KEY POINTS:
Mike Nixon of Pakuranga took this picture yesterday morning, looking over towards Penrose from Pakuranga Heights. "It's actually the steam from a factory somewhere there that pushes out a cloud of steam every morning as it fires up their boilers, but it could easily have been mistaken for one of those tornadoes we've been having!"
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Barry Wood of Howick writes: "I purchased a cheap bottle of plonk from Countdown. Don Pedro, a product of Spain. Well on tasting this wine I think it was made from the water used to wash down Alinghi. It was undrinkable; a call was made to Countdown. 'Oh yes we had to throw half of this shipment out - we held the bottles up to the light to see which ones we could keep.' Maybe they would have been better to re-label it, made from tears of the challengers, almost white wine, not to be consumed!"
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British grandmother Jennifer Brown was thrilled to be awarded second place for her Victoria Sponge in a baking contest, until she discovered her cake was the only entrant. The Mirror reports organisers felt her cake was not quite good enough to be awarded the first-prize ribbon because judges had spotted her sponge had rack-mark indentations from where it had been in the oven. Brown laughed it off: "I must admit I have never heard of coming second in a one-horse race". A spokesperson for the Wimblington Sports Committee, which ran the competition, explained that the judges didn't feel as though it qualified for first place. It was the first year of the cake competition and it will become an annual event.
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Think before you speak: Infamous quotes made by very public people:
"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that but not with all those flies and death and stuff." - Mariah Carey
"I think gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman." - Arnold Schwarzenegger
"When I'm a blonde, I can say the world is purple, and they'll believe me because they weren't listening to me." - Kylie Bax
"If I sold all my liabilities, I wouldn't own anything. My wife's a liability, my kids are liabilities, and I haven't sold them." - Ted Turner, media mogul
"I have opinions of my own - strong opinions - but I don't always agree with them." - George Bush
"It isn't pollution that is hurting the environment, it's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." - Dan Quayle, former US Vice-President
"I'm not anorexic. I'm from Texas. Are there people from Texas that are anorexic? I've never heard of one. And that includes me." - Jessica Simpson (Source: 2spare.com).