Sideswipe: Approved for blokes

Gangs and violence is guaranteed bloke content according to this marketing fluff on a Once Were Warriors DVD for sale at JB Hifi.

New words explained

The latest update from the Oxford English Dictionary includes a few new words from Downunder like "flat white" (a style of espresso drink with finely textured foamed milk) and "tragic" (a boring or socially inept person, esp one with an obsessive interest or hobby) and a few of the internet cliches such as OMG "Oh my God" and LOL "laughing out loud". The vocabulary of drunkenness makes an appearance with "lashed" and the phrase "on the lash" as does "cream-crackered" (rhyming slang for "knackered", as in exhausted); "smack talk" (boastful or insulting banter), "dot-bomb" (a failed internet company), and "couch surfing" (the practice of spending the night on other people's couches in lieu of permanent housing), "La-la land" referring either to Los Angeles or to a state of being out of touch with reality (and sometimes to both simultaneously) and "fabless", a denigrating term for someone who is insufficiently
fabulous.

Plastic bag salad anyone?

Has anyone else noticed how the supermarket prepackaged salad bags are mostly stalk these days? "I nearly choked on a mouthful of the stuff the other day," say a reader from Sandringham. "All stalk and very little of the leafy stuff and padded out with pungent parsley! Bah!"

Nutritious crisps

Debbie Taylor has eaten two family-size bags of potato chips a day for two years, and little else for the past decade. "My shopping trolley looks as if I'm having a children's party. The idea of eating anything else is repellent; I don't like being full and bloated, which is how 'proper food' makes me feel. I have a tea for breakfast, skip lunch and then my first large bag of crisps at 4pm and my second bag at 8pm. During the day I'll have a few cups of tea and sometimes
a cola. I don't get ravenous because my body is used to it after all these years." (Source: Guardian.co.uk)

Newsreader hell

Living in Australia can be annoying when you have to listen to newsreaders referring to firemen as "firies" and politicians as "pollies" says Maxine. "But they seem to have difficulty with place names too: Worcestershire, where every syllable is read out, and necklace, is neck lace, emphasis on 'lace'; hostel is hos tell."

Hurricanes either way

Apparently, with the pronunciation of "Hurricanes" the sports commentators are on solid ground. A reader points out the Oxford English Dictionary says both pronunciations, "canes" and "kins", are correct.