There was a time when I fancied myself as a barrister but it takes years to qualify and even then you can end up earning less than $10,000 a day. So when I saw an advertisement for a course to become a barista I decided to settle for that.

A woman needed half her leg amputated after she slipped and broke the leg as she was cleaning her bath while she was still asleep. Not even the pain of a broken bone woke her and the angle at which she fell cut off circulation to the leg, killing the limb. When she finally awoke, she was close to multi-organ collapse.

The word mortgage originates in French. it literally means 'death grip'.

Perhaps we are yet to feel the full impact of the Y2K bug but so far it's been quiet.