Sideswipe: Semi-automatic forearms

Terry Wilson asks: 'What horrors could they have inflicted on an unsuspecting populace? Especially if they were semi-automatic forearms and our brave coppers hadn't stopped them.' Source / Yahoo.com

The BBC.co.uk compiles a feature called 100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year, made up of the oddest facts from news stories throughout the year. Here are a few:

* Moby is related to novelist Herman Melville and was named after his most famous creation.

* Holding your hands up on a rollercoaster stretches the torso, enhancing the physical sensations.

* In the 1970 United States Census, the number of people who said they were aged more than 100 was about 22 times the true number.

* Emoticons in the East are the right way up (^ - ^).

* The crease under your buttocks is called the gluteal fold.

Banana skins can take two years to biodegrade.

* The BBC rejected Sesame Street in 1971 because it was "too authoritarian".

* French babies cry with an accent.

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Glen Cordes of Glendowie was enjoying the New Year's Day races at Ellerslie when a short and stout older, but obviously well-to-do, gentleman walked past with a pretty, much younger lass in tow. One of our 3-year-olds turned to us and asked "Mummy, why is that girl holding her daddy's hand?". Ah, from the mouths of babes.

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Last week Mark Savage pondered the chances of getting the same rental car two years apart, but Jim Holdom, from Hamilton, has a more unlikely scenario. "I was walking along a busy street in London in 1978 when I was asked if I knew where a street was. 'I'm from Canada,' he said. 'I've visited Canada, too,' I replied. 'Where in Canada?' 'Rycroft.' It turned out we were related by marriage through a cousin of mine living in Rycroft, which is a town in Alberta, about the size of Huntly. I visited my cousin again a few years later. He, like me, had 'dined out' on the story."

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Andrew believes Telecom's claim is that it has 97 per cent coverage of the population, not geographical area. I regularly drive around the country and have no signal for hours at a time. Still, with a population of 4 million, 97 per cent coverage still leaves 120,000 people with no coverage. But then, it's not like it's the 21st century or anything ...

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Places where Telecom's XT network does not work: Warren Pattinson, who lives in rural Kerikeri, has no reception at home or while on the road. "You have to drive up the hill to make or receive calls. I would say half of Northland is without coverage. As you drive north signals fade and disappear with alarming regularity. Our phones are so busy searching for network they are always flat and the batteries wear out," he says. Campbell Roberts says he had limited access on the old Telecom network at Point Wells and Matakana. "On the XT network I am unable to get any service at either place. Maybe less spent on promotion and more on technology by Telecom would mean the service matches the marketing."

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Crews responding to a trailer fire in Utah had to contend with snakes. Kristeen Checketts, the animal control officer in St George, says there were about 19 pet pythons, some up to 5.5m long, in the trailer when it caught fire, Spectrum newspaper reported. The snakes' owner tried to revive one by massaging it and blowing into its mouth through a plastic pipe. Eleven survived. (Source: AP)