Sideswipe

How would you like your chicken cooked, Ma'am?

What is the world coming to, says a reader, "when a recruitment advertisement for secondary teachers, presumably checked by those in charge of education, makes a jarring mistake?" The teacher in a new television ad describes a pupil as being "disinterested" in astronomy until experiencing the wonders of the telescope. "She means uninterested," corrects our reader. "Disinterested means not having any personal interest in an event - a judge should be disinterested in a case but not uninterested."

* * *

Helen Clark completely missed the mark with her "cancerous" insult, as did Clint Brown with "Tuwharetoa whores", which is sad, because usually there is nothing more enjoyable than a polite well-crafted insult:

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about."
- Winston Churchill.

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
- Clarence Darrow.

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx.

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
- John Bright.

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."
- Samuel Johnson.

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
- Paul Keating.

"He had delusions of adequacy."
- Walter Kerr.

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt."
- Robert Redford.

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"
- Mark Twain.

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
- Mae West.

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
- Billy Wilder.

* * *

A flyer in the lift at Counties Manukau Police HQ in Otahuhu urges the boys in blue to join an indoor soccer league. "This is a great chance to get your section together and work off the frustrations of crime."

* * *

The Medway News in Kent reports the conviction of two 56-year-old men for breaking into the homes of old women and using threats to demand money. One of the men protested against his jail sentence - on the grounds that he had already spent 35 years of his life in prison and felt it was unfair to be put away for another five years. The judge was unmoved.

* * *

While in Central Otago a reader from Westmere had lunch at the Courthouse Cafe in Alexandra. "We found ourselves being escorted off the premises by the local policeman after some of our children ate their own packed lunch. Apparently six paying adults and three children's platters costing over $80 didn't appease the cafe owner. Perhaps they are taking their cafe name a little too seriously!"

* * *

Antonia Pearson-Gaballonie, 36, was convicted in Britain of having enslaved a 26-year-old housekeeper from 1997 to 2005 despite her defence that the woman had actually been earning the equivalent of about $55 a week during that time and that all she had to have done was ask for it, but never did. (Source: BBC News)