How quickly 2018 passed, Time now to pause, look back and reflect on your priorities in this brand New Year!
Personally I‘ve looked at the gains and achievements of the past year. From that I’ve also tried to find, and focus on a theme for the year ahead. There’s already an element here which needs more priority – and it lies in the simple but neglected word, gratitude.
There she was – laid out like a trophy on the back lawn. First I thought it was a Tui, my favourite bird. Ashamedly, I was relieved to find it was just a starling.
Just a Starling – didn’t it have just as much a right to live, free from urban predators? I knew immediately who the culprit was – ‘Daisy’, our over-fed house cat. The self-satisfied – ‘what me?’ – look on her face was more than sufficient to establish guilt.
It’s doubtful that anyone ever said it in English before the end of the 17th century. The concept of ‘see not evil, ‘hear not evil’, ‘speak not evil’ related back to Confucius in China, several hundred years BC, and then travelled to Japan, where it was known for centuries as a moral maxim. By a trick of the Japanese language, the maxim eventually became known world-wide.
So as the end of last year approached and perhaps with thoughts of the End of Days, Dr Google was on hand to offer the latest reports on the impacts of climate change. In seconds I found I was in a crowd – 335,000,000 to be exact. 373,000 – in 30 seconds. That came as a shock but that’s the impact of war – on this occasion the Infowars raging on google and other search engines about this issue.
The recent morning book launch of Ajax the Kea Dog was crowded out, so a second session followed for fans to meet this celebrity dog and his young Department of Conservation mate.
Sam Neill narrated the BBC documentary featuring Ajax and Corey Mosen in 2016.
The slow progression of attitudes to sharing the road with cyclists is much too fast for some drivers. The Otago Daily Times frequently publishers letters from drivers who are livid on the subject.
Despite the fact that most adult cyclists are also drivers, and that some people, no matter their mode of transport, are inconsiderate and selfish, the ‘livid’ drivers reserve their hatred for cyclists.
So the battle lines have been drawn. Drivers hate cyclists and cyclists hate drivers.
If you shop for birthday cards you’ll find the funny, the odd and the entertaining. But among them there’s a surprising number for those who make it to their 100th birthday.
So how many Centenarians are there in New Zealand? Based on the 2013 Census, Statistics New Zealand puts the number at 561. Five years on and given the fact that for nearly 200 years mankind has been pushing back ageing, that number is likely to be higher in the 2018 Census.
Now here’s something an old hack would never have dreamt could happen: A typewriter revolution – typewriters reverentially dusted off from their obsolete past, and ushered into a welcoming present, wreathed with terms like the ‘typosphere.’
Dogs can be invaluable in search-and-rescue, and can assist in ascertaining if fire damage was deliberately caused (by seeking hydrocarbons).
After familiarisation, they can also detect allergens (such as peanuts in food) and alert people for whom such things are dangerous. By the process known as biodetection, dogs can be trained to recognise the very slight odour caused by chemical matter in the early stages of various cancers: breast, bowel, uterine, bladder, prostate, lung and melanoma.