Sideswipe: January 26: These thongs are locked down tight

A reader spotted these thongs outside an ice cream shop in Kumeu.

Intruder alert

An Australian woman is scared to sleep in her own home after discovering that an intruder had been living in her attic. Monica Green from Rockhampton in Queensland had noticed weird things around her house for a while, but dismissed them as coincidences or figments of her imagination.

But after returning with her children from a doctor's appointment Monica couldn't ignore the obvious anymore. The backdoor was wide open, the air-conditioning and the TV were on, and there was a half-eaten plate of chicken nuggets in the kitchen. She called the police, and later learned that whoever had broken into her home, had probably been living there for some time.

Thinking back on everything she had noticed around the house, Green said that there were plenty of signs that something was not right. On one occasion food had gone missing, and another time her security camera system had been disabled, but she didn't pay much attention when these things happened.

Green and her family believe that the intruder must have gained access to the house by stealing her keys, and they have now changed all the locks.

Truth about Popeye and spinach

Popeye the Sailor is well known for his love for spinach, and the popularity of the character led to generations of children being force-fed often overcooked plates of the vegetables to give them strength. Though spinach does not lack in nutritional value, particularly when raw, it is to be questioned how many doting mothers were aware that Popeye's spinach is actually a joke. Though this may have begun as a jest at the expense of American farmers, the popular cartoon helped the spinach industry as sales of the green tripled during the years of Popeye's initial fame. When frozen spinach became readily available sales doubled again.

Wrong end of the shellfish

A reader writes: "I was telling my daughter who was 5 at the time that she was being selfish for not sharing. She burst out crying and said 'I am not a shell fish!' I couldn't stop laughing."