KEY POINTS:
North Shore City Council's approach to answering the phone, according to Martin. "First every single person ringing the council has to listen to some recorded message, usually about rubbish collection days. Then get to talk to an operator who puts you through, usually to an answer machine as very few council officers actually answer the phone. The best one to ask for is the building help desk. Gary seems to be only person who answers this line and it is obviously a very busy phone as the wait can be up to 50 minutes. We typically put it on speaker phone so the whole office can listen. Unfortunately the muzak regularly gets interrupted by a message advising how important the call is. With building help such an important issue it's about time the council found someone to help Gary out."
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A reader would like to thank the lady who intervened to see if his daughter was okay after she was "pounced" on by four older boys seeking her phone number at St Lukes Foodhall on Saturday. "And to the lurking desperate teen boys keen to get their freak on by preying on a pretty face - this was not flattering at all. She is 13 years old and this predatory type behaviour may next time be met with the wrath of a protective Dad."
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Kathryn Tokelove reckons there's something about the show Woman in Black that attracts "gaseous" people. "We went to see the show a couple of weeks back, and I was seated next to an elderly gent. I'm not sure why he was there because within 5 minutes of the curtains rising he was snoring gently, but it is a show full of loud bangs and screams, so he wasn't guaranteed a good sleep - waking with a start regularly, and belching proudly each time! By the end of what really was a superb show, I was beside myself laughing, and not at the humour on stage."
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A woman in the UK who won 9.3 million pounds ($24.2 million) has been criticised for sending her brother a cheque for 1000 pounds - a tiny 0.010638 per cent of the triple rollover jackpot. A note with the cheque read: "Hope it will help you out with the struggle with money" and signed "Treat yourselves."
