KEY POINTS:
If you're going to buy cheap Christmas gifts, check the wording carefully first. Hugh McCarroll received this DVD collection a few years ago.
* * *
The John Key/donkey debate refuses to go away:
"Regarding the preciousness displayed over associating 'John Key' and 'donkey'. When will it be pointed out that 'John Key' and 'shonky' are homophonous?" asks Jonathan Wood. Meanwhile, Garry Owen took the debate to reflect poor linguistics. "If one opens one's lips when speaking, there is no problem." That's the end of the matter. Probably.
* * *
The Vatican newspaper has marked the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' White Album by dismissing as a quip John Lennon's claim that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ. The legendary double album - which came out on November 22, 1968, at the height of the Fab Four's popularity - was a magical musical anthology from a band full of talent, L'Osservatore Romano said. Inevitably, its lengthy article kicked off with Lennon's remark to a London newspaper in 1966 that "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now." The newspaper said: "It is a phrase that provoked deep indignation at the time, but which sounds today like a quip from a young man from the English working class overtaken by unexpected success." The real talent of the Beatles, it said, "rested in their unequalled capacity to write popular songs with a sort of euphoric lightness that constituted a genuine trademark". "Today," it lamented, "recordings seem above all to be standardised and stereotyped - falling well short of the creativity of the Beatles."
* * *
Sidney Markowitz has - with some help from Google and a little sleuthing - found the answer to the Skimmers/Slimmers yoghurt name change mystery. "The previous Slimmers mix is now called Skimmers. It is exactly the same as Slimmers but because of trade description they are not allowed to use the word Slimmers any more."
* * *
Malaysia's top Islamic body has issued an edict that prohibits Muslims from practising yoga, saying elements of Hinduism in the ancient Indian exercise could corrupt them. National Fatwa Council chairman Abdul Shukor Husin said many Muslims fail to understand that yoga's ultimate aim is to be one with a god of a different religion - an explanation disputed by many practitioners, who say yoga need not have a religious element. "We are of the view that yoga, which originates from Hinduism, combines physical exercise, religious elements, chanting and worshipping for the purpose of achieving inner peace and ultimately to be one with god," Abdul Shukor said.
* * *
Does anyone know an organisation that will be happy to receive a second-hand wheelchair, in moderate condition but needing a spruce-up?
Norman Holtzhausen found one dumped behind a Scout den in Auckland. "After two hours searching through the phone book, on the internet and phoning around we cannot find any organisation willing to take it. It seems a great pity to put this out for inorganic rubbish collection." Contact Norman on 021-737-378 if you want it.
* * *
Today's Webpick: Interpretive stripping to Simply Red's hit love song If You Don't Know Me By Now. Watch them here.
These are the very best online videos from Ana's online magazine Spare Room.
