24 March 2008

A large Government accounting lapse, the naked truth, things a bit grim in the cricket - 24/03/2008

LOCAL NEWS

On Tuesday an arrest was made for the murder of the Scottish tourist. It was a 14 year old boy who I am pretty sure was mentioned early on.

The IRD revealed a cockup in their confession of decreased revenue, a mere $600m. Funny how they react to smaller errors the taxpayer makes.

We had two die in a boy racer incident on Tuesday night on the north shore.

Yet again we had the Easter trading drama, again, and nothing changed, again. This whole religious holiday thing is so outdated it is ridiculous. The latest census says over half the population is Christian but I would struggle to think they are practising Christians.

The Easter holiday road toll got off to a pretty bad start. Four Chinese tourists died when they lost control in Clevedon and skidded into the path of a 4WD.

An English family touring New Zealand all got food poisoning from honey, turned out they reckon the bees had been gathering from something called a tutu bush which meant a build up of the poison tutin in the honey. Other people have also been poisoned, the culprit is a hobby apiarist who is denying culpability.

A local alternative TV station is going to do nude news but it's so old hat and sad that it's not interesting. I think perhaps if they got an illiterate person to read the news or people with speech impediments it would have more appeal.

WORLD NEWS

The China and Tibet thing seems to be timed to maximise coverage before the Olympics. Every country out there is scared of China. It owns half of America now, and all others trade too much with them to rock the boat. Later in the week we had a story about how Chinese living here think we get the wrong angle on what Tibet is really like and it is actually Tibet that is naughty. Who knows what to believe, but China can do what it likes in Tibet and they certainly won't get invaded like Iraq.

World famous suspected paedophile Arthur C Clarke died this week. I believe he wrote some science fiction as well. Funny how double standards exist sometimes. I never really liked his stuff.

REAL SPORT

No games this week because of Easter, so one extreme to the other. Hannah had first training with her new soccer team this week. Although many of them have been in her team before, this team is very different from last year.

SPORT

Blues finally got a win, Chiefs won, Crusaders won, Highlanders still haven't won one.

Newcastle actually won a game 2-0 but it was only Fulham. Man Utd thumped Liverpool 3-0, Arsenal lost 1-2 to Chelsea.

The final test started on Saturday with New Zealand missing a couple of key players. England staggered to about 4/3 before settling down and getting a respectable score. Then New Zealand looked good for a while before collapsing. It is not going to be a draw but I don't think New Zealand will win.

MY SAD LIFE

So, the house was quieter, the bathrooms more available, and less food was consumed for the two nights Rory was away. Pandora waited outside his room for him one morning, which was cute.

I performed a parenting experiment on Rory this week. He has a tendency to procrastinate and after a particular example of this I removed his latest favourite game, and every time he asked for it back I said "yep, sure, in a minute" and it drove him nuts. It was an amazing example of getting your own back and it was delightful.

Went swimming with the kids on Saturday. The pool was set to 50m and was really tough compared to normal. There is Olympic trials there this week.

We went on a vineyard tour on Saturday with Gavin and Yana. The kids were atrocious, fiddling with things (weighing their cellphones, stealing safety goggles, changing labels on stock shelves, and more, it wasn't a proud parent thing at all). Then they squashed grapes, at least they were allowed to do that. It was unusual, clear juice not red or stainy (the red wine gets the colour from skins and seeds over time). Then we went out to Muriwai for a while.

It is Koos's birthday today, he had a barbecue last night. The Goodins went too. There was some pretty bad volleyball played, and some badminton. Pippy came and had a lovely time, was suitably tired at the end of it.

Rory had a couple of friends stay on Saturday night, they weren't any real bother. Maddie's away at war birds in Wanaka so he's not so busy.

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