KEY POINTS:
Last month a number of readers wrote in to say the raised surrounds around the trees in poncey Nuffield St, Newmarket, have caused some nasty accidents. The solution to the design fault? Gaudy yellow masking tape. Now that's classy.
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A reader who had been to see An Inconvenient Truth, about the ravages of climate change on our fragile planet, rang to point out that in the film Al Gore stands in front of a map that does not have NZ on it. Australia - and even Tasmania - feature but not us. With Gore scheduled to visit in just two weeks to promote the cause, let's hope he finds his way here and doesn't end up in Tassie.
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A reader writes: "BAA BA black jeep was recently seen upside down in the bush on Lower Domain Drive. The sheep dog must have been on his break!"
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A former AA customer, Phillipa Neads, was surprised to find out that Aucklanders paid more for subscriptions than people in the rest of the country. She writes: "I phoned to ask why and was told, 'It is because Auckland costs are so much higher than the rest of the country'. That didn't make sense so I wrote to ask for a better explanation, which was that when the AAs around the country merged, it was found that subscriptions of the ones south of the Bombay hills were too low to cover costs. The AA thought to put them up to the correct level would upset people, so it was decided to keep the Auckland ones up to cover the costs. I guess since we subsidise the rest of the country's roading, it is only fair that we subsidise their breakdowns as well. I'm with On Road now, which treats all subscribers equally".
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A reader writes to say The Warehouse sells car breakdown cover that applies to the vehicle not the driver. "If you have a flat battery or lock yourself out, they just need to know the rego. It's a good idea for parents who want to be able to cover the family car and not have to buy membership for all the drivers."
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More bad taste Halloween news: Steve Irwin costumes, which include a bloody stingray barb attached to a khaki shirt, were among the top Halloween costumes in the US this year. At least one US celebrity, comedian Bill Maher, donned the Crocodile Hunter outfit. Photos of Maher at a Halloween party in Los Angeles on the weekend dressed in khaki shorts and shirt with a bloody barb hanging out of his chest are circulating on the internet. The San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper published an article entitled Great Bad Ideas for Halloween costumes, with the No 1 suggestion a Crocodile Hunter outfit. The article came with an illustration of Irwin with a stingray on his chest. "Kids and grown-ups alike will stare you down with white-hot horror when you strut around in your khaki ensemble with a pissed-off sea creature piercing your chest," the article's authors, Cheryl Eddy and Kimberly Chun, wrote. "Too soon? Hell, no. "If Irwin's 8-year-old can get her own Discovery Kids television show, you can certainly make sport of her nature-loving pop's freaky demise."
