KEY POINTS:
"Can anyone better our lunchroom?" asks a reader. "In swanky, upmarket Parnell, while our building is being totally renovated, we are dining in the rubbish bin area. Enough to put one off one's panini." Is your lunch room a less than appetising place? Or is it flash as? Email Sideswipe a picture. Anonymity assured.
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Immigration officers should wear pastel uniforms when kicking kids out of the country, reports the BBC. The Border and Immigration Agency, in its Review of Family Removals, has suggested that: "Consideration should be given to providing standard-issue clothing in softer colours (currently in navy) for enforcement officers involved in family work to reduce the appearance of a uniform and be less intimidating to children."
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Peterborough Council in East Anglia says one of its stolen wheelie bins was found in Bulgaria. More than 2000 bins - worth £30 each - have disappeared, says a spokesman. "One 240-litre green recycling bin clearly stamped with the city council's name was even spotted in a residential area in Bulgaria."
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Linda Field of Helensville writes: "So a reader from Westmere thinks that a 2-minute, 31-second wait to speak to someone at Auckland City is a long wait. They should try contacting Telstra Clear. You would have more show of raising the dead than of speaking to a 'real' person. Sure, they have an automated voice, but it is only to say that they are experiencing 'long delays'. Doesn't seem to matter what time you ring, it's always the same."
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What's new with beer? The Germans have found an unexploited niche beer market: the blind. Dusseldorf's Uerige beer has released new bottles with a Braille label. According to Oddee.com, blind activist and beer drinker Joana Zimmer rejoiced, "You often have no idea what's about to go in your mouth. But with this bottle you are clearly told what it is - and that's fabulous." Meanwhile, in Washington DC, a chef in a hurry to cool down his beer is selling what he calls a "hopsicle". As you'd expect, the frozen beer comes on a stick. And from next month, anyone wishing to buy beer in a Tennessee supermarket will have to show photo ID, no matter how gray, bald or wrinkled customers are.
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No beer for babies: Phil lets us know that during the period of national prohibition in the United States (between 1920 and 1933) the manufacture, sale and transport of alcohol was illegal. "Like many other brewers at the time, Blatz of Milwaukee produced non-alcoholic beers, often marketed as tonics for their supposed health-improving properties."
