KEY POINTS:
Bob Atford was having lunch with the family on Sunday at LynnMall and saw this sign outside a jeweller's shop. "Thought that this was a bit premature and wonder what the price will be if we do lose," he says.
You're never too young to be a star:
Trying a thrashed-to-death television format, Nickelodeon New Zealand is scouring the country for bands of precocious kids aged 5 to 15 to exploit. A televised competition will, says the channel, give a "previously unsigned band" (how many 5-year-olds have a record deal?) a professional recording session and the chance to make a music video. "You often see some incredible rock or pop-stars-in-the-making perform at primary and intermediate school," says Nick NZ's marketing manager, Lauren Nola. "But they often don't get the chance of exposing their talent beyond the school grounds. Finally, younger musicians, along with teenagers up to 15 years, will have a chance to push their band into the national TV limelight by entering Nick Rocks." Kids, if you want to give this pageant a miss, go kick a ball around, or maybe bash Dad's drums in the garage.
The small inland Canterbury town of Springfield, population about 300, is about to receive a gift from The Simpsons - a giant pink doughnut. Okay, it's a stunt to plug the movie - the Simpsons live in a town also called Springfield - but like Ohakune and its giant carrot, Paeroa and its L&P bottle, and Bluff's former Paua house, Springfield will have a landmark for tourists to admire and be photographed under. To mark the July 26 worldwide release of The Simpsons Movie, the doughnut will be presented to the town by Homer and Bart Simpson characters representing 20th Century Fox and Gracie Films, producers of the movie. The presentation will be part of a day of family activities in Springfield, organised by the town committee. Springfield is less than an hour's drive from Christchurch, along the Great Alpine Highway (State Highway 73).
British woman Sarah Dacre, 51, dresses like a beekeeper, which she says she must do following her self-diagnosis of "electrical sensitivity", reports the Daily Mail. The feature of her outfit is a hat with a veil which blocks incapacitating waves from appliances ranging from cellphones to refrigerators. Her windows have gauze shades and her wallpaper is tinfoil. Dacre believes "wi-fi" will be the tobacco of our times, ultimately to be revealed as causing many as-yet-undiagnosed illnesses. But she still uses a computer three hours a day.
Fighting anorexia: A guest stunned hotel staff by scoffing 15 fried breakfasts in one sitting at the Premier Travel Inn in Tonbridge, Kent. Businessman Barry Bradley, 47, paid £7.50 (just under $20) for the "all you can eat" grease mountain, which took more than three hours to devour. He gobbled 30 sausages, 20 rashers of bacon, 15 fried eggs and three tins of baked beans. And he topped it off with six bowls of cereal A waitress said: "We couldn't believe it - he looked like he was never going to stop." (Source: Ananova.com)