KEY POINTS:
Should the Navy be warned? Don't think that's the headline Dick Hubbard had in mind when he clumsily described proposed new public spots on the waterfront as "pearls in the necklace". (Spotted in the East & Bays Courier by Bryce Groves).
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Miles writes: "The savings itemised by your Waitakere City correspondent for LED traffic lights are amazing - but are but mere trifles compared to those that can be achieved by replacing the old relay and timer boxes with intelligent traffic controllers. I was stopped 13 times on empty roads at deserted intersections at 5.30am this morning, driving 15km into Queen Street. Had these crossings been manned by points men, I would have had to halt only at journey's end. Imagine how much costs to the environment, road and my own would go down if I'd been saved starting and stopping my 1.5-tonne, 50km/h vehicle 13 times. When do you imagine our authorities will think to bring our 19th Century traffic light systems up to date?"
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Gayle Westmoreland wants to replace the unsanitary handshake with a simple nod as the common greeting gesture and she has published her theory in Hands: Stop Shaking Them! A Cultural Shift to End Handshaking in America! Westmoreland, a 61-year-old Columbia resident, proposes National Shake-It Month, a yearly, government-approved moratorium on handshaking. To bring the media on board, she has written a collection of slogans. "America, where have your hands been today? Please give me a nod." Others are provocative: "Hand, hand, fingers, thumb, I don't need your germs or your scum!" While travelling in Japan and Korea in the late 1980s, Westmoreland says she found the Asian custom of bowing more graceful. She later dated a man who habitually picked his nose but rarely washed his hands. He was further evidence that personal hygiene standards are wildly variable. "You just don't know where someone's hands have been," she says. (Source: Baltimoresun.com).
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A four-storey, 9km public bathroom recently opened in Chonggqing, China, with more than 1000 toilets of various designs. The city officials are hoping to make it into Guinness World Records. From the Associated Press: "We are spreading toilet culture. People can listen to gentle music and watch TV," said Lu Xiaoqing, an official with the "Foreigners Street" tourist area where the bathroom is. "After they use the bathroom they will be very, very happy." (Source: BoingBoing.net)
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Norman Hogwood is impressed with the reach of Sideswipe: "A few weeks ago you kindly published an Asian couple's wedding photograph that we had found under our house when removing rubbish. The publishing led to us being contacted by a local Chinese TV station that called on us and took some footage. The next thing was an email from a man in Hong Kong who identified it as being the photo of him and his wife's happy day. They had rented the house for a period a few years ago and had lost track of the photo. Last week they came to Auckland and have now collected the photo to take back to Hong Kong. A success story for Sideswipe."
