What do you do when your hometown is left off a signpost pointing the way to the world’s greatest cities?

The answer, of course, is that you add it yourself.

That appears to be what someone has done to the world-famous signpost at Te Rerenga Wairua, or Cape Reinga, which now boasts a pointer indicating the distance to Dargaville alongside London, Sydney, Tokyo and Los Angeles.

It’s not clear how long the Dargaville sign has been there — it’s so well executed it may have been hiding in plain sight for months — but a check in the Advocate archive proves it definitely wasn’t there when the signs were installed back in 2008.

Matt Browning, from Rotorua, may not be the first visitor to spot the Dargaville patriot’s handiwork but he was the first to bring it to national attention via his Instagram page.

Browning said the cheeky addition summed up all that was great about New Zealand.

“I love it. I’ve travelled a lot but there’s something about the Kiwi attitude, the cheekiness. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

“It’s quirky and fun that someone has said, ‘I think Dargaville should be on the map, and I’m going to see to it myself’. I think it speaks to the best of New Zealand really.”

Browning said the sign was so well made it took a keen eye to notice it was out of place.

He spotted it only because he worked a lot with fonts so he realised there was something peculiar about the G in Dargaville.

On closer inspection, it turned out that was because the Dargaville sign, unlike the others, had been meticulously hand-painted. The sign has been further embellished with a white note pointing the way to ‘Trev’s’.

Browning, who has a software business, was visiting friends at Rangiputa when he took a trip up to Cape Reinga on Saturday.

Former Kaipara mayor Graeme Ramsey, who lives at Baylys Beach, just outside Dargaville, praised the mystery signmaker’s initiative.

“It’s about time Dargaville was there among the other great cities of the world. I applaud them for putting Dargaville in its rightful place.”

It’s not the first time the famous Cape Reinga signpost has been in the news.

In 2008 vandals snapped off all the pointers, which were then replaced with sturdier wooden versions.

And in 2013 an observant reporter travelling the length of New Zealand noticed the Cape Reinga signpost claimed Bluff was 1452km away — while the signpost at Bluff gave the distance to Cape Reinga as only 1401km.

The missing 51km was never found.

If, like me, you spent much of Tuesday’s 80th Golden Globes scanning Twitter, you probably noted that its host, Jerrod Carmichael, received some mixed reactions. During the ceremony, the comedian told the audience to shut up, made a new joke about The Slap™, and spent much of his monologue reminding viewers why he was hired for the not-not-racist Hollywood Foreign Press Association-helmed show in the first place: “I’m here ‘cause I’m Black.”

In this girl’s book, though? Carmichael scored even more points when he dared to mention the wife of a certain terrifying institution’s leader. In case you stopped watching after the first award, midway though the ceremony, the host returned from a commercial break, toting three statues in his hands. “Backstage, I found these three Golden Globe Awards that Tom Cruise returned,” Carmichael began. “Look, I’m just the host briefly, whatever, but I have a pitch: I think maybe we take these three things and exchange them for the safe return of Shelly Miscavige?”

Invoking Scientology’s She-Who-Must-Not-Be-named elicited “shocked gasps,” per reports. I know! How dare this man mention a woman who hasn’t been seen in public since 2007!

Now, in the event that you’ve never heard her name (unlikely), Shelly is (was?) the wife of the Church of Scientology leader, David Miscavige. For nearly two decades, questions have swirled surrounding Shelly’s whereabouts. In 2013, former Scientologist and friend of the Miscaviges, actress Leah Remini, filed a missing person’s report with the Los Angeles Police Department after she left the institution. She’s since dedicated entire episodes of her A&E series to her investigation, mentioned it innumerable times in the press, and wrote viral Twitter threads about Shelley’s disappearance from public life.

Meanwhile, David Miscavige has not addressed his wife’s whereabouts, but Scientology spokespeople have commented on a number of stories about the matter. In 2013, a church spokesperson told People: “She is not a public figure and we ask that her privacy be respected.” Of Remini’s missing person’s report, the spokesperson said it was “nothing more than [a] publicity stunt for Ms. Remini, cooked up with unemployed anti-zealots.” Five years later, a church attorney told the Daily Beast that he’d personally met with her. The LAPD, too, has since said that they found Shelley to be alive and well.

Naturally, Remini had some thoughts on Carmichael’s joke. Moments after, she responded via Twitter, writing, “Thank you Jerrod Carmichael! Where is Shelly??”

Tom Cruise, a noted friend of the Miscaviges, was not present at the ceremony, given that he publicly disavowed the HFPA in 2021 for its lack of diversity. And as Carmichael noted, the Top Gun: Maverick star and Golden Globe nominee returned three of his awards in protest.

Scientology spokespeople have not commented on the gag, but knowing them, it’s only a matter of time. The Church could just show us a recent photograph of Shelly. A video, perhaps? Hell, she could just respond herself. Until then, I’m with Remini. Where is Shelly??

Luke Combs is one of the fastest-to-fame artists in modern country music, but nothing could have prepared him for how swiftly fatherhood would hit him.

“The most challenging is just jumping into it,” he tells Taste of Country, speaking about becoming a father for the first time. “There’s no warm-up period. It’s like getting thrown into a pool and you don’t know how to swim. I would compare it to that. That’s the most challenging.”

The “Going, Going, Gone” hitmaker spoke with Taste of Country Nights host Evan Paul backstage ahead of the 2022 CMA Awards. In addition to being thrown into the deep end, he says it’s been challenging to establish a work-life balance, especially without help.

“Figuring it out with, you know, obviously my schedule is super crammed,” he explains, “And me and my wife don’t have any help, so it’s just me and her. So that is definitely a huge challenge.”

However, those challenges don’t come without rewards — Combs and his wife, Nicole, are five months into life as parents to their first child, a little boy named Tex. The couple are soaking in every little milestone along the way, like Tex holding his bottle on his own for the first time, which just happened this week.

“I would just say, really, it’s like the little things that are the biggest reward. Like when he does something for the first time. Just really when they smile at you, honestly,” the proud dad gushes.

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