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?

ART FOR ART'S SAKE

 

ART FOR ART'S SAKE

Here at The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ we take art and culture seriously as we believe that the finer things in life can make life, well, finer. The Cultured Curmudgeon, The Literary Curmudgeon, The Music Curmudgeon, The Food Curmudgeon and The Wine Guy in particular endeavour to bring readers useful information and insights that can make their lives better ...

... better than the offerings at that other blog Richard's Bass Bag with its Bass Bag Consortium that includes the odious Akish The Philistine blog. I mean - Akish The Philistine! Really? Have a look at one of his recent posts:

Should we be scared? Yes, certainly as cultural boorishness and anti-intellectualism like this is one of the tenets of fascism and dictatorships. It's worrying that Richard has a sub-blog like this one and frankly (his name is actually Richard) he should know better being an educated musician and all.

Reviewing my own blogs I took note that The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ doesn't include a visual arts blog - something along the lines of The Fine Arts Curmudgeon which is something that I will have to redress when I'm not so busy. In the interim though I thought that I'd provide you with an image of one of my favourite paintings - Renoir's La Loge.

 The bold black and white stripes on the woman's dress draw the viewer's gaze to her rather than the man behind her.  The black and blue areas create the effect of shadow and light which are contrasted with the soft tones of her skin and the bright and strong colours of her lips and the flowers which is typical of Renoir. I've mentioned before how black and white shadows (venetian blind effect) can be used in art and film to denote conflict as seen in Bertolucci's film The Conformist:

After putting the Renoir painting image in this post I then thought about what the other bloggers might have as their favourite paintings.

Robert is easy to guess given his Marianist infatuation with The Virgin Mary and would likely start off with Jean Fouquet's 'Madonna':

Richard, given his leaning towards Philistinism would not like the classics, finding them to be pretentious, boring, or irrelevant so we need to look to something more modern - but not too modern as he would find that to be pretentious, boring, or irrelevant. I guess something from the 1960s that adorned a very high proportion of living room walls might be the thing, like flying ceramic ducks or one of these:

On your behalf I'll do some more research on this and look to create a new blog - The Fine Art Curmudgeon with the bloggers' art selections being the theme for the first post.

No need to thank me.

WHO ATE ALL THE PIES?

 

So said Richard in a recent post. I guess he's reminiscing of his days at the tuck shop at St Patrick's College.

I just hope he goes for a long walk today.

ASSASSINATION HOAX PRODUCTION (PART TWO)

Look, it's early days (hours) but there are some pretty dodgy things coming out of the reporting on the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting in Washington DC yesterday.

For a start the whole thing is being overly sensationalised but woefully under reported seriously if it was in fact an assassination attempt. The security forces seemed to know and expect what was going to happen and had massive coverage there for just such an event. The alleged shooter's family advised the security forces in advance as well. Trump and his entourage mentioned many times prior to the dinner that there would be an exciting event and even Trump's media person said that "shots will be fired" (smirk smirk).

The whole thing appeared to be choreographed with many - too many cameras in place to record things. 

Trump's immediate press conference seemed scripted if not rehearsed and the administration flunkies all stood about smiling, smirking and looking self congratulatory.

"Just like we rehearsed guys .. look over there"

Add to all of this the recent media scepticism of the 2024 'Assassination' attempt on Trump with suggestions hat it was a Mossad (Israeli) organised hoax in collaboration with Trumps supporters and the whole thing becomes stranger than fiction.

Time and unfolding truths will tell but I'm very sceptical. How about you?

WELL I NEVER ...

... said that I would never support National and the National led government if they came up with some good policies that will support  most New Zealanders and not just the National-voting elite but I didn't expect a good result on the India/New Zealand free trade agreement so soon.

Well I never!

The New Zealand-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA), concluded in December 2025 and set for formal signing in April 2026, eliminates tariffs on 95% of NZ exports to India. This "game-changer" deal provides immediate duty-free access for over 50% of goods—including lamb, wool, and forestry—rising to 82% over time, while opening a 1.4-billion-customer market.
Key Aspects of the India-NZ FTA (as of April 2026): Tariff Elimination: Over 95% of New Zealand's current exports to India will get preferential access, with 57% of exports becoming duty-free immediately.
Key Sectors Benefited: Immediate duty-free access for lamb, wool, coal, and most forestry products.
High-Value Goods: Substantial access for kiwifruit (quota four times current exports) and apples, with tariffs on wine, manuka honey, and some dairy reduced or eliminated over time.
Customs Modernization: The deal aims to streamline processes, including a commitment for India Customs to release goods within 48 hours (24 hours for perishables).
Implementation & Support: The deal faced political debate in New Zealand, particularly around immigration, but secured support for passage in April 2026.

The agreement is designed to diversify New Zealand's export markets and deepen economic ties with India, which is projected to become the world's third-largest economy.

         - From Google search on the internet hence American spelling.

Labour is promising to support the deal but warns that exporters could have their market access revoked if New Zealand can’t fulfil a $33 billion investment commitment which is a big ask.

NZ First of course voiced concern about the agreement's impact on immigration along with investment clause while describing the deal as a “disgraceful sellout of the country’s future”. Peters being Peters of course underscored by his foolish deputy Jones who couldn't help himself from making 'curry-muncher' jokes. What an idiot.

When I was working in the wine industry I had a few meetings with Indian importers after researching the market, and all endeavours to get any reasonable volumes of New Zealand wine into India with its rapidly expanding middle class consumer market were kiboshed by the massive import tariffs on NZ wine which would have made a simple sauvignon blanc as costly as a chateau-bottled French wine.

Trade with India is a priority for New Zealand due to its wealth and global trading growth. We need to diversify and to not rely on just a few key trading partners in a changing geopolitical world where an ally today can become an ex tomorrow. New Zealand citizens with Indian heritage and Indian students and visa holders in New Zealand make up a significant percentage of our population and add favourably to our economy, culture and international standing - regardless of the Peter/Jones ill-informed opinions. This Indian community within New Zealand's demographic is a useful connection to our trade with India and the FTA will hopefully bring in some hard earned wealth to the country.

AT LEAST I REMEMBERED THEM REDUX

 

AT LEAST I REMEMBERED THEM

I walked to the Cenotaph today to attend the wreath laying ceremony for ANZAC day.

It was well attended and a pretty good ceremony. It's just as well though that I arrived 'early'. The useless twonk on the council who put the information on the website just listed "Wreath laying ceremony 9AM". As I was walking there I could hear a Maori choral group singing, then an oom-pah band and finally a pipe band playing. I arrived at 8.45 and going by the parades of air force, navy and army personnel, various bands and public, the show must have started at at latest 8.30!

I did arrive in time for some more of the same though and, oddly enough the pipe band was playing in tune and the brass one wasn't. That's something for Richard to ponder about which would make a change from his wandering about (and wondering about sin).

For the first time I had the chance of going inside the Cenotaph after the parade.

Here are some images and videos of the event.

Inside the Cenotaph war memorial