KEY POINTS:
Phil Bendle sent in this, spotted by a mate's son in Sainsbury's, England. "Note 'produce of France' in very fine print ... Cheeky buggers. The French went crazy a few years ago when NZ winemakers used 'champagne' on their bubblies."
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Reader Alan Murgatroyd writes: "As a 73-year-old who has to grab a passing 5-year-old every time my cellphone advises of a text message to be read, pls educate me. I thought these things were instantaneous?
"The household was awakened last night after midnight by a text message from my son having trouble with his car in the floods near Wellington. I won't bore you with the resulting panic and trouble a lot of people were put to as a result, but it transpired that my son had sent the message at 4.30pm! So what's the point of this yuppy nonsense?"
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The Sideswipe story about a fake vomit factory brought back a funny memory, says Elizabeth Marshall. "When my son was 5 years old we were holidaying in Auckland, and he had been saving up his pocket money for the trip to the big city. We went to a shop at St Lukes and he found a wonderful pool of fake vomit to spend his hard-saved money on. He bought it and proceeded to disgust the rest of his family with it. One day we went out from the motel for the day, and he left the pool of vomit on the motel kitchen table.
"When we got back, there was no sign of it. I went to the office to see what might have happened, and the man there said that the ladies who had done the cleaning may have cleaned it up, thinking it was real! That is indeed what had happened. We calmed the tears and went on with the holiday.
"After we got home my little son got a parcel in the mail, and inside was a pool of fake vomit - the motel manager had gone to the trouble of going all the way to St Lukes to replace my son's lost treasure."
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Paul Cornish writes: "Seated on a Frankfurt/Shanghai flight on Monday evening I struck up conversation with a very pleasant couple I'd briefly encountered during check-in. Transpired that 'he' worked out of Christchurch in the packaging sector.
'Do you happen to know a John Barr?' I asked. "Our eyes met and we realised that this was the same man and we were renewing a business acquaintance (now with diminished hairlines) after a gap of over 10 years. Proof that it's a small world all right!"
