Bush Whacking 2

I have posted in the past that I think a lot of Bush Whacking is a touch tiresome - but when it is done this well the target is irrelevant!

Do yourself a favour and spend ten minutes on this.

Bush Whacked

I just want to know the fate of the guy that extended the invite to Mr Colbert...

Bloody Hell!

I've just realised that it is a year to the day since I tip toed my way through customs at Heathrow. It has fairly flown by. I'll do a decent sort of a review over the weekend, but in short:

High: Going to St James' Park. By far and away the highlight.

Low: Being here during the time Ma was in hospital. That was horrible and very nearly led to a very short OE in Londontown (but makes me feel even happier now to be planning for her visit!).

All in all it has been great - very happy with the job which is a big part of it. But that has also created one of the disappointments - the lack of travel. Happy to say that this will be addressed in August and beyond!

I mentioned OE above - but it hasn't been really. I have just moved here - which was the intention.

MJD - I have H'edTFU and don't miss you lot at all now!

Break through

The Beerbelly – stealth beverage container

April 27, 2006 The Beerbelly enables you to take up to 80oz. (2.4 litres) of your favorite beverage wherever you wish ... disguised as a beer belly. Primarily designed to avoid the high price of drinks at sporting events, movies etcetera, and to enable the consumption of alcohol where it’s not allowed, the device is still legally applicable to a wide range of leisure pursuits. The Beerbelly uses an insulated neoprene “sling” and a polyurethane “bladder” worn under your clothing for concealment, masquerades perfectly as a genuine beerbelly, and stays cold for hours!





Hat tip Whaleoil

Double wicky

Two bits of good news from home in the last few days - both relating to the other two musketeers.

Mr Mck is over for a couple weeks in August! Excellent news and another reason for me to get my shite together and find digs of my own.

Even better is confirmation of the Bassman's functionality! Congrats mate - looking forward to meeting the mini-bass next time I am home!

Public Health

The Health Secretary here, Patricia Hewitt, is taking a thrashing in the media for one of the most spectacularly guileless statements I have heard in politics for years. She said:

The health sector is enjoying it's best year in decades.

Ahem... That is if 7,000 job cuts, hospital closures and budget blow outs flake your pastry... But even if it does - you don't bloody say it - do you! It was a Nurses conference to boot - nice.

Sorting out public health would be the ultimate challenge for this geek. If I won lotto I would take a couple of years out, pay for some intellegent types to help, and give it a bash. But hey - that's just the wild a crazy kinda guy I am.

A recent post, and subsequent comments, from Jordan and co over at Just Left will be tonights tube reading. Looks interesting at a glance. Public Health is a nightmare around the world - but a long term, cross party policy, would seem to be the logical place to start if you ask me.

Squalid

This now rates as news in New Zealand's biggest daily:

Mick Jagger, a mysterious brunette and their late-night conversations

23.04.06
Mick Jagger wines, dines and opens up to a young lovely in his hotel room. The thing is, she was working undercover for the Herald on Sunday. Rachel Clucina reports on an enchanting four nights with a rock star.

So Mick Jagger is lying on the couch beside me in his enormous Auckland hotel suite. He's wearing socks - bright yellow, scare-the-horses socks.

"Mork and Mindy yellow," I suggest. He laughs his deep, horsey, sexy laugh. The night before they'd been black with hot pink and green stripes.

"I love loud socks," he'd said then. At that moment, I loved them, too.

At that moment she loved them too.... Oh dear god. Over hear the trash papers don't hide what they are - I thought The Herald was the 3rd estate? Not to mention the fact that her brief would have doubtlessly been to get into his briefs! Such a spectacular failure wouldn't have scene the print run in The Sun.

If you can't stand the suspense and need to know what happened next - click here. I'll save you some time by telling you what happened next - nothing.

(Hat tip - DPF)

Big Al

Alan Shearer (the Lion of Gosforth - down the road from where Dad wasa born) has retired after 10 years at Newcastle. The best English striker of all time. It is such a shame that he won't finish the season - but going out after a goal against the mackems at the Stadium of Plight ain't all bad.

The tributes are flowing in on BBC, Sky etc. They usually strike me as fawning and overstated - but when Big Al is the subject matter - there is no such thing as hyperbole!





Thanks Al.

As long as they still owe me a boat....

I will never stop having a dig at the Frogs





(Thanks Kiwigirl)

Busy

But as one W Churchill said a few years back;

If you're going through hell, keep going!

???

I was feeding her majesty the cat this morning and noticed something on the 'Go Cat' box - sprayed across the base of the box was 'Tastiest Ever' - and it may well be. My question is;

Whose opinion is that?

Spec'ing a significant other

I was out for drinks on Thursday night with a few work types. A few wines into the evening Louise, and my boss, decided that they were going to do me a favour - whether I liked it or not.

Nothing major - they just wanted to find me a life partner.

What followed was the standard interrogation. Blonde or dark? (Not fussed so long as it is not blonde) What height? (Again, not bothered - an inch either side of 5 ft 9 is fine) Nationality? (If ever there was a potential banana skin question... 'You won't catch me out with that one' I replied! 'But not French' I was compelled to add) Profession? (Don't care, as long as she has one) What sort of food? (What!?!? Well since you ask, a sense of proportion of portion is more important than flavour)

This fact finding mission went on for about half an hour, I thought I was performing well. And then I said it, bugger! Every quirky nice guy answer I had manufactured was washed away with the utterance of a simple throw away line.

'I am really quite open when it comes to inky'.

Damn it! I was forced to explain. Any good work, real or imagined, was immediately undermined by a simple pet name.

Bush-whackers

To be honest - I tend to find slamming Pres Bush, and labeling him as a child eating killer, rather dull - and the outraged righteous types that wear this view on their collective organic sleeves are, typically, equally tiresome.

I do not doubt for one second that there are extremely dodgy goings on at Le Blonde Chalet - but the people that hiss derision having formed their 'strong' positions on the back of a few selective newspaper articles (and primarily from what is 'trendy' at the local caffine emporium) bore me no end.

Having said that, check out ths video of a recent Q&A session with Dubbya (the leader of the free world): Dubbya Q&A Session

Oh dear...

Mike left the following comment re an earlier post on Bird Flu yesterday;

Got me tamiflu and survival kit together - everyone tells me it won't work - it's a waste of $$$ etc - but they'll all be talking to the point of my shotgun (yes - when I get one) when the shit hits the fan and that's all there is. Might work - might not - but worth the insurance.

Funnily enough - later that day Kiwigirl flicked me the following pic! Mike - I hope you have plenty of the good stuff below!

Enough to melt the stoniest of hearts!

I had that slightly puffed-up 'post project milestone' sly grin on my face as I made my way home from metropolitan bliss that is Uxbridge last night - to the point where I am sure the woman opposite on the tube alighted a few stops prior to her intended destination.

But it was all innocent enough - I was just contentedly dead headed. So, when I got home I decided it was catch up time with the fam. First call was into Mike/Fran and the boys. Long story short - all is well on all counts.

But the real 'moment' was after a couple of minutes of 'I wike monnnasori and i goes and eat mwy wunch' with Ty (aged just over three), he was given the hurry up by Fran to get his kit sorted. His diction and tone changed completely and he then delivered a clear and authoritative 'Why don't you come home - go to go - bye.'

I swear to god, I was very nearly out the door and on the Piccadilly to Heathrow. Obviously I miss 'my family', but it is the thought of missing all those subtle formative changes in M&F's boys and N&D's girls that really bites. Not been there to influence the impressionable young minds and to (however unwittingly) add some colour and invective to hither to unsullied vocabularies. I must confess, there is almost a sense of loss. [Don't hold back on the dramatics, you go for gold you sensitive boob - Ed]

Anyways - followed that up with a call to Ma and discussed plans for when she is over. Can not wait! Bit of Rome, splash of Greece, and who knows what else.

Will try and call Nick and Sus tonight and complete the catch up circle.

Happy Easter All

'The House'

And no, I don't mean Big Brother. I refer, rather more drabbly, to our House of Representatives.

My question is, and perhaps DPF could help me out here, 'what course of action do political parties - or for that matter the public - have to instigate a motion of no confidence in The Speaker?'

Howling indegnation is one thing - but I hate having to stand by and watch Question Time descending into farce.

Answers please.

Don't believe the hype?

Bird Flu appears to have hit the UK. Now I am not one prone to panic about such things - but listening to the reports on tele about Government preparadness, I did have to cast my mind back to a report that me and the Boss were asked to prepare for our new owners The Trinity Mirror Group.

'Bird Flu Preparedness Evaluation Document' requested. We threw something together without stressing over much - it seems a touch more relevant now. Not so much in a commercial sense - but you do have to wonder...

We seem forever on the brink of a disaster - but there is something about this one that I don't like.

Long week

It has been a long week - for a number of reasons, which makes me even happier than ever that I get to have a mini caveman tonight! Buzz is out, so I am in!

Going to buy a couple of indecently thick chunks of cow, let them kiss a gridle for a full minute or two each side and dispatch of it with an expensive bucket of red vino. Spuds on the side? Not this evening. Some veg perhaps? Thanks - but no. Salad? Nup. Tonight, meat.

Watch Jacobs Ladder on DVD (great movie that I haven't seen for years) and have coverage of The Masters online next to me for the annual Cambo implosion.

Simple pleasures for me.

Kiwigirl Fishing

Kiwigirl sent me an email with a little test in it. When you read it you will see it is a fairly thinly veiled attempt to establish whether or not I might be a mentalist. And a particularly nasty strain of mentalist at that! Try it for yourself and you will see what I mean:

Read this question, come up with an answer and then scroll down to the bottom for the result. This is not a trick question. It is as it reads. No one I know has got it right.

A woman, while at the funeral of her own mother, met a guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing. She believed him to be her dream guy so much, that she fell in love with him right there, but never asked for his number and could not find him.

A few days later she killed her sister.

Question: What is her motive for killing her sister?


[Give this some thought before you answer, see answer below]








Answer:

She was hoping the guy would appear at the funeral again. If you answered this correctly, you think like a psychopath. This was a test by a famous American Psychologist used to test if one has the same mentality as a killer.

Many arrested serial killers took part in the test and answered the question correctly.

Thankfully - I actually got it wrong, but can certainly see how someone with a penchant for a bit of murder would happen directly upon that sort of cusual relationship!

Kiwigirl - rest easy.

[Ahem --- I got it right...... - Ed]

I'm a giver

K and J are up North training as part of the roll out we are doing. 6am start, long trip, normal technical problems and a full day of babysitting training - basically everything you expect in project land. As the day goes on, and on, and on, the thought of a nice relaxing night with a bucket of wine becomes more and more important.

My phone rings at 7pm, it's K. 'Ah Frit, can I please have a catch up with you?' Not unusual, she carried on. 'Julia's lip is on the floor. And quivering.'

Oh dear God - rock bottom on day one of a twenty day roll out - bugger. 'What's wrong?' I asked with a due sense of apprehension and dread.

'Frit, the bed is like a canoe, there are cobwebs on the roof, it's dark and dingy, there's no room service, it is right next to the road. Frit, it is f*&king awful - Julia has tears welling up in her eyes!'

The profound sense of relief I felt at that point is hard to put into words - I had feared something serious.

But - being the thoughtful, benevolent and mushy boss that I am - I took it upon myself to send Junior a reassuring text before bed - it read:

Three red pickles made half a sausage. The other half is still missing. Odd.... But they did not actually make it, so it's not actually missing. So you can sleep tight little one.

Now this was designed to help Junior off to sleep - which I very much hope it did. Because it keep me up for bloody hours!

If the three red pickles set out to make a sausage that was half the size of an existing sausage - and they did this, then, it is that they made what they intended. That is a sausage - albeit half the size of a sausage it was fashioned from. But still 'the whole' of what they intended to make.

That kind of destroys the underlying premise of my goodnight tale. Annoying.

One to the fam damn ly!

I'm homesick. It doesn't happen often, but tonight I am. Things are a bit stressy at work and the prospect of Mum getting here and doing some European travel looms large - I can not wait.

So I have been watching some vid's of the kids from my trip back home and have started to pine a little. Ty's hands by the side face plant into the couch is a clear winner!

Nickster - I HAVE to learn you how to email vid's of the girls, and as such, have bought you a cheap lap top for Ma to take home to facilitate this! I hope the girls are good!

Mum, still waiting on your dates for arrival! Need to get to cow grazing at the optimum rate in the back yard for the barbies.

MJD - let me know a good time to call mate, need to catch up!

Sus-wong, likewise. I know email ain't the best - so me gives you a call soon.

The most expensive creche in NZ

Most of you are not sad enough to read the transcripts of Parliamentary Question Time, and fair enough! But you have to read this exchange which shows your tax dollars at work:

Madam SPEAKER: There was an interjection. Would the member please withdraw and apologise without any other comment, so that we can proceed.

Gerry Brownlee: I most certainly will not.

Madam SPEAKER: Everyone is on a last warning. When an interjection is made while a question is being asked, that member is normally removed from the House. I now put everyone on a last warning.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Am I going to get an apology for Mr Brownlee’s remarks in respect of that so-called apology? He offended against the rule about not making any comment during the asking of a question. He has been on notice about that before. Then he compounded it with a so-called apology, which was not an apology at all. I am asking to be treated in the same way as the rest of us, and for him, regardless of his supposedly temporary position, to be told to apologise and withdraw.

Madam SPEAKER: I would ask the member to withdraw and apologise, please, without comment. [Interruption] You are not doing so? Right.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think we are in grave difficulty, because Mr Brownlee has told the House that all he did was smile. [Interruption] Laugh. Mr Peters can hardly take objection to that; we would have to withdraw and apology every time someone laughs in the House. That would become ridiculous, because the entire Opposition would be apologising right through question time.

Madam SPEAKER: Mr Brownlee said he laughed. I thought I heard an interjection; the laughter was extraordinarily loud if it actually got to that level. I want you all please to just settle. You are all on your last warning. You can be capable of being misinterpreted, if there are any loud interjections when members are asking questions. So, please, can we proceed, with Mr Peters just asking his question at this point.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. When you ask a member to apologise, he does; he does not refuse, in the way that Mr Brownlee just did. You asked him whether he was going to apologise, and he said “No”. If the answer is no, then he is out of the House.

Madam SPEAKER: Yes, there was an interjection. I have tried, in fact, to be reasonable on this. Mr Brownlee, will you please apologise so that we can proceed.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. You actually have not established that it was Mr Brownlee who interjected. In fact, what you are insisting on is that Mr Brownlee apologise for laughing, and I say it is a pretty dark day in the House if that is cause for an apology. I think you might have the wrong person.

Madam SPEAKER: Would the member please be seated. He is only repeating himself, and there is also a ruling about not making persistent points of order. Whether or not it was laughter, I heard it as an interjection. In order to try to progress the business of the House, it seemed easier just to ask the member to apologise, rather than remove him, because I had not given the final warning for the day. He is refusing to apologise. I will ask him one more time. Would the member please apologise.

Gerry Brownlee: I apologise. I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. What have I just apologised for?

So there you have it, your elected representatives debating the things that matter to you!?!? It was actually quite funny. I would love to get Gerry and Winston, a bottle of Whiskey and flight of stairs together.

There is no question that Margaret Wilson is the worst Speaker in history - but I am actually starting to feel sorry for her.

Attention Span Of A Gnat

This mornings irritation, other than the pillock platform 'supervisor' at Victoria (i swear to god I hate him), was to be placed behind the shoulder of a person with the shortest attention span I have ever experienced.

Here am trying to reaad over his shoulder and as soon as something started to sound vaguely interesting - he would turn the page...

'Comments from Newcastle Chairman Freddy Shepherd as reported by the Sunday Mirror:

"Our aim is to have the new management structure in place before...' queue turn the page. Bastard.

'Prime Minister Tony Blair has dismissed claims that he and Gordon Brown have fallen out - likening the stories to newspapers' "April Fool" spoofs.

Asked if there was a rift with the chancellor, he said:' turn page... Stop it!

First day of fairly major project going live and I am having a 'the world is against me' day.

Happy days!

Slides dusted off, shorts and singlet on, sifting about the house doing the washing - having a tidy etc.

Aussie Grand Prix on telly, Newcastle game online, sun shining, contacts in and sunnies on swede.

A cocktail party with Boy et al tonight - things could be worse!