Sideswipe

It's amazing, the services on offer at the public toilets at Russell in the Bay of Islands

Ray Bennett writes: "On my waddle around the block on Wednesday night in Narrow Neck I came across local resident Gwenda peering into a road gully with the grill open. Always one to stick my beak in, I asked her what she was doing. She pointed out four feather-brained ducklings paddling down below and going quackers. Close by on the grass, mother duck was making a din also. Gwenda pointed out that this was a regular occurrence, to the point that mother duck now knows to come up the drive and announce that the ducklings need rescuing ... again. Cue Gwenda's husband Peter with the Kiwi No 8 fencing wire solution, a kitchen sieve on the end of a long pole, with which he proceeds to scoop the ducklings out and return them to mum."

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From the "and-we-wonder-why-we-have-accidents-file": A perturbed motorist would like to tell the driver of the grey coloured Holden Commodore Calais, driving south on the motorway around 5.30pm on Thursday, to please, for the sake of the other motorway users, wait until you get home to fill out your Sudoku ... Or a least not while you're travelling 100km/h.

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An attempt to tie in Holly Hunter's latest film role with the birth of her twins goes horribly wrong in the New York Post: "'Elastigirl' has given birth to twins at age 47. Actress Holly Hunter, who voiced the role of the superhero-mom with the ability to stretch her body like rubber in the hit animated film The Incredibles, now has two kids of her own."

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Tom Cruise sues? South Park had a new episode pulled from British TV. Trapped in the Closet involved Tom Cruise locking himself in Stan's closet, with the phrase "Tom Cruise won't come out of the closet" repeated 28 times during the show. At one point, ex-wife Nicole Kidman was portrayed trying to coax him out, saying, "It's time for you to come out of the closet, Tom. You're not fooling anyone." The final line of the show is Tom telling the South Park kids: "I'm gonna sue you! I'm gonna sue you in England!"

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Sandra Luchian, 15, from Moldova, managed to write out in full the 607-page Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, filling five notebooks, after borrowing it from a friend in the UK. The book was not available in Moldova and she couldn't afford to have it shipped to her. She said it took her a month.