LOCAL NEWS
On Tuesday, the Maori Queen (Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu) died at age 75. She was "Queen" for forty years. Not all tribes agreed, but there you go. So, for our sins, we have had nothing on the news but live crossing to the marae outside the gate, we've had a summary of the speakers inside, we’ve been subjected to speculation about her successor, told about road closures today, and it's all happened over and over again. The weird thing is that Maori royalty is decided by committee, it is not hereditary. Her successor was announced just now, one of her sons, so I suppose it is looking a little bit hereditary.
The Tongan King isn't in good shape either, it looks like Pacific Royalty would be dropping like flies for a while.
Olaf Wiig, a New Zealand cameraman was kidnapped in Gaza, although the media seem to feel he is more important because he is married to Anita McNaught, a former New Zealand TV person who also now works for Fox in Europe. It is quite interesting to see Anita being interviewed, half presenter half victim. He has been missing nearly a week.
The army crashed another unimog and lost another soldier.
Another slip in Wellington. Oriental Parade this time, very steep area. We seem to have houses sliding all over, they reckon 300 slips in Wellington (many quite minor, but still). It's not this bad normally.
Election overspending from the Labour Party seems likely to result in them passing retrospective legislation to make it legal. On every level, I find such a concept completely offensive. When a lawmaker breaks the law and then changes the law, that is completely wrong. It really doesn't feel far from election fixing and annexing neighbouring countries. I am deeply disturbed by this, and yet cannot see what can be done about it.
A missing Victoria University student was found floating in Wellington Harbour. It really didn't sound like he would be found alive.
A man convicted of running over a 24 year old woman has been jailed for 18 years minimum, while there are moves afoot to change sentencing to try and reduce numbers in prison.
Dunedin students celebrated the undie 500 (a race in underwear) with a riot on Saturday night and a clash with police.
Lots of violence over the weekend. A man died after being dragged 2km under a car, a woman was hit by two cars (boy racers) and died, a man died after an altercation outside a bar on Saturday night, it wasn't great, really.
Survey announced that public servants pays are rising faster than private sector. This combined with the fact that we have had 14,000 additional public servants in the last seven years and you have a seriously bloated public sector.
WORLD NEWS
The arrest of a really creepy guy for the murder of the 6yo beauty princess Jonbenet Ramsey about ten years after the event was quite big news. The whole child beauty thing is dodgy to the core.
REAL SPORT
Hannah's water polo mixed team, the Sharks, lost 5-7 on Friday night. We have too many players that can't actually play in a position they are asked to. There are three boys that can but the other three are rubbish, too much testosterone and no listening.
The girls team played St Dominics, who had beaten the Ponsonby 3rd Div team 14-0 earlier in the evening. The Ponsonby 3rd Div team includes three girls who play in the girls team so they were keen to extract some revenge. This came pretty quickly, with the Ponsonby girls scoring a couple of goals early, but the opposition staying in the game with a few goals themselves. It was a high scoring affair, Hannah worked pretty hard and score five goals, the final score was 15-7.
It was the last game of the season for Hannah's soccer team. The Dudettes (still hate the name) were playing a team well down the table, but nothing is certain. They scored fairly early in the first half, were 2-0 up by half time but that was down hill so I thought it might be a struggle in the second. They must have spent the first ten minutes of the second half in opposition territory but couldn't score. Finally after nearly conceding a goal they scored at the other end. About ten minutes from the end they scored their last goal, making it a healthy 4-0 win. They finish the championship round of the season with 6 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses. Fourth on the table guaranteed, third equal on points but fourth on goal difference.
Rory had two water polo games on Saturday, I missed the first one because I had to get Hannah to a dance practice. They drew 5-5. In the second game, they won 6-1. Rory scored the first goal.
SPORT
The All Blacks just managed to beat the Wallabies 34-27 at Eden Park. Lote Tuqiri has already been given a five match ban for dodgy tackle on Ritchie McCaw, who seemed to have been a target for most of the game.
Tall Blacks are struggling at the basketball world champs, although they play Angola today (where you get selected for the team of your choice if you have the normal number of arms and legs).
The Warriors beat the Storm 24-20 but it doesn't really matter.
Last golfing major of the year is in progress, Tiger Woods is just ahead of some guy.
Legendary cricket umpire Darrel Hare has managed to offend Pakistan during the cricket test against England. The Pakis wouldn't come out after tea, then when they did come out the umpires weren't there. The match has been abandoned and England have won, bet the Pakis are not happy.
MY SAD LIFE
Diana has read a book on 14 year old boys by Celia Lashlie, which frankly doesn't seem quite the bible that Diana thinks it is. Anyway, she continues to read us excerpts and then quote from it. Rory isn't too happy and I am getting sick of being quoted a woman who thinks she understands what makes boys tick. Hell, men don't even get it half the time. Whilst some things may be a little insightful, a lot of it appears overly generalised.
I am still coughing. Not really badly but enough to be annoying. I am drinking lots of water to help (little sips, often). People are beginning to think I have a bladder problem. I think it is now five weeks since it started.
Rory got his hair cut on Tuesday. It was pretty drastic. 55 grams of hair removed, he went from looking like a wookkiee to a convict (he got a number 1, after not having it cut hardly at all for a good year or more). All the lads in his class have had their extreme hair cuts.
Me and the kids washed the outside of the house on the weekend, only took a couple of hours (didn't do all of it, just the two sides in shadow). It looks heaps better, it really needed it. And the kids cooperated without nagging (although still pretty slow). They seem to have realised that resistance is futile.
Watched the rugby on Saturday night with Brett while we slapped his PC around.
Hannah has two dance exams this week, jazz and tap. Life will be easier once they are over.
Rory and I spent a chunk of Sunday trying to get a PC going to play a few games we both like. Although it was looking good about 7pm last night it all turned to custard. I am very pissed off and Rory is quite disappointed.
TEN YEARS AGO
The All Blacks won their first ever test series in South Africa. David Lange gave his last speech in Parliament. I sat a Compaq exam (my last, I think, never really used them to be honest). Ross had his tonsils taken out and wasn't happy.
I didn't mention the Jonbenet Ramsey thing, so it can't have been that big here.
I was still building the playground in the back yard. It would have been visible from space but Google Earth wasn't around then.
Well, that about sums it up for me.
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