It rained yesterday for the first time in about two weeks. It's raining today.
LOCAL NEWS
Massive amounts of fuss in the media this week for the return of the "unknown warrior". Not an obscure league player, but the body of an NZ soldier from Belgium from the First World War. He arrived in Wellington, laid in state for a day, and was then interred in the National War Memorial in Wellington with much ado on the 11th of the 11th (Armistice Day). People cried, he was awarded a number of medals and an RSA honour (the guy could have been a deserter or an army bureaucrat for all they know). While I guess it is a nice symbol of the sacrifice made by the few for the many, it feels very orchestrated. Interestingly, there are some I know who felt that it was an important thing to do (Peter Smith has an Uncle who never returned).
The driver that survived when Possum Bourne was killed was sentenced to 300 hours community service and a $10,000 fine.
The Kawerau College school yearbook was recalled by the head master after discovering that some of the ambitions of the students leaving school included drug dealing and motor cycle gang boss. The editorial process seemed to have been somewhat lacking.
Five drivers involved in the excessively fast motorcade driving the PM a while back have been charged with various offenses including speeding and dangerous driving. Helen's assertion that she failed to notice the speed is bollocks. They averaged 128Km/h and it was not a 100Km/h zone the whole way so they must have been going over 140 in places. You'd notice.
A fourteen year old south Auckland girl has been missing for a week.
A man was run over by the car he just bought at a car fair on Saturday. He had just handed over $2000 when the vendor tried to leave the scene in the car he had just sold to the victim. The purchaser jumped on the car and was thrown from it.
The Northerner, an overnight train from Auckland to Wellington, has taken its last ride. After 95 years it is no longer, due to competition from cheap air fares.
A battle is erupting between Dick Hubbard, the new Mayor, and the deputy Dr Bruce Hucker who seems to have got enough councillors on his side to control every committee and vote from here to election day. Things are not comfortable at the council.
Labour held their conference over the weekend, and the polls seem to be favouring them. I am not sure there has ever been a three-term Labour government.
WORLD NEWS
Yasser Arafat's passing suggests the dwarf thing failed. Meanwhile, most people want to know how come his wife was so young.
Fallujah continued to be fought over all week. They seem to have control and are just cleaning out pockets of resistance now.
REAL SPORT
Team 2 had to play Team 3 in the semi-final, the nightmare scenario as playing your mates isn't fun. Rory had some divided loyalty because he has played so many times for them and many of Team 3 will be in his team next year. Diana said Rory should play for Team 3 but he didn't want to. The kids in both teams were very excited, much more so than normal. It was never going to be pretty.
We had the A team plus Bob out there in the first quarter, and Rory scored a couple of goals. By then second quarter, we were up about 6-2 and Rory had scored the first four of them. Third quarter, Rory was off and the team struggled. Poor defence and not enough passing, Team three scored and it was 6-3. Fourth quarter, Rory came back out and we scored four more times, final score 10-3. Rory got six goals, and at least three assists. He missed one sitter, but was devastating otherwise, possibly the best game he's played. Chloe got 3, David 1. He looked very good out there. Not that he was under any pressure, he had a lot of family there watching (Sarah, Nanny, and Granny all came as well as the rest of us). Diana was absolutely stoked, we all were, but very pleased to see him show what he can do, and that the training pays off (he has either played, trained, or swum every day for the last three weeks now).
We have the final this coming Friday and his development squad plays a game tonight against the B team from our own club (he is in the C team). Got news last Monday that we have a tournament on the 5th in bloody Tauranga.
SPORT
The ABs beat Italy 59-10. Not sure anyone cares.
Australia beat NZ 54-49 in the netball, reversing the results of the clean sweep earlier in the year.
NSW was all over the Black Caps in a warm up cricket match, not a good sign. First test starts on Thursday.
Arsenal beat Spurs 5-4 in what must have been a heck of a game to watch. Chelsea won 4-1 over Fulham, Liverpool beat Crystal Palace 3-2. Man Utd beat Newcastle 3-1.
MY SAD LIFE
Wednesday night, after dancing, Hannah came to the pool with Rory and I. Rory set a new personal best by swimming sixty lengths (1500m), I swam 40 lengths (1000m), and Hannah (who's previous best was 12) did 32 lengths (800m). We were all knackered but happy. Sunday afternoon, we went again, and did even more. Rory did 80 lengths, Hannah and I did 50. Given that Hannah is only swimming twice a week she is doing very well, she can be quite determined.
Both the kids had athletics at school, neither qualified for inter-school but both did pretty well. Hannah made the 200m final, Rory came fifth in the 100m final (I saw him race in a heat and he did it in 13.59 seconds, which is pretty quick but not sure how credible the timekeeping was).
Friday afternoon, I picked the kids up about an hour early from school, along with Rory's friend Jared (all supplied teachers with notes) and took them to Big Boys Toys to see the Honda Asimo walking robot. We also played with automatic weapons, a bazooka, the kids sat in the driver's seat of an armoured car, we played Halo 2, and scored the usual selection of stickers, posters, and condoms (remember the time we went, Koos?). Not only was it fun, but it was really fun because they missed school for some of it which made it even better. Naughty, I know, but the kids have been working hard and it was a good treat for them. It is really busy on the weekend and a weekday is heaps better.
It was Caitlin, Nanny, and Helen J's birthday on Saturday. It's Allan's birthday today, and Emma turns 18 tomorrow.
We saw lots of people over the weekend, it was quite social - in between the homework. Rory had to finish a maths (vaguely) thing on designing an apartment block. Rather than let him make futile sketches the size of a large postage stamp on grid paper for hours (he did a couple) the family constructed it from Lego. I suspect his work will be over the top, but we shall see. When we hauled it to school, the kids in his class seemed to make the right noises, while we saw a number coming to school with an A3 coloured piece of paper.
The Goodins don't have enough to fill their empty lives so they are tidying the house for sale, listed on Friday.
Oh well, just back from a walk, we got rained on a little, better do some real work now.
15 November 2004
8 November 2004
Holmes leaves TVNZ and Koos appears on the radar - 08/11/04
I have to say that stories of woe involving greed seemed to dominate this week.
LOCAL NEWS
The Melbourne Cup was Tuesday. The only day a year that zillions of Australasians give a toss about horse racing. I still didn't. Didn't watch it, didn't join a syndicate. The Goodins went to it. It rained.
The huge news locally this week is that Paul Holmes has left TVNZ after 15 years there. He has gone to Prime for more money (now $1m a year, although nobody can be sure how Prime can afford him). The great news is that TVNZ has lost their most expensive person, and maybe they will realise he wasn't the reason for the ratings. He has become a self-indulgent continuity announcer and it was time he moved on. It will be interesting to see if Prime get higher ratings when he starts in the new year, I have doubts. TV3 are making noises about having a go at the timeslot, which they have largely ignored since they started (they originally ran "The Golden Girls" every weeknight, with expected results, then tried "Hogan's Heroes", currently it is the Simpsons.) They stopped just short of not transmitting at all from 7-7:30 weekdays.
Following on from Holmes departing, Martin Devlin moved from Radio Sport to Radio Pacific (the station I do my thing on). I think he was probably disappointed with the coverage he received compared to Holmes.
Really nasty incident on Northwestern Motorway near here on Wednesday. A guy stopped his car on the side of the motorway then hid behind the bonnet of the car. He then stepped out in front of an oncoming truck. It was pretty clearly deliberate, but a pretty inconsiderate way to do it. Police found a dead 4yo boy in the car, later it became a girl. It was a truck from Gavin's work that hit him, the driver was not a happy camper. Adding to it all, the motorway was closed until around 8:30pm, disrupting all traffic. The overflow affected roads all around, and made it very difficult to get anywhere (it took Diana half an hour to get about four kilometres on way home from dancing with Hannah, then Rory and I had to go along all sorts of back roads to get to the swimming pool in Mt Albert).
A local lawyer is among a select group of depressingly greedy morons that got entangled in an example of the dreaded Nigerian Scam via some dear old lady who thought she was bona fide. He lost $400,000 in a bad property development project so decided to invest another $1.2million in an effort to recoup his losses. Clearly, he had never heard of the concept of throwing good money after bad. Part of me thinks they don't deserve to be named, because of the amount of public humiliation they would suffer, another part wants to know so I don't end up engaging such an obviously thick lawyer. Greed is an interesting thing, isn't it.
More dodgy dealings from John Tamihere this week, including an interest-free loan of $100,000 which was later forgiven. There seems to be an extensive laundry list of exceedingly marginal, if not strictly illegal, events where he got financial advantage from the Waiparera Trust. I think he has blown it big time and should be ejected from Parliament. You cannot do anything where there is any scope of fraudulent activity or tax evasion and expect to be an elected representative of the people.
And again, another example, this time for former personality Matthew Ridge. For the second time, a property development company of his has gone into liquidation, owing about half a million dollars. People have done things for him personally, or for another of his companies, but because the invoice is made out to the liquidated company they dip out. He revealed his true colours when he left Manly for the Warriors in the Super League days and didn't care about the contract, he felt it was enough that he would get more money at the Warriors so he just left. Selfish and with little regard for ethics and the law.
A man was found dead on Narrowneck Beach near Takapuna after fireworks festivities. They reckon he fell out of a tree. Another man died in guy fawkes celebrations in Wanganui, I don't think it has ever been quite this fatal.
A 22yo disqualified driver died when he tried to evade police but failed to evade a traffic island whilst not wearing a seat belt so he didn't evade the effects of gravity either.
WORLD NEWS
Ohio didn't want Kerry, so America didn't get him. This has been the best publicity for the state in many years.
Yasser Arafat is not in good shape, and has been in and out of a coma and according to some brain dead. If the brain dead part were true, he should have had a meeting with GW, they would have been well matched. There has been little news for a couple of days. I wonder if they are hollowing him out for a dwarf and a miracle recovery.
Big nasty train crash in the UK when a high speed train hit a car. Sounds like the driver was like our man on the Northwestern Motorway, and wasn't bothered about hurting other people or killing five others.
The murder of Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands could mean a backlash against Muslims (it was a Muslim that did it). He was a descendant of Vincent, and a film-maker.
REAL SPORT
No water polo this week, but Rory has been swimming every day (now 14 days in a row, although he swam twice on Saturday the second time was just fun). I did 26 lengths yesterday, which was good. Felt I could do more, so I am improving. Rory's Team 2 has a semi-final this Friday, we don't know who they are playing yet.
SPORT
Black Caps looked to be blowing the first ODI against Bangladesh (94/5) then Cairns stepped up and made 70-odd quick runs and got New Zealand to 224. Bangladesh were all out for 86 after Kyle Mills took four early wickets. They struggled to get a small total (146) in the second match, but got there with a couple of overs to spare. The won the third and final one last night without too much bother, scoring 250 and the Bangladeshis got 167.
India managed to get Australia all out for 93 in their second innings in Mumbai to win the last test, but still lost the series 1-2.
Fulham beat Newcastle 4-1, how the mighty have fallen. Arsenal drew with Crystal Palace and Aston Villa are looking good. Man Utd drew 0-0 with Man City and got a man red carded in the 89th minute.
Kiwis were leading Great Britain 12-2 at half-time but managed to lose the tri-nations league test.
MY SAD LIFE
I finally got a new toner cartridge for my laser. You have no idea how happy that made me, I have been out for about a month and couldn't get one anywhere. Pathetic, isn't it. I've printed about three pages since.
My friend Barbara, who I mentioned a while back, is still recovering from her bout of illness. She shifted into Rehab Plus on Wednesday, where Judy went whilst getting over her back operation. It's just down the road from us. It was funny going there, it is very familiar to me.
Hannah got her Jazz result and was disappointed. She does well but wants high honours every time. She did as well as her friends, but that was not enough.
Jim, the guy next door that gets on very well with Pandora, had a burst pipe in his ceiling during the week. The next night, after a day of running dehumidifiers and things, the entire ceiling in the lounge and dining area collapsed. His house was a real mess, and will be for a while.
The trailer for the new star wars movie came out this week. I was asked to do an interview about it but refused.
We managed three walks this week, which was good. Twice we stopped at the lake and walked around three times on the way home from dropping off Rory. Somehow, being dropped off by two parents is exceedingly embarrassing, compared to only one being in the car. The concept that the parents have a life and are on their way somewhere is secondary to the fact that it somehow appears that he needs two parents to get him safely to school.
I actually heard from Koos (after hearing from both Peter and Heidi). Peter supplied a confirmed Koos sighting. Heidi wonders if he thinks she is still eating puffins in Greenland. Koos supplied less information than Peter, but at least I know he does continue to exist. He even rang last night and we had a chat.
Allan is back from Columbus, Ohio. He went to a big air force museum where they have a number of old "Air Force One" aircraft (he didn't realise there had been so many, neither did I). Apparently it is close to where the Wright Brothers flew (them being the first to fly, not Richard Pearse).
We went to a little do for Kath's birthday on Saturday night. It was interesting seeing the older kids, four of them aged 12-13, that stuck together like glue. Hannah didn't come, she was at a sleepover. They went down to the soccer club for a while. They are all starting to assert their independence, it is interesting to observe the changes in behaviour. At one point they were all mooching around the tv watching "transformers", a little later I noticed with was Thomas (6) and Fletcher (3) and Rory was still there watching. I made a little gesture and he looked around and realised they had all left and he hadn't noticed, he disappeared quickly.
It is Kathryn's birthday today.
Better go, have to play with my new notebook.
LOCAL NEWS
The Melbourne Cup was Tuesday. The only day a year that zillions of Australasians give a toss about horse racing. I still didn't. Didn't watch it, didn't join a syndicate. The Goodins went to it. It rained.
The huge news locally this week is that Paul Holmes has left TVNZ after 15 years there. He has gone to Prime for more money (now $1m a year, although nobody can be sure how Prime can afford him). The great news is that TVNZ has lost their most expensive person, and maybe they will realise he wasn't the reason for the ratings. He has become a self-indulgent continuity announcer and it was time he moved on. It will be interesting to see if Prime get higher ratings when he starts in the new year, I have doubts. TV3 are making noises about having a go at the timeslot, which they have largely ignored since they started (they originally ran "The Golden Girls" every weeknight, with expected results, then tried "Hogan's Heroes", currently it is the Simpsons.) They stopped just short of not transmitting at all from 7-7:30 weekdays.
Following on from Holmes departing, Martin Devlin moved from Radio Sport to Radio Pacific (the station I do my thing on). I think he was probably disappointed with the coverage he received compared to Holmes.
Really nasty incident on Northwestern Motorway near here on Wednesday. A guy stopped his car on the side of the motorway then hid behind the bonnet of the car. He then stepped out in front of an oncoming truck. It was pretty clearly deliberate, but a pretty inconsiderate way to do it. Police found a dead 4yo boy in the car, later it became a girl. It was a truck from Gavin's work that hit him, the driver was not a happy camper. Adding to it all, the motorway was closed until around 8:30pm, disrupting all traffic. The overflow affected roads all around, and made it very difficult to get anywhere (it took Diana half an hour to get about four kilometres on way home from dancing with Hannah, then Rory and I had to go along all sorts of back roads to get to the swimming pool in Mt Albert).
A local lawyer is among a select group of depressingly greedy morons that got entangled in an example of the dreaded Nigerian Scam via some dear old lady who thought she was bona fide. He lost $400,000 in a bad property development project so decided to invest another $1.2million in an effort to recoup his losses. Clearly, he had never heard of the concept of throwing good money after bad. Part of me thinks they don't deserve to be named, because of the amount of public humiliation they would suffer, another part wants to know so I don't end up engaging such an obviously thick lawyer. Greed is an interesting thing, isn't it.
More dodgy dealings from John Tamihere this week, including an interest-free loan of $100,000 which was later forgiven. There seems to be an extensive laundry list of exceedingly marginal, if not strictly illegal, events where he got financial advantage from the Waiparera Trust. I think he has blown it big time and should be ejected from Parliament. You cannot do anything where there is any scope of fraudulent activity or tax evasion and expect to be an elected representative of the people.
And again, another example, this time for former personality Matthew Ridge. For the second time, a property development company of his has gone into liquidation, owing about half a million dollars. People have done things for him personally, or for another of his companies, but because the invoice is made out to the liquidated company they dip out. He revealed his true colours when he left Manly for the Warriors in the Super League days and didn't care about the contract, he felt it was enough that he would get more money at the Warriors so he just left. Selfish and with little regard for ethics and the law.
A man was found dead on Narrowneck Beach near Takapuna after fireworks festivities. They reckon he fell out of a tree. Another man died in guy fawkes celebrations in Wanganui, I don't think it has ever been quite this fatal.
A 22yo disqualified driver died when he tried to evade police but failed to evade a traffic island whilst not wearing a seat belt so he didn't evade the effects of gravity either.
WORLD NEWS
Ohio didn't want Kerry, so America didn't get him. This has been the best publicity for the state in many years.
Yasser Arafat is not in good shape, and has been in and out of a coma and according to some brain dead. If the brain dead part were true, he should have had a meeting with GW, they would have been well matched. There has been little news for a couple of days. I wonder if they are hollowing him out for a dwarf and a miracle recovery.
Big nasty train crash in the UK when a high speed train hit a car. Sounds like the driver was like our man on the Northwestern Motorway, and wasn't bothered about hurting other people or killing five others.
The murder of Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands could mean a backlash against Muslims (it was a Muslim that did it). He was a descendant of Vincent, and a film-maker.
REAL SPORT
No water polo this week, but Rory has been swimming every day (now 14 days in a row, although he swam twice on Saturday the second time was just fun). I did 26 lengths yesterday, which was good. Felt I could do more, so I am improving. Rory's Team 2 has a semi-final this Friday, we don't know who they are playing yet.
SPORT
Black Caps looked to be blowing the first ODI against Bangladesh (94/5) then Cairns stepped up and made 70-odd quick runs and got New Zealand to 224. Bangladesh were all out for 86 after Kyle Mills took four early wickets. They struggled to get a small total (146) in the second match, but got there with a couple of overs to spare. The won the third and final one last night without too much bother, scoring 250 and the Bangladeshis got 167.
India managed to get Australia all out for 93 in their second innings in Mumbai to win the last test, but still lost the series 1-2.
Fulham beat Newcastle 4-1, how the mighty have fallen. Arsenal drew with Crystal Palace and Aston Villa are looking good. Man Utd drew 0-0 with Man City and got a man red carded in the 89th minute.
Kiwis were leading Great Britain 12-2 at half-time but managed to lose the tri-nations league test.
MY SAD LIFE
I finally got a new toner cartridge for my laser. You have no idea how happy that made me, I have been out for about a month and couldn't get one anywhere. Pathetic, isn't it. I've printed about three pages since.
My friend Barbara, who I mentioned a while back, is still recovering from her bout of illness. She shifted into Rehab Plus on Wednesday, where Judy went whilst getting over her back operation. It's just down the road from us. It was funny going there, it is very familiar to me.
Hannah got her Jazz result and was disappointed. She does well but wants high honours every time. She did as well as her friends, but that was not enough.
Jim, the guy next door that gets on very well with Pandora, had a burst pipe in his ceiling during the week. The next night, after a day of running dehumidifiers and things, the entire ceiling in the lounge and dining area collapsed. His house was a real mess, and will be for a while.
The trailer for the new star wars movie came out this week. I was asked to do an interview about it but refused.
We managed three walks this week, which was good. Twice we stopped at the lake and walked around three times on the way home from dropping off Rory. Somehow, being dropped off by two parents is exceedingly embarrassing, compared to only one being in the car. The concept that the parents have a life and are on their way somewhere is secondary to the fact that it somehow appears that he needs two parents to get him safely to school.
I actually heard from Koos (after hearing from both Peter and Heidi). Peter supplied a confirmed Koos sighting. Heidi wonders if he thinks she is still eating puffins in Greenland. Koos supplied less information than Peter, but at least I know he does continue to exist. He even rang last night and we had a chat.
Allan is back from Columbus, Ohio. He went to a big air force museum where they have a number of old "Air Force One" aircraft (he didn't realise there had been so many, neither did I). Apparently it is close to where the Wright Brothers flew (them being the first to fly, not Richard Pearse).
We went to a little do for Kath's birthday on Saturday night. It was interesting seeing the older kids, four of them aged 12-13, that stuck together like glue. Hannah didn't come, she was at a sleepover. They went down to the soccer club for a while. They are all starting to assert their independence, it is interesting to observe the changes in behaviour. At one point they were all mooching around the tv watching "transformers", a little later I noticed with was Thomas (6) and Fletcher (3) and Rory was still there watching. I made a little gesture and he looked around and realised they had all left and he hadn't noticed, he disappeared quickly.
It is Kathryn's birthday today.
Better go, have to play with my new notebook.
1 November 2004
And the winner is..... - 01/11/04
Nothing too exciting happening this week.
LOCAL NEWS
The Auckland Council has tested dirt in various locations and determined that soil in parts of Panmure, Avondale, and other places are contaminated with chemicals from the days when there was market gardening done in the area. This worries me. Market gardening, where they grow fruit and vegetables for us to buy, makes the soil dangerous to grow fruit and vegetables in?
Two muslim women continue to argue about whether they can give evidence in court in their burqas. Winston Peters came out with something like "if they don't like it, they should go somewhere that accepts that as the norm." in his typically sensitive anti-immigration way. Then Diana said pretty much the same thing to me. To a certain extent, I must agree. You can't have a covered face in a passport or driver's license photo, and you can't enter a country with a paper bag over your head, so it isn't unreasonable that you uncover when giving evidence in court (otherwise, how does one know who is testifying?).
It was children's day yesterday, as well as hallowe'en. I think any day where they get to walk around the neighbourhood and score lollies is a children's day.
Les Mills, 15 year old grandson of the former Auckland mayor of the same name, was carjacked in Herne Bay. It isn't something that we associate with New Zealand, but I don't think we can consider it a problem yet. News of it will probably encourage some copycats.
A woman had her leg broken by a piece of number 8 wire that flew out of a lawn mower as her husband was mowing the lawn. The guy must have known something was wrong with the mower.
There are the usual spate of fires surrounding guy fawkes and the fact that fireworks went on sale during the week. I hate them.
WORLD NEWS
The election in the US finishes this week, we hope. It's gone on far too long. I wish the American people would see sense and elect Ralph Nader. I have to say that it is looking like Bush will stay there, but can't say that Kerry appears to be much better.
The big battle is about to commence in Fallujah. It has been coming for a while.
REAL SPORT
As expected, Team 2 did pretty well on Friday night in the quarter final against Bruce McLaren 2. We had the A squad plus Bob on in first quarter and led about six nil. Rory, Sam, and David were all playing well and they just unstitched them. Final score 16-0. No idea how many Rory scored but at least three. Rory then helped out with Team 3, again, who won 10-6. Team 3 actually plays with some smarter tactics than Team 2, but they need to as they are generally a weaker team. I don't know if Team 2 will play Team 3, don't know who they play next, it isn't for two weeks. Rory played three quarters in both games, so he was happy. Only two Friday night water polo games left(then a tournament).
We drove to Tauranga for Rory's first game for the under 14C team. We really didn't expect to win, as they are barely aware of each others names. They lost 1-5, but it wasn't too bad, 0-2 in first quarter, 1-1 in second, and 0-1 in third and fourth. I just hope the next game is closer to home.
SPORT
The second test between New Zealand and Bangladesh was another walkover. Stephen Fleming is now New Zealands most capped test cricketer, has scored more centuries (8, compare that to the average Aussie batsman), and scored more runs than any other New Zealander (about 5,500, again compare that to the Aussies).
Australia beat India in the third test to take the series 2-0, first time they have done that in India in a long time.
All Black touring squad was named Tuesday, Super 12 squads named Friday, why do people give a toss?
Man Utd lost 2-0 to Portsmouth, how could they. Arsenal nearly lost to Southampton but equalised in the 90th. Chelsea won, Liverpool drew 2-2 with Blackburn.
The ballot for tickets to games in next year's Lions Tour opens today. Chances of getting tickets are pretty slim. I wonder if some are entering the ballot with a view to scalping the tickets.
MY SAD LIFE
Diana and I actually managed to go for a walk on Thursday morning. It was good, we fed lots of ducks, geese, and swans (but only those with babies). The geese hissed at us but interestingly would not eat the bread, letting their babies eat first (neither the ducks nor swans saw the need to make any sacrifice). I think more highly of geese now.
Hannah is the only year 5 with a bunch of year 6s performing in a hip-hop thing for the end of the term at school, she is very pleased.
Gavin's Fire Fighting interview was supposed to be today, but they cruelly postponed it to Friday. Cruel, because he was ready to do it today, and because told him on Sunday morning and woke him up when they called. There were no fires the night he spent at the Fire Station.
Rory's enthusiasm for swimming (because of water polo) has meant that I have started going with him to the pool to swim. Hannah came along yesterday. Rory did forty lengths, I did twenty, Hannah did twelve. We had a lane to ourselves (the advantage of being a group on our own). I have been to a pool every day for the last week (but only swum twice myself). I will probably go swimming tonight at training as well.
As the local children visited for Hallowe'en we gave out the garlic jelly beans and some of the other flavours (grass, sardine, etc). This is the first time our kids haven't gone trick or treating for a long time. I think they have largely grown out of it (they only do it for the lollies, not really surprising). I suggested they say "No, trick AND treat" as they hand them out.
Rory's homework load seems to be back to normal, after a week or two of low pressure it's back up there. It seems to dominate any spare time he (and we) have. He is getting better at getting it done, but still takes too long.
I have resorted to talking to Johan to find out what Koos is up to. I bumped into him at water polo practice on Thursday night and had a good chat. I assume Koos has changed his email address or that he can't find his keyboard.
Work has been weird, mostly quite busy.
LOCAL NEWS
The Auckland Council has tested dirt in various locations and determined that soil in parts of Panmure, Avondale, and other places are contaminated with chemicals from the days when there was market gardening done in the area. This worries me. Market gardening, where they grow fruit and vegetables for us to buy, makes the soil dangerous to grow fruit and vegetables in?
Two muslim women continue to argue about whether they can give evidence in court in their burqas. Winston Peters came out with something like "if they don't like it, they should go somewhere that accepts that as the norm." in his typically sensitive anti-immigration way. Then Diana said pretty much the same thing to me. To a certain extent, I must agree. You can't have a covered face in a passport or driver's license photo, and you can't enter a country with a paper bag over your head, so it isn't unreasonable that you uncover when giving evidence in court (otherwise, how does one know who is testifying?).
It was children's day yesterday, as well as hallowe'en. I think any day where they get to walk around the neighbourhood and score lollies is a children's day.
Les Mills, 15 year old grandson of the former Auckland mayor of the same name, was carjacked in Herne Bay. It isn't something that we associate with New Zealand, but I don't think we can consider it a problem yet. News of it will probably encourage some copycats.
A woman had her leg broken by a piece of number 8 wire that flew out of a lawn mower as her husband was mowing the lawn. The guy must have known something was wrong with the mower.
There are the usual spate of fires surrounding guy fawkes and the fact that fireworks went on sale during the week. I hate them.
WORLD NEWS
The election in the US finishes this week, we hope. It's gone on far too long. I wish the American people would see sense and elect Ralph Nader. I have to say that it is looking like Bush will stay there, but can't say that Kerry appears to be much better.
The big battle is about to commence in Fallujah. It has been coming for a while.
REAL SPORT
As expected, Team 2 did pretty well on Friday night in the quarter final against Bruce McLaren 2. We had the A squad plus Bob on in first quarter and led about six nil. Rory, Sam, and David were all playing well and they just unstitched them. Final score 16-0. No idea how many Rory scored but at least three. Rory then helped out with Team 3, again, who won 10-6. Team 3 actually plays with some smarter tactics than Team 2, but they need to as they are generally a weaker team. I don't know if Team 2 will play Team 3, don't know who they play next, it isn't for two weeks. Rory played three quarters in both games, so he was happy. Only two Friday night water polo games left(then a tournament).
We drove to Tauranga for Rory's first game for the under 14C team. We really didn't expect to win, as they are barely aware of each others names. They lost 1-5, but it wasn't too bad, 0-2 in first quarter, 1-1 in second, and 0-1 in third and fourth. I just hope the next game is closer to home.
SPORT
The second test between New Zealand and Bangladesh was another walkover. Stephen Fleming is now New Zealands most capped test cricketer, has scored more centuries (8, compare that to the average Aussie batsman), and scored more runs than any other New Zealander (about 5,500, again compare that to the Aussies).
Australia beat India in the third test to take the series 2-0, first time they have done that in India in a long time.
All Black touring squad was named Tuesday, Super 12 squads named Friday, why do people give a toss?
Man Utd lost 2-0 to Portsmouth, how could they. Arsenal nearly lost to Southampton but equalised in the 90th. Chelsea won, Liverpool drew 2-2 with Blackburn.
The ballot for tickets to games in next year's Lions Tour opens today. Chances of getting tickets are pretty slim. I wonder if some are entering the ballot with a view to scalping the tickets.
MY SAD LIFE
Diana and I actually managed to go for a walk on Thursday morning. It was good, we fed lots of ducks, geese, and swans (but only those with babies). The geese hissed at us but interestingly would not eat the bread, letting their babies eat first (neither the ducks nor swans saw the need to make any sacrifice). I think more highly of geese now.
Hannah is the only year 5 with a bunch of year 6s performing in a hip-hop thing for the end of the term at school, she is very pleased.
Gavin's Fire Fighting interview was supposed to be today, but they cruelly postponed it to Friday. Cruel, because he was ready to do it today, and because told him on Sunday morning and woke him up when they called. There were no fires the night he spent at the Fire Station.
Rory's enthusiasm for swimming (because of water polo) has meant that I have started going with him to the pool to swim. Hannah came along yesterday. Rory did forty lengths, I did twenty, Hannah did twelve. We had a lane to ourselves (the advantage of being a group on our own). I have been to a pool every day for the last week (but only swum twice myself). I will probably go swimming tonight at training as well.
As the local children visited for Hallowe'en we gave out the garlic jelly beans and some of the other flavours (grass, sardine, etc). This is the first time our kids haven't gone trick or treating for a long time. I think they have largely grown out of it (they only do it for the lollies, not really surprising). I suggested they say "No, trick AND treat" as they hand them out.
Rory's homework load seems to be back to normal, after a week or two of low pressure it's back up there. It seems to dominate any spare time he (and we) have. He is getting better at getting it done, but still takes too long.
I have resorted to talking to Johan to find out what Koos is up to. I bumped into him at water polo practice on Thursday night and had a good chat. I assume Koos has changed his email address or that he can't find his keyboard.
Work has been weird, mostly quite busy.
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