​Local amateur comedian and self-described ‘hard case’ Mark McArthur yesterday inflicted a crowd of dozens, gathered to watch a junior cricket match, with a free ‘performance’ of some of his latest material.
 
Firmly planted in a fold-down camping chair, clasping a thermos of coffee ‘with just a little bit of Irish in it, if y’know what I mean!’, McArthur began his set inside the first over, questioning whether or not the umpires needed to schedule an appointment at Specsavers.
 
“I could see that was a run out and I’m all the way over here, champ!”
 
In between quips, McArthur would shoot quick glances to his ‘audience’ as they forced smiles, shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, and became suddenly engrossed with the latest goings-on on their phones.
 
“Hey Ump” he called.
 
“Ump”.
 
“Ump”.
 
“Ump”.
 
Upon finally getting a response from the middle of the pitch, 47-year-old investment banker cracked a grin and responded, “Game’s out there!”
 
“I got that one from The Simpsons. I love that show - isn’t Homer the coolest dad?!”
 
Throughout the day, McArthur made numerous other ‘humorous’ jibes against the umpires, both teams, and several of his fellow spectators.
 
As the game began to wind down, McArthur became more philosophical in his speech.
 
“It’s just a little something I do to bring a bit of joy to people’s lives. I do what I can”
 
“Hell, I’m not even related to any of these kids”.

​While reading the number of messages from well-wishers on her special day, local woman Mikayla Shaw has noticed one message that stands out from among the rest.
 
Her grandmother, Betty McKenzie, at 85 years young, has managed to not only maintain a social media presence but also submit her own birthday wish – albeit on a profile picture posted back in 2016.
 
“Happy birthday love! Youre blossoming into such a beautiful young woman – I HOPE YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL YEAR AND LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU ON FRIDAY A CUPPA. lOVE YOU”
 
The comment, left in a sea of ‘Looking good babses’ and ‘XOXO can I be you?’ comments, stands out like a sore thumb; not just because of the sudden switch to caps lock, but also due to it being several years out of date.
 
“Aww, she made a genuine effort to get it right this time,” said Shaw to herself, as she investigated her notifications.
 
“The real gift here is that she’s posted it on the correct person’s page this time! Well, that and the fact that she has no idea what a Minion meme is!”
 
At the time of writing, Mrs McKenzie was perusing Facebook’s range of floral and cat GIFs she could incorporate into her next birthday wish bonanza.
 
More as it develops.

​It has only taken a matter of hours for Dunedin’s Lime Scooters to cause widespread death and destruction across town, with hospitals, medical centres and morgues reporting an overwhelming influx of people.
 
The scooters, popular across other main centres in New Zealand, were met in Dunedin by excited locals who were looking forward to potentially leaving their cars in the garage and saving on fuel, but their optimism was quickly replaced by terror, as the carnage set in.
 
“There was blood and guts everywhere,” reported an unnamed Dunedin local.
 
“I didn’t know where to look – you just couldn’t escape from it. It penetrated all of your senses at once – the smell of blood, the cries of the wounded, the sight of the gore… I was speechless”.
 
Authorities are warning people to approach the Lime Scooters cautiously, especially if they still haven’t sobered up since New Year’s.
 
“Walk before you can run, people!” said a representative of the Police.
 
“And by that, we mean make sure you can actually put one foot in front of the other before trying to operate any kind of vehicle or machine”.
 
Despite the high human cost, Lime have no plans to withdraw from Dunedin any time soon.
 
“The way I see it, we’re doing God’s work here,” said Tom Carroll, Dunedin’s Lime Scooter representative.
 
“If we can remove the kind of people who injure or kill themselves on a goddamn scooter from the gene pool, then I think we’re doing society a bit of a favour.”
 
More to come.

​As the sunlight of a new day rose to greet the world, news that every single person on Earth who set themselves a New Year’s Resolution has come to terms with that they have already broken them began to circulate.
 
Whether people had decided to get themselves into shape, learn how to play the guitar, or simply live a better kind of life, by the dawn of the tenth day of the year, those promises were already shattered and left by the wayside.
 
Crawling out from under the covers of wherever they slept that night, people were quick to deny they had ever thought to set themselves any goal for 2019 at all.
 
“What? No, setting myself the goal of any kind of self-improvement is a bit of a bridge too far, to be honest” said Nick Matheson, a local loser.
 
“I barely scraped through 2018 by the skin of my teeth, so the idea of ‘self-care’ or whatever is a bit beyond me”.
 
“I’m just trying to make sure I’ve got enough money for beer for the rest of summer – that’s probably the closest I’m going to get to a resolution of any kind!”
 
At the time of writing, people around the world were kicking themselves for renewing their gym memberships for a further 12 months, after only going a handful of times the previous year.
 
“At this point, I’m only going to hit the gym to burn off Christmas lunch,” said one recent re-signing gym-goer.
 
“I figure that should be about just before Easter, but we’ll see how we go”.