Sideswipe

A picture taken in Ramsey, Isle of Man. (See first article below).

"After bounding up to what seemed like the main entrance to a pub, and finding the door firmly closed [during opening hours], I spotted this sign on the wall (see above)," says Paul Dillicar, of Waikowhai.

* * *

Overheard by a proud grandma from Cambridge:

Rose (age 3 1/2): "I know everything, Molly."

Molly (nearly 5): "Really? Do you know how the world got here?"

Rose: "It was always here."

Molly: "Well I know. There was a big bang fairy and she got a million friends to jump on a giant tin and that made a BIG BANG and the world appeared. That's what some people think, anyway ... some other people think some old planets banged together and made a new one."

* * *

A reader writes: "While on holiday with their grandparents at Mangawhai, Shirley and Wally Davison came across some rather unusual names of streets and places ... including Cemetery Rd, ironically a no-exit. What was more amusing was that the local bed and breakfast on the street called itself, rather unappealingly, Cemetery Bed and Breakfast."

* * *

Jenny Buxton writes: "During the course of our recent Punctuation Festival at Auckland University, for some reason the expression 'toe the line' came under discussion. At least half the participants have always understood this as 'tow the line' as in drag the chain. Is the latter interpretation current, we wonder, and if so, for how long have we been so thoroughly misinformed?"

* * *

An 8-year-old US boy hit two holes-in-one with the same golf ball within 20 minutes. Harrison Vonderau and his dad Dave were playing in a father-and-son tournament at a course in Cleveland, Ohio.They both started screaming and jumping up and down when Harrison hit his first hole-in-one with his pitching wedge. Father Dave Vonderau told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "I never had a hole-in-one, but I was happy to watch his." But they could not believe their eyes when he repeated the feat with his nine iron 20 minutes later. (Source: Ananova.com)

* * *

The Amazing Race is going all multi-cultural for its 10th season. The round-the-globe reality show will for the first time include an Asian-American team of brothers, an Indian-American married couple and a pair of Muslim cousins. They will be joined by a couple of Miss America veterans, a pair of single mothers, a woman with a prosthetic leg and her motivational-speaker friend, and a coalminer and his wife. "We have a very diverse cast," executive producer Bertram van Munster says. "It's almost a true representation of what America is all about." (Source: tvtattle.com)