Sideswipe: June 24: 'A few more months and they won't see us'

Auckland's new breed of permanent cones.

Untraceable acts of revenge

"There was a girl at my school who mercilessly bullied for months," writes a Mumsnet user. "A friend her brought an unpicking tool on PE day and, while the bully was doing PE, she opened the crotch seam in the bully's school trousers, folded them back up in the changing rooms so they looked untouched, and quietly went back to class." Another reader recalled that after a break up, an old boss stuck chicken breasts down the back of her ex's sofa ... which was going into storage for a few months. Whiffy. Then there was the story of the man who liked everything in the house to be just so. The last row he and his partner had was because she didn't hang his clothes in "colour order" in his wardrobe. He ended up telling her "she wasn't even fit to iron his shirts", so before she left, she peed in a jug and filled his steam iron up. But of course the very best revenge is living well. Boring but true.

Virtue signalling?

Twitter had things to say about this image — either an allergy medication ad or a managed Instagram moment about disengaging with technology — with the poster declaring this sentiment to be 100 per cent untrue. Other users chimed in with their reckons. "I very specifically remember a day watching a Partridge Family marathon on VH1, sitting in my bean bag chair, eating peach yogurt and thinking life doesn't get any better than this." Another said: "This woman never saw the monorail episode of the Simpsons." One user asked: "Who brings a cafe board on a hike?"
(Via portion for foxes @false_rumors)

Closed curtains

A reader has some insights into closed blinds. "I know because we are sometimes those creepy people. Some people work nights/evenings and need their eight hours' kip too. Settling into bed as the rest of the community wakes up and starts the day is a thing!  Bright sunshine can interrupt sleep, duh ... Privacy is important to the naked dasher to the laundry pile, looking for clean undies. Sometime migraines can have you blocking out the day or two days or more! Sometimes yes, retreating to the sanctity of your very private shielded environment is calming to the overstretched dweller. And some of us don't sleep well with so much negativity in the world."

Holding onto a grudge for a long time

In a science test, the question was: "Are there any stars in the solar system." I answered: "Yes". Teacher marked it wrong. I went up afterwards and asked: "What about the Sun?" He said, he meant that all the other stars are not in our solar system and kept it marked wrong. Although I am harbouring this for 50 years now, he was all-around one of the best teachers I ever had and just passed away a week or so ago. But damn, that should have been marked "right".