Sideswipe: September 3: Nowhere else to park

Sometimes it is really hard to find a park in Devonport.

Canny merchandiser falls foul of taste police

Does anyone who was at Otago University remember the 1990 student riot on Castle St? According to a report at the time in the ODT, about 1500 drunken students upturned cars, lit street fires and pelted police with bottles and bricks. At the time, Dunedin's local tourism strapline was "It's all right here" (which became unofficially, "It's alright here"). After the riot, someone started producing T-shirts that read, "Dunedin: It's all riot here," but that quick-witted entrepreneur was told they couldn't sell them. Anyone remember this?

New Zealand provinces

Raye Wills writes: "Anyone know why we say, for example, we are going to/we own a house in/have family in ... The Manawatu but not The Canterbury, The West Coast but not The Southland, The Wairarapa but not The Taranaki, The Coromandel but not The Marlborough, The Bay of Plenty but not The Northland ..?"

Odd names

1. Our family name is "Pye", and one family member married a "Bunn", another married a "Baker" and we used to live next to the "Bacon" family.

2. My sister had a teacher, first name Tess. She married Brian Stickel.

3. One of the waitresses at Dennys is called Heidi Ho.

4. We used to have an English teacher at high school called Mr Winterbottom. We referred to him as Mr Icicle Arse.

5. I worked as a mechanic in Rotorua in the '80s with a Jim Green. His wife's name was Olive.

Cafe's care for EV drivers far from electrifying

Photo / Supplied

"I've got a Renault Kangoo EV delivery van at home to trial, and having discovered there's a Vector charge point at Piha cafe, I drove over to meet a friend for coffee and top up. Except not only was there a chain across the cafe driveway (it was closed), but as you can see, a builder had piled materials in the parking slot - for the only EV charger for at least 25km. Judging by the grass growing on it, that pile has been there some time ... Got chatting to a local who owns an electric car and says she's given up on using this charger, for obvious reasons. Shame Vector didn't put it outside the Piha store that's open seven days, and the driveway's never blocked."

Video Pick

You could argue this bad lip-reading of a White House press briefing is more credible than an actual one…

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