Sideswipe: October 7: Shut the lid on it

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Strange products: You may have heard of divorce cakes, now the Wedding Ring Coffin is the perfect gift for yourself or a loved one to help bring closure after a divorce. The sales pitch reads: "Celebrating your divorce can be as sombre or festive as you would like. The most important thing is to acknowledge it with a ceremony, a party, or both. Whatever kind of celebration you choose, you'll definitely find the experience to be cathartic. You'll feel a real sense of closure and it will help you to bury the past and move on to a new tomorrow." (Source: weddingringcoffin.com)

Where would we be without ...

Top Humble Inventors: London's Science Museum says the ingenuity of seemingly run-of-the-mill objects can be just as impressive as the modern-day gadgetry and technology. Hidden Heroes examines the inspiration involved in items - such as the paperclip, barcode and pencil - whose design and purpose are so well matched that they remain uncelebrated, but heavily used, in our lives. Items like the zip, ballpoint pen and peg are displayed alongside original sketches and drawings by their inventors and patent specifications and original ads. The full list of genius inventions includes: Ring binder, barcode, pencil, bubble wrap, paperclip, shipping container, snap fastener, rawlplug, egg box, preserving jar, rubber band, light bulb, reflector, adhesive tape, coat hanger, Velcro, can, corkscrew, tissue, ballpoint pen, Lego, ear plug, Post-it Note, sticking plaster, zip, umbrella, baby's dummy, six-pack carrier, safety match, tea bag, milk carton, clothes peg, folding ruler, condom, carabiner. (Source: Newslite.tv)

Little boys and big girls

"Yes just how old is too old to pee in public," ponders Sharynn. "At 3pm on Sunday, I was sitting in the carpark at WestCity by the Warehouse and a woman walked up to the corner by the entrance door to the mall and her son peed right there. Then a car pulled in beside me and two 40-ish women, under the influence of alcohol, got out and peed right in front of the car. I sat there shaking my head and the driver just kept apologising ... Not bad for a 10-minute wait in the carpark. There are plenty of toilets in the mall."

Uncharitable charity act

"Apparently, your correspondent Chris fancies himself as some kind of noble modern-day Robin Hood," writes Brian Leybourne of Birkdale. "But that doesn't change the fact that what he did [put cash dropped by a gang member into a donation box] was theft, pure and simple. It doesn't matter who he took the money from, nor that he then gave it to a charity. It was still unquestionably wrong not to give the money back to the person who dropped it. He should be ashamed of himself, not proud."