Sideswipe: No way out

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Tall vehicles allowed in, but not out: This height restriction pole appeared recently outside the Bella Vista apartments on Te Atatu Peninsula, says Gary Millar. "However you look at it, it makes no sense - unless the management knows of a forthcoming change to driving on the right hand side."

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Andy Harvey writes: "Dave, the police education officer, is so well liked by the students at Coatesville Primary, who are put at ease by his genial manner, that one young lass told her parents that "comfortable Dave the Policeman had been at school talking to them".

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Marion Cotillard, who won an Oscar for her performance as singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose in 2008, gasped in pain after France's Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand accidentally stuck a pin into her chest as he decorated her with the Order of Arts and Letters medallion. She appeared to suffer no damage, however, and burst out laughing as Mitterrand hastily apologised.

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Customer service FAIL: "There's a cafe in Browns Bay which will not let you sit at the tables if you order a takeaway coffee," says a reader. "I usually have a large coffee that I cannot finish so I have a takeaway cup so I can take it with me. We ordered coffees, and changed the order to takeaway, and were told in no uncertain terms we could not drink them there! We sat on a park bench outside ...

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US newspaper clipping:
"... Burnsville detectives had called Clevenger's cell phone in hopes of ending the chase peacefully. But Clevenger answered the phone with, 'Dude I can't talk, I'm being chased by the police,' and hung up." (reporter Abby Simons)

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"Bad PR advice: After the public humiliation over their "We're a Kiwi bank" ad campaign (people complained to the Advertising Standards Authority), the poor ASB, wholly Australian owned, has been advised to keep flogging the idea. As reader and ASB customer Janet says: "The ASB is still trying to kid us they're a Kiwi bank." The bank sent Janet, and presumably all customers, an email justifying itself: "If you've been wondering why we've been calling ourselves a Kiwi bank, it's simple. It's all about doing the right thing for customers like you, our team and the community we work in." Let. It. Go.

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UHHH! Joseph, have you ever seen a GIVE WAY sign?" asks Sherman. "It's written WAY GIVE because from your driving position you are reading bottom up." Frits explains: "In many countries road writings are inverted from top to bottom - eg MIND THAT CHILD becomes CHILD THAT MIND - simply because reading bottom-to-top is easier when you're driving. With such large letters, if you were to read top-to-bottom, by the time you can comfortably read MIND, the CHILD would probably already be under your car. That doesn't mean that WAY WRONG isn't funny, though."