Sideswipe: April 2: Dogged determination

Doggone it.

Garfield phone mystery solved

A French coastal community has finally cracked the mystery behind the Garfield telephones that have washed up on their beaches for decades. Since the 1980s, the Iroise coast in Brittany has received a supply of bright orange landline novelty phones shaped like the famous cartoon cat. Anti-litter campaigners have been collecting fragments of the feline for years as they clean the beaches. But now, the source of the problem has been found — a lost shipping container. Campaigners from an anti-litter group suspected that was the cause but had never been able to find the container. Media attention however drew the eye of a local farmer who remembered the first Garfield phone appearing after a storm in the early 1980s. The container was in a secluded sea cave accessible only at low tide. (Via BBC)

Grin and bear it

I see what you did there. Spotted at a Dominion Road dental practice.

You shall not pass!

You shall not pass!

"Thought this person was backing out," writes a reader. "But realised after a minute or so that no one was actually in it."

Jaws on the water

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, a beach resort in Texas is showing Jaws to an audience in inner tubes bobbing in an open water lagoon. According to the "Jaws on the Water" website, "the thrilling, one-of-a-kind experience of watching cinema's greatest great whites with your feet dangling dangerously and deliciously in the water."

Doggone it

Doggone it.

A reader writes: "The photo was taken on the Rotary Walkway in Pakuranga. I believe the property owners have a lawn that is at the same level as the top of the retaining wall, which is about 3m above the walkway. A perfect position for this little chap to bark at everything that goes past — including bigger dogs — knowing that he is quite safe!"