I’m not sure what further scrutiny of the way the company sets the price of milk is supposed to achieve in theory. In practice it will add compliance costs to the company while looking at only one part of the production chain from paddock to the consumer.

That is however, a relatively minor inconvenience compared with the proposed changes to Raw Milk regulations which Fonterra chair  Sir Henry van der Heyden said won’t work and will have New Zealanders subsidising increasingly foreign-owned dairy processors that don’t sell milk in New Zealand and who send their products and profits offshore.

Fonterra’s Shareholders’ Council chair Simon Couper (not online) says:

“Competition is good as it ensures our Co-operative stays lean, efficient and competitive however, there is no successful example in economics where a business is forced to subsidise its competitors, says Couper.

“The Government’s legislation proposes that New Zealand subsidise increasingly foreign-owned competitors while doing little or nothing to ensure milk is available to those processors who need it most or who assist the domestic market . . .

Based on 2011/12 projections less than half of the 570m litres supplied to other processors  this season will make it to the New Zealand domestic market with approximately 300m litres (53%) forecast to go to Independent Processors who primarily export product overseas.

Of that 300m litres two-thirds is claimed by processors with some level of foreign ownership.

“When one sector of an industry has to subsidise another it creates inefficiencies and false economies.

“This proposed legislation would further fragment the New Zealand dairy industry and weaken New Zealand’s export returns, strengthening our overseas competitors at the expense of the New Zealand economy and the average New Zealander.

 Federated Farmers also says none of the proposed changes will reduce the price of milk for domestic consumers:

“Not one of the changes proposed to the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act, or its regulations, will make milk any cheaper in the supermarkets,” says Willy Leferink, Federated Farmers Dairy chairperson.

” . . . One of our Wellington staff members tells me Karori New World has been selling two litres for $3, as long as you spend $25 in-store.

“At that price, it is identical to what Cole’s has been selling milk for in Australia, once you take out our GST and exchange rate differences.

“What concerns me is that people seem to think farmers get all of the value from retail milk sales. I can tell you our share in a one litre carton of retail milk is around 360 millilitres.

“If someone’s skimming the cream I’d suggest looking harder at the wholesale and retail ends. How come Karori New World can sell two litres of milk for $3 but another New World sells an identical bottle for $3.72?

“That’s where the margins are, instead of the farmer who produce the milk in the first place.

“So what people need to really ask of the Government and of proposed changes to the DIRA is this; where is the domestic competition? Not just at the supermarket but for farmer’s milk itself.

“Precious few of the processors who take this milk, bottle it and then put it onto the shelves of supermarkets or dairies. Too few of these processors get milk from the farmgate and compete locally as they do internationally. We really need to know why,” Mr Leferink concluded.

Among those who do supply the local market are boutique cheese and ice cream producers. If the proposed changes are enacted these small locally owned businesses could be squeezed out by bigger foreign-owned companies which then export the milk.

The ODT editorial also raises doubts over the milk shake-up:

In an attempt to placate public concern about soaring domestic milk prices, the Government appears to have alienated our biggest company and largest export earner and also unwittingly assisted its partly owned foreign-owned dairy processing competitors . . .

 . . . Increasing New Zealanders’ access to dairy products is a laudable motive, but there are real doubts that these proposals will do little more than hamstring our largest export earner.   

Farmers at a Fonterra shareholders’ meeting in Oamaru yesterday were united in their opposition to the proposals.

As one asked, where’s the benefit for New Zealand and New Zealanders if the changes won’t reduce the price on the domestic market and will both add to compliance costs for the company and help foreign-owned businesses export at Fonterra’s expense?

People are upset about the sale of farmland to foreigners which will have little if any impact on them. They would be much better turning their attention to these proposals which will help foreign-owned companies at the expense of our biggest exporter and do nothing to reduce the price of milk on the domestic market.

1673 Louis de Montfort, French catholic priest and saint, was born (d. 1716).

1747 The first venereal diseases clinic opened at London Lock Hospital.

1797 Franz Schubert, Austrian composer, was born (d. 1828).

1814 Gervasio Antonio de Posadas became Supreme Director of Argentina.

1849 Corn Laws were abolished in the United Kingdom (following legislation in 1846).

1862 Alvan Graham Clark discovered the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius, through an eighteen inch telescope at Northwestern University.

1865 Confederate General Robert E. Lee became general-in-chief.

1865  Henri Desgrange, Founder of the Tour-de-France, was born (d. 1940).

1872 Zane Grey, American Western writer, was born.(1939)

1876 The United States ordered all Native Americans to move into reservations.

1881  Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina was born  (d. 1931).

1884 Theodor Heuss, 1st President of Germany (Bundespräsident), was born (d. 1963).

1918 A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night led to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships.

1919 The Battle of George Square took place in Glasgow.

1919  Jackie Robinson, American baseball player,  first black player in Major League Baseball, was born (d. 1972).

1921 New Zealand’s first regular air mail service began with a flight by the Canterbury Aviation Company from Christchurch to Ashburton and Timaru.

1921 Carol Channing, American actress and singer, was born.

1921 Mario Lanza, American singer was born (d. 1959).

1923 Norman Mailer, American writer and journalist, was born  (d. 2007).

1929 The Soviet Union exiled Leon Trotsky.

1930 3M began marketing Scotch Tape.

1938 – Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, was born.

1943 German Field Marshall Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviets at Stalingrad, followed 2 days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of World War II’s fiercest battles.

1945 US Army private Eddie Slovik was executed for desertion, the first such execution of a US soldier since the Civil War.

1946 Terry Kath, American musician (Chicago), was born (d. 1978).

1946 Yugoslavia‘s new constitution, modelling the Soviet Union, established six constituent republics (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia).

1950 President Harry S. Truman announced a programme to develop the hydrogen bomb.

1951 Harry Wayne Casey, American singer and musician (KC and the Sunshine Band), was born.

1953 A North Sea flood caused over 1,800 deaths in the Netherlands.

1956 John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten, English singer (Sex Pistols, Public Image Ltd.), was born.

1958  Explorer 1 – The first successful launch of an American satellite into orbit.

1958  James Van Allen discovered the Van Allen radiation belt.

1961 Mercury-Redstone 2 – Ham the Chimp travelled into outer space.

1966 The Soviet Union launched the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna programme.

1968 – Nauru became independent from Australia.

1971 Apollo 14 Mission – Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lifted off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.

1971 – The Winter Soldier Investigation, organised by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to publicise war crimes and atrocities by Americans and allies in Vietnam, began in Detroit.

1990 The first McDonald’s in the Soviet Union opened in Moscow.

1995 President Bill Clinton authorised a $20 billion loan to Mexico to stabilize its economy.

1996 An explosives-filled truck rams into the gates of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in Colombo killing at least 86 and injuring 1,400.

2000 Alaska Airlines flight 261 MD-83, experiencing horizontal stabilizer problems, crashes in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Point Mugu, California, killing all 88 persons aboard.

2001 In the Netherlands a Scottish court convicted a Libyan and acquitted another for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which crashed into Lockerbie in 1988.

2003 The Waterfall rail accident near Waterfall, New South Wales.

2009 - At least 113 people were killed and over 200 injured following an oil spillage ignition in Molo, Kenya.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

They shouldn’t have to ask.

His collapse during a training run was legitimate news.

Updates on his condition and the army’s investigation into his collapse are too.

His family’s thoughts and feelings are not.

The Chair of the Reserve Bank Board, Dr Arthur Grimes, said the Board will search in New Zealand and abroad to identify a successor to Dr Bollard.  The Governor is appointed by the Minister of Finance on the recommendation of the Board. 

The importation of people for key positions doesn’t usually generate the same angst as the importation of money to buy land.

Eco-friendly labels are becoming more ubiquitous, but they may be misleading.

Six cases of alleged “greenwashing” – the use of environmental claims that are unsubstantiated, misleading or irrelevant – are being investigated by the Commerce Commission .

“Green” is the new black but it’s very difficult to know what’s greenwash and what’s not.

[Commerce Commission competitions manager Greg]Allan said there had been cases when “biodegradable” and “recyclable” had allegedly been used for products, when there were not facilities in New Zealand able to do the biodegrading or recycling.

Even if the facilities were here how would we know what the environmental impact of the biodegrading and recycling was and if the cost of doing it was justified by the benefit?

The cost might not matter to the well-off but it would make the difference between affordability or not for many others.

That is not a justification for environmental degradation but a reminder that sustainability is the balance between economic, environmental and social concerns.

However, if TVNZ is right the farms will be staying in New Zealand hands.

“I can’t tell you who the buyer will be but I can tell you the Overseas Investment Office won’t be involved,” said Dairy Holdings Chairman Bill Bayliss.

The New Zealand Super Fund is known to have expressed interest in Dairy Holdings and some say that would be a good outcome. . .

Clearly such an investment has been on the radar for the Super Fund. Chief executive Adrian Orr said in 2010 the fund had up to $500 million to invest in rural land over the next five years.

One of the arguments against the sale of the Crafar farms to the Chinese company Pengxin was that it would make farm ownership more difficult for young New Zealanders.

Will there will be a similar level of opposition to Dairy Holdings sale to the super fund for the same reasons?

Whether or not there is, I’m with Federated Farmers chief executive Conor English who says ownership isn’t the issue:

Federated Farmers says while there may be debate around foreign ownership of Kiwi farms – the most important outcome is good farm management.

“They’re managed well in terms of the environmental impact, in terms of economic impact, in terms of how they fit into the community,” said English.

The first two points matter to the whole country and the last one is very important for the neighbourhood.

1649 King Charles I of England was beheaded.

1661 Oliver Cromwell, was ritually executed two years after his death, on the anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed.

1790  The first boat specializing as a lifeboat was tested on the River Tyne.

1806 The original Lower Trenton Bridge (also called the Trenton Makes the World Takes Bridge), was opened.

1820 Edward Bransfield sighted the Trinity Peninsula and claimed the discovery of Antarctica.

1826 The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world’s first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales, opened.

1835 In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, Richard Lawrence attempted to shoot president Andrew Jackson, but failed and was subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen.

1841 A fire destroyed two-thirds of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

1847 Yerba Buena, California was renamed San Francisco.

1858 The first Hallé concert was given in Manchester marking the official founding of the Hallé Orchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra.

1862 The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor was launched.

1882  Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, was born (d. 1945).

1889 – Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, was found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in Mayerling.

1911 An amendment to the Gaming Act at the end of 1910 banned bookmakers from racecourses in New Zealand. Bookies were officially farewelled at the now defunct Takapuna racecourse.

1911 The destroyer USS Terry (DD-25) made the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of James McCurdy 10 miles from Havana.

1911 – The Canadian Naval Service became the Royal Canadian Navy.

1913 The House of Lords rejected the Irish Home Rule Bill.

1925 The Government of Turkey threw Patriarch Constantine VI out of Istanbul.

1929 Lucille Teasdale-Corti, Canadian surgeon and international aid worker, was born (d. 1945).

1930 Gene Hackman, American actor, was born.

1930 The world’s second radiosonde is launched in Pavlovsk USSR.

1931 Shirley Hazzard, Australian-born author, was born.

1933 Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany.

1937 Vanessa Redgrave, English actress, was born.

1941 – Dick Cheney, 46th Vice President of the United States, was born.

1945  World War II: The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with refugees, sunk in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, leading to the deadliest known maritime disaster, killing approximately 9,000 people.

1945  Raid at Cabanatuan: 126 American Rangers and Filipino resistance liberated 500 prisoners from the Cabanatuan POW camp.

1945 Hitler gave his last ever public address, a radio address on the 12th anniversary of his coming to power. (

1947 Steve Marriott, English musician (Humble Pie, The Small Faces), was born  (d. 1991).

1948 – Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist.

1951 Phil Collins, English musician, was born.

1954 Queens EliZabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh left New Zealand, bringing to an end the first tour by a ruling monarch.

1956 American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1960 The African National Party was founded in Chad through the merger of traditionalist parties.

1960 Lily Potter, (fictional character) Mother of Harry J. Potter and Member of The Order of the Phoenix, was born.

1962 King Abdullah II of Jordan, was born.

1964  Ranger 6 was launched.

1968 Prince Felipe of Spain, was born.

1969 The Beatles‘ last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London.

1971 Carole King’s Tapestry album was released, it became the longest charting album by a female solo artist and sold 24 million copies worldwide.

1972 Bloody Sunday: British Paratroopers killed 14 unarmed civil rights/anti internment marchers in Northern Ireland.

1972 Pakistan withdrew from the Commonwealth of Nations.

1979 Varig 707-323C freighter,  disappeared over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off from Tokyo.

1982 Richard Skrenta wrote the first PC virus code, which was 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot programme called “Elk Cloner”.

1989 The American embassy in Kabul closed.

1994 Péter Lékó became the youngest chess grand master.

1995 Workers from the National Institutes of Health announced the success of clinical trials testing the first preventive treatment for sickle-cell disease.

1996 Gino Gallagher, the suspected leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, was killed while waiting in line for his unemployment benefit.

1996 – Comet Hyakutake was discovered by Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake.

2000 Off the coast of Ivory Coast, Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashed into the Atlantic  killing 169.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

However, I was distracted by family fun this weekend and missed it.

The blog has now had:

The 20,000th was left yesterday by Blue Leopard.

That’s real comments. The blog has also attracted 428,751 spam comments on the 9,214 posts (not counting this one) I’ve written since launching on April 22nd, 2008.

Thank you to all who’ve contributed to that.

Sometimes I agree with you, sometimes I don’t, sometimes you change my mind, sometimes you don’t, sometimes you raise a smile, sometimes you generate a frown but I do appreciate that you’ve taken the time to join the discussion.

I also appreciate that you almost always respect other people in doing so – I think I’ve only ever deleted one comment in full and edited a couple.

Why do we get excited over zeros and why is 20,000th comment of greater moment than the 19,999th or 20,001st?

I’ll leave the answer to someone who understands more about numbers than I do.

One’s 18 months-old the others just nine weeks.

They both brought their parents with them, one also brought an aunt, the other brought a grandmother; another set of grandparents and a great-grandmother arrived too.

All day all the adults helped to look after the wee girls – cuddling, reading and singing to, and playing with them.

There was always someone to share the care with the parents, keeping an eye outt to ensure the wee ones were safe and happy. There were lots of laughs and lots of love.

This is normal for our family.

The shame and tragedy is that it isn’t normal for all families.

Making it normal for all children to grow up in a loving home with the loving support of wider family and friends ought to be the goal of the Green paper on vulnerable children.

But how do we achieve that when loving, supportive families aren’t the norm for far too many parents?

But does know what he’s suggesting when he writes:

 . . . So my suggestion to the Occupy diehards: pick the nicest of the 16 Crafar farms to camp on, pack up your mung beans and your hacky sacks in your old kit bags and occupy some land to highlight an issue that really matters to so many New Zealanders. . . 

The right of the protesters to occupy public spaces has been subject to debate. That would not be the case with the farms – they are private property.

Regardless of the nationality of the owners, anyone who tried to occupy the farms could be charged with trespass.

It’s possible Plunket has got his tongue in his cheek but even so his comments will add to a growing concern among farmers that the public don’t understand that the property rights which apply to small areas of land in town apply just as much to large ones in the country.

1676 – Feodor III became Tsar of Russia.

1814 – France defeated Russia and Prussia in the Battle of Brienne.

1834– US President Andrew Jackson ordered first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labour dispute.

1842 Auckland’s first Anniversary Day regatta was held.

1845 “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe  was published in the New York Evening Mirror.

1860 Anton Chekhov, Russian writer, was born (d. 1904).

1863 Bear River Massacre.

1874 John D. Rockefeller Jr., American entrepreneur, was born (d. 1960).

1880 W.C. Fields, American actor and writer was born  (d. 1946).

1886 Karl Benz patented the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.

1891 Liliuokalani was proclaimed Queen of Hawaii, its last monarch.

1916  Paris was first bombed by German zeppelins.

1939 Germaine Greer, Australian writer and feminist, was born.

1940 Three trains on the Sakurajima Line, in Osaka collided and exploded while approaching Ajikawaguchi station. 181 people were killed.

1944  USS Missouri (BB-63) the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy was launched.

1944 Approximately 38 men, women, and children died in the Koniuchy massacre in Poland.

1944 In Bologna the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio was destroyed in an air-raid.

1945 Tom Selleck, American actor, screenwriter and film producer, was born.

1949 Tommy Ramone, Hungarian-born musician and record producer (The Ramones), was born.

1954  Oprah Winfrey, American talk show host and actress, was born.

1989 Hungary established diplomatic relations with South Korea, making them the first Eastern Bloc nation to do so.

1996 President Jacques Chirac announced a “definitive end” to French nuclear weapons testing.

1996 – La Fenice, Venice’s opera house, was destroyed by fire.

1998 In Birmingham, Alabama, a bomb explodes at an abortion clinic, killing one and severely wounding another.

2001 Thousands of student protesters in Indonesia stormed parliament and demanded that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals.

2002 In his State of the Union Address, United Statses President George W. Bush described “regimes that sponsor terror” as an Axis of Evil.

2005 The first direct commercial flights from the mainland China(from Guangzhou) to Taiwan since 1949 arrived in Taipei. Shortly afterwards, a China Airlines carrier landed in Beijing.

2006 – India’s Irfan Pathan became the first bowler to take a Test cricket hat-trick in the opening over of a match.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

When they eventually raised enough they bought some paint  and a working bee got cracking on a weekend morning to do the work.

When they were about half finished they realised that they were going to run out of paint before the church was fully painted.

The preacher said, “It’s a water based paint, just thin it down with water.”

They continued painting and thinning until the colour started losing its depth and when they finally finished it was striped – going from dark, through medium to light.

The minister and the other amateur painters stood back to get a good view of the church so they could admire their work.

As they did, clouds rolled in, the heavens opened and it began to pour with rain.

They ran back to the church for shelter and when they got there found that the rain had washed all the newly applied paint off the building.

They were understandably upset that all the money they’d raised and work they’d done had been wasted.

They were discussing what to do next when there was a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder and a voice from the sky said, “Repaint, repaint and thin no more.”

New Zealand Post had decreed there would be no extensions to the mail routes because of rising costs and our gate would be the nearest existing stop to the new house.

Now the company is increasing all parcel post rates and adding a $2.80 rural delivery charge to cover the cost of petrol.

I can’t argue about cost recovery and user-pays but I wonder if they’ll also increase charges to senders of junk mail?

Without junk mail fewer stops would be required because not everyone gets mail every day, but with junk mail the driver has to stop at all boxes which must add to delivery time and therefore fuel used.

Its real importance to New Zealand is the extent to which it strengthens ties with a market fast becoming this country’s most important economic lifeline. – ODT

But those in Auckland obviously don’t include the homeless among the poor they purport to want to help:

Meanwhile, several homeless people have taken issue with the Occupy protesters, for ruining what they say is their home.

Several spoken to by Radio New Zealand say they can’t stay in any of the parks around the city now.

Mount Roskill resident J. D. Simon says he has taken in 13 homeless people, many of whom are now camping on his lawn.

Oh the irony.

The faux homeless who have homes to go to have pushed out the genuine homeless people who don’t.

While on the subject of the occupation, Chris Trotter asks the questions of the day:

. . . Did anyone ever consider asking the Mayor if he and his staff could identify any wasteland in the city that could serve as a camp ground? Or if there were areas that could be turned into community gardens? Did anyone ever think of asking Aucklanders to help Occupy Auckland grow food for families who were struggling to feed their kids? . . .

Practical help, rather than aimless protest – now there’s a radical idea.

It wouldn’t have looked as exciting on TV as resisting police. But it would have made a difference and done it without inconveniencing the genuine homeless.

1457  King Henry VII, was born (d. 1509).

1521 The Diet of Worms began.

1547 Henry VIII died. His nine year old son, Edward VI became King, and the first Protestant ruler of England.

1573 – Articles of the Warsaw Confederation were signed, sanctioning freedom of religion in Poland.

1582  John Barclay, Scottish writer, was born (d. 1621).

1624 Sir Thomas Warner,  founded the first British colony in the Caribbean, on the island of Saint Kitts.

1706 John Baskerville, English printer, was born  (d. 1775).

1724 The Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, and implemented in the Senate decree.

1754 Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coined the word serendipity.

1813 Pride and Prejudice was first published in the United Kingdom.

1820 – Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich discovered the Antarctic continent approaching the Antarctic coast.

1827  French explorer Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville sailed the Astrolabe through French Pass and into Admiralty Bay in the Marlborough Sounds.

1833 William Seward Burroughs I, British soldier and administrator, was born (d. 1885).

1841 Henry Morton Stanley, Welsh-born explorer and journalist, was born (d. 1904).

1855 The first locomotive ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific on the Panama Railway.

1855 William Seward Burroughs I, American inventor, was born (d. 1898).

1863 Ernst William Christmas, Australian painter, was born (d. 1918).

1864 Charles W. Nash, American automobile entrepreneur, co-founder Buick Company,  was born  (d. 1948).

1864 – Herbert Akroyd Stuart, English inventor of the hot bulb heavy oil engine, was born (d. 1927).

1871 Franco-Prussian War: the Siege of Paris ended in French defeat and an armistice.

1873 Colette, French writer, was born (d. 1954).

1878 Yale Daily News became the first daily college newspaper in the United States.

1887  Arthur Rubinstein, Polish pianist and conductor, was born (d. 1982).

1887  In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, the world’s largest snowflakes were reported, being 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick.

1890 Robert Stroud,  American convict, the Birdman of Alcatraz, was born (d. 1963).

1896  Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent became the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined 1 shilling plus costs for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thus exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h).

1901 Wellington blacksmith, William Hardham, won the Victoria Cross - the only New Zealander to do so in the South African War.

1902The Carnegie Institution was founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.

1909 United States troops leave Cuba with the exception of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base after being there since the Spanish-American War.

1912  Jackson Pollock, American painter, was born (d. 1956).

1915 An act of the U.S. Congress created the United States Coast Guard.

1916 Louis D. Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

1917 Municipally owned streetcars began operating in the streets of San Francisco, California.

1918  Harry Corbett, English puppeteer (Sooty), was born(d. 1989).

1921 A symbolic Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was installed beneath the Arc de Triomphe to honor the unknown dead of World War I.

1922 Knickerbocker Storm, Washington D.C.’s biggest snowfall, causes the city’s greatest loss of life when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater collapses.

1929 Acker Bilk, English jazz clarinetist, was born.

1933 – The name Pakistan was coined by Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan and is accepted by the Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence.1934 The first ski tow in the United States begins operation in Vermont.

1935 David Lodge, English author, was born.

1935 Iceland became the first Western country to legalize therapeutic abortion.

1936 Alan Alda, American actor, writer, and director, was born.

1938 The World Land Speed Record on a public road was broken by driver Rudolf Caracciola in the Mercedes-Benz W195 at a speed of 432.7 kilometres per hour (268.9 mph).

1943 Dick Taylor, English musician (The Rolling Stones and The Pretty Things), was born.

1944 Susan Howard, American actress, was born.

1955 Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, was born.

1958The Lego company patented their design of Lego bricks.

1964 A U.S. Air Force jet training plane that strayed into East Germany  was shot down by Soviet fighters near Erfurt ; all 3 crew men are killed.

1965  The current design of the Flag of Canada was chosen by an act of Parliament.

1977 The first day of the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977, which severely affected and crippled much of Upstate New York, but Buffalo, NY, Syracuse, NY, Watertown, NY, and surrounding areas were most affected, each area accumulating close to 10 feet of snow on this one day.

1. Who said: “Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.”?

2. What is the common name for Didelphimorphia Phalangeriforme?

3. It’s premières crevette in French, gambero crudo in Italian and gamba crudo in Spanish (I couldn’t find it in Maori), what is it in English?

4.Who wrote My Brilliant Career? and who wrote A Town Like Alice?

5. What are the first four lines of the Australian National Anthem?

Points for answers:

David got  two – one for # 3 for being close with the Maori answer and another for a good try with the anthem.

Gravedodger got three and a half with a bonus for extra commentary on the possums.

Andrei got one and a half and a bonus for being the only one to get raw and for confusing me with #5. Was there another meaning in the wording of the question that I missed?

Adam got two and a bonus for being the first to get Miles Franklin whose endowment funds one of Australia’s most prestigious literary awards.

PDM got a half plus a near enough with the anthem and on the right track with the kangaroo.

Teletext wins an electronic bag of apricots for five (though I think Opoosum is the American one.

I’ve been lenient over answers to #2 -  shrimp is near enough to prawn – though for the record shrimp is crevette in French; gamberetto in Italian; camarón in Spanish and kōura rangi, kōuraura or uraura in Maori. Only Andrei got raw.

Answers follow the break:

1. Dame Edna Everage.

2. Possum.

3.  Raw prawn.

4. Miles Franklin, Neville Shute.

5. Australians all let us rejoice/ For we are young and free /We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil, /Our home is girt by sea. . .