Sideswipe: November 7: Coffee or counselling?

Louise and Chris were not sure if they were going to get a coffee or counselling at this cafe in Mooloolaba, Sunshine Coast last week.

Kitchen fire - hope it's in the dishwasher

"We have an 18-year-old dishwasher with an exposed element to heat the water," writes Nigel. "Unfortunately, a very narrow spoon handle dropped though the basket and rested on the element. I turned the dishwasher on and went to the supermarket. The spoon heated up until the plastic basket caught fire. Fortunately, the dishwasher (including the spray arms) is stainless steel and so it started up on schedule and put the fire out with only minimal damage to the tray, crockery and utensils. The basket was a write-off so I bought a new one for $35 and the dishwasher eventually cleaned itself of the fire damage and continued to work for another two years."

Painting a dog but ...

Photo / Supplied

Money talks. How this picture by John Emms of a terrier named Callum came to hang in the Scottish National Gallery, according to the blurb alongside: "Callum was a Dandie Dinmont terrier owned by James Cowan Smith who bequeathed £55,000 to the Gallery in 1919 on condition that Emm's portrait should remain on permanent display. Then an enormous sum, this legacy assisted the purchase of many important pictures."

Welly wanging hardly Kiwi classic

It was widely (and embarrassingly) reported that during their royal visit to the antipodean backwater Prince Harry and Meghan took part in a game of the "Kiwi backyard classic" (yeah, we do it all the time), gumboot-throwing. But reportage couldn't even stick to the authentic Kiwi name of the event. In a tweet by Kensington Palace it was described as "welly wanging". Huh? According to the Oxford Dictionary blog, Welly is a colloquial name for a wellington boot (aka a gumboot) - a rain shoe recorded in the 1880s and was shortened to welly by the 1960s. Wang is a variant of whang, meaning "to throw, drive, or pull". Welly wanging is a folk sport, now associated with New Zealand but found around the world, and is credited to western England in the 1970s. But we'll stick to calling it a Gumboot Throwing Contest, thanks.