I humbly suggest you pay attention this time

Seriously, you should. LOCAL NEWS I learned this week that having a meeting with a cabinet minister is illegal somehow, because Carol Hirschfeld resigned after her meeting with the Broadcasting Minister wasn’t in her diary. A drone got within 5m of a plane coming in to Auckland. The drone rules are stupid, but drone pilots are even more stupider. 65,000 people signed a petition to take away the knighthood of Sir Bob Jones. Goes to show people really don’t have anything better to do. The government continued to make a fuss about 4,000 new houses going in near Unitec, despite them being on the cards for at least a couple of years. Not sure why anyone really cares, except the neighbours. An alpaca was stolen in Auckland, leaving it’s blind brother without a guide alpaca. No, I didn’t make this up. The Facebook fallout continued, including the Privacy Commissioner in New Zealand saying it wasn’t complying with the Privacy Act. I am sure there are many organisations that are not. Data is dangerous. New Zealand Post increased their prices again, speeding up their inevitable demise. On a similar note, Sky TV reckon they may not get the rights to Rugby World Cup 2019. Depending on who does, that could be a real blow to Sky TV. Their CEO announced he was retiring this week, he’s a dinosaur, so that could help them. Some boxer had a fight on Sunday morning and lost. A couple of kids died in a crash on the Desert Road, they were appropriately restrained. The weather has been pretty good, therefore unremarkable. WORLD NEWS A sailor went overboard in the Volvo Ocean Race, in the Southern Ocean. The ball tampering by the Australian Cricket Team has caught the imagination of everyone. One of the best was The Civilian (New Zealand blog) who said that severe disciplinary action had been taken against the non-cheating players for failing to uphold the standards of Australian Cricket. Some professor did the maths for some football player sticker book in the UK for the coming World Cup and reckoned the full collection would cost 773 pounds, and even with 100% effective trading would still cost over 200 quid to complete. I think plenty of people already worked out it would be ridiculously expensive to complete. MY SAD LIFE I had another trip to the dentist this week, the expensive dentist for the tricky stuff, it seemed to go okay. The chair was pink, that was weird. There was a screen on the ceiling, also. It saved me having to count ceiling tiles, and dots on ceiling tiles. There was no Bambi walk this week, he didn’t get back from Melbourne until Wednesday. The really bizarre thing this week was I saw this super sexy Mercedes, I think a AMG GT Coupe, with an old white guy driving it, and (you’ll never believe this) he let me in to the queue in front of him!!! A posh Merc driver that wasn’t a complete dick! Who knew they existed? Tuesday I had an expensive trip to the ornithologist for one of my problem teeth, it went okay, and very expensively, another visit on Wednesday that should mean I am done for about six months, finally. The chair was bright pink and they décor was…interesting. He was very cheerful, and chatty, but the patients can’t really talk back. I had to do a weird drive/walk around Pt Chev looking for halls to rent for Bambi on Tuesday, after a booking SNAFU. Maddie got a small bonus walk at Big King on Wednesday because I was in Epsom dropping something off and it was very close by, we just did a small circuit, but she was very happy. Facebook really does have some issues, it’s decided I need to like more church groups, I really can’t tell why. Everyone is hating Facebook and I see why, half the screen is advertising crap in manky groups to me rather than showing me things that I am clearly interested in. Good Friday was quite special, not because of the birth of Elvis or anything, but because Maddie finally went in to season. This meant a trip out to the Guide Dogs breeding centre, to drop Maddie off. She had been very naughty in the morning, taking off for a KFC bucket at Onehunga lagoon, so I wasn’t very happy with her. Rory came with me to drop Maddie off, Hannah and Allister were grumpy they weren’t invited. In theory, this is the one when my little girl with be deflowered and make me a grandfather. Saturday we checked out the studio for Caitlin’s preball next Saturday, a small function for Caitlin and 170 of her closest friends. I also took Pippy and Tinky for a short walk, which was nice, but weird, because they don’t go on lead. I am not feeling any pressure at all with regards to taking photos. Sunday morning Diana took me for a walk around the viaduct, and we had breakfast in the sunshine looking out across the water. Then we went to visit Bambi in Waitoki to borrow some photography gear for the preball. Diana got to fondle rabbits, Mareea (don’t blame me for that spelling) is breeding them, she has three pairs and there were a few babies. Easter is an appropriate time for that, I suppose (fondling rabbits, not breeding them). Sunday night we had the family over for dinner, which was the first time since Christmas Day, but also the first time ever that it included Hannah J. I opened a bottle of red wine, a 1990 special reserve Cab Sauv. Diana reckoned it would be foul and it really wasn’t, it was quite nice. Between me, Rory, and mother, we finished it off. I figure it’s time some of that wine was consumed. Hannah made some brioche and they were evil. Also she shared some news, and it wasn’t about a bloody dog. This morning I borrowed Conrad (Eva’s brother) and picked up Hannah and Allister and went to Big King for a walk, they hadn’t been there before, it’s very close to their house. Then Diana, Rory and I went to visit Nanny, Rory hasn’t seen her since January. She’s muddling along. As Rory correctly pointed out today, we’ve seen him four days in a row, which means we probably won’t see him again until Diana’s birthday or perhaps Mother’s Day. I have been learning French for 37 days and my fluency appears to be hovering around 62%, not improving, that is a concern. I have finally added Ross to this list, so now Kathryn doesn’t have to talk to him. I have also added Allister as a recipient to this email, I guess he has the right to know what I say, now that he is Hannah’s fiancée. It’s been quite a week. Not going too far from home with the dog proved to be a good idea, and also we seemed to have plenty happening anyway.