KEY POINTS:
Geoff found a digital camera on the Mangawhai Heads beach last Sunday. It contains about 750 photos taken in Australia, Auckland and Northland, mostly featuring a young woman who obviously owns the camera and would probably like it back. "She may be a Norwegian tourist and her name may be Ida."
If this is your camera, phone Geoff on 027 270 2545 to arrange for its safe return.
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Prime TV must be kicking itself that its heavily promoted first series of Mad Men was yanked from our screens last week just as it won the top prize at Monday's Emmy Awards, leaving viewers to endure yet another male sporting hero on TV One's This Is Your Life.
But that's another gripe.
It seems the show wasn't yanked so much as came to a natural series end. And for those fans who were wondering when the chain-smoking, martini-sinking, sexist 60s ad execs will be back, don't hold your breath. Prime publicity says the second series will screen early next year. Yes, next year. When will TV executives learn, in this age of the internet, viewers won't wait until you deign to schedule the show, they will simply find it themselves online.
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Picture this: You're late for work, the petrol light's flashing, so you make a quick pitstop - a splash and dash - before joining the motorway mayhem. The trouble is, says our correspondent, everyone else seems to have been caught short, leading to one of those annoyingly long waits in line to pay, while the attendant at Shell Cascades Rd in Pakuranga grapples with the complexities of eftpos as well as trying to tempt his impatient customers with the chocolate bar specials of the day. Four minutes, five minutes ... our correspondent finally gets to the front, parts with his money and contemplates still making that morning meeting on time.
Until, that is, he discovers the chap one ahead of him in the queue - and whose car is blocking his escape from the forecourt - has disappeared for his morning constitutional. Our aggrieved motorist is now blocked front and back and awaiting said person's return from the conveniences, at the inconvenience of others. Surely, only a quick twinkle. Not so. This is big splash - no dash. Six minutes, seven minutes ... still no appearance, our trapped motorist finding freedom only when the car behind reverses clear.
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Dale also had a problem with birds pecking and flying into windows and was told it was the reflection of the scenery behind them that they saw. "We were advised to put tinsel on the window. This did work, but the bird then went to another window so we had to repeat the process. It was a bit like mid-year Christmas inside, but eventually it went away."
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Another reader writes: "Birds will quite often peck at windows to collect the insects hanging in spider webs around the sills. We had a sparrow at university that used to do this every day, disturbing classes by making loud tapping noises on the glass. It stopped visiting after the windows were cleaned!"
Today's Webpick: A doomsday digital rendition of the damage a 500km chunk of gaseous molten rock could do if it landed in the Pacific Ocean. Watch it here (Scroll down)
These are the very best online videos from Ana's online magazine Spare Room.
