Sideswipe

Bullies please apply. Picture / The Aucklander

Inappropriate punishment is not just the prerogative of the New Zealand police. Gary Robertson of Helensville writes: "Recently a good friend of mine was offered a job as manager of the meat section in a big supermarket chain in Papua New Guinea. He sent me an email after his first week telling me of a novel way they deal with shoplifters over there. These are his words ... 'Hey mate, you gotta see what they do to the natives over here that get caught shoplifting ... the security guards caught two teenagers. They tipped buckets of ice water over them and then threw them into the blast freezer ... man, I could hear their screams from my office! And to top it off, after 10 minutes they opened up the door and threw more ice water over them and shut the freezer door again. Kept them in there for 20 minutes ... the best part is they don't reoffend.' Maybe that's what we need to do here. Can't you just hear the do-gooders scream, "You can't do that". But maybe, just maybe, if that's what we did instead of giving them a slap on the wrist ... ".

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Readers have recommended service stations with actual service, where friendly staff pump your petrol for you. These can be found at Shell Remuera, just past Norana Ave; Shell Station on Kepa Rd, Orakei; BP Balmoral; BP at Pinehill; Shell Crown Hill Milford; Caltex Meadowlands; The Challenge on the corner of Don Buck and Triangle Rds, Massey; Caltex, Blockhouse Bay; BP Ti Rakau Drive; BP Station in Whitford; BP Station in Cavendish Drive, Manukau City. And then there's BP in Blockhouse Bay; the Mobil station at Owairaka Ave, Owairaka; Shell at Westgate, Massey; BP Lake Road, Takapuna; BP Waterview and the Go Gas Titirangi, where you don't even have to get out of your car, apparently.

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This gives the modern track-pants wearing woman an idea of how excruciating it would have been to wear a real corset ... "to wear a garment so restrictive as to hinder the development of vital organs, to wear this garment night and day from as early as the age of 5 years old. Nowadays our lungs and rib cages are allowed to develop into the shape nature intended, allowing us a greater lung capacity and overall better health than our ancestors. Our happily un-compressed inner organs allow us the health and strength to carry a child to term as well as survive the delivery. Fainting couches and smelling salts are things of the past."

(Source: Lara Corsets)

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D.D. Craig of Waipu noticed the impossible directions on his self-opening golf practice net. One ... "Caution: this net is coiled and under pressure. Open this product at least 8 to 10ft away from yourself and others."