Well that wasn't so bad - at all!

After winding myself up something stupid - yesterday was a piece of cake. I found the place fine (this in itself is no mean feat) and gingerly made my way in. It was just like checking into The Heritage - right down to the Porter in tails.

Up we went to the day surgery ward - no lugubrious nearly deads lying prostrate in open wards here I am happy to report. No, it was into my suite (with ensuite complete with bidet - only the French...), radio and telly with all Sky Sports Channels. You get the idea. However I was still far from relaxed.

This was evidenced by the first blood pressure and heart rate reading. The machine beeped more than the bloody Road Runner - the initial heart rate was 211. 'Is that bad?' I queried earnestly. 'Is the miles or kilometers?' I added quite brilliantly. Luckily amidst that hospital humour and universal hilarity - I managed to stop the heart beating like a tomtom.

A rather pusillanimous [it is a word; look it up - Ed] hour and a bit waiting for the off. Around one it was show time - up to the theatre ward and into the anaesthesia room. I was lying there, generally unimpressed with the lack of drugs. Sod this I thought, so I

[we rejoin you, dear readers, at around 1530hrs that same day - Ed]

As I was saying, the drugs were great - didn't feel a thing (a sensation that I regret to report has corrected itself completely). The cast is brilliant (small), the sling easy to take off!

The doc said it went well - and the best news is that there are no plates in me, never did fancy that. In the Docs words (this guy was very staid) - 'I had a look around and thought I would do a full thumb reconstruction instead'. Well fill your boots mate, and ta very much!

Downstairs and back to the room, a few hours of sky sports and dinner and the wonderful K came to collect me. All in all a pleasure - the downside is to come over the next few weeks - but needs must. Pleased to have gotten onto it so swiftly (18 months ain't too bad).

Next post will be a list of things that piss me off having to do one handed - typing tops the list, and I'll wager will not be bettered!

Anyone been to the waiting room at Wellington Hospital?

Have a seat sir - don't mind if I do!

Anyone eaten at Wellington Hospital?

You get the idea - this place was nice.

And this meal came with a choice from a selection of wines. For those that hadn't just had surgery! I didn't think the discrimination was worth taking up at the time.

Dark

It has been a funny old day - frantically sending emails and sorting out last minute arrangements for when I am away. That would be tomorrow. One bloody day!! I really do need to get over myself...

But in fairness, I think I was a also happy to have my mind occupied with other things. That is not to say that I am particularly nervous about tomorrow. But having unconciousness unnatuarally forced upon me is not my favourite prospect.

And it was the first night that was really dark when I got out of the tube tonight - a potent metaphor for lights going out!?!?!? We bloody hope not!

Will be a bit quiet round here for a few days - back Sunday'ish.

Welcome back to 'The Letter'

It may seem sad to 'miss' a political news letter - but Richard Prebble's is a very good read from the sidelines. A little less howling and nashing of teeth than on the various political blogs.

I also like to think he is fairly impartial (especially when I agree with him):

It is corrupt

Brash is mistaken to claim that if Clark repays then it is not corruption. That is like saying if the burglar returns the stolen goods it is not theft. Clark's claim that Labour's misspending is OK because the Auditor-General signed off the public accounts after previous elections is the Enron defence. It is like saying to the referee; 'I have been punching him in every ruck so you can't penalise me now'. Every fraudster would love to be able to say, "It is not fraud because the auditor signed off the accounts".

This weeks Letter also has a couple of excerpts from the new Prebble book; including this line about how David Lange made his final exit from the Labour Party Caucus:

"David often left cabinet, caucus and other meetings. He had a low boredom threshold, and found conflict distressing. He also used to slip out for a fag. So when he slipped out we were not at first concerned. It was Michael Bassett who noticed the Prime Minister wasn't there. We tried to workout his last contribution and calculated he had been gone for more than forty minutes. We realised David Lange was not coming back."

If anyone feels like buying and sending it over flick me an email and I will send you the address ;-)

Inconvenience - you shall never be my friend

Only a few days before the operation on my thumb and I have suddenly realised how handy it is to have two opposable ones! I'm fairly relaxed about the op itself - but it is the logistics to follow that I know are going to annoy the hell out of me!

Carrying a shopping basket - no probs, one good hand left for that. Then populating that basket with items, bugger!

I know this is small cheese compared to what some people face everyday of their lives - but when little things, simple things, become harder than they could fairly expect to be - I really will find that irksome.

Other than that - all is well. The hospital sounds great and thank the good lord for Private Health Insurance!

Some Agenda's are best left hidden

Lisa Owen has got to be the most lightweight femme-bot I have ever scene - ever. And how TVNZ can allow this sort of tripe go to air I can not fathom.

Check out this transcript (a strong stomach is required);Agenda - Sunday - there is a streaming feed as well.

And just when you thought this was the worst thing you had ever seen - they pull in the big guns;

MERE MULU – Senior Journalist, Sunday News

Just regards the leadership one Dr Brash, I mean commentators are saying you don’t have the killer instinct and you don’t have the X factor, you know that you’ve got and I quote 'a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory'. Is it not time for you to tall on your sword now for the sake of your party?

Senior Journalist for the Sunday News?!?!? For the love of all things holy - the Sunday News FFS!

And if you don't believe the quote above (and I can understand why you would not) - watch the video. That is what she said. And how she said it.

Quote of the year - easily

From VigesimalPundit:

Grasping

"Allegations of corruption are intolerable in a Western liberal democracy." - Helen Clark.

No, Miss Clark. Corruption is intolerable. When allegations of corruption are intolerable, it's no longer a Western liberal democracy.

It'll be Tea and Scones next...

I had to fill out a form for the British Electoral Register - Camden Borough today. What's more, I had no option but to declare myself a 'British Citizen'!

Don't know how I feel about that. Well, more to the point - I don't know how I feel about not being bothered at all about having to declare myself British.

Racial profiling, Right or Wrong? Decision made...

Seeing one of our guys, an Asian by the English definition, after being singled out today - I have to come down on the side of 'Wrong'.

He was leaving a tube station, booted and suited, laptop in hand and got pulled out of a crowd (very publicly) and questioned - for being Asian. This was the third time it had happened to him. And it wasn't just a 'hello sir, open your bag please' - it was the full, humiliating monty (not literally - but you know what I mean).

Now I understand the practicalities that drive this. The Police have limited resources and are pretty much duty bound to 'increase their odds of finding a potential threat'. This is not in question. But today I saw the human outcome.

This guy (very Angliocised and no more threat to the UK than meteors) was distraught. What really got me is that he was not upset by the injustice (as he would have been within his rights to be) - but the humiliation. Not staggering; granted - but seeing these things first hand turns logic and 'considered opinion' into reality.

Apparently the cops were rednecks as well - doesn't help...

I know full well the reasoning and rationale behind the racial profiling argument - but when you sit and talk to an innocent victim of the practice - it does change your perspective. Completely.

Does it say more about me or them?

Watching the last week or so of politics in NZ has been a strange mix of the perverse fascination of rubber necking at a car crash; moving quickly to a rather nauseating sense of being dirty by association.

It really has gone septic. Brash's initial floundering was bad enough, but the faux outrage from Clark since has been sickening. Keith Ng at Public Address does a nice precis of how things might have gotten to this point:

In this week's Listener, Jane Clifton called the (then-)prevailing understanding between Labour and National a system of "nuclear dirt-terrent". A charming and most useful analogy for explaining the steadfast stockpiling of dirt, but it also provides a good framework for understand how it came to fail.

1) Rationality
Deterrence is based on rational agents who make rational decisions. Frankly, not only do there appear to be a few rogue agents in the Labour caucus who are willing to exceed their authority, but the Labour Government as a whole has been looking increasingly unreasonable and out of control over the course of the year.

2) Self-preservation
Deterrence relies on everyone not wanting escalation. But in National's case, is escalation a bad thing: a) for the National? b) for Don Brash? c) for leaders-in-waiting?

3) Variable X
The best laid plans of mice, men and politicians often go awry. Though, in this case, perhaps someone should have seen it coming: Woman scorned; hell hath no fury, etc.

--

I don't want to make excuses for Labour. They made innuendos that allude to things that they wouldn't want to say outright... because it would make them look like complete goddamn sleazeballs. They're out of control, and they really need to stop. For fuck's sake, just stop.

Sums things up rather nicely.

It is really rather sad that an issue that registers a big 'so what' from most sensible thinking NZ'ers can dominate TV and column inches to such an extent.

It is even more abject that I have watched, read and 'enjoyed' every bit of it.

Just shut the f&%k up!

File this under the definition of 'not helping':

Exclusive Brethren man admits sending 'smear' letter.

Cause and effect

I was in one of those moods where I wanted treats - doesn't happen often, but when it does....

Today was prawns.

So there was the pot with the seafood sauce over the little buggers - but there tends to be to much sauce and the prawns a bit scrawny. Then there is the good sized Tiger Prawns - but they only come in brine.

So what does a Frit do? Buy both, combine, begin.

£7 worth of the buggers later and I am not well. At all. Idiot.

I'm no environmenalist, but this is ridiculous

Todays pet hate. £18.14 worth of shopping:

2 rolls toilet paper

1 bottle wine (Lehman Grenache - jubbly)

1 chicken and leek sauce (microwave naturally)

1 steam vegetable (microwave ;-) )

2 bottles water

1 magazine (techy ;-| )

6 tealight candles (laptop likes the softness of the glow, bless her)

And for that, the young lady at Budgens decided that this haul required four plastic bags! And that was after I declined the double bagging of the wine - which was already swimming in a bag of its own.

A tad profligate me thinks.

Ah well, one tries not to disappoint

I had a bit of an msn sess with Kiwigirl yesterday - and given what she posted on her blog re that particular engagement, it is fair to say I didn't let the side down...

And on a less mouse focussed note, ended up chatting to Frit for about another two hours this afternoon. And as usual, the entertainment levels did not disappoint. He definitely has a way over msn. The most surprising thing about our conversations is that they are never seedy. We never talk about sex. We never insinuate anything about sex. And yet, I never actually get bored of msning Frit. Anyway - we will of course never actually meet. Because - I mean - why would you actually want to meet someone that you have chatted to over msn for the past 12 months, whose blog you have read for the past 12 months and when you live in the same city. Silly idea really.

Is a lack of talk about sex so unusual as to be noteworthy? If so - what is a suitable opening gambit? A husky; 'wot you got on?' seems a little ikky. Suggestions welcome. (Jaco - 'no' to whatever it is you are thinking).

Any rational person would have to ask why we have not actually met?

If I bump into a rational person - I will be sure to ask them.

And sure enough...

There is comment galore about the allegations re Peter Davis doing the rounds - and to my mind it strikes me as a non-story - but a couple of things did stand out to me. Take this quote from Stuff:

Heat on Helen - 17 September 2006

Helen Clark has hit out at a smear campaign against her husband Peter Davis - warning she'll take legal action against anyone re-printing malicious rumours which surfaced on a website last week.

"You publish them at your peril," a spokesman for the prime minister told Sunday News yesterday.

Now does that last line not have a slightly Mao'ist ring to it? 'At your peril'! Creepy.

But in more general terms - this kind of slander has always simmered below the political radar - but what strikes me after 20 years or so of observing NZ politics is the level of animosty and malice that currently exists.

When Helen pulls out the devil's chuckle in interviews - be afraid.

Quote of the week...

From an msn convo today:

Female colleague says:
we have another excited hand shaker.......
Frit says:
oh for the love of christchurch
Frit says:
another xyz'er?
Female colleague says:
nope, and abc'er
Frit says:
oh joy
Female colleague says:
wow, its like the 100 yard dash - i nearly toppled over
Female colleague says:
its a girl
Female colleague says:
what is it with women thinking the only way to get on in a mans world is to act like a jack in the box and poke your eye out with enthusiasm
Frit says:
i know!!!

Have the flood gates opened?

Looks like things are set to get nasty. Let those without sin cast the first stone...

  

I'm not about to add to the stories doing the rounds (and have been around for years) - but me don't thinks Don and Le Jan will be the only couple put through hell on this one.

Fahrenheit 9/11

For the love of God could people stop refering to this tawdry work of fiction as a 'documentary'. It is unmitigated tripe. Moore a hypocritical populist zealot.

Documentary my braces.

Busy

Very busy - and not a huge amount of news other than work.

This really is compelling reading sometimes!

Joy and rapture!

After writing my bag off yesterday, I have just recieved a phone call from Ryan Air saying that they have found my bag! Brilliant!

Relief is one of the warmer emotions and I am swimming in it right now ;-)

Sad

Two hugely popular motor sporting NZ'ers, two freak accidents. After Possum Bourne - this.

Motor icon Brock dies

Sep 8, 2006

Australian motor racing legend Peter Brock has been killed in a crash in Western Australia.

He died in a Targa race near Perth after hitting a tree - no other vehicles were involved.

I hate checking the news and seeing headlines like this.

Another 48 Hours...

Which would now make it 96 hours with no sign of my bag. I started by being mildly put out by not having my things, but assuming that they will show up soon enough.

I am now convinced that some bastard has lifted it and I am beyond lamenting the loss of my possessions themselves (even it if it is a good couple of grand worth) - to being well pissed off that somewhere, some prick is rustling through my kit. Reading my documents, smoking my fags and wearing my underwear.

Not happy.

Another 48 Hours...

Which would now make it 96 hours with no sign of my bag. I started by being mildly put out by not having my things, but assuming that they will show up soon enough.

I am now convinced that some bastard has lifted it and I am beyond lamenting the loss of my possessions themselves (even it if it is a good couple of grand worth) - to being well pissed off that somewhere, some prick is rustling through my kit. Reading my documents, smoking my fags and wearing my underwear.

Not happy.

Pic doing the rounds

Fairly well sums it up!

Booked!

I just got confirmation through from Boy that a group of us are sorted for the All Blacks test against Wales in November. A long way off I know - but already looking forward to it.

Twickenham was good, Murrayfield OK - but I am sure that Cardiff Arms will be fantastic.

Oh, and I might just tak a day pack on this tour. Three days on and still no sign of my pack from Rome..

Funny or not?

The news that Steve Irwin had been killed by a Sting Ray was all over the news last night. He was a high profile and generally entertaining type - and the irony of his untimely demise was almost newsworthy in and of itself. But to be honest - I was generally non-plussed about the whole affair.

But I have just received my first Irwin email joke - it took longer than I thought it would to be honest... DPF also has a couple of pics on his site.

My question - are these jokes funny or poor taste? Or possibly both?

48 hours

The bag has now been MIA for over 48 hours. Now I am right to think that in this day and age of airport security 'unattended bags' do not just sit around the gaff making the place look messy. In fact - if I remember one particular recorded message - they have probably blown the bastard up!

Apart from remembering more and more items of value that I will probably never see again - I am now starting to realise the annoying stuff. My old phone, the one with every number I need (yup - that one) was in my case. Bollocks!!

30 hours later and still

No sign of my bag...

I have retained my calm thus far (and the chick at Ryan Air equally her indifference) - but come tomorrow I will be beginning to stress.

Meanwhile I am working my way through the photos of 'the tour' and am deciding what to bore you with. But after one day back at work am fast running out of steam! Will post few later or tomorrow.

Home

That is to say I am home - my bloody bag is still in Rome. Well, at least I hope it is. Well pissed off and now starting to think that travel insurance will be the go for the next little trip....

Last night I started doing a quick ££ tally of the things I had bought whilst away (and the contacts, prescription shades, glasses etc) - I do hope I see that pack again soon!

Home tomorrow

Our last day in Rome today- and god's toenails do I love this city. It is majestic and a tourists dream. A full 48 hours and I am yet to get us lost, nice.

The Hotel, "The Hotel Affima", or "Hotel Wires and Fires" as I have labelled it is a step up from Rickety Sticks in Paris. But for someone with my paranioa to do with things electrical and fire - it has it's moments (photographic evidence to follow).

Other than that - we are both well and will splash out for some posh nosh tonight before heading our seperate ways in the morning.

Back to work Monday will come as a bit of a shock, but these things need paying for!