Sideswipe: November 12: Photobombed by labour

New father Gil Solano posted a selfie to Reddit of himself grinning at his phone's camera while his wife, Sarah, is in labour and having a contraction. According to Solano's post, "my wife wanted to make sure that someone took a picture of the expression on our faces when our daughter was born today". In between contractions Sarah was shown the picture and cracked up. "Now I'm reading her all the comments while she feeds our healthy 7lb 6oz girl Eva," he said on Reddit.

News from the past

- in the Minneapolis Journal, November 18, 1906: The Swiss public and press are aroused at the extraordinary action of a magistrate who has sentenced a child barely 3 years of age to three and a half months' imprisonment for "theft". The child, who is the son of a labourer, saw some penny toys dangling from the doorway of a shop. He seized two of them and took them home, and an hour later was "arrested" by a tall gendarme on a charge of theft. When the case was called at court the child had to be carried by a gendarme, as he could not be seen over the top of the dock. In response to the magistrate's questions the little fellow laughingly admitted that he took the toys. He could not speak plainly, and it was with difficulty that the gendarme, who acted as intermediary, was made to understand that he wanted them "as he did not have any toys like other boys". "Three and a half months' imprisonment," said the magistrate sternly.

Failure to understand

"My 17-year-old son was dismayed to fail his restricted license - he was being over-cautious and not moving into gaps or merging into median strips quickly enough. The final instruction was to 'paddle park'. Thinking he had heard wrong he asked, 'what?'. Clearly, the tester replied, 'paddle park'. Confused, my son said he reversed into a driveway thinking this was some kind of new driving manoeuvre. 'What are you doing?' asked the tester. Feeling a fail already on the way, my son admitted, 'I don't know what a paddle park is'. The tester replied, more articulately this time 'I said, parallel park'. It suddenly dawned on my son that because of the accent of the tester, he had blown it. Anyone else experienced anything similar?"

Lloyd Mander writes: "In our street in suburban Christchurch we noticed that in the post-earthquake era, the council may not have funding for road surface maintenance or weed control, but the line painting budget is obviously well funded."

Video: This Finnish sketch got the annual award for promoting drinking moderation in 2015.

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