Beware the invading summer

SO there he was, The Offsider, feeling the early advance of summer when he rose shortly after dawn to go for a surf on Saturday. It was going to be an absolutely beautiful day but the morning's early chill was already being beaten away in daunting fashion as a warm northerly front descended upon the province.

He hit the beach and paddled out where, despite competing with what seemed like a virtual convention of retro-longboarders in a 1-2ft windswell at Ahipara, still managed to catch some highly enjoyable set waves.

And maybe because he had not stayed up half the night to watch the final of the Rip Curl Pro Portugal streaming live and featuring two of the most exciting new surfers on the scene of the moment: Julian Wilson taking victory by catching a buzzer-beating wave with 35 seconds on the clock to defeat Brazilian aerial specialist, Gabriel 'Funky Gold' Medina (rapidly becoming The Offsider's favourite goofyfooter to watch) while 11 times world champ Kelly Slater ended up being knocked out in heavy-dumping and random conditions in the quarterfinals.

The rest of Saturday was spent in slow motion before the evening erupted in an exceptional TV party with the main event being the All Blacks 18-all draw in the Bledisloe Cup (shown delayed on Prime), a less than spectacular but often brutal affair. Between the ads and many slow bits, The Offsider chopped down to watch Shine a light (TV3), Martin Scorcese's documentary of a Rolling Stones performance; while the curtainraiser was the The girl who kicked the hornets' nest (Maori TV) starring a eye-catching Noomi Rapace as the punk heroine of the title. But he definitely did not rate The Illusionist (TV1) showing about the same time: Edward Norton's unforgivable portrayal of Bruce Banner in the Incredible Hulk remake still festered.

The late night saw the Age sportsbuster sleep in and bail mass on Sunday before hitting the highway in driving rain and blustery wind to catch the opening of the local speedway season. He arrived to find the box office empty while the number of cars there could have been counted on the fingers of one deformed hand. Not so much inauspicious as more resembling a ghost town, he took advantage of the poor turnout by taking the sportsmobile for a slow and cautious lap on the track rather than flinging lumps of red clay out from under the tyres in second gear like one of the regular sidewidners.

He also managed to read most of the Weekend Herald in its more preferable broadsheet format than the new tabloidy one used for the weekday editions, and laughed to himself as he remembered one lame-brain who had recently written a letter to the editor praising the downsized version because it was easier to hold and read. But if he was going to stick to his old school guns then The Offsider was in big trouble. Clark Kent was quitting his job at the Daily Planet; author Mitch Albom who wrote the hugely popular/hopelessly maudlin, Tuesdays with Morrie, was bemoaning the loss of his favourite bookshop ("a huge sprawling place in Ann Arbor, Michigan which sadly, like all Borders, is closed ..."); and even ye olde Rugby News was going online.

The Offsider ended Sunday by tidying copy late in the evening and listening to a worthy Axe Attack seamlessly merging old and new schools of metal in all their latest variances. Outside, a dark, humid night told of a summer coming on like a tropical storm warning full of costly sunscreens, unseasonable tides and temperatures, and invading hordes of non-Christian recreational water users.

The Offsider is Age sportsbuster Francis Malley. Respond at sports@northlandage.co.nz