Sideswipe

It's hardly a state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict, is it?

Simon from Ponsonby thought it would be safe to kill an hour with his 4-year-old daughter by catching the train from Britomart to Newmarket and back. He writes: "I bought a return ticket and we caught the 3.10pm to Newmarket. We arrived about 3.15pm to a rather dilapidated train station where a motley timetable on the wall told us we could either catch the 3.18pm back to Britomart or wait until 4.18pm (so much for being told by the train conductor that trains were coming every half-hour.)

We decided to catch the 3.18pm so we moved from platform 1 to platform 2 and waited for the first/next train coming in the opposite direction. Around 3.25 a train pulled up behind us on platform 1. My daughter asked me if that was our train but, being older and wiser, I gently told her "No, that's just come from the Britomart station and it will be carrying on that-a-way" as I pointed to Remmers. But no, the train shut its doors and then returned in the direction of Britomart. What a shame there are no signs to tell us which train is leaving which platform for which direction. Like they do in Europe. What a shame the train conductors don't hop off the trains for a minute and shout out the next stop/destination. Like they do in Europe. Then my daughter would still think her daddy was smart and clever and not an idiot."

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The average British woman spends two years of her life looking in the mirror. More than half of the 3000 women polled admitted they looked at themselves in any available reflection - even if it was just a TV screen or a shop window. Men, by comparison, spend less than half a year of their life preening. The respondents also said that, despite checking their reflection an average of four times before leaving the house in the morning, a quarter of women headed straight for the loos at work to make sure they were still looking okay.

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A radio ad "launching a jihad on the automotive market" has drawn sharp criticism but will not be changed, says the Ohio car dealership responsible. The ad goes like this ... "Come on down to Dennis Mitsubishi in Columbus! We're launching a jihad on the automotive market. That's right! We're slashing prices and will not be undersold.

In fact, our prices are lower than the evildoers' every day. Just ask the Pope! When you arrive, you'll see our sales representatives dressed in burqas as they sell vehicles that comfortably seat 12 jihadists in the back! Bring the whole family! Friday is fatwa Friday, with free rubber swords for the kiddies." Sales representatives wearing burqas will sell vehicles.

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Never underestimate the ability of your average New Zealand retailer to find new and cunning ways to annoy customers, articulates a reader through a clenched jaw. "Not content with providing some of the poorest service in any retail sector, petrol companies have now discovered the joys of 24-hour prepay. Benefits include making customers jump through even more hoops to buy overpriced petrol, opportunities for staff to loiter behind the counter with even less to do and forcing motorists into long queues to pay. Motorists, rise up and refuse to accept such shoddy service - and, let's face it, service stations didn't offer any anyway - embrace the slogan: 'If it's prepay, drive away'."