LOCAL NEWS
Once Edmund Hillary died on Friday, there was no other news. I was waiting for some fool to say "a mighty kauri has fallen" but they didn't, which was a pleasant surprise. The news services reacted pretty well locally, although showing us what foreign news shows said seemed a little repetitive. We were slowly fed various bits of info, yes there would be a state funeral, then the date and the location. His passing certainly wasn't before his time, at 88 he has basically been a living fossil for a while and some recent activities have shown that he really deserved a bit of a rest. I think there is no other New Zealander I would hold in such high esteem, he was a legend in everyone's lifetime and is worthy of recognition on every level.
There was flooding in the southern end of the North Island on Tuesday. We got some rain in the north but not enough to flood anything, which was a good thing.
An Australian woman on holiday here lost her breast while swimming and the whole lifeguard contingent went looking for it. They found it the next day. Nobody ever found the action man we lost at Coopers Beach in 2001.
We seem to have had a few murders and accidental deaths (mostly traffic and water, as usual). A body was found weighted and wrapped in a sheet in a river near Christchurch, possibly the most intriguing of the week (if you could call any of them intriguing).
There was a bizarre incident in the Marlborough Sound when a man found an 8 year old boy floating in the water on his own. He sailed about three km to catch up to the boat the boy belonged to and the man didn't seem too surprised or pleased to see him. Reminds one how you need a dog license but not a kid license.
The two Australians kayaking to New Zealand from Australia finally made it. They are now on record as being the two people who were the happiest ever to see Mt Taranaki, not something that is overly common. Unfortunately, their delayed trip meant they weren't able to meet Edmund Hillary in person, which had been part of their plan.
Some pillock wants to fund an appeal against the conviction of Mark Lundy. This was the revolting man who over-acted badly at the funeral of his wife and daughter and used a prostitute as an alibi. I thought he had done it before he was arrested, and there is absolutely no reason to change the view three years after his conviction, I would be very surprised if there was a lot of support for this.
WORLD NEWS
Former Olympic Gold medallist Marion Jones has finished her fall from grace, being jailed for six months for lying to prosecutors.
After losing badly in Illinois, Clinton won New Hampshire. I am not sure how you track the progress but the whole process for selecting presidential candidates seems drawn out and tedious. One can't help but wonder if the money spent on primaries wouldn't be better used on the actual election.
SPORT
Man Utd managed a 6-0 win over the poor old Geordies this week to get them back on the top of the table, equal with Arsenal who had a draw with Birmingham.
The second test between the Black Caps and Bangladesh seems to be nearly over, two days in. We are going to get done like a dinner against the Poms, Bangladesh are simply rubbish, making a very ordinary team look considerably less ordinary.
Meanwhile the Aussies and Indians are not really on speaking terms, seems to be a fuss over nothing but the Indians pulled out of a tour match in a huff.
MY SAD LIFE
We moved from Coopers Beach to Teal Bay on Wednesday. Instead of sand and sea we had sea and sand. The weather was not great for a couple of days but didn't really prevent swimming, in fact swimming was trickier when the sun was out. We hung with the Clares and Goodins until Wednesday then the Edmonds at Teal Bay.
Kathryn went mad on Tuesday night and constructed a banquet for 14 people using very little bench space and with the assistance of Caitlin. She did very well, although I suspect it would have been considerably easier if we hadn't been there.
During the Coopers stay, I showed Rory my concept of turtle surfing, where you cling to the board from underneath (with all four limbs) and see how long you stay on (or under). Rory developed the idea by using one arm to hold his nose, so when he flipped he didn't get a nose full of water. I tend to use one arm to steer so you can see the waves coming. Either way, it's pretty stupid. I got one cool photo of Rory doing it, swamped by a wave (you could see him inside the wave).
The move from Coopers to Teal Bay meant we traded down from two large dogs (Pipi and Coco) to one small dog (Poppie, a hairy dachshund). A trip to Mimiwhangata with the dog resulted in us having to smuggle her onto the beach in a towel because it was some sort of reserve. We couldn't really leave her in the car on a hot day, so instead she was hidden in various ways when people walked past (including a weird box made of boogie boards. This may seem irresponsible but it was a windy eight or ten km back to the Bach. We are pretty sure she didn't impact adversely upon any wildlife. Cassidy got covered in rocks (which matched the contents of his skull) which gave him SPF4100 sunscreen.
At Teal Bay, Nicky (now 18) brought Larry, her boyfriend (who's aunt owned the Bach). There was some concern about who was sleeping where but that seemed to be resolved without discussion with Nicky or Larry. They went walking for a few hours one day (a particularly cloudy day, I would add), and got hideously burnt on the legs and feet (very a la Charles). They did recover but it was pretty bad for a day or so. Larry is an England and Manchester United supporter, so he isn't all bad.
The boys would go to the beach a couple of times a day and play on the xbox in between. We didn't really see a lot of Rory, and he stayed behind when we left yesterday and is due home today. Hannah went boarding a few times and I joined her most times. Actual swimming wasn't very practical but boarding was pretty hard work at times.
It was Sarah's birthday on Saturday, and Bambi's on Friday.
RETARDISM AND TEENAGERS
The three boys at Teal Bay, Rory, Matt, and Cassidy, became known as the "threetards", a term of my suggestion (but widely used elsewhere, I suspect) which I believe to be entirely appropriate. I will illustrate with a story. They were body surfing on the beach where there was a band of rocks just where the waves crashed on the beach. Cassidy had grazes all down his chest from it, so logically he rolled over and body surfed on his back (and he got grazes on his back). I think this illustrates the appropriateness of the term quite well.
The formula for the intelligence of teenage boys in groups:
IQ(Group) = (MaxIQ (individuals) + MinIQ (individuals))/Count (individuals)
So you can see that the IQ goes down with the more teenage boys you add. There is also a variation of this calculation when a female is introduced into the group:
IQ(Group) = (MaxIQ (individuals) + MinIQ (individuals))/Count (individuals) * (Count (individuals) - Count (females)) / Count (individuals)
In terms of nomenclature, if there are four of them they can be called "fourkwits", suggestions of names for two, and five or more are very welcome.
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