KEY POINTS:
A flurry of development has been going on in Rocket Park, Mt Albert, over the holidays. A partial fence has been erected to stop toddlers making a dash for New North Rd, and brightly coloured gym equipment has been concreted in place alongside the swings and slides. Funny thing is, beside the gym equipment is a sign warning that the fitness equipment is not suitable for children. So far I have seen plenty of kids - big and small - trying to bench press, cross train and tone their thighs, but no adults. How strange to put adult facilities in a playground designed for small children and expect them not to go near them.
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Organisers of a tobacco industry conference in Hong Kong are fuming after discovering it will be a non-smoking event, thanks to the city's new smoking ban. The Tobacco Asia Expo had been organised on the understanding that the wide-ranging laws that ban smoking in public places would not be passed until later this year.
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The shark warning sign that appeared in Sideswipe last Friday actually belongs to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World. "It normally adorns the entrance to the top of our shark tank where the warning is actually warranted, and not on Narrow Neck Beach," says aquarium curator Andrew Christie. "We were wondering where it had got to after some recent redevelopment work. We would be grateful to get it back."
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Jason Coombs says the reader criticising broadcast media who mispronounce "Las Vegas" is wrong. "It is those silly Southern Californians who cannot tell the difference between male and female gender when they speak Spanglish who are making the mistake, he says. "The correct pronunciation of "Los Angeles" is not "loss". The o in the Spanish word "Los" is a long vowel sound which creates the sound "lows" ... Combine that with an A that sounds more like a short o, a soft g sound with a hint of j, and something resembling the word "jellies" with a hard inflection on the final "ees" sound and you get the correct Mexican Spanish pronunciation of Angeles."
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Anyone who received books for Christmas and needs to replace or exchange them should know that Borders has a policy of no returns after 28 days, says a reader. "Not only that, if the purchase was with a discount coupon, they ask you to pay the full price difference because the coupon will have expired. Worse, if the book was purchased in a damaged state, the replacement book may cost you more if there has been a price increase. The store insisted I pay the 31c difference, although I now know that they are required to replace the book at no cost under the Consumer Guarantees Act. I was subjected to a 15-minute argument trying to convince them of their obligations."
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