Sideswipe

Did you strike up a conversation with this man at a bar in Auckland's Viaduct Harbour?

Match-making: This from Alisdair, who has recently emigrated from Britain and is desperately seeking ... "Victoria, the nurse who is a twin. I can't get you out of my mind since we first met on March 2 at a bar in the Viaduct." Alisdair would like Victoria to meet him in the same bar this Saturday at 9pm. Or Victoria can email Sideswipe for his number.

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Do what I say, not what I do: Rhode Island law prohibits anyone from smoking within 25 feet (7.6m) of a school, and district policy also forbids anyone from smoking on school grounds. So when student Eliazar Velasquez snapped a photo of principal Elaine Almagno puffing away just outside a school door and posted it on the internet, the school suspended Velasquez. He was accused of disrupting the learning environment of the school. But after the media picked up on the story, district officials reversed the suspension. (Source: reason.com)

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Angela Noone-Jones has a gripe: "Why do we have to have stickers on every piece of fruit? We can read the signs at the fruit shop to see where the fruit comes from. What next? Stickers on every grape? Nothing more annoying than extracting a sticker out of your mouth, or ending up with a bench-full of the annoying little sticky things."

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Kevin Bacon admits he finds his porcine last name distasteful because it's a target for bad food puns. "I think the most memorable was when I was in The River Wild with Meryl Streep and we had a premiere in Libby, Montana, and there was this one burger house that put on its marquee their 'movie star special', which was a burger with 'Two Streeps of Bacon.' Every time one of my films comes out, I have to read 'sizzling bacon' or 'he's sure bringing home the bacon'." (Source: nypost.com)

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The University of Auckland staff newsletter notes in its diary an event in the engineering department titled, "The history of the slide rule".

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Francis B. reacts to an item in Monday's Sideswipe: "I am a strong supporter of breastfeeding and also of breastfeeding mothers being able to have a reasonable quality of life. What's wrong with discreetly breastfeeding your child while drinking a latte in a cafe? It beats being closed up for half an hour in a dimly lit, badly ventilated broom cupboard (no windows) of the sort sometimes provided for nursing mothers. It's all about employing good manners and good judgment, surely. To not do so is both rude and insensitive. But I draw the line at openly flopping your breasts out with no regard to anyone else's rights. Anywhere, anytime breastfeeding is not okay. This lady gives breastfeeding mothers a bad name. I mean, breastfeeding in Farmers on the display furniture? Does the woman have no shame?"

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On One News on Monday night, Donna Marie Lever managed to say in one sentence that RJC Fashion's "reputation has literally soared" and that if it doesn't get its stolen samples back "the business will be literally crippled" ... So, a reputation that is actually lifting off like a balloon and at risk of actually having its legs broken. Tremendous.