WHEELY BIG BOTTLE ON WHALE WINNING -DUCKS F**CKED

We have been watching the lycra lads Mallard and Whale Oil shape up for the New Zealand Tour de Auckland. Cactus is putting up $1000 dollars ( she has been off the grog so thats equivalent of her spending money for a couple of days) to the winner.

We cant help but be in. We still have 62 bottles of Veuve cliquot in storage. So we are taking out the magnum and will give that to the winner - We reckon that there is a fair chance that Cactus could be here for the race. She likes skinny blokes in tight shorts – although its a big stretch to call Whale Skinny. He calls me fat – but he is definitely at the lard arse end of chubby.

And its time that Mr David Farrar dipped into his savings and put a buck up as well.

And yes we reckon that Cactus will be here for the race because its about the same time as the ACT selection . So if she comes back she will have the rights to hand over the magnum to the winners – as sadly - we are attending to matters of great import and cannot be in Auckland for the Wheely big Challenge.

PACIFIC STINKS

This morning’s Dom report of 160 passengers allegedly wrongfully detained in Wellington airport by Pacific Blue is a shocker. The same situation occured on a Qantas flight I was on from Deli a few years ago. Let me tell you, I have never flown Qantas again. Adding insult to injury to affected passengers, they only detained those in economy class. Fortunately, I was flying business class on that occasion but was horrified on behalf of my fellow travellers. The poor buggers looked and smelt like the living dead when we were finally all herded onto an available plane the next day. I understand India has tidied up its act in recent times with regard to its treatment and processing of travellers. New Zealand appears to be going backward. It’s unacceptable in an OECD country so dependent on its tourist industry. Pacific Blue appears to regard its passengers as cattle. An airline to be avoided. And, where were Wellington Airport's staff and systems.

DOING A DON BRASH AND AN UGLY BAGGAGE

Today was fraught with a few challenges. Firstly was getting to Christchurch because of the snow. We thought we were cunninger than a cunning thing when we booked our flight for 1.15 today - expecting the ground would have thawed enough to land. It was and we did while some colleagues who booked on early morning flights were bounced to fly at the earliest - on Thursday.

We had packed enough stuff for three weeks - we are here for 3 months - so 3 weeks seemed to be a good stint before we went home to the Wairarapa for some R and R.

We got our rental car and then realised with horror that the only bag left on the carousel looked like ours in every detail apart from a padlock and a wispy ribbon on the handle. Someone picked up my bag. Duh.

When we bought the bag we picked the ugliest one we could find. Maroon with an ugly maroon and white tartan front. It looks like something a bottle tanned pom would buy for a week at Butlins holiday Camp

So Airnz says they will hold the bag of the other woman. but we have to go back out to the airport to pick it up as "its not their fault its lost" was the reason given. We have had our bag delivered in the past but it was the Airlines fault so thats fair enough.

- We think the woman who has my bag is Mrs Susan (poss Sue King.) I found that out looking over the shoulder of the nice lady at lost baggage at chch airport.

And i think she had come from overseas via Auckland but it was hard to decipher the abbreviations.

So we are parked up in a nice motel and have had to wash our one set of clothes doing a Don Brash washing them in the handbasin - which leaves us a bit - exposed...

Lucky there is a good heater in the room. So missing in the suitcase are all the expensive potions and lotions that fill in the cracks of our 51 year old face. So tomorrow we reckon our countenance will resemble earthquake damaged Bealey Ave.

And we have no cell charger - so phone is going flat so if Mrs King does come to light I wont get the message until we can charge the phone.

We had to buy a toothbrush, and all the other girly toiletries.

But for the first time since we have been in Christchurch we are praying there will be no quake tonight. If we are forced outside the only thing we will be wearing is a big red coat and we will be commando underneath and its chillier than a Labour caucus after the latest poll result -out there - There is snow still piled up all over the place.

So please - please if anyone knows Susan King, who has seriously crap taste in luggage - tell her to ring airnz urgently.

MAKING MOVIES - by MED

The Ministry of Economic Development has now, seemingly, ventured into the business of movie making. It’s made a little movie, apparently aimed at private industry, about how to tender on GETS, the Government Electronic Tendering System. Michael Osborne, Senior Procurement Analyst features in the little movie. He has the screen presence of a radish. The little movie, embedded here for your viewing convenience, is deathly boring, is aimed at a very low level, and is unlikely to circulate widely on that basis. In any event, the same information should be on the GETS website, in text, without the expense to taxpayers of MED’s rather uninspiring movie efforts. Tendering through GETS is an onerous, time consuming and complex task at the best of times. If you need to view a How To video you are excessively unlikely to have the capacity to win a government tender. Perhaps MED would be better to make a movie on the efficient use of taxpayer funding.

STAGS ROAR CANTERBURY WIMPERS

Actually it was a bloody close game but at the end the Stags tossed aside the Cantabrians . and the Shield went south. 

Southlanders love their rugby  - just as much as Cantabrians we reckon and they will make good use of the shield to whip up a bit of southern patriotism. 

Well done boys..  

The Arbitrary Vector

When I was in the Middle East I asked my Arab friends why they do not do more to control their terrorists. They looked thoroughly pissed off and asked why we in the West do not do more to control our criminals. It’s a fair point and one I had not pondered until then. We don’t know yet if Norway’s gunman is a lunatic, a criminal or a terrorist. And, it won’t matter to his victims how we define him. What we do know is that efforts to control such horrors are Sisyphean by nature. How do you find a solution to an arbitrary vector with no boundary conditions specified.

CUDDLING THE PINK CORPSE OF NGATA

Its bloody obvious that Don Brash has jumped the shark by concentrating on Maori issues this election.

The number one issue is the economy and Brash has put just one elongated piece of Perigo waffle out yesterday about inflation. Thats the big brain hit. Or miss. Today he's back on his eurocentric, paternalistic monologue on whats good for Maori. And instead of telling Maori to look forward he has told them to look back.

Maori don't vote ACT, they don't want to stand for ACT and they definitely don't want to be associated with Don Brash.

We reckon a lot more vote National now but thats cos National has frilly pink knickers on these days.

In fact Brash is so hated that Willie Apiata could be #1 on the ACT list and Maori still wouldn't vote ACT. Instead they would just lift their skirts or drop their trous and give Brash a look see at the hairy brown eyeball.

So in the interests of political enlightenment I gave Cactus a call about the Brash's latest stunt. I wanted to know what she thought about Brash hugging the crap out of Apirana Ngata's tombstone.

Ngata died in 1950 so he's Brash's perfect Maori running mate for ACT. He can't talk back cos he is dead. He wont tell Brash he is wrong and we know Brash likes being associated with Brown people - his wife is Asian and as Winston Peters reckons Asians are just Maori who stayed north of the equator. So Brash the living cadaver - wants to resurrect the corpse of the great man and because Brash has made so many cock ups -a dead person is all he has left to offer up as a candidate.

Cactus has been prickly lately because she's having to say "no comment" to journos. When Cactus refuses to comment on issues we are pretty sure it means she is livid.

I've known Cactus long enough to be one of the few people in the world with permission to call her before 10am. So I did and told her of Brash's latest stroking of Ngata's tombstone. "Too fucking busy" was her muted answer.The ungrateful bitch hung up in my ear.

We suspect in Dorothy Parker fashion that in fact she aint busy unless you count finding nubile men to entertain her at 2am in the morning as busy.

Brash claims Ngata would be Leader of ACT if he was alive today.

Cactus I know can't comment but reckon she will be all alone in a foetal position clutching a teddy bear for comfort in response to this latest fuckwittery by Brash.

Brash is right - to a point - Ngata loathed the fact that Maori had become addicted to welfare. He did believe in self reliance but he also had some pretty lefty views as Michael Bassett points out in his review of Ranginui Walkers book on Ngata.

"At first he supported individualisation of land title till he realised that too many Maori then sold. He then promoted leasehold tenure and consolidation; but many sold their leases. As the Maori population increased, Ngata urged – then introduced in 1929 - state funding for development schemes so they could benefit from what remained. Native Minister during the depression, He Tipua (“the superhuman one”) was remarkably successful at collaring state resources for Maori projects."

Hell WTF??? Special state funding for development schemes ? That would go down a treat in the ACT manifesto.

So Brash finally thinks that he has found the perfect running mate - but it seems that he has picked the wrong dead Maori to epitomise ACT ideals of minimal state intervention.

Brash has to go. And we will be counselling Cactus against having anything to do with the the crazy batty old coot.

GRAMMAR ON THE HIGH ROAD

Floyd and I went for a stroll round the neighbourhood today. the sun was shining and we set off at a good pace. After about an hour it got dam cold so we headed back and it was then that we spied this sign which would indicate that someone has some shortcomings in the spelling department.

We also spied this lovely villa with splendid views across the valley.

Floyd also has a new light saddle which now means he isn't bucking at all - which , when you are 51 is a little disconcerting. The comfy saddle cost us $95 and is a real bargain.

RESPECT IS A TWO WAY STREET

We have had a rethink on Hones affirmation speech to parliament - note to self - dont blog til have all the facts.

We only saw a snippet of the telecast of Hone's swearing in and thought that it was because he was speaking Te Reo that got Lockwood all grumpy. But it wasn't he was trying to swear allegiance to the Treaty and the dispossessed.

Anyway we watched Te Karere this morning and Scotty asked Hekia what she thought of Hone's grandstanding.

She put it simply - Marae all over the country have different protocols and its respectful to abide by them. Parliament is a big Marae. There are protocols and Hone should follow them as he would expect people to follow them on his Marae.

and Tariana said the same

However, she did not condone Mr Harawira's actions. She said she would be deeply offended if someone visited her marae and sought to impose their own tikanga [customs.]

"It was a deliberate act. I think it's called stunt politics - you do it because you know you're going to get attention from it."

So Hone expects us to be be nice in his house but is content to shit in ours.

NICE ONE WAYNE

We , like so many others where gobsmacked we we learned that our oldest and most revered soldiers were not treated with the respect that they have hard earned.

We have a lot of respect for Wayne Mapp - he is a deep thinker and a gentleman.   So we are delighted to see that he is going to ensure that things are made right for our oldest warriors 

GO READ CACTUS

Her clarity of thinking and and understanding of the shameless way Labour has developed policy to keep its own voters sweet is the standard that all other ACT candidates should aspire to.

No tax on gambling and no tax on baubles.. How fucked up is that!

HONE'S SHOULDERS AINT BIG ENOUGH

What a debacle - There was something oddly spooky when poor old Hone Harawiras korowai cloak fell off as he walked into parliament.

Shows his shoulders aren't big enough.

It is an emblem of status and quite frankly we reckon the Gods have spoken.

As for him saying his affirmation in Maori - who gives a shit? Maori is an official language of this country. That no lee way was given just shows how archiac the institution of parliament really is.

Hone didnt fit the Cloak and he doesn't fit in parliament.

But Parliament needs to change to be more reflective of who we are.