Sideswipe

While dining Greek, Erica McDonald couldn't decide whether to have the omnipotent being fried or in t-sauce.

In her latest letter to friends of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, business development manager Connie Miller shares what happened on a visit to Valencia, Spain. "As most loyal Kiwis would, we headed down to their America's Cup village to check out Team New Zealand ... Imagine the excitement as we were invited on a boat tour around the viaduct complete with Spanish crew and lunch. A whole lot of fun was had and as part of our 'Spanglish' conversation they asked us a serious question - 'Why does Team NZ have a feather for their logo?' "

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After emailing Telecom with a query about the amount of spam I was receiving - and then waiting two days for a reply - I was contacted with a request to complete a survey on their service. "We'd greatly appreciate it if you could take a few moments of your time to complete the survey, in relation to the contact you made with us via email on January 1, 1970." I was born in '73 so it was going to be tricky to remember the details.

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Russians playing a game of amateur rugby were arrested by police who mistook the match for a mass brawl. "We got a call to our control room saying there was a fight involving a lot of people on some waste ground just outside town," RIA news agency quoted a police official in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don as saying. The players and supporters - nearly 100 people - were taken to the local police station. They were released without charge when officers realised they had been playing rugby, the news agency reported.

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Still on breast-milk matters, a reader from Ponsonby with an interest in cheese offers the insight that Googling "human breast milk cheese" will get you 1,390,000 results. "Actually making the stuff certainly appears possible but in such tiny amounts that only the really curious would deem the process worthwhile, unless one had access to a lady-farm, that is," he writes. "Anyway, it's probably a safe bet that people all around the world have been doing it for centuries."

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Yesterday morning on bFM breakfast, Wallace Chapman (pretending to be TVNZ reporter Damian Christie ) ordered a citizen's defence Taser from Taser International. The citizen's M16 defence Taser costs US$399, comes with a "nice leather case, and administers a 50,000-volt shock that can floor a 300-pound [136kg] man, Sir. And if you want to keep him down simply reset, give him a breather and do him again". Asked what the advantages of a Taser were, the customer service staffer replied, "Well, you see, with a handgun, sir, there can often be a lot of blood."