24 September 2007

Overseas not safe for New Zealanders, GW knows something Nelson doesn't, and the great mime falls - 24/09/07

LOCAL NEWS

Monday all hell broke loose with a young girl (dubbed "Pumpkin" because she was wearing the brand) abandoned by her Father in Southern Cross train station in Melbourne, that the Australian news services took great delight in describing as a "New Zealander". He left Melbourne for the US. During the week we got more information and it developed further. He was a Chinese immigrant, the mother (still living, if living was the right word, in New Zealand somewhere) was missing. It then turned out an older daughter from a previous marriage was also missing and there was a documentary on the man about that which seemed quite bizarre. Then they found the elder daughter, alive. By the end of Wednesday they had found the mother of the three year old, not alive. It wasn't really a surprise. We'd heard that the man had visited the police and picked up his passport and a sword, which wasn't a good sign. We got more news every day, three pages in the paper every day.

Meat processing company Affco was slapped with a bill for one million dollars for a workplace injury. The injury occurred when an employee was sitting in a mate's car at lunch time, the mate was mongrel mob, and the employee got shot in a drive-by by black power people (could be the other way around, I forget). So somehow employers appear to need to ensure their staff don't talk to dodgy friends when on a break and need to have bullet proof fences around their car parks.

We are now allowed to have armed air marshals on our aircraft. Great. Now I feel secure.

Things got nasty in New Plymouth over the weekend with a pedestrian killed and a stabbing, both involving boy racers (let's be honest, ALL boys with cars are boy racers).

Weird news that air quality around schools near busy roads. Can't say I would have every expected that, but one child care centre isn't allowed to open.

A world record was set, swimming 224 metres under water, in West Wave, but using a mono-flipper.

Small earthquake near Haast this morning, we are going there soon.

Some guy predicted a headline for the Christchurch press, sealed it in an envelope five days prior. It wasn't completely correct but it was right subject, stated in different way.

Dodgy ubercop Rickards has now been charged with ten employment offences, he's been suspended on full pay for three years.

WORLD NEWS

GW Bush announced the death of Nelson Mandela, who refused to cooperate by being dead. What a legend. Comedy show writers must tear their hair out, this guy makes them all look like crap.

A disease called bluetongue has hit in UK which kills cows and sheep.

A New Zealand boy fell from a fourth floor hostel window in London, and a New Zealand man was beaten to death in Nairobi.

Marcel Marceau has died, aged 84. He had no last words.

REAL SPORT

On Tuesday, Hannah was called aside at the Coerver training (this is an academy style thing they run for keen players). She was asked to join up to an invitation only elite group. As you can imagine the attitude towards soccer took something of an improvement. Not sure she can manage it logistically, because the time is likely to conflict with school polo, but she was pretty happy.

First game for the U16 Nationals was against Northsport B, expected to be a pretty easy game but they made hard work of it, winning 10-5. Rory got a reasonable amount of game time and played a lot better than many of them.

Second game, against Maranui (Wellington) they won 17-1, Rory got himself a goal. Third game was against Waikato, who were depleted because two of their players can't play on Sunday, so they had no subs.

SPORT

The cricket 20/20 world cup seems to be far more interesting than the rugby world cup but I am not really keeping track. The Black Caps beat England on Wednesday and basically made the semi-finals. Then they lost to South Africa and basically didn't make the semi-finals, awaiting result of South Africa v India. India won so they made the semis, then got knocked out.

The rugby world cup continued but so what? All Blacks dressed the same as Scotland and won 40-0. Stupid.

Man Utd beat Chelsea 2-0.

Manly will play Melbourne Storm in the grand final.

Golfer Michael Campbell came fourth in British Masters.

MY SAD LIFE

Well, the pool was open again this week. Haven't been able to swim for about two weeks or so. Made up for it by swimming three nights in a row.

Hannah and I picked up Penny and the boys from airport on Wednesday night. We saw them a bit over a couple of days before we all went to Christchurch for the tournament.

Hannah went to a party on Friday night, which didn't go well. We got a call saying she was at home and going to Georgia's. We picked her up from there and found out someone had been smoking cigars. Hannah and four friends were very uncomfortable with this and left. 13 year olds smoking cigars does seem a little odd, but we were quite surprised at how serious the girls took it.

Was a long day on Saturday, left for airport around 7:45, got to motel at 12, couldn't get in to room until 1:30. Watched three water polo games at QEII, which is huge, took some photos. Made it back to motel for a while, then drove half way to airport, returned to supermarket, then off to airport to collect Diana and Hannah at 10:15pm.

I have taken quite a few photos of the water polo, Diana reckons I have taken enough.

We should have a semi final tonight and hopefully a final tomorrow afternoon.

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