Sideswipe

Winnie the Pooh

Disney threatened to sue a British stonemason for copyright infringement over a plan to carve Winnie the Pooh into the headstone of a stillborn infant. After negative publicity, they changed their mind. "Disney make billions of pounds every year from children but they won't let a family put a picture on a stillborn baby's headstone," said the stonemason. "It is ridiculous. The family are upset enough as it is." (Source: www.fark.com).

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Brigitte responds to Philippa Thomson of Titirangi, who commented at all the young things running around in next to nothing in the middle of winter. She writes ... "Yes, actually some of us do have different thermostats. It has to be pretty cold before I feel it so I tend to dress with fewer layers than most. Unfortunately I'm bombarded by well-meaning old dears shivering and saying 'aren't you cold?' No, I'm not cold. If I was cold I'd buy a coat. As for snivelling and sneezing, funnily enough I've been doing a bit of that lately, too - because I have allergies, not a cold. In fact, even with my lack of layers I can't remember the last time I had a cold. So there's your answer, and spare a thought for me while you're enjoying summer because I'll be sitting inside with a cold fan looking forward to winter."

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Ron Burton of Howick read with interest about the RNZAF replacing the silver fern (because it looked like a cowardly feather) with a kiwi on its roundels. Ron recalls that during trips on Hercules aircraft transiting US air bases the American ground crews were still bemused at the change. "Instead of the white feather syndrome we had to face the oft-repeated remark, 'why do you have a fat-assed chicken on your roundels'," he says.

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June Davis-Goff of Kerikeri stopped for lunch at a cafe in a certain small Northland town. "We both selected savoury vegetable paninis and waited for them to be heated and served to our table. We waited and waited, until about 10 minutes later an inquiry revealed that our order had been forgotten and they were still in the warmer. After another minute or two our plates were duly placed before us. We should have complained, of course, because by this time our lunch was hard-baked. We received no apology, but an obvious conciliatory effort had been made to compensate for the indifferent service. On our heated and crispy savoury paninis, an artistic arrangement of three foil-wrapped chocolate ladybirds. We rescued them before they melted. As this cafe is frequented by tourist buses one wonders if a foreign visitor might take this as a normal New Zealand custom?"

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A retired Catholic priest and two veterans put on clown suits, broke into a nuclear missile launch facility and began beating the silo cover with hammers, in an attempt to take the Minuteman III missile off-line. Seriously. The trio - members of the Wisconsin group Nukewatch - said the break-in was part of "a call for national repentance" for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bombings in 1945. (Source: www.military.com).