TERRORISTS ON THE HIGH SEAS

This is very sad and very wrong. The law of the sea is simple - when someone is in trouble all who are near must go to their aid.

A Japanese sailor is missing after falling overboard during a whaling expedition in the Antarctic. The Dutch protest vessel Steve Irwin is in the area harassing the shit out of the whalers who are going about their lawful business. They arrive on the scene on the pretense of helping but instead they hinder the search for what will be in the icy waters of the Antarctic, a body.

Paul Watson and his crew are not modern day Jack Sparrows or fun loving irascible pirates they are simply terrorists. They will need to come north to fuel soon and it would be a sad day if New Zealand chooses sides and lets them into our country's waters.

While I accept that the majority of New Zealanders do not support Japanese Whaling , neither will those same people embrace the heartless terrorist actions of the Steve Irwin crew.

KEY SHOWS HIS INCLUSIVENESS AGAIN.

Well, this is the first decent political snippet of the year. We had already heard of the general gist of the Key cabinet restructure but this story in the Herald must make Labour wince. For the first time opposition parites will truly be part of the decision making process beign part of the cabinet committees. Well done John and the team. Good start.

Update: And Maori will also be rejoicing in the fact that Key has made Treaty Settlements a priority - according to the Herald this morning. the committee will also look at foreshore and seabed claims

Tino Pai we say!

PING - great for blog addicts

pinging is the heroin of blogging. Quick fix - high satisfaction PING

BRA BURNING

I did a real dumb thing today . Rushed into the Farmers 50% off lingerie sale and grabbed two bras without giving them a trial run. One was an "increase the cleavage number" and the other was a mechanical marvel designed to deal with weighty issues and gravity's foul deeds and "minimise me."Hell, I thought only surgery could do that but I was willing to give it a whirl.

You know you are in trouble and need to lose some weight when the shop girl gives you a bag that would hold a beer fridge, to carry two bras out of the shop.

The Cleavage number first - its white and shocking pink - and considering my advancing years, 50 is creeping up the back stairs, we are now more suited to mauve, beige and the occasional saucy black, it was definitely an impulse buy.

I got home wondering why people had been giving me quizzical looks wandering down Manners Mall - I found out when I bent down to get the key to the door and nearly sent a broken underwire up my left nostril. There was no doubt in my nose that I needed new support.

I stripped off and held the the shocking pink padded titty hammocks aloft and swung them on. I stopped breathing - true! My boobies were pushed so far up they were nuzzling my bruised nostrils. I let down the straps to see if that would help and I swear I heard my titskies sigh. The cleavage was so deep and long that it rivalled the Manawatu gorge.

I took the pinkie pouches off and I swear again that my mammaries did a little jiggle of their own volition in celebration of being free.

I wondered if I could strap it to the new shed and grow plants in it.

So onto the second. I leaned over, as they old bra fitting bitches of my traumatised past taught me and hiffed it on. In a mammary moment I realised why the "minimiser" was on sale. My bountiful breasts rested somewhere between my armpits and my shoulder blades. I tried to swing them into position but nearly knocked myself out. They just schlurped back under my arms so that I looked like I had a footy ball under each wing and a chest as flat as the paddock the game is played on.

I wrestled it off - the cups are too flaccid to provide the support needed for wall planters but I reckon, at a pinch, I can strain the jelly jam through them.

Anyway I am demoralised - $64 ( the price of a bowl of crayfish bisque at Zicos and a lovely bottle of soave ) wasted.

And for the record the picture is not me - silly boys, she is clearly a FF cup.

So if anyone would like the offending 18DD unused pink plant hanger and the jelly jam strainers - email me - I will post em for free.

MORE ON MILLION DOLLAR COUSINS

Quite a few people have asked when Million dollar catch on TV3 will screen
I've just had an email from Tv3 - its at the end of February. Other boats will include the Kay Reece - Skipper Johnny Hawkless - ( who used to crew for my dad) and Rewi Bull who skippers the Shangri - La with my delightful young cous Storm as his crew.

There will be others from the Bluff Fleet as well - I sure hope that the Bluff community gets behind their local good ol boys - I can see Mayor Tim getting some mileage for the deep south from the programme.

MEURANT IN TOWN

We have had it confirmed that Ross Meurant is back in NZ. We wonder who he is talking to? We wonder who wants to talk to him? We wonder who is considering employing protection?

GREENY BULLSHIT ABOUT HOOKER SEALIONS

The standard is going crook about new Fisheries Minister Phil Heatley increasing the allowable sealion bycatch for the squid industry.

We know this issue very, very well. There is nothing "threatened" about the Hooker Sealion population - there are thousands of the buggers in and around the oceans way south of New Zealand where the squid fishery is largely based. Note the use of the word "threatened" rather than "endangered" - which does mean that something is demonstrably in trouble.

BB gets up close and personal ( well as close as you can get considering their propensity to suffer from cetacean halitosis) with these wonderful creatures on a regular basis. We have even hand feed them and swum with them. Never stand in their poop. It is as vile as animal poop gets. Its normally white with little fishy bits in it and very slippery and it sticks to rubber like - well poop sticks to rubber. And they will chase you on land but in the water they dont seem to give a shit about you.

So the Standard and Forest and Bird are getting all hysterical because National has imposed a much more realistic level of by catch from 81 to 113.

Now, in 1998 lots of pups died from some mysterious bug. Curiously and importantly, overcrowding was not discounted as a possible factor in the spread of the unknown malady.

Up until that point there were an estimated 15,000. In 2003 it was estimated that the population was about 13000. Both of these figures are wildly speculative and considered to be a underestimate of actual number which fisheries experts put at about 20,000 . There is a population of about 30 - 35 that resides in Small craft in Port Pegasus. DOC estimated it at the time to be 5 -1o animals which has been one reason we have never trusted their estimates. As you will witness from the pics - an young one on the left and an old beachmaster on the right - they spend quite a bit of time deep in the bush. These two were photographed by BB about 1km inland up a fresh water creek with towering rimu all around.
So DOC takes pics of the ones on the beach - not the ones in the bush - which at any time seem to be about half the population.

They are truly magnificent animals and we were deeply upset when a fisherman shot some of them a few years back and left them to rot on our island beach. However we are also pragmatic and the Squid industry is an important one for New Zealand the forth largest in earnings at 86 million a year.

So at less than one percent this bycatch is still very, very low.

DOC's lickspittles over at Forest and Bird should look at other burning issues like cats on Stewart Island which do huge amounts of damage to small bird life instead of twittering and tweetering about the minimal collateral damage to yet another species of, to coin a phrase from Ta Tipene O'Regan, "charismatic mega fauna." But then thats the rub, F and B wouldn't get much traction for calling for a cull of a heap of bad pussies. So, instead, they just pick on the causes that will appeal to an animal cuddling public to ensure the donations keep flowing. How venal.

ZEUS

IMG_6008

back by popular demand - another shot of Zeus doing bad things to the Helen Clark squeaky toy.
Which is still his favourite toy and still squeaking

MILLION DOLLAR COUSINS

I have always been very proud of my cousins on both sides of the family tree. However Dad's fishing family side from Bluff and Stewart Island are about to become media stars.
The FV X-S ( pronounced excess) owned by my cousin Vaughn Fisher, is a magnificent vessel. The FV Shangri - La is another great workhorse skippered by Gordon Wardrop whose wife is another cousin. Both fish with their sons as crew. Many times when I watched the Deadliest Catch about the Alaskan Crab fishermen, I wondered how long it would be before someone would do something similar with the Southern Rock lobster fishermen. TV3 have done just that with Million Dollar Catch due to screen soon.
Most places Gordon and Vaughn fish are a salty, wet, heart stopping kinda hell. My son was crew for Gordon for a short time before he joined the X-S as crew for Vaughn for a couple of years, before embarking on his dream of becoming a helicopter pilot. He learned well under arguably the top lobster skippers in Bluff.
Various members of our family have been fishing for 6 generations. In fact the crews on both the X-S and Shangri- la are the 7th generation to take to the sea. It is a hard, uncompromising way to earn a living , they earn every big dollar they make and it is exponentially tougher to fish in the South than anywhere else in New Zealand. So if there is one programme you cannot miss this year it is Million Dollar Catch on TV3. The boys will tell it like it is - they know no other way.

The last time I was at my cousin Vaughn's place after the very sad occasion of the funeral of our uncle Peter Topi and our cousins who were drowned when the Kotuku sank in Foveaux Strait coming back from the muttonbird island. In fact up until that terrible day - in the course of 80 years, 14 men in dad's family died at sea.

The boys in Million Dollar catch have a great sense of humour, bawdy and black, honed after many, many hard years at sea. Like many people who have held the stare of the cold hard eyes of death, they embrace life like there may be no tomorrow. So watch Million Dollar Catch , and witness the salt crusted warriors of the southern seas at their outrageous best. And remember they are not larger than life , they just live large lives.

update Rewi Bull bought the Shangri La last year so will be one of the stars of the show. Good bloke and great whanau.

crystal balls

Well if everyone else is doing it we will too.

Our predictions for 2009 are:

Annette King will leave the Labour Party but the exit wont be pretty. The leftys in the lefty party dont like her. And we have heard from more than one quarter that there is a smelly skeleton somewhere.

One of the Maori Party will fall from grace.

The Immigration passport for donation scandal will seriously damage Shane Jones political future.

The international financial crisis will continue to deepen and the tsunami will hit about May.

The Urewera Terror Raids court cases will show that New Zealand has a very nasty core of seriously weird and dangerous individuals.

lady bugger

Holiday round up

Magpies feed their half grown chicks on the ground - we put out some stale bread and early in the morning the magpies gather around and the adults feed the young birds.
Orange sponge earplugs can be used to catch salmon in the South Island canals.
Hedgehogs and tractor mowers don't mix.
Mum makes the best Xmas Truffles.
Model airplanes look odd parked up in the canopy of 25 year old trees and chopping down the trees to save the planes is not an option.
One of the sheep on our place is blind but fat.
Flys are a pain - but the new Mortein powerball fly spray really does knock the bastards dead.
Zucchini are the new triffids.
Apple wood chips are very good for smoking eel.
My lettuces are spectacular but the Aussie Rock reckons I should have planted more rocket.
Our boned out stuffed Xmas turkey that said it could feed 16 people actually provided 36 servings and we are all big eaters.
I found a dead slabby trout in the creek that Dad reckons would have gone 7lbs if it had been in good condition.
We saw a satellite last night.
Radio Live's TV3's news feed is superb.
Stephen Kings Just After Sunset, a short story collection is one of his best.