Sideswipe: July 30: Mowed or ploughed?

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

29 Jul, 2018 05:00 PM3 mins to read

Opinion by Ana SamwaysLearn more

"Never mind the recent damage to berms from little Postie carts," declares a reader. "It appears that Auckland Council's reserve-mowing contractors have not learned anything from last winter's debacle - as seen at Paddington Reserve in Glen Innes this week!"

Standing up for schoolkids' safety

"My kids travel 24km to school each day standing in a bus on open roads," writes Shona. "Makes me really angry seeing all of these over-the-top school health and safety policies, yet the Ministry of Education allows 23 secondary school students to stand, travelling at speeds of up to 80km/h, in a bus on their journey to and from school every weekday and it is perfectly legal! Gee what could go wrong?"

That other New Zealand

The Prince Edward Island picture of a sign with New Zealand on it last week gave Bruce Armstrong the answer to a 35-year-old question. "In the early 1980s I was transferred to Los Angeles. At the hotel I stayed in for the first month, I met a retired couple who were astounded to meet someone from New Zealand. The previous summer, they said, they had driven there. Despite my assurances that they couldn't possibly have driven to New Zealand, they insisted that they had, saying it was a very, very long way and the least populated place they had ever visited. I managed to not laugh, but it did confirm my Kiwi belief that all Americans were ignorant about the world outside ... But for 35 years, I have occasionally wondered where these poor people had actually been. Now I know."

Squirrel bridge nuts

A £120,000 ($232,000) bridge built in 2012 so squirrels can cross a busy motorway in the Netherlands has been used five times since it was built, according to officials. A councillor asked about the efficiency of the bridge and the mayor's office responded with information from the CCTV monitoring, saying: "In 2014 three squirrels, and in 2015 two squirrels, were spotted on the bridge."

Shipwrecked settler theory

A reader writes: "While driving around Prince Edward Island a few years ago we also saw the New Zealand sign. We drove down the side road and came to a hall and a small general store with New Zealand on them. The shopkeeper told us many years ago there was a shipwreck close by and one of the survivors liked the area so much he made it his home. He was a New Zealander and may have even built the general store."