Regardless of what your job is and how good you are at it, you will inevitably make a mistake. If you're lucky, your mistake will be quietly rectified and no-one will be the wiser. If you're out of luck, your mistake will be immortalised on the internet - as is the case for the poor person who came up with the idea to put an anti-drug slogan on pencils.

In the early 1990s, US-based company Bureau For At Risk Youth created and distributed thousands of pencils bearing the slogan “Too Cool To Do Drugs” to schools across the States in an effort to curb drug abuse among highschoolers. Their intentions were good… their product testing (and understanding of how pencils work), less so.

The problem was that the phrase “Too Cool To Do Drugs” was printed on the pencils with the start of the phrase closest to the tip of the pencil and the end near the eraser. That meant that as the pencils were sharpened, words were taken off the phrase one at a time. A few twists of the sharpener, and suddenly the pencil would read “Cool To Do Drugs”. A few more, and you get “Do Drugs”, and then finally, just the word “Drugs”.

What's that joke about not being the sharpest pencil in the box? This isn't as bad as the stapled condoms that were once distributed in South Africa, but it's pretty damn embarrassing.

In her column this week, Dominique Olivier explains how endorsing a cookware concept is apparently more lucrative for sports stars than doing things like winning major championships. George Foreman's best knockout ever had to be his grill, but just how much did he make? His burgers may have had less fat, but his bank account certainly got nice and plump. Read it here>>>

Read on for stories of guerrilla gardening (for activists who love cabbages) and Dominique's Fast Facts based on micronations of the world. Sorry Hout Bay residents - merely putting up a sign referring to yourself as a republic doesn't count.

Have a lovely day!

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TL;DR: Guerrilla gardening is exactly what it sounds like: planting things where you’re technically not supposed to. Think less camo-clad militia and more middle-aged rebels with trowels and seed bombs, sneaking around neglected urban spaces to wage a quiet war on concrete and bureaucracy.

Some guerrilla gardeners are just well-meaning over-enthusiasts whose window boxes creep across property lines. For others, gardening is a political act. It’s not just about greenery: it’s a spade-in-the-ground protest against land misuse, inequality, and the slow death of public space. This is horticulture as direct action. Petunias as provocation, if you will.

While guerilla gardening is a worldwide phenomenon, perhaps the most gloriously absurd example comes from Wellington, New Zealand in 1978. A group of artists – Chris Lipscombe, Barry Thomas, Hugh Walton and friends – decided that what the demolished Duke of Edinburgh/Roxy Theatre site really needed was cabbages. 180 of them, to be precise. Spelled out, rather helpfully, in the shape of the word CABBAGE.

What began as conceptual sculpture quickly turned into a public love affair. Over the next six months, locals wandered by to check on the crop, add their own creative touches, and eventually celebrate the harvest with a week-long cabbage-themed festival. There were poetry readings. There were performances. There was free coleslaw (obviously). The local council was peeved, presumably, but had no idea what to do with any of it. Technically, you can’t arrest someone for gardening (trespassing, on the other hand, is a more serious offence - if you can prove it).

Across the Pacific, a different kind of green disruption sprouted in 2010, courtesy of a Los Angeles outfit called Greenaid. Their weapon of choice was gumball machines. But instead of sugary treats, these machines dispensed seed bombs, which are compact little grenades of clay, compost and region-specific wildflower seeds. Toss one into a vacant lot, wait for it to rain, and voilà: surprise daisies.

Greenaid took these retrofitted vending machines and partnered with shop owners, teachers, and just about anyone willing to host a miniature flower revolution. The idea wasn’t to tear up the system, but rather to just gently bloom over it, one highway median at a time.

Whether it’s cabbage-as-installation or daisies-via-gumball, guerrilla gardening thrives in that delicious space between rule-breaking and care-taking. It asks uncomfortable questions about who gets to plan urban landscapes, reclaims forgotten spaces, and proves again and again that sometimes the most quietly radical thing you can do is plant something where you’re not supposed to. After all, if change won’t come from the top, it might just sprout from the cracks in the pavement.

An assortment of facts that will only take you five minutes to read.

• Province of Bumbunga (est. 1976): Alarmed by the possibility of Australia becoming a republic, a monarchist declared his farm in Bumbunga, South Australia an independent state loyal to the Crown.

• Other World Kingdom (est. 1996): A BDSM resort specializing in female dominance, located in a château in Černá (Czech Republic) claims to be an independent matriarchy.

• Freetown Christiania (est. 1971): Christiania is an intentional community and commune on the site of a former military base in Copenhagen. Known for its trade in cannabis, which is illegal in Denmark, the micronation was ranked in 2016 as the fourth most popular tourist attraction in Copenhagen.

• Republic of Užupis (est. 1997): Užupis is a neighbourhood in the Old Town of Vilnius which declared itself a republic. The dilapidated area has long been favoured by artists. The micronation has an eccentric constitution, and has appointed ambassadors not only to countries, but also to other neighbourhoods and cities, historical locations that no longer exist, and even concepts.

• United Territories of the Sovereign Nation of The People's Republic of Slowjamastan (est. 2021): A micronation in Imperial County, Southern California that was founded by slow jam DJ Randy Williams. It claims an empty, 11-acre plot of desert land along the California State Route 78 that Williams purchased for $19,000.