19 September 2005

A mini-9/11 (almost), Cambo wins the World Matchplay, Hannah turns 11 - 19/09/05

Weather has been awful. Really hasn't been any for about three weeks. We have plenty now. Wet, windy, cold, snow down south. It felt like first day of summer last Monday. Today feels like middle of winter. I am seriously thinking about cancelling today and returning to bed.

LOCAL NEWS

Bizarre incident on election night. A flying instructor took a light plane and threatened to crash it into the sky tower in the city. Any chance of winning his love back was severely reduced from this action, and then he ditched the plane in the water off Mission Bay. He was hurt, but not seriously. The news services were very disappointed. Such an even would be heavily covered on any night other than election night. Police said they couldn't do anything about it while he was in the air, not sure what they want, perhaps some fighter planes or anti-aircraft weapons? They called it a 9/11 style attack, well perhaps vaguely in the style, but I am not sure a four person plane would have the same impact as a jumbo jet (pardon the pun).

A young child died of her injuries, police trying to figure out who did the damage. It will be family or stepfather, would put money on it.

A man closed half of Tauranga on Thursday, which was a good thing with some of the electoral happenings in Tauranga. He was barricaded in a motel with a bomb. It wasn't a bomb. The police put their lives at risk for another looney. They don't get paid enough, even with fake bombs they are still real loonies.

We had bizarre controversy about one candidate, who Winston dished the dirt on and then promptly the people of Tauranga voted Winston out in favour of the guy who reportedly talked a lot about his left testicle. Winston has been MP for Tauranga for 21 years, so that was a slap in the face for him.

The election was inconclusive, at best, with Labour ahead by one seat on election night but nearly 10% of the votes were specials that will take two weeks to finalise. The minor parties all suffered, Act, Greens, New Zealand First, United all shrank in size. The Greens could be out depending on the specials. The coalition mating dance commences prematurely, as nobody knows how many dance cards they have yet.

Election stuff reached fever pitch. One wonders why the media don't ask the really important questions. It's all a show, and the taxpayer funds it. Is freedom solely based on being subjected to election coverage? A TV interviewer called Helen Clark "Caretaker Prime Minister" this morning, she didn't look too impressed.

Again, we have to wait until October 1 for special votes. The system seems unnecessarily long-winded, but feeds the families of the commentators I suppose.

WORLD NEWS

We got no coverage of the UN convention on the millennium development goals or whatever they are called. World leaders from everywhere but New Zealand attended (they were busy with election).

REAL SPORT

Water polo Friday night included the big game, Ponsonby Red versus Waitakere Invitational 1. They had been waiting for this for the whole season. It was tight in the first quarter, was 2-2. Then it blew out in the 2nd quarter and they got a 5-2 lead. Ponsonby never caught up and final score was 6-2. This is first loss for Ponsonby Red, but it was against the hand picked club team.

Hannah's team , Waitak 2, was playing a pretty good team, they are having a tough time. Final score was 2-7 to St Marys 1.

We stayed and watched Gold, my hobby team, they won 9-2, which was an excellent result for them. They have won about three or four in a row now.

SPORT

New Zealand golfer Michael Campbell has stumbled his way through the World Match Play Championship to win a cheque for one million pounds.

The Aucks lost to Taranaki, 19-40. Canterbury defended the shield and beat Waikato. North Harbour thumped BOP 41-8, Wellington beat Southland 53-12, Otago never really let Northland into the game with a 41-3 win.

Man Utd drew 0-0 with Liverpool. Newcastle won their first game of the season 3-0 over Blackburn. Chelsea beat Charlton 2-0. Arsenal play Everton tonight.

There was a fatal accident in the WRC event in England. A co-driver died when they hit a tree, by the name of Michael Park.

MY SAD LIFE

It is last week of the term this week. One term left for the kids at their current schools.

Well, we had the birthday, which went well. We had dinner on Wednesday night. She opened the package from Australia the day before (because Rory opened his the day before). The birthday party consisted of seven girls going to the movies and then dinner afterwards on Saturday night. I took three in my car with Rory. They were very, very chatty. Rory was not enjoying it at all. He threatened them with ejection if they didn't stop talking (they didn't). I think it nearly put him off girls completely. Am seriously considering taking Hannah on a few road trips with Rory's friends to put her off boys.

Hannah now has a dress sorted for the impending wedding, Diana says she looks very grown-up in it.

Diana and I walked down to the school and cast our votes. There was a queue.

Magic the cat has arrived, and is actually only 11 (not 12) but really wants to go outside. Diana says get a collar and lead and take him for walkies.

Theoretically both Koos and Gavin have their other halves arriving this coming weekend. It will be a big weekend for both of them. I was kind of hoping to organise a "last night of freedom" night with them both, but I am not sure it will happen.

Finally listed some stuff on trademe that Rory wants to sell. We've had the photos taken since December. Not good. At least some things will be sold and we will have more space.

Our life is returning to something like normal. Busy August and early September are now complete. However, we booked some things in the diary this morning. We have Armageddon late October, a water polo tournament the following weekend, another water polo tournament first week of December.

Rory has interschool volleyball tomorrow, hope the weather is better by then.

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