Bad week for light aircraft, a bad case of wind, bad boys in parliament, bad luck for a small boy - 29/10/07

Consider this a bad week for some people and puns.

LOCAL NEWS

Terribly sad story this week about a mother of a ten month old who died of a blood clot, had the baby in bed with her, and smothered her son. Feel pretty sorry for the father, who was at work at the time. Adding to the tragedy, the photo of the woman and her baby was utterly hideous.

A rock with a swirl that supposedly looks like the virgin mary went on trademe for a ridiculous price. Who really cares.

Nasty freak accident where a 12 year old girl and her bike were lifted by a gust of wind in Christchurch into the path of a bus and killed. It must be that bus people are always concerned about. And of course, the deceased was an amazing person, vibrant and vivacious, etc, etc. Yeah, only the good die young, we've heard the song.

We also had a much-publicised punch up between cabinet minister Trevor Mallard and National MP Tau Henare after Henare made some comments about Mallard's personal life. Really pretty woeful.

A man's body was found in a burnt out car in a car park. The neighbours heard burnouts (as in squealing tyres, doing doughnuts). They made no puns about burnouts causing fire. They also didn't explore that someone else may have lit the car then did burnouts while it burned.

There seemed to be two or three light plane crashes and things this week, they all merged in to one. Some people died, some didn't, some were lucky, others weren't.

Auckland City Council are getting flak today for spending a million dollars on a new logo. To be fair, and I do not like councils, the million is probably mostly the cost of the new letterhead and other stationery which they aren't buying until they run out of existing so isn't really new cost.

A Christchurch man dragged a neighbour out of his burning house. He went in three times to retrieve him, and was in hospital for five hours afterwards.

Breakfast TV host Paul Henry described the coming cabinet reshuffle as rearranging the deckchairs, with old deckchairs and dodgy fabric. I like it.

We’ve continued to have stories about the terror raids and arrests. We've had protests and all sorts. It's rubbish.

WORLD NEWS

We got the updates on the California fire all week with the usual human uninterest stories and the politicians hugging the victims. Paul said it was pretty smoky.

A New Zealander is being chased by British police in relation to an attempt to defraud the bank of England out of $75 billion. Quite a lot, really.

Somebody has been trying to blackmail a low ranking British Royal but their attempt has been foiled.

REAL SPORT

Hannah scored the opening goal in the first game on Friday night, they made hard work of it but won 6-3. The Marlins, (the team Rory coaches), then just won their game 6-5 (they don't win many). Then Rangby won and the Piranhas (that I coach) won their game comfortably against Glen Eden 2. Good night, four wins from four.

On Saturday, Hannah had a Gold team club game. After the last one, a 10-0 loss, I was not looking forward to it. They were playing Marist A, and just won 4-3. Hannah did okay in goal.

Sunday Hannah played for Teal, she played half in goal and half in the water. They won 11-0 against Mountfort Park. Bit sad.

SPORT

There doesn't feel like much sport is happening at the moment.

The Kiwis lost to Great Britain 14-20 in the league test.

Liverpool drew 1-1 with Arsenal, Chelsea slapped Mac City 6-0 (ouch), Man Utd fared better than their neighbours beating Middlesbrough.

The Phoenix soccer team and Breakers basketball team both lost while playing in their respective Australian leagues.

MY SAD LIFE

For a while, on day three of Armageddon I was sitting there wondering what the heck I was doing there and so forth. Then I was needed for a couple of things (had to paint Matt's hair and eyebrows green, as you do), and I helped Hugh and Sarah on their stand for a bit, and so I was enjoying myself again. The kids finished with a bang, scoring a variety of items from posters and stickers to bags. They were particularly happy, and I admit that I did enjoy it, although I am finding some aspects pretty tedious now.

The freezer returned to us on Tuesday morning. I have never seen Diana so excited about an appliance. I shall have to consider some form of refrigeration equipment for future birthdays. Perhaps freezer packs or ice cube trays….

Tuesday morning, before school. Conversation with Rory.
Me: Have you asked Cassidy if he minds if you go out with Maddie?
Rory:
Me: You have, haven't you…
Me: Are you going to ask Maddie out?
Rory:
Me: You already are! I knew it!
Rory: (who was brushing his teeth at the time)

Now, it does not hurt now and again to put the fear of Dad into the children and make them realise that their parents are a) not stupid and b) possibly psychic and c) that attempting to hide anything from them really isn't a long term plan and it could easily backfire.

Of course, by Wednesday, the whole school knew. It was common knowledge amongst the van load of polo players I took to training. Everyone I know who knows them approves, so it will be very interesting. It's kind of nice. No pressure or anything.

Tuesday was a big day because we also got a new table (for a very low price, like cost of shipping), so there was more moving around. The unforeseen implication of a new table is that Diana now wants new lounge furniture to match. Every silver cloud has a grey lining, eh?

Rory got his new iPod on Friday so he was in geek heaven. I gave him a hard drive with the family MP3s on it, which contains about 160gb of music.

We actually managed to fit in some work around the house between polo games on the weekend. We filled the garden bin for the first time in about three months. Some cleaning and tidying things were done that were badly overdue.

LESSON FOR THE WEEK

Make sure you have a nice photo of yourself that you don't mind going in to the paper, should something unexpected occur. It's like the wearing clean underwear thing, but much more important.

Local terrorism exposed, and arguments over bollocks - 22/10/07

Sometimes there isn't much because I've been busy, sometimes because there isn't much worthy of note. This week is a little 50/50, I feel.

LOCAL NEWS

Not sure if I mentioned this last week but last Monday police arrested a range of people from various activist groups on firearms charges with speculation of terrorism related charges. They had Molotov cocktails and napalm, not exactly things you have a legitimate need for. People were bailed and unbailed, we had speculation of whether police jumped the gun, and the common response was that they'd look really stupid if these guys did something and police had to confess knew about it. It dominated the week. You really can't imagine how many ridiculous stories have been floating around. Maori Party Co-Leader Pita Sharples told us that arresting Maori for possessing napalm and other weapons put back race relations ten years. Meanwhile, everyone else felt that a) his comment probably had a similar effect, b) it put his credibility well in to the negatives, and c) that a bunch of militant Maoris with kalashnikovs and training camps didn't exactly help race relations in either direction.

There were a flurry of little earthquakes in the south island, and then it snowed on Thursday.

A stag's testicles became news. Some sheik shot it (the stag) on safari but they wouldn't let him have the bollocks because they wanted them for AI.

There were lots of nasty fatal car accidents this week. A motor cyclist went through a steel cable median barrier the hard way, called a cheese cutter by motor cyclists, you can imagine what happened. Would be good reason to stay away from them on a mother bike, you would think.

There were also many other accidents. A whitebaiter was swept out on the west coast and drowned, a trainee guide died while rafting, and eight people in a van near the Turoa ski field were hurt when it rolled down a 40 metre bank.

Tokelau, a set of three islands of 1400 people is voting on independence from New Zealand. They seem upset about it. They seem to think we aren't looking after them enough, so becoming independent will help that somehow. I don't really get it.

WORLD NEWS

As part of the plan for the election, John Howard announced tax cuts. I think he is leaving it too late, and the Labour Party here might learn from that.

Meanwhile the body of a boy was found floating in a Sydney pond in a suitcase.

REAL SPORT

We only had one polo game over the weekend, Junior Boys lost 4-9 to Westlake B. Rory got two or maybe three goals.

SPORT

Auckland beat Wellington 23-14 in the final.

South Africa beat England, again, 15-6 in World Cup final, Argies beat France, again, for 3rd. Bit odd with both games being repeats of earlier games.

Bizarre local derby between Liverpool and Everton. Liverpool won 2-1, scored all the goals. An own goal, and two penalties from red cards, Everton finishing with nine men. Villa v Man Utd not much better, Villa led 1-0 then was losing 1-3 before two red cards and finally lost 1-4. Chelsea and Arsenal both won their games.

MY SAD LIFE

Hannah had her interview for high school, was a bit of a non-event. However there were noises about her going to MAGS to play for their team and that made things messy, but maybe next year. We'll see.

Big pow wow at Rory's school about water polo on Thursday. The lady who seems to think she's in charge still doesn't get it.

Spent the weekend at Armageddon so far. Full day on Saturday, not so much yesterday. Went to a talk by Chris Judge who is Teal'c on "Stargate SG-1". Rory asked him to raise an eyebrow and say "indeed". The whole audience clapped at the question. We then went to a talk from Ellen Muth, who plays Georgia Lass in "Dead Like Me". She said there was a movie coming in summer 2008 US time. She wasn't quite as relaxed as Chris Judge, and seemed very like her screen character. The kids both basically disappeared for the day on Saturday with friends. One of Rory's friends drank 12 free energy drinks. Will be going back again today.

On Sunday, Rory drove us both to and from Armageddon. This was very much a first. We are making an effort to get him in the car because it just hasn't happened much lately. I think we will just have to make him drive virtually everywhere he needs to go.

Also on Sunday I went and did an hour of talkback with Alice Worsley to help her out, used to do it once a month, about three years ago now. Was easy enough, despite the cough.

We had dinner with Allan and Jacqui on Sunday night. The puppy is now larger than her mother. Emma's 21st birthday party is in mid-november.

Hannah and Josie are still like twins. Hannah stayed at Josie's on Saturday night. They have the same pajamas now.

Strange lasagne and is there life beyond water polo - 15/10/07

A frantic week, hence this is not war and peace.

LOCAL NEWS

Roger Kahui (not a close relation of the hapless Chris Kahui) was sentenced to prison for long enough that he won't need a change of address card before he dies, if you know what I mean. The man is a shockingly recidivist offender and has racked up over 100 years worth of jail time since 1985.

The mega-welfare fraudster got 5-8 years for his efforts, and Social Welfare got more back than he cost. His investments had grown, so the $3.x million he stole had grown to over 4. The judge observed that he could have become a millionaire without the fraud.

The government confessed to an $8+ billion surplus. It does sound like this is a purely profit-oriented figure and capital investment has to come out of that. I think maybe they need to report it differently so it doesn't sound so excessive. Perhaps a revision of some of the accounting methods would be appropriate.

All of a sudden All Black Doug Howlett was in disgrace, I am not sure what he did exactly, but he was inebriated at the time, at a hotel or outside a hotel, in London.

A 24 year old runner was killed by a hit and run and u-turn driver (those are ones that get attack of guilts and come back eventually). She was allegedly over the limit as well. The mother of the guy found out by looking for him when he didn't return as expected, although emergency services had already arrived.

John Banks has been elected as Auckland's new mayor. Great. Just what we needed, a re-tread. We were over-exposed to little snippets of lots of winning mayors all over the country. Given that only about 40% bothered to vote you have to wonder why anyone considered it interesting.

WORLD NEWS

Nasty traffic accident in California, ten people hurt, two dead, five trucks messed up.

Eight out of nine spelunkers drowned in a cave flood in Thailand.

John Howard is having a final go at re-election in Australia. It doesn't look good so far. He says that although everyone hates him they know him. Nice opening line.

REAL SPORT

Hannah was playing in the Tim Sonderer Memorial Tournament, involving about 40 teams. She was nominated captain, which she was very pleased about. We had a very girl-heavy team (six girls, four boys) playing in the open group (there was a girls comp too, but then the boys would have missed out), first two games were against boy only private school teams (Kristin and St Kentigern School). They won the first game 5-3 against Kristin, who were never close, and weren't too happy about being beaten by a bunch of girls. They then say Kristin beat St Kentigern, which was dangerous because they relaxed. However, they beat St Kentigern 3-2 qualifying top in their group, making the rest of the weekend considerably tougher.

Rory had a junior school game on Friday, and although he was cramping up a bit in the pool he was pretty devastating, scoring four goals for the 8-3 win.

Hannah's team struggled in the top six playoffs, losing both games. They both ended up being not close, losing 3-6 in the first and 2-7 in the second. In the second game, Hannah scored both goals, against a team predicted to make the final.

On Sunday, they were in control at 4-2 but just fell off in defence and ended up drawing 5-5 in the playoff for 5th/6th. Hannah scored one goal.

Then she had a club game, not pretty, against a team that has had an U16 season together already. They were taken apart, 0-10 loss. Not an ideal start for Hannah as goalie, but they need to score a goal to win.

Hannah's final act of the weekend was to help the western springs junior girls against Corran School, who were employing about every dodgy and pro tactic in the book. They lost 1-5. She scored the only goal and was in goal for one quarter.

Rory then had a game at 8pm, last one of the day on Sunday. They played Liston, 2-2 end of first quarter but we clawed back to win 9-3. Rory got two.

So, nine games, four wins, four losses, and a draw. I saw eight of them. Hannah played in seven. Big weekend.

SPORT

Wellington made it to the final after beating Canterbury 26-21. Auckland did similarly by thumping Hawke's Bay 38-3.

A soccer world cup qualifier between New Zealand and Fiji was postponed after Foreign Affairs wouldn't let the goalie in because of a link to the Fijian army. Fifa seem to have disadvantaged our team by depriving us of a home game because of Fiji's dodgy army. Interesting conundrum.

New Zealand driver won both races in A1 GP this weekend in the Czech Republic.

The Kangaroos thumped New Zealand 58-0 in a centenary league test.

No premiereship soccer because of Euro qualifiers. I think England and Scotland both had wins but don't remember who against.

The Poms play the Boks in the Rugby final, so it is guaranteed another team will have won it twice after that match.

MY SAD LIFE

I started this week thinking that I didn't have a lot happening until Friday. I was very wrong. I had to have things for tournament sorted Monday night before everyone disappeared to camp Tuesday. I then continued to live hand to mouth the whole week, operating on a very just in time basis. All deadlines were met, but it was pretty close for some things.

Mum is off touring the South Island, had a bumpy ride across Cook Strait but they made it. She's there for about three weeks.

It is Paul's birthday tomorrow. Well, tomorrow in New Zealand, Tuesday for him in San Diego. 40, is it, mate?

We had Miranda Chase stay with us this weekend, while her Mum was in Brisbane. She's in Hannah's soccer team for club and school, and polo team for club and school. We got to have her Mum's lasagne on Sunday and it was very good (Rory ate it despite there being eggplant and mushroom in it). To be honest, I don't think I ever met a lasagne I didn't like. The girls went to a party on Saturday night but were home at a reasonable hour.

Hannah was at camp Tuesday to Friday. I visited Wednesday so she could open a letter from Soccer 2, she made the 24 girl squad but can't stick with it because training conflicts with polo. Miranda also made the squad, and can't stay in it. Kind of a shame really, many kids would be rapt to make the squad.

Rory had some friends over Saturday night for a geek fest with linked Xboxes. They didn't sleep until 4am. Wasn't happy. That wasn't the deal. He had to have a sleep on Sunday before his polo game. He has not done any driving this week, although we really didn't have much of a chance.

A politics in sport issue came to a head on Sunday night at the junior girls game where the self-appointed acting manager tried to inflict her will upon the team. The coach, me, refused to budge and continued in a very business like manner. Could be interesting, she wasn't happy.

The girls have stayed home today to recover, which is what I am also trying to do (okay, I didn't actually play in any games but I was knackered by the time I got home at 8:45 on Sunday night. I did manage a swim between two games on Sunday, even if it was a small swim (20 lengths).

The Rugby World Cup is over before it begins for New Zealand, hard to find mention of anything else - 08/10/07

Not as long as it should be, be grateful.

LOCAL NEWS

A young man disappeared, who's car was found burned out a long way from home. We had vacuous questions of his father like "Are you worried?". Then he showed up in Wellington on a bus. Police charged him with wasting police time.

TV3 have had a battle over advertising on Sunday mornings because three very big world cup rugby games are on when advertising is banned on Sunday mornings. They have tried to side-step it a little but they are pushing their luck. The reality is the fine is considerably less than the advertising revenue. Apparently New Zealand is only country in the world with an ad ban on Sunday mornings, and exemption is possible but not granted. Of course, now, nobody cares.

Continuing on the police shooting people theme, they had a Rottweiler set upon them this week, and fired 12 shots at it, all of which missed. This time, they were hassled for being bad shots. Suggestions that a taser would have been better used seem ridiculous given that they are single-shot devices that are less accurate than pistols (so how many tasers would they have needed?).

Weather caused some issues Tuesday and Wednesday. We seemed to just stay ahead of it, thankfully. We were about the fourth to last car to get out of Milford Sound, the road stayed closed for about two days afterwards.

A maori woman is trying to get her husband declared "taonga" which would allow him to stay in the country. A taonga is like a national treasure, covered by the Treaty of Waitangi, and would be exempt from deportation. It's all quite odd, he's been done by police for domestic violence, the immigration people seem to take a dim view of the whole thing.

The national Rock, Paper, Scissors champion was found. He is off to Canada for the world champs. Sheesh. At least if he wins, we might have something to be happy about.

WORLD NEWS

The rather belated inquest into Diana and Dodi's deaths has begun. All a bit old, it is ten years since it happened, but we are getting hammered with updates daily. Finding relevence is quite a struggle.

REAL SPORT

Rory's team at U18 Nationals battled away, although losing 4-5 to Marist B was their best result before playoffs. Rory scored their first goal, which was cool. In the end they came tenth out of, um, ten. It was okay, though. I think Rory learned quite a bit and it was certainly a good workout.

This coming weekend we have an intermediate tournament, the first U14A girls game, and three college junior games. Not busy, noooo, not busy.

SPORT

Well, the rugby world cup is over before it really started for the All Blacks. The first time they played a semi-decent team they've lost. Aussie are out too. That's all I have to say.

Auckland beat Taranaki and the Magpies (Hawkes Bay) beat Waikato 38-35 in the provincial rugby. Finding it in the papers is not easy.

Arsenal beat Sunderland 3-2, Blackburn beat the Brummies, Man Utd thumped poor old Wigan 4-0.

MY SAD LIFE

Well, we travelled to Te Anau, went to Milford Sound on Tuesday, and came home Wednesday. The trip to Te Anau was uneventful, we had time to wander around it a bit. We taught the kids to play 500, which was interesting. I told them how my Uncle Chris taught me, and how he reached across the table, grabbed me by the collar, and said, slowly, but quite forcefully "Why didn't you call your ace?". We ended up playing 500 in many exotic places, while we waited for boats, planes, and so forth.

The trip to Milford Sound was 116ks, which they warned is would take two and a half hours. It didn't, but we got snowed on through the pass which was a bit exciting. We stopped to see Keas (big native parrots, famed for eating cars) on the way down. We then spent a couple of hours cruising the sound, seeing lots of rock and waterfalls (there are 13,000). On the return leg we went into this deep water observatory thing that lets you see creatures that normally live a lot deeper in the water (but can survive only 5 metres down because of the light filtering effect of the layer of fresh water on top). While on the cruise we found out that the road out was closing at 5:30, so I was pretty anxious to get out of dodge. We made it without too many problems, but it was still snowing up at the Homer tunnel, and there was a lot more snow around as we came through. It was also snowing in more places than on the way out to Milford Sound. We made it back safely, and saw only one car coming the other way the entire return trip.

Wednesday we awoke to find it snowing outside the motel and Hannah went out to frolic. There was considerably more snow in evidence along the return journey to Queenstown. Bad weather caused delays in flights so we played 500 in the airport while we waited for our plane to land. We haven't played since we got home, which is a shame (but then again, I am not sure I've seen Hannah more than 15 minutes at a stretch since we got back).

We got back late Wednesday night, and Rory started playing in U18 Nationals the next day. He was in the B team, mostly younger players, and they were not expected to win many games.

We spent most of the weekend going to pools. We did see the Bambis on Sunday in between games. Life is kind of returning to normal, but Hannah leaves on camp tomorrow so house will be quiet.
Rob

RUGBY, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING

I didn't want to harp on about it but some things need to be said. Ever since the build up and disappointment in 1999, also against France, I have never checked in emotionally to the All Blacks and the World Cup. The national approach to it is excessive, all media convince us every four years that we will win it, and then tell us how distraught we are afterwards. Today, the newspapers are unreadable, the breakfast shows (both of them) are unwatchable. Post match analysis is not wanted, not by me, and I don't think I am alone. I don't need people telling me how upset I am, because I am not. Sooner or later they (the press) need to realise that they do not remotely speak for all of us and an ever decreasing percentage actually care about rugby at any level.

That'll do for now, sermon ends.

Travel diary, a win in the polo nationals - 01/10/07

Haven't seen a lot of news, so I have had to make some up. It's short, so therefore you can be grateful.

LOCAL NEWS

The only paper we saw this week had a cover story of a woman who was told to cover up her cleavage at the Christchurch Casino. She was a big girl, and I think they were concerned someone might park a bicycle there. Not sure it was worth the front page but I guess it might have sold a few papers. The woman, however, was mad, I don't understand why she'd want to share her embarrassment with the world.

Bad day on roads on Friday, four died in three separate events.

A bad day in Christchurch on Thursday for a man who was shot by police. He went mad with a hammer. I am not sure I sympathise too much. Someone said "why did you shoot my friend?" and another policeman replied "because we aren't paid enough to risk coming home in a box", which I thoroughly agree with. It's all very fine for your average member of the public to demand that police don't use force, but they aren't putting their life on the line, and news pieces quoting them saying so are rubbish.

Ruapehu had a very small eruption but it kept everyone (in the news journalism industry, at least) entertained, especially as a man was crushed by a rock and his amputations and kidney failure was watched with indecent interest.

An Australian tourist who lost his arm after an accident here is being charged with something relating to the accident. Seems unfair, somehow.

A car being chased by police hit a house in Invercargill.

WORLD NEWS

GW thinks the childrens will learn stuff what you teach them.

A 24 year old man has married an 82 year old woman in Argentina. Yuck.

REAL SPORT

Seems a long time ago, but they won their last pool match then went on to the semi-final, which was bizarre. They tied at 5-5 at full time but won 8-5 in extra time against Hutt. In the final it was close but they got a lead about 2nd quarter and hung on to it to win 8-7 over Northsport, the team that beat them by one goal in regional final.

SPORT

Despite not being exactly rugby mad, I am pretty annoyed how my preferred news web site seems to have lost provincial rugby while the rugby world cup is on. I can tell Southland lost 17-19, for example, but not to who.

I managed to see the end of the Auckland v Canterbury game, despite power cut, who won to take the Ranfurly Shield.

The Wellington Phoenix beat Perth Glory 4-1 for their first home win of the season, after about four or five games, so not before time.

MY SAD LIFE

Koos and Heidi's mum, Pam, had a fall last Monday and broke her lower arm. I know sod all else because I keep forgetting to call when I am somewhere with coverage. Sounded pretty serious. I hope she's on the mend, guys.

Well, after the final on Tuesday afternoon we headed for the hills We stayed in Arthur's Pass at a place called Bealey, woke to see snow capped mountains all around us. We drove down to Franz Josef the next day, say a glacier, but not very close. We then went to Fox glacier, got closer. We stopped at a picturesque little beach where a guy rides his fishing boat on a cable to get past the breakers. We walked up the beach a bit and looked for greenstone. We stayed Thursday night in Haast, very small township, where Hannah befriended a cat that she called Gordon. Friday we got to Arrowtown, where we stayed for three nights. Along the way we have stopped to see a variety of waterfalls, valleys, streams, pools, lakes, rocks, and so forth. Rory seems to have taken over my camera, which is interesting.

The availability of cellphone signal and internet on our travels has been quite variable. In Bealey, there was free wireless, which was great (because there was no cellphone coverage, except for two days a year during the coast to coast), in another place you got ten minutes for $1 on their PC that could do limited browsing and had no copy-paste function, which was hopeless and not cheap. In Arrowtown there was a wireless network, that wasn't too near so access was limited and had to use the vodem.

On Saturday we went to an animal park where you could feed things. Donkeys, pigs, horses, goats, thars (type of goat), yak, and other things. Sunday we went to Wanaka and saw the Warbirds museum (fighter aircraft, about five or so), a transport and toy museum, and a place called "Have a shot" where we did a weird air-powered gun battle thing. I shot Hannah in the stomach, didn't mean to, felt awful. Afterwards, we went and played a round of frisbee golf, an interesting game, far more appealing than regular golf.