Dog survives rumour of death

I must say there was relief at Casa Refugio when Fi was discovered alive inside the police cordon at the Napier siege. Not much good has come from this story, but I think Superintendent  Sam Hoyle deserves an award for the most quotable quote of the whole sorry drama.

“He did have a dog with him on site,” Superintendent Sam Hoyle said. “The dog is still in his van. We haven’t heard from the dog.

“There is a degree of urgency in getting the dog out of the van. We have to say that we have not heard from the dog since this incident started.

“You can draw the obvious conclusions from that.”  [Police dog alive NZH]

Yes, like perhaps the conclusion that a dog can’t use a mobile phone, or a police radio.

If you have anything that can top this, please let me know.

Here’s another wee example of a rumour being laid to rest:

Civil Defence says rumours of a lack of beds for people evacuated from the area around Chaucer Rd are untrue.

Rumours of a lack of beds and people sleeping in the Welfare Centre at Napier Intermediate School were untrue, Civil Defence controller Dennis Morgan said. [Napier latest NZH]

BTW: I just want to say that the Napier siege is/was a big story, very newsworthy and also worthy of huge coverage. I also think that some sections of the media and some journos have done a good job.

However, I would also like to point out that when you have a big story like this that actually moves very slowly – there’s no real action for the media to report – the temptation to start cooking up stories from junk that issues from the rumour mill manifests itself.

Cambo leaves Sainso dead air in Napier: Close Up under siege

I can’t confirm this, I heard it from a bloke in my shed talking to himself after 16 pints of homebrew, but what the f*%$ I’m live on telly and I’ve got nothing but rumours: Sainso’s moustache is booby-trapped.

Another rumour I’ve heard, this one from a woman in Foodtown: Cambo’s a secret Rambo. Apparently he’s into body-building and small arms.

I’ve also been told, but I can’t confirm it, that Close Up is dead. Sauces tell me this just happened. Unfortunately, the next-of-kin haven’t been told, but sauces close to the programme believe it took its own life, probably with a high-powered, but unconfirmed small arm. However, other sauces tell me that Sainso set of his moustache bomb when he found out that Cambo had beaten him to be first with the rumour that the Napier siege was over.

In my previous post on the coverage of the Napier siege story I mentioned that we’d see a bloody finale to the story live on the news and evening current affairs shows. I was being a bit facetious, but FIGJAM.

It’s not over yet. The siege is ongoing, there’s likely to be more blood on the streets of Napier. The way things are going, we’ll get it live at 6pm tonight and again at 7pm. [A new low in NZ journalism]

On Friday night, there was a whole 90 minutes of breathless reporting. it was a blood-soaked ending to a low week. It’s only a rumour, but I heard that TV3 f*&%@d it up, big time.