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A 111 call on December 2, 1974, reported that shots were being fired in Aro Street Wellington. According to the Police Museum Facebook page, police were dispatched and when more shots rang out the Armed Offenders Squad (AOS) was called in. “Two constables were clearing the area of civilians when they were held up at gunpoint by two offenders. The young couple had numerous stolen rifles, pistols and knives and had decided to stage a revolution! It was never really revealed what their cause was, but their first demand was that they should be taken to a hotel for a drink.
“Inspector Bernie Rowe was the head of Wellington AOS at the time and Senior Sergeant Ian Holyoake negotiated that if they let the officers go Inspector Rowe would escort them to a hotel for a drink. Shortly after, an unarmed Bernie Rowe walked up the street to meet them and the hostages were released. Holyoake and Rowe negotiated that the revolutionaries could take their pistols, but they were to leave their other weapons behind, and they would drive them to the Grand Hotel for that drink.
“Inspector Rowe, a gun held against his head, drove the couple to the Grand, which had by this time been cleared of patrons and staff. In their place were police officers in civvies. Surprise! They were overpowered and arrested in minutes.” They both went to jail and months later and Ian Holyoake received a letter from the female thanking him for how we dealt with them and not shooting them. “Yes – they did get their drinks,” explained Ian Holyoake. “I poured them very “adequate” quantities. Hence, when the undercover cops arrived at the bar, they didn’t have much fight left in them… A news reporter rang my wife during the kidnapping to ask how she felt about it. Of course, she had no knowledge whatsoever – until his call.”
Why we hate supermarkets
Coaxed into buying a 60gm bag after continual flashbacks of throwing out half a bag of slimy spinach, only to be ripped off for trying to reduce the vegetable casualties. Victoria Carter does the maths: “One bag of spinach 120 gm $4.20 OR buy 2 60 gm bags and pay $6″ she tweets, outraged. “PS yes that is sellotape holding my ipad together. Been like it for 4 years and still works fine!”
Beatles wig, a bargain
“Who’s your favourite Beatle: John, Paul, George or Murderous 14th Century Monk?” asks Josh Weinstein.
Gift giving a challange
“When my niece was young, my husband asked his brother what we could buy her for Christmas, as we have no children ourselves so have no idea what to buy. ‘Oh, just get her some Frozen stuff, she’s only just got interested in that and she loves it!’ I was a bit confused and was imagining buying her bags of chips, frozen peas and the like.”
Autism is the latest thoughtless slur
Mikey Havoc calls out a pair of political shock jocks on Twitter: “Barry Soper and Heather DPA chuckling on ZB Friday night, about how certain policies this election are SO crazy SO utterly ridiculous that ‘you’d have to BE ON THE SPECTRUM to vote for them.’ Wow. THAT bad, eh? You pig ignorant w….rs.” For Havoc it’s personal. This from RNZ interview in May this year: “Havoc’s life centres around co-parenting his non-verbal autistic son Kyuss.
“I just love him so much. All the things I presumed I’d be doing as a dad pretty much don’t happen. I’ve been collecting toys all my life – he’s not interested in any of them. I’ve had to learn how to engage with him meaningfully… a whole different way than I would if he wasn’t on the spectrum. Every single day I learn something about myself. You realise that they really don’t have any time for your stories or your business. They’ve got so much amazing stuff going on in their own heads that they don’t really care for [hearing about] who you met yesterday or what you are going to do next week. That doesn’t impress them a jot, and that’s quite good for me.”
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