KEY POINTS:
The United Kingdom's weary cows are being encouraged to take a load off and have a little lie down. Exploiting the principle that happy heifers produce more milk, a Northern Ireland company is making mattresses for cows. Evelyn Wilson, from Wilson's Agriculture, says the mattresses are like beanbags covered with closely knitted army blankets and are filled with rubber crumbs from old car tyres. (Source: Spluch.blogspot.com)
Very convincing acting: A play continued even though two actors, a Serb and a Croat, stabbed each other during a theatre performance in the Croatian port of Zadar. The actors, seated under their national flags, put their hands on the table and stabbed the woodwork between their fingers with real kitchen knives. After five rounds the table was covered in blood, and one of the actors had part of a finger missing. The actors had to be hospitalised and one of them lost a part of his finger. The play, called Not Like Me, was being performed by the Via Negativa troupe. It focuses on the relations between Croats and Serbs in the troubled region. (Source: Ananova.com).
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Philippa Ivory has her doubts about The Rich List too: "I am a sometime game show contestant (did Weakest Link, Telebingo and Sale of the Century) and have been in the audience for other TV shows; so tend to be the kind of person who spots the cattle calls but I never saw anything anywhere about either Rich List. When I saw the promo for Rich List one of the 'contestants' was a friend-of-a-friend who has had bit parts on Shortland Street and Target. Seems strange that one of the first contestants is an actor?" She is also suspicious of TV3's Deal Or No Deal. "Before this show launched they tried to tell us that New Zealanders are so much more outgoing now, and I did notice that the contestants on Deal or No Deal seemed a lot more 'full-on' than the people I did the other shows with. I thought I recognised one of the contestant's supporters from TV in Australia, but I couldn't place him."
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Bruce, who was a contestant on The Rich List a couple of weeks ago, responds to the conspiracy theorists: "I can assure you that the contestants' quiz skills are genuine. As a top chemistry student at school a list of the elements of the periodic table was a lucky break for me. Pity I couldn't remember more members of Split Enz. Like the others mentioned in Sideswipe, I did study some potential lists. The producers were very professional in the way they treated the contestants. The audition process was interesting, and if you were a regular pub quiz player then you were likely to gain a place on the show. My appearance on The Rich List was my fourth TV quiz show and my best prize yet. So I can say for sure, it wasn't pre-scripted. That's what made it fun to film. And hopefully fun to watch."
Today's Video Webpick: If people at business meetings behaved like they were commenting online, this is how it would go down. Brilliant and very funny for anyone who reads the comments. (NSWF language, obviously). Watch it here. These are the very best online videos from Ana's online magazine Spare Room.
