Philip Haigh argues that the discussion in a private meeting of three options to decongest Manchester's Castlefield Corridor has reinforced a perception of 'increasing secrecy' around rail planning.

A practice has long prevailed in some districts, and has, for some time, been generally recommended by many high agricultural authorities, of mixing salt with hay which has been damaged by rain, in the proportion from 14 to 28 lbs. of salt to a load of hay; and when this practice is observed at the time of stacking, it is said, not only to prevent mouldiness and mowburning, but to render the damaged hay fully as palatable as the best-saved unsalted hay.

This is not the case, however, because it is protected from the summer monsoon in the southwest by the Island of Sumatra, and from the winter monsoon in the northeast by the overhang of the peninsula of Cà Mau, the extreme point of the Indochinese Peninsula, a set of circumstances whose effect on alluvial deposits along the coasts has already been mentioned.

Prime Minister John Key is among thousands of Kiwis having to ration their Marmite, as 'Marmageddon' enters its second day.