Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

Where did that week go? It seems like only yesterday you were sitting here, reading the zany ideas of the ten year olds, as to how they'd run the country.

On reflection, I think their ideas are probably better than anything the adults have come up with.

Which raises a bit of a dilemma this week, since I don't have a bunch of creative ten year olds available to write this column for me.

So we'll just have to wing it with a collection of oddball items that the oddball adults have created during the week.

I'm hearing a lot of nasty rumours about this ship on the reef. Some cruel people are referring to it as ‘a wreck' and some negative people out there are even saying it will never float again.
What a lot of media hype. Just because there's a couple of wee cracks and a bit of stuff falling off, doesn't mean a thing. They'll patch it up again, no worries.

Those of you who watch a bit of television have seen it all before.
Nothing a quick call to Jeff Tracy won't fix. He'll get Thunderbird Two out there and before you can say 'A-OK, Virgil” the Rena will be snugly tucked up alongside in Pilot Bay and then happily carrying milk powder to hungry infants in China by February.
Meanwhile, in another case from the ‘Exxon Valdez School of Creative Ship Driving', comes the case of the cruise liner, which also had a slight parking accident this week.

Loosely translated as'Get back on board, for **** sake” is a dig at Costa Concordia's skipper.

This, from avid reader Maurice:
The current plight of the Costa Concordia reminds me of a comment made by Churchill. After his retirement he was cruising the Mediterranean on an Italian cruise liner. Some Italian journalists asked why an ex British Prime Minister should chose an Italian ship.

'There are three things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship,” said Churchill:
'First their cuisine is unsurpassed.
'Second their service is superb.
'And then, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first.”

Tall tales:
An Auckland paper recently ran a series of reader's contributions: Yarns they were told as kids, that were believable. My favourite was the father who convinced his children that when Mr Whippy had his music playing, it meant he'd run out of icecream.
And the nana who reckoned, when colour television first arrived, that if you vacuumed too close to the set, the vacuum would suck the colour out.

Then there was a dad who maintained that the bubble in a builder's level was a fish fart. Imagine the extraordinary skill it would take to capture and bottle a fish fart.

Meanwhile, my wife tells me that her mean older siblings told her while watching the sixties television series, Bewitched, the neighbour ‘Gladys' had died in real life. (Alice Pearce, 1966).
When asked how come she was still on the TV, the siblings convinced her that she'd been stuffed so they could keep her on the show. Claire watched the whole series in horror, thinking the role of the witch's nosy neighbour, who usually only appeared at the window, was played by a corpse.

Tell us your childhood myths and legends, there's prize packs for the best.

Email: [email protected] (subject line: Childhood yarns)
Or drop a line to Rogers Rabbits, The Sun, PO Box 240, Tauranga.

Surfing scenario
Here's one for all the summer holiday wannabes:
More than 50 self-confessed crap surfers descended on a Cornwall beach recently for the World Championship of Crap Surfing. In onshore drizzle, wind and fog, surfers battled for the World Title or special awards like Best Wipeout, Worst Wipeout, Most Missed Waves and Most Genuinely Upset Loser. After a display of truly terrible surfing, Bill Bankes-Jones took the title with his trademark dismounts.

Crapsurfer.com's motto is: Without failure how can we understand success?

Face off
I have too many friends on facebook, so some of you will have to go.

I know this will be hard on some of you. But let's be realistic here. I recently read that the definition of a true friend is someone you would donate an organ to.

Considering the fact that I only have one, or in some cases two, organs of any particular description; plus the fact that some of those organs are particularly stressed and overworked – then it's not looking good for many thousands of you. In fact, realistically, I believe that my number of friends should be reduced to one or two.

And let's hope that those two friends don't both want a kidney at the same time or someone will be out of luck. And don't even start on my liver – that has enough problems of its own, without being threatened with a new home.

And judging from some of the lifestyle habits of my friends, it's arguably better off where it is, than going somewhere it may be subject to abuse, excesses and generally poor lifestyle and diet choices.

So that's that. The culling will start this week – as soon as I've figured out what my password is.

Don't take this personally. You can always join up as a friend of the dog, since Flo's now on Facebook. Her page probably makes more sense anyway.