Grave humour
After the Australian ran a demeaning description in the obituary of author Colleen McCullough (Thornbirds) saying though she was "plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was nevertheless a woman of wit and warmth", Twitter users mocked it with their own obits featuring the hash tag #myozobituary. Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, offered: "In spite of being a girlie & writing a book about chocolate, managed to be quite stroppy & piss a whole bunch of people off." Writer Benjamin Law tweeted his own: "Despite a forehead like a solar panel and hair mown by the blind, Benjamin Law had basic literacy and dabbled in social media." Labour's Deborah Russell joined in: "Short of leg and distressingly devoted to tax, she nevertheless baked a good batch of muffins". One News reporter Katie Bradford had a goodie too: "With a face for radio and a voice for print, she worked hard to forge her own career only to always be compared to her mother".
Missing plums, theory 1:
"I'm going with possums," writes a reader. "I know you say there's no evidence of animal droppings, but still ... I had a pet possum when I was a child (I know, I know, it's illegal, but this was the 1970s in the wops of the South Island, and it was an awesome pet, but as it got older it started to figure out it was actually nocturnal and was less fun, but I digress) and you would not believe the amount of fruit it could put away. We used to sit it on top of the compost bucket at the beginning of the evening, and it would sit there and happily eat its way down; at the end of the evening the compost would be only half full, and there'd be a happy possum with a big puku sitting on the top. And the compost bucket would not be full of possum droppings either".
Missing plums, theory 2:
"We have finally tracked down the paranormal plum thief at our block on the Kaeo flood plain," writes Rachel. "We have an orchard that used to produce bumper fruit crops until four years ago. The fruit would set, grow and just as the fruit would become ready to pick it would disappear. No evidence of birds or possums visiting. Convinced we were part of a fruit gangland 'pick and run' syndicate, the next summer my husband set up a motion-activated camera. Our mystery was solved - a family of smart pukekos that pick the fruit by the stalks so they can carry the fruit away into an adjoining paddock, leaving no evidence of their thievery".
Labour's Kelvin Davis and Jeff Tracy from Thunderbirds.
