Sideswipe

David McCullough saw this bargain at the bottom of Gills Rd, Bucklands Beach, and didn't know whether to send it to Sideswipe or call the police

Wendy of Birkenhead writes: "Yes, we had no bananas at breakfast today. Having failed to buy some while shopping, I texted my husband: I 4got bananas. He duly arrived home empty-handed. When I asked if he'd received my text he said: 'Yes, you said you'd got 4 bananas!"'

* * *

Morning tea book quiz: Name the novel these famous lines come from ...

1. Call me Ishmael

2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

3. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

4. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

5.You better not never tell nobody but God.

* * *

Neighbourly karma. A reader writes: "I too have 'kind neighbours' in a cul-de-sac. I came home very late from my student babysitting job on a Saturday night to find the neighbours to our left having a big party and thus all the parking spots in the street were filled. So I parked on the grass verge outside my home. By 9am the next morning, Sunday, the neighbour to our right had called the council and I got a ticket. Only a few days later, the dobbing neighbour parked on his verge and it was amusing to watch from my window as he tried to talk his way out of it with the traffic warden."

* * *

Phil Ansley's son, who is working in the UK, had occasion to deal with the local fire brigade. To his amusement and initial disbelief the name of the fire marshal was Blaze Marshall.

* * *

Forget about mounting casualties, all war-torn families need is a good laugh: Pentagon officials are trying to reduce military families' stress by holding therapeutic laugh sessions. Its "laughter instructor", retired Army Colonel James Scott, conducts sessions around the country with National Guard families that feature walking like a penguin and blurting "ha ha hee hee and ho ho". (Source: USA Today).

* * *

Quiz answers: 1. Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1851). 2. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813). 3. George Orwell, 1984 (1949). 4. J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951). 5. Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982).