h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3549813&thesection=news&thesubsection=general

Is everyone OK?

Everything's great if you live at higher altitudes or down south. My cousin missed work but in some places it was really bad. The weather is easing off now.

When DaSilva gets his act togeather he can answer this like this himself

There was a very brief news item here on telly...nothing on BBCi that I could find, hence trawled for the Herald story. And I know we have a few NZ researchers here...you're safe from this then?

Yep, I don't know of any researchers in affected areas except Jesse who I haven't seen online in a very long time.

Yes, thankfully, we live in Auckland, and all we had was *heavy* rain... My niece has sent me photos of the Hutt River, and why she didn't go to work, and the Herald and the TV News have been full of photos.
I talked to the landlord about *finally* pruning all the massive trees that surround our house. An 18 year old woman was nearly killed the other day in the storm when a tree fell on her house, and smashed her bedroom - she was in hospital with head injuries, last I heard.

I was wrong about the weather . Those poor people - there are two more bouts comming according to TV3 news.

It's another one of our biennial 'Hundred Year' floods .

The Pink Ferret U239959 is in Palmie I think. They've written the scary stuff in their journal.

It's fine in the South Island, although I gather the top of the South got a bit of rain. Wouldn't be surprised if the West Coast got a bit too, but that'd be normal for them. Haven't seen the news or weather forecast for ages.

Home is a mess outside. My telephone line is laying accross my driveway.

Why do I have an avove ground line in the first place? Geothermal areas tend to have pockets of sulphuric acid underground. On the bright side Rotorua is the highest city in NZ above sea level and I live halfway up a hill.

We've been lucky in Auckland. We've just had a bout of torrential rain, accompanying *blue sky* - what's that about? We had high winds, one of the flagpoles on the Harbour Bridge has come down amidst traffic, on the North Shore a girl is in hospital after a tree crashed through her bedroom ceiling and hit her on the head.
My niece Annjanette in Wellington hasn't been to work for 2 days, cos the motorway she has to drive along has been flooded. She was hurt the other day, in the flooding, she didn't go into detail - but I think it was minor ("hip, wrist and ankle")
Sorry to hear about your phone line, Wraith. Are you at work, and is Megan waiting at home for Telecom? We've had phone lines down in Auckland - thank God not ours...)

Megan is here at work. 'Year 2' nursing started on Tuesday.

Do you live within a decent distance of work? Nettie is chafing, because she *wants* to go to work, even though it's Normans and she is leaving soon. (Leaving today, in fact, I think. That's it, the leaving party...) Poor woman lives miles away.
Hey, we have shine!

It's a fifteen to 20 minute walk on the other side of a golf course. Here it's sunny too. sun - rain - sun - rain. I'm wearing sunblock and carrying my sunglases.

I have my sunnies in the pocket on my raincoat. (I left my Hello Kitty umbrella at home, which I might later regret, cos we've got the sun-rain-sun-rain thing happening to.)

Has everything calmed down now? Back to normal?

The south got a bit of a battering this week - 180km/hr winds

Oh and Don Brash has risen significantly in the polls by playing the race card. But in the long run that's probably a storm in a teacup.

Unfortunately, the weather people say there's another lot coming this weekend. It remains to be seen, but it's been wet and windy here in Auckland since about 1700 hrs NZ Time...

Good news: Meridian, the State owned energy company that was trying to get permission to build yet another massive hydroelectric dam on one of our rivers, has suddenly announced it's decision to not go ahead with the project. There had been widespread objection to the project because of the damage to the river ecology as well as displacement of local people and issues to do with irrigation rights.


Bad news: Pre-eminent and well repected New Zealand historian Michael King and his wife have been killed in a car crash yesterday. King wrote widely about both Maori and Pakeha, and had a wonderful and rare ability to both acknowledge and support Maori cultures as well as encourage Pakeha to not feel diminished by this and to recognise and honour their own cultures.



Both are very shocking pieces of news.

I just heard on the news that a nurse has been found guilt of murder, for assissting her mother in suicide(not sure if this is right)

for Mr King, I remember the name from when I lived in NZ, he did much for race relations

Hi Helelou

Yes, very sad about Michael King.


I didn't realise the jury was back with the verdict about the nurse. I heard a piece on the radio this morning about how the judge had to direct the jury to ignore the defense that the woman was extremely stressed (as this isn't an allowable defense in NZ law). So I guess they had to find her guilty.

She had published a book about her experience with her dying mother, and it was pretty much on what she wrote in the book that the police arrested her again.

It's a tricky case because it seems she did in fact kill her mother (painkillers and smothering). The reason the woman, sorry I don't remember her name, has been so public about it is that she shouldn't have been in that position, coping on her own. Her mother had said ealier in her illness that she didn't want to live and die in such pain, but they hadn't set this up in any way.

It's been a very high profile case here, and it'll be interesting to see what the judge has to say in sentencing.