CREEP OF THE WEEK

So the gremlin of Paretai Drive reckons he cant afford to live on $1000 a week? Whatever.

Time to make do. Muriel Newman put out an excellent book on budgeting a few years back.

And here are some handy hints on how to live on $1000 a week.

• Make your own brekky, lunch and dinner.
• Clean your own toilet.
• Do the dishes by hand .
• Turn off the spa pool.
• Shop at Pak and Save
• Take the bus.
• Sell all the clothes you dont wear on Trademe - in fact any spare stuff - like breitling watches, your missus sparklers, would be good.
• Get your missus to dye her own hair at home.
• You could do her brazilian and pluck her chin hairs.
• shampoo the dog your self.

Thats just a few for starters..

SECURITIES COMMISSION NEEDLED BY CACTUS

Cactus has yet again shown her literary genius.

While her piss take of the Hanover issue is outstanding , we think that Hanover are a complete bunch of greedy and immoral pricks and they deserve everything that the Securities Commission can chuck at them - even if it does take a while.

Cactus is none too kind on the legal profession either.

If you read nothing else today - read Cactus's letter from Chaos and Mayhem. The legal firm everyone would really like to hire.

TA TIPENE BACK AT THE TABLE BUT CHOKING ON HANOVER PIE?

There is a very good chance that Sir Tip is going to sitting round the big tribal Te Runanga O Ngai Tahu table again as the alternate delegate for the Awarua Runanga.

We are a bit gobsmacked that the southern cuzzies have not thought through the whole succession planning issue. Maria Pera has been at the table pretty much since the Te Runanga O Ngai Tahu was formed. However our understanding is that the Bluff runanga wanted some fresh meat and looked for a new face as an alternate delegate whom Maria could train up to take over. Instead they got some really old sinewy tough as an old boot over done mutton chop. However, despite Mark Solomon being Tipenes protege, they no longer share a deep affection for each other, so Tipene's occasional presence at the table wont do Mark any favours.

We also think that with todays announcement that Mark Hotchin of Hanover fame has had his assets frozen, that Tipene will be a little distracted. He was apparently the chair of the Hanover audit committee.

Watch that space.

A FAMILY OF HONOUR

We were quite distressed to see one of the leading entrepreneurial families of Southland the Wensleys get smacked about by the credit crunch.

They have developed a string of properties in Queenstown and although most purchasers have signed unconditional agreements they aren't stumping up with the cash.

So the whole family is selling everything they have to pay off debts.

Thats Southland and Southlanders for you.

We salute the Wensleys for their integrity...

Which is in stark contrast to these two big swinging dicks with no moral fibre and less integrity.

WHAT'S UP DOC ?

We noticed the NBR having fun with the fact that Hanover Finance King pin Eric Watson had a very fancy fiftieth birthday party recently. The Herald has followed up with some expected outrage from investors still waiting for their dosh.
We just want to ask one question of the former Mr NickyWatson,------>
<-----with all your money why didn't you get your teeth fixed you bucked tooth git!

YOUR'E MAD IF YOU DONT LAUGH

We have had a few nasty emails about our lack of respect for our elders after our last post suggested that senior citizens should get permission from their kids before they vote or invest money.
Now some of the emails were a wee bit virtriolic - and their writers apparently missed what we thought was a big dollup of humour.

However, we still wonder how many of the Hanover Finance pensioner investors voted NZ First compared to the pensioners who weren't investors. That would be a good test of senility.
And our humour is really born out of a genuine concern for hard working people who have been hoodwinked by the last of the cowboy industries. Anyway just when we thought maybe we had been a little harsh on the fossils we find this in the Australian.

It appears you can work out if someone suffers from dementia by testing to see if they recognise sarcasm. Now we are really worried for the sanity of the grumpy curmudgeons who were not happy with our insinuations about their lack of abilty to make sane financial and voting decisions once they got to 65.


Here is the important bit
John Hodges, the senior author of the paper published in Brain says:

''(Frontal Temporal Dementia ) patients present changes in personality and behaviour. They find it difficult to interact with people, they don't pick up on social cues, they lack empathy, they make bad judgements,'' he said.

"People with FTD become very gullible and they often part with large amounts of money," he said, adding that one in 4000 people around the world are afflicted with the condition.

Researchers began studying the role of sarcasm in detecting FTD because it requires a patient to spot discrepancies between a person's words and the tone of their voice, Mr Hodges said.

"One of the things about FTD patients is that they don't detect humour - they are very bad at double meaning and a lot of humour (other than sarcasm) is based on double meaning," he said.

The research, conducted in 2006-07, put 26 sufferers of FTD and 19 Alzheimer's patients through a test in which actors acted out different scenarios using exactly the same words.

While in one scenario, the actors would deliver the lines sincerely, in others they would introduce a thick layer of sarcasm. Patients were then asked if they got the joke, Hodges said.

For example, if a couple were discussing a weekend away and the wife suggested bringing her mother, the husband might say: "Well, that's great, you know how much I like your mother, that will really make it a great weekend."

When the same words were delivered sarcastically and then in a neutral tone, the joke was lost on FTD patients, while the Alzheimer's patients got it

"The patients with FTD are very literal and they take what is being said as genuine and sincere," Mr Hodges said.

So we are now really happy - ma and pa both get sarcasm and are pretty good at dispensing it. They love humour and laugh a hell of a lot, in fact the more ribald and un PC the yarn - the better. And now when we see them at Xmas and they start laughing at our bad jokes we might just shed a wee tear.

MA AND PA NEED ROOLS

Cactus kate and I are of the same mind. She reckons that the oldies need supervision when it comes to investments - I reckoned a while back that they also require supervison when it came to voting. So I agree with Cactus - come 65 and the aged P should be required to get permission before making any big decisions - voting and money at the top of the list.
We love our parents but a bit like women facing menopause, they make some dumb decisions so they need assistance. Its not like Cactus and me need their money - we have made our own - we just don't want to see our parent's hard earned dolleros swallowed by sharks.
My Ma and Pa played it safe and poked all their spare spondies in bloody bonus bonds and have been rewarded, they still have their money, and a bit , and have the thrill of going to the letter box and to check if they have a plain envelope that says they got a bit more . So that takes care of the lotto fixation. And at anytime they know their original investment is safe. I wont even try to talk about rates of return, NPV etc. Sadly I'm still working through the fact that my old man reckons that deep down Winston is still a good bastard.

OLDIES GET A BOLLOCKING

Bruce Sheppard is not a bloke known for his reticence and yesterday in the wake of the Hanover debacle was no exception.

He reckons Hanovers oldies investors should have taken Hanover to the cleaners.

The association has washed its hands of "dumb wit" finance company investors after efforts to lead them through complicated restructuring proposals were thrown back in Mr Sheppard's face.

Sick to death of "idiots who wouldn't recognise intelligent questions if they bit them on the ass", Mr Sheppard said the association would now focus on smarter public company shareholders who appreciate what it brings to the table.

"I really despair at the base level of intellect of these old dumb wits.

"My new rule is, I'm not going to spend any time with anyone aged over 60 because, frankly, their residual economic value to the rest of the country is so low they should be put through euthanasia programmes right now."

Mr Sheppard's outburst came a day after Hanover Finance investors shouted down his request at Tuesday's vote to quiz directors and administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers further on the company's controversial rescue package.

Instead creditors voted overwhelmingly in support of a plan that pledges to pay investors their principal back over five years at the expense of interest a decision Mr Sheppard branded a "shocker".

"I'm not going to put myself or any of my executive board through the idiocy of that sort of a meeting again," he said. "It's just a waste of time they deserve all they get. If anyone asks me for advice, I'll tell them to get lost."

My parents dont have big lots of spare dosh but against all family advice they stuck their wee boodle in bonus bonds. Many of their friends who were better off stuck their money in finance companies and now they are facing lean times. Ma and Pa on the other hand are happy campers.