The clairvoyant got this one wrong (are you surprised?) and was paid for a lotto bollocks

The Herald’s penchant for silliness is highlighted today in its giving space to the very silly story of a woman who has lost her faith in clairvoyants.

She has lost her faith – why exactly?

Answer: because a clairvoyant got something wrong.

This is akin to losing faith in the Auckland rail service because a train arrived late.

The only news worth considering here would be that the clairvoyant had got something right, or that a train actually arrived on time.

If our kids are fat and unfit, where will we find the players for future All Black teams?

Dressed to kill but too fat to fight.

Officials obviously are keen to read what Alf has to say on this and that, and – in this case – what he has to say about child health matters.

Within days of your favourite MP blogging on the topic, we have evidence to affirm that children living within easy walking or cycling distance of school are continuing to be driven there despite increasing efforts to curb New Zealand’s alarming childhood obesity rates.

Stuff tells us today of a 2006-07 study that found that one in five Kiwi children was overweight and one in 12 was obese.

But the fresh news is:

Less than 40 per cent of Wellington children living within five kilometres of their schools walk or bike each day, as busy lives and safety concerns drive parents and their kids into cars, survey results from Greater Wellington regional council show.

Half of those being driven to school live within 2km, according to the study of 27 schools.

Alf could regale you with recollections of his walking 20 km to and from school each day in bare feet, sometimes in snow and often in rain, although this would be a gross fabrication of the sort more typically generated by Labour and Green politicians.

But he did walk to and from school.

Peni’s pointless push for a poll – we already know what most Kiwis think about land sales to foreigners

Alf is as unhappy as most of us about the prospect of the Crafar farms slipping into overseas ownership.

But he doesn’t see the point of adding his voice to a call for a another poll on the matter.

He refers to a news item this morning that said –

A Maori investor leading an iwi bid for a stake in the Crafar Farms wants a poll to be taken to find out what New Zealanders think of strategic assets being sold to foreign investors.

It sounds like a potty idea, but not if it has Brash and Banks quarrelling with each other

Wouldn’t it be great to sit in on the next meeting of the fast-collapsing ACT party.

Actually, it’s looking rather like a National Party B team now that Boscowen has bowed out and we have Don Brash (former National leader) and John Banks (former National police minister) in the first two slots on the list.

They might be the only ones to turn up at ACT caucus meetings, in the next parliament, although this prospect assumes (a) Banks wins Epsom and (b) ACT can muster enough support to get at least one more member into the House.

And who would bet on that happening, eh?

The party is polling well below the 5 per cent threshold to be guaranteed seats in Parliament.

Alf hears it has registered just 1.1 per cent support in the last Fairfax Media Research International Poll.

We can rule out Brash winning North Shore – unlike Alf, he is unattractive to the bloke in the street and his missus.

Don’t forget he was beaten by a bloody Social Crediter, of all things, when he stood for by-election in the East Coast Bays electorate way back, and he again failed to win the seat at the general election of 1981.

So that leaves his immediate Parliamentary future in the hands of John Banks, who hardly sees eye to eye with him in his basic philosophy as has become all too obvious on the cannabis issue.

Probably Banks disagrees very strongly with Brash.

Hands up and give us your money, sucker – you have entered a fan zone and I’m the law here

It’s daylight robbery and Alf expects Murray McCully – the bloke who has taken personal responsibility for the running of the Rugby World Cup – to do something about it.

He could resign, for example, and the PM could give the job to a more worthy politician. The long-serving, much-admired and hard-working member for Eketahuna North, for example.

Alf refers to the raft of rip-offs associated with the RWC event, the latest being the selling of soft drinks at Rugby World Cup Fan Zones,

True, we only have the Herald on Sunday’s word for it, and the HoS should not be relied on even for telling us what day it is.

But let’s give the buggers the benefit of the doubt on this one.

It says a set price of $5 a bottle has been forced on vendors.

Forced, it should be noted.

The HoS is outraged.

The focus of its outrage is on the plunderous price.

If Matt had turned left (not to be recommended when voting) he might have met the local MP

He came very close to the Eketahuna Club...

Herald on Sunday journalist Matt Johnson is pictured here near the southern outskirts of the sprawling metropolis of Eketahuna.

ACT’s 2008-11 Parliamentary team: John Boscowen bows out, and then there were none

News has just reached Alf at the Eketahuna Club of more upheaval in the ACT Party.

ACT Parliamentary Leader John Boscawen has announced he has decided not to seek re-election on his party list and expects to retire from Parliament after the November 26 election.

So how many of the current line-up of ACT politicians are left on the list?

Hmm. None.

One way or another, the team of 2008 – and the much more recent arrival, Hillary Calvert – have all fallen by the wayside.

If its strategising we want for a brighter future, then learn from a bull and give your vote to oldies

Good news for Don Brash, who some say is too old to be standing for Parliament as ACT’s leader. Good news for Alf, too, come to think of it, and for all folks of our vintage.

Just because we are over 60 does not mean we are losing our marbles.

To the contrary, when it comes to strategising, we Gold Card carriers are smarter than young bucks (and buckesses).

This has been affirmed by a new study.

It has found adults aged 60 and over are better at strategising their decisions than those in their late teens and early 20s, who tend to focus on instant gratification.

Just look at Don Brash before blaming junk food for the rising obesity levels among today’s school kids

Billy Bunter was a rare exception when Alf went to Greyfriars.

Dunno if similar work has been done in NZ, but Alf was cheered to learn that someone has studied the trend towards driving kids to school and sparing them the effort of getting there the hard way.

Back in Alf’s schooldays we walked to school or we got there on a bike.

Bloody good exercise. And this – he reckons – explains at least partly why the brats who are driven to school by molly-coddling parents are becoming a generation of tubbies.

He is fortified in this thinking after stumbling on the work of an American researcher who has looked into this and reported her findings in a paper headed Active Transportation to School: Trends Among U.S. Schoolchildren, 1969–2001

Take cover, folks – satellite bits are headed for earth but Nasa doesn’t know where they’ll land

Eketahuna is inside the landing zone.

Don’t go looking for Alf to discuss surveillance legislation or the Minister for the Rugby World Cup or any of that tosh.

For the next several days he will be taking cover in the nuclear bomb shelter his dad dug in Eketahuna at the time of the Cuba crisis, some 50 years ago.

The Grumbles will be taking cover on learning that a falling satellite could land any time soon and the ‘strike zone’ covers most of the planet

The satellite apparently ran out of fuel in 2005, which tells us these things can go for a helluva long time on an empty tank.

Anyway, it is about to make a return journey to earth and Nasa has no idea where it will crash land.