Greg Dixon's weekend

A DIVING CATCH AT SILLY MID-SENTENCE - Personally I call it an abrogation of a man's responsibilities, but for some reason Weekend Herald news editor Mark Fryer takes perverse pride in his encyclopaedic ignorance of sporting matters. Round ball, oval ball, whatever the game he's like a Harvey Norman sales pitch - no interest whatsoever. On a trip to India last week, our man spent a while chatting over dinner to an affable Australian - some joker by the name of Steve. Just as Fryer opened his mouth to ask "and what do you do for a living?" the sport-free zone that is his brain ground into action and saved him from utter humiliation with the realisation that he was speaking to a Mr Stephen Waugh, the bloke made Australian of the Year for being a bit handy at cricket. No such doubts from the Indians, though. Even the jaded security men at Mumbai airport were queuing up for the privilege of checking the great man's passport.

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SPACE, THE FINAL TREATY CLAIM - Of course I knew it all along because unlike you, you ignorant cuss, I've read the largely unknown Secret Protocols of The Elders Of the Treaty of Waitangi. This was why it came as no surprise whatsoever to me that a group of Bay Of Plenty Maori this week told MPs at the foreshore and seabed hearings that they would be claiming the air space above their land up to, and including, the end of the universe. Tuhoi, boldly going where only Captain Kirk and other space cadets have been before.

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PRIZE BOOZE-HOUNDS - Here's the trouble with awards ceremonies: they're held by bores and attended by bores so that bores can win things and have something to bore other bores about for the next 12 months. But next Friday's Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA) awards knees-up, to be hosted by Mary Lambie (right), will clearly be as Bacchanalian as it is boring. Said an ASPA spokesperson via press release: "This is the first year we've actually drummed up enough cash for an awards ceremony, so we're hoping Lambie will get trolleyed with us to celebrate". Perhaps they should change the association's name to Aspiring Soaks, Pissheads and Alkies.

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THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES - So Paul Holmes' grooming and clothing allowance is a state secret, eh. But why would TVNZ pay its highest-grossing employee a gladrags stipend anyway? Because the state broadcaster is so hard-wired for profligate spending that it's a confused bag of largesse?

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