KEY POINTS:
Roger alerts Sideswipe to a warning on the packaging for some fitness equipment. It reads: "The safety level of this equipment can only be maintained if checked regularly. If defects are found keep the equipment out of use until repaired. Risk of injury can be reduced when common sense is practised." The equipment? A "speed" skipping rope.
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The public certainly are a vigilant bunch. On a Sunday afternoon council officers were summoned to investigate "suspicious activity" at Castor Bay Beach on Auckland's North Shore. A man and a woman in their 40s had been seen fossicking among the rocks before digging a hole and burying a plastic-wrapped item. Concerned onlookers noted how carefully the burial site was concealed with seaweed and sand and how seriously the pair noted its exact location "10 paces north from seawall, 15 paces south etc". Of course it transpired that the plastic-wrapped item was a treasure chest filled with lollies for a birthday treasure hunt. What we can't work out is why the super-sleuths didn't simply ask the well-dressed and friendly-looking "crims" what they were up to before alerting the authorities. Oh, and you'd think the little handwritten notes taped to posts and hidden under rocks could have established the nature of the crime.
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The price of a truly excellent night's sleep: A US$60,000 ($80,970) mattress from the Swedish manufacturer Hastens, introduced to the United States recently for people who, according to the advertising, believe they're so special they're entitled to a luxuriously rejuvenating night's sleep.
(Source: News of the Weird)
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An Englishman has bought a $94.5 million Harrier jumpjet on eBay for just under $27,000. Neil Banwell of Somerset won an online auction for the aircraft, which led the first attack on Port Stanley during the Falklands War. Banwell, 39, told the Mirror: "It was my daughter Jess's 14th birthday and she put the bid on for me. We then went out to a barbecue and the next morning we found out we owned a Sea Harrier." It came with two 30mm cannon but minus its $674,177 Pegasus engine and computer systems because regulations prevent it being flown in Britain.
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A pup's predilection for cake caused a fire that wrecked her owners' home. Peggy, a 6-month-old Rottweiler cross, snatched a piece of birthday cake left on a kitchen top and accidentally turned on the electric hob. It set fire to the cake box, which started a blaze in Tony and Lorraine Shaw's new home in Northumberland.
