Sideswipe: August 19: Both full of hot air

Lookalike branding...

Fraser was following a van last week and noticed it had the Ashley Madison logo (the adultery website -- fresh in his mind after the recent hacking of their site in the news). "After looking closer I realised it was a Mitsubishi heat pump van," he says. "Both companies use the same stock photo for their branding. Only difference is Ashley Madison has photoshopped a wedding ring on the model's finger."

Sex is all in the head

Zoologists at the University of Basel in Switzerland reported the likelihood that a certain flatworm species has overcome the frustration of not finding a mating partner in its lifetime. Scientists believe the flatworm makes the most of its hermaphroditic qualities and injects its sperm into its own head, from which the sperm sometimes migrates to the worm's reproductive facilities. (Via World-Science.net)

Museum puts Charles out to pasture

Prince Charles as Able

Where do the life-sized wax figures of well-known faces go to die? A US religious museum where they are seamlessly incorporated into Biblical displays.Prince Charles is featured in one scene as Abel, the son of Adam and Eve who is murdered by his brother Cain. He has been given a "pudding bowl" haircut and wears brown and yellow shepherd's robes. Prince Philip stands in the white robes of an angel. BibleWalk museum in Mansfield, Ohio has constructed the scenes using discarded wax figures of the royals, as well as of celebrities like John Travolta, Tom Cruise and Ringo Starr. "We try to do them up ... [so they won't be recognised]," Moriah Daugherty, an employee at the museum told the Telegraph.

Way to treat tea drinkers like mugs

"And while we are talking coffee cups," writes Di. "I really hate having to have my very expensive cup of tea -- usually a tea bag which probably comes from a $4 box but costs me $4.50 for the cup -- out of a railway-style thick cup. Tea should be drunk from cups that are TEA CUPS not thick-edged coffee cups. I would even settle for a decent thin-edged mug. Amazingly, even so-called specialty tea houses don't use proper tea cups but thick, standard-issue coffee cups."

Hypocrite they screamed!

"I had to laugh when I got out of my car and sighted this at Valentine's car park, North Shore," writes Sharon Beazley. "[This badly parked] parking warden was giving tickets for time allowance being exceeded!"

Picture this: This t-shirt is perfect making a droll impact on new people...

Picture this: How this married Christian couple practise abstinance...

Mood killer trick

Good Read: Jason Caplin lost his sense of smell five years ago, but it recently returned and has not been the bed of roses you might expect: "And so to tonight. Here it is, then. Smell at full blast. The inside of my head is basically completely uncalibrated. My nose just has no idea what to do with this rediscovered fury of data. Walking to the tube, I tentatively tried breathing in through my nose. Once. I felt alarm bells going off at the back; smells that had no place together (and which I could only vaguely recall in name) set my eyes watering and made me gag. I sneezed, a lot. At the big roundabout I could smell mint, horses, an outdoor pool from a family holiday when I was eight. The supermarket smelt of hair, even though I don't think I could tell you what hair smells like, and it set me wondering how much of this my brain was reconstructing on the fly. The tube was almost unbearable and I blinked to stop crying." Read in full here.

Video: A bullet exiting a gun recorded at 73,000 frames per second...

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Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz