"It's hard to get a job in Ashburton but some positions are available," writes Tim. "Didn't look too closely in the wheelbarrow to see if they already had someone to fill the position."
Fashion victims
High heels and corsets are dreadfully uncomfortable but unlikely to kill the wearer. Other fashion trends were more fatal. A certain dress was all the rage in Victorian times even though the arsenic-based dye responsible for the colour often caused the wearer to suffer physical pain and early death. Also affected were factory workers, seamstresses and fellow ball-goers. "Crinoline fires" killed 3000 women between the late 1850s and late 1860s in England. Women would lose sense of their circumference, step too close to a fire grate, then flames would be fanned by oxygen circulating under their skirts. Until electricity, ballerinas also routinely perished when the muslin of their tutus met gas lamps; the deaths were referred to at the time as the "holocaust of ballet girls". (Source: Nag On The Lake)
'Heartless' car seats shunned
Parents in the United Arab Emirates are rejecting road safety campaigns urging them to use car safety seats for their children, even when the seats are given away for free. Parents believe that their youngsters are safer in their arms rather than "heartless" car seats, Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper reports. Research found that only one in five parents use them for their infants. When seats were used one in six said they never buckled the child in and parents complained that seats took up too much space in the car. The World Health Organisation says correctly using car seats can reduce the likelihood of car crash deaths by 70 per cent in infants.
"An early morning walk on Takapuna beach yesterday morning revealed an unusually shaped piece of driftwood," writes Andrea.
