tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80191595730355044112024-03-20T16:41:08.790+13:00obald@homeMusings and reflections on life In New Zealand with special reference to gamefishing, pragmatism, small scale engineering and not taking life too seriouslyobaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.comBlogger461125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-72117332473039694812011-09-26T06:59:00.005+13:002011-09-26T11:23:12.222+13:00RWC 2011 - a candle's point of viewGetting up to flying speed now. The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">AB's</span> gave the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys the required trousers down, six of the best and pleasant enough viewing it was as well. But the Frogs were pissing around, surely. This amply illustrated when damned substitution time arrived in this match. I hate tactical <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">substitution</span> as it ruins games. A bloke breaks his leg or one of his arms falls off, then fair enough, put a replacement on. But this tactical stuff is bollocks. You spend all week in great angst picking your best team and then after 55 minutes stuff it all up by putting on your second best scrum half and your reserve first five onto the wing. Put a second rower on the blindside flank and there you have it, a very good team transformed into a middle of the road bunch of talented individuals. Except our friends (sic) from across La <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Manche</span>. When they start playing the substitution game their team gets <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">palpably</span> better. Only inference was that the run on XV was not the best - which was what I thought from about last Wednesday. I mean I could tackle better than that recycled scrum half who ran on wearing 10. Well, I couldn't, but you get my drift.<br /><br />Argentina beat Scotland with the only try of a game described in the paper this morning as one of 'dreary attrition' and will now likely have to come to Eden Park to get a trouncing before repairing to the Duty Free at Auckland Airport. Other results? Can't really remember but the time when that is an excuse no more is not far away. I told you I would get into the swing of things once we had seen the back of Namibia, Romania and Russia. And Scotland.<br /><br />Driving to the fields <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">from</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Obald</span> Acres just now with Radio Sport as entertainment as is my wont in the predawn. Amusing interview with the Mad Butcher, to be fair, but my attention was grabbed by the advert following Sir Butch. This was the second I have heard of what is obviously a series put out by the New Zealand Fire Service. It is aimed at tourists here for the fun and games and is ersatz singing of foreign <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">national</span> anthems. Onto the tune they have grafted the words of bloody safety messages. So we had that South African anthem (which lasts about half an hour) entreating you not to 'drink and fry'. Get it? like 'drink and drive' but different. Drawing a long bow I thought but who cares? Then this morning those who go to work clad in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">kevlar</span> had a go at butchering the Welsh national anthem. The only reasonable go at this I've ever heard substitutes sardines for w(h)ales but now the firemen have another go.<br /><br />This load of errant nonsense tells you not to use candles in a camper van. Eh? This is a big problem in New Zealand? So big that it requires an expensive radio advert to nip it in the bud? Mortuaries being inundated with Welshmen toasted to a crisp in the charred remains of Maui's finest? This is safety nonsense in the way that only New Zealand could manage. Or no, I'm wrong. The UK could do it much better. Now I see, the advert is being run to stop all the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Taffs</span> feeling homesick whilst they are away from the Valleys. I mean all these poor <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Welshmen</span> are so impoverished that they can't afford to turn on the lights in their camper vans and they are <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">saving</span> a few bucks and using candles. This after they've flown half way round the world, bought <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">multiple</span> match tickets at $300 a pop, bought a gallon of beer a day and shelled out <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">loadsa</span> dosh for World <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Cup</span> souvenir <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">tatt</span>. They spend the left over lucre on candles. I don't think so.<br /><br />Next well be having Hi Viz clothing catalogues read out to the tune of Flowers of Scotland. Or perhaps not as they are going home.obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-25525538973855654342011-09-23T07:06:00.006+12:002011-09-23T07:45:15.019+12:00RWC 2011 - a flag's point of view<span style="font-family:verdana;">I suppose we had better give some mention to this. If you live in the Land of the Long White Sporting Hype you would have to have spent the last fortnight under the Long White Rock to not have noticed that the Rugby World Cup is taking place. Big event, sure, and I am enjoying selected games on the 100" screen. I have not wasted my time with most of the games so far despite the breathless <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">enjoinders</span> of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">spinmeisters</span> employed by the organisers. USA vs Russia for example was billed as the 'continuation of the cold war'. In New Plymouth. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Tarankai's</span> most famous aviator, weatherman Jim Hickey, is hardly Gary Powers. All this bollocks does not disguise the fact that USA vs Russia is going to be crap rugby and so, apparently, it turned out. One of the teams won (there hasn't been a draw yet) and I neither know or care which it was. I have little enthusiasm for watching any of Romania's games and noted in passing that England looked very ordinary overcoming Georgia. Last night, not five kilometres from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Obald</span> Acres, South Africa took on Namibia. Shall I go? Tricky one but after much soul searching I decided not to bother shelling out North of $150 to see a 87-0 drubbing. But you wouldn't know that was the score before the match, you may well say. Well, yes I did. I certainly knew the 'nil' bit (it might have been three or even five - it matters not) and the larger number was going to be greater than sixty and then who cares.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Must admit I was quite tempted to get a ticket for NZ vs France at Eden Park tomorrow night but at $400 a pop it is back to the home theatre at a time when I am normally watching the Saturday evening murdering. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">What</span> is in full swing, though and what I am quite enjoying is having loads of cars running around with <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">little</span> flags attached to the windows. About $5 a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">pop</span> apparently and some cars have <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">multiple</span> embellishments; two common and four not unusual. Vast <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">majority</span>, of course, are All Black flags and depending on where you drive in Auckland second are South Africa (on the Shore where I do most of my driving), Tonga or Samoa (South Auckland). Very few Aussie flags. Some are really inventive and have two countries up - generally the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">ABs</span> and the country of the driver's origin. Lots of scope for inventiveness here. Two different flags and do you put the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">ABs</span> on the driver's side or the passenger side? Four flags - two each side, different front and back or, my favourite, diagonally? Not really been tempted to go for car flags for either of the Jags but I must admit I quite like them.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">But what do we have in the Herald this morning? Some sour faced Plod 'reminding' people that the flags must be securely fastened to their cars or they may face 'criminal charges'. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Wowser</span> on steroids and you can just fuck off.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">No, the World Cup is going to be good when the real stuff starts in a couple of weeks. There has been one 'upset' to date which was Ireland upsetting the Wobblies. This has to be the most welcome result of the tournament so far for most Kiwis and will remain so until the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">ABs</span> give France a seeing to tomorrow. It also gave rise to the best bit of public <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">display</span> of team support I have seen thus far. Flags - good, face painting - naff and so yesterday. But last Sunday night I met an Irishwoman who had an Irish flag in nail polish on every one of her ten digits (she might have done her toes as well but I was not forward enough to ask her to remove her boots). I thought they might have been transfers but she assured me they were all individually painted. Very nice.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I'm off to try and find a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Yaapie</span> female similarly decorated - now that would be impressive.</span>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-29801418254721475902011-09-10T21:11:00.016+12:002011-09-12T08:16:07.604+12:00A Dream of White Horses<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">It only lasted two summers, well one really, but hell, it was good. Born in Kent in 1967, flowering nicely in 1968, the glorious 1969, the fleshpots of London rearing their definitely not ugly heads in 1970 and killed on Portlan</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">d Bill in June 1971. My rock climbing career was over by the time I was nineteen.</span><br /><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I‘m not sure if it was </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">the 22<sup>nd</sup> Wimbledon Scout troop that gave </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">rise to all this but I think it probably was. They took us </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">pony trekking (as naff as it sounds), gliding (quite amusing if a little chilly in an open cockpit glider) and then rock climbing. This was it. One trip to Harrison’s Rocks at Groombridge </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">just outside Tunbridge Wells and I was hooked. This </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">is what I wanted to </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">do. I left the Scouts, much to my mother’s consternation, and put my lot in wit</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">h Mar</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">k Lee from school. Mark was a climber. A proper climber who, even at the age of sixteen had been to the A</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">lps. I was never really interested in Chamonix other than gazing at black and white pictures of Joe Brown and Don Whillans smoking w</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">hilst belayed to bits </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">of alpine rock and wishing I were just like them. But I had zero money and Chamonix might just as well have been on the moon as in France. I started bouldering (although </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I didn’t know </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">that is what it was) at Harrison’s as often as I could which was most Sund</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ay’s of the summer o</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">f ’67. Mark was older than me and had three things - a motorbike license, a scooter and a mate who a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">lso had a scooter. The mate was Richard Borysiewicz (Borrie) who was to become my climbing partner for the next couple of summers. Borrie was a mod (hence the scoote</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">r) and liked dreadful music and Ben </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Sherman shirts but the possession o</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">f the motorised transport far outweighed his awful musical taste.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOaWOMMVE1mH-KQIBFlTkfFHg0cK75B_CKVsgwoMgtBmOKBSIMrbe7ddSwP867u8WwkB1cH15dO9OjIlEK0jQqAz9q39bnPyrFlTm2MYKHTl_vv03d2bxQrW3p3TPNbnBi3JtLEdTaBSQG/s1600/harrisons_rocks_b_2b233ed9e97785204f7c84deb20c5c39.jpeg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650657785088959794" style="WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 300px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOaWOMMVE1mH-KQIBFlTkfFHg0cK75B_CKVsgwoMgtBmOKBSIMrbe7ddSwP867u8WwkB1cH15dO9OjIlEK0jQqAz9q39bnPyrFlTm2MYKHTl_vv03d2bxQrW3p3TPNbnBi3JtLEdTaBSQG/s400/harrisons_rocks_b_2b233ed9e97785204f7c84deb20c5c39.jpeg" border="0" /></a></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Harrisons Rocks is a collection of sandstone outcrops no more than thirty feet high and was but an hour by multi he</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">adlamped Vespa from home. All the climbs were done using a top rope so it was as safe as houses. You walked round to the top of the climb you wanted to do, put a sling around a stout tree, attached a karabiner, threw both ends of your manky ‘Harrisons rope’ to the bottom and tackled the route of your choice in absolute safety; and with the option of a bit of ‘tight rope’ to ease you over tricky moves. The doyen of Harrisons was Trevor Pan</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ther who had written the guide and was kno</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">wn as ‘T</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ight Rope Trev’. As well as telling what was where, Trev’s guide also introduced me to the concept of grading climbs. All single pitch and so they only got a numerical g</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">rade. 1A wa</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">s scaling a phone book – laid on its side. The highest grade c</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">irca 1</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">967 was 6</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">B </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">which I regarded as very difficult but not impossible. A look at the internet now reveals that grading has gone up to about 17F. The first climb I ever did once the nannying of the Scouts was </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">removed was a thing I later learnt was called Long Layback and was graded 5A. Easy peasy. Borrie and I settled into a steady diet of 5C-6A fare with a side of 6B now and then.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">We’d soon done all the ‘hard’ routes at Harrison’s and most of them repeatedly. We had heard of ‘</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">proper’ rock climbing but it wa</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">s all a long way away; certainly too far for the Vespa. To us the Peak d</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">istri</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ct was not really very appealing and North Wales beckoned. Not for us the old school Ogwen Valley, all tweeds hobnailed boots and climbs graded difficult - whi</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ch meant they weren’t. Clim</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">bs on proper cliffs had several pitches and lost their numerical gra</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ding </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">and </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">now had descriptive labels ranging from moderate (a 1 in 12 on tarmac) through difficult, hard difficult, very difficult, severe, hard severe, very severe (V</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">S), hard very severe (unsurprisingly HVS) to extreme (XS). Individual pitches weren’t numerically graded in that summer of love. It would appear they now are and XS has gained grades up to E8 or something. Back then there were standard XS, f. difficult XS and no thanks. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The Ogwen Valley was all diff and hard diff </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">and this appealed not at all. Borrie and I wanted the real deal and for that you went to the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>L</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">lanberis Pass; Dinas Cromlech was where we wanted to be. But how to get there? For the rest of 1967 we were marooned i</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">n Kent.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Borrie was a couple </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">of ye</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ars o</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">lde</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">r than me and had a job (apprentice toolmaker) that bought in money. He bought an ex Metropolitan Police minivan in the winter of 1968 and our anticipation of the start of the 1968 cricket season was only heightened by the purchase of climbing magazine</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">s and scraping together some proper equipment. The manky Harrisons’ rope patently would not do as the stakes were about to go up big time. Where we were going we could die if we fell off onto a bit of mum’s washing line. This was brought into sharp </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">relief when Mark Lee returned from an early season trip to the </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Alps o</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">n a stretcher. Big peel somewhere high and foreign and lucky to escape with two broken legs courtesy of one of these new fangled German kernmantel ropes. I scr</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">imped and saved every penny I could for months and took it all into the YHA shop </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">in Sutton to emerge with 150 foot of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">11</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">mm yellow k</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ernmantel. I remember to this day that it cost me £12 17s 6d and was my m</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ost prized possession. Ever. As we tackled more complex routes we graduated to using two 9mm ropes to cut down the friction - all very modern. All the various chocks and nuts and things we need to set protection were not a problem as Borrie made them at work. We also bought one of those little plastic covered pocket guides to crags and pored over it during the winter months. I knew what D</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">inas Cromlech looked like in intimate detail months before I ever saw it in the flesh.</span></span></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh188wAf5dBBittdfgcLjGD0ab-tBXMYuWFKyeupeWdDqoGfrqXJgpRw1BvR3F39Y_0r8sk9ExyjlvECW0g0z4pOPLIMruhVT7e3nCQzhE7_auG9IcsCfIvJGwNjyKyLUwp9ptXWjAFQ9zk/s1600/Dinas_Cromlech.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650660758435245410" style="WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh188wAf5dBBittdfgcLjGD0ab-tBXMYuWFKyeupeWdDqoGfrqXJgpRw1BvR3F39Y_0r8sk9ExyjlvECW0g0z4pOPLIMruhVT7e3nCQzhE7_auG9IcsCfIvJGwNjyKyLUwp9ptXWjAFQ9zk/s400/Dinas_Cromlech.jpg" border="0" /></a></span></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The Llanberis Pass in 1968 was </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">my idea of heaven. For openers the best climbing shop in Britain was in Llanberis; the one owned and run by Joe Brown. You often had a chance of actually being served by him. I would go and buy half a crown’s worth of sling just to interface with the great man. You see, Joe Brown was a climbing God. He and Don Whillans (and a few others of the Manchester based Rock and Ice Club) had turned British climbing on its head j</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ust after the War and Brown style climbing was still the thing in the mid sixties</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">. Don Whillans appealed to me almost as much as Brown. Don was short like me and climbed in a flat hat. I obviously had to do the same and routinely left my helmet in the van </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">an</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">d took to the rock in an ‘orrible cheese cutter from a second hand shop. At the time one of Joe Brown’s pri</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ncipal claims to fame was Cenotaph Corner, the ic</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">onic rout</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">e on </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Dinas Cromlech. More of that </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">later. Llanberis had </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">all the ‘hard’ crags that were the domain of EB and PA rock boots (I p</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">referred EBs) and jeans and not the hobnails and tweeds of Capel Curig and the climbing 'establishment'. Do I look like a bloke who listens to Perry Como? Llanberis had crags with great names; Craig Ddu, Clogwyn y Grochan, Carreg Wasted, Dinas Mot, Cyrn Las and Dinas Cromlech itself. The summer of ’68 was spent polishing off all the HVS </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">and ‘easy’ XS we could find on all these crags. It seems now we drove up the A5 every weekend for months and slept </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">in the van in the Cromlech car park but we probably o</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">nly made half a dozen trips. But it was up at dawn and climb until we dropped.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGA8qUW88fZ9kpAkiaOWti6vkxi9Z83ivBLoDmqOBiBhhd_WMO7umjowQc5SI2P7LTf6Eyjn2Rhnjp7gIEaCRHwoFAVlgp917F-WPMqahiE3a5wNr_xKoBlwdxDF_-_Q0fCxK4nknpfW2o/s1600/View_down_to_Llanberis_Pass.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650660099771769826" style="WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 300px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGA8qUW88fZ9kpAkiaOWti6vkxi9Z83ivBLoDmqOBiBhhd_WMO7umjowQc5SI2P7LTf6Eyjn2Rhnjp7gIEaCRHwoFAVlgp917F-WPMqahiE3a5wNr_xKoBlwdxDF_-_Q0fCxK4nknpfW2o/s400/View_down_to_Llanberis_Pass.jpg" border="0" /></a></span></span></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Every time we were on the Cromlech we stood at the bottom of Cenotaph Corner and thought of an excuse not to have a go. 'It is going to rain'. 'Oh, look there’s already someone on it'. 'You left the third MOAC in the van'. All bollocks; we were scared of it. Its aura was such that although it is not exceedingly hard (it is certainly not easy, I can assure you) it was getting a place in our minds where it was impossible. Just standing at the botto</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">m and looking up does not give lie to this notion. Writing this now it is sobering to note that it was first conquered sixty years ago but in the mid sixties the route was only seventeen years old – a heartbeat considerin</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">g the rock had been there for millennia. Cenotaph Corner in 1968 was a real benchmark. There were those who had done it and those who hadn't and I didn't reckon I would be anything until I had done it. It seemed important, no vital to my continuing existence, then. I put a tentative h</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">and on its first co</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">u</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ple of mov</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">es once and was terrified only three feet off the ground.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">We didn’t dare have a proper go in ’68.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">If it rained (and this happens a lot in Snowdonia) we would take Plod’s </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">van down to Tremadoc. There is a cliff here that is in Snowd</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">onia’s rain shadow and you could climb bathed in sunshine when it was pissing down in the Pass. Routes here were short (two pitches the norm) but could be quite hard and there was a good (I’m not sure I would call it that now) café attached to the petrol station across the road. Petrol was very important to us as it was expensiv</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">e, our biggest outlay and probably our biggest constraint to progress as we were seriously hard up. If we didn’t have enough money to get to North Wales we would go and climb the sea cliffs at Swanage that were only three hours drive from SW London.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Autumn ’68 arrived and A levels took the place of cliffs as winter approached; I had no interest in winter climbing anyway</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">. 1969 w</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">as my last year </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">in school and with exams finished in June and University no</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">t starti</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ng until October we had four months. All we needed now was some weather. I recall the summer of 1969 as being a pearler; but then aren’t all the summers of your youth blessed with endless blue skies when viewed through the retrospectoscope? By this time we knew our way around the Pass and were d</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">etermined to have a good go at Cenotaph Corner. Over the winter we had also come to hear of Clogwyn d’ur Arddu – Cloggie.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650665341915716802" style="WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 225px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdBsWhBq-S5d0zho6tOBQW76P3GNJTnRx88KFvQApMEODV2MG0DKJLEOaO_GsKiVPChsRJrmcYpyhbY1bHxQ6Ng7ZGtedc3Mcn7ZwzwrNHiL-4BveYg8TrASD6T7j_vle0phMD9Ulx-kwm/s400/540497965_7d922df854_z.jpg" border="0" /></span></span></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">This was the new Holy Grail of British rock climbing. A massive complex of cliffs near the summit of Snowdon which were protected by their remoteness from the road (as I recall it took about three hours to walk in from the top car park) and their greater than fair share of inclement weather even for Snowdonia. The reputation of the place was that all the routes were big and they were all bloody hard. Not far wrong</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">, but to me at a bulletproof seventeen going on eighteen this was what I wanted. We went there only once but had an epic day doing Cloggy Corner and White Slab in a day. Even now I reckon that was a bloody good effort. Cloggy Corner was not my style, all grunt and jamming but White Slab was a ripper. Easily the big</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">gest climb we had done to date and we were probably out of ou</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">r depth. But, hey, we were under tw</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">enty and could do anyt</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">hing. I don’t really remember much of it ex</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">cept that you have to lasso a rock spike at some point and use a rope to get ac</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ross a see</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">mingly holdless bit. I think we lassoed the spike on the first attempt but I really can’t recall the details.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Cenotaph Corner still loomed over us and I now cannot recall the mindset that got us to the foot of it where neither of us could think of an excuse to back out. The crux is at about 25 feet and I found this very hard. Once I had done it I was absolutely certain I couldn’t reverse it even if I wanted to. No choice, carry on. The fact that the worse was behind me didn’t seem much comfort when I looked up and the top seemed miles away and its just verti</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">cal and both the left and right walls look vast and I know getting out </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">the little cave at the top is also hard and I’ll be knackered by the time I get there and….. Can I reall</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">y remember this in all this detail over forty years later? I think I can. We knew there wa</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">s already a peg in situ for aid at the top (I think there mi</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ght have been a couple and I thi</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">nk they both looked manky) for which I was very grateful. I was crap at putting pegs in, we had a very poor selection (no money) and by the time I got to the place where it was needed I hardly had enough remaining strength to think let alone wield a peg hammer. Well we did it. Great feeling of triumph, knackered, elated (but not overly so) and I can’t remember what we thought the future might hold for us.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh-QmlDJZxLqh6lk7SDLwxWM0uc-J0hq4amGvvdIkF-bCLHjgxLKkKXh22K3jPis4-QxfO0xZ-fWuW4vmV-sxY96gX_LhuinaGic5p4Kx5UlFyAMlBWgQEy7Gf55Fp-9EQyXJbARwGvkFt/s1600/cenotaph.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650666559806204498" style="WIDTH: 264px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh-QmlDJZxLqh6lk7SDLwxWM0uc-J0hq4amGvvdIkF-bCLHjgxLKkKXh22K3jPis4-QxfO0xZ-fWuW4vmV-sxY96gX_LhuinaGic5p4Kx5UlFyAMlBWgQEy7Gf55Fp-9EQyXJbARwGvkFt/s400/cenotaph.jpg" border="0" /></a></span></span></span><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650666564221984466" style="WIDTH: 272px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHf2kREqyw8wOrEKhjtQF7XUiArLNSoTC3KUDjFM2XFrKk6wDAS_FabNicE936N527OJjFioxK4rrkNC5K2S7_1XvMXkfNpuzt8ab-irVFQ3SJLq7KRgplehRMK9t7KhAzrFNucG5pvcd2/s400/300_cenotaph.jpg" border="0" /></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">At this point we had done most of the stuff we wanted to do in the Pass. We weren’t interested in anything under HVS and there was, even then, a load of stuff that we knew was beyond our abilities; we were good (well above average of those climbing in the late sixties) but we weren’t that good. Using footballing parlance we were nowhere near Premier League but might have given most First Division sides a good game. If Brown and Whillans were the mega stars of the fifties, new names were the ones to watch in the late sixties. The only names I can now remember were Pete Crew and a bloke called Ed Dr</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">umm</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ond. Drummond had been climbing on sea cliffs on the North West coast of Anglesey. In particular we had heard of an ‘amazing’ route of his called Dream of White H</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ors</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">es. This was a sort of traverse that you had to abseil into and then the final pitch was supposed to be the most exposed thing you could imagine. And it wasn’t that hard – honest.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Back in the Minivan at the end of September 1969 to drive right to the end of the A5. You drive to the car park by, I think, North Stack and then walk over a sort of cliff top moorland bit and th</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">en you see Wen Zawn and Drummond’s creation. You have got to be joking. The moment I saw it I just knew this was all I ever wanted out of rock climbing</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">. I was absolutely go</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">bsmacked. The first three pitches across this vast white slab were obvious a</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">nd magnificent. But the final pitch; deary me. The traverse too</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">k you to the bottom of a series of hanging buttresses that, well, just hung there. 200 feet, maybe, straight into the sea; fall off here and you would just be dangling above the puffins in the middle of nowhere with any rock tens of yards away. Totally mindboggling. How the hell Drummond ever saw a way up the seeming maze to the top was beyond me. We looked at it from the other side of t</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">he zawn and it was obvious that it had to be done. Abseiled in and then the only way out is to climb out or prussic back up your abseil rope. I insisted that I led the final pitch. If I can remember little of climbing Cenotaph Corner forty two years and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">a few weeks ago I can remember virtually every move of Dream </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">of White Horses forty two years ago. It was what I went roc</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">k climbing for. It was hard but not too hard and it was exposed – shit it was exposed - and it was absolutely the best climb I had ever done by the length of the straight and then some.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650670198956933810" style="WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 295px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_GhIU5bF1K3k2bGzadrkmFKGB98FGNz6URfnQqEqTDmJP6yWjjgumqH6JhPjY3D2JA6jkaw6Mu14SNxGRjh3SdHiYmNjq9SCo98eOKY6_ozLr5h-hCuByyxg5X84iHKawGLXRyvEJ99E5/s400/Dream5.jpg" border="0" /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650670187723788594" style="WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 300px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIrBQ0I7hhMMoJYukPwyNalF5DySOns6OQkBILocgyTuPT2ACcLxKiid0-the69BJn796uHfAC-lKOLmU38PUkx83a0evduEULkyq-EQWWZXWDFk1uZiGykyaAwUMRczDL_qtt-jp18VjP/s400/Dream1.jpg" border="0" /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650670190416040002" style="WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 300px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOulnQT_-vDDmUPpgEW9owc13Ye1zchY4Edn18RKckTNEiBDiqeXox_gRm9uCWLclPLzEWAXZr-Ve1fm0renNjaIEysg1P1hd9TpHjY2a5E99bb9N4Ij0zH42fboOAH7PG5gEFJmq5YAkb/s400/Dream2.jpg" border="0" /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650670192829498338" style="WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 300px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCZAKdC78wynq7g22lmlMfD68R9A7JQeUOyke2zkjFu7nwgkLMNjBgJx10q64-uoaxF4ZkItN5rIwhrYFcj4yyE36RQ_5u8AgX9RADJ56qs7JRg_P3O1CMS5SZIKiS31vIyRAVZoC90BGE/s400/Dream4.jpg" border="0" /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650670195033822802" style="WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzOI1A1iIMyw4ltZ9mqSq962tmIIxqaF5O7QZPqWYDR7Tj7FcNfOZD0POziZdukAZpPHEaAQP8a4X8sOHL590bf1csEW4ce-1UVgbujoNtrNLafvi_XjUnYQl4nkwniQLuRpWFR7n7loV_/s400/Dream3.jpg" border="0" /></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">And that was it. Dream was the last proper climb I did and from forty years away that is just the way it should have been. I can think of nowhere I would have wanted my climbing career to progress from there. It couldn’t have got any better and it, therefore, could only be downhill from there. And it was until I put it out of its misery, because that is what it became. I went to University a couple of weeks later and that was in the middle of London. London had no cliffs but it had members of the species who had no Y chromosome and it had beer. Neither was conducive to proper rock climbing. I joined the University Mountaineering Club (it was already going wrong; I was never a mountaineer) and doodled pictures of karabiners on the side of my biochemistry notes for a term. I fell in with a new mate in the Mountaineering Club who thought a good day on the crags was a gentle v diff in the morning and then repair to the pub for a few beers and a game of darts. I started to agree with him. The Mountaineering Club had females who wanted to walk the Pyg Track. Borrie was still setting tool heights in South London but was long gone; the bloke with whom I repeatedly trusted my life (literally) I now wouldn't recognise if I tripped over him. My climbing summer of 1970 was shameful. V diffs, beer and darts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I started playing water polo and the Tour every year was to Dorset. You played in the evening so had the day to play the goat, eat crab sandwiches and drink beer. In June 1971 Fisty Palmer made a guest postgraduate appearance on tour. Great water polo player (played for British Universities) and sometime rock climber of the v diff variety I was now moving amongst. We set off to mess about on some inconsequential cliffs at Portland Bill to fill the day before playing Bridport in the evening. I had a filthy hangover and was sweating like a pig. Hands like dish mops. I was about twenty feet up a bit of limestone with no protection in and lunged (I shudder to think of it even now – I never lunged for anything. I was never very strong but I managed what I did by economy of movement and balance) for a sort of bosselated lump the size of a baked bean tin. It was poor technique in spades and I paid for it big time. Inevitably peeled off backwards straight onto the rocky beach. Shit it hurt. I had obviously broken something in my back and I had to be winched off the beach by helicopter. This was quite good fun as I got some morphine prior to the flight. A crush fracture of L1 and a smashed left scapula – and I was bloody lucky at that. First my Mum knew about it was when it was reported on the TV News that a 19 year old holiday maker (holiday maker – how embarrassing is that?) had been rescued by helicopter……Not amused. A week in Portland Navy Hospital with my mates visiting me daily. What decent chaps thought I until I realised that I was the only one on tour that had any money left and they just came to win it off me at three card brag at which they knew I was useless.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">This episode just confirmed the bleeding obvious; give it up – you’ve done the Dream, there is nothing else you need to do. So I did. Got to be quite a good darts player and put on weight.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">(Of necessity none of the pictures in this post are mine - no digital cameras in the late sixties. I think all the pictures are in the public domain; if they are not I will happily take them down. None of the people in the pictures is me or Borrie - but the places where they are pictured are where we were. To the millimetre. It was just a very long time ago)</span></span></p>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-6660523660984465102011-09-05T06:43:00.004+12:002011-09-05T07:41:08.458+12:00Do as I say and not................A chap who's opinions on all sorts of things often hit the mark with me advised a while back that doing less was a good thing when one felt a little overwhelmed. I have found this to be good advice but recently have been <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">studiously</span> ignoring it. Busier than a one armed paper hanger and it is mostly of my own making. There is very little that really has to be done now; like this minute, hour or even day. Getting off the train tracks as the 0814 bears down on you would qualify but most of the 'really important' stuff we surround ourselves with is no such thing and can wait. And wait with advantage as I am finding that doing things after a bit more thought generally ends up with a job done better. This doing less has to be tempered by the temptation to drift into doing absolutely nothing mode but there in lies another truth of life; balance.
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<br />Well I have been particularly remiss on this front over the last month and I will try and make September better. Going from Point A to Point B in a completely straight line is as dull as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">ditchwater</span> but the amplitude of the sine wave that describes from absolutely nothing to far too much must be damped down to just <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">enough</span> to stay awake to pleasantly busy. Note to self.
<br />
<br />What has been happening whilst I have been consuming myself with things that don't matter nearly as much as I can make them appear? What has been going on whilst I worry unnecessarily about things I can do nothing about?
<br />
<br />Absolutely the last application of digits to keys concerning the blasted penguin. A pox on the bird. Now he has been at last unceremoniously biffed off the back of a ship in a suitable cold place may he be eaten by a pelagic animal forthwith. May the GPS <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">superglued</span> to his feathers stop bleeping within the day indicating his totally <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">ridiculous</span> profile has at last been snuffed out. I cannot get my head around the world wide (no less) fawning and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">cooing</span> this stupid <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">orthine</span> animal has generated. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">When</span> he eventually <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">left the</span> land of the Long White Saccharine it was in a specially constructed 'enclosure' (read cage) on the back of a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">NIWA</span> research <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">vessel</span> accompanied by a farewell card signed by hundreds of people (read idiots). Did the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">damned</span> bird put down his collected works of Voltaire to peruse his greetings card? Nero fiddles? Deck chairs on the Titanic?
<br />
<br />In a few (four if the 'Countdown Clock' before the 6 o'clock News is to be believed) days a sporting tourney will kick off (literally) here in NZ. We are told that the country is in the grip of 'World <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Cup</span> fever'. Really? I am looking forward to six or seven weeks of good rugby, but fever?. Well I am not <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">looking</span> forward to six or seven weeks of it and am not going to regard Georgia vs Russia as 'good rugby'. In truth there are going to be a handful of matches I'll watch and that will not be Scotland vs Canada. There are 48 games (as the drill sergeant on the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Sky</span> ads has been barking at us for months) and about eight of those will be worth watching. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">What</span> to do with forty games of dross? The organisers have lots of cunning (sic) plans. They get small towns to 'adopt' teams of no <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">hopers</span>. So we will have something like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Paeroa</span> adopting the USA. No idea what this means. The good ole boys get invited around for a cup of tea and a home made slice behind the net curtains? But they have to do this or an ersatz 'World Cup' will fall flat. This is a World <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Cup</span> much like the Cricket World Cup represents the world. Go look for wall to wall (or even any) TV coverage of this in the US (even thought hey are <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">competing</span>) or in China or India. I'll not be holding my breath as you'll be gone a l<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">ong</span> time. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">This</span> is a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">World</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Cup</span> just as much as the World Series in Baseball represents the World.
<br />
<br />Still it is the best we can do with the resources available and despite all of the above I am looking forward to it. As a country we have prostituted ourselves to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">IRB</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">will</span> run this at a loss. We knew this when we signed up for it but I still don't understand how it all works. I do know that for a month the stadiums have to be 'clean'. Not litter free, you understand, but advertising <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">free</span> in a regard that does not offend the official sponsors. Thus the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Westpac</span> Stadium in Wellington is no such thing for a couple of months but is the Wellington Regional Stadium. Buy your hot chips there with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Mastercard</span> or cash <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">only</span>. No Visa, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Amex</span> or e<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">ven</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">EFTPOS</span> cos they are not kosher brands. Even the Ambulances that transport Heineken altered punters to the cooler have had to have their <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">ACC</span> sponsored minute logos painted out. All this advertising <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">cleanliness</span> apparently has a geographical fallout zone around the stadiums as well much like that accompanying a thermonuclear device; within x metres of the stadium no <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Steinlager.</span> Daft - but then I don't work for Heineken.
<br />
<br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">iPad</span> update. This is an intrusive device and my opinion that I will still be buying a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">MacBook</span> Air next year may well be revised down. The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">iPad</span> is by far the best way I have come across for browsing the web. I now even prefer it to having a wander around on a 27" screen. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Flipboard</span> is the best way to base one's web wanderings and has to be the best value for money (read free) software about. I <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">would</span> even pay money for it. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">StumbleOn</span> is not bad either but is a real time waster. I have frittered away hours (literally) reading the stories behind seventies hit singles, watching videos of 1950's Austin <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Healeys</span>, trying to learn the real names of heroes of my youth (I really didn't know until yesterday that the totally gorgeous Grace Slick was born Grace Wing) and confirming that perpetual <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">motion</span> machines don't work (and haven't done since the thirteenth century). I Have made a presentation from the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">iPad</span> both round a table to two <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">people</span> (good) and to a room full of people via a projector (so so). I am a convert to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">eBooks</span>. Reading in seat 1C is a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">positive</span> delight when one doesn't have to carry a separate book for the purpose. Kicking off with Stephen Fry's <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">autobiography</span>. A little <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">surpised</span> by this; a fairly dark read and self <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">flagellatory</span> almost to excess.
<br />
<br />If the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">iPad</span> is fast becoming my <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">favourite</span> device for getting information out of the world it falls well short on the getting information back in the other direction. Fine for a one paragraph email but I would not be writing a doctorate on it; nor for that matter composing this blog post. Proper typing (if what I do can be described as that) is impossible <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">and I</span> am not going to buy a keyboard with blue teeth; I already have a laptop. You can make presentation slides in Keynote in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">iPad</span> (and a fully fledged presentation program at NZ$15 is a snip) but you wouldn't want to. Make the slides on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">iMac</span> or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">MacBook</span> Pro and then flick 'em over to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_57">Dropbox</span> (or the Cloud next month) is the way to do this.
<br />
<br />We'll make an assault on September, armed with an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_58">iPad</span>, a healthy regard for sorting the good rugby from the crap and no bloody penguins.
<br />obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-25158041088559426192011-08-26T06:51:00.004+12:002011-08-26T11:52:56.290+12:00We drag ourselves into the present
<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Away from the keyboard for almost a fortnight as events that I were not expecting washed over me. Details don't really matter but it is rather sobering <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">to</span> realise how important one's health is when it starts to look threatened. Just ask Steve Jobs - all the money in the world and he ain't going to see sixty.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Well I have (last Monday) and the day was the best</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; ">I've had since my elder daughter's wedding nine months ago. Surrounded by family and a good meal - all the important stuff in life. Even going to work wasn't too bad; got a jolly yummy cake and was let out early.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">On top of all this I got a present. Regular readers of these ramblings will be aware that my computing and tech needs are met from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Cupertino</span>. I was lured from the dark side of Redmond years ago when I nicked a G4 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">iBook</span> off number two daughter for a business trip. I sit typing this (not at work for reasons related to yesterday's momentous events) with two <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">iMacs</span>, a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">MacBook</span> Pro and an iPhone 4 on the desk. But there is a new member of the clan that has found</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; ">himself some real estate.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnb6oZN11Q_iohv4CbvMxkqZU_zmGcavjhgjynv_Zi_lTAaZRvs8yRG08UBTMUfVt7m5dzK71NhvnjTyZx3F3VzAOy4PDG12p2-1gpR6G_mcMoIXrf_sATnnykeoiwvHHc5racCeADttbz/s400/Desk_260811.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5644945686177483682" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; ">
<br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">When did the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">iPad</span> come out? Eighteen months ago - dunno. Never got one because I didn't need one (although if I only bought things I need I would purchase nothing). However I now have a bright shiny 64G <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Wifi</span> only model (I have the phone and its personal <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">hotspot</span>) sitting in front of me courtesy of my generous family. And you know what, it is every bit as good as it says on the tin.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">Is this thing going to change my computing life.? Well having <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">unboxed</span> it just last night (I told you I had been busy, that's three days after it arrived) it is certainly going to make it hard to justify buying a Mac Book Air to join the stable. I think it is absolutely brilliant on the evidence of twelve hours use. It is touted as the best way to surf the web. And I agree. There is an app ('There's an app for that') called <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Flipboard</span> which is easily in the 'most useful bits of software I've come across' list. It's touted as a personal magazine and I reached for the vomit bowl. But they are right. Load up all your interests (cars, cricket, tech, fishing, news etc etc) and it runs around the web picking up news and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">tid</span> bits for you. Very impressive. There is an app that just wanders aimlessly (well sort of) around the web landing on sites you might be interested in. I can see hours of potentially productive time going down the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">gurgler</span> there. I now have Stephen Fry's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">autobigraphy</span> for $9.99 in a format that can be employed in seat 1C next Monday. I've tried reading books on the iPhone and it is stupid and totally unworkable.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">Yet to find a decent weather app but I don't expect that state of affairs will last for long. Small scale engineering sites <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">optimized</span> for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">IOS</span> might be a little trickier to find. The mobile version of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Dropbox</span> might at last have some use <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">apart</span> from looking impressive in the Utilities folder on the phone. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">I think I'll get a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">MacBook</span> Air next year anyway, though.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-58048134603133146562011-08-17T05:46:00.000+12:002011-08-17T05:47:48.533+12:00Grumpy<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Same old, same old. If you want to know what is in this post, just read what was written three weeks ago. I am again in the darkened skies somewhere over the central North Island when I should be wiping the sleepy dust from my eyes in Christchurch. It is again the hexagonal crystalline form of the water molecule that has caused the problem. Very nice tickets on NZ 543 and NZ 484 generously purchased by the New Zealand Tax payer have been consigned to the bin to be substituted by a NZ 401 to Wellington which still insists on taking off at 0600. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I really have had enough of this disruption to my work. As it was three weeks ago we have the nation going gaga over Jim's polar rodent. Usual pictures of snowmen and even an idiot in Dunedin running around in the snow wearing shorts. When quizzed about this totally inappropriate dress code he said he was an impoverished apprentice and couldn't afford trousers. Plonker. And liar. This winter nonsense is worse than last months. We had a bit of snow in Auckland which apparently makes things even cuter. Wrong. Yesterday they had snow falling on The Terrace in Wellington (where I am currently heading) and this was further cause for wonderment. I'm sorry but this is all peripheral to the point that all this bad weather is a pain in the arse. I lived in Singapore for many years and not once did I lose a day's travail to snow.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">To compound my grumpiness I am baled up in 1E for the next thirty five minutes with most of the vastly overweight Member of Parliament in 1D oozing into my little part of the 737-300. When I get to the 'Winter Wonderland of Wellington' (quote from no less than the Prime Minister) I have a day of putting out strategic fires stretching in front of me. Almost all of these are being started by idiots occupying positions that require levels of skill way beyond their feeble capabilities. A few of them think they are the best thing since lace up shoes and I am quite looking forward to disavowing them of this notion. Others are so far up themselves that they couldn't be found with a search party. Happy times. And there is the other thing to which I vaguely alluded a few days back. Sod it.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Cheer myself up with a flick through the Herald in there Koru Lounge prior to departure? Fat chance. Pages and pages of Winter Wonderland bollocks to be followed by a quarter page on a foot and cycle crossing for the Harbour Bridge. PIcture of the simian grin of the Auckland Mayor gleefully announcing that by a vote of seven to four council has decided to authorize someone to look into possible budget sources for further study of the stupid idea. And we waste food on these fools.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">No life is not all beer and skittles at the moment and the only slight pleasure I can currently feel is that of wallowing in my own misery.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">It'll pass.</span></p>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-28497636372539132302011-08-13T06:27:00.002+12:002011-08-13T06:35:59.954+12:00Normally of a cheery disposition<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I pen these wafflings for amusement. Mine. </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Recent events have put a little dent in my normally cheery disposition and I am unsure this morning whether a few minutes at the keyboard is the trip to the panelbeaters that is required. Like everybody I was ten foot tall and bullet proof when I was twenty and blithely thought that status carried on forever.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">
<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Well, it doesn't and I don't like it one little bit.</span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-58796743905984789272011-08-02T17:04:00.001+12:002011-08-02T17:18:21.231+12:00Making things simple<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">If you are going to do anything of a complexity greater than making a cup of tea a spot of planning is in order. Depending on whether the task on hand is a plate of Marmite soldiers or a factory to produce the 200,000 DB9s Apple is going to buy with its war chest of cash will determine the complexity of the plan required but a plan is definitely required. Put the Marmite on the toast before the butter and breakfast is a disaster. I've learnt a bit about planning in the last year and there are a few rules to be followed. Structure and simplicity do it for me. In the structure department a strategy is the absolute numero uno. No idea of where you want to go and you end up somewhere else. Scrambled eggs for instance; and they are horrible. After that a little bit of organizational stuff (get Mrs O to be in charge of the Marmite as she walks past the larder) and you're onto the operational (the Vogels slides effortlessly into the Breville). That's all you need. No less and certainly no more. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Let's see what happens if it is not done properly. Auckland got rid of dozens of local councils and replaced them with the dreadfully named Supercity. The idea was to streamline all the planning and have a lean mean organisation that would get things done liskety split for very few dollars. Big problem was that a complete idiot got elected as Mayor. He couldn't organise a nun shoot in a convent and as a substitute for his genetically determined lack of decision making ability he did what his sort always do and set up committees for everything. We are worse off than when we started as we now have literally dozens of planning committees for everything you can think of and lots more for things you could never have thought of in a month of Sundays. </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">We have 60 high level planning mobs who are apparently required by legislation. Well there's the strategy gone; you can't have 60 high level things by definition. These include the 30-year Auckland (spatial) plan, a detailed land use regulatory plan (which if it is detailed can't be high level, fools), a 10-year activity and budget long-term plan, an annual plan, 21 local board plans and, separately, 21 local board agreements setting out what each council will actually do for the the local area for the coming year. Confused? I'm not even up to flying speed yet.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Councils (and you thought we now only had one; so did I) are also required to develop a financial strategy, a local board funding policy, a slew of assets management plans and plans related to council's statutory functions. These include a waste assessment plan and a (separate) waste management and minimization plan. After morning tea they have to write plans (plural) related to alcohol control and regulation of the adult entertainment industry.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">So we've already got a nice mixture of strategy and organizational and even a bit of operational sticking its head over the Gantt chart parapet. But don't get weary because this is bureaucracy on steroids land and we've got miles to go before we've wasted enough of my money. Deep breath and we need 40 (yup forty) plans and strategies (not allowed to sleep in the same room, remember) so the council controlled organizations (COOs) don't feel left out. They include a plan each for economic development, business improvement districts, transport, sport and recreation, children and young people, housing, major events, energy and climate change (please no), urban design, infrastructure, heritage and master plans for the waterfront, city centre and the East Tamaki business precinct. Stomach for any more? How about plans and policies for parks and reserves? A policy for air land and water? How the hell can you have a policy for air? The Point Chevalier COO has decided to phase out air by the end of 2013 and needs $2.5 million to implement this much need vacuum.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">It is plainly barking. With that amount of simplified (sic) bureaucracy you are never going to get any breakfast. And you will remain hungry at enormous expense. I'll tell you what Auckland will end up with. Two trams that cost $8 million.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">To great fanfare in the Herald this morning two trams are announced. The last trams to ply their trade in Auckland for money were taken off the streets in 1956. Obald was just walking up the path to Bushey Primary. The South Africans were on tour in NZ, Jim Laker took 19 for 90. It was a bloody long time ago. Auckland wants to bring them back and had to get some form a Melbourne museum. I'm entirely serious. Museum sees a hoard of Auckland bureaucrats on the horizon and puts the price of a couple of time expired exhibits up to a couple of mill each. They were obviously a bit slow as they didn't sell us a couple of old bridges. Council numpties then spend $339,00 to refurbish a shed to put these white elephants in. A third of a mill on a garage that is half built before you start. These lumps of century before last technology are going to ply the streets somewhere down by the harbour. The bloke in charge says he is, and I quote, 'thrilled' at what he is getting for eight million big ones.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">There is no bloody hope.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-38193916945434382562011-07-29T20:10:00.010+12:002011-07-29T20:37:16.963+12:00Some things I do not understand<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">These could be the first few of a very long list.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">How does the United States owe $14 trillion?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Who do they owe it to?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Who lends anyone anything approaching that amount of money?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Where can I find him?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">How do you imagine having to paying $38,000,000,000 interest a month?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">What REALLY happens on Tuesday if they don't pay it back?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Is paying it back what they have to do on Tuesday - seems an awful lot to find over the weekend?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I went to <a href="http://www.wtfnoway.com/">this site</a> to make it more understandable but it served only to confuse further. Good fun though.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I really never have understood money. This means I am no good at it. Mr McCawber is my style of an economist. </span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-78574307198870713932011-07-29T17:20:00.005+12:002011-07-29T20:01:47.285+12:00What haven't we heard of recently?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">All sorts of things, I suppose. I haven't heard a good fondue recipe for a decade or two (thank God). Shane <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Warne</span> had disappeared off the planet but recently resurfaced looking like an effeminate stick. What ever happened to the paperless office? Martin Luther hasn't had much to say for himself of late; but I suppose he has an excuse being as he's been dead for over five hundred years. Anthropogenic global warming. Where's that been hiding?</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Remember</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">AGW</span>? It was all the go, ooh, only a couple of years ago. The <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">weird</span> beards of the world were telling us all that the end of the world was just around the corner and it was all due to polluting the atmosphere with carbon <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">dioxide</span>. My running of several four litre cars was principally to blame. We had 'air miles' on imported fruit and veg in Europe so the socially responsible could buy carrots on the basis of how much fuel they used to get to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Waitrose's</span> shelves. There was a never ending stream of similar bollocks which the great unwashed swallowed hook line and sinker. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Al Gore touted his corpulent carcass all over the globe and told porkies to anyone who would listen. We had heads of government and captains industry prostrating themselves at the altar of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Almeister</span>. Countries started wasting billions of hard earned cash on Emission Trading Schemes and Carbon Taxes. And so it went on. And still goes on I think. It was bollocks then and its bollocks now. Al Gore gets fatter and richer by the week and even scored himself the Nobel Peace Prize. Give me a break.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">All this alarmist bullshit got the highest possible press profile. The Royal New Zealand Herald even used to run The Green Pages where breathless cub reporters would <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">extol</span> the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">virtues</span> of tofu fuelled power stations and public transport. I say used to as they no longer run this rubbish. We no longer hear of Indian Ocean atolls disappearing beneath the waves. Where are all the stories of polar bear deaths and melting ice caps? These were once the darling stories of the popular press. They are no longer fashionable, they are no longer even heard of.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">And why</span> is <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">that</span>? It is because it was, and still is, all bullshit. As we shall see <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">all</span> this <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">trendy</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">ecobabble</span> is being destroyed by some <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">inconvenient</span> truths which come to us as facts. Funny that. But is the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">realisation</span> that the emperor has no clothes (and if that emperor is the Al <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Meister</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">what</span> a hideous image that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">conjours</span> up) getting the headlines the bullshit received? No.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The emissions trading scam. We here in the Land of the Long White Confidence Trick have bought into this. You know, buy and sell stuff that does not exist on the promise that if you make some more you've already paid for it and planted a tree so there won't efectively be more of it because you bought it off someone who had lots anyway and we save the planet. Sound like a scam? Well of course it does because it is. Carbon markets (save me) are closing down wholesale because it is reckoned that 90% of the trade is fraudulent. Got that? 90%.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The great white whale Al Gore, stood up and said in 2007, 2008 and 2009 <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">that</span> the entire North Polar Ice cap would be gone by the summer of 2014. Ludicrous though it sounded people believed him and stuck pins in wax models of Bugatti <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Veyrons</span>. The polar ice caps are in fact expanding. Sure at this time of year they get smaller because it is Northern Hemisphere summer and we have one of those <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">every</span> year. Its the time when Al goes North to take pictures of polar bears clinging to melting ice floes; these photos to be released in January, of course to 'prove' his point. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Sorry</span>, but overall polar ice caps are bigger. Is Al Gore in jail? Next cell to Bernie Madoff would be good.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The underlying cause of all this predicted mayhem is the computer model predictions that all this carbon dioxide pollution will allow less heat to escape from the atmosphere. It all gets reflected back by this evil greenhouse gas. We've been through all the water vapour stuff before so I won't tire my fingers with it all again. If you don't <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">understand</span>, then Google is your friend. Well these computer <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">predicitions</span> are just that - mathematical <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">modelling</span> of what might happen. Right up there in the precision stakes with knitting fog. What about some boring old data, you know <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">actually</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">measuring</span> stuff that really is happening.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Well NASA has done a bit of that with some of their satellites and stuff. NASA is good at satellites and s<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">tuff</span>. And I'll tell you what, data over the last eleven years (so we are not talking an astronaut sticking his finger <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">out</span> of the space shuttle window here) has shown that the atmosphere is releasing far more heat than the doomsday computer projections would have had us believe. Well there's a shock (a bit of sarcasm thrown in there). The discrepancy </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">between the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">predictions</span> and the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">observations</span> is most marked over the oceans. So there's more greenhouse bollocks down the pan. The central <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">plank</span> of the alarmist global warming theory has <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">just</span> been proven to be a complete and utter crock.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">But <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">what</span> will we hear of this in the mainstream media? <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Nuffink</span>. You could have Anders <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Breivik</span> debating the alarmist case armed with nothing but bullshit against Pippa Middleton armed with a wheelbarrow full of data confounding his every preposterous claim and the papers would still report that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Obald</span> is wrecking the planet <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">every time</span> the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">XKR</span> leaves the garage. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">Keep going, we'll get there.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-88624222224708858862011-07-26T09:19:00.002+12:002011-07-26T09:21:51.454+12:00Weather is bad and needs to be punished<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I long ago learnt not to get upset by things over which I have, and can never have, any control. However the bloody weather is giving me a run for my money at the moment. I like to be organised and because of this my travail away from the paddocks around the house run like a Swiss watch. I have over the last year learnt that Mr Gantt had two things going for him. He had a seriously odd name and he knew what he was doing. I could never have made the progress I have over the last fifteen months without some of the rudimentary basics of project management. I run to a schedule and love it. I, for the first time in my working life, have a number of synchronized Get Things Done lists on all my various electronic aids to an existence and they all have timelines. Sounds nerdy, but it works.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Thus, months ago, it was decided that today I would work in Christchurch for the day and then catch the early evening flight to Wellington to be in time for the weekly pub quiz. That is how you do things; meticulous planning. In order to get a full day in ChCh we will arrive the night before and sod the seismic risks. Then tomorrow we have things to do in Wellington and then its back to Obald Acres. All ship shape and Bristol fashion like what it should be. When those two days work are done it ensures that next week is teed up nicely. And so on. All mapped out and charted on one of Mr Gantt's bits of paper through to mid October. Perfect.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Then it bloody snows. And snows and snows and snows.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Worst cold snap for sixteen years the media breathlessly inform us. As if this is something to be celebrated like a couple of batsmen (not batters, please) breaking New Zealand's opening stand record. A winter wonderland the 6 o'clock news gushes forth. Pictures of kids making snowmen, drunk students throwing snowballs and frost on seven wire fences. Just to pretend they realists the media show a few obligatory pics of rubbish drivers getting no traction and sliding rear door first into ditches, a farmer or two in his blue overalls and RD1 beanie dishing out hay to cows and the winter landscape is complete. We cross to some reporter at a ski field who finds someone to say their takings are up on last week when the piste was so much mud and then more pictures of kids tobogganing on tea trays in lieu of going to school. Cross to Jim Hickey who tells the terminally stupid that we have all this snow courtesy of a blast of cold air from the Antarctic running into a moist atmosphere (no shit, Sherlock). For the nth time this winter he calls this a polar rodent and entreats the denizens of Middlemarch to repair to the log box. Back to the studio to interrupt one day of winter with the news that the United States is broke and there is a nutter shooting people wholesale up where all the snow should be.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Cold snaps and snow are not cute and cuddly. They are a pain in the arse. They have disrupted my carefully organised Gantt view of the next three months. I should be in Christchurch now and I am at 30000 feet somewhere over Taranaki. The only similarity between the two is that it is as dark up here as I'm sure it is down there. And just as bloody cold. I will be in the Wellington office far too early; but at least the Coffee Nazi will be open. I am very grateful to the Air New Zealand Gold Elite hotline for getting me on this flight at fourteen hours notice after they said that even all the Gold Eliteness I could muster would not get me on a flight to Christchurch today, but flying at 0600? Please. But I've learnt something already this morning. The Auckland Domestic Terminal does not open until 0500. More bloody disruptions to my comfy routine in having to hang around the McDOnalds (hell, I hoopoe I wasn't spotted) for seven minutes waiting for security to open. I will now spend most of the rest of the morning trying to fit the work I am not doing today into next week. And that will mean that next week's stuff will have to find a new square on Mr Gantt's sheet of paper . And. Well you get the picture.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I've always hated snow. It is cold and wet and just plain horrible. I have never seen the attraction of skiing either. It is cold, wet, you have to wear expensive stupid looking clothes and you break things - like legs and arms and stuff. Today I think I hate snow more than anything I can think of. Mr Gantt doesn't like it either.</span></p>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-44817785928098481372011-07-23T06:46:00.009+12:002011-07-23T17:35:40.087+12:00Odds and ends from around NZ this week<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Saturday morning <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">pre</span> dawn Stygian gloom and its pissing with rain. Therefore golf is right up there with sticking pins in one's eyes, there can be no agricultural work around <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Obald</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Acres</span> and I'm at the beck and call of the damned telephone for forty eight hours. Enforced <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">indoorsness</span> means one of two things; do some preparatory work for next Monday and Tuesday (has to be done and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">a bit</span> dull) or repair to the barn and apply the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">HSS</span> to free machining steel (infinitely preferable but should really wait). The next two days do not fill me with much enthusiasm.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Random thoughts on the week. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Rotorua</span> really is very smelly and I can't imagine why anyone would live there for that and a few other reasons. The sulphurous nature of the atmosphere has other downsides in addition to the assaults on the olfactory apparatus. I had to stay in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Rydges</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Rotorua</span> which is the most bizarre hotel in the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">southern</span> hemisphere. The first peculiarly <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Rotorua</span> affliction is that all the bright ware (taps, towel rails etc) are so tarnished by the aforementioned air that one is afraid to touch them in fear of getting contact dermatitis. The rooms are inappropriately vast with a five minute trek from wardrobe to chaise <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">longue</span>. The furniture looks to have come from a second hand store in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Ngaruwahia</span> and the atrium restaurant is crap. Stay there in the winter and you have to tape up the door to the spa room to stop all heat from the puny in room heater <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">disappearing</span> into the sulphurous outdoors and stay in the summer and you are told to tape up the windows to stop flies getting in. No, a nasty hotel in every way. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Mercifully</span> staying somewhere else in a couple of weeks which cannot be worse - I hope.<br /></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Then when the time comes to mercifully exit <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Rotorua</span> you go to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Rotorua</span> International (sic) Airport. I think it gets the flash International <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">appellation</span> courtesy of a flight a week to Sydney. Didn't see the duty free shopping mall that International Airports pride themselves on in order to fleece the punters. In lieu of this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Rotorua</span> has joined the other nasty New Zealand Airports (I'm looking at you Hamilton and Palmerston North) in charging a development tax before you are allowed to escape over the perimeter fence. This really pisses me off as I can't see it ever being used to develop a really poor airport. The biggest downside of this transport hub though is not the airport's fault. I have a lot of time for Air New Zealand (good grief I spend enough time with them every week) but the lack of a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Koru</span> Lounge in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Rotovegas</span> is a national disgrace; get it sorted. I am back in three weeks and I expect, nay demand, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Kapiti</span> smelly cheese and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Kaitaia</span> Fire for my tomato juice to be in place by then.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Christchurch and Wellington next week. Both are prone to more seismic activity than I would like. Had a palpable tremor in Wellington a couple of weeks back but was ensconced in a suitable earthquake proofed building and all we got was a rather diverting swaying of the leaves on the office pot plants for <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">fifteen</span> seconds or so. As nothing compared to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">ongoing disruption</span> in Christchurch where the number of quakes <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">since</span> September 4<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">th</span> last <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">year</span> is now well over seven thousand. One night for me and when I requested a single storey hotel next to the airport the predictable response <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">from</span> my travel agent w<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">as</span> 'That is what everyone wants'. Still, the denizens of Christchurch want in for what I am up to despite being given several opportunities to back out, so the least I can do is front up. Thoughts on the shaky city later in the week.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Back in Auckland and we find that after two days of clear skies in my absence normal service has been resumed and its raining. I know one shouldn't complain about things about which one can do nothing but it really does rain an awful lot in Auckland in the winter. I would not like to be one of my sheep having to spend the weekend in my bottom paddock <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">where</span> the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">ovine</span> residents have <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">just now</span> been joined by a flock of ducks. The birds would be more at home than the woolly ones at present. My mowers (all four of them) will think I have found a new <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">object</span> of weekend affection and ones whole life takes on a seasonal dampness.</span></div></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The enforced time indoors for the weekend means I can indulge in playing with Apple's new operating system as an ersatz excuse for not doing any real work. It was revealed this week that Apple has more <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">cash</span> than the GDP of 126 of the world's countries. Not really comparing like with like, I know, but it doesn't disguise the fact <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">that</span> they have serious amounts of dosh. A portion of this which probably equates in percentage terms to the sort of money you and I wouldn't mind losing down the back of the sofa has been spent on OS X Lion. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">They</span> are <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">getting</span> a bit short of large feline animals for the next one. We've had, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and now Lion. What is next? Ocelot? Cheetah? - not a good commercial name, I would suggest. Cougar? - <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">vide</span> supra. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Bornean</span> Clouded <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Leopard</span>? - that one really trips off the tongue.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I quite like Lion, but then it is only a computer operating system and not the meaning of life. For openers the price was right - free. I timed the purchase of the 27" <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">iMac</span> with this in <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">mind but</span> for $0.00 I got a new shiny operating system on all three of my Macs. The only downside was the 4Gig download throttled my broadband back to dial up speed for 24 hours as it exceeded <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Vodafone's</span> 2Gig per day cap. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Now</span> what is that about? They <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">should</span> reward you not penalise you for big downloads as it means you are using their service more and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">potentially</span> giving them more dosh. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Non</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">comprende</span>.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">This minor irritation turned into a major one, however, when I lost all phone line (hence <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Internet</span>) connectivity to the rest of the planet during a storm. This occasioned a call to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">Vodafone's</span> Help (sic) Line. Now these are an easy target for opprobrium but all of it is deserved. I am unsure <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">whether</span> the female at the other end was physically in New Zealand but she certainly was not a native of Te <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Kuiti</span>. Call VF on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">shoephone</span> (obviously) and we get past the mother's maiden name stuff. 'How can I help you?'. I laudably refrain from 'I suspect not all' and tell her my land line is down. 'If the problem is inside your house it will cost you money'. 'I know, but the problem isn't inside my house as next door has no land line either' 'Are you in Auckland'. Again, supreme self restraint stopped me from asking her the same question. 'Can you disconnect your phone from the wall socket?' 'Well of course I can, it is a very easy technical <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">manoeuvre,</span> but why would I want to do that?' 'I need to see if the problem is in your home'. Deep breath. 'I believe I told you about next door'. 'But I need you to disconnect the handset' A bit of cruelty now - why not? 'But all my handsets are connected to the land line through a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">PABX</span>'. This did not go down well. My new friend had to contact her supervisor as to the next move which I suspect was finding out what a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">PABX</span> was. 'You have to get your telephone engineer (hang on, I thought that was your mob) to check your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_57">PABX</span> before we can troubleshoot'. 'Stormy weather, next door - any pennies dropping yet?' And so it goes on for three quarters of an hour. Eventually this automaton agrees to log a fault only after I have agreed to sell my first born if the problem is not outside the confines of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_58">Obald</span> Acres. And we pay an arm and a leg for them to do this to us. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_59">All's</span> well that ends well as service was reconnected in about eight hours (although Miss Te <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_60">Kuiti</span> would only commit to '<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_61">between</span> 24 and 72 hours') and the engineers sent me a couple of texts to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_62">say</span> the deed was done. A minor irritation in an otherwise entirely agreeable rural <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_63">existence</span>.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-29550949915145184142011-07-19T06:33:00.004+12:002011-07-19T07:28:12.720+12:00Cages, cars and drivel - but no penguins<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">First the good news. There is nothing to report on the penguin front this week. It would be too much to hope that the damned bird has died - we would have heard about that ad <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">nauseam</span> - but at least he is no longer bothering us on a daily basis. However there is news of some one with the same intellectual horsepower as the misplaced bird. The President of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Otago</span> University Student's Association is one Logan Edgar. He is a tad brassed off that Union membership is to be made voluntary and not compulsory. Compulsory union <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">membership</span>, give me a break. He can obviously see his meal ticket going South (and you can't get much further south than Dunedin) and sees the Bill trying to get through parliament as a thoroughly bad thing. So what does he do? He decides to lock himself in a cage on the University lawn as a protest. It is quite beyond me what thought processes got him to the place where this would seem to be a reasonable idea let alone something that would change the inevitable chain of events that is underway - <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">filibustering</span> notwithstanding. In a proper world some one capable of such stupid thoughts wouldn't even get to a university let alone rise to hold some sort of office of influence. People like this should be gainfully employed flipping burgers. I hope someone loses the key to his cage and it is bloody cold.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Cars. When I first arrived in the Land of the Long White <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Jap</span> Import I was a little bemused. Having come from Singapore where cars are compulsory crushed when ten years old I was <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">appalled</span> at the crap that was New <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Zealand's</span> car stock. I'd never seen such rubbish. Someone explained the concept of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Jap</span> Import and all became clear. The crap on the roads was there by design. The heap of junk in front of you with the 2011 number plate is in fact a cast off <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">courtesy</span> of Mr <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Takeda</span> from Yokohama when he traded up to the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">latest</span> Nissan Cedric. But they were cheap. You get what you pay for and New <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Zealand</span> had decided that the best way to get around on our apologies for roads was to buy second hand crap that no one wanted in Japan. Over the years this has meant the country is full of rubbish cars. It would appear that all this will change a bit. In what may be the only good emissions standards legislation have ever bought to the country, any car built in Japan before 2005 will no longer be importable. Good. The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">bleaters</span> (see yesterday's post) bleat that will put the price of cars up. Good. Or they will have to accept a 'drastic reduction in quality' in their purchase of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">tatt</span>. I don't really see how this is possible but there you are. No, this is all good. The first steps to raising the quality of cars on NZ roads <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">and reducing</span> the numbers. Some people will not be able to afford the car they want bleat the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">bleaters. Tough,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"> we want quality, not quantity.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"> All we need to do now is get serious about <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">improving</span> the roads; some nice concrete ones, please. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">A couple of weeks back we had a little taste of the mainstay of that Private Eye classic, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Pseud's</span> Corner. Regular perusal of the Herald will reveal a gent who deserves a Lifetime Achievement Award - William Dart. This <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">plonker's</span> supercilious grey bearded visage peers over his glasses at you three or four times week. I now read him just because it is so painful. His stuff is so bad it <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">almost</span> turns itself inside out to be good again. It's a bit like a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">coffee</span> cup having the same shape as a doughnut; they both only have one surface but are totally different. No, its nothing like that at all but I'll leave it in as it is interesting. Monsieur Dart is the classical music critic for the Herald and is totally incapable of saying anything that means anything. One excerpt from his latest drivel will suffice. 'Although some piquant dissonances were not as sharply pointed as they might have been, Peter <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Scholes</span> had a feeling for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Ibert's</span> throwaway, almost music-hall, humour.' Not a clue. And he does this again and again and again every couple of days. And he gets paid for it.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">I've become a closet fan of Mr Dart and I have rumbled his ruse. Years ago he got drunk and cut up Roget's Thesaurus into so many one word pieces. He then put the shredded tome into one of those tombola machines and held a whole series of lucky draws. About forty prize winners per draw and the words were assembled in the order they were drawn into sentences and phrases. These were then stuck on pages of an exercise book. He carried on until he sobered up but his work was done. He now had all the classical music reviews he could ever need. All he has to do when Granny Herald wants the latest drivel is to photocopy half a dozen random pages from the master exercise book and he's done. Obviously pages are going to repeat on a fairly regular basis but this matters not as a) no one really reads it, b) if they do they've forgotten it faster than a unfamiliar phone number and c) who cares, anyway? Seven paragraphs on Berlioz? No problem, give me five minutes and I'll fire up the Xerox. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Kaching</span> - I'll take my cheque now please.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">Off to buy a tombola machine.</span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-26251940152738785452011-07-18T06:56:00.003+12:002011-07-18T07:17:17.516+12:00Wanna buy a bridge?<span style="font-family:verdana;">How much do bridges cost? Half a crown? Twenty <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">squillion</span> dollars? How would you know? If it is not something you buy a lot of you wouldn't have a clue of the price of anything. I have no idea how much a leg of lamb costs because Mrs <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Obald</span> is in charge of that sort of thing. I am, therefore, a sitter for getting ripped off at the Mad Butcher because if he says bits of sheep are a bargain at $x per kilo I'm going to take him at face value and buy one for each corner.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So it is with bridges. I haven't bought a suspension bridge, nor yet a simple log across a stream, for a week or two now and so am a little rusty when it comes to the going rate. If the Auckland Council tell me that a second harbour crossing is going to cost $3.9 billion I think to myself 'Bridges ain't cheap, I think we'll stick with the lamb shanks this week' and move on. Well I mean they have to cost that much don't they? It will be about eight hundred metres or so long, be full of expensive steel and concrete and stuff. And there will be all those big yellow machines to hire, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">armies</span> of blokes in Hi Viz jackets. I'm surprised that we are getting such a good deal; could easily be over $4 billy.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Last week the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Jiaozhou</span> Bay bridge, which was built over the course of four years was opened in China. It is the longest bridge in the world at 26 miles (got that, it would take a Kenyan just over two hours to run across it) and it cost $1.5 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">bil</span>lion. Even if that is in US dollars (which I think it is) that is still only $1.8 billion South Sea pesos. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">We are planning the country's biggest ever rip off. Buy a bridge from China; we buy pretty much everything else from there. At just under a kilometre long it probably will only cost half a crown. But we must protect the New Zealand worker. Just look at all the fuss buying railway carriages from China has caused. You can just hear the bleating from the usual coterie of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">bleaters</span>. In the face of unnecessarily spending billions of my money I have only one thing to say to that.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Bollocks. </span>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-77004234201866466032011-07-17T06:51:00.009+12:002011-07-17T17:24:20.933+12:00Apparently inevitable<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">As listed in the preamble to this blog one of my hobbies is small scale engineering. My interest in this has been almost lifelong but it has only just (over the last eighteen months or so) been allowed to resurface.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">We go back to South West London circa 1966. World Cup Willy is the national mascot, the filthy <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Argies</span> and Portugal have been seen off and its 'Two World Wars and one World Cup' time. The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Obald</span> tribe has just returned from a camping holiday in foreign France and its back to school. Favourite subjects maths, chemistry, physics, biology (well sort of for biology) and metalwork. Called to see the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Transitus</span> form master (and h</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">ow terribly archaic is that - just left the Remove and about embark upon <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Transitus</span>) who delivers the bombshell. 'If you want to read medicine at university (and there is no </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">other place to do it) metal work has to go and you have to study Latin. You what? Swap the micrometer for Caesar's Gallic Wars Book II? Mr <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Glanville</span> (only redeeming features were the possession of elastic sided boots and an Austin <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Healey</span> 3000) was <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">adamant</span> - I would never be able to prescribe digitalis to the nearest minim unless I learnt my <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">mensa</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">mensa</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">mensam</span>.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The resentments engendered by this encounter were only enhanced as I trudged off to fight losing battles with the ablative whilst watching my mates get warmed up for a session with the second cut files. I w</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">as very keen on rock climbing at the time (a compression fracture of L1 in 1970 soon persuaded me it was not a good lifetime pursuit) and my climbing buddy was one Richard <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Borisiewitcz</span> (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Borrie</span>) who owned an ex Police minivan (lust</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">) and was an apprentice toolmaker (mega lust). We get over all this. I realise that the possession of a cool sports car is no excuse for idiocy as I discover that having a grounding in Latin is no more required for the study of medicine than having a good collection of knitting patterns.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Life moves on over the next forty years and circumstance dictate that I can at last get my revenge on bloody <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Glanville</span>. I, at about the same time, come into the ownership of three things; a big barn with a three p<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">hase</span> power supply, a bit of spare cash and a considerable <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">amount </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">of spare time. Although I now am grateful for a basic grounding in Latin the hidden toolmaker inside me can emerge. I will take up metalwork again but as it is now the twenty first century we will embellish it by calling it small scale engineering. I a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">m not going to call it model making as I have no intention of constructing one fifth scale models of the Flying Scotsmen or building a track on the property; oh, hang on, there's an idea.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">How to start? Well, of course, nowadays in any new venture Google is your friend. I spent about three months <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">trawling</span> the web and getting the grounding I left behind in Merton as Bobby Moore led the lads onto Upton Park. It soon became obvious that the first (of many) purchase I would need to make would be a lathe.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The choice here is relatively simple. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">For about the same money you can buy a new made in China effort or a vintage m</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">odel</span> made in Great Britain. The word seemed to be that Chinese lathes were of variable quality (there is some good stuff about, but the trick is picking it and this is next to impossible for a neophyte) and had <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">negligible</span> resale value. On the other hand some of the old British stuff was superb, and if well cared for, would last a lifetime and had excellent resale value. So old British it would be. This also seemed to be 'right' considering the genesis of this interest. With Great Britain's manufacturing heritage there are (or more correctly, were) literally hundreds of British lathe makers but the name that stands out in the small machine field is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Myford</span>. After another couple of months keeping an eye on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">TradeMe</span> I buy, sight unseen, a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Myford</span> ML7 from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Ranfurly</span> in Central <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Otago</span>. When it arrives its serial <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">number </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">tells me it was manufactured in the year of my birth (which for the slow learners makes i</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">t the same age as me) and the original sale papers showed it to have been sold to the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">vendor</span> in Dunedin in 1954.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">It was <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">filthy</span> and took a couple of weeks to clean and reassemble. The manuals for this are easily obtainable from the web in .<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">pdf</span> format (you didn't know <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">they</span> had <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">PDFs</span> in 1951 did you?) and I had acquired a virtual machining buddy from joining a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Myford</span> Bulletin Board. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">This</span> virtual buddy has since <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">transformed</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">into</span> a flesh and blood <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">buddy</span> and has become a mentor filling in (and much more) gaps in my embryonic knowledge of this art. I soon became aware of why the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Myfords</span> had such a good <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">reputation</span>. My sixty year old machine could cut to tolerances which were limited only by my puny ability to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">measure</span> accurately. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">This</span> thing could, after sixty years, still cut better than I could measure. Measuring (and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">marking</span> out) properly is, to my mind, easily the hardest bit of engineering</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">. And setting things up for the cut. An hour centering things in chucks or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">collets</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">setting</span> tool height etc is <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">followed</span> by thirty seconds of cutting.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">We progress. I buy a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">milling</span> slide for the ML7 and start doing some milling. Compared with the gentle art of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">turning</span> when ribbons of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">swarf</span> flow off seemingly inert metal with a low hiss, milling is brutal. It is soon obvious that small lathes are not a good thing on which to do a lot of milling if you want them to retain their accuracy. I also start hankering after a more versatile lathe. I want more spindle speed and I really want, even need, a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">quick</span> change gearbox. Changing the gear train to cut a single point thread</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"> on the ML7 was taking at least half an hour <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">and I</span> was getting impatient.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">We need new machinery. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Milling</span> easy. Mentor is selling his superbly cared for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">Arboga</span> mill (circa 1974) and that is that sorted. A new lathe? Has to be <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Myford</span> again and I opt for the Super 7 which fills all the deficiencies of the ML7. The old lathe goes to its third owner in 60 years via <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">TradeMe</span> for considerably more than I bought it for proving the resale value part of the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">equation</span> at the start of this journey to be correct.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">A 1971 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Myford</span> S7 <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">takes</span> its place and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">it is superb. A Mercedes compared to the Ford <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">Cortina</span> of the ML7. All this while, nothing I have learnt has led to me any other conclusion than that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">Myford</span> make </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">the best small lathes around. The S7 (admittedly up <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">specced</span>) is still in production and all spares are still available. Original <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_57">Myford</span> stuff is excellent but bloody expensive. The ultimate complement for any product is there in the shape of knock off spares from China and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_58">India</span>. Cheaper by far but you get what you pay for; definitely curates egg here. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_59">Myford</span> will even regrind your lathe bed and put it back into factory <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_60">condition after</span> years of use and wear. For a price. D<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_61">eep</span> in the English Midlands <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_62">Myford</span> carry on like England still held the World <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_63">Cup</span>.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Until last week. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_64">Myford</span> has <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_65">gon</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">e to the wall. Apparently the catalyst was the death of one of the family that owned the company but there was an underlying <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_66">malaise</span> that made the end inevitable. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_67">Unfortuna</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_68">tely</span> running a company along the lines briefly illustrated above is not going to cut it in the real world of the early twenty first century. There has been a fire sale this weekend and, in true <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_69">Myford </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">style, this was not at fire sale prices.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB1HgPCxaHP7ejq5QTh7blX_w9IV5EMBtNQ02IEIx9wKg9flMmmvhLAOzvPREDPPx-RNSzfHMsBMJI0ST-tuwSbf6aORayEOnknnEl0DefRBFo3wc5wskhF-Lial4r0ioxwN67WpY1i9SR/s400/myfordsale1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630042023167986578" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi76-X3vS13OIGnfIzQ6XiW2IJPfIwjP9Irn7KLf6AG1euTKhqzqoXTeG50gQBw2_4q7Fvi6Im2UtslqmM2Vv6rcY0zFRbrp9v1D0GViQNbLRSrJShIRIDi1SH8m4-2sP5yTfWkshrOwLPQ/s400/myfordsale4.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630042023214733138" /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">End of an era? Well I have been in this game for too short a time to judge properly, but I would think so. Am I saddened by it? Yes, but not because </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_70"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Myford</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"> is no more. It </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_71"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">affects</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"> me not at all as I have my lathe and there are so many spares in the wild that it is never going to be a problem. But I am </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_72"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">saddened</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"> that the world of elastic sided boots, Austin </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_73"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Healey</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"> 3000s and manual lathes is one step further away. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Velcro fastened trainers, Toyota </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_74"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Supras</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"> and </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_75"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">CNC</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"> lathes have no soul.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-26809199095922486672011-07-14T16:26:00.005+12:002011-07-14T17:04:34.441+12:00Several birds with one stone<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Never look a gift horse in the mouth so when a video like this comes along one is obliged to use it.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Just watch the first two minutes - the rest is a waste of space</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wgAB9aVSLnI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>I</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This has so many learning points. Julia </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Gillard</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> has a </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">hideous</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> voice. She could knock on my door to tell me she was giving me a DB9 for being a nice </span><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">bloke</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> and I would shoo her away just to stop the pain in my ears. She is a politician and a perfectly calm lady calls her (quite correctly) a liar and it phases her not a jot. 'Yes I said that and now I'm doing something else - so what?' 'I said that during the election campaign, but that was just to get me elected and I would say that the sun rose in the West if I had to. It has no relevance to what I do now. Yes I'm taxing you on the back of a complete crock, why? Because I can and I know best.' And so it goes on. It is absolutely </span><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">unbelievable</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> except that it is how these clowns operate. And I was very impressed how the grey haired lady never once lost her cool. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Now for the subtle stuff. Notice how she can say carbon is a pollutant with a straight face. Only </span><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">politicians</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> can do that. And check out the goon standing behind her left shoulder. The absolutely bog standard yes man. I'm unsure how he stands up being he is an invertebrate. What a plonker; he should hand in his man badge forthwith.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So is this political bollocks purely something one can observe in a Brisbane shopping centre? Well of course not. In September 2009 Phil Goof said, and I quote, a capital gains tax '</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">doesn</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">’t immediately appeal to us as a key priority for any incoming government'. Not two hours ago he announced Labour's tax package with as a central </span><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">plank</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> a capital gains tax. </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Quelle</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> surprise. </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I suppose that is not quite so bad as he has zero chance of having anything to do with an incoming government in the </span><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">foreseeable</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> future.</span></span></span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-61918272778842865952011-07-12T07:56:00.003+12:002011-07-12T07:58:38.666+12:00Woman stares wildly at calamity<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfshTnU3jpkYVj1vh_yZXZJovjyvJUU2RW_6dcMZZlrvw3h4ls65kps4yiFGo3ahScscqf2AIC53cXRVqoia36LkkQkpoPVdSjeL0INXd_IGhx6sZDWq82pemx9TFknHgsT8YBwckIvfac/s1600/wswac.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 306px; height: 349px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfshTnU3jpkYVj1vh_yZXZJovjyvJUU2RW_6dcMZZlrvw3h4ls65kps4yiFGo3ahScscqf2AIC53cXRVqoia36LkkQkpoPVdSjeL0INXd_IGhx6sZDWq82pemx9TFknHgsT8YBwckIvfac/s400/wswac.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5628186173130094402" /></a><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Best picture/caption combo for a while</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Rebekah Brooks is right at the top of a list of people I would not want to be at the moment. Or ever, come to think of it.</span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-87541100005667937522011-07-12T06:26:00.007+12:002011-07-12T07:18:11.926+12:00A penguin on Jetstar?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Easier pickings this week as the Herald meticulously documents things that don't matter whilst on the other side of the world another organ of the press has a chance of bringing down a British Prime Minister. To be fair Granny does give this a fair bit of syndicated coverage deeper into the rag but not before we've waded through pages and pages of drivel.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The bloody penguin won't go away. He now has a name (and no, I won't demean myself by telling you what it is) and 'could soon move from his hospital room to a pool retreat'. He's now gained weight - aren't you so relieved? We know he's a he because the damned thing had its DNA profile run. Apparently you don't sex <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">penguins</span> by just looking at the naughty bits but you put a dollop of blood into a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">PCR</span> machine. Again, who is paying for all this crap? The nation is now <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">committed</span> to looking after this <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">ornithological</span> millstone until it mercifully dies. And that won't be allowed to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">happen</span> until its been to Penguin Intensive Care during its final illness. The <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">decision</span> to turn off life support will have to be made at cabinet level and its eventual demise will be followed by national mourning, hand drawn cards from primary schools and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">shedloads</span> of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">hakas</span>. I sincerely hope we don't have to have a penguin update next week.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Auckland's transport seems to be getting more space on this blog than it deserves <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">recently</span> but there are two stories of note juxtaposed on A7. There is a picture of Plod (hi viz attired, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">naturellement</span>) <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">ensconced</span> under a motorway bridge with a video camera. He is there for yours and my safety, of course. Is he, bollocks. He is there so that as well as give you a fine for jumping a red light, talking on your cellphone or eating a pie whilst driving he can cane you with demerit points. Nasty, nasty stuff. Why isn't he out catching the bad men. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Just below this there is 'Ask Phoebe'. This is a sort of Agony Aunt for Auckland type thing. My first questions would be 'Why did you let your parents give you such a daft christian name and why did you not change it by <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">deed poll</span> as soon as you were able?' Anyway someone has asked our fount of all <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">metropolitan</span> knowledge 'How do you best get on the north bound SH1 from the airport?' We are talking how do you get from New <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Zealand's</span> largest Airport onto its main trunk road. One would hope the answer would be along the lines of leave the passenger terminal, get in the left lane and take the slip road onto the six lane highway. The real answer from our Phoebe? Follow SH20 to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Sandringham</span> Rd exit (at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Mairo</span> St), go down <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Sandringham</span> Rd and turn left into Mt Albert Rd. Continue along here as it becomes <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Carrington</span> Road, and then left into Gt North Road. This will lead you to the Pt Chevalier <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">onramp</span> to SH16 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">citybound</span>. Head towards the city and take the Northern Motorway <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">offramp</span> to SH1 North. I'm serious. There is no bloody hope for a city that has infrastructure like that and I'm saving up for a helicopter.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Front page complete with a picture montage of four <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">picturelets</span> is a follow up of the chap who had a leak all over a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Jetstar</span> flight to Singapore. He <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">widdled</span> all over the show and on a passengers scarf (got to keep warm when in Singapore) in particular. The scarf owner is rather brassed off about the whole thing. I would say she got what she paid for by flying <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Jetstar</span>. As usual on a Tuesday I am typing this in the Auckland <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Koru</span> Lounge and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Jetstar</span> have already cancelled their first flight of the day to Wellington. The phantom <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">wizzer</span> is the son of New <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Zealand's</span> netball coach which apparently makes this non story the more news worthy. I don't think so. If I were the chap involved I would be keeping my head severely down and certainly not holding press conferences. This all <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">happened</span> a couple of weeks ago and if he had just <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">STFU</span> it would already be today's fish and chip paper. He says he he's very sorry (well he's not going to say otherwise) but he can't remember anything of the incident. There is a side bar to the story where a sleep researcher talks about a condition called <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">parasomnia</span> where you do things in your sleep with out <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">realising</span> it. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Bollocks</span>. Why don't we just stop all the talking nice. He was as pissed as a ferret and couldn't find the change to operate the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Jetstar</span> 'Pay as You <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Widdle'</span> in-flight toilets.</span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-67559095711689811512011-07-08T19:11:00.009+12:002011-07-09T14:54:34.290+12:00New fangled stuff<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Social media. What a silly phrase but it is here and one bit of it has made a bloke a billionaire well before his <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">thirtieth</span> birthday. That's not a bad effort, you have to admit. Even Woods T. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">was past</span> thirty before he hit the mark and then rather publicly gave a good deal of it away to her who was once <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Mrs</span> Woods. There must be something in this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">social</span> media stuff if it generates so much dosh although I probably shouldn't argue with anyone who <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">thinks</span> the first half of this sentence is an oxymoron.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I like to think of myself as reasonably technologically up to date and I suppose I had better dip my toe into this social media world. Prior to the exercise I am a little apprehensive when reflecting that I appear to be about thirty five years too old, don't have acne and only occasionally eat pizza. Never mind, you are as old as you feel or something. Now what have we got? It would appear that the only men left standing after the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">initial</span> shakeout are <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Facebook</span> and Twitter. I am led to believe that there were (are) others, but the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">likes</span> of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Bebo</span> and My Space have gone the way of gas lamps and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">hansome</span> cabs. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">There are in fact hundreds of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">social</span> network sites, lots with specialty interests. Join up to Care2 if green living and social activism is your bent. I don't think so. Thought of joining <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Cloob</span>? I thought not, but it is apparently all the go in Iran; bet its a real barrel of laughs. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Fetlife</span> for people into <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">BDSM</span>; perhaps not this, is a family blog. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">GovLoop</span>? 'For people in and around <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">government</span>' - the fact that they are all loopy is preordained by their group <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">appellation</span>. If you are Mongolian and want new friends in Jamaica (must happen a lot) then hi5 is the site for you. This site is not very popular in the USA which must cause great angst on the steppes. 743,930 people have joined <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Ravelry</span> because of their interest in knitting and crochet. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">If you think that is a lot of balls of wool then the numbers for some of the other networks are crazy. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Habbo</span>. Never heard of it? Nor me. A general site for teens with just the 20 million <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">members</span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Geni</span>.com is a site for amateur genealogists and there's 15 million of them. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Fruhstuckstreff</span> has not been quite such a runaway success. Founded in 2001 it still only has 14,800 members. I have no idea what they do but they meet in a phone box <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">outside</span> the Dog and Fox on the third Thursday of the month.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">If we are talking numbers though, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Facebook</span> is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">le</span> grand <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">fromage; </span>just the 640 million close friends with numbers growing by the minute - literally. So I'll start my foray into this world at the top and I'll join <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Facebook</span>. Pay me money ($0.00) and I'm in. What I want to do is use this as free advertising for my rather puny little game fishing lure selling business. All the big companies have <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Facebook</span> pages so I'll soon be up there with Melton's. Not so fast. I cannot have a business page without first having a personal page. I don't want a personal page but I can't find a combination of key strokes that will get me around this road block. OK, I make this damned personal page and then make the business page. I am told to write on my 'Wall'. Eh? I am having a bad feeling about this already. The connection with aerosol cans and those unreadable words <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">along</span> every spare square inch of every railway line in the UK is inescapable. I then have to send requests to people I don't know but might have similar interests for them to be 'friends'. And then they become friends and they suggest me to others of their friends and so on. It is an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">electronic</span> chain letter cum <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Ponzi</span> scheme.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I have had a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Facebook</span> account for just over a year now and I can confidently say I hate it. The Lure Company has hundreds of 'friends' who are anything but. They are just names who have avatars of big boats or big fish. They do nothing but sit in the ether as an invisible cloud of potential but ultimately nonexistent customers. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">The</span> have bought nothing. One of them wished me happy birthday last year. I don't know him (or her) and I am fairly confident the felicitations were an automated response from his computer <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">rather</span> than </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">from </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">my new best mate in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Peurto</span> Rico (for that is from where the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">greetings</span> originated). I can't get into the F<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">acebook</span> culture at all. I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">have</span> a good mate who plays <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Farmville</span> which is a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Facebook</span> based game thing. I looked over his shoulder whilst he planted crops <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">and bought</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">chooks</span> and stuff. It looked very silly; and it cost money. No, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Facebook</span> can get nicked.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">So it was with a very heavy heart that I, two weeks ago, signed up with Twitter for the same princely entrance fee. The idea was to try and increase readership of this <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Blog</span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Facebook</span> and Twitter are <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">the same,</span> are they not, with the only difference <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">being</span> that you only have to write 140 characters? Twitter is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Facebook</span> for those with a short <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">attention</span> span or no ideas? Well, no. I have been pleasantly surprised by Twitter and actually think it is quite good. I no longer much care if it increases my <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Blog</span> readership or not as I am enjoying it in its own right.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">What I really find useful is that you can use it as a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">RSS</span> feeder. Be careful who you follow and you can effortlessly keep abreast of breaking news on anything you fancy. And, this is very important, not keep abreast of stuff you have no interest in whatsoever. I am currently only following 31 things and have just the 18 following me. The BBC has me and 842,882 other people following their efforts - but they are the BBC and can handle that sort of traffic. I have written (in 140 characters or less, of course) to each of the 18 people who have taken enough interest to tick me as worthy of a follow pretty much out of common courtesy. I follow the BBC, the NZ Herald, Air New Zealand, Cricinfo, a couple of blokes who dish out news on Mac stuff, a couple of people who post stuff about Jaguar cars, the Dalai Lama (two million follow his Tweets and he follows no one; appropriately classy) and that is about it for the moment. I can add to or subtract from that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">list as</span> the pleasure takes me.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Conclusion? Facebook is horrible and 640 million people are wrong. Twitter is good and I am right.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-15865978060759467382011-07-05T06:28:00.004+12:002011-07-05T07:38:18.069+12:00A16 to the rescue<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">A regular, if even only weekly, go at</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The Herald might prove to be harder than first anticipated. I really should not be surprised as it is a very poor newspaper with a level of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">journalism</span> that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">struggles</span> to reach mediocrity. Occasional guest comments from overseas columnists are a welcome oasis in this desert of rubbish but there is not even that treat today.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Front page has a shock horror <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">story</span> revealing that if Auckland wants a second harbour crossing it will have to be paid for. The hideous notion of a toll with people who want to use a new flash bridge or burrow paying for the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">privilege</span> is termed 'absolutely outrageous' by a member of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Kaipatiki</span> local board. Although the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Kaipatiki</span> Local Board is hardly on a par with US House of Representatives in the world governance league I'm afraid this fool's view will have a similar impact on this matter as she is a) a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">wimmin</span> and b) has a name which would indicate she is not a white middle age <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">anglo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">saxon</span> male. Give her a disability and strong evidence that she bats for the other side and its a shoe in - a nice shiny eight lane bridge over the harbour will fall out of the sky for no money 'cos some stupid woman from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Birkenhead</span> thinks it will be unfair for a piece of infrastructure to be provided in any other way. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">This sort of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">attitude</span> is hamstringing this country's progress. All this bloody sense of entitlement and fairness. Do we need a second harbour crossing? I haven't a clue. But there will be ways to determine whether we do. They will involve some clever chap doing all sorts of economic modelling and there will be an answer at the bottom of the page. We (the Auckland Council or Central Government - who cares?) will have to pay for this advice. If the advice is any good it won't be cheap - send the bill to the stupid woman in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Kaipatiki</span>. Then if we do need a bridge or tunnel just build the bloody thing. Sod the endangered newts and native ferns, get the big yellow machines in and get on with it. It will be eye <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">wateringly</span> expensive but <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">thems</span> the breaks. Why not pay for it with tolls? What is wrong with that? <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Silly</span> woman says that people cannot imagine having to pay $60 week to cross the bridge to go to work. Idiot. Either move, get a new job, or, much more likely, use the existing bridge which will obviously remain as free to cross in the future as it is now. Infrastructure projects are bloody expensive. User pays ticks all the boxes to pay for them. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">While we are speaking transport there is a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">stouch</span> between the Auckland Transport chairman and central government. In a previous life the Transport bloke was chairman of some other Council and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">drew</span> up a very spiffy (in his opinion) regional transport <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">masterplan</span> that stretched into the distant future with us all speeding round the region like the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Jetsons</span>. Central Transport minister has looked under the bed and found the cocoa tin less than overflowing with folding varieties and has told him in Auckland that, at $2.4 billion, plans for railways all over the show <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">are</span> not on. I suppose it could still be done if the silly woman from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Kaipatiki</span> pays $1500 for a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">return</span> ticket from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Birkenhead</span> to Albany. But that is not going to happen as it is absolutely outrageous to pay $6 to cross a new harbour bridge that will also cost eight figures. The Auckland transport wallah labels this entirely sensible bit of pragmatism from Wellington as ' Government undermining city rail plans'. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Well</span> I should bloody well hope it is - that is <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">what</span> it was elected to do.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Where is Pseud's Corner when you need it? I had pretty much given up on the paper and was fast forward to 30 secs of trivia with Sideswipe and was distracted by a) a picture of a woman pushing a pram wearing hi viz track pants and, even more nauseatingly, b) a theatre review.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">This piece of pretentious crap almost <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">deserves</span> reproducing in its entirety so you can get the full flavour of nausea that can be induced by the use of a word processing program. Janet <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">McAllister</span> is the author - just so you can be sure never to read anything else she writes.'This <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">effective</span> and moving one-woman play by Arthur Meek seems at first to be simple linear storytelling based on the diaries of the wife of New <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Zealand's</span> first Chief Justice...'not a great start, but she's not even up to flying speed. 'But in the end its an angry sad reminder <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">that</span> "the colonialists <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">didn't</span> know <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">any</span> better" is a false defence for the Crown's <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">appalling</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">treatment</span> of Maori' - Maori spelt with the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">funny</span> thing over the 'o' so that it is an authentic representation of the language that never had a written form. A bit early in the day to have great waves of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">nausea</span> pass over one especially so soon after the Black Doris plums. There are nine paragraphs of this drivel. Want some more? 'While she symbolically takes off her <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">elaborate</span> Victorian garb, she's taking off a cage she was never enamoured of anyway' All the better to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">walk</span> around clad in a piece of bark presumably. '<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">The</span> mighty (eh?) Auckland Theatre Company production is rather overwhelming for a chatty piece....'. 'Tony Rabbit's (<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">seriously</span>) monumental forest <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">of</span> metal ladders is set on sand within the confines of the stage - lighting turns them imprisoning or freeing by turn -and we hear John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Gibsons</span>' <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">rythmical</span> water, cutlery and tea-stirring sounds as appropriate'. It's unmitigated drivel written about a production that sounds a hundred times worse. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I bet Janet <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">McAllister</span> lives in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Birkenhead</span> and would think it impinges on her human rights to pay to cross a new bridge over the harbour.</span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-53272026526717144212011-07-01T19:34:00.009+12:002011-07-05T07:38:49.456+12:00Weeks End<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Friday night and what to report? </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">A few amusing <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">occurrences</span> over the last couple of days mostly in the world has gone nuts category. Internationally the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">choosing</span> of North Korea to Chair a UN <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Committee</span> 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 <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">bunch</span> 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.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">That</span> New Zealand can show nutty <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">tendencies</span> is part of the charm of the place. A bit of book <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">banning</span> 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 <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">notoriety</span>. 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 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Hilarys</span>. 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 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Facebook</span> page with in excess of ten thousand 'friends' (sic) calling for the book's author to be burnt at the stake. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">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 <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Wellington</span> 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 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">afore</span> mentioned <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Coffee</span> Nazi must have been slipping something a little extra into the espressos bound for No 2 The Terrace as they are considering <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">redesigning</span> the bank notes. Ed and Kate Sheppard are to be traded in for other worthies. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">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 <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">ornithological</span> sort on the green one - <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">that's</span> a $20 isn't it?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"> Can't imagine who they have in mind as replacements. The Mad Butcher? Richie <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">McCaw</span>? But why change them at all? I can't imagine it would be a cheap exercise with all the designing, new flash <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">plasticky</span> 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. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">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 </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">apparently</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"> worth about 35<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">c</span>. 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.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">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 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Scarfe</span> cartoons or the Wall being built. Missed the only proper reunion when they did four songs at Live 8 in 2005 and obviously Dave <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Gilmour</span>, 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 <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">obviously</span> 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 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Gilmour</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">has long</span> ago had a decent haircut and put on the amount of weight commensurate with his eye w<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">atering</span> 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 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">dilemma</span>. 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 <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">ill founded</span> dislike of its main performer behind me? It won't be <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">the</span> 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, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">be</span> glad Waters ain't there and do <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">without</span> Gerald <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Scarfe</span> again? Decisions, decisions.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-54641824509353426362011-06-28T06:16:00.009+12:002011-07-05T07:39:23.945+12:00Granny Herald<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Many moons ago when this blog was not a blog but a series of posts on a fishing website its <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">raison</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">d'etre</span> was as a commentary on what passes as a newspaper in Auckland. I thought it might amuse to return to my roots as on Tuesdays I am in the Auckland <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Koru</span> Lounge <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">pre</span> dawn and the paper is free. This could turn into a regular Tuesday spot. Who knows? Or cares.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Well nothing has changed; the paper remains drivel. Front page is dominated (banner headline, two pictures and about 70% of the real estate) by a restaurant booking. Christchurch is about to be totally <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">uninsured</span> (more of uninsured in a bit) and the main news is a table for 30 down the Viaduct. And a picture of the PM snogging his wife in front of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Taj</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Mahal</span> (the real one and not the restaurant). And a picture of the bloody penguin. The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">froggy</span> rugby team have booked a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">restaurant</span> every night for a month and this merits a headline superscript, in red no less, of 'Rugby World Cup Boom'. Unless they are paying a couple of million a night for the frogs <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">legs</span> and snails I would have thought 'Boom' is overplaying the hand by a large degree. A nice little short term earner for the purveyor of victuals but hardly the sort of financial investment that will pull the country out of the poo.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">John Key and Mrs PM in India playing the tourist. Leave them alone. I welcome a newspaper giving tidings of the PM <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">persuading</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Tata</span> to reduce the price of Jaguar servicing but I have zero interest in what he does out of office hours with 'er indoors. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The bloody penguin. Who is paying for all this cute crap? Now I don't wish to appear heartless (well I couldn't give a big penguin's backside if I do actually) but the stance from all concerned when this <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">obviously</span> stupid bird turned up thousands of miles from home should have been 'Oh look, there's a big penguin'. When it started looking less than the full shilling the best line of attack would have been 'Daft bird ain't looking too flash, never mind there's truck loads of them where he came from, he shouldn't be here and he's about to die. Never mind' This should have been followed by doing <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">absolutely</span> nothing. But what do we get? The damned thing is taken to a zoo, has 'experts' opining on what is in its best interests and then has an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">endoscopy</span> performed as a tourist attraction. Best interests. Penguins don't have interests, best or otherwise. They are birds. They eat fish, live in a horrible, cold place and reproduce so that their progeny can eat fish and live in a horrible, cold place. The aren't interested in anything. They don't collect stamps, do macrame or restore vintage steam engines. Having some <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">weird</span> beard <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">DoC</span> chap opine as to their best interests is arrant nonsense. Suppose this geographically displaced animal was an anaconda wot ate people and not a cute (sic), fluffy penguin. Would we be having the same 'best interests' tosh? I think not.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Would we have same unpleasant serpent being <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">endoscoped</span> in full public view as a warped freak show by one of my colleagues? Of course not. Now I have to be very careful here because the bloke what done the deed <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">really is</span> a colleague of mine and I have experience of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">endoscoping</span> a penguin. I did the deed in private (as, to my mind, befits this sort of thing) with a finite and attainable therapeutic goal. I think yesterday's effort ticked neither of those boxes. We should move on.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Uninsured. I Tweeted incorrectly last night that the Aston Martin that was nicked in Auckland yesterday was a DB9. I assumed this because of the quoted price. I didn't (still don't) think a V8 Vantage would set you back $300,000. The owner got his very tasty motor back after a few hours after offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to its return. He is very lucky as he obviously has the intellectual horsepower of the already discussed penguin. The car was uninsured and I originally thought this to be an act of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">commission</span> rather than an error of omission. I am now less certain as he left it with the keys in the ignition and a laptop and $500 cash lying casually around in the interior.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I'm sure this bloke could be easily <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">persuaded</span> that he needs an endoscopy just to ensure he hasn't swallowed any twigs. I'd do it for him for, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">oooh</span>, $10,000</span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-51672016614963080742011-06-25T06:37:00.005+12:002011-06-25T19:57:18.992+12:00Yesterday I bought a kettle<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Hold the front page, eh? This blog brings you all the world changing events and remember you heard it here first. Foul weather dictates that golf would be as enjoyable as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">stickng</span> matchsticks under your fingernails so, dear reader, you have the opportunity to share this thrilling purchase.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Investment in a new device with which to raise water to boiling point was occasioned by the demise of the Sunbeam that had given about a decade of sterling service - not that it is a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">stirling</span> engine. Buying a new kettle is really very easy. Stroll into Noel Lemming because you have to be there for something else anyway, saunter over to the kettle department and remove from the display anything that is not aesthetically a non starter (and there plenty of those) and is $70 off advertised price. Done.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Take it home and the fun begins. Open box and remove appliance after discarding the environmentally sound packing; I haven't the time or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">incliniation</span> to dwell on this aspect. And then what do we find? An instruction manual. Remember I have not just purchased the Large Hadron <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Collider</span> but a kettle. This instruction manual is, wait for it, 16 pages long. We start with this tome telling me I have just bought the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Breville</span> Comfort Kettle. Eh? Slippers are comfortable as is an armchair. A soothing hand on a troubled brow gives comfort. A kettle boils sodding water; and it does nothing else. Alright, Page 2. 'Congratulations on the purchase of your new <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Breville</span> Comfort Kettle'. I am going to be <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">ropable</span> before we get anywhere near page 16. Page 3. Contents 4 - <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Breville</span> recommends safety first. 6 - Know your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Brevile</span> Comfort Kettle. 8-.... I can feel the red mist coming on. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I can't see myself getting past Page 4 but we'll give it a go. 'Remove and safely discard any packaging material and promotional labels before using the kettle for the first time' No shit Sherlock. However it doesn't say you can't stick all the labels back on and fire it up in its box second time round does it? What an irresponsible <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">comapny</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Breville</span> is turning out to be. 'Remove the protective cover fitted to the power plug of this appliance'. So that's why I can't fit the plug in the wall socket. 'Always ensure the kettle is properly assembled before use. Follow the instructions in this book'. Right. There are two bits to this appliance; there's the hollow cylindrical bit wot you put the water in and this sits on the base from which electrons flow. That's assembly? That's assembly that requires following instructions? 'Do not touch hot surfaces. Use the handle for lifting and carrying the kettle' If you can't work that out for yourself you shouldn't be allowed to buy food let alone nasty, horrible, dangerous kettles. 'Use caution when pouring water from the kettle, as boiling water and steam will scald. Do not pour water too <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">quickly</span>' I'm starting to get cross. 'To protect against electric shock, do not immerse kettle base, power cord or plug in water.' Enough already, but we must soldier on in the interests of allowing this highly dangerous piece of kit to achieve the purpose for which it was purchased. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">All of the above is just getting you warmed up for the centre piece of the book which is half way down Page 5 - you can tell by now we aren't going to get to page 6 or any further into this load of rubbish. 'The appliance is not intended for use by persons (including children) with reduced physical, sensory or mental capabilities, or lack of experience or knowledge, unless they have been given instruction concerning use of the appliance by a person responsible for their safety' At this point I am seriously tempted to take the kettle back to Noel Lemming and tell him he can stick it where water never boils. Blind - I'm sorry visually impaired - people cannot buy a kettle? The Human Rights <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Commissioner</span> will have a thing or two to say about that, I'll be bound. People with one leg are denied the pleasure of boiling water? No pots of instant noodles for those with schizophrenia? <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Government</span> funded kettle use courses at night school for the socially disadvantaged with follow up supervisory visits carried out by Hi Viz jacket clad Kettle Supervisors?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The world has gone bloody nuts but I'm off for a cup of tea. Might make it <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">standing in</span> a bowl of sulphuric acid just for a laugh.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-21709007848168162732011-06-24T20:55:00.014+12:002011-06-25T06:37:45.424+12:00The route to a Mac centric life<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The title of this blog is obald@home and I am moved to pen a few thoughts on just that - home. I am a sucker for all sorts of tech things. I like machines be they mechanical or electronic. My life seems better when I am surrounded by technology. Living in the country one has to have a barn and I have a rather spiffy one. My barn is my second favourite part of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Obald</span> Acres and just one corner of it houses a carefully crafted collection of machines of the mechanical variety</span><div><br /></div><div><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwxRzM67eZkKCvI04ViPMAz4f7fDDFGtJiAgw2Zjm6bkONWlMJvftV4wu3UugqbhI2clgV1MK4C5M37x_WhoJV-wxcbuAUudSUk7fXaLs55dZbO5EUgz_qvYywb7AYffxK5Kz3HwciaW3I/s400/Barn_machinery.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621710829706415746" /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">A <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Myford</span> Super 7 lathe and an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Arboga</span> U2508 vertical <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">milling</span> machine with all their attendant bits and pieces. These machine tools are from the 1970s and are in my possession and are used for reasons we can go into at a later date.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">As the 1970s moved into the decade of big hair and shoulder pads my technical bent turned to computers. I had a Sinclair <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">ZX</span>80, a Radio Shack <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">TRS</span>80 numerous IBM clones and was a slave to Bill Gates for most of the eighties and nineties. I knew no better. My younger daughter wanted computer for school about a decade ago and very specifically said she wanted a Mac 'cos they are good for photography'. I certainly knew better than to argue with a teenage daughter and a G4 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">iBook</span> was produced. I thought no more of it as I did what </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">I wanted to do in a bit and byte sort of a way on my Dell thinking that Windows <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">XP</span> was the business. Needed to go overseas (this was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">before</span> I was good at this overseas business) and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">commandeered</span> the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">iBook</span> for the trip. I was absolutely amazed to discover that it was bloody good. It did all I wanted which for that trip was just too have the ability to edit some <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">presentation</span> slides. I gave it back to its owner on my return. But the damage was done.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Fast forward a couple of years and a couple of days before Xmas and the Dell threw up its fifth blue screen of death in an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">hour</span> courtesy of the garbage software from Redmond and I had had enough. In the c</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">ar</span>, down to Magnum Mac (no Apple Stores in the Land of the Long White Techno Backwater) and I walk out with a 20" G5 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">iMac</span>. When was that? Eight or nine years ago I should think and I haven't had a major computer hang in all that time.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I have <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">totally</span> sold my soul to Steve. He's got me and I don't mind admitting it. I am so smitten that my favourite part of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Obald</span> Acres, my office, this evening looks like this.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHrR49sGFrePdGCSCvg95df2mla64_-wc1HxPpjDV_KTZn0NDcAsKUZeM_V_KF1Ss7VYS-ECsuv_nG3DyWGXSz7wGMH6JlmSXbW4ZwYD6_KIzTvOC7zDm2NuFCgg9Ic07QoIFaSNKxi9Rk/s400/DESK.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621716535866558066" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Silly? Probably but who cares. We have from Uncle Steve a Core 2 Duo 24" <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">iMac</span> (this just runs <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Tweetdeck</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Skype</span> - how gloriously and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">unnecessarily</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">extravagant</span> is that?), a Core i5 (Sandy Bridge) 27" <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">iMac</span> - the main machine - and a Core 2 Duo <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">MacBook</span> Pro. A couple of keyboards, two Magic M<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">eeces</span> and a Magic <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Touchpad</span>. Oh and there's the iPhone 4 charging quietly between the two <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">iMacs</span>. A set of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Altec</span> Lansing computer speakers, sub woofer under the desk (highly recommended add on to get a decent speaker system for one's computer), a 1<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Tb</span> Lacie hard drive to run Time Machine, an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">AirPort</span> Extreme to run the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">houses's</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">wifi</span> and that's about it. I also have a lump of software (Teleport) installed on all three Macs so that I can run the cursor across all three screens from the trackpad and drag files around willy nilly. Marvellous. The original (for me) G5 iMac is still going strong and running Tiger in Mrs O's office downstairs - which I can access over the home network.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">The</span> more observant will see I'm lying. There is a fourth (well fifth really as the iPhone is a computer) computer on the desk, a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Lenovo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">ThinkPad</span>. It is there under <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">sufferance</span>. It is not mine but belongs to the New Zealand taxpayer. It is a Ministry laptop and I have to have it in order to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">VPN</span> into the ministerial servers. I offered to install Parallels on the MacBook and do it from a Windows partition and was looked at as if I had farted in church. All it is good for is downloading email; and then on<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">ly</span> some of it. It is a fairly good bit of hardware but it has the software from hell <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">on it</span>. Windows <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">XP,</span> this was released in 2003 remember, and we have been recently upgraded <i>to</i> MS Office 2004. Give me a break. But all that pales into insignificance when you realise that you have to use Lotus Notes. At least we have a reasonably recent version of this but it is still Lotus Notes. But it gets worse. This laptop has been configured so that it will not under any circumstances connect to the internet. If I get an email, even from a jolly important ministerial type wallah, and it contains a weblink I can not open the link. Barking.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">Very secure but it completely destoys the whole point of all this techno nonsense which, to my mind, is to make ones life easier. And fun. And that is what surrounding myself with more Mac kit in my office than I need is. It is great fun. I could probably do all I <i>need </i>to<i> </i>do with one machine with considerably less specs than any of them, but where's the fun in that?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">Am I an Apple Fanboy? Well it is not the sort of thing you would admit to in public is it, but I probably am. And I don't care. I reckon Apple makes good kit, it works effortlessly, doesn't fall over, looks great and I like the way the company thinks.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana;">Oh, I hear very strong rumours that I will be getting an iPad 2 for my birthday in a couple of months. Do I need one? Probably not. Do I want one? Hell yes.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8019159573035504411.post-86576293575313565872011-06-22T14:30:00.015+12:002011-06-23T20:31:27.023+12:00The smart way to get from AKL to WLG<p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I hate public transport. It is what other people should do. My recent three weeks in London being a commuter have only reinforced this position. Overpowered motor cars are the way to go and bugger the expense and the planet.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">However one has to go through life with a measure of pragmatism and when just over a year ago my employment changed a tad and I had to work two days a week 400 miles from Obald acres even I had to accept that using the twin turbo charged V6 diesel was not going to work. Bus and train (and ferry I would think) are out of the question and so I found myself looking at a weekly airline commute.</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I like aeroplanes and I like airports so we must put some strategies in place so that this affection does not turn into hatred. If I am to be a regular plane user I have to do it right and over the last year I have honed the recipe to perfection.</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">How to fly from Auckland to Wellington and back - cooking time about three hours</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Ingredients:</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">One aeroplane</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Airbus A320 preferred, Boeing 737-300 acceptable</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Internet connection</span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Air New Zealand Airpoints membership</span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Tutto cabin bag</span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">iPhone</span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">One motor car</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Jaguar is the best brand here.</span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Lounge Membership</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Initially <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Koru Club required, as you progress this is no</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">longer necessary and vaporises</span></p><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Taxi card</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">These can be found in the terms of employment; if not then complain</span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Large vat of Jetstar repellant</span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Spare vat of Jetstar repellant<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="WHITE-SPACE: pre"></span></span>You can't be too careful </span></span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Method:</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Make sure that bookings are made well in advance by whoever does this for you. This is to ensure that the next step has a good chance of success. Under no circumstances perform step one yourself as you will stuff it up; this is dangerous work best left to the experts. Next check that the itinerary has no mention of Jetstar. Anywhere. The slightest hint of Jetstar anywhere in this recipe will mean that the whole thing will not work. You will end up in the airport where you start from, you will miss meetings, you will be angry and you will have to buy coffee with money.</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Next use your internet connection and Airpoints Membership and mix well together. Find your flight bookings and select your seat. This only works well if you have followed the instructions in the first step to the letter and in particular have paid attention to the timings. If your booking wallah leaves it too late you will end up in 13B. This ruins the whole dish. There are only about eight seats on the plane that will work. Any seat with a number greater than 2 is not acceptable. 1D is probably the best seat on the plane but 1F is good. 1A, 1B and 1C have their own special charm on the A320 (more of this later) but do not exist on the 737-300. 2A and 2C are good here; 1E and 2B are also acceptable.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Whilst you are still connected to the interweb you need to book the car parking for the Jaguar. Air New Zealand parking is the way to go and don't bother with the facilty at the Terminal; the Freight Place/shuttle bus is fine and half the price.</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Pack your bag. I was put onto the Tutto cabin bag by a colleague and have only had mine for three weeks. Bloody marvelous but with the downside that you have to send your daughter to New York to get one and I will not deny that this puts the price up a tad. Used to have a Delsey prior to the new acquisition which I thought was good but the Tutto makes it look and perform like a steamer trunk.</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Leave home. Now this may seem obvious but there is more to it than meets the eye. I live on the other side of Auckland from the Airport and therefore the Auckland traffic can ruin the dish. The answer is to leave absurdly early and get to 3 Freight PLace before the rest of Auckland have tumbled what you are up to. Time arrival at 3 Freight Place for just after 0600 so that the shuttle gets you to the Domestic Terminal after Roy, the oddly named female Koru Lounge barista, has started work.</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Now take the iPhone you have prepared earlier. This you do by downloading the Air New Zealand App mPass and loading all your flights up.There is a caveat here as the most recent version of the App doesn't work as it doesn't generate the barcodes you will be needing in a moment. Try and get the first version. Walk up to the Koru Lounge, swipe the iPhone barcode on the barcode swiper bizzo and you are ushered in to the next most important part of this recipe after avoiding Jetstar at all costs.</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The Koru Lounge is the key to all this. No milling round with the great unwashed queueing up for McDonalds for you. No its three black doris plums and a bowel of yogurt, a cup or two of double shot long black and as much free wifi as you can eat. Even the necessity of paying for Koru Club membership disappears after a while as you inexorably gain enough Airpoints to gain Gold and then Gold Elite status. Sit there with a healthy breakfast (or one designed to send you to an early coronary grave if you so desire) and read the paper, do some work, watch the world go by or write your blog. I love Koru Lounges and have now been to every one in New Zealand and they deserve and will get a post to themselves.</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Flight time and you use what is left of the previously prepared iPhone to get a boarding pass; ensure you do this in the first wave of boarders. If you don't the overhead locker above rows 1 and 2 will be full and the Tutto will have to go in the next locker back - a dreadful inconvenience as I'm sure you'll agree. If you have seat 1A, 1B or 1C on the A320 there is an extra treat in store. There are no video screens in front of these seats (meaning you unfortunately miss the inflight Trivia Quiz) and so you can't watch the Richard Simmons aerobics. For safety reasons (see last post) you have to have the the safety spiel so a hostie sits in front of you and does a private show (not that, you with open sewers for minds) for just the three of you. This is even more amusing if you can persuade her to do the dance - they all know it off by heart. All you have to do now is sit back and go to Wellington.</span></p><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">At the other end if you are not first off the plane you are not paying attention. Use the taxi card and go to work; fresh as a daisy and in a ripper of a good mood. Coming back is much the same but remember to get your loyalty card at AirNew Zealand parking punched with the little aeroplane cut out so that they will wash your Jaguar for you for nothing every nine weeks.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Remember the key points; the Koru Lounge and no Jetstar. Got it? NO Jetstar. Nothing, nix, nada, zero, not a trace, not a mention. It is a poisonous company that has every bit earned its evil reputation and will leave you where you don't want to be, grumpy, late for everything and scarred for life. Ignore this piece of advice at your peril.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">There is no reason not to travel like this - all you need is a little planning. I have got to the state where public transport moulded to my liking is a real pleasure. You still won't catch me on a bus though - they don't have 600nm of torque at 1500rpm</span></p><br /><p style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica"><br /></p>obaldnzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14808211240182991488noreply@blogger.com0