A reader found this unholy alliance at Simply Fresh, Northcote. "I have been surprised how many people didn't see it as ironic given the cultural proprietor of each food group doesn't recognise the other's celebrations.''
Millions go up in smoke
"My short career as a bank junior [in Auckland] in the mid-1960s was at the new National Bank of NZ Town Hall branch," writes Dr Gerald Turnbull. "Old bank notes were sifted from transactions fortnightly. In those pre-decimal days notes were counted and bundled on the staffroom lunch table, wrapped in brown paper with twine and sealing wax before a taxi was summoned and often the assistant accountant and I rode with the cash to the old Commerce St Reserve Bank building. We were escorted to the basement and witnessed the cash being loaded into a furnace destructor. Imagine taking half a million dollars worth of old currency in a paper bag by taxi anywhere today? If only a criminal bent and more vision had prevailed back then, one might have masterminded a snatch at any of the traffic lights en route - and probably gotten away with it. Unfortunately, I never did go on to be a merchant banker."
Thick skin needed for making a buck
Jeff Bodley writes: "Back in the mid-1950s when wool was worth a lot of money my job was to ride my horse around the farm, armed with a number of sacks and pluck the wool from the dead sheep. I would do this for a small "wage", but if I dug a hole and buried the sheep I could keep the wool to sell. By the way, there were no plastic gloves in those days."
No lingering, please
Oxymoronic local council. New seating in the centre of Dover, a town in Kent in southern UK, has been deliberately designed to be uncomfortable, council bosses have admitted. The wave-shaped benches were designed expressly to deter "extended sitting". The benches don't have a back or armrest so shoppers only sit on them for a few minutes. Councillor Sue Jones, said: "If they were too comfortable, we would have the gentlemen and ladies of the day lounging on them. They discourage antisocial behaviour." One local said: "What's the point of having benches if they are not there to be sat on? They might as well put an electric fence up so everyone keeps out."
