Sideswipe: September1: Monsters Inc kiwifruit

Kiwifruit carved to look like one-eyed Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Inc.

Married life

1. Whenever we wake up in the morning my wife and I debrief each other on all the things the other person did during the night.
2. My wife asked me if she had any "annoying" habits and then got all offended during the PowerPoint presentation.
3. My husband surprised me with a night out to celebrate the anniversary of our first date. I was reminded of the man I fell in love with. We arrived at the theatre and learned the movie was playing at a different location, a full hour earlier. I was reminded of the man I married.

This is not a stick-up

"I visited my new favourite cafe in Hamilton a few days ago," writes Steve. "Tasty coffee and great ambience. It has a funky, retro type decor and plays my kind of music on its record player. "Have you got Johnny Cash?" I asked. The barista looked a little startled. "Eh?" I repeated myself and still a blank. A little frustrated I said again, more insistently. "Cash, cash, have you any?" He furtively looked at the cash register. I suddenly realised where the conversation was going. "No, no. I'd like some Johnny Cash music, please."

News nostalgia

In February 1961, Harold Roth, director of the East Orange Library in New Jersey, made news by having arrest warrants made out for 14 people with overdue books. The degree of overdueness ranged from four months to one year. But what really attracted attention was the manner of the arrests. The police showed up at many of the houses around midnight to rouse the scofflaws out of bed and drag them down to jail.

Number plates

A few years ago I parked "ME CAR" in the Howick Supermarket car park. You can imagine the surprise I got when I came back to find "MYCAR2" parked next to it.

Last word ...

In the Italian city of Bologna there is a dedicated word to describe retired men who pass their time watching construction sites: umarells. According to Wikipedia they stand "stereotypically with hands clasped behind their back and offering unwanted advice". The word was first offered with this meaning in 2005 but increasingly it's being used in other parts of Italy. Within Bologna, it was honoured in 2017 with a public square dubbed Piazzetta degli Umarells — which, ironically, was under construction at the time.