More Fairfax sub-editors to be laid off

Nearly a fifth of sub-editors at Fairfax are about to be made redundant with the rest to be centralised, following the loss of 70 subs at APN last year and the loss of a whole swag of subs when The Evening Post and The Dominion papers merged. APN publishes The New Zealand Herald and Fairfax owns The Dominion Post and The Press.

Have a look at the NZPA story on this, and you'll spot at least three subbing errors. You'd think they'd sub a story on subbing correctly, wouldn't you?

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British kids can use expletives in school exams

You have to wonder WTF is going on in exams these days. British high school students are being awarded marks for writing obscene phrases on their English tests because it shows at least some ability to convey a message.

A chief examiner responsible for training other markers said the phrase "f... off" deserved some marks. The British government's examinations regulator refused to condemn the approach.

We think it's important that candidates are able to use appropriate language in a variety of situations

Yes, very appropriate. What next! Expletives in French language classes - and in text message language, too, I suppose.

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Cheese alert! Is Anchor trying to pull a swifty?

Anchor has a block of Edam cheese on the market. It's the same width as the standard 1kg block of cheese. It is the same length as a standard 1kg block of cheese. It's a similar price as a 1kg block of Home Brand cheese. It looks like a 1kg block of cheese. It probably tastes like a 1kg block of cheese.

But the Anchor block of cheese is not a 1kg block of cheese.

It is 900g.

That's because the block is not as high as a standard 1kg block of cheese, but you wouldn't know that as you can't easily see how high the cheese is when it is displayed. And, starting tomorrow, this block will ave a special price of $8.89 at Countdown and Woolworths just to hook more into buying it. Hook you? Well, it is Anchor cheese.

But it's not a bad price for a 1kg block of cheese, if you're fooled. We weren't. But we can't find a 1kg block of Anchor cheese anywhere. Not even on the website. That's because they stopped making it about six weeks ago. Furthermore, we won't when be fooled when the 900g block comes off the special price, either - back up to $13.49 or $15.49 for a tasty block .

Anyway, here's The Muttonbirds.

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Nobbling National has nothing to do with policy

Matt McCarten considers that Labour's only possible chance of winning the general election is to hope it can nobble National's John Key by exposing him as a lightweight.

But to do that properly, Key has to be a lightweight to start with. If he is no lightweight, McCarten thinks Labour has lost the election even if it has better policies than National.

That's also Labour's strategy, but despite claiming National has no policies, the country doesn't want Labour's policies, at this stage they`d rather have the policies that National is yet to announce. Unfortunately National is becoming more like Labour. Helen Clark doesn't answer questions she doesn't want to, she walks away despite having an answer to one particular question for six months. When John Key gets asked questions he doesn't want to answer, he refuses to answer the question.

At least he doesn't walk away. That would just be too much like the outgoing Prime Minister.

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