Saturday, October 31, 2009

You couldn't make this up

The Weekend Herald isn't like the daily Herald - the journalists can really emphasise the most important events of the whole week. Like this article, from page A3 of today's newspaper:

A pet cat escaped with only three broken teeth and a fractured jaw after falling six storeys from an apartment balcony on Auckland's viaduct.

Graeme and Alison Pike are surprised tabby Camo didn't fall on to someone's plate in one of the restaurants on the waterfront.

If it had, this story would have made the front page.

But when the Pikes took Camo to the vet, she only needed three of her teeth extracted. Her fractured jaw was left to heal on its own.

"The vets eyes were definitely raised," Mrs Pike said.

I think that should be "vet's eyes" (in the paper and online), but don't worry - the Weekend Herald is only, as the article below attests, "read by an average of 618,000 people" every week. It's not like it's a major newspaper.

I don't really know what to say. How did this 'storey' - hur hur - even get to the paper's attention? My preferred version of events is that the owners, amused at their cat's travails, contacted Sideswipe to get the story out there.

"This story isn't fit for Sideswipe," they were told. "No, this is going straight to page three."


[EDIT: Muphry's Law. Where's my sub?]

10 comments:

  1. If I had to live in the viaduct with inbred suburban city-lifestylers I'd probably jump too.

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  2. I think that should be "vet's eyebrows."

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  3. I think that should be "get to the paper's attention" (online)

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  4. For fuck's sake. One of the many reasons I left.

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  5. I dont think this cats suicide attempt is being taken seriously by anyone...

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  6. ...that's like. WTF. A cat's ability to turn as it's falling - and therefore be more likely to die from a short falla s it can't turn in time - is so well-documented this is practically farcical.

    It being in the paper IS a farce.

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  7. Monk De Wally De HonkNovember 2, 2009 at 1:34 AM

    What no shit pun headline?

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  8. According to Stephen Fry, 7 stories and above (American study, so that might mean 6 stories + ground) are safe for cats. According to Clive Anderson, the first few stories are also safe and it's the mid range around the fifth floor where cats suffer.

    (Source: QI, which isn't always the most reliable)

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  9. Monk De Wally De HonkNovember 3, 2009 at 11:54 AM

    storeys.

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