KEY POINTS:
Watching CNN on Thursday night, Colin Taylor couldn't believe the news channel got all in a muddle over the Louis Vuitton Cup. The anchor claimed that Emirates would meet the Swiss cup holder Alinghi in the America's Cup because of the branding on the Team NZ sail. Taylor swiftly rang CNN's London office to let them know they'd erred and in the next sports report it was all "New Zealand" and "the Kiwis". Just shows who really benefits from a Team NZ win.
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Forget the Middle East crisis or the global warming crisis, the filthy rich have their own domestic service crisis. There's a global butler shortage - stretching from London to Dubai and from the Hamptons to Miami. In fact, there is enough demand for 10,000 more butlers worldwide. Robert Watson, managing director of the Guild of Professional English Butlers, says: "What they mostly want, in the Hamptons and elsewhere, is an English butler. It's that very English calmness in the face of adversity." A butler - or household manager, as they are known in the US - can expect a salary in Britain of about £30,000 ($78,000), although some in America are getting up to £250,000. (Source: Telegraph.co.uk)
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Mike Borgfeldt writes: "On the subject of gingers, I am a redhead preparing for the Auckland marathon and would like an explanation why members of the public feel the need to remind me of my hair colour while I'm out training. It's not the sort of thing that would have slipped my mind, yet passersby inform me of the fact using the kind of vigour one would employ telling someone they'd forgotten to wear pants. Some even go so far as to phrase their observation in the inventive form of' 'run, ginga, run', achieving the feat of simultaneously stating the obvious and suggesting I do something I am already doing. Can anyone explain this behaviour?"
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Marc O'Gorman doesn't think TVNZ spilled the beans on who won the Louis Vuitton race as a reader moaned yesterday. "They had already shown the race live at 1.30am. Anyone could have watched it then. To reveal the winner again in the middle of the highlights package is nothing extraordinary at all. If Sky had shown the race and TVNZ had revealed the winner in the highlights package, then an uproar would be valid."
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A man whose electric wheelchair became lodged in the grille of a truck was accidentally pushed down a highway for several kilometres at about 80km/h. Ben Carpenter, who has muscular dystrophy, was crossing at an intersection in Paw Paw, Michigan, when the lights changed from red to green. The truck driver couldn't see him still crossing and bumped into the side of the wheelchair, which then started turning forward, its handles becoming lodged in the grille. Motorists called 911 on their cellphones.
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A Canadian man has been sentenced for drunk driving after being pulled over on his way home from the pub in his mother's motorised wheelchair. Patrick Shanahan, 35, has been fined and placed on probation after the December 2004 incident. The self-described alcoholic, who has a previous - non-wheelchair-related - impaired driving conviction, was surprised that he should not have been allowed to operate the vehicle while drunk. "I don't need a licence to operate it, I don't need insurance and I don't need licence plates to operate it," Shanahan was reported as saying. "So how can I be charged with drunk driving?" (Reuters)
