Don't go to the Bay of Plenty today - 19/07/04

LOCAL NEWS

Whakatane, Edgecumbe, and Opotoki have had insult and injury, with 100 year floods over the weekend and then a series of earthquakes (5.4 the biggest). 2,000 people are in emergency accommodation, water has been cut off in many areas (oh, the irony) but they still have power. Two women have died. Apparently the locusts gone blown off course and haven't made it yet, and nobody could go outside to see if it was raining herring. One of the girls in Hannah's team was in Whakatane during the week when the weather was really nice, good thing she came home.

Vaccinations for meningicoccal disease start today in earnest, in Mangere.

The Israelis with dodgy passports were found guilty. Helen Clark hinted that their motives could have been sinister. They could even have used them to get into another country (imagine that) and perhaps kill someone! And I thought they might have got the passports so they could get library books out and not return them, silly me.

There has been a few nasty accidents on the road. A truck driver was pinned in his truck and fried on the Bombay Hill. Two died near a ski field. And a pedestrian that was unaware of the BBT (bigger bastard theory) took on a truck and lost.

Meanwhile, they are concerned about the dramatic rise in reported Aids cases. It has risen like 60% to 188 people in the last year. That is just epidemic. And they were worried about Africa. Remember nearly twice that many die on the roads, and nearly half that number die from using a unsanitised telephone.

A survey this week said that many children were spending more than four hours watching TV on the weekends, and that this was a very bad thing. Four hours? Let's face it, that's like a movie and four half hour cartoons. That isn't exactly a lot, and if they've been at sport on a Saturday morning they have every right to veg out for a little while to recover. Surely it is a problem if it is eight or ten hours a weekend, and they didn't say if the weekend included Friday night.

The late to open, ill-conceived, abysmal Rawaka Village, run by the hideous Suzanne Paul, went into voluntary liquidation this week. In doing so the world has been done many favours. Maori Culture is safer than it was (not that I am saying there is such a thing, but this was an extremely bad version of it), Suzanne Paul doesn't want her face to be seen on television any more (another big plus), and better still, she doesn't want to talk to anyone (her voice was something akin to rubbing an angry wet cat up and down a large cheese grater whilst running your finger nails across a blackboard during an "{insert country here} Idol" audition.

WORLD NEWS

Martha Stewart has been jailed for five months for her sins. The quality of food in one US prison is now likely to improve and the prisoners are going to have the best decorated cells in America.

Flooding in India, etc, in the monsoon, is pretty bad, but at least they didn't have earthquakes as well.

REAL SPORT

We got matching jackets for the girls team this week. It was hilarious. At training, they wouldn't wear bibs, it was jackets versus no-jackets (and nobody wanted to be in the no-jackets team). After a while the jackets girls overheated. They gallantly tried to keep wearing them (opening them, tying them around their waist, etc) but had to downgrade to bibs).

Hannah's team played out in Huapai, against a team that was third in the grading round but below us on the table on goal difference (with one real win, compared to our default win). It was a very tight game. In the first half our goalie touched the ball once but we couldn't get too far into their territory. In the second half we managed to score reasonably early and seemed to do a lot of defending. There were some scary moments, but we got there with a 1-0 win, our first since going into first division. We attributed the result to the jackets, but many of them played very well. Hannah was an absolute rock, again. This should put them up a couple of places on the table, we play the team that is fourth next week.

Rory's team played at the same time as Hannah's game, and were only ten strong plus a ring-in who hasn't played this season. They were playing the top of the table Eastern Suburbs team and lost 3-1, could be worse I suppose given that four players were missing.

SPORT

Well, the All Blacks beat Australia in the first Bledisloe Cup match so it is safe for another year (which I am very happy about). It was a pretty gruelling game in heavy rain. The ABs spent 30 minutes inside the opposition 22, the Aussies 2 minutes at the other end. They defended for most of the match, score was 16-7.

The Boks beat the Pacific Islanders 38-24, wasn't looking very close after about 30 minutes so I went to bed.

Michael Campbell did okay in British Open but ended about 20th. Todd Hamilton (who?) won, beating Ernie Els in a playoff.

There was not much other sport on, so I will mention that the Warriors won (for a change).

MY SAD LIFE

A review of my book was published this week in MacGuide. I also got my registration as an official person with Creative New Zealand (who have come under flak for sponsoring a toilet going to somewhere in Europe this week).

Darth Vader finally appeared on the telly on Tuesday night, making his debut well after his passing. He looked good, although you see the niggling details like the cape not on straight, etc. Helmet is unfinished at this stage.

The kids spent all week in a soccer thing (well, Monday to Thursday). They came home tired, but happy. Hannah made two boys cry on Tuesday (when she competed for the ball), that's my girl.

The Science Project was mostly completed on Thursday, finally. It's been a very long haul.

Spent half of Sunday exhuming things from Rory's room. A bit of a rite of passage, a lot of toys are gone.

We mostly completed the Science Project again on Sunday, after he munted it showing it to a friend.

Rory turns twelve in less than two weeks.

THE KITTENS SAD LIFE

I figure I should keep this separate for those that think they are mentioned too often.

I threw a lamb bone out on the lawn for them to munch the other day. It was quite funny, they sat at the edge of cover on the deck, looking at the sky, trying to decide when they wouldn't get too wet while they munched it. And munch it they eventually did. They got wet.

Pandora's obsession with the plastic circly things off milk bottle tops continues, they are being found all over the house under objects. Often half eaten. They often appear in shoes, one was stuck in the strap of my bag, the get lost everywhere. Ollie continues to treat Hannah like his Mum. He just never purrs for anyone like he does when he's on her.

I have decided that both cats work on what I call "positional affection". If you sit where they normally go, they sit on you. Doesn't matter who you are. They have their favourite spots and you better not get in their way.