Two a penny

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Southland celebrated a “once in a lifetime” Ranfurly Shield win in style in Invercargill on Tuesday with thousands turning out for the traditional tickertape parade.

The Stags players were rapturously received as fans crowded both sides of the main street.

A weekend of partying flowed into the formalities as the heroes were feted in the deep south.

Southland won the famous Log o’ Wood for the first time in 50 years last Thursday night when they upset holders Canterbury 9-3 in Christchurch. There are a lot of people here, it’s great for the community,” Southland co-coach Dave Henderson told Radio Sport from the back of one of the floats involved in the parade.

“She’s pretty exciting. Once you do these sorts of things .

“There are 50 years of players that have gone through before us – 30 or 40 challenges have come up with nothing…. this might only happen once in a lifetime . you have to celebrate them in a bit of style which we are doing today..Then to see them turn up at the airport the next day and now to see thousands here cheering us on, it’s quite emotional for some of the guys.

“It was such a thrill to see the faces of the fans at the game with the support we got up there in Christchurch.

The challenge for Southland now is to stay on track in the Air New Zealand Cup where last week’s win had taken them into the semfinals.”

Henderson admitted it had been a long weekend full of partying.

Henderson said the team had trained well on Monday and would face a big hitout on Wednesday. . We have focused on celebrating the Ranfurly Shield but we have also focused on the next Saturday in Wellington because we want to go the next step,” said Henderson.

“I don’t think some of the boys remember arriving back at the airport.

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Seven years after starting work as a furniture mover for a US bedding company, Gary Nisbet was joined by a new colleague, Randy Joubert, who looked so much like him that customers asked if they were brothers.

“We thought they were just trying to razz us,” Joubert said. They really are brothers – and the attention they got after finding each other has alsoturned up a sister. .

“This kid could have been anywhere in the world, and here I am riding in a Dow furniture truck with him,” Joubert said.

The two men were given up for adoption as babies about 35 years ago, then attended rival high schools and even lived in neighbouring towns on the Maine coast before working together at Dow’s Sleep Centre in tiny Waldoboro and uncovering their relationship. She said he knew from a young age he was adopted and she wasn’t surprised he would try to find his biological siblings when he grew up.

Joubert’s adoptive mother, Jacqueline, said she and her late husband raised him with four sisters.

“But when he said he was driving a furniture truck with him, that really surprised me,” she said.

She said she always thought he had a brother because a social worker at the time of his adoption had mentioned it.”

Dow’s hired Randy Joubert on July 7, and soon afterward co-workers began commenting on how similar he and Nisbet looked. “I think it’s great. Their goatees and curled-brim baseball caps add to the effect. Both are light-haired, wear glasses and have stocky builds. He started taking the comments more seriously when people also took notice while he and Nisbet, 35, were out making deliveries.

Joubert, 36, laughed off the commentary but admits he noticed the similarities himself, even mentioning them to his fiancee. “Then my brain started heading that way.

“Customers would ask if we were brothers more often than not,” he said.

With further help from statistics officials, he also learned that he had a brother – and his brother’s original name.”

Joubert had already taken advantage of a new state law allowing adoptees to see their original birth certificates and found out the names of his biological parents, who had died by then.

FAMILY CONNECTION

Well-armed with details, Joubert posed a few questions to Nisbet while the two were making deliveries about three weeks ago. Joubert and Nisbet had been removed from their birth parents’ home because the couple could not properly care for them.

Nisbet gave him a strange look and answered, yes, he was adopted.

“I said, ‘Gary, I’m going to ask you a strange question: Are you adopted?”‘ Joubert recalled.

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After he had stabbed and disfigured Sophie Elliott in a bedroom attack, Clayton Weatherston told a police officer: “I killed her” in a calm, normal tone, a court has been told.

“It appeared that he was in normal control … he was just standing with his hands either side of himself,” Constable John Cunningham has told the Christchurch High Court.

Weatherston is on trial for Elliott’s murder at Dunedin on January 9 last year.

Cunningham was the first person at Elliott’s Ravensbourne home the day she was killed. The defence says he was provoked to kill her.”

Cunningham said he went upstairs to Elliott’s bedroom.

He described talking to Elliott’s mother, Lesley Elliott, on the driveway who told him “that her daughter was dead.

“I tried the door handle but it was locked.

“I then heard the door being unlocked so I opened the door and walked in to a small bedroom.

I voice appealed to open the door or I would kick it in,” he said.

“I was confronted by a body, lying face up.

I saw in front of me on the floor a young female caucasian … I then saw a male standing a the end of the bed.

He asked Weatherston to lie prone on the floor, which he complied with, straight away.”

Cunningham said he asked the man, who was Weatherston, what he had done and he said: “I killed her” in a calm, normal tone. He said his name was “Clayt”. He said his name was “Clayt”.

“I then asked him, why did you kill her.

“I asked him if he understood these rights and he replied that he did,” Cunningham said.”

He asked what he had killed her with, and Weatherston said a knife. He replied, the emotional pain she has caused me over the past year.” Cunningham also asked him about a pair of scissors he found between Elliott’s legs. .

“All this time, the defendant Clay was lying face down in the room.

“He replied, I used them at the end,” Cunningham said.

“I could clearly see the stab wounds to the right side of her throat,” he said.” Cunningham said he put gloves on and checked Elliott’s carotid artery, finding no pulse. … Her legs were spread wide. … Her legs were spread wide. … She had multiple cut and stab wounds to the left side of the throat with a large amount of blood around the throat area.”

Cunningham said he took Weatherston downstairs and told him was under arrest for assault – “he replied he understood.”

Weatherston was on the ground outside the house and continued answering questions. “He was very forthcoming and just answered my questions.”

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Stacey Stevens did not think twice before confronting a kidnapper in suburban Wellington after he grabbed a young girl at an intersection.

My Nguyen, 7, had sneaked out in her pink pyjamas on Saturday morning to buy sweets at the dairy one block from her home.30am, a man snatched her up in his arms and began to walk off.
As she waited to cross the road on the corner of Adelaide Rd and Britomart St in Berhampore at 11.
The Palmerston North mother, who was in Berhampore visiting her daughter’s “nana”, said: “I saw My waiting at the lights and I saw the guy popping his head around the corner, and looking round.
Hearing My’s terrified screams, Ms Stevens, 20, who was walking with her two-year-old daughter, “just knew it wasn’t right”.
“I said, ‘What the F are you doing?’, and he said he was just trying to help her. Then he picked her up and she kept screaming. He put his hands up, like surrendering, and walked off. .
My, who regularly goes to the dairy by herself, said the man was “evil and scary”.”
Ms Stevens gave the crying girl a cuddle and, recognising her from the neighbourhood, made sure she returned safely home.”‘
A man has been arrested and is due to appear in Wellington District Court today, charged with kidnapping. “I was screaming, ‘Let me down.
“When the police were gone, she said, ‘I’ve still got my lollipop,’ but they took her favourite shoes and her pyjamas.
My’s neighbour, Melaia Kumoto, 11, said the young girl was shaking and scared after the attack but soon returned to her usual chatty self.”
Melaia said she and her friend were approached by a man earlier this year while walking together in Berhampore. She was really lucky Stacey was there. “We didn’t say anything and just walked away really fast. He followed them and asked where they were going.
Police are asking the occupants of a red hatchback seen in the area to come forward to help with their investigation.”
Detective Sergeant Michael Patz said police were aware of “a number of incidents” in the area that shared similarities but could not say whether they were related to Saturday’s case.

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The alleged kidnapper was seen approaching the car, which stopped at the traffic lights shortly before the attack on My

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It doesn’t pay to be female, report shows

– Saturday, 27 December 2008

Women in public-sector jobs continue to lag behind the pay of their male equals by up to 35 per cent, a government report reveals.
The Human Rights Commission says the evidence of workplace gender inequality is now indisputable, and it calls on public organisations to take action.
"We want people to start fixing the problem, not just identifying it," equal employment opportunities commissioner Judy McGregor said.
The taskforce found:
Every organisation found a gender pay gap, ranging from 3% to 35%.
A progress report of the five-year pay and employment equity taskforce shows a gender pay gap persists across all 27 public-sector organisations surveyed.
Gender pay gaps widen after appointment, and men move more rapidly through the pay scale.
Starting pay rates between men and women differed within the same occupation.
All reviews except one found under-representation of women in a range of senior management.
Women were more likely to believe that performance appraisal systems were unfair.
Over half of staff said their organisations were not actively addressing or preventing harassment and bullying. "It seems to be almost unbridgeable for some reason.
McGregor said the gender pay gap had been a problem for some time.
"We still have a long way to go in relation to pay equity."
The average gender pay gap was about 12%. What these results show is that we need to move more quickly on the remedial work that follows," McGregor said. What these results show is that we need to move more quickly on the remedial work that follows," McGregor said.
Women got lower starting salaries in the same jobs in some occupational groups. Among the most common reasons were:
Female-dominated occupations were lower paid. .
Women had fewer promotion opportunities and/or progressed more slowly through pay scales.
Organisations got complacent after reviewing their gender pay gap.
"We want to see proper targets set and whether people regard that as positive discrimination, affirmative action or just redressing a natural balance doesn't matter; it's got to be done," she said.
"People commit to the review and they do the review and they think the job's done, but what we want now is more action around implementing the action plans.
"We have found that the implementation (of changes) is too slow," McGregor said.
The private sector was "pretty resistant to challenges" on how it paid and employed people."
Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly said the same issues identified in the public sector were also present in the private sector.
"It is often presumed that the man's job is more important than the woman's, so we give them the bonuses.
"It is often presumed that the man's job is more important than the woman's, so we give them the bonuses."
The report was the third from the taskforce, which is about three years into its five-year term.

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Shakespeare gets school reprieve

Tuesday, 16 December 2008

Amajor education review that some principals fear will spell an end to Shakespeare in schools is being held back a year by the new education minister.
Anne Tolley said yesterday that a review of NCEA standards papers used to assess pupils against the curriculum would be pushed back by 12 months to ensure greater consultation with worried principals and teachers.
"The timeline was so short at a very busy time of year," Mrs Tolley said.
It means changes due to be implemented from 2010 affecting thousands of high school pupils would not come into force till 2011."
Her decision follows a meeting on Friday with the Auckland Secondary Schools Principals Association, which represents a quarter of the country's high schools. "I think it was too ambitious. .
Some members had called for a moratorium on the proposed changes, saying they would "dumb down" the education system. She had instructed officials that wider consultation was required with principals and teachers, who were responsible for implementing changes in schools.
Mrs Tolley said she would meet Education Ministry chief executive Karen Sewell today.
"They're already struggling with what they've got, so the thought of putting more assessment on them is a real concern.
Proposed increases to internal assessment had huge potential effects on teachers' workloads, Mrs Tolley said."

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Uncle devastated

By JO-McKENZIE McLEAN – Monday, 01 December 2008

The elderly uncle of one of the men killed in the Air New Zealand Airbus crash in France says his nephew planned to visit him in Christchurch this week, then take him on holiday.
Rodney Eastgate, 92, said he was close to his nephew, Jeremy Cook, 58, who worked as an airworthiness inspector for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in Wellington.
"He had three weeks holiday, which was long overdue, and he had invited me to go to Wellington and stay with him. It was so unexpected. It's been a great shock for me. He was very popular.
"He was very outgoing and made friends very easily."
Cook is survived by his wife, Sally, and two children in their early twenties a son who was a student at Otago University and a daughter who was a speech therapist in London, Eastgate said.

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The family left for France on Saturday

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Vaccination did not save youth

The Timaru Herald Thursday, 20 November 2008

Canterbury University student Bowen Holgate, 19, of Timaru, woke up with a severe headache on Sunday. Two days later meningococcal disease claimed his life.
Ross Holgate drove to Christchurch on Saturday to pick up his son, who had just finished his second year.
A Timaru family are grieving the loss of a son and brother who died from a disease that he was immunised against a few years ago. When he woke he vomited from a severe headache.
Bowen Holgate went straight to bed because he was to start his summer job on Sunday. He got worse a few hours later and was transferred to the intensive care unit where he died on Tuesday.
His parents took him to Timaru Hospital Emergency Department where he was diagnosed with meningococcal disease.
Ross Holgate is unsure how Bowen picked up the disease.
He was immunised during the nationwide school-based campaign.
South Canterbury Medical Officer of Health, Dr Daniel Williams, said it was unknown from which strain of the disease Bowen died. .
Treatment with antibiotics is often successful.
Williams said people should seek urgent medical attention if they suspect they or someone in their household have meningococcal disease.

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Tourist’s keenness to take photos dampened

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

He may not have the pictures to prove it, but an American tourist will remember his visit to Napier after stepping backward off a wharf while taking a photo.
Entranced by a line-up of vintage cars yesterday, the 75-year-old cruise-ship passenger stepped backward on the wharf in the Port of Napier to fit them all into his viewfinder.
Police said the man struggled in the water, but was quickly rescued by crew member Paul Haggerty, who dived into the narrow gap.
He dropped five metres into the sea, falling between the wharf and the Dutch cruise ship Volendam. .
The passenger appeared to be in good shape when returned to land but was taken by ambulance to Hawke's Bay Hospital in Hastings to check for suspected water inhalation.
The vintage cars had been lined up on the wharf to add to Napier's art deco ambience for the passengers on the ship, which has a capacity of 1400. The camera was thought to have ended up in a watery grave.
"I would also like to express my thanks to the hospital and all the staff who have looked after me so well," he said.
Speaking from the hospital, the man – who lives in California – declined to give his name but thanked Mr Haggerty for jumping into the water to save him.
The Volendam sailed for Tauranga later in the afternoon, and the ship's agents were arranging for the rescued man to fly there to rejoin his cruise.