"Not sure why this sign has been erected in Omaha, but felt compelled to take a picture and send it to you!" declares Paul. "Perhaps the ladder and sprinkler don't like the paparazzi!"
Sweet-talking teens to help crack Cola market
A reader writes: "My father-in-law worked for a soft drinkfactory in Auckland in the late 1950s and was given the job of promoting Pepsi-Cola in North Auckland. He took a truck loaded with the product and wasn't having much luck with the sales, or getting any of the retailers to stock it, due to the popularity of its rival at that time, Coca-Cola. So he decided to approach the teens as they were coming out of high schools in various towns that he visited. He had a wee chat and got several of them to go into the local shops and ask for 'that new Pepsi-Cola?' The kids then scuttled off home with their free half-dozen bottles of Pepsi and sales to the retailers in those towns soared. He went back to Auckland a happy man."
Prince's death lures the culture vultures
There's nothing like a celebrity death to present an opportunity to make some cash, right? One opportunistic eBay user has decided to auction off a jar of rain from the day that Prince left this world -- or, as the post describes it, a jar of "Purple Rain". The item's condition reads, "Rain form out side [sic] Paisley park, Minnesota. From 4/21/2016. Passed away."
1. "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row." This rhyme actually refers to the homicidal nature of Queen Mary I (which was 'quite contrary'). The garden is a metaphor for the fast-growing graveyards that accompanied her reign, while silver bells and cockle shells are metaphors for the medieval torture devices used by her on Protestants.
2. "Ring-a-ring o' roses, A pocketful of posies, Atishoo! Atishoo! We all fall down." Interpretations have suggested that this innocuous rhyme is actually about the 1665 Great Plague of London which killed thousands of people. The "rosie" refers to a terrible smelling rash that persons infected with the plague would develop all over their bodies. In order to conceal the stench, people affected with the malodorous rash carried "a pocket full of posies" around with them wherever they went. And "Atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down" they did -- that is, to literally drop dead on the ground.
"In the 1980s I had a blue Honda," writes Elizabeth Manson. "Parked at Glenfield Mall, came out, unlocked the car, got in. Hmmm not my sunnies on the seat, not my rubbish on the floor. Got out, locked car, looked at number plate -- one number different, same colour, same key, six cars away from mine."
The Waikumete Mausoleum, by Architect Associates, won top honour at the 2016 Auckland Architecture Awards last night. photo by Simon Devitt.
