Sideswipe

Nice idea, but the reality of, say, cycling from Albany with three children to drop off at school in Takapuna and then pedalling off to work in Ellerslie and home again with the shopping seems infeasible

Jo Norman gives another very good reason why parents should think twice about letting their under-12s have cell phones. "Friday, I receive a text from a number I don't know, saying: 'Sooo, where are you?' Expecting contact after a Trade Me deal, I text back to ask the identity of the texter. Imagine my surprise when I find out that it's Amber, a 10-year-old girl who, wanting to find someone new to text to, has entered a random number. I ignore the repeated texts from her, hoping she'll get bored. Not so. She tries another tactic, and gives my number to two of her friends, who then text me. They do not know that I'm a 30-year-old female. For all Amber and her friends know, I could be a 50-year-old man who has a predisposition for kiddie-fiddling. Oh, and when I rang Telecom about it, this is quite a widespread and common occurrence. Is it just me, or is this dangerous, stupid, not to mention a waste of time and a waste of parents' money?" Coincidentally, Jo Norman happens to be Health and Safety Adviser for Youthtown.

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TVNZ's website has a rather strange promotional initiative for its Dancing with the Stars, an online game called Sabotage the Stars. Players pick the celeb they want to sabotage and while they're dancing, click on the other contestants who hurl stuff at the dancing couple (you have to get the timing right). So Rankin throws a big earring, Lorraine throws a tiara, Gurney biffs a bike, Rodney's weapon of choice is a Budget deficit represented by a bag of money. You lose by either running out of time or if the judges catch you. Funny thing is, they seem to have loaded the abilities of the characters into the game. David Wikaira-Paul is very fast and hard to hit. Rodney goes down within seconds. And at the end, Rodney's car comes out and runs them over. Even Rodney.

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Last week Wellington's Dominion Post was quick to pounce on a story that, on the surface, looked as if Aucklanders were, well, miserable. "Some of us south of the Bombay Hills may have suspected it all along, but it is now a world-recognised phenomenon that Aucklanders are a lonely and miserable lot," said a delighted Dominion Post. According to Google Trends, Aucklanders are more inclined to type in the word "misery" than people in any other city worldwide. Turns out, Misery is fashion (see right). But this week another Goggle Trends revelation, one which is hard to rebuff, is that New Zealand is hooked on British soap Coronation Street. The highest number of searches on the internet for the words "Coronation Street" comes from New Plymouth. Second on the list comes vibrant old Wellington.