Sideswipe: Christmas madness

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Andrew spotted this offer at Harvey Norman. "Three dollars off an iPhone - yep, this is Christmas madness all right," he said.

Bank move wipes out festive funds

"How's this for Christmas cheer with a smile," writes a disgruntled bank customer. "My partner and I have a joint personal loan account. We have fallen behind in repayments due to other bills but my partner made a repayment arrangement which our bank accepted over the phone. My partner checked her account and found that our bank had kindly taken the total arrears out of her personal bank account. This puts her account into an unarranged overdraft which will incur fees and wipe out her fortnightly pay due to go in tomorrow, which ultimately means no money for Christmas. They have told us that it can't be undone and that the verbal agreement they made over the phone about the repayment agreement doesn't matter. Three days before Christmas."

Be prepared - but only in the light

The British Court of Appeal has ruled that playing ball games at night created an unacceptable risk to youngsters and upheld a £7000 ($14,500) compensation award to a Scout injured during a game called Objects in the Dark. The Scout Association had urged the court to overturn the award, arguing it would make it harder to draw youngsters away from computer screens and televisions. But the judge said that Scouting would not lose much of its value if such games were played with the lights on. (Source: The Telegraph.co.uk)

We're as good as our word

The term "Cuddle Class", which featured in the New York Times' Words of the Year list, is a Herald invention. The editorial staff brainstormed on what to call Air NZ's horizontal economy seating and our foreign editor, Nicola Lamb, came up with the winner.