A friend of mine who does load and fuel control at an airport has told me before that this is more common than most think. Pilots tell controls that they do not have enough fuel so that they have priority to land so that they don't have to circle and wait in queue to land....especially a couple of international airliners which I won't name.

I remember this happening when petrol prices first started going up in New Zealand from a few years ago. There were so many annoyed petrol station attendants because they were the first people the drivers complained to. Having friends who worked at petrol stations part time during high school at the time, they said that it really made the day unbearable. The attendants are just doing their job, they don't set the prices and hey when they fill up their car at the end of the day to drive home, they pay the same price as everyone else!

My sister and brother both grew up in Hong Kong until they were in their early teens and they would both either be catching a public bus or subway by themselves to get to school on the other side of town everyday and my mother doesn't recall any problems whatsoever (and we lived in Mong Kok in Hong Kong, and if anyone has any knowledge of HK you would know what its like). I think as long as you set times for when they have to be home and to make sure they are familiar with the area and where to go before they go solo, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Likewise in this day and age, its easy to buy a cheap mobile phone for kids so that they know they can always call you when they get into trouble. Of course you have to teach your kids commonsense like not talking to strangers, not taking on any offers from strangers and keeping out of trouble. Even though people tend to focus on the bad in society, lets not forget that there are still good people out their too.

Hurrah to our boys from Kiwiland!

I had a workmate who was South African and could speak Zulu....it was pretty amazing

Hilarious....didn't his mother ever tell him not to play with knives? Especially smacking them on a table?

Wow, having moved from Hong Kong to New Zealand (massive spatial difference) these pictures just reminds me of how cramped I use to live!

How can the operator not be fired? Isn't the fact of this little boys mother dying the ultimate sign of her incompetence at her job? I hope she at least quits if she isn't told to leave.

The Santarchy has gone for a few years now in the Auckland CBD during Christmas. It's a little exaggarated by the media, it really is just a bunch of guys in their 20s drunk and walking around being silly, they occasionally beat each other up....actually they're pretty entertaining to watch lol.