Lost and found rings
1. In 1890, Mrs Talmage of New York lost her ring on the street. A year later, she was contacted by a local blacksmith who said while changing a horseshoe, he had noticed something hard imbedded in the flesh of the horse's foot and realised it was a ring. It was stuck so deep that it took a great deal of effort to extract it. He found Mrs Talmage by the inscription.
2. Lena Paahlsson of Sweden lost her ring in 1995, while she was working in the kitchen. Her entire family looked everywhere for it, but to no avail. Sixteen years later, she pulled up a carrot from her garden and spotted her wedding ring tightly fastened around the vegetable, as if the carrot was wearing it. She theorised that her ring had fallen into some vegetable peelings that were later taken outside and used as compost.
3. In December last year, Jay Bradford's ring fell into the ocean as he was fishing off Long Branch, New Jersey. Bradford was determined to find it, so using GPS co-ordinates to find the exact spot where he thought the ring had fallen, he hired a salvage diver who, against all odds, found the ring 10 minutes later, resting on a rock on the ocean floor. Bradford swore he would never again wear the ring while fishing at sea.
Comments ring true
US media outlet NPR (National Public Radio) posted the headline "Why Doesn't America Read Anymore?" to its Facebook page last week. If you actually clicked on it, you were sent a messages saying Happy April Fool's Day and congratulating you on being a genuine reader. What NPR was counting on, was that people love to comment on a story without reading it. It was right. The comments came piling in ... "I read between 5 and 20+ books a month," declared Miro. "My husband games and reads ... It's all about how our family treats reading." Caitlin then chimed in: "I read all the time. All the time. I still buy books even though I can read them on my devices too. Doesn't surprise me though. Some people don't like reading ... " Why discuss the subject being raised when you can simply dismiss it with a backdoor brag on your own singular experience?
Gross or tasty?
The gruesome shock tactics in advertising are usually reserved for smoking and drink driving, but now the public is being warned of the dangers of the demon sugar. The Diabetes Association of Thailand has launched a campaign (right) showing close-ups of gaping wounds but the blood and guts are made out of pink icing and lumpy jam. The ads, headlined "Sweet Kills", are designed to raise awareness of the complications of type 2 diabetes.Untreated, the disease can causes slow wound healing and amputation and in Britain one there are 135 amputations a day caused by the disease.
Picture this: These haunting scarecrows of Britain ain't no Worzel Gummidge...
Good read: This American tourist's list of observations about small-town Britain has gone surprisingly viral...
Picture this: Incredible vintage photos of women wrestling...
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Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz