Sideswipe

Go, Helen: An early election looks imminent, with the Prime Minister's campaign apparently starting with this 2m-high stencil graffiti on a wall in Kingsland. Her badge declares Punk is not dead.

After the unnecessarily protracted semi-existence of the late Terri Schiavo, Robert Friedman of the St Petersburg Times in Florida prepares an end-of-life action plan for himself:

* In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state, I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means to prolong my hellish semi-existence. Fifteen years wouldn't be long enough for me.

* I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes their emotions and their bank accounts.

* I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I'd be really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start dating again or otherwise rebuilding a semblance of a normal life.

* I want my case to be turned into a circus by losers and crackpots from around the country who hope to bring meaning to their empty lives by investing the same transient emotion in me that they once reserved for Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy and that little girl who got stuck in a well.

* I want to be placed in a hospice where protesters can gather to bring further grief and disruption to the lives of dozens of dying patients and families whose stories are sadder than my own.

(Read the full column at sptimes.com)

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John Blanchette writes: "I am writing to report a simple act of kindness by a stranger which has endeared New Zealanders to me for the rest of my life. I am an American travel writer who was doing a story on food and wine in New Zealand. The other day I was running to catch a train in Wellington and, unknown to me, I dropped my silver business card case. This case has great sentimental value for me. I was Bob Hope's publicist for seven years and this was the last gift he gave me before he died. Natalie Deans of Lower Hutt emailed me and said she and her friend had found the case and did I want her to mail it to my home in Santa Monica. I was so overcome by her email that I invited them to visit me when they come to Santa Monica (I also do the publicity for the city of Santa Monica) and I would wine, dine, entertain and do some celebrity introductions. I look forward to meeting them and I felt your readers should know about these wonderful people who live among you."