No posts on this blog for an unprecedented two months. Reason (as if I need one) is mainly that I have had no inclination to sit down at a keyboard through what has been a good (if depressingly dry) summer when I had lots of other outdoor type things to do. A good fishing season has been chronicled by a single post and I may find the time to detail another week. In addition there has been little on the general goings on front to stir the fingers.
What then has caused the end of the hibernation? The bloody Wiahopai vandals that's what. I was pleasantly ensconced on a game boat off the Northland Coast when these three tossers were handed down the manifestly unjust verdict of 'Not Guilty' for slashing the flash tents covering the satellite dishes at the top of the South Island. What a trio of wankers. Weird beards on steroids. Unkempt idiots who belong to some ultra left peacenik commune that lives a life which became unfashionable somewhere at the end of the sixties. How the hell they got a jury to swallow the line that their actions were justified because by vandalising a satellite dish in New Zealand they were saving lives in Iraq is way beyond me.
I really don't care if people like this want to live in a cave, eat bark, wander round singing Cumbaya and spread their loony tunes view of things to each other. As long as they don't interfere with the proper world who cares? But when they are caught slashing public property with sickles (no planet wrecking chainsaws for these idiots) they are patently guilty of whatever vandalism/damaging property type charges you can think of.
OK (well not OK, really) the not guilty verdict passed me by. Not however yesterday's development. The government has been denied permission (from who - another bit of the government?) to appeal the guilty verdict. God knows why - there's an 'R' in the month? - and so they are considering suing them for the damage. Wrong. Don't consider it, just get on and do it. They reckon $1,100,000 should cover the embroidery for a new tent. Well I should hope it would. The reaction of the unkempt wankers and John Minto (one and the same thing, really)? It is unjust and you can't sue us because we only have $1000 between us. Where the hell is a debtor's prison when you need one.
Suing people for lots of money when they have none is a waste of time? Bollocks. If these tossers only have $1000 stashed in cocoa tins under their beds then take the lot. And the cocoa tins. And the beds. Then take every cent they bludge off other people (these are not the sort of oxygen thieves that ever earn any money by putting in an honest day's toil) from them on an ongoing basis until the $1,100,00 is paid off. To the last bloody dollar. If it takes the rest of their miserable lives all the better. If they still haven't paid it off when they mercifully die, even more betterer. Saddle their heirs (sic) with the responsibilty of the balance.
The bloody arrogance they exhibit by standing there and thumbing their collective snotty noses at society makes me sick. They are the dregs of society in all their self righteous, nay pious, warped leftist view of life. A casting into a pit to be fed snozzcumbers for the rest of their pitiable existences would be too good for them. The best we can hope for in the short term is that we deny them the oxygen of publicity they so obviously crave.
They have made be damned angry this morning and I gave up angry years ago.
Showing posts with label Political correctness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Political correctness. Show all posts
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Retarded
A relatively new aspect of my weekly schedule is that I do no to go to work on Tuesdays. I have to spend all day in the fields on Wednesday in return but so far the trade off is working well. The weekend finishes, I do a morning's work and it is day off time again. I think I like it. If I still had the newspaper delivered at Marmite soldier time Tuesdays would be the day when I could partake and then retire to the iMac to point the borax at someone on the back of what I had just read. Well the paper ain't going to be here until the Rural Delivery postie does his rounds. I have no idea when that is but about lunchtime seems about right - I think.
However I have had the radio on for the last hour. I am lazy in my radio listening habits. Radio Hauraki when in the fields, Radio Sport when driving to the fields and sometimes on the way back. Deaker on Sunday afternoons if it is raining and that is about it. Mrs O likes to have the News on at the aforementioned Marmite soldier time. This means having that smart arsed plonker Hoskins in my ear for twenty minutes before retiring to the charabanc for a bit of sport. Hoskins irritates me intensely. His inability to be wrong about anything is surpassed only by the totally most irritating man on radio Danny 'I am the expert of absolutely everything in the entire Universe' Watson. I cannot listen to this bloke when in the car as I am likely to drive into bridge abutments.
Despite all of the above if you filter out the smart arse arrogance of the breakfast presenter you can just glean an idea of what is making the morning's news.
There is another bloke in the main stream media, this time of the televisual variety, called Paul Henry. An idiot, but a largely harmless idiot. He makes people watch his program, and hence make his bosses and advertisers very happy, by being offensive. This is very clever offensive. He is never really very offensive but just does enough to get old ladies tut tuttung behind their net curtains - and boost viewership numbers. He also has a fourth form 'tits, bums and toilet' humour propensity. So in recent times he got into hot water for pointing out that a woman he was interviewing had a moustache - which she did. I forget the other hanging offences he has been in the gun for but it is all in the 'who cares?' mould. His latest transgression is calling that retarded, ugly Scottish woman who came second (I think) in a UK talent (sic) show ugly and retarded. I'm sure she is really worried by this as she trots off to the Royal Bank of Scotland to pay her first royalty check into her account. £2,000,000 is going to make sure her cat is not short of Whiskas for the foreseeable future.
All this is trivial and stupid enough you would think. But no. There is some concerned person about to get into full hand wringing mode. He is doing a survey, that presumably costs someone some money (and I wouldn't bet against that someone being me) to see if 'retarded' should be put on the Broadcasting Authority's banned list of offensive words. According to this retarded idiot 'retarded' needs to be in the banned lexicon next to 'nigger' and ...well I can't think of any others. Apparently this problem is so acute that there has been one complaint over the use of the word 'retarded' in the last ten years. Well, deary me.
The best known non word of the early twenty first century probably is nigger. Look at the trouble this has caused. Agatha Christie had to have the title of one of her novels changed from 'Ten Little Niggers' to 'Ten Little Indians'. Good book and to save you the bother of reading the whole thing, the judge did it. I'm sure even the new title is on shaky grounds and it will soon have to be changed to 'Ten Little Native Americans' or 'Ten Little Indigenous People'. That, however, will be offensive to Native Americans or Indigenous People. It will probably end up as 'Ten Little Middle Aged Anglo Saxon Males some of whom are gender confused and are really Women'. That will only offend (well, no it won't really) the likes of me and we don't matter.
Then we have Guy Gibson's dog in the remake of the Dam Busters. This canine companion was called 'Nigger'. Fact; that was the bloody dog's name. The aviator didn't call out across Nether Wapping 'Here Fido, I have a nice juicy steak for you' because the dog was called Nigger. He stood at the edge of the airdrome and shouted out 'Nigger'. And if any of the loony language police came his way he would likely bomb them - 'cos that was what he did for a living. In the remake of the film the dog has to be renamed. What will they choose? 'Black Dog' won't do even though that is what it was; just think of the offense caused to all those people with depression.
This lunacy has to stop. Offensive is vastly overplayed and is good fun if used judiciously. It is even better fun if sprayed around willy nilly.
Retard is a good word. How can you adjust your magneto without using it?
Monday, May 25, 2009
Support
The English language is a wondrous thing and I have long been fascinated by the uses some words get hijacked into. We are not talking nonsense new age made up words here; spokesperson for example. No, words that have morphed over time and not over centuries. In my lifetime, my adult lifetime even, 'gay' has been transformed. As an innocent youth in the fifties and sixties I often had gay times. This was going to the beach with Mum and Dad, eating ice creams and winning a goldfish at Verwood carnival. I now never use the word gay for anything - wouldn't dare.
The word that has fascinated me for ever, though, is 'support'.
SUPPORT
verb [trans]
1 bear all or part of the weight of; hold up : the dome was supported by a hundred white columns.
• produce enough food and water for; be capable of sustaining : the land had lost its capacity to support life.
• be capable of fulfilling (a role) adequately : tutors gain practical experience that helps them support their tutoring role.
• endure; tolerate : at work during the day I could support the grief.
2 give assistance to, esp. financially; enable to function or act : the government gives $2.5 billion a year to support the activities of the voluntary sector.
• provide with a home and the necessities of life : my main concern was to support my family.
• give comfort and emotional help to : I like to visit her to support her.
• approve of and encourage : the proposal was supported by many delegates.
• suggest the truth of; corroborate : the studies support our findings.
• be actively interested in and concerned for the success of (a particular sports team).
• [as adj. ] ( supporting) (of an actor or a role) important in a play or film but subordinate to the leading parts.
• (of a pop or rock group or performer) function as a secondary act to (another) at a concert.
3 Computing (of a computer or operating system) allow the use or operation of (a program, language, or device) : the new versions do not support the graphical user interface standard.
noun
1 a thing that bears the weight of something or keeps it upright : the best support for a camera is a tripod.
• the action or state of bearing the weight of something or someone or of being so supported : she clutched the sideboard for support.
2 material assistance : he urged that military support be sent to protect humanitarian convoys | [as adj. ] support staff.
• comfort and emotional help offered to someone in distress : she's been through a bad time and needs our support.
• approval and encouragement : the policies of reform enjoy widespread support.
• a secondary act at a pop or rock concert.
• technical help given to the user of a computer or other product.
PHRASES
in support of giving assistance to : air operations in support of the land forces. • showing approval of : the paper printed many letters in support of the government. • attempting to promote or obtain : a strike in support of an 8.5% pay raise.
DERIVATIVES
supportability |səˌpôrtəˈbilitē| |səˈpɔrdəˈbɪlədi| noun
supportable |səˈpɔrdəbəl| adjective
ORIGIN Middle English (originally in the sense [tolerate, put up with] ): from Old French supporter, from Latin supportare, from sub- ‘from below’ + portare ‘carry.’
All good dictionary stuff and all true. But it is no longer used like that. It has come to have its biggest use in the advertising industry. More of this in a while. First a brief history of Obald and support. The earliest use of it that struck me as a bit weird was when I first came across the athletic support. We are in noun territory here. Is the humble jock strap a secondary act at a rock or pop concert? Hardly. Does it act in a tripod like way to support the camera one keeps in ones nether regions? I think not. Emotional support in times of athletic distress? Do you wrap it around an ailing computer? Athletic support - a load of tosh. And even in these early days it is advertsing tosh. An Acme Athletic Support is much morre likely to get you to part with 3/6 of hard earned dosh than a mere jock strap, is it not?
The next use of support that got on my goat and still makes me squirm is the support person. If one of the victim class is about to go through a trauma in his life - paying the rent out of his own money for example, returning an overdue library book, this sort of thing - he is entitled to take a support person with him. What a load of crap. These people don't have friends, relatives or even mates - they have to have 'support people'. These are the same wallies who have caregivers instead of parents. Not much advertising here I'll grant you but this leads us onto Support's latest role in his lexicographical life.
We are urged at every turn to buy quackery products that support things that don't need support and are in most part totally unable to receive any. 'One simple pill of rat's foreskin and goat dropping extract is all you need to support your immune system' Eh? Now I know a bit about the human immune system. I'm not a clinical immunologist I'll grant you but I can guarantee I know an awful lot more than the tosser who tries to sell me snakeoil on the box before the weather. The immune system cannot be 'supported' by anything let alone the ground up bits of obscure shrubs no one has ever heard of. Pine bark? Jolly good to make a pine tree feel all warm and comfy but not much use if you are not a pine cone. I won't be using any bits of pine tree to support anything about my person thank you very much. Another thing I was never told needed any supporting during my time at medical school was 'joint health'. Apparently all you need to get this little number into spiffo form is to mince up a shark or two and make them into 'easy to swallow capsules'. What capsule that isn't the size of a loaf of bread isn't easy to swallow, pray tell? What a load of bollocks.
People who would have you support various unsupportable bits of your anatomy and physiology also tend to be very big on wellness. They talk down to you in smooth, no smarmy, voices and point out that their macerated lizard eyelid juice is clinically proven without giving any evidence of same. They respect things a lot and they make me vomit.
The word that has fascinated me for ever, though, is 'support'.
SUPPORT
verb [trans]
1 bear all or part of the weight of; hold up : the dome was supported by a hundred white columns.
• produce enough food and water for; be capable of sustaining : the land had lost its capacity to support life.
• be capable of fulfilling (a role) adequately : tutors gain practical experience that helps them support their tutoring role.
• endure; tolerate : at work during the day I could support the grief.
2 give assistance to, esp. financially; enable to function or act : the government gives $2.5 billion a year to support the activities of the voluntary sector.
• provide with a home and the necessities of life : my main concern was to support my family.
• give comfort and emotional help to : I like to visit her to support her.
• approve of and encourage : the proposal was supported by many delegates.
• suggest the truth of; corroborate : the studies support our findings.
• be actively interested in and concerned for the success of (a particular sports team).
• [as adj. ] ( supporting) (of an actor or a role) important in a play or film but subordinate to the leading parts.
• (of a pop or rock group or performer) function as a secondary act to (another) at a concert.
3 Computing (of a computer or operating system) allow the use or operation of (a program, language, or device) : the new versions do not support the graphical user interface standard.
noun
1 a thing that bears the weight of something or keeps it upright : the best support for a camera is a tripod.
• the action or state of bearing the weight of something or someone or of being so supported : she clutched the sideboard for support.
2 material assistance : he urged that military support be sent to protect humanitarian convoys | [as adj. ] support staff.
• comfort and emotional help offered to someone in distress : she's been through a bad time and needs our support.
• approval and encouragement : the policies of reform enjoy widespread support.
• a secondary act at a pop or rock concert.
• technical help given to the user of a computer or other product.
PHRASES
in support of giving assistance to : air operations in support of the land forces. • showing approval of : the paper printed many letters in support of the government. • attempting to promote or obtain : a strike in support of an 8.5% pay raise.
DERIVATIVES
supportability |səˌpôrtəˈbilitē| |səˈpɔrdəˈbɪlədi| noun
supportable |səˈpɔrdəbəl| adjective
ORIGIN Middle English (originally in the sense [tolerate, put up with] ): from Old French supporter, from Latin supportare, from sub- ‘from below’ + portare ‘carry.’
All good dictionary stuff and all true. But it is no longer used like that. It has come to have its biggest use in the advertising industry. More of this in a while. First a brief history of Obald and support. The earliest use of it that struck me as a bit weird was when I first came across the athletic support. We are in noun territory here. Is the humble jock strap a secondary act at a rock or pop concert? Hardly. Does it act in a tripod like way to support the camera one keeps in ones nether regions? I think not. Emotional support in times of athletic distress? Do you wrap it around an ailing computer? Athletic support - a load of tosh. And even in these early days it is advertsing tosh. An Acme Athletic Support is much morre likely to get you to part with 3/6 of hard earned dosh than a mere jock strap, is it not?
The next use of support that got on my goat and still makes me squirm is the support person. If one of the victim class is about to go through a trauma in his life - paying the rent out of his own money for example, returning an overdue library book, this sort of thing - he is entitled to take a support person with him. What a load of crap. These people don't have friends, relatives or even mates - they have to have 'support people'. These are the same wallies who have caregivers instead of parents. Not much advertising here I'll grant you but this leads us onto Support's latest role in his lexicographical life.
We are urged at every turn to buy quackery products that support things that don't need support and are in most part totally unable to receive any. 'One simple pill of rat's foreskin and goat dropping extract is all you need to support your immune system' Eh? Now I know a bit about the human immune system. I'm not a clinical immunologist I'll grant you but I can guarantee I know an awful lot more than the tosser who tries to sell me snakeoil on the box before the weather. The immune system cannot be 'supported' by anything let alone the ground up bits of obscure shrubs no one has ever heard of. Pine bark? Jolly good to make a pine tree feel all warm and comfy but not much use if you are not a pine cone. I won't be using any bits of pine tree to support anything about my person thank you very much. Another thing I was never told needed any supporting during my time at medical school was 'joint health'. Apparently all you need to get this little number into spiffo form is to mince up a shark or two and make them into 'easy to swallow capsules'. What capsule that isn't the size of a loaf of bread isn't easy to swallow, pray tell? What a load of bollocks.
People who would have you support various unsupportable bits of your anatomy and physiology also tend to be very big on wellness. They talk down to you in smooth, no smarmy, voices and point out that their macerated lizard eyelid juice is clinically proven without giving any evidence of same. They respect things a lot and they make me vomit.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Bring on the chainsaws
I have several hundred trees on my property. They are mine. I own them. I have paid for them. I owe nothing to anyone for them, not to a bank and especially not to a council or the government.
I own a chainsaw. It is also mine. It is also paid for.
If I wish to introduce the latter to the former it is my decision and no one else's. That apparently is not now the case. I say apparently as it has not altered my behaviour around chainsaws or trees one iota. If I want to cut a tree down on my property I will do so and anyone who thinks differently can obtain some sexual gratification as they leave the building.
It was, therefore, with some delight that I read yesterday that one of the Government's sorely needed amendment to the RMA is to de-deify the common or garden tree. The blanket protection that every weed tree now enjoys is to be removed. And not before bloody time either. Any person who has pohutakawa roots uprooting the floor of his house (as is happening to my ex next door neightbour) will now be able to reach for the Husqvarna and sort the problem out in a sea of noise and 2 stroke. He will no longer have to get the 'permission' of some plonker down at council - which will probably be declined if their track record on these matters is anything to go by. He will no longer have to 'consult' an arborist - paid for by me.
Commonsense has prevailed. But how is this being welcomed by the weird beards whose days of ruling the country are now mercifully at an end? They are of course mortified. The end of the world is nigh (next Thursday looking favorite) Armageddon is just around the corner. We are bring warned that Titirangi and Langholm (nests of stupid plonkers if ever there was) will be turned into lunar landscapes by the end of the month. Developers are this very moment shipping in plane loads of Agent Orange. Napalm is suddenly very popular at Fletcher Construction. Every schoolchild is to be issued with a chainsaw.
Idiots. The proposed entirely sensible placing of trees into their proper station in life does not mean you have to waste every tree you come across. It just means that the current totally stupid blanket rules on every damned tree in the land which places it above your first born child in terms of importance are deservedly consigned to the rubbish bin of history.
I am a great believer that nothing is wholly right or wholly wrong. The last Government did not do everything wrong - very nearly but not quite. The current mob are not going to do everything right but they haven't stuffed up too much yet.
I own a chainsaw. It is also mine. It is also paid for.
If I wish to introduce the latter to the former it is my decision and no one else's. That apparently is not now the case. I say apparently as it has not altered my behaviour around chainsaws or trees one iota. If I want to cut a tree down on my property I will do so and anyone who thinks differently can obtain some sexual gratification as they leave the building.
It was, therefore, with some delight that I read yesterday that one of the Government's sorely needed amendment to the RMA is to de-deify the common or garden tree. The blanket protection that every weed tree now enjoys is to be removed. And not before bloody time either. Any person who has pohutakawa roots uprooting the floor of his house (as is happening to my ex next door neightbour) will now be able to reach for the Husqvarna and sort the problem out in a sea of noise and 2 stroke. He will no longer have to get the 'permission' of some plonker down at council - which will probably be declined if their track record on these matters is anything to go by. He will no longer have to 'consult' an arborist - paid for by me.
Commonsense has prevailed. But how is this being welcomed by the weird beards whose days of ruling the country are now mercifully at an end? They are of course mortified. The end of the world is nigh (next Thursday looking favorite) Armageddon is just around the corner. We are bring warned that Titirangi and Langholm (nests of stupid plonkers if ever there was) will be turned into lunar landscapes by the end of the month. Developers are this very moment shipping in plane loads of Agent Orange. Napalm is suddenly very popular at Fletcher Construction. Every schoolchild is to be issued with a chainsaw.
Idiots. The proposed entirely sensible placing of trees into their proper station in life does not mean you have to waste every tree you come across. It just means that the current totally stupid blanket rules on every damned tree in the land which places it above your first born child in terms of importance are deservedly consigned to the rubbish bin of history.
I am a great believer that nothing is wholly right or wholly wrong. The last Government did not do everything wrong - very nearly but not quite. The current mob are not going to do everything right but they haven't stuffed up too much yet.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Sir Obald
Has a certain je ne sais qoi about it, does it not?
Only a few short months ago our lives were ruled by the colourless commies. We all had to be equal. We got medals for turning up. We were not allowed to be better than anybody at anything. They stopped short of Castro's idea of paying neurosurgeons the same as taxi drivers, but only just. It was not an impossible flight of fancy that all those wearing glasses would be shipped off to (aural) rehabilitation camps as they could be seen as intellectuals.
How does an honours system sit with all this? Not at all. How does a titular honours system fit in? Well, even more not at all. If you decide someone is worthy of singling out for praise you make it even worse by calling them 'Sir' something. What to do? Even they decided that getting rid of the honours system altogether was a step too far, at least in the first instance. It was decided that those who were to be reluctantly honoured should be given an honour that was meaningless and had a silly complicated title that no one could remember and meant nothing. Thus Colin Meads became not Sir Pinetree but a Most Distinguished Companion of the Order of New Zealand (I think) . He would still thump you if you disagreed with him but you would not get thumped by a bloke bestriding the battlements in a ermine trimmed cape.
What does this totally unrememberable appellation mean? Nothing. You can be a companion of something animate - like your best mate, a maiden aunt or a goat. You cannot be a companion to a virtual object. You cannot take the plane to Wellington as the companion of Newton's Second Law of Motion or Parkinson's disease. You can be the companion to Mrs Smith at number 27 who has Parkinson's disease, of course. Thus you could not be a Companion of an Order of Merit as it is not something that physically exists. This suited the Mao jacketed ones perfectly. Dish out something meaningless and people will not object when it is removed completely.
This, of course, is just bollocks. People should be rewarded for doing well. Good grief they even enjoy it. This starts from getting a gold star in Primary School and extends right through to Sir Mick Jagger who gets an award for still being alive.
I am delighted that the current Pragmatic Government has got rid of all this equality bollocks and we are to have titular honours again. It is even retrospective so those who the mealy mouthed witch denied their proper gong can get it back. Miserable bloody woman. How heartening it is to see all the changes she wrought in our lives without any mandate whatsoever being rolled back one by one.
Privy Council next, please.
Only a few short months ago our lives were ruled by the colourless commies. We all had to be equal. We got medals for turning up. We were not allowed to be better than anybody at anything. They stopped short of Castro's idea of paying neurosurgeons the same as taxi drivers, but only just. It was not an impossible flight of fancy that all those wearing glasses would be shipped off to (aural) rehabilitation camps as they could be seen as intellectuals.
How does an honours system sit with all this? Not at all. How does a titular honours system fit in? Well, even more not at all. If you decide someone is worthy of singling out for praise you make it even worse by calling them 'Sir' something. What to do? Even they decided that getting rid of the honours system altogether was a step too far, at least in the first instance. It was decided that those who were to be reluctantly honoured should be given an honour that was meaningless and had a silly complicated title that no one could remember and meant nothing. Thus Colin Meads became not Sir Pinetree but a Most Distinguished Companion of the Order of New Zealand (I think) . He would still thump you if you disagreed with him but you would not get thumped by a bloke bestriding the battlements in a ermine trimmed cape.
What does this totally unrememberable appellation mean? Nothing. You can be a companion of something animate - like your best mate, a maiden aunt or a goat. You cannot be a companion to a virtual object. You cannot take the plane to Wellington as the companion of Newton's Second Law of Motion or Parkinson's disease. You can be the companion to Mrs Smith at number 27 who has Parkinson's disease, of course. Thus you could not be a Companion of an Order of Merit as it is not something that physically exists. This suited the Mao jacketed ones perfectly. Dish out something meaningless and people will not object when it is removed completely.
This, of course, is just bollocks. People should be rewarded for doing well. Good grief they even enjoy it. This starts from getting a gold star in Primary School and extends right through to Sir Mick Jagger who gets an award for still being alive.
I am delighted that the current Pragmatic Government has got rid of all this equality bollocks and we are to have titular honours again. It is even retrospective so those who the mealy mouthed witch denied their proper gong can get it back. Miserable bloody woman. How heartening it is to see all the changes she wrought in our lives without any mandate whatsoever being rolled back one by one.
Privy Council next, please.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Who cares?
If we are to be believe what we are being told the world is ending. We are soon going to be on a planet that has the ambient air temperature of Mercury (where it gets very tropical), a planet that can't feed its people and has no money.
So what are the good people of Wanganui doing to put things to rights? They are arguing whether their town should be spelt with an 'h'. Apparently they had a referendum a few years back to settle this issue vital in the survival of the planet and decided to not waste further paint on the road signs and leave things as they were.
Not good enough for some mob who have again petitioned the council to get a decision in their favour so they can make a submission to the Geography Board (I think) so that an 'h' which has never been there can - be there. It is pointed out that in this part of the world if the 'h' was added the pronunciation of the place name would not change as the 'h' is silent and does not turn the 'w' into an 'f' as it does in Whangarei. Therefore changing the spelling will make no practical difference to the man in the street.
Yesterday the Council headed by the refreshingly tie deficient Mayor, Michael Laws, actually wasted time to discuss this and voted eight to five for no 'h'. Presumably the 'h' advocates will now appeal to the Human Rights Commission or the Pope for a further hearing so the Geography Wallahs can hear the case with as much pro 'h' bias as possible.
Please stop this nonsense. You can spell the name however you bloody well want to. Put in a silent 'ch' as in marmachlade if you want. Who cares? I'm sure the Post Office don't. A letter written to someone in Wanganui will get there if it is spelt as now or as Whanganui - or Wchanganui. One pro 'h' bloke on the News last night said it was important to get this sorted out - in his favour of course. It is not important. It is mind numbingly stupid and no one gives a big rats backside.
Meanwhile we will all get poorer as all the bank notes spontaneously combust with the earths temperature soaring past 200 degrees Centigrade because I have driven my V8 to work. Idiots.
So what are the good people of Wanganui doing to put things to rights? They are arguing whether their town should be spelt with an 'h'. Apparently they had a referendum a few years back to settle this issue vital in the survival of the planet and decided to not waste further paint on the road signs and leave things as they were.
Not good enough for some mob who have again petitioned the council to get a decision in their favour so they can make a submission to the Geography Board (I think) so that an 'h' which has never been there can - be there. It is pointed out that in this part of the world if the 'h' was added the pronunciation of the place name would not change as the 'h' is silent and does not turn the 'w' into an 'f' as it does in Whangarei. Therefore changing the spelling will make no practical difference to the man in the street.
Yesterday the Council headed by the refreshingly tie deficient Mayor, Michael Laws, actually wasted time to discuss this and voted eight to five for no 'h'. Presumably the 'h' advocates will now appeal to the Human Rights Commission or the Pope for a further hearing so the Geography Wallahs can hear the case with as much pro 'h' bias as possible.
Please stop this nonsense. You can spell the name however you bloody well want to. Put in a silent 'ch' as in marmachlade if you want. Who cares? I'm sure the Post Office don't. A letter written to someone in Wanganui will get there if it is spelt as now or as Whanganui - or Wchanganui. One pro 'h' bloke on the News last night said it was important to get this sorted out - in his favour of course. It is not important. It is mind numbingly stupid and no one gives a big rats backside.
Meanwhile we will all get poorer as all the bank notes spontaneously combust with the earths temperature soaring past 200 degrees Centigrade because I have driven my V8 to work. Idiots.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Offended - moi?
Just as I bemoan the lack of opportunity to have a good grizzle and not three hours later I get a beautiful half volley just outside off stump. Off to the the extra cover boundary you go.
Lockwood Smith committed a grave crime today. What was this, pray tell? Did he eat a baby on prime time telly? Mug an old lady with a kitchen appliance? Rob a bank? Walk on a crack in the pavement? No, far, far worse than all these heinous acts rolled into one. He offended someone. Well he didn't really but some numpty tree hugging weird beards said he did. Bollocks. Many points around this whole episode.
What did he say? We'll just focus on the Asian bit in the interests of brevity. 'Some Asians have small hands and are more suited to certain types of work which might include fruit picking.' Well I can just imagine great droves of Chinese workers casting themselves from the Great Wall on hearing that. What the hell is wrong with any of it. Do some Asians have small hands? Yes. Do a lot of Asians have small hands? Yes. Does having small hands make you better suited for some kinds of employment than if you are endowed with shovels? Yes. Is the above statement racist? No. What the bloody hell is wrong with it then? Would anyone have raised an eyebrow if he had said 'Whitey's have bloody great huge hands and are therefore much more suited to wielding a sledgehammer than Chinamen'? I don't think so. What had he said 'Chinese girls have black hair and therefore make very poor Marilyn Monroe impersonators'. Evil racist slur? I'm sure you could find a hand wringer somewhere who would find justification for a public stoning. Give me strength.
I asked my wife (who is Chinese) if she found this Lockwood Smith remark offensive. She looked at me quizzically and laughed. In fact the people I have so far heard whining about the dreadful utterance have all been severely not Asian. Even Pond Scum Bovver Boy Mallard put his hypocritical five cents in - he's the bloke who goes round thumping people who offend him you may recall. We have come to a point when this sort of harmless tosh is accepted as being offensive. We are in the middle of an election where easily the most important issue to be resolved is the world economy going tits up and how we are going to handle our little corner of it. And there are people saying there ought to be sackings for a bloke who tells the truth about the size of a chinaman's hands. Get real.
All this equality bollocks again. We all have to be the same and equal. I can't play golf as well as Tiger Woods. If you point this out to me are you being 'elitist'? Should Tiger be told to start playing off 15 to make sure I am not offended? And he's black - and Asian. Now I'm really offended. I am unlikely to have a baby. Is this sexist and should I be offended by same?
Right lets get away from the specifics and onto giving and receiving offence. Why for heaven's sake does anybody have to be saved from the dreadful fate of being offended? What is wrong with a bit of good old fashioned offensive behaviour? Offensive is good. I don't wanna talk to you no more you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I'll fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and you father smelt of elderberry!!!! Now that's jolly offensive but how good. I wish I could be so gratuitously and inventively offensive whenever the whim struck me. I'll wave my private parts at your aunties you cheesy lot of secondhand electric donkey bottom biters. That's how effortlessly offensive I would like to be.
I am going to re institute a campaign I first floated a couple of years back. I want this country to have a National 'Lets Offend Everyone We Can Find and Just See if The Sky Falls In' week. All female Chairpersons of Committees are to be called Chairmen, people of colour are to be called wogs, pakis or whatever you fancy. Overweight people are to be called fat b*st*rds. Vertically challenged people are to be referred to as short arses. People who are patently stupid are to be called stupid. Ugly people of either sex are to be told they look like the back of a bus. Posters featuring scantily clad seriously attractive females will be made mandatory when advertising power tools. Dwarf throwing contests are to be featured as Super 14 halftime entertainment. Wheelchair ramp access to bungy jumping platforms are to be closed. People you don't like are to be told their mother was a hamster (even if she wasn't). Western Springs Speedway will have a week long twenty four hour a day race meeting. All stray dogs and some cats are to be shot on site. Te Kaha and Te Mana will be ordered on a whale hunt off Little Barrier with a bikini clad (young female) TV One reporter 'embedded' as on the spot coverage. A $5 voucher off your groceries will be offered at Woolworth's for every seal pelt produced. Free napalm will be available for all those living near a mangrove swamp (a box of matches also provided). The government will give a free chainsaw to everyone who has a pohutakawa blocking their view. A fifty percent rebate will be given on the road tax for all vehicles with engines larger than four litres (extra discounts available for turbo or supercharged motors). Name suppression for any one in court will be banned and Helen Clark will open Big Boys Toys.
Lockwood Smith committed a grave crime today. What was this, pray tell? Did he eat a baby on prime time telly? Mug an old lady with a kitchen appliance? Rob a bank? Walk on a crack in the pavement? No, far, far worse than all these heinous acts rolled into one. He offended someone. Well he didn't really but some numpty tree hugging weird beards said he did. Bollocks. Many points around this whole episode.
What did he say? We'll just focus on the Asian bit in the interests of brevity. 'Some Asians have small hands and are more suited to certain types of work which might include fruit picking.' Well I can just imagine great droves of Chinese workers casting themselves from the Great Wall on hearing that. What the hell is wrong with any of it. Do some Asians have small hands? Yes. Do a lot of Asians have small hands? Yes. Does having small hands make you better suited for some kinds of employment than if you are endowed with shovels? Yes. Is the above statement racist? No. What the bloody hell is wrong with it then? Would anyone have raised an eyebrow if he had said 'Whitey's have bloody great huge hands and are therefore much more suited to wielding a sledgehammer than Chinamen'? I don't think so. What had he said 'Chinese girls have black hair and therefore make very poor Marilyn Monroe impersonators'. Evil racist slur? I'm sure you could find a hand wringer somewhere who would find justification for a public stoning. Give me strength.
I asked my wife (who is Chinese) if she found this Lockwood Smith remark offensive. She looked at me quizzically and laughed. In fact the people I have so far heard whining about the dreadful utterance have all been severely not Asian. Even Pond Scum Bovver Boy Mallard put his hypocritical five cents in - he's the bloke who goes round thumping people who offend him you may recall. We have come to a point when this sort of harmless tosh is accepted as being offensive. We are in the middle of an election where easily the most important issue to be resolved is the world economy going tits up and how we are going to handle our little corner of it. And there are people saying there ought to be sackings for a bloke who tells the truth about the size of a chinaman's hands. Get real.
All this equality bollocks again. We all have to be the same and equal. I can't play golf as well as Tiger Woods. If you point this out to me are you being 'elitist'? Should Tiger be told to start playing off 15 to make sure I am not offended? And he's black - and Asian. Now I'm really offended. I am unlikely to have a baby. Is this sexist and should I be offended by same?
Right lets get away from the specifics and onto giving and receiving offence. Why for heaven's sake does anybody have to be saved from the dreadful fate of being offended? What is wrong with a bit of good old fashioned offensive behaviour? Offensive is good. I don't wanna talk to you no more you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I'll fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and you father smelt of elderberry!!!! Now that's jolly offensive but how good. I wish I could be so gratuitously and inventively offensive whenever the whim struck me. I'll wave my private parts at your aunties you cheesy lot of secondhand electric donkey bottom biters. That's how effortlessly offensive I would like to be.
I am going to re institute a campaign I first floated a couple of years back. I want this country to have a National 'Lets Offend Everyone We Can Find and Just See if The Sky Falls In' week. All female Chairpersons of Committees are to be called Chairmen, people of colour are to be called wogs, pakis or whatever you fancy. Overweight people are to be called fat b*st*rds. Vertically challenged people are to be referred to as short arses. People who are patently stupid are to be called stupid. Ugly people of either sex are to be told they look like the back of a bus. Posters featuring scantily clad seriously attractive females will be made mandatory when advertising power tools. Dwarf throwing contests are to be featured as Super 14 halftime entertainment. Wheelchair ramp access to bungy jumping platforms are to be closed. People you don't like are to be told their mother was a hamster (even if she wasn't). Western Springs Speedway will have a week long twenty four hour a day race meeting. All stray dogs and some cats are to be shot on site. Te Kaha and Te Mana will be ordered on a whale hunt off Little Barrier with a bikini clad (young female) TV One reporter 'embedded' as on the spot coverage. A $5 voucher off your groceries will be offered at Woolworth's for every seal pelt produced. Free napalm will be available for all those living near a mangrove swamp (a box of matches also provided). The government will give a free chainsaw to everyone who has a pohutakawa blocking their view. A fifty percent rebate will be given on the road tax for all vehicles with engines larger than four litres (extra discounts available for turbo or supercharged motors). Name suppression for any one in court will be banned and Helen Clark will open Big Boys Toys.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The new Godless religion
I haven't felt the urge to put finger to keyboard this last week. The wretches in Wellington are boring the pants off me. It is patently obvious to anyone who cares to look that the only reason the occupants of Parliament are there is to ensure that they continue in place. The country is being run by a pack of negligibly trained academics trying to do a job that is patently way beyond their collective abilities. We have to have an election within the next three months and any pretense of trying to stuff up the country in the guise of governing it now take back seat to retaining power. A pox on the lot of them.
I was wandering around the web this evening looking for something that might stimulate the mind for a minute or two. Looking on 'TradeMe' for tractor counter weights might be essential work for when the Shibaura can eventually peek out of its shed but it is hardly mental calisthenics is it? But then I stumbled (quite literally - I'm really not sure how I got there) upon a piece that has made the evening worthwhile
I have long realised the global warming crap is just that; crap. That any of the so called arguments are devoid of any vestige of scientific method and rigour is as plain as the nose on your face. I thought the whole thing had morphed into a political movement. I was right but that is only the partial truth. It is a religion.
I encourage you to read the essay to be found by following this link.
Global Warming as Religion not Science
It is written by a bloke I have never heard of called John Brignell who would appear to be a Pom. Be warned it is not short (it will take you about twenty minutes to read properly - I slowed down from my usual skim reading and not many pieces get that sort of attention) but it is well worth the effort. I won't steal any of Mr Brignell's thunder by quoting extracts; just read it.
Very good - I can retire to my litter feeling mentally better for having done a few one armed cerebral press ups.
But I still haven't found any tractor weights.
I was wandering around the web this evening looking for something that might stimulate the mind for a minute or two. Looking on 'TradeMe' for tractor counter weights might be essential work for when the Shibaura can eventually peek out of its shed but it is hardly mental calisthenics is it? But then I stumbled (quite literally - I'm really not sure how I got there) upon a piece that has made the evening worthwhile
I have long realised the global warming crap is just that; crap. That any of the so called arguments are devoid of any vestige of scientific method and rigour is as plain as the nose on your face. I thought the whole thing had morphed into a political movement. I was right but that is only the partial truth. It is a religion.
I encourage you to read the essay to be found by following this link.
Global Warming as Religion not Science
It is written by a bloke I have never heard of called John Brignell who would appear to be a Pom. Be warned it is not short (it will take you about twenty minutes to read properly - I slowed down from my usual skim reading and not many pieces get that sort of attention) but it is well worth the effort. I won't steal any of Mr Brignell's thunder by quoting extracts; just read it.
Very good - I can retire to my litter feeling mentally better for having done a few one armed cerebral press ups.
But I still haven't found any tractor weights.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Columbine Aoteoroa
I am not making this up.
I was listening to the electric wireless this evening and Plod was being interviewed about his advising schools as to how they should be drawing up risk management plans for, wait for it, attacks from people with automatic weapons. I checked the date. April 1st was months ago. This idiot appeared to be serious. There were two parts to this lunacy. The risk management bit and the planning for the grief counseling that had to attend the aftermath of this fictional armageddon.
This is absolutely typical of the route this increasingly daft country seems bent on taking. Think of any scenario, the more unlikely but catastrophic the better, and then construct a 543 page Policy Manual that details how to deal with it. Compliance with this bureaucratic tome is then mandatory and all minions have to go to annual workshops to ensure they are familiar with correct procedure. The workshops will be run by earnest types wearing bone pendants who will be drawing a salary out of my taxes.
Ask yourself; what are the chances of someone running amuck with an AK47 in New Zealand? Well, they are not zero but they are as close as makes no difference. We no more need contingency plans for this than we do for an attack by Martians, mass fatalities from inhaling small fish or schools being overrun by plagues of locusts.
By complete coincidence (and this is true, I promise you) Random Selection on iTunes is playing Jeff Wayne's 'War of the Worlds' as I type.
Maybe I am wrong.
I was listening to the electric wireless this evening and Plod was being interviewed about his advising schools as to how they should be drawing up risk management plans for, wait for it, attacks from people with automatic weapons. I checked the date. April 1st was months ago. This idiot appeared to be serious. There were two parts to this lunacy. The risk management bit and the planning for the grief counseling that had to attend the aftermath of this fictional armageddon.
This is absolutely typical of the route this increasingly daft country seems bent on taking. Think of any scenario, the more unlikely but catastrophic the better, and then construct a 543 page Policy Manual that details how to deal with it. Compliance with this bureaucratic tome is then mandatory and all minions have to go to annual workshops to ensure they are familiar with correct procedure. The workshops will be run by earnest types wearing bone pendants who will be drawing a salary out of my taxes.
Ask yourself; what are the chances of someone running amuck with an AK47 in New Zealand? Well, they are not zero but they are as close as makes no difference. We no more need contingency plans for this than we do for an attack by Martians, mass fatalities from inhaling small fish or schools being overrun by plagues of locusts.
By complete coincidence (and this is true, I promise you) Random Selection on iTunes is playing Jeff Wayne's 'War of the Worlds' as I type.
Maybe I am wrong.
Dead animals
Lion Nathan has been forced to pull a beer advert because it showed a real live dead deer (if you get my drift) being barbecued. Apparently they went to a deer farm (smart these advertising johnnies) and got a time expired deer that was destined for the works anyway and hijacked it. They then shoved a metal pole up its jacksie (as is required) and cooked it on camera. The ad was destined for Orstralia to promote Tooheys New whose logo is a stag. All good. Some blokes standing round a barbie supping a few coldies, talking BS and ensuring bambi is cooked to perfection prior to eating it. That's what you do. If you want to sell beer to men who might like a gobful of venison hot off the grill now and then I would think the above plot for an advert would have sales going through the roof. Spice it up with half a dozen scantily clad maidens handing out the knives and forks, get a few power tools lying around on the ground, a couple of fishing rods leaning up against the shed, a red V8 in the drive, the footy on a big screen telly and Robert is your aunty's husband.
Not so fast. Some interfering dick head got hold of this and complained. What did Lion Nathan do? Tell the complainant to leave the building and help himself to some sexual gratification on the way out? No, the lilly livered wet blankets instigated an 'internal investigation' which found that its production company had 'failed to source the deer correctly'. How the hell else do you correctly source a piece of meat for a barbie other than go to a deer farm and buy an old stag which has 'Go to the knackers yard, do not pass go, do not collect $200' stamped on it? Perhaps they would have preferred they hired an Apache attack helicopter and shot it it with automatic cannon fire? Perhaps torpedo it as it forded a river? Nuke it with an ICBM? No I'm sure they would have preferred the advertisers went to Woolworth's and bought some barbecue fare there. And all the meat in the supermarket wasn't once alive I suppose.
What they would really like, of course, would be for the blokes around the barbie to look up from their crochet to see if their nut cutlets were done el dente. Pillocks.
Lion Nathan then complete their totally spineless display by issuing a statement saying their actions were 'insensitive and inconsistent with company guidelines on the treatment of animals'. What a load of bollocks. Who believes a brewing company has a set of 'company guidelines on the treatment of animals' in the first place? Does Telecom have company guidelines on the treatment of amphibians? Does Ford expect its employees to follow company guidelines on the treatment of yellow eyed penguins? Does Cunard have regular disciplinary hearings for matelots who disregard the company rules covering the treatment of foie gras?
If I drank beer I would instantly boycott all Lion Nathan products because they are a bunch of molluscs who have caved in to a bunch of stupid weird beards. Men drink beer and eat dead animals - what the hell is the problem with that?
Not so fast. Some interfering dick head got hold of this and complained. What did Lion Nathan do? Tell the complainant to leave the building and help himself to some sexual gratification on the way out? No, the lilly livered wet blankets instigated an 'internal investigation' which found that its production company had 'failed to source the deer correctly'. How the hell else do you correctly source a piece of meat for a barbie other than go to a deer farm and buy an old stag which has 'Go to the knackers yard, do not pass go, do not collect $200' stamped on it? Perhaps they would have preferred they hired an Apache attack helicopter and shot it it with automatic cannon fire? Perhaps torpedo it as it forded a river? Nuke it with an ICBM? No I'm sure they would have preferred the advertisers went to Woolworth's and bought some barbecue fare there. And all the meat in the supermarket wasn't once alive I suppose.
What they would really like, of course, would be for the blokes around the barbie to look up from their crochet to see if their nut cutlets were done el dente. Pillocks.
Lion Nathan then complete their totally spineless display by issuing a statement saying their actions were 'insensitive and inconsistent with company guidelines on the treatment of animals'. What a load of bollocks. Who believes a brewing company has a set of 'company guidelines on the treatment of animals' in the first place? Does Telecom have company guidelines on the treatment of amphibians? Does Ford expect its employees to follow company guidelines on the treatment of yellow eyed penguins? Does Cunard have regular disciplinary hearings for matelots who disregard the company rules covering the treatment of foie gras?
If I drank beer I would instantly boycott all Lion Nathan products because they are a bunch of molluscs who have caved in to a bunch of stupid weird beards. Men drink beer and eat dead animals - what the hell is the problem with that?
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Included in a list of things I really need is..........
....one of these
Now, don't get me wrong, I am entirely satisfied with my lot. Life is going along swimmingly. I like the rump of a job I have maneuvered myself into, I live in a house that fits the bill perfectly, there are no family dramas on the horizon and I have a circle of very agreeable friends. My major worries are around my current dearth of inner skirts for marlin lures coloured 'Dorado' and whether it will stop raining long enough tomorrow for me to get the tractor out. But, having said all that, I really do need a DB9. I love the Jag but a gunmetal grey Aston would look just perfect nestling up against the XKR in the garage.
So it was I found myself perambulating around 'TradeMe.co.nz' pretending to be looking for airbrooms, electric fence posts and drill presses. There is a 2005 object of my desire for sale in Auckland. Mileage a bit high at 26,000 and so the asking price would have to be scythed - but it is gorgeous. Cream leather as well. I was having a quiet drool when my attention is distracted by this:
This vehicle has a fuel consumption of 16.6L per 100km, an annual fuel cost of $4,300 and a fuel economy rating of 1.0 out of 6. (Source: Fuelsaver)
There is then a link to a bloody government website. There is a new regulation that demands (good old compulsion) fuel consumption is prominently displayed on any car advert. If you are physically advertising the car at the side of the road or something you are supposed to have one of those puerile eco friendly stickers like you get on a new fridge stuck on the car. It is despoiling an Aston Martin putting a rego sticker on the windscreen and it is certainly just not on putting a greeny weird beard sticker anywhere near such a fine piece of automotive engineering.
Several things. Is there no corner of my life into which this damned administration won't stick its beak? It won't even let me think about buying the car of my choice without wagging its finger at me and telling me I should be buying a 6 star car that runs on a thimble full of linseed oil a fortnight. Any car this government would have me drive I wouldn't touch with yours. If I want to buy a 6 litre V12 and spend $83 a week on petrol I bloody well will. I am delighted the Aston only gets one star. Hang on, no I'm not - I wish it got none. Also the government is a bunch of dick heads because there is no way you could get 16.6L/100km out of a 6 litre V12. I average about 15L/100km doing far too much town driving in a supercharged 4 litre V8
What pleasure is there left in the real world? The more I think of it however I am getting closer to a solution. I now live out of the city, I have some land, I can see no one once the gates shut behind me and I drive the 300m to the house. I have power, am self sufficient of water (as long as it rains now and then) and have the internet. I will buy what ever cars, power tools and boats I fancy and the rest of you can do whatever you please.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am entirely satisfied with my lot. Life is going along swimmingly. I like the rump of a job I have maneuvered myself into, I live in a house that fits the bill perfectly, there are no family dramas on the horizon and I have a circle of very agreeable friends. My major worries are around my current dearth of inner skirts for marlin lures coloured 'Dorado' and whether it will stop raining long enough tomorrow for me to get the tractor out. But, having said all that, I really do need a DB9. I love the Jag but a gunmetal grey Aston would look just perfect nestling up against the XKR in the garage.
So it was I found myself perambulating around 'TradeMe.co.nz' pretending to be looking for airbrooms, electric fence posts and drill presses. There is a 2005 object of my desire for sale in Auckland. Mileage a bit high at 26,000 and so the asking price would have to be scythed - but it is gorgeous. Cream leather as well. I was having a quiet drool when my attention is distracted by this:
This vehicle has a fuel consumption of 16.6L per 100km, an annual fuel cost of $4,300 and a fuel economy rating of 1.0 out of 6. (Source: Fuelsaver)
There is then a link to a bloody government website. There is a new regulation that demands (good old compulsion) fuel consumption is prominently displayed on any car advert. If you are physically advertising the car at the side of the road or something you are supposed to have one of those puerile eco friendly stickers like you get on a new fridge stuck on the car. It is despoiling an Aston Martin putting a rego sticker on the windscreen and it is certainly just not on putting a greeny weird beard sticker anywhere near such a fine piece of automotive engineering.
Several things. Is there no corner of my life into which this damned administration won't stick its beak? It won't even let me think about buying the car of my choice without wagging its finger at me and telling me I should be buying a 6 star car that runs on a thimble full of linseed oil a fortnight. Any car this government would have me drive I wouldn't touch with yours. If I want to buy a 6 litre V12 and spend $83 a week on petrol I bloody well will. I am delighted the Aston only gets one star. Hang on, no I'm not - I wish it got none. Also the government is a bunch of dick heads because there is no way you could get 16.6L/100km out of a 6 litre V12. I average about 15L/100km doing far too much town driving in a supercharged 4 litre V8
What pleasure is there left in the real world? The more I think of it however I am getting closer to a solution. I now live out of the city, I have some land, I can see no one once the gates shut behind me and I drive the 300m to the house. I have power, am self sufficient of water (as long as it rains now and then) and have the internet. I will buy what ever cars, power tools and boats I fancy and the rest of you can do whatever you please.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Earth Hour
Two weeks since a post. Tsk, Tsk. Life has been a blur of new things. Carefully labeling the fuel cans in the barn so that the brush cutter doesn't get four stroke up its innards. Nor yet the quad get filled with 2 stroke. Then there's the mower.
I inherited a Shibaura SE4000 42hp tractor that had strapped to its PTO the scariest and most inappropriate mower I have ever seen. Hundreds of kilograms of offset flail mulching mower that would reduce a field of telegraph poles to matchsticks as soon as look at them was what I was supposed to mow the (admittedly very large) lawn with. Well I did once and had to go for counseling afterwards. This thing was all very fine and dandy for mowing under vines and mulching prunings when the property was an orchard but it was all wrong for turning aforementioned front lawn into the best short game practice facility this side of the Black Stump. Apart from being the wrong sort of mower it was too big for the tractor and it was offset - offset by about three bloody feet. Have you ever tried reversing an 'L' shaped vehicle through a shed door that is too narrow for the whole contraption but can accommodate each limb of the 'L' individually? It's enough to get me to take to the strong drink. Add to this the news that the damned thing needed a new set of blades and they would set me back the fat end of eleven hundred notes and it was a no brainer.
The WMD has gone. It was replaced yesterday with a brand spanking (red) Fieldmaster three rotor topping field mower. Now this is a whole lot better on all sorts of levels. Firstly you can reverse it back into its shed in a straight line. Second it actually mows the grass like what a mower should instead of gouging great parts of the countryside up and spitting them out as potting compost. We are not there quite though. The Shibaura has been orchardised - lowered, (I own a lowered vehicle) has smaller fatter tyres and a few other bits and pieces I don't understand. This means I have to get new restraining chain brackets attached to the rear of the PTO crankcase so I can have internal instead of external chains. External chains would just cut great holes in the tyres. The height of the two lower arms on the three point linkage isn't right as the mower raises on the hydraulics with a marked list to starboard and I suspect the top link is set (by me) at the wrong length as the skids don't 'float' over bumps like they should but dig in. Oh, and I need weight (and I mean heaps of it) attached to the front of the tractor as steering is light at the best of times and disappears completely when the mower is 'up'. Still Gatman's can sort all that on Monday. The lawn is mowed and it is all rather good fun.
What has distracted me long enough from all this agricultural and pastoral stuff to put finger to keyboard? I let the the mandatory fuel efficiency labels to be placed on cars pass me buy. If you want to buy the Jag and ask how fuel efficient it is you will be told 'Not at all, a dyed in the wool gas guzzler. And, you can't buy it now just because you even asked'. No the event that has stirred me from my blogging torpor is Earth Hour.
This bit of politically correct bollocks starts in sixteen minutes time. We are supposed to turn off all power for an hour to show we care about how we are destroying the climate with our profligate wasting of energy. There was a piece on the News about it just now. (I seem to have stopped reading the newspapers now that they don't arrive at Marmite soldier time - I might even cancel my subscription.) It is being pushed by the usual earnest worrying type that are always in the forefront of this sort of crap. What a load of nonsense - even they admit it will make no difference to overall global power consumption. The news reporter even had a spokesman (sorry spokesperson) from a hospital regretting they would be unable to join in as it might be dangerous. Spare me.
Well it may come as no surprise to you that I will not be turning of anything in eleven minutes time. On the contrary I will turn on every light in the house - and the barn. It is a warm(-ish) night so I will turn on every fan I can find. I think I can fire up seven televisions, six computers, three printers, a microwave, two ovens, three electric jugs, a toasted sandwich maker, two food mixers, a dishwasher, washing machine, clothes drier, four heated towel rails, four bathroom underfloor heating units, five mini stereo/ghettoblasters and that's just the house. Off to the barn and I'll have the bench grinder going (a few hooks to sharpen, you understand), the drop saw savaging some planking, a heat gun straightening some lure skirts and a couple of electric drills doing nothing in particular. Whilst I'm over there I'll fire up the quad and get the brushcutter ticking over in case I run across some emergency thistle clearing in half an hour's time. Then it'll be back to the garage to start both cars. A brick on the accelerator of the supercharged V8 should keep it at over fifty litres an hour with no problem. It's at times like this I regret selling the Landcruiser. I'll then spend the rest of the hour walking up and down the drive to ensure that the sensor lights on the drive don't time out and go off.
Sod off you stupid, stupid morons.
I inherited a Shibaura SE4000 42hp tractor that had strapped to its PTO the scariest and most inappropriate mower I have ever seen. Hundreds of kilograms of offset flail mulching mower that would reduce a field of telegraph poles to matchsticks as soon as look at them was what I was supposed to mow the (admittedly very large) lawn with. Well I did once and had to go for counseling afterwards. This thing was all very fine and dandy for mowing under vines and mulching prunings when the property was an orchard but it was all wrong for turning aforementioned front lawn into the best short game practice facility this side of the Black Stump. Apart from being the wrong sort of mower it was too big for the tractor and it was offset - offset by about three bloody feet. Have you ever tried reversing an 'L' shaped vehicle through a shed door that is too narrow for the whole contraption but can accommodate each limb of the 'L' individually? It's enough to get me to take to the strong drink. Add to this the news that the damned thing needed a new set of blades and they would set me back the fat end of eleven hundred notes and it was a no brainer.
The WMD has gone. It was replaced yesterday with a brand spanking (red) Fieldmaster three rotor topping field mower. Now this is a whole lot better on all sorts of levels. Firstly you can reverse it back into its shed in a straight line. Second it actually mows the grass like what a mower should instead of gouging great parts of the countryside up and spitting them out as potting compost. We are not there quite though. The Shibaura has been orchardised - lowered, (I own a lowered vehicle) has smaller fatter tyres and a few other bits and pieces I don't understand. This means I have to get new restraining chain brackets attached to the rear of the PTO crankcase so I can have internal instead of external chains. External chains would just cut great holes in the tyres. The height of the two lower arms on the three point linkage isn't right as the mower raises on the hydraulics with a marked list to starboard and I suspect the top link is set (by me) at the wrong length as the skids don't 'float' over bumps like they should but dig in. Oh, and I need weight (and I mean heaps of it) attached to the front of the tractor as steering is light at the best of times and disappears completely when the mower is 'up'. Still Gatman's can sort all that on Monday. The lawn is mowed and it is all rather good fun.
What has distracted me long enough from all this agricultural and pastoral stuff to put finger to keyboard? I let the the mandatory fuel efficiency labels to be placed on cars pass me buy. If you want to buy the Jag and ask how fuel efficient it is you will be told 'Not at all, a dyed in the wool gas guzzler. And, you can't buy it now just because you even asked'. No the event that has stirred me from my blogging torpor is Earth Hour.
This bit of politically correct bollocks starts in sixteen minutes time. We are supposed to turn off all power for an hour to show we care about how we are destroying the climate with our profligate wasting of energy. There was a piece on the News about it just now. (I seem to have stopped reading the newspapers now that they don't arrive at Marmite soldier time - I might even cancel my subscription.) It is being pushed by the usual earnest worrying type that are always in the forefront of this sort of crap. What a load of nonsense - even they admit it will make no difference to overall global power consumption. The news reporter even had a spokesman (sorry spokesperson) from a hospital regretting they would be unable to join in as it might be dangerous. Spare me.
Well it may come as no surprise to you that I will not be turning of anything in eleven minutes time. On the contrary I will turn on every light in the house - and the barn. It is a warm(-ish) night so I will turn on every fan I can find. I think I can fire up seven televisions, six computers, three printers, a microwave, two ovens, three electric jugs, a toasted sandwich maker, two food mixers, a dishwasher, washing machine, clothes drier, four heated towel rails, four bathroom underfloor heating units, five mini stereo/ghettoblasters and that's just the house. Off to the barn and I'll have the bench grinder going (a few hooks to sharpen, you understand), the drop saw savaging some planking, a heat gun straightening some lure skirts and a couple of electric drills doing nothing in particular. Whilst I'm over there I'll fire up the quad and get the brushcutter ticking over in case I run across some emergency thistle clearing in half an hour's time. Then it'll be back to the garage to start both cars. A brick on the accelerator of the supercharged V8 should keep it at over fifty litres an hour with no problem. It's at times like this I regret selling the Landcruiser. I'll then spend the rest of the hour walking up and down the drive to ensure that the sensor lights on the drive don't time out and go off.
Sod off you stupid, stupid morons.
Monday, December 10, 2007
I'm a worried man
After my foray onto the government's sustainability website on Friday evening I found myself not racing straight past the green hued pages of the paper this morning - I actually paused, for oh - thirty seconds, before racing onto the editorial. Am I turning green? How do I get cured? Is there no hope for me at all? Is this what happens if you look at a Government website for even a few minutes? Is it like P, one puff and you're goneburger? Is it no use for me to say 'I am really sorry and I won't look again'? I only followed two links - honest.
I might be alright though. My thirty second dalliance on the Green pages just raised my circulating titres of bullshit antibodies to what I hope will be remedial levels. There was a section on green Xmas presents. Now this is a worry. The Herald has laudably been in the forefront of lambasting the gummint over the damned EFB and now here they are spouting the same bollocks as is on the Sustainability place. They were harping on about a sutainable Xmas, remember. I can only hope that the editorial suite of the Herald is geographically far removed from the nikau whare where the loonie green part of the paper is assembled.
Anyway back to the green Chrissie present. The tofu munching nutters ask this very pertinent question. Do your kids really need that trampoline? The inference is that you will answer no. The seeds for discontent are already sown. The alternative? A goat. Yup, a goat - or chickens. But there is more - this is a commercial after all. Little Johnny (and/or Jane) doesn't actually get the goat. A picture of a generic caprine beast is probably going to be the closest they get. The goat is given to a family in Burkina Faso - or Somalia, or Chad, or Kaiwaka. OK the scene is set. The stockings are put out and a glass of soya milk is placed by the hearth a fortnight tonight. Kids go to bed and leap up the next morning at dawn and pull the curtains back to gaze into the garden the new trampoline to behold. And what do they see? A picture of a goat. In Africa.
I thought we were trying to reduce family violence.
I might be alright though. My thirty second dalliance on the Green pages just raised my circulating titres of bullshit antibodies to what I hope will be remedial levels. There was a section on green Xmas presents. Now this is a worry. The Herald has laudably been in the forefront of lambasting the gummint over the damned EFB and now here they are spouting the same bollocks as is on the Sustainability place. They were harping on about a sutainable Xmas, remember. I can only hope that the editorial suite of the Herald is geographically far removed from the nikau whare where the loonie green part of the paper is assembled.
Anyway back to the green Chrissie present. The tofu munching nutters ask this very pertinent question. Do your kids really need that trampoline? The inference is that you will answer no. The seeds for discontent are already sown. The alternative? A goat. Yup, a goat - or chickens. But there is more - this is a commercial after all. Little Johnny (and/or Jane) doesn't actually get the goat. A picture of a generic caprine beast is probably going to be the closest they get. The goat is given to a family in Burkina Faso - or Somalia, or Chad, or Kaiwaka. OK the scene is set. The stockings are put out and a glass of soya milk is placed by the hearth a fortnight tonight. Kids go to bed and leap up the next morning at dawn and pull the curtains back to gaze into the garden the new trampoline to behold. And what do they see? A picture of a goat. In Africa.
I thought we were trying to reduce family violence.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Want a good vomit?
I am heartily sick of all the government funded advertising that assaults me at every turn of my daily perambulation through life. We are told what to eat, what not to eat, how fast to drive (or how slow, more like), how much to drink, how to spend our money, where to save it, how to climb ladders, what we must wear when climbing ladders, what light bulbs to buy, what cars to drive and so it goes on , and on, and on, and on, and......... Nanny state at every bloody turn in the road. And I have to pay for it all. The government would have to be the single largest spender of the advertising dollar in the whole land.
I have become numb to it; it has lost its impact. Whether that is because they have overplayed their hand and it is just no longer having an effect or it is because I make a conscious effort not to notice it I don't know.
However things have changed over the last few days. There is a new brand of Nanny in the paper and on the box. Sustainability. What the hell is this?. The Urban Dictionary has the most worrying definition. 'Sustainability is a lens through which to view all issues. The sustainability movement encompasses environmental justice and social justice, because one cannot be obtained without the other. It means living life to the fullest without compromising future generations' ability to do so. It respects the interconectedness of all life and acknowledges the responsibility that each person has to consider the effects that his actions have on other life forms, both living and to be born.'
'Sustainability is a lens through which to view all issues'. Hellfire, we are in trouble already - it covers everything. There is a 'sustainability movement'. It gets worse by the sentence. The rest of the definition is just bog standard lefty weird beard nonsense speak that just makes me puke all over the Axminster. 'It respects the interconectedness (there is no such word) of all life and acknowledges the respon.........' Spare me this bollocks.
Anyway this is just the sort of tosh that our Dear Leader and her sable hued minions of satan (got to use it twice in three days) would be in like a robber's dog. So much so that the adverts in the paper point you to a website that has .govt.nz suffix. This is official gummint stuff.
I was foolish enough to go to the website (I hope my web browser is stable enough to withstand this) and it is even worse than I imagined it would be. Try these riveting links for size:
Thinking about a sustainable Christmas? (No, since you asked)
Organic River festival 2008
Climate rescue carnival
I bravely clicked the Climate rescue bizzo (purely in the name of research you understand) and I am confronted with:
Hosted by Be The Change and featuring the Be The Change bus, the Climate Rescue Carnival will be a fun day for the whole family. There will be live music, organic food, a bio-diesel powered bouncy slide and the Be The Change bus will be on site.
Well won't that be vying for my attention as an alternative to a days gamefishing? I'm on a roll now and I clicked the link to the Be The Change tossers (I urge you not to do this - you won't like the result) and we hit pay dirt. These are some of things you can 'Pledge' to do:
Gift a green membership for Xmas - see where this is all leading?
Carpool to all the summer festivals - more of the Climate Rescue rubbish I'll be bound
Get to school without harming the planet - pulllease
How many cars do you need? - please don't ask me this, you won't like the answer
Get political - the link for this one does not lead to the Nats website
Get the idea? OK, onto their 'Bright ideas' - and I promise I am making none of these up:
Turn plastic bags into art
Electric power assist for your bike
Give a tree for Christmas
Go largely hydrocarbon free in you transport needs! (not sure what the exclamation mark is all about)
Stop using flyspray
Community edible gardens
Nappy free babies
Community edible babies (alright, I made that one up)
Now the government is endorsing, nay, actively promoting this crap with my money. It is firstly just complete and utter balderdash but it also has that all too familiar undertone of control all through it. A nasty smug 'we know best' and we are making it 'fun' for you to do as we want - at the moment. However, if you don't do as you are told on the fun filled biodiesel powered bouncy castle we'll bloody well make you do as you are told later.
Off to stain the Wilton.
I have become numb to it; it has lost its impact. Whether that is because they have overplayed their hand and it is just no longer having an effect or it is because I make a conscious effort not to notice it I don't know.
However things have changed over the last few days. There is a new brand of Nanny in the paper and on the box. Sustainability. What the hell is this?. The Urban Dictionary has the most worrying definition. 'Sustainability is a lens through which to view all issues. The sustainability movement encompasses environmental justice and social justice, because one cannot be obtained without the other. It means living life to the fullest without compromising future generations' ability to do so. It respects the interconectedness of all life and acknowledges the responsibility that each person has to consider the effects that his actions have on other life forms, both living and to be born.'
'Sustainability is a lens through which to view all issues'. Hellfire, we are in trouble already - it covers everything. There is a 'sustainability movement'. It gets worse by the sentence. The rest of the definition is just bog standard lefty weird beard nonsense speak that just makes me puke all over the Axminster. 'It respects the interconectedness (there is no such word) of all life and acknowledges the respon.........' Spare me this bollocks.
Anyway this is just the sort of tosh that our Dear Leader and her sable hued minions of satan (got to use it twice in three days) would be in like a robber's dog. So much so that the adverts in the paper point you to a website that has .govt.nz suffix. This is official gummint stuff.
I was foolish enough to go to the website (I hope my web browser is stable enough to withstand this) and it is even worse than I imagined it would be. Try these riveting links for size:
Thinking about a sustainable Christmas? (No, since you asked)
Organic River festival 2008
Climate rescue carnival
I bravely clicked the Climate rescue bizzo (purely in the name of research you understand) and I am confronted with:
Hosted by Be The Change and featuring the Be The Change bus, the Climate Rescue Carnival will be a fun day for the whole family. There will be live music, organic food, a bio-diesel powered bouncy slide and the Be The Change bus will be on site.
Well won't that be vying for my attention as an alternative to a days gamefishing? I'm on a roll now and I clicked the link to the Be The Change tossers (I urge you not to do this - you won't like the result) and we hit pay dirt. These are some of things you can 'Pledge' to do:
Gift a green membership for Xmas - see where this is all leading?
Carpool to all the summer festivals - more of the Climate Rescue rubbish I'll be bound
Get to school without harming the planet - pulllease
How many cars do you need? - please don't ask me this, you won't like the answer
Get political - the link for this one does not lead to the Nats website
Get the idea? OK, onto their 'Bright ideas' - and I promise I am making none of these up:
Turn plastic bags into art
Electric power assist for your bike
Give a tree for Christmas
Go largely hydrocarbon free in you transport needs! (not sure what the exclamation mark is all about)
Stop using flyspray
Community edible gardens
Nappy free babies
Community edible babies (alright, I made that one up)
Now the government is endorsing, nay, actively promoting this crap with my money. It is firstly just complete and utter balderdash but it also has that all too familiar undertone of control all through it. A nasty smug 'we know best' and we are making it 'fun' for you to do as we want - at the moment. However, if you don't do as you are told on the fun filled biodiesel powered bouncy castle we'll bloody well make you do as you are told later.
Off to stain the Wilton.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Feminist geography
The wages of sloth. I only read the back and front pages of the Herald this morning and thought there was enough nonsense there for one day. But no. Having a peek inside I come across this cobblers. If it weren't all too true you could construe it as funny.
We start with a NCEA Level 3 Geography question.
She said the exam question, while sophisticated, was "perfectly legitimate".
Fat chance. This from Bali Haq (who I always envisage bowling leg spinners for Pakistan) head honcho at the exam emporium.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority said the question was in keeping with the standard for geography examination. Perspectives could include knowledge, practices and beliefs "such as Maori, indigenous, gender, scientific, environmental and post-colonial"
This crap has to stop. These loonies have been given their head for too long. The feminist geography department at Canterbury University should be shut down forthwith and geography should go back to rift valleys, wheat belts and rail heads in Rhodesia. Whilst they are at it they can close the Feminist Nuclear Physics Department at Waikato and the Rainbow Department of Soil Research at Otago. The Oppressed Indigenous Minority Department of Mechanical Engineering at Lincoln can then get the elbow to be closely followed by the Deaf Mute Department of Logical Positivism at Massey.
Stop all this bollocks at once - it's costing me money.
We start with a NCEA Level 3 Geography question.
Five photographs of scenes ranging from a park to a city's central business district were shown, and students were asked to explain how each image could be be viewed from a feminist perspective.
My answer to such an exam question would be to write 'Sod off' on my paper and be disappointed if I didn't get 95%. Some parents complained, with great justification I would think, and then the fun really starts.
Feminist geographer Dr Julie Cupples, of Canterbury University, said feminist geography had been around since the late 1970s.
It incorporated women's experience in a male-dominated area.
"It's really good if you can start to understand how gender shapes people's lives and our world in different ways," Dr Cupples said.
The suburbs could be highly gendered in that many women were at home with children "and the interesting stuff that is happening downtown they are excluded from".
She said the exam question, while sophisticated, was "perfectly legitimate".
She suspected parents who regarded the question as politically correct were "taking a certain definition of feminism, and feminist, that is a colloquial understanding of that term - rather than an academic or intellectual understanding of that term".
The exam question was 'sophisticated' - give me a break. It's nuts, stupid, crap. Right then, everyone in the University of Canterbury Geography Department is barking and the NZQA will rein them in a and tell them to stop messing about with kids education.Fat chance. This from Bali Haq (who I always envisage bowling leg spinners for Pakistan) head honcho at the exam emporium.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority said the question was in keeping with the standard for geography examination. Perspectives could include knowledge, practices and beliefs "such as Maori, indigenous, gender, scientific, environmental and post-colonial"
This crap has to stop. These loonies have been given their head for too long. The feminist geography department at Canterbury University should be shut down forthwith and geography should go back to rift valleys, wheat belts and rail heads in Rhodesia. Whilst they are at it they can close the Feminist Nuclear Physics Department at Waikato and the Rainbow Department of Soil Research at Otago. The Oppressed Indigenous Minority Department of Mechanical Engineering at Lincoln can then get the elbow to be closely followed by the Deaf Mute Department of Logical Positivism at Massey.
Stop all this bollocks at once - it's costing me money.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Pass the metoclopramide
Tim Barnett's civil union got itself more coverage in a national newspaper yesterday than most events of this nature manage in the local rag.
We will gloss over the fact that I think civil unions are a crock especially when there are perfectly good marriage certificates available. Also I have no interest in the fact the other side of this joining doesn't sit down to have a pee - none of my business.
Barnett is British. However he had his big day on a marae wearing a shirt coverd in koru motifs and with a green stone pendant round his neck. The day was attended by a 'who's who' of the Labour party.
I can think of no set of circumstances that would bring on larger waves of nausea.
We will gloss over the fact that I think civil unions are a crock especially when there are perfectly good marriage certificates available. Also I have no interest in the fact the other side of this joining doesn't sit down to have a pee - none of my business.
Barnett is British. However he had his big day on a marae wearing a shirt coverd in koru motifs and with a green stone pendant round his neck. The day was attended by a 'who's who' of the Labour party.
I can think of no set of circumstances that would bring on larger waves of nausea.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Safety
One of my pet peeves is State enforced safety. The bloody government telling us we have to be safe. Hard hat regulations in the middle of a field, fluoro safety jackets for the crowd stewards at the cricket. We even have a complete government department to look after us in this regard - OSH.
My beef is not really with OSH or its foot soldiers - especially the foot soldiers. I feel sorry for the sort of being who becomes what my father used to call a 'three pound ten a week man'. They are attired, depending on their particular function, either in a brown dustcoat with a clip board (pencil behind ear) or a cheap suit (a bowler hat is a desirable accessory) or a white coat or a uniform with inordinately decorative badges with pseudo-heraldic pretensions. Nowadays they all have those bloody ID cards in a plastic holder on a piece of ribbon hung around their necks. The Jobsworths of the world. I've long held an attitude of a mixture of scorn and pity for these sorts. OSH is but another department where they can find employment when they tire of the Council, the LTA, the MSA, the library, the Parks Department, the Cracks in the Pavement Department (Compliance Division) etc. No its not Jobsworth's fault. Thes people are delighted to retreat into the safety blankets of their compendium of 'Rules and Regulations'. They are encouraged to have no initiative what so ever and it is, therefore, very easy to enforce the regulations to often absurd lengths. Here is one of the problems - trying to apply 'all or nothing' solutions to situations that can never be solved in that way. You have to wear safety harnesses that would not look out of place on the South Col to stand on a chair to change a light bulb. 1m high or 60 stories, scaffolding is scaffolding, rules is rules, black and white. The Jobsworth can go no further and the whole thing would fall to bits if he could.
No, it's our fault. We are seemingly happy to have in place the structures that allow Mr J to do his work. No one (not even me) would argue that being a bit more safe sometimes is a reasonably good idea. Some one has mentioned commonsense some where. To that I would add trust, reasonableness, responsibility for your own actions and, most importantly, an acceptance of uncertainty.
Everything that happens to anything that lives - blade of grass, elephant, Mrs Smith at No25, me - happens according to the rules of normal distribution. It is likely that most people will be between 5'8''and 5'11' tall. But there will be a few short arses (me) and a few basketball shoe ins. Very occasionally there will be people who are 7 feet tall. Do we then make all door lintels 7'6" on the off chance that Shaq will pop round for a cuppa? Of course we don't. It is vanishingly unlikely (but not impossible) that a NBA star will be in Milford for a cup of Earl Grey and a chocolate afghan and I consequently don't alter my house. If I do get the visit then Mr O'Neill will have to bow his head to get into Obald Towers. That is the way it should be.
With OSH, and many of the other mushrooming Jobsworth employers, we have got this all backwards and as a Society seem quite happy about it. We are happy to let our legislators frame regulations (which regulate) to drown the very probable in the quest to encompass the vanishingly unlikely. We are trying to fit things that have to happen under the normal distribution curve under a square wave. We are unable to accept uncertainty and try and legislate for any eventuality, however unlikely that may be.
As an aside, we only refuse to accept uncertainty when it suits us (well you not me). Competitive sport, one of the things that makes life worthwhile, would be worthless if the outcome was certain.
So, I hate smoking as much as I hate mandatory smoke free public places. Smoke if you want to and I won't go there. I would not dream of driving not wearing a seat belt because it is a sensible way of reducing my chances of dying in a road crash not because someone tells me to. I am supposed to wear I thyroid protector when working with xrays as thyroid exposure to xrays increases the risk of my getting thyroid cancer - which is an uncommon tumour in men in their fifties - a bit. I don't wear one because they are uncomfortable. If I get thyroid cancer - so be it. I know the risk and have decide to take it. I won't sue anyone, I won't expect excessive sympathy and I also won't expect 'I told you so'
So back to the beginning. OSH - sod off.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Safety week
Theresa Gattung and Bloody Sue Bradford make the papers this morning. Both physically very unattractive but all similarities stop right there. I am astonished that one (very small) country has a diverse enough gene pool to produce two so radically different versions of the female of the species. One has an attitude to life that should be an inspiration to those who want to make their mark on the world and one has an attitude to life that should be illegal. I'll leave it to you to pin the tail on the donkey.
Vide supra and the comments on how much of my money the Government wearing its various hats throws at New Zealand's advertising agencies - and it does this without my permission.. How much would a full page ad in the Herald cost? They charge $44.81 +GST per column inch for a full colour ad and this attracts a premium of 15% if you want to specify the page on which it appears. What government department spending money that isn't theirs could resist the extra 15%. OK, a newspaper page is six columns across each of which is 50cm long so that gives us 300 column inches. Time for the sums. 300 X 44.81 = 13,443. Add your 15% for premium placement and we are at 15,460. Add the GST and a full page, well placed ad in the Herald in full glowing colour will set you back $17,292.50.
And what have I just bought for a tad over seventeen grand? A full page ad from ACC celebrating the achievements some bird who makes sure granny has a handrail in her kitchen during the day and returns home at night to provide a safe environment for her three children. We are invited to applaud this paragon of the virtues of safety. We are asked to gaze in wonderment at the way she dishes out the non slip slippers, gasp in awe as she turns the saucepan handles away from the centre of the kitchen. We have to applaud as she places safety triangles around herself before embarking on a spot of high dusting. Just look at the way she adjusts her husband's (sorry, partner's) safety harness before he stands on a chair to change a light bulb. Behold the cut of the children's fluoro jackets as they put the cat out. Why do we get all this? We get it because we are in the middle of New Zealand Safety Week.
Remind me to be on the Cheaspeake testing boats this time next year.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Fluoro safety jackets
Garth George has been logging on to Fishing.net again. I admire his taste and wonder when he is sending his first batch of hooks off to Roddy for sharpening.
The headmistress has recovered from her disappointingly trivial ailment to be out and about amongst the proletariat agian and she has cranked up the nausea meter to warp factor twelve. Her appearance yesterday has all the ingredients that make her such a blot on my personal landscape.
She was grandstanding. Yuck. She was promoting some naff petrol that will supposedly save the planet. Yeah right and yuck. The chances of me putting any of this crap into my fine example of the automotive engineer's art are approaching zero. But to really get me mainlining the antiemetics the hideous woman was filling up punters' cars wearing a fluoro safety jacket. All the head honchos and accountants of Gull were also similarly attired. Who in their right mind thinks anyone needs to wear a fluoro jacket to gas up?
I am starting a competition. I want people to post pictures of the most stupid instances of the wearing of fluoro safety jackets they can find. Working on roads at night doesn't count but standing at the bottom of the terraces at Eden Park in broad daylight does. As does walking through a hospital carrying a sheet of GIB; you get the idea. There will be a prize to the winner. This has yet to be thought of by me and will be awarded in a totally arbitary and probably unfair way; I will be in sole charge of this. Closing date not yet known but this will also be decided by me when I feel like it. Bribes will be accepted if large enough.
So, come on you lot. Post pictures of stupid people wearing those daft coats in totally stupid places 'cos the Safety Jacket Police says you must.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Narnia & tails wagging dogs
Narnia and tails wagging dogs this morning.
Tails and dogs. Burger King have been hit by this big time. I would no more eat one of Burger King's offerings than ingest a rock but they should not have to put up with the sort of crap they are getting from the Advertising Standards Authority at the moment. You know the drill. They have a few billboards/TV adverts/newspaper pages - who cares?- featuring women of child bearing age clad in chaste bikinis. The receive eight -just the eight- complaints and the adverts have to be pulled. Nuts. What of the thousands that find such images provide a little light relief to the tedium of a day in the People's Republic of Aoteoroa. Well they can sod off 'cos a handful of prudes have their finger on the pulse of what works in this looney bin and can get their way at the penning of a letter. Is Daniel Carter wearing less than his full playing strip removed from public view? No. But if I find his Jockey clad image deeply offensive how far will I as a middle aged, Anglo Saxon male get in getting it roused. I'll let you work it out for yourself.
I don't want to put ideas into people's heads but if I were a devout muslim I would not want the current crop of Sunsilk adverts to continue as I really should not be looking at a woman displaying her hair before men that are not her husband. Screening old movies (I watched The Italian Job on the plane) showing people smoking should be stopped forthwith. There was mention in Sideswipe this morning of condoms. This is a column that might be read by children. Ana Samway to the stocks - all it would take would be a couple of complaints. Stop this nonsense.
C S Lewis's classic was a favourite of my daughters both in the book form and the original television adaptation. Little did I think that the rather tubby girl in the TV version would crop up twenty or so years later trying to protect stupid molluscs in the South Island. The leader of these dickheads is a twelve year old girl who I last saw in a wardrobe chasing lions and witches. The only difference is that the original was scared of the Wicked Witch of the South and the current incarnation is a soul mate of Helen Clarke. This nonsense about a 'spy' in the midst of the snail brigade is almost beyond belief. At $100 a week we are hardly talking Aston Martins and vodka martinis here, are we? A conpany is protecting its interest against a bunch of know it all hippies who are patently breaking the law and they are giving beer money to a spotty youth to give them some info as to the activities of this bunch of scrotes. This corporate behaviour is now reprehensible and the bloody greens are demanding that heads must roll. We have had ample evidence in the last day or so that the warped thinking of these idiots is at last being given the short shrift it deserves by the majority of this country. One would hope that they would just go away and realise they are not wanted by people who want to get on with htheir lives and do something useful. I think I'll go and invent some sort of Mortein that you can spray over the irritating inconsequential pests of the world. I'd have no shortage of places to use it.
I don't want to put ideas into people's heads but if I were a devout muslim I would not want the current crop of Sunsilk adverts to continue as I really should not be looking at a woman displaying her hair before men that are not her husband. Screening old movies (I watched The Italian Job on the plane) showing people smoking should be stopped forthwith. There was mention in Sideswipe this morning of condoms. This is a column that might be read by children. Ana Samway to the stocks - all it would take would be a couple of complaints. Stop this nonsense.
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