KEY POINTS:
Eddie Stocks was amused to see this 'Safety Advisor' with his car so full of stuff that he would not have been able to see through his rear vision mirror.
***
Paddy Burkhard is infuriated with the state broadcaster's yachting spoiler. During the first ad break of the America's Cup highlights yesterday morning, TVNZ showed a promo for Close Up with Mark Sainsbury proudly asking how Dean Barker will take on Alinghi. No warning. No spoiler alert. Zip. Nada. Great stuff, TVNZ, except all of us who came to work early for a team breakfast and to watch the highlights package got the result within five minutes of the programme's start. This is not the first time TVNZ has pulled a stunt like this. Idiotic, to say the least.
***
Dutch students have invented booze in a powder so they can sell it to underage drinkers and avoid taxes. Booz2Go is a powdered alcoholic beverage which when water is added turns into a bubbly, lime-coloured and flavoured fizzy drink (with 3 per cent alcohol) and is a bargain, priced somewhere between $1.80 and $2.70 for a 20g single drink packet. Because it is in powdered form, it can legally be sold to minors, and companies keen on making it commercially could avoid taxes.
***
We published a picture of BP's new ad campaign to push pies in Te Kuiti with the line: Where good cows go when they die. Ewww. But a reader spotted another one in Palmerston North with the much funnier caption: "Run Daisy, Run!"
***
How celebrities get a date: You'd think with her own physical prowess on the dance floor and on top of a snowboard, Hayley Holt would know all about sport. Apparently not. When All Black captain Richie McCaw asked Holt's agent if Hayley would like to go to the premiere of Oceans 13 on Wednesday night with him, Haley had no idea who he was.
***
The Rock Bottom Remainders is an occasional rock group who between them have sold more than 150 million books. Stephen King, Simpsons creator Matt Groening, humorist Dave Barry and Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, make up the band, which celebrated their 15th anniversary with a Still Younger Than Keith one-show tour of New York. They were joined by Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes) and humorist Andy Borowitz. Asked to explain the one-day tour, Barry said: "We're going to tour around New York while we're there. Or around the hotel. Or at least around the hotel bar." And responding to why they don't quit their day jobs and tour full-time, Barry said it would be unfair to the Stones, who need the work.
***
The Kingslander Pub's attempt at up-selling Heineken to the mathematically challenged on the night of the first All Blacks v France test.
