Sideswipe: October 30: Halloween in the time of Covid

Tory Food Tips

Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford has been leading a high-profile campaign to extend free school meals program in the UK because of the hardship caused by Covid-19, but wealthy folk are against the idea, instead offering their own cheap eat hacks on Twitter…An MP chimed in with a cheap recipe and a comparison to the price of fags…Naturally, there was a backlash: "If you find your cupboards bare during lockdown, drive to your family's estate in Durham, shoot some pheasant, pick some veg from the walled garden and perhaps a carp or two from the pond for a starter. Any personal chef should be able to improvise from such scraps," declares one tweeter. "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish and arrest him for trespassing and stealing because the river he's fishing in belongs to Lord Frumple-Twat of Scumshire," replied another. Another Tory MP publicly blasted "chaotic parents" who send children to school without breakfast. This MP has claimed £21K expenses since 2019 and receives £25 per day food allowance. Time for some reality TV life swap?

Flight aborted in New Lynn

Lost a drone? This could be your lucky day. It was found in Astley Ave on the 20th of September. Fly on down to the New Lynn Police station and ask for Warren if you think it's yours.

Wrong song

"We were on a flight from Tauranga to Christchurch on a stormy day —  the plane  just made it there before they closed the airport," writes a reader. "After a wait of about four hours we finally got put on a larger plane heading to our final destination. The flight was very, very rough as expected and I was listening to the squeals and groans of the hydraulics while we were flying above Kaikoura. Suddenly I became aware of the music being played over the speakers. It was the chorus of the song Que Sera Sera, What ever will be will be, the future is not ours to see…Thankfully we made it there."

Loathed phrases

Must we replace simple and elegant words with terms that are ridiculous or verbose? asks English language teacher Stephen Bayldon, semi rhetorically.
1. "Learnings" - rather than sticking an 's' on a participle, why not just say "lessons"?
2. "A health and safety issue" - why use this mouthful for things which are simply "unsafe"?
3. "Price hike". What happened to "rise" or "increase"? Talking about a  "one percent price hike" just sounds melodramatic.