Sideswipe

Someone needs to Google menopause . . .

Carl Unger wrote a Letter to the Editor into the Williamsport Sun-Gazette the other day. Carl wants to “take our country back” from “the liberals and Obama” who are using “social justice” to bring “socialism” to this great country. He’s also sick of being called a “sexist” for questioning Hillary Clinton’s health. And he goes on to ask a very important question: “What if that time of month comes and she is sick at the same time?” He is concerned 68-year-old Clinton might be bedridden by her period every month.

Once upon a day . . .

The German novel Bottom’s Dream, is more than twice as long as War and

Peace, (nearly 1500 pages) and weighs nearly twice as much as the All Black captain coffee-table breaker Richie McCaw 148. If that’s not enough to ensure it remains unsold and unread, the subject matter surely will. The story follows two translators and their teenage daughter, over a single day, as they try to interpret the works of Edgar Allen Poe. YAWN.

Now that’s added value . . .

A reader writes: “Arriving at Auckland Airport by road is one of the largest advertising banners in New Zealand advertising that we should buy a Galaxy Note 7, yet inside the airport terminal, the public address system says that you may not bring such a phone on to the plane. In America it’s now a federal offence.”

Titanic: not so heroic stories of survival

When the Titanic started going down, baker Charles Joughin knew he wasn’t one of the people who would be saved. Instead, he helped the wealthy get to the lifeboats and gave them food. Then he went to his cabin and downed as much whiskey as he could, preparing to meet his maker. “Somewhere in his drunken stupor, Joughin found himself clinging to the railing at the edge of the ship, lifted high into the air. He hung on until the boat was submerged, and then he jumped into the water. Joughin spent three hours in the freezing water before he was rescued. Normally, that would have been enough time to kill anybody. But Joughin’s body had so much whiskey coursing through it that the whiskey actually fought off the cold and kept him alive.” (Source: listverse.com)

William Boyd was looking for a space in Auckland Hospital carpark A. “This was the only space I could find,” he says, trying to understate the spookiness of it all.

Friend ordered an affogato — an Italian dessert made of a shot of espresso, poured over ice-cream — the waiter didn’t know what it was so served this.