Rob's Sad Life

Not a great week for tall afro-American men, or trucks with interesting loads. (and yes, the Olympics, but I figure you knew that) - 11/08/2008

2008-08-11T08:41:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Well, it looked like the week for joke truck crashes. First we had a truckload of cornflakes spill near Wellington, and no, there wasn't a milk tanker or a truck full of bananas anywhere in sight. Then, on Wednesday, we had cooking oil in College Hill but no sign of French fries. We spent the rest of the week waiting for something else. It never came, it was pretty disappointing.

A Pukehina woman gave birth in a Shell petrol station on Tuesday in Papamoa. Pathetic. Lived 50ks from hospital, you'd think they would have had a bit of a better plan. Worse, they names the baby Michelle (My Shell, geddit? Good thing it wasn't at a Mobil station).

The National Party managed to dig itself a deeper hole this week. I suspect Helen and her friends are rubbing their hands with delight. The use of digital voice recorders is suddenly very fashionable, despite the fact that dictaphones have been around for years.

Tuatara reproduction became the saucy news of the week, with jokes about geriatric sex everywhere. The protagonist was a 111 year old male that had contributed to 12 eggs laid by a 70 year old female and was then being introduced to a couple of other females. Tuatara live a long time and certainly pace themselves in terms of fertility.

A tourist died in a quad bike accident west of the Waitomo caves.

We had four die on North Island roads. One was on a motor bike, when he ran into a ute carrying a quad bike. Still no truck though.

By about Thursday, the Olympic fever was dominating everything, there was no news about much else. Michael Phelps won more medals than most countries pretty early on, as expected.

A man's leg was saved thanks to a heroic night rescue on Tongariro. Searchers have not yet found the rest of the man.

WORLD NEWS

Georgia and Russia did manage some airtime, despite the Olympics. Not sure what is going on exactly in terms of who should own what, but let's hope it gets sorted before there are more tears.

Tall black comedian Bernie Mac died this week, he was only 50. Pneumonia and sarcoidosis were the culprits. Nasty. Meanwhile tall black actor Morgan Freeman had a car accident that broke his marriage. Naughty man. Tall black singer Isaac Hayes completed the trio by dying at age 65.

The murder of the father in law of the US volleyball team coach in Beijing was big news because the coach is New Zealand born.

REAL SPORT

Well, we had confusion and drama in real sport this week. Hannah's school soccer game was a semi-final against a depleted Avondale College team looked like it would be a default win to us, then they got some more players so we played with ten a side. Then they had another player arrive, didn't tell us, and we were playing a man down. Then another arrived so they played with 12. Like I said, confusion. Anyway, despite them levelling at 1-1, the pressure told in the end and we won 8-1.

Hannah's club game conflicted with a polo game (which she had to miss). They were playing Hibiscus Coast at home, they scored two goals early but couldn't get any more, final score was 2-0.

The team I help coach played nearby straight after. It was nil all at half time, but we managed to score a goal in the second half. Soon after the goal, the coach, Andy, collapsed and had a seizure. I tried to keep the girls focused, but his daughter on the field had no idea what was happening. I had to sub her off, she asked where her Dad was, and I had to tell her what was happening, and ask her whether he was epileptic or diabetic and things while the ambulance was on the way. He came out of it after about 15 minutes, but they took him away in the ambulance. The father of one girl in the team is a physician of some sort which was very handy.

Rory's U16 team had two wins over the weekend without Rory, who is staying away while his shoulder injury recovers.

Hannah's U16 girls polo team played Rotorua on Sunday. Hannah scored the opening goal, and although it was close early on they pulled away to win 9-3.

SPORT

Not sure why there was no tri-nations rugby. Auckland managed to fend off Taranaki. Last week there were some legendary upsets I failed to mention including Northland beating Waikato, Counties-Manukau beating Auckland, and Manawatu beating Canterbury. Wellington and Bay of Plenty are top of table after two weeks.

I am not going to bore you with Olympic stuff, there are plenty of people already doing that. And no, I did not see any of the opening ceremony, live or highlights. I see no relevance of a bunch of idiots dancing as far as a sporting tournament is concerned. Even worse are the idiots commentating for hours on end by basically telling us what we can see.

Man Utd beat Portsmouth 3-1 on penalties in the Charity Shield. UK Football Premier League starts next weekend. Man Utd play Newcastle.

MY SAD LIFE

I crippled myself again on Monday, I keep doing it. Pulling things in my legs, this time calf on right leg. I either need to warm up or do some stretches or both. Too old to learn new tricks. Over it now, mostly.

Ross got a weird text from Diana. I'm sorry, it's the technology Ross.

I got a text from Heidi saying Jan Willem and Janekke got married on Friday (on the 8th of the 8th, so he can remember his anniversary, I bet).

Got an email from Andy yesterday to say he was back home from hospital and nothing serious in cat scan, not even a cat. I was quite relieved, he's not allowed to drive for a little while but otherwise okay.

Not sure that much actually happened this week, it just seemed to fly by. Pretty much the usual combination of physio trips, trainings, and logistical planning and replanning that seems to occupy our weeks.

This coming Wednesday is our 20th wedding anniversary. To celebrate it we are going to probably do pretty much the same thing as every other of the 7,305 days.

Hannah's junior soccer girls play in their final this Wednesday. Should be a bit exciting.

That will do for now.

The All Blacks surprise everyone, the weather continues to be more than polite conversation, Rory reaches 16 - 04/08/2008

2008-08-04T08:40:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Well we had more weather, hard to describe really, as it just seems to be raising the bar on storms and wetness. Wednesday we have flooding on many roads in Auckland making them impassable. Northland was still flooded from the previous event on the weekend and so took little time to drown on Tuesday and Wednesday.

There were bridges out, roads cut off, slips, 12 metre cracks in the ground (12 metres sounds like it is too big to be a crack, it's a gorge or a valley). Meanwhile, 15 houses in Torbay were evacuated as there was concern about houses falling down the hill.

They reckon four people have died in the weather so far, which for us is a very big number. More than people killed in South Auckland even.

Blue ink was spilled into the Heathcote River near Christchurch. It was supposedly inert, and non-toxic. Better than it being brown I guess.

The SPCA came across two overweight fox terriers this week. Ernie weighs 20kg and Bert a massive 32kg, which is a fair amount for what is in theory a small dog. Bert looked like a dog shaped, over-stuffed cushion, with legs sticking out.

Meanwhile, continuing with the animal theme, a cat that pinches stuff has been in the news more times than I can count. Quite odd, really. That it's in the news, I mean.

There seemed to be lots of coverage about some cruise that went wrong when they were caught in bad weather. Didn't see much myself but lots were talking about it. It listed to port and someone broke a hip (but it was full of pensioners anyway, they break a hip just raising an eyebrow) and someone else lost a finger when a door slammed on it.

A man and woman were shot in Napier, both died, police were looking for the shooter. Then they decided the man was the shooter. Then they stopped looking.

Antonie Dixon, the crazy eyed guy previously found guilty of murder, was found guilty of murder again, despite the sob stories of Jehovah's Witnesses beating him up. He is appealing the verdict. Nice use of public money.

Whakatane is now being treated as a swear word, by some phonetic filters on the internet (like Google). Pronounced by some (including in a good ad on TV) as "whack-a-tane", it seems okay, but pronounce it correctly and it is considered dodgy.

New Zealand and Australian people have been caught up in some internet ticket scam for Olympics, not surprising really.

The National Party seems to be starting to finally unload it's policies, some of which appear likely to lose them some voters, possibly more than they will gain.

WORLD NEWS

A spammer escaped prison, killed his wife and child, then killed himself. As a spammer, quite happy that he had the decency to kill himself, but not sure his wife and child deserved it. Unless they were spammers, too, of course.

REAL SPORT

Well, we had zero real sport this week. Hannah's school soccer team had a bye, but it was cancelled for everyone else. Club soccer was cancelled. Rory didn't play polo while we tried to sort his shoulder out (his left should is knackered and has been since before the Panpac tournament and we really needed to sort it out).

The soccer fields have already been closed for today, and I suspect the rest of the week.

SPORT

Well, the All Blacks won against the Wallabies in the second game, winning 39-10. I was particularly surprised.

Meanwhile the Warriors ended a winning streak by losing to the Rabbitohs.

MY SAD LIFE

Jack has two teeth. Samantha is behind, the pressure is on now.

Rory's 16th birthday passed with little more than a murmur. It was pretty low key. We ended up having a fairly quick dinner at a local restaurant Diana has had her eye on for a while. It was actually very good, quite reasonable, and we were very full. Hannah and I walked home in the rain, before drying off, going to the pool, and getting wet again. Then we dried off again.

For some inexplicable reason, I went to Sylvia Park on Friday morning, before 7am. At least it was easy to find a car park. The 501st guys were in their gear and Kristy was interviewed and there was free coffee (although I had hot chocolate). Meanwhile, Rory slept in to after 11 (and again on Saturday).

I got a talkie watch in the post from Brett on his travels. It's like a talkie toaster, but less obsessive about bread. It goes wild when you change the time.

The Grannies came to dinner on Friday, and Maddie attended also. Maddie made a maple flan thing. I am not normally a flan fan but this one was good, very rich.

A real sportless weekend was very weird, and we felt like we had nothing to do. I did some more work on a problem window sill, it is now ready to start sanding the whole thing to repaint. Hannah and I managed some remedial gardening, between the showers. Nothing major, though, there wasn't time. Garlic has been planted. Much trouble was had, particularly between the children, as the boredom and excess energy from no sport needed to be used.

By Sunday it was getting so bad with sun deprivation that if the sun came out for 30 seconds people all over would go outside and stare at the sky and stagger zombie-like in the bright light. Hannah, Diana, and I went out to see the Lower Nihotupu dam, and it was very full, baby. Then we went to a beach to collect golf balls (as you do, we found three). We managed to hide from the showers in the car and otherwise meander around Mill Bay. We could see the far end of Cornwallis Beach which sort of came and went with the visibility.

Oh well, that will do for now. Whole thing seems pretty dull this week.

Winston in his death throes, bodies popping up everywhere, South Auckland stays suspiciously quiet - 28/07/2008

2008-07-28T08:39:00.000+12:00

You know how I have been saying the weather's been bad? Well, it's been really bad. Oh, and we should be getting more.

LOCAL NEWS

A retarded kayaker got lost off Mt Maunganui in the bad weather, he deserves everything he gets. Only a mad man would kayak in this weather, when it has been dangerous just to walk on the beach in many places. Rather than being feared dead, I think I feared he might still be alive.

Earlier in the week there was a bit of fun at Lake Karapiro when a press boat sank while getting shots of Olympic rowers. All the footage disappeared but none of the journos died. Shame nobody had a camera to record the news people becoming the news.

A burglar in New Plymouth was well caught when he chose a flat occupied by a Hurricanes loose forward. He was tackled and held until police arrived.

Bit of a controversy over an airline charging adult rates for a 14 year old passenger then not allowing him to accompany his 2 two year old sister (on the return journey, not the outbound journey, which is a little inconsistent).

As well as Maori Language week, it was Australasian Rail Safety Awareness week. This meant we got lots of ads about being careful around trains. Meanwhile, various shows slipped in some meaningless Maori babble here and there, it was most disconcerting. Today it is back to normal.

Winston went from the frying pan and into the fire this week, with another healthy sum coming from big players in the racing industry (and he is Minister of Racing, don't ask why they need a minister for horse racing, they don't have a minister of roller hockey or scrabble).

Then things went from worse to 28x more worserer for Winston as it turned out Bob Jones had been donating via some anonymous vehicle called the Spencer Trust. Meanwhile Winston continues to show his contempt for the law and I think he has got to the point where only the most irrational voter would consider him worthy of elected office. However, there is no shortage of irrational voters, is there?

This week we also had Condoleeza Rice visiting us, Winston's best mate. Lousy timing for Winston because he should have been basking in reflected glory, but it mostly backfired.

We got tons of coverage of the sob story about how psychopath Antonie Dixon was abused by his mother and Jehovah's witnesses. This, of course, means that chopping limbs off people is completely understandable and rather than jail he should spend time shelving books in public libraries for an hour a week to make up for it.

The coach and father of a young tennis player got the player disqualified for coaching during the game with a concealed earpiece.

A motorcycle collided with a horse, the man died, they didn't mention the horse. Or the motorbike.

Bodies kept showing up in unexpected places. We had one in a central Auckland street, another near the Kowai river, wherever that is, then a man's body was found on the side of the southern motorway on Friday night. Then the kayaker was found on Matakana island (the one who went missing at Mt Maunganui).

A climber died on Mt Aspiring, but it wasn't really a case of finding a body, the other three in his group saw him slip (while wearing running shoes instead of his boots, which were on his back) and when he came to rest 100m down, he was in a state ready to be laid to rest. So they saw him become a body, I suppose.

Hanover Finance, with a supposedly rock solid reputation, became the 23rd finance company in New Zealand to fail. They haven't entirely failed but they are basically knackered because who will invest with them now?

The two major shareholders of Hanover Finance were prominent on the rich list published a few days later. Interestingly enough, John Key also made the list, which I don't think will help him get votes.

A woman was shot in a dairy in West Auckland on Saturday. She wasn't body-fied, and should be okay.

A man was fatally shot on Sunday morning in Waharoa, the place with the straight to Matamata (or from Matamata depending on your point of view). Sunday night, his house got burned. Supposedly as revenge for being shot. I don't think gang members have quite got this revenge thing figured out.

Google must have read my email last week because that added Maori soon after I mentioned it last week. Well they said they had, but I can't find it.

Our youngest convicted murderer, Bailey Junior Kuariki, is back in prison after breaching parole by using drugs.

WORLD NEWS

Fugitive ex-president Radovan Karadzic was apprehended, I didn't actually know he was a fugitive. They seemed surprised he was using a false name, but I can't imagine him hiding for long using his real name. One commentator said that it did nothing for the reputation of faith healers, personally it does not surprise me that they included genocidal maniacs in their midst. Naturally, he will be defending himself, as one would expect.

The Model T is 100 years old this week. I guess that means 100 years of global warming.

Barack Obama set a record for clichés and tired aphorisms in his speech in Berlin. He will be awarded the Cybill Fawlty fellowship for stating the bleeding obvious on his return to the US.

A 15 year old boy in Winnipeg had his fate tarsealed when a truck load of asphalt was dumped and he was buried in it.

Mick Jagger is a senior citizen this week, turning 65 on Saturday. Meanwhile Ron Wood keeps his youth by running off with Russian teenagers.

The credibility of the global warming theory took a hit with "soft hail" in Sydney. It wasn't snow, apparently.

THE GOSS

Okay, this one is real. There was a piece about how film makers were digitally removing Sienna Miller's Brazilian. You have got to be kidding. This is just as bad as the one about them giving Justin Timberlake some artificial shrinkage in some music video (too much salami). Any body that suggests that either change improves the artistic merit of a movie or a video, feel free to explain that one to me.

Also this week, we hear about the disease Winston has been battling since Wednesday. Pecuniary Amnesiitis is the disease of the brain which makes you forget where the money went. We find out how he's been living a secret life without cash, using taxi chits and purchase orders to get by.

We then learn how the majority owners of Hanover Finance appear to have suffered the same affliction.

Police this week will decide not to press charges against Tony Veitch, because he's suffered enough. Being wealthy, white, and short are all things he has to live with and he just wouldn't survive in prison.

Subsequently, the will be a riot at Mt Eden prison as inmates demand refunds on raffle tickets. The prize was getting Mr Veitch as their bitch for a week.

REAL SPORT

Well, despite the continuing rain, we played school soccer on Wednesday. This was the final round robin match and they won 5-0. The don't play next week and play 4th place the week after.

Club soccer was cancelled, again.

Rory's U16 polo team played on Sunday, won about 12-1 versus a B team, as you would expect. However, the girls A team lost 2-3 to a B team which we didn't expect.

SPORT

The much over publicised Deans v Henry game resulted in a clear win for Deans with the Wallabies winning 34-19. I still think that the media here heavily overestimates how obsessed we are with the All Blacks. I wonder if the Rugby Union are starting to realise what most of us already knew.

Warriors had another win, tight game 8-6 over the Storm.

The Waikato (think they are Waikato) Magic made the final of the transtasman netball series which is played tonight.

MY SAD LIFE

I went to see Hannah's teachers this week. Two said she was very quiet in class. "No, Hannah CLARKE," says me. They assured me they had the right person. I still think these things are a complete waste of time. Her English teacher was MIA, I don't think we've managed to see her yet. I suspect she could be fictional.

Saw the twins briefly, and taught Jack to say "Mama". He did it three times, although slowly, it still counts. I did point out to both of them that whoever says "Mama" first gets to be the favourite, I think that motivated him. They are about five and a half months old now.

Brett's gone to Singapore and Hong Kong for work, lucky bugger.

Spoke with Gavin, briefly, Maria is walking. Haven't seen them for ages.

Diana and I went to see the Dark Knight on Friday night. Man, it was long. Yes, aspects of it were quite good but overall it felt laboured, I think. It's not one for the kids.

Hannah and I went jeans shopping. Well, actually, I went shoe shopping and she went jeans shopping. I didn't think any would fit me, because usually they don't stock ones big enough for me in Jeans West, but I ended up down sizing twice before I got the right ones. Third from biggest is pretty unusual for me. Maybe they are just stocking larger sizes. They are stretch jeans, my very own stretch-n-grow.

We popped in to the Goodins on the way to the polo game. Their house is chaos as they prepare for some reconstruction to sort out the leaking issue. Hannah stayed there to make afghans while we went to Millennium.

Rory turns 16 this Thursday. Nope, nobody around here is feeling old….

Kidnapped Chinese, Indians on the run, a killer Iraqi, and that's just in Auckland! - 21/07/2008

2008-07-21T09:46:00.001+12:00

I can't believe I am saying this, but maybe Winston is right about immigration, given events this week.

LOCAL NEWS

It is Maori Language week, so you have to read this with a Maori accent. I have restrained myself and not ended every sentence with "eh". Did you know Google doesn't translate to or from Maori?

A five year old Chinese girl was kidnapped. Sounded like a Chinese community kidnapping deal. A Chinese woman translator involved with 60 kidnappings tried to tell us that it didn't happen very often in Chinese community (yeah, right). Meanwhile, the girl was found on Friday, alive and well. Turned out the kidnapper was Chinese, and a real estate agent.

A high school rugby player died a couple of weeks after a nasty neck injury.

Thirty nine Indians visiting New Zealand on the way to the world youth day papal visit in Australia all disappeared. Immigration officials are checking dairies. By this morning they had tracked down twenty of them, which is pretty impressive. Two are on their way home (genuine Catholics, apparently, not sure why that is remotely important) and they are encouraging the others they have found to head home under their own steam. They can't have hidden very well if more than half were found in less than a week.

Poor old Tony Veitch finally resigned on Thursday, finally realising that the only thing worse than kicking a person when they're down is trying to hide the fact.

Paul Holmes managed to make himself look like an even bigger tosser by spending his second consecutive Sunday Herald column telling us why Veitch is being picked on and it's not fair. There needs to be a new word for pathetic, at it's best it was a guy sticking up pointlessly for a colleague, or perhaps a case of "but for the grace of god…" after his fun in the spotlight with his daughter.

A Christchurch man heard a loud explosion, it turned out to be his Nokia cellphone on the charger. The device was spread over 10 metres. Lucky he wasn't talking on it. The charger was fine…..

On Friday it was National Poetry Day, I will resist the urge to put this in rhyme. News writers everywhere seemed to think rhyming makes poetry, it's very sad.

On Saturday a man threatened police by holding a knife to his own throat. Meanwhile there were two dead men inside the apartment. I am not sure the police were terribly concerned about the threat. Looks like a love triangle. The man was Iraqi, but he spent a lot of time in South Auckland.

Winston finally admitted that New Zealand First had taken money from Owen Glenn. Still no idea why it is such a bad thing. Apparently Winston didn't know it went in to their legal fund, funny how he didn't notice an extra 100k, they must have tons of dosh.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge was closed after an accident on Saturday morning.

Two West Auckland boys did their bit to draw attention away from South Auckland by abducting a fellow 14 year old and molesting her.

The man that killed teenager Liam Ashley in prison van has now attacked a guard, in a prison van. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me….

A funeral director delivered the wrong body, and a family farewelled a strange man rather than their mother. Would it have made any difference who they buried, if they hadn't discovered the error? Not really.

A contractor cut two cables, killing most phone lines in Pt Chevalier. We were off the air for about two days. Didn't impact broadband, though, so not all bad. Second big outage in two weeks.

WORLD NEWS

Meanwhile they had a mass mass with the Pope in Sydney, with over 150,000 Catholics. The prime minister was there as well, prompting many to say "Who's that up there with Kevin Rudd?". I would have thought that false idols must be pretty close to the definition of the Pope, but let's not go there.

Some survey of pop songs has Bohemian Rhapsody as #1, which I can understand. But many of the others were shockers (the list was on onepoll.com, it was really odd). Imagine was the only other one in the list that I could agree with.

Oil prices seem to be easing, about time too.

THE GOSS

I am thinking of maybe adding a section with the sort of stories I expect to turn up the sort of magazines that pay $15m for a photo of the baby of an actor or actress. The following is a small sample.

Paul Holmes reveals his early morning trysts with Tony Veitch (they did work in neighbouring studios, both starting at 6am), and the fact the he, too, was beaten by Tony one day after they broke up. Their adventures on the "On Air Club" will then be serialised for mobile phones.

Owen Glenn will tells all about how his money is considered somehow "dirty", and he doesn't understand why. The spread will include finally admitting he used to sell real estate, used cars, and Amway. After writing the article, the journalist will end up being committed to an institution after trying to wash the hand that touched Owen Glenn for 15 hours straight, this of course, will be in a second article.

Winston Peters gives back the $100k after learning that Owen Glenn used to sell real estate.

I welcome contributions from everyone for this section.

REAL SPORT

Well, Rory's 18B team nearly finished with a win, but they lost 5-6, so came 15th, I think. Hannah's team lost their remaining two games so came 6th.

Hannah's soccer on Saturday was defaulted by the other team but we didn't find out until everyone drove all the way to Botany Downs. Andy's team (that I help coach) had eight players so it worked for them (they had six ring-ins play for them in the end). They got a healthy win, but it was with quite a little help from their friends. The weather was actually quite nice for the game, but wasn't flash before and after.

SPORT

Australia played South Africa in the tri-nations and beat them 16-9.

The Warriors won again, third time in a row. They need to win quite a lot more.

Podraig Harrington won the British Open, second time running I think.

MY SAD LIFE

This week was a bit quieter once the polo finished, which was nice. 12 days solid of visiting a pool up to three times a day was a bit more than you really want. Haven't been to a pool since.

On Thursday afternoon both our phone lines died. Then we worked out that everyone else in our area has no phone either. Sounded like the whole of Mt Albert and Pt Chevalier. We will have so many credits on our account we won't have anything to pay.

We went bowling on Friday, just the four of us. They didn't sanitise the shoes, ugh. Diana owned everyone in the second game, got two strikes. Bowling does seem to get boring pretty quick though, one game is never enough and two feels like one too many. Maybe they should do a 15 frame version.

Diana and Hannah popped in to see Sarah on Friday. I must try to do that.

We also all went to Get Smart on Saturday, with Maddie and Maddie's Mum, Kim. We ended up sitting in three different places because it was pretty crowded and without allocated seating nobody wants to sit next to each other (and Diana wonders why I don't like going . I really enjoyed the movie, it had some pretty formulaic stuff but enough of the original stuff old series was included. I know it wasn't exactly high-brow but very few things make me laugh out loud and this certainly did.

I had two messages and two phone calls from Telecom to check my phone is working. Yes, it is, but it is engaged all the time with customer service calls!!! Sheesh.

The kids are not exactly overjoyed to be back at school today. They are either in shock, or mourning, or both.

Big news about a small man, a quiet week in South Auckland, vehicle madness strikes NZ - 14/07/2008

2008-07-14T09:43:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Local TV Radio sports presenter Tony Veitch was revealed to have paid $100,000 to an ex-girlfriend after inflicting severe injuries on her including four broken vertebrae. It wasn't a drunken car accident, but kicking, which seems pretty bad and charges should really have been laid. We've had flow on update stories all week. From where I sit, it doesn't matter whether he did what he did to an ex-girlfriend, his mother, his child, a complete stranger, an all star pro wrestler, or a dog. It's just not right. And worse, keeping it secret and buying his way out of it is exceedingly cowardly.

Not surprisingly, after the pressure from price rises and petrol, people in New Zealand are buying home brands more, shopping closer to home, and seem to be trying to stem the bleeding.

Vehicle madness #1. A police officer was killed in the line of duty while putting out road spikes to stop the guy that hit him. We had the usual fuss. Wouldn't have happened if he had looked both ways first.

Vehicle madness #2. A drunk driver speeds in a park, hits a curb, misses the ground (ie flies through the air) and drops 20 metres to hit a tree that he never liked anyway. The tree won.

Vehicle madness #3. A 73 year old woman squished herself against her own granny flat with her own car. The timing to get this right is actually quite tricky, when you think about it.

Vehicle madness #4. After #2, the Green party announced a bill to ban cars because of the harm they do to trees.

Vehicle madness #5. After #3, and hearing about #4, the leader of Grey Power started a petition to ban old people from parking cars. He has since been taken to a home for the extremely confused.

The dodgy mouth taping rest home has been closed, didn't take too long.

A 14 year old girl is on the run with a 41 year old man.I believe she is dyscalculic (which is dyslexia with numbers) and thinks he is 14 too. Nevertheless, whilst it may be true love, and he just "wants to protect her", it is exceedingly dodgy (he is ex-con, generally not a nice man).

A winner of the highest order got sprung for faking a $300 Waiheke ferry pass. His technique was legendary. He got an expired pass, crossed out the word June and wrote July in crayon (okay, he used a sticker, not crayon, but crayon is funnier, and the sticker was utterly pathetic). He reckons he had no cash and did it in a hurry, but three weeks later he used it again (and how many times in between, you wonder) and was apprehended. He will be banned from the ferry for two years which will make getting to work exceedingly difficult. There's a lesson there…

Meanwhile, after the trouble with A minus list celeb Veitch, B list celeb Brooke Howard-Smith got in trouble pushing a woman out of a bar.

A paraglider had to make a forced landing at the bottom of a cliff at Taylors Mistake near Christchurch. If he had clipped the cliff further up it would have been a lot worse than a forced landing.

There has been some controversy about New Zealand First receiving a donation from Owen Glenn. I don't understand why it's a bad thing (other than the fact that Winston is a bloody danger to society).

Another fuss this week about making locomotives for our new national rail asset. I thoroughly agree that encouraging manufacturing here is a good idea, even if it does cost a little more.

Everyone in South Auckland behaved this week.

WORLD NEWS

G8 does not interest me so I took no notice.

A New Zealand born Australian solder died in Afghanistan. A car bomb, I think.

Obscene amounts have been paid for photos of the Brad & Ange new babies. $15 million is ridiculous. And who wants to see them? I mean until now, if someone was going to pay to see Angelina's twins, I would have thought they meant something completely different.

The Pope is in Australia for World Youth Day, which I just don't get at all. It seems to be world Catholic day.

REAL SPORT

After the promising start to the tournament, Rory's team lost two games that they could have won. This put them in to play offs for 7th/8th. A team they beat ended up making it directly to semis by beating two teams that beat us. The lead early in their last game, were down 3-6, then scored eight unanswered goals to win 11-6.

Hannah's team won their first five matches, but played terribly at times despite winning. Then they played really badly in a tougher game and lost 3-10. Hannah scored a few goals, was generally playing very well. Some of the others were just shocking. In the loss, Hannah scored a goal from her only shot and there were 22 missed shots at goal. I know winning isn't everything but I have grave concerns about the capability of many of the players in that team.

Rory's 18B team are yet to win a game. They were 5-2 up over Maranui but lost 5-6. They were doing very well, Rory scored two nice goals in that game. I think they have one more game tomorrow.

SPORT

The Boks beat the Blacks, just, in the second match. At 30-28 it was just a case of how soon the clock ran out.

The Warriors had a win on Saturday, for a change.

MY SAD LIFE

Not much happening in our world beyond water polo with up to three trips to the pool a day. We had the billet staying until Friday. I have taken nearly 3,000 photos at the polo so far.

Hannah and I managed to wake up the Goodins on Sunday morning, after wandering the flea market with Nanny. I found the mute button on Pippy (if you pat her she goes quiet). Thomas and Katie seem to have discovered YouTube.

On Tuesday night, Hannah played indoor soccer, and I ended up playing too because there weren't many people there. It was cold, my warm up was getting out of the car. I pulled a lot of things, not bad, because I did slow down. It took about three or four days before I could walk normally.

Diana and Rory went to the Warriors clean up on Sunday while me and Hannah went to the flea market. Not sure how we managed to swing that, but you take your chances I guess.

Question from Diana last night "Why do they call it Two and a Half Men?". My answer "I beg your pardon?". "Yes, it makes no sense, there is JD, Turk, Elliot, Carla, and so on, so why Two and a Half Men?". My measured response was "Well, dear, that's because they are in a show called Scrubs, and aren't in Two and a Half Men, are they?" See Rory Story 1, Diana should be watching her back. (the two shows were being advertised together, because they screen together, but really).

RORY STORY 1

On Thursday, Ollie caught a mouse. He mostly killed it, but not enough. Rory had to finish it off. Not sure I could have, he did well. Now we are nervous about how quick he will be to turn off our machine when we are old. Well, more old.

RORY STORY 2

Maddie had a rough night on Thursday. Rory was off to see her on Friday after his game. Soon after, Diana and I were off to the pool (for a change). We saw her car parked outside the florists, and Rory inside looking very sheepish. Sent him a text that said "sprung!"

Pan Pacs in full swing, Dannevirke goes crazy, dodgy broadcasts, good news for Pringles - 07/07/2008

2008-07-07T09:42:00.001+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Weather has continued to be awful. Lots of hail here, snow elsewhere.

Sad news this week that real estate agents are finding economic conditions difficult and 10% have left the profession. Whilst there is one that is older, there are few that have a worse reputation. The flood of sympathy cards and food parcels has been impossible to detect with the human eye.

On July 1, our railways became KiwiRail. This joins the stable of kiwi-named companies run by the government (KiwiBank, KiwiSaver, and Kiwifruit, the gay men's collective).

It's all been happening in Dannevirke. First controversy about a brothel opening in the main street (called Klassi Sheelaz or something, an oxymoron is ever there was one). Second, a man was killed by a plough near Dannevirke. The owner of Klassi Sheelaz wasn't concerned, it was only one less customer. Nothing happened the day after, I looked very hard.

Some Siamese fighting fish were intercepted in the post this week, from Thailand. I think they were alive when detected but not for much longer.

We had a seven year old boy die in Nelson, the step father has been charged, and guess what? He's from South Auckland. So now they are exporting murderers to other places.

National has said they will privatise ACC, not sure why this is so controversial, they had done it last time they were in power and Labour reversed it. Are people's memories that short?

Great bit of guerrilla marketing this week. Some guy put his soul for sale on trademe, it attracted the usual sort of attention that sort of thing does (the media are just sluts, really, for an easy story). Anyway, in a bit of a coup, Hell Pizza bought it for $5000. This generated considerably more than $5k in coverage, so one has to wonder if the whole thing might have been planned.

A DOC (Department of Conservation) worker shot a rare takahe, he thought it was a pukeko (there were 36 on the island, now only 35, he should have known the difference).

A police chase ended in the death of the retarded teenaged chasee. A few more fatal chases might prevent more.

Truckies protested on Friday about a rise in road user charges but clogging main roads. They were pretty sensible, generally, occupying only one lane. Diana went over the harbour bridge which she said was pretty weird with a lane full of trucks coming the other way.

A 14 year old boy was found dead on a sports field near Taupo. They reckon he was drunk, fell asleep, and froze. Is that natural causes?

Asians had a protest march this week, about crimes against Asians. However, the organiser is recruiting help from the triads, which seems to be a little odd. There are rumours that triads are organising local gangs with things like drugs.

A dangerous substance incident where a mystery powder was spread around a park. Wasn't explosive or anthrax, it was cake mix powder.

Sky TV cocked up (literally) when they showed porn on their free to air channel for four minutes during a rugby show. So far the only complaints made have been that it wasn't for longer. No mention of whether the porn channel people got rugby as well.

WORLD NEWS

Nasty incident in Australia where a man killed his wife and two grand daughters with an axe and tried to get his police woman daughter also.

Is it just me or is Gaddafi the Michael Jackson of world leaders? He must have had facelifts, he looks like he always has. He is 66, so I suppose he's not that old.

When the cure is worse than the condition. Two helicopters containing people bound for hospital crashed into each other on the way to the same hospital, and were diverted to the morgue. You'd think choppers were slow enough that you'd see each other, surely?

Nasty incident when lightning struck at a soccer match in Cambodia, which killed three players and injured three others.

A "bulldozer" went amok in Jerusalem. It wasn't really a bulldozer in my book, more like a front end loader, and it was on wheels not tracks. It created mayhem, killing people along the way.

A court in Europe has ruled Pringles are not potato chips. They did stop short of saying they aren't food, which is a shame.

REAL SPORT

Despite all expectations, we did have soccer on Wednesday afternoon. Hannah wasn't in great shape but played. It was against the bottom of the table team, St Dominics, and we won 6-0. I refereed the second half and their coach was trying to spring an offside trap by not defending, it was woeful.

Club soccer was again cancelled on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Rory's Pan Pac tournament started on Friday, with a 9-1 win over North Harbour B and a much tighter 9-8 win over Maranui. Rory scored a goal in both games, generally played pretty well. Then they played Rotorua on Sunday morning, should have been relatively tight as Rotorua lost to Maranui 11-18, so they scored more goals than we did against them (although they let in ten more). It wasn't, ended up being a 22-0 whitewash, Rory scored about four or five.

We play North Harbour today, I think we should win comfortably, and the NSW team ( that our billet is in) tomorrow.

SPORT

Queensland won the deciding state of origin game 16-10. Not really ever interested in that but it is very big in Australia.

The All Blacks beat South Africa in their first Tri-Nations game, 19-10 or so.

Venus won Wimbledon women's, beating Serena, and they won women's doubles together. Federer and Nadal were hammering out a close match, but Nadal won which is quite big news, first time someone has won French and Wimbledon since 1980 (Bjorn Borg).

Lewis Hamilton won British GP.

MY SAD LIFE

We got a call on Wednesday to say that Hannah had actually broken her finger again. Great service, five days after the x-ray. Haven't heard anything yet from who she was referred to.

Sarah and the twins visited this week. I reckon Jack is teething but don't know if any results have appeared yet.

We had a billet staying with us from the Combined NSW High Schools polo team. Cameron, nice kid. Another guy was staying at Rory's friend Cassidy's house, Nathan. They spent a bit of time together as a group. Cameron's parents came over to watch the tournament, their names are Bob and Diana, kind of funny.

It is Heidi's birthday tomorrow.

It is five years today since Dad died, it was also a Monday. Feels like a very long time ago.

Diana has been making a lot of bread to save dough. I think we used 5kg of flour in not much more than a week. The bread is damn good, and it is cheaper than store bought stuff.

My broadband and office phone line failed on Saturday night, about the time of a big lightning strike and is not yet functioning. We found a weird pile of cables poking out of the ground at the end of our street on Sunday, not sure if it is related, they sure looked like phone cables.

Diana took the two billets and Rory and Cass down to Mission Bay where they got some fresh air. I spent a while with them in a mall looking for a Rubik's cube.

We had the opening ceremony last night, there are over 100 teams taking part. I got to climb up inside the pool roof to take photos from above the action in the ceiling of the pool (Paul, you would remember the roof at West Wave, it was quite high).

Diana kind of starts a new job today. Kind of, because she has been doing a little bit of work for them already.

Intelligent design battle in New Zealand, Spain are European champions, beware of people without underwear - 30/06/2008

2008-06-30T09:40:00.000+12:00

We've had rain, hail, and further south snow. It has been quite a rough bit of weather, really but I can't see our lake levels being much of a problem.

LOCAL NEWS

There was news that a Christian group has supplied some intelligent design material to 400 high schools. It seems to be being treated with the lack of respect it deserves.

The trimaran Earthrace finally made it around the world, it's been trying and we've been hammered with updates over and over again. It took just under 61 days. Shame it was about 62 days after we lost interest.

Police made an arrest on a seven year old murder case. This wasn't a seven year old that murdered someone or was murdered, but a case that was seven years old. Oh, never mind.

Some guy that is trying to sell an "energy drink" called Cocaine in New Zealand that is sold overseas. Not yet approved because of the caffeine content. Turns out he is a convicted paedophile, not sure what difference that makes, other than proving he is unlikely to be selling this stuff for the public good.

We had a murder in Wanganui, nasty incident where a woman was shot in the head.

A rest home resident had her mouth taped shut by a worker at an Auckland rest home. Not a nice thing to do, but you can easily imagine why.

Despite the weather they still reckon the hydro lakes are low in the south island.

WORLD NEWS

French President and his main squeeze got a shock in Israel when a gunshot went off just as they were boarding their plane. The shot came from a nearby policeman shooting himself in the head. Israeli authorities are now considering changing the rules to stop requiring the use of the fatal salute.

Mugabe had his one horse race in Zimbabwe. Not sure if he's told everyone he won yet, he might wait for it to look like some votes were actually counted.

REAL SPORT

Despite the pretty bad weather this week, Hannah's school soccer team played Avondale on Wednesday in brutally cold conditions with a little bit of wet thrown in. It was my first game solo coaching them, and we had no subs. We really struggled to get out of the box at first but the first time we cleared it we screamed down to the other end and scored. Couldn't score again in the first half. In the second, an opposing player pushed one of ours over, from behind, with both hands, inside the six yard box. It was a penalty from wherever you looked at it but the ref didn't see it that way. We scored from the corner, so wasn't the end of the world. Hannah scored the last goal with a nice little pass back to her and popped it over everyone and in. Now three wins from three and firmly fixed at the top of the table.

Rory found out he won $10 from his swim meet, which he got when he finally went to swim squad.

All soccer on Saturday was cancelled, there was no training all week.

Hannah's club polo team had a warm up game on Sunday. I didn't really want her to play (see below for reason). She didn't play much, team was 1-3 when she came one. She helped tidy things up and they came back to draw 3-3.

SPORT

Paul Chambers rightly pointed out that I neglected to mention Euro last week. We saw Holland knocked out over that weekend and Spain beat Italy on penalties last Monday morning. We've had problems with video feed but was world wide in Turkey v Germany semi-final, which Germany won 3-2 about 1 minute from full time. The Spain v Russia semi-final was close until Spain started to establish their position, winning 3-0 in the end. I thought Russia might have had a chance.

The Black Caps won again, putting them ahead 2-1 in the series with one game left. That weather shortened abandoned game may yet haunt them, but good on them so far. The last game was at Lords on Saturday night, our time, and they managed to win that even more convincingly to take the series 3-1.

This morning, Spain beat Germany in a replay of the war in the 1930's, except there were less tanks. Spain won 1-0, good result, feel a little sorry for the Germans but they have won it a lot already.

MY SAD LIFE

Diana enjoyed her birthday. We had lunch at Prego, for a change. We have been going there more than twenty years. The kids and I made dinner. Rory took the junior role, doing little more than grating cheese. Hannah and I did the bulk of it. Nobody was ill, which was a great relief (it was fettuccine with a mushroom sauce), and some other bits, I forget.

In the rain coming back from the supermarket for supplies on Monday night we picked up Karen and her little dog Poppie. I indiscreetly said to her it was so much nicer seeing her while I was wearing underpants (because on Sunday, after swimming I had to go commando, which was really bad given that we had to go shopping and we bumped into so many people we knew, including Karen). The good news is that I did remember them this week, all three times that I went swimming.

Hannah hurt her finger again at training on Thursday night. We checked it out Friday, it wasn't broken, but pretty sore. We are getting quite a collection of x-rays, we are thinking of decorating her room with them.

We moved the new chest of drawers into her room during the week, rearranged things, and Hannah did a lot of very overdue cleaning. I wouldn't say it is a massive improvement, but it is an improvement, the floordrobe is smaller than it was.

Bit of a funny weekend, weather sucked, no soccer, but a few other things happening around the place.

Mum is in Sydney at the moment, staying with Penny and family.

Seeing Euro 2008 is now finished, I think Paul Chambers must be having his 25th birthday this Wednesday. A quarter of a century, yuck.

Hannah has been a little high-energy this week, had no soccer training (all three trainings cancelled) and only one soccer game. However, she's also had more homework, and had to write a story about being a refugee. It could have been about the suffering of a teenager in the holocaust not having credit on their cellphone but it wasn't. I thought it was a pretty good story, really.

I now have three cellphones. One is work, on Telecom, one is my secret one (the free one that is dying), and one is on Vodafone so the kids can text me. It is also useful for checking the Vodafone networks call routing like over this weekend just gone when we had a big job to do. Yeah, I know, sad.

South Auckland's reputation continues to head south, the status quo returns in Zimbabwe, weird things in our street - 23/06/2008

2008-06-23T09:39:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Two people were awarded $1000 each for being served dishwashing liquid instead of mulled wine. Sounds rather odd. Pretty sure it wasn't an accident but why do it?

Another nasty incident in Manukau with a woman being hunted in a car park after her handbag was snatched. They hit her with their car, she got pretty serious injuries. South Auckland is getting very bad press at the moment, a nasty place to visit and you wouldn't want to live there. Arrests have since been made.

The same day, a woman was quoted in the news telling us how we needed positive stories about South Auckland. You have to admit the timing wasn't great. We do get plenty of positive stories:
- police made a positive ID of the gunman
- sexual attacks by HIV-positive men
- man dies after being positive he was on the correct side of the motorway

A senior police officer was killed on a bicycle this week, he was an advocate of bicycling.

A week after black Friday, we had a pretty bad one. Two died and one was injured in a boat crash. A man was crushed by a digger. Another man was toasted when a car caught fire in South Auckland (yep, South Auckland again). It think there was another event as well, but who needs it?

Winston Peters, who has managed to play a part in every government since MMP came along, has announced he is going to re-take Tauranga. I would hope that all his elderly supporters have died or got dementure sufficiently to have forgotten who he is and the younger ones coming through have seen enough to be convinced he doesn't need to be voted for.

Been a bit of gang warfare going on this week. It came to a head in Hawke's Bay, after gate crashing a party. This was not South Auckland, which was a good thing.

WORLD NEWS

As the GW presidency commences it's death roll, he now wants to open up offshore drilling for oil again. Let's think, he has about five months left. One awful thing per month should do it. How about:
- free maccas to every house-bound morbidly obese person;
- a scheme to give firearm offenders a course on firearms use and a second chance (should create a whole generation of law-unabiding sharpshooters;
- compulsory intelligent design instruction in schools;
- repeal amendment 21 (which repeals amendment 18, which was abolition);
- allow the use of pets, mannequins, and sacks of hammers in the car pool lane (because anything with a higher IQ than GW is a person too)

An Australian and a New Zealander fell 26 stories when something failed while they were patching walls on a multi-storey building on the Gold Coast. Not nice.

Morgan Tsvangirai has pulled out of the run-off election in Zimbabwe. That can't be a good sign. He says a fair poll was impossible among all the violence. Mugabe wins because he has more goons, eh? Democracy at work. When you think about it, it does basically come down to money. Whether you buy hired muscle, spin doctors, or advertising, is it really any different?

Yet again, boating in the Philippines is proved to be a little x-games like with 800 missing. Must have been a pretty big ferry.

REAL SPORT

Hannah's school soccer team played Lynfield this week. Lynfield looked scary on paper, having scored ten goals in two games and conceding none. We'd only had one game, had no trainings for two weeks, and didn't look convincing in the first game. However we scored reasonably early, then scored again from a penalty when the goalie picked up a ball passed back to them from their own player, and then the floodgates opened. We won 7-0, which would have been a bit of a shock to the Lynfield team. With only two games under their belt, Springs are now top of the table (some have played three), and Lynfield is second.

On Saturday, in pretty ordinary conditions, Hannah's team played another team that came up to div 1 after grading. They weren't bad but didn't really have much of an attack. Hannah's team won 2-0.

Rory played three games of polo over the weekend for his under 16 team. They drew 5-5 with Northsport, beat Marist 7-3, and then drew 6-6 with the New Zealand U15 team which contained four players who came from our club. Rory scored the last goal to equalise with 5 seconds left, great effort, he was pretty happy.

SPORT

The Black Caps are not having a great tour. In an ODI on Wednesday that they were going to win, rain forced abandonment just one over before they could call it a game. Even at that point I think that if England had taken one wicket with every ball in the unplayed over, New Zealand would still have won (not quite true, but not far off).

The All Blacks beat England 44-12 in the second test but key players Richie McCaw and Ali Williams were injured, not sure how bad.

And the same night the Black Caps managed to beat England, finally, to level the ODI series. Wasn't a pretty game though, nobody got a decent score.

New Zealand won the under 20 world rugby title and the NZ team got three golds in the world rowing event in Poland.

MY SAD LIFE

Spent 90 minutes getting from Roskill to Otahuhu on Wednesday. No wonder I avoid going places. I heard the Mad Butcher on the radio while I was in the car (and the same adverts over and over again). He had a conversation about dyslexia, which he has, except he pronounces is "dillexia". It was pretty sad.

Kind of scary on Thursday, the invasion of the babies. Was leaving to go to a meeting and there were four or five pushchairs charging down the road. It was for a coffee morning that Sarah was attending. I just focused on the road and got the heck out of Dodge. It was nearly as bad as the weird chanting going on in the front house when we walked past it on Sunday, which was very "village of the damned".

On Friday, went for a walk with Sarah and the twins. I was pushing them up and down when Sarah was in the post shop. Lots of randoms kept coming and talking to me, it was weird, haven't had that happen for a while.

We seemed to be seeing the Chambers family serially this week. Hannah and I bumped into Jaqui on Friday, Allan popped in on Saturday, and Hannah and I saw Emma on Sunday when we were, um, shopping. We are going looking for Paul today to complete the set.

We had to go see teachers about Rory's performance in exams, it went okay, just made Thursday night kind of busy.

Hannah delivered her presentation on scallops on Friday, and does sharks today. She seems to be really in to seafood subjects at the moment.

I finished reading the God Delusion. Interesting, but a bit overwhelming at times.

Today is Diana's birthday. A dinner is planned, not sure how good it will be. Scurvy could result.

Footbridges attack people, a lucky mistake, car beats bus, free gift in tinned tuna - 16/06/2008

2008-06-16T09:38:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

The dead shopkeeper became quite a controversy this week. It seems the police were reluctant to enter the scene until they were convinced the area was secure. So while friends and family were with him inside, the ambulancemen were there 20 minutes before they went in to assist. This does seem excessive and you wonder why you'd bother using sirens to rush somewhere if you have an extra 20 minutes to get there. Also, while they waited, some others came in and actually stole more stuff from the shop, which is not only incredibly tasteless, but shows that many did not see the risk the police saw.

A quality of living survey has Auckland as fifth, behind Zurich, Vienna, Geneva, and Vancouver. It was the highest placed southern hemisphere city. The bad news is the survey is used to determine how much extra to pay employees that are posted to those places so you don't get much to come live in Auckland.

It was the agricultural field days at Mystery Creek this week. The Goodins were down there for it, as is now the norm. It is traditionally the coldest week of the year but it didn't seem that cold.

Two bodies were found on top of a rail carriage in a shunting yard in Christchurch (funny how we find bodies but don't often lose them). They didn't think it was suspicious, and yet they had not yet determined the cause of death. Later the story unfolded and it sounded like they hitched a ride and maybe met the ceiling of a tunnel on an unplanned basis. Sounds like more accurately there was a rail carriage decorated with an interesting new colour known as "hint of hitchhiker". As for the cause of death, it's not real hard to figure out when the bodies don't appear to have any bones above the C3 vertebra. They have found a footbridge with a matching stain.

We had a car versus bus incident this week, where the car won. It wasn't a proper sized bus, just a mini-bus thing, but the driver ran off the road and down a bank.

A guy found a gold kiwi label pin inside a tin of tuna, he didn't seem to bothered (he found it in his tuna sandwich, actually).

An 80 year old woman died as a result of a home invasion in Manurewa, the place where the liquor store guy was shot. It's getting a bit of bad reputation.

The principal of a Wellington high school has copped flak for naming a girl who killed herself. Apparently it is illegal to say a cause of death before the coroner has done their bit. However, I can imagine that most of the school were already aware and misleading gossip would probably have been more harmful. It is more likely it could be used to put people off the idea than encourage others to do the same thing.

An Avondale man got it wrong on a TAB ticket (ticked the wrong race) and won over $10k, but didn't realise and biffed the ticket in the bin. The TAB noticed the win was not claimed, checked security footage, found the ticket in the bin and tracked him down. Got bit of police work in the name of customer service.

WORLD NEWS

It's bad enough with women's magazines and their headlines of dubious accuracy, but the headline "Bond star slices finger off while shooting" was just bollocks. He sliced the finger-tip off, not even one bone, he was back filming a few hours later. What a crock.

GW met with the Queen. Described (ad nauseum on the breakfast news) as a quiet meeting between old friends. Well, if that is the case, my esteem for the Queen is severely diminished.

REAL SPORT

Hannah's soccer team were missing both their centre backs for the game (Hannah being one of them), but she got there at half time. They were never really in trouble, winning 8-0.

The team I help coach ended up with only seven players, which was woeful, they lost 2-3, which was pretty damn good considering.

SPORT

I watched Netherlands versus Italy, a game with two quite remarkable goals and one more normal one. Holland beating Italy 3-0 was quite a surprise. I also watched Netherlands versus France, yet another game where the Dutch disposed of a world cup finalist, 4-1 this time.

I went with Koos, Julie, Heidi, and others to see the All Blacks play England at Eden Park, they won 37-20.

MY SAD LIFE

Hannah had stage challenge on Wednesday, we saw a version of it on Tuesday evening. She spent 15 1/2 hours at the Aotea Centre, got home at nearly midnight. Unbelievable, when you consider they spent about seven minutes performing.

Rory achieved new heights this week. After a party on Friday night, they went walkabout to Maccas, ordered 20 extra patties and made ridiculous burgers with them. On the walk home they were asked by police if they had been near the weed. The irony is you could smell a ton of it on Bond St walking to and from the rugby.

Rory borrowed a Nintendo Wii off someone this week. It seems quite stupid. People stand there waving their arms about.

Hannah also had her dance show this weekend, which we went to see on Sunday. It went well, I cannot claim to be an expert so won't put a review here.

Once the show was over, Hannah had to do a speech on shark attacks and do two portraits. She did Diana and me. They weren't too bad although I think mine was easier to do.

Hannah and I have just been to the hand clinic for what was the final visit. She's all go, just a couple more weeks of being careful. She did the hand strength thing today and I got to do it too. I got 46 on both hands so I am very well balanced.

Rory is off to Waihi for school today and left early.

It is Diana's birthday next week. I was going to suggest people give me ideas for a present but I think we should save a bit of bother and you just buy the gift and send it directly to her ;-)

Road rage spreads to swim lanes, petrol and cheese thefts increase, Hillary throws in the towel - 09/06/2008

2008-06-09T09:37:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

A government survey reveals we are a nation of fatties with only one in three considered an ideal body weight.

There were concerns about "lane rage" this week, like road rage but in swimming pool lanes. It doesn't surprise me, I could bore you for hours about idiots swimming slowly or badly in the wrong lane, hanging off lane ropes, and being utterly ignorant and inconsiderate.

Weird thing in Ngongataha at 3am on Thursday morning, when a body was found next to a hedge fire .

First news I have heard about petrol syphoning was this week, I have been silly enough to say I was surprised that it hadn't been happening more with the price of gas. I am not sure any of us need to be reminded of the price. We noticed this week a drop in the price of the 1kg block of cheese, now 900g to save us money.

Very nasty car accident where a 50 odd yo man announced he was going off to top himself, headed south, drank some booze, smashed in to two other cars, killed a woman, but failed to actually finish himself off.

A shopkeeper was shot in South Auckland during a robbery over the weekend. He later died.

A Polish tramper was lost for a week, but his body was finally found over the weekend. He was attempting a rather challenging trek but he was found in a stream.

The public helped pull four people from a burning van over the weekend. Funny, doesn't really equate with the guy at Rory's school that was knocked off his bike, broke his arm badly, and was ignored by passing drivers.

We continue to be told we are on the brink of a power crisis, with hydro lake levels lowest since 1992.

WORLD NEWS

The focus in the China earthquake zone has moved to unblocking rivers from rescuing people.

It seems like it's all over for Hillary Clinton, but one must wonder whether all this attention on the Democratic primary and the fact that Barack Obama has been in the news way more that McCain (although he does have the French fry connection to help name recognition, whereas Obama rhymes with Osama) that it could help his chances in the Presidential election. And let's be honest, he's not very black. Apparently it's the first time a black man has beaten a white woman in public and not gone to jail.

REAL SPORT

Hannah had her first high school soccer game on Wednesday. It was away at Rutherford High School. Hannah's team has four pretty good players, a number of okay players and some real newbies. They were up 1-0, then conceded a goal to be 1-1 at half time. They had some great attempts in the second half before finally scoring about ten minutes from the end and they managed to keep the opposition out of their goal (although there were some nervous moments).

Didn't quite go so well in her club game. They were down one nil, came back to 2-1 up, but a late penalty against them meant a 2-2 draw. The goalie didn't have a great game, she basically scored both goals. I had to referee the first half, and ran out of steam so got another guy to ref the second (which was when the penalty was, I am really glad I didn't ref that).

The teams for U14 club polo were announced on Sunday, Hannah is in the A team, not really surprised. Don't think the team is particularly strong this year to be honest, I think it was a stronger team last year, although the coach is better this year.

SPORT

The third test between the Black Caps and England started on Thursday night our time. The Poms batted first and was hard to tell who was better placed on day one. Then day two things turned to poo and it just didn't get any better for the Black Caps on day three with them fight a losing battle.

The All Blacks played Ireland, who have never beaten the ABs, and they didn't this time ever, losing 11-21

Euro 2008 kicked off over the weekend. Switzerland and Austria both lost (they are joint hosts). Not sure how I am going to manage to see any of the games. I could subscribe to the UEFA website but you can't copy the video to watch it on a DVD player or anything you have to watch it on a PC and that sucks. Even worse, I could get Sky for a month for $299 (unbelievable) or get it for a minimum of 12 months and that will cost just over $300. So I guess I am not going to see it.

MY SAD LIFE

Rory finished his exams on Wednesday and then achieved nothing for the rest of the week because others still had exams so he had nothing to do.

Today is Ross's birthday, the first of the rush in June. Tomorrow it is Craig's. They are both 44. I suppose a magnum would be appropriate? (you have no idea how long I have waited for that little play on words, so obscure that only the truly sad would understand).

For Ross's birthday, we went to laser strike on Saturday night. It was pretty funny, with a mix of newbies and veterans. The mums (like Kath, Diana, and Sue) who had never been anywhere near such a place, didn't quite know what to expect. They enjoyed themselves a lot more than I would have predicted, in fact I was surprised they all wanted to do it. Rory had a lovely time pwning the noobs. Hannah and I teamed up a bit. I came dead last in the second one when I was trying to survive (and rest a little) and that was lame so I went Rambo styles and came second.

I seemed to see an awful lot of small children over the weekend. Saw Sam and Jack on Friday. Sarah and I had a feeding race and me and Jack won (twins are 17 weeks old tomorrow). Then on Saturday we saw the Bambis with their two girls (although they are like five and three so not that little) between soccer, stage challenge, and laser strike. Gavin and Yana popped in with Maria on Sunday, Maria is about 10 or 11 months old.

Drama this morning at 7:45 when Rory realised he was going to Waihi for the day. That was exciting. Hannah also had lots of homework due, so it was a bit of a scramble. We recycled something Rory used for one thing, and as Hannah helped with the first attempt it seemed okay. Will be interesting to see if anyone notices (it was two years ago so I doubt it).

It's a very busy week this week with the Stage Challenge thing on Wednesday (a performing arts school competition that Hannah is doing) and Hannah's dance show this weekend also. But life should be considerably simpler next week. The additional practises have been crazy.

Oh well, that will do for now. No Hannah section, she forgot to do something.

Warning! May contain an excessive number of exclamation marks - 02/06/2008

2008-06-02T09:30:00.001+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

We had a bit of good old-fashioned public service junket controversy this week when someone revealed that 94 Housing New Zealand went to a conference in one of the country's most luxurious venues (great publicity for Tongariro Lodge). They spent $65,000, which sounds like a lot, but they reckon was $250 a day. That sounds reasonable but I am sure some more middle of the road venue would have done it for less. Housing New Zealand is responsible for providing low cost housing and so living the high life for a couple of days does seem a little out of place. Not sure it was going to win National the election, but worth a go I suppose.

Assault with a hedgehog made the news here and all over. There was some question as to whether it was alive or not. I am going to solve this mystery, it wasn't a hedgehog, it was a toilet brush head. Meanwhile we heard about the mistreatment of hedgehogs whilst trying to film a news item on the subject.

An New Zealand born photographer has been found dead in Kenya. Probably beaten up for his camera gear.

The mayor of Manukau City collapsed on stage at a concert thing this weekend. He had a mega-heart attack, but is still alive. Not sure what he will do at his next appearance (except that it could be lying in a wooden box).

Had another guy die while evading police, a 31 second chase near Dargaville was enough to finish him off. Saves heaps of time in courts and stuff.

The credibility of global warming theory suffered when we had the coolest May since 1992. That year we had power outages to contend with, it was the year Rory was born.

Being Queen's Birthday Weekend we had some honours given out. Who cares.

The house for auction for $1 reserve sold for $395,000. Rory wanted to flash mob the venue and stop genuine bidders from being able to bid, could have been interesting.

Been a fuss about three high profile cases resulting in not-guilty verdicts. Yes, the police might not be doing their job, but surely it is okay for someone to be not-guilty otherwise why do we bother?

WORLD NEWS

Some guy went to get an old piece of junk (given to him by his rag and bone man grand father when he was a boy) valued and it turned out to be a 2,500 year old solid gold Persian thing that he used to shoot with a slug gun and is now worth over a million dollars. Lucky guy.

Meanwhile a guy in Brisbane had a possum come out of the toilet. Interesting. He filmed it and stuck it on Youtube, I checked out one of the videos, it was crap.

REAL SPORT

Just the one game this weekend, Hannah's soccer team played the team that came second in grading (Fencibles). Previously they lost to them 0-2 when Hannah wasn't playing. It was a tight game, very exciting. They scored first, then we equalised with a very nice goal involving three players. The other team scored again and we hammered their goal but couldn't get one, so we lost 1-2.

SPORT

England managed to win the second test,

The Crusaders sort of scraped passed the Waratahs to win the Super 12 final. Oops, Super 14, whatever.

The All Black squad was named, they play Ireland next week.

MY SAD LIFE

Paul thinks Hannah's bit last week was better than the rest. I am not speaking to him now.

We managed to see some people this weekend, the Goodins on Saturday (Rory arrived home just in time for dessert, the scumbag) and Allan and Jacqui on Sunday.

We had a few other things over the weekend, Rory had three polo trainings and a swim meet. I was at the pool already because Hannah had training at 6:45am so I stayed there to assist (He consisted of the whole team from his swim club so it didn't seem right to leave him alone). It was pretty funny, he hasn't done any solo races in a swim meet before, so his official time in both was the slowest of the race (the group heats based on times, slowest to fastest). Rory was in heat one of six for the 100m breast stroke. He was with a bunch of 11 year olds, standing on the blocks there were all these little guys then a giant in lane 8. He basically beat everyone in his heat by a length, shaving 42 seconds off his time. The poor bugger that was the fastest in the fastest heat got about 3 seconds on his PB and Rory still beat him. In the second race, some kids next to me said "geez, look at the guy in lane 8 go". He was about 0.3 sec off qualifying for level 1 in the 50 free (think his time was 27.56, my best would be about 45 seconds). He needs to make level one to swim in the group he wants in training.

Jono is in Auckland at the moment. He popped in on Friday and distracted me a bit. We wandered around the point a little and saw a weird guy standing on a surf board paddling around.

Hannah is starting to use her finger more, it is going pretty well, she is almost like a normal player in polo training now. The training on Sunday was part one of the selection trial for the Pan Pac tournament in July. Don't think there is too much doubt for her this year.

Rory has been doing mid-year exams this week and has more this week. Not studying as much as he should but he is doing some.

HANNAH'S SAD LIFE
This is part two of Hannah's section in the Monday morning email. I went to school on Thursday with two red pens, at the end of the day I had lost both of them. It was quite sad. In case you haven't heard I want to be a brain surgeon, and a wardrobe full of shoes. What's for dinner tonight? Chicken darling! You have to play the sims2 it is the greatest! I don't recommend the university expansion pack, its really boring. I have my dance concert coming up. I had water polo trials yesterday. I have a broken finger. Yes, life is all about me! Give me shoes! How on earth will I ever earn enough money to buy a house? I'm growing beans. They have started to grow, its really cool. TRISHAN!!!! Haha you just read the word Trishan. AND AGAIN. I like grapes, and dogs. I'd really like a dog dad.
Hamling(my secret other name)

Scott Dixon wins Indy 500, lots of verdicts, Hannah scores in soccer and PODs all round - 26/05/2008

2008-05-26T09:28:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

The Muliaga inquest began this week, about the woman who died when the power was cut off in her home and she stopped receiving oxygen. Remembering that she was on oxygen because she was overweight (described now as morbidly obese), the statement from her husband "she died for the want of $34" is bollocks if you consider she could have eaten $34 less of cheeseburgers and solved the problem in two ways. Some of the salient facts included the fact that they had been cut off before, they had been sent some 70 letters about their payment issues, and a number of other facts that show the family had plenty of notice.

We had the final budget of the current labour government. There were finally tax cuts but sod all. One can't help but consider that cutting spending on a bloating public service or even redirecting the money from bureaucrats to teachers and doctors wouldn't be a good thing.

News this week that smart kids do the same in streamed classes or not but the weaker kids do worse when streamed.

Concerns were raised about women becoming worse offenders in drunk driving. Again.

One of life's winners was in court this week for buying chips and M&Ms. He got the munchies, popped into a gas station, while in the (always too long) queue he ate some of the M&Ms. He got to the front of the queue, realised he had no money, but because he had started eating them he had to pay, so tried to pay with his tinny of cannabis, the policeman standing behind him in the queue arrested him.

Some evolutionary wonder woke up in a mini-skip in South Auckland while it was being emptied into a truck. He managed to make enough noise to prevent being munched. Apparently he couldn't get in to a nuclear reactor or incinerator to sleep.

The courts seemed quite productive this week with verdicts in a number of cases. A man was not-guilty of killing his niece (sounds like maybe she died of complications from AIDS), another man was guilty of killing his mother.

The Kahui trial summation took two days and the jury took less than a day to decide it wasn't him. Police say they charged the right person and nobody else will be charged. It's not pretty, at all. Two boys are dead and nobody did it. Meanwhile, Macsyna King, the mother, has been in every sodding paper telling us everything we don't know about her (and we really don't want to know anything).

A well known jockey fell off a bluff while hunting and got himself some serious head injuries.

Meanwhile another man managed to successfully hide under 3.5 tonnes of granite slabs. He is believed to have been trying to emulate the miracle rescues in China. He was described as being critically ill, but newly able to slide under closed doors.

The moron charged with killing two girls when he drove into a crowd of people was finally found guilty, the jury took full advantage of the court's hospitality before delivering their verdict.

A couple of guys went for a joy ride in a micro-light aircraft in the middle of the night in a rainstorm but it ended in a sad crash (a fatal sad crash). Funny, micro-lights used to be tiny a-frames with an engine strapped on and a hang glider style wing but I've seen two in the news that look like baby cessnas.

It is celiac awareness day today, I hope you are all aware of it. It is also "hoody" week. We are supposed to wear a hoody to show we are in touch with youth.

Meanwhile some people are too much in touch with smacking continuing despite the laws prohibiting it.

WORLD NEWS

After stamping to create the earthquake, China stood still on Monday to remember the dead. A steady stream of people continued to be arrested for covering themselves in crap and crawling into wrecked buildings hoping to be the last one found alive.

REAL SPORT

Rory's senior boys won their game on Friday 5-1 or something against a team they have drawn with a couple of times. Rory then took his Ponsonby team and they beat a Glen Eden B team 21-0 (they shouldn't bother playing A against B it is pointless).

Hannah's soccer team had their final grading game, playing the team just below them on the table who had drawn with a team that Hannah's team lost to a couple of weeks ago. On paper, I thought they should have won, and they certainly did. Again, they were 5-0 up at half time. Hannah scored her first goal of the season from half way, a shot that bounced in front of the goalie and went over and in. They also got a nice goal from a corner of Hannah's and a through ball from her also got them a goal. The floodgates closed at half time but they managed to get one more, to make it 6-0. Now, if you read this every week, you will think I am fibbing but they have won four games out of seven and scored six goals every time they win. This was their first away win, and their first win on a small pitch, so that was two hoodoos that have been broken. Oh, and Hannah got player of the day (so did Thomas AND Katie so was a good day all round).

On Sunday night, Rory's team lost 3-5 in the playoff for 5th and 6th. Rory got one goal, missed another he really should have scored.

SPORT

Jacob Oram scored a quick ton to help New Zealand survive in the first test, the Poms didn't even get to start their second innings before the end of the drawn match.

In the second test, New Zealand batted first and actually were in a pretty good position at the end of the second day, with 381 and England at 152/4. At the end of day three it was quite bizarre, 16 wickets fell, New Zealand all out for 114 in their second innings and now England still have a job to win. No chance of a draw with two days left and only nine wickets remaining.

Man Utd beat Chelsea in a penalty shootout after 1-1 draw in the Champs League final. Ronaldo missed one, John Terry missed one too.

Crusaders and Waratahs won their semi-finals and meet next weekend in Super 14 final.

New Zealander Scott Dixon started at pole position for the Indianapolis 500, and although was not in the lead the whole race stayed near the front and was comfortably in front at the right time (the end).

MY SAD LIFE

Sarah popped in with the twins on Monday, they are starting to look like non-newborns now. They are rolling over now, and are 14 weeks old tomorrow I think.

Robyn's funeral was on Thursday, quite well attended with St Mathews in the City packed. The service was over two hours, which does seem a little long. A few people got their cars clamped in a pre-pay carpark (what a crock, you don't get a credit for leaving early and if you take longer that you pre-pay for they clamp you in three minutes and charge you $140 extra).

We went to a school quiz night on Friday with the Bambis and others. It was lame, the questions were very obscure (and had things like multiple choices questions where the answer was none of the options). Then at the end they decided they needed to give stuff away so it dragged out forever.

Rory stayed home sick on Wednesday, and I made him watch (sort of made him) The Hidden Fortress, a 1958 black and white Japanese movie by Akira Kurosawa. He really enjoyed it.

Before Hannah's soccer game I popped in to say hello to Heidi, Pam, and Sjaan up the hill from the soccer ground, it was my walk for the day.

In the local paper there was a photo on the front page about some boys at Pasadena Intermediate taking up knitting. The boy at the front was Tom Hartill, son of a guy I grew up with. The only thing missing on the article was flashing red words saying "please beat us up".

Rory and I did some gardening to fill the bin on Sunday. I noticed two camellias had blossomed, the first of the winter, so I killed them (well put them in a vase).

We saw the Goodins, and Charles, yesterday. Charles is off to work in Singapore for the next 12 months (plus or minus three years). Hannah made a carrot cake and the icing was the best, there wasn't much left to bring home for Rory (who was tired so didn't go).

On the 1st of June, this week, it will be 12 years since we moved in to this house.

I read something about the "great vowel shift" in English which happened between 1200 to 1600. Because I can't read those horrible pronunciation things I can't really tell what happened but it does sound intriguing. They also reckon that the Spanish lisp (like in Barthelona) came from some highly regarded person having a lisp.

The following is an unpaid contribution from my daughter who hijacked my laptop. I take no responsibility for anything contained therein:

HANNAH'S SAD LIFE

Hannah is awesome,
She's cool too,
Everyone loves Hannah,
AND SO SHOULD YOU!!!!!!

I had a French test on Friday, it seemed pretty easy but I don't have my results back yet. Anyone who has spare time might like to go see the chick flick What Happens in Vegas, I saw it Friday night and thought it was quite decent, there were a few good laughs in it but you could easily see them coming. Bags not triple gun padlock pink bunnies, white elephants!!!!! I hope you have enjoyed Hannah's section this week (and just to let you know my life is not sad unlike my fathers!). HANNAH'S ROCK (or maybe just this one) DON'T FORGET TO RECYCLE, TURN OFF LIGHTS WHEN EXITING A ROOM AND DON'T EAT TUNA, WHITEBAIT OR SCALLOPS THEY ARE ENDANGERED!!!!!!!!! Peace out. Can I have some money please????!!!!!

(I sincerely apologise for that bit) Yes, Hannah has turned into a conservation nazi this week and turns off appliances all around the house. It's nice that it isn't just me, but Hannah is considerably worse than me (which is quite a change given that she was the biggest offender until recently). It is beginning to bug everyone, I think.

The Austrian Tourism Board despairs, car chases of two varieties, China shudders - 19/05/2008

2008-05-19T09:27:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

We had a comical escape from Mt Eden prison, with the classic sheet rope from one of the towers. There were photos of it everywhere. The guys was caught a few days later.

An immigration official, Mary Anne Thompson, resigned after some fuss about letting relatives in. Then we found out she had misled people into thinking she had a doctorate from the London School of Economics.

It is becoming more apparent that the best way to get publicity is to have the word "naked" in there somewhere. We had some shop assistants wearing only aprons serving in some shop to protest excessive packaging this week. The naked newsreader continued to make headlines.

A Hindu family caused offence by painting a Hindu symbol meaning good fortune on their roof. It looks like the swastika, which seemed to offend the sensibilities of various people (wimps, to be fair, like someone who was the son of a guy who fought in world war ii. I mean, for pity's sake, we don't get offended by red circles because of the Japanese now, do we?).

The body of a lost Israeli tramper was found this week.

Our budget is due to be delivered this week, I am pretty sure it will be a no-win thing for the Labour government. They have waited too long to blink and are going to look very stupid with any sort of tax cut now when it is patently obvious (at least to thinking voters) that we won't be in a position to afford it. I suspect it is just another step in the path to defeat at the coming election.

Couple of car chases in lower north island, one went up to 140km/hr and it turned out to be a 13yo boy. In Dannevirke, which reached speeds of 30km/hr (yes, 30) they needed road spikes, drove for 15km with no tyres. But, considerately, the car chase pulled over to let mobility scooters pass.

Someone revealed a study that showed that advertisements are 30-50% louder than the programs. This doesn't surprise me, I like to mute the TV in ad breaks anyway so I don't really care.

WORLD NEWS

China didn't want to be outdone by the Myanmar disaster, so they had an earthquake (they just got together and stamped their feet). This meant they were both clamouring to out-do the other's statistics. Of course, percentage wise, China never stood a chance. Interestingly, as a percentage of the population, our river tragedy was 0.0002% of the population, whereas 20,000 dead in China was around 0.002% of theirs and 100,000 in Myanmar is about 0.2% of theirs (gives you a feel for scale).

Austria stayed in the news with an quintuple axe murder, way more impressive than our dodgy chainsaw stuff. He killed his wife, daughter, parents, and father in law but didn't have the decency to finish himself off.

REAL SPORT

Saturday, Hannah returned to soccer, and they had another home win. They were 5-0 up at half time but was 6-1 final score. Hannah was back to taking free kicks and corners.

Rory played Sunday, they should have won, they lost I think 5-7. Rory scored one.

Hannah also played polo, probably shouldn't have (she was not in goal, at least) but she did okay, scored one from half way to make the final score a 3-4 loss. I think she really needed to get in there.

SPORT

Both New Zealand teams that made Super 14 semis failed to win their final round robin match. Highlanders beat the Crusaders, Blues beat the Hurricanes.

First test against the Poms began a couple of days ago, rain impacting play, unlikely to get a result. New Zealand not in a good position, they need to bat out the last day to survive, with all wickets intact (technically they don't as they need 3 more runs to get in the lead so every run they get means the Poms have to get them as well).

Portsmouth won the FA cup for the first time since 1939.

MY SAD LIFE

The mother of a friend of Hannah's, Robin Becht, died on Friday. She had fought breast cancer, and we all thought she'd won, but it came back. Robin and Diana knew each other from the gym, and Hannah has known Hayley since they were about three. Hannah went to Hayley's house on Saturday with some other friends and they distracted her a bit, which I think was really good. Diana and Hannah are going to the funeral on Thursday.

A long time friend of Mum's died on Thursday, Libby Lawson. She has known her for nearly fifty years.

We went to the school show on Wednesday, Little Shop of Horrors. It was done very well, it was a lot of fun, there were about seven or eight people in it that I know.

On Saturday night we went to a local bar with some people (including Koos, Julie, and Heidi). The drinks were even free for a while, but I had to get up at 5am to take Hannah to polo training on Sunday morning so we didn't get too carried away.

The Listener crossword has become a bit of a ritual in our house for me and Diana to do, with us competing over who gets it first, but on Sunday it arrived home (after being partially done in the car on the way home) and was done by me and Rory, we finished it completely before she got inside from getting the washing. Was pretty unfair. We might need to photocopy it like Mum does.

The bread extravaganza continues, with Saturday including three different styles (granny bread, croissants, and baps) and Sunday night was pita bread. Diana reckons that we are saving a lot because we are buying less normal bread. Only problem is the stuff never lasts (as in it is eaten, no risk of going stale).

I was suffering a bit this week, a weird nerve thing on the left hand side of my face. No rash so it wasn't shingles, but it really hurt. Doctor told me to just chew the panadols which did help After a few days it started to improve but it is still there.

Stolen pubs, player poaching, another broken bone in the (newly philosophical) Clarke house - 12/05/2008

2008-05-12T09:26:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Our youngest ever convicted murderer, Bailey Junior Kuariki, is now out on bail. Bailey is now a bailee. (sorry, couldn't resist)

The government purchase of the railways prompted breakfast television to come up with the dream team for the board. It included such glitterati as David Benson-Pope (the student basher), Taito Philip Field (the immigration scam minister), and a host of others. It was pretty funny, a list of the Labour Government's embarrassments and failures, an off the cuff thing which deserved a wider audience.

A pub was stolen from south Auckland this week. That's right, a pub was stolen, not burgled. It was a portable pub, obviously a little too portable. The west-coast owners vowed to de-knacker the perpetrators and send the said off cuts to their mums in a lunch box.

We had two retards facing off on a one way bridge down near Queenstown, nobody would back down until the police arrived. So pathetic. Not sure if either was a tourist, but you would suspect they were (not necessarily from overseas, a tourist from outside the area is what I mean).

Big fuss about the New Zealand representative for Miss Universe, a Massey University graduate, when the university displayed a photo of her in a bikini (rather than a gown). Was it that inappropriate? Perhaps. Did it generate publicity, ooooh yes.

A large number a Killer Beez (a local gang) were arrested for manufacture and sale of "P". They had 200k in cash. A replay of an interview with the leader of Killer Beez was shown where he was saying he didn't do drugs, didn't make drugs, didn't sell drugs, and you know he looked like he was lying through his teeth (body language can provide pretty good hints to even a bozo like me, see below for another observation along those lines).

Bit of a fuss about player poaching at high school level again this week. Mt Albert Grammar has been done for two offences. We know they have done it in polo, but that wasn't one of them. Approaching a kid to come to your school so they can play a sport is apparently verboten, but I don't actually see why it should be. A player would be flattered and if the sport is important to them they might want to do it. Why should they not be allowed?

A guy attacked police with a chainsaw. Police hit him with their car. No, they drove it. Would have been cooler if they ripped of the exhaust pipe and slapped him silly with it. After the Tokeroa chainsaw pseudo-massacre, we seem to be favouring the chainsaw as a weapon.

Meanwhile a man took a chainsaw as hand luggage on a plane, because it wasn't in the list of dangerous items (like nail scissors and pocket knives).

WORLD NEWS

The weather in Myanmar seems to have accounted for 22,000 people, the number climbed a couple of times. The regime there seems to be perfect to maximise damage and minimise recovery. Funny how when one person kills another it is murder but when a regime neglects people allowing tens of thousands to die it isn't.

REAL SPORT

Rory's team lost 5-6 in a game they really should have won on Friday night, it was pretty sad. Then Hannah's team, without two of their best three players (see later for why one of them didn't play), lost 0-9 in a game that should have been winnable.

Hannah's soccer team lost 0-2 against a strong team but it could have been better with Hannah playing. Still grading so not the end of the world.

Rory's team won 9-4 against Sacred Heart on Sunday afternoon. Rory scored three for us and one for them (he tried to deflect a shot, but didn't quite work).

Hannah's two school polo teams had games on Sunday but she didn't go (although she was supposed to). Don't know how they went but suspect they struggled.

SPORT

New Zealander Scott Dixon won pole position for the Indy 500, which is pretty cool. Not sure when the race is, possibly this morning.

Only one week of round robin left of Super 14. Teams will make semi-finals, I am sure. Meanwhile, rugby is generally considered to be in trouble as more and more people lose interest.

Last week of premiership this weekend. This is when all the teams play their last game at the same time so nobody knows what they need based on other results. Chelsea needed a win but they drew against Bolton 1-1, Man Utd needed a win and they got a 2-0 win over Wigan. Liverpool beat Spurs 2-0, Middlesbrough beat Man City 8-1 (ouch), Arsenal beat Sunderland 1-0. So Man Utd wins, two points clear of Chelsea, Arsenal third.

MY SAD LIFE

Hannah hurt her right index finger at PE on Monday. Couldn't tell how bad, but she was doing cartwheels at dancing that night (no, don't go there, seriously). She went to get it looked at properly on Tuesday, it was broken but not seriously. The x-ray revealed that there are still growth plates in her bones so she hasn't stopped growing yet. She then went to a variety of people over the next few days (plastic surgeon, hand person, you name it). This included an 8am appointment this morning. She will slowly get back in sport and dancing but goal keeping in polo could be a while off.

It was Ben Grant's birthday on Sunday, he is now four! Mum has her birthday on Wednesday.

Hannah showed me an interesting thing in a TV show she was watching. A woman with quite a large nose was interviewing two people and you could see the female interviewees eyes were going from looking her in the eye to checking out the proboscis, it was pretty funny.

Rory, Maddie, and I worked on rearranging his room, and cleaning as we went. We removed a bit of detritus from my time, recovered some wild socks, plates, and so forth. He now has comfortable seating for six, and he reckons can sleep about 8 in comfort. His definition of comfort is one that I wasn't previously aware of.

Bigger news is that Maddie took Rory off for a hair cut on Saturday (it being an even numbered year and everything). It's a lot shorter but still relatively long. At least he can see in the pool now. And where he is walking, etc.

We had lunch with Granny for Mother's Day. It was Sarah's first Mother's Day, the twins are nearly 13 weeks old.

Judy returned from her island cruise this week. Sounded pretty cruisy, with tough decisions being which restaurant and which show. The boat had 600 passengers, although one died while visiting an island (not on the ship itself).

I've been watching a talk by Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss on YouTube. It's pretty cool being able to see things like that. My favourite line is where they point out that the difference between the age of the earth and the biblical 6,000 year estimate is like saying that the journey from New York to LA is 7.8 yards. I wonder if the internet could result in a generally better educated population? You could have the best people being lecturers for all students in the world at the same time. Perhaps not.

A good summer narrowly avoided, two 15 minute of famers get another 15 minutes - 05/05/2008

2008-05-05T09:25:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Well, the family of the man who recycled his legs held a funeral for them. What would you say at such an event? Something like "We always liked Basil's legs, they made him seem somehow taller"?

As the Kahui trial (about the twin baby boys) continues, the man charged with their murder has asked to get custody of his remaining child. You have to give it to him, he's an optimist, obviously very confident of not going to jail. Or perhaps the mother is worse than he is? The mind boggles.

Meanwhile, natural selection ran it's course when a man leapt off an 8th floor balcony into the water down near Princes Wharf, his body was found a couple of hours later.

A young English female tourist died in a riverboarding accident (no, I don't know what riverboarding is either, sounds like surfing, on a river). She got trapped under the water, and they couldn't get her out fast enough.

Our "listening post" spy installation was attacked and unveiled as a boring old satellite dish. How embarrassing.

Chloe of Wainuiomata made the news, for shoplifting, she was a complete prat before anyway.

Meanwhile that random woman who "streaked" at a super 12 game a few years ago is going to read the semi-naked news on a local subscriber channel. Good grief, does anyone care?

The family of a 36 yo woman who drowned while trying to save her 9yo son from a swollen river want her to get a bravery award. Come on, a Darwin Award, perhaps. She couldn't swim, her silly fault. It was her son, she knew she couldn't swim, why let him get in the river? I would expect every parent to be prepared to try to save the life of their child, end of story.

I think local papers are finally starting to get the idea that money is tight and people are struggling. Getting more in depth stuff on saving money, increases in cost of living. Meanwhile some economists are going "I told you so" about people with high personal debt.

The government has bought the railways back from Toll. Not sure what that means, other than that it will be expensive.

WORLD NEWS

Five people died and nine were injured on Sydney Harbour in a boat crash. Then something happened on the harbour in Melbourne a couple of days later.

New Zealand soldiers have been accused of damaging the already ruined buddhas in Afghanistan (the Teleban did them over a few years back, if you recall). Sounds like a load of bollocks to me. They were clearing some explosive, might have been unplanned collateral damage but who really cares, there wasn't much left anyway.

There was something about an Austrian molesting his daughter on Tuesday but in a survey 46% of people thought it said all Australians were child molesters. Meanwhile the media continued to cover it, it never got less disturbing. Someone must have suspected something.

REAL SPORT

The first game in the tournament was against the top ranked team in our group, we were behind first quarter but came back, ended up with a shot of goal at each end in the last 3 seconds, but final score was 6-6.

Won the second game 14-4 against Rotorua, much easier. Third pool game was not expect to be a hard one. We used everyone off the bench, all at once, for half some quarters, and still won 19-0. This qualified us second in our pool, and through to the championship section.

Tuesday didn't go well, lost both games, which put us into playoff for 7th and 8th. Rory scored in both games but he had pulled a muscle in his left arm and wasn't swimming as fast as he can.

Thursday we had the playoff for 7th and 8th, which we won (thank god) so at least we finished on a win. The team we drew with lost in the final, so we didn't do too bad.

Hannah finally had a soccer game, feels like ages (two weeks). They played Pukekohe. Took a while to score, but then the gates opened. They won 6-1, two girls got hat-tricks. Hannah still playing centre back.

SPORT

Man Utd and Chelsea both won through to the Champs League final, which should be a good match.

Man Utd beat West Ham 4-1, Wigan beat Villa 2-0, Blackburn beat Darby 3-1, Bolton beat Sunderland 2-0.

MY SAD LIFE

I didn't really have a life for much of the week, the tournament took quite a bit of time. I did catch up with a friend, Chris, who lives in Hamilton. Haven't seen him since the wedding a year ago. Diana and Hannah went mad at various clothing stores on Monday, while I did some work. I did manage to swim after the second game, adding another pool to my list of pools (it's a mental list, read that however you like, I won't disagree). One night I went out to where the team was staying, it was not even in Waikato, it was Waipa District (a long way from the pool, let alone civilisation. I got to barbecue 100 sausages before I fought the elements to go home. We did go to the Hamilton Zoo, which was interesting, I guess. School holidays mean that the animals on our side of the cage were often more apparent than the ones on the other side. One thing that was pretty funny was the chimpanzees have their own goldfish.

The local version of "Stars in their Eyes" has begun, another crime against music and humanity. Diana has irrefutably established that the hottest girl wins not the best singer. It's woeful. If I do watch the final, it will have to be with the sound off.

I learned about Maori potatoes this week. There are like 20 varieties and they look very different from regular potatoes and each other. Some are quite purple inside.

Went to the flea market with Hannah, spent heaps, bought only vegetables. Not very exciting. Was wet, too.

Diana and Hannah have been expanding their horizons with the breadmaker, making croissants and bagels this week. It made 13 croissants which would have cost considerably more if purchased in a shop.

I took 900 photos on Saturday, 400 at Hannah's soccer game and 500 at a men's water polo game we went to see. We know a number of players in the team, three have coached Rory or Hannah, and one was in Rory's team last year.

The 100 sausage barbecue broke my attempt at avoiding cooking on a barbecue for the whole summer. So close, and yet so far.

No, it's not Monday yet, I apologise for any confusion - 27/04/2008

2008-04-27T09:23:00.000+12:00

I am sending this a day early because we are off to a water polo tournament today and might not get a chance to finish it tomorrow.

LOCAL NEWS

A man unsuccessfully tried to recycle his legs in a recycling centre. His new legs will be made of recyclable material.

A chemically impaired woman drove 10km on the North Western motorway, the wrong way, at 1:40am, before she managed to hit someone and kill herself. I am sorry, but I do not believe anyone could be made that stupid by being slightly over the limit. You would have to be so sozzled that I would think opening a car door would be highly improbable.

The AA made a pathetic call on behalf of motorists for explanation of why petrol is rising. If they don't know they shouldn't be allowed to drive a car.

A crash into a pole tore a car in half in Invercargill, the occupants survived but one lost a leg. The back half went 10 metres beyond the front half.

DNA evidence has exonerated a man, two years after being convicted of rape. I wonder how he gets his two years back.

Two men died when a home made aircraft crashed at Whenuapai. They were pretty experienced but I am not sure I would trust home made.

Supposedly one in ten New Zealanders is considering moving to Australia. Not sure how seriously they are thinking about it. Shame we can't choose them.

WORLD NEWS

Mugabe is still clinging to power. Hillary is still thinking she can get the democrat nomination. Were they separated at birth?

Meanwhile the Olympic torch continues to run away from Tibetan protestors. We didn't get to see it in New Zealand. We had one New Zealander hold it in Canberra (to light a cigarette, I think) and that was it.

REAL SPORT

No real sport of consequence this week. Plenty this coming week with polo tournament, starting tonight.

SPORT

Champs League semi finals both ended in a draw. Liverpool Chelsea 1-1, Man Utd Barcelona 0-0.

Chelsea beat Man Utd 2-1 at Stamford bridge, Liverpool drew with the Brummies, Sunderland beat Middlesbrough 3-2.

The Blues lost to the Crusaders so they won't make the finals. Hurricanes won, not sure about the rest.

MY SAD LIFE

Well, on Friday, Rory actually shaved. The bearded homeless person look has gone. Diana paid him the $20. Not very impressed.

Diana and I went walking on Wednesday. We came across to guys wearing tinfoil shorts and nothing else. They handed us each a protein drink and said they were promoting the new American Gladiators show. Then they asked me to biff a big Swiss ball at one of them. Just as I was about to hurl it, I said "what that, over there?". He turned. I threw. He got hit. It was pretty funny. We used to do that with the kids in soccer but this guy was like 25. Hired for his brawn, not brains, I guess.

The kids didn't exactly have an achievement oriented week. One day Rory slipped and put on pants.

Diana baby sat the twins for Sarah on Thursday while she was at physio. Her first solo. She handled it well, dunno why Sarah would think it is hard going (just kidding, Sarah). They are eleven weeks old on Tuesday.

Judy is off on a cruise around Tahiti or somewhere. It might not be Tahiti, but if I say "or somewhere" then you know it's a pacific island. Ross and Kath didn't actually go to Tahiti, but it was somewhere like Tahiti (well, it had an i in it, at least).

On Anzac Day, Friday, we went to the local parade. Our neighbour Jim didn't march this year, he went straight to the RSA (didn't want to be riding with the fossils).

Don't really feel like much happened this week. Perhaps that is a good thing.

Acts of God take centre stage, carnage everywhere except the roads - 21/04/2008

2008-04-21T09:21:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Twelve high school kids were washed away in a swollen Mangetepopo river on Tuesday, near the Outdoor Pursuits Centre in Tongariro National Park. It was not good. By the next morning the bodies of six students and a teacher were found. While the word tragedy seems more than appropriate, it's over-use makes it less so. The kids were from the Elim Christian School in Howick. God was clearly not on their side this week. Of course we then had the media frenzy. A press conference at 7:15am by the headmaster, who handled things pretty well, was then fired with questions like "how has this impacted your school community". He managed to restrain himself and not say "How the hell should I know, we've only known for the last 12 hours, they found the last two bodies two hours ago, and most people haven't heard yet that's why we're having a press conference."

For the rest of the week we were treated to examples of how invasive and morally bankrupt the media can be as they exploited every possible opportunity and angle to cover the story.

A man was killed by lightning while horse-riding near Dargaville. The horse was also killed.

All reports on the Kahui case were deeply disturbing as character assassination occurred between the father and the mother, amid woeful delivery from the defence lawyer who wouldn't last five minutes on Boston Legal. As the week wore on you couldn't help but realise what a total pair of scumbags the two parents were, although basically the whole week involved them character assassinating each other they both had plenty of dirt to dish (she was "trying" P the week before they died, is one example). We came to the realisation that the twin boys were probably better off dying young than becoming long term destructive forces to society. Some background on the mother for you, Macsyna King, she has had six kids, to about five different men, and all the surviving ones live with their fathers. And you need a dog license, eh?

A 2yo in Hastings died when he pulled a fireguard over onto himself. Nasty, horrible when safety measures go bad.

They finally found a body in the Waimakiriri River on Thursday. It was expected to be the missing girl, and was eventually confirmed, but after losing seven on Tuesday, coverage of one dead in a river seemed almost petty.

Confirming my ever-popular "bigger bastard theory" (which originated while kayaking but is useful on the road, it goes like this: no matter whether you have the right of way or not, if the other guy is the bigger bastard, give way rather than end up being a red hood ornament.) an 87 year old on a mobility scooter learned a terminal lesson when they took on a light truck near Mt Maunganui. The way I think is this, if the big guy hasn't seen you, your day is going to be ruined a lot more than his.

A toddler that presented with inexplicable head injuries in Manukau died on Friday. His parents are facing firearms and P charges this week. Nothing changes, eh?

Latest polls have National ahead in most areas.

The young doctors are threatening a 48 hour strike tomorrow. We are trying to avoid injury. The DHB came out saying they weren't giving them a higher percentage increase than everyone else, but if they are underpaid comparatively how will they redress the balance?

WORLD NEWS

Julie told me about a woman who was also twice widowed. Her first husband killed himself. Her second husband was the recipient of her first husband's heart, and a few years later he also killed himself. I am assuming the heart isn't being recycled again, the whole thing is quite Edgar Allan Poe-esque. It happened a little while ago now, but it seemed topical.

There was news from Reuters that Neanderthals spoke like new zealanders. I wonder if they knew about jandals and buzzy bees?

REAL SPORT

Only had Hannah's soccer game this weekend. They lost 1-2, but were so much better than the other team, they just struggled with the small field which was a three quarter pitch.

Hannah has been picked in the A netball team at school. God knows how she will fit it in, and there are some grumpy club players who didn't make the A team. Seems quite contentious but the trials took ages.

SPORT

New Zealand cricketer Brendan McCullum scored 158 not out in a 20/20 game in India, highest ever score in a 20/20 match.

Man Utd drew 1-1 with Blackburn, Liverpool beat Fulham 2-0, the Arse beat Reading 2-0. Newcastle beat Sunderland 2-0, Villa thumped the Brummies 5-1.

The Chiefs beat the Crusaders (didn't see that coming) 18-5, Highlanders and Hurricanes lost, Blues had a bye.

MY SAD LIFE

The "river tragedy" this week reminds me of what happened when I was in 7th form. Koos was there, as was Jono's sister Steph. We were taking depth readings in the river for a rate of flow exercise for Applied Maths, a practical application of the Trapezium Rule. Some of us were nipple-deep in water at times in a slowly angrying river. We were meant to be spending the night out there under flysheets, so we had sleeping bags and things with us. The weather wasn't good, it slowly got worse, and when the teacher realised maybe we needed to get out it was probably later than it should have been. Steph was suffering from hyperthermia and as we trudged out of the bush we came across a bunch of army cooks who had cooked up a big feed in the middle of nowhere for nobody in particular and we all got shelter and food. I may be wrong but I think they even transported some of us back to our bus. We were exceedingly lucky, Steph in particular.

Hannah did a face plant on the bottom of the pool on Tuesday, she was mucking around. Wasn't happy but she will live.

Rory impressed everyone with his brilliance this week. Went back to school Thursday night to get his media book, that was actually sitting on the coffee table. Nice. He did ace an algebra test, so perhaps his brain cells were fatigued.

Both kids disappeared Saturday night so we had a peaceful house and went out for breakfast. They stayed at Maddie's house. Not the same Maddie. There are too many Middies.

Sasha Bamberger turned five yesterday. She has only been called Sasha for 4 years and 43 weeks.

It would have been my father's 70th birthday on Thursday. It is Rory Hughes' birthday today, but haven't actually heard from him in ages.

Koos ran away from home for the day, yesterday. Something about a party and lots of 14 year old girls. I don't blame him. We went to Takapuna Beach with the Goodins, Pippy, and Koos, and no kids. There was an ocean swim going on there, some man died but we didn't notice. The dead guy didn't warrant a mention on the TV news this morning, but a dog that did the swim was given plenty of coverage.

OH, AND IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING

No Berocca incidents this week. I know you probably weren't wondering.

Kathryn gets long service medal, Rob just doesn't learn from experience, and the cost of living in different countries! - 14/04/2008

2008-04-14T09:16:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Labour, Maori, and exceedingly portly MP Parekura Horomia (Horo by name and horror by nature) told Parliament and the world that poor kids going to school hungry are probably dieting. The PC brigade had a fit, unfortunately I agree. It is better to say nothing and be thought a fool than something and remove all doubt. We get plenty of Horo stories and it makes you wonder seriously about the wisdom of letting just anyone vote.

The China trade deal was signed, we kept hearing about it. Then Winston waded in telling the world it was a bad thing.

Chris Kahui starts his trial for the murder of his twin sons today, 21 months after they died. Brett has been looking forward to this for quite some time. It is expected to last seven weeks.

A teenage schoolgirl went missing in Christchurch. It doesn't look good, been a week now.

A woman in Northland was widowed for the second time in ten years by a hit and run driver. It was the second one killed by a hit and run driver, it was the second time and the first was due to a heart condition.

We are being pummelled with stories about the housing market, not just this week but continuously for quite a while now. It bugs me that the press continues to rabbit on about it. A drop in (the number of) house sales just means less people are moving. A drop in the average house price could just mean that people aren't selling expensive houses. Bad news for real estate agents, but everyone hates them anyway. The industry has done everything it can to inflate the market and encourage people to over-extend themselves. Now they get to suffer the consequences.

The Labour party had their convention, although I think it was called a "congress" this time. They are aiming for a record 4th term, something never achieved by any government in New Zealand.

Meanwhile, Helen Clark was made to squirm this morning on breakfast tv and newstalk ZB about "information" pamphlets which don't apparently qualify as electioneering material (even though it basically is). Their electoral reform act could be about to start biting them on the behind.

It's chainsaw safety awareness week. Seriously. Make sure you are aware of the safety of your chainsaw. Hundreds of chainsaws are hurt every year through carelessness, it's a dirty secret but we must act now.

Lost property on Christchurch buses over the last year includes macadamia nuts, a trombone, some marijuana, a two year old child, and $4000 in cash.

News this week that kids as young as 3 1/2 are being tested for entry into elite schools. Given that they start at five, this isn't particularly surprising.

WORLD NEWS

The "you've been Ric rolled" thing seems more pathetic and futile than the "does this smell like updog?" question.

Mugabe is still clinging to power in Zimbabwe.

REAL SPORT

Rory's senior boys beat Kaipara 12-1, Rory scored first five goals then a couple more. My junior boys had no help from the girls and lost 3-12, but it could have been worse, MAGS is pretty good. Hannah's team lost 1-7 to St Mary's A, our other senior team lost 0-15 to the same team.

On Saturday, Hannah's soccer team played a much less scary team. They won comfortably, 6-0. I reckon I can already tell that Hannah's team should beat a good few of the other teams in the league from the results so far. It's great getting the results on the internet so quickly after the games are played.

On Sunday night, Hannah had her last junior grading game. They lost 4-8, Hannah scored first two goals, they even led at the beginning. The emphasis was on getting the more inexperienced players to take active part in the game, which they did, one even scored a goal (first among all the newbies, until now the junior girls goals were scored by the triplets, Hannah, Josie and Charlotte, who have played for a couple of years).

SPORT

Champs League quarter finals this week. After two 1-1 draws last week, Liverpool finally played Arsenal at their home ground. Arsenal went one up early, but Liverpool stayed in the game and finally won 4-2, putting them through to the semi-finals of the Champs League. Chelsea beat Fenerbahce 2-0 to put them through, also. The next day Man Utd beat Roma and Barcelona beat Schalke 04 (silly name for a club, what happened to 03?).

Man Utd then beat Arsenal 2-1, a crucial win in the race for the premier title. Liverpool beat Blackburn 3-1, Villa thumped Derby 6-0, Man City beat Sunderland 2-1, Chelsea didn't play.

Week 9 already in Super 14. Blues lost, Highlanders lost but nearly beat the Sharks, Crusaders and Hurricanes won.

This netball thing is still going, but too many teams to really figure out who is who.

New Zealand swimmer Moss Burmester won the 200m butterfly in the world short course champs. The mens medley relay got bronze.

MY SAD LIFE

The Goodins celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. It's the 16th, I think. They are off in some foreign place, Tahiti maybe.

Diana is now on holiday for four weeks, lucky bugger.

Rory managed to burn his right index finger on a heater at school this week, while checking to see if it was hot. I am guessing it was.

Hannah did complete her first full week of school last week, as expected. She should have another one this week, although they will have an early finish on Friday.

We saw Bambi and his girls on Sunday, briefly. Lisa was off firefighter training (they live in rural area where they need volunteers). They came to watch Hannah's game, too. The girls were very well behaved and seemed almost interested.

Rory had Cassidy stay over the weekend because his parents were away. He wasn't a lot of bother. Probably less so than the other two.

SAFETY TIP

Further to my irregular series on Berocca tablets, I discovered something this week. If you break a tablet in half (which I do because a whole one just seems excessive), don't breathe in as you do it. Taking Berocca nasally is not a) pleasant or b) beneficial. If symptoms persist, please see your doctor.

SAFETY TIP PART II

Um, I was just proof reading the above paragraph when I broke another one, and I did it again, not as bad as the first time. I may be developing an immunity. Certainly not learning from my experience. I am not proud of this.

PRICES AROUND THE WORLD
I hope you can read this. Thanks to those that helped. It's rough as guts but here is what certain things cost (petrol and milk per litre, cheese per kg, butter .5 kg). E&OE, etc.
Aussie is the cheapest place in the world. Typical.

Country Germany Australia UK USA New Zealand
Currency Euro NZD AUD NZD GBP NZD USD NZD NZD NZD
Petrol 1.4 $2.79 1.47 $1.72 1.05 2.65 0.96 $ 1.21 1.8 $1.80
Milk 0.99 $1.97 1.86 $2.18 0.59 1.49 1.83 $ 2.33 2.4 $ 2.40
Cheese 11 $21.91 10.76 $12.58 8.3 20.96 12.30 $15.56 16 $16.00
Butter .5kg) 2.2 $4.38 2.5 $2.92 2.32 5.86 4.49 $5.68 3 $3.00

$31.05 $19.40 $30.97 $24.79 $23.20

Charlton Heston meets God (having played him in a movie), big fire in Waikato, big win in Taranaki, big deal in China - 07/04/2008

2008-04-07T09:15:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Despite a bad start to the year, our number of murders is now behind average this year.

Some guy decided to cut a huge hole in a cliff so his kids could walk to the beach on the Manukau Harbour. It's costing him $80k to put it right. Funny as hell, quite bizarre that he thought he was allowed to these days.

There was a very big fire at a cooling warehouse near Hamilton on Saturday. There was a number of injuries among the fire fighters when something exploded, including three seriously. One was so serious he later died. We don't often lose fire fighters so it is a big thing. A fire truck was also taken out, they don't often lose them either. It is still going a little, today.

An Auckland University Professor reckons that we should be taxing butter, as he believes it is the moat poisonous commonly consumed food. His statements coincide with a national cholesterol testing campaign which is sponsored by a company that sells a type of margarine. Interestingly, he is a epidemiologist which study disease, and I am not sure that butter is a disease. We are #1 consumers of butter in the world, and eat three times as much as Australians.

Lotto jackpotted to $19m this week and was won in Taranaki. The hunt is on to find the winner.

Some knob-end hurt himself in a ram raid, poetic justice.

Yet another finance company, Lombard, hit the skids this week. We are very much used to the cycle of stories on it as I think it is the 19th to fail in the last year or so. One has to suspect that each time one keels over, people pull their money out of other dodgy ones putting more pressure on them. I also guarantee there is very little new money going in to them.

Today is the day they sign the big free trade deal with China. Apparently we are the first industrialised nation to do so. Not sure why New Zealand needs to be first.

WORLD NEWS

Robert Mugabe slowly slipped from the reins in Zimbabwe this week, not before time. He does look pretty good for 84. Hope he hides pretty good when the shooting starts. Actually, come to think of it, I am not much bothered if he does hide.

Some git from England, living in Australia, is selling his whole life on eBay. It's news but who would want everything from his house to his socks without it being an utter bargain.

Some F1 bigwig was forced to resign after news of him taking part in an nazi-style orgy with prostitutes. Nobody explained what nazi-style was. Did he have his way with them, salute, and then invade Poland? Or, did he just dress up in jackboots and things? The mind boggles.

Charlton Heston has died this week, he will always be Taylor as far as I am concerned.

REAL SPORT

Hannah played polo for the junior girls, who lost 2-7. Hannah was in goal for the first half and scored the two goals in the second,

We had Hannah's first soccer game of the season, against the much vaunted Eastern Suburbs. Hannah played centre back and did pretty well, although they lost 1-4.

Sunday morning, Rory and I did the trial for Ponsonby water polo. Rory is coaching the A team, but not sure how the B team will be managed.

Rory's senior boys played probably the weakest team in the league on Sunday night, they won 19-0, Rory scored eight goals. Before his game we saw a simply terrible game between two not-that-good teams which was almost slapstick in the way it went, possibly the worst game I have ever seen. One team was short a player and yet they managed a 4-4 draw.

SPORT

Man Utd won their first leg champs league match against Roma 2-0, away as well so things look good there. Fenerbahce scored three goals to beat Chelsea 2-1 in their match (the own goal was first, how's that for pressure). Arsenal and Liverpool drew 1-1.

On Saturday, Arsenal and Liverpool drew 1-1 again, twice in four days. Quite bizarre, really. Chelsea beat Man City 2-0, Sunderland beat Fulham 3-1, Man Utd drew 2-2 with Middlesbrough.

The netball version of the super 14 started this weekend. Too many teams to keep track of, and they have weird names. The Canterbury team is called "tactix" but someone on the radio calls them "tic-tacs" (a mint lolly).

The Blues lost to the Waratahs. Highlanders got their first win. Still haven't actually seen a game in Super 14 yet, don't really expect to.

The Olympic torch seemed to have a bit of a rough time of it in London.

MY SAD LIFE

1 April was the birthday of number portability, which occupies most of my working life. Everyone said it couldn't be done, but we did it anyway.

3 April was Peter Smith's birthday. In our circle of friends born in 1964, he is the first. We got together for it, don't see him often these days.

Today is Brett's birthday, his first as a doctor I think.

Hannah was asked out by another Hannah a while back, although I only just heard about it. It seems everyone at school knows (in lieu of a husband, the father is always the last to find out). Hannah says if she had said yes she would have been the hot one.

We had fun with Domino's Pizza this week. The local one in Pt Chev has been awarded a D hygiene rating (the lowest you can get, D for Dirty. The grades are A, B, and D. There is no C. Not sure why). They have it hidden so people can't readily spot it (it is meant to be prominently displayed). Rory took a bunch of mates in to supposedly order 20 pizzas, then asked to see the hygiene certificate and cancelled the order. Someone else has been standing outside the store with a sign about it. I can't believe Domino's isn't trying to do something about it.

I don't remember whether I have mentioned this before, but Rory is in a competion with some friends. It is the "who can go the longest without shaving" competition and failure costs $20. One lad has had his parents pay up to get him to shave. So far two or three are out. Rory continues to get furrier. Meanwhile the lads are wondering what else they could do that could extract $20 from each parent.

Both kids stayed elsewhere on Saturday night, but it wasn't planned so we couldn't really take advantage of it. Not entirely sure what taking advantage of it would entail, to be honest.

Been for a few walks this week. Hannah and I did Meola reef on Saturday morning, and scored free muesli down at the soccer field on the way back (as you do). Diana and I did Westhaven Marina last night, very noisy and smelly, not sure it was worth it. I got a blister, too.

We think this could be Hannah's first actual full week of school, the second to last week of the term. Sporting events and other things have impacted on every other week so far.

THE PRICE OF FISH

I have had some numbers from Germany and Australia to accompany the other ones but would be great to have prices for cheese, milk, butter, and petrol from some other places. Helen thinks we should do the price of a Mars Bar too, but that isn't a staple so I don't think we should.

A rude interruption, odd happenings in the army, dishevelled strangers, the price of gas - 31/03/2008

2008-03-31T09:14:00.000+13:00

LOCAL NEWS

Well, we had a happiness survey which says if you are female, 75, widowed, and have an income around $75k while living in Nelson you are happy. If you are male in Dunedin you might as well start taking happy pills.

Another study revealed that a large belly in middle age seems to have a link with dementia. I can't see it myself, it is more likely that other lifestyle aspects that correlate with the belly are the cause (like sitting in front of the TV all day).

A man had a 4WD crash into his conservatory, knocking him off the toilet. I hope he wiped (and washed) before he went to check out the ruckus.

Another toddler died in South Auckland. We are just about getting to the point where toddlers surviving in South Auckland make the news.

Meanwhile, six New Zealand soldiers are facing "Court Marital"(sic.) according to Fairfax Media. Something about durg use, I think.

A Takapuna Grammar boy was beaten up, video'd and then topped himself. Not good.

We are about to sign a mega-trade deal with China. No idea what it means. They reckon it's good.

WORLD NEWS

A "man" in the US is pregnant. Sounds sensational but "he" started life as a "she" and kept the bits required for gestation. So really it is more like a gender-undecided female is pregnant, which isn't really that new. And let's be honest, the poor kid is really not going to have it easy, is it? Will he have Mom and Mom-Dad?

Earth hour was a complete bollocks, they reckon Wellington power usage was up. Like saving power for one lousy hour will make a difference?

REAL SPORT

We had four games over the weekend. First was our junior girls against St Marys, we lost 3-11 but 3 goals is more than we've ever scored in a game so that's good. I told them I wanted two goals. The triplets scored a goal each (Hannah, Josie, Charlotte, who are all really in the other team).

On Sunday, we had junior boys, supplemented by Hannah and Charlotte because we only have six real junior boys (also had two baby-faced senior boys playing for them). They were up 5-2 so I pulled the girls out so they could rest for their next game, and the boys couldn't hold it together. They lost 5-6. Hannah scored three goals.

Then we had the big game, the one some of us had been dreading, our true senior girls (B1) versus our junior girls playing senior comp (B2) and they happened to be in the same group so we knew it was going to happen sooner or later (B1 vs B2, the bananas in pyjamas face-off). I train the senior girls on Monday nights and coached them last year, so I know them pretty well and had divided loyalty, a little. To make matters worse, one senior girl defected about a week ago to the B2 team because she wanted to train harder and play with players that were serious. B2 scored first, but B1 equalised, it stayed close but got to 4-2 up for B2 at end of 2nd quarter. It was one way traffic in second half with final score 8-2 for B2, youth and experience overcoming age and lack of fitness. Hannah was in goal first half and scored one goal in the second.

Finally, Rory's team played at 8:45pm, a bit of a long night really. It was against Lynfield and Rory couldn't shoot for shit. He took three shots to score his first, and played hit the goalie (he won that but that didn't help the actual score). They won 11-4, Rory scored 4 goals, I think.

So two wins, two losses. Could have been worse.

SPORT

Well, England won the test, and the series. I couldn't bear to watch. It was as I expected, just wish I'd put some money on the Poms.

New Zealand won the Hong Kong Sevens for the first time in seven years, beating South Africa.

Chelsea lost to Middlesbrough 0-1, Liverpool beat Everton 1-0, Newcastle got a rare win 4-1 over Spurs, Arsenal beat Bolton 3-2, and Man U beat Villa 4-0.

There were New Zealand Olympic trials at the pool we use most for training and games (which meant I couldn't swim). One poor bugger missed the qualifying time by .01 of a second. He's not going, what a rotten trick. He tried to buy some of the new Speedos that they reckon reduce drag by 5% and he couldn't, wonder if that could have made the difference.

I really didn't notice the Super 14, the Blues squeaked a win, Crusaders won, think the Chiefs beat the Highlanders, not sure about Hurricanes.

MY SAD LIFE

Sarah and Scott were walking the twins last Monday, when outside the dairy they saw a friendly looking homeless person (unshaved, no shoes, hasn't had a haircut for six months, but smiling), you know the sort of thing. Then it said hello and she realised it was Rory. I am so proud. At least he didn't wait until she gave him some change.

I did manage to see Sarah and the babies on Friday, briefly. Jack was slightly awake but Samantha wasn't. They are seven weeks old tomorrow but still look a little newbornie.

On Saturday, Rory went off to play canoe polo with some friends. They'd never played before and were basically a gimp team for others to prepare for a tournament. Rory joined the Gavin club by falling out of his boat (five times, actually). They are tiny little kayaks and are very very manoeuvrable, so quite easy to fall out of. I think everyone in the team fell out at least once.

The house was a proverbial train station over the weekend. Rory was away on Friday night (and played taxi driver for Maddie's parents), Hannah away at party all day Saturday, and at Girls Day Out on Sunday. Other people came and went, forcing Rory to hide in our wardrobe at one point because he was only wearing underwear.

Meanwhile, when out of the wardrobe, Rory was doing a speech for school on Sunday which kept us entertained before the three polo games in the afternoon.

At polo training on Thursday we got to see a former Western Springs College guy swim in a race. He was fastest over 100m but dropped off heaps in the second 100. Turned out he was just trying to register a fast time for the 100 to qualify for some other event. The kids were all pretty rapt to see someone from their school competing.

Hannah is off to inter-school champ of champs today. I might try go see it.

My ADSL got upgraded this week to almost above third world speeds (5mb down about 0.5mb up according to speedtest). So I tried a skype call with Paul and it worked pretty well. Cool.

I am having a shoe crisis. All my shoes are wearing out. I did have too many, really, so it's bring balance in a way. However, I have no walking shoes and that is a problem (yeah, I know, all shoes are made for walking, aren't they?).

THE COST OF GAS AND THINGS

Ian says it is £1.05 in UK for petrol per litre, how much is it in Aussie, Holland, Germany, Singapore, and Australia? It's about NZ$1.80-$1.90 here.

Would be also interesting to know cost of milk, butter, and cheese, too. There are rumours that 1kg of tasty in Australia is about $9 whereas it is about $15-$17 depending on brand here.

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

2008-03-24T09:13:00.000+13:00

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.

No party for party pill sellers, a beneficiary scores big, a small town hijacking, and a fatal escape - 17/03/2008

2008-03-17T09:13:00.000+13:00

Today is St Patrick's Day. Why we make such a fuss of it compare to other days, I don't know.

LOCAL NEWS

New Zealand made the news about one of our sons, a drug dealer in LA, who kept the body of his dead girlfriend on ice for a year. We are so proud. Who need's Rachel Hunter and Peter Jackson?

Meanwhile the parenting prowess of a woman in Hamilton was under the spotlight after locking her 10yo and 2yo out of the house in the evening, telling them to go to their uncle's house, and then heading off to the pub. She then said she was "getting the bash" from her partner and wanted the kids out of harm's way. Shame the kids didn't know how to get to "uncles" house.

We got news this week about a guy that leapt out of a brothel during the filming of a raid for some reality show about overstayers. The show screened a few weeks ago. Would he have leapt if he wasn't being filmed? We will never know….

Party pills were reclassified as class c drugs on Thursday by Parliament. People selling them are not happy, there's a surprise.

Being a small country, we can't run to airplane hijackings too often, so an escaped prisoner hijacked an airport shuttle bus (being the closest thing, and all, as you do).

A beneficiary made it in to the news for a good thing. He won $5m on Lotto, so he is no longer a beneficiary (although you could consider, given that Lotto is government owned that he just got a lump sum).

A dead partially naked 52yo woman was found on the side of the road in Banks Peninsula on Friday. The next day it was established it was from a traffic accident when they found her car. Not sure how that explains the clothing.

A teenager was shot dead on a hunting expedition in Tarawera. "It's ironic," said his Mum, "He was such a dear, and he was mistaken for one."

Road carnage wasn't so bad this week.

WORLD NEWS

Gold hit USD1000 this week. Petrol prices continue to rise. The USD is dropping. I think something is gonna blow soon. I really can't see how all these inflationary pressures aren't going to hit us hard.

An Australian woman was in court this week for fatally stabbing her partner because he didn't like Bruce Springsteen. Well, that's what the headlines say, there was more to it than that. Moral is, keep your Springsteen view to yourself for safety. Sounds like the partner was a bit of a prick.

The missing English girl was found in a divan bed base. The English do seem to make such a fuss of their missing children, and it happens rather too often.

REAL SPORT

Too many games to list here (thirteen, I think), Rory played six and Hannah played seven games. Was pretty tough, both teams weren't at full strength. Did not do exceedingly well. Hannah scored two goals, which isn't bad when you consider she was goalie a lot, and the team scored about 8 goals in total. Rory scored about 60% of his teams goals.

SPORT

The second test between New Zealand and England began on Thursday, I forgot it was on. Was sort of evenly poised end of first day but slowly drifted in England's favour over the next three days. It's basically all but over today as New Zealand struggle to score the runs on the last day.

Man Utd beat Derby 1-0, Chelsea beat Sunderland 1-0, Liverpool beat Reading 2-1, Arsenal drew 1-1 with Middlesbrough.

Wales beat France to do the grand slam in the six nations rugby.

Blues lost, not sure what else happened. There were some games.

MY SAD LIFE

I have to make a confession. Rory eats Girl Guide biscuits with hummus. It's disgusting. He gets it from his mother, who used to eat fruit toast with vegemite on it. Please don't tell anyone else.

Didn't really get up to much other than take people to polo games. Only person I've seen that isn't work, soccer or polo-related was Sarah (I walked over again for a quick visit, twins were asleep).

Hannah's club soccer team has been named, looks pretty good team, possibly strongest team she's ever played in. I am not coaching, which is probably a good thing.

We managed to go for a small trip as a family on Sunday, just up Mt Eden and walked around the crater. Needed some time outside and was nice day out there.

Gave Pandora a nocturnal surprise the other night. I got up just before I went to sleep, and as I turned on the kitchen light I kicked her just as she was throwing up (not deliberately, it was mid-stride). Now, it's quite an interesting sound that a cat makes when being whacked mid-chunder. I felt awful but I couldn't stop myself from laughing as she took off and then emptied some more just inside the cat door. For my efforts I got to clean it up before returning to bed.

Rory is away at biology camp for a couple of days, left this morning. Just as long as he doesn't do any human biology. It is up near Goat Island, they will be snorkelling there. A few of you foreigners have been there.

I think we are looking forward to Easter but suspect we are going to be utterly bored. Might need to come up with a plan.
Stay tuned (assuming that you are mind bogglingly bored, yourself)

Our fugitive returns, the single sculls fizzles to a conclusion, and man leaps to fame after falling asleep - 10/03/2008

2008-03-10T09:11:00.000+13:00

LOCAL NEWS

Nai Yin Xue, our very own international fugitive, touched down at 7:15am this morning, so he is no longer international or a fugitive. I suspect bail is unlikely to be an option.

Stats released this week say that mortgage applications have reduced in number over the last year or so. I don't really see that as a problem, as that would suggest there is less debt out there and people might be staying in houses longer. I guess the banking sector isn't so happy, but that doesn't bother me a lot.

Big fuss this week when the government changed the overseas investment rules overnight effectively knackering a Canadian bid for control of Auckland Airport. Now classed as a strategic asset, the company should stay in local hands.

It was the 20th anniversary of Cyclone Bola this week. I remember that week very well, it was not long after we moved in to our house in King St and big willow tree blew over.

We had another police chase evader die in an effort to avoid an interview with plod.

The fire at MOTAT resulted in the arrest and charge of eight 15-16 year olds, four of which came from Western Springs College.

Middlemore Hospital appears to be drumming up business by selling Listeria-ridden sandwiches from it's cafeteria. Yuck.

Truly bizarre situation this week in Wellington. An 18 yo man fell asleep next to his fiancée (27, but let's not go there. That bits creepy as well) in a movie theatre (a chick flick). She left him there, went home, later realised he hadn't returned. He woke up in the theatre at 3am, 18 missed calls on his phone, tried to get out and continued to set off alarms until he finally made it out, where he was confronted by police. Now, he has become the Herald reviewer of chick flicks, he is no longer engaged (lucky escape if you ask me, what a bitch for leaving him there and a cradle snatcher too), and is probably going to start giving relationship advice as well. It's a bit like that pseudo-streaker who somehow still seems to be considered a "celebrity".

A bizarre incident in Remuera when a 63 year old female cyclist was punched and thrown off a bridge by some crazy guy. She survived but is not going to try bungee jumping any time soon.

A bad weekend on roads, sort of. One died when a ute rolled down a 100 foot dune at Bethells Beach. Two other motorcycle riders died in a crash during a race. There were a few other fatalities. I think they were all male.

A prisoner is in hospital after being beaten severely at a barbecue rewarding good behaviour. Interesting reward, the atmosphere must have been dripping with irony.

WORLD NEWS

Norwegian scientists have found that whale meat is the cheapest in terms of greenhouse gases when compared to chicken, beef, lamb. In not such big writing, most fish and seafood is the same as whale. Somehow I can't see us all buying whale burgers. The sad thing is that it's a bit like Colombians releasing a study saying cocaine is the best drug for greenhouse gases. It may well be true on some level, but it really isn't relevant.

Six people were shot in a Memphis shooting. Three were Elvis impersonators, so it's not all bad.

Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons, a fantasy role playing game for anoraks world over, died this week. I guess he failed to make a saving throw.

INTERSTELLAR NEWS

Talk about mountains and molehills. Some guy reckons he's found that a star that is close to going nova is pointing at us and we could be thumped with gamma rays from 8000 light years away. Now, you could say it hasn't happened yet, so who cares about 8,000 years from now but it could have gone nova already and the light telling us this hasn't got here yet. Nevertheless, I wouldn't panic just yet. The news item about it led with all sorts of panic mongering, calling it a "death star" and all sorts.

REAL SPORT

Well, some serious defending paid off and Rory's summer soccer team managed to clinch a win in their final game 2-1.

Friday was lots of games. Senior Boys won about 15-3 against Green Bay (I saw Rory score 2 but not sure how many as I could only watch first half). Senior girls lost 0-15 to St Mary's. Junior Girls played Marist I think and lost but I cannot remember the score. Junior Boys drew 5-5 with Massey, their best result in grading so far. B2 Junior Girls playing senior lost 0-9 against Mt Roskill but it was 0-1 at half time.

SPORT

The big third and final sculling showdown was postponed due to weather on Tuesday, great for news agencies to extend the story but bad for the athletes. The final race fizzled as Waddell struggled and Drysdale screamed in. Waddell then revealed all about a heart irregularity thing that happened early in the third race.

The Aussies failed to level the finals series against India so it was all over 2-0 to India, not a happy result for Australian Cricket. People making lots of noise about how it's all over for them. I wouldn't count on it.

End of day three the first test against England looked like it would end in a very tame draw. The morning of the fourth day, we were still going on England's first innings and then it all went crazy with the Poms getting a hat-trick and New Zealand struggling, before declaring on the fifth day and bundling out the Poms for 110 about 190 short of their target.

The Blues lost to Sharks 17-22, Crusaders won, Highlanders lost, Hurricanes won. Not sure about Chiefs.

Both Man Utd and Chelsea lost their FA Cup quarter final matches 0-1. Minnows Barnsley and Portsmouth go through to semi-final glory. There is only one Premiere team left in the FA Cup now.

MY SAD LIFE

Went mental last Monday, after deciding I had sod all to do and stripped down one of the bathroom windows and repainted it. It was pretty bad, and now it looks great. I was very pleased with myself. Hannah even noticed! The big question is whether I will do any more.

Tuesday, I went another kind of mental and swam, Forrest Gump style (swim, Rob, swim!). I tried to go for an hour but my feet and legs started cramping so I stopped at 55 minutes, but I reckon I did over 100 lengths in that time (2.5 ks). I am not sure I will repeat the attempt soon, that was the most I have ever done in one go. Weird that it wasn't my arms that failed, they do all the work. Thursday I did 60 lengths in just under 30 minutes.

We all raced down to the Dignan St market for the last one of the summer on Thursday night, before heading to the pool. We were there for about 30 minutes, spent quite a bit of money in a short time (four tasty muffins, three mussel fritters, two t-shirts, and a loaf of Turkish bread). The t-shirts are ones that say "Point Chevalier" inside the Chevy-style logo. They are pretty cool, nice to have some parochialism out there.

Hannah, Diana, and Elsie went to Pasifika, the annual Pacific Island festival at Western Springs lake, on Saturday. The traffic around the area was awful, as usual. Had to get the car as close as I could to drop Elsie off because she can't easily handle long distance walking.

Didn't see much of Rory over the weekend, Maddie came to polo then stayed Friday, then they went to Cassidy's party so we didn't see him until Sunday lunch time.

Hannah and I spent a chunk of Sunday making a model wardrobe for English. Didn't actually take too long. It's not finished yet, but we made good progress, especially with the mini-coat hangers. We also spent some time kicking a ball because she has her club soccer trial tonight and she needed to spend some time with a ball at her feet.

The kids have both got the North Island Secondary School polo champs this week, starting Thursday, so busy end of week and weekend.

Pumpkin's Dad caught with cunning plan, the Olympic sculling battle rages on - 03/03/2008

2008-03-03T09:10:00.000+13:00

Wednesday is World Maths Day. We should all solve a quadratric equation to celebrate. Or perhaps find the square root of minus 1.

I waited until the second single sculls race was done before sending this (see Sport for more).

LOCAL NEWS

Believe it or not, they caught the fugitive Nai Yin Xue (father of girl nicknamed "Pumpkin" who was abandoned at a Melbourne train station) with the cunning plan they told everyone about. I have to eat my words. He obviously doesn't read the newspapers or my email, and he did get quite a surprise. He was recognised by some members of the Chinese Community and tied up in a blanket until the police arrived. Meanwhile, redneck vigilantes in the US have caught 19 other suspected Nai Yin Xue's and the Chinese community in the US is not happy with these random apprehensions. "They all look the same to us" one man, Cletus Moonshine the Fifth, said. One of the 19, an afro-American, felt that he didn't resemble Nai Yin Xue at all. But seriously, they are using an immigration issue to extradite him quickly rather than piddle around with the murder charge.

A trailer full of cheese caught fire on the road. We had fondue jokes all over the show.

A backpacker won a million dollars from Lotto two days after arriving in Christchurch. Lucky sod isn't going fruit picking now.

I didn't really notice this when it occurred, but some 45yo man tried to run over his son, after the son called him a paedophile because he was going out with his son's 18yo ex-girlfriend, now pregnant to the father. He has been given home detention, in his house bus. Now, given that he tried to run over his son with a motor vehicle, is confining him to a variant of his weapon of choice really a good idea? They have taken his license for a year but I am not sure how effective that will be.

Tagging continues to be news, with some kids arrested for 29 incidents. One has to wonder why it has suddenly become an issue when it has been around a long time. They are talking about banning aerosol sprays, now, which would actually be a major hassle for those of us with legitimate needs for them (we use them in school projects quite a lot).

A year 12 boy (so about 16 years old) had a heart attack in PE and was brought back with the aid of a defibrillator. Lucky kid.

Big crash in Mangere on Wednesday night when a car load of hoons flew out of control through many obstacles (fences, roofs, other cars, houses). There were six on board and a number of six packs.

Nasty situation in Christchurch this week where the occupants of a small retirement village are getting the boot because the "owner" hasn't kept up with mortgage payments. In other words, the occupants have all paid the management company for their license to occupy but the company hasn't paid the bills. Raises all kinds of questions about that sort of situation.

On Friday, there were leap day stories everywhere about birthdays and getting married and so forth. I guess it's okay to trot them out once every four years, but really it's not news is it? I mean, we all know about leap day. I am sure the other 365 days of the year feel a little unrecognised as a result.

The Wings and Wheels airshow in Hamilton staggered to a big fail this week. It appears to have been either a scam from the start or run incompetently. The organiser has disappeared but many appear to be on his trail. Fallout includes all sorts of organisations that are out of pocket and some strange woman who did a dodgy calendar for the event (but all in the best possible taste). Maddie's Dad was involved in filming some bits for the story and borrowed our copy of the flyer for the story on Campbell Live, so our junk mail is famous.

An elderly woman was run over outside her home by another elderly woman, she died on the way to the hospital. The other elderly woman was a long time friend, wonder if she's going to give up driving.

Friday night there was a fire at Motat 2, the air museum near us that the kids walk past to get to school. It sounded like it was getting pretty serious and there were heaps of appliances there, but couldn't see anything from the road the next morning.

News this morning about the kind of calls we get on our emergency 111 service. They include a woman who needed help threading a needle to fix a dress and she was running late, a guy concerned about two hedgehogs "fighting" on his lawn, and a man who was scared of a cow that was in his letter box (police sent around an imaginary farmer to take it to a nice farm with lots of hay). People should be charged for vacuous calls.

WORLD NEWS

A women in New Guinea was badly hung (as compared to well hung) by the crazy villagers after her neighbour died suddenly. She then gave birth while suspended from the neck, mother and child are doing well (they went into hiding after she was cut down). I think she could touch the ground, not sure how far the baby fell.

Huge fuss about Prince Harry being outed in Afghanistan, has been on news every day nearly all week.

REAL SPORT

The summer soccer team won their playoff 3-0, so are in 5th-6th game tonight. Rory scored the first one, he and Cassidy left at half time when they were up 2-0.

Hannah helped the junior boys a little on Friday, who lost 0-11, the B2 girls then lost 1-12 against a reasonably good team. Rory's team drew 3-3 against Mt Roskill. The junior boys played again on Sunday losing 2-8 (Hannah scored one goal) and the senior boys won 7-2, Rory got three goals. Hannah then played for Kelston Boys and they won 10-2 but lost by default. Was a pretty fun game with one goal scored from a header disallowed by the ref who was giving the player involved a hard time.

SPORT

Man Utd beat Fulham 3-0 (Ji-Sung Park scored the second, sounds like a place not a person). Chelsea beat West Ham 4-0, the Arse drew 1-1 with Villa, Newcastle lost 0-1 to Blackburn. Liverpool and Everton both had 3-1 wins this morning (over Bolton and Portsmouth).

The Blues had another away win in South Africa, the Crusaders also won but didn't get the bonus point. Hurricanes beat Chiefs, Highlanders lost to Waratahs, I think. Blues are top of table now.

Otago managed to beat favourites Auckland in the provincial cricket ODI final. Brendon McCullum led the chase with a record-setting 170 including the fastest ever century and highest score ever.

Mahe Drysdale won the first race in the best of three trial with Rob Waddell for the Olympic nomination in the single sculls, their second race was at 9am this morning and Waddell just managed to edge ahead so it is one-all leading in to tomorrow's final race.

Big win for local golfer Mark Brown in the Johnnie Walker Classic in New Delhi, which gains him entry to European events for two years and half a million bucks in prize money.

Sachin Tendulkar scored his first ever century in Australia in an ODI to beat the aussies in the first final of the tri-series.

MY SAD LIFE

Forgot to mention me and the kids popping in to the twilight market in our street, at the bowling club, last week. Hannah was pretty keen to go so we raced in for about four minutes. Went past a guy with a barbecue, making fritters. Rory asked me if I was going to get one, I said I didn't know what sort they were. The guy overheard me and said "Mussel fritters, mate. They are sensational!". He kept going but Rory said "I think you made that sale with the first six words". Was kind of funny. Anyway, bought one, Hannah got some fudge, and Rory got a t-shirt with "Pt Chevalier" on it in a Chevrolet logo shape. Oh, and the fritter was pretty good.

Visited the twins on Tuesday, at two weeks old they are settling in to a sort of routine. Don't think Sarah is looking forward to Scott returning to work today.

Walking has been a bit of a theme this week. I walked over to visit Sarah and Scott (and Jack and Samantha), walked to Pt Chevalier shops with Hannah and Josie one day, where we were stalked by Daphne from the Homestead, and went for a walk with Diana three times around the lake.

Rory has driven solo a couple of times this week. He had a whinge about how he could do it more if he had his own car, but we pointed out that he could do it more if he got out of bed before lunchtime.

Our neighbour, Jim, returned quietly on Wednesday. The big wedding was Friday and he was pretty keen to be there as it is going to be the biggest family gathering for quite a while. I think he's struggling, but he did well to get out of hospital in time for it. I went to visit him on Sunday and it took a while to coax Pandora inside to say hello but she did and then Ollie showed up without any invitation (he never goes over there).

Diana and Hannah went of to see the Trinny and Susanna roadshow on Saturday morning, which they enjoyed.

I've been reading about perpetual motion machines, unbalanced wheels and the like. The first recorded one dates back to 1240AD or so, I am guessing many have tried and failed. The US Patent office has special rules for such devices, demanding a working model as well as drawings unlike most patent applications. There are some interesting variations out there, but they all use gravity, heat, or magnetism so the laws of thermodynamics are preserved.

Hannah has athletics day today, Rory isn't going this year. The kids both went to interschool swimming on Thursday. I think they won a couple of relays but not sure about anything else.

BUT THEY DON"T TEACH US ABOUT ONES

Rory has an Australian kid in his maths class who can't handle equations with ones in. He reckons he never got taught about ones, so anything with the number one in has him confused (like 12/1, 15*1, 8^1). He struggles to dial emergency services, too.

Dodgy interviews, dodgy seatbelts, dodgy funding methods (but at least we know Blu-Ray is it!) - 25/02/2008

2008-02-25T09:09:00.000+13:00

LOCAL NEWS

Work on Wellington International Airport is nearing completion, and they made a fuss of some weird rock things on the roof, they look like two giant pumpkins from the outside. Waste of money, I can't see people visiting Wellington just for the airport.

The Halberg Sports Awards happened on Tuesday night. Shotputter Valerie Vili won the women's and supreme award.

Campbell Live did a lame-as interview with some hooded gimp purporting to be one of the medal thieves. They wouldn't reveal his identity and there was considerable fuss afterward. I even heard Paul Holmes give a rant about it, who has pulled his own lame stunts in the past to increase ratings, including interviewing fugitives. Don't see the difference Paul, do you?

The man who killed a tagger was granted bail. The victim's family weren't too happy, but I don't see them out there repainting fences.

The coroner pronounced the cause of death for one Ivan Segedin this week. The guy, after being fined for not wearing his seatbelt 32 times, set up a fake seatbelt so it looked like he was wearing one but wouldn't get a fine. He died in an accident where wearing a real one could well have saved his life. This proves there is no helping some people.

Some guy who was in hospital for a heart bypass got a visit from his boss to sack him. Why this made news, I really don't know. Stay tuned for the guy to win an Employer's Association award.

The Chinese New Zealand immigrant who allegedly killed his wife, abandoned his daughter in Melbourne, and escaped to the US has allegedly had a trap set for him in the US. Assuming he doesn't read the English speaking press he should get quite a surprise.

Poor old Helen is well down in the latest poll, this could be good news because more may vote for her in sympathy.

We continued to get stories about Owen Glenn (a billionaire who donated to the Labour Party who is in New Zealand at the moment).

Kiri Te Kanawa upset people by making a snide comment about Hayley Westenra (a watery voiced unpopular singer of pop songs). I suspect it did sound pretty bitchy but was probably pretty accurate.

WORLD NEWS

Toshiba pulled out of HD DVD so Blu-Ray is the new standard. At least we know.

REAL SPORT

At summer soccer they had a 2-2 draw against a team full of players we know.

Hannah helped our newbie water polo junior girls, they lost about 0-15, she then went off to play with her proper team who lost 0-11. Rory's Senior Boys won 15-2 or something against St Peters. Pretty one-sided really.

SPORT

The Poms got a reasonably large 340 in their innings at Napier, then New Zealand got 340 too. Second tie between them, both at the same ground.

In the final game, the Black Caps opened the door for England by letting them score profusely in the dying overs of their innings, slammed it shut early in their batting by reaching 100 without loss, then opened it again by losing three wickets in seven balls. The gods then got bored with the whole thing and locked the door with some rain, so England lost the series to New Zealand 1-3.

New Black Cap Jesse Ryder cut his hand while celebrating the series win at a bar and is out of cricket for three months after reconstruction surgery (what a fool).

Mahe Drysdale was thumped by Rob Waddell in the National Sculling champs. Next weekend they get a best of three race for the trial for the Olympic slot. It's the most exciting rowing has been for a long time.

Liverpool beat Middlesbrough 3-2, Arsenal had a nasty 2-2 draw with Birmingham, and Man Utd beat poor old Newcastle 5-1.

Meanwhile Spurs knocked Chelsea out of the Carling Cup in the semi final 2-1.

The Crusaders and Blues both handed out hidings to South African teams. Both put 50 points on the opposition, the Crusaders doing it to last year's champions, the Bulls.

MY SAD LIFE

I finally finished reading a book of Allan's - The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins, on Tuesday. I won't argue about evolution with Allan again. Oddly, two hours later I returned to the house to find another book by the same guy (The God Delusion) sitting on the table outside. I played an episode of the Twilight Zone so I could get the music. Then my phone rang, it turned out it was from Charles who dropped by on his way to the airport. In another bizarre coincidence Charles was still in his car outside the house when I returned, but he didn't see my car come in because another car was ahead of me.
Rory passed his practical test on Wednesday, 86% with 80% required. He's not actually sure what he got marked down on. Something about looking out for heads? We've no idea what it meant, he should have asked.
Diana's cousin's daughter Nicky has had her baby, which Jack is now a Great Uncle. Does it make you feel old, Jack?
Diana's cousin Ngaire is visiting from Tasmania, and stayed with us for the weekend. I haven't met her before. Diana played hostess and went exploring at Muriwai with her on Sunday.

I think Koos is, or was, in Hong Kong.

Doesn't really feel like we've had an achievement oriented week, as is reinforced by the brevity of this.

The medals are returned, Sarah has her babies, things back to normal - 18/02/2008

2008-02-18T09:08:00.001+13:00

LOCAL NEWS

Nasty weekend on the roads with eight people dying. All of a sudden we seem to be getting holiday weekend style carnage on a normal weekend on a regular basis. Not sure why, for a few years we seemed to be cutting down the road toll. Perhaps we are going for a high score.

We had a mid-air collision near Paraparaumu airport between a helicopter and a light aircraft which three people.

News this week that half of mothers experience some form of manipulation or bullying at the hands of their children. Good grief. The other half just don't realise that they have. Who pays for this stuff?

Spooky coincidence on Tuesday. First the relatives of people who died in Mt Erebus (like 30 years ago) complained that they weren't able to visit the crash site, then the next day the guy who wrote the royal commission report got hit by a car and died. Coincidence? I think not.

A Blenheim house fire took three lives overnight on Wednesday.

Pretty sad murder suicide in south island, where a 67 year old man took the life of his 27 year old handicapped daughter and then his own. Not a lot of background on it but suspect he knew he didn't have long and didn't think his daughter would be cared for.

A local Scientist put his reputation on the line by predicting that the East Coast would have no earthquakes for the next 7,000 years. I guess he only cares if it happens in the next 50 years or so.

The war medals stolen from Waiouru a while back were returned this week, which surprised me. Very good news, although the circumstances of the return was a little odd. A lawyer negotiated the return, supposedly did his own digging to find them, then getting himself considerable publicity. He also negotiated a reward ($300k was offered, they got less). Meanwhile police say they are still trying to find the perpetrators. This story rated about three pages the day afterwards.

Some loser defied a liquor ban by walking in to a West Coast Police Station drinking beer. He was searched and they found cannabis resin as well. The moron was then charged.

WORLD NEWS

Has there been anything happening? I don't remember anything. Oh, hang on, there was a mass shooting or two in the US but that is BAU (business as usual). I think it is news when they don't have one.

Oh, and Obama has caught Hillary, it seems.

There was a rumour GW said something intelligent and comprehensible but I think he was misquoted.

REAL SPORT

Hannah had her first official high school polo training on Tuesday. There was much glee as they discovered that St Mary's were in the pool before them, which included a number of former team mates and school mates.

Her first school game was due on Friday night but the team they were playing defaulted. At least it was in time for us to organise more people to come and have a friendly game, which was good. The our senior girls played and they got thumped 10-1 by Mt Roskill.

Rory had an actual game against Avondale College. He was tired because he'd had Cassidy stay the weekend and I made him do some swimming two hours before the game (but it wasn't much and not hard). Anyway, they won 6-4 and I think Rory scored five of the six goals.

SPORT

The England cricket team continued to confound my predictions by losing the second ODI even more impressively than the first. They were victim to the vagaries of Duckworth/Lewis but all out for 158 was never going to be enough, the Black Caps made the required runs without losing a wicket, in about half the overs they had available. Let's be honest, unless Duckworth/Lewis doubled the target score I am not sure it would have mattered (although they would have fielded differently defending 300 than 158, I suppose).

Then, after all that, England did behave as expected and won the third one. They are now odds on to win the next one.

Former Black Caps captain Stephen Fleming announced his retirement this week. I never really rated him to be honest.

Fifth round of FA Cup saw Man Utd thump Arsenal 4-0. Barnsley upset Liverpool 2-1, West Bromich Albion thumped Coventry 5-0, and Chelsea managed to beat the great Huddersfield 3-1.

The Super 14 started this weekend, but I am afraid I am not sure anyone really cares. The Blues beat the Chiefs, Crusaders beat Brumbies (I think), Highlanders and Hurricanes both lost.

MY SAD LIFE

Well, Sarah took part in a radical weight loss operation on Tuesday, with the surgical removal of two babies. They are to be called Jack and Samantha (Oddly, Hannah said she wanted the girl to be called Samantha the day before). I don't know the official weights yet but think Jack was 3.06 Kg and Samantha's card had been lost when I was in there.

Most of the weekend was taken up with taking people to swimming pools. Hannah had six separate sessions for her New Zealand U15 trial. Who knows how it went and how she did. She came through okay, that is main thing, we should hear what happens next tomorrow but I am not really sure that we want her to continue beyond this cut. We hung around a bit during it and I really don't know how the coach is going to be able to select people when he didn't seem to be taking any notes at all.

Rory had a plan for Valentine's Day, which seemed to go well. Maddie made a heart shaped pink cake, which tasted very nice. And yes, Diana and I did have gifts for each other (that was for Brett, mostly).

The kids had their school swim sports on Friday. They both did pretty well in their heats. Rory re-set the intermediate record for 25m freestyle, and Hannah beat the existing in same race as two others who also beat it. They both swam in their relays.

Rory is sitting his practical exam for his restricted license this Wednesday.

We had a girl from Wellington, Maxine, staying with us for the weekend for the trial. She was very good, and Hannah got along well with her.

Diana and I watched most of Schindler's List over the weekend, it wasn't as grim as I thought, but not exactly a walk in the park.

Diana starts her new job today, she doesn't seem too worried about it which is a good sign.

Things seem very back to normal. Diana went to three different pools this week and so did I. I think total pool visits numbered fourteen between us this week. That does seem like a lot, should be a little bit less this coming weekend.

SOMETHING I LEARNED ON TUESDAY

Okay, not sure I want to explain how I learned this, but I am pretty sure I had a good reason at the time. Don't drink Worcestershire sauce, okay? Even if you like the taste of it on other food, don't even try it. No. Just don't. It's not a drink.

DID YOU KNOW?

Worcestershire sauce is made from rotten anchovies.

Power shopping, some changes (one pretty big), and a return to normality - 11/02/2008

2008-02-11T09:05:00.001+13:00

LOCAL NEWS

Wellington was hit by a deluge and lightning storm this morning. Nothing too serious.

After a hit and run (literally) incident with a drunk driver, a woman in her wedding dress ran down the offender. Must have been quite a sight.

Waitangi Day meant the usual plethora of boilerplate stories about who was doing what where on Waitangi Day. Meanwhile surveys suggested that nobody gives a crap.

We had a pretty pathetic version of a skyjacking/hostage drama this week. A recently immigrated Somali woman tried to hijack a plane to Australia from Christchurch, probably not even a plane that could get there (and how would they let it land, let's be serious). She managed to stab a couple of pilots but it wasn't that serious, although it shows what potential damage a psycho can do in some circumstances.

A dead 33 year old Japanese man was found in a car, in a lake, in Queenstown. At least it was a pretty nice lake to drown in.

The lack of rain is hurting farmers. They get no sympathy because cheese and butter have increased in price horrifically (like 60%+). This will, of course, give them an excuse to drive the price up further. There is talk of money from the Government for drought relief. The peasants are not impressed.

A 21yo man died while cleaning a ferris wheel at Rainbow's end on Sunday. Nasty.

Also nasty, a leg washed up on a Christchurch beach on Sunday. It came with a boot and a sock. Police are looking for a man with a size 8 foot and a pronounced limp.

WORLD NEWS

The photo of the baby being dropped from a burning building in Germany was everywhere in the media. At least you knew it survived but must have been an awful thing for the parents to do. There was no sign of bathwater.

The body of a man dead eight to ten years was found on a couch in a council flat in Bristol. The was another man living with him, who continued to live with the corpse. They found the body when neighbours complained of a smell, which you would have expected sooner than eight years after his death.

Big Tuesday didn't give us any conclusive leader, and then three more states went with Obama but one was Louisianan so they are neck and neck and nobody knows who's going to win.

REAL SPORT

In summer soccer we played a team comprised of mostly Western Springs College girls, many of which we know. It was very close because a Dad was playing for the other team and he put his head in front of any shot at goal. They won 1-0.

SPORT

Poor old Newcastle were up 1-0 then lost 1-4 to Aston Villa. Man City beat Man Utd 2-1, dammit. Chelsea drew 0-0 with Liverpool.

Black Sticks beat Argentina 3-2 to qualify for Beijing Olympics in the hockey.

The Black Caps actually won a cricket match against England. After failing dismally in the two 20/20 matches, they managed to roll England for a feeble 130 in the first ODI and made the total with nearly 20 overs to spare.

MY SAD LIFE

Change #1 I shall have to try and work on the content a little more from now on. Brett is now Dr Furlonger, having had his Ph.D bestowed upon him. Don't want a Doctor reading crap.

The children finally visited school this week. I use this phrase quite literally, as they did bugger all else other than go to school (and return). There were no actual classes and they did not learn anything in the 120 minutes they were there. Rory did this two hourly visit twice, and gets Monday off to recover.

Change #2 Diana resigned from work last Monday, finishes this Friday. She is off to do community education at Glenfield College (still teaching English to foreigners). She went off to a farewell thing on Friday night (don't ask, it makes sense).

Hannah and I met up with Gavin, Yana, and Maria at Dressmart on Saturday. The theory was that this could put Hannah off shopping and at worst meant they could shop together while we didn't (because standing around in clothing shops is not fun). Not sure about that, I think that they both taught each other everything they know about shopping. We left the girls to it for a while and visited a couple of nearby geek shops. It has been quite a while since Gavin and I have done geek shops together. We returned and they were still going (of course). The girls spent four and a half hours power shopping there, but some time was consumed changing and feeding Maria (now seven months old and boasting two teeth at lower front) and feeding and watering us. Nevertheless, four and a half hours was more than enough for me. Hannah had bags from about six different shops, and was pretty happy with what she got. Some kind of

This coming weekend, Hannah has her U15 New Zealand water polo trial. She says she is nervous about it. Going to be a full on weekend for her, over three days.

We visited the Goodins and saw Barry and Karen, visiting from Malaysia. I think it's been quite a while since we saw them. Thomas had just been to a windsurfing lesson on Lake Pupuke. It was a birthday gift from a friend who does it. Barry suggested that a revenge gift would be a horse riding lesson (horse riding is the path to the dark side). I also fixed the cabling for their TV, which had no yellow for six months (I offer no value judgements or opinions at this point).

Change #3 Sarah is theoretically due to lose two large parasites today. Inducement is planned for Wednesday. They could end up being Valentine's babies.
UPDATE: just got a text, she's being induced now. Seems able to text so can't be too bad yet.

It's Gavin's birthday this week, but how do you say happy birthday to someone who hasn't decided when their birthday is? I mean, shouldn't he just believe his birth certificate? It used to be the 14th but I think he now favours the 16th. Feel free to let me know when you think your birthday should be and why what it says on your birth certificate is wrong. I suppose if you shift it a few days every year you could move from Scorpio to Sagittarius or whatever.

Hannah spent a large chunk of Saturday evening and Sunday making a poster comprised of pretty random pictures. She had fun, and made a very large mess.

Rory has been preparing for Valentine's Day this Thursday, given his success in terms of Christmas presents I didn't think he would get anything sorted but he seems to have it under control. I think Diana's assistance was crucial. Meanwhile, I have already fulfilled obligations for Valentine's Day (which, philosophically, I don't believe should apply to people who have been married for 20 years, that's what we have anniversaries for).

TEDIOUS WHINGE - FEEL FREE TO IGNORE

As of today, we return to normal service. The quiet life has now officially passed. We now have the following timetable to deal with:
Monday - summer soccer and polo training for Rory, dancing for Hannah
Tuesday - polo training for Hannah
Wednesday - dancing for Hannah
Thursday - polo training for Hannah
Friday & Sunday - polo games (there are no games aren't this coming weekend, but Hannah will be spending about 20 hours at the pool)
I did not include me in there, but I think I am training polo teams Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. This means that I will basically stop swimming because it is hard to swim and coach at the same time. Of course, when I say quiet life, I have been going to the pool almost every second day for the last month anyway. I was very pleased with myself when I swam 50 lengths in 24 minutes 55 seconds last week, that is about two minutes faster than I have ever managed before. The problem with all the planned training is that I don't often feel like going to the pool at other times to swim.

Urinal etiquette, tagger wars, and the new game known as "hide the sparrow" - 04/02/2008

2008-02-04T08:57:00.000+13:00

LOCAL NEWS

We had a fuss about the banning of the mankini at the Wellington sevens. Most news stories were oriented towards the costumes and partying rather than the rugby.

We had two people shot outside a tinnie house in a turf battle in Manurewa. Tokoroa joined Manurewa as a place you don't want to live with more violence breaking out.

Meanwhile a man was punched in a Christchurch Bar toilet for breaching urinal etiquette. Fair enough, too. I think pointing and laughing is just not right. Comments like "Is it supposed to be that colour?" and "Hey, it's just like a penis, only smaller" are not appropriate. He got community service.

Tea Ropati was found not guilty of the dodgy stuff he was accused of. I mean, he did it, he just reckons there was consent. The jury believed him. Meanwhile the accuser is reported as devastated. Perhaps next time when she over does the drink and drugs she could:
a) do it in a locked room;
b) get a minder to stay with her who hasn't been drinking;
c) have a reality show film crew follow her; or
d) grow a brain and stay off the booze.

A man died when a train pushed his car 350 metres. That’s over a third of a kilometre. I wonder if trains have a version of the two second rule and if so I wonder how many seconds it should be?

Another man died after a brawl in a pub in Mossburn, in an area described Northern Southland. People in Southern Northland were quick to minimise the confusion, to ensure their tourism was not impacted. Meanwhile, Western Eastland hasn't been invented yet.

Following on from the tagger being stabbed, we had a sevens fan in Wellington confront a tagger who stabbed him with a steak knife, not fatally. We now have escalation in the tagger wars. Who knows where it will all end.

Favourite MP David Benson-Pope won't be standing for Labour in his electorate. Someone else has been selected. Apparently he will stay loyal to the party, which is good because no other party would want him either.

We've had nearly twenty people drown so far in this year, including some poor bugger who drowned after rescuing some kids. A retarded Cook Island family went floundering in the Manukau close to dusk. They couldn't see in the dark, and they floundered around until two of the four drowned. No mention was made as to whether they caught anything. Given their capability with planning, safety, and seamanship, I suspect the fish were pretty safe. Meanwhile a man swam in the Hutt River, then got out, felt bad, and died. Not sure if that counts as drowning. We also had five rescued from an overturned boat in the south island and another guy rescued from the air pocket under his overturned boat near Otago.

The euthanasia guy Dr Nietzsche visited New Zealand this week with plenty of noise and controversy with his book being censored and stuff. Then he supposedly helped some women leave early and she didn't even have a terminal illness.

WORLD NEWS

It is super Tuesday in US this week. Such a long drawn out process, such a massive waste of money.

News this week that Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo to regain some position on the internet. I don't see it making a difference.

REAL SPORT

I have been neglecting this section recently, Rory has actually been playing summer soccer for three weeks now. We've not had the numbers the last two weeks with people being away but returned to a decent squad this week. They generally struggle against older, male dominated teams but they got a rare win last Monday, 3-0, against an all woman team. Rory got his first goal of the season and nearly helped the team to a scorcher when his corner found Andrew's head and it hit the upright. The team is normally three boys and about eight girls but the make-up varies every week.

SPORT

The New Zealand team narrowly won the Wellington rugby sevens, just overtaking Samoa in the dying minutes.

Man Utd drew 1-1 with Spurs, Arsenal beat Man City 3-1, Chelsea drew 1-1 with Portsmouth, Liverpool beat Sunderland 3-0.

New Zealand did okay in A1GP in Sydney, but not great, sharing lead now with Switzerland I think.

Tiger Woods won the Dubai Classic. He's playing well.

MY SAD LIFE

The Amazon books arrived on Thursday, ironically the same day the library copies were due back (is that irony? Perhaps coincidentally). They were seven days earlier than predicted by Amazon, but the tracking for this class of post was really boring (ie there wasn't any other than telling me they were due on 7th Feb the whole time). I may try again with a better class of delivery but not sure if the cost is worth it. The delivery was 37.5% of cost as it was.

I was wrong about the twins. They were actually 7 pounds 11 and 7 pounds 15 on Friday 25th. That's bigger than our two were, and they were serial children, not parallel. No news yet on their arrival now about a week from officially due.

I found Ollie trying to get under Hannah's swim bag on Wednesday. There was no skink underneath, but I heard something alive inside the bag. I took it outside and found a male sparrow within, which was able to fly out and away with a little encouragement.

I visited a friend, Will, who owns a gun shop on the shore. He has an MG34, a German machine gun from WWII, he let me hold it. It is exceedingly heavy and very, very cool. It is basically illegal to shoot it unless he is selling it and the buyer wants proof that it works. Can't wait for the to happen.

Our neighbour, Jim, fell and broke his arm this week, just before his 92nd birthday on the 31st. The cat, Pandora, misses him horribly. I am trying to figure out if I could smuggle her in to the hospital to see him. Not a real nasty break, but not easy to recover from at that age.

I think I am going to do some study, of sorts. Going to do a certificate in sports training and development. Not a big thing, only level 3 so about 7th form level.

The kids had sequential sleepovers Saturday and Sunday at the same house so we've been one down for a couple of days.

Hannah's knees are continuing to strengthen, they seem pretty good.

The kids start school this week, sort of. Bit of a false start, one day each.

Fireproof marsupials and small town chainsaw massacres - 28/01/08

2008-01-28T09:00:00.000+13:00

LOCAL NEWS

Well, there was no news on Tuesday except the funeral of Sir Ed. It went pretty well, saw bits of it. Diana went to the Domain during it and stood with a bunch of people watching a big screen. I wouldn't say they were mourners, because it wasn't sad at all, it was paying respect to probably the greatest New Zealander that ever lived.

Hone Tuwhare was also buried the same day, but got considerably less attention. Pretty bad timing really, a week earlier and he would have got plenty of time in the spotlight.

We caught up with other stuff on Wednesday, including the grisly discovery of two Keas nailed to a road sign in the south island (it's not even Easter).

A man near Tokoroa went mad with a chainsaw and charged at a group of people. He then sold the rights for the video nasty "Tokoroa Chainsaw Miscreant" which is likely to go directly to YouTube. One woman got a cut on her foot that did not require stitches. The manufacturer of the chainsaw issued a statement about sharpening increasing effectiveness and the need for regular maintenance of chainsaws. One witness was reported as saying "we are just relieved he didn't know how to turn it on".

Meanwhile a Nelson man flashed at a passing car, which turned out to contain a police woman. He said he thought it was his mates. The judge fined him $450 ($100 per centimetre). "It was cold", the offender said "on a warmer day my fine would have been nearly $600."

Big news this week was the chicken killing hedgehog that was sprung dragging a chicken out of the coop. New Zealand celebrated that we now had a decent predator out there. We've always felt that a lack of snakes and scorpions made us seem a bit wimpy.

Tokoroa then had a murder over the weekend and a 14 year old boy was charged. It’s been a busy week in Tokoroa. The policeman is at his wit's end. His parking ticket quote will never be met this month.

Then we had a murder in Manurewa, a youth was stabbed by a 50 year old man. The victim is believed to be a tagger. One can't help but wonder if the guy did a good thing by putting some fear into the little tagging bastards. (and yes, death may be a little too much but a few vigilante beatings of taggers in the news might slow the buggers down)

Despite the fact that we have had ten homicides in January (a record) police have re-opened an old case. You'd think that they would be busy, but I think they have made arrests in all of them already.

WORLD NEWS

I heard a report that high levels of flame retardant chemicals had been discovered in Tasmanian Devils. My first reaction was wondering whether they would start breeding them and extracting the chemicals for house construction. A house made of Tasmanian Devils would be pretty cool but the greenies wouldn't be happy. Even cooler would be Tasmanian Devils that had evolved to be impervious to fire running around the bush during a firestorm, they could be trained as firefighters. On further investigation though, turns out the chemicals are being absorbed by them from their environment - not manufactured by them. This means that they think the Tasmanian Devils are getting sick and getting something called devil facial tumour disease from their exposure to the chemicals. Shame, really, because flame retardant Taz would have been really cool.

Australian actor Heath Ledger died Wednesday, our time. Another River Phoenix type result, shame how the young rich and famous seem to get into the drugs so easily.

News on Thursday that we have an asteroid coming this Wednesday our time, which is a disconcertingly imprecise 150-600 metres in size. They reckon it will pass close, but beyond the moon. The uncertainty about the size does provide some doubt as to whether the proximity is really accurate. Anyway, should be a bit of a show, visible from home telescopes.

Suharto is finally dead, he did muck about a bit.

A landed shark attacked a fisherman on a boat off the coast of Australia, and tried to remove his leg but he was freed.

SPORT

Indians got a good start scoring well in their first innings, Tendulkar got 153 (about time). Aussies started solidly and by end of day two it was looking like a potential draw. At the end of the fourth day they were only on the third innings.

Man Utd beat Spurs 3-1 to make final 16 of FA Cup. I was wondering if they'd been knocked out already after a report recently that didn't mention them. Arsenal thumped Newcastle 3-0 to knock them out. Most of the usual suspects are still in the comp.

The head to head battle between single scullers Rob Waddell and Mahe Drysdale continues. There is a rule that only one can represent New Zealand at the Olympics (an Olympic rule). They are both Olympic Gold medallists in the sport, does seem unfair.

The retirement of Australian keeper Adam Gilchrist was pretty big news, the man is a freak.

MY SAD LIFE

A funny old week, really. Diana at work, Rory coming and going (although he spent more nights at home this week).

I had a dream Hannah was driving me through a main road in Sydney on the right hand side of the road and she started ignoring red lights (the first in front of a police car). She asked me why she should stop, to which I replied "Because it's a f&*king red light!", at which point I woke up and heard myself saying it out loud. I woke Diana, too.

Rory's friend Raf was sprung by Diana trying to pinch his Xbox one day. It was pretty funny (Rory did borrow his and possibly broke it (or contributed to it's lack of function). It is being repaired at the moment, so you could sort of see why he wanted to borrow it). A few days later he was visiting and I handed him a toaster. I told him he obviously didn't feel comfortable leaving our house without an electrical appliance.

Sarah is still pregnant, and the babies are reported to be over seven pounds now.

We went to the Bambis for a barbie on Saturday night. Was interesting. First time we'd been out there for a while, and Rory drove out there. He seemed to enjoy the open road driving. The place was crawling with kindy kids, which was a bit of a shock to the system, tears and tantrums everywhere. The pass the parcel game was just hilarious. We had dummies being spat everywhere, despite there being a little something in every layer. One boy stormed away, and when some concession was offered he turned and said "It's too late!" and disappeared. Another interesting aspect was the mums all hovering over the proceedings and kept hearing mutterings when they felt their precious child hadn't had their turn yet (I so wanted to say "Someone has to be last, lady"). Speaking as one who has their own personal pass the parcel trauma, I think it is time this supposed game was banned. Kathryn suggested a version where everyone has a parcel and they pass and receive at the same time.

Hannah's knees have shown considerable improvement, the physio was very pleased. She confessed that Hannah was her only patient showing improvement, not sure that's a good sign. We return again tomorrow.

We've been swimming quite a bit, every second day. Rory had not swum for about six weeks so he struggled a little but after a week he is getting better. Last night they got to throw a ball in the dive well, which they enjoyed.

Seem to have been doing a few things with just me and Hannah. We went out for yum-cha on Friday and went to the flea market on Sunday. We were bored on Saturday so we went up Mt Eden and walked around the crater, checking out what we could see from up there. It was interesting for Hannah because she was familiar with so many more landmarks than the last time we went up there (which must have been ages ago). I should have taken my camera. Have not really used the camera in a long time.

I am continuing to read a book called The Ancestor's Tale, which traces the human race back through common ancestors back to the amoeba. I am up to some invertebrates now, so getting close to the end, I suppose.

Diana and I snuck out to breakfast this morning, the kids were asleep. Was nice in the morning sun.

Look after your body, don't forget where you left it - 21/01/08

2008-01-21T08:59:00.000+13:00

We have rain for first time in a while, we need it.

LOCAL NEWS

Grim news this morning with three bodies found in Auckland in last 24 hours in different places. One was a Titirangi woman missing for over a week who was not entirely with it, one was found in a river by a kayaker near Clevedon, and a third found near a boat in the harbour near Kawau.

The Green Party suggested we have a national holiday to commemorate Edmund Hillary, which instantly put me off the idea. We continued to be bombarded with trivia and various weird stories regarding Hillary, which was a shame because it was starting to get a bit much. We've had suggestions that state highway one be renamed Hillary Highway, that we rename a mountain, and many that are just quite bizarre. We would not honour the man in any way if we began calling the kiwifruit the Hairy Hillary.

Then we got news that nobody from the royal family was coming for the Hillary funeral. I am not an expert on protocol and I can understand why the Queen herself might not be able to make the trip, but I think the Royals should have sent at least a B-list royal to represent them for the event. Even the poms think it is a snub. I think they have blown it big time, Republicanism here we come.

Apparently the word "Helengrad" for Wellington has entered an Australasian dictionary. No mentiond of "threetards" making the grade.

Formaldehyde was put in milk in a staff lunch room at a medical research centre as some form of protest, two staff drank it. Subsequent tests on them showed that they were 74% more likely to develop cancer of the ear lobe if they drank nine cups of coffee a day than people who didn't drink the formaldehyde.

Things went a little crazy on the North Shore, with about four separate incidents of violence in two days mid-week. Been quiet since.

Meanwhile, a father decided it would be clever to take his 11 year old son and a friend for a ride in the boot of his car. He reckons they talked him into it. They crashed, his son died, the friend suffered pretty nasty injuries. They were thrown out of the boot, so perhaps it wasn't shut. No mention of the cause of the accident, but another vehicle was involved. If one used the "the father didn't know the accident would happen" defence then nobody would have to ride inside the vehicle or use seat belts when they weren't planning on having an accident.

In the wake of Hillary's departure, local poetry "legend" Hone Tuwhare died on Wednesday. Not sure he was quite as legendary as Hillary, but it gave them something else to cover.

It seemed to be transgender awareness week this week. The media seemed to pelt us with stories about policemen becoming policewomen, kids being outed at new schools by calling them their old name, and greenskeeper Willy became greenskeeper without a willy. It was pretty odd. I mean people don't decide they aren't a size 9 and get their feet made larger or smaller, they don't change hat sizes.

McDonalds has sought an injunction to prevent an ex-employee of blogging about conditions of work. Quite interesting, one assumes there is an army of ex-workers that could do this. They may have quite a fight on their hands.

We had a murder of a 26 year old Scottish tourist. Not good, never looks good overseas when that happens. Looks like she interrupted some morons vandalising a school.

WORLD NEWS

We heard about the Japanese whalers and the wailing protestors all week. They finally were freed about Friday.

Crash landing by BA plane at Heathrow was pretty unusual. Bet the crash unit got the shock of their lives having to do something that wasn't an exercise.

A picture of Madeleine's abductor has been released. What a load of bollocks, this whole thing is quite ridiculous. They aren't ever going to find her in one piece, let it go and move on.

SPORT

The Indians thumped the Aussies in the Third Test, so no new record for Australia. Good in a way, but to get equal and not push on must be annoying. Not sure where to send the sympathy card.

The New Zealand car Black Beauty won the first A1 GP race at Taupo in the morning and did reasonably well in the second race, and is theoretically now leading the competition.

Everton beat Wigan 2-1, Man City drew 1-1 with West Ham. Chelsea, Arsenal, and Man Utd all beat lower teams.

MY SAD LIFE

Began the week with a medical theme. Took Rory to the doctor on Monday to get his ear checked, he had an outer ear infection which wasn't too serious. Then went to a physio with Hannah on Tuesday, to see about her knees (they hurt a lot after exercise). She now is doing exercises to strengthen the muscles around the knee. She's been pretty good with them, going back tomorrow to see how she's doing.

In between work stuff have been doing other little jobs around the house. Hannah and I went to the building supply place and got a couple of things. I think I need to make a list because I always remember what I needed when I get home.

Rory got his NCEA exam result(s) on Friday. He passed, reasonably well I suppose for doing it a year early, but the scoring method is pretty bizarre. We don't have room to explain it properly here. The numbers go like this - he got four merits, two excellents, 21 credits, in two subjects even though he only took one. I told you it was weird.

We did the scotsmans concert when the Police played in Auckland on Saturday night. Parked at Maddie's house and sat on the grass outside the stadium and listened for a while. I am not really a fan of live music to be honest. It was okay, but very okay.

Didn't really see an awful lot of Rory this week. He has slept elsewhere one day in two in last eight days.

Did see Sarah a bit. She's sort of sticking out in front a lot now and the babies are over six pounds each. They have to escape soon, you’d think with two of them they could come up with a plan faster.

Diana is helping Hannah sew a dress. I think Hannah was really enjoying it until there were some hitches.

Diana had her first week back at work at a new location and new regime (now finishing at 1pm, bit earlier than last year, but doesn't really seem noticeable).

Breakfast TV has started again today, it has seemed so quiet the last month or so. Not sure Diana is too happy about it because I turn the TV on at 6:30am.

I ordered a couple of books from Amazon yesterday so I will have something to track for the next week or so.

Sir Edmund Hillary dies, little else matters- 14/01/08

2008-01-14T08:58:00.000+13:00

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.

The death toll olympics, beach frolics in the Far North - 07/01/08

2008-01-07T08:57:00.000+13:00

LOCAL NEWS

We continued the death toll race all week. We had a 13 year old girl killed by a trail bike near Glink's Gully (where Charles goes for his
holidays) and there were arguments over whether that could be a road accident without a road and seeing it was on a beach it could be a drowning. Obviously, it wasn't a drowning. Meanwhile a diver died and a man drowned in Lake Pupuke so the drowning team caught up (we actually know the 20 year old that drowned in Pupuke, he was older brother of a guy that was in Rory's soccer team for about three years). Then, out of nowhere, the mountaineering fraternity made a late start with a death on Mt Cook. It was anybody's race, and it went down to the wire (6am on 3rd January). The road toll won.

A local do-gooder heaved a brick at Helen Clark's electorate office and sped away on a scooter in the early hours on New Year's Day.

A parishioner saved their church from fire using cushions and jugs of water.

Some Aussies are here looking for moa. Good luck to them.

We've had another baby die, of a fractured skull at 11 weeks. The parents are now telling us how they are trying to regain custody of their other child. Given the fact that the injuries did not appear accidental, I am not quite sure how they expect to justify this (except for something like "the other kids is tough cos we haven't killed it yet, eh?").

A German woman kayaked around the South Island, took her 70 days, not sure it was non-stop, don't think it was.

A 46 year old Ngaruawahia man was shot in the head, not fatally I don't think, but he wasn't real happy.

Meanwhile, since the cut off for the road toll for the holiday period we've had more deaths on the roads, a body found at the bottom of a ravine, a boot found somewhere else (with a foot in it), some people injured in a jet boating accident, a train hit a car, a go-karter died, you name it we've had it.

WORLD NEWS

Meanwhile a New Zealand woman was the first road fatality in Victoria for the new year, which is just being greedy.

The Illinois primary didn't go so well for Hillary, but it's a long race.

SPORT

The last ODI against Bangladesh was a farce. They got 93 runs and the opening batsmen got that in less than six overs without losing a wicket. I would be pretty annoyed if I paid to go see it.

The first test against Bangladesh was a little different, although completely thumped in the first innings, the Bangladeshi openers scored more in their opening stand than the entire team did first time around. I think the pitch was becoming very placid. Then, on day three, New Zealand made the breakthrough and they collapsed and it was all over by the end of the day.

A placid pitch was also the problem at the SCG, although Australia were 60 odd runs behind India on the first innings, there were few wickets on the fourth day and they went into the last day looking like it would be an almost certain draw. Then, we had a sporting declaration from Australia and they tried very hard to get the Indians out, I still didn't think it likely but even with two overs left and three wickets remaining I thought a draw was on the cards, but Michael Clarke managed to get all three in the over to clinch their 16 consecutive win.

Man Utd beat Birminginham 1-0, Arsenal beat West Ham 2-0, Chelsea beat Fulham 2-1. Liverpool drew 1-1 with Wigan.

MY SAD LIFE

We spent New Years evening with the Chambers, but did not stick it out until midnight.

The week was relatively quiet until Rory returned from holiday with Maddie on Wednesday (which seemed to have gone well).

We then had a mad rush to be ready to leave for the North. We did manage to leave just before 7am on Friday to avoid the traffic (which although holiday level would have still been a bit nasty being a weekday). We checked out the stone store at Keri Keri for the first time ever, it was interesting. We got to Coopers Beach just after lunch time. We met up with the Goodins and Clares not long afterward.

We've spent a lot of time at the beach itself, lots of boogie boarding and throwing of tennis balls for the dogs. Pippy spent a full two and a half hours chasing the ball yesterday, people went in shifts keeping her going. She must have been knackered. I got some photos of her in full flight on Friday, one caught her completely in the air over the water doing a super dog impression. She enjoyed Rory chasing her, and then yesterday Rory had the ball and made her chase him, which was pretty funny.

One of the activities at the beach was tunnelling under a log. Turns out that this log followed the ice berg principle and two thirds of it was below the sand. It was a bloody big log, but they got under it, but only just as there was rock about three inches below it.

We went to a vintage car show in Taipa on Saturday. Now, Taipa is a pretty small beach community quite a long way from anyway, and I had a sneaking suspicion the car show would consist of leading people out of the car park back into the car park to look at their own cars. I was pleasantly surprised. The highlights included a three wheeled Morgan, and US army half track, a 1924 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, and a pink Thunderbird. There must have been nearly 200 cars there. The lowlight was the performances on stage. Three ladies seemed to think that the same dance done to different tunes while wearing different outfits was entertaining (it was, but not in the way they thought). The announcer for the dancing also delighted everyone with his renditions of a variety of songs. He wasn't that bad, but he wasn't that good.

We had a bit of a go at tennis on Saturday, and it wasn't pretty. I suspect tennis isn't my game any more, I was complete rubbish. Given the aches I have sustained I suspect it may be time to hang up my racket.

We are spending a couple more days here in Coopers before heading to a place called Teal Bay until Sunday.

Fatal cricket in Western Australia, while the Pakistanis work on their fatal politics and New Zealand plays death toll racing - 31/12/07

2007-12-31T08:55:00.000+13:00

Farewell, goodbye, and amen, 2007 is basically knackered and we have to get used to a new date. I hate this interim period where you talk about "this year" and nobody knows whether you mean this year we are in or this coming year. We handle tomorrow and yesterday okay, you’d think we'd be able to cope.

LOCAL NEWS

It was a white Boxing Day in Upper Hutt, one person reckoned the hail was knee-deep. That's a heck of a lot of hail.

We seemed to have more drownings that road fatalities, meanwhile people seemed to get more carried away overseas (see below).

Four men tried to drown themselves in an over full IRB with a 2hp motor that conked out as the Waikato river was pushing them towards the bar. They had no life jackets or anything. One of their rescuers thought they were the stupidest people he'd seen in 30 years of rescuing. They were so embarrassed they failed to collect their sick boat, although it was probably stolen.

A clever 25 year old woman climbed a 1.8 metre fence, jumped in a covered swimming pool, and drowned herself. I think that makes the seventh drowning since Christmas Day. The road toll is slightly ahead at eight. Could be an interesting contest.

The New Years honours have been handed out. They are dull as ever, and all the sort of people you'd think had already got one. It seems that you get one if you were a politician or have been in the public eye for some other reason. Stupid concept.

A security review has revealed that Helen Clark's house has been tagged while under observation from the secret service and burglars hid on her section when being chased after being caught in the act. Good stuff.

Novovirus has hit 30 scouts at a jamboree in Christchurch. That would be a lot of fun. Camping AND rampaging disease. Wouldn't want to be on latrine duty there. Meanwhile, Legionella has been detected at a couple of Auckland buildings.

WORLD NEWS

A beach cricket game in Perth got pretty serious when someone murdered another player.

In Seattle, Washington, someone went postal and took out six people. Well, technically, one of the victims was a postal worker so the murderer went for A postal and took out a few others on the way.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Friday could spell chaos in Pakistan. It gave us plenty of news for a few days.

SPORT

Well, the Black Caps won the first ODI against Bangladesh and then did so again in the second, although Duckworth Lewis got involved I don't think it really changed the result. Last game today.

Meanwhile, the boxing day test in Melbourne was over in four days and the Aussies showed that they are the best and 2nd is daylight. India didn't stand a chance. It has to be pretty boring for Australians if they know they are going to win (15 in a row now).

Chelsea had a 4-4 draw with Villa on Boxing Day, three players were red-carded, Chelsea won 2-1 on red cards. Man Utd beat Sunderland 4-0, Wigan beat Newcastle 1-0, Spurs beat Fulham 5-1 and Liverpool scraped home 2-1 over Derby. Arsenal had a 0-0 draw with Portsmouth (think it was Portsmouth).

Over the weekend, Spurs continued their high scoring theme with a whopping 6-4 win over Reading. Man Utd shocked everyone (who cared) by losing 1-2 to West Ham, after being 1-0 up, Chelsea beat Newcastle 2-1, and Arsenal beat Everton 4-1 in a game with ten men on each side.

MY SAD LIFE

Christmas passed pretty quietly around our place. In fact the whole week has been pretty quiet. Rory disappeared to Coromandel with Maddie on Thursday. Diana sent him a text saying "you having fun? You eaten all their food yet? Been on a blo-cart? Missing us?". The reply was "Yes. No. No. Naaah." Such eloquence. I am sure food is lasting longer around here. There was discussion of him sleeping in tent with Maddie. I am pretty surprised her parents allowed it but realistically I am not sure I would want to share a room with him, and he's my son.

Hannah and I have been swimming pretty regularly, went four times this week. In the heat it is quite nice to cool off, and it has been quite hot.

We have managed to see some people this week, like the Bambis, Goodins, and Coshs. In between we've been doing a few jobs around the house, nothing very inspirational. Diana and I did manage a walk around the Western Springs lake on Thursday. Diana has been trying to fumigate Rory's room so that it doesn't reek like teenage boys armpits. I am not sure that is remotely feasible.

One thing that wasn't humdrum was that we did go explore a large Russian sailing ship Pallada that was in port, it was big (holds passengers and crew of about 180). There wasn't much info about, other than some about the Pacific Fishery in Cyrillic (so, pictures, basically). The Soren Larson was parked next to it and completely dwarfed by it.

Diana and Hannah went to a movie, while I went to the main city library. The Monty Python sketch comes to mind. They have rearranged things and now the novels take up a tiny amount of space and it feels like they have done little more than squeeze them in, afterthought style, after they made room for the teens, kids, computer games, dvds, magazines, and display of native nose rings from upper Gambia. "Funny, you've got a lot of books here"………….

Diana did buy a couch on Boxing Day, two actually, but they are both the same. They arrive later this week. All part of the vicious circle of death that was started by getting the new table, because nothing matches. The next item needing replacing in the coffee table. I am really not looking forward to finding out what else doesn't go.

Hannah bought a bikini this week, which is a bit of a difference from what she wears swimming at the pool (two pairs of togs, it's a polo thing, her and Rory both feel undressed if they wear only one, even for training or just swimming). She is cleaning the cars in it as I write this.

We leave for a holiday on Friday, I am hoping I can get connect to outside world to send next Monday's edition. I may have got around to New Year's resolutions by then.

Haven't heard from Jono yet, where are you, you bugger? Come see the new couches (they are now arriving today).

Paul's still in Singapore, and very quiet.

Parkinson's sufferers feel at home in Gisborne, Hannah gets surprised - 24/12/07

2007-12-24T08:54:00.000+13:00

LOCAL NEWS

Sizable quake near Gisborne on Thursday night was the answer to all the prayers of local news services experiencing pre-Christmas lethargy and a paucity of actual news (which doesn't normally stop them). Couple of buildings collapsed, one elderly lady died. There were a couple of aftershocks over a couple of days, one was big but not that big.

Nasty tourist bus crash up north where a bus load of oldies got rolled by an out of control dune buggy, no fatalities but not a good end to a day out.

The dreaded electoral reform act was passed into law. The Herald continues to say how bad it is. At first impression it doesn't seem to be a biggie, but it's not good.

A survey shows the majority of apprehended felons have dodgy substances in their bloodstream. Hardly surprising. I thought the theory was people mostly did burglary to fund drug habits?

The local Burger King got smacked for showing a ceramic coffee cup in their advertisements but supplying coffee in a paper cup. Good job. Kind of funny, when you think about it. If they never serve it in a proper cup then the ad is a complete misrepresentation.

We've had a flurry of "shame it was at Christmas" stories. Dumping kittens or losing a loved one in a car accident is not worse at Christmas, it's bad regardless. How come nobody cares when it happens at Easter or on Queen's Birthday? It's just vacuous and repetitive.

A gang of badly behaving santas forced a cinema to close in Christchurch. Terrible thing, giving Santa a bad name (remember Santa is an anagram of Satan).

WORLD NEWS

We had a weird story about how the Queen is now the oldest Monarch that England has ever had but she must have started late because she has about eight years to get the longest reign.

SPORT

The cricket happened. We don't discuss it. Aussie are good. New Zealand are not. Why have any coverage of it at all? Why even play the game, we know they are crap. Now we have Bangladesh coming. Not surprisingly they beat New Zealand in a 20/20 game. If we lose to them can we stop having so much coverage of the cricket?

Liverpool had a 4-1 win over Portsmouth for Christmas, Arsenal beat Spurs 2-1, Man Utd beat Everton 2-1 and Chelsea snuck past Blackburn 1-0.

MY SAD LIFE

Hannah had her graduation on Wednesday, her last day as an intermediate school kid. They had the graduation dance afterwards, and she got dressed up for the occasion. There were lots of tears, the crocodile was exhausted. I helped her find shoes on Tuesday, but I don't think she liked them.

Speaking of shoes, we also got some shoes for me. They are pretty far out, Nike Air Force Ones in two tone brown and orange. Ten things you can say about them:
- if I walk through vomit, it won't show on the shoes, even if there is diced carrots in there (which is could because they can induce vomiting and are basically a cure for not being bulemic)
- at least nobody will think I am gay, gay people have taste
- the advantage of being tall is I am a long way from the shoes
- they came with free sunglasses, ear plugs, and a health warning
- I can leave my fly undone and nobody will notice
- I did try to donate them to the salvation army, but they turned me down
- Somewhere, there is a blind person that is missing their shoes
- If I leave them in the sun, they should fade sufficiently in 18 months so that I could leave the house in them
- I can leave them anywhere and the risk of them being stolen is zero (although there is a very high risk they could be binned)
- If they were a horse, they would have been shot
- At least when I wear them people know to not ask me for fashion advice

Thursday night, Hannah had a surprise birthday party. What's that, you say? Her birthday was actually three months ago? That's the perfect way to ensure it's a surprise. We've been busy, okay? We took her to Prego, our favourite restaurant, sat down, then her friends popped out of nowhere. We left them to it, they had dinner together. We sat at another table, the other side of a chimney so we weren't hovering (couldn't even see them). The waiter kept us informed, which was exceedingly useful (in terms of how they were going with mains etc) and he passed messages to them (like that they could have hot chocolates with their dessert). He also told us that Hannah had ordered a latte and we got it modified to decaf. I think they really enjoyed it, probably first time any of them had been to dinner without an adult at the table. We left the restaurant about ten minutes before them, bumped into Allan and Jaqui who were celebrating their 32nd wedding anniversary (32 years, crikey). We returned to pick them up and take them home. I think it was unusual enough to be considered a good event. They then stayed over night and proceeded to use each other as Barbie dolls and did each others hair.

Friday night we staggered up to the local garage for the Christmas party. Rory brought Maddie, Raf, and Cassidy, although they were a bit nervous about all the grown ups and disappeared. Then they showed up finally, had three beers each (not large ones, but they inhaled them and they were 6.3%, made by local brewer who we've known for a long time) and disappeared again. Graham Brazier sang some songs, which makes sense because what else do you do with songs? (apart from write them and download them)

We went to another local barbecue on Saturday night with some of the regulars, mostly ex-Rangitoto College people. Went to see some lit up houses on the way home, which were nearly as impressive as the much vaunted Franklin Road in Ponsonby, but less crowded and faster.

It was Jono's birthday on Sunday. I thought it sucked having a birthday in early December, but on Christmas Eve Eve is worse.

Brett is off to Truk for a diving holiday.

Funny how things change. Wrote the bit up top about things happening at Christmas and then Mum's friend Sue Casey died on Sunday. She'd been fighting a losing battle for a while, but it's still pretty sad. Just tricky with Christmas organising funerals.

A quiet weekend without Hannah in the house - 17/12/07

2007-12-17T08:53:00.000+13:00

Is it just me or has bugger all happened in New Zealand this week?

LOCAL NEWS

A hair salon had a car driven by an elderly woman come through the shop window, nobody was hurt. They thought it was a mirror breaking before they saw the car in an unexpected place.

Convicted triple murderer William Bell got the bash in prison, and headed for hospital. Then turned out that it was an escape attempt, except his accomplice was waiting with weaponry at the wrong hospital, and the injuries were just a little too convincing. All quite bizarre, really. How they found a woman with a gun at North Shore hospital, I don't know.

Been some weird story about New Zealand First political party donated money to Starship but not sure how or why because it was a fine for election spending so I don't understand why they could give it to any old recipient. Starship gave it back. It's all quite confusing.

Two recent political polls show National are ahead of Labour, it's not really surprising. Labour have done their dash, too many things have really pissed people off.

A man died when a trench collapsed on him. Why do they ever get in them?

WORLD NEWS

Lots of coverage of a sentence handed down to nine men who raped a ten year old girl. They were all aboriginals, and most were also below the age of consent. No custodial sentences were given but some were given suspended sentences which required good behaviour for a year or so.

Oil spill in South Korea has been an environmental disaster, the cause was a real cockup too.

The Bali climate change conference was the biggest oxymoron of the decade. Thousands of people flying there to reduce emissions, sheesh.

The Spice Girls are playing in England. Many feared the reunion would happen, and it has. Their UK appearance has been increased from one to sixteen concerts. So much for reducing emissions. They were the first band in UK to get a gong from the Queen for their services to music for breaking up. I wonder is she will want it back?

Some odd news about Terri Irwin and Australia Zoo being in legal proceedings, not sure if it is bollocks or she's been naughty. Crikey!

REAL SPORT

Hannah had six polo games at the National tournament. General feedback is that she played pretty well. They won their first game beating Maranui 8-2, lost their second to Tauranga 4-6, drew the third 3-3 against Marist, beat North Harbour 12-4, Mountfort Park 8-1, and Rotorua 6-4. This put them 5th, which isn't bad I guess for a pretty young team, six of the eleven players will be there again next year.

The highlight for Hannah was being named as a trialist for the New Zealand under-15 girls team, thirty girls were named so there is a bit of a way to go but it is still quite an honour, especially as she will be u-15 for another year after this one.

Meanwhile the boys top team was expected to repeat the gold medal win from last year with five of the team from last year coming back. They had a shock loss in the semi-final, so ended up coming third.

Also, Hannah's other club team are playing in the B Nationals, and doing very well, having conceded two goals in their three games so far and scored about 40. Final is tomorrow.

SPORT

The Black Caps received an old fashioned towelling from the Aussies in a 20/20 game. Sportscasters tried to convince us that we had a chance but it was never going to happen. I stick to my previous view that they are underprepared and undercapable. We then lost the first ODI, then rain saved us in the second on Sunday. In South Africa they had an ODI shortened to 13 overs, how stupid.

Robbie Deans was confirmed as the Wallabies coach. I have a bad feeling about this. It made the news, a lot, before and after.

Wigan v Blackburn was a heck of a match, Wigan won 5-3, one guy red carded and two hat tricks. Man Utd beat Liverpool 1-0, didn't think they would win. Arsenal beat Chelsea 1-0.

MY SAD LIFE

Rory had activities days this week, not sure why they just don't send the kids home. He did paintball and windsurfing for two days. On a third day he went to the beach. Friday was prize giving, and what a total and utter waste of time that was (see below for general moan on the subject).

Hannah left for Wellington on Wednesday. I did not. Long story, but politics is completely lame and doesn't belong in sports clubs and I wasn't going to fork out $500 so someone could avoid offending someone else. Given that the potential offendee is largely offensive, it seems all the more ridiculous. This gave me more time at home than I was expecting, and was possibly a good thing. Hannah seemed to more than cope (like, I am not sure she would have noticed if I was there).

Rory and Maddie have been spending quite a lot of time together, but she was away in Christchurch for a wedding this weekend so he was at a bit of a loose end. This meant we dragged him along to Koos and Julie's barbecue on Saturday night, and he actually enjoyed himself. It was good to see everyone. Rory drove out there, actually got him doing a bit of driving over the weekend.

I mentioned the prizegiving earlier. Basically about 66% of the junior school got a prize. They called out each kids name (in alphabetical order), while they walked up they read out what they got prizes for (so if more than one, they got them all at once) and then they sodded off. So rather than calling out prize then winner, it was vice versa, which just seemed weird. The other problem was that some kids seemed to get a ton of prizes (Rory got four, three achievement in maths, media, and PE and application in English, application means effort, and god knows how he got the effort one because I am not sure there was a lot of effort involved) and others (one girl we know who is exceedingly hard working and talented) got nothing. So while they devalue the whole prize thing there is enough of a vestige of recognition to piss off those that have been weirdly unlucky. What a stupid concept. I have just about decided that prize givings are completely outmoded.

Saw Matt & Kristy on Sunday. Matt's cat Entrée died this week, she was a funny old thing, tended to moan a fair bit. Seemed quiet without her.

Hannah has graduation, prize giving, and a dance thing this week, when she returns from Wellington today. Rory has nothing at all, which is good because he needs to do some Christmas shopping.

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of us buying our first house. This is also the case for Ross and Kath who moved in to their first house the same day as us (well duh). I am not sure how this is possible because none of us are old enough for this.

Picked Hannah up from the airport. She was pretty tired, but pretty happy.

Lots of people leaving on an unplanned basis and both sides of water polo finals - 10/12/07

2007-12-10T08:52:00.000+13:00

LOCAL NEWS

Double murder accused Chris Kahui was not wanted in a town away from Auckland when released on bail, again. He's not Mr Popularity.

A fourth person died from the motorcycle versus campervan crash last week. The Austrian driver of the campervan pleaded guilty to six charges. I wonder how many motorcycles you have to hit at once to get a strike?

Nicky Watson's dog has been found, although it is no longer alive. A sad end to a sad story.

The body in the suitcase guys got 18 1/2 years each.

The housing price boom appears to be over, with an actual drop in the average price of a house reported in November. It's long overdue.

A large sailing boat was missing on a trip from New Caledonia to Auckland with ten people on board. Wasn't looking good, but they found it safe and sound.

A 13 year old was killed by a car near Ohinewai.

An experienced female diver died in a simple dive, having done everything right. They don't know why.

Graham Henry was reinstated as All Black coach. I think it is a mistake. Robbie Deans is now expected to go to the dark side. This is also not good.

There were two fatal stabbings and a murder within an hour over the weekend, including one guy on his birthday. Quite bizarre.

Interesting set of conflicting stories this morning. Hydro-lake levels in South Island running low, and heavy rain warning for Fjordland.

WORLD NEWS

It is two months since Steve Fossett disappeared. Guess they won't find him. I am quite surprised they haven't. Perhaps he was abducted by aliens. It just went awful quiet, so I decided to check it out and there has been nothing for a while.

The teacher jailed for her students name a bear Mohammed was freed early. She really is a silly woman and her daughter looks like that guy from Little Britain.

Some woeful survey by AOL has labelled Pamela Anderson as the sexiest woman ever, what an awful waste of carbon emissions.

The mass shooting in Omaha, Nebraska raises an interesting question. If it happens often enough to become commonplace, it won't be news, and the perpetrators won't be famous. Like streakers. Wonder if not reporting it would work?

REAL SPORT

Relatively little sport this weekend. We did go to Tauranga for two games on Saturday, this was for Div B for Hannah. They won their semi-final 7-0 and their final 7-0. The final was Waitak B versus Waitak C, which was pretty unusual (Rory played in a B v C semi final a few years back where C just managed to beat B, but that was even more extraordinary and they got thumped in the final). Hannah scored one goal as goalie in the second game (putting the team 2-0 up, in dying seconds before half time, giving them a bit of breathing room) and another when out in the field in the final. Girls scoring goals from goal is exceedingly uncommon at that age. They conceded one goal in the whole competition, about nine or ten games.

Didn't go so well at the A finals on Sunday. They lost 1-3 in the first game and 0-3 in the second game. They were missing a key player, but it shouldn't have made that much difference. Hannah did pretty well in goal, making a number of saves but it is hard to win two games when your team scores only score one goal. The difference between the A and B results is marked, I suppose it is the calibre of the opposition, but you have to wonder how they would do against each other.

So Hannah finished the weekend having won both games in one playoff and none in the other. At least she got a medal for the wins.

SPORT

Still bugger all sport out there at the moment. Because of the World Cup there isn't any end of year tour to Europe for Southern rugby teams. Not that I would watch the rugby, anyway. But let's face it the cricket isn't great, either.

Middlesbrough beat Arsenal 2-1, Man Utd beat Derby 4-1, Newcastle had a win (2-1 over the Brummies), Liverpool lost 1-3 to Reading, Chelsea beat Sunderland 2-0.

MY SAD LIFE

My birthday was a bit of a non-event. Business as usual, really, other than some nice emails. Didn't even manage a lunch or anything. Did have nice dinner though.

Elsie, Diana's Mum, came over this week. She's being a guinea pig for an arthritis drug, so they had to give her a full medical exam. They were terribly worried that they couldn't find her medical records at the hospital, but it turns out she doesn't have any. They wanted a list of the drugs she's on but she isn't on any (except for the arthritis in one knee). She's doing pretty well for 85. They were pretty surprised she had no medical history to review and the last time she was in hospital was giving birth to Diana.

I got a toaster for my birthday, it is about two steps away from being a talkie toaster like in Red Dwarf. It has an LCD display, beeps when done, and has it's own IP address and blue tooth (okay, that bit is a lie, but just about).

Plans for the trip to Wellington need to be underway, as Hannah and I leave on Wednesday (back next Monday).

Ollie has been a right pain in the rear in a number of respects, he caught three birds this week, and a skink. He has also been waking us up in the night.

The trip to Tauranga was pretty smooth but five plus hours driving in one day is a bit much (although I know Ross and Kath do half that every day going to work).

This weekend just gone was the anniversary of the chlorine poisoning affair. The weekend before was Gavin and Yana's first wedding anniversary (the 1st December I think). Maria is making early crawling attempts, she is five months old.

We seem to be having sewerage issues again, when it rains it is worse. It's not good. In fact, it's no go. The plumber has just been, much to my relief (read in to that whatever you may). We just can't tell if we have a long term problem, but we are all go again (yay).

Rory had the rest of his exams this week. He did well in maths, but got marked pretty savagely in English (got an "achieved" for one question because he chose a movie that wasn't on the list of two that wasn't actually in the question but stated in class when he wasn't there, he got "excellence" for the other two questions, and that is a bit of a crock). The NCEA style marking gets a Gay+ from me, I just don't see how people can get something out of "Merit" and "Excellence", what's wrong with 83%?

I swam 4ks this week. Haven't been swimming enough lately because of various things getting in the way so been sneaking off during the day, because things are quietening down for the end of the year. I think I am back in the zone, can knock off 50 lengths in just under half an hour. It was a struggle a couple of weeks ago.

Hannah has about four days left of being an intermediate kid. She has orientation at the new school tonight. I will attend to wave water polo flag as we need a bit of a recruitment drive.

Motorcycle gang takes on campervan and comes second, knives in the playground, the end of intermediate polo - 03/12/07

2007-12-03T08:51:00.000+13:00

Had a few non-stories in the news this week

LOCAL NEWS

Well, late Monday night police had found a body in Christchurch. They took a while to confirm the identity but everyone knew who it was going to be. Then they apprehended someone and charged them with Emma Agnew's murder despite not naming the body, so we worked that bit out.

Meanwhile, fire-fighters found an elderly woman bound hands and feet in a burning house. Not nice. Police reckoned it look a professional crochet circle hit.

A real estate agent got stalked after someone took a liking to her. Can't say many people are too concerned. Real estate agents are scum. Sure, it's not nice, but if you are going to put about a photo-shopped photo of yourself and a mobile number you are really making it easy. I feel like we are stalked by the whole bloody industry with all the dodgy personalised messages they send us.

We are having a run on incidents with drink driving mums being apprehended with 1-6 toddlers unbuckled in the car. About four so far. Funny how news media latch on to themes.

The step-daughter of clothing designer Trelise Cooper has been done for using P. Yet another celeb offspring story. We are still getting Millie Holmes things now and again.

Cleavage legend Nikki Watson has lost her Chihuahua. This made a prime time news, where she was interviewed live (although live is not really apt given that she is clearly not far from brain death). She said she must have called out for it a million times. "You're hoarse?" says the interviewer. "No, my dog" she replied. Very sad. A t-shirt saying "All this and brains too" would be illegal for her to wear under the trade descriptions act.

Helen Clark was sprung texting during a speech by the Queen. Not good form, exceedingly embarrassing in fact. However, her polling with youth increased because a) she was cool enough to be able to text, and b) she was cool enough to "dis" the Queen. But let's face it, Helen seems to be pretty sure that she is the most important person on the planet so I can't see her being too concerned either way. She has since denied the whole thing and it has died off a bit.

The electronic media let themselves down this week by reporting that 0800 DAY OFF was all the IRD staff had to do to get a day off. Meanwhile, everyone got told that they still had paperwork to complete when they returned to work so the whole thing was a load of bollocks.

A knife incident at Hannah's school was reported in the paper on Saturday. He was threatening to use it on a girl at school on Friday. He also posted threatening messages on Bebo pages of two other girls, including Hannah. Both Hannah and the other girl were at polo on the day on the event. He has been expelled, but he will be attending Hannah's school next year.

A two year old drowned in a public pool in Auckland. I would personally like to see the adult that was supposed to be supervising the child be charged, but suspect that won't happen. There are signs around every pool about ages of kids at which they must be monitored by a parent or person over certain age. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.

Nasty accident with campervan and a bunch of motorcyclists. Three died, several were injured.

10 medals, including nine Victoria Crosses, were stolen from Waioru War Museum. Pretty cynical theft, not very nice. Now being described as a crime against the nation.

WORLD NEWS

Some stupid woman was jailed for 15 days for letting her students call a teddy bear Mohammad in an Islamic country. Why the students were not charged, I don't know. She wrote a letter to the parents telling them, silly cow.

Friday was international computer security day. Not sure why we need one and if anyone cares. Meanwhile an New Zealander was revealed to have been part of a botnet scam ring that has cost people $26m. We are so proud.

REAL SPORT

We had another weekend with plenty of sport. I won't call it big because that would suggest it was more than the weekend before or after and that might not be true. It started Thursday morning and finished Sunday. We drew our first game, lost the second two, which put us out of contention for the championship and we qualified bottom of our group. We then proved that our group was pretty tough by beating the bottom two of another group then beating the top qualifier from the other side of the draw to make the final against a team we lost to in group play. We managed to reverse the previous result beating them 2-1 to win the A Grade plate. It showed that our group was a pretty tough group to be in if the bottom qualifier could beat everyone else from the bottom half of all four groups. Shame we didn't get a crack at anyone else in top half of the other groups.

So, that's the end of Hannah's intermediate polo career. It is likely Rory will be coaching the top team at Ponsonby next year, so it is not off the radar completely.

Final junior high school games were on Sunday night. Avondale defaulted midweek so the boys didn't have a game. Then MAGS couldn't field a team so the girls won by default as well. Disappointing but low stress.

So, only eight games this weekend, and I think Hannah has about four next weekend which is practically nothing, although two are in Tauranga.

SPORT

The biggest sport this week was the David Beckham led LA Galaxy against the local Phoenix team. Over 31,000 people attended. LA Galaxy won 4-1 but I don't think anyone cared about the result. Becks was in the news all week.

The Black Caps confounded everyone by levelling the series by winning the second ODI quite comfortably. They then lost the third, but not ignominiously.

Liverpool smacked Bolton 4-0, Spurs lost to Birmingham 2-3, with Robbie Keane scoring both goals then getting red carded so he did the classic hero to zero thing. Chelsea and Arsenal had wins, Man Utd play Fulham tonight.

MY SAD LIFE

On Tuesday, we wiped our mortgage. We still have an overdraft, but there is no longer a mortgage being paid all the time. It was pretty cool. About three weeks before the 20th anniversary of us buying our first house. Pretty scary to think it has been hanging over our heads that long. We also expect the OD to grow when we do things like replace the roof, if a contractor ever shows up to give us a quote. We got a letter from the bank, and then two days later they wanted to give us visa cards, which seemed kind of ironic.

Rory sat his NCEA Level 1 Science exam on Wednesday. Who knows how it went. Not sure he is very good at studying. No idea who he gets that from.

Another first for Rory. He cut himself shaving. Although he cut his ear, and I don't think he was actually shaving his ear. The good news is that it's not like anyone could see his ears anyway, they are lost in the hair. Maybe that's how it happened.

Hannah and Diana went to see the show "We Will Rock You" on Thursday night, they seemed to enjoy it. Rory and I stayed home, which was quiet but dull.

In between games on Friday, we took the team to Mission Bay where they frolicked in the fountain and the sea. We then took them to Bastion Point and they frolicked in the pond and then did other random things. They needed to let off a bit of steam, it was good for them.

It is my birthday today, and Charles' birthday tomorrow. It is also the fifth anniversary of toll free portability going live. Not bad for a system we designed a long time ago.

Movember ended on Friday, and on Saturday morning the beast was removed. I am almost back to normal, well, what I call normal.

Been doing a few things around the house in my spare time. Cleaning surfaces ready for spraying to get rid of flies, even painted a couple of things that didn't look any better after cleaning. Very domestic, it's annoying how things get tatty over time and you don't always notice. The problem is the list seems to get longer, rather than shorter.

Less than a month until Christmas, big wins at Intermediate polo - 26/11/07

2007-11-26T08:50:00.000+13:00

LOCAL NEWS

The controversial Electoral Funding Bill was rehashed rather quickly and released this week. It seems to have slightly nicer styled jack boots and the swastikas are now painted a friendly pink colour.

Clint Rickards can now prove that he is not a bent cop. He resigned on Thursday so now he is a bent civilian.

They still haven't found the missing tall woman Emma Agnew, who happens to be deaf. They have searched the rubbish dump and scoured a nearby river with divers.

You have to wonder what is going on in some families. A 14 year old girl had her eyes gouged in an attempt to banish the devil. She is a cousin of the woman who died a month ago when she was drowned in front of her family. This is beyond belief and out of control.

Two ferry workers were crushed between a pole and a ferry at Devonport. They suffered broken bones.

Woeful weekend on the roads with ten dead. Not even a long weekend. One accident killed 15 year old twin girls at Western Springs near us. Another probably shouldn't count because it was an elderly man who had a heart attack and hit a parked car.

Helen Clark is in Uganda at the moment. After Idi Amin, haven't they suffered enough? Perhaps she is at a zombie reunion, I don't know.

You won't believe this but the whole Ben and Olivia murder thing has been raised as seriously needing to be re-investigated. It's about ten years since they disappeared.

Meanwhile Taito Philip Field is having his day in court today, actually wanting to have to the trial to clear his name before the election. He could actually be innocent, you know.

WORLD NEWS

The cruise ship that hit the iceberg was in the news for a few days. It was interesting because there were New Zealanders on board.

Kevin Rudd is now the prime minister of Australia, John Howard ousted quite predictably and ignominiously. You gotta know when to fold, as the song goes.

Ian Smith, the former Rhodesian Prime Minister (not the New Zealand wicket keeper), died this week. Some felt he didn't do a good job, but looking at how Mugabe is running things, perhaps he did okay.

SPORT

England will not be at Euro 2008. What a shocker. Have to support another team now, which is a shame. I don't know why I want England to win, but maybe one day they will.

The black caps narrowly lost the first ODI.

The men's hockey team did okay against Australia, but blew a 3-1 lead in the last game to draw 3-3.

REAL SPORT

Well, on Friday the finals night was upon us, finally. Firstly, I have to get Rory's juniors through a 5-8th playoff game, which they won about 8-2. Rory scored two. The intermediate kids were all pretty excited and very nervous. Our first game was the girls final, against Rangeview who were unbeaten through this year, won last year, and I don't think they lost last year either. Anyway, the girls went in and did the business, 4-0 up at half time, final score was a healthy 8-2 win. We were very pleased, and I got a swim in the celebration.

Then the Marlins, Rory's team, won 6-2 again to avoid the wooden spoon. The Piranhas had their final, it was closer than I was expecting, but we still lost 1-5. This made them runners-up which was still good. Finally, the Sharks played in the Div 1 final. This was an exceedingly tight game, with the other team having one particularly talented player who is prone to brain fades. The Sharks worked hard to give him little room, and they did pretty well before he was ejected for a brutality (punching Miranda Chase in the head, like I said, brain fades). At 4-4 we got a penalty, Hannah took it, and put us up 5-4. We defended to see out the game and take the win. I got another swim, and the team, the girls who played in both finals especially, were delighted. Afterwards we went to Wendy's to celebrate and made a bit of a mess.

Hannah scored one goal in the girls final and two in the Div 1 final, including the winner from a penalty (no pressure). She worked very hard, but it was only the beginning of the weekend.

I won't bore you with the details of the rest of the games, but in summary, Hannah played five club games in 24 hours. She was pretty tired at the end of it. They won four games lost one. She played pretty well, spent a lot of time in goal. For posterity - Teal v Waikato B 19-0, Gold v Waikato 7-3, Teal v Tauranga B 15-1, Gold v Tauranga 6-7, Gold v Marist Blue 11-1.

I finished the weekend with the junior girls playing Albany at the bloody awful millennium stadium. There were two flipper ball games going on in the pool next door, whistles going everywhere and so much noise nobody could hear a thing. Albany defaulted because they didn't have a team, so we leant them a couple of players and then they beat us 4-3. Junior boys and girls have one more game each this weekend, but Hannah has North Island Intermediates tournament starting Thursday. I think that means about eight games this weekend starting Tuesday.

MY SAD LIFE

An unusual moth sat on my window in front of where I sit on Thursday. It hung around a bit. On Friday there were two. They were trying to be one, if you know what I mean. I don't remember seeing them ever before, this particular type. They are called Magpie moths. They were there for ages. I took photos. Is that wrong? Then one left, and the other one stayed. Perhaps it was tired.

Got a bizarre letter from the power company this week. Because we don't have heavy use devices, they can't turn them off, so we pay more. See, if we don't have heavy use devices, then they don't need to turn them off, so we are good citizens all the time. They don't seem to understand why their approach sounds so ridiculous to me. But if I bought a spa pool then I would qualify. Lunatic.

Rory has theoretically been studying for his science exam this Wednesday. Not sure how much he has actually done. He hasn't been particularly useful, although he did rearrange his room (as an alternative to study). He finally drove out to West Wave for the first time, somewhere we go at least three or four times a week.

Ross rang me at home on Saturday, and asked where I was. I am worried about him.

It is Ben Tucker's birthday tomorrow. Seven years old. Congrats, Ben.

I saw Sarah this week, who is pregnant with twins. She reckons she can still reach the keyboard at work. I reckon she uses a pointy stick. She's healthy though, which is good. They are due end of January.

Movember ends this Friday, I am not sure how quickly I am going to shave mine off but I suspect it could be pretty soon after that. I look like an old git balancing a dead piebald ferret on my top lip.

Next Monday is my birthday, so I have re-installed the larger letter box in anticipation of all the gifts. It is a small shed on a stick with a very large slot.

Well, I don't know how I find the time to do this these days, which could be a feasible excuse for the lack of quality, but then again it's never really had quality anyway, has it?

My hovercraft is full of eels - 19/11/07

2007-11-19T08:49:00.000+13:00

I would like to hope this is the first blog you have ever read with that particular subject. If yes, another first for me. If no, I will very disappointed. I couldn't think of anything else. Google the title and you will be amazed how many times it appears.

LOCAL NEWS

The herald went all political with front page editorials on a new bill around advertising and spending that could influence election outcomes. The whole thing is pretty dodgy.

A person dressed as a panda was hit by a car on Tuesday in Christchurch. This is a terrible shame because people dressed in panda suits are becoming endangered species, worldwide. Many would see that as a good thing.

A 20 year old deaf woman went missing on Thursday in Christchurch after liaising with someone who was going to buy her car. The car showed up, burnt out, which is not a good sign. I am not sure I approve of her constantly being referred to as "deaf woman". They don't talk about "fat woman" or "angry woman". It seems wrong.

Lots of excitement about the screening of Nai Yin Xue on America's Most Wanted, he's the guy that abandoned his daughter in Melbourne and left his wife in the boot of his car.

WORLD NEWS

A gunfight in Sydney outside a restaurant (who denied it was outside their restaurant) was also outside Penny's shop. She wasn't there at the time but staff were and one had a gun pointed at her. She was taken away by police for questioning and a change of undies.

Bangladesh got a bit wet and lots of people died, the death toll is 2,000 and rising faster than the water level. It's not that unusual.

The Japanese whaling fleet have left for the southern ocean. I don't really understand why people don't just go and torpedo their ships.

REAL SPORT

Had six games to manage on Friday night. Hannah's first was ten minutes before Rory's, so they ran concurrently. Hannah's team were in semi final for div 1, they won 9-3. Rory's team were playing Rutherford with a little help from four kids from two other schools. It ended as a 3-3 draw, Rory gave three cheers for Rutherford, Green Bay, and Glen Eden at the end, which I think got the message across. It isn't really fair having ring-ins playing like that, and certainly not within the rules.

Then the Marlins played, the team Rory coaches, who had to start without him because his game was still going. They were playing off for 5th and 6th, in best of two. They won comfortably in the end but made it hard work. The Rangby team then played, with all but one being Ponsonby kids, the cruised to a 12-0 win. Then my Piranhas played in semi final, needed a win to make final, which they made very hard work of but managed to score with 20 seconds left to win 3-2.

Finally, the girls played in their semi-final, which they won 9-2 against St Dominics. So, Friday night went pretty well. Mostly about getting three teams into the finals, which we did. Big night next Friday, our last night of Intermediate polo after four years.

Hannah's Gold club team had a pretty easy win on Sunday, 8-3 over Northsport B.

The Springs Junior Girls played a team that didn't show up, which was pretty annoying.

SPORT

The Silver Ferns lost 38-42 to Australia in World Cup Netball final. Nobody likes losing to Australia.

The Black Caps lost by an innings plus, again. Woeful. You’d barely know it was on and I think I know why. The only good news is that they can't lose by over an innings in the coming ODIs, although you never know.

England has a big game against Croatia to qualify for Euro 2008, this Wednesday. A draw should be enough but Rooney and Owen are both out with injury.

MY SAD LIFE

Well, my car cost $800 on Monday for just a service, funny how you always need to redo something (brakes, plugs, and so on). Then the ignition died on Thursday and I had to get towed home from Taylors, about 2km away. Being towed is not what I would call fun, considerably harder than driving. This is especially true when the car has power steering and power brakes and no power and the car in front is a sodding great big ute you can't see past. Cars are a pain. You sort of keep thinking it’s not that old then you realise it is ten years old and practically a junker.

Emma turned 21 this week, and had the big party on Saturday night. Was good do, but we couldn't stay too late because Rory had people staying. Emma looked fabulous, hair was done, the whole nine yards. Adam, her BF, made a good little speech. He said she wasn't always there to catch him when he falls, but she's good at taking him to the hospital (he did a dive off a balcony and smashed his leg a few weeks ago and did the speech from crutches). It was pretty funny.

Rory had three friends and Maddie stay on Saturday night. The three friends were basically there to legitimise Maddie's presence. She talked him into shaving off his sideburns, so he looks weird now. They behaved pretty well, which is good, so I got some sleep. Hannah was also home and kept an eye on them.

Rory and I had a go at my car's paintjob, trying to use cutting compound to improve the paintwork. At first it wasn't looking promising, but it improved. Of course, it isn't going anywhere at the moment so the exercise could be completely futile.

Hannah was in a weird mood on Sunday, so I took her out and somehow I ended up buying her a shirt in a geek store. Hmmmmm.

Giving it to Gordon and one for Jesus - 12/11/07

2007-11-12T08:48:00.000+13:00

The explanation of the title comes at the end of Real Sport.

LOCAL NEWS

A children's toy, called Bindeez, includes a large number of plastic beads. If swallowed, the glue coating the beads releases a banned drug into the system. Why kids would swallow excessive quantities, I don't know, I presume there are rules about what age should be playing with them. They have been removed from stores. Why they were named after Steve Irwin's daughter, I don't know. Why they didn't get sick from licking their fingers or eating after using the beads without washing their hands, I don't know. The press were woefully thin on substance on this subject. They did not mention whether the stuff tasted nice, either.

The whole fireworks thing went sort of smoothly but there were a number of incidents that were pretty bad, arsons and personal injury.

Another Darwinian moment when a west Auckland teen accepted some cake from a complete stranger, ate it, then got sick. The cake was thought to be laced with drugs. Perhaps it contained Bindeez glue?

The man in charge of the boat where two kids drowned back in April was charged under maritime law this week. The whole thing was bizarre, where they were taking on water, hit rocks at speed, and the kids who noticed the water never got out.

A 22 year old Wainuiomata woman was drowned in her own lounge in front of 40 relatives in an exorcism designed to lift a Maori curse. I guess we will never know if it worked. Will be interesting to see if charges are laid.

Another not great weekend on the roads, four dead, none near swimming pools.

A man was enveloped in a ball of flame when he lit a paraffin lamp in an army tent at an armistice day commemoration in Cambridge.

A fire in a fibreglass factory last night wasn't so good. Fibreglass resin is really nasty, even when not on fire.

WORLD NEWS

We had more arrests in Fiji. A few more beatings of those in custody, but nothing fatal.

A scrap in Perth this week between Maoris and Aborigines resulted in a Maori dying. Is that a race war?

The mass shooting in Finland was most un-Finlike. The Shooter saved taxpayers money by dying of his self-inflicted wounds. The news kept saying he broadcast his intentions on Youtube "just hours before". I don't really get that. Did they expect more notice?

REAL SPORT

Rory had a tournament this weekend. We won first game 11-5 against Mt Roskill, wasn't really ever close. Rory and I went to watch Mt Roskill play the other team in our pool. They won 7-3 against Mt Roskill. I thought we could beat them. Rory got player of the game.

Friday morning we played Takapuna. Rory and I went to watch them play the night before so we knew what to expect. We beat them 6-5 to give up top qualifying spot in our group. Rory got player of the game, again. Then we beat Liston 5-4, who were second in their group. Marcella got player of the game. We never got any more they didn't seem to give them out at the Sacred Heart Pool.

The final group game was against another top qualifier, Hutt International, who beat Liston 9-1, so I thought we would have a tough game. We got on top of them early and maintained a lead throughout the game, winning 11-8. This got us top spot on our half of the draw, playing second from the other group in the semi-final.

It didn't go well in the semi-final, down 0-3, clawed our way back to 2-3 but couldn't catch Kristin. This put us into playoff for 3rd and 4th versus St Patricks Silver Stream. We were down early, 0-2 but came right and finished comfortably ahead 9-6. Nice to finish with a win. Hutt International, the team we beat on our side of the draw, won the final beating Kristin 7-0. Not one team was unbeaten in our competition.

At the end of any game, the teams give three cheers for the opposing team, one for the ref, and sometimes one for themselves. In this tournament, we finished with "One for Jesus". Interesting. They decided after the first win that they should continue with it. Another thing that became a tradition in the tournament, was figuring out who Gordon was (in the movie "There's only one Jimmy Grimble", Gordon's father manages the team in one game and just yells "Give it to Gordon" the whole time.) Therefore, the best player on the opposing team became Gordon. We would decide who we felt the Gordon was and then call out "8 is Gordon" or whatever. Sad but funny, a little. Should have said "One for Gordon" at the end of each game.

We then had a game for the boys and girls at same time in adjacent pools. The boys lost 3-8 to Avondale, the girls lost 1-10 to St Marys B. We were all knackered.

SPORT

The Melbourne Cup happened, again. A horse came first, again. The winner had a tenuous link to New Zealand, again. I really don't get how we all become obsessed with horse racing for about two days a year.

Man Utd beat Blackburn 2-0. Spurs won 4-0 against Wigan, Chelsea drew 1-1 with Everton. West Ham thumped Derby 5-0.

The Black Caps lost by a mere 358 runs in the first test against South Africa. Nobody sensible had any expectations at all, they are woefully underprepared and under strength. It seems The "caps" bit now officially stands for capitulators, I think.

The Silver Ferns played Malawi (fair dinkum, they really did) in their opening world cup match. It was about 80-20 or something. Cricket, Rugby, and Netball all have the same problem with world cups, the world is not big enough to have decent pool matches.

MY SAD LIFE

Diana had her exam on Tuesday, seemed to go okay, think she's happy for it to be over.

In between games on Friday, the manager and I took the team plus Hannah to Big Boys Toys. Hannah learned to pole dance. Hmmm, not sure I am too happy about that. The kids had a lovely time, sumo wrestling, climbing ropes, shooting each other with lasers, and so on. The lady on the Durex stand happily told me and Jane about what interesting additives their products now had, and we quietly said that it was all very interesting and we would both be sure to share that information with our respective spouses. To be honest, I am not sure some of it was something that I would feel completely comfortable discussing with my own wife (pretty sure Diana wouldn't want to know, actually). Meanwhile, the team were busy covering each other in some stuff that warmed up when you blow on it (yuck). The school van was decorated with up to 100 air freshening things, it looks quite Christmassy. Most of the free stuff was condoms, cough lollies, window cloths, and posters.

The WSC school sports dinner was Friday night. The build up for it was excruciating, it was a mission squeezing it in during the tournament. The guy running it was not knowing what time we would get there (results from each game dictated when the next would be). We did arrive just in time for the dinner, which was nice. We missed out on about an hour of speeches, which was nice. Rory got MVP for junior polo, a swimming prize, and a hockey stick spot prize, which was nice. The Senior Polo team got team of the year, which was pretty cool. Water polo has arrived at Western Springs.

I don’t really feel like I have seen much of Hannah over the last couple of days, she only came to one of the games, so she had a pretty quiet weekend at home.

I have been reading about Benjamin Franklin because of the crossword puzzle. He was a busy chap. He never patented any of his inventions because he felt he benefited from the inventions of others. Also been reading about Darwin, and watched the movie about the Hillsboro monkey trial (called "Inherit the Wind", I think Gene Kelly stole the show).

It is Helen's birthday today. It is Caitlin's birthday tomorrow (7, right?). It is also Elsie's 85th birthday tomorrow.

We did manage to visit Goodins for their barbecue on Sunday between games. The family was all there plus some of the regulars including Mr and Mrs Batenberg. Kath said they had heard from Charles and he is actually alive.

In amongst water polo, Rory has been writing a speech and icing his hand. Meanwhile, Hannah has a project thing due on Friday that was also being worked on.

This week Hannah has a touch tournament tomorrow and athletics on Wednesday. I may try visiting work today, I need the rest.

More chaos on roads, fireworks mayhem, an escaped axe murderer, and ice cream is bad for you - 05/11/07

2007-11-05T08:47:00.000+13:00

Weather was glorious on Saturday, we drove home from the pool along the waterfront, it felt like summer. Then it all went horribly wrong and it feels like winter again.

Lots of bad news and tedium this week, sorry.

LOCAL NEWS

We had a car hit a train and kill the driver, and two trucks explode closing state highway 1 near Horotiu on Tuesday. Wednesday we had a warehouse on fire in Takapuna closing a major artery. Another fire last night burned out the historic Carlton Bowling club near the Domain.

It didn't get better on the roads, with seven dying over the weekend. That's a bad holiday weekend toll, but it was a regular weekend.

Meanwhile, a dental clinic was stolen in the Waikato. A mobile one. It was recovered without the equipment. I'm sorry, I just can't see how you could take a joy ride in a mobile murder house. Although I suppose it brought joy to those who were due to visit it. I take it back, it was a joy ride, for far more than usual. Perhaps the whole thing was a Robin Hood-style thing, but I doubt it.

There was a cabinet reshuffle, has been coming for ages, we were totally bored before it was announced and utterly indifferent afterwards. Then the Labour Party had their conference, much chest beating was done, tax cuts were suggested, meanwhile the country carried on without remotely caring. I don't think it's just me, I suspect most of the electorate has had enough of politicians.

12 year old girls and buses just don't mix. A week after the girl in Christchurch was blown in front of one, some nice kids squirted acid at a girl as they went past in a bus. The damage will require surgery, not good.

On Wednesday an 18 month old was run over and killed in an accident in Wairoa.

A convicted axe murderer escaped custody this week, but was recovered in a couple of days. The official line was that he "betrayed the trust of the wardens". Interesting. I mean, he murdered his wife, so he isn't considered a threat to the general community, but anyone serving a life sentence is likely to want to escape more than someone on a shorter stretch.

Ice cream is now more bad for you than previously thought, this A1 milk they talk about is even worse in ice cream. Yeah, right, whatever.

Fireworks went on sale later this year (for about four days instead of ten), but we still had noise and chaos over the weekend. A public display injured a couple of punters, too. I just don't see the point in them at all. Helen Clark described the area near her house as being like living in Afghanistan (she did specify I city, I forget which). I actually agree with her on something. I must need a lie down.

With Movember kicking off this week, we had news that a high percentage of New Zealand women prefer men to not have a moustache. A higher percentage of men prefer their women without a moustache. Is that a double standard? I don't know.

A couple of New Zealand soldiers were injured in Afghanistan after one of them accidentally discharged his weapon inside an armoured Humvee.

WORLD NEWS

There were reports on Friday that a man in Sydney was killed for watering his lawn. I am not entirely sure of the motive, but this does seem excessive. Surely lawn-watering is not yet a capital offence in Australia?

Meanwhile, a Canberra student is allowed to smoke at school due to the stress of exams.

There was a supposed failed assassination attempt in Fiji, not sure how much credibility it has.

REAL SPORT

Hannah's Sharks beat Rangeview 7-3, in a pretty tight game. Then the Ponsonby Girls utterly thumped Glen Eden 14-1. I think Hannah scored three goals between the two games. Rory's Marlins lost 6-7 in golden goal extra time. My Piranhas lost 3-8 against St Dominic's who are very tough and I think in the wrong division.

Rory's Western Springs junior boys played Massey and won 7-2 I think. Rory injured his hand skateboarding, didn't play much, didn't score but helped defend.

Hannah's Waitak Teal (2nd) team played Marist C, it wasn't pretty. 15-0 win, but there is a girl in that team (Olivia) that used to terrorise Hannah at school so it was a little bit of justice. Hannah got one goal, she was in goal for half the game. Her Waitak Gold team beat Mountfort Park A 10-2.

The Western Springs Junior Girls played St Mary's C and won 6-1. The dreaded Olivia scored the only goal against us, grrrr.

So, eight games over the weekend, we won six, lost two. Could be worse.

SPORT

Arsenal drew 2-2 with Man Utd, Gallas scored one for both teams. Portsmouth thumped poor old Newcastle 4-1, Chelsea beat Wigan 2-0. Liverpool had 0-0 bore with Blackburn.

I turned on the TV on Friday night to find a boxing match in progress between New Zealand hopeful Shane Cameron and some big African American called Friday. It was brutal and awful. Cameron's face got shredded and was knocked out in the 12th. It was like a slow motion car accident. I can't believe it is still allowed.

Great Britain beat the Kiwis 44-0 in the 2nd test. Not good. More like a fast motion car accident, as compared to the boxing.

Meanwhile the New Zealand cricket team lost to South Africa A in a warm up to losing against South Africa next week.

MY SAD LIFE

Rory fell off a skateboard and hurt his right hand on Tuesday. Eight days out from the first water polo tournament that Western Springs has ever been to. It's not that good yet, as coach and father I am not impressed.

Forgot to mention Thomas turned nine on Saturday 27th. He rang us on Saturday to tell us what he did with his birthday money, he bought the Transformers DVD, Rory was very jealous. Meanwhile, Kathryn has a special day on Thursday.

Helen J's birthday is next Monday. Have you set a date yet?

Brett has now been living in Melbourne a year, as of last Wednesday. Seems like longer, somehow.

Despite being too old for it, both the kids did trick or treating this week. After considerable drama, Hannah went before polo training, Rory went later (going early was better). Rory had one older lady say this to them:
A) you're too old, B) you're costumes aren't any good, C) I gave all my lollies to my grand kids, and D) it's too late.
To which Rory responded:
Well, the good news is you still know your alphabet.

Rory and the gang took his iPod with them with speakers and played "Monster Mash" in a loop. They had fun, hung around here afterwards. Maddie also visited on Sunday.

Mum returned from her south island trip this week, she was away for nearly three weeks.

Paul has bought himself a new camera, the Canon 60D. Scumbag.

Hannah is now going to learn to play the acoustic guitar. We went to have a look at them on Saturday and somehow we bought one. It's black. She can play a few tunes already because of what she has been doing on the electric guitar.

I am doing the Movember thing, not obvious that there is a moustache there yet, haven't decided on a style yet. Possibly the Mark Sainsbury, the David Boone perhaps, I don't think the Zorro is quite my style. Or I could just go for the more understated Helen Clark look, but I am not pale enough.

This coming week we have the North Island Secondary School tournament starting Thursday, and the Western Springs Sports Dinner on Friday night.

Over the weekend, I went to five different pools. A personal best for me.

Diana has an exam tomorrow, so she's at home studying.

Bad week for light aircraft, a bad case of wind, bad boys in parliament, bad luck for a small boy - 29/10/07

2007-10-29T08:46:00.000+13:00

Consider this a bad week for some people and puns.

LOCAL NEWS

Terribly sad story this week about a mother of a ten month old who died of a blood clot, had the baby in bed with her, and smothered her son. Feel pretty sorry for the father, who was at work at the time. Adding to the tragedy, the photo of the woman and her baby was utterly hideous.

A rock with a swirl that supposedly looks like the virgin mary went on trademe for a ridiculous price. Who really cares.

Nasty freak accident where a 12 year old girl and her bike were lifted by a gust of wind in Christchurch into the path of a bus and killed. It must be that bus people are always concerned about. And of course, the deceased was an amazing person, vibrant and vivacious, etc, etc. Yeah, only the good die young, we've heard the song.

We also had a much-publicised punch up between cabinet minister Trevor Mallard and National MP Tau Henare after Henare made some comments about Mallard's personal life. Really pretty woeful.

A man's body was found in a burnt out car in a car park. The neighbours heard burnouts (as in squealing tyres, doing doughnuts). They made no puns about burnouts causing fire. They also didn't explore that someone else may have lit the car then did burnouts while it burned.

There seemed to be two or three light plane crashes and things this week, they all merged in to one. Some people died, some didn't, some were lucky, others weren't.

Auckland City Council are getting flak today for spending a million dollars on a new logo. To be fair, and I do not like councils, the million is probably mostly the cost of the new letterhead and other stationery which they aren't buying until they run out of existing so isn't really new cost.

A Christchurch man dragged a neighbour out of his burning house. He went in three times to retrieve him, and was in hospital for five hours afterwards.

Breakfast TV host Paul Henry described the coming cabinet reshuffle as rearranging the deckchairs, with old deckchairs and dodgy fabric. I like it.

We’ve continued to have stories about the terror raids and arrests. We've had protests and all sorts. It's rubbish.

WORLD NEWS

We got the updates on the California fire all week with the usual human uninterest stories and the politicians hugging the victims. Paul said it was pretty smoky.

A New Zealander is being chased by British police in relation to an attempt to defraud the bank of England out of $75 billion. Quite a lot, really.

Somebody has been trying to blackmail a low ranking British Royal but their attempt has been foiled.

REAL SPORT

Hannah scored the opening goal in the first game on Friday night, they made hard work of it but won 6-3. The Marlins, (the team Rory coaches), then just won their game 6-5 (they don't win many). Then Rangby won and the Piranhas (that I coach) won their game comfortably against Glen Eden 2. Good night, four wins from four.

On Saturday, Hannah had a Gold team club game. After the last one, a 10-0 loss, I was not looking forward to it. They were playing Marist A, and just won 4-3. Hannah did okay in goal.

Sunday Hannah played for Teal, she played half in goal and half in the water. They won 11-0 against Mountfort Park. Bit sad.

SPORT

There doesn't feel like much sport is happening at the moment.

The Kiwis lost to Great Britain 14-20 in the league test.

Liverpool drew 1-1 with Arsenal, Chelsea slapped Mac City 6-0 (ouch), Man Utd fared better than their neighbours beating Middlesbrough.

The Phoenix soccer team and Breakers basketball team both lost while playing in their respective Australian leagues.

MY SAD LIFE

For a while, on day three of Armageddon I was sitting there wondering what the heck I was doing there and so forth. Then I was needed for a couple of things (had to paint Matt's hair and eyebrows green, as you do), and I helped Hugh and Sarah on their stand for a bit, and so I was enjoying myself again. The kids finished with a bang, scoring a variety of items from posters and stickers to bags. They were particularly happy, and I admit that I did enjoy it, although I am finding some aspects pretty tedious now.

The freezer returned to us on Tuesday morning. I have never seen Diana so excited about an appliance. I shall have to consider some form of refrigeration equipment for future birthdays. Perhaps freezer packs or ice cube trays….

Tuesday morning, before school. Conversation with Rory.
Me: Have you asked Cassidy if he minds if you go out with Maddie?
Rory:
Me: You have, haven't you…
Me: Are you going to ask Maddie out?
Rory:
Me: You already are! I knew it!
Rory: (who was brushing his teeth at the time)

Now, it does not hurt now and again to put the fear of Dad into the children and make them realise that their parents are a) not stupid and b) possibly psychic and c) that attempting to hide anything from them really isn't a long term plan and it could easily backfire.

Of course, by Wednesday, the whole school knew. It was common knowledge amongst the van load of polo players I took to training. Everyone I know who knows them approves, so it will be very interesting. It's kind of nice. No pressure or anything.

Tuesday was a big day because we also got a new table (for a very low price, like cost of shipping), so there was more moving around. The unforeseen implication of a new table is that Diana now wants new lounge furniture to match. Every silver cloud has a grey lining, eh?

Rory got his new iPod on Friday so he was in geek heaven. I gave him a hard drive with the family MP3s on it, which contains about 160gb of music.

We actually managed to fit in some work around the house between polo games on the weekend. We filled the garden bin for the first time in about three months. Some cleaning and tidying things were done that were badly overdue.

LESSON FOR THE WEEK

Make sure you have a nice photo of yourself that you don't mind going in to the paper, should something unexpected occur. It's like the wearing clean underwear thing, but much more important.

Local terrorism exposed, and arguments over bollocks - 22/10/07

2007-10-22T08:45:00.000+13:00

Sometimes there isn't much because I've been busy, sometimes because there isn't much worthy of note. This week is a little 50/50, I feel.

LOCAL NEWS

Not sure if I mentioned this last week but last Monday police arrested a range of people from various activist groups on firearms charges with speculation of terrorism related charges. They had Molotov cocktails and napalm, not exactly things you have a legitimate need for. People were bailed and unbailed, we had speculation of whether police jumped the gun, and the common response was that they'd look really stupid if these guys did something and police had to confess knew about it. It dominated the week. You really can't imagine how many ridiculous stories have been floating around. Maori Party Co-Leader Pita Sharples told us that arresting Maori for possessing napalm and other weapons put back race relations ten years. Meanwhile, everyone else felt that a) his comment probably had a similar effect, b) it put his credibility well in to the negatives, and c) that a bunch of militant Maoris with kalashnikovs and training camps didn't exactly help race relations in either direction.

There were a flurry of little earthquakes in the south island, and then it snowed on Thursday.

A stag's testicles became news. Some sheik shot it (the stag) on safari but they wouldn't let him have the bollocks because they wanted them for AI.

There were lots of nasty fatal car accidents this week. A motor cyclist went through a steel cable median barrier the hard way, called a cheese cutter by motor cyclists, you can imagine what happened. Would be good reason to stay away from them on a mother bike, you would think.

There were also many other accidents. A whitebaiter was swept out on the west coast and drowned, a trainee guide died while rafting, and eight people in a van near the Turoa ski field were hurt when it rolled down a 40 metre bank.

Tokelau, a set of three islands of 1400 people is voting on independence from New Zealand. They seem upset about it. They seem to think we aren't looking after them enough, so becoming independent will help that somehow. I don't really get it.

WORLD NEWS

As part of the plan for the election, John Howard announced tax cuts. I think he is leaving it too late, and the Labour Party here might learn from that.

Meanwhile the body of a boy was found floating in a Sydney pond in a suitcase.

REAL SPORT

We only had one polo game over the weekend, Junior Boys lost 4-9 to Westlake B. Rory got two or maybe three goals.

SPORT

Auckland beat Wellington 23-14 in the final.

South Africa beat England, again, 15-6 in World Cup final, Argies beat France, again, for 3rd. Bit odd with both games being repeats of earlier games.

Bizarre local derby between Liverpool and Everton. Liverpool won 2-1, scored all the goals. An own goal, and two penalties from red cards, Everton finishing with nine men. Villa v Man Utd not much better, Villa led 1-0 then was losing 1-3 before two red cards and finally lost 1-4. Chelsea and Arsenal both won their games.

MY SAD LIFE

Hannah had her interview for high school, was a bit of a non-event. However there were noises about her going to MAGS to play for their team and that made things messy, but maybe next year. We'll see.

Big pow wow at Rory's school about water polo on Thursday. The lady who seems to think she's in charge still doesn't get it.

Spent the weekend at Armageddon so far. Full day on Saturday, not so much yesterday. Went to a talk by Chris Judge who is Teal'c on "Stargate SG-1". Rory asked him to raise an eyebrow and say "indeed". The whole audience clapped at the question. We then went to a talk from Ellen Muth, who plays Georgia Lass in "Dead Like Me". She said there was a movie coming in summer 2008 US time. She wasn't quite as relaxed as Chris Judge, and seemed very like her screen character. The kids both basically disappeared for the day on Saturday with friends. One of Rory's friends drank 12 free energy drinks. Will be going back again today.

On Sunday, Rory drove us both to and from Armageddon. This was very much a first. We are making an effort to get him in the car because it just hasn't happened much lately. I think we will just have to make him drive virtually everywhere he needs to go.

Also on Sunday I went and did an hour of talkback with Alice Worsley to help her out, used to do it once a month, about three years ago now. Was easy enough, despite the cough.

We had dinner with Allan and Jacqui on Sunday night. The puppy is now larger than her mother. Emma's 21st birthday party is in mid-november.

Hannah and Josie are still like twins. Hannah stayed at Josie's on Saturday night. They have the same pajamas now.

Strange lasagne and is there life beyond water polo - 15/10/07

2007-10-15T08:43:00.000+13:00

A frantic week, hence this is not war and peace.

LOCAL NEWS

Roger Kahui (not a close relation of the hapless Chris Kahui) was sentenced to prison for long enough that he won't need a change of address card before he dies, if you know what I mean. The man is a shockingly recidivist offender and has racked up over 100 years worth of jail time since 1985.

The mega-welfare fraudster got 5-8 years for his efforts, and Social Welfare got more back than he cost. His investments had grown, so the $3.x million he stole had grown to over 4. The judge observed that he could have become a millionaire without the fraud.

The government confessed to an $8+ billion surplus. It does sound like this is a purely profit-oriented figure and capital investment has to come out of that. I think maybe they need to report it differently so it doesn't sound so excessive. Perhaps a revision of some of the accounting methods would be appropriate.

All of a sudden All Black Doug Howlett was in disgrace, I am not sure what he did exactly, but he was inebriated at the time, at a hotel or outside a hotel, in London.

A 24 year old runner was killed by a hit and run and u-turn driver (those are ones that get attack of guilts and come back eventually). She was allegedly over the limit as well. The mother of the guy found out by looking for him when he didn't return as expected, although emergency services had already arrived.

John Banks has been elected as Auckland's new mayor. Great. Just what we needed, a re-tread. We were over-exposed to little snippets of lots of winning mayors all over the country. Given that only about 40% bothered to vote you have to wonder why anyone considered it interesting.

WORLD NEWS

Nasty traffic accident in California, ten people hurt, two dead, five trucks messed up.

Eight out of nine spelunkers drowned in a cave flood in Thailand.

John Howard is having a final go at re-election in Australia. It doesn't look good so far. He says that although everyone hates him they know him. Nice opening line.

REAL SPORT

Hannah was playing in the Tim Sonderer Memorial Tournament, involving about 40 teams. She was nominated captain, which she was very pleased about. We had a very girl-heavy team (six girls, four boys) playing in the open group (there was a girls comp too, but then the boys would have missed out), first two games were against boy only private school teams (Kristin and St Kentigern School). They won the first game 5-3 against Kristin, who were never close, and weren't too happy about being beaten by a bunch of girls. They then say Kristin beat St Kentigern, which was dangerous because they relaxed. However, they beat St Kentigern 3-2 qualifying top in their group, making the rest of the weekend considerably tougher.

Rory had a junior school game on Friday, and although he was cramping up a bit in the pool he was pretty devastating, scoring four goals for the 8-3 win.

Hannah's team struggled in the top six playoffs, losing both games. They both ended up being not close, losing 3-6 in the first and 2-7 in the second. In the second game, Hannah scored both goals, against a team predicted to make the final.

On Sunday, they were in control at 4-2 but just fell off in defence and ended up drawing 5-5 in the playoff for 5th/6th. Hannah scored one goal.

Then she had a club game, not pretty, against a team that has had an U16 season together already. They were taken apart, 0-10 loss. Not an ideal start for Hannah as goalie, but they need to score a goal to win.

Hannah's final act of the weekend was to help the western springs junior girls against Corran School, who were employing about every dodgy and pro tactic in the book. They lost 1-5. She scored the only goal and was in goal for one quarter.

Rory then had a game at 8pm, last one of the day on Sunday. They played Liston, 2-2 end of first quarter but we clawed back to win 9-3. Rory got two.

So, nine games, four wins, four losses, and a draw. I saw eight of them. Hannah played in seven. Big weekend.

SPORT

Wellington made it to the final after beating Canterbury 26-21. Auckland did similarly by thumping Hawke's Bay 38-3.

A soccer world cup qualifier between New Zealand and Fiji was postponed after Foreign Affairs wouldn't let the goalie in because of a link to the Fijian army. Fifa seem to have disadvantaged our team by depriving us of a home game because of Fiji's dodgy army. Interesting conundrum.

New Zealand driver won both races in A1 GP this weekend in the Czech Republic.

The Kangaroos thumped New Zealand 58-0 in a centenary league test.

No premiereship soccer because of Euro qualifiers. I think England and Scotland both had wins but don't remember who against.

The Poms play the Boks in the Rugby final, so it is guaranteed another team will have won it twice after that match.

MY SAD LIFE

I started this week thinking that I didn't have a lot happening until Friday. I was very wrong. I had to have things for tournament sorted Monday night before everyone disappeared to camp Tuesday. I then continued to live hand to mouth the whole week, operating on a very just in time basis. All deadlines were met, but it was pretty close for some things.

Mum is off touring the South Island, had a bumpy ride across Cook Strait but they made it. She's there for about three weeks.

It is Paul's birthday tomorrow. Well, tomorrow in New Zealand, Tuesday for him in San Diego. 40, is it, mate?

We had Miranda Chase stay with us this weekend, while her Mum was in Brisbane. She's in Hannah's soccer team for club and school, and polo team for club and school. We got to have her Mum's lasagne on Sunday and it was very good (Rory ate it despite there being eggplant and mushroom in it). To be honest, I don't think I ever met a lasagne I didn't like. The girls went to a party on Saturday night but were home at a reasonable hour.

Hannah was at camp Tuesday to Friday. I visited Wednesday so she could open a letter from Soccer 2, she made the 24 girl squad but can't stick with it because training conflicts with polo. Miranda also made the squad, and can't stay in it. Kind of a shame really, many kids would be rapt to make the squad.

Rory had some friends over Saturday night for a geek fest with linked Xboxes. They didn't sleep until 4am. Wasn't happy. That wasn't the deal. He had to have a sleep on Sunday before his polo game. He has not done any driving this week, although we really didn't have much of a chance.

A politics in sport issue came to a head on Sunday night at the junior girls game where the self-appointed acting manager tried to inflict her will upon the team. The coach, me, refused to budge and continued in a very business like manner. Could be interesting, she wasn't happy.

The girls have stayed home today to recover, which is what I am also trying to do (okay, I didn't actually play in any games but I was knackered by the time I got home at 8:45 on Sunday night. I did manage a swim between two games on Sunday, even if it was a small swim (20 lengths).

The Rugby World Cup is over before it begins for New Zealand, hard to find mention of anything else - 08/10/07

2007-10-08T08:04:00.000+13:00

Not as long as it should be, be grateful.

LOCAL NEWS

A young man disappeared, who's car was found burned out a long way from home. We had vacuous questions of his father like "Are you worried?". Then he showed up in Wellington on a bus. Police charged him with wasting police time.

TV3 have had a battle over advertising on Sunday mornings because three very big world cup rugby games are on when advertising is banned on Sunday mornings. They have tried to side-step it a little but they are pushing their luck. The reality is the fine is considerably less than the advertising revenue. Apparently New Zealand is only country in the world with an ad ban on Sunday mornings, and exemption is possible but not granted. Of course, now, nobody cares.

Continuing on the police shooting people theme, they had a Rottweiler set upon them this week, and fired 12 shots at it, all of which missed. This time, they were hassled for being bad shots. Suggestions that a taser would have been better used seem ridiculous given that they are single-shot devices that are less accurate than pistols (so how many tasers would they have needed?).

Weather caused some issues Tuesday and Wednesday. We seemed to just stay ahead of it, thankfully. We were about the fourth to last car to get out of Milford Sound, the road stayed closed for about two days afterwards.

A maori woman is trying to get her husband declared "taonga" which would allow him to stay in the country. A taonga is like a national treasure, covered by the Treaty of Waitangi, and would be exempt from deportation. It's all quite odd, he's been done by police for domestic violence, the immigration people seem to take a dim view of the whole thing.

The national Rock, Paper, Scissors champion was found. He is off to Canada for the world champs. Sheesh. At least if he wins, we might have something to be happy about.

WORLD NEWS

The rather belated inquest into Diana and Dodi's deaths has begun. All a bit old, it is ten years since it happened, but we are getting hammered with updates daily. Finding relevence is quite a struggle.

REAL SPORT

Rory's team at U18 Nationals battled away, although losing 4-5 to Marist B was their best result before playoffs. Rory scored their first goal, which was cool. In the end they came tenth out of, um, ten. It was okay, though. I think Rory learned quite a bit and it was certainly a good workout.

This coming weekend we have an intermediate tournament, the first U14A girls game, and three college junior games. Not busy, noooo, not busy.

SPORT

Well, the rugby world cup is over before it really started for the All Blacks. The first time they played a semi-decent team they've lost. Aussie are out too. That's all I have to say.

Auckland beat Taranaki and the Magpies (Hawkes Bay) beat Waikato 38-35 in the provincial rugby. Finding it in the papers is not easy.

Arsenal beat Sunderland 3-2, Blackburn beat the Brummies, Man Utd thumped poor old Wigan 4-0.

MY SAD LIFE

Well, we travelled to Te Anau, went to Milford Sound on Tuesday, and came home Wednesday. The trip to Te Anau was uneventful, we had time to wander around it a bit. We taught the kids to play 500, which was interesting. I told them how my Uncle Chris taught me, and how he reached across the table, grabbed me by the collar, and said, slowly, but quite forcefully "Why didn't you call your ace?". We ended up playing 500 in many exotic places, while we waited for boats, planes, and so forth.

The trip to Milford Sound was 116ks, which they warned is would take two and a half hours. It didn't, but we got snowed on through the pass which was a bit exciting. We stopped to see Keas (big native parrots, famed for eating cars) on the way down. We then spent a couple of hours cruising the sound, seeing lots of rock and waterfalls (there are 13,000). On the return leg we went into this deep water observatory thing that lets you see creatures that normally live a lot deeper in the water (but can survive only 5 metres down because of the light filtering effect of the layer of fresh water on top). While on the cruise we found out that the road out was closing at 5:30, so I was pretty anxious to get out of dodge. We made it without too many problems, but it was still snowing up at the Homer tunnel, and there was a lot more snow around as we came through. It was also snowing in more places than on the way out to Milford Sound. We made it back safely, and saw only one car coming the other way the entire return trip.

Wednesday we awoke to find it snowing outside the motel and Hannah went out to frolic. There was considerably more snow in evidence along the return journey to Queenstown. Bad weather caused delays in flights so we played 500 in the airport while we waited for our plane to land. We haven't played since we got home, which is a shame (but then again, I am not sure I've seen Hannah more than 15 minutes at a stretch since we got back).

We got back late Wednesday night, and Rory started playing in U18 Nationals the next day. He was in the B team, mostly younger players, and they were not expected to win many games.

We spent most of the weekend going to pools. We did see the Bambis on Sunday in between games. Life is kind of returning to normal, but Hannah leaves on camp tomorrow so house will be quiet.
Rob

RUGBY, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING

I didn't want to harp on about it but some things need to be said. Ever since the build up and disappointment in 1999, also against France, I have never checked in emotionally to the All Blacks and the World Cup. The national approach to it is excessive, all media convince us every four years that we will win it, and then tell us how distraught we are afterwards. Today, the newspapers are unreadable, the breakfast shows (both of them) are unwatchable. Post match analysis is not wanted, not by me, and I don't think I am alone. I don't need people telling me how upset I am, because I am not. Sooner or later they (the press) need to realise that they do not remotely speak for all of us and an ever decreasing percentage actually care about rugby at any level.

That'll do for now, sermon ends.

Travel diary, a win in the polo nationals - 01/10/07

2007-10-01T08:03:00.000+13:00

Haven't seen a lot of news, so I have had to make some up. It's short, so therefore you can be grateful.

LOCAL NEWS

The only paper we saw this week had a cover story of a woman who was told to cover up her cleavage at the Christchurch Casino. She was a big girl, and I think they were concerned someone might park a bicycle there. Not sure it was worth the front page but I guess it might have sold a few papers. The woman, however, was mad, I don't understand why she'd want to share her embarrassment with the world.

Bad day on roads on Friday, four died in three separate events.

A bad day in Christchurch on Thursday for a man who was shot by police. He went mad with a hammer. I am not sure I sympathise too much. Someone said "why did you shoot my friend?" and another policeman replied "because we aren't paid enough to risk coming home in a box", which I thoroughly agree with. It's all very fine for your average member of the public to demand that police don't use force, but they aren't putting their life on the line, and news pieces quoting them saying so are rubbish.

Ruapehu had a very small eruption but it kept everyone (in the news journalism industry, at least) entertained, especially as a man was crushed by a rock and his amputations and kidney failure was watched with indecent interest.

An Australian tourist who lost his arm after an accident here is being charged with something relating to the accident. Seems unfair, somehow.

A car being chased by police hit a house in Invercargill.

WORLD NEWS

GW thinks the childrens will learn stuff what you teach them.

A 24 year old man has married an 82 year old woman in Argentina. Yuck.

REAL SPORT

Seems a long time ago, but they won their last pool match then went on to the semi-final, which was bizarre. They tied at 5-5 at full time but won 8-5 in extra time against Hutt. In the final it was close but they got a lead about 2nd quarter and hung on to it to win 8-7 over Northsport, the team that beat them by one goal in regional final.

SPORT

Despite not being exactly rugby mad, I am pretty annoyed how my preferred news web site seems to have lost provincial rugby while the rugby world cup is on. I can tell Southland lost 17-19, for example, but not to who.

I managed to see the end of the Auckland v Canterbury game, despite power cut, who won to take the Ranfurly Shield.

The Wellington Phoenix beat Perth Glory 4-1 for their first home win of the season, after about four or five games, so not before time.

MY SAD LIFE

Koos and Heidi's mum, Pam, had a fall last Monday and broke her lower arm. I know sod all else because I keep forgetting to call when I am somewhere with coverage. Sounded pretty serious. I hope she's on the mend, guys.

Well, after the final on Tuesday afternoon we headed for the hills We stayed in Arthur's Pass at a place called Bealey, woke to see snow capped mountains all around us. We drove down to Franz Josef the next day, say a glacier, but not very close. We then went to Fox glacier, got closer. We stopped at a picturesque little beach where a guy rides his fishing boat on a cable to get past the breakers. We walked up the beach a bit and looked for greenstone. We stayed Thursday night in Haast, very small township, where Hannah befriended a cat that she called Gordon. Friday we got to Arrowtown, where we stayed for three nights. Along the way we have stopped to see a variety of waterfalls, valleys, streams, pools, lakes, rocks, and so forth. Rory seems to have taken over my camera, which is interesting.

The availability of cellphone signal and internet on our travels has been quite variable. In Bealey, there was free wireless, which was great (because there was no cellphone coverage, except for two days a year during the coast to coast), in another place you got ten minutes for $1 on their PC that could do limited browsing and had no copy-paste function, which was hopeless and not cheap. In Arrowtown there was a wireless network, that wasn't too near so access was limited and had to use the vodem.

On Saturday we went to an animal park where you could feed things. Donkeys, pigs, horses, goats, thars (type of goat), yak, and other things. Sunday we went to Wanaka and saw the Warbirds museum (fighter aircraft, about five or so), a transport and toy museum, and a place called "Have a shot" where we did a weird air-powered gun battle thing. I shot Hannah in the stomach, didn't mean to, felt awful. Afterwards, we went and played a round of frisbee golf, an interesting game, far more appealing than regular golf.

Overseas not safe for New Zealanders, GW knows something Nelson doesn't, and the great mime falls - 24/09/07

2007-09-24T08:02:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Monday all hell broke loose with a young girl (dubbed "Pumpkin" because she was wearing the brand) abandoned by her Father in Southern Cross train station in Melbourne, that the Australian news services took great delight in describing as a "New Zealander". He left Melbourne for the US. During the week we got more information and it developed further. He was a Chinese immigrant, the mother (still living, if living was the right word, in New Zealand somewhere) was missing. It then turned out an older daughter from a previous marriage was also missing and there was a documentary on the man about that which seemed quite bizarre. Then they found the elder daughter, alive. By the end of Wednesday they had found the mother of the three year old, not alive. It wasn't really a surprise. We'd heard that the man had visited the police and picked up his passport and a sword, which wasn't a good sign. We got more news every day, three pages in the paper every day.

Meat processing company Affco was slapped with a bill for one million dollars for a workplace injury. The injury occurred when an employee was sitting in a mate's car at lunch time, the mate was mongrel mob, and the employee got shot in a drive-by by black power people (could be the other way around, I forget). So somehow employers appear to need to ensure their staff don't talk to dodgy friends when on a break and need to have bullet proof fences around their car parks.

We are now allowed to have armed air marshals on our aircraft. Great. Now I feel secure.

Things got nasty in New Plymouth over the weekend with a pedestrian killed and a stabbing, both involving boy racers (let's be honest, ALL boys with cars are boy racers).

Weird news that air quality around schools near busy roads. Can't say I would have every expected that, but one child care centre isn't allowed to open.

A world record was set, swimming 224 metres under water, in West Wave, but using a mono-flipper.

Small earthquake near Haast this morning, we are going there soon.

Some guy predicted a headline for the Christchurch press, sealed it in an envelope five days prior. It wasn't completely correct but it was right subject, stated in different way.

Dodgy ubercop Rickards has now been charged with ten employment offences, he's been suspended on full pay for three years.

WORLD NEWS

GW Bush announced the death of Nelson Mandela, who refused to cooperate by being dead. What a legend. Comedy show writers must tear their hair out, this guy makes them all look like crap.

A disease called bluetongue has hit in UK which kills cows and sheep.

A New Zealand boy fell from a fourth floor hostel window in London, and a New Zealand man was beaten to death in Nairobi.

Marcel Marceau has died, aged 84. He had no last words.

REAL SPORT

On Tuesday, Hannah was called aside at the Coerver training (this is an academy style thing they run for keen players). She was asked to join up to an invitation only elite group. As you can imagine the attitude towards soccer took something of an improvement. Not sure she can manage it logistically, because the time is likely to conflict with school polo, but she was pretty happy.

First game for the U16 Nationals was against Northsport B, expected to be a pretty easy game but they made hard work of it, winning 10-5. Rory got a reasonable amount of game time and played a lot better than many of them.

Second game, against Maranui (Wellington) they won 17-1, Rory got himself a goal. Third game was against Waikato, who were depleted because two of their players can't play on Sunday, so they had no subs.

SPORT

The cricket 20/20 world cup seems to be far more interesting than the rugby world cup but I am not really keeping track. The Black Caps beat England on Wednesday and basically made the semi-finals. Then they lost to South Africa and basically didn't make the semi-finals, awaiting result of South Africa v India. India won so they made the semis, then got knocked out.

The rugby world cup continued but so what? All Blacks dressed the same as Scotland and won 40-0. Stupid.

Man Utd beat Chelsea 2-0.

Manly will play Melbourne Storm in the grand final.

Golfer Michael Campbell came fourth in British Masters.

MY SAD LIFE

Well, the pool was open again this week. Haven't been able to swim for about two weeks or so. Made up for it by swimming three nights in a row.

Hannah and I picked up Penny and the boys from airport on Wednesday night. We saw them a bit over a couple of days before we all went to Christchurch for the tournament.

Hannah went to a party on Friday night, which didn't go well. We got a call saying she was at home and going to Georgia's. We picked her up from there and found out someone had been smoking cigars. Hannah and four friends were very uncomfortable with this and left. 13 year olds smoking cigars does seem a little odd, but we were quite surprised at how serious the girls took it.

Was a long day on Saturday, left for airport around 7:45, got to motel at 12, couldn't get in to room until 1:30. Watched three water polo games at QEII, which is huge, took some photos. Made it back to motel for a while, then drove half way to airport, returned to supermarket, then off to airport to collect Diana and Hannah at 10:15pm.

I have taken quite a few photos of the water polo, Diana reckons I have taken enough.

We should have a semi final tonight and hopefully a final tomorrow afternoon.

Retardism in NZ politicians, Australian Naval Officers don't want to be able to see their navels, and we become a two teenager household - 17/09/07

2007-09-17T08:02:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

A third 15 yo girl died following that crash last week in which two passed on rather faster.

A youth was arrested over the killing last Saturday night, he seems to have been convicted by evidence on his Bebo page. Not entirely sure why fellow youths could not impart information to police but it was okay to accuse them on the internet, but I supposed it was effective.

The SIS director made a press statement, an usual event in itself (it was first time) and announced that Ahmed Zaoui was no longer considered a risk and is now to be treated like a refugee. Apparently he's just told them something, which the SIS cannot reveal, which has made all the difference (why he didn't mention it until now, I don't know). In an exclusive, I can quote you that conversation:
SIS MAN: Ahmed, how much do you hate Osama Bin Laden?
Ahmed: A LOT.
SIS MAN: (looks around furtively, checks the curtains are drawn) All right, you're in.

Bit of home grown reality radio this week. A suicidal woman rang a local talkback show and they tracked her down on air and got her to a hospital.

The theme for the weekend was murders, with two dying from two separate shootings and one from a stabbing. Busy day on Saturday. We also had a teen shot in the head twice with a slug gun. This particular teen was quoted as saying the robber was lucky he didn't die (but surely not as lucky as the victim).

A National MP wrote to the associate minister of health enquiring as to what he was doing about the harmful drug dihydrogen monoxide. She had been told people get addicted and often die if they don't consume a steady amount of it, and that it is colourless and odourless. It is, of course, water. What a fool. Jacqui Dean is now a legendarily silly person.

Subsequently, we had articles about concerns for the intelligence of MPs. Not surprising really.

Clint Rickards, tarnished Auckland uber-cop, got a new company car. He's been suspended on full pay for three years. Not bad, eh?

WORLD NEWS

Revelations today that the Australian Defence Force have paid for breast enlargements for two officers. Wouldn't be so bad if they were women, I suppose.

Air crash in Phuket seemed a little nasty, 88 dead, so some unexpected vacancies in nearby hotels.

Meanwhile former rally champ Colin McRae died in helicopter crash.

REAL SPORT

Hannah played in goal for the Marlins, they lost about 5-8. Then she played for Sharks against Rangeview, a tough team, and it was 3-3 end of third quarter, but they reorganised and dominated the fourth quarter scoring five unanswered goals and winning 8-3. Hannah scored a beauty.

Rory played in U18B team on Saturday, I think the lost 6-8, Rory scored two goals.

Sunday Rory's U16A team was in regional playoffs. They beat Tauranga 6-4, Rory scored no goals but did his bit. In the final they played Northsport and lost 6-7. It was very tight game, Rory didn't get a lot of pool time, but a couple of talented guys really lost their cool and blew it.

SPORT

Race car driver Scott Dixon was leading into the last lap of a race that would have given him the series title in the Indy Car series but ran out of gas. Seems a little short sighted to me.

Roger Federer has now won US Tennis Open four times in a row.

Auckland beat lowly Tasman 49-7

Meanwhile the Rugby World Cup has been underwhelming people all over the world. And poor old England lost 0-36 to South Africa. What a shocker. Meanwhile the All Black B team beat Portugal 108-13. Tonga beat Samoa which was a surprise.

The Warriors lost again, tossers.

Man Utd scraped a 1-0 win over Everton, Arsenal beat Spurs 3-1, Sunderland beat Reading 2-1, Chelsea had 0-0 draw.

New Zealand Women's Hockey qualified for Beijing after beating Australia 1-0. Don’t think the men did, not sure.

MY SAD LIFE

Peter Evans exclaimed that he did not believe the Koos sighting and wanted proof. Heidi was brave enough to add yet another recipient to this email despite legislation that now potentially protects the sanity of the innocent.

Rory had his science exam Wednesday, I will let you know how it went if we ever get told anything.

On Thursday Hannah got a letter telling her she was in a team for a mini-tournament/trial for soccer. She said she would go, so I told them she would, then she changed her mind. Got a little delicate but in the end she went, and I think had a very fun time. It only took about three hours, she played very well. We know she cannot take part in the tournament in December but at least she could see how she stacked up against others and it keeps her options open in future. She went, under sufference, and enjoyed herself despite everything.

The show was Wednesday and Thursday night. I was not exactly keen to see "High School Musical" (an exceedingly gay disney musical movie), but decided that I really should attend a little bit late in the piece and I am glad I did (had to do some arrangements for transport and training to become available, but managed it). Hannah played four parts in the show, had a few lines. She did well, they all did. My nice low-light lens could handle it without flash and I got a very cool shot of the leads at the end.

We managed to see the Goodins between dropping Hannah off and picking her up from Wednesday show. They are off to Europe for work/holiday.

Friday was the birthday. Was a pretty busy day with water polo and things but had time for seafood chowder for dinner. I think Hannah generally had a pretty good weekend, all things considered. She disappeared Sunday to St Lukes with Josie and Millie. The party won't be until next term.

Diana finally had two days off work this week. Theoretically she works three full days (a change to the five half days to accommodate someone who has now resigned) but she has not managed to work only three days for a long time.

We are going to the South Island from this coming weekend. Rory goes Friday. We go Saturday. Under 16 Nationals first then a tour around the country a bit.

APEC madness in Sydney, general madness on New Zealand roads, news cancelled due to lack of interest - 10/09/07

2007-09-10T08:01:00.000+12:00

I apologise for a lack of depth in some areas, my favoured news website has cancelled much of it's meaningful content because of the rugby.

LOCAL NEWS

Some knob end crashed a speedboat into a sandbank, and then his girlfriend left him there. Pretty funny.

New anti-spam laws came into effect in New Zealand this week, which has meant I have been getting lots of spam from people asking me to opt in to things I have been trying to stop for years.

Magpies are attacking people in Christchurch, it's nesting season. They don't know what to do. It's dead simple if you ask me.

A 17 year old male died in a fight at a party in Herne Bay. Hannah was at a party not far away that night, although they were finished about two hours before the incident was still a little close to home.

Lots of chaos on roads, a child died when a minivan went down a bank in Hawkes Bay, two teenage girls died in south island when their car hit a power pole. A paraplegic Christchurch City Councillor was wiped out on his bicycle by a car in Christchurch and killed.

Meanwhile, police did nothing to enhance our confidence in them by telling us that the death of a man who was run over on a rural road (he was lying down on it) was "a tragedy that could have been avoided". No. Really?

Ridiculous fuss this week over the Corrections Minister letting a suspended prison officer play in the ridiculously unimportant public servant rugby world cup in France. Who cares?

WORLD NEWS

Hilarious scuffle in Australia during APEC when a tv comedy show sent three cars in a mini motorcade through all the security right up to GWs hotel, only for a guy dressed like Osama to come out of the car. Sydney has been shut down for the duration, been chaotic.

Adventurer Steve Fosset went MIA in a fancy high altitude aircraft. It does not look good.

REAL SPORT

Hannah went to U16 girls training to work with Ianeta ('neta for short), who is New Zealand U15 goalie. She was very nice, I know her reasonably well from U14 Nationals last year.

The Piranhas won 12-2 over St Marys 2. Hannah played in goal again for the Marlins (the team Rory coaches) and they had close 7-5 win.

Rory's B team beat Tauranga 10-1. Rory did not score, which is unusual, but probably a good thing for the team.

Rory has 16A playoffs this coming weekend on Sunday, in Auckland thankfully.

SPORT

The Frogs weren't too happy in the opening games against the Argies, losing 12-17. The All Blacks beat a team. It's thoroughly stupid at this point, with too many knob-end teams. Meanwhile the press wax lyrical about meaningless results and it's all just total bollocks.

Canterbury defended the shield on Friday night, Auckland beat Northland by a relatively narrow margin, 33-25. Waikato scraped past Tasman 25-23.

The Warriors lost in their first semi-final narrowly to the Parramatta Eels but they get a second go against Townsville.

MY SAD LIFE

I saw Koos this week, he popped in at lunchtime on Wednesday. During the day does seem to be the only option to see people unless they hang around at a pool.I am sure most people think we are just being rude.

I took Rory and two others (Maddie from Hannah's soccer team, and Ella who I had never met) to Ponsonby Intermediate to adjudicate at a debate for Rory's old teacher. I sat in on the debate because there was sod all else to do. They did well, apart from Rory's phone vibrating twice. They gave good feedback to everyone in each team.

It was Matt's fourth birthday on Thursday. I didn't forget, honest. I just didn't quite manage to call.

Hannah did not go to the Auckland rep soccer trial, because it is for tournament same date as polo Nationals so there was no point. Bit disappointing, but makes sense I guess. She went to a rehearsal for the show instead, which is on this week. Her tap exam was on Saturday, so dancing workload is dropping right off now.

On Saturday, Rory and I went to Tauranga for a game of water polo for the U16B team, that he really shouldn't be playing for any more. There was the bare seven players, which is why he was required. It was a pretty long day, six and a half hours on the road, not real impressed but you do what you have to.

The driving lessons continue, he drove on the motorway for the first time on Sunday. I now see an additional application for adult continence products.

ANTI-SPAM LEGISLATION

I am supposed to have asked you for permission to keep sending this. I did. You just forgot I did and you said you wanted to keep getting it. If you don't remember you may need to consult a physician.

Boozy students, dance exam hell, and naughty league legends - 03/09/07

2007-09-03T08:00:00.000+12:00

I think a lot of what has happened this week slipped past me, I've been busy.

LOCAL NEWS

Father of the decade, Chris Kahui, accused of the manslaughter of his twin sons, has breached bail conditions three times and will now await his trial in jail. The man is clearly an utter fool, regardless of what else he might be.

We seem to be having a run of finance companies fail, lost count of how many. However, the downstream impact is that nobody wants to invest with these guys so the ones remaining have no money to lend and are more at risk. Not great.

Bit of a fuss over night vision goggles used by air rescue services that look like they may have been stolen from US military.

The guy made it out of the cave, took less time than they thought and he was only 2.2km into the system. He will be fine.

School kids in Wellington have been popping to a student bar for a beer at lunch time. I suppose it depends how many beers as to how bad this is.

A fight erupted in a soccer match between New Brighton and Chinese United, sounds like it got well out of hand, one player broke his ankle during the game. Eek.

WORLD NEWS

The Greek tragedy continued, although it's gone quiet so it must be sorted now.

Andrew Johns was found with one ecstasy tablet and has now confessed to using drugs for ten years. Doesn't sound like they were performance enhancing though.

The APEC meeting is happening in Sydney, it seems quite bizarre with some exceedingly onerous security measures.

Equine flu continues to be an issue in Australia.

REAL SPORT

Hannah played for the composite team on Friday night in goal and helped them to a win, 6-4 over my Ponsonby Piranhas. Hannah then played in goal for Rory's team, the Marlins, but Rory was lame and not there.

Rory played another U18 game, against Northsport A, they lost 1-12 but that was expected, was a better score than I thought.

On Sunday Rory played for 16A against Rotorua in the morning and they won 15-1. He then played for 16B in the afternoon against Northsport and they won 10-4.

SPORT

Mahe Drysdale won gold for third time in rowing world champs in single sculls. The Swindell twins got silver. New Zealand rowers got three golds and two silvers.

Taranaki squeaked a 22-20 win over Northland, Canterbury removed the Ranfurly Shield from Waikato 33-20, BOP scored their first win over Tasman. Auckland beat Hawke's Bay 38-11.

The rally of New Zealand was on over the weekend but really didn't hit the radar. Some foreign guy won.

The Warriors beat the Panthers 24-20 earning a home semi in the playoffs.

Liverpool beat Derby 6-0 (very big score), Fulham drew 3-3 with Spurs, Man Utd managed a feeble 1-0 win over Sunderland. Villa beat Chelsea 2-0, big news.

The rugby world cups starts this week. I can't say I have been looking forward to it.

MY SAD LIFE

Forgot to mention the Granny Bread incident at water polo a week ago. Mum came to watch the polo, and brought a loaf of her home made bread, called Granny Bread by the kids. The first reaction from me, Rory, and Diana (all separately) was "keep Chase away from it" (she really likes it). Rory absconded with it and used it to motivate his intermediate polo team during their game, a game in which they were a goal down before they came back to win 4-1. Who needs lollies and junk food when you can bribe kids with fresh wholemeal bread?

The U14A Girls team was announced for club polo, Hannah is in the team as the goalie, she is pleased. I think the time for deciding which activity comes first is upon us.

This week, the focus was on dancing, Hannah had her jazz exam on Sunday and three other preparatory things on Saturday. She wasn't too happy about the exam beforehand, in fact quite the opposite, but she seemed exceedingly happy afterwards on Sunday, not sure if it was because it went well or because it was over. She has a tap dancing exam next weekend. She's not so worried about that one.

The Berocca tablet did not completely dissolve, and interestingly (well, it is interesting in my world) it would not dissolve when put into a glass of water. It was like the outside had formed a protective layer by partially dissolving.

Diana worked out this morning that we had ten things to have people at this weekend, between polo and dancing (and one party for Hannah). Ten. Is that all? Rory has a game in Tauranga this Saturday.

Rory has done more driving this week. Diana didn't handle a session with him at all well, and Rory suggested to her that the warranty on the seat belt might be under threat if she continued to twist it quite that hard as she clung to it. I took him about three times. He drove to training on Monday night at MAGS (about three ks away), we took a spin around side streets around us (and Rory stopped in the middle of the road to look at a parked Maserati, as you do), and another trip to Unitech to practice parking and things. He's getting there.

Organisation for Hannah's birthday, now less than two weeks away, is woeful. There is none. Ideas have been flying around but no date has been set.

Father's Day wasn't really much of a day, although Diana did make me breakfast before we left for the pool at 8:30am on Sunday morning. Didn't see Hannah until about 11:30.

There should be more, but that will have to do for now.

Firewood company proves the efficacy of their product, Greeks gone mad on outdoor barbecues, locals go mad with parrots and handcuffs - 27/08/07

2007-08-27T07:58:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

There was a fire in a firewood store in Christchurch. You would expect if the product was any good it would burn pretty well. It did.

Boobs on bikes was on Wednesday, there was the usual fuss. The mayor managed to make himself look even more out of touch with reality. Surprisingly, there were no reports of burns to boobs when they rested on hot exhaust pipes (sounds like some of them nearly got close). I found out afterwards that they were on tanks too. That would have been cool. Do you think the ladies would have minded if I asked them to get off the tanks so I could get a good photo of the tank?

A 36 year old woman died in a Dunedin police cell on Thursday. Not sure what post mortem found.

John Key was taking the heat from the Labour Party this week, as they dredged up any dirt they could find on him. This included the fact that he once wore a hat inside a church and didn't stop to help someone in distress once when climbing Mt Eden.

Hell Pizza offended people with a Hitler billboard, which was obviously lampooning Hitler, but offended people with holocaust victims. Funny, Hitler doesn't seem to offend families of French, Dutch, Belgian, Italian, Russian, polish etc people who were taken out in the war. Let alone relatives of Allied soldiers that gave their lives. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

A couple called 111 after they could not undo handcuffs bought at a dodgy store. Police freed the fully clothed man without the need for a key. I wonder why they were not slapped with some sort of fine because calling 111 for such a non-urgent, readily solvable problem is quite pathetic. Police are planning a non-urgent hotline service, which I think they would still prefer to be used for actual crimes rather than escapology conundrums.

Another winner was a Timaru couple who bought a $10,000 parrot. They left the door open and it escaped. After hours of searching it was spotted in a tree, and they asked the fire department to shoot it down with a hose. I think it survived.

Peter Jackson has made a short movie with some new camera. The badly done article I read suggested it was film (but I think they meant movie, because later it sounded very digital and digital means no film). It also didn't mention why it was better than existing ones but the movie was incredibly good, but they don't say why (like, was it Jackson's genius or the camera?).

The Undie 500 is a rally thing in the south island which turned into a bit of a riot of university students. There were 69 arrests.

Mille Elder, daughter of Paul Holmes, has pleaded guilty to three drugs charges this morning.

A caver got caught by a rock fall nearly 3km into a caving network, it is taking more than forty spelunkers to extract him and could take nearly three days.

A plane crashed in the Southern Alps but the two on board have survived.

WORLD NEWS

As expected, the popularity of the Australian Prime Ministerial hopeful, Kevin Rudd, increased after revelations that he got drunk and went to a pole dancing thing. Not surprisingly, local politicians started telling us of their exploits to boost their support.

The China Airlines aircraft explosion was pretty dramatic. Passengers were pretty lucky, well, not that lucky.

Meanwhile, Australian horses are a problem. Many of them have the equine flu, so horses are no longer crossing the Tasman.

There are lots of fires in Greece, in different places, not sure why. All over the show so can't be natural.

REAL SPORT

Rory played for 18B v 18A on Monday night, they held on pretty well considering, 2-3 at half time, but lost 5-11.

Hannah continued to play for as many teams as she could in polo, only three games this week. She helped Rory's Marlins team to their first win in ages, about 5-1 I think, she stopped heaps in goal. She then stayed in goal for the Girls who dominated St Dominics 10-0 although it was considerably more hard fought that the score suggests. Finally the Sharks, heavily depleted, fought gallantly but lost 4-6 to Rangeview.

Hannah played for U17D1 team on Saturday, she played well, they lost 0-2 to Three Kings but she was not out of place.

Rory had a polo game with 16A team on Saturday, beating Marist 10-2 but Rory was fouled out, he never gets fouled so it was pretty odd. The guy that caused it got smacked by one of the others in Rory's team.

Hannah then played for Div 3 women's team on Sunday, they were close to bottom of table playing top of the table, it was a hard game but they came through with a 0-0 draw, very happy.

SPORT

Waikato put North Harbour out of their misery by removing the Shield, winning 52-7, which was kind of convincing. Auckland beat Taranaki 22-13, Canterbury will beat Manawatu tonight in the Monday night game.

England lost to Germany 1-2 in a friendly.

Chelsea beat Portsmouth 1-0, Liverpool beat Sunderland 2-0, Arsenal beat Man City 1-0, Middlesbrough drew 2-2 with Newcastle, and Man Utd finally won a game, beating Spurs 1-0.

Warriors beat Manly 34-16.

The new Phoenix soccer team started their season with a 2-2 draw with the defending champs.

Shot putter Valerie Villi became second New Zealander to win a gold medal (in field events) at world athletics champs last night.

MY SAD LIFE

I missed the excitement at home when the toaster caught fire. Diana went to pick Hannah up on Monday night from dancing, returned home to a smoke filled kitchen. The toaster had somehow turned itself on, melted, and melted power points and things in the appliance cupboard. It meant I couldn't have toast. That's the second toaster in about two months. The distributor suggested Diana had closed the door on it and jammed the toaster lever down, but I don't see how that would be possible.

On Saturday afternoon, Hannah and I went to watch the prem women's team play in the National Knockout final. We weren't real hopeful, as they had lost to Glenfield 0-4 about three weeks ago, but that did not deter anyone. Springs got an early goal, then extended their lead to 2-0 by half time, and although they conceded one in the second half they held on to win 2-1. Very big result for the club.

On Saturday night we went off to a fundraising night with the Goodins at Takapuna Primary. Interesting to see how it was run, and very odd to be in a place where we knew almost nobody. We didn't win anything but with a little effort we could have won the jelly beans for coming last.

Well, the Warriors played in front of a capacity crowd, and then we got to clean up the mess they left behind. My god, it was unbelievable. So many Lion Red bottles, a few wines (men with wine get beaten up at league games). Whole burgers left behind (I am guessing the name "fresh and tasty" may have been wrong on both counts. This is a fundraising thing that the Western Springs College does and the water polo teams were on this time.

Diana has taken Rory driving a bit, I have been trying but he hasn't been out of bed when I have been available. I think we are close to him driving to training and things which will give experience in familiar territory without being a lesson as such.

I was not very well this week, didn't go to the pool from Tuesday to Thursday (a record for a while). Hannah is home today, although more tired than sick, I suspect.

SCIENCE LESSON - Why Beroccas are kept in a tin
I left a couple in my drawer. Berocca tablets are like vitamin things that dissolve in water and are often used as a hangover cure. I believe they absorb atmospheric moisture, and would eventually dissolve in the water they absorb, the term for such a substance is "deliquescent". I found them a couple of days later considerably larger and puffier than they were in the tin.

So much for the soccer season being over, and life being less busy.

A huge week for the family, especially the kids (and New Zealand finally on the medal table) - 23/08/07

2007-08-23T09:05:00.000+12:00

Thank God it is Monday.

LOCAL NEWS

Plenty of snow this week, too much for skiing.

Cereal magnate Dick Hubbard has thrown his hat into the ring for the Auckland Mayoralty. He appears to have the support of the New Zealand Herald which is running stories about him every where. Given that neither of the other three seemed to be valid options, he could get my vote. He is a bit of a leftie, got some funny ideas, but seems like he might not be too dangerous.

News this week of a study of voter understanding of the MMP system. The Electoral Commission are concerned that few people know they get two votes, that the party vote decides the representation in parliament, and that the 5% threshold gives a party about six MPs. Well, frankly, if people don't understand this, they clearly aren't bright enough to be trusted with a vote at all. Apparently the understanding of the system has decreased by about 50% since the last election. Who was it that said that people vote for the government they deserve, well they were right.

A woman was killed by her own dog in Dunedin. She should have kept fish.

A postie went missing during a storm and was found dead near her submerged car in a swollen stream. I thought the creed said something like "Through rain, sleet, snow, and the dark of night, the mail must go through". Well, it didn't include storm. She was only 46.

There was a fire on a Waiheke Ferry last night, 300 people were taken off.

A recent survey on the ills of television and children were confirmed on Saturday when a television fell off a bookcase and hit a 10 month old in the head and killed him. The writer of a recent survey on the depth of shelves and dangling wires is also feeling vindicated. I now wait for someone to die whilst running with scissors.

Another survey this week says NZers are happier and living longer than we did ten years ago - even though most of us were around then as well.

A nasty weekend on the roads with ten people dying. This is surprising as most people were inside watching the Olympics all weekend.

WORLD NEWS

The discovery of John the Baptist's cave near Jerusalem is kind of interesting, but two news pieces seemed to suggest that baptism and Christianity were around before Jesus. That confuses me, a lot. Did I miss something at school?

Helen Clark, our beloved Prime Minister has been recognised as one of the world's most powerful women. She is the 43rd most powerful, in a list topped by US National Security adviser Condoleeza Rice. It seems that being Tony Blair's wife is enough to be rated 12th - more powerful because she sleeps with a PM, as compared to being one, while the Queen sits on her throne in 22nd place. Britney Spears is 2nd, Kylie 19th, and the hot one from that TV show was voted 5th. GW Bush came in 9th, because he throws like a girl. Interestingly, Helen isn't the only dead person on the list, Mother Theresa and Princess Diana made it as well, with Diana placing 14th. Who does these things? I think I am going to start doing some of my own and publicising them and see what happens.

REAL SPORT

At water polo practice on Tuesday, Rory was singled out for some sort of development thing, which is pretty cool. There are two others from his team as well. There was no game due to some competition at the pool.

Hannah played interschool soccer on Thursday. I was looking after two teams at once, trying desperately to remember 30 names with 29 that looked liked twins (two were twins, and the African boy in goal looked like the white boy that was goalie in the other team when they both had gloves on). Hannah was in Team A they won three and drew two, finished second. Team B won four and drew two and finished first equal. Neither team lost a game. There was no semi or final. They were pretty happy with that.

There were girls from Hannah's teams in at least three other teams and some others were playing netball which I never got a chance to even visit (games were alternating every 20 minutes for like three hours). At the end, the two Pt Chev teams played a friendly against each other (Rory joined in, they came after the speech thing was over) and used two balls at once. I don't know where the energy came from.

Hannah's team were up against a team that came second in grading and were fourth on the table. We got two ring-ins from the Div 2 team (we are Div 1) because a couple of our players were away. We really gave them a go, led 1-0 for a while, then let in a goal we shouldn't have. Half-time score was 1-1 and it stayed scoreless in the second half. Excellent result for the girls and again proved they can work very hard. The coach from the other team said they hadn't played anyone that physical. I don't know if that means my girls are rough or just committed.

Hannah then went and played for the Division 2 12th Grade Boys team again for half a game. She did a great job and showed some of the lads what they should be doing. The team lost 5-0 but only one of three goals in the half she played came around her side and that wasn't her fault.

Rory's team won at Pukekohe, 3-2, with Rory giving a huge effort in defence, heading a lot of high balls. He got player of the day and Diana thinks he richly deserved it. I really wish I could see him play more. He said he thought he had more energy because he hadn't played water polo the night before (which I think is very probably true).

One more soccer game left in the season for Rory and Hannah.

SPORT

I didn't even notice the Premiership had started last weekend. Man Utd lost last week to the Mincers, who won again this weekend and are top of the table. Man Utd beat giants Norwich 2-1. The Arse and Chelsea are top of the table already.

In the Olympics, New Zealand went through the same old "we haven't got a medal yet, Lesotho is doing better than us" thing for the first week. Finally, on Saturday, we had all five rowing teams that entered row in the finals. Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell did the business in the double sculls and got us on the board, as hoped, the other four didn't feature in the medals (which was a bit disappointing, you'd think one would have). Then, on Sunday, Sarah Ullmer broke the record set by another cyclist only minutes earlier and on Monday beat her in the final of the 3000m pursuit to get New Zealand a second gold and set the World Record again (our 33rd gold in history of the Olympics, which shows how rare they are for us).

In the tri-nations, which I basically had forgotten about, South Africa beat Australia and in doing so won the tri-nations, with the All Blacks coming last (it was all bonus points as everyone won their home matches this time).

Bay of Plenty successfully defended the Shield against Waikato, 26-20. Taranaki beat Southland 48-16 at home. Canterbury had a draw with North Harbour 43-43 at Jade. Auckland beat Northland 39-27, and Otago drew 16-16 with Wellington (what's with draws, this is rugby). Taranaki and Bay of Plenty are top of the table with two wins each.

THE BABY GEEK

Well, I went to Rory's speech final at school on Wednesday. He didn't seem to care if I went or not (Diana was working) and then the bugger went and won it. Honestly, I thought his was good, delivered well, but didn't really stand out. There were about four out of ten that I felt missed the mark with their subject matter, but the others were all pretty good. One girl did a speech on disgusting food (including fried ants, dog, and live monkey brains, I wanted to call out "don't forget puffins"). I was very pleased for Rory, it's really neat to get to be the best at something and he seemed quite overwhelmed. Lots of kids congratulated him, which was also nice. His friend Matthew (who won last year) came second, and a girl from his water polo team came third.

He went to the interschool champs the next day with Diana (she took the day off work), while we (Hannah and I) were at soccer. Ten schools were there, he came third, not a bad effort. The winner sang and danced and everyone gestured wildly (except Rory, they were told not to, just to just voice and facial expression) and many used cue cards (except Rory, again way they did it at school). He thought he deserved better than third, Diana seemed to mostly agree. He was one of only two boys in the ten finalists.

Thursday night he went to Mathex, a weird maths competition where you run somewhere with the answer, a combination of maths ability and running endurance. Diana took him. Hannah and I collapsed at home after soccer practice. Rory's team didn't place, the school that won practices all damn year.

MY SAD LIFE

We (Diana and I) don't have a life, we just exist for our children. Well, sometimes one does wonder how much you live your life vicariously through your children. I think it is more about not having time for your own life so you might as well enjoy what you do.

Diana disappeared for a girls dinner on Tuesday night with Katherine Smith. Must have been well-behaved because she was back quite early.

Hannah had a tap dancing exam on Sunday, so there have been extra practices and lots of noise coming from the lounge.

After the tap exam, we went out to celebrate as a family. We went ten-pin bowling, had two games. We used the bumpers on the gutters because Hannah was struggling. Diana still guttered quite a few times but perfected the bounce for a strike. Hannah won another soft toy on a machine after bowling, a Tigger, on her second try, very happy. Rory played on an old star wars machine that is his favourite and went further than we had seen before. Then went to dinner. First restaurant had no kids menu and we decided to give it a miss (Rory wasn't happy with selections, needs to be less fussy, but it was not a cheap restaurant so we didn't want to pay top dollar for him to eat half a meal. Instead we went to One Red Dog. Diana bumped into her friend Jackie (who is now pregnant, at 41, for the first time). Jackie did the obligatory "gosh, Rory, you look just like your father", which Rory is sick of (Oh boy, I used to get so sick of that myself). Rory ordered two kids meals and ate them both. Behaviour was reasonable through dinner, but once fed everyone started getting "bouncy". We got ice creams on the way home.

I think spring is coming because I went bonkers on Sunday, cleaning things. Was doing okay, then it all went horribly wrong. It was much like pulling a thread in shirt and unravelling the entire universe. I started by looking at cleaning out a cupboard that is full of all sorts of miscellany. Then I found a doorstop that hadn't been installed. Then I took that to the bathroom and realised the skirting had not been painted. Then I noticed it needed to have some holes filled. Then I looked at the whole doorjamb and figured I should really give that a coat too, so I should sand it. Whilst sanding I realised how bad it really was and so stripped the bloody thing (it must have had like 50 years of paint on it. I never put the doorstop on, and never tidied the cupboard (except for taking out the doorstop). After about two hours of hard slog I managed to finally undercoat the skirting and the doorjamb, and sweep up most of the fallout. There are a bunch of little "niggly bits" around doors and windows that I need to do this to. Hopefully I won't wait until next spring.

The tidying/cleaning thing continues. Diana is worried.

Charles, you rude bugger, you're nearly as bad a Koos.

Planning for our trip to US is not going very quickly, we are running out of time. We have bags for the kids now (they are notebook backpacks, but way cool with heaps of compartments.

Well, better go do some work. We are hoping for a quieter week this week.

One small step for manchild, one giant bunnyhop for the driving public - 20/08/2007

2007-08-20T08:19:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

The man who's body was found in a locker in a boat was trying to hide from police. This, he did quite effectively, it's just that he could not hide from the grim reaper. He had been reported missing, presumed drowned so 18 months earlier.

It never ceases to amaze me how people are prepared to bare their unfeasibly stupid souls in the media. This week, a woman who's parking tickets accumulated to $2000 or more in fines, was happy to tell us how she couldn't afford to pay the first 15 tickets (or park somewhere better and walk) and that having a succession of cars impounded was better than paying the fine. It was sad beyond belief.

There seemed to be many demented souls baring their stupidity in public this week, it was awful. I could try and dig out the stories but they are woeful and give one a terrible impression of how stupid stupid-people really are.

The ultimate sales demonstration took place at Placemakers in Albany. While demonstrating a defibrillator, a customer keeled over and the product was used to save the customers life. I am assuming Placemakers bought one for every branch. Would be funny if it was a set-up. They got front page coverage which is pretty nice publicity. The irony is my spell checker thinks Placemakers should be pacemakers.

There was all sorts of fuss over Air New Zealand flying Australian troops to Iraq on a charter flight. Our fearless leader and many politicians jumped up and down. What a load of rubbish. Air New Zealand is a business, they got paid, who cares? If it was the New Zealand Air Force it could be a problem. The fact that they had Australians on board is possibly more embarrassing.

Bit of a fuss about money spent by the Auckland Council on "art" the last couple of weeks, with $750k on a variety of "stunning, significant" works (according to the mayor). They are a complete load of poo. They could give the money to kindergartens to produce art considerably more meaningful.

We've had lots of news about dodgy manufacturing out of China, with lead-paint based childrens toys and now flaming pyjamas and poisonous trousers. It is hardly surprising, you don't make things cheaper than everyone else without cutting a few corners.

WORLD NEWS

Hurricane Dean is messing with Jamaica.

World share markets have been having some fun in the last week.

Australian Prime Ministerial hopeful Kevin Rudd has been revealed as having a strip club in New York. I would imagine that this would win him plenty of votes. Not sure why this is considered "inappropriate" if it is legal. The fact that he reckons he was too sloshed to remember much should also win him some votes.

REAL SPORT

Another marathon at the pool, five games I had to keep an eye on. Hannah played in four of them. The Div 1 team beat Liston, the only team that has beaten them, score was about 10-4 I think. The girls then lost to Rangeview, their first loss of the season, 5-8 I think.

Hannah and Chase played soccer on Saturday for 15th D3 team who were playing a team that beat them 1-7 previously. I am pretty sure they made a difference because it was 2-2 draw.

Rory played for U16A on Sunday evening. The opposition was not crash hot, so it wasn't real close.

We went down to see our soccer club's women's team play in the national knockout semi-final at our home ground. The team includes former New Zealand captain and players we know. They beat Seatoun 2-0. I think this means a home final.

Rory has an U18 game tonight, which will be an interesting experiment.

SPORT

Auckland thumped Southland 44-19, Waikato beat Counties 30-8, Hawke's Bay beat North Harbour 35-25, Otago just beat Taranaki 18-15, Canterbury beat Wellington 41-23.

The Warriors lost to Canberra 26-24, still in top eight but dropped to 6th. They want to be top four.

Man Utd lost 0-1 to Man City, Liverpool drew 1-1 with Chelsea, Blackburn drew 1-1 with Arsenal (Ryan Nelson got red carded). Poor old Sunderland got a 0-3 thumping from lowly Wigan.

MY SAD LIFE

The passing of the anniversary was particularly low key, we didn't really have time for anything special.

I popped in to see Heidi and Ad, and Heidi's Mum when I was passing.

Well, my forebodings about the new office seemed to be quite accurate and by Wednesday I was beginning to seriously consider moving back. However, got the phone finally sorted on Friday and things are a little better. I really don't want to move again, so I guess I just have to make it work. The list of people that pop up in the window steadily increases.

Pandora seems to have adjusted to the new regime and now waits for Rory outside his room in the mornings and knows he spends time in there. She also comes to visit me in my new office now.

Hannah made the speech final, which then happened on Friday. She spoke very well, make no errors, but didn't place in the final but the results were really quite odd. I can sort of see why the person who came first should have featured, but the second place choice was quite bizarre. I suspect speech competitions are rather random and if you choose a subject that the adjudicator relates to you can do better.

Hannah also came 12th in the cross country race. Not a bad result for someone who doesn't consider themselves a cross country specialist.

After several false starts, Rory finally sat his theory test on Wednesday. He got one question wrong, but passed. The L plates were purchased on Friday (have a think about how many L plates there are unused in the world, why aren't they just returned when you go to the next level of license?). Diana took him for a practical session on Saturday while Hannah and I were at soccer. I took him for another session on Sunday. It is pretty bizarre how much you do automatically when driving, beginning to realise it isn't quite as simple as I thought. He hasn't driven on a public road yet, we've been using the Unitec Campus, which is used almost exclusively by learners on weekends (we saw three others yesterday, including one girl we know with her Mum).

Rory got high distinction in ICAS English, not quite a medal but not bad. Got distinction in two others, I think (writing and science, but not sure).

Hannah is thinking seriously about playing in goal for club polo. Diana's not keen, I am not sure either way. I think she's good enough out in the field that she needs to stay there, but she seems pretty adamant. I don't see why she can't give it a go.

MODERN CARS

I know many of you learned to drive both before and after me, but I have been mentally cataloguing the differences between cars today and back when I learned. Here are some of the features that the current vehicles lack:
- a choke
- a clutch
- a lack of synchromesh into first gear

And things modern cars have that we are so used to:-
- intermittent wipers
- auto-return indicators
- low fuel warning lights
- smarts around removing ignition key and lights and gears
- self returning indicators (indicators even)
- brake lights
- power steering

The list goes on, but there is so much less to worry about for the new driver. There are more cars on the road, but there are considerably more traffic lights to control traffic flow, also. There are also more motorways, where traffic on your side of the road tends to be going in the same direction. Admittedly, there weren't many five lane bits when I was learning. I am getting so old.

Nineteen years, and with the scars to prove it - 13/08/07

2007-08-13T08:18:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

A woman was in court this week having spent $32,000 of company money on personal items including a home theatre system and a vibrator. Not sure you would want everyone to know you had purchased a home theatre system.

The discovery of a body in the anchor locker of a fishing boat was not considered suspicious. Been there for quite some time. Interesting. Did the body crawl in there on it's own? Did nobody notice the person was missing?

The elusive Lord Lucan was being sort after in Marton in the North Island. If he did live there, he had plenty of time to scram because it was in the news before the detective got there. Later the same day it was pretty clear it wasn't him.

A third person has been arrested in the case of the murder of a convicted paedophile, who's son apparently is continuing the family hobby. Nice.

On Wednesday at 12 minutes past 12 there was 3 minutes silence for Nia, the abused three year old. Not sure what it achieved.

A dingo stole our Hone. This was the headline in one witty paper, after MP Hone Hawawera went walkabout from Melbourne to visit his aboriginal cuzzies in the Northern Territory (this is the guy that called John Howard a racist b@st@rd) while on the same subject.

Yet another example of Darwinian evolution over the weekend when a 17 year old brain surgeon tried to evade police at 180km/h because death was better than getting a speeding ticket. The other three morons in the car were not Darwinian contributors, and are now costing the health system for repairs.

WORLD NEWS

It is 30 years since Elvis died, if he really died of course. Sales of fast food have grown in the last 30 years, so who can tell.

The Queen is suing the Beeb. Two institutions at each others throats. Interesting.

REAL SPORT

No intermediate polo on Friday night, and no club games, so we had a free Friday, quite unusual occurrence for much of the year.

On Saturday, we think it was Hannah's last soccer game for the season but we don't know for sure. It was the third attempt at playing Waitakere, the team on top of the table. We looked to have three of our regular team away, but one came down from Whangarei just for the game. We got a goal about mid-way through the first half, but just couldn't score again. Late in the second half the other team equalised and the final score was 1-1, not a bad result really.

Straight from soccer, we went to water polo. Rory played for the U16A team against Waikato, as a bench player, but got some reasonable game time. He scored two goals, and a third was disallowed (for not crossing the line, but I have a photo that shows it did). It was very good that he scored a couple, gives him a bit of cred with the rest of the team.

Hannah had a club U14 polo training in between the games, and she spent a lot of time in goal. Not sure about that idea at all.

Then the U16B team played the U16C team, a game that was not expected to be close, and it wasn't. Not sure how many goals Rory scored, but a good five at least. Final score was 19-3.

SPORT

Auckland beat Waikato 47-26 but was struggling at times. Wellington beat Manawatu 37-7.

The Warriors managed another win against a team with a very poor win record away from home, beating the Titans 30-6.

First round of the premiership, Chelsea beat the Brummies 3-0, Man Utd had a 0-0 with lowly Reading. Liverpool beat Villa 2-1, Sunderland beat Spurs 1-0.

The New Zealand Women's soccer team lost 1-6 to the USA, who are likely contenders for the World Cup title.

MY SAD LIFE

Today is our 19th wedding anniversary. One year until the big one. Crikey. We had lunch together on Friday because Diana is working today. And no, Brett, I didn't get her any present and nor she I (to save you asking).

It was a funny week for me, being my first in the new office. The dynamic is quite different. Got a fright from a meter reader one day, a funny little African man in a red outfit popping up just behind my monitor. Not entirely sure I like it, and I suspect the school holidays are going to be diabolical because I will be exposed to considerably more noise than I was in the sleep out.

Following on from her day in the garage, Pandora spent the night in the hot water cupboard last night.

I understand Heidi and Ad are here in New Zealand at the moment from Holland. We hope to get the chance to say hello.

Rory tried to sit his test for the driving learners permit this week, and due to woeful bureaucracy and miserable service, he was not allowed to. I shan't go in to the detail as I have heard the story so often I can't bear repeating it.

Failed to mention meeting Maria last week, I think. We saw Gavin, Yana, and Maria. She was pretty boring, but babies are. And when they aren't boring they are usually crying or needing one end or other wiped.

Hannah topped her class in the speech competition last week, and has semi-finals tomorrow. Meanwhile, Rory had to prepare the opening arguments for a debate on legalising marijuana over the weekend. I shouldn't have said the homework hadn't been that bad, I was wrong.

Rory was reprimanded for "bullying" at school. This consisted of insulting some girl whilst she was not in the room. Not entirely sure that it constitutes bullying, because I suspect the victim needs to be aware of it to really count. Nevertheless, I do not approve of it. Having said that, plenty of people indulge in various forms of character assassination whilst someone is not present. I have one client, where they do it to each other all the time, it is quite bizarre.

Seems very odd that the soccer season could be over already. Usually very ready for it to be over. Not sure how I feel right now.

Our phone and internet have been down for the last 24 hours. Not happy. Current expectation is by 7pm tonight. Which is also what we were told yesterday. I love customer service.

The milestone is reached, and we all go in to recovery mode -06/08/2007

2007-08-06T08:17:00.000+12:00

I type this from my new office, from within the house, facing South.

LOCAL NEWS

The people that inflicted injuries on a three year old were concerned about being filmed in court because they fear for their lives in prison. Awful, how could the system let them risk their lives like that? I mean, a three year old wouldn't be scared when put in a drier, would they? I hope they all become the playthings of Mr and Mrs Big who are "in" with the warders.

Then, on Friday, little Nia (the three year old with a strong affinity with wet washing) died. The charge of manslaughter was added.

Controversy at the pie of the year competition when the supreme award was a vegetarian pie. The expected riots from farmers did not eventuate.

Wednesday was the 100th anniversary of the scouting movement.

News this week that office laser printers release micro particles that are worse than those released by cigarette smoke.

The Birgit Brauer murder case ended, the defendant was found to be guilty. It was then revealed he had 65 previous convictions. Not sure I agree with the withholding of the background of scumbags like that. But even more perversely, the entire population is now expected to forget this information in time for his next trial (and let's face it there is a good chance of that).

A 57 year old man found beaten to death in Foxton was also unmasked as a molesterer since he was 17. The man arrested for it pleaded not guilty.

Nasty accident when an unmarked police car hit a pole at a pedestrian crossing, felling the pole and in turn felling a pedestrian.

National Party Leader John Key spoke at their conference and made a gaffe by promising to lead the next Labour Government.

Been a bit of a fuss about country of origin of food. Many people have been particularly upset about peanut butter coming from China (which is a little odd because I understand they grow a bucket load of peanuts).

WORLD NEWS

The bridge collapse over the Mississippi river was very nasty in Minneapolis, although casualties seem to have been quite low.

The outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Surrey, England, has them all paranoid in New Zealand.

REAL SPORT

Hannah only had a Sharks game on Friday, against Rangeview, the only team in Div 1 they had not yet played. They played reasonably well, but can do better, and won 7-4. Hannah had to mark Emma, a club player who made it to the final 30 or so for National U15 girls selection (not bad for girl turning 13 this year). Hannah did very well to reduce her effectiveness and managed to score one screamer of a goal.

Soccer was postponed due to weather. Now it looks like half the team will be missing for next week.

Rory had a 16B club game, against the B-team from the club who's C-team they drew with the week before. It was a little scratchy but they won 6-4. Rory wasn't having a good day, but he worked hard.

SPORT

Hawke's Bay upset Wellington 8-6, Auckland beat BOP 41-3, Tasman beat Manawatu 33-10, Otago beat Northland 23-20, North Harbour defended the shield against Taranaki 19-13, Canterbury won 52-13 over Counties Manukau.

The Warriors drew 31-31 with the Roosters, despite playing golden goal extra time.

Manchester United beat Chelsea in the Charity Shield, 1-1 at full time, winning on penalties. This signifies the beginning of the UK football season.

MY SAD LIFE

Well, Tuesday came, Rory turned 15. The package I was tracking from UPS was stuff for his birthday, but of course he never reads these emails so he had no clue (he does receive them).

Got a couple of interesting responses about my sequence of squares, including the mathematical proof from Charles, which goes like this:
(x + 1)^2 - x^2
= (x + 1)(x + 1) - x^2
= (x^2 + 2x + 1) - x^2
= 2x + 1
= x + x + 1
= (x + 1) + x
q.e.d

I am not sure what is worse, the fact that he did it, the fact that I understand it, or the fact that one of the Dads I talk to at the pool during the week did the same thing off the top of his head on Monday night on the back of his bookmark (he is an economics professor so not entirely surprising).

We had a quiet dinner for Rory's birthday on Thursday (even though it was actually on Tuesday). Such is the state of our timetable that Hannah did not join us for the dinner, and I barely made it (Hannah had two soccer trainings on Thursday night, see below). Priya attended, and brought a cake. Nanny and Granny were also there.

Hannah and Miranda Chase trained with the Div 1 women's team on Thursday night, less than an hour after regular training. They both enjoyed it, they now want some of the equipment that the women have (like goal poles and little stepladders). Hannah scored three goals in the game at the end, she was very happy. She was also happy when she got a letter about under 13 rep trials for Soccer 2.

The cancellation of soccer gave us much more time to get things ready for the party on Saturday. Finally removed one of the desks in the sleep out and put it in the new office, along with the safe (which I have kicked about five times today so far, so it has to move), and other bits. We had a few issues around DSL and phones, and Rory did useful things like take the vacuum cleaner out there, leave it there a while, then return it (turning it on isn't required for it to have done something useful).

Saturday night was the night of the sleepover for Rory's birthday. We gave them some beer, not a huge amount, a dozen stubbies among eight kids. At one point Hannah, quite appropriately, asked "Are they drunk, or just stupid?". This was, of course, an impossible question to answer because if they were drunk they would have been drunk AND stupid, they are always stupid. At 2pm a mother arrived to remove two of them, who had not informed or asked anyone about them staying. We were woken regularly by nocturnal visitors to the bathroom (they don't actually sleep at a sleepover, you see). As previously stated, teenagers just don't come with a "silent mode".

On Sunday, we were pretty knackered, I continued to try to sort out the new office while Hannah was working on learning her speech for school. Took a break by taking a walk to Western Springs and back with Diana, Hannah ran there and walked back with us. Rory slept. Hannah delivers her speech today in the first round, she was getting a little stressed, she really didn't need to.

Some time this week, Rory will sit the theory test which makes him a learner driver. Oh god.

I really need to sort out a few things. My PC currently has 14 excel docs open, 15 word documents, five browser tabs, and 7 emails. I think I need to finish some things. Alongside this, I have already been out to Rory's room five times, I think, to get blank DVDs, my phone, hooks for cables, iPod (the battery on mine is thoroughly dead, lasts about 3 songs now), power pack for iPod (guess why), and I know I have two more things to go and get but I have forgotten what they are.

If an idiot falls in parliament, does anybody care? - 30/07/2007

2007-07-30T08:16:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

On Tuesday, a truck carrying some art for an exhibition caught fire and it was all destroyed.

Four climbers froze on Mont Blanc in a storm, one was a New Zealand woman so we heard about it a lot.

Awful story of systematic abuse of a three year old in Rotorua this week, including being hung on the washing line and put in the dryer. Four people, none of whom are the child's parents, have been charged. It's very, very weird.

Meanwhile, another Rotorua child, a baby, was admitted to Starship for similar reasons.

The relentlessly controversial David Benson-Pope (who fed tennis balls to students, etc) has lost his ministerial post in a situation where I wonder if he is actually guilty of anything (he threw a wobbly about the partner of a National Party press secretary working in a ministry, it was some git in that ministry that let her go).

The Finance Ministry blundered this week revealing information about some rules the Reserve Bank have about intervention in the currency market. The numbers were not released to the public, at least.

It is thirty years since the free music rag "Rip It Up". Couldn't ever be bothered reading it, to be honest. Reading about music is a bit like hearing about a painting in my book.

We are exporting bees to Canada, which surprises me because the varroa mite has decimated the local population. We seem to have more bumblebees than regular bees.

WORLD NEWS

England is still soggy, but starting to dry out a little.

The freed terrorist suspect Doctor in Australia has done an exclusive interview. He is very surprised a relative of his was involved in the failed terror attacks in England. Mohammed Haneef said that his family are usually more successful at what they do.

REAL SPORT

The coach of the Piranhas team retired this week so I am the coach now. They had another win, 6-4 over Rangby (a hybrid team that I won't try to explain). They have won both their games in champ round so far, which is great. Hannah's polo teams were yet again a bit shaky this week, with people still sick but numbers generally better. The Girls played St Marys and won comfortably 15-2. Then the Sharks played, against Glen Eden, which I thought we would struggle with but turned out we didn't, final score 10-1. Hannah scored a goal in both games but mostly defended.

Hannah was better for soccer, but not completely. She scored the opening goal from a free kick (same as last game). They won 4-0, same as last time they played this team.

Rory had a club game for the 16B team, but they only had six players (full complement in pool in seven). They were down 0-3, but clawed their way back and ended up levelling at 6-6, which was a gutsy effort for having no subs. Rory got one goal.

So the kids got a goal in all four of their games over the weekend.

SPORT

Russell Coutts signed up for Oracle BMW racing for the next America's Cup, so we heard a lot about that too.

The Warriors won again, this time over Newcastle Knights, 52-10. They are now in surprisingly good shape to make the playoffs.

Iraq beat Saudi Arabia 1-0 in the final of the Asian Cup (in soccer).

The rugby national provincial championship (NPC) kicked off this weekend. Auckland started slow but beat Counties 39-5, Wellington thumped Otago 68-7, Taranaki beat Tasman 29-17, Waikato beat Manuwatu 41-15, Northland drew 27-27 with North Harbour (meaning Harbour just got to hang on to the shield), Canterbury 34-3, Hawkes Bay beat Southland 41-13/

MY SAD LIFE

I continued to track my package for a few days. When it got bumped off a plane for space reasons I was very disappointed. Then it showed up that day anyway, which was very unexpected. Later I got an email telling me I had received it, which seemed superfluous somehow.

Rory's job has now increased to about four days a week, not taking huge amount of time but should be earning around $40/week. Not bad given that Cassidy and Priya often help him do it. But then they often go sell Priya's fundraising chocolate for fun, too, just to piss of some other guy selling chocolate that they don't really like.

Went to Western Springs College on school visit with Hannah on Tuesday. No idea what she thought. She doesn't give much away. We knew at least one kid in every class, often more (like four or five).

Diana's car got broken into on Tuesday morning and her cellphone was removed. Highly inconvenient and quite annoying. She was not happy that her little car was picked on, and I don't blame her.

I noticed a mathematical relationship whilst swimming on Wednesday. "While swimming?" you may ask. Well, because counting lengths is so dull, I do other things like ratios of done to undone to stem the boredom, and that night I was calculating squares of how many lengths I had left, so by the time I got to 46 I noticed a pattern. The difference between the squares of two consecutive numbers (like 46^2 and 47^2 is the two numbers added together). Not new, but fun to discover something while otherwise being utterly bored. Try it out, it is true. As for other things to do in the pool, I considered reciting elements of the periodic table but that's just sad. And counting in prime numbers is too tricky and I think I would lose count too easily.

Rory and Cassidy went under the house to run some ethernet cable for the move. They had a lovely time under there, found a bone, thought it was the remains of a person but I somehow doubt it. They took ages to get out after they were done. There was an awful lot of laughter and things from under there.

The move continues. It may sound like it is taking forever, because it is. We don't often get time for a concerted effort for a whole day, never in fact, and we are continuing to have to account for dependencies (I got power and phone installed last week, still need ethernet done and then I can finally move out). On the weekend I shifted a very small amount of stuff, mostly the focus was on installing more shelving, which took ages. As we do various items (like installing power points and shelving) we have to re-shift stuff. Some items have been moved ten times, which is just hopeless. Really looking forward to it being over.

Along with the move, there were several items of home maintenance required. Some mystery person killed the heated towel rail, tearing it off it's mountings. I found you could buy replacement ones, which I obtained (which, I would add, cost about half of the cost of a replacement unit with mountings) and installed. I also repaired the oven door (it was coming apart due to a lost screw). I am a regular handy man.

Hannah was quite unwell on Friday morning, so missed school again. She recovered sufficiently to play a low key role in polo, she didn't go in the water in the girls game until near the end of the second quarter.

Hannah had rehearsals for the show on Saturday, straight after soccer, and a club water polo muster on Sunday morning, so she's been pretty busy.

We dragged both the children out yesterday to the lake at Western Springs. Despite the usual moaning and groaning, they enjoyed themselves. Hannah and I walked home. Rory got a lift and got a start on homework.

So, tomorrow is the big day, Rory turns 15. Good grief. Once he gets his learners permit he is going to be starting driving. So not ready for that.

Message ends prematurely due to excessive tediousness.

All Blacks rescue the season, Rory leaves home (sort of) - 23/07/2007

2007-07-23T10:21:00.000+12:00

It's cold.

LOCAL NEWS

Flood of the week was in Hawke's Bay. Students were rescued by army unimog, surprisingly nobody died. Expected floods in the North did not arrive. Still no discussion of water reservoirs running low.

Bizarre incident this week, a hit and run that seemed to deliberately take out a nine year old boy. Sounded like a gangland style hit, apparently a revenge attack for the boy upsetting the driver's son.

Seven people died on our roads this weekend, largely thanks to black ice in the south. Lots of people were done for blood alcohol offences in checkpoints over the weekend (probably outside the rugby on Saturday night).

Proof of smoking being a dangerous thing when another crazed driver ploughed into a churchgoer yesterday in Auckland city as she had a quick ciggy outside the church.

Concerns that our horticulture and viticulture industries struggling for labour could be creating a gap for Asian gangs bringing in exploited workers.

Doctors are continuing with industrial action, still fairly low level.

WORLD NEWS

The Harry Potter book is now released, amongst a ridiculous amount of publicity, again.

Historic Upton Upon Severn in England is considering a name change. Record rain levels mean it is now referred to as Upton Within Severn (one word can make a big difference) and may need to change to stay in line with the trade descriptions act.

REAL SPORT

We had team photos taken on Thursday night after training. The girls insisted on putting mud under their eyes like war paint. Should be the best team photo ever. They are usually so boring.

Very long night on Friday night, seven games we were involved in. Rory played in one, Hannah in two, I coached four, was managing things in two others. Didn't really see Rory's game. Don't know about the kids but I was pretty much done by the end of it. Hannah's girls team won 10-3, mixed team had their first loss 5-6 (we were heavily depleted, beat this team by quite a lot the previous time). Rory's club team won 5-3 I think, he scored opening goal.

Soccer on Saturday was just awful. Weather was marginal, but pitch was total mud pool and we just couldn't handle it. We also had injuries and illness to deal with and one girl back after about four weeks away. Hannah got hurt in first half, was pretty worried about her, but she was okay (twisted left knee). Final score was 2-4 loss. I was just glad when it was over, I was very concerned about doing damage to the players.

SPORT

Generally a very good weekend for New Zealand teams in sport.

The All Blacks ground out a 26-12 win over the Wallabies to retain the Bledisloe and win the Tri-Nations.

The neballers lost the first game to Australia and won the second. One more to go.

The Tall Blacks beat Venezuela, making them happy.

Warriors won 26-16 over Wests Tigers.

Scott Dixon won his third Indy Car race in a row, so it catching up on the lead for the season.

MY SAD LIFE

I wasn't really very happy this week, didn't feel that unwell but every time I got up I felt like lying down again. Came right by about Thursday then completely overdid it Friday through Sunday. I am okay now.

Hannah was in girl heaven on Thursday. She took the day off to be a test subject for a hair styling exam. She was done up to the nines, and had a lovely time. Not too sure about getting time off school for it, but she was pretty happy about it. Still talked about it on Saturday.

Well, Rory finally moved his bed out to the sleepout on Friday and spent his first night in there. It is still my office as well, so it is an uneasy timeshare. Tony, Kath's Dad, was the site supervisor, assisted by me and Rory. We kept him away from ladders as we reinstated the ceiling with some insulation added. I still need cabling in the new location to take my desk out. Rory had a teacher only day at school, hence his availability. Priya came to help but I suspect she was more of a distraction for Rory than a help. Rory then "christened" the room with Cassidy on Saturday night. They came into the house "quietly" at 4:18am and woke up both me and Diana. Teenagers do simply no have a stealth mode. Over the rest of the weekend we continued to move things out. TV and xBox on Saturday. Rory announced yesterday that he is happy to "save me the bother of shifting the iPod speakers". On Sunday we moved the two whacking great shelves, which required the use of the hand truck and the removal of two doors from the hinges. It was very, very tight, I reckon less than 3mm clearance either side of doorways.

So on Sunday, Rory was in a very, very happy place. He could see his new room taking shape, and was enjoying having the music on tap without being told to turn it down (although I could actually hear it from our bedroom). It's not that he is normally depressed, he was just so utterly happy, it confirmed to us that this was probably a good idea and he is ready for it.

I got an email telling me UPS are sending me something. Over the days since, I got to watch the progress of the package on the web via Orlando Florida, Ontario California, and other places that start and end with the letter O. I am having fun tracking the package though, it is way cool. There are nine events on it now. Diana thinks I am sad. But that is not really a change.

Diana's work is about to change from mornings to three days per week. Not a huge change but frees her up for school things a bit.

We saw the Goodins on Saturday at and after soccer. They had a lovely time in South Island.

Hannah disappeared on Sunday to Woodhill Forest with her friend Josie and a home stay (from Hong Kong or Singapore, not sure which, return leg of Josie's trip over there) and climbed trees.

Rory turns fifteen in eight days, good grief.

Hear endeth the message.

Insulting Australian Prime Ministers, an intruder goes on the receiving end, pretty good weekend for sport - 16/07/2007

2007-07-16T10:18:00.000+12:00

LOCAL NEWS

Bit of a storm in a teacup when an MP from the Maori Party referred to Australian Prime Minister as a "racist bastard" over the actions to get things under control with Aborigines in Northern Territory. Funnily enough, the quote included the word "bastard" but newsreaders just said the word "racist". Perhaps they already knew he was a bastard, I don't know.

Real storm up North, took out power lines all over. Lots of people without power for days. I thought perhaps Kathryn had snuck up there as it was -5 in Invercargill when she went there, so I was expecting some causal effect.

A frail granny stabbed an intruder with his own knife, which was pretty funny. Karma in action.

Pet food is bad for you - a man died when he was crushed by three tonnes of cattle feed.

The hostages in Nigeria were freed on Thursday, so all happy there. They have since come home to visit family but will be returning.

Sad story on Saturday when a train collided with a car, killing the two parents and the 5 year old daughter survived. Not sure why they didn't see the train coming.

An old car once owned by the family of the prime minister was sold on trademe for $5815 - nearly triple what someone bought it off her father for two years ago.

Ice is cramping the style of people jet boating near Queenstown - well duh. Why would you want to even consider jet boating when the water is that cold?

A New Zealander working security in Iraq died when his truck hit a mine.

WORLD NEWS

America appears to have woken up to the problem in Iraq. GW is starting to get a hard time and they are doing the maths about withdrawal and have realised the losses won't stop until they have all got home.

In Sydney, a guy went ape in a tank-like APC and took out seven cellphone repeater stations and a power substation. Love to see video footage of that.

The Beckhams arrived in LA. Oh dear. I can't see what it will do for football.

REAL SPORT

Only one game of soccer this weekend. We were missing a key player and one of our strikers was taken out with an ankle injury ten minutes into the game. We led for most of the match but just got soft in the end and lost 2-3. Hannah scored both goals. I think she has scored seven goals this season, which is very good, definitely more than she has scored in previous years put together.

I hear Katie also scored two goals on Saturday and got POD, and their team won.

SPORT

Board sailor Barbara Kendall has qualified for the Beijing Olympics for the fifth time. The grandmother of the New Zealand Olympic movement has won gold, silver, and bronze so far.

All Blacks beat Spring Boks 33-6 but it was a dubious achievement as the boks are resting most of their first line players.

The Silver Ferns beat Jamaica twice, by about 40 then about 20 goals.

The Warriors had a win over St George Illawarra (40-16 I think).

Four New Zealand rowing teams have won gold at a meet in Lucerne.

MY SAD LIFE

Mum has had some friends from soggy Kaeo visiting because an ex-neighbour was on his way out. I knew Roy Taylor when I was a young kid, and spent a bit of time with his two sons. I think Koos actually worked with Roy for a while when he was at varsity. Anyway, Roy died on Saturday.

The second week of the holidays wasn't quite so exciting for the kids. Hannah did go to Rainbow's End on Friday and after a few changes of plan ended up catching a bus back to civilisation from Manukau through Otahuhu and Otara and finally to downtown about 6:45pm. They are back at school today. Hannah did also make dinner twice this week. The risk of Rory ever making dinner is exceedingly low.

The movement from my office to Rory's room continues. We got some new shelves up on Monday and Wednesday and started moving some cabinets in. I still need some electrical stuff to be done, no phone yet. I am not sure he will be in there by next weekend, but I hope so.

We've all been sick on and off this week, Diana was out of action for a day, the kids were both unwell for a day or two, I finally succumbed yesterday. Not sure if I have improved yet, but will do some work today because if you feel like crap and the weather is awful, you might as well go to work.

Diana was surprised and upset when her slow cooker died on Saturday. The whole bottom of the ceramic pot-thing just came off, in a surprisingly even piece. It did explain the inexplicable leakages between the heating unit and the pot.

Well, apologies for the dullness of this weeks entry.