Whee! Lots and lotsa moolah!
STONE the flamin' crows, mate – they're givin' away moolah in Sydney! ATMs of the Commonwealth Bank had to be closed down in the New South Wales capital when they started allowing drawers to take away unlimited amounts of cash, whether or not they had the funds in their account.
Long queues began to form at machines as word spread of the windfall. People were walking away with thousands of dollars.
The police had to step in to warn people they could face fraud charges for taking the money.
The problem affected about 40 Commonwealth Bank ATMs. A bank spokesman said the ATMs had been in "standby" mode, which meant they could not identify a customer's account balance. The problem arose following overnight maintenance work on the system.
New South Wales Police have warned customers who fail to return the money that they could face criminal charges.
Presumably they'll be put on transports and shipped back to England.
Red herring
IT SEEMS I was wrong in presuming earlier this week that Arbroath Smokies – protected by the European Union from having their name used by competitors – are a brand of cigar or some kind of spliff.
Mo Hope-Bailie and Ian Gibson (who contributes a limerick toward the end of the column) point out that they are a delicious smoked herring produced in the town of Arbroath, on the east coast of Scotland. Ian wonders whether I have been set upon by enraged Scots.
So herring it is. But it just shows – the Scots will smoke anything. Gie's a wee light, Jock?
Daiquiri postscript
READER Susi Penne supplies a postscript to this week's Tailpiece about the barman who used hickory nuts instead of hazelnuts in a daiquiri.
Hickory daiquiri doc,
The barman ran out of stock;
The doctor went mad,
Beat up the poor lad,
Who's now in a great state of shock.
Cars and computers
THIS should strike a chord with computer users.
At a recent computer expo, Bill Gates compared the computer industry with the auto industry and said: "If Ford had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1 000 miles to the gallon."
In response, Ford issued a statement setting out the characteristics of cars if they had followed technology like Microsoft:
* For no reason whatsoever your car would crash - twice a day.
* Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
* Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the engine, restart it, and re-open the windows before you could continue.
* Occasionally executing a manoeuvre such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to re-install the engine.
* Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
* The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.
*The airbag system would ask: "Are you sure?" before deploying.
* Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
* Every time a new car was introduced, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
* You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
Wake-up call
IAN GIBSON, poet laureate of Hillcrest, gives us a political wake-up call.
It's almost time for local elections,
A time for some serious reflections;
Check the rolls,
Then go to the polls,
If you want change make better selections.
Tailpiece
THE HOSPITAL'S doctors went on strike. The administration couldn't work out what their demands were. So they called in a pharmacist to read their picket signs.
Last word
In democracy it's your vote that counts; In feudalism it's your count that votes.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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