Sideswipe

A law-abiding reader has found honour in the bureaucracy. Confronted with a broken parking meter on the North Shore, she could not force enough money into the machine and was ticketed.

Figuring that arguing the case with the city council would be a lost cause, she sent off a $12 cheque as payment.

But she has received the cheque back, with a note that "administration problems" meant the offence had been impossible to process. Is this a first?

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Why did they wait so long? Nine long months after the fabulous Deborah Coddington became an Act MP, her friends and former employers at North and South magazine finally devote its cover to recognising her fabulousness.

Prepare to be impressed: it is not so much hagiography as hagiolatry.

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Reader Michelle Lorenz spotted the following numberplate in Symonds St, Auckland: AVOVOM. "Makes more sense when the car is behind you and you read the plate in your rear-view mirror."

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A British company's white-hot Bollywood musical version of Pride And Prejudice has finally found its Darcy. Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha has cast former Shortland Street actor Martin Henderson to appear alongside Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai.

Described as one of the hottest young actors in the US after The Ring became a smash hit, the Kiwi has just finished motorcycle action movie Torque.

As Darcy, he plays a rich and seemingly arrogant American student living in London who goes to India for his friend's wedding. He meets Rai's spirited Lalita at the wedding and, as they fall in love, the story moves from India to Los Angeles to London. (Source: Screen Daily)

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Forget falling statues and liberated Kurds and Shi'ites. Naomi Klein, writing in the Guardian, sees the bigger picture: "So what is a recessionary, growth-addicted superpower to do? How about upgrading from Free Trade Lite, which wrestles market access through backroom bullying at the WTO, to Free Trade Supercharged, which seizes new markets on the battlefields of pre-emptive wars? After all, negotiations with sovereign countries can be hard. Far easier to just tear up the country, occupy it, then rebuild it the way you want. Bush hasn't abandoned free trade, as some have claimed. He just has a new doctrine: 'Bomb before you buy'."

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