KEY POINTS:
An eagle-eyed reader spotted these matching motorbikes outside the Opononi Hotel. They certainly were on a lovers' road trip.
* * *
Fatima Avdic lives in Torbay and walks her dog at Long Bay beach every evening. During the holidays she has been mortified with the rubbish visitors have left behind. "It's staggering," she writes. "I am not exaggerating - it is a tragedy. On Boxing Day at 7pm, we went to the beach with two huge North Shore City Council rubbish bags. We filled them before we reached the second half of the beach. It's shocking what we have found: nappies and sanitary pads in the sea, plastic bottles, chips and chocolate wrappers, wrappers from all sorts of snacks, plastic and styrofoam plates and cups, loads of plastic bags and glass bottles. I have to say, there is a theme to the littering: it is usually child-related. Children's snacks, bottles of awful sugary drinks, nappies... Is this what we are teaching our children to do? Litter the beach, reserve and the sea? Why don't we have the wardens catch people who litter and issue fines to them? This would be a goldmine for the council."
* * *
Shayrn writes: "If anyone would like to claim their bicycle left on our back fence in Remuera following New Year's Eve celebrations, please let me know". Her phone number is 021 160 7927.
* * *
Police in Hobart, Tasmania, set up a random drink-driving checkpoint at the only carpark exit from an all-night New Year's Eve Falls Festival party. Some concert-goers were forced to queue for more than six
hours as police conducted a drink-driving blitz outside the venue, but police defended their totals of 31 drunk, 956 sober.
* * *
The story of the wooden leg caught in the train door reminded Earl McNamara of Greenlane of an incident experienced by Gene Mace, a 1960s motorcycle stuntman who had an aluminium artificial leg. "He noticed a small crack in his aluminium leg one day, and went to a friend's garage to have it welded. Rather than unstrap his leg for the small weld, they decided it was easier for him to swing his leg into the bench vice to steady it. His friend stared welding, but was interrupted by a scream of horror from a woman who had just walked into the workshop. After placating the poor woman, and assuring her that it was not some modern torture technique, the weld was finally completed."
* * *
Jack Moore of Royal Oak hopes the bloke who got his mower nicked gets it back, but doesn't like his chances. "I was picking up a replacement electric mower after having had one stolen. The agent told me another of his clients went to the back of the house to empty the catcher. When he returned to the front lawn his mower was gone. "
