Strange names indeed. Mick Jagger-inspired or a no moss-gathering-short-stay suburb?
Shopper who prefers not to follow the pack
Susan likes to pack her own groceries. "When I pack my own supermarket shopping, I place items in bags where it's easiest to put them away when I go home," she explains."I automatically pack items in different bags where 'aroma' from soaps or washing powder doesn't contaminate produce like meat and dairy products. Eggs are another item which travel far better at the top rather than the bottom of a heavy bag. I also, logically, I feel, tend to pack frozen and chiller items together as they keep each other cool, and well away from anything hot to avoid spoilage. Many supermarket packers are school kids or first- job youngsters. They have never had to do their own shopping and are blithely unaware of these niceties. Frozen goes in the same bag with hot roast products! As much as possible it is jammed into as few bags as possible without any regard to breakages, torn wrappings and general product crush damage. On one occasion I caught a young packer deliberately squashing a loaf of bread so it would fit into an already full bag to save using another! I complained to the checkout woman, another loaf was brought - and I just stopped the packer doing exactly the same mangle-to-fit procedure again. The young girl hadn't a clue why I complained."
Cyclist not in tune with the traffic
On December 28, Roy and Barbara saw a cyclist riding along Remuera Rd playing his guitar and using both hands to do so. "Good thing traffic was fairly light!" they said.
A gun-toting mugger in Central Park, New York, was so disappointed by his victim's flip phone that he handed it back. "Once he saw my phone, he looked at it like, 'What is this?' and gave it back to me," said Kevin Cook, 25, of Brooklyn. "It's like a 3-year-old generation Windows phone," said Cook. "I guess he didn't think he could get anything for it."
Video: If you have an hour to kill today I would recommend you watch Charlie Brooker 's irreverent, month by month look back at 2013. It's sharp and funny and edifying... (NSFW language)
