ALL BUBBLES NO FIZZ

The courageous Whaleoil was challenged by Trevor Mallard to a cycle Race and the rest, as they say is history. Despite Whale training hard - Mallard won.

We said we would put the magnum of Bubbles we were originally given as the consolation prize in the veuve competition up for the winner - we thought that Whale would win - he didnt. Cactus was happy to put up $1000.

She will be feeling the loss much more keenly than us.

So today a perky little Lambcut delivered a very big bottle of Veuve clicquot to the Duck at Parliament.

It was delivered with a note -

"Congrats on your win - Savour the Veuve now. Doubt if you will be celebrating much come November "- From the team at Roarprawn.

REBOILED

We had a bit a of do with a few mates this week. We used to have reasonably regular catch ups - sometimes over lunch - sometimes later arvo drinks. They were for reasons known only to us - called the Boil Ups.

Sadly the Boil Up Queen is doing her bit to promote one of the extractive industries in some poncy lair in Europe. (bout time she came home for a visit!)

So the rest of the crew met in her absence. It was a poignant event. Each one of us in one way or another has been effected by, involved in, or working to help Christchurch.

Most had Christchurch family or friends who have been affected by the quake and all of us suffered from the feeling of not "being there doing something." No matter how much money you give or how many emails and phone calls you dispatch and stuff you send - its hard to not feel guilty about not being on the end of a shovel in Bexley or Aranui.

We listened to each others tales and to a person it was the elderly in Christchurch we worried about most. They are of a generation where they dont want to bother people and think everyone is worse off than themselves. They are so self contained that they are not used to asking for or getting help.

However, we also talked about the need for the rest of New Zealand to keep going as well.

For some of the gang - life has chucked a few curve balls - as happens from time to time. But we were there for each other - buddies all. We shed the odd tear and we laughed out loud. We argued and debated.

It was just a good time with good mates.

It also helped that our venue, Logan Brown - was stellar, the food and wine was outstanding as ever, the service impeccable - despite the fact we served the staff up a moving feast of characters.

It was great to see LB very well patronised as a restaurant of its international calibre should be.

While this crazy old world of ours has wobbled while spinning so fast - it was good to get off for such a short time and take a breath and listen to the lives of others and just let them know that no matter what - they have good people in their orbit they can rely on.

On a lighter note we were a bit flumoxed by the above vision of loveliness on the wall at Logan Brown. Someone fishy channelling Roarprawn and BustedBlonde perhaps?

ROARPRAWN IN ASSAULT

Its true.. Only in Australia

WE ARE BACCK

We have been a little busy of late... But a couple of things have riled us up.

So let the blogging begin!

FIFTY IS GOOD

300,000 visitors

Since Roarprawn was started by BustedBlonde way back in August 2008. Since then we have had a couple of stops and restarts. BustedBlonde has gone. Now the star of the show is the Brunette. And the American Gardener pops in occasionally to dig at the nerves of some sensitive souls and Lamb Cut is always lurking.. We still get heaps of contributions from many people in many places..

So while there is something to say - well , we will keep saying it..

The Brunette

BUSTEDBLONDE

The Bustedblonde is no longer. Sorry folks but the feisty big titted gal is hanging up  her  blogging clogs.  Gone for good. She is handing over to a few good men and women.
 Roarprawn will continue with commentary on all manner of stuff. And we will keep the logo to remind of us who started Roarprawn off many many moons ago.

We hope that you enjoy the ruminations of the Brunette and  others such as the American Gardener who will blog from time to time.

BLOGGER BUDDIES

Wow, we posted on an attack on Roarprawn over the use of the word Mistressology. We came out fighting  but so did the rest of the NZ blogosphere.  Thanks to Whaleoil    Cactus  who will put the fear of death into the poor woman , Motella, bless his cotton sheets ,   the effervescent Home Paddock  and the lovely boys at No Minister for backing    us up..  And all the lawyers who offered us support and advice.

However we are a bit miffed at being called large by Whale Oil - we would have preferred  biggish... and after two weeks running around an island every  night for 5 hours up hill and down dale we are a little less biggish.

Here's a very old photo of someone we all love and know well  who is doing what Whale said.  Just to show that its for real like.... 

 So in tribute to the fine work of the NZ blogosphere  we will write about mistressology  when the mood takes us .

And real mistressology  not some new age cosmic get in touch with your aura  pommie clap trap.

WE ARE BACCCCK

And it appears some " mates have taken some liberties with Roarpawn... while we have been away indulging our primal need to kill little  fluffy chicks in a culturally appropriate way.   Be rest assured there will be no more crappy posts about Global warming...   

So while we have been away......  we understand that Hooton has been extending his business empire, Cactus has been shagging, Farrar has been - well we can only guess .... 

It seems Greece went belly up and  the arse fell out of Wall Street as well . 

 bugger all else happened apart from Southland getting a drenching. Mind you we only heard the news once a day  and that was Mary  - vinegar tits Wilson... on RNZ.    Seems it was the only time that we could get any reception at all. It was torture.

What we want to know is she rude to all people or does she save a special dose of her venom for those    who stutter? 

Her interview of Kiwirail Chief executive Jim  Quinn was deplorable.

TWO THOUSAND AND ONE

We have written 2001 posts since August 2008.  Phew.... 

WONDER WHERE THE SUNDAY STAR TIMES GOT THIS STORY?

We were amused to see this story in the SST about the curious public servant clown phobic and the circus themed Christmas party...

We ran it here on Roarprawn 5 days ago .

Alf Grumble asked the question -Is the public service a safe place for clown phobics to work?

ENOUGH ALREADY !

Right for the second time in the history of Roarprawn we see the need to moderate the comments section of the blog posts. Both times it has occured over Ngai Tahu issues.

Ngai Tahu debate on the Marae is vigorous as it is on the blogosphere but people need to think before they comment.

Sowe will be moderating all comments in the coming weeks. That means you can write what you like but if we feel it it crosses the border we will delete it. If you dont like that then write your own blog.

PORTHOLES

Our father, who is relatively well known for his un PC take on life often refers to sunglasses as Maori portholes. Now cos he is a Maori he can get away with it.

Today we wore our flash 5 year old Maori portholes with pride after they rated a mention in the NZ Herald on an article on Bob Jones.

Our encounter with Jones a week ago is documented here.

However despite the fact that Jones can be a rude and obnoxious old git, we are absolutely delighted he is going to stir up next years Wellington City Council race.
Hell- a bloody loo - ya.

We have been hearing that a good team is being readied. Excellent. We want to see business savvy, creative people who can take the city to the next level.

We also agree with Jone's idea to ban all cars in the central city and turn it into a bloody great promenade and mall.

Wellington local body elections are always so bloody boring and Jones is just the bastard to spice them up. Hell we might even take off our sunglasses to attend the launch..

BEGGIN YER PARDON M'LORD

Apparently we have come to the attention of the Lord bloggers in Britain. They are all from the House of Lords...

We are delighted that they have acknowledged the colonials in the antipodes.

Welcome to our New Zealand readers

Thanks to kiwiblog, as well as roarprawn and Alf Grumble, we have attracted a fair amount of traffic from New Zealand as well as apparently generating a little internal debate there. I hope our New Zealand readers will become regular followers, adding to our international readership.

This entry was written by lordnorton, posted on October 21, 2009 at 9:14 pm,

Well done chaps. Any time you want a extra rider at the hunt give us a shout... We have been blooded you know.

Arohanui and toodle pip.

HOW TO TURN ASSETS INTO LIABILITIES

Pacific Catch Was the retail seafood arm for Ngai Tahu. Apparently it has all but been sold. It was seen as a way for the tribe to grow the domestic market.. there was huge speculation at the time they purchased it that it was not a good buy. Sources say it used to turn over about $7 million - Ngai Tahu managed to reduce that to $4 million.

Read the strategy on page 54 of the Ngai Tahu Annual report



To say it in the process of being sold for a song would be an understatement and the dreams we all had of Ngai Tahu becoming a Talleys or a Sanfords are all but gone. Ngai Tahu has become a quota commodity trader with inshore species being leased out to Talleys.

This year will be a pivotal one for Ngai Tahu. There are elections and we will either see a change of the old guard or a new direction. Time will tell.

Ngai Tahu Shareholders, Marty Mars and we here at Roarprawn are looking to jointly report on the election process. We all hold different views. However, we all agree that there is huge interest among Ngai Tahu shareholders for more information about this watershed year. So combined we will keep you abreast of what is happening. We will offer you our very different opinions on events and we want you to add yours.

So stay tuned .....

BACK OUTBACK WITH DOGS AND CATS

We have been in Aussie for a few days - on the fringes of the outbacks - up Wilpena way. It was a fantastic trip - 2300kms of driving and two trips in light aircraft. It was the holiday we needed and gave us a better understanding of the vastness of the great land. Wilpena Pound is worth a visit and we thank the communist firefighter for the tip on that one. Clare is a beautiful valley bursting with 24km of Riesling grapes. We visited the extraordinary Seven Hill Monastery and vineyard and saw the heart of old Catholicism and the mark it made on the small hamlets and towns that pepper the area. We visited ruins of the old stations that stood at attention along the old Ghan railway. We drank and we ate. There were DOG days ( Days off the Grog) and CAT days - Consume Alcohol Today, days. Coopers pale ale, Padthaways finest bollocksy reds. and some emerging sauvignons like Mojo, all peaches and gooseberries.

We visited Aborigine sites and tread the same path as the old people.

We saw a land at its greenest and probably finest - soaking in the rainfall that has ended 10 soul destroying years. We joined with Aussies and mourned the loss of fellow countrymen at the hands of terrorists in Jakarta - united in disgust and sorrow. Days later we revelled in the competition on Edens lush field where the All Blacks played with some grit and made us proud.

We spent days without a computer or blackberry and felt better for it.

We celebrated a birthday of a baby born at 26 weeks with 150 farming aussies and marvelled at the sameness of our lives.

And today we have spent 49 years on this earth and are comforted by a life that that has been richly lived and made better for walking in the shoes of others.

WE ARE BACK

Hi y'all,
Yip we have decided to come out of hiding - after taking up a full time role inside a major govt dept we have decided that we can blog. We never made a secret of our political allegiances ( pretty hard when you have sought a nomination in the past we would have thought and at the end of the day we support National and the Maori Party. We have never made any secret of that. Anyway we will refrain from commenting on health issues and Maori issues. That makes it simple. For us anyway. And we have had a gander at the State Services Act and it seems that if we refrain from commenting on the dept we are working for we should be reasonably safe.

So we will be heavier on the social commentary and as we enjoy humour ( our own unique brand) then there will be more of that.

One lament since we went into recess was that this site was good to get to other juicy stuff on other blogs. We will do that more often with the new disclaimer that we dont necessarily agree or not agree with the opinions on other blogs but we find them interesting and worthy of your note.

And undoubtedly there will be new blogs that appear from time to time and we will give you a heads up when we find some we think you might be interested in.

And of course we wont be the frantic bloggers that we have been in the past - we are very busy these days with very important matters of state business.

So climb aboard for the ride ( again).

HAERE RA

Well folks its good bye from us. We were going to do all sorts of weird shit tonight to keep people guessing about why Roarprawn ceased operating at midnight tonight.

The simple fact of the matter is that we are going to work for a Ministry full time. Yip a public servant gig. As my mum says - a real job...We start tomorrow.

And the State Services Act is a bit of a bitch if you want to be a political commentator. Now we are fairly well positioned as a National Govt cheer leader but from time to time we have to put down our pom poms and give them a piece of our mind and , well you cant do that when you are a public servant. And we are not all that anonymous. After all we have been on telly.

We have had a ball blogging , its fun, outrageous and has ignited the old journo within. We were starting to get some decent numbers again too - up around the 1000 a day.

Now, who knows what will happen in the future - so we wont delete the prawn - but we will locked it away for a while. If someone wants to buy it - well email me on bustedblonde@gmail.com

To all my fellow bloggers, keep up the bastards honest.


Love you all...... BB

AS WE PREDICTED

IRD is in for a shake up. Its been the talk of the town for a couple of weeks.

We think that customs will also see some changes. And please , Womens Affairs. Scrap it.

OF POLAR BEARS AND BACTERIA BINS, AND FAILED MISSIONS

We have already expressed some measure of joy at Key's announcement that " Hug a Polar Bear" programmes exhalted by the last government are for the chop. And Patrick Gower has a story in the Herald on Mission on Mission off, a health campaign administered by SPARC

Its has a website funded to the tune of $3.9 million.. They claim to have had 90,000 visitors - hell we have had 100,000 visitors to Roarprawn in less than seven months and it cost us nothing to set up.

What a bloody crock. We are glad that it is going but seriously someone should be looking at why it cost that much to build and administer.

We are hoping that we can get our rubbish tins back as well. If its good enough for the hamsters on the hill its good enough for us. We are waiting patiently for an email saying we can bif our desktop bacteria bin.

Commonsense reigns supreme.

Another excellent start to the day...