The sign that greets visitors to the Pataua camping ground (Treasure Island) outside Whangarei.
Joke Wi-Fi handles fall flat
You've heard clever Wi-Fi names — Pretty Fly for a Wi-Fi, It Hurts When IP, Get Your Own Damn Wi-Fi — but passengers on a recent Turkish Airlines flight found out that tongue-in-cheekiness can be hugely disruptive. The flight from Nairobi to Istanbul was forced to make an emergency landing in Sudan because of one person's foolish choice of Wi-Fi hotspot name — "Bomb on board". Turkish Airlines said the Wi-Fi network in question was created on board. In May, a flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Gatwick in London was cancelled after a Wi-Fi hotspot with the name "Jihadist Cell London 1" was spotted on board and last year, a Qantas flight was delayed for two hours after a passenger on board noticed the Wi-Fi network name "Mobile Detonation Device". (Source: Washington Post)
Calling owner of dog that bowled woman
A mother writes: "At Kohimarama Beach on the Sunday of Labour Weekend at 9am my daughter was hit by a large Labrador-type dog weighing 30-plus kilos that was chasing a ball at great speed. She never saw it coming until it bowled her. Wrong place, wrong time. She suffered a broken tibia and knee damage and spent seven days in hospital. She has spent the past seven weeks trying to manage on crutches and in pain, trying to look after her 12-year-old daughter and her dogs. She is unable to work, unable to leave her flat without help or walk dogs. But what really upsets us is there has been no contact from the owner of the dog, the woman who rang the ambulance. Police said we could lay a complaint, but we don't want to get the dog owner into trouble. The fact that the dog owner has not contacted my daughter to find out the outcome of the accident is hurtful. Any gesture from the dog owner would certainly lift my daughter's and our spirits." Please contact Sideswipe if you have any information.
