1. Is Stan Walker engaged? Woman's Day certainly think it might be possible, as they pull out their eagle-eyed goggles on a photo of the singer and his girlfriend Lou Tyson at Auckland Airport. Maybe they are jumping to conclusions, but that certainly is a massive rock on her finger.
2. It must be mother's day soon. The mags are full to the brim with heartwarming tales of kids and their mums - including WD cover star, Polly Gillespie. The new breakfast radio host of The Hits poses up alongside her mum Thelma and daughter Katherine as they sweetly gush all over each other. Katherine, 19, describes how she "missed mummy and daddy so much" while she was on her year-long OE, while Thelma sings her daughter's praises. "She knew all her upper-case and lower-case letters before she started school and her ABCs from start to finish," she tells the mag. Another thing Polly learned quickly was keeping her age to herself. "I don't see why someone should be defined by their age or their size, for that matter. I'm more than a number - I'm a mother, a wife, a radio host, a writer and I'm a best friend." And a really good secret-keeper.
3. Watch out Sally and Jaime Ridge - there's a new mother/daughter BFF team in town. Carrying on the mother's day theme, netball superstar Irene van Dyke, 41, tells the New Zealand Woman's Weekly people often think she and 16-year-old daughter Bianca could be sisters. "Most of my friends hate spending time with their mums, but we're besties," Bianca says. "She's away a lot for netball, but when she's home, it's great. And she's not embarrassing!" Oh come on! She's a mum - it's part of their job.
4. It has to be a little confusing when you are three years old and suddenly there are cameras all up in your grill and some strange lady is pretending to be your mum. But Sheridan Eketone, the real mother of Leila who plays Tillie Potts on Shortland Street, reckons the little one loves being on the show. The pair, along with Leila's TV mum Amanda Billing, are one of three Shorty mother-kid-fake mother trios in NZWW. Also in the kid-mix are Lucy Elliott (Dayna) and Reid Walker (Harry Warner). Angela Bloomfield, who plays his on-screen mum Rachel, remembers when she first worked with the 15-year-old. "Rachel smacked her stepson Harry. I had to smack Reid's bottom for 15 minutes and I felt so uncomfortable doing it! We made the wardrobe team pad him up."
5. New Idea claim rain on your wedding day is good luck, rather than ironic. I hope they reminded Olympic rower Nathan Cohen about that when Cyclone Ita hit his big day recently. Cohen and his partner Jacqueline Hughson got married in Taupo, just as the weather bomb hit. They had to scrap their planned outdoor affair, but they managed to squeezed 120 guests into the Hilton's observatory. Like any good wedding, there were tears, a round of the guess-my-name game and a lot of rowers; two in the bridal party, 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Nathan Twaddle was the celebrant and Mahe Drysdale MC'd the event. Who do you reckon was the first to suggest a midnight row on Lake Taupo?
- nzherald.co.nz