Tuesday, September 26, 2006

This is a bit of me

The Herald has come out with a nausea special this morning – packed to the gunwales with trees, eco friendly this and that, politically correct claptrap, bureaucratic nonsense and a stinging attack on Jeremy Clarkson. It’s a shocker.

We are told that the new viaduct over the river at Waiwera is a eco-triumph or some such. It’s main claim to fame is that it will protect a couple of semi flightless (how can you be ‘semi-flightless?) birds and the only regret is that it cannot be extended to traverse a couple more streams. I would assume that these streams will be four feet across and building a bridge across them will only cost ten mil or so per rivulet. What a load of bollocks. The bridge is a sodding great lump of concrete which is well overdue to take traffic away from a dreadful piece of coastal road (ask Bushie what he thinks of this stretch of State Highway One – SH1, give me a break). We have a whole section on the latest on what the are going to do to trees in Queen street. 70 trees out to be replaced over ten years with 90 odd other ones. And this is being done, shock horror, without consultation. Who gives a stuff. The teachers Union is coming up with guidelines on how teachers might touch pupils. I scanned this briefly for references to boots and backsides but was rewarded only with copious references to ‘appropriateness’ and ‘encouragement’ all couched in the flowery meaningless language of the left. We have an article about how the founder of Fruitworld has, after over two years of wrestling with the men with clipboards, been given permission to build a house on land he bought on the understanding he was going to build a house on it. We have the revelation that a committee has given a research grant to some wally (or was it wallyess) to write thesis on the History of Auckland’s sexuality and the modern orgasm (I’m serious). Now this is patently just plain stupid. What is more worrying is that this is our money and even scarier is that the same Committee has awarded six mil of similar money to themselves. People sitting on this board have been awarding research grants to each other. When such a decision is being made the intended recipient has to be out of the room - so it’s all right. Is it bollocks? Even the Headmistress opines that this is a bit on the nose. This coming from one whose ideas on how to spend public money has come under a bit of scrutiny recently.

All this just served to get me into the mood to read A14. I had some idea of what I was in for from the promo on the front page but it prepared me poorly for the tirade of effete hand wringing that greeted me. The article is syndicated from the Independent and is written by an absolute embodiment of everything I detest in an attitude to life. I’ll come clean right away. I am writing this at my secondary place of employment which I attend once a week. I have to drive half an hour to get here. I do this in a 390bhp 4 litre supercharged V8 car using on average 16 litres of high octane petrol per 100km. I own two other four litre cars, a two litre number and a 200hp 2.6 litre outboard into which I happily pour 130 litres of petrol a day during the gamefishing season. My political leanings are somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. I detest fairness and love discrimination. I am sure speed cameras are revenue gathering machines and ‘man is wrecking the planet by causing global warming’ is a complete crock. I hate hand wringing lefties and ‘green’ politics. I think people should work for their money and not just put their hand out for the government to fill it. I like big civil engineering projects, military hardware (especially of the naval variety), expensive hi tech toys and blowing things up. I hate most of what OSH stands for and the 'Nanny State’ it represents. I take responsibility for what I do and I chose what I want to do in the danger department. Jeremy Clarkson is my kind of bloke with bells on. My only regret is that he is much smarter than me because he has managed to make a shed load of money out of just being himself.

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