KEY POINTS:
A reader who bought a single leek from her local supermarket says she was astounded when the young checkout girl held it up and asked, "Is this silverbeet?"
* * *
A reader who works at Whakatane Hospital witnessed the disabled parking incident last week. "It's quite hard
to find a park during peak hours at the hospital and I noticed an elderly man with his bright orange disabled parking sign clearly displayed looking frantically for a car park. Finally he gave up and resorted to parking in a space painted with a giant yellow "H". He may have been surprised at the un-PC term - "H" for handicapped - but he was even more surprised when he returned to see his car replaced with two emergency helicopters. He had parked in the helicopter zone.
* * *
Language police: A Pennsylvania woman could face jail for allegedly shouting profanities at an overflowing toilet while inside her own home. Dawn Herb's outburst was overheard by an off-duty police officer via an open window. "The toilet was overflowing and leaking down into the kitchen and I was yelling [for my daughter] to get the mop," she said. "A guy is yelling, 'Shut the **** up,' and I yelled back, 'Mind your own business."' The citation accuses the defendant of using obscene language or gestures "with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm or recklessly [creating] a risk".
* * *
U2 are to become property developers by joining a consortium to build a skyscraper in the Republic of Ireland. "The U2 Tower" will include an egg-shaped recording studio suspended from the top of the 182m-high luxury apartment block which will be part of the skyscraper. The "pod" studio will dangle beneath a battery of vertical wind turbines and a huge solar panel, hanging free from the innovative energy centre for acoustic reasons. The tower will dominate the Dublin skyline and cost $380 million.
* * *
Doctors in India have removed 7.5cm of toothbrush from a woman's nose. After suffering from severe pain for two months, the woman went to hospital where a CT scan revealed the problem. The 31-year-old didn't know how the toothbrush got lodged up her nose, but recalls brushing her teeth, being accidentally bumped by her husband and a toothbrush breaking in her hand. "I was left holding the lower portion of the brush but couldn't locate the rest of it. Soon after, I started bleeding profusely from the nose. Since that day, I began getting breathless and a foul-smelling discharge began to come out of my nose." (Source: Mumbai Mirror)
