Sideswipe: April 19: Spotted in Slow Boat Records

Spotted in Slow Boat Records, Cuba St, Wellington. Photo / Supplied

Knowledge is power

How can you reduce your separation anxiety when your phone has to be charged? The old switching your phone to flight mode does work. The reason why is that while your phone is in its regular mode, it's continually trying to signal cell towers and pinpoint your location. And even though your phone most likely has assisted GPS, which calculates your location co-ordinates using the cellphone network rather than satellites, the function still burns up a lot of juice. That's because the location-finding stops your phone from going into full-on, energy-saving sleep mode. When you switch to flight mode, you turn off reception of those radio transmissions, and as a result, your phone charges more quickly. But don't get too excited, the time saved is not earth-shattering. When CNET tested the proposition a few years ago, flight mode only shaved four minutes off a phone's charging time in one trial, and 11 minutes in another. (Via How Things Work)

Saucy to saucer

"Another ad that has never left me was a public health anti-drinking ad (ALAC, maybe) from the 80s," writes Justine Munro. "Unfortunately, I can't find any more details online (maybe readers can help) but the key line was 'Stop making love to the bottle baby, start making love to me'. Unfortunately though, the public outcry (or probably the Patricia Bartlett outcry) was so great that the key line was replaced with 'Stop making love to the bottle baby, come and have a cup of tea'. I still use that example to explain to friends what growing up in NZ in the 80s was like."

Jingle nostalgia

1. Adam and Eve used to get on swell

'Til Eve ribbed Adam about his smell

Then Eve said "Adam, splash this on"

And Autumn came and their leaves were gone ... (Brute 33)

2. Down in the factory where the lights come from ...

The Mazda man puts his thinking cap on.

And he made a light.

A wonder light.

And he called it Mazda Wonder Light.

3.Lazy-Boyarmchair ad

(Sung by Ray Wolf and possibly Billy T James as well.)

You can rock it, you can roll it,

You can lock the rock and put your feet up.

You can sit right back and really enjoy

Your genuine la-z-boy.

Video Pick

A classic ad from 1974...In Pakuranga 300 housewives tested an unmarked powder cleaner. Mrs Clapshaw found that she didn't have to rub as hard and that the bathroom looked cleaner and shinier. She would definitely buy it again – if she knew what it was! "Vim, a better clean without hard rubbing."

This 1970s Pinky ad was full disco with music performed by Marc Hunter and the band Dragon and a nod to Dr Frank-N-Furter from the film Rocky Horror Picture Show, released the previous year.