Sideswipe: May 4: Unfortunate name for a teacher

Unfortunate name for a teacher.

No butts, Mister

A Welsh pensioner was fined £75 ($150) for dropping a cigarette end, even though he does not smoke. Ken Morris had a letter from the local council telling him he had been seen throwing the butt in a car park. Seventy-two-year-old Mr Morris said the cigarette end must have got stuck to his shoe and been carried into his car, so he threw it on the ground. His wife, Sonia, said the council should clean up their streets. "It is their fault the cigarette butt was on my husband's shoe in the first place," she said. (Source: Thisiswales.co.uk)

Note to the Prime Minister

John Cant writes: "The RaboDirect advertisement in yesterday's Herald seems to suggest that John Key should quit prevaricating on John Banks and get on with the job of clearing up the mess."

Learning on the slopes

Judy went to Kamo High in the 70s, and says she had the greatest physics teacher ever - Mr Jennings. "He taught us to experiment and work things out for ourselves," she says. "He was also one of the teachers on the school ski trip. As I struggled to do a simple snow plough turn, a slight bespectacled figure zoomed past me yelling: "Judy, calculate your angular momentum!"

Freeze tactics

Bridget Sewell writes: "Our biology teacher had some inventive attention-grabbing techniques. If a bunsen burner was on, he would toss a spoon of magnesium, causing an impressive flame. He was also known for banging frozen items on the desk until we were listening - frogs, mice, hearts. One girl had a frozen rat snuck into her lunchbox as she was talking to her neighbour. I imagine she got quite a surprise when she found it!"

Don't try this at home

A reader writes: "During organic chemistry my sixth form chemistry teacher taught us how to make acetylene. Together with oxygen from a cylinder, we strategically placed plastic bottles of the acetylene/oxygen mixture next to an open window. We would wait until a student walked past the open window before putting a flame near the bottle ... Kaaboooom!"

Sideswipe callback

A few weeks back, we had a picture of a car with a fridge on the bonnet in Glen Eden, sent in by Jamie and Tash. Could they please email Sideswipe asap.