Graeme spotted a story in the Northern Advocate the other day, about a Nasa astronaut's photo of Everest, that wasn't actually Everest but a summit somewhere in India. Funny thing was, the photo used in the paper was captioned with: "The real Mount Everest." But the newspaper actually used a picture of Aoraki/Mount Cook which is somewhat short of being the world's tallest peak.
Can't see trees for the wood
A reader writes: "For some years now at Christmas time the entrance of the children's hospital wing in a large South Auckland hospital has been decorated by a very large Christmas tree in the two-storeyed entrance foyer. Always enchanting for the children who unfortunately have to spend Christmas in hospital. But this year some miserable bureaucratic manager has decided that any tree over 1.8 metres is a fire hazard! A directive was issued and in order to comply enterprising staff have now erected two matching 1.8 trees ... which now begs the question, are 2 Christmas trees at 1.8 metres acceptable or do they constitute a total of 3.6 metres and become pyrotechnic peril? Me thinks the real fire hazard is the amount of paper work this remnant from Gliding On produces at Christmas. Bah humbug!"
Short-changed by infallible machine
"We had our company Christmas party at Sky Tower and I decided to put 5 x $2 coins in little bags for the staff to go and gamble with on the machines," writes Claire. "I went to the cashier and requested the correct amount to give 21 people $10 worth of $2 coins (i.e 105 $2 coins). The machine spat out the coins into a little cup which I merrily carried over to a quiet place and started to place 5 coins in each bag. I ended up with 2 bags left and only 3 coins so I duly went back to the same cashier and showed her my problem. A supervisor took over and I was told their machines are frequently checked and are not incorrect and perhaps I had used some of the coins on the machines? It was agreed that the supervisor would contact me once the cashier had closed that night. The next morning I received a phone call advising me that the cashier was $14 over and would I like to go in and collect my money! My comment would be how many times would this happen and people don't actually check the money given to them in a little cup? Quite a good profit-making scheme I would say!"
Clipping the ticket
A reader booked for a show in Hawkes Bay for next year through Ticketdirect. "First there was a $1.50 service charge for each ticket, followed by a $2.50 charge for paying by credit card and then a $5 charge for picking up the tickets from the theatre! Still, I suppose it's cheaper than the $11 that Ticketek charge," the reader writes.
Local: A Florida woman came home to find her driveway has been stolen. The 300 square feet of brick pavers were carted away sometime between 7:30am and 6pm. The homeowner pulled into her driveway, and was alerted to the missing driveway when she felt a bump.
