Sideswipe: June 14: What's a good name for this rolling piece of wood?

Hmm, what would be a good name for this rolling piece of wood? Photo / Supplied

Avoid radioactivity

After the HBO mini-series Chernobyl — a chilling recreation of the 1986 nuclear disaster — many viewers had the same question: is the Chernobyl exclusion zone open to visitors?

It is, and tourism is booming as a result of the show. After the explosion of the nuclear power plant 33 years ago, a 6500sq km exclusion zone was established around the disaster site. Radiation levels are nowhere near where they were in 1986, but the vegetation, buildings, and wildlife in and around the town of Pripyat, Ukraine, are still radioactive.

Victor Korol, director of tour company SoloEast, said bookings have spiked 35 per cent since the mini-series. A day tour costs $150 and tourists can explore Pripyat, which was abruptly evacuated in 1986, stand under the ferris wheel at the abandoned amusement park and see the nuclear reactor (enclosed in a steel structure to contain radiation) from an observation point 305m away.

Though the company says the trips are "100 per cent" safe, guests are asked to stick to approved routes, wear clothing that provides maximum coverage to their bodies and avoid touching buildings and shrubbery.

Disadvantages of a Kiwi accent when you're trying to spell phonetically. Photo / Supplied

Iron lady

A reader writes: "My husband has banned me from doing any ironing (hooray!). Any time I needed something ironed for work I would get a towel and iron sitting down on the floor because it was too much of a faff getting the board out of the cupboard. I knocked it over numerous times until I eventually burned a big iron shape into the carpet!"

Grainwave

"Perhaps we have been too progressive and personifying with our quinoa copywriting?" write the folk from Ceres Organics after featuring in Sideswipe earlier this week.

One reader thought "triple threat" was a strange way to describe their grains. Ceres says it means adept in three different ways — in this case the white, black and red grains.