Sideswipe: September 9: Nippy Napier

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Someone obviously thought Pania of the Reef needed a little help to ward off the cold.

Insecure security

Wayne was filling up at a Mobil station on the North Shore when a truck belonging to a well-known security firm pulled up outside. Two uniformed guards got out and went inside to collect the takings. "I filled up and as I walked past the truck to go and pay, I noticed they had left the keys in the ignition. Inside, the guards were nowhere to be seen. Should I have driven it away to teach them a lesson ...?"

Laugh ... we didn't

"I'm an Aucklander and do a lot of hiking all over New Zealand with friends," writes Ben Edwards. "A few years ago, we were walking the remote Milford Track and came across some DoC workers doing track maintenance. As they saw us coming, one shouted out, 'Look, here come some Aucklanders; we could do with some more landfill.' We didn't know whether to laugh or cry (or run) so just kept on walking with our heads down. I still don't know how to feel about that joke."

Inside info

Tweet of the day: Don't know if he has the inside word, but TV3 funnyman Ali Ikram speculates about the Rugby World Cup opening ceremony: "John Key hatches from an egg [and] leads a troupe of breakdancing Hobbits in a chorus of Born This Way."

Our non-rugby culture

Pork Pie, Boy, Gloss, Billy T, Hillary and Snell, the Topps, the Wests, Warriors, Whale Riders and Fastest Indians - these Kiwi icons will all be on show at Queens Wharf in Auckland at the New Zealand on Screen container installation, as part of the Real New Zealand Festival - running alongside the Rugby World Cup. It's a free interactive exhibition for locals and tourists to explore our screen history.

Cultural overload

Derek MacMenigall is not happy with the pictures of the overloaded cars: "Aren't we so bloody clever and superior. We don't overload our cars. Only because we are lucky enough to live in a country where our living is not nearly as hard as theirs. This is like putting up a picture of a starving African with a distended stomach and comparing it to our beer bellies and saying our bellies are smaller." No, Derek, it's like putting a picture of a car piled precariously high with mattresses/bikes/other goods and going, "Whoa! Hope they don't fall off on the road and cause carnage".