Robert posted an image of the Banksy marching man statue today. 

This is a brilliant piece of political satire aimed at misplaced patriotism and should also be on display outside Congress, the Senate and the White House in Washington D.C.

It's also a step forward (hopefully not off his plinth) for Robert who recently seems to be shrugging off his reactionary and right wing sympathies. What's next? A rejection of Catholicism?

The statue made me think about statues and how they can influence thought and political consciousness - not always in a good way. It's a massive subject though and I don't have time to cover it in any detail (The Old Girl calls ne a lazy bugger) so to follow are a few personal observations.

We all know about the recent removal (and reinstatement) of American Civil War 'hero' statues in USA depending on the political ideology of the presidential administration of the times and have seen similar criticisms and removals of statues in New Zealand that have odious colonial implications.

Removal of Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond Virginia.

Removal of Captain John Hamilton statue: In June 2020, the Hamilton City Council removed the bronze statue of British naval Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton from Civic Square. 

Both of those statues and what they represent were rightfully removed in my view.

We've been exposed to iconic images of destroyed statues that underscore the collapse of mostly fascist and authoritarian regimes ...

Joseph Stalin

Adolph Hitler

Saddam Hussein

... and are likely to see soon the scrapping of images of Donald Trump ...

... although most of the replicas have been, like Banksy's one, examples of political satire:

OK, back to me, some statues that have concerned me over my years have been these:

Queen Victoria

The Queen Victoria Monument on Cambridge Terrace/Kent Terrace in Wellington is imposing. Some see it as an important expression of the values of New Zealand’s colonial past but obviously others see it as a symbol of the darker side of colonisation and Victorian morality. As a child walking past this I was a bit scared as it was dark and creepy. I've never liked it.

New Zealand Wars memorial Wakefield Street Auckland

This memorial commemorates imperial and Maori troops during the New Zealand Wars who were allied with British forces. It is blatantly authoritarian and no wonder that it's been the scene of Maori protest in recent years.

There are many more examples of statuary and monuments that get up my nose particularly war memorial ones that incorporate ridiculous god and angels motifs but ... that's for another day and, as I said, I'm a lazy bugger.

Just to show that I'm not always complaining though here's a statue that I've always liked and remember admiring it (the original) when it was in the Wellington railway station foyer.

Painted plaster original in Wellington railway station

The Kupe Statue (formally known as The Coming of the Māori), was sculpted by William Thomas Trethewey. It depicts the legendary Polynesian explorer Kupe, his wife Hine-te-Apārangi, and the tohunga Pekahourangi on their canoe, Matahourua, at the moment they discovered New Zealand. 

History of the Statue
1940 Centennial Exhibition: The original 6.78-meter sculpture was created out of painted plaster for the 1940 New Zealand Centennial Exhibition.
Wellington Railway Station: Following the exhibition, the statue was too large for its intended home at the Dominion Museum, so it was moved to the foyer of the Wellington Railway Station. It stood there for nearly four decades and unfortunately suffered damage and vandalism.
Relocation: In 1985/1986, it was moved to the Wellington Showgrounds before being placed into storage at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 

Where is it now?
In 1999, the original plaster statue was successfully cast into bronze. This bronze version was unveiled on the Wellington Waterfront (Taranaki Street Wharf) in March 2000, where it remains today. 

 Getting back to Robert's post which triggered this post I note that he had actually totally misrepresented Banksy's political satire and adapted it to match his idiotic Catholic beliefs. See what he wrote below.

Oh well,  plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

 

WELL THAT WAS SUNDAY

 It's been a day of two halves really with this morning and early afternoon being sunny and warm but in the mid to late afternoon, just when I was planning to head off to tennis the cloud came over and it's threatening rain.

I'll stay inside and prepare my dinner - Spaghetti alla Puttanesca which is an Italian pasta sauce made with tomato, olives, capers, anchovies and garlic. Yummy! The Old Girl is making some yucky thing with haloumi and eggplant for herself. As far as I'm concerned my dish will be the winner.

I won't be having any wine with dinner this evening as Richard and Shelley came around yesterday and made us drink too much. I might go the week without any as well.

We went for a long walk this morning going first to the Home Show at Hnry Stadium (boring) and then around town. I'm enjoying Wellington very much.

That's it from me. I've got a sore tooth and will go to the dentist as soon as I can get an appointment.

Robert's been conducting financial business in church today expressly against his god's wishes so he'd better watch out when he goes to The Philippines as they are rabid catholics over there.

Richard has been practising his fiddle I think and limiting his bathroom visits to piddles. He might have done this for the rhyming opportunity since he doesn't have a sitar or a gong.

It looks like the rain is here. Bye.

WHEN PROFANITY CAME TO THORNDON

OK, I hear some of you readers saying: 

"But The Curmudgeon, Parliament is in Thorndon and we've heard many of those cunts calling other members "cunts" - what's new about that?"

I accept that but point out the existence of the rule of Parliamentary Privilege which encompasses special legal rights, immunities, and powers granted to the House of Representatives and its members that ensure that they can perform their democratic functions without fear of legal consequences. Normally, in Thorndon where I live our members of the community who are not protected by Parliamentary Privilege show gentility and express friendly greetings to our neighbours.

"So what happened in Thorndon today The Curmudgeon?"  at least one of you readers asked.

Richard came to lunch.

"Oh no!" 

Yes, yes but he did come with his lovely wife Shelley so it could have been worse.

"What did he do, The Curmudgeon?"

He called your friend and informative blogger a cunt!

"What? A cunt?" 

Yes, I'm sorry to have to confirm that but he called your friend and informative blogger who has your best interests at heart a cunt. Imagine that?

"That's terrible The Curmudgeon. Did anyone overhear?"

Well that's the thing loyal reader(s), he said that at the dinner table seated next to The Old Girl who is The Curmudgeon's fiercest supporter.

"Whoo - so it didn't go down well for him then?"

Like a lead balloon loyal reader(s), like a lead balloon. 

The Old Girl ripped into him with a lecture on how women consider it one of the most offensive, derogatory terms in the English language. They view it as a weapon used to oppress women, reduce them to their genitals, and promote internalised misogyny. To give Richard some credit he bowed his head and seemed to be contrite (although he may have nodded off given his age and everything). Shelley, Richard's wife also gave Richard a bollocking and agreed with The Old Girl.

Richard, under attack from both sides looked over to me for help. I told him that he was on his own there.

****************

But we had a nice lunch,

How did your day go? 

 

FRIDAY IS SHOPPING DAY

 

I'm off to the shops soon with The Old Girl as she is having today off work.

Actually, she has decided to cut her working week down to 4 days with the idea of having most Fridays off.

We will do a 'wine run' meaning that we will have to drive to several wine outlets to stock up the cellar. The local supermarket is good but doesn't stock enough of the zinfandels and Primitivos that she likes. 

We will likely visit Glengarry, Moore Wilson, Big Barrel and Regional Wines and buy a cross section of the aforementioned zinfandels and Primitivos along with some Californian and Hawkes Bay chardonnay plus any pinot noirs of interest.

I suspect that she will want to visit at least one furniture shop to look for a couple of armchairs to replace my 'manky old ones' that we have in the lounge.

*************** 

OK, that's done. We went to all three of those wine shops and will now have to take out an overdraft to pay for the wine (with labels on them) that we bought.

We also went to three furniture shops and couldn't agree on any new chairs. My 'manky old ones' are safe at present but The Old Girl saw an advertisement for a furniture show at Hnry Stadium this weekend. I guess we'll be going to that.

The supermarket shopping has been done but I forgot to get some little pies for Richard. He'll have to make do with salmon flan and salads.

We are now heading out (again) to Lighthouse cinema to see a documentary film Sgt Haane about Sergeant Haane Manahi DCM of B Company, 28th Māori Battalion whose actions proved pivotal in the 1943 battle for the fortified summit of Takrouna, Tunisia. My dad was there as a sergeant in the Divisional Cavalry so I'm keen to see this.

WILL MY BOOMERANG COME BACK?

I'm going to stay indoors today.

The weather is a bit indifferent and I don't feel like walking, golfing or playing tennis.

I should do some home budgeting though and will create a budget spreadsheet on the computer using Microsoft Excel.

I've sorted out all of the direct debits on the credit card after having to cancel our Visa cards because of an overcharging problem we had from Just Answer. What a fankle!*

Since moving house and discovering things to buy and some renovations needed, it seems that money is pouring out of our bank account. I need to get a track of our incomings and outgoings. While it's OK at the moment with The Old Girl working, when she decides to retire we'll need some budgeting discipline.

I'm not really looking forward to doing this as I'm way out of practice at creating and using computer spreadsheets but hopefully it will come back to me.

* Note the sensible and grammatically correct usage of one exclamation mark.

52 HARMONICAS ...

... BEATS 10 GUITARS.

My knee is still giving my gyp but I half walked/half bussed to Cuba Street today to go to the excellent Wellington Fish Supply shop to buy some crabmeat for The Old Girl. She's going to make a crab and zucchini salad for her dinner. I'm making an orange kumara, orange juice and tomato penne pasta dish for me. I like this dish but she says that it's boring so she will miss out on that.

The harmonica guy had some advice for Richard and gigs that I said I'd pass on. It went like this:

"Aarrgh splegger yur sprozzicks ander gesherfuggingarsh innageara oohhhher".

I take this to be musician-speak that Richard will understand. I hope that it's of assistance.

 

ZEALANDIA TE MARA A TANE

 

We did some volunteer work at Zealandia yesterday, checking the predator-free fence for damage, decay, rust, rot and degradation. It was like reading over Richard's and Robert's blogs in that sense - only the fence was in better condition.

The fence is important for the safety of the birdlife within the reserve and requires regular checking for maintenance issues to stop all sorts of pests from invading:

"Hey, Let me in!"

I love this reserve and it was good to experience it again. I'd like to be able to walk the paths daily but it's a bit too far away for that.

We spent a couple of hours checking our section of the fence - about 50 to 100 metres long which we accessed after a steep climb up a bush track. I damaged my knee (again) at golf last week so I was in a bit of pain and difficulty on the steep bits but was OK on the flat.

If it'd been up to me I'd have checked and passed the fence in about a quarter of an hour but was with The Old Girl and an equally pedantic workmate of hers. As a result they 'OCD'd' every little bit - cracks, mold, lichen, missing rivets, corrosion - sheesh and everything and she laboriously entered the information on a large spreadsheet and he transferred that to an app on his phone. I added in things like the weta at the top of a post and some dead insects but was largely ignored so I didn't offer a warning that Evil Doctor Richard the apologist was trying to climb over the fence.

All in all we had a good afternoon's endeavour and earned our glasses of wine before dinner - Kim Crawford Reserve chardonnay for me and Mondavi chardonnay for her.

ROLL UP

Both Robert and Richard have been writing about bowls in their recent posts although Richard might have been referring to bowels (which he does frequently) and misspelled it.

I think Robert aka Second is contemplating taking up bowls as he saw time's winged chariot flying past his window. No doubt he will discover a pristine set of bowls at his local op shop for sixpence.

Maybe, if golfing becomes a bit more difficult, I should reconsider taking up lawn bowls as well and give Robert a run for his money. I've played bowls off and on for over 40 years so might remember some of the rules and techniques. 

Can you spot me?

Here are a few of the posts I've written about it:

HERE

HERE

HERE

HERE

HERE

No need to thank me

Who knows - if it's a go we could get the old whiner from Wainuiomata to join us. At least it'd be another excuse for having arguments.

PLAYTIME

 I read Richard's latest blog post. 

It's a pity that it's such a nice day out as posts like that are best read when it's really bad weather outside. Or when there's no grass to watch growing. Or when you don't have a life.

Here's  a snapshot from some of it:

What was I thinking?

Where does stuff like that get generated ...

... Oh yes, his playroom. That figures.

*********************

Anyway, I have a life, don't have a lawn and it's nice outside. I decided to give golf another go.

Yesterday I told Richard that I think I've forgotten how to play golf. Every time I give it a go at Berhampore golf course I end up duffing shots, hitting balls into the trees, losing balls and today I discovered I actually lost a golf club - a lovely 4 wood.

I played 8 holes today and was prepared to give the game away but fortunately managed to hit some really nice shots and scored well. After a long drive on a par 5 I looked in my bag for the 4 wood to use on the fairway and couldn't find it. I remembered using it on Wednesday when I played 4 holes really badly. I didn't throw the club away but must have just left it in the grass for some reason. Weird. I asked at the golf club today if anyone had handed the club in but no such luck. Bummer - it's a nice one and is part of the matched set I bought from a Japanese woman in Whangarei a couple of years ago.

I don't know why my golf has deteriorated so much. Berhampore golf course is a hard course with very steep fairways and unforgiving rough, big pine tree plantations and out of bounds areas. I should though, be able to carefully hit straight down the fairways but for some reason don't, either duffing the shots or slicing or hooking the ball in to the trees. I think I made a mistake joining up and will have to confess this to The Old Girl soon. In the interim I'll try and get my money's worth. The 12 month membership cost $485. A round, regardless of how many holes you play costs $25. I calculate that I need to play about 20 times to 'get my money's worth'. That will be my challenge for the rest of the year.

AN AESTHETE YET?

 I see that Richard is playing ostriches this morning:

"I won't bother commenting" he wrote.

With a low readership and almost zero following his blog has I would have thought he'd try to make an effort especially since he's obsessed by the number of comments he gets on his blog.

We'll leave him to stew for a while. he might, like Robert, delete all his posts and maybe his entire blog again which would make it the fourth time he's done so. Who said he's a Philistine?