Sideswipe: February 11: Possum patrol

Possum patrol. Snapped by John Lee while driving around the back roads of Mangawhai.

Oscar contender felled by former boss

Anthony McCarten won a Bafta this week for the screenplay of the Stephen Hawking biopic (The Theory of Everything). He once worked briefly as a reporter a long, long time ago. Under the headline: "Bafta winner 'unexceptional' cub reporter" a former boss remembered him. "Former Taranaki Herald chief reporter Lance Girling-Butcher couldn't resist having a tongue-in-cheek dig at one of the now most successful writers to pass through the office. Girling-Butcher said McCarten never stood out during his time with the paper in the late 1970s. "There's no particular thing that made me think he would rise to brilliance," Girling-Butcher said. "He didn't last very long. He obviously had an interest in writing but I don't think that showed through. If he'd been an absolutely brilliant writer you'd think I would have noticed." Tongue-in-cheek you say? Well, Girling-Butcher probably should've noticed. McCarten's play Ladies Night is New Zealand's most commercially successful theatre production of all time and has been translated into 12 languages, he's published seven novels, written five feature films and numerous plays, and has stuck with a career that is a tough nut to crack.

Overheard in the lounge

Watching a CNN story about Isis I overheard this conversation, says Rachel.

An 11-year-old: They should capture the leader and defeat him in front of all his men. Then they will lose respect for him and change sides.

Dad: It's not that simple when it comes to ideologies, by that I mean different religions and stuff like that ...

The 11-year-old: It worked in The Dark Knight Returns.

Lighting the way at Glover Park

"The lights at Glover Park at the end of the cricket pitch are not an error by the council," writes a reader in the know. "They are simply in their winter configuration early as part of the set-up process. The light pole in the photo is a movable one and next summer it will be moved to a storage location on the side of the park for the summer cricket and athletics season, and grass turf will cover the underground base of the lighting pole.

"When the following winter comes around it will be moved back to the location in the photo for soccer. The light poles need to be in their winter configuration now as part of the set-up process so the lighting coverage can be checked by the installers, who switched the lights on for the first time last night and they looked great."

Annoying gadget for annoying urban runners. Runbell is worn on the fingers and used to alert dawdling pedestrians.

Video: The first Australian Minister for Men...

Humour for grown ups: Remember The Joy of Sex? It was a book, with helpful pictures. Well here's a parody, The Joy of Social Media...

Picture this: An older woman got on the bus in Auckland wearing this bucket hat...

Video: This ad for a French men's style website Parisian Gentlemen imagines if there were no gentlemen in the world. "A world without gentlemen is a world without ladies." (NSFW on account of a tasteful, unsheathed breast)

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Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz