Sideswipe: November 14: Fire sale

Spotted in Morrinsville.

That scary hitchhiker at Cornwall Park

Sharon writes: "Dear Mr Tradesman in the silver stationwagon with the ladders on top: I was not trying to hijack you, abduct you or hitchhike with you, and I had not just escaped from anywhere, when I jumped out in front of you at the pedestrian crossing in Cornwall Park, and put my thumb out to hitch a ride before making a dash towards your passenger door, causing you to drive off in a hurry. I truly thought you were my husband coming to rescue me from having to hike up the steep hill. Please accept my apology for any distress I may have caused you. I hope you didn't dial 111! (The above happened while I was going for a walk with my friend. I was expecting my husband to join us for a cuppa near the information centre, so when my friend exclaimed: 'There's Chris', the above happened, only it wasn't my husband!)"

And the Bad Sex in Fiction award goes to ...

This year the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction award nominees include Australian Richard Flanagan's Booker-winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, for a passage where love-making is interrupted by a dog killing a fairy penguin.

"He kissed the slight, rose-coloured trench that remained from her knicker elastic, running around her belly like the equator line circling the world. As they lost themselves in the circumnavigation of each other, there came from nearby shrill shrieks that ended in a deeper howl," writes Flanagan "Dorrigo looked up. A large dog stood at the top of the dune. Above blood-jagged drool, its slobbery mouth clutched a twitching fairy penguin."

The annual award is for "poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description". Haruki Murakami also makes the cut, for Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, which features pubic hair "as wet as a rain forest". Also in the mix is an effort from veteran novelist Wilbur Smith for Desert God, in which a woman's knee-length glowing hair "did not cover her breasts which thrust their way through it like living creatures. They were perfect rounds, white as mare's milk and tipped with ruby nipples that puckered as my gaze passed over them." (Source: the Guardian)

Hyundai endures the pain of ridicule

Yesterday Sideswipe featured a picture from Auckland Airport of a promotional Hyundai with "What would you tow?" printed on the rear windscreen. A dozen readers emailed us this picture pointing out that there is no tow bar so the answer was not much. Hyundai New Zealand tweeted graciously and with humour: "The pain of ridicule in [Sideswipe] is still less than the pain of banging your shin on a towbar at the airport."

Short doco: Adrian Churn has been the man behind the music of Las Vegas striptease club on Karangahape Road for 40 years. Tom Gould has made a tasteful film about it here.

Quick clip: These outtakes from The Hobbit would've made it so much more bearable.

Video: Angry Yoga.

Herald app users tap here for today's video.

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