The Final Journey funeral company explains: "A request from a dying man with a cheeky sense of humour to replicate his favourite scene from the TV comedy League of Gentlemen at his own funeral ... He was very much loved by his family and friends and got the last laugh, just like he wanted."
Business not a charity
Opinion: "A friend gave us a mirror no longer required," writes Errol. "It had a blemish down one side. Simple job to have a strip cut off one side, so off to the local glazier. Time to do job? - 30 seconds if you are slow. Cost? $10. This equates to $1200 per hour, or $48,000 for a 40 hour week, or a cool $2,496,000 per year without any overtime. Needless to say that in the good old days the tradesman would have said 'no charge', and they put it down to good will."
Sideswipe responds: Those monetary comparisons are kinda spurious there Errol ... unless this person's job was to cut straight bits of glass for 8 hours a day and there was enough straight bits of glass to keep him in constant work for a year. I'm sure they used some machine that they paid a heap for and maybe if you were a known customer they wouldn't have charged you. All in all I reckon $10 was a bargain for their time, expertise and specialist equipment.
Well, it gets you in the door
Author and public speaker Fran Lebowitz talked about race in a 1997 Vanity Fair interview, and said white people need to "seriously consider what it is like to be white. The advantage of being white is so extreme, so overwhelming, so immense, that to use the word 'advantage' at all is misleading ... "
She illustrated her point by talking about how common it is to see interviews with up-and-coming young actors whose parents/grandparents were industry names. "And when the interviewer asks, 'Did you find it an advantage to be the child of a major motion-picture star?' the answer is invariably 'Well, it gets you in the door, but after that you've got to perform, you're on your own.' This is ludicrous. Getting in the door is pretty much the entire game ... It's as though all white people were the children of movie stars. Everyone gets in the door and then all you have to do is perform at this relatively minimal level."
Accidental swipe at Trump?
Only in New Zealand
Pre-dating the Fidget Spinner
This "Spinning Toy with Animal Heads" is made of clay and was found in the ancient Sumerian city of Eshnunna, in Iraq and dates from 2000-1800 BCE http://kottke.org/17/08/the-worlds-first-fidget-spinner-circa-2000-bce
Floating fish dome for your pond
Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz