Sideswipe: February 15: Epic summer, south of Kawakawa

Sideswipe - ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz·NZ Herald·

14 Feb, 2018 04:00 PM2 mins to read

Epic Summer, South of Kawakawa. Photo / Supplied

Shouldn't that be ...

Following the Canadian government approving the gender-neutral lyrics to their national anthem a woman at a function attended by Canadian PM used the term mankind; Justin Trudeau interjected with "We like to say 'peoplekind', not necessarily 'mankind', because it's more inclusive." The room cheered, but not everyone agreed.

Conservative critics pointed to Trudeau's peoplekind as political correctness run amok and missing-the-point jokes about changing Batman's name to 'Batperson' and in the house the Canadian opposition leader urged the Prime Minister to "person up".

Meanwhile some liberal critics on social media took Trudeau to task for mansplaining — er, peoplesplaining? — inclusivity to a woman. Lexical critics, meanwhile, puzzled at the term peoplekind. Wouldn't that be ... humankind?

May the Wilberforce be with you

"The current staging of Maurice Gee's children's classic Under the Mountain brought to mind an incident that occurred back in 1981, when the TV series was being screened," writes Graeme Lay.

"My then-young children were avid followers of the programme. Driving through Takapuna with my six-year-old son Matthew, I stopped the car at a red light to allow a pedestrian to cross in front of us. Suddenly from the back seat came a terrified, strangled cry. 'There's Mr Wilberforce!' I stared at the man striding across the street in front of us.

"It was indeed the saturnine, fearsome patriarch of Under the Mountain's Wilberforce clan, who were threatening the world order. Or rather, it was the man who was so convincingly playing the role of Mr Wilberforce, the Kiwi actor, William Johnson."

Move that buusssss!

A reader writes: "Now a daily occurrence on the Muriwai Beach Waitea Rd lookout. Three tour buses hogging this tiny local road, with one big one stopped blocking the entire road."