Sideswipe

Taniwha country: The swamp that delayed the expressway. Picture / Greg Bowker

The best and worst of Sideswipe 2002-2004

The BBC News website ran the story about the taniwha vs the Waikato expressway under the heading, "Maori swamp creature delays road".

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R Pippen of Papakura writes: "I took my 7-year-old to the Santa parade in Papakura on Saturday, as I have taken my five children over the 30 years. I thought it sad but a sign of the times when my son saw the three wise men dressed in their costumes and commented, "They are dressed up as the men who bombed the Twin Towers, eh Mum?"

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A Glendowie reader driving past Tamaki College was stopped by a police drink-drive checkpoint at 10.30am. Fair enough, she thought, although she wondered who was out there chasing burglars and child abusers. About 45 minutes later, coming back the other way, she was stopped again. She told the earnest officer that his colleague had tested her and she'd passed with flying colours, only to be met with an aggressive "How do I know that?" Police-public relations nosedived from that point, and Plod thrust his wand in her face, again with a negative result. The motorist left, fuming, but not before telling the officer what she thought of police priorities. The policeman, smarting, complained in front of his next victim about "that stupid woman". Unfortunately for him the second motorist was the first driver's sister. The moral of the story? If you speak without thinking, you're a bloody idiot.

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Whale of a flub: at the NZ film and TV industry's annual conference dinner in Auckland, Associate Arts and Culture Minister Judith Tizard presented this year's Spada/Onfilm industry champion award to South Pacific Pictures head and Whale Rider producer John Barnett. All went swimmingly until, while she was reading out the list of Barnett's many achievements during his 30-year career, a slip of the tongue transformed award-winning family pic Whale Rider (based on a novella by Witi Ihimaera) into Male Rider (which presumably would be a very different type of film). Cue waves of laughter from all assembled, including Tizard, who struggled to finish her speech. Maybe she was thinking of another Ihimaera work, Nights in the Gardens of Spain.

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This advertisement appeared in a San Francisco online publication: "I am hosting a mud-wrestling event in my back yard. It's a first for me. I have a backyard that is flat so I am digging a ten foot by ten foot ring about half a foot deep, so no one drowns, and lining it with a tarp and making real American mud. So I need wrestlers. I can find a guy to wrestle, they're everywhere; dime a dozen. What I need are drag queens and other women to wrestle. If you are a woman and want to wrestle your boyfriend, that is fine and encouraged. If you don't mind wrestling handsome complete strangers, that opportunity can be provided. Costumes are encouraged, as is complete nudity. You receive free beer and food and a shot at the wrestling title belt, which I am making in my garage this weekend."