Sideswipe: Inappropriate logo

An inappropriate logo, suggests Peter Reilly after passing this new sushi bar in Newmarket.

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Swimmers at a council pool have been banned from doing lengths for health and safety reasons. Instead, people using the Dagenham pool in Essex are allowed to swim only across the width of the pool, as it makes it easier for lifeguards to ensure their safety. Pool managers said they would need to have an extra lifeguard on duty if people were swimming lengths and there was not enough funding to pay for that. (Source: Daily Mail)

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A new beauty trend is sweeping the fashion industry and threatening to become mainstream, says the New York Times. Following on from the Botox frozen forehead, eyebrows are being bleached, shaved or covered with waxy makeup, giving an expressionless, android-like look. No doubt dedicated followers of this fashion trend will have to endure many more eye irritants and gags about passing out at parties.

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A reader suggests Scotland Yard isn't the only employer to monitor employees' toilet breaks: "A very large and well-known IT company in New Zealand did the same thing. And not only did we have to 'code' each toilet break, if your total toilet-break minutes for the month were deemed excessive, it was liable to be brought up during your monthly performance review and you could receive a warning."

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This reader knows more about her colleagues than is necessary: "I work for a large call centre here in Auckland. Our toilet breaks are recorded as 'personal time' and included with our daily stats, which are emailed to everyone in the call centre daily. Four minutes 59 seconds is the maximum time allowed. Anything over that time is 'redlined'. So we can all see that one or more of our colleagues has spent anything from one minute to 20 minutes (or more) in the toilet."

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Alan Bryant says most fight sports fit into the description of sports where the score and winner isn't known until the end by the competitors or the spectators. And horticulture expert Bob says there are around 100 perennial vegetables ... silverbeet, asparagus, rhubarb, garlic chives, scarlet runner beans, chokos, fennel, topset onions, artichokes, radicchio, purple cape broccoli, chicory, comfrey, NZ spinach, sorrel, watercress, horseradish, seakale ... And David ignored the suggested six things you wear on your feet starting with 's' and came up with 17 ... sabots, sandals, sandshoes, scuffs, shoes, skates, skis, slippers, snowshoes, sneakers, sockettes, socks, spats, spurs, stockings, stilettos and swim fins. Other readers have come into contact with lettuce soup on a menu, and canned lettuce is in Chinese food stores along with watermelon jam.

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