Sideswipe: October 12: "You wanna piece of me?"

Social media dot joiners win top peace award

The British spoof news site News Thump had its own take on who should have won the Nobel Prize for Medicine: "The Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine to all the infectious disease experts who have continuously and selflessly advanced medical research by sharing their knowledge through informed comments and posts on Facebook. The award has surprised many, but one member of the Nobel prize committee explained, 'Without these people, we would still be totally helpless in the face of Covid-19. We would like to thank all those individuals who contributed via the humble sharing of their vast knowledge in this complex field, knowledge which had been totally ignored by science due to political correctness.' The committee member went on to thank in particular Sharon Matthews, 41, who proved in a lengthy Facebook post that vaccines made by Bill Gates included nanochips containing the gene for autism, socialism, as well as a population marker and a prototype of a remote mind-control drug that is activated by the chemtrails dropped by planes financed by George Soros. (Read more on NewsThump)

School holiday boredom

Hurry up Mum, I'm sooo bored.

Words you've never said, only read…

1. I used to read "Touche" as "Touchy", which made the Three Musketeers seem very sensitive and kind of bitchy.
2. Meme. I was certain it was, "me me".
3. Epitome but like it rhymes with home.
4. In primary school I had to read the word 'hors d'oeuvres' aloud and pronounced it 'horse doovers'
5. I thought hyperbole rhymed with Superbowl until like 6 months ago
6. Chic. I thought it was pronounced "chick". And used to say out loud "that's a chick outfit."
7. Autopsy. For some reason, when I was a kid, I got two letters transposed in my head thought it was auto-spy.
8. Archive, with chive pronounced like the herb.
9. Fatigue (Fatty-goo-wee)
10. Homeowner (ho-meow-ner)

Fake experts

An open letter that made headlines in the UK calling for a herd immunity approach to Covid-19 lists a number of apparently fake names among its expert signatories, including "Dr Johnny Bananas" and "Professor Cominic Dummings". The Great Barrington declaration, which was said to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners around the world, was found by Sky News to contain numerous false names including a resident at the "university of your mum", a supposed specialist whose name was the first verse of the Macarena and more than 100 therapists whose expertise included massage, hypnotherapy and Mongolian khoomii singing.