It's been a huge week of sporting highs and lows.

1. First up is Mike Delany's call up for the All Blacks squad. It's great to see another Bay of Plenty player making the grade. Delany has had AB written all over him and has steamed into the line up to tour the Northern Hemisphere.

2. Breeds Success: My inlaws both won their golf championships at Tauranga in the weekend. It's a great thrill for the family and we congratulate Connie and Cliff Breeds on this amazing double whammy. Maybe Connie will let me call her Tiger now.

3. Bunny Biffing: In other sporting news, Canterbury's Dead Rabbit Throwing contest has been called off, after howls of protest from animal rights groups and the SPCA. Not surprising really. It's one thing to humanely rid the country of a pest, but seems a bit over the top to desecrate their furry little limp bodies in a bout of bunny biffing.
A spokesman from the SPCA went a bit far though, commenting along the lines that 'you wouldn't want someone throwing your dead grandmother around.”
True, but there are some subtle differences between plague pests and grandmothers: I don't think we actually hunt grannies because they've reached plague proportions, threaten our agricultural economy and trigger widespread erosion. Although they probably are responsible for a fair number of divots at the Tauranga Golf Club and the odd dent in the turf at the domain croquet greens.

4. Peculiar Parade: Also in the Weird and Wonderful events calendar this week – the annual Invasion of the Pink People. It never ceases to amaze me how, year after year, normally mature and sensible women can turn into a horde of giggling, squawking schoolgirls, just because their hair is turned pink and their underwear is on the outside.
It's a great event for a great cause and fantastic to see so many women having a good time in a supporting role.
The breast cancer walk is Tauranga's answer to the Running of the Bulls. Except the only bull is that being espoused from the jabbering masses. Any self-respecting bovine being confronted with that fluorescent rabble would hardly charge – he'd run the other way. Probably having a quiet beer somewhere with the long-suffering, cringing menfolk.

5. The Spring Diet: Summer's coming, the pressure is on those who are self-conscious and want to lose weight before they have to squeeze into those impossibly small bikinis and shorts. Some started this game early; such as Tuesday night when they realised they weren't going to fit into the same silly pink outfit they wore last year.
This game involves working oneself into a lather about how to lose an incredibly large amount of weight in an impossibly short amount of time. Like, 10kg, by tomorrow.

RR Rules for losing weight:
The Closet Rule: If you eat it fast and no one sees you, the calorie count is halved.
Absorption Rule: Eating for the purpose of counteracting alcohol contains no calories. However, the calories in the drink are quadrupled.
Celery takes more energy to digest than it provides. Therefore, do not go on the all-celery diet. You will become invisible.

6. Hole in One: The other obscure sport seeing a major revival is the (seemingly) annual 'Dig up the Expressway” event.
This is a bewildering sports fixture in which a mile-long hole is dug in a motorway. For most local motorists, their only part in the event is to dodge the ever-moving string of road cones.
The main players in the game are the guys in orange jerkins, The Black Tops, who move the cone pieces about the board. It must be quite a tiring game because there always seems to be plenty of reserve players standing near the sidelines doing nothing, except waiting to be subbed on.
Traditionally, the motorists' role is that of mobile spectators; to drive through and mutter, 'Why would you dig up a perfectly good piece of road?” and 'Didn't they do this last year?”

7. Lemmings: Finally, this coming weekend sees the traditional Flocking to Sea in Small Boats weekend. That' right, Labour Weekend is the official start of summer boating.
Similar to lemmings leaping off cliffs into the ocean, half the population of the Bay will be dusting off their craft, staring incredulously at the flat batteries that haven't seen any charge for six months; sniff with disbelief at the stale fuel in the tank; and puzzle over the seized engine impellor that was working just fine in February.
While the reasonable thinking boaties will take some of the weekend to actually prepare their boat for the coming season, do some of those essential maintenance jobs and check their safety gear – there's a fair percentage who will launch the family runabout, 'She'll Be Right”, into the great blue yonder and wonder why, four miles from the entrance, the motor has stopped.
Whatever your game, it's going to be a cracker weekend out there. Please take care.
And replace your divots. We don't want any grannies becoming statistics.