KEY POINTS:
After reading Steve's problem with a broken fly, John was reminded of an experience his wife had while relaxing on a beach in Fiji. "She was fascinated by about 15 swarthy Russians on shore leave from a whaling ship who had settled down near us on the coral sand. One big black-bearded chap stripped to the waist, but every time he got up, his ill-fitting trunks kept slipping from his hips to his thighs. Finally, Brenda dug into her bag, found a large safety pin and took it over to the he-man, pointing to the shorts he was clutching. He understood no English and she spoke no Russian. Perplexed, he apparently had not seen such a device before and just stood there with it in his hand. Using her usual Kiwi ingenuity she grabbed the front of his baggy shorts, gathered up the fabric and stuck the pin in place. There were hoots of laughter from the Ruskies nearby. She returned to her towel with an even broader grin, happy to have taken Kiwi-Russian relations to a new level.
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Make the whole world a library: Phil Lyth explained the not-so-mysterious book left at an Auckland bus stop: "The website is www.bookcrossing.com where 584,806 people, including 6557 Kiwis, are part of a global community releasing books into the wild to be picked up, read, and re-released. Properly done, that book would have had a label with the bookcrossing.com URL and an ID number so it could be tracked on its journey." Sarah Caldwell says she has found "three books in the wild" and David Brown says there are currently 191 books loose in New Zealand.
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A reader from Westmere began dropping off his "read and unlikely to be read again" pile of books at unattended bus shelters as a surprise for the next person to read or pass on. "It stops my shelves being cluttered with too many books which just sit there having been read once or twice," he says. "There are some I do wish to keep as I dip into them again and again, but it is profligate waste of resources to have all these thoughts, ideas and words having a total of one brief cerebral encounter. Given Auckland City's repressive regime, however, I am probably breaking some law by doing it - littering, loitering, parking badly, or some other fiscally punitive infringement. Actually sharing books is quite liberating, so it's almost certainly illegal."
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The AM vs PM debate. Archie McGeorge says it best: "Strictly speaking exactly noon or midnight is neither am nor pm but "on" the meridian and many suggest the usage 12 noon and 12 midnight. However, since 11:59:59 (one second before midnight) is definitely pm and 12:00:01 (one second past midnight) is definitely am (and therefore all the "12" times) it is at least defensible, and considered correct by some, to call midnight 12am."
Today's Video Webpick: Here's the latest in nationalistic fervor, Rugby Of This Earth, an ad made by a production company in Amsterdam and paid for by Adidas and all about our All Blacks. What do you think? Watch it here. These are the very best online videos from Ana's online magazine Spare Room.
