Sideswipe

Truck driver wanted.

Angie has an apartment at the Heritage which she shares with her partner Mark. After the final Lions test the pair joined the thousands of revellers at the Viaduct and partied up large, finally arriving home and crashing out about 4.30am. Just after 11.15am Mark popped out and Angie was woken by a knock on the door at about 11.30am. Thinking it was Mark and he had forgotten his keys, Angie dragged her sorry self out of the scratcher half dressed to let him in. Checking through the peep hole she saw black dreadlocks (this was not Mark) and quickly grabbed her dressing gown. She opened the door and there was Tama Umaga in his All Black tracksuit explaining that he was staying in the apartment directly above and his boot was on her balcony. Angie got his boot, congratulated him on his game and off he went.

* * *

The Pope's dissing of Harry Potter provides much-needed publicity: The Pope isn't a fan of the Harry Potter books according to comments made to a German author. Gabriele Kuby, who wrote Harry Potter - Good or Evil?, which criticises J.K. Rowling's best-selling series, sent Pope Benedict XVI a copy of the book when he was still a cardinal and now his replies have been published. "It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter because these are subtle seductions which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul before it can grow properly," wrote the Pope. He thanked Kuby for her "instructive" book, in which she says the Potter series corrupts the hearts of the young, preventing them developing a sense of good and evil.

* * *

Roy Wade says Bloomsbury, (J.K. Rowling's publishers), have just announced that a new Omnibus edition of the Harry Potter series is shortly to be published. Its provisional title is Harry Askaban's Philosopher Fired Stone Pottery Goblets on the Secret Orders of the Phoenix.

* * *

A test launched in the United States this month can tell the sex of an embryo just five weeks after conception, reports the Telegraph. The company behind the test, known as the Baby Gender Mentor, says that it will "help couples to decide whether to paint the spare bedroom pink or blue". Yeah right. The story goes on to explain how sex selection is a growing problem in parts of Asia, where a preference for sons is skewing population ratios.

* * *

Whipped cream is now a restricted substance: A Connecticut psychologist, an expert in eating disorders, collapsed in a supermarket after inhaling propellant from whipped cream cans. Lisa G. Berzins was found lying on a supermarket floor and bleeding from her head. Police interviewed witnesses and determined that Berzins apparently inhaled from three cans of whipped cream containing nitrous oxide, known as laughing gas. Berzins was charged with possession of a restricted substance, criminal mischief and creating a public disturbance.