Dubious marketing: When buying tampons, Sharon says she noticed she had a chance to win a prize in the Libra Lucky Box competition! Win $10,000 - from rags to riches, as the promoters exclaim on their website. "When I got home and put on my glasses to read the smaller print I discovered that there was another, stranger prize. If I was really lucky, there might be a "golden tampon" in my lucky box. A golden tampon? Huh? This new take on Charlie's golden ticket doesn't quite sit right. According to the website, if you have found a golden tampon you have won a $50 'gift card'. Perhaps other Sideswipe readers have been "lucky" golden tampon winners and can enlighten us further."
* * *
A 12-year-old "chip dealer" has been suspended from a Liverpool school which has banned fatty drinks and snacks. Joel Bradley was caught selling a packet of potato crisps at a marked-up price of 50p, reports the Liverpool Echo. Joe Bradley said his son was being "victimised" for the enterprise was earning him as much as £15 ($33) a day. Mr Bradley admitted he too was once caught selling canned drinks, chocolate bars and crisps from a van outside the school. The head teacher said: "We are a healthy school and proud of it."
* * *
It was a lovely thought for the Post Shop staffer to walk up and down the long line of customers that stretched all the way out the shop, handing out lollies at the Panama St branch in Wellington," writes Mere Taima. "I couldn't help thinking though that it would have been even better if she was serving at the counter, helping to reduce the queue in the first place!"
* * *
A reader writes: "Iain Breadmore, who wondered how you can crack a car windscreen using the air conditioning in your car and a simple chip in the screen, may be interested in the following study on windscreen cracks at Safelite.com which says: 'The cooling of a windscreen from room temperature to a sub-zero temperature causes a contraction of the windscreen [which] predisposes the chip to crack-off horizontally.' Road bumps as well as aircon can easily cause a crack to become large enough to write off a windscreen."
* * *
What's the bet the watering pictured in yesterday's Sideswipe has been contracted out? says Dorothy. "Once you no longer control staff directly, this sort of nonsense is inevitable. I have seen grass being mown when it had snow on it in the UK."
* * *
View today's Herald cartoon
* * *
Today's Webpick: Wearing a wig, busting out the accordions and a polka beat, Bob Dylan stages a Christmas comeback with this song…. Go here and tell us what you think.
To say thanks and Merry Christmas to Sideswipe and Spare Room readers, I have put together The Best Christmas Hamper Ever. It's worth over $2500 and will make Christmas very merry. Go here to enter. The winner will be drawn on Saturday and delivered the very next day.
