KEY POINTS:
An 87-year-old great-grandmother was asked to remove her woolly hat in a pub because her face was hidden from the security camera. Annie Freeman, from Kinson, Dorset, was wearing the white hat, which she had crocheted herself, because it was cold. She was sipping an orange juice with her family when the barmaid in The Goose in Aldershot asked her to remove her hat. Retired Mrs Freeman said: "Maybe they thought I was a rioter, but I am a bit too old to cause trouble. I was a bit annoyed about it at the time because I did not have my hair tidy." A spokesman for the pub said: "It seems that a member of our staff was just a little too keen." No-headwear policies made headlines in 2005 when Bluewater shopping centre in Kent banned people from wearing hoodies because of fears that troublemakers' faces would not be seen on CCTV cameras.
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In an interview on Radio New Zealand's Morning Report yesterday, Australian politician Pauline Hanson, known for her outspoken views on race and immigration, talked about her decision to run as an independent in the upcoming election and helpfully told listeners her autobiography "which I wrote myself" is coming out soon.
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A pesky cyclist really wants the driver of a white van with tinted windows, who vented his/her road rage at a group of cyclists by the airport yesterday morning and knocked one into the kerbing, to know of the resulting injuries. "Just in case they are interested, I am okay, the ambulance didn't take long to come at all and the surgeon tells me that after two operations on my broken shoulder I should get 75 per cent function again. Awesome ... "
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Thom Grey reckons the greatest thing about the media (in particular, Sideswipe) is that it "gives voice to anyone who, at the summoning of great whim, chooses to grace the rest of us with their total perspective." He is of course referring to the great teenage fruit-eating debate. "To some extent, I can appreciate the wry smile-inducing pathos of some kid writing to the newspaper about how utterly deprived they are. I didn't discover the endless oral potential of Coco Pops until I was 11. However, the pompous, overbearing reader writing from a retirement unit to call these rapscallions to task with a mock letter may want to consider how impressive it actually is to get the better of someone else's children. Thumbs up, buddy. Perhaps stick to the crossword ... "
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German police responded immediately when a man called to report a suspicious vehicle parked on his property at Falkenberg, east of Berlin. The scooter did not have registration plates and the man could not explain how it got there, police quoted him as saying on Friday. Inquiries showed the scooter was a birthday gift for the man that friends had deposited outside his home without telling him.
