Sideswipe: Party on Newmarket

Newmarket, still celebrating Christmas in late February. Photo / Supplied

Rae Roadley writes: "The 1959 beater comes a distant second in the contest for the oldest appliance still on duty. Zoe Roadley was 12 when she bought her Sunbeam Mixmaster in 1938 with money earned from selling a pig she had hand-reared. Zoe, now 83, was raised on a dairy farm at Maungakaramea near Whangarei and when blood poisoning killed a sow and all but one of her litter, Zoe's father said if she reared the surviving piglet, she could sell it and keep the money. The family had just got its first refrigerator and Zoe, who loved milkshakes, was most taken with the beater's attachments - a goblet and little beater for milkshakes. During World War II, she whipped cream so the family could enjoy more butter than their ration limit allowed. She got £12 for the pig but can't recall whether she got change when she bought the beater. During its 71-year lifetime, the beater has been in constant use and Zoe still uses it each week."

* * *

A reader writes: "You'd expect a £10 beater from 1959 to last as long as it did considering what they paid for it - £10 in 1959 is nearly $400 in today's money. See the Reserve Bank inflation calculator."

* * *

Cameron explains why Pete wasn't told the amount owed on his wife's insurance policy. "What Pete doesn't realise is that by giving him the insurance premium the insurer is also telling him that the insurance exists, and potentially what else the client has insured. The person on the phone also has no way of knowing if there has been a recent separation or other falling out, let alone whether the male voice on the phone is actually the client's husband at all." He adds that to remedy the problem, clients can simply have the policy listed as a joint policy.

* * *

A reader writes: "I needed to close a phone account after our flat had broken up. The account-holder had moved overseas. The Telecom rep was adamant she couldn't tell me the amount owing. A ludicrous situation got even more ridiculous when she told me to guess the amount I owed, and then guided me with, "add $2", and "maybe another 61 cents" until I eventually arrived at the final bill. We were both laughing by the end."

* * *

Common misconception about lemmings: They do not engage in mass suicidal dives off cliffs when migrating. They will, however, sometimes unintentionally fall off cliffs when venturing into unknown territory, with no knowledge of the boundaries of the environment. The misconception is due largely to the Disney film White Wilderness, which shot many of the migration scenes on a large, snow-covered turntable in a studio. (Source: List of common misconceptions on Wikipedia)