Features

If the extent of your summer current events knowledge came from: a) doing the occasional Stuff quiz; b) checking the Facebook statuses of your socially-conscious friends; or c) reading the ODT; then this alphabet of Important Summer Happenings, compiled by news-savvy Phoebe Harrop, will bring you up to speed.
A is for Apocalypse Now in Australia: summer saw floods, cyclones, drought and horrendous cricket performances form a dark cloud over the Lucky Country. You might earn a bit more across the ditch, but with Mother Nature venting her wrath there in numerous creative ways, it hardly seems worth it.
 
B is for Beatles Studies: ditch the BCom and do something really, really useful: this summer the first student graduated in Beatles Studies from Liverpool Hope University. No doubt she’s twisting and shouting about it.
 
C is for Climate Change: as most people know, with the exception of several people in my Year 11 English class, while ‘tis summer in Aotearoa, the northern hemisphere experiences winter. And what a winter it has been: at one point all fifty states in America were hit by snow. There were blizzards in Chicago and snow-choked runways meant Londoners were subjected to extensive delays and stale mince pies. The scapegoat of choice? Climate change of course.
 
D is for Diet Doesn’t Matter: Catherine Reddock has reached the ripe old age of one hundred on a diet of a daily cheeseburger from the Matamata Maccas. Catherine, affectionately known as Cat, has enjoyed a cheeseburger and hot chocolate for lunch every day since 1988. She follows up her Saturday lunch with a trip to the TAB.  
 
E is for Election: November 26th, in case you didn’t know.
 
F is for Fish on Flesh: in a bold and unexpected move, the African National Congress party of South Africa recently declared that eating sushi off the body of a model is politically incorrect, as well as “defamatory, insensitive and undermining of woman's integrity”. Thank goodness that’s been cleared up.
 
G is for Granny Patrol: hitting headlines this summer was a brazen British grandmother who foiled a robbery attempt at her local jewellers by clobbering the would-be thieves with her shopping bag.
 
H is for Hone Harawira: going too far, ending up in tears and polarising Maori party supporters.
 
J is for John Key: not only does he fancy Liz Hurley and mince down the runway like a drag queen; www.stuff.co.nz also revealed that Uncle John is afraid of mice and calls his wife Bing Bing. See page 22 for more details.
 
K is for Kate Middleton: Kate and Wills finally got engaged after giving Woman’s Weekly eight years of front-page speculation fodder. Get your souvenir tea towels now in time for the April wedding.
 
L is for Love-bite: in January a forty-four year-old Maori woman was so severely hickeyed that she suffered a minor stroke. OMG, Twilight is real.
 
M is for Mile-High Club: Air New Zealand’s newest plane to fly this summer has one very snuggly feature: a ‘sky couch’ enabling two spooning lovebirds to lie down at 30,000 feet for the price of three economy class seats. Mile-High Club membership rates are set to soar.
 
N is for New Year’s Honours: worthy recipients included the Dame Alison Holst, the mother of New Zealand cookery, soccer gurus Ryan Nelsen and Ricki Herbert, and our very own answer to Tiger Woods, Sir Bob Charles.
 
O is for Otago Peninsula: which somehow made it into CNN’s top ten places to propose on Valentine’s Day. Apparently the mating wildlife inspire romance.
 
P is for Piping Pensioner: "I was in all faith trying to blow… but for whatever reason it wasn't working for me." So said a Hawkes Bay pensioner, who successfully convinced a District Court Judge that the years he had spent playing the bagpipes prevented him from being able to complete a breath test when pulled over by police.
 
Q is for the Queen’s Granddaughter: Zara Phillips, who is engaged to English rugby player Mike Tindall (Kate’s ring is bigger).
 
R is for Rioting in Egypt: after serious riots in Cairo, President Mubarak finally admitted defeat and stepped down. More importantly, Frank Bunce ex-All-Black-therefore-New-Zealand-celebrity was briefly caught up in the drama before making it safely to London.
 
S is for Superbowl: won by the Green Bay Packers. More notably though, Christina Aguilera had her life’s most embarrassing moment when she screwed up the national anthem in front of a record 111 million viewers. Awkward.
 
T is for Transexual: a new Thai airline has begun hiring transsexual ‘ladyboys’ as air hostesses. One new employee, who was crowned Thailand’s most beautiful transvestite in 2007, said she felt they would need to work harder than other airline staff to prove themselves.
 
U is for Uppercut: an Australian man was attacked by a crocodile while swimming at a Queensland holiday spot. He managed to evade life-threatening injuries by delivering a swift uppercut to the croc’s snout. New national hero?
 
V is for Visual Impairment: this summer Paul the Octopus was replaced in the hearts of the world by another German critter, Heidi the cross-eyed opossum. She has 277,000 more Facebook friends than Phil Goff, which says it all really.
 
W is for Whitehouse: the Naked Cowboy, a New York busker who dresses only in a hat and underwear, announced last year that he plans to contest the 2012 US Presidential race. He will stand as a Republican candidate and might just trump Sarah Palin in the party-humiliation stakes. Maybe.
 
X is for Xmas mayhem: actually there wasn’t any, but you try finding interesting news with x-related keywords.
 
Y is for You were born this way: don’t be a drag, just be a queen.
 
Z is for Zimbabwe: in the run up to this year’s elections, researchers in Zimbabwe discovered that around one third of registered voters are dead, while others are recorded as up to 120 years old. Obviously democracy is alive and well.