Did you know

“AS A CHILD I didn’t believe in Father Christmas, but I pretended to because I thought my parents did” – Peter Ustinov

COOK STRAIT inter island Ferries  carry 1.2 million passengers and seven million tonnes of freight between the islands each year 

LAST YEAR Russia supplied 52 countries globally with US$45 billion worth of arms, making it the world’s second-biggest arms supplier – behind the US.

NZers DISCARD 526 million plastic water bottles a year.

‘IT’S NOT the Irish Border, it’s the British Border in Ireland. The Irish Border is the beach’ Andrew Maxwell

CURRENTLY there are over 20,000 sheep being milked in NZ with the number growing quickly especially in the Waikato and Southland. The milk is processed to powder for export of into cheese while the Southland factory also produces sheep milk baby formula. 

‘AS I GET older, all I really long for is to plant trees” Prince Charles

SIX HUNDRED words in Samuel John’s 1755 dictionary are deemed no longer used. These include: juggins, fizgig, conk, anemnensis, crapulence denestrate, condidle. Others such as trollop, pettiflogging, vamoose and lickspittle on are the verge of  being declared extinct.  

WHY WAS Theresa May sacked as Nativity Manager? Because she couldn’t run a stable government

‘WE CANNOT always  build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future’ Franklin D Roosevelt  

EMISSIONS  from a Cruise ship in Wellington harbor is equal to  the emissions from 200,000 extra cars a day. 110 cruise ships will dock at Wellington this summer.

‘THERE MUST BE a long list of ways of going mad, but surely some-where near the top is arguing with a conspiracy theorist’ – Joanne Black 

TWO THIRDS of New Zealanders live within five kilometres of the sea. Twelve of our fifteen largest towns and cities are on the coastline  

BREXIT: The undefined being negotiated by unprepared in order to get the unspecified for the uninformed. 

RESEARCH Science and Innovation Minister, Megan Woods has announced that $13.5 million will be spent on finding a remedy to Kauri dieback. Costs of solving previous problems: Painted Apple moth $113 million. Psa bacterium $40 million, Queensland fruit flies $15.7 Million.  Mycroplasma Bovis is expected to top $889 million. 

CHRISTMAS is a time when kids tell Santa  what they want and their parents pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the Government what they want and their kids pay for it 

Note; no issue in January. Deadline for February Star: Wednesday January 30^th