Sideswipe

Fiat Panda

James Bond fans won't be pleased if rumours about his car in the next Bond film are to be believed. If they're true, Bond is about to shun Aston Martin, Jaguar and Lotus luxury and drive a Fiat Panda 4x4. Supposedly, the Fiat will be a miniature fortress. Versions of the car are rumoured to have been delivered to the film production team.

"This really has got to be a joke," says one James Bond fan, outraged by the suggestion, further describing the vehicle as "a funky shopping trolley".

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A great British tradition has fallen prey to progress. Death is the perfect excuse to dust off the chief bugler to play The Last Post, but as the Telegraph reports, the British Army now uses a digital bugle that automatically plays the melancholy tune.

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Sign a reader saw in a shop window in Ireland: PRICES - Born here, Raised elsewhere.

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Destiny NZ Mt Albert candidate Anne Williamson should realise sending a lackey with a flyer to bang on voter's door at 8pm and wake the just-settled baby is not family-friendly campaigning.

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Thanks to all those trainspotters who wrote in to point out that Jill Barton is wrong about the mistake in Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince ... how smug you all are. One in particular writes: "The purported 'mistake' which Jill Barton speaks of is actually not one at all. By using "Rupert" instead of "Ron", Jo Rowling is showing that Professor Slughorn has never had much time for Ron, whom he regards as not important enough to warrant attention, and hence gets his name wrong. It is exactly for this reason that he also calls him (incorrectly) "Ralph" just before he gets poisoned. Is Jill Barton really naive enough to think that such a glaring mistake, had it actually been one, would have slipped past JKR's highly experienced British editor, Emma Matthewson? Jo has already said that she visualises her own characters when writing, not the movies. And for the record, I don't visualise the movie's (awful) acting when reading the HP series."

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A New York radio station has agreed to stop its "Smackfest" promotion, in which women slap one another for prizes, under a US$240,000 ($314,000) settlement, says New York state's Attorney-General, Eliot Spitzer. Associated Press reports that the parent company of WQHT Hot 97, Emmis Communications, agreed to pay a settlement equal to the maximum fine it faced. Mr Spitzer and the state Athletic Commission said the hip-hop and rhythm and blues station held 24 Smackfest contests from April last year to January. Young women took turns "violently slapping" one another for concert tickets and as much as $5000 in cash, Mr Spitzer said. Images of the slapping then ran on the station's website. Said Emmis Radio: "Despite the fact that the contestants voluntarily participated in what was supposed to be harmless entertainment, it was not our finest hour."