Sideswipe: September 26: Double Act

Lookalikes: New member of Parliament David Seymour and Arnold Rimmer, the hologram from TV's Red Dwarf.

Cringe-worthy experiences

1. Doing a client's shopping (I'm a community carer) and I ran into an old school mate -- a guy I used to have a huge crush on and he still looked bloody good. As we chatted I noticed he kept glancing into my trolley with a smirk on his face ... to my absolute horror and dying shame there was the packet of large incontinence pants for my client, sitting right on top of everything, in all their absorbent glory. Never ended a conversation so quickly in my life.

2. In a mad rush my sister dressed Mr 5 for school, pulled out a knitted jumper from the dryer, threw it on him and rushed to the car to get him to school on time. Around 9.30am he feels something uncomfortable in his sleeve. In front of the teacher and other pupils he pulls from the sleeve one of my sister's skimpy, lace G-strings - stuck in the sleeve from the dryer static.When my sister picked up Mr 5 after school, the teacher handed her a white envelope and told her it was something Mr 5 found.

3. At high school I was new to bras and they made me itch. I moaned so much my mother suggested I put my skivvy on, then the bra, then my jersey. One afternoon there was a group of us taking dance lessons. I got really hot, so in the middle of dancing, I decided to whip off my jersey. It was still over my head when I realised my mistake! Down my arms came. The look on my partner's face was a cross between, "did I see what I thought I just saw?" and "no I must be wrong", and we carried on dancing. (Source: Trade Me Message Board).

Roman numerals confusion

Lindsey Roke writes: "To the poor announcer who called Xi Jinping 'Eleven Jinping': It can cut both ways. A few years ago when I was in Beijing I spotted billboards about some upcoming XI Asian Games. I asked my hosts what the 'Shi Asian games' were. They finally worked out what I was on about and told me they were the Eleventh Asian Games."

Astronomer sorts Jupiter's moon

"The mispronunciation of Xi Jinping's name reminds me of an argument at an astronomical conference years ago," writes Howard Barnes. "The argument was: is Jupiter's moon Io pronounced Eye-O or Ee-O? Part way through the argument, another astronomer joined the fray by saying "Let's pronounce it as 10 and be done with it ... ".

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