Sideswipe: September 10: Ghetto tracker, say what?

A reader spotted this environmentally minded sign in a hotel bathroom in Hamilton.

A new app called Ghetto Tracker - a service that helps people identify safe areas in unfamiliar cities - was swiftly changed to Good Part of Town after complaints of racism. Critics say it is for helping the rich to avoid the poor. The app functions by allowing locals to rate the safety of different parts of a given area. According to The Week, the original launch of the page featured a white family of four smiling alongside the app's promise to show users "which parts of town are safe and which ones are ghetto, or unsafe".

Passions run high in icecream revival run-off
Tip Top's Bring Back Your Favourite icecream marketing exercise wasn't even original (remember the Chocoade biscuit revival?) but it still captured the limited imagination of a Facebook audience. Hardly anybody was keen on the mint Trumpet, but it was neck and neck between the Strawberry Toppa and the Fruju Tropical Snow with the Toppa winning. Eight hundred people commented - mostly to suggest the voting was rigged or to snipe because their favourite didn't win. Tip Top's PR machine replied to the first 70 or so comments with a variation of the same line: "The race was so close between Toppa and Fruju ... Both icecreams had overwhelming support. We've heard how passionate you guys are about the almighty Snow, so we definitely won't be ruling it out for the future ..." Gah!

What would Jesus think about bumper sticker?

An Anglican parishioner complained in August about the "blasphemous" bumper sticker she saw on the car of Rev Alice Goodman of Cambridge, England, but Ms Goodman immediately defended it as not irreligious (although, she conceded, perhaps vulgar). The sticker read "WTFWJD?" which is a play on the popular evangelical Christian slogan "What Would Jesus Do?" Ms Goodman pointed out that even Dr Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, seemed unfazed by her sticker when he saw it.

Affordability is relative, I guess.

Humiliation most common British nightmare
Public humiliation is the most common type of dream in Britain, according to a new survey. Nearly half (49 per cent) stated that being embarrassed in front of a crowd, friends or colleagues was common during sleep, ahead of work-related stress (45 per cent). Erotic dreams with people they know or with celebrities were selected by 41 per cent of respondents, followed by naked anxiety (35 per cent). (Source: DigitalSpy.co.uk) Affordability is relative, I guess.

Picture this #1: Last week I ran this titbit about an artwork hanging in a coffee place hanging out over the water in Rawene -- a wood print for sale titled "Broken car giving birth to a dead horse". Well an avid Sideswipe reader, Countryman, sent in a picture of the artwork, with permission of the artist.

Picture this #2: Note to Zach from his mum ...

Video: Nice swipe at the politics of food from TV3's comedy Super City...

Video: Bad parking is always a popular Sideswipe thread -- late model cars parking in the middle of two parking spaces to protect their paint jobs, parking on footpaths and general disregard for the white lines...For those who feel violated by such parking; steel yourself. This is a car park in Russia...

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