Sideswipe: January 8: Duck army chows down

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

7 Jan, 2019 04:00 PM2 mins to read

Duck army chows down.

Opinion by Ana SamwaysLearn more

Ashley couldn't believe all the fresh bread left outside Bakers Delight in Remuera on New Year's Day. "By the time I had finished my early evening walk, an army of ducks had started their march from the creek in Portland Rd to the Remuera Mission for a free New Year's lunch! Seriously, though, a lot of people on the breadline would have loved a slice of Remuera's offerings."

Stink job

Did you know

1. A tiger's tongue is so rough that if it licked your hand it would draw blood.

2. In 1979, Elvita Adams jumped from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, but was blown by a gust of wind onto a ledge one floor below and lived to tell the tale.

3. The Count in Sesame Street does not count all the time to teach children numbers. In folklore, vampires had arithmomania, or an obsession with numbers. This derived from the old superstition that throwing poppy seeds on the ground stopped vampires because they had to count them all first.

Scooters need parks too

Peter from Westmere writes: "To the chalk-wielding oaf who labelled a scooter-rider a dickhead for parking in a ... er ... parking space: the scooter rider is quite within his/her rights. Scooters are vehicles and the space is for parking vehicles, not just cars. We scooter riders can (though seldom do) get ticketed for parking on verges. Elsewhere in the same newspaper, a writer demanded that motorbike and scooter riders stop pushing in traffic. Presumably this refers to what we call lane-splitting, driving in between lanes of stationary cars to get to the head of the queue at a red light. So we ought to be like car drivers when we drive and scooter riders when we park. Fat chance. I'll do anything I legally can to get ahead of traffic and I'll park anywhere I like if it's legal."

Left behind

"I was in Dunedin a few days ago and saw this sign on George St, Dunedin's main shopping street," writes a reader. "I know that Dunedin is a little behind Auckland but not by 11 years, surely?"

Video Pick

In this clip from the BBC documentary series Spy in the Snow, a group of emperor penguin chicks are threatened by a petrel, who would love to have one of the penguins for lunch. Then it gets weird...