Good to know that Auckland Zoo takes lockdown seriously.
Tempting wrong delivery
A reader writes: "I've shopped online at the supermarket for years. My order delivered this morning contained two items in a bag with someone else's name and order. As one item was Bluff oysters, I was tempted, but being 'brung-up proper', I phoned and waited from being seventh in line to speak to someone. They thanked me but did they say, 'Keep them and well send the other customer some fresh ones?' No. They are sending driver, and presumably, truck, to collect them ... I've been waiting hours. If he's not here soon, guess what I'm having for dinner?"
Pig gets better of driver
Language bloopers. I lived in Laos for a few years and could speak Lao, writes a reader. One day I was taking a tuk-tuk to That Luang. As we were leaving, another driver asked my driver (in Lao) where we were going. My driver replied, 'I am taking this pig to That Luang. So on arrival my driver asked for the fare ... I replied in Lao that pigs don't carry money and walked off without paying.
Collective noun humour ...
*A troll of tweeters
*A shonk of lawyers
*A spin of journalists
*A poser of celebrities
*A mumble of teenagers
*A wunch of bankers
*An explosion of rocket scientists
*An uprising of bakers
*A handful of card players
*An acceleration of car salesmen
*A body of pathologists
*A whinge of commentators
*An incompetence of EQC workers
*A suburb of road cones.
... but lest we forget
A reader writes: Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones did a brilliant skit on this in the 80s. They were two old professors, researching a book of collective nouns and came up with, among others: a fart of zebras, a gin and tonic of stick insects and a jacuzzi of alligators. And their book was called A Load of Bollocks.
