Sideswipe

Tiger Woods and wife Elin Nordegren. Picture / Reuters

Some joke: Tiger Woods, world number one golf player, has taken a swing at Irish publications which have reproduced fake naked pictures of his wife, Swede Elin Nordegren. The Dubliner magazine and the Irish Daily Star have reproduced the pictures - exposed three years ago as bad cut-and-paste jobs - in the build-up to this week's Ryder Cup tournament in Ireland. After Tiger threatened legal action, the Dubliner came clean: Turns out it was all a bit of a laugh ... "The publisher and staff at the Dubliner acknowledge that the satirical article was inappropriate and wish to sincerely apologise to Tiger Woods, his wife, Elin Nordegren, and other Ryder Cup players and their families for any offence."

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Not all specials are so special. "I was doing my shopping at Foodtown Whangaparaoa," reports a reader, "and was getting the typical flat food: Baked beans and spaghetti. But alas! Because the standard-sized baked beans and spaghetti cans were on OneCard special for this week for $3, the shelves were completely bare. I had to resort to getting the smaller cans, about half the size of the standard cans, for $1.09. Two things: It's cheaper this week to buy two cans of the smaller totalling $2.18 rather than one can of the same amount on special for $3. But looking at the price tag, 'OneCard special price: $3 - standard price without card: $2.95', people cleared the shelves, not even stopping to look at the 'savings' in which they had to pay an extra 5c a can."

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Be careful what you order: Whangarei's Pizza Hut on Bank St is beside the driveway leading to a funeral home. Says a source: "I laugh every time I go there and see the boys and girls with their Pizza Hut sandwich boards, walking up and down the footpath outside the two buildings, advertising : 'Two slabs for $10."'

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The songwriters' annual prize-giving - the Apra Silver Scrolls - rolled around again the other night giving the livers of the nation's pro musicians a warm-up for the recording industry's even bigger New Zealand Music Awards next month. Don McGlashan got a standing ovation when he was announced as the winner of the Silver Scroll by Prime Minister Helen Clark who managed to roll out her old hit speech Isn't Kiwi Music Doing Well Under My Labour Government for yet another illustrious occasion. Best quote of the long night at the Auckland Town Hall, though, was Richard Bennett, the winner of the Maioha Award for best Maori waiata who dedicated his trophy to his grandfather who passed away in February: "My grandfather didn't like my music much ... but I'm sure he'd be proud of me now." The unofficial prize for exhausting energy went to the big-haired, vastly-populated young pop group Spacifix. Having pogoed through their cover of nominated song The Pool (unable to attend, its writer James Milne heard it via his record label boss' upheld cellphone) and they kept up the energizer bunny act when they were first up on the after-match function stage while many an old muso mumbled: "It wasn't like this in my day ... ."