KEY POINTS:
Helen, is that you? asks Sandy Saunders of a picture taken outside the shop Arty Farty's, next to the Swinging Cow Cafe on State Highway 1 at the Dargaville turn-off.
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A reader from Albany has another brickbat for Kathmandu , this time over their
smelly sandals. "I wonder if any one else who bought a pair of their Teva sandals are concerned about the frightful smell they exude even after being worn for an hour. I bought a pair to wear on an overseas tour, unaware that the soles are treated with chemicals which supposedly suppress foot odour. I was in a shop fitting room trying on clothes and noticed this awful smell which followed me ... I had showered and was wearing clean clothes. I discovered that others on the tour were also finding their Tevas smelt bad."
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Ah, you found my friend, Mr Handsome, writes a traveller from New Windsor. "Those signs [in yesterday's SideSwipe], are the work of Sunit who calls himself Mr Handsome. He lives on Koh Phangan in Thailand. When I visited there eight years ago I spent lots of time hanging out with him. He was a very friendly guy who loved meeting tourists. Even then his room was decorated with fairy lights and posters saying things like "Singha Beer makes you Handsome". Just remembering him makes me smile. We had a lot of fun with him on the island. It is great to see he has turned all that enthusiasm and zest for life into a business."
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The European Union allows fruits and vegetables to be sold only in prescribed sizes and colours (such as its 35 pages of regulations governing 250 varieties of the apple, or rules that cucumbers must be straight and bananas curved). In June, British marketer Tim Down complained that he was forced to discard 5000 kiwifruit because they were 1mm in diameter too small and one-fourth of an ounce too light (it is illegal even to give them away, as that would undermine the market price). "Improvements" in the EU system continue: Despite 10 pages of standards on the onion and 19 amendments, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture recently issued a report urging further refinements, using 29 pages and 43 photographs. (Source: News of the Weird)