The New Zealand Herald ran a nonsense item from abroad re horoscopes and specifically, which star sign category individuals are most likely to be a serial killer. Turns out I am. Well, like the Mikado’s Lord High Executioner I admit “I have a little list and none of ‘em would be missed.”

I watched bits and pieces of our cricketers weekend rounders matches, first against Pakistan, then the following night against Bangladesh.

Pre-covid if you were to stroll around any Russian city you would be impressed and feel very much at home. Well dressed citizens, pleasant cafes and coffee-shops, quality shops, amiable people and so on. But deeply embedded in every Russian’s psyche is the historic culture of centuries of tyranny, oppression and arbitrary, often irrational rules. In short, Putin is not an aberration.

Much to my distress our newspapers are dying, in their wake leaving a legacy of widespread ignorance. They have now (the Otago Daily Times excepted) stopped publishing their sadly diminishing sales figures.