Sideswipe: October 4: Banksy in town?

This is a billboard which has popped up on Takapuna Beach. Spotted by Marilyn.

Bad ideas in broadcasting

Mercifully cancelled after the pilot with seven episodes remaining unaired, Heil Honey I'm Home was a parody of the sitcom format and a send-up of the 50s, 60s and 70s — namely the perceived willingness to capitalise on any premise, no matter how dumb. The show was aired for the first and the last time in the UK in 1990. Set in 1938 Berlin, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun live next door to a Jewish couple, the Goldensteins. The intent of the creators was not to shock or sensationalise but rather broach the policy of appeasement through parody but the subject matter was too grave for audiences and programming directors. - www.perfectforroquefortcheese.org

Old-school teachers

1. When leaving high school in England many years ago, Nicky Robertson took her autograph book around for teachers to sign. She writes: "I recently found the book and read through the comments. Obviously this teacher didn't rate me very highly. Strangely enough he was my favourite teacher!"

2. A reader writes: "In my 4th form French class in 1979, I didn't know the meaning of the word épaisse - my French teacher then said it means thick just like you!"

3. Ken Bennett writes: "I was useless at maths at school so when I graduated with a PhD in plant physiology I went back to my school to thank my biology teacher who started me off."

4. Margaret Rooke of Orewa remembers a comment her fourth form year science class in 1956 ... "Needs taming somewhat".

5. When Terry Hobin's French teacher at Lynfield College in the 60s handed back his students' test papers he remarked to the class: "If you lot were parachuted into Paris you would all starve."

Cheeky piece of art

The Associated Press reports that a Danish artist who was given a pile of money by a museum with which to create a piece of artwork, submitted two empty canvases — titled Take the Money and Run. Jens Haaning was given the equivalent of nearly NZ$121,000 in Danish kroner and euro bank notes by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg. For its exhibition on labour conditions and money, entitled Work It Out that opened on September 24, the museum commissioned him to recreate two of his earlier pieces, which featured bank notes attached to a canvas representing the average annual wage in Denmark and Austria. As well as lending him the notes, the museum also paid him 25,000 kroner ($5620) for the work. But when museum officials received the completed artworks, they were blank. "The artwork is that I have taken the money," Haaning told a radio show on the P1 channel that is part of Danish broadcaster DR this week. He declined to say where the money was.