Sideswipe: September 22: Southerners still enjoy a JAFA gag

Any Aucklanders travelling through Lawrence, in South Otago, will feel right at home staying here, says Michael.

A swift fix and we're off

Karen Kennedy, of Henderson, had just pulled out of her potters' supplier with 10 bags of clay when her car started beeping at her. "I checked my seatbelt, handbrake, lights and all the doors. Suddenly it dawned on me: I beamed, reached over and belted in the three bags of clay on the passenger seat and off we went, my little Swift content that we were all buckled in safely."

Tears therapy - for a price

The therapeutic value of crying is undeniable; the release of stress from a good weep is cathartic, says Hiroki Terai who has set up a service in Tokyo to aid the liberation of tears. His service rents out good-looking guys who go to your office and watch sad videos with you until you cry, then wipe away your tears with a handkerchief. According to Vice, Terai is also "responsible for creating 'rui katsu' [public crying events] and releasing a photo book of hot men crying."

Trade Me Q & A for a Subaru

Q: Do you mind if I take this to Taupo for the weekend to test drive it? Does it have a tow bar as I need to take my boat down as well. If it performs well I will purchase.

A: No, sorry. You are welcome to test drive the car this weekend for a short distance, with one of us with you. The car needs to stay in Auckland for other people to test drive. Buy now if you need a car to tow your boat.

Q: I am happy to leave my two children with you for the weekend as collateral.

A: That's cool. They'll love our farm, our pigs have wings.

Some ink worth keeping alive

A tattoo artist has launched a new service in the US, removing inked skin from dead people and preserving it for their relatives. Entrepreneur Charles Hamm said: "You would never burn a Picasso or any piece of art you invested in and had a passion for. Your tattoo is also art with a unique story, just on a different canvas." He said the process was only for members, who pay a registration fee of US$115 ($180) and annual fees of US$60. "After they die, relatives have 18 hours to inform Save My Ink, who post a removal kit with instructions and prepaid return packaging to the funeral home. The tattoo is removed within 60 hours by the embalmer and sent back to Save My Ink, who return it in a frame to the family. [The embalmers] won't remove inked skin from the face or genitalia."

Keith Bailey spotted this whiteboard at Fulham Broadway Tube station on the morning of New Zealand's Rugby World Cup clash with Argentina.

News: A petition was launched by a group called One Million Moms warning parents about the new Muppet TV show..."The mature version of "The Muppets" will cover a range of topics from sex to drugs. Miss Piggy came out as a pro-choice feminist during an MSNBC interview. The puppet characters loved by kids in the 1970s and 1980s and beyond are now weighing in on abortion and promiscuity."

Good read: "I'm going to try to do something perhaps unwise, perhaps impossible; I'm going to try to write something serious about David Cameron and "pig-gate"," writes Rob Fahey. "I'm even going to abstain from porcine puns - because for all that this story is gleeful tabloid filth, I think that at its beating heart there is an important story about control, about authority and about the nature of power in modern Britain."? Read more here.

Video: Bird tucks its wings to fly through a narrow gap between two people...

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Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz