Sideswipe

A sign at Waiwera Thermal Pools

Lorraine Clark of Birkenhead is another reader who tries to place a highly controversial ad in a North Shore newspaper. "We need someone to help load and deliver furniture. I was told that stating the job would 'suit a strong senior college student or active retiree living in close proximity to our business', was discriminatory to 'all the people in the middle group'. Perhaps a delicate 50kg, pregnant 30-year-old living in Pukekohe might like to apply? After a heated discussion, they reluctantly agreed to print the ad change. It now reads 'could' suit a strong ... Crazy semantics! I'd hate to think of the minefield one would encounter advertising for a sperm donor. It doesn't bear thinking about."

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Not neighbourly # 4: Ivy Bennett can sympathise with people who have difficult neighbours. Hers is a doozie. "Our neighbour is a young man around his early 30s. He continuously rings noise control about our pool pump because he and his girlfriend like to sleep in at the weekends till midday. He wants us to turn off our pump until they get up. A person from the Manukau City Council measured the noise with his decibel counter and found it was one decibel above the allowable level. The neighbour is forever complaining about the water running through our taps, and last week he objected to my daughter using her toilet at 11 pm. When she turned the light on in her bathroom to have a shower, the clown next door got to our power meter and switched it off ... "

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A listener to Radio Hauraki's Morning Pirates (Willy De Witt, Mark Perry and Dean Butler) was offended when the trio gave born-again Christians a serve last week. He writes: "I absolutely LOVE the classic rock you play, and I get a good laugh out of the Morning Pirates ... However, I didn't find this morning's episode of Thomas the Tanked Engine very funny, as it attempted to poke fun at Christianity with insulting remarks about born-again Christians. Since I became a Christian last year, I no longer find such remarks very funny ... I don't mind if they make fun of gays or real estate agents or other groups of people in society who I normally like to laugh at. I just don't want my religion made fun of or degraded in that way."

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The DJs on Classic Hits on January 24 were literally salivating over what they described as a "mouth-watering final in tennis between Agassi and Federer". Truly odd.

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Porn star Jenna Jameson is now hawking her "moan tones". For $3.50 fans can choose from a variety of moans, grunts and lurid sexual noises. If that's not enough, Jameson will talk dirty to you when your phone rings, in English or Spanish. Her voice work is already being downloaded in Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela, but United States users will have to wait as no mobile carriers in the US have expressed any interest in carrying the service. (Source: Reuters)