Sideswipe: July 22: Engineering fail

High and dry: This drain is not fit for purpose.

The most embarrassing moment of Anbara Salam's life.

"Ten or so years ago, my ex-boyfriend and I visited a spa in Germany. It's swimsuits in the pool but you have to be naked in the sauna. Boyfriend and I agree to meet in the café. I get undressed, grabbed a sweat towel and went off to the sauna. There were two unmarked doors at the end of a corridor. I took a guess but it wasn't the door to the sauna. It was the fire escape. The door locked behind me. I was trapped inside the fire escape, in the nip. I banged on the door until I actually hurt myself. Nothing. I yelled for help. Nothing. Crying, I ran downstairs, trying to work out which part of me I should cover with the little towel - my face? A single buttock?
"On the ground floor there was an unlocked door. Jackpot! … I found a service lift and went up and down a few times. There was a security camera in the lift . After a few rides in the lift a German loudspeaker announcement came on and and I just knew it was about me. I couldn't understand it, so I just cried and gestured at the camera.
Eventually the doors opened. A spa employee stood there. He had no towel and waved for me to follow him along the street and through reception.
I stopped crying, dropped the washcloth, and followed him along the street, past drivers parking their cars and stood in line in the busy reception area. The guy explained the situation to the receptionist. An old lady gave me her lobster-shaped pool float. The receptionist asked me for ID and let me through the turnstile. Ten minutes later I found my boyfriend in the café. He had the audacity to be grumpy because he'd been waiting for an hour.

Apartment horse? Fake news

A photograph of a white horse standing at the window on the third floor of a brick building has long been circulated via social media, along with the claim that a tenant was discovered to have been keeping the equine in his apartment and animal management and police investigated, but as more close-up photographs have revealed, the horse is a life-size statue.

Cat wine

Vivienne Hill writes: "It was the British wine critic Jancis Robinson who on a trip to NZ visited the Coopers Creek winery, tasted a sauvignon blanc and commented it tasted like "cat's pee on a gooseberry bush". The wine label pictured in Sideswipe was one of five subsequent cat-themed wines with Sour Puss Semillon, Fat Cat Chardonnay, Glamour Puss Pinot Noir and Tom Cat Merlot. They were favourites in my household in the early 2000s although the Sour Puss label was only used for one season. Coopers Creek sponsored the SPCA and a percentage of the profit from each bottle sold was donated to the charity."