"It's one thing for the Australians to claim Crowded House and Lorde as their own, but the Bay of Islands tourism claiming the Hokianga as theirs is inexcusable," declares our outraged reader.
One night in Mairangi Bay
A reader writes: "If you are a caring parent living in the proximity of Mairangi Bay with a teenage son named Daniel who arrived home some time after 3am on Sunday morning smelling like a brewery, it might be enlightening to ask how he and his two mates enjoyed their evening. To save you the trouble, Daniel and his two mates, who were on foot and presumably heading home, spent a chunk of their evening trashing the safety signs erected around the wastewater excavations on Maxwelton Drive, repositioning all the traffic cones laid out to redirect the traffic, while swearing loudly, vomiting in the bus shelter and smashing their glass empties on the road. Let's hope the hangovers were big ones."
Big Ben time-saver
Autumn comes early to Westminster. The parliamentary authorities in the UK have defended their decision to ask a gardener to remove each leaf manually from trees outside the House of Commons in Westminster to save time spent raking them up. Although typical winter temperatures have not yet arrived in London, a female worker on a step ladder has been spotted taking down yellow leaves, one by one, from a circle of lime trees. The gardener stripped bare the trees that border the square below Big Ben. Asked about the decision, a Commons spokesman said: "If we waited for the leaves to fall off it would waste a lot of time raking them up. It is more time-efficient." (Source: Guardian.co.uk)
Help return stolen statue
"I live in Birkenhead and have had my beautiful statue in the garden at the end of the driveway for about 10 years," writes Debbie Jackson. "I live up a long driveway and am the last of three townhouses on our side of the drive. Lately, a lot of tradespeople have been up and down the main driveway. When I woke up on Wednesday, my beautiful statue was gone, with only the base remaining. This means someone must have parked on the street, and carried her down at night. She is over 7ft tall. Can anyone help?"
