Peter Sanders asks: "Is it too late to ask my fellow citizens to speak numbers correctly? Particularly when giving codes, file identifications, booking references over the phone. Let's all agree to say zero when it's zero and "Oh" when it's O.
This is prompted by a police station receptionist starting
with "Ohs" and ending with "zeros" when giving me a numerical code reference. This could have more than just time-consuming consequences in some situations.
* * *
A government campaign in the United Arab Emirates has been started against what it describes as masculine behaviour among women. Under the slogan "Excuse me, I am a girl", workshops, lectures and TV programmes have been created to help women avoid "delinquent behaviour", namely homosexuality or transvestitism.
Officials said "masculine behaviour" was common in girls' schools. Officially, Arab societies view heterosexuality as the publicly accepted norm, and all other forms of sexuality or sexual conduct are regarded as deviant or abnormal. A social worker in charge of the campaign said this kind of behaviour could be attributed to the unfair treatment of wives by their husbands and lack of mixing between the sexes leading some girls to adopt the male role by having their hair cut short or by putting on a man's voice.
* * *
Reader Tony says: "A classic for Sideswipe. In Pakuranga, a pale metallic green Suzuki Swift, registration number IMGOOD, driving down Cascades Road from Botany Road on Sunday morning, March 15, an empty coke can is thrown out of the window into the middle of the road. Maybe practice what your number plate says, or a change of number plate to LTRBUG would be better suited."
* * *
Strange food:
1) Germany's Sprehe Foods has decided to call its new line of frozen fried chicken strips "Obama Fingers". A company official said the name referred to the fact that it is a finger food and said no one would take the product literally - adding that people don't think hotdogs are made from dogs. But US citizens living in Germany have suggested the product could be seen as racially insensitive. Fried chicken has long been associated with African-Americans in the US.
2) Farmers in Britain have come up with a new product aimed at home chefs who are too lazy to crack - liquid eggs. Cartons of "Egg In An Instant" contain 10 whole eggs per half litre, and will be available in free range and non-free range versions. A representative of Oaklands Farm Eggs, the company behind the product, expects it to be popular with shoppers who are "massively lazy, massively into convenience".
* * *
Ignoring yellow lines are not the only hazard buses create on the Shore, says Lou Girardin of Birkdale. "They ignore centre lines as well. On Exmouth St and Sylvan Ave in Northcote the road is too narrow for a bus to pass parked cars and stay in the lane, so they barrel down the middle of the road at undiminished speed. Using the 'might is right' principle, they expect oncoming traffic to get out of their way. It makes life interesting for other road users."
* * *
See today's Herald cartoon
* * *
