The good oil: Taking the Mac out of Super Mayor

Len Brown. Photo / Sarah Ivey

A larrikin Scotsman we know (Mac) wants to get on Super City Mayor Len Brown's gravy train. Mac claims one of his ancestors is Thomas Telford, one of two Scottish engineers credited with designing the modern, tarred road. In the 1780s, Telford came up with raising the foundation of the road in the centre to help water drain away. His fellow Scotsman John McAdam added broken stones laid in tight, symmetrical patterns to help create an impermeable surface for the water to flow. Mac reckons Mayor Brown (pictured) should hire him to make sure Super City road contractors stick to his ancestor Telford's design. Mac wants $100,000 a year and road royalties going back to about 1780 - or "a one-off payment of a million dollars." He will also help with Mayor Brown's next election campaign. Mac's proposal: "Brown? Aye."

Throwing their car keys in the Bowl

Super Bowl Sunday in the US is also known for its car commercials. The most popular of those that aired the other day was General Motors' ad for the Chevrolet Camaro, an off-the-wall sequence of events rated as one of the best ever. It's a big hit on YouTube. So is Volkswagen's ad for the new Passat (to be launched here this month). It shows a boy pretending to be Darth Vader and using supernatural powers on the Passat. Ford didn't advertise during game time, where ads cost US$3 million ($3.9 million) for 30 seconds. It chose instead to go to air before the game.

Is that a Nassin or an Irarref?

A competition of sorts is doing the rounds of Facebook: to find the weirdest looking backwards car. To enter: Fire up Photoshop, chop off the roof of a car, flip it and put it back on top. Follow the photos on US site Autoblog's Facebook page. The backwards car pictured here is a Nissan GT-R.

I have one Prius, but two ...

Reader Paul writes: "Back in the 1960s I recall Colin Chapman, founder of Lotus, putting out a press release, reported in Motor Sport, that the plural of Lotus was Lotus. Variations such as Loti and Lotuses etc were not to be used." Paul was responding to last week's item about Toyota trying to find the plural for Prius, the name of the carmaker's petrol-electric hybrid. The voting is still open on Toyota's Prius Family website. Currently, Prii is leading strongly with 40 per cent of the vote. Priuses sits in second with 27 per cent while Prius, Prium and Prien bring up the rear. The winning word will be revealed on February 20.

We are the world

The 350,000 or so "fatwas" issued in 2010 by an Islamic authority in the United Arab Emirates were, rather than "assassination" orders, all Quranic interpretations governing everyday life. Among them: vuvuzelas (the soccer World Cup trumpets) are okay below 100 decibels; afternoon naps are prohibited because time should be better spent and half-sisters may shake hands with their brothers, even if their mother is Christian.

The Chicago Tribune checked on the results of traffic-stop drug searches in the city in 2010 and found that sniffer dogs often get it wrong. The cops came up empty nearly six out of every 10 times the dogs scented something. The failure rate hit seven out of 10 with Hispanic s