Bizarre but all too true

I’ve heard of it raining cats and dogs but this was the first time I’d heard of a bear falling out of the sky. You may have seen the story at the weekend of a sheriff in Northern California losing his patrol car while driving to an assignment. He was motoring along quite nicely when a bear fell – or jumped – from a steep embankment above the vehicle, smashing the bonnet and the windscreen.

Unsurprisingly, the surprised sheriff lost control of the car and it crashed into an embankment, rolled on its side and burst into flames. Luckily the driver escaped from this unexpected driving mishap with no serious injuries.

The animal also appears to have got off relatively unscathed. It fled with barely (pardon the pun) a scratch before the officer could arrest it for damaging a police car.

This report set me wondering what other bizarre accidents had befallen unsuspecting people going about their normal life.

So, spare a thought for Ian Bowman, an unlucky bellringer at Worcester Cathedral in England. He was ringing one of the 16 bells in the cathedral’s bell tower when a bell rope snagged around his ankle, yanking the 51-year-old into the air.

After first being slammed against the bell tower floor, he was then yanked upwards and left dangling more than 20 metres in the air. After this ‘‘for whom the bell tolls’’ moment, Ian had to wait while firefighters painstakingly made their way through a series of trapdoors to reach the scene of the unlikely accident.

Going like the clappers, a team of rope specialists then managed to free Ian from his predicament. He was lowered gently to safety suffering from a broken back and head and neck injuries. It is not recorded whether Ian ever returned to bellringing. If he did, I’m sure his friends would have warned him and then exclaimed: ‘‘Well, he won’t be tolled.’’

It’s no secret that the United States has a gun problem but perhaps surprisingly some of these issues are caused by dogs as Allie Carter discovered in 2015 while hunting with her dog, Trigger. Allie’s mistake was to lay down her 12-gauge shotgun with the safety catch off, whereupon Trigger leapt on the rifle, discharging a round into her owner’s foot. As she limped for medical assistance Alli wasn’t feeling particularly Triggerhappy.

Swimming in beer? It sounds like some people’s idea of heaven but it wasn’t so when beer flooded the streets of London in 1814 after a giant vat ruptured, probably due to corroding hoops.

The mishap triggered other containers to split too and 323,000 gallons (1.4 million litres) of beer poured through Tottenham Court Road. The tidal wave of beer, about five metres high, destroyed two homes and badly damaged a nearby pub.

Because the accident happened in a poor area of the city where some people lived in cellars, the tsunami of beer claimed at least seven lives.

The death in 1771 of Adolf Frederick, king of Sweden, has shades of Monty Python’s Mr Creosote scene about it. He died of indigestion problems after downing a meal consisting of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne. Oh, and having not satisfied his pangs of hunger, he finished the meal with his favourite dessert – 14 helpings of semia (a traditional sweet roll) served in a bowl of hot milk.

No wonder he is known to this day by Swedish schoolchildren as ‘‘the king who ate himself to death’’.

Just another in the list of freak occurrences that are pretty hard to swallow but nevertheless true.

The first to sing the Ma¯ ori version of the national anthem were Palmerston North’s String of Pearls – Vicki Lee and Cyndi Joe – in 1992.

At Twickenham in 1999 when Hinewehi Mohi had the audacity to sing the national anthem in Ma¯ ori only, back home the country’s foundations shook. This was at a World Cup quarterfinal and none of the All Blacks could even hum the unaccustomed words.

Outrage erupted because Mohi ditched the English version, which, let’s face it, is a colonial dirge from the blimming 1870s.

But this was 1999 and she had sung the te reo version off her own bat, later calling herself ‘‘an accidental activist’’.

Ever since she has been erroneously credited as the pioneer of the Ma¯ ori version, notably by the unapologetic Newshub lot in Auckland and as recently as a week or so ago on TV3’S The Project.

But now it is 20 years on, the claim is historically incorrect and as the old LV Martin jingle went, ‘‘it’s the putting right that counts’’.

The first to sing it were Palmerston North’s String of Pearls – Vicki Lee and Cyndi Joe – in 1992.

Lee had sung the anthem in English at the 1990 Kiwis-great Britain rugby league test in Palmerston North and, after looking around the crowd, she decided next time it would be in both languages.

But there wasn’t a Ma¯ ori version. She had performed alongside legendary singer Howard Morrison, who put her on to his friend, Massey University lecturer Taiarahia Black, to write the translation. Black is the father of Manawatu¯ Turbo Otere Black.

The Pearls sang it in both languages two years later for the Kiwis-britain league test and in 1993 they repeated it before the national rugby sevens final and the NZ Grand Prix at Manfeild.

The 1993 Kiwis-kangaroos league test at the Showgrounds was infamous for the feral crowd camped on the sidelines nicking the match balls.

NZ Rugby League secretary Mike Knowles had told Lee and Joe the bilingual anthem was too lengthy and to drop the Ma¯ ori version.

Rather like Mohi at Twickers, they did their own thing, singing one version, but half in English and half in Ma¯ ori.

In all, Lee and Joe sang about 25 renditions at international sports events before Mohi rattled the country’s dags in 1999. They included about a dozen netball tests around the country, five league internationals, the Springboks-manawatu¯ rugby clash in 1994 and when a New Zealand XV played Canada. The Ministry of Internal Affairs circulated a CD around schools featuring the anthem sung by the Pearls, Frankie Stevens and Ainslie Allen.

At the New Zealand-australia netball test in Palmerston North in 1994, TV commentator Brendan Telfer said: ‘‘That would have to be the best rendition of the New Zealand national anthem I have ever witnessed at a sporting event.’’

It shouldn’t matter, but of the bilingual anthem pioneers, Lee is a Pa¯ keha¯ woman and Joe is of Chinese-ma¯ ori descent. Mohi is of Pa¯ keha¯ -Ma¯ ori parentage and her role was significant, singing the anthem only in Ma¯ ori in front of a massive audience.

Lee has lived with the fallacy being repeated, but her husband Steve hasn’t. He has bombarded Newshub and reporter Mihingarangi Forbes with corrected versions, but has been ignored. Maybe it didn’t suit their narrative.

As Steve Lee railed: ‘‘We have sat back for years and heard this old chestnut rolled out regularly.’’

Please, not again

The All Blacks had a week in sunny Perth, knew they were playing only the ordinary Wallabies and their subconscious did them in.

Suddenly, very ordinary Aussie battlers were tramping all over them.

Nowhere did the All Blacks tighten up, revert to driving play, to mauling, to pick and goes to suck in marauders to create a little space for the flash Harrys. Our two starting props carried the ball but once, the Aussies’ about 20 times.

The tactic of chip kicks from Beauden Barrett simply coughed up precious ball en route to a record 47 points conceded by an All Blacks side.

They also forgot the referee was the clod who redded Sonny Bill Williams for his reckless, but unintentional collision against the Lions in 2017 and who in the third test that year intervened from the touchline to get ref Romain Poite to change his offside penalty call. Despite that, this garcon will be one of four Frenchmen let loose with a whistle at the World Cup.

By all means Scott Barrett could have been yellow-carded. Better still, put the offender on report as they do in the NRL rather than wrecking the contest by ditching a player. Scott Barrett’s was a tackle that went marginally wrong performed in a fraction of a second in a game where everyone was illegally off their feet at breakdowns smashing players on the ground.

Once being ordered off was a walk of shame for malicious violence. Today slo-mo replays of collisions are offering blowers of the Jerome Garces ilk greater opportunities to excitedly pull the red trigger.