked up every piece of fruit in the house in the garage fridge, all the while subjecting the boys to fortnight-long silent treatment for their failure to be obedient. The fruit remains locked up to this day, untouched and presumably rotting away. Meat pie from the dairy anybody?”

THOM Grey reckons the greatest thing about the media (in particular, Sideswipe) is that it “gives voice to anyone who, at the summoning of great whim, chooses to grace the rest of us with their total perspective.” He is of course referring to the great teenage fruit-eating debate. “To some extent, I can appreciate the wry smile-inducing pathos of some kid writing to the newspaper about how utterly deprived they are. I didn’t discover the endless oral potential of Coco Pops until I was 11. However, the pompous, overbearing reader writing from a retirement unit to call these rapscallions to task with a mock letter may want to consider how impressive it actually is to get the better of someone else’s children. Thumbs up, buddy. Perhaps stick to the crossword …”

A READER responds to the teenagers who complained to Sideswipe that their parents had banned them from eating fruit. “One can only hope that the parents of the bumptious teenager who emailed you are sufficiently media-savvy to reply in kind, but in case they aren’t, I offer the following on their behalf: `Dear Sons, We are very pleased that you like eating fruit, and ask only that (1) you have the courtesy to let us know that you want it, and (2) ask permission to take it – you self-centred, overweening, publicity-seeking, precocious brats. Signed, Your Loving Parents’.”

FROM an avid Herald reader on the tiny, isolated and poor South Pacific Island of Niue (population 1100): “The Premier of Niue faced the reality of his Government’s long-standing financial crisis when he pulled into the island’s only privately run petrol station this week to fill his state-owned vehicle and was refused service. He was told the Government fuel account had not been paid for several months and until it was, no fuel for any Government vehicles.”

ALAN came across a community notice in the North Shore Times Advertiser. Under Adult Community Education, Music Drama and Dance, there is an entry for a two-session course at Westlake Boys High for “Air Guitar”.

LONG way from Parnell: In his search for a street to represent Auckland’s underclass, John Key is holding up McGehan Close in Owairaka as an example of his “empty tummies lead to empty lives” theory. But Mark Easterbrook points out on Public Address “he had better stop referring to it as being in `South Auckland’, as he did when talking to Havoc on bFM this morning.” Owairaka is smack in the middle of Avondale, Mt Roskill, Mt Albert and Blockhouse Bay – hardly south. (Source: publicaddress.net/
system)

DR Graeme Woodfield, of Kumeu, says it is good to see that Mark Stewart has also recognised the anomaly of absent nutritional and energy details on the labels of alcoholic products. “The alcohol industry is very resistant to any form of warning labels on alcohol, and opposes any such move that might conceivably affect their sales and exorbitant profits,” he says. “It is time New Zealanders woke up to this and demanded safeguards. Even discussion of a possible warning about drinking during pregnancy has been deferred until next year by the Food Safety Authority of Australia and New Zealand so nutritional information panels on alcohol are still far off … not so good for Mark’s bulge.”

FORMER National Party leader and kiwifruit grower Don Brash responds to the discovery that some kiwifruit in New Zealand shops comes from Italy. “This is not new,” he says. “Italy has been the world’s largest producer of kiwifruit for many years, and it is entirely natural for New Zealand to import kiwifruit from Italy during our off-season as it is for Italy to import kiwifruit from New Zealand during theirs. New Zealand kiwifruit is exported to Italy (and many other countries) after our crop is harvested around April/May each year, while Italian kiwifruit is imported after our April/May-harvested crop gets a bit tired in January. Consumers in both countries benefit.”

EYE spy … when high-ranking monkeys are shown images of other monkeys glancing one way or the other, they more readily follow the gaze of other high-ranking monkeys, Duke University Medical Centre neurobiologists have discovered. They ignore glance cues from low-status monkeys, while low-status monkeys assiduously follow the gaze of all other monkeys. The discovery is more than a confirmation of what most people believe about their bosses, said the researchers. It reveals that gaze-following is more than a reflex action; that it also involves lightning-fast social perception.

THE Ponsonby footpath upgrade has not been all bad, says Arlene Green. “Clearly there is no pleasing some people. Complaining about cut gas mains, phone lines, slurry on garage doors and walls, chipped hunks out of brick fences and concreted over water-main boxes. This is just part of getting a footpath upgrade. I live in Lincoln St and found the contractors most helpful. They often placed wooden planks across the `4cm ledges’ to enable residents to get in and out of their properties. There were no black eyes for elderly cancer patients in my street. In fact, the contractors often helped my mother-in-law carry my young son in his pushchair over the road when works were being undertaken. I find it hard to believe such polar experiences can be had with the same group of contractors. Perhaps Ponsonby residents should be grateful – at the very least be happy about the additional value added to already exorbitant Ponsonby house prices.”

SHORTLY after reading Sideswipe’s story about bad CVs, a school administrator opened this email responding to an ad for a part-time teaching position. “Should we shortlist this guy?” she asks. The applicant writes; “I’m looking 4 a job. But i dont have a cv. But i am srry. i don’t have a cv. I am only 18 years old. But i am turning 19 next month.”

ALEX Daley would like to congratulate the Auckland City Council and the roadworkers on Carrington Rd during the night. “They have done an excellent job creating a detour (as Carrington Rd towards Pt Chevalier is closed) which takes you around the back streets and then back on to … Carrington Rd. Is it just me or is a detour meant to take you around the roadworks, not just in a big circle?”

QUOTES from real resumes and cover letters published in Fortune magazine: “I have lurnt Word Perfect 6.0 computor and spreasheet progroms.”
“Wholly responsible for two (2) failed financial institutions.”
“It’s best for employers that I not work with people.”
“Let’s meet, so you can `ooh’ and `aah’ over my experience.”
“I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse.”
“My goal is to be a meteorologist. But since I possess no training in meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage.”
“The company made me a scapegoat, just like my three previous employers.”
“References: none. I’ve left a path of destruction behind me.”

HOW’S this for delusions of greatness: Describing how she feels about finishing the last Harry Potter book, J.K. Rowling writes on her website: “`It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years’ imaginative task; or how an author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever,’ reads the passage from Dickens’ preface to David Copperfield.” Adds Rowling: “To which I can only sigh, try 17 years, Charles.”

NEIL McGough was interested in the giant dragonfly in Friday’s Sideswipe. “It is indeed a New Zealand native, known as a `devil’s darning needle’ (or Uropetala carovei if you want to impress the neighbours),” he says. “I know only three people who have seen one. Their greatest enemy is probably our own citizens who assume they are some dreaded invader from the darkest Amazon or somewhere and kill them. A good friend of mine found one and called DoC, which appeared to know nothing of the creature and asked him to capture it and bring it in. Being a smart insect, it had scarpered by the time he got off the phone.”AND as if to prove Neil’s point: “Great photo of a dragonfly in Friday’s Sideswipe,” says David Willetts. “They do bite. When I was a teenager, one landed on my arm on the banks of the West Coast’s Arahura River and gave a good nip. A beautiful creature, but after being bitten I chased it along the bank hurling rocks and abuse at it.”

A BRITISH teenager has had a picture of a full English breakfast tattooed onto his head – bacon, eggs, sausages, beans, and a full set of cutlery. Dayne Gilbey, 19, from Coventry, spent six hours under the needle of tattoo artist Blane Dickinson after answering an ad for a willing victim. “My friends and family keep asking me why I’m doing this,” Gilbey said. “For me it’s just something different which has never been done before.” Dickinson, 32, said: “I first had this idea four years ago so I’m glad to have finally found someone brave, or perhaps unhinged, enough to do it.” For his next job, Dickinson wants someone willing to have their own face tattooed on the back of their head.

THIS week, the little kids have been threatened with a trampoline ban and, in New York, the big kids may have to give up their toys, too – at least while crossing the road. New York state senator Carl Kruger is proposing a law which would fine people US$100 for using iPods or cellphones while crossing city streets. Kruger calls the problem iPod oblivion and says pedestrians are walking into speeding cars, buses and one another. He says “oblivion” has caused several fatalities. (Source: iLounge.com)

A SCOT has been found guilty of careless driving after being caught shaving while overtaking a line of rush-hour traffic at 112km/h. The BBC says Edward Hutcheson, 39, was seen leaning forward to look in his rear view mirror as he used an electric shaver. Hutcheson said he was leaning so he could see past the dozen mannequins stored in the back of the car. Oh, his day job? A health and safety expert.

OVERHEARD in Harvey Norman Manukau: Woman looking at a NavMan (a global positioning device, probably for a Remuera tractor), asked the salesman if it was wireless. His reply: “Yes, ma’am, it would take a very long wire.”

DAVID Bevan of Howick noticed in a large coloured picture of A1GP racecars published in the Herald recently that the vehicles are almost identical. “It’s country versus country, and you can see who’s who because the names are on the rear spoiler – there’s Germany, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Netherlands, Fisher & Paykel er, pardon?”

MALCOLM of Ruawai writes: “If David Bevan of Howick had have been foolish enough to travel to Taupo and pay $170 a ticket as we did (and will not be doing again) for the A1GP, he would have noticed that not only was Black Beauty named after a whiteware company but the green and yellow thing was named after a tinny, Fosters.”

THE nuclear power sector in Russia is inviting female employees to compete in Miss Atom 2007, a contest to discover the industry’s most radiant beauty. “There are a lot of beautiful women in the Russian nuclear sector,” said a spokesman for nuclear operator Rosenergoatom. Competitors must be 18 to 35 and work in the nuclear sector in Russia or other ex-Soviet states, or at least be studying nuclear science at university. TO the people who broke into our house in Wood St, Ponsonby, on Sunday night. Could you please consider returning our jewellery? The items have no monetary value, but the sentimental value is huge. You took our memories from our wedding day and of our parents and grandparents, who have died. We’re willing to pay a significant reward for the return of these items that mean so much to us and nothing to you.” Email if you have information leading to the return of these items.

A TELEVISION appearance of an Irish Government minister led to a diagnosis of a facial tumour. A surgeon viewer noticed his face did not move as a fatty piece of tissue would. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Conor Lenihan, 43, said he had ignored the growth because of work pressures but is now urging others to get check-ups. “I feel very lucky, to be honest, because I was literally on the television and only for the fact that I was placed on the outer seat I was spotted on camera by a particular consultant, who said I had this tumour which thankfully wasn’t malignant,” he said. (Source: Boingboing.net)

THE Vatican is not happy with the novelty “Jesus Party Wig”. The costume, on sale in Italy to wear at the street festivities that precede Lent, costs $22 and comes with a flowing beard and a plastic crown of thorns. Senior Vatican figures called it “blasphemous” and one said a Muhammad fancy dress would cause widespread outrage. A shopkeeper who sells the outfit said: “To me, it’s just a novelty wig and beard.”

THE sign outside Murrays Bay School informs the public that it, with Murrays Bay Intermediate, have “the first duel school accreditation worldwide”. Well done, but “is it with swords, sabres or pistols?” asks a North Shore reader.

AN 87-year-old great-grandmother was asked to remove her woolly hat in a pub because her face was hidden from the security camera. Annie Freeman, from Kinson, Dorset, was wearing the white hat, which she had crocheted herself, because it was cold. She was sipping an orange juice with her family when the barmaid in The Goose in Aldershot asked her to remove her hat. Retired Mrs Freeman said: “Maybe they thought I was a rioter, but I am a bit too old to cause trouble. I was a bit annoyed about it at the time because I did not have my hair tidy.” A spokesman for the pub said: “It seems that a member of our staff was just a little too keen.” No-headwear policies made headlines in 2005 when Bluewater shopping centre in Kent banned people from wearing hoodies because of fears that troublemakers’ faces would not be seen on CCTV cameras.

IN an interview on Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report yesterday, Australian politician Pauline Hanson, known for her outspoken views on race and immigration, talked about her decision to run as an independent in the upcoming election and helpfully told listeners her autobiography “which I wrote myself” is coming out soon.

A PESKY cyclist really wants the driver of a white van with tinted windows, who vented his/her road rage at a group of cyclists by the airport yesterday morning and knocked one into the kerbing, to know of the resulting injuries. “Just in case they are interested, I am okay, the ambulance didn’t take long to come at all and the surgeon tells me that after two operations on my broken shoulder I should get 75 per cent function again. Awesome …”

GERMAN police responded immediately when a man called to report a suspicious vehicle parked on his property at Falkenberg, east of Berlin. The scooter did not have registration plates and the man could not explain how it got there, police quoted him as saying on Friday. Inquiries showed the scooter was a birthday gift for the man that friends had deposited outside his home without telling him.

A NEW Zealand company has devised a rodent trap that entices, encloses, electrocutes and then ejects vermin using a shock of between 2.8 and 4.0 kilovolts. Electrical equipment company Electropar has reportedly been granted a patent for the gadget which is powered by four AA-sized batteries. A bait fragrance lures the animal up a ramp into a covered tunnel. The animal’s entry registers on a sensor, triggering the “kill cycle”. Electropar co-
owner Grant Wallace says the animal is put to sleep by giving it a big shock and pulsing it at a lower level to stop the heart muscle. An electric motor then rotates the floor panel and dumps the carcass to the ground below.

ERIC STRICKET of Massey writes: “On Tuesday morning I was walking through the Takapuna Beach carpark when a sudden commotion broke out. A group of young men, who had just finished a stint on the water in outrigger canoes and were packing their car ready to go, were at the centre of the fuss. The cause of the commotion? A big seagull had swooped down and grabbed a set of car keys, resulting in the bird being chased and the keys being dropped into the ocean, never to be seen again.”