WHO VOTED THESE FOOLS IN? ....

... Oh!

I read on Scoop news that more than 1 million eligible voters did not vote in the 2023 New Zealand elections.

What's wrong with these idiots? Or, I should ask "what's wrong with most of these people?" given that there will be a small percentage who are very aged, infirm or congenitally impaired.*

The information came from a Conservative Party press release but I assume even those idiots can read and interpret statistics.

New Zealand is a stable democratic country that is proud to have used this democracy to pass ground-breaking social justice, educational, health, environmental protection and other forms of advanced legislation and personal freedoms.

In 2023 however nearly 1.2 million people eligible to vote did not do so.

In this country voting is a right not just a privilege and, more than theoretically, eligible citizens can help to influence the political, social and economic direction that the country goes in.

"Elections determine who forms government, how public money is spent, what laws are enacted, and the priorities of national policy. Decisions affecting housing, healthcare, education, employment, taxation, law and order, infrastructure, and social services are all shaped by those elected to Parliament. When people choose not to vote, they effectively leave these decisions to others. Every non-voter increases the relative influence of those who do participate.

Based on current Electoral Commission estimates of approximately 4.05 million eligible voters, a political party seeking to enter Parliament under New Zealand's MMP system would need support equivalent to approximately 202,500 voters to achieve the 5 percent party vote threshold."

          Scoop 15 June 2026, Conservative Party press release.

It's easy to see why the Conservative Party is making noises about this as, being a party outside of Parliament, the million potential voters are an opportunity for them to pass the 5% threshold given that they would only need one in six of those votes.

For once I agree with them. Not their policies obviously as they are a far right bunch of arseholes now pretending to be centrist  (if they really were centrist they would be either the National Party or the right-leaning parts of the Labour Party). I just agree that if a fair proportion of the non-voting million plus New Zealanders bothered to use their democratic rights then the things that they bitch and moan about might get improved and legislated with either a more powerful ruling government or coalition or some more voices to be heard in Parliament who might listen to their bitching and moaning.

Sheesh!

* Hutt Valley South electors are now allowed to vote.

FUNK IS ITS OWN REWARD ...

 ... said no-one interested in personal hygiene.

In slang, "funk" typically refers to a state of depression or a bad mood (e.g., "being in a funk"). Its adjective "funky" can mean something smells bad, has a weird/unconventional style, or refers to a groovy musical rhythm.

 Why do I say this?

Check out Richard's latest post where he wrote:

"Yesterday's jam was a bit of a waste of time but at least there were nice people there. I have absolutely no gigs coming, so why do I practise so much? Well, as a jazz bassist said once, "Funk is its own reward." I don't know why he used the word funk and not jazz but, never mind, the intended message is the same."

We just hope that he's not taking funk too literally.

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

I spent some time yesterday finalising our August bookings for our Australia trip. We fly to Darwin, stay there a couple of days before boarding the GHAN train to Adelaide (3 days and nights). I've yet to book accommodation and plan activities in South Australia but will do that soon.

I booked a 12 hour 'experience' of Kakadu national park near Darwin which will be good.

Kakadu national park

Today I need to look to buy some sturdy but comfortable hiking/walking boots that are wide-fitting. I gave away a new pair to Robert recently as I didn't buy the wide-fitting variant and they cramped my feet a bit. I guess I have or have developed flat feet so need wider fitting shoes for comfort.

Yesterday afternoon we saw another French film festival film De Gaulle:Tilting Iron which is well worth going to. It's an epic look at Charles De Gaulle's 'wilderness' years in London and Africa after the fall of France in 1940. The French have done this well creating a fascinating look into the politics behind warfare.

 

NOT APP-RECIATED

 I dislike apps and try to avoid downloading them to my phone. They, to me are an example of how the world has gone mad and people are being duped in to giving up freedoms, personal selections and responsibility to technology. Apps = AI and AI = ridiculously wealthy and influential IT people like Elon Musk who is now set to become a trillionaire. "Fuck that"I say.

It's hard to do a lot of things nowadays without having to have a bloody smart phone with apps on it.

Order a burger at McDonalds? You need a card capable of PayWave (which I've deactivated on mine).

Pay for parking in the street? PayWave via a bloody app.

Try to get a new NewWorld clubcard+? Download and use the app but ...

... I don't want to use an app for this I want a bloody replacement plastic card! It took me two visits to the local New World store and lots of conversation and several attempts on-line to re-register as myself, changes passwords and PIN numbers and a whole lot of hassle to order a plastic card which, I'm told, might take up to 4 weeks to be delivered!

Our world is being run by 'smart' young things who have never lived in an analog world and who think everyone has a smart mobile phone or device welded to their hands. I'm getting sick of it.

I had trouble with my Apple 16 phone over the last week with the bloody settings dropping out and being unable to access my emails. Unfortunately some 'smart' young thing at Apple some time ago thought it a good idea to connect all Apple devices so my phone, watch, iPad and laptop all merrily cavort using my information, leaving analog-me in the dark. I tried all sorts of reset procedures only to totally block the damned internet traffic. I had to visit the Spark store this morning to get things sorted.

Why has life become so complicated? Maybe we need Musk to become a trillionaire so as to finance himself a trip to Mars where he can bloody well get stranded or disappear in a big puff of smoke along with his AI ambitions.

FAARQ IT'S COLD ...

 ... I wonder if Robert's funny little wooden man's dick has shrunk.

No doubt Richard is hibernating in his man cave with the heater on full blast. I wonder what his electricity bill is?

I received our latest bill today and it's for $317! Faarq!

The thermostat on the heating system showed a temperature of 12 degrees inside the house before (now 13 degrees) making me want to turn the central heating on but ... "I received our latest bill today and it's for $317! Faarq!"

Maybe I'll go out for another walk to warm up. It is sunny outside after all.

I walked down to Lambton Quay to the bank this morning to sort out a payment for our GHAN train trip from Darwin to Adelaide in August. All sorted now. I'm looking forward to this and to the side trips we will do to visit some national parks near Darwin, Uluru and wineries in South Australia.

We won't be doing what this joker who looks like Robert is doing though:

AND IT'S ONLY WEDNESDAY

 

I just bought some bolt cutters at Bunnings ($70).

I'll need these to cut through the padlock on my locker at the golf club. I also have to arrange to meet the club secretary so as to buy a new access fob for the building.

It's such a hassle and c**ts like the thief probably have no idea as to the unnecessary hassle they cause people. Not that they'd care anyway.

The Bunnings people said that due to the hardened steel used in the padlock shackle the bolt cutter blade will likely get munted so that it's a one-use job.

If there still is some cutting ability left in them though, I know of one function it could serve on the scrote who broke into our car.

SEND IN THE MARINES...

 

... hold on! Where are the Marines?  

I should have known. Donald Trump and his feeble administration have weakened that once strong threat to something like "just wait until your father comes home".

I thought that living in a nice street in a good suburb of Wellington that has elite schools, embassies and various government departments would be a safe bet. Along with this is the fact that the house next door to ours, right next door, houses the US Marines - the protection troops for the nearby American Embassy.

The U.S. Embassy in Wellington utilises a dedicated detachment of Marine Corps Embassy Security Guards (MSG) to protect classified information and provide internal security for the diplomatic facility. These active-duty Marines work under the oversight of the embassy's Regional Security Office.

You'd think that this would make our street safer and the houses and property next door even more so.

Today when I took the car out - from its position right outside or front door and merely metres away from the US Marines house I immediately noticed:

• The glove box was open and empty
• Contents of the glove box were scattered across the front and rear seats
• The centre console was open
• The contents of the console were scattered on the floor and seats
• The change alcove was open
• Some scrote had been in the car!

I did a quick check and discovered that, from memory, the only things missing were two sets of keys that I keep in the console. One being the key and a fob that lets me in to the golf club and my locker. The other being a spare key to our storage unit at Kennards. Replacing the fob will be a hassle and I don't know how I'll access the locker. I'll have to buy a hacksaw.

I walked up and down our street and found a couple of items discarded in a neighbour's' driveway that I recognised as being from our car - a golf tee and a small atomiser of windscreen defogger.

In the Villas driveway I found a wind jacket beside our fence. On checking inside our fence I found a few items from the glove box including prescription glasses in a case. These are hellishly expensive but are not sunglasses so the scrote ditched them.

Why they took the keys though is anyone' s guess as they were unidentified. Maybe they thought that the keys were to one of the houses in the villa complex we live in.

I reported this on-line to the police - for statistical purposes only - and put a warning note in all of the 9 other residents' mailboxes that some thief might try to use the keys to gain access to their townhouses.

We lived in a remote coastal area for 16 years and never had any problems from theft or wilful damage. Here we are in the so-called safe suburb of Wellington and this happens. Bastards!

Anyway - worse things happen. We (and Robert and his pal L) could have been in the Philippines when that earthquake struck today.

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

 

CANON LAW

"BEAUTY FLOWS EFFORTLESSLY FROM WHAT THEY DO"

It's been raining quite heavily through the night and this morning. I'm glad that we had the windows resealed last month. Everything is dry and the wind no longer whistles through the gaps that were there.

At least I don't have to go out and check all the neighbours' bins for water ingress like Richard does. Maybe it's just an excuse to fossick through their rubbish.

I drove The Old Girl to work this morning and, if the weather stays bad will pick her up this evening.

Given that this rain looks like it's here to stay I'll myself stay indoors and catch up with 'administration' jobs as being the Minister Of Home Affairs* requires.

Checking the blogs is high on my priority if not hers and it was pleasing to see that Robert is back among the living after having disappeared into the wilderness for a few years days like his pal Jesus did. Apparently his world-wide adventures are of limited duration and he's on his way back this weekend. I wonder if this will turn him into a frequent traveller. If so - good. Travel broadens the mind they say.

Richard's occasional post was really just a moan about the rain in the 'Nui and the fact that his neighbours leave their rubbish bin lids up in the rain. Sheesh! You'd think that, given the state of the world he'd have bigger things to worry about. He's like Donald Trump pissing about with vanity projects rather than sorting out global conflicts.

He said this: "I'm working on diminished things at the moment."

Does he mean this from Ursula Le Guin?

DIMINISHED THING

"Back to the diminished thing.

Childhood is when you keep gaining, old age is when you keep losing. The Golden Years the PR people keep gloating at us about are golden because that’s the color of the light at sunset.

Of course diminishment isn’t all there is to aging. Far from it. Life out of the rat race, but still in the comfort zone, can give the chance to be in the moment, and bring real peace of mind.

If memory remains sound and the thinking mind retains its vigor, an old intelligence may have extraordinary breadth and depth of understanding. It’s had more time to gather knowledge and more practice in comparison and judgment. No matter if the knowledge is intellectual or practical or emotional, if it concerns alpine ecosystems or the Buddha nature or how to reassure a frightened child: when you meet an old person with that kind of knowledge, if you have the sense of a bean sprout you know you’re in a rare and irreproducible presence.

Same goes for old people who keep their skill at any craft or art they’ve worked at for all those years. Practice does make perfect. They know how, they know it all, and beauty flows effortlessly from what they do.

But all such existential enlargements brought by living long are under threat from the lessening of strength and stamina. However well compensated for by intelligent coping mechanisms, small or large breakdowns in one bit of the body or another begin to restrict activity, while the memory is dealing with overload and slippage. Existence in old age is progressively diminished by each of these losses and restrictions. It’s no use saying it isn’t so, because it is so.

It’s no use making a fuss about it, or being afraid of it, either, because nobody can change it ..."

- Ursula Le Guin


If so then good on him. He, like me is a realist and just gets on with things.

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

After blog trawling and post writing my administration duties involve:

• Paying various bills on-line,
• Making hotel and rental car bookings for our Australian trip in August
• Confirming my travel arrangements (flight up and train back) to Auckland to the opera in September
• Booking ferry and train travel to Christchurch also in September

That should keep me busy today and surprise The Old Girl who expects me to snooze most of the day because I didn't sleep well last night.

Keep that beauty flowing.

* A title that The Old Girl has given me.

A NOT SO COLD THURSDAY IN THORNDON

 What can I tell you?

I won't bang on about spending umpteen hours scratching away on old second-hand musical instruments. That's for damned sure!

I'll stick to the highlights so that I won't bore you, OK?

• Breakfast was WeetBix, stewed rhubarb, my apple sauce, prune juice and All Bran mix with milk.
• My shower was followed by bathroom cleaning duties.
• I catalogued and photographed the Spode dinner set. 
  
  
  
• I emailed the details and photos to a couple of antique dealers. One seems to have gone out of business and the other replied with a no.
• I listed the set on Trade Me for $250 (probably worth 10 times that price on Amazon in USA).
• I went shopping and browsed all the local op shops and furniture stores looking for a personal valet. 

  

  Not him
  

  
  
• Lunch will be an egg, salami and cheese sandwich.
• Dinner will be stuffed potatoes.

OI! OYSTER!

"Any noise annoys an oyster, but a noisy noise annoys an oyster more!" 

Well, writing a post on quality drama was like casting pearls before swine it seems. See the previous post and comment.

That's an interesting saying that, much better than that silly "Tra il dire e il fare c'è di mezzo il mare" that Richard bangs out.

 The phrase originates from the Bible, apparently - Matthew 7:6. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns his followers: "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."

Nice!

I think what old sensationalist Jesus was trying to say - if indeed he actually said it -  is that metaphorically the pearls represent valuable insights or good advice and the swine represent those who live in Wainuiomata  who are unable to value what is being offered to them. 

I'm sure that Robert, wherever the hell he is, would agree.