While considering toys and games for inclusion in the book The Fascinating History of Toys and Games around the World, Warwick Henderson came across many fascinating games including HouseHunting, an English game from the 1930s where the object was to correctly match the property to the description of12 houses. "Things have improved considerably from being 'opposite a butcher's' or 'Gypsy encampments', although opposite a butcher's was exactly where I was in the early 80s with a bungalow in Bath St, Parnell, opposite Hellaby's Meats [now gone]. Things were a bit pokey, the fences were broken, the garden was overgrown, the wallpaper was awful and spiders were everywhere too. I still bought it!"
Fat's in fire when porker pigs out on pedometer
A pig started a fire in its pen when it swallowed a pedometer. Fire crews were called to a farm near Leeds after copper from the pedometer's batteries reacted with the pig's excrement and dry bedding. No animals or people were harmed in the fire. North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said it had gone in to "save the bacon".
"The miffy wife with the whiffy husband from yesterday's Sideswipe raises an interesting conundrum," writes Roger Clarke of Te Awamutu. "Shower in the morning or shower at night. Her husband showers in the morning before going to the office and she objects when he doesn't do that when he stays home. Contrast that to an upbringing on a dairy farm where you get up at 5am, milk the cows and do a few other chores, scrub the worst of the muck of your arms and face, have breakfast then go out on the farm to do more dirty work. Of course, you shower (or bathe) at night before dinner. Having been brought up in that farm environment, it wasn't until I started work in 1970 in an office environment that I got into the habit of showering every morning. It's simply a consideration for those with whom you will share a confined space. But if you are restricted to one shower a day (by a need or wish to conserve water, or just habit) and have a choice, there's nothing like a shower at night to help you sleep well and make you nice to be near in bed. I back the husband."
If only horses could read
If only horses could read.
Seated men were 'accident waiting to happen'
A reader writes: "An 81-year-old man has just had a swim at St Heliers beach. He is sitting on a seat on the wooden walkway facing the sea. He is struck by an e-scooter being ridden by a 10-year- old boy, and suffers a gash on his leg which requires six stitches. His companion has his watch knocked off by the impact. The child's mother arrives and berates the two men for 'not keeping your feet under the seat, then this wouldn't have happened'."
