Sideswipe

Hungary delivers mums four-baby tax-saver

Hungarian women with four children or more will be exempted for life from paying income tax, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said, unveiling measures to increase the number of babies being born. The idea was proposed as a way to counter Hungary's population decline without needing immigration. His seven-point plan to increase the fertility rate also included state support for those buying seven-seat vehicles. (Via BBC.com)

There are no filthy rich, only people of means

After Starbucks boss and presidential hopeful Howard Schultz moaned about being called a billionaire — “We’re not billionaires, we're people of means” — more euphemisms have appeared on Twitter: differently monied, un-povertied, polo-aligned, children of the coin, trickle downers, thousand-millionaires, The Private Jetsons (The Mintstones), offshore account immigrants and the haves and the have-yachts.

Coffee was hot, the price scalding

A reader was a bit perplexed at this charge. “At lunch my friend asked for her coffee to be extra hot and she was charged an extra 50 cents. We were astounded.”

Not really recommended for Valentine’s Day.

Shackleton’s expedition beer. Doug writes: “My father, Ralph Somers-Edgar, acquired some bottles of Lucky Dew beer, brewed by Fort Pitt brewery in Pittsburg USA, from a crewman on Shackleton’s expedition in Dunedin in 1916.”

Trevor Warbrooke found this under his late mother’s house in Onehunga. “An unopened bottle of Moet and Chandon, 1919 vintage (100 years young). Mum was born in 1919 which may have a bearing on why the wine was stored unopened all those years.”