• Len Morrison found this headline on Google News, which was taken from the Birmingham Mail on 19 July: “Grandad hit by three bus lane tickets in Birmingham city centre.” The story explained the man had received three fixed-penalty fines for driving in bus lanes.

• An email offer Vance R Koven received from Groupon was headed “Apple iPad mini 32GB with WiFi, 14K Gold Swarovski Earrings, Men’s Spiked Golf Shoes & More.” His comment: “Talk about bells and whistles!”

• Dana Cook Grossman contributed a sentence from an obituary in the Valley News of Vermont and New Hampshire with the comment, “He must have been quite a headstrong guy”: “First thing in the morning Donal enjoyed using his skull to travel the perimeter of Pleasant Lake.”

• On 18 July the Atlantic online had a photo of Argentinean youths, who rioted after the World Cup final, trying to escape tear gas and a water cannon. Amy Briggs spotted that the caption ended, “Police said more than a dozen officers were injured and many more were arrested.”

• F J Bergmann reports that the Publishing Perspectives e-newsletter of 23 July includes this: “Spanish author Javier Marias argues that while there are plenty of reasons not to write novels, there's one that is very important — a shot at immorality.”