KEY POINTS:
Simon Denton says Georgina Monro should count herself very lucky her motorway breakdown attracted some good Samaritans. "It happened close to a junction on one of the back-road short cuts angry drivers take through Ponsonby," he says. "It was Saturday mid-morning and I had my 4-year-old son with me. Despite having my bonnet up, my hazards on AND holding my son, not only did no one stop to try and help me push my vehicle out of the way but I was subject to some reasonably horrific abuse by about 20 motorists. Various four and five-letter words were slung in my direction, with my 4-year old wanting to know what many of them were! After about 10 minutes a man and his wife stopped (thanks Gary and Megan) and helped push my car out of the route of the angry denizens of Ponsonby. Even then, hazards flashing, three people pushing the car (my son was being watched on the footpath) a man on a scooter shouted that we were all ****s for blocking the road and we should be shot. Driving in Auckland is a dreadful experience full of rude people and it ain't gonna change any time soon."
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Heard the one about the shoplifting seagull? A bird walks into a newsagent in Aberdeen when the door is open and makes off with cheese Doritos. It's not a joke. The seagull, nicknamed Sam, has now become so popular that locals have started paying for his crisps, says the BBC online. Shop assistant Sriaram Nagarajan said: "Everyone is amazed by the seagull. For some reason he only takes that one particular kind of crisps." Once outside, the crisps are ripped open and the seagull is joined by other birds.
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A B. Philby thinks that a quicker version of rugby which would eliminate the time-wasting, boring, crouch, touch, pause, engage scrums and the risk of injury.
He says the changes could go like this:
1) Call it 80/80 rugby - 80 minutes of rugby.
2) Use the league scrums and lineout styles.
3) Use 15 in backlines - no lumbering front rowers.
4) Stop the clock when the ball is not in play - even when it is kicked out.
This would give spectators 80 full minutes of rugby and maybe the Blues and Crusaders franchises could stage two exhibition matches, in Auckland and at Christchurch the next weekend. The profits of each game could be given to charities.
If cricket can have a quicker, more interesting game 20/20, why should rugby not have an 80/80 version?"
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Theo Wilms of New Plymouth says the New Scientist's claim - "a kilogram of beef makes more greenhouse gas emissions than driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on back home" - refers to the greenhouse gases from animals kept on a feedlot, have the food grown for them and carted to them and then more energy is used to dispose of the waste. However, our hill country farmers that produce beef do not use much oil. The phosphate fertiliser they use comes from rock in North Africa shipped here in the thousands of tonnes. Some fuel is used to spread it and fuel is used to cart the animals off the property and that's it."
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In response to Alex Purvis finding NZ horse on the menu in Switzerland, a reader writes: "My father used to work in management in the meat industry, and New Zealand is one of the largest horsemeat exporters in the world. We ship it out labelled cheval (French for horse) so that we don't get complaints."
