11 June 2007

Weather and trains in Australia, more power-cut family fallout - 11/06/07

LOCAL NEWS

The power thing continued this week. The powers that be apparently see power companies as being able to spot the fact that families are struggling to fund the basics and therefore need to be referred to social services. Power companies are now responsible for more than supplying power.

And the woman at the centre of it all had her funeral. The PM was there, everyone was there, she was a great mother, amazing humanitarian, did so much for the whole world, etc.

On Saturday we were told their phone had been cut off too, a reason why they took so long to call for help (interesting thought, a landline cannot call emergency services when cut off but a cell phone can with no credit).

Police announced this week that tinny houses (the normally sell only marijuana) are diversifying into P, etc. Those proprietors of other tinny houses have read this news and are now updating their business plans (nice work, New Zealand Police).

An sad and odd story this week, the second of two parents of a six month old IVF baby took his own life. Seems very strange.

A year after killing the Kahui twins, the accused and father (I am sure Brett is most interested to hear this) has found God. I am so pleased, people have been looking for him for ages. Perhaps if he could tell everyone where he found him.

A gate fell off and crushed a three year old kid at a West Auckland Marae. It was a sliding gate and if slid back too far would come off it's rails and kill small furry animals and children. I believe the OSH term for this is "accident waiting to happen".

The snow has finally fallen around New Zealand (ski fields were just rocks a week or two ago) and in doing so we had chaos on Mt Tongariro over the weekend with three separate rescue events on Sunday. There is also a hunter missing in the hills near Christchurch who has been gone a week and chances don't look good with temperatures dropping to minus 5.

WORLD NEWS

The V-Line rail crash in Victoria became far more interesting once we found out one of the 11 dead was a Wellington man. It was described as the worst rail crash in 30 years in Australia, since 9 died in 1969. These 9 people must have been more important than the 11, because I would have thought it would have been the worst since a disaster that killed more than 11 people.

Paris got out early and then went down again. Yawn.

Nasty weather in Australia killed nine Australians in the worst weather related loss of life since 20 years ago when seven Australians were killed. I think the drought is over but they seem to have rather too much water right now.

News of the reality TV show in Holland about giving away a kidney turned out to be a crock. It was never that interesting.

REAL SPORT

Hannah had a water polo game on Friday night. Wasn't particularly tough, Bruce McLaren are a considerably weaker polo school than they used to be. Ponsonby 15-2. We had tons of drama though because the opposition felt our team was dirty and aggressive. On reflection was a pathetic display of one-eyed ignorance, this was their first loss and having dished it out in the previous two games they didn't like being on the receiving end. It was an exceedingly poor example of sportsmanship. I had a good chat with one of the more rational mothers that approached us and as she realised that their grasp of the rules was not particularly strong, I think it dawned on her that perhaps it wasn't that bad.

In soccer on Saturday, it was our first game in the championship round. We were playing the only team to come down from Division 1, and although they had lost 0-7 on average, in theory Div 1 was a lot tougher than Div 2. Hannah scored an absolute blinder from outside the box in the first half, 1-0 to us at half time. In the second half, the continued pressure paid off and the goals game faster, scoring five more. Hannah got a second, again from outside the box. Her friend Miranda Whalley, who has been in Hannah's team for four years, scored a beautiful goal from centre back, smacking a defender's clearance straight over everyone's heads and into the goal. The parents of the opposing team were considerably more friendly than the game night before, which was a pleasant contrast. The team were very, very pleased with themselves.

Rory has been trialling for U16 club polo this week, by Wednesday he will have been at the pool from 7:30-9:30 five days out of eight.

SPORT

The New Zealand Rugby Sevens team confounded sceptics by winning the last tournament in Scotland, and because Wales somehow defied the odds and knocked leaders Fiji out in the quarter final, New Zealand edged Fiji out of the title for the year by two points.

Team New Zealand went on to win the Louis Vuitton final 5-0. Good result, now we wait for the big one which nobody can predict.

The All Blacks gave France the proper thumping that was expected last week, 61-10.

Warriors lost again, they are bottom of the table now.

MY SAD LIFE

Rory got two excellents in his science exam. Don't ask me what that means. I think that's good, but not that good. Funny bit was I showed Priya how to balance chemical equations, which she got 100% in, while Rory got one wrong (and I didn't show him anything on it).

It was Ross's birthday on Saturday, he is 43. That's old. We saw him on Saturday night, were he was quite happy, having had both soccer teams win, and Katie scored herself another goal. We were all pretty happy about our kids soccer on Saturday night.

It was also Craig's birthday on Sunday. I did ring, I left a message on the answer phone, so there is proof.

Paul came to take photos at Hannah's soccer game. He took 460 photos, which was pretty cool. Was a pretty nice day to be stuck outside, especially as it was awful the next day.

Hannah had a birthday party, at Miranda Whalley's (who scored her first ever goal in the game earlier in the day, mentioned above). It was a black and white theme. They tried dying Hannah's hair black but it didn't really seem to make any difference. When we picked her up, Barry said "come in, we're watching the video of the game". I thought he meant of the All Black test but it was the DVD of photos from the soccer that morning. Barry described Hannah as devastating, which I am not sure is entirely true but she did have a pretty good game.

Hannah's audition for the school show must have gone reasonably well, she has a call back for a major part this week. She forgot to take the music for the dance so I had to drop it in (well, according to her I didn't HAVE to but I suspect I would have been in trouble if I hadn't).

Rory has developed a theory about showering and personal hygiene. He thought that if you have a shower for three or four times the length of a normal shower you can have three or four days off having another shower (because you use the same amount of water).

Diana beat me in rock, paper, scissors, she cheated. And she hits me. You're all witnesses.

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