Sideswipe: No eating the carpet please

Strange airport rules.

It's good to have multi-lingual signs at international airports, but badly translated signs like this one at Chennai International Airport in India can lead to all sorts of confusion. A better translation of the original Hindi would be, "Sitting and eating on the carpet is prohibited." (Via RocketNews24.com)

One good turn deserves ... something

"Years ago, when I was at university, I boarded in one of the student hostels and had a part-time job about a two-stage bus ride away," writes a reader. "A fellow boarder - Monique - also had a part-time job at the same place, but she had the luxury of her own car. She never offered me a ride to or from work, even when we were working the same shifts, and I never expected her to. One day, she had parked down a poorly lit and deserted street, and was too scared to walk to her car by herself. We'd both knocked off at the same time so she asked would I mind walking her to her car, and I obliged. When we reached her car, she said 'thanks', jumped in and drove off, leaving me standing there alone in the same poorly lit and deserted street she had been too scared to walk down herself! We were both heading back to the hostel and, at the very least, she could have driven me back to the well-lit and more populated main street bus stop. I recalled this incredibly selfish act, and wondered if any other readers have their own 'Monique' story?"

Man of steel destroys chainsaw

"A school friend's father was a plasterer," writes Eric Strickett. "While doing repair work on old houses he was constantly picking up all types of manufactured steel including lengths of chain, which he took home, thinking they might come in useful. He was a product of those hard times when nobody had much money, nothing was thrown away, all was recycled! Eventually he had a big pile of collected items so he decided to tidy up and 'file' all this by hanging the bits and pieces in the bottom branches of a row of macrocarpas he had recently planted. Many years later those trees had grown too tall and were shading his property, so he got some contractors to cut them down. All that steel chain was now buried inside those trees and those poor guys wrecked a chainsaw - sparks flying out from the cut where the chain had hit buried steel. They asked what was going on and his dad suddenly remembered, and told this story."

Needing a trim.

"This bus lane sign heading into the city may not be fit for purpose. Maybe the tree people and the traffic people need a chat," says a reader from Three Kings.

Iceberg warning!

"I too had a problem with my Corolla beeping at me," writes Daphne. "Stopped once to see what was wrong - nothing showed. Started off again down the motorway ramp and again the alarm was going. Stopped on the shoulder and checked the car inside and out and am very grateful to the chap who stopped to see if I was okay and rang the Toyota company. Seems the small lettuce I had bought and put on the front passenger seat was the cause of the problem."

Found in a book with icebreaker activities for school camps...?

Politics: If you judge your politician on his or her dental work, then you'll just love that some dentist has gone through all the went through the democrat nominees for president and outlined what 'work ' they've had done to their choppers....

Unpopular person of the day: Martin Shkreli CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals just raised the price of a generic lifesaving pill for babies from $13.50 to $750 and tries to bullshit his way out of the inevitable backlash by tweeting a quote from Emininem...

Video: The first time KISS took off their make-up (after 10 years performing) to reveal what they really look like...

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