KEY POINTS:
Overkill in food court signage. (Source: The Joy Of The Mundane on Flickr)
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Tony Bacon reckons the southisland.org website is geographically challenged when it says: "[The] South Island of New Zealand has a lot of tourist attractions such as the Waitomo Caves. Lake Taupo is a favourite destination as it is surrounded with volcanoes, has snow mountains for skiers, and also trout fishing."
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To feed the fast-growing women's hair-extension business, brokers in India scour the countryside for Hindu temples that encourage female worshippers to shear themselves as good-luck offerings to the temples' gods, according to a dispatch in Germany's Der Spiegel. Historically, the hair was used to make mattresses, but because the celebrity-driven extension business is so large, salons around the world pay from $380 to $760 a kilogram for strands of never-chemically-treated hair of desirable hues. Shaving is a Hindu tradition, and one donor told Der Spiegel she had long prayed for her husband to stop drinking and that when that "miracle" happened, she felt compelled to offer her hair. (Source: News of the Weird).
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A West London shop will cater exclusively to the needs of the pregnant bride. Expectant Bride designs bump-accommodating bridal dresses, and owner Tracey Wilkinson says business is booming: "I got married when I was seven months' pregnant and found it very difficult getting a maternity bridal dress to fit. You can't just wear a large-sized normal dress as you look like you're wearing a tent." Even the conservatives are making allowances for the changing times. A spokesman for the National Family Campaign, said: "It demonstrates an increasing number of women are getting pregnant outside of marriage. But on the positive side, it also demonstrates that they still want to bring children up within the commitment of marriage."
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The Chattanooga local authority in Tennessee was forced to refund US$8800 ($11,160) in red light camera tickets issued to motorists trapped by an illegally short orange light. The refunds only occurred after a motorist insisted that the length of time the yellow light was on was too short. LaserCraft, the private vendor that runs the camera programme in return for a cut of the profits, provided the judge with a computer database that asserted the yellow light lasted for 3.8 seconds at that location. But a city traffic engineer said that "a mix-up with the turn arrow" was responsible and that the bare minimum for the light should be 3.9 seconds.
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Jeremy Dawson writes: "If you thought it was rude to tell a child to stop running at the zoo, I was very sternly told: 'Slow down! You're running too fast!' by one of the volunteers as I came to the finish of Round the Bays the other week. Sorry! I thought it was a race ... "
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Murray Beasley of Northcote writes: "I once worked with someone who had been employed in the sales department of a major pharmaceutical company during the 1960s. He used to delight in asking people if they could guess which single word virtually doubled shampoo consumption overnight. The answer was, of course, 'repeat', added as 'step two' to the instructions on the bottle."
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Today's Webpick: You don't even have to move with the Slender Shaper. Watch it here. As silly as the Hawaii Chair.
These are the very best online videos from Ana's online magazine Spare Room.
