Smoke Signals
Thursday 20: OCH AYE
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
On the subject of the netballers, judging by the close-up shots in the filler snippets played on CITV, the Scottish lasses sure know how to swing their bums in time to the local drums!
Thursday 20: Copycat crime story
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A smoke signaller wonders whether two Polish prisoners who broke out of a German jail might have heard about our prison breakout on the coconut wireless. They escaped by tying their bed sheets together to abseil down a 15 metre wall. “The wall is pretty high,” a spokesperson for the prison in the southern city […]
Wednesday 26: RAINMAN FOR HIRE
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A weather watcher remarked yesterday that we should loan the Cook Islands’ weatherman Arona Ngari to countries like Australia where they need someone to break the drought. “Every time Arona predicts a weather pattern, or pronounces such and such, we usually get the opposite weather pattern. Like the other day when he said we were […]
Wednesday 26: BEST PRICES
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
Since critics are always quick to slam CITC, someone ought to note how the Main Store’s prices for sports gear are among the best anywhere, a smoke signaller says. “Nike apparel, for example, is cheaper here for the same latest range as in NZ and Australia. Evidence of that was seen on Saturday when visiting […]
Wednesday 26: INITIATE, NOT REACT
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
In responding to Wilkie Rasmussen’s expulsion from the Democratic Party, one signaller says that he only wishes that “MPs like Rasmussen will get off their butt and initiate things, rather than just react to anything and everything”.
Wednesday 26: SMOKE TERRORISTS
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A reader says rubbish burning is an issue the island needs to urgently address “as it’s a real health hazard for children, the elderly and people prone to developing respiratory illnesses. Shops and households burn cardboard boxes, plastic, cans, green waste, and all other waste in between. These are the Smoke Terrorists – you never […]
Wednesday 26: Good deed pays off in the end
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
Here’s a smokie with a happy ending. A parent writes: “Had to mention this one. My daughter and her friend found a wallet in town – they were waiting for the bus at Cooks’ Corner. They did the right thing and headed to the police station. The police officer opened the wallet, looked at the […]
Tuesday 25: MILLER TIME
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
The police headquarters in Raro gets plenty of courtesy visits from fellow police members from other countries, and there was a special visitor last Wednesday. Senior Constable Bruce Miller, one of the two officers wounded in the Napier shooting siege in New Zealand in May this year (one officer, Senior Constable Len Snee, died in […]
Monday 24: HELLO?
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
Some phone users get rattled when they’re confronted by an answerphone message rather than a live person at the other end of the line, and quickly hang up. Over the weekend Air New Zealand’s answerphone – which is normally kept busy updating callers with the latest flight arrival times – was not working, so friendly […]
Monday 24: PIZZA ON WHEELS
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A reader is curious when a mobile oven that can cook about 30 yummy pizzas an hour, is going to hit the beach. An article in Wellington’s Dominion Post a couple of months ago featured the Petone firm Piazza that has developed the mobile ovens. “People can set it up in a sports ground or […]
Monday 24: ISLAND SALESMANSHIP
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A smokesignaller said he loves the unique approach taken by island marketers. “I recall a shoe sale a number of years back that said: ‘Buy one shoe, get the other one free’! Another chuckled after hearing this radio advert: ‘Buy your loved one your love forever. Get her a washing machine… (price etc). Get one […]
Monday 24: CLASSMATES
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A former Tereora College student was looking at a 1997 photo of her class online and counted that out of 22 students, three have died (just under 14 percent) since the photo was taken 12 years ago.
Monday 24: Our killer roads!
Wednesday 26 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
The Cooks has come second in the world, but it’s not a record we can be proud of. World Health Organisation figures confirm what the Cook Islands Road Safety Council has been warning all along – our roads are some of the deadliest in the world. WHO says the African state of Eritrea is the […]
Monday 17: NIGHT RAIDERS
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A recent police report in this newspaper about watermelons being stolen from a patch in Nikao raises the question about who these thieves are and how they’re getting away with this shameless act. “And it’s not just watermelons, it also happens with pawpaw patches, and sometimes whole taro patches are raided at night,” a reader […]
Monday 17: WHAT'S IT ALLS WORTH?
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
“The Cook Islands is at risk of going morally insane,” a reader says. “Our Audit Office seems to do a great job of uncovering corruption, exposing abuse of power and authority, revealing dishonesty, but what’s the point if there are no penalties or repercussions? It’s all very well to be vigilant and sharp in auditing […]
Monday 17: SMOKO TIME
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
You know the wind’s cold in Raro when otherwise tough tradesmen huddle in the sun on the sheltered side of a building under construction on the beachfront, none wanting to venture around the corner and get chilled and sandblasted on the windward side. So the job takes a bit longer than normal.
Monday 17: PAPA SLOW DOWN!
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
One signaller urges the ol’ fella who was driving a blue single cab pick-up truck last Thursday morning from Upper Tupapa way towards town, to “please put some sense in your head and understand that every day it’s an early morning rush hour for most of us with a job, and your careless driving is […]
Monday 17: REEF INSPECTOR
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A visitor to Rarotonga who received numerous coral cuts when he made the mistake – possibly after a few drinks – of paddling into waves crashing on to the reef on the island’s western side last week, reportedly had one request to make when his rescuers brought him to safety on the beach, a cold […]
Monday 17: Invisible partitions?
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A smoke signaller after watching a ‘Tuatua with Tua’ episode was curious about the lack of cubicles in the Sports Arena’s VIP bathrooms. “One wonders how the VIPs from our country and other countries would feel about doing their business in sight of every other VIP! And since when did the Cook Islands consider red […]
Thursday 13: SHINY COSTUMES
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
Responding to the smokie about Te Hiva Nui girls temporarily mislaying their coconut bras for their shows in England, a reader recalls when Papua New Guinea hosted the 1980 Festival of Pacific Arts, the female dancers in the teams from the Cook Islands and Tahiti were sometimes playfully described in Tok Pisin (Pidgin English) as […]