Alan Free, pictured, worked in a museum many years ago where this portrait of Vincenzo Guarignoni (c1572) hangs. Japanese tourists told him of the resemblance, but he didn't see it at the time.
Winning over mum with words Jay writes: "Facing yet another messy kitchen to clean up, my sighing musthave prompted my young son to leave the following note. 'I love Mum because she reads me books and teals [tells] me stores [stories]. Mum is isim [awesome] because she maks [makes] yumiy [yummy] food. She helps me wed [weed] the garden. She makes brefis [breakfast], lunch and dina [dinner] and snas [snacks].' Made my day to be 'isim'."
Brutal way to get in shape After perusing last week's Chicago Tribune, Barbara Duncan had an unfortunate epiphany regarding the true meaning of ethnic cleansing. Prior to seeing a reference to gruesome Russian war crimes, Duncan believed an ethnic cleanse was a crash diet that used exotic spices or "maybe papaya juice". "When I first saw an article titled 'Southeast Ukraine's ethnic cleanse', I was like, 'Great, I need to lose four pounds; my niece's wedding is coming up!'," Duncan said. "But then I realised something wasn't right." Her enthusiasm quickly turned to disappointment. "Just one paragraph in and I'm reading about people dying from artillery fire. And I'm thinking, 'Man, I wanna lose weight, but that's a little extreme'. That's when it hit me: This might not be a weight-loss article. Ten thousand is too many people dying from a diet without Dr Oz covering it, so I knew something was up." She eventually enlisted a friend, Joanne Carver, to help." (Via reductress.com)
Shagga writes: "That's my car. I like my car. I work in supermarkets during the day sometimes but not at peak times. I always park as far as I can away from the store and as you can see there are lots of empty spaces. I park like this because you don't have to wander far in a carpark to find expensive damage to the doors of cars. I feel the insurance people, panel beaters and supermarket chains are in on a scam to fleece us of our hard-earned cash (just kidding). But really, the parks are far too small. Some of you may say get a smaller car, but this is not my full-time job which I need my ute for. My wife and I were at Albany at the weekend, and walked past a black family station wagon that had extensive damage down the side caused by people opening doors against it. Poor people - they either have to pay big dollars to repair it or sell it for next to nothing at resale time. We walked a little further and saw two little cars both within their parks but with no room on the driver's side of one of them."
Video: I started watching $1 Reserve, a ten episode local web series, released this week and was reminded how, in a world of ever-increasing televisual choices, it is so great to see ourselves, hear our accents and our stories. The series is all about Jocelyn, who found out her boyfriend is cheating and decides to sell all his stuff on Trade Me...Then realising she made a mistake, has to try and get it all back...
Video: Working on an oil rig would incur high anxiety levels...
