Threatened shade ... workers on the new St Lukes intersection sit under six pohutukawa trees under threat from Auckland Transport, which plans to cut down the 80-year old trees to widen Great North Rd. Photo / Supplied
Down the drain ... and back
Yesterday's lost car keys story reminds a reader of her mother in a similar situation. "My father, who does not drink, decided to down a bottle of champagne one New Year's Eve and of course it all came back up. Unfortunately, it was into a drain in the gutter outside their hotel and his false teeth went with it. In the morning, my mother thought about the thousands it would cost to replace them and while my dad was sleeping off his hangover she went down and started trying to find them. She was dressed in a suit and when asked by strangers what she was looking for she said it was false teeth which were evidence for a murder investigation. She ended up with a group of strangers all on their hands and knees searching the gutter and the teeth were found."
He who cannot be named
The Frederick News-Post in Maryland wrote an article about Republican councilman Kirby Delauter and asked him for comment which he refused to give, threatening to sue if the paper used his name without authorisation. It responded in its editorial: "Could we get away with an entire editorial of nothing but 'Kirby Delauter' repeated over and over again -- Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter? Okay, imagine we agreed because of temporary madness or something funny in the water that week, how would we reference 'Kirby Delauter' and do our job as journalists without running afoul of our lack of authorisation? Blanks? Sure, we sometimes use hyphens in the case of expletives. Perhaps we could do that: 'K---- D-------.' Maybe we should just put his initials, 'KD' with an asterisk to a footnote (KD*). We could even make it sound a little hip-hop with a well-placed hyphen ... could we get away with 'K-Del'? Or we could go with the Harry Potter-esque 'He Who Shall Not be Named'." (Cue the lightning strike and peal of thunder.)"
Flying visit
A reader writes: "Our friend said he'd pop in for breakfast and coffee while we were holidaying in Omaha. He did just that, and parked on the lawn."
