Sideswipe

Q: Should I wear underwear with these shorts?

A: Hell no. You want to have as smooth an interface as possible between your bum and the saddle. The seams on your underwear will inevitably be in the wrong place - causing rubbing and saddle sores. Also underwear is generally cotton - nice for everyday use but damp skin below is more susceptible to chaffing." (Source: groundeffect.co.nz)

Another reader has this take on the holey bike pants saga: "I think this guy is having a laugh at everybody, I saw him in Pakuranga and noted that the bike pants are meant to look as if they have been ripped. The exposed buttocks was actually flesh-coloured material. But he definitely had the invisible helmet on".

* * *

A reader writes: "I was driving around a sweeping right-hand bend on my way to Kerikeri on the weekend when to my horror a car came the opposite way with the driver and sole occupant having a shave with both hands on the device, which could only mean he was controlling his steering wheel with his knee".

* * *

Another reader writes: "I am the owner of a car with the plate TRFC (Tranmere Rovers Football Club - sad, yes I know). I would like to say thank-you to whoever attached a book to my car when it was parked in Albert Street on Monday (Three Sides of the Mersey; an oral history of Liverpool, Everton and Tranmere Rovers football clubs). Bizarrely, the book cost $12 - the exact charge of the parking ticket also on my car. A thoughtful and generous parking warden or a stranger's random act of kindness?"

* * *

Tom Cruise just can't stop talking about Scientology. When German magazine Spiegel asked him if he saw it as his "job" to recruit new followers, Cruise answered: "I'm a helper. For instance, I myself have helped hundreds of people get off drugs. In Scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation programme in the world. It's called Narconon." Spiegel countered: "That's not correct ... Independent experts warn against it because it is rooted in pseudo-science." (Source: New York Post)