Sideswipe

Kiwi travellers found this sign in an Amsterdam hostel.

While shopping in Albany a reader saw some bad parenting and blames it on the Hyundai television ad. A mother had left her two children, one a baby and other a preschooler, in the car outside the Mad Butcher, Albany. The witness said the toddler was jumping around in the car and released the handbrake. The car rolled back, didn't hit anything, but blocked other cars in the car park. An elderly gentleman went through the shops trying to find the mother, who eventually came out to see what was happening. She reprimanded the little girl, re-parked the car and went back into the shop, again leaving them. Some 10 minutes later she re-emerged with her shopping and the concerned gentleman had a few choice words to say to her. Drawing a very long bow, our horrified reader says, "It reminded me of the latest Hyundai ad, which shows small children driving a car, with no car seats, I might add, and I wondered if this child had seen this ad and was copying what they had seen on TV. I think this ad is irresponsible because it encourages a bad message."

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More than 20,000 residents of the town Ann Arbor in Michigan received a telephone call around midnight alerting them that a man with Alzheimer's disease had wandered off. The calls came from an automated system the city has adopted to alert citizens to emergencies. Officials are blaming an employee who didn't know how to limit the area the calls were made to. (Source: Reason.com)

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Response to Sideswipe's blatant vegan-baiting: A reader from Mt Maunganui writes: "Eating out is expensive enough without suffering indigestion to boot. Why not take your lost vegan friend to a bar instead? Drink lots of lovely wine, eat heaps of cashews and have a jolly good time. That way you won't have to put up with a stomach- churning sermon every time you look at a menu. And spend a day at an abattoir. Follow a couple of pigs or a bobby calf or two around, from the time they get chucked off the trucks till they end up hanging from meat hooks. Might change your ideas on how animals are supposed to serve people."

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A reader writes: "As someone who has actually read the Sale of Liquor Act ID requirements, Stuart Simpson is incorrect. The act states that a licence must have been issued in New Zealand to be accepted - one reason being that it will be printed in English and can be understood. It isn't a company policy, but a matter of law. Incidentally, the customers who were refused service were actually okay with it all."