I traveled from Brisbane to Sydney along the New England Highway a few times, rather than the route down the coast (Pacific Highway), and by the time you've done it a few times, you get to see a fair bit of it at night. Now, the New England Highway, is a fair way inland, not outback, but well and truly country nonetheless, but when travelling at night, you could still see the glare of the lights from the towns and along the coast, maybe a couple of hundred kilometres away. So you can see, if towns can have this effect a couple of hundred K's away, imagine what a big city can do. And Fardel will appreciate this one... Sydney airport has a strobe, which in clear conditions is powerful enough to be seen directly by aircraft (pilots) taking off out of Canberra, 300km away.

Is there a contradiction here? These mosquitos are bred such that their their DNA says, "die before you are born"... so if this is in fact the case, how did they themselves get born? And what's the point of mosquitos that can't breed, because shortly after, they're all going to die out, and be replaced by those that can? Wouldn't it be better to breed mosquitos that feed only on Uncle Nury, and leave the rest of us in peace?

Alright Liftie, Generally speaking, toothpaste does *not* have sugar. However, as far as I am aware this is not enshrined in law in any juristiction, and therefore, there is nothing to say toothpaste cannot contain sugar, although it would seem oddly self-defeating if it did. There is also nothing to say toothpaste cannot have artificial sweeteners. Some more tidbits and other generally useless information: Did you know, that sugar can also be regarded as an explosive, albeit not a very effective one? Take sucrose for example. Take two spoons, and place a few sugar grains on the back of one. Turn out the lights and then use the back of the other spoon to try and crush the grains. With enough luck, what you should see is a small flash of light - that is the grain of sugar exploding as it reacts with the oxygen in the air. Another example you will often see or hear of, is a gummy bear dropped into molten sodium chlorate. The gummy bear provides the sugar/carbohydrate, the sodium chlorate provides the oxygen. (Don't do this at home kids!). The reaction is very much like a flare, lots of light, heat and smoke (although really, it's mostly water vapour and carbon dioxide). (Actually, whenever you say "Don't do this at home kids", do you find that kids will, automatically become doubly attracted to "doing this at home"?) Lastly, one of the suspected sources of ignition for the great fire of London, was the explosive ignition of flour dust at a bakers from the fire in the fireplace.

Lift Lurker, Double plus good!

In Sydney, we have a building "Australia Square"... It's round?

Fardel, She has to run around in the shower, so of course you missed her.

"Bombs away!!" - Airline Pilot "Chocolate eclairs are on me" - Ms Patisserie "Where are them nuggets" - The old prospector

Since the 13th century, Asian military underpants (first in Mongolia, then in China and Japan) have been made of silk, since the fibers resist penetration by arrowheads.So that's why women wear silk underwear!!

"Elvis, has left the building" Mr A.D., 56.

Nury, Now THAT'S what I call a breakfast -- a table full of curries and roti. Should have read: Now THAT'S what I call a breakfast -- Angela and a table full of curries and roti. Sorry Fardel, I left you out, but I'm sure you'd understand. But AMAZING!! You two finally met! Lift Lurker, I think these two meeting up, is the ultimate nail in the coffin of Lifts being the ultimate form of transport. As good as they are, your lifts just simply would not have been capable of accomplishing this amazing feat. This is something that really did need an aeroplane. Sorry Dude.

I recall reading about this a couple of weeks or so ago... Wasn't also, it higlly likely to be your spouse (or lover) who did you in? (Notes: Sex induced heart-attacks not included.)

Lift Lurker, Hmmm... Did you have prior knowledge when you made your prediction? http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/google-turns-android-smartphones-into-interpreters-20110114-19q6g.html

Hmmm... just if I could predict the Lotto numbers (Mark 6 if you're in HK). Lift Lurker, - Everyone will wear translation hearing aid. You can choose to hear in whatever language. Your friend will speak in Spanish and you will hear in French. Thus, the worldwide fantasy will be reality: we can listen to Queen Elizabeth in Jamaican English. "Dis yo Queen speaking, mon" I suspect you are closer on this one than you realise. All the components are already there, just need to link them together.

Kolmården Jail in Sweeden would have to be up there... (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/1476548/Swedens-jail-reforms-are-put-on-hold.html)

Yup, out of action over the weekend. ETA on a fix? Tuesday... rafanjr, 1. Planes cause more deaths than Lifts Debateable... it's usually the pilot(s) who kill the passengers, not the plane. 2. Planes costs more than Lifts I pay more for lift maintenance over the course of a year than I do for my air travel for the same period. Therefore, I believe lifts actually cost more than planes. Further, would you willingly pay for something that builds you up, only to let you down again? 3. There are more planes that crash than lifts... It's pretty hard to crash when you don't go anywhere! 4. Lifts move even without people in it, planes won't fly unless people are in it. This is not true. There are many types of UAVs (Unmanned Arial Vehicles) which can fly quite autonomously. The pilot, sits at a computer terminal, tells the plane what he wants it to do (usually bomb someone or photograph something), and then the plane looks after the rest - it looks after it's own take off, nagivation and landing. In fact, many commercial aircraft these days, are actually pretty much capable of flying on their own with minimal input from the pilots. As an example, pilots only take control of the aircraft on landing when less (lower) than 1000 feet, often only because they want to, not because they have to. 5. and most of all...its unfair that only pilots get to date very sexy waitresses...uhmmm FAs I have to concede on this one - but you do also have to work for the right airline. Oh, and the right term, I've been told, is "Trolley Dolly".

Sorry Lift Lurker, I have to say this morning "Stupid Lifts"!! I've had four interesting (read boring, unexciting, frustrating, disconcerting) incidents in two weeks... 1. Going from 13th floor to ground... lift feels like all of a sudden it goes into freefall. A couple of seconds later, brakes grip, and passengers end up in a knot of arms, legs and bodies on the lift floor. 2. Lift at home. Press button to call lift. Light goes on, light goes off. Press button again. Light goes on, light goes off. Takes three days to fix, and in the mean time, have to use the firestairs to climb five flights several times each day. At least I got more exercise than normal. 3. Lift at shopping centre - Get into lift, press Level 6. Light goes on, light goes off. Try again. light goes on, light goes off. Try another floor. Light goes on, light goes off. Get out of lift, and try another. Light goes on, light goes off. Have to fight new year sales shoppers up 7 flights of escalators. 4. This morning, lift at home, same problem as last week. Call lift, light goes on, light goes off. Walk 4 flights of stairs, and a round-about trip to get to the garage. Expect lift will take three days to fix again (perhaps more because of the weekend). To top it off, the lift in my building, has only one button to call it, regardless of whether you want to go up or down. If you're on level 3, it assumes you want to go up, so will only allow you to go down if there has been no one else to call the lift, or otherwise forces you on an odyssey to the higher floors, which are supposed to be by swipe card access only. Sorry Lift Lurker, I really am not a fan of lifts at the moment.

Fardel, And when talking freight, whilst I'm not sure about the fuel per mile comparison, I can say that aircraft are overall less polluting than ships too. Ships don't just punch out a heap of CO2, they also punch out copious quantities of soot and toxic chemicals, which are not just bad for us and the environment, but also for global warming. Because fuel capacity in aircraft has always been an issue, increasing fuel efficiency in aircraft has been a long way ahead of any other form of transport. Uncle, This "secret project" of yours... it strikes me a little of your column some months ago, which covered the not so secret secret service - the not so secret secret project? (Is the search box new? I only just noticed it).

One toilet I tried using in China, was a room about 5m long by about 3m wide, had three toilets side by side. There was no barrier, no double door or vanity screen to the outside world. Each toilet consisted of a pair of parallel concrete strips, about six inches apart, and nothing more than a big hole beneath. And black. There was a pile of coal stashed in the corner, the dust from which covered everything.

After all these years, and countless trips to Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand, I still haven't worked out how to use one of those damn toilets yet.

When you're walking in front of someone who is talking, or near someone on a mobile phone, even though you probably won't understand the conversation, you don't have the context, you will nonetheless at least be able to understand the words they are saying. It struck me today, as I was walking in front of this American couple, I couldn't even understand their words. I could hear them as plain as day. I could recognise it as English. I couldn't understand a single word.

Lift Lurker, "If the submission's source is known" That says to me it is far from mandatory to supply your details when you submit something to be published...

Lift Lurker, I believe Wikileaks does not ask for the identity of the person releasing the information, therefore, even if they wanted to release the info, they couldn't. Hence, no double standard. If they were openly willing to release the info, then no one would release info to them for fear of getting caught. All that said, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you do, everything is tracable. There is always a record, even when something's "off the record".

With the way we go out and party all night, and then sleep through the next day, and we have night owls who simply can't sleep at night, and only during the day, I often get the feeling that at some point in the human evolutionary past, we were actually nocturnal creatures, or at the very least, had nocturnal tendencies. Perhaps, that's the next part in human evolution... some of us will remain diurnal whilst others become nocturnal.

Paul P, I don't think I have "good taste" in music, just simply a "taste for music". Simple noise is music to someone's ears.

I had been trying to convince my son for years, that my taste in music wasn't so bad. I had an especially hard time with it when I tried to tell him that some of the music he was listening to was a bit bland and monotone, or was the same all the way across the album. He refused to believe me. I then forced him to sit down and listen to some of the stuff from my youth, The Doors, The Cure, Queen, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Blondie, Divinyls, to name but a few. All of a sudden, the light came on. As you said Nury, "the ingredients are exactly the same as pop hits have been for decades". As for language? I remember the language in the school yard was always far more colourful than what you hear, even in today's songs.