A week in which towies got a bad name (as if that was possible), and we had our first car theft experience

It is now the year of the dragon. I won't do the joke.

LOCAL NEWS

A woman from Porirua drove 100km without her kids after a toilet stop. Her parents must be proud.

Three women have been pulled over in Auckland for driving whilst breastfeeding. It's not illegal, is it? The cellphone rule is still stupid.

The woman charged for slapping the girl bullying her daughter was given diversion, which I think means community service.

A 5yo boy was hit by a van and killed by a van while playing on the side of the road. Not sure whether he was actually off the road when he was hit. Excellent East Coast style supervision going on there.

The salvation army had a whinge about the rubbish they get in their donation bins. Seriously? They don't know the world is full of dirtbags? Where have they been?

The ACC helpfully gave us stats on dog bite attacks last year, it's nearly 5,000. That seems a lot.

There was a nasty car accident with four fatalities, they reckon that emergency services couldn't tell who came from which car.

Lake Hayes Estate near Queenstown is the victim of some sort of serial cat-napping with 30 gone missing in the last year.

Some highly questionable research suggests that cheating husbands are likely to be National voters, smoke, have a PC (not a Mac, doesn't mention iPads), drink coke (not Pepsi), Christian (what does that tell you), smoke, eat meat, and have a tattoo. What a load of bollocks.

Towing cars came under the spotlight this week. A man fought a fee for his car being towed about 5km, which was $230. That really opened up a can of worms. Turns out that some people were being paid as "spotters" for cars to tow. Apparently, if the spotter owns the parking space being illegally used, then the payment is illegal. Thing is, if you own the car park, and you pay for the car park, you can't get some money back when someone else uses it and you are disadvantaged? Isn't that a little bizarre? And surely, someone parking illegally in a park, even if for ten minutes or less, will often (not always) cause inconvenience, waste time, and potentially incur cost to the owner of the park?

I misread a headline about New Zealand's youngest pro golfer to win a tournament, thought it said "ugliest". That got me thinking, about the lack of honesty in reporting. Wouldn't that be more interesting, if a little subjective? "New Zealand's hairiest man win's shearing contest" and so forth?

An SAS hopeful went into a coma during a trial. Does that make him tough, that he can go until near-fatal collapse or is he eliminated?

A crazy retail worker that swore and left then changed her mind got $8,000 in compensation for unjust dismissal. Good grief.

WORLD NEWS

Richard Branson made himself a right Richard this week when he said the war on drugs has failed, so we should decriminalise it. Totally disagree. We should be criminalising cigarettes and probably alcohol.

There was news this week than the male sex drive is responsible for all war. Part of me thinks that is ridiculous, and part of me couldn't agree more. Now, if we could only find someone to blame for religion.

It was Australia Day on Thursday, apparently the biggest day of the year for alcohol related injuries and violence. Makes you proud to be an Australian (I assume).

There has been flooding in Fiji this week, but people are beginning to care little for that country, with their dubious politics.

I am pleased that the Costa Concordia is likely to stay put for months and months, makes me feel better about the Rena still being there four months later.

SPORT

Australia played India in the fourth test, it wasn't pretty, nobody was very surprised. They made it to day five, for the first time., but for less than an hour.

New Zealand played Zimbabwe in a test, the battle of third world cricketing nations wasn't expected to be up to much. I didn't even realise it was on until half way through the first day. Turned out it was just about all over by then. Zimbabwe got rolled twice on the third day to lose by 301 runs, and an innings. Pathetic.

Man Utd lost 1-2 to Liverpool in their FA Cup game, and that's all I am prepared to say about that. Arsenal just beat Villa, Chelsea just beat QPR.

MY SAD LIFE

It was predictably quiet without Hannah. The weather during the week was very nice, didn't seem like there was enough wind, but plenty of sun. It was a little wet on Friday, but overall hard to complain.

Thomas arrived on Tuesday, Rory and I rearranged his room a little in preparation, and they basically stayed in the man cave 24 hours. They didn't go to sleep until nearly 6am, and Diana didn't see Thomas until about 5pm (I ventured in there at 3pm to get proof of life).

Hannah returned on Friday, very, very tired but happy. We did get a quick tour over the boat, Spirit of New Zealand, not Adventure.

Spent a chunk of time learning to draw in 3d this week. No printer yet. Maybe not even by the end of next week. Not very impressed. I suspect I will need the time. I did manage to create a cookie cutter for a relatively complex geometric logo, and started playing with icing tips - more seeing one I can do rather than making to order.

Saturday morning, Rory couldn't find the Falcon. Someone has stolen it. Been two days now, no idea what we do about insurance, I believe we have to wait a week or something.

Matt and Juliet seem to be having a lovely time in San Francisco, the weather seems nicer than it is here. This means Mark Twain was probably wrong.

We (Diana and I) spent Sunday on the Pacific Pearl, a cruise liner, to check it out. Was interesting, bloody scary seeing the people lining up to come on board as we left, average age was about 89.5 years old. Corridors aren't wide enough for two walkers to get past each other, either. As for the nightclub being open until 4am, I suspect at 5am most of the passengers will want their breakfast.

Hannah is on "leadership" "camp" (this truly deserves separate inverted commas, I believe). She returns on Tuesday and then school proper commences on Wednesday.

Today, Diana and I have been washing the outside of the house on our day off. Now I am truly knackered.

Rory is leaving tonight for about three nights, to Orere Point which is about an hour to the South East. Except he might not, he has a sore back now.

Brett is off to Hong Kong and Singapore again, not sure about the state of his back.

I have enlisted in a mentoring program for teenage kids that need help. I have to pass some tests, and once that happens I have to pay to attend a two day course before I get matched up with someone. Will be embarrassing if I don't pass.

Time to hit send and go have a bit of a lie down.