Sideswipe: Booze bus

Dropping the kids off in Ellerslie, Peter snapped a school bus giving the thumbs-up to Jim Beam. Photo / Supplied

Time for an ad? Wait for a break!
A reader was watching Al Jazeera News on Sky Channel 89 yesterday keenly waiting for a much-trumpeted item on New Zealand and the impact the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movie projects were having here. "The newsreader read the intro and within seconds of the feature starting, some dork at Stratos TV crashed out of the worldwide broadcast and screened a house advert for foreign-language news bulletins, then a Kiwi ad on our cervical-cancer screening programme. How could they be so stupid!"

Pony's Stones tattoo ruled illegal
Tattooing a pony with the Rolling Stones' famous "tongue" logo would infringe animal rights law, a German court has ruled. The court in Munster found against the white pony's owner, who wanted to tattoo the animal's right hind thigh to make it "more uniquely beautiful". He had already shaved part of the animal and pre-tattooed the outline of the tongue, 15sq cm in area. The court took into account the inability of the pony to understand why it was being tattooed. Moreover, the court said the owner wanted to make money from a "tattoo service for animals".

Don't mention the war!
Scottish Football bosses have been left red-faced after a special Remembrance matchday programme used a picture of Nazi troops. The front cover of Airdrie United's magazine for the Scottish League division two clash against Livingston Club featured nurses handing out water to grinning German soldiers on a train during World War II - with the words: "Lest We Forget" and the slogan: "Supporting Our Heroes". Officials thought it showed Australian soldiers.

There's a lot of it about
Julia Rutherford from Tauranga writes: "My husband purchased some cheap replaceable brush heads for his electric toothbrush. I was interested to read on the back that they're also good for removing the plague".