Sideswipe: November 22: Rent a fish

A Belgium hotel offers this service for lonely guests.

Studying the obvious

Psychologists from Berlin and Hamburg, Germany, have found that people with psychopathic and sadistic traits are more likely to have an interest in fire. The team wanted to investigate the relationship between the “dark tetrad” of personality traits – Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism and sadism – and an interest in fire, and setting fires. Participants were asked to rate how much they liked fire-based activities such as “watching an ordinary coal fire in an ordinary house” and “seeing a hotel on fire on the TV news” on a scale from “absolutely horrible or most upsetting possible” to “lovely, very exciting, or very nice”. There was a difference between lighting a fire and watching one burn; direct sadists (who enjoy inflicting cruelty) and vicarious sadists (people who enjoy watching cruelty).

Wave of nostalgia

Photo / Supplied

Catherine Chidgey is looking for souvenir floating pens showing the Picton ferry, for novel research. I remember these as a kid ... Anyone know of anyone who may still have one? Please contact Sideswipe.

Nice nickname

1. “Seen a lad saying his dad used to call his uncle The Exorcist because every time he left the house there were no spirits left.”

2. “A guy at work has a mum who also worked there and her name is Eve! I heard him referred to as ‘Laurent’ (Eves Son Laurent).”

3. “I read one recently about somebody knowing a guy called Antony at work and he was only 5ft (1.5m) tall so his nickname was “Shetland Tony”.”

4. “Guy at my wife’s work had the nickname Hip Hip, his name was Hugh Rae.”

5. “Dulux. For a bloke who used to wear two coats when it was cold.”

6. “A bloke called ‘Spider’. His mates gave him the nickname because he once went shopping and bought four pairs of trousers.”

(Via @NoContextBrits Twitter account)