New Zealand, it's not as safe as it used to be.

This, people, is a thief.


A flying, feathered thief.

A flying, feathered, passport stealing thief.

A shameless flying, feathered, passport stealing thief.

There are even witnesses to his crime.

While a tour bus was parked on the Milford Road recently, this flying felon whipped in and stole a passport that had been merely minding its own business in a bright coloured courier bag in the bottom compartment of the bus. Right under the nose of the driver.

However, Te Anau police have decided not to pursue an arrest or attempt to recover the passport, possibly due to the fact that the kea was last seen disappearing off into Fiordland, which is about six times the size of Samoa.

But if anyone stumbles across a passport while they're in Fiordland, there's a Scotsman who would really like it back.

"The kea's probably using it for fraudulent claims or something. I'll never look at a kea in the same way."

I fear tourism to this country is about to take a hammering.

The one about the pig.

How about that swine flu, then?

I can't even think of a title.

This all over me Irish bloggie mates' blogs this morning. When you see stories you read about personalised like this, it takes them into another league of horror.

If I think about it too hard, I might need therapy.

On Sunday my brother Sunshine arrived in town and I went out to the airport to pick him up.

'Are you limping?' Came out of my mouth before any type of greeting.

'Yeah,' he smiled as he allowed his limp to morph into a full blown hobble, 'came off my bike this morning.'

'How come?'

'Going down hill, greasy road, wheels came out from under me round a corner.'

'How fast were you going?'

'About thirty-five ks.'

'Why were you going so fast?'

'Didn't want to hold the car up behind me.'

'You're a mental.'

Ohh it was ugly, no skin on one ankle and I wanted to vomit when he showed me the damage to his thigh. Think an area the size of your palm and then think road and hitting it at thirty-five ks.

I must say my sympathy for him dwindled when he tried to gross me out with his bloodied gauze dressing, though.

Bit like the time he chased me through my bedroom with the freshly shot dead rabbit.

And the time he tormented me with duck intestines.

And the time he fractured my wrist.

And the time he was dubbing me on his bike, just after I had got home from getting my plaster off my wrist(see above), I told him not to go round the holly bush, he went round the holly bush, I put my foot into the spokes of his wheel to avoid getting scratched and ended up on crutches due to having a crushed foot.

And the time he tried to sell me. (Thank god there was no such thing as EBay when we were growing up).

I think I should stop now, otherwise I could see this turning into a very long post.

The upshot of all of this is that I am very confused come rubbish day.

Christchurch has just introduced a three-bin kerbside collection for domestic waste. The whole idea is to reduce the amount of domestic rubbish going to landfill by one third.

This means you now have to separate your rubbish into: rubbish, recycling and organics which is actually just a little tedious but, just as I got used to having to brush my teeth and put my seat belt on, I am sure it won't be too long before I will forget that it's a bit of a drag.

But the thing I can't quite get my head around is the new tag line the Council have introduced in order to launch this new system.

'Love your rubbish.'

Huh?

If I loved my rubbish, surely I wouldn't be throwing it out?

When I grow up, I want to be a digger driver.

One of my 'Stralian cousins sent me this story. (I think she's currently working out how to padlock her computer). Meet three year old Pipi Quinlan.

Cute, yes?

Well ,she is about to get a whole lot cuter (particularly if she's not your daughter).

Recently, while the rest of the family were sleeping, she got up, went to the computer and found herself on the auction website TradeMe. With a couple of well-timed clicks of the mouse, she picked herself up a $20,000 Kobelco earthmoving digger!

Genius.

Later that morning her mother discovered an email from TradeMe telling her she had won an auction and another email from the seller saying something like 'I think you'll love this digger'." Since she had a few Duplo Lego play kits on her watch-list, she'd assumed she'd won a digger toy-set.

However it didn't take too long before her and her husband worked out that their darling daughter had actually won the auction for a $20,000 digger!

Her husband's reaction? "Well you'll have to move the Honda off the driveway to make way for the Kobelco."

Needless to say, the Quinlans didn't have to front for the digger and the auction has been relisted.

But it just goes to show that the early bird bags the digger.

Giddy up, Timmy!

Independent correspondent Alan Carr was being interviewed on National Radio this morning about furore surrounding British MPs’ helping themselves to the public cookie jar.
He had this to say about the mood of the country:

'My oh my, people are hopping mad over here.'

Take that, you naughty MPs.