Sideswipe

Going cheap: trees for sale at a Thames garden centre.

A reader from Tauranga writes: "My friend Luigi is about to open a wonderful new Italian restaurant on The Strand. Just before Christmas, he started up his new walk-in cold room that had been installed by a refrigeration firm from Auckland. Luigi was hoping to open between Boxing Day and New Year's Day, but was distressed to find that instead of the room cooling, it was actually getting hotter. He was doubly panicked when he looked everywhere and couldn't find the instruction booklet. Finally he decided to take the housing off the compressor unit to see if he could fix something himself. To his great relief (mixed with a similar amount of laughter) he found the operations manual, folded up neatly and jammed into the compressor fan. The manual was keeping the compressor from doing any cooling at all."

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When Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch, a new slang term was born. And now, "jump the couch" has been named the Slang of the Year by the editors of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang. The dictionary defines "jump the couch" as exhibiting strange or frenetic behaviour. Runners-up for Slang of the Year include "floodweiser", which is the canned water Anheuser-Busch donated to hurricane victims, and "spokesweasel", a PR spokesperson.

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There must be an easier way. A 37-year- old British performance artist is crawling 90km on his hands and knees with a sign that reads "Could you Love Me?" on his back in an attempt to find love and "to raise awareness of people left lonely and isolated during the festive period".

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When another student accused Carter Barron of drinking at school, administrators at Peachtree Ridge High School in Suwanee, Georgia, made him take a breath test. School policy says Barron had a right to refuse, but he says he wasn't made aware of that. Nor were his parents informed about the test, which showed no trace of alcohol. But when Barron's bag was searched for booze, officials found a cigarette lighter, and he was given a week of in-school suspension for that. The student who accused him of drinking wasn't punished. (Source: Reason.com)

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Did someone move the dateline into the Tasman Sea? In an NBC clip on One News on Sunday night a US reporter's wrap of the world's New Year celebrations kicked off with "the first city to see in the New Year" - no, not Gisborne or Auckland. Sydney. Perhaps we'll send NBC a map of the world next Christmas.