Entertainment

Today I have been reflecting back to the 'golden days' of film. The glitz and glamour films, the big blockbusters - great epic films like 'Gone with the Wind', 'Doctor Zhivago' and such like. Those were the days of real entertainment.

With all the pressure in today's 'modern' world I think it is becoming more and more important to take time out and do something that helps relax us and make us happy - whether that be taking a walk, flying a kite or planning something special.

It seems to me that the art of good 'Customer Service' has completely left the building. What has happened to being polite and courteous? If you are treated well by salespeople you either leave a store feeling happy, or hang up the phone feeling satisfie

It's August already. My, the year seems to have flown by, or is it I am just getting older? Well yes, I am sadly. A lifetime seems so short. When you are young, you think that it is a long time but life has a habit of creeping up on you ever so fast.

The embers in the fire were fading fast. Edwin glanced over at his wife Miranda and he could see sadness in her eyes.

She has been dubbed the "Happiest Olympic Worker" and is now a YouTube sensation - her deadpan humour has certainly put a smile on the face of nearby onlookers.

Granddad Grayburn hailed from Yorkshire along with my Nannie in the early 1890s. They settled in Mid-Canterbury and built a modest home in the tiny little township of Hinds.

It tells a story about a young Japanese boy Koichi who goes to live at his grandparents' house in Kagoshima with his mother after his parents' divorce.

I think it was about 1970 or so when I saw my first piece of Waitangi Treaty graffiti. It was on the side of a farm building alongside SH1 just south of Dunedin.

The vampires of the Twilight saga saturated modern media for a while, but now they've been booted out by the warriors of The Hunger Games, in which young people in an imaginary society not too removed from our own are selected to fight to the death.