Merry Christmas from New Zealand - 26/12/06

LOCAL

Brent Todd, former League player, was back in the news, this time for defrauding money from a pokie machine fundraiser. He hasn't had a great year, having been declared bankrupt and charged with drug offenses.

Police are investigating the sale of cellphones to inmates by their guards. Apparently the prisoners are miffed about the warranty terms.

New Zealand is now hosting the Netb all World Champs in November instead of Fiji in July. Other than that, the whole Fiji Coup thing now seems quite dull, the army continues to run things.

Cricket boss Martin Snedden, who has proven himself to be quite a capable administrator in times of crisis, has taken the job to run Rugby World Cup 2007.

Former small-time tv person Peter Verschaffelt has been charged with manufacturing P. What a git.

There was a massive swoop on gun collectors and dealers, although it sounds like they were all pretty shady, the initial reports suggested they had targetted people that were licensed but had obtained items their licenses didn't cover. I have a friend who runs a gun store, he was not impacted (although it did sound like he might have been).

A couple who were filmed in the aftermath of a car accident sued TVNZ for damages and failed. It seems that privacy does not extend particularly far in the face of the publics need to know. The footage was used in a reality show about firefighters. I would have thought their faces could be obscured or something.

There was a nasty drink driving accident in Dunedin where a car hit a pole so hard the its front and back touched when it wrapped itself around it. Neither person in the car survived.

WORLD NEWS

Scientists excavating in Spain have found fossilised remains of a new species of dinosaur called Turiasaurus riodevensis, a sauropod like Apatosaurus and brachiosaurus.

Iran is now being subjected to sanctions by the UN for it's work on enriching uranium. As the resolution was unanimous, this suggests North Korea agreed with them.

REAL SPORT

There was none to speak of, don't feel less busy because of it though.

SPORT

Not a lot of sport this week. Don't remember if the Aussies had already won the third test last Monday but they did. Ashes are now lost.

Shane Warne and Glen McGrath have both announced they will be retiring at the end of the Ashes series.

Man Utd won 3-0 over Villa, Arsenal beat Blackburn 6-2 (quite bizarre), Newcastle had 3-1 win over Spurs, Liverpool beat Watford 2-0, Chelsea beat Wigan 3-2 (Heskey did the damage for Wigan).

MY SAD LIFE

Forgot to mention Rory's school prizegiving, which was on the Wednesday we flew down to Nationals. Rory got prizes for Science, English, and PE, not very sure exactly what (biggest effort, most ejections, who knows). There is a rumour he also got a dance prize (although he didn't actually do dancing). Regardless, we haven't actually been told so who knows what he might have got. No sign of his NSW medal, either.

We saw the Goodins and Charles briefly on Wednesday and exchanged a few presents with the kids. Thomas recognised the shape of his, and was very excited. Was pretty cute and you do sort of forget what younger kids are like with presents.

Olwyn and Dave took off for Singapore on Friday to spend Christmas with Ben and Alex (although there are rumours that Roger and Shin might be there too).

On Saturday we drove down to Matarangi to stay near Penny, Craig, and the lads. Sunday we went to Cathedral Cove. Quite a drive from where we were, nice enough spot. Not entirely sure I see the appeal in random geological formations, but there you go. The kids made a row of over 100 sand castles from two buckets then kicked them over in 8.2 seconds.

Hannah, and to a lesser extent Rory, have been riding bikes down here a lot.

I got an email from Ian Mallinson in England, this morning. Nice to hear from you. Paul mentions what you are up to a fair bit. Hope everyone is keeping well in your part of the world..

Off to the Tucker house in a minute to go mad with present opening. Hope you all have a good Christmas. Be safe, relax, have fun. This is what we work for all year.

Back from Nationals in Wellington, tired and late (sorry) - 18/12/07

LOCAL NEWS

Well, the story about the pool made the news on Monday and the papers Tuesday. Rory got his picture on page 2 and was even on the front page of the Herald web site for a bit. Competition included a ten year old boy who fought off a small shark whilst surfing in Raglan, without question as to why he wasn't at school.

Another budget surplus for the government, $800m above expectation. That's a lot to be out by, but at least in a good direction.

Some controversy arose about using Australian agencies to regulate the health supplement industry here. I am not sure it matters, it's all bollocks anyway, I think it would hit the news if any of these snake oils actually did what they promised.

Three children died when a cliff collapsed on them in the Manawatu.

A New Zealand security guard died in a blast in Iraq.

Eight New Zealand fire-fighters were hurt while helping in Australia, three are still in hospital.

WORLD NEWS

The passing of Pinochet shows that the world is not always a fair place. I think it is generally accepted that he was a complete scumbag and escaped the punishment he truly deserved.

REAL SPORT

You don't want the blow by blow version of all seven games. Suffice to say that they improved steadily over the weekend. In summary:

Pool A
v Hutt A 9-3 win
V Waikato 11-5 win
Qualified top of Pool A

Pool E
v QE II 17-5 win
v Maranui 9-8 win

Semi Final
v Northsport (who beat them when they were gassed last Sunday) 5-4 win

Final
v Maranui 6-2 win

They didn't lose a game, and were never behind in any game. Rory scored a few goals, first goal in the final. The girls lost in the final, so got silver. Waitakere got the best overall result.

SPORT

Sri Lanka are giving New Zealand a bit of a thumping in second test. Probably finish today.

Aussie look to be in control in Third Ashes test.

Man Utd lost to West Ham 0-1, you have got to be kidding me. Chelsea beat Everton 3-2. Liverpool beat Charlton 3-0. Arse drew with Portsmouth 2-2.

MY SAD LIFE

Things were completely shambolic on Monday with calls from loads of people and calls to everyone in the team to ensure they were okay and sought medical attention if in any doubt. Then after the article on Tuesday there were more calls.

Wednesday, Rory and I left for Wellington and the house became a considerably quieter place. I am not very sure about what happened in Auckland but Hannah danced in four shows.

I kept the teams cellphones in my room. Two had alarms set, one at 3:15 one at 5am. I got woken twice before I ditched them in the lounge. Little buggers. They got up to plenty of mischief, the dodgy swimsuit calendar was hilarious (the boys posed in their swimsuits). They got little sleep last night. We are pretty pleased to be home, and the boys are national champions, which is pretty cool.

Between the semi and the final Rory was in bad shape, having trouble breathing, so we went to Hutt hospital. Turned out he had taken too much Ventolin. He has been fine without it ever since. I thought it could be a relapse of the issues a week ago, pretty relieved when it wasn't.

Sorry it is a bit short, more next week.

Dealing with localised chemical attacks, lots of people have nasty falls, and more fun in Fiji - 11/12/06

Sorry for lateness, I have an excuse.

LOCAL NEWS

I am a little concerned about the coverage of the coup in Fiji, which seems complete as of Tuesday. There was considerable glee from reporters as they thought they were witnessing something happening. I thought a journalist was meant to be a reasonably dispassionate observer.

A Danish woman fell 300m, hitting a few rocks on the way down. She was airlifted to Christchurch but failed to survive. No mention was made of how the rocks fared.

The guy that lost two legs and an arm in an altercation with a large shredder received $30,000 in compensation. He feels that isn't enough (surprise). At least he doesn't have to spend money on shoes.

A girl fell down a hole in the ground, but she was mostly okay.

A teenage male has disappeared, presumed dead, after falling off Lion Rock at Piha on Auckland's West Coast.

Reports of West Wave being closed due to water polo players falling ill are starting to come in. The news service says at least six boys were affected. Well, this proves you shouldn't believe everything you read in the paper. See My Sad Life for the real story.

While people were falling everywhere, interest rates did not on Thursday.

WORLD NEWS

The retirement of Greg Page, yellow and head Wiggle, was big news in Australia and New Zealand last week (sorry I am late with this). The kids used to love the Wiggles. Hannah spotted a Dorothy the Dinosaur dress in a department store in Sydney and whipped off her dress and put it on right at the rack in the store. We have a photo of her on Santa's knee without having paid for the dress. I think Mum bought it for her so we could leave (she didn't perform, but she was just so taken with it I don't think we had much of a choice).

More on Fiji. The Army commander, Frank Bananarama, appointed his personal physician as Prime Minister, and himself as El Presidente. I can't say I have heard anything substantial about his reasons for the coup. There have been no stories about corruption or incompetence. Perhaps somebody should tell him about this thing known as an "election". The first major fallout has been the removal of the Netball World Champs from Fiji, I suspect that is the tip of the iceberg.

One funny thing about the Fiji coup is that they show soldiers regularly on the telly with their M-16s and no magazines in them. They each given one bullet or something?

REAL SPORT

Didn't see Hannah's games in Tauranga, they lost 1-13 to a team they lost 0-19 to earlier so that was good. Never expected that to be a win. They lost 3rd/4th playoff 3-5 so came fourth. Still, not too shabby, shame they had to go to Tauranga for two losses though.

Rory's first game was against Marist who beat them convincingly about a month ago. Was close early on but we opened up a lead and won 7-3, Marist didn't score for last 12 minutes of a 20 minute game. That put them in the final.

What was left of the team (see below for more detail) lost 4-8 to Northsport. Disappointing a little, but given circumstances not a major cause for concern. So they won a silver medal, but nobody really cares. Quite sad, really, normally that would be considered not too bad, I think it is the best result of all six club U14 teams.

SPORT

After every news agency said the 2nd Ashes test looked like it would be a draw at the end of the fourth day, the Aussies took nine wickets in two sessions as England crumbled then proceeded to get the runs they needed to win at ODI speed. Ponting described it as the best win he'd been a part of. It was pretty impressive.

Conversely, the first test between New Zealand and Sri Lanka never looked like it would make the fourth day, wickets fell quite regularly. New Zealand won by 5 wickets but it was not hugely convincing. Some whinging about how last Sri Lankan got out for being a complete git, bit nobody cares.

Newcastle helped ruin Blackburn's season with a 3-1 win, Man Utd beat Man City 3-1, Spurs beat Charlton 5-1, Middlesbrough drew 1-1 with Wigan. Liverpool played Fulham and although goalless in the first half, Gerrard had a penalty saved but he managed to put the parried ball away to start the scoring, final score 4-0 to Liverpool. The Arse drew with Chelsea so Man Utd lead is becoming more real.

Big sports news was New Zealand team winning both races in that A1 GP thing in Indonesia or somewhere. Their first win and then their second the same weekend.

Next Ashes test starts this week.

MY SAD LIFE

Hannah had her interschool athletics on Tuesday. She didn't come anywhere exciting. High jump didn't go well, although she got a better shot-put throw than at school (6.93m) she was out-muscled by the big girls. She was the only palagi in the shot-put, too, which was kind of funny.

Putting on pants four times before 9am is never a good sign. That was how Wednesday started.

Hannah is running around the block, theoretically daily. Takes her around four minutes, it's about 900m. Her time is dropping pretty quickly.

Another minor event I forgot to mention was the Saturday of the water polo tournament. We had six girls come to our place between games. Rory was mortified. He called a friend and was out of the house in about two minutes. You can't comprehend how unusual this is, until you realise that it can take days for him to organise something with a friend normally. Seriously. Days. Later in the day he popped in to grab togs and disappeared again.

Wednesday was unusual. Put pants on four times by 9am. Diana had a flat tyre so I had to get pants on and go help. Then I had a shower. Put pants on inside out. Removed, inverted, re-entered. Then had to go out and had to change into formal jeans. Interesting morning.

Saturday the girls went to Tauranga so Rory and I were on our own. We went to see Borat, with Paul. It was okay, some pretty dodgy bits in it. Could have been better I think.

Spent a lot of the week wondering about whether I would get my new lens in time for Nationals. Haven't got it yet. Don't think I will get it in time now.

Sunday was interesting, as was most of today. Rory was not at all well after the game in the morning, coughing and was short of breath. At that point had no idea that others were also affected. Took him home, talk to my friend Matt (the Doctor) and pulled him out of the final so he stayed home. Went back to pool in my role as manager. The rest of the team weren't much better off. The pool had been given a shock treatment on Friday to kill off a nasty bacteria. However the cure seemed worse than the complaint. We knew of about four kids hospitalised last night, took Rory to A&E this morning because he was still short of breath. Ventolin seemed to reduce symptoms. Anyway, long story short all the teams that played in the dodgy pool on Sunday have been impacted on some level with National tournament starting this Thursday. I would guess about 20 have had medical attention now between the teams, possibly more. Not good, lots of emails flying around - pissed off parents, changing training times, all sorts. Been snowed today trying to figure a plan for training and things (hence late email now).

Had a random thought. Nobody who gets this email has ever died. You didn't know this was good for your health, did you?

Busy week coming with National U14 tournament. Monday next week could be late too. Sorry.

The philosophy of the Fubar and an overdue coup - 04/12/06

Sorry it is a little late, been busy this morning.

LOCAL NEWS

We had a bunch of spy chiefs here for the 50th anniversary of our SIS. It included heads of intelligence organisations including ASIO, the CIA, MI5, and MI6. Very hush hush, don't tell anyone.

The MPs managed to get themselves another pay rise.

A Tiger Moth crashed killing both aboard.

Don Brash surprised nobody when he announced he was to retire from parliament. Meanwhile we had news of another National MP that was punched at the U2 concert for smoking a cigar in a private box (he was a guest of the tobacco industry).

Fiji postponed their coup for a rugby game, it is planned for today. Seems to be running on island time.

Bit of a fuss over a wine entered in a competition being too different from the stuff you buy on the shelves. The vineyard is telling how it is natural variation between batches but the judges disagree. It's quite embarrassing but when you think about it most people probably buy it based on whether they liked it themselves rather than medals so I am not sure how bad it really is.

Meat can be murder, part 2. After the guy that stabbed himself while boning a deer a while back, we had a hunter fall off a cliff while chasing a pig, he died. No news of the pig but I think it is okay.

WORLD NEWS

Discussions attempting to avert a coup in Fiji continued.

Australia lost a helicopter and one soldier near Fiji on Wednesday.

A couple of New Zealanders helped restore our reputation by getting a shark attack victim to help in Western Australia.

Big typhoon in Philippines, but haven't heard a lot about it other than the fact that three kiwis are safe and 500 plus people aren't.

REAL SPORT

Hannah had North Island Intermediate champs this weekend. Played seven games in three days. They struggled, it is fair to say. They lost the first five games, then managed a win, which made no difference in their position but they really needed it for morale. I got Hannah to play in goal for two quarters in that game. She didn't let anything past. She worked very hard, she always does. She scored the first two goals in the tournament for the team, but did a lot of defending. In playoff for 6th and 7th, they lost on Sunday morning, but it was an improved score on the first game against that team.

We had club water polo prize giving last night. Rory got some certificates for refereeing and Hannah got most improved girl in Under 12s so she has a cup on her shelf.

SPORT

The Aussies are slowly catching up to the English in the second Ashes test but at the end of day three I think we are a long way from getting a result.

Arsenal beat Spurs 3-0, Blackburn managed a win over Fulham 2-0, Man Utd beat Middlesbrough 2-1, Liverpool had a big 4-0 win against Wigan. Chelsea v Newcastle not played yet.

Russia has won the Davis Cup in men's tennis.

Australian rookie Nathan Green won the New Zealand golf open, Michael Campbell and a few others came second.

MY SAD LIFE

Gavin and Yana are now Mr & Mrs Cosh. They had a little thing on Saturday night. I took some photos at the rose garden in Parnell first. They are now the proud recipients of what I believe is the first ever Fubar given as a wedding present. You see, most people get toasters for a wedding present. Giving a Fubar provides a good alternative to the toaster, and offers a fun solution for having too many toasters. See next bit for more on Fubars.

Gavin also informed us that he is pregnant. Don't actually know when he is due, he told Diana. Middle of year sometime I guess. Yana is suffering from morning sickness. Wonder when Gavin will start having the chest burster dreams. Nobody ever warns you about those.

A Fubar is a tool that looks like an angry nutcracker, made by Stanley. Rory instantly fell in love with one, he destroyed many things, mostly tin cans, with one on Thursday. On Thursday night on the way to training, Rory was pointing out various inanimate (mostly) objects and what a Fubar could do to change their shape. They are cool, simple as that. No idea what you actually need one for, just know that you need one. Rory is planning to learn a form of martial arts known as "Kung Fubar", and possibly another one know as "Fubar Jitsu". The word fubar is an acronym from the army (fouled up beyond all recognition). Rory and I have tons of ideas for advertisements for Fubars. We have been trying to compile a list of problems that cannot be solved with a Fubar. So far the only one is this: having too many Fubars.

Caitlin broke her arm then unbroke it in the last few weeks. We understand a Fubar was not involved. Haven't seen the Goodins for a while now. I think they still exist.

Today is Charles' birthday, yesterday was mine. We didn't really have a chance to celebrate it, not that it needed celebration. I got a book and a radio, and I suppose you could argue that I got myself a Fubar (although Rory sleeps with it under his pillow). It was Ben's sixth birthday last Monday.

Rory has exams this week at school. His first set of exams ever, really. Will be interesting, they are quite important in terms of what he does next year.

Hannah has stayed home today, she is still asleep.

I hope to get my new lens this week. Was hoping for it in time for tournament over the weekend but no luck there. It has big f-stop thingy.

That'll do for now.

When is a magic bullet something other that a miracle cure? Read on.... - 27/11/06

Been having problems with my internet. Not happy.

LOCAL NEWS

Think I failed to mention that last week Don Brash got an injunction against unnamed John and Jane Doe to prevent distribution of emails that were "stolen" from him. This week we discovered that Nicky Hager, professional troublemaker, had written a book based on them that could not now be published. Interesting situation, not looking great for elements of National party, publication could almost be better than speculation and secrecy.

The previous item, according to the press-release, has nothing to do with his subsequent resignation on Thursday. The new leader is likely to be John Key. If he cocks it up he may be referred to as Don Key. Looks like former leader Bill English will be new deputy.

We had two arrests in the case of the molested Dutch honeymooners, which is very good. Heidi said it did make news over there when it happened but possibly more fuss made here.

The stadium debate raged with votes at Auckland City (yes) and Auckland Regional Council (no). Huge waste of effort.

Bizarre plane crash on Kaipara harbour. Light plan made emergency landing on the beach because of bad weather, stayed the night in a tent, then took off next morning, got about 70m up and then plummeted into the water killing both people on board.

WORLD NEWS

Iraq seem to be increasing the casualty rates, one bombing event (about six bombs) took out about 160 people.

REAL SPORT

Hannah qualified first in high jump for interschool, which was very good, she was very pleased. Interschool athletics isn't until 5th December.

Thursday night Rory's club team played our club B team, wasn't pretty, wasn't fun. Think it was 17-1.

Finals night for water polo and the Sharks team convincingly won their playoff for third 8-1. Hannah scored two goals. The Div 3 Ponsonby team also won their playoff for 3rd so Ponsonby came 3rd in three of the four leagues.

On Saturday Hannah's team played Marist B, they lost 3-6 but did better than they did against Marist C (which was 2-6).

Rory's team also played Marist B boys. Only 1-0 end of first quarter but they won 14-2 in the end. Rory bagged four goals including two breakaways, which he reckons are his first two this season (he scored most from

SPORT

The League final was 12-12 at full time but the Aussies managed to score first in sudden death. Sounds like an exciting game. Kiwis tried pretty hard.

All Blacks thumped Wales 45-10. Aussie beat Scotland 44-15, they needed a win, the Boks beat England 25-14, France edged out the Argies 27-26.

Man Utd were 1-0 up against Chelsea but drew 1-1. Newcastle got a 1-0 win over Portsmouth. Bolton beat Arsenal 3-1, Liverpool beat Man City 1-0.

The Knights were up 1-0 then lost 1-4 to Perth Glory. They are crap.

The Aussies seem unstoppable, the Poms have to survive the final day with five wickets in the first Ashes test.

MY SAD LIFE

It is nephew Ben Tucker's sixth birthday today. Happy birthday Ben.

Forgot to mention that Hannah and I went to the gypsy fair on Saturday. It was wet, in terms of weather and content but Hannah was interested. The rain did not help them at all.

A Magic Bullet arrived in the mail Thursday morning. The kids bought it on trademe. It's a blender. They felt self-actualisation was possible only through the Magic Bullet. It can make an omelette in ten seconds, etc. Almost everything in the fridge, freezer, and pantry, was tested in it within 24 hours. They made so much mess and so much noise, I hate the thing already.

More exciting for Hannah was that Thursday was also the day of the sale she has been waiting for. She has wanted to purchase a set of Nike Air Force Ones (shoes) for a long time. Her birthday haul nearly gave her enough to do so (they cost over $200 here). This sale meant 30% off, a saving of $60 is worthwhile, and Hannah got wind of this about three weeks ago so she was very prepared for it. So she bought the shoes, and some black skinny jeans, and was in heaven with a new school bag as well (long story, Rory's died, needed repair, got replaced, he already decided he was happy with bag he was using, so we exchanged new one for one for Hannah. Told you it was long). Our little material girl was very happy. Got photos of her in the new gear before she went to school on Friday. Clothes maketh the woman, I think they say.

The Magic Bullet was also a source of annoyance, mess, and disruption on Friday and Saturday. By Sunday they had got sick of it (my tolerance ended considerably earlier). I now have fantasies about using any kind of a bullet or perhaps a large mallet on it.

We saw Roger on Saturday, and the rest of the Grants. Interesting revelations from Becky about the dreaded Parahaha valley. Roger and Sonny had proudly posed around the sign they shot with an air rifle during our climb through there in January. One facet of that story they omitted was that their targets included, shall we say less inanimate items? Becky's knee took a hit from an "accidental" discharge. Hmmmmmmm.

Went up to Algies yesterday to visit Judy and Sophie. Dog was better behaved than the children. Maybe we should have taken the Magic Bullet with us (and left it behind).

In the next three weekend we have North Island Intermediate Champs, U14 Playoffs in Auckland and Tauranga, and U14 Nationals in Wellington (as well as Hannah's dance show, rehearsals for which haven't been getting in the way, yet).

That'll do for now, better hit send while I still have a link to the real world.

Hannah is a shot putter and I get an unplanned swim - 20/11/06

LOCAL NEWS

We've had a lot of fuss about a couple of ice bergs floating northward past Dunedin. Helicopter operators have been doing very well flying people out to see it. We've had it auctioned on trademe (the first auction had over 80,000 hits and reached 99 million dollars before administrators pulled it.

A report was released about a constable that wasn't having a good day. He tasered himself, an innocent 16 yo bystander, and then pepper sprayed an innocent woman. Wasn't quite as bad as that sounds, he was attending to a domestic dispute and the offender kept using his family as shields. The officer used the taser five times at the incident. Arrests have been made in both cases.

Another couple of murders in South Auckland over the weekend, ten in five months now. Not making it the place to be.

We continue to hear about the proposed stadium options. Over, and over, and over. Be happy that you are not exposed to it.

A toxic fire at a landfill has had residents evacuated in the Hawkes Bay.

Not sure if I mentioned this but the gun shop owner who shot a machete-wielding assailant in the stomach (he lived) is to face charges. I would sincerely hope that this is just the police going through the motions and not a serious attempt to jail the guy for defending himself and co-workers. No idea what happened to the assailant (in jail terms).

Weather in Wellington not great, heavy rain on a couple of days meant more slips.

Someone is building an indoor glacier near Fox Glacier for those rainy days. Wouldn't a marquee be cheaper?

WORLD NEWS

Tonga erupted into rioting this week. People died in some of the many fires that were lit. The people seem a little pissed with the lack of democracy. Australia and New Zealand have sent some troops to help calm things down. Tourists are still leaving.

Actor Jack Palance died this week, so did Milton Friedman the economist.

OJ Simpson's new "I didn't do it but if I did here is how it would have happened" book and tv interview are beyond the pale. A bizarre combination of celebrity, voyeurism, and exploitation that is wrong on every imaginable level.

The TomKat wedding is slightly worse.

REAL SPORT

I thought we had a quiet weekend for polo but there were eight games, four for Hannah, three for Rory. Hannah also had touch rugby and athletics for school.

Touch rugby was first up. I looked after the girls team. Many were familiar faces in the team. They lost their first two games, 1-2 and 0-1, then had 0-0 draw, then they won their next three games 1-0, 2-1, 3-0. Hannah scored two tries and was pretty good on tackles. She got an MVP award at assembly for her effort (although there were others who also contributed considerably, she was one of the better ones).

Athletics Day was at the track at Mt Smart. Hannah repeated Rory's approach, entered everything but 1500m. She got a 3 (maximum points) in all the field events. She has high jump on Monday at school to find out who goes to inter-school but she came second in shot put so she is going to inter-school anyway (which she is very happy about). She really isn't built like a shot putter.

Friday night polo. Well, I got ejected from the first game - wasn't really fair but the ref (someone we know very well) was being a git so I think my exclamation was justified (all I said was "Aww what???" quite loudly). Rory's Springs team lost 4-5 to Liston. I think he got one goal, didn't see much of second half. Hannah's mixed team were playing top qualifier, loaded with boys (one girl, a 14B club player, the boys make up a large chunk of the club 14B team). It did not help that the best three boys from the team weren't there (so we had three boys in the team and the girls were generally better than all of them. It was very much a losing battle, final score was 0-15. Was a different story when the girls team played Glen Eden straight afterwards. This game was quite a reversal. This was the playoff for 3rd/4th for the season. Although Glen Eden had a couple of very capable players they only had six, so played one short. At first I thought the girls would blow it but they settled down and slowly scored to build a lead. In the end the final score was 8-0, but it did take a while to stretch the lead out. I was very pleased they kept them scoreless, there were a few hairy moments early on. As the coach, I was given a swimming lesson after the game. The girls were very pleased and many of them played their best yet.

Saturday, Hannah's club team were up 2-0 against Marist White then some of them completely lost it and they ended up losing 2-6. It was like a slow motion car accident. Hannah didn't get subbed off, which I didn't notice during the game, she worked exceedingly hard and was probably player of the game. I think many suffered from having big night the previous evening as many of them had played in final and 3/4th playoff the night before.

Sunday, Hannah's club team were first up against Tauranga B. They trailed 0-4 but finally came right and clawed their way back. Final score was 5-6 loss but still better than it looked for a while.

Then Rory's team played against Tauranga B, who I saw hand out a bit of a lesson to the Waitak B team about 14-4. Rory's team were in much better form than last week, they won 15-5. Rory scored the first goal in each of the first three quarters. Lewis, the goalie, scored one from goal and then came out in the fourth quarter (a rare occurrence) and scored three more.

Then Hannah (and another younger sister of a boys team player, Charlotte) played for Western Springs Girls, again, they played Kaipara College. They were down 0-2 but came back to lead 3-2 before the other team equalised, final score was 3-3 draw. Probably the best result so far for them. It was kind of confusing. The team had three Hannahs and two Charlottes.

Rory's school team lost 4-8 to Northcote College.

SPORT

Man Utd came back from 0-1 down against Sheffield U thanks to Rooney to win 2-1. Newcastle looked like they could win against Arsenal but Henry equalised for 1-1. Man City beat Fulham 3-1.

The Argies beat the Italians 23-16. The Boks blew a good lead against England to lose 21-23. Ireland beat Australia 21-6.

The All Blacks beat France 23-11.

Australia beat Great Britain in the last round robin in the League. Now New Zealand plays Australia in the final but the whole thing is a bit bizarre (after New Zealand lost points for playing a foreigner).

MY SAD LIFE

It's been pretty hard to have a life that doesn't require inclusion in the REAL SPORT section this week. I spent the day at the touch tournament on Tuesday, I managed to fit some work in on Wednesday whilst seeing Hannah in some of her athletics on Wednesday. Sunday I went to West Wave three times, so I suppose you could say I spent most of the day at the pool or on the North-western Motorway. Don't get me wrong, I want to be there for the games they play, it is important to them and us. It just makes friends and relatives think we are avoiding them.

Saw Gavin briefly on Wednesday. Saw Paul briefly on Thursday. Gavin and Yana are tying the knot on 1st December. I greatly appreciate that he isn't having a big thing and keeping it simple. In case I haven't mentioned it before, I hate weddings.

It is Judy's birthday on Wednesday.

Thursday marks the third anniversary of Ross Cole's passing.

Better go, got lots of work to do.

Bad weekend for tourists in NZ - 13/11/06

Shops have Christmas decorations out. It's just not right.

LOCAL NEWS

Nasty abduction of Dutch honeymooners which included rape and theft, and being left in Kawakawa (which is offensive enough in itself). Not a great way to increase tourism from that part of Europe (Heidi, I assume you guys heard about it over there?)

A 66 year old Japanese tourist was found dead at the bottom of the steep hill below the gondola in Queenstown. He went missing at dinner in the restaurant up above. No news of what happened yet.

The dodgy weather on Thursday was quite big news. We had lines down all over Auckland and bits of tree scattered on the streets.

A memorial to New Zealand's contribution to England in time of war was dedicated in Hyde Park on the weekend. It includes 16 large pointy knob-ends, six of which light up to represent the Southern Cross (shown in the way it appears on the Australian flag, interesting).

Debate over a new stadium in Auckland for the Rugby World Cup in 2011 continued. The Government confirmed they favour a waterfront stadium being built but lots don't. I suspect this is going to be a topic of news until 2011, I can hardly wait.

The qualifications authority said that it would accept txt language in exams. What a load of rubbish. I have told the kids that it does not matter what is "acceptable" the whole point in an exam is being as sure as you can be that the examiner will understand your answers so that you can be marked fairly. Introducing doubt by using pidgin is nothing short of futile and foolhardy.

Yet another example of pathetic news was a double page spread on Tim Shadbolt's ex-wife telling us what a prick he is in Sunday's paper. That's not news, it's not interesting. I assume there will be a book or something.

WORLD NEWS

The Democrats thumped the Republicans in American mid-term elections. GW may get the message, but Donald Rumsfeld was given the boot. I am not sure GW is capable of understanding even the simplest message hand delivered and written in non-joined-up writing.

Saddam was sentenced to hang. I assume he is appealing, although not sure anyone would find him appealing.

REAL SPORT

We had seven water polo games this weekend, although four were all in the same place on Friday night.

Rory's school team were playing Mt Roskill, and lost 3-7. Rory scored a goal, so he broke the drought.

Hannah's first game was against a team that had to default because they didn't have enough players, so the result didn't really matter. The opposition was also loaded with older kids that were good players. Hannah scored about three goals.

Then Hannah played for Western Springs Girls, against Mt Albert Grammar. They lost about 1-13. I think Hannah has now played for seven different teams this year.

Finally, on Friday night, Hannah's intermediate girls played the top team in a semi-final. They stayed in touch for quite a while, it was 4-4 at the end of the third quarter. Final score was a 4-6 loss but they did very well. Hannah scored once.

Saturday was a game versus Marist for Rory, tough game, Rory's team hadn't played for a fortnight. Rory scored one goal. They lost 4-8 but scored the last three goals so they still have it in there somewhere.

Sunday, Rory went to Millennium for a rematch against Northsport who they beat in the final of the Panpacs. Rory's team was missing four players due to swim meets. They kept it close but lost 5-6, Rory scored 1.

Hannah's team played Mountfort Park, down at Mountfort Park in Manurewa about the same time as Rory's game. Her game was tight to start with 0-0 end of first quarter, but they opened up a lead to win 6-2, good result for them after the towelling last weekend. Hannah did not score but was invaluable as always.

SPORT

Lots of rugby played in Northern hemisphere this weekend. Some interestingly unexpected results, too. England lost to Argentina 18-25 in rugby, Australia beat Italy but 25-18 too but that was not particularly convincing. Ireland gave the Boks a lesson, too, 32-15.

The All Blacks handed the French a little bit of an old-fashioned rogering 47-3. The French played like merde.

The Kiwis beat Great Britain thumping them 34-4.

Chelsea won 4-0 over poor old Watford, better than last week. Wigan beat Charlton 3-2, Man Utd beat Blackburn 1-0, Blackburn really aren't having a good season. Newcastle drew with Man City, 0-0. The Arse whipped Liverpool 3-0, who are not having a good season either. Reading beat Spurs 3-1 after trailing 0-1 earlier.

MY SAD LIFE

On Friday, Paul and I took the kids (and Rory's friend Cassidy) out of school a little early to go to Big Boys Toys. Rory's school had a power cut at 10:30. The rule is that if the power is out for two hours they have to be sent home. Everyone at Western Springs thought they would be going home but the power came back on about 12:25, so there was considerable disappointment. Except Cassidy and Rory, who left at 12:30 anyway. But before that, they were worried that their big afternoon off wasn't going to be quite so exclusive. We had fun at BBT, the boys disappeared. Hannah went to the girls only area. Paul chatted with an ex of Roger's (he runs into them everywhere, Shin, there must be heaps of them).

Rory had school sports dinner (prize giving) on Friday night (which is why their girls team was heavily under strength). Diana took him because I was busy with the girls. Rory got a prize for water polo (surprise) and one for athletics (which really was a surprise). The someone called Rob Clarke got a prize for some unknown reason and Diana and Rory both said "what do you know, there's another Rob Clarke at the school". There wasn't. It was for me. Wallies. At the dinner, Rory's science teacher asked him how Big Boys Toys was. He didn't cope very well with a coherent response, it went something like "Um, I don't know what you mean, fnurgle". It wasn't exactly a state secret, they had told everyone in the class that they were going. I don't think the science teacher was too bothered about Rory skipping class, he got 100% in a test this week (but it was pretty easy).

I was free-forming in the car about how there isn't a hilarious crash unit or a hilarious fraud office (because they have serious ones, that are headed by Sam the Eagle). Rory asked if he needed to go to the serious burns unit (because of his serious sideburns), which was kind of funny.

I loaded new songs on my iPod. You may not think this is news but it is more than two years since this feat has been achieved. Even better, I found out it was a 20Gb not a 10Gb as I previously thought. Loaded some new stuff and ditched some baaaad stuff. As I write this I am listening to good old JS Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D, which was always a favourite of mine (which I think came from Roger via Paul).

Popped in to see my Uncle Chris in Papatoetoe with Mum and Hannah before Hannah's game on Sunday. His dog, Bella, wasn't keen on me but Hannah used a ball throwing thing with her for a while which kept everyone entertained. Also saw Chris Jr, who is currently spending lots of time and money pimping his cars and repairing his motorcycle. He has the spare funds because he isn't paying his parents a lot of rent.

I am compiling a list of things to do over Christmas, jobs around the house mostly. The list is starting to get longer than I would like. To that end I managed to fashion a cover for a sewer inspection thing on Sunday (we had a blockage on Saturday and the plumber had to remove concrete over it to get in there, and I think putting concrete over it again seemed futile if this is likely to reoccur).

It was Helen's birthday on Saturday. It is Nanny's birthday today (84, not out) and Caitlin's (6). Hannah went to Caitlin's party but everyone else went to Rory's Saturday game.

Weather is nice, right now, I can hear some happy birds.
Time for some work.

A big weekend away, some big sporting results, Kathryn hits a big number - 06/11/06

LOCAL NEWS

Guy Fawkes. What a load of bollocks. I hope it is over. Forever.

Last week, some Christchurch inventor showed the press his wonderful methods for filtering water for use in the third world. He demonstrated by filtering raw sewerage and Avon river water and then offering everyone a drink. It all seemed very impressive until this week when we got stories about how all the journalists and cameramen ended up violently ill. The wife of the inventor reckoned that the filter is fine and they got some cross contamination when he didn't wash his hands. Sounds a bit far-fetched but exceedingly embarrassing regardless.

A man who was earning $50,000 a fortnight through multiple identities on the benefit has been caught with $750k in cash buried on his section. The guy is reported to have done the same thing in Australia. Not sure who the stupid party in this is.

Five skydivers left a plane a little sooner than expected when the engine started smoking, the plane crashed in a vineyard. The pilot had to come down the hard way, but was okay. I wonder if they have airbags in small aircraft?

A Northland prisoner faked a heart attack and escaped from the hospital.

Police have found a stash of stun guns held by gangs here. In Aussie they have found RPGs.

Former overpaid talking head, Judy Bailey, released her biography. We had lots of interviews. Nobody cares. Charging people for a book explaining why she felt she was worth $800,000 per year to basically read out loud is beyond the pale. There are not enough words in the dictionary night deluded, pathetic, and ridiculous to adequately describe this. In fact, these people that seem to only give interviews when they've released a book or a film should all realise they are admitting they need a special event to make them interesting.

The Stern Report on Global Warming was a very stern warning and all the puns were over-used. Not sure why things are different now but I am of the firm view that until our economy ceases to demand growth, things can only get worse.

WORLD NEWS

Fiji continues to stagger towards a coup. Laisenia Qarase, the PM, seems in deep water. I shared a room with him in Tuvalu back in 1992. He is a very clever and sensible chap.

Saddam has finally been sentenced to hang. He seems to be less than impressed.

Former presidential hopefully John Kerry has been slammed for a failed joke that was little more than a home truth.

REAL SPORT

Hannah's club team played Northsport B, who are really being cheap and their B teams should both be in division 1. Final score was 0-19. Hannah worked hard, she is very competent. Needs a little more speed but reads the game well and very feisty. We just need a few more like that.

SPORT

The Aussies beat New Zealand by 34 runs in the semi. Bollocks. They then thumped the Windies in the final, who were all out for 138.

Liverpool beat Reading 2-0, Man Utd beat Portsmouth 3-0, Sheffield Utd downed poor old Newcastle 1-0, Fulham beat Everton 1-0, Charlton beat Man City 1-0. West Ham beat Arsenal 1-0 and really big news was Spurs beating Chelsea 2-1 after being 0-1 down.

The All Blacks beat England 41-20. Australia drew 29-29 with Wales.

The Knights had a rare win, 1-0 over the second placed team who scored an own goal.

MY SAD LIFE

Lots of debate in our household about Rory going to the school sports dinner this coming Friday. I think he is going now. Good chance he will get something for water polo.

Hannah had photos at school for the year book. She was in nine photos for various sports teams and things. More than Rory in his first year, I think.

Kath turns the big 4-0 on Wednesday. She already has most of her presents. Hannah made her a necklace out of beads, which was pretty cool. Ross stood around while she chose herself a necklace, too.

I developed my usual full-blown cough Wednesday/Thursday, then on Friday night it was gone. Instead of coughing all night like I had the previous two nights, not a single cough. I consider this to be nothing short of a minor miracle. I have no idea why, either, which is a bit of a bugger. Funnily enough, I did cough a very little last night, after we returned from Waiheke.

I think Brett is living in Melbourne now. I am still toying with popping over but free weekends do not exist.

Diana has her exam tomorrow. She has today off work to study and prepare.

After weeks of hassles with my internet connection, it leapt up from 64kbps to over 900kbps, about 50% faster than it has ever been. Not sure what has been going on but happy now.

WEEKEND AWAY

Spent the weekend on Waiheke island with the Goodins and Clares. Was a very quiet, idyllic spot, and the weather was perfect. We took the cars over which made it easier. The ferry was very nice. We stayed in two houses about ten minutes walk apart (depending on who is doing the walking, long story, won’t go there). Charles stayed with us, the Clares all stayed together in the big house, and it was very big - three bathrooms in the main house and another in the sleepout. Like I said, it was very big. So big that half the showers seemed to be two man ones. Um, not two MAN ones, two person ones.

On Saturday we went to the market at Ostend, lots of yummy food including Hungarian deep fried bread covered in pesto, fresh oysters, very nice bread, French chocolate, and stuffed olives. After lunch, we went off to Stony Batter, where there are tunnels and former gun emplacements. The walk to and from the car park wore me out, then on the way back we stopped at Onetangi and played touch rugby, which knackered the old men much more (me, Ross, and Charles). The old women were more sensible and watched.

Saturday night we had a big dinner, we pulled the large dining table out onto the deck and put the other table on the end.

Waiheke really is the home of the hippy. You couldn't get in to one restaurant without a kaftan, honest.

The kids all played together very well, a few injuries but no major dramas. I took a lot more photos of the girls than the boys, the boys tended to disappear a lot (looking for more lemons, mostly).

Rory took the three-man slingshot. We were shooting lemons into the water from the deck. I invented the double-bagged water balloon, because the kept breaking up when they were fired or in mid-air. On Sunday morning we took it down to the beach and used it. One lemon broke into four pieces on hitting the water. He managed to hit a boat with one, which was childish but funny. Even for me and Tony Brown, we couldn't help but wear a goofy smile.

It was a very good change of pace. I took quite a few photos, many were of tuis, wood pigeons, and a few seagulls. The others return to the rat race today, we came back early because of water polo and things.

TEN YEARS AGO

Well, we had no obvious government (which was delightful). I was weeding the lawn back then. Penny had just done a 250 table even for Princess Di (she was still alive, but not for long). It was Melbourne Cup day on the Tuesday (just like it is tomorrow, always first Tuesday in November). Some rugby players got married post season. People weren't happy about fireworks. It was the tenth anniversary of ComputerWorld (wonder if today's edition will be 20th?). We committed the most heinous hate crime I can imagine, we bought a barbecue. I played petanque with Ross and Barry. My emails have gone west from here for about four months, not sure what happened to them (you still got them, Paul?).

That'll do for this week.

Meat gets revenge and finally an arrest in Kahui case - 30/10/06

Weather hasn't been too flash last 24 hours or so.

LOCAL NEWS

A woman was jailed for contempt of court for not revealing the location of her son. The court has ordered he be cared for by his father and she disagrees.

A hunter stabbed himself in the groin while de-boning a deer. They say "meat is murder", in this case the meat got it's own back. He got rescued.

Police exercised a warrant and searched electorate and parliamentary offices of the inaugural winner of the dodgy cabinet minister of the year award, Mr Taito Philip Field (named after the company that made a version of the original Space Invaders game). I think he had plenty of warning and the chances of anything incriminating being found was pretty low.

Chris Kahui, 21 year old ex-father of the fabled Kahui twins, was charged with their murder on Friday. He will fight the charges, which is hardly surprising if he denied that he was responsible for four months prior to the charges being laid.

A tramper fell in a river in Nelson and managed to get out after floating for two hours.

Fireworks went on sale this week, and we had a spate of fires and vandalism over the weekend. I'm sorry, I don't believe that giving people the right to damage other people's property and prevent them sleeping and harass their pets and create litter and clag up hospital emergency services and fire fighters is a fundamental right. Ban the buggers and let's hurry it up.

Not a good weekend on the roads, twice as many fatalities as the weekend before, which was a holiday weekend. Not surprising from what we saw on way home from Hamilton. We saw two accidents in about two kilometres on the return leg, both on the other side of the road. One car rolled on the Bombay hill.

WORLD NEWS

Two New Zealand police escorts lost a Polish prisoner at Heathrow when escorting him home.

A Nigerian airliner crashed, with 100 on board. The fourth in a year. They are running out of airliners. Would you lease them one? I certainly wouldn't, unless it was overinsured.

The fire in California is massive, thousands of hectares. That is pretty big.

Fidel Castro is being measured up for a midget. Doesn't look good.

REAL SPORT

Hannah played for Ponsonby Marlins, scored two goals but team lost 3-8. Her proper team, the Sharks, lost 3-6 to another Rangeview team, Hannah scored one.

Rory's school team lost 4-5 to Avondale, he didn't score.

We went to Hamilton to play Waikato on Sunday. Rory's team won 6-4 but it was quite niggly. Rory did not score. Hannah's team played right afterward (they are C team, playing Waikato B girls) and won 8-3, which was pretty cool. Hannah scored one goal.

SPORT

The Black Caps won their game against Pakistan, qualifying them to play in the semi-finals, which was a good result. Was Stephen Fleming's 194th ODI as captain, a record. We play the Aussies on Wednesday, not good.

Man Utd thumped Bolton 4-0, Rooney got a hat-trick, Liverpool beat Villa 3-1, Chelsea beat Sheffield United 2-0, Watford drew 0-0 with Spurs, the Arse drew 1-1 with Everton. West Ham got a rare win, beating Blackburn 2-1.

Kiwis beat Great Britain in the league, about 18-13 I think.

MY SAD LIFE

Hannah has made a touch team for school, not sure which one (girls or mixed). Think the tournament is next week.

Hannah also went off with her friend Josie to tennis on Saturday morning. Seemed to have a good time, they walked home and then baked a lemon tart and triple chocolate cookies (they were really double chocolate but they put one lot of chocolate in twice).

The trip to Hamilton wasn't too bad, but weather wasn't great on the way home, it rained most of the way. We stopped at Candyland on the way home, got some supplies for Halloween tomorrow. I told the kids we would only go if both their teams won their games, which they did, which was good.

Thomas turned eight on Friday. He had a party at Megazone.

Had dinner with Allan and Jacqui on Saturday night. Also Brett, who heads to Melbourne to live today, and Paul. Emma was there for a while, she is off to Brisbane over summer, she turns 20 in a couple of weeks.

Rory bought a three-man slingshot on trademe. They aren't exactly complicated. Anyway, Paul and I went with him and Cassidy down to the school. Paul and I held each end of it (we were sort of over-qualified as substitutes for sticks), Rory was the aimer, Cassidy was the target. It was a bit of fun, mostly from the misfires.

Rory has had Cassidy over at our house a lot lately. He only lives about 500 metres away. Cassidy has joined the school polo team.

Managed to have a crack at the prickles in the lawn on Saturday, hard work but made a good dent. Need to have another go but one part looks like we have gophers or something.

I have been semi-miserable with a cold this week, not really improving yet but hasn't turned into a cough, so far.

That'll do for now.

Bit short, sorry about that, better than nothing I suppose - 23/10/06

Labour Day today so no work today. Kind of forgot to hit send too, so sorry it is late.

NEWS

Parliament pushed through a law to clarify Government Services spending (this is where the loophole supposedly created confusion in election spending). It was a hard fought battle.

The weekend road toll started badly but was all quiet for a while.

Parliament is also debating the drinking age, possibly increasing it to 20 again after it has been at 18 for seven years.

An 80-yo woman was attacked by three pig dogs. Not sure how it occurred, can't see why there needed to be three of them, one would have done the trick. She was in pretty bad shape.

Been news about a dodgy fake nurse visiting hospitals. Turns out she was a he, and he has been done for impersonating policewomen before. Sounds like he has quite a thing for women in uniform.

WORLDS NEWS

Madonna's new child is in the news far too much, it's not that interesting. Same goes for Paul and Heather's divorce. Why are such things anything other than confidential to the parties?

SPORT

Wigan thumped Man City 4-0, Chelsea beat Portsmouth 2-1, Everton came back from last week and won 2-0 Sheffield United. Man Utd beat Liverpool 2-0, yay! Bolton beat Blackburn 1-0, but Blackburn MISSED 2 penalties, good grief. Arsenal beat Reading. Middlesbrough beat poor old Newcastle.

Waikato beat Wellington 37-31 in final of rugby.

The Aussies beat Silver Ferns in the final netball test and the kiwis in the final League test.

Cricketers beat SA in their first match, lost to Sri Lanka, not really keeping track of things.

All Black team was announced yesterday, there were people in it.

MY SAD LIFE

Spent a chunk of the weekend at Armageddon, with the kids. They kids are getting pretty proficient at these things, know what to do and how. They suss out the free stuff and take advantage to the fullest. Rory and Cassidy managed to get something like 36 free games at the arcade, Hannah got about six beanie babies, and they survived on corn chips and chocolate popcorn washed down with redbull and E2 (both energy drinks). Was good to see a bunch of the usual suspects, both other stallholders and the 501st guys.

Rory was sick this week. Slept a lot on Tuesday, seemed okay Wednesday, not good Thursday night. Missed water polo training twice but no game on the weekend.

Hannah's new water polo team looks quite good. Their first game is next weekend.

Haven't really spent much time at home, been busy, spent a lot of evenings at the pool despite ill-health with Rory.

I think Brett is returning to Melbourne soon, I expect to hear exactly when shortly.

Oh well, pretty poor effort this week. Will try harder next week.

The Government is making more money than the rest of the country put together - 16/10/06

Weather not great today.

LOCAL NEWS

The government opened the books this week, and announced an eleven billion dollar surplus. This is the second highest in the world, not per capita, second highest full stop. I suppose it is good news, much better than a deficit. If the waste was reduced it would be more like thirteen billion, I reckon.

The audit report on the election spending was finally released and although all parties are considered to have transgressed, the Maori Party over spent $54 and the Labour Party managed over $800,000. National only came in with $11,000.

Nasty things are afoot in a Christchurch hospital with three elderly people dying from necrotising fasciitis.

There was another double homicide in west Auckland, this time in Te Atatu.

Winston Peters has disappointed sensible voters by announcing he will stand (yet again) at the next election. He has also announced a new series of bribes to appeal to grey power (free jelly meat and mobility scooter subsidies or something). You would think after being ditched by Tauranga that he would get the message.

WORLD NEWS

North Korea have joined the nuclear weapons club. All the other members condemned this, of course. I expect that North Korea have already drafted their statement frowning upon the next country to detonate their first nuclear weapon.

Then we got news over the weekend that Australia are contemplating the use of nuclear power. To be honest, I really thought they already had it. Not sure how they generate their power, it's not like they have masses of rivers for hydro like we do.

REAL SPORT

Rory's school team lost 2-9 to Westlake B on Friday night, there was barely enough players, no subs. Westlake is loaded with Northsport players, they are pretty good across the board. Rory got one goal but it was not pretty.

Well, Rory is in 14A team, Hannah is in 14C team. It is as I have foreseen. Hannah did okay in her trial but she was only there one night (because of camp) and I really didn't think the B team would be a good place for her as they play Div 1 and she has a shot at being a started in the C team.

Rory was pretty happy with the result in the lactic acid test (five sets of four laps). It turned out that the test involved 3 minute intervals, he had done a few at 2 minute intervals so 3 minutes seemed easy.

Rory's team had a game on Sunday against Rotorua, they won 15-3. Rory scored four goals, and they were all good quality centre-forward goals. The centre-forward basically sits in front of goal with a defender climbing all over them, it's very hard work.

SPORT

Chelsea beat Reading but lost two goalies in the process, both getting concussed, Bolton beat Newcastle 2-1. Man Utd beat Wigan 3-1, Ollie scored one. Arsenal beat Watford 3-0, Liverpool drew 1-1 with Blackburn.

The Silver Ferns lost to Australia in the first game and won the second, the decider is Tuesday night, I think.

Wellington beat Auckland soundly 30-15, and Waikato beat Otago 44-15, they play each other in the final.

The Kangaroos beat the Kiwis (League in case you aren't sure) 30-18.

MY SAD LIFE

Very quiet week in the house with Hannah away at camp. Rory was at the pool every weeknight and so there was basically only one person in the house on any given night (I had Wednesday off). It got noisy again on Friday night.

Hannah has been quite social, off to movies and other houses over weekend. Rory had a fellow troglodyte over on Sunday.

Took the Pajero to the pool on Saturday and picked up the kayaks from Gavin's on the way home. Was a bit worried about it overheating so stopped in at Dave's (Paul & Roger's Dad) to see what he thought about it. Had to stop on motorway, to check the kayaks because they were moving around in the wind. Made it home eventually.

Gavin and Yana have acquired a puppy, a Labrador but seemed pretty fluffy for a Labrador, no name yet, a female.

Happy birthday to Paul, 39 today. We went out to dinner with him on Saturday night.

Rory refereed at an intermediate tournament on Sunday after his game, so had to return to the pool to pick him up. I think my car just knows which way to go.

Been swimming pretty regularly lately, usually three or four swims a week, which isn't bad. Going to be possibly more now that club polo is in full swing, one or both kids have trainings Monday to Thursday with games dotted Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Knocked off 50 lengths in about 27:30 which is good, I want to do it in 25. My heart rate was 144 when I finished which is in a good place for that sort of effort.

Work continues to be quite busy, should be like that for a little while yet. So much for the theory of going to work for a rest.

ADVERTISEMENTS, A SAD PIECE OF STATING THE OBVIOUS

Okay, there are some that say some pretty futile things in their attempt to make the world buy their products?

An advert for antiseptic soap:
"He exposes himself every day" (to bacteria, but there is a loooong pause, and it just sounds wrong)

"You can tell you've been to Autel Kitchen Appliances"(jingle)
Really? Because they give you a receipt or perhaps a t-shirt that says "I've been to Autel Kitchen Appliances" And so what if you can tell you've been there?

"A tea that listens to your life"
Oh. So the other teas can't listen, or they can but choose to ignore you?

TEN YEARS AGO

Back then, I still remembered that Kelly's (a dog we had, but Gavin adopted, who died about a year ago) birthday was 6th October. We bought a gas barbecue. I can't believe I agreed to that. I hate barbecues, what was I thinking? Or perhaps I didn't know I hated them then. I wonder if it was the beginning of it with numerous events without an apron where my best shorts would get covered in grease and I would stand there burning perfectly good meat in the rain. The Goodin brothers attended the barbecue's inauguration with their wives and we played petanque (we had a petanque court until we added on to the house). Gavin was re-writing the end of his book, now going for the record for the most read book never published.

Ah well, work beckons.

Aah, can you feel the serenity? (and late news of a new arrival, sorry Alex) - 09/10/06

Everyone is back to school today, the house is quiet, I can work in peace. I think you endure hardship so you can appreciate what you have when life returns to normal.

LOCAL NEWS

Two women were in a car for two days after a crash were finally found by tourists taking photos of the scenery. They should recover. Lesson here is only crash over the edge of a precipice somewhere scenic. Mind you, I can't tell why they didn't climb the hill themselves, I think both of them could get out of the car.

Two nasty head-on accidents on Tuesday with a few fatalities.

News was whinging about people running red lights this week. I think summary execution for basic ignorance on the road should be legal, sod mucking around with red light cameras.

Some "cultural" group in Rotorua are upset about having the time of their "show" changed. Load of bollocks, nobody should remotely care about this. It's a basic employment contract issue.

Pseudo-actress Keisha Castle-Hughes has announced she is pregnant at age 16. But it's okay, she's in a committed relationship. We've had a bunch of nobodies pronounce their view, and both ways.

There was a mini-eruption on Ruapehu. Bit of water and steam, not much else.

New Zealand Bathurst driver Mark Porter looked knackered after a crash at Bathurst on Friday in a warm up before the great race. He died yesterday.

An 8yo boy lost his hand in an accident involving a piece of rope and a car, it has been reconstructed and reattached in a ten hour operation.

WORLD NEWS

US has had three school shootings in about a week including the Amish school on Tuesday. Not quite sure what inspired the guy to do that one. We were wondering why these people don't go into a gang bar and start shooting or perhaps a tinny house. I mean, taking out a few scumbags before you go has to be more constructive, doesn't it?

We got news of former Aussie cricketer Craig McDermott being blackmailed over some sex tapes of him and his wife. Well, what a totally A grade halibut the man is. Questions: A) why make such a thing B) why does he think anyone in their right mind would want to see them anyway? C) Should blackmailing people this stupid actually be illegal?

A silly damn Australian was trying to drive a very long way in the outback in reverse, reaching speeds of up to 80km/hr. Must have been an Italian car.

REAL SPORT

No real sport to report, except Rory has water polo re-trials this week, three nights of it. Starts club and junior school polo this coming weekend.

SPORT

Wellington knocked Canterbury out of the finals 36-23 and Auckland sent BOP packing 46-14. Waikato swatted away Southland 24-12 (I think Waikato could win the thing). Otago utterly thumped North Harbour 56-21.

No prem league soccer this weekend. Scotland beat France in Euro 2008 match.

Fernando Alonso won the Jap Grand Prix and Schumacher has conceded he can't win the championship this year after his engine failed.

MY SAD LIFE

Um, kind of forgot to mention the birth of Alex, second son for Roger and Shin, brother for Ben, grandson for Olwyn & Dave, nephew for Paul and Symon. Paul got the confirmation via text when he visited us on Tuesday night in Orewa. Sorry, guys. I did remember just after I hit send.

Hannah seemed to have been considerably more organised this week than Rory. She stayed the night at Jess's house one night, went to the zoo, went to Rainbow's End. Rory sat around in his underpants, mostly.

Rory did have a sore neck this week, and then so did I two days later. Voltaren helped me out, it is truly a miracle drug.

Been thinking about doing a 2.8km harbour swim. Only thinking. It's a bloody long way.

Mildly interesting event on Friday night. We had a bad night Thursday with cat vomit, furballs, and a skink being caught. Friday we had to wash the duvet (don't ask). Because the cover was not ready we stole back the fur blanket thing from Rory. He was pretty annoyed, he's been doing his best to prevent it's return for quite some time, cunningly suggesting he leave it on his bed until the morning every time we notice it. Evil little bugger.

Hannah is off to camp tomorrow morning, will be quiet around here until Friday.

Judy returned Sunday-week ago from her trip to Fiji and Sydney, in better shape that she was for a few days (her return was delayed due to a lung infection).

We didn't know but Thomas Goodin broke his nose a couple of weeks ago, he fell off the couch while wrestling with the dog. It doesn't look noticeable at all, not sure if it did initially.

Haven't heard how Bambi's fireworks thing in Shanghai went, so can't have been too many casualties.

Our VCR died this week. This particular one has been with us for more than ten years, no question that it's had a good run. It's played a lot of Wizard of Oz, Barney, and Hocus Pocus in it's time. The kids beat it up with rocks. Nice.

On Thursday I realised that my link to the outside world was rather slow (64kilobits/s). We had technicians crawling all over the place on Friday but couldn't get it going any faster. I am hoping they are returning today.

Just found my car keys on the barbecue beside the garage padlock and the unlocked garage. Been there since yesterday morning. So much for security and putting the house alarm on.

Well, that about sums it up for the week, come along Mr Clarke, it's time for your nap….

Beware politicians that think they can dance, and Harbour win the Ranfurly Shield for the first time ever - 25/09/06

Haven't seen a paper this morning, so my news may be a little out of date (well, in terms of what happened two days ago).

LOCAL NEWS

A few years ago the Green Party lost voters by the thousand by boogying to hippy tunes at a conference. This week, two government ministers boogied for some ungodly reason (and it really was a crime against god). If the voiceover had described the scene as government ministers being tasered, we would have believed them. It was truly shocking. The news shows repeated the footage over and over again.

A local doctor has been banned from performing vasectomies after three failed on two men. I mean, let's think about this for a second. One guy got two failed vasectomies from the same Doctor. So, a guy botches your vasectomy so you go back to the same Doctor? Hello? Worse, these three failures resulted in three pregnancies. Again, please explain why you wouldn't consider having a test to prove you were shooting blanks if the same Doctor didn't get it right the first time. And what exactly did he cut and tie a knot it? That is what worries me. I mean, how can you miss? He has been banned from performing them for three years.

This week, this country's leaders continued to duke it out. Darth Helen described Don Brash as "cancerous", "corrosive" and various other things beginning with the letter "c". She and Pete Hodgson (now known as the Minister for Breakdancing While Being Tasered) suggested the National Party needs a new leader. Not sure if it is reverse psychology or what. We also got continuing crap about the Closed Brethren and how they supposedly spied on Darth Helen. Also, Don Brash ordered the Young Nats to remove a cartoon of Helen as Darth Vader (so it's not just me that sees the resemblance to a sith lord).

As for Peter Davis (Darth Helen's hubby) kissing a man, it turns out the man in the photo was Darth Helen.

News presenter for TV3, Clint Brown, was in an altercation with some normal people about a week ago and it appears that he got a little too carried away. It seems there is a very good chance he will be looking for a new career. Booze is not the friend of public people in public places.

Carpet manufacturer Feltex was put into receivership this week. They've been in trouble for a while. There is quite a bit of controversy around it, the company was only recently re-floated in the last couple of years.

It is multiple birth awareness week. So, you must increase your awareness of twins and triplets. Not at all sure why. I think Loud Shirt Day was more interesting.

WORLD NEWS

We got lots of coverage and updates on Richard Hammond, the Top Gear presenter who crashed in a jet propelled car. He seems to be on the road to recovery. Rory really enjoys Top Gear, as do I.

REAL SPORT

Hannah is in the middle of a large under 12 water polo tournament. On day one they played one of the best teams in their pool. They were 0-4 down at half time but came back to draw 4-4. Their other two games were more one-sided affairs, winning 13-0 and 16-0. Hannah got herself three goals in the 16-0 game, she was pretty pleased, she only had three shots at goal.

They won all their games on Sunday, 15-0, 8-3, 8-1, and 17-0. Hannah scored another four goals, didn't miss a shot. She just improved over the day before. I know we are biased but she has been incredibly solid.

Today is the final day, they can come anywhere between 1st and 4th, depending on how they go.

SPORT

In rugby, Auckland beat Otago 48-7, Waikato beat Wellington 37-21, and Tasman beat Northland 56-15. The really big news in rugby is that North Harbour beat Canterbury 21-17, in itself not earth shattering. The big thing is that it was a shield defence match and Harbour has taken the old Log of Wood for the first time in their 21 year history. Ten years ago, I vividly remember Harbour's nightmare run when they played the team that had just won the Shield three times in a row and lost all three times.

The NRL League Grand Final is next weekend, Melbourne Storm versus Brisbane Broncos. No Sydney teams in it, interesting.

Europe has won the Ryder Cup over the USA. Tiger Woods always plays like crap in this.

Newcastle drew 1-1 with Everton on goals and red cards. Liverpool beat Spurs 3-0, Arsenal beat Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday 3-0, Villa beat Charlton 2-0, Man Utd managed a 1-1 draw with lowly Reading, Chelsea didn't score against Fulham until late in the game but won 2-0.

MY SAD LIFE

I think many friends do not believe us when we say that we are busy on weekends and that we say so to avoid them or something. But this weekend, for example we had games at 12:30, 2:30, and 4:30 on Saturday and 10, 12, 2, and 4 on Sunday.

While we were at the water polo, Rory spent the weekend playing on the xBox in his underpants. That sounds wrong. He was wearing underpants while he played on the xBox. The xBox wasn't in Rory's underpants, there just wouldn't be room, and it would be silly.

This week I actually swam four times, doing 5km in a week for the first time in ages. I just haven't been able to manage it. I still slipped in a soccer meeting on Tuesday night as well.

You should have seen Diana's face on Sunday morning when I suggested Rory's hair was growing back straight. It was not a happy face. She threatened to kill me and Rory if it did grow back straight. I have witnesses (Hannah, if she was paying attention).

Gavin starts a new job today, working at a company that has been client of mine for 15 years or so. That will be kind of funny, although he doesn't work in an area that I have much to do with.

Diana has this week off after working full days for the last two weeks.

We saw Bambi and the girls on Saturday, at the pool. He's off on Wednesday to China for his semi-controlled explosion competition. He's thinking about buying a pyrotechnic company, but it is a long-shot. It is a sort of boom or bust business, that could easily go off with a bang or up in smoke (sorry, but it's really hard to resist).

We are beginning to wonder if people really believe us when we say we are busy on weekends or if they think we are avoiding them. I managed to go visit Paul for a short time between games on Sunday but proper socialisation is problematic. The next two weekends are going to be quite the opposite, which should be good.

Despite being tired from all her polo, Hannah has been very cheerful. She seems to be really enjoying it.

We are off to exotic Orewa for a few days, we desperately need a break.

Well, that sums it up for this week.

Dog swims to safety, political leaders having difficulty keeping private life private - 18/09/06

LOCAL NEWS

The big political news this week was rumours that Don Brash is having marital problems, and after we all assumed the blue pills weren't working (or perhaps the problem was that they were) we got news that he's had an affair. Yuck. Really, I mean, why would anyone want to with him? And I think I have a philosophical issue with anyone that can't keep it in their pants, politician, movie star, or whatever. Regardless, not sure that anyone really needs to know.

Following the attention on Brash, Darth Helen's husband has been under fire with a variety of rumours including that he is gay and that he was detained in California for something unsavoury (heard this last bit on Saturday, before I heard it in the media). Helen is not impressed. I have to say that while I suspect it is unlikely to be true, if any of it is true it is likely to severely tarnish the PMs already dented reputation.

As I continue to struggle with local newspapers, we got the premature halt of The Sopranos as front page news this week. The story then failed to point out that this is yet another reason why people are choosing to download TV shows from the net or just buy the box set of DVDs when they come out and not bother to watch them with advertisements when the broadcaster feels like it. If there was a TV license I would stop paying it (not actually sure I ever did when there was, but let's not go there). It also failed to ask advertisers what they thought about broadcasters driving away viewers by pissing them off and whether that might change their view of the value of television advertising.

A dog in a life jacket swam for 18ks to land after a boat capsized.

A Romanian man was severely beaten in South Auckland over the weekend. Things don't seem too good in South Auckland, don't think I would go there on a Saturday night.

News this week that New Zealand will host the 2008 under-17 women's Football World Cup. Hannah will be too young to play in it but there is a very good chance we will know someone in the team. New Zealand hosted the men's u-17 tournament in 1999, I think. It was pretty good.

THE PASSING OF A CROCODILE PERSON

Got some good feedback from around the world (thanks folks). Sounds like the crocodile hunter made more of an impression in Holland and Singapore. Germany wasn't too concerned about it, they didn't seem that convinced that he wasn't just a crocodile botherer/molester and England was possibly more interested than Germany but less than the others.

Ever wonder why he was called the Crocodile Hunter when he didn't actually hunt them?

WORLD NEWS

Apart from Pope Benedict offending Muslims and the space shuttle floating around I am just not noticing much about the world around me. Apparently a 70 year old nun was killed in Africa as a revenge attack for the Pope's comments.

REAL SPORT

Friday night was a dour affair. Spent five hours at the pool because Rory refereed. I also reffed my first match and was useless. Partly because I was reffing with someone who I know well and is a very experienced ref and I didn't want to call anything he didn't call (but I did, a few times, eventually). I also couldn't co-ordinate hand signals to save myself. Afterwards I went straight into coach mode and was waving my arms with signals to, um, guide the refs. Was interesting.

Hannah's mixed team played the top of the table team, and struggled. Not being a biased parent but once Hannah was marking the danger player he was pretty much out of the game. They lost 2-10.

The girls team played the top of the table girls team (Rangeview Pink, with pink swim caps and insane supporters), and were totally destroyed. The Rangeview team are a very good unit, and won 8-0.

Hannah also had a mini-tournament on Saturday in preparation for a tournament next weekend, three quick games, they won two, lost one. Rory refereed.

SPORT

The wheel blacks lost to USA 30-34 in final of wheelchair basketball on Saturday.

Auckland drew 22-22 with Waikato after being down 0-19 at half time. Wellington beat Canterbury 26-24, Northland had their second win of the season (and second in about four years)

Man Utd lost 0-1 to the Arse, Chelsea beat Liverpool 1-0. Newcastle had a win 2-0 over West Ham, Blackburn beat Man City 4-2.

Germany beat Australian 4-3 in the men's hockey final. New Zealand came 8th.

New Zealander Valerie Vili won gold in women's shot put in World Cup of Athletics over the weekend.

MY SAD LIFE

Another pretty busy week for me (I said for me, I know many of you live considerably busier lives). Went to Hamilton again, but this time I managed to go on Hannah's birthday. Not good. Just never joined the dots. Somehow I had two Thursdays, the one that was Hannah's birthday and the other one for going too Hamilton. I left at 6:30am before Hannah was awake, so she didn't open any presents, which was the main annoyance for her, I suspect. I think I had over 80 unread emails that night. Only managed to go through a chunk of them this morning.

We had a nice family dinner on Thursday night with the Grannies for Hannah's birthday. Rory seemed to use some phrases that most would consider entirely inappropriate with parents, let alone grandparents, in the room. I won't repeat them here. On the way home from Hamilton I stopped at Candyland and bought some things to redeem myself with Hannah, she seemed happy with what I got for her.

Judy is off in Fiji, as is Sarah, for a wedding. Judy has had her stitches out and is reasonably well recovered from her unplanned dive.

Kathryn is in NSW for the week, checking out customers over there. Ross is holding the fort at home.

Heard from Jack in Stuttgart, he has got his father's lathe going, which is cool. Was also nice to hear from Peter Evans in England. Not that hearing from Shin and Heidi wasn't good, of course, it's just that I hear from you more often than Jack and Peter.

Heard that Bambi is off to China for some fireworks competition. I suspect that similar to the Mancunians with their nuclear accelerator, the planet will not be safe.

Went to a memorial thing Wednesday night for Les Dobson, a guy that was a client for about five years. Lots of insurance bods there, the usual suspects as one of them always puts it. Saw a few people I had not seen for a while, including a few soccer people who are in the insurance business (Mick Miller being one of them). You know you are getting old when you see so many people you have known since before children (especially when the children are older too). Got to town late from way out east so didn't get to change into glad rags, luckily wasn't too badly dressed but most were in suits (although the ties came off very quickly). Had a chat to Paul East (former Attorney General and National Party cabinet minister, I know him reasonably well from a number of these dos) about the Don Brash stuff, his viewpoint was similar to mine, although not surprisingly given that Brash is leader of the same party as him.

Among everything else on Saturday, Hannah and I went to an end of season soccer do and Hannah went to a birthday party for her friend Bonnie and 50 of her closest friends, which seemed to go well. It was fancy dress, every went as something beginning with the first letter of their name. Hannah was a hippy (Rory suggested Hooker, and other unsavoury things, good on you, son).

Diana, Rory, Paul, and I went to see Clerks 2 on Saturday night (while Hannah was at the party). It was an R16, but Rory was not challenged on the age question. Afterwards we decided perhaps it should have been R40 (so people over 40 wouldn't go, Diana was a little dismayed at some of the content but I enjoyed it). Rory enjoyed it immensely, our shares went up for taking him.

Had a good crack at the garden over the weekend, it doesn't take long to fill the garden bin. There is so much to do around the house, really need to spend a good couple of hours every weekend on things, but it doesn't often happen. I am not sure I am actually catching up at all. We relocated the soccer goal to the opposite corner of the garden.

Hannah has inter-school volleyball this week, I am attending.

Diana worked full time last week and this week, but has next week off, I think. It changes a lot.

This is last week of school before yet another school holidays. It seems like they never go to school.

TV SHOWS, PIRACY, AND BROADCASTERS

I was thinking about this, and ranting in the car to the family yesterday. It doesn't seem fair to me that the broadcasters can basically do whatever they want about scheduling, stopping, riddling with adverts, and so forth without any breach of the law. However, the poor old consumer is treading dangerously if they download episodes they miss, or imports DVDs from overseas. In other words, consumers should either lump it or not watch it at all, there is basically no other choice. I don't think that is remotely fair.

TEN YEARS AGO

We had had 29 days of rain in August in 1996. I am sure it wasn't anything like that this August. It was the beginning of me weeding the lawn. I still do it, but not very often (but I did yesterday). For many years you could run around our section with no worries of prickles. Kiwi Air was going bust, and Air New Zealand was silly enough to buy half of Ansett (which was a major factor in their reorganisation about five years later). Stage three of the playground was constructed (which has been gone nearly two years now).

A 13 year old took a bus on a joy ride, which resulted in the following joke:
Q: Why did the teenager steal a bus and go on a joy ride?
A: He asked his mum the best way to get to Kaeo, and she said "Just take a bus."
I noted in an email back then that I wanted to write more. Interesting, this was before I wrote the proper books. Part of me still wants to. The sensible part knows it doesn't really pay.

Guess that'll do for now. You know these emails are like 1500 words every week? What was I saying about writing a book?