Sideswipe: February 13: Fancy an appetiser

Yum, yum. Just can't wait. Taken outside an eatery in Taumarunui.

All's well that ends well

"We had our 83-year-old Dad visiting us from Wales at Waihi Beach," writes a reader. "One morning he was adamant that he had spotted Warren Gatland (Kiwi coaching the Welsh rugby team) walking by. That night he happened to go to the Waihi Beach RSA for dinner and guess who he saw? In the following days Dad was upset to find he had lost his camera case. Last week, he phoned excitedly to say he had received his camera case in the post with a letter from Warren Gatland saying how a shopkeeper in Waihi Beach had found a camera case and since he (Warren) was living in Wales would he mind taking it home and posting it. ... Warren was most happy to once he read the name and address in the camera case and realised he'd met that fella at the RSA!"

The view from the top

Apprentice Pitfalls: "I was a young apprentice on an oil refinery. A group of us were told by the wily old plant manager to climb the 75m fractionation column to 'see the inner workings through the glass top'. We climbed the steel ladders to find the steel-domed top covered in a 7cm-thick layer of purple bird droppings! The plant manager pointed at us every time someone walked past him."

Find the dead bird ...

"I spent some time as a cook at KFC," writes David. "I would send the new staff into the chiller and tell them there was a dead bird in there that they had to deal with. Sometimes it took them a while searching in the cold before they would catch on to the fact that all the birds in there were actually dead and ready for cooking."

Car keys lost in Papakura

"To the person who lost car keys in the middle of Jack Farrell Park, Papakura, over Waitangi Day weekend, call/text me (021 797 540) with the insurance company's name on one of the tags."