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Home / New Zealand

<i>Sideswipe:</i> Thursday

Ana Samways
By Ana Samways
Sideswipe - ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz·NZ Herald·
27 Aug, 2008 04:00 PM3 mins to read

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Bill couldn't resist sharing his co&#45;worker's time sheet with SideSwipe.

Bill couldn't resist sharing his co&#45;worker's time sheet with SideSwipe.

Ana Samways
Opinion by Ana SamwaysLearn more

KEY POINTS:

Glen Innes Fresh Bite shares former US Vice-President Dan Quayle's problem with the spelling of potato (he "corrected" a schoolboy and said it had an "e" at the end).

* * *

Broccoli not gold: "Yesterday I did a double take at New World Eastridge in Mission Bay when the checkout operator invited me to swipe my eftpos card for $199.94 for my single basket of groceries his colleague had just packed," writes James Smith of St Heliers. "Stunned, and feeling a tad embarrassed as other bemused customers looked on, I mentally totted up my purchases, which I estimated to have been about $50. Polite, but insistent, the smiling operator said no, there had been no mistake, and again invited me to pay. But a closer look at his onscreen display pinpointed the problem - the single stalk of broccoli registering an outrageous $155. His wide smile quickly turned to a look of panic as he summoned the assistance of a supervisor. Apparently the error was due to an incorrect price code. Well, let's hope New World customers in the wealthy Auckland suburbs check their bill before handing over their gold cards!"

* * *

Paul from Beijing responds to Paul from Devonport (who objected to the Moo Loo bell ringing). "He really should consider himself lucky. I was at one of the judo events at Beijing, and I was boxed in by three groups of supporters - a pack of Spaniards with sharp whistles to my left, a mob of Brazilians to my right with some sort of device that makes a clacking sound, and half of the German judo coaches in front of me. (And of course, the rest of the stadium was filled with Chinese.) Imagine being boxed in there for five hours, and as a finale, I got to enjoy a match between Spain and Brazil."

* * *

Marketing with numbers - always tricky: A reader writes: "If Cherie says that late last week the counter on the Kiwibank Downtown Shopping Centre billboard was at 326,000, then Kiwibank are experiencing something of a customer exodus, as today the counter, though still counting up, was at 275,000. Maybe something to do with John Key and Bill English's plans for the "second term"? And isn't it funny how at any given time of the day (oh, let's say 2.30am Sunday), the counter suggests that roughly 30 people every 10 seconds are "joining the movement"? At such a rate, there are just under 260,000 new customers each day, which means that in just over two weeks, the entire population of New Zealand will have joined. Whatever the case is, the inconsistencies can hardly be supportive of the patriotic ad campaign that implies all the Aussie banks are out to trick us.

* * *

Today's Webpick: Evolutionary biologist and campaigning atheist Richard Dawkins receives a lot of hate-mail from Creationists... which he thought he'd share with You Tube. Watch it here.

These are the very best online videos from Ana's online magazine Spare Room.

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