KEY POINTS:
Sky's new MySky service is great technology and is used in our house to record programmes to watch at our convenience, fast-forwarding through the ads. But Christine, who writes below, is not the only one screaming blue murder over a glitch in the savvy technology. "Now that Sky
owns Prime you would think they could synchronise their clocks and stop pissing off MySky subscribers by inadvertently cutting off the vital last minutes of the recorded programme. Even though I have mine set to continue recording five minutes after the scheduled finish, it happens time and time again. I have started recording the programme immediately after even if I don't want to watch it because I have missed so many endings."
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One of Britain's biggest banks has issued a manual instructing staff how to avoid refunding customers' unfair bank charges. The Daily Mail reports Lloyds TSB, which has been accused of overcharging customers £300 million ($800 million) a year, has issued staff with a 16-page training pack instructing workers to reject first-time claims even if they are legitimate, offer a maximum payout of £750, and offer immediate settlements only to those who are "very ill" - or dying.
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Keryn Laurence wonders if anyone else noticed the racial overtones of the new Yellow Pages television ads? "As a European Kiwi brought up in our multiracial, multicultural society, the thought never crossed my mind that the hand icons running around doing all the work had a hidden meaning, but watching TV with some South African friends opened my eyes to a new possibility. Little black hands, African-sounding slave music in the background ... Have any other Kiwis picked up on this, or is the apartheid background of my friends making them see a meaning that isn't there?"
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Speaking ill of the dead: Feminist Germaine Greer has had a go at the late Princess of Wales, calling her "slow", "devious" and "disturbingly neurotic". In an essay published in Weekend Australian Magazine Greer claims Diana is partly responsible for the car accident that killed her almost a decade ago - by initiating a love triangle between herself, Dodi Fayed and heart surgeon Hasnat Khan. "The saddest thought of all is that Diana's death may have resulted indirectly from another of her cack-handed manipulations; it is said that she only went to Paris with Dodi Fayed in order to make heart surgeon Hasnat Khan jealous." Greer further ridicules Diana's intelligence, referring to her childhood nickname of "Brian", given to her by her siblings, after the dopey snail on The Magic Roundabout on children's TV.
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A reader writes: "Denny's restaurant in Pakuranga refused entry to me (an adult who said I'd accept full responsibility), my son and six other students at 12.30 on Sunday morning after their school ball. I picked up the kids from the ball and wanted to buy them milkshakes. Denny's has a one-size-fits-all "no students allowed after school ball" policy, even when these kids are 100 per cent sober and supervised.
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A man whose wife's decomposing body was found in a storage room of their home said he thought she had left him. Eugene Pilouw of Harlingen, Texas, who claimed diabetes damaged the nerves in his nose, said he noticed his wife missing on July 12. Three days later, his daughter found the body in a storage room in the back area of the home. "I never smelled anything and I still don't smell anything," he said. "I thought she had run away from home again, especially after I noticed an envelope with $250 was missing."
Today's Video Webpick: Before Flight of the Conchords' Jemaine Clement went to the US to make a hit TV series, he made a couple of very funny short films about two sheep having a few quiets at their local. Watch it here.
These are the very best online videos from Ana's online magazine Spare Room.
