Sideswipe

Okay, so we're not perfect all the time, either. Here's this from a reader: "As a mother at home with a toddler, I'm often at a loss to know what the date is. Sometimes I even have to think really hard to work out what day of the week it is. (Weekends no longer exist when every day starts at 6.30am.) However, I usually have a pretty good grasp of what month I'm in. Imagine my surprise, then, on seeing Tuesday, January 5, 2006 as the date on the first page of the World section in Tuesday's Herald. Like most people, I often feel as if months have flown by and I've got no idea where they went, but this is the first time I've created eight months out of thin air - no wonder I feel tired."

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More on NZ Idol judge Iain Stables from a reader: "Is this the same guy who told Becks "John Lennon would be very proud of you" after she performed Yesterday, even though it was entirely written and performed by Paul McCartney? Maybe he's the same guy who didn't see the relevance of Stevie Wonder in the soul special, or opined that Graham Brazier had been living in Raglan for the past 12 years. That's funny - I always thought Graham Brazier lived in Auckland and ran his mum's bookshop in Dominion Rd. Actually, the real mystery is how Stables ever got to be on the telly. Surely here's a man truly with a face for radio."

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Crew members on a Sharon Stone movie were so annoyed by her behaviour that they urinated in a bathtub before she got in to film a scene, a new book claims. Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who penned films including Basic Instinct, Flashdance and Showgirls, criticises a string of stars in his new tome, the New York Daily News reported. The newspaper claims Val Kilmer, Michael Douglas and Robert De Niro are all targeted in The Devil's Guide to Hollywood: The Screenwriter as God. Eszterhas apparently claims Stone's behaviour "so annoyed the crew on one of her movies that they relieved themselves into a bathtub before Sharon got into it for her scene".

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A would-be trendy British Cabinet minister who put a draft policy on the internet had to take it down again after hundreds of pranksters defaced it. Techno-savvy Environment Secretary David Miliband had put a draft "environment contract" on his department's website, setting out social responsibilities for people, Government and businesses. Officials quickly removed it after a heading, "Who are the parties to the environmental contract?" became, "Where is the party for the environmental contract? Can I come? Will there be cake? Hooray!" The tricky question of "what tools can be used to deliver the environmental contract?" received the answer: "Spade, organic yoghurt stirrer, old washing-up liquid bottle, sticky back plastic." And under a list of things citizens should do, one wag added: "Pay a higher proportion of their income to the Government, and see little tangible improvement in their standard of living."