KEY POINTS:
Spotted at Birkenhead Wharf on the North Shore, this unfortunate Jaguar owner had a mishap as he tried to reverse his car. "It wasn't bad driving," said the good-natured driver. "It was the awkward contour of the road." It took two tow trucks to pull the car to safety in front of an amused crowd. "At least I can't get a ticket - I'm not on yellow lines or obstructing the road."
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Lonely? Got no one to share a pint with? How about your pet pooch? AP reports that Terrie Berenden, a pet shop owner in the southern Dutch town of Zelhem, has created a beer for her weimaraners made from beef extract and malt. "Once a year we go to Austria to hunt with our dogs, and at the end of the day we sit on the veranda and drink a beer. So we thought, my dog also has earned it," she said. Berenden assigned a local brewery to make and bottle the non-alcoholic beer, branded as Kwispelbier. It was introduced to the market last week and advertised as "a beer for your best friend". "Kwispel" is the Dutch word for wagging a tail.
The beer is fit for human consumption, Berenden said.
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Ageing Oz rocker Jimmy Barnes has picked his all-time best 25 Australian albums in the latest Bulletin magazine. A mere four of them are the work of Kiwi bands who made it big across the Ditch. Barnes listed Dragon's Sunshine, Split Enz' True Colours and two by Neil Finn's Crowded House - Woodface and Crowded House. (Okay it's true the band had two Australian musicians. The muse, though, was Finn).
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A reader has another tale to follow on from this week's Sideswipe item about the 1c cheque. "A couple of years back I received a tax refund cheque from IRD for $2.78. Considering the "over the counter" fees for most banks, I would have had to make a loss to bank this useless piece of paper. Mister One Cent would be even worse off! To make it even more laughable, IRD sent me the cheque again, reminding me I hadn't cashed it in. I bring it out to show people as a conversation piece, and I'm very tempted to frame it as a prime example of Bureaucratic Stupidity."
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Scientists in the German city of Jena have finally given up after three years of failed attempts to entice a sloth into budging as part of an experiment in animal movement. The sloth, named Mats, was consigned to a zoo after consistently refusing to climb up and then back down a pole as part of an experiment conducted by scientists at the University of Jena's Institute of Systematic Zoology and Evolutionary Biology. Mats was not even tempted by cucumbers or plates of homemade spaghetti. "Mats obviously wanted absolutely nothing to do with furthering science," said Axel Burchardt, a university spokesman. Mats' new home is the zoo in the northwestern city of Duisburg where, according to reports, he is very comfortable.
