Holmes leaves TVNZ and Koos appears on the radar - 08/11/04

I have to say that stories of woe involving greed seemed to dominate this week.

LOCAL NEWS

The Melbourne Cup was Tuesday. The only day a year that zillions of Australasians give a toss about horse racing. I still didn't. Didn't watch it, didn't join a syndicate. The Goodins went to it. It rained.

The huge news locally this week is that Paul Holmes has left TVNZ after 15 years there. He has gone to Prime for more money (now $1m a year, although nobody can be sure how Prime can afford him). The great news is that TVNZ has lost their most expensive person, and maybe they will realise he wasn't the reason for the ratings. He has become a self-indulgent continuity announcer and it was time he moved on. It will be interesting to see if Prime get higher ratings when he starts in the new year, I have doubts. TV3 are making noises about having a go at the timeslot, which they have largely ignored since they started (they originally ran "The Golden Girls" every weeknight, with expected results, then tried "Hogan's Heroes", currently it is the Simpsons.) They stopped just short of not transmitting at all from 7-7:30 weekdays.

Following on from Holmes departing, Martin Devlin moved from Radio Sport to Radio Pacific (the station I do my thing on). I think he was probably disappointed with the coverage he received compared to Holmes.

Really nasty incident on Northwestern Motorway near here on Wednesday. A guy stopped his car on the side of the motorway then hid behind the bonnet of the car. He then stepped out in front of an oncoming truck. It was pretty clearly deliberate, but a pretty inconsiderate way to do it. Police found a dead 4yo boy in the car, later it became a girl. It was a truck from Gavin's work that hit him, the driver was not a happy camper. Adding to it all, the motorway was closed until around 8:30pm, disrupting all traffic. The overflow affected roads all around, and made it very difficult to get anywhere (it took Diana half an hour to get about four kilometres on way home from dancing with Hannah, then Rory and I had to go along all sorts of back roads to get to the swimming pool in Mt Albert).

A local lawyer is among a select group of depressingly greedy morons that got entangled in an example of the dreaded Nigerian Scam via some dear old lady who thought she was bona fide. He lost $400,000 in a bad property development project so decided to invest another $1.2million in an effort to recoup his losses. Clearly, he had never heard of the concept of throwing good money after bad. Part of me thinks they don't deserve to be named, because of the amount of public humiliation they would suffer, another part wants to know so I don't end up engaging such an obviously thick lawyer. Greed is an interesting thing, isn't it.

More dodgy dealings from John Tamihere this week, including an interest-free loan of $100,000 which was later forgiven. There seems to be an extensive laundry list of exceedingly marginal, if not strictly illegal, events where he got financial advantage from the Waiparera Trust. I think he has blown it big time and should be ejected from Parliament. You cannot do anything where there is any scope of fraudulent activity or tax evasion and expect to be an elected representative of the people.

And again, another example, this time for former personality Matthew Ridge. For the second time, a property development company of his has gone into liquidation, owing about half a million dollars. People have done things for him personally, or for another of his companies, but because the invoice is made out to the liquidated company they dip out. He revealed his true colours when he left Manly for the Warriors in the Super League days and didn't care about the contract, he felt it was enough that he would get more money at the Warriors so he just left. Selfish and with little regard for ethics and the law.

A man was found dead on Narrowneck Beach near Takapuna after fireworks festivities. They reckon he fell out of a tree. Another man died in guy fawkes celebrations in Wanganui, I don't think it has ever been quite this fatal.

A 22yo disqualified driver died when he tried to evade police but failed to evade a traffic island whilst not wearing a seat belt so he didn't evade the effects of gravity either.

WORLD NEWS

Ohio didn't want Kerry, so America didn't get him. This has been the best publicity for the state in many years.

Yasser Arafat is not in good shape, and has been in and out of a coma and according to some brain dead. If the brain dead part were true, he should have had a meeting with GW, they would have been well matched. There has been little news for a couple of days. I wonder if they are hollowing him out for a dwarf and a miracle recovery.

Big nasty train crash in the UK when a high speed train hit a car. Sounds like the driver was like our man on the Northwestern Motorway, and wasn't bothered about hurting other people or killing five others.

The murder of Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands could mean a backlash against Muslims (it was a Muslim that did it). He was a descendant of Vincent, and a film-maker.

REAL SPORT

No water polo this week, but Rory has been swimming every day (now 14 days in a row, although he swam twice on Saturday the second time was just fun). I did 26 lengths yesterday, which was good. Felt I could do more, so I am improving. Rory's Team 2 has a semi-final this Friday, we don't know who they are playing yet.

SPORT

Black Caps looked to be blowing the first ODI against Bangladesh (94/5) then Cairns stepped up and made 70-odd quick runs and got New Zealand to 224. Bangladesh were all out for 86 after Kyle Mills took four early wickets. They struggled to get a small total (146) in the second match, but got there with a couple of overs to spare. The won the third and final one last night without too much bother, scoring 250 and the Bangladeshis got 167.

India managed to get Australia all out for 93 in their second innings in Mumbai to win the last test, but still lost the series 1-2.

Fulham beat Newcastle 4-1, how the mighty have fallen. Arsenal drew with Crystal Palace and Aston Villa are looking good. Man Utd drew 0-0 with Man City and got a man red carded in the 89th minute.

Kiwis were leading Great Britain 12-2 at half-time but managed to lose the tri-nations league test.

MY SAD LIFE

I finally got a new toner cartridge for my laser. You have no idea how happy that made me, I have been out for about a month and couldn't get one anywhere. Pathetic, isn't it. I've printed about three pages since.

My friend Barbara, who I mentioned a while back, is still recovering from her bout of illness. She shifted into Rehab Plus on Wednesday, where Judy went whilst getting over her back operation. It's just down the road from us. It was funny going there, it is very familiar to me.

Hannah got her Jazz result and was disappointed. She does well but wants high honours every time. She did as well as her friends, but that was not enough.

Jim, the guy next door that gets on very well with Pandora, had a burst pipe in his ceiling during the week. The next night, after a day of running dehumidifiers and things, the entire ceiling in the lounge and dining area collapsed. His house was a real mess, and will be for a while.

The trailer for the new star wars movie came out this week. I was asked to do an interview about it but refused.

We managed three walks this week, which was good. Twice we stopped at the lake and walked around three times on the way home from dropping off Rory. Somehow, being dropped off by two parents is exceedingly embarrassing, compared to only one being in the car. The concept that the parents have a life and are on their way somewhere is secondary to the fact that it somehow appears that he needs two parents to get him safely to school.

I actually heard from Koos (after hearing from both Peter and Heidi). Peter supplied a confirmed Koos sighting. Heidi wonders if he thinks she is still eating puffins in Greenland. Koos supplied less information than Peter, but at least I know he does continue to exist. He even rang last night and we had a chat.

Allan is back from Columbus, Ohio. He went to a big air force museum where they have a number of old "Air Force One" aircraft (he didn't realise there had been so many, neither did I). Apparently it is close to where the Wright Brothers flew (them being the first to fly, not Richard Pearse).

We went to a little do for Kath's birthday on Saturday night. It was interesting seeing the older kids, four of them aged 12-13, that stuck together like glue. Hannah didn't come, she was at a sleepover. They went down to the soccer club for a while. They are all starting to assert their independence, it is interesting to observe the changes in behaviour. At one point they were all mooching around the tv watching "transformers", a little later I noticed with was Thomas (6) and Fletcher (3) and Rory was still there watching. I made a little gesture and he looked around and realised they had all left and he hadn't noticed, he disappeared quickly.

It is Kathryn's birthday today.

Better go, have to play with my new notebook.