Sideswipe: Those crazy eyes

Photo / Supplied

On Thursday night's Shortland Street (instead of convincing acting and to really hammer home to the audience that Scotty was paranoid and thought Tracy was not his fiancé but an impostor) they gave her some crazy contact lenses ... hilarious!

Finessing the sickie

Women are more likely than men to take sick days and to give an embarrassing excuse for taking unplanned leave, according to a survey.

Research carried out for Sovereign Health Care in the UK found employees were more likely to take an unwarranted day off this month than at any other time.

And women were less likely than men to believe a colleague who phoned in sick was genuinely ill.

The company polled 1360 people and found 56 per cent of the female participants admitted to pulling a sickie when not really ill, compared with just a third of men. Both sexes agreed that using "women's issues" was the most common embarrassing excuse to a boss. Some extreme reasons for absence included:

* My dog has fallen and broken all its legs.
* I've been away for the weekend and need to stay at home because my cat's missed me.
* I can't find my shoes.
* I forgot I worked here.
* I'm locked in the house.
* I can't afford the bus because you don't pay me enough.
* My car has frozen to the ground.

Sovereign Health Care chief executive Russ Piper said: "Workplace absence is an emotive subject, particularly when so many employees now feel they have to do more just to keep their jobs, without having to pick up the slack from others who are taking, perhaps unjustified, days off. Managing absence can be a complex process, but employers have a responsibility to all members of staff to ensure they are motivated and supported and that their systems are not open to abuse."

- Telegraph Group Ltd

Bugged by fly spray

Linda is so right about fly-resistant fly spray, says Frank. "I cornered a most irritating fly in a confined cupboard space, gave it a blast with newly purchased heavy-duty spray and closed the door. Half an hour later it was still alive. I then noticed a can of old spray in the cupboard which I used ... in seconds the fly was on its back, zzzing away to fly heaven. Can any manufacturer change the formula of a product to cut costs and also effectiveness? This is fraud in its most devious form."

Super bug syndrome

A reader writes: "To those who have noticed that insecticides are becoming less effective, the reason is simple. "A lot of 'fly sprays' will make claims that they kill 99.99 per cent (basically, they kill most, but not all). This is because there are always some lucky little mutant bugs able to withstand this particular threat. If you keep spraying large quantities of insecticides around your home and on crops, soon the only insects left are the children of those that can withstand the spray - the ones that didn't die. To kill these ones we need new, even nastier insecticides and so the cycle goes on. The same problems are coming up in medicine with the misuse of antibiotics being the catalyst of new strains of 'super-bugs'."

Today's Webpick: Sex sells insurance in this rather odd Romanian ad... Go here.

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