Sideswipe: September 11: NZ's most fashionable fridge?

Cheap shot

"A few years ago my son and his girlfriend lived in London," writes Peter Canham. "My son went away for three months to volunteer on Raoul Island. My son usually did most of the shopping for them, sometimes in the company of his girlfriend and bought cheap cuts of meat to save money by making slow-cooked dishes to make the meat tender. So, the girlfriend, having the choice to buy more tender morsels, goes to the butcher and buys fillet steak. On her second visit buying the good stuff the butcher is fascinated and asks, 'Has your dog died?'."

Gruesome old children's stories

In The Cry-Baby, from the book Slovenly Betsy, published in 1911 specifically for American audiences. A mother cautions her daughter not to cry so much, but the girl doesn't listen - and eventually, she cries her eyes out:

"And now the poor creature is cautiously crawling,

And feeling her way all around;

And now from their sockets her eyeballs are falling;

See, there they are down on the ground.

My children, from such an example take warning,

And happily live while you may;

And say to yourselves, when you rise in the morning,

"I'll try to be cheerful today."

There's also the story about Polly, who plays with the boys even after she's told not to - so of course her leg is severed while roughhousing. And proud Phoebe Ann holds her head up so high that her neck stretches freakishly, and she has to cart her noggin around on a wagon. (Via Mental Floss)

Sentient grass

Decision not to be sniffed at

McDonald's eventually did away with their spoon-shaped coffee stirrers because people were using them as cocaine spoons. The stirrer, which had a prominent golden arches logo on one end, was an unsavoury connection that linked McDonald's with the world of illegal drugs, a connection that was not good marketing. The spoon portion when evenly levelled with cocaine was said to hold precisely 1 gram and in some cities, a dose of cocaine was dubbed a "McSpoon".