Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

What are the chances? Not very good if you're a base jumper. One in sixty of them die, as a New Zealand bloke found out unfortunately. Maybe he thought he was number 59.

Whatever the reason that possesses people to jump off tall things, with only a parachute between them and a potential terminal velocity impact, it must be a good one.

The RR Team has a policy of staying well away from the edges of things. We're seeing in politics now what happens when you get too close to the edge of reason. Some of the brothers have fallen right off it.

The chances of dying in a base jumping ‘accident', if that is the right term, are better than winning the Lotto.

As one Tauranga man found out this week. He went for a haircut, found the barber was closed, so bought the $27m winning ticket instead. The identity of the winner is the worst kept secret in Tauranga. The story goes that he initially announced the win on his Facebook page, but it seemed few believed it. Then he must have got some advice, and retracted it, claiming someone had hacked his account. Ever heard of that happening? What are the chances?

Anyway, here at the Sun, we are respecting his privacy and as per his wishes, won't be naming him.

Privacy is something that could become a rare commodity for this chap. There is no doubt that 27 million, plus a few other additions, such as a Lamborghini in the driveway, will change his life forever.

Privacy, as the song says, is one of those things you don't know what you've got, till it's gone.

Just ask Kate. She should know.

Royal jugs. Collect the set.

What are the chances of getting yourself snapped by a sneaky paparazzi while you're sunning your royal norks at a supposedly secluded hideaway? Pretty good, if you happen to have married into the most famous family in the world.

Kate would have had a better chance of keeping the Crown mounds hidden from the eyes of the world, if she'd come to Nizullin for a holiday, rather than running the gauntlet of the dastardly French in Europe. She could have flopped the appendages out happily in the crisp, fresh New Zealand spring air, while the white people still own some of it.

We have some amazing secluded places here, far away from even the lowest sneaky French paparazzi. You've more chance of being hit by a falling base jumper than being snapped in your unawares.

Charles and Camilla know this, that's why they are coming here. The French press will be stampeding AWAY at a great rate, if they think Camilla might start flashing some frontage. You think the exodus from our shores is bad now, imagine the mass evacuations if Charlie is promenading on New Chums Beach in speedos, trying to rub oil into the shadier regions of Camilla, in a thong.
Actually don't go there.

Getting on with it

Meanwhile, we've had great feedback from last week's RR on the subject of race relations.

What are the chances of this: A Kiwi currently holidaying in Scotland read the Rabbits column in the Sun online. Just goes to show how far and wide SunLive reaches. Anyway, this guy has heritage on both sides of the (widening) racial divide. As a part Maori/ part Scot, (descended from, among others, the Te Were clan down the island; and the wild Wallace clan of the Scottish highlands) he decided he knew plenty about his ancestry here, but wanted to learn more about his European links.

At the national museum to William Wallace he says there are records of all manner of injustices perpetrated on the Scots by the British. Multiple treaties broken, genocide, you name it. Yet there were no mentions of settlements.

'The Scots just get on with it. They don't forget the past but are not limited by it.”

There's surely a message here.

What are the chances of Hone and his bros picking it up? Don't hold your breath.

How is it that he can use the nigger word, while the rest of the world would be dragged away by the PC police? Is it because his credibility is so rock bottom that no-one takes anything he says seriously?

What are the chances of this column getting away with using it? Watch this space.

Maybe Hone needs to get out more, or take up a hobby. I can recommend base jumping. There's a bit of a shortage of them.

A reliable source

Meanwhile in the news this week, a great amount of hand wringing and gnashing of teeth over job losses at Kawerau, the popular belief being that falling newspaper pagings (not happening at the Sun!) and reduced demand for newsprint is behind the cutbacks. However, that may not be the whole story.

A reliable source says the redundancies may not be entirely related to a drop in demand for the product. One print industry source says some companies are using more imported newsprint due to reliability of supply; that industrial action and the threat of disruption of locally sourced newsprint supply could be part of the reason some NZ print companies opted to use Asian product.
What are the chances that strike-happy workers at the plant contributed in some way to the demise of their jobs?