The holy Quest

Can anybody explain to me why the hell food that is supposed to be good for you tastes like shit ? All the food thats "rich in fibre" & "full of natures goodness" looks & tastes like its already been processed through the digestive tract of a ruminant animal, allowed to dry in the sun & sifted through a very coarse sieve & made into something that looks like it might have been edible once upon a time a long long time ago. My question is this..

How in the name of all thats holy do you make meusli remotely edible ? I have tried honey & brown sugar ( Not together of course) but no joy. It still looks & tastes like its been recovered from the floor of a factory. I have yet to try some of the real flash stuff; Mr Hubbards stuff an all, but I'm not holding me breath.

Next question.. Why are Aucklanders like snails ? Cos they all come out when it rains.. They DO.. The friggin motorway was jammed solid all bloody day today. And tempers go out the window too... Specially mine.............

Wish you were here

Had a lovely afternoon today. One of the boys at work loaned me the new double DVD by Pink Floyd, Pulse. Absolutely awesome. I think if they ever come to New Zealand I think that I would seriously consider a deal with Old Nick for tickets. Quite aside from the innovative & extremely competent muso's, the light & film show is just something else again. All this & we've only watched about half of what is on the discs. Even Chloe the cat sat & watched it. She didnt say all that much, but I think she liked it. She rated it as a 3" dribble, which is just about her ultimate complement. Sat & watched the whole lot she did, even though we had the big sound on. was the closest thing to being in Earls Court you could want . Always find "Wish You were Here " very poignant & it always brings a tear to my eye. The reason for this is that I had a young friend once, who fell off a cliff while culling goats & died. His brother, who is a professional entertainer, stood up & sang it at tthe funeral. I admired him greatly for that. I couldnt even read my poem through at my Dad's funeral.

Anyway, it was a bloody good way to spend an afternoon. Thanks Dave

Regarding Sir Bob

It would appear that the dashing Sir Bob Geldof, hero of the Boomtown Rats, Live Aid & Live 8, very definitely has feet of clay. After a whirlwind visit to NZ where he informed us that our level of aid to 3rd world countries was less than half what it should be, he has gone on to a tour of Italy. Well, he started it anyway. Seems he came on stage in an auditorium that would seat 1200 to an audience of 49.. "So who is a dis a Geldof character anyway Luigi ??" After that letdown he canned the whole Italian tour. He was also asked how much money he makes & reputedly replied,"Its all mine & I'm not giving it away to anyone." Feet of clay Bob, feet of clay. As I said in my last post, its all about your level of commitment.

Hero to Zero

I forgot to take my book with me when I went to the Doctors this morning. I regretted this as my Doctor has a typical collection of magazines. One could be forgiven for thinking that all his clients were either neurotic house wives, small children, high powered business men, or African explorers. In other words, the usual collection of kids books, three year old Womans Days, Business Revue and copies of National Geographic that I think were based on verbal reports brought back to the ark by the dove. No Hot Rod magazines or biographies of Bob Dylan to be seen at all. I settled for a rather old copy of NZ Hiking magazine.. Scary huh ?

Anyway, among the recipes for Scroggin & patterns for knitting your own survival blanket & 50 interesting ways to use old hiking boots, I actually found an interesting editorial. Seems the author had a friend who felt strongly enough about racial prejudice to don greatcoat & crash helmet & take up his wooden shield & stand shoulder to shoulder with the other protesters outside Eden Park during the infamous 1981 Springbok tour. This gave him hero status in the authors eyes for a long time. Quite a few years later they were in a car together & the hero was looking decidedly unhappy. When queried, the hero said he was very unhappy about his daughters current boyfriend. When asked it transpired that he was a nice well mannered well dressed young man with a good job etc., BUT it turns out he was a Maori, & our hero just couldnt bear the thought of him touching his daughter.

The hero thing kinda died about there apparently. But it set me to thinking. How many of us are more than happy to give to an abstract cause often without any thought at all. A collector turns up at our door & we put our hands in our pockets with no thought at all, but let a homeless person or a derelict approach us in the street & we shrink away. Its all about level of commitment I guess. Some folks like Mother Teresa for example , dedicate their entire lives to helping othrs less fortunate. Its very laudable, but never seems enough. We always seem to have too few dedicated people & far too many needing assistance. take the middle east thing at the moment. Israel is doing what it thinks is best to safeguard its citizens. His Bollah is a minority trying to impose its will on the majority. Whoever is right or wrong, innocents are being hurt.

I dont claim to be a hero or a humanitarian. All my love & care seems to get used up helping those that I love, with little left over for strangers. In any case, South Africa has supposedly abolished apartheid & look at the mess the country is in anyway. I wonder how many of the protesters that imposed their will on the majority who only wanted to watch a bloody good game of rugby feel about the futility of their actions now..

Old age is a bastard

Quite aside from having the dubious delights of senile dementia, Alzheimers disease, hairy ears & noses, liver spots & just plain old general decrepitude, there are other dubious delights to be had from being over 50. One is not being invited to parties because, "Its only going to be young ones there." That one is fair enough I guess. Mostly they play crap music way too loud, & its not real music anyway & they have far too much bass wound up. Now I'm not against loud music, as my neighbours will testify. BUT its gotta be GOOD music, ie the stuff I like. I also like to hear it through my much loved pair of 3 cubic foot Fisher studio speakers in their wooden cabinets, not these new fangled plastic things the size of a matchbox that would be too loud in the Albert hall.

Another side effect of getting older is taking all night to do what we used to do all night, but I dont really have a problem with that. I think its actually much more fun.

Another jolt was when I went to the Doctors today. When he had finished telling me that he really didnt know what was ailing me & blithely handed me various strange looking containers to fill with various bodily excretions, I went into the office to pay. I expected the usual $40.00 fee, but got a surprise when the receptionist told me , "Oh No, its only $22.00 for you now." Apparently , there is a new subsidy out aimed at encouraging us old fuddy duddys to go to the doctor more often so that we will stay the hell out of hospitals & leave it for the younger ones who have a far longer & much more productive life to lead. I dont mind that. It saves me storing up symptoms & going to my doctor with a list, like I usually do. The kicker is, that the ailment I went to him with is something that affects roughly one in ten people OVER 40. AND its something that I have never heard of before, so havent had to lie awake worrying about until now. The joys of old age. There was something else I was going to tell you, but I've forgotten what it was.. Never mind. So , I'll just sit here with my prune juice & rusks & dream about the good old days.. havent got the phone number for the Zimmer factory have you ?

National Poetry Day

It was national Poetry Day on Friday. I didnt get around to posting anything , but I'm going to now. This is one of my originals. I wrote it about my Dad..

REMEMBER WHEN

We sat & ate our sandwiches
My Dad, two dogs & I

We sat & watched each other eat
beneath the wide blue sky.
"Not much around today," he said
he fed his dog a bite
"We'll try the pool down by the bend,
We'll give those fish a fright."
I grunted back & gave my dog
A crust , she took with care
I lay back in the damp green grass
With my mind I don't know where.
I'd spinfished all the way down stream
And never got a touch.
The dogs were chasing rabbits,
Neither caring much.
Like me they didn't really care
If anything was caught,
The chase you see was everything,
The catch it comes to aught.
"When I was young,I used to fish
This little narrow stream.
Just absolutely filled with trout
At least thats how it seemed.
There used to be this one big fish,
One run was all he'd make,
A mighty rush at any lure ,
But Ne'er a bite he'd take.
From then it didnt matter what
You'd float on line in stream,
He'd never make a run again
At least thats how it seemed."
We'd played this game all morning,
My Dad two dogs and I.
This game thats called "Remember When,"
Beneath the wide blue sky.

My Dad & the two dogs have all gone now. I only hope they save me a 10 pound rainbow trout in a big pool with no snags in it. I think I would like that...

What a disappointment

Here was I thinking that I had a hot piece of ass & all that had happened was that I had inadvertently turned on the seat heater. in the van. Yep, thats right, a commercial van, a Ford Transit to be exact, has a heated drivers seat.. Wot else can i say ???


Oh yeah, was this dudes birthday today, the one & only Carlos Santana. What can i say about him that hasnt already been said. Not a lot really. What an awesome axeman & still on fire & playing. Keep on doin it man we love you..





I'm sitting here listening to the disc made of Dylans 1975 Rolling Thunder tour. I bought it some time ago , but havent gotten round to listening to it until now. I would rate it as definitely being one of his better performances. It has a lusty vitality & some very unusual arrangements of his work. Its a double disc set with a bonus DVD disc with a couple of tracks. I think that it will rapidly become one of my favourite albums.

I love you

Its only 3 little words. Jude & I say it to each other probably at least 10 times a day ; we dont get tired of hearing it & mean it every time we say it. Its something the grand children of Lois Dear, the teacher brutally murdered in her classroom are never going to hear again. Its something that the Kahui twins brutally slain at 3 months probably wouldnt have heard in their lives anyway.

Its also something that I say to my Mum every time I go & see her. It really touches me somewhere very deep inside to see the way her face lights up when I say it & to hear her respond in kind to me, no matter what nonsense she has been rambling away with just previously. When I say "I love you," Just for a moment I see my old Mum there, with comprehension & it makes the visit worthwhile.

I am very fortunate to have compassionate & understanding employers. If I have a delivery to the home that Mum is in, they are quite happy for me to drop in to see her for 5 minutes here & there. I did so tonight & parted with my usual hug & "I love you Mum," & for the first time ever it didnt register with her what I had said. Intellectually , I know that this is an inevitability. Emotionally, I hurt.

I'm very proud of my youngest Son

last Sunday , the Pub that he is working in was the subject of a terrorist bomb scare . It turned out to be a false alarm due to there being an abandoned car out the front. He didnt know that at the time though. His biggest concern was a group of French tourists, that he eventually got the bright idea of enlisting the help of a French speaking staff member to shift. At that stage it was only that one side of the building to be evacuated/ They then requested the whole building evacuated. he requested the presence of the police to assist . He was told to stress the importance of it to his guests & that they should stroll up the road to the cordon if they wanted to see police. 15 minutes later, with guests still not coming out, the bomb dog & handler arrived along with a lone constable,who gave the all clear. here's his words on the subject.

Y'know, people are just fucken stupid. If it had been an actual fire, half of our guests would have become crispy critters. Half of them didn't even bother coming out of their rooms. Some stopped to pack their bags. I let the alarm ring for about 15 minutes, and when I went up to start doing a room by room check, there was still people coming out of their rooms. By this time, the bomb sniffer dog and his handler had shown up in their van, creating a police presence, which helped people get the hint that this was serious, and they should get out. Then, finally, a lone patrol man showed up to help out...way to go London Metro!!!...and just as I was starting the room by room check, he got the all-clear from his guv'nor, and it was "yeah, you can let every one back in now"...what a fun morning..

Neat huh ? The kicker is that the van that caused the scare is still sitting there . I'm very proud of him for staying put in a dangerous situation & doing what's right. From my years in The Fire Service, I know what its like trying to get people out of places. Well done son. Some folk dont really deserve to be out without a minder though I think

Live8

Surprisingly, its been a whole year since Sir Bob & Bono organised the mind blowing series of concerts they called Live8. We didnt get up & watch the whole thing, but we did catch the last bit with The Who & Pink Floyd on stage. Although I dont have home theatre, I do have a damn good stereo system that culminates in a pair of wooden boxed 3 cubic foot Fisher Studio quality speakers. I also have my TV sound run back through my stereo. That day was a red letter one as it was the first time that I had ever been brave enough to have the volume at full. The Ginger Ninja's were running up & down the drive, quite concerned at their food providers eccentric behaviour. Even Chloe hauled her fat calico ass out of the lounge. Self & herself sat inside & grooved.. Ok, so our ears bled for a week, but it was worth it. We were that impressed, we went out & bought the DVD.

These two have impressed me greatly because they have accomplished something. They have convinced the big 8 countries to wipe outstanding debt incurred by the poverty stricken countries of the third world. Thats a big start, because it means that income generated by these countries is staying in those countries & not being paid out to affluent countries that dont really need it & it is slowly starting to make a difference. I like that. Bob & Bono, you rock.

RIP Syd

Gone to the great gig in the sky. Wont say wish you were here because that wouldnt really be fair. I hope you find peace now.

I had a somewhat blue day. One of those days when the slightest thing really brings you down. Hearing about Syd Barret was sad. He really led a tragic life. There was a couple of other things that happened today as well, but here is not an appropriate place to air them. Got home to an ambulance at the house down the end of our ROW. Would appear that Bob has taken a turn for the worse. he was very lucky that he had family staying with him. On the up side , I do actually feel that I can meet the monster under the bed on equal terms & win. Thats good

An open letter to the CIA

Hi guys, you probably dont remember, but you confiscated one of my blog posts a while back that dared cast nasturtiums at American Foreign policy. Its not that i really like to whinge, but you've done it again ! I had a really neat blog done yesterday about how it was the anniversary of the introduction of decimal currency & how I was at Anakiwa doing an Outward Bound course on a Lions Club sponsorship, blardy blah blah. The only possibly slightly offensive bit in it was that I mentioned that it was Arlo Guthrie's birthday.. You remember Arlo. I'm sure he is still on your shit list over Alice's Restaurant, but hey thats Ok. I understand. Really I do.

Now for the serious bit. Pitcairn Island has been in the news over the last year or so because some of its leading citizens have been charged with some seriously odious sex crimes & found guilty in an English Court of Law. At the moment they are appealing to the highest court authoritys in the land on the grounds that British Law doesnt apply to them. Why then are they using said systems appeal system if they dont acknowledge it? All these lowlifes are still living their usual lives on the island till the appeals are heard. It certainly sets an interesting precedent. My personal opinion is this. That particular shallow end of the gene pool definitely needs more chlorine.

Scam search

Can anyone tell me where the word scam comes from ? Extensive research, well idle curiosity really, tells me that the origin is unknown. Oh & by the way, this is my 50th post on my blog. Is somebody gonna make me a cake or something ?

I have a serious problem

No, its got nothing to do with behaviour or any communicable social disease. The only Korean that I know is a South Korean & she is very nice. She even came round & had a wallow in the spa pool with us & was extremely effusive in her thanks for same. I have never met nor had any problems with any North Koreans, nor signed any blood brotherhood pacts with any. So now to my problem.

I cant for the life of me see why the actions of a North Korean that I have never met, should cost me money. So North Korea have tested a few oversized fireworks. Big deal. The fact that this action is going to cost me even more to fuel my car IS a big deal. I am sorely peeved. I mean, the Pakistani's did the same thing not so very long ago & nobody gave a rats ass about that.. I wonder why ? Ohhh yes. Thats it.. We like them. They help us in the war against terror dont they? never mind that they are all mad as wet hens & hate India with a passion that has to be seen to be believed, they are our friends. North Korea on the other hand, albeit with the help of Communist China,kicked serious butt in the early 50's & we dont forget things like that do we, so they are definitely not our friends.

Couple that with them having a somewhat oppressive dictatorship & a definite non green policy & we have a pariah nation. But I still cant see why the testing of a few cruise missiles in the Sea of Japan should send the price of my tank of gas in an upward direction. i mean the bloody stuff is already here isnt it ?

Do you think a little mass hysteria generated by certain super power leaders might have something to do with it ? Its alright for them, they already have enough capability to wipe North Korea of the map if they get stroppy. maybe a touch of jealousy ? We had those toys first & we are the only ones responsible enough to play with them.. I really dont care. just for God sake sort it all out & get on with it. Oh yeah, & bring the price of fuel down to a sane level again Ok ?

Now THIS is a real dog

Notice the devoted manner in which he guards his Master's possessions requiring nothing but a somewhat ragged red ball by way of recognition & reward.. Yes Misty is one of the most savage guard dogs that it could ever be an intruders misfortune to encounter

In reply to Morty's dog Pic

I'll see you & raise you one. I agree. Its sad what some folks do to their animals. They shouldnt be let out without a minder some of them...

I had a suitably witty

post in the form of a letter to Uncle Sam. I thought it was very clever & appropriate it being the 4th July & all, but I think the CIA must be monitoring my transmissions because it all disappeared down the squiggly little wire in the middle never to be seen again . There was a message about summink to do with HTML protocol, but I dont believe it. Anyway, today is a far more important day to remember, it being Robby Robertson's Birthday & all. You know, The Band.. far more important. Anyway I hope you enjoyed your 4th July. I did. By some quirk of refraction, A rainbow I was admiring ended up coming through the screen of the van & finishing on the back of my right hand. I'm waiting for my pot of gold now....

Radio Hauraki

Have been featuring a DVD of Pink Floyds "Pulse" by Pink Floyd that was recorded without Roger Waters' august presence. The tracks that I have heard are very good, not quite the same though without himself. He has a very big personality & talent..




On a more sober note, yeah right, today is the 37 th anniversary of Brian Joneses impromptu dip in a swimming pool while in a chemically impaired state of mind. Twentyseven years old when he died he was. At least he was saved the indignity of ending up with a face that looks like corrugated cardboard like the rest of the wrinkly wrockers do.... RIP Brian

I've been a naughty boy

We went out for tea tonight & had such a good time & I was in such a good mood that when Billy Ray Cyrus came on the radio singing "Achy breaky heart" I actually (sob, whimper) sang along to it.. Is there no hope at all for me ?? The only mitigating circumstance is that when BTO came on with "You aint seen nothin yet" we cranked the volume & wound the windows down just like the boy racers do.