A few amusing occurrences over the last couple of days mostly in the world has gone nuts category. Internationally the choosing of North Korea to Chair a UN Committee on nuclear disarmament is right up there with putting Dracula in charge of the Blood Bank. Only a dysfunctional mob like the UN could have their 'have to be fair to everybody' method of selection throw up one of the world's pariahs and not turn a hair. What is wrong with saying 'We can't have North Korea as they are both a bad bunch of ratbags and as mad as a box of frogs'. Selection is apparently done alphabetically and it obviously matters not whether the country after Switzerland for chairmanship of the United Nations Alpine Mountain Rescue Committee is Syria. Antigua and Barbuda taking over from Antarctica as Chairman of the United Nations Committee on Ice Bergs will raise not a single eyebrow in New York. Pack of Monkeys the lot of them.
That New Zealand can show nutty tendencies is part of the charm of the place. A bit of book banning over the last couple of days. Never a good thing. The book in question is apparently about some waste of space of a woman who has a degree of probably justified notoriety. I couldn't care less and won't buy the book. And there is the rub - if I don't want it I won't hand over the Ed Hilarys. No need to ban the damned book - if you don't want it, don't buy it. There is certainly no need to get all nasally dislocated as to whether a shop will sell it or not. There is even a Facebook page with in excess of ten thousand 'friends' (sic) calling for the book's author to be burnt at the stake.
Which brings us nicely to the Reserve Bank, they who issue the Eds. Not a place that interests me much except that its building is opposite my Wellington place of employment and is next to the emporium of the Coffee Nazi (who bye the bye I reckon is a good bloke). Well the afore mentioned Coffee Nazi must have been slipping something a little extra into the espressos bound for No 2 The Terrace as they are considering redesigning the bank notes. Ed and Kate Sheppard are to be traded in for other worthies. I never see bank notes of denominations greater than a $10 so I have no idea who adorns the rest. Maybe a bird of some ornithological sort on the green one - that's a $20 isn't it? Can't imagine who they have in mind as replacements. The Mad Butcher? Richie McCaw? But why change them at all? I can't imagine it would be a cheap exercise with all the designing, new flash plasticky paper stuff etc all for something that really doesn't need doing as the country isn't exactly flush at the moment is it? Silly.
As a bank note aside, I won one hundred trillion dollars a couple of weeks back in a Pub Quiz. That's $100,000,000,000,000. Gave up work on the spot, bought a different coloured DB9 for every day of the week and moved to Hawaii - which I had just bought. Only slight problem was that the note was issued by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and is apparently worth about 35c. Looks kosher enough though as I gaze at it on my desk. Oh, and it has a picture of three rocks, a buffalo and a waterfall on it. I'll stick with Sir Ed, thanks.
A dilemma. I missed Pink Floyd performing the Wall when it was being toured properly back in the eighties. I was in Singapore and it never came there. Never saw the Gerald Scarfe cartoons or the Wall being built. Missed the only proper reunion when they did four songs at Live 8 in 2005 and obviously Dave Gilmour, Roger Waters, Rick Wright and Nick Mason will never play together again because Rick Wright has joined Syd Barrett in being dead. When the band imploded in the mid eighties I was always on the side that Roger Waters was not supporting. I obviously don't know the bloke from a bar of soap but I don't like him. He just seems to be not a very nice bloke. On the other hand Dave Gilmour has long ago had a decent haircut and put on the amount of weight commensurate with his eye watering wealth and advancing years. In the same totally irrational way I have written Waters off, Gilmour appears to me to be alright; the sort of bloke you would have along to win squillions of dollars in a Pub Quiz (except he doesn't need the money and probably doesn't do Pub Quizzes). So here is the dilemma. Roger Waters is bringing The Wall to Auckland next summer. Toad or not Waters wrote a good deal of The Wall and it is bloody excellent. Do I buy a ticket and put my probably ill founded dislike of its main performer behind me? It won't be the Floyd but will it be close enough? Or do I just go and put Pulse on the home theatre, turn it up to warp factor twelve, frighten the sheep, be glad Waters ain't there and do without Gerald Scarfe again? Decisions, decisions.
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