Sideswipe: What a load of bleep

Oops - Shouldn't that be Whakarewarewa on these tea towels seen on Ponsonby Rd? Photo / Supplied

A reader writes: "On the box, after the tired grubbiness of Charlie Sheen's biographical Two and a Half Men, there is a show called $#*! My Dad Says, starring William Shatner. The TV2 voice-over guy calls the show, Bleep My Dad Says. 'Bleep'? According to Wikipedia, CBS, which made the show, also used the dingbats' name and dictated it be said aloud 'Bleep'. The sitcom, which started as a twitter feed (a guy tweeting his Grandfather's robust and curmudgeonly one-liners), is actually called, Shit My Dad Says. I am amazed that we are happy to screen the innuendo of a root rat at 7.30 but we can't use the word shit (meaning stuff, not faeces, in a title) after 8pm."

Thanks, Mum

Seven-year-old Leilah Poulain's mother was trying to download her daughter's artwork to a private folder but, by mistake, she uploaded it to a public file which automatically entered it in a national competition. A year later, she received an email saying Leilah was a winner and her "abstract portrait of a penguin" would be displayed at Saatchi Gallery in London. (Source: Blameitonthevoices.com)

Invisible road risk

Fred drove from Wellington to Auckland, and it rained most of the way. Then he drove back, and it rained most of the way. "In a country that has a love affair with grey or silver cars, it should be law that you must drive with your headlights on when it rains," he says. "Otherwise, it's just plain dangerous." On a grey day on a grey road a grey car is invisible unless its headlights are on, Fred found. "And not parking lights - they are for parking, and you may as well have no lights on at all."

It's easy ...

Robert Fisk from Virtual Research and Development, an Avondale company specialising in rapid electronic and mechanical product development, has done some calculations on how much extra fuel is used by turning headlights on during daytime: "Headlights and tail lights draw around 150 watts," he says. "Accounting for alternator and engine losses, this requires around 1.2kW of petrol energy, or 0.073 litres an hour. An average vehicle covering 20,000km a year might have its headlights on for an additional 300 hours, which would cost around $44 a year. Using slightly outdated 2007 data of around 40 billion km travelled in NZ a year, 77.6 per cent of them by light passenger vehicles, and taking some liberties to estimate average speed and time travelled during daylight, I calculate a NZ-wide increase of 34 million litres of petrol a year, or $68 million cost."

It's legal if it's legal

A reader writes: "Trade Me allows wine and whisky sales from traders with a New Zealand off-licence registration - as the law requires." Never mind, Ann, a Warriors fan is keen to buy your unopened collectors' bottle of Stacey Jones beer. So email Sideswipe again if you want us to hook you up.