Sideswipe

Are they related? ET, of ET the Extra-Terrestrial, Dobby, of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Gollum, of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Opinion

The best and worst of Sideswipe 2002 - 2004 
 

To check out what "the kids" are on about, Sideswipe visited a hotpot of intellectual debate - Craccum online. This gem of pretentious middle-class angst is a scream. "Idealism and nihilism battle daily in the casual decisions that are formative on how I choose to live my life. In this way, my awareness of the apocalyptic demise that this planet is heading towards effects me ... My own actions are inconsequential due to universal apathy disguised as both hedonism and democracy." A Craccum reader said it best with: "Dude, please get an editor. This writing is atrocious." Craccum didn't take too kindly to the publication of this piece and proceeded to have a go, including an amusing, if not a little scatological, cartoon whereby the Craccum editor gives Sideswipe a poo disguised as a chocolate bar.

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John Banks promised to get Auckland moving, and is doing just that by driving his black Ferrari 360 Modena F1 sports car through Remuera. This costs $425,000.

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A poem called Love Is a Double Negative ... "My memories of you go by like rows of butterflies on crutches. We were the blind desperately unbuttoning the blind, lost in the blur of the forbidden. Until your voice, like the shock of cold chicken, ripped my heart out and beat it like a seal pup, into your front porch. Suddenly, my life was invaded by a drunken synchronised-swim team of emotions ... As the book of my soul began to fill with coffee rings. Now I know that my life is only a metaphor, for something infinitely worse - But your cruelty can never keep its freshness. One day, your beauty too, will be gone like lost socks from a dryer." Elas Giordano 1995. funnypoetry.com

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An informed opinion on "boner-gate" from Guy von Sturmer, a retired senior lecturer in psychology: "Mike Scherger's essay is exactly what should be expected by a teacher who asks an honest, healthy, male teenager to write an essay on 'How does your body betray you?' What did she expect from such a topic? Get a new school, Mike, one with respect for truth.

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The last word on Botox should go to Kath Turner, who says she would never consider the jab because "I would be unable to intimidate my tardy husband, misbehaving children and slack work colleagues with a furrowed brow and evil eye".