Sideswipe: The shrinking empire of Auckland

All this talk about Auckland becoming a Super City is so old hat, says Graeme. "In fact, it's a reduction in size, not an expansion, as this regional page from the 1952 Wises New Zealand Guide shows."

Good taste decrees
Good taste prevails in Iran, with mullet hairstyles and ponytails for men being banned by the Government. In an attempt to rid the country of "decadent Western cuts", the Government issues a list of acceptable hair styles for men. A goatee beard, previously frowned upon, is included and the use of hair gel, in modest quantities, is also within the law. The Elvis quiff is ok, as are long sideburns, but spiked hairdos are not.

Ticket out of there
Nice Try: A reader writes: "A parking infringement notice was left on my vehicle in the usual place, but it didn't seem quite right. I checked it carefully only to find it had been issued to another vehicle. If I paid without checking the ticket properly, the person who put it there would have been $40 better off. If not, they [the real offender] would get a reminder in the mail and have lost nothing."

It's the small things
When they were up they were up: Len Brown and John Banks don't need Olympic Games dreams or bouts of face-slapping to get media attention, there are simpler ways. Take the Lord Mayor of Leicester, Colin Hall, whose pants fell down while visiting the Southfields library. His spokesman said, "He was not wearing a belt, and the trousers came loose and fell."

Expensive lesson
Coming home after a late-night radio shift, an airport shuttle whizzed past Jeremy with its baggage trailer open and one lonely bag teetering on the brink of coming off. "I imagined the trailer to have been full when he left the airport," he says. "As the shuttle approached the bridge I attempted to get the driver's attention by tooting and gesticulating. The driver thought I was venting my road rage, and ignored me ... I whizzed past and took the first opportunity to pull over and *555 him. Next night on the radio, I mentioned the incident, hoping to get calls on *555 and discuss how effective the service is. The first caller was the shuttle driver. He confirmed that he thought I was road raging, but thanked me for my concern, but what he didn't thank me for was the $600 fine the police slapped him with because of my call!"

India is a village
Minimal addressing of snail mail #1: "We were touring India a few years ago and met some really nice people in a small village, who invited us into their home for lunch," writes a reader. "We swapped names and addresses but lost theirs, so when the time came to send them a New Zealand calendar we taped a photo of their house on to the envelope and wrote a note beside it asking the postie to deliver it. It worked!"