Grunt work

Where have I been rang out the chorus? Well - I have been here – but hanging by a thread. A combination of K being away, Spud being on a training course and me having to deal with people!! As if that wasn’t bad enough – sometimes I have had to do said ‘dealings’ in person. Bloody exhausting.

I think I have also been dragged into the general malaise that tends to hit people over here at this time of year. It’s dark when you go to work – it is dark when you leave. Save for brief respite to grab a sandwich – it is all feels a touch grim for the first few weeks. I do recall getting useed to it fairly quickly and painlessly last year.

So onto happier thoughts. Test matches coming up – including going to the Welsh game with Boy and co.

Finding a nice dusty pub for a session with The Jones girl tomorrow night.

Leadership Conference for Ochre in a couple of weeks – somewhere up the M5 apparently, no idea, but should be a good weekend.

And still need to confirm flights for Feb.

Happy, if somewhat dark, days!

Ma and co – I do apologise for being remiss of late!

Back to sanctury

After a rather eventful couple of weeks - I am back to the sanctury of the cave, and last night was perfect.

Incredible thunder and lightning - driving rain making its way right through the window frame - and me, safe and sound within. I do love big weather. Drizzle be damned, flash some light and make some noise - that's for me. It was good enough to set car alarms off.

I shall be located here for a few days as I catch up and generally get it together, I had to wear a pair of Wednesday socks today (Tuesday). Things have clearly gotten out of hand.

Order will be restored. Emails and NZ News caught up on, and family contacted.

Giddy up! I'm staying in.

Tub thumping

Well, thumb dunking to be more accurate! Had another follow up appointment with the Hand Clinic and was given the best news I have had for a couple of weeks. The scare has healed well and is ready for a bloody good bath.

Thank God for that - it was starting to get more than a little rank under the thermo splint! It can come off for an hour or so a day - but being able to wash the bugger is a good enough start!

Still not much movement - but all on track apparently Back up to race pace in 6 weeks.

Happy days.

Newcastle v Fenebache - on now

I'll be very happy - or a touch gutted in 90 mins time...

Light (well intense - but 'light') relief - and just what I need.

Back tomorrow.

True to form

It took around a year to meet her, and three days to piss her off...

First - the mea culpa. It is more to do with my hang ups and 'inconsistency' - than anything to do with her.

And secondly - she has been very restrained on her blog - and I will be doing the same. It is an interesting experience blogging. Rewarding - sometimes. A chore - often. But for me, and I get the impression, her - somethings are a little too personal to write 'lightly' about. And there are other people involved.

So there you have what you are getting.

Very little.

Knackered

A combination of throwing the routine out of the window and very average sleeping (not related!) have resulted in me piking out at 10pm for the last three nights.

Not good.

Just talked to Ma about going home in Feb, assuming our Head Office move is over by then - that's now the official plan. And assuming I can carry over the leave I still need to get through until early next year - the have rules about these things over here don't you know.

On an unrelated matter. If you were laying out supermarket shelves - would you not put the dish brushes somewhere near the washing liquid? It's the little things...

Complete and Utter Bastards

Just had a call from the Boss telling me that he has had his laptop stolen.The Boss is a fairly hardy and cerebral type - but I have never heard despondency like it. I am sure that that will soon give way to anger rather quickly.

Sod the laptop - that is easily replaced. But the keys, bills with home address, alarm etc. Absolute nightmare.

Well, that was interesting....

But being a gentleman - that is all that will be said.

Surrender

I am here now with kiwigirl, combination of factors led to the event, but I finally got over myself.........(the girl says fear), and am sitting here drinking red wine....

After a year of faffing about I finally hooked up with this chick and we are sat here listening to sounds, and wondering how the fack this happened.

But at this stage, its not all bad.

But if it goes bad....JY we blame you.

Shake when you're sleeping

I took the dressing off my thumb today - no drama - things were feeling good. And then I saw it - horror! The scare was healing well - but the bastard thing is not straight. At all! The thing resembles a recent richter scale reading from North Korea.

I promptly complained to Mark and K at the injustice. Order, symmetry and uniformity are not just words to me - they are a philosophy, an ideal, a step towards Earthly utopia. How could I have to look down at this unholy anarchy created to gain access to my innards? The bastard (lauded up until now) would have to pay.

Then Mark and K were direct enough to remind me of my Jaco created monicker - Shaky Stephens.

Shit! Could they be right? Could I really oscillate whilst under a general anaesthetic? Either way - I maintain that a responsible surgeon should have been wise to this and made the incision with some kind of suitably shaped biscuit cutter.

Oh how things have changed

I'm just watching the BBC News and the reaction to a light plane (or helicoptor) crashing into a New York building is all consuming. It is a tragic accident - absolutely, but so is the train crash in France today.

However - such is the hysteria around anything that you can tag the word terrorism to (not helped by the media) - that what looks to me like a simple accident gets blanket coverage. If it genuine - I will eat humble pie and be duly concerned - but for now I will just changed channel. Probably to the next 'exclusive report'.

UPDATE - No terrorist alarm - the pilot was a private pilot and it was a genuine accident and tragedy. And just to make sure there was a suitably American sub plot - the pilot was a pitcher for the New York Yankees.

Well, we still won the war

But that is scant consolation (well, it's not really - but dramatic licence...) after another absolutely dire England performance.

Do I not like that

England's miserable performance in Zagreb evoked the darkest days of Graham Taylor's reign.
Rob Smyth
October 11, 2006 07:52 PM

Now we know for sure that Steve McClaren is not Sven Mk II: England would never, ever have lost this badly under the managership of Sven-Goran Eriksson. This was a shambles; a proper doing; a miserable, cowering performance that evoked the darkest days of Graham Taylor - chiefly the dismal 2-0 defeat in Norway in 1993.

Then, as now, England switched suddenly to 5-3-2 before the game. Then, as now, they struggled to put two passes together. Then, as now, the match moved insidiously from tricky test into outright humiliation against a side which, while competent, belonged emphatically in the second tier of European football.

And that pretty much sums it up. I hate fly by night sports supporters - but not as much as I hate it when 'my teams' suck quite this hard.

Bad son

I had a call from Ma this morning in order for her to verify my existance. I passed.

It has been a very busy few days - but thankfully getting back up to race pace typing wise.

The splint I have for the thumb is small and not hugely annoying - it's just not the best look!

K leaves for her holidays at the end of this week - so things don't look like slowing down in a hurry.

But I am still here!

Bollocks bollocks bollocks

This one handed thing is just too hard...

Back in a few days. Getting measured up for the thermo splint on Monday - might be back before then, might not.

F%*king grumpy now.

A people person I am not

I was waiting for my coffee, minding my own business, when some plank stormed up to me 'wayhaying' away and started asking me what I had done to my hand.

His hand was also in a cast - this apparently meant there was some sort of deep connection and bond between us. I then got the full run down on what had happened to him. I would relay his story, but I can't - as I don't know, I wasn't listening.

My question is; why, purely on account of the fact that we both had visible signs of an injury, did he think I would be even remotely interested in what had caused his?

As I said - grumpy!

No - it is not because you are Maori

It is because you and your odious wife are thiefs. Blockhead Wi Huata tried to play victim today on behalf of his bride:

Huata told the Herald last night that he and his wife, both convicted last year on fraud counts, were being victimised.

"The moment a Maori gets into that field of leadership it comes as a hefty price. Donna was not the first Maori to go through this and certainly won't be the last."

She stole public funds mate. She got caught. So, she got done - and rightly so.

The reason she is so widely vilified is that she refused to take responsibility for her actions and instead tried to play 'the race card'. You do Maoridom no credit - more importantly - you are not helping.

Ever decreasing circles. Hopefully.

The belt is back to the 'pre-cruise' buckle!

Ma - how you going?

Challenge

Try to adequately wash under your right arm pit with no left hand.

Oh, and if you pull that off OK - then tie your shoe laces with one hand wise ass!

Grumpy.

Vintage Winston

Speaking of Brash in 2006 Peters said:

"To describe this as evil is not an overreaction," Mr Peters said.

"There are many figures in history that have similarly used blood purity as a political argument only to lead their people into an abyss of violence and destruction."

Well, I suppose if that is your deeply held conviction Winnie - then fair enough. Oh, but wait...

Whilst being a populist in 2000 Peters said:

In 1993 there were four Maori seats - in 1999 there were six.

It has been estimated that over the next forty years or so, up to thirty per cent of the population will have some Maori blood - in many cases only a few drops.

What is to be feared is the prospect of demands for 30 or 40 Maori seats.

That would be plainly ridiculous.

'Only a few drops' huh Winnie?

Credibility - zero.

Git.

They still owe us a boat, and a bloody apology

No Right Turn has done the job reporting the confession of French agent Gerard Royal; admitting that he was one of the agents sent to bomb The Rainbow Warrior. NRT sums it up:

Extradite him

A Parisian newspaper has reported that Gerard Royal, brother of French presidential hopeful Segolene Royal, was one of the agents who bombed the Rainbow Warrior:

"At the time, (Gerard) was a lieutenant and agent of the DGSE (intelligence agency) in Asia. He was asked in 1985 to go to New Zealand, to Auckland harbour, to sabotage the Rainbow Warrior," Antoine said.

"Later he told me that it was he who planted the bomb on the Greenpeace ship. He took a small craft with a second person to approach the boat."

"He was able to escape the New Zealand authorities, unlike the false Turenge couple who were arrested. My sister learnt that he was present during the operation from a recent article in the press."

Royal should be extradited and tried for manslaughter, and terrorism if the charge is available. And while we're at it, we should extradite and try his co-conspirator Louis Dallias as well.

Bring him here, lock him up, and make an exhibition of him. Name the one country on Earth to commit an act of war and aggression on NZ?

This is one grudge I hold unashamedly.