Sideswipe

Made in Heaven: But all unions have to be legal.

Reader Terry Moffitt writes: "As if domestic flights within New Zealand aren't already outrageously priced, you practically have to re-finance your house to take a trip and pay for the parking. My wife and I just went on an overnight trip to Blenheim. It was a Mystery Weekend deal I had won at a work function. As the flight was early morning on a Saturday we decided to drive ourselves, rather than trouble relatives with getting up early.

Imagine my disbelief when the parking fee total came to a whopping $48 ($24 a day maximum over eight hours)! I didn't want to buy real estate at the airport, just borrow a small 2 metre by 6 metre section for about 36 hours. I know of very few people (except weekday business people) who fly and return within 24 hours. Hence anyone taking a trip who parks will invariably end up paying this $48.

And with what appeared to be about 250 parking spaces, someone is raking in a cool $6000 a day. Nice return for a virtually maintenance-free, low-overhead business. Surely there could be some rational charges for long-term (2-3 days) airport parkers rather than the outrageous hourly rates charged in the city. I know what I will invest in if I ever have the chance."

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An almost vegetarian writes: "During a typical lunch time with my colleagues and the usual slagging of my attempted vegetarianism came a fantastic and irrefutable logical quote. 'If God had intended us to be vegetarians he would not have made cows out of meat, would he'."

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Alison Warren of Mt Eden says there is in fact a word that rhymes with purple "In my dictionary (Chambers - the standard reference used by crossword compiler Kropotkin) the word is a Scots word, 'hirple', which is both an intransitive verb, meaning 'to walk or run as if lame', and a noun meaning 'a limping gait'." Alison is right, but other enthusiastic rhymers are too optimistic in suggesting that orange rhymed with syringe, infringe, scavenge, lozenge, indulge, divulge, challenge, twinge, lounge, scrounge, and purple rhymed fertile, turtle, thermal.

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My Personal Mottoes, by Brian Beatty:

A penny saved is a penny you don't have to earn by writing excitedly about wealth-management investment strategies for baby-boomer retirees.

Vertical stripes are slimming, especially now that you've lost 20 pounds of horizontal gut. Counting your chickens before they hatch is a waste of your X-ray vision and math abilities.

(Source: www.mcsweeneys.net)

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Sideswipe often smugly points out the grammatical errors of others, so it is only fair she suffers the humiliation of being named and shamed for her own misplaced apostrophe.

Anne Aalbers rightly writes: "Whether Mugabe were to be invited or not (Sideswipe, Thurs 18th Aug), it would be to the leaders' debate, not the leader's debate, as there were several leaders, not one leader, at the debate. Although in Mugabe's case, there probably would be only one."