Sideswipe: December 2: The Christmas plot thickens

Chance meetings make impact

Memorable encounters with strangers, shared on Twitter.

1. "The old woman on the bus who, unsteady on her feet, moved from pole to pole towards the front of the bus as it approached her stop. When she got to my seat she leaned in to my ear real close and whispered: 'Like bleedin' Tarzan I am'."

2. "When I was 5 years old I was swept out to sea by a freak wave. A passing man ran into the sea to save me, destroying the camera around his neck in the process. He wouldn't let Mum give him the money for it."

3. "Often think of a middle-aged woman with big sunglasses and a little dog in a handbag who walked smack into the perspex glass wall of the bus stop we were sitting at in Spain. She went mental at us because we were p***ing ourselves and she 'could have died'."

4. "This little girl who was staring at me when I was at sitting at the food court mall. I took off my headphones and asked her what was up and she told me I was beautiful."

5. "The man I saw at the bus stop two years ago on my 7am commute to work who didn't want to put out his smoke so he sprinted after the bus for two stops, hoofing the fag while also carrying a coffee ... and then got on the bus. Convinced to this day he's my soulmate."

Message for bad eggs

A reader writes: "No one knows who put up the sign at our little wharf in Paremoremo after two groups of men complete with flash work utes, duked it out after hours of drinking and fishing one sunny work day afternoon last year. It took four carloads of police, pepper spray and two tow trucks to remove them from the wharf, and about three days later a local installed the sign just so anyone else contemplating being a drunk egg might think again."

Ill wind from the north

A reader writes: "I just returned from Wellington where there has been discussion about finding a name for the wind. As the troublesome, unrelenting and irksome wind comes from the north, I would like to volunteer a name. 'The Winston'. What do you think?"