Friday, 5 February, 2021
The tennis will go on!; Cactus lady busted in NZ; Collingwood players say sorry; and Taylor Swift in theme park tussle.
LINKS:
What’s Up Fox
Reading: Don’t Call Me Ishmael https://readingaustralia.com.au/lesson/dont-call-ishmael/
Listening: Superbloom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv3gjE3zIIs
Watching: Fresh Prince of Bel Air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpnQ2oIRgB0
Check out our parent podcast and daily news email for adults: The Squiz: www.thesquiz.com.au
Squiz Kids Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/squizkids/?hl=en
Got a birthday coming up and you want a shout-out? Send us an email at [email protected]
Squiz Kids is proudly supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
THE LOWDOWN
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The game will go on! That’s the word from organisers of the Australian Open tennis tournament, due to kick off in Melbourne on Monday, despite the fact that 160 players and officials were placed into quarantine yesterday after a hotel worker where many of them were staying tested positive for the coronavirus.
Oh no Melbourne! Not again!
While the city was on alert yesterday – fingers and toes crossed, hoping it wouldn’t lead to a repeat of last year’s super long COVID lockdown – the Victorian premier Daniel Andrews revived a few old rules just to be careful: including mandatory masks in public places and also for high school students.
The development came as our Federal Government announced it had secured another 10 million doses of COVID vaccine and that vaccination of the Aussie population was expected to start at the end of the month – and by October, we should all hopefully be vaccinated. So – yay for that.
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It’s going to be another tense weekend for Perth residents as the bushfire that has ravaged outlying suburbs to the north-east of the city continues to burn.
Fire crews yesterday said 81 homes have now been lost to the flames. Which is awful. But so far there’s been no loss of life. Which is great.
SPIN THE GLOBE
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Each day we give the world globe a spin and find a news story from wherever it stops. And today we’ve landed in New Zealand … where a woman has found herself in trouble with the law after trying to smuggle nearly 1000 cactus plants into the country …. strapped to her body.
New Zealand customs officials – who are the people who keep track of who is coming in and out of the country – were alerted to the cactus-smuggling woman when sniffer dogs at the airport smelt something strange about her.
A brief inspection revealed more than 1000 cactus plants concealed in stockings and strapped to the woman’s body, underneath her clothes.
And before you ask: no. Thankfully, it seems none of the cactus plants were of the spiky variety. Can you imagine?
The cactus plants had been grown in China and included endangered species. The woman was planning to sell them.
But the thing is: you’re not allowed to carry plants across international borders. Countries have what are called ’biosecurity laws’ … which, as the name suggests, are designed to protect the natural environment in those countries – to prevent contamination among the native species.
SPORT TIME
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150 Collingwood AFL and netball players have written a open letter apologising for being part of a culture that allowed racism to exist at their club.
The letter was revealed yesterday, and starts with the word “sorry” and goes on to say “through our silence, we feel responsible for these injustices.”
The letter was released in response to a report this week that the club was guilty of ‘systemic racism’.
Racism is when you discriminate against another person based on their race. Systemic racism means while the club may not have encouraged that behaviour, it did nothing to stop it.
There’s a famous quote that springs to mind: bad things happen when good people look the other way.
POP CULTURE CORNER
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What’s in a name? Well – if you’re a little-known theme park in Utah – a sparsely populated state in the USA – apparently a lot.
The Evermore Park theme park in Utah is suing TayTay – which is to say they want to take her to court – saying that they had the Evermore name first and ever since she released her album in December with the same name, people who might visit the park have been confused – and this has apparently led to a drop in business.
TayTay’s lawyers have dismissed the claim.
Evermore Park, from what we can gather from its website, is a medieval European-village themed park, where visitors can try their hand at activities like axe throwing and archery.
Pardon the pun: but the lawsuit might well turn out to be a case of drawing a long bow … which is to say – a stretch too far. Boom tish.
WHAT’S UP FOX?
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Every Friday we check in with Squiz Kids ambassador, Flynn – known as the Fox to his friends – to see what he’s been reading, listening to and watching.
On the reading table this week is a great book called Don’t Call Me Ishmael … a young adult novel about a 14yo Aussie school kid and his experiences in Year Nine ..
As for listening: he’s had Superbloom by Mister Wives on high rotation this week. It’s dead funky.
And on the watching front: it’s been a retro kind of TV viewing week – with a whole lot of Fresh Prince of Bel Air … the original series, not the revamped version… starring a very young and very goofy Will Smith. He may or may not have stumbled upon it thanks to his father …
THE S’QUIZ
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This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you’ve been listening …
- Which tennis tournament are organisers confident will go ahead despite a COVID scare in Melbourne?
- What did a woman try to smuggle into New Zealand by strapping a thousand of them to herself?
- Which pop singer is in a spot of legal bother over her use of the name Evermore?
SHOUT OUTS
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It’s February 5 … It’s World Nutella Day .. good heavens above … other than maybe Christmas and Easter, can you think of a more glorious day?
It’s also a special day for these Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday today …Sammy from Craigburn, David and Ella from North Melbourne, and Tias (pronounced “Tee-as”) from Hendra.
Some belated birthday shout outs… Zeke from Broken Hill, Maddy from Wesburn and Gabby from Ashmont.
Weekend birthday shoutouts… Tom from Cleveland, Sam from Adelaide, Taylor from Gregory Hills, Jasper from Canberra, Claudia from Perth, Lauren from Knoxfield, Nils and Aarna from Brisbane, Chloe from Gosford East, Pom from Carroll, and Ocean from Ashmont.
The S’Quiz Answers:
- Australian Open
- Cactus
- Taylor Swift