Sideswipe: May 25: Recognise these lost photos?

A reader found some photos, letters, and obituary cutting tucked in the back of this picture frame and would like to return them to the family. "A builder working on his house in Pakuranga found them in the wall," he says. "The letters were written to Gloria Freeman and the names — Patricia Freeman, Frank Freeman, Neddy Freeman — were mentioned."

Public displays of idiocy

1. Radio commercials that play car horns, sirens or crash sounds. Why? I'm driving!
2. Speakers who ask "how are you doing?" to a crowd, then do the "I can't hear you!"
3. Portable speakers in a public space. This happened to me at a supermarket, where customer had speakers hooked up to the trolley.
4. Holding your phone like you're about to eat it with the loudspeaker on while talking in public.
5. Online recipes prefaced with seven paragraphs of blogging.

Inconvenience

"Well, there I was, having a quick lunch break down at the Panmure Basin, far from the madding crowd I thought, when a carload of idle layabouts pulled up and parked by the water's edge," writes Rob from Papakura. "Next minute, one of the males hops out and proceeds to urinate on the grass verge in full public view. I couldn't believe it. I don't suppose they knew, or actually cared, but they actually had just driven by a convenient set of public toilets."

The whole gamut of irritations

Spotted in a Northland cafe by John.

Malicious prank

The "multicultural beach" sign published yesterday was a malicious prank designed to promote Islamophobia. Sideswipe missed it and apologises.

Perfectly parked

Flight of the Conchords camper van, spotted at Byron Bay.

Video pick

A Bad Lipreading* of the royal wedding (whereby clips from films, TV shows, songs, sports, and political news stories are overdubbed to match the lip movements of those featured, for humorous effect).

Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz