Sideswipe

Mind that child: Unfortunate sign juxtaposition.

Opinion

For Sale on Trade Me (starting bid, $10) ... Apostrophe - hardly used. One Apostrophe. Black. 12pt. (Times New Roman) The apostrophe is hardly used and still in near-mint condition. It's great for contractions or cases of possession. It comes with a full set of instructions for use (English language version only). The apostrophe has been sadly neglected. Lots of people have tried to use it, but nobody has really got the knack. If you buy this one and use it, I guarantee you'll come back for more. It's a piece of punctuation that can save you heaps. You can't lose: I've saved an "i", two spaces, an "n", an "o", an "h" and an "a" in this paragraph! One of a bulk lot of surplus apostrophes scored from the local fruit shop ("Apple's Banana's and Pear's"). This is the last one at this price. (Please note that sale is dependent on me finding it. I'm not sure where it is right now. It was in Maria's pocket, then I put it in mum's car. But later I knew I had to put it in the nuns' dormitory - but I'm not sure exactly where.)

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Murray has lived in his Auckland flat for four years and his flatmate is getting married and moving out. He writes: "Naturally, we are changing over the names of our flat accounts. Power, Sky ... all friendly staff, no charges, no problems until we struck the monster called Telecom. Guess what? To change an account name costs $48 plus GST, effectively a reconnection or new account fee. It was no consequence that I've lived in the same place for four years. The demand was simple: pay or we'll cut your phone off. Oh, well, I guess Telecom needs to recover its losses somehow. It is, however, the best advertisement to move to another provider. TelstraClear, here I come."

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Clean Green Car Company owner Stephen Pollard is starting to feel surrounded by smut in his central Auckland showroom in Fanshawe St. The country's only specialist dealer in used hybrid petrol-electric cars is unconcerned about a billboard at one end of his leased building, which has an adhesive to detect sooty vehicle emissions and advise motorists to tune up their vehicles. That goes well with his promotion of vehicles which he says have almost twice the fuel efficiency of petrol-only cars of equivalent power ratings, and produce 90 per cent less noxious emissions. But he would have preferred the Ministry of Transport to have put its message at the opposite end of the building, above his front entrance, to mask what he considers another form of pollution - a billboard advertising the Erotica Expo.

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New York State senator Ada Smith, known to some as the "Wild Woman of Albany" for her temper, pleaded not guilty in April to assaulting a staff member with hot coffee after a comment about Smith's weight. Senate officials say more than 200 staff members have quit Smith or been fired by her. Besides Smith's previous run-ins with Albany police, New York City police and United Airlines, other former employees have claimed that she assaulted them - the latest being a woman who said Smith threw a phone at her. Smith has denied virtually every accusation, but her exasperated Senate party leader has stripped her of seniority privileges. (Source: News of the Weird)