Couldn't resist this yarn. A Moscow newspaper reports: "Russian scientists have found wooden-wheel tracks and coils of 1000-year-old copper wire in a cave 100m under a forest near St Petersburg. The leader of the excavation, Professor Boris Vladivostok, said the find confirmed that Russia in the 10th century was laying a telephone network."
Soon after this, American newspapers reported: "United States scientists have found steel-belted tyre tracks and 2000-year-old optical fibres in a man-made shelter 200m under a national park in Montana. Expedition leader Professor Wakefield Stanford-Harvard III says the find proves that early North Americans were laying a high-tech telephone system 1000 years before the Russians."
A week or so later, a Dublin newspaper reported: "Irish scientists searching for evidence of an ancient telephone system 500m under a peat bog in Country Kildare have found absolutely nothing. Expedition leader Professor Padriac O'Liffy said the discovery proved that 5000 years ago Irishmen were already using mobile phones."
Steer clear
Good Oil viewed a flood-damaged Japanese import the other day. Wouldn't buy it with your money. There was an awful smell like a mix of rotting potatoes and blocked drains. Then there was the salt ... Liked the buyer-warning from a vehicle inspector: "Pretend each car has a communicable disease."
Sheer stupidity
Something New Zealand's road safety people might want to think about: John Moss, road safety chief for Cheshire County Council, has attacked the British Government's approach to safety.
"It's simplistic, real knee-jerk stuff," Moss said. "I wish the Government would forget its fixation with speed. By going down this road it's shifting the emphasis from inappropriate speed, which involves rider or driver error, to a simple limit. We should be talking about lack of skills, about people's ability to use a bike or car.
"Speed cameras ... are painted grey and are hidden behind bushes. What's the psychology in that? We should have brightly painted cameras that genuinely deter people. The traffic bobby who stops you for speeding can discuss your driving or riding, while cameras are stupid and can't educate. And the increased use of cameras will quickly criminalise 100 per cent of the population. Do we really want that."
Flying colours
Psychologists say that the colour of a car says a great deal about its owner. Tonight at 8.30, Auto Motor and Sport looks at the influences of car colours. The Triangle Television show also finds out how Volkswagen has reinvented Bugatti, how the new Ford Mondeo performs, how the latest diesels from Mercedes-Benz and Alfa Romeo compare, and how the German tuning-house TechArt made the already fast Porsche GT3 go faster.
We are the world
* New Yorker Jim Killen is selling tapes of traffic noise - so that city workers relocated to upstate rural areas can feel more at home.
* Frenchman Paul Didier was devoted to his Citroen 2CV and would work on it into the early hours of the morning. That was until an irritable neighbour took exception to the noise and shot Didier dead.
* Police in Perth pulled over a VW Beetle chock-full of telephone books. The driver had removed the car's seats to cram in 3500 books for delivery and was sitting on some of them.
Anything you can do ...
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