Sideswipe: October 2: How to appear smart in meetings

From Sarah Cooper's Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings.

Facebook friends forever and ever?

"A Facebook etiquette question. I went through my 'Friends' list and noticed three are dead - (seems to happen more often as you age, then suddenly it's your turn, I hear).

"Is it polite to just leave them there as 'Friends' or do you 'Unfriend' them. 'Unfriending' the dead doesn't seem to feel very nice, sort of cold, or am I just old-fashioned? Is there a Facebook etiquette handbook?"

Cake with moving hundreds and thousands

"What a nightmare," declares Dominic. "Six-year-old's birthday party and suddenly it's 'cake time'. I go into the kitchen to get the cake and the ants have got into it. I carry it to the table and praise be that we bought a cheap, dry and solid cake at the supermarket (the proper cake was at the family birthday days earlier), because I drop it from a foot above the table. Ants go everywhere. I wipe it clear and drop the cake again and again until ants stop coming out. I can hear parents arriving to collect, so quickly drop the cake a few more times. Then kids cluster and parents look on and everybody sings happy birthday and more ants are escaping but I wipe them away with a cloth and nobody notices. Birthday girl cuts the cake and, praise be because it's just a supermarket cake no adult wants any. The cake starts getting handed out. Then I die a little inside because I pass a slice to Jessica, a devout vegetarian, and know I haven't got them all."

Any vegetarian would love a slice.

Birds of no feather find life tough

News nostalgia from 1976. Doctors William Johnson and Robert Truax of Louisiana State University raised and studied featherless chickens. Aside from the physical problems, the chickens had social problems and psychological hangups, Johnson said. "I guess 'embarrassed' is as good a word for it as any. You put one of them in with a flock of normal birds, and it huddles off in a corner by itself. The other birds won't have anything to do with it until they get used to it," he said. "And then they're just not as active sexually. They will court and strut much more than the normal bird, but they don't mate as readily."

Those who prefer the scent of dried petals and spices might turn their noses up at this.