Sideswipe: January 26: Beef nek minute steak

New World Butchery having a laugh.

Bird finds use for butts

Adrian Muller writes: "At Papamoa Beach's Mitre 10 store, a thrush has built her nest in the garden department. Lining the nest are filters from discarded cigarette butts. Staff have seen no sign of a male thrush helping out at all. Let's hope it is not he who is supplying the butts, though."

Things we believed as kids ...

1. Whenever we passed through Dargaville and the Waipoua Forest, Dad always told us kids that a) The river next to Dargaville is clear on the bottom, b) Little men live in the Waipoua Forest, they ride the wild cows and if your window was down they would shoot arrows at you, and c) If you didn't hold your breath going over the Dargaville bridge, it would collapse. It took me a few years to figure out that B was to stop us winding down the windows on what used to be a gravel road, but I have never fathomed the reasoning behind the others. I don't believe B or C any more, but am undecided on A.

2. On a road trip to Whangamata, I asked my Dad why the roads were so windy? He explained that the roadworkers who made them were paid by the mile, so they made more money if there were lots of corners. For quite a few years, I told all my friends at school this as if it were fact.

Wrong song for Elvis

A music reporter writes: "Misheard lyrics: I was reporting for the Herald at Sweetwaters in 1999. The big question at the financial disaster of an event was whether Elvis Costello was going to play since he hadn't been paid. But somewhere near midnight and the final edition deadline, Costello did show and his first song was The Beatles' You Never Give Me Your Money. I duly shouted this fact down a phone to the news editor. The next day's paper reported that Costello opened with You Never Give Me Your Monday. Sigh."