I apologise if this seems boastful or immodest - 22/08/05

August continues to be very busy. A huge week last week and not much respite coming. The Real Sport section seems rather large today, sorry.

LOCAL NEWS

There was a case this week where a woman was charged with spiking her fiancée's drinks because he wanted "relations" five times a day. I guess he knew that after they were married it was probably going to be five times a year. He was 51, so he is obviously in good health. I don't think anyone would argue that five times a day is perhaps a little excessive. When would you get time for the housework? And five times on a work day? Did he go home for lunch? (and morning and afternoon tea?).

Election bribes continue. The books were opened mid week. Labour are now tossing money at people with lots of kids and lowish incomes. Benefits 11% of the population (being a small percentage of voters and their many children). Election ads were run for the first time. The National advert is a pisstake of the Labour party to the tune of "thank you very much for your kind donation", changing donation to taxation. I thought it was a fair crack at Labour's spending and taxing and other issues. However, the leader of the Labour Party told us National were appealing to the stupid voter. That means that he called me stupid. So he has now alienated voters that don't consider themselves stupid (most people) that liked the advert. A silly move, you would think.

TV One are worried about news ratings, they are losing ground to TV3.

A man died on the southern motorway when someone dropped an 8kg piece of concrete from an overbridge. I hope they get the moron. Police seem to be doing their best. A completely random act of mindless violence, which is somewhat akin to terrorism.

The head boy from Avondale College (the school Koos, Heidi, Gavin, and I went to) collapsed and died during a soccer match for the school on Saturday. It was asthma related. He had seen a doctor earlier in the week who told him to take it easy, perhaps he shouldn't have played.

A girl died and another was injured when the car they were in went off Mt Wellington on an unplanned basis. Sounds like something funny was going on.

WORLD NEWS

Things are getting tense in Tonga. People broke into the King's grounds to show their displeasure at the regime. The king himself is well past it now, the crown prince runs things. It is not a democracy, interestingly.

The move out of Gaza by the Israelis has been saturating news, as has follow ups on the Brazilian that was shot by London police and the associated massaging of the facts.

There have been reports of disorderly behaviour in Singapore, in nightclubs and restaurants, mostly involving a woman who's husband and child are overseas. Shyn denies any involvement, although her typing seems to be a bit slurred.

REAL SPORT

On Thursday I took the two Pt Chev interschool soccer teams for a practice session. There are three girls playing this year, and I think they are all good enough to be in the A team. The tournament is this Thursday.

First up on Friday night was Hannah's first ever game of water polo. They were overwhelmed by the team they played, and it was the first game for a couple of them, but they tried very hard. Hannah got sent off for accidental offence but it showed she was giving it a go. Final score 1-8. She was fizzing afterwards.

Rory's first game was against Waitakere Invitational 1, theoretically the best team in the league. Rory was playing for Blue team, who were low on numbers and it was never going to be easy. Rory worked really hard for all four quarters. They lost 0-8, but without Rory's efforts it would have been double that.

Playing for Red against Rangeview, Rory scored first within 15 seconds of the start (and they have to swim to the middle of the pool first). That gave the other team a fright. Rory only played three quarters, he was buggered after the earlier game. Final score was 10-2 win.

Hannah's soccer team was up against the top of the table team, who beat the Furies 10-0. I stacked the defensive line with my four strongest defenders (including Hannah) and they worked very hard. 0-0 at half time, and we were down hill in the second half. We threw plenty of attacks at them but couldn't manage to score, however they didn't score either. Final score 0-0, a great result against a team that has scored 24 goals in the championship. Hannah has one game left, one training.

Rory's team were playing the bottom team, they scored very early, but seemed to lose momentum after the first ten minutes and the other team equalised then scored again. Billy scored a goal with his face to equalise with about five minutes to go, but the opposition scored again to win 3-2, a disappointing result for Rory's last game of the season. The team has one game left but there are heaps of players that won't make it.

Rory has a water polo tournament in Rotorua this weekend, Diana is going with him, Hannah and I are staying home for soccer.

SPORT

The Springboks beat the Wallabies in Perth narrowly 22-19. Springboks look like the team to beat, although the Wallabies will want a win when they come to New Zealand.

Can't remember when the second test against Zimbabwe finished, but New Zealand won by an innings again. They are having an ODI tri-series with India.

The next ashes test starts this week.

Man Utd beat Villa 1-0, Arsenal lost 0-1 to Chelsea, a crappy goal. Liverpool won 1-0 over Sunderland, Newcastle drew with lowly West Ham. Everton won.

Auckland beat Otago, Canterbury beat BOP, North Harbour beat Wellington, Waikato beat Southland. Not many people seem interested in NPC rugby at the moment, we still have two tri-nations tests to come in the next two weeks.

MY SAD LIFE

Rory was not only busy but reasonably successful this week. He got credit (like a minimum pass) in the NSW computer exam, which was something of a drop from last year's high distinction. Then on Thursday he went off to interzone netball (they rejigged the team after the interschool tournament and Rory got upgraded to the A team) and he played Wing Defence. He must have done okay because they didn't lose a game, and won the final. Don't think he's ever been in a team that won interzone before.

He then had Mathex on Thursday night, where they run around a solve maths problems. They were doing well for a while but got stuck on one problem and didn't feature in the placings. He was completely knackered on Friday morning.

Hannah also had to finish a project for school and she largely nailed it on Thursday night with little help from me. It looked really good.

Friday was the school speech final. No pressure, with Rory defending his title, we really felt that making the finals was good enough. After Hannah's result at interschool we figured you can never really predict what the judge is looking for so no matter how good we think it is we should expect to be surprised. Well, we were and the little bugger won it, which was a huge result to manage it twice in a row. He was pretty pleased with himself, and rightly so. Diana was there for it, I was busy at work. Interschool speech competition is tomorrow at his school. Hannah and I will go for support. He got third last time, so we shall see whether singing and dancing wins it this year.

We had an absolutely flat out weekend. Three hours at water polo Friday night, left the house at 9:30 Saturday morning, home at 5:30 (after watching the Boomers beat the Tall Blacks in Manukau). Roger popped in and we had a chat, then we left about 6:30 for Michelle Smith's 40th birthday party. Made it home by 11pm absolute wrecks. Sunday we had water polo training from 9 to 11 (Hannah first then Rory) then we went to visit Nanny who is house-sitting for the Goodins. We got home from that about 3pm and collapsed (except that Rory had an essay due in today and some maths homework).

Given how busy the weekends are at the moment, I am beginning to change my view of the week. Monday now feels like the first day of a five day weekend. Weekdays are generally so much less stressful. I mean, on Thursday I only found some problems with $70,000 worth of invoices for a customer. That's nothing compared to getting 14 girls organised to go on the field in a soccer game. At least that is all over after next Saturday, it feels like it has been a long season.

So we saw Roger, although no evidence of Ben, I suspect grandma is quite happy to care for him on Roger's absence. He is 15 months old, and an energetic lad from the sound of it (as he should be). Was funny when Roger confessed that one is a handful, and we speculated on what it would have been like with three boys in the house.

Diana's new job seems to be going well. She is happy to be back teaching, I think.

So Hannah is busy planning a weekend at home, including possibly a movie night with some friends.