Police phone home
Reader D.A says he was pleased to find out at the weekend that there are still members of the public who will go out of their way to do a good deed for which they can't be rewarded. "A couple of minutes into my bus ride home on Friday night I realised I didn't have my phone on me," he writes. "I got off at the next stop, went back to the bus stop where I had placed it down beside me but it was gone. I thought, being a Friday night and town being busy, it was probably the last I'd see of it. I was kicking myself for being so careless. I tried ringing it when I got home but nobody answered. I was surprised to get a call on Saturday morning saying someone had handed the phone in at the Auckland central police station. The person at the counter had called the contact "Home" on my phone realising there was a good chance they would find its owner. The police station was a good walk away from where I had lost my phone so whoever handed it in possibly went out of their way to hand it in. I asked the woman at the counter if there was any way I could thank the person who handed it in but she said they are not allowed to pass on that information. So to the person who handed it in, if you are reading this, thanks."
Queen Elizabeth II is amusing
1. During a sitting for a portrait with the artist Lucian Freud, the Queen confided that she had hired one of her protection officers to guard the crown she was wearing for the picture at a pheasant shoot. "I was picking up after the guns as I always do when a wounded pheasant scratched me and drew blood. The detective assumed I'd been shot, threw himself on top of me and began giving me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I consider we got to know each other rather well."
