English royals are not beyond being convicted but a Kiwi judge regards a Maori royal as special

And one day the cap may make way for a crown.

Princess Anne, back in 2002, became the first member of the Royal Family to be charged and convicted of a criminal offence. The first in modern days, at least.

This was a black day for Alf, who holds the royals in high esteem.

The only daughter of Queen Elizabeth pleaded guilty to allowing her bull terrier to run loose and attack two children.

The Guardian reported at the time :

It’s a short cut to becoming an ex-law-breaker – you put your foot down and try to outrun the cops

I’ll take the low road Fred, so you take the high road and we’ll cut the speedster off at the pass.

Here we go go again.

The cops will be under fire for chasing a law-breaker, now an ex-law-breaker, who didn’t get the message about being unfit to drive earlier in the night when they took her car keys from her.

Hospital staff are helping to clean up the resultant mess.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority has been alerted, too, and will be expected to find out what went wrong.

The answer is glaringly obvious to Alf.

New Year booze warning: the first steps you take in 2012 could be your last

It's an easy walk home from here - but what are the risks?

Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

And Alf has been blissfully ignorant for decades about the dangers he has faced each time he walked home from the Eketahuna Club.

Now he knows all about these dangers, he is keen to apprise his constituents of them.

They are much greater – he is sure – than they ever imagined.

And the warning is timely, because January 1 – Alf has learned – is the deadliest day of the year for pedestrians.

An American economist, Steve Levitt, has compared the risk of drunk walking with drunk driving and found that the former can potentially pose a greater risk.

If they are horrified by two road deaths, how will they respond to the death toll from killer cucumbers?

It's grim when these things start killing us.

A headline on the inevitable road toll story that adorns the Herald’s pages on Mondays is a load of bollocks.

The headline reads Cops despair at deadly roads

The caption beneath a photo was just as silly:

“Two die in grim weekend on NZ’s deadliest roads.”

So where in the story do we find why these have been labelled NZ’s deadliest roads?

Alf is still looking.

The buggers who write this rubbish should be celebrating the fact that only two people were killed.

We have had a weekend of good weather in which thousands of people were out on our roads, driving in opposite directions often on narrow bands of highway or street and often at speed.

Remarkably few collide.

No, it aint bollocks – taxpayers are enabling beneficiaries to over-ride being banned from driving

Check out Alf’s previous post. It featured a set of balls.

Pretty balls they are too.

Today Alf wonders if they belong to Paula Bennett, because it seems she has lost hers.

First, you pledge to limit your drinking – and soon it becomes a pledge to eschew all booze

Here's what Alf recommends - a German beer stein with a capacity of 31.99 litres.

Just one glass will do me tonight, barman. Make it a scotch in the bigger one, please.

No, Alf has not become a wowser and he will not be signing up in support of the Herald on Sunday’s Two Drinks Max campaign.

But at first glimpse – he confesses – he thought the campaign had a great thing going for it: it is promoting the idea that we should do what we think is best, not what the bloody prohibitionists or the Government thinks is best.

This is a worthy approach, thoroughly in tune with Alf’s libertarian instincts.

Editor Bryce John says –

Sometimes life it is nice not to have to be told to do the right thing. You know it’s right; you just do it.

The Herald on Sunday campaign launching today – Two Drinks Max – is one of those times. Our Government, for reasons we think are pretty lightweight, is not moving to reduce the amount of alcohol you can drink before you drive.

In doing so it is passing up the chance to save lives. Our poll proves the New Zealand public know this, and want the rules changed.

But we don’t need legislation. The power is in our hands to ensure we drive safely, and pledging not to drink after having any more than two standard drinks is the way to do it.

Laudable sentiments.

Prison is the only place for hoons who kill innocent people while fleeing from the police

As a bloke with a few years on the clock, Alf is dismayed that young hooligans are killing off more mature members of our society while fleeing from the police.

The latest case happened last night.

Two elderly people were killed in a car crash during a police chase in Christchurch.

Christchurch, of course, is notorious for having raised a generation of lunatics known as boy racers.

The crash that killed the couple happened about 8.10pm in Fitzgerald Avenue, a notorious street for boy-racers and part of the city’s new anti-cruising zone.

Zapped for DIC – but the Soper case was curiously moved from the Wellington courthouse to Porirua

Well, well, well.

The bugger whose neglect of Alf was catalystic in the establishment of this blog has been in a bit of strife with the law.

Yep. Alf is talking about Barry Soper, who scrubs up well on a good day as can be seen by this pic of him.

Mind you, Soper wears bow ties on many occasions other than black tie ones, which makes him look like a bit of tosser, which he probably is. Moreover he was bearded, last time Alf saw him, and beards can be camouflage for a myriad of flaws.

But Alf digresses from the day’s news:

Newstalk ZB political editor and veteran broadcast journalist Barry Soper has been fined and disqualified from driving after being arrested for drink-driving last month.

Soper appeared in Porirua District Court on Friday, pleading guilty to driving in central Wellington with 99 milligrams of alcohol for every 100ml of blood – the legal limit is 80.

Normally you would expect Soper to be delighted to win himself a bit of publicity. He likes to be admired, a trait he shares with Alf.

Booze, beaches and brothers – a deadly concoction when you throw in stupidity and car-surfing

Alf is bothered by the ruling of a judge who has decided against sending an idiot to the slammer.

A judge says a man who killed his younger brother in a drunken car-surfing accident on Mt Maunganui beach would be behind bars if it was “someone else’s kid”.

Instead, Luke McGregor was sentenced yesterday to five months’ home detention after the accident that claimed the life of his brother Jordan.

Poll findings call for tougher blood-alcohol limits – but was the survey biased against boozers?

The most troubling news for Alf today deals with the matter of drinking and driving.

The Herald examines the prospect of the Government introducing a limit of 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.

Yep, this is still only at the proposal stage, but Alf fears the 50mg is an upper limit, not a lower one.

The Herald looks at the implications, using Transport Minister Steven Joyce as its exemplar.

Dunno why it didn’t occur to them that he probably would have a chauffeur-driven ministerial car.