Sideswipe: August 2: Summer takes it toll on the middle class

"Life got tough for Clippy after he was let go from Microsoft," tweets @orinthomas

Rolling Stone grinds his axe about Dunedin

Grumpy old celebrities hating on Godzone. John Cleese angered the mayor of Palmy in 2006 when he described the city as "the suicide capital of New Zealand" and Jeremy Clarkson was not a fan of Waiheke Island, but Keith Richards' thoughts on Dunedin, from his autobiography, Life, were the most acerbic: "But my God, there are some black holes.

Dunedin, for instance, almost the southernmost city in the world, in New Zealand. It looked like Tombstone and it felt like it. It still had hitching rails. It was a Sunday, a wet dark Sunday in Dunedin in 1965. I don't think you could have found anything more depressing anywhere ... In Dunedin everybody was totally depressed. No chance of any redemption or laughter. Even the drink didn't get you pissed. On Sunday, there'd be little knocks on the door, 'Er, church in 10 minutes ...' Boredom is an illness to me, and I don't often suffer from it, but that moment was the lowest ebb. 'I think I'll stand on my head, try and recycle the drugs.' "

Responding to a half-baked rant

Louisa from the Ministry of Primary Industries responds to a reader who, on a rant about health and safety, declared that cake stalls for fundraising at school were banned unless Mum's kitchen had been certified. She explains that this is not true. "You can sell food for fundraising up to 20 times a year without registering under the Food Act. This includes activities like sausage sizzles, school fairs, or charity bake sales."

Just darting to the shops, love

Photo / Supplied

For one week in 1992, German artist Christian Jankowski "hunted" his groceries in the supermarket with a bow and arrow. From his website:
"Jankowski shot down frozen chickens, butter, toilet paper, and various other 'essentials'. His game, if edible, was not just dead, it was processed on a mass scale. Thus the reaction of the woman working the checkout: she remained wholly unimpressed by the trophies of his 'bargain hunt', which she scanned with the arrows still sticking out of them."

New job for Clippy

"Life got tough for Clippy after he was let go from Microsoft," tweets @orinthomas