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Home / New Zealand

Sideswipe: July 29: Some Thieves Do 'Ave 'Em

Ana Samways
By Ana Samways
Sideswipe - ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz·NZ Herald·
28 Jul, 2015 05:00 PM3 mins to read

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"Maybe I'm really tired, but this story strikes me as hilarious," tweets @SarahMcMullanNZ

"Maybe I'm really tired, but this story strikes me as hilarious," tweets @SarahMcMullanNZ

Ana Samways
Opinion by Ana SamwaysLearn more

A man has been arrested after police airwaves were plagued by a prankster saying repeatedly over a 48 hour period, "Oh, Betty" in a Frank Spencer voice. The calls imitating the character from the 70s BBC comedy series Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em began after a police radio went missing in Worthing, West Sussex. A local in his 20s has been arrested.

Continuous flushing lets the country down

Luckily New Zealand is a water-rich country, comparatively, says Adele ... but can we really waste so much water? "In Britomart and Auckland Airport toilets (at least in the female toilets) there is an automatic flush mechanism ... which sounds helpful ... until you factor in the water wastage via multiple extra unnecessary flushes. The unit flushes every time one leans forward to get toilet paper, it flushes when one stands up, and sometimes it even flushes a third time when one exits the cubicle! If you multiply that by every other person that it happens to, keeping in mind this won't be a rare occasion given the above locations, and that every flush uses between 6-12 litres of water, it's quite a lot of wasted water. Our green image is questionable with this wastage, not to mention the sorrowful waste of water in the face of the droughts throughout the rest of the world ..."

Should this lady get a refund?

Julie was in a women's clothing shop recently when a lady came in demanding a refund. "She had purchased a merino top three years previously and it now had three small holes across the front. The shop assistant gently explained it was probably moth holes and I expressed my sympathy. She left us both in no doubt that her house could not possibly have moths and anyway, moths only eat wool, not merino. Should she get a refund?"

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End of line for 'terminated'

Up until recently the train managers on western line trains when approaching Britomart said over the PA that this service would "terminate" at the Britomart station! Very final! So Eric emailed AT asking because of the old diesel locos breaking down, causing cancellations, did this terminate mean those cancelled services were disappearing in a cloud of diesel smoke? "And even worse, were all the passengers in those cancelled trains disappearing too? Joking of course. However, since that email, and as a regular traveller on the western line I have never heard "terminate" used again ... coincidence or PC change?"??

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