CHINA RULES - OK?

Mike and his family are in China at the moment - Wuxi and Shanghai. I hope that they are obeying the rules. See:

CHINA RULES

As printed in todays's NZ Herald.

Here are the 'rules' set to counter terrorism. On glancing at them I thought that a few of them applied to Robert. I've highlighted these for you.

FORTY-EIGHT SUSPICIOUS SIGNS OF 'EXTREMISM'

The following reasons can be used as a trigger by Chinese Government officials to justify someone being sent to an education camp.

Owning a tent  - Most likely

Telling others not to swear  - Most likely

Speaking with someone who has travelled abroad  -Yes, definitely

Owning welding equipment  - Most likely

Telling others not to sin  -Yes, definitely

Owning extra food

Eating breakfast before the sun comes up  -Yes, definitely

Merely knowing someone who has travelled abroad  -Yes, definitely

Owning a compass  - Most likely
  

Arguing with an official -- He argued with the Hutt Valley Mayor

Publicly stating that China is inferior to some other country - Yes, he is xenophobic

Owning multiple knives  - Most likely

Sending a petition that complains about local officials  - He argued with the Hutt Valley Mayor

Having too many children

Abstaining from alcohol

Not allowing officials to sleep in your bed, eat your food, and live in your house  - He argued with the Hutt Valley Mayor

Having a VPN

Abstaining from cigarettes
Not having your government ID on your person  -Yes, definitely - He argued with the Hutt Valley Mayor

Having WhatsApp  - Most likely

Wailing, publicly grieving, or otherwise acting sad when your parents die  -Yes, definitely

Not letting officials take your DNA  - He argued with the Hutt Valley Mayor

Watching a video filmed abroad  -Yes, definitely

Wearing a scarf in the presence of the Chinese flag

Wearing a hijab (if you are under 45)

Going to a mosque

Praying  -Yes, definitely

Fasting

Listening to a religious lecture  -Yes, definitely

Not letting officials scan your irises  - He argued with the Hutt Valley Mayor

Not letting officials download everything you have on your phone  - He argued with the Hutt Valley Mayor

Not making voice recordings to give to officials   - He argued with the Hutt Valley Mayor

Speaking your native language in school  - He prays using strange archaic language and terminology

Speaking your native language in government work groups  - He prays using strange archaic language and terminology

Speaking with someone abroad (via Skype, WeChat, etc.)

Wearing a shirt with Arabic lettered writing on it

Having a full beard

Wearing any clothes with religious iconography  -Yes, definitely

Not attending mandatory propaganda classes  - He attends Mass

Not attending mandatory flag-raising ceremonies - - He attends Mass

Not attending public struggle sessions (the public humiliation of political rivals) - - He attends Mass

Refusing to denounce your family members or yourself in these public struggle sessions
Trying to kill yourself when detained by the police

Trying to kill yourself when in the education camps

Performing a traditional funeral  -Yes, definitely

Inviting multiple families to your house without registering with the police department  -Yes, definitely

Being related to anyone who has done any of the above -Yes, definitely

This post brought to you by China's favourite 'whisky' brand

NAPIER

We're off to Napier for a week to stay in The Old Girl's cousin's house - the one we spent the Christmas before last in. The cousin and her husband are trekking in Nepal and we will be keeping an eye on The Old Girl's aunt who is in a care facility nearby. Our duties will be bringing her to the house for an hour or so to watch her favourite TV shows and to take her for a drive.

It should be a good week although I doubt if we'll be enthusiastic about using the swimming pool given that it'll be a few degrees cooler than it was when we were there in a summer season.

I'll take my iPad with me but won't be able to post blog posts the way I can with the desk-top computer. This will mean that Richard will have to step up and do a lot more posting as he's been a bit slack in this regard recently.

Failing that the blogging community will have to rely on Robert ......

 ...... or maybe not.

This post brought to you by:

INFLUENCING

No doubt you've heard of the term 'Influencer' which is a person making a living out of their social media.

Here from Marketing Hub:

What is an influencer?
An influencer is an individual who has the power to affect purchase decisions of others because of his/her authority, knowledge, position or relationship with his/her audience.
An individual who has a following in a particular niche, which they actively engage with. The size of the following depends on the size of the niche.
It is important to note that these individuals are not simply marketing tools, but rather social relationship assets with which brands can collaborate to achieve their marketing objectives.
What Are Influencers in Social Media?
Over the last decade we have seen social media grow rapidly in importance. According to the August 2017 Global Digital Statshot from We Are Social and Hootsuite, 3.028 Billion people actively use social media - that’s 40% of the world’s population. Inevitably these people look up to influencers in social media to guide them with their decision making.
Influencers in social media are people who have built a reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a particular topic. They make regular posts about that topic on their preferred social media channels and generate large followings of enthusiastic engaged people who pay close attention to their views.
Brands love social media influencers because they can create trends and encourage their followers to buy products they promote.
Types of Influencers
The majority of influencers fit into the following categories, with the last category rapidly becoming the most important:

• Celebrities
• Industry experts and thought leaders
• Bloggers and content creators
• Micro Influencers

The bulk of social influencer marketing today occurs in social media, predominantly with micro influencers, and blogging. Industry experts and thought leaders such as journalists can also be considered influencers and hold an important position for brands. Then there are celebrities. These were the original influencers, and they still have a role to play, although their importance as influencers is waning.
Bloggers and influencers in social media (predominantly micro-bloggers) have the most authentic and active relationships with their fans. Brands are now recognizing (sic) and encouraging this.

OK, have you got that? Every time that you catch up on what the Kardashians are doing or what your favourite music, film, or religious star is thinking (yeah right!) then you are likely to be 'influenced' either subtly or not so subtly into  liking, thinking about or even choosing a product or brand.

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

Given the popularity of THE CURMUDGEON blog it would be rude of me not to get aboard this so, starting from today I will be (subtly) introducing brands and products that will subliminally inveigle their way into your consciousness.

Watch out for them - or, better still, don't. Just let them find their way to you.

This post brought to you by:

CAUGHT WITH YOUR PANTS DOWN (APPARENTLY)

Have you received one of these?

Hello!
Look at the sender adress (sic) of this email ( From: ).
I sent this email from your account, I got full access to it and also your computer, even your webcam and microphone.
Few months ago you got automaticly (sic) infected with my malware, RAT ( Remote Administration Tool ), because your browser wasn't patched to that time when visited some website where my iframe was placed wich (sic) redirected to my exploitpack (sic) (drive-by-exploit) in the background.
Since then I collected all your private stuff, I even made some videos from you over your webcam and I think we both know, that if everyone else would see all that, your life would be simply hell!
I got absolutly (sic) all your contacts, your account on social network and so on...
To publish all I got from you would take me 5 minutes!
You know exactly about the very bad stuff and everything else you got on your computer!!!
I give you the chance to stop me from doing this!
Send me exactly 900$ in bitcoin ( BTC ).
If you don't know how and where to buy the bitcoins, Google "Where to buy bitcoins?", it's very simple task.
Your wallet can be created here: (deleted)
My bitcoin adress is: (deleted)
After that I will remove everything and we forget about everything - I promise!
I give you 3 days to get the bitcoins and pay me.
That all isn't a joke, like I wrote above, look at the sender adress (sic) of this email, it is your email and I sent it from your email account, because I got access to everything from you!

Yes, I know that the spelling and grammar kind of suggests that Robert is behind this but we, along with millions of other people get these emails every now and then. It's part of an international email spamming scam see:

FAKE SEXTORTION EMAIL SCAM

We get them through our Spark Xtra email accounts. Xtra was hacked a couple of years ago and millions of email accounts around the world were compromised. Of course we have changed passwords but the scammers use the old information in the hope that some people will panic and send them money which, apparently happens such is the shame of the suggestion of having accessed pornography on-line.

It makes me laugh though - the thought that some little scrote in Bangladesh or Ukraine or wherever might have watched me sans pants enjoying a little internet surfing! Good luck to them I say - maybe it should me me charging them 900 Euros!

ANZAC DAY

PLAYING LITTLE GAMES

Whilst The Old Girl isn't exactly OCD she does have a collection of old tooth brushes which she uses, when doing housecleaning, to reach those corners and places that I ignore.

She has a very good visual memory so that when I can't find my wallet, phone or keys I ask her and she remembers exactly where she last saw them That's very useful.

There are little things she does that are irritating though and I sometimes do little things in response.

Do you remember that excellent British comedy series Ever Decreasing Circles with Richard Briers, Penelope Wilton and Peter Egan?

Anne (Wilton) would continuously put the phone receiver the wrong way on the cradle in the hallway knowing that Martin (Briers) who was OCD would make a point of putting it back the right way. This was her little way of getting her own back on Martin's annoying obsessions.

I sometimes put the tea towel upside down on the kitchen rack knowing that The Old Girl will right it.

I sometimes move her toothbrush to the container that mine's been relegated to (I was getting the ceramic one of the burlesque lady in underwear dirty). She moves it back and gives me a warning.

When I'm doing housework dusting (this is a rare event) I move her jewellery and other items on the top of her dresser. Just a bit - a few centimetres to the left or right and I notice that later they are put back in the right place.

Such fun!

HOLY SHIT*

* This religious stuff is usually the domain of The Religious Curmudgeon but we thought we'd give him a break today.

Today is Good Friday which has significance for christians but bugger all for other religions and for atheists except for the start of a long holiday weekend.

I see that Robert in his latest post references the death of Jesus and tries to create some mystical connection between an event that happened over 2000 years ago and the modern day. Good luck to him I say. The name of his new blog is 'Praise The Lord'. He should add - 'And Hide The Silver'.
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian, any more than standing in a garage makes you a car but I'm being disrespectful I know ...

Robert isn't the only christian nutter out there. Recently I've upset some others on the Neighbourly site. As a response to some evangelist talking about the wonderful deeds of christians over the years I answered that christians didn't have sole bragging rights to inventions, medical and social advancements and good deeds in general and anyway, Christianity has some pretty dark deeds on record - mass murder, genocide and mysogyny to name a few. This brought out the christians lurking in dark corners who accused me of ignorance and babbled on about the one true faith and all sorts of similar nonsense. Kind of like Robert's comments on my blog posts. They are a brotherhood I guess.

" I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you."

THE LOST WORLD JURASSIC PARK - DODO*

This film was rubbish and, if the fate of dinosaurs had been left to nature wouldn't have spawned off its predecessor JURASSIC PARK.

Another form of dinosaur that pisses me off is the massive urban truck that dickheads (male and female) are driving nowadays.

Generally they are driven by people with no proper driving skills and are totally unsuited to the 'work' that they are used for. I'm sure that only a tiny percentage of these things carry work tools and tradesman items, never go off-road (except to launch a jetski into pristine waters) and are invariably clogging up supermarket carparks and straddling the footpath outside schools.

I've complained about these before see:  HERE

Why manufacturers churn these monstrosities out year after year I don't understand. Car-parking buildings, streets and lanes and shopping centre carparks have not widened their spaces to accommodate them which makes driving and parking a bloody hassle for other drivers. The height of the things along with their width and often tinted windows make it difficult to see through and around.
There seems to be a general irresponsibility from the drivers of them as well who can't be arsed to park them properly and when not using the handicapped spaces invariably straddle at least two normal parks.

I hate them! The sooner they become extinct the better.

* For Richard - there's a joke in there.

SOME STATS 2

Due to an overwhelming response (100% rate of comments from readers) to my  'SOME STATS' post it's necessary to do a follow-up.

Some deeper data mining was necessary and some very interesting facts were unearthed (see graphs).

We discovered that Richard's Bass Bagging Confederation is woefully below par not only in posting frequency (see SOME STATS) but also in character volume and pictorial representation.

Research has shown that the average blog post uses at least 200 characters made up of a minimum of 3 paragraphs, 10 sentences and twenty lines. Quality blog posts also highlight posts with a minimum of two images which stimulate interest.
                                                    - Ed Feinhoft, California Institute of Social Media 2019.

Richard's Bass Bogging Conundrum's posts have, on average 100 characters and one image.

THE CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ's posts in comparison use an average of 350 characters and 3 images.

Thank you.











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SOME STATS

I compared the frequency of posting between THE CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ and Richard's Bass Bagging Consortium today and, as I suspected THE CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ has excelled in its diligence and frequency of posting whereas Richard's Bass Bagging Confusion has been sadly lacking in all areas.

This graph will show you quite clearly the difference in frequency, content, readability, consumer interest and social usefulness between The Curmudgeon's blog and the associated member's blogs and Richard's Bass Bag and it's associated members.

In summary THE CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ has posted over 100 times so far this year while Richard's Bass Bagging Consternation has struggled to make 75 posts.*













* THE CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ dedicated to keep readers informed.

TUESDAY

Tennis, gym and then a swim so far this morning.

It's a beautiful day with blue sky, no wind and lots of sun. It only gets cool in the shadows .... and in the water. The water temperature is noticeably cooler than it was a couple of weeks ago and I think that at Easter we'll have the last swims until about October.

Autumn is showing itself by falling leaves, the approach of cooler weather and rats trying to move into the roof. I sorted these out as I've done before. See: HERE  but it isn't easy. We discussed the possibility of installing one of those pull-down ladder contraptions which could be installed at the end of the hallway:

I'll have to add this to the list of 'improvements' that The Old Girl wants to and around the house:

• Kitchen renovation
• French doors from the master bedroom to the deck
• Skylight at the end of the house
• Laundry renovation
• Main bathroom renovation
• Paved driveway and parking area
• Landscaped garden
• Glass and metal deck railings
• etc.

I'd better buy a lotto ticket.

PERHAPS IT WAS JUST AS WELL ......

I've always liked flying. When I was really young my parents used to pack my brother and me off during school holidays to stay with various relatives who had farms in Waikato, Marlborough and Canterbury. Invariably we would fly - in the early days on Douglas-DC3's and later on Fokker F27 'Friendships' and Vickers Viscounts.

NAC fleet 1965

It was great fun and I got a taste of flying from this.

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

When I was at secondary school I joined the Air Training Corps (not as part of school as St Patrick's had an army corps not airforce). The Air Training Corps (ATC) paraded every Tuesday night at the Shelly Bay Airforce base in Wellington.

At the 3 hour 'parade' we would learn parade drill, aviation theory, First Aid, navigation and some other general stuff. We all wore airforce uniforms which were great. Blue serge jackets and trousers, pale blue shirts with an airforce tie and a blue airforce fatigue cap. We had various airforce badges as well. Very smart.

We had away trips in the school holidays to Ohakea airforce base where we lived in barracks, ate in the mess hall and were able to clamber in and over De Havilland Vampire bombers and got flights in airforce planes.

De Havelland Vampire

Our firearms training was conducted at Trentham army barracks where they had an outdoor shooting range. We fired old-style Lee Enfield .303 rifles. These were clunky and had brass shoulder 'pads' on the stocks so that after 20 rounds your shoulder was bruised and hurt like hell.

I did this for a couple of years until college sports and other activities made it difficult to continue but I really enjoyed the experience.

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

In the late 1970s I saved up some money and took flying lessons.

I've still got the logbook.

I did this at Wellington airport flying Piper Arrows.

This was great fun, for me (the instructor thought otherwise once when I was flying upside down in cloud) but I was unable to progress to a pilot's licence as in those days the MOT demanded a high standard of eyesight and only later allowed pilots to wear spectacles as long as a spare pair was carried. I gave it up and did some parachuting instead before I left Wellington to live in Auckland.

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

I've maintained an interest in flying though and The Old Girl and I have been to several airshows around the country - Warbirds Over Wanaka being the best of them. The first airshow I saw was in 1959 at the opening of Rongotai airport. A family friend lived in a suburb overlooking the airport and we spent the afternoon on their deck getting a spectacular view of the show including the Vulcan bomber crash.

The unveiling of Wellington's new multimillion-dollar airport in 1959 was almost marred by a fatal air tragedy when a Vulcan bomber clipped the southern end of the airfield.
Vulcan navigator 88-year-old retired Wing Commander Bryn Lewis recalled the incident in 2013 when he told The Dominion Post he thought he and scores of onlookers would die when the bomber nearly bombed.
"I thought we were going to die ... and people on the ground were going to die," Lewis said.

As the huge British Royal Air Force plane spewed fuel, Captain Tony Smailes avoided ploughing into crowds by going full throttle and pulling the plane and its five crew back into the air. They managed a crash-landing at Ohakea.

"Like a mighty bird alighting, the Vulcan bomber appears to perch on the edge of the Wellington Airport embankment," The Evening Post reported at the time.
It lost its left rear wheel as its undercarriage and left wingtip hit the ground.

.

Vulcan bomber at Wellington

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

A job I had with a Waiheke wine company meant that I was taking weekly and sometimes more often, flights to Waiheke in the owners helicopter. I like flying in helicopters and the flights over to Waiheke across the Hauraki Gulf were spectacular. I acknowledge that helicopters can be dangerous though and feel today that I've 'been there, done that'.
Here's an old post I wrote about a helicopter flight I had in the 1970s:

LUCKY *10

We have a friend who has a plane - a vintage Piper two seater that he keeps at Ardmore. He flies the scenic-trip DC3 around Auckland as well. He's flying mad. I remember in 2009 in Auckland when he and I flew from Ardmore to Whenuapai and back for the Whenuapai airshow 'Wings Over New Zealand'. This was a great day with The Red Checkers aerobatics team, NZ, US and other airforce planes plus the Harvards and some WW2 Warbirds planes. Magic. On the flight back to Ardmore in South Auckland we were at one stage surrounded by a squadron of Harvards and, thrill of thrills, close up to the P51D Mustang whose pilot gave me a wave as he zoomed past.

P51D Mustang

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

So why this post? On the weekend a Harvard was circling the bay above our house doing lazy turns for a while until it took off to the south. I'm not sure what that was about whether he was taking photographs or practising. I checked on-line and saw that there is an airshow at Easter at Omaka in Marlborough. I'd like to be there.

Harvard

And why the title of this post -  'PERHAPS IT WAS JUST AS WELL ....'?

Our friend who owns the Piper and the winery owner who owned the helicopter are both excellent pilots and are also sticklers for safety. As a consequence the pre-flight and post-flight checks of their aircraft are incredibly thorough. I unfortunately as can be confirmed by The Old Girl am a bit slap-dash - 'Rip Shit and Bust' according to her. If I had qualified as a pilot and was flying any sort of aircraft the chances are that I would be a bit cavalier in my approach to safety and pre-flight checking ....

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

The Religious Curmudgeon just wrote a stroppy post see:

HERE

Easter is only a week away and I suspect that he might bang on about Easter and its origins  (or as Donald Trump says "its oranges" before then.  See: ORANGES

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

The Religious Curmudgeon has something he wants to share:

RUN FOR THE SHADOWS

WHAT'S HE DOING IN THERE?

WHAT'S HE BUILDING

There's a guy in our street who comes almost daily, parks up outside a house that I think he occasionally stays in, walks down to the beach, unchains his dinghy that's stored under the pohutukawa tree and rows out to a yacht moored in the bay.

OK you ask. So what. Other boaties do this.

This guy spends a couple of hours on his yacht.

DOING WHAT?

I watch but never see him doing the sort of maintenance you would expect from a boating enthusiast - scraping, sanding, painting etc. He disappears down into the hold or living quarters only to be seen a couple of hours later.

WHAT'S HE DOING IN THERE?

He's taken the yacht out a couple of times in the last year and has been away for a couple of days.

WHY?

WHERE DOES HE GO?

DOES HE RENDEZVOUS WITH AN OVERSEAS BOAT?

WHAT'S GOING ON?

When I discussed this with The Old Girl she said that I was being paranoid.

PARANOID - MOI?

I reminded her of the nutter who shot dead two real estate agents (I know, I know - no bad jokes please) last year just a few kilometres from here and the Whangarei joker who was arrested a couple of days ago with a stash of illegal firearms and home-made bombs in his house not to forget the P labs and drug dealers including the country's biggest bust of imported cocaine and crystal meth landed off the Northland coast a couple of years ago.

WHAT'S HE DOING IN THERE?

HA HA YOU'RE DEAD

I started watching the first episode of the second series of Killing Eve on TV One On Demand.


This will be the only one that I'll watch as it hasn't improved and, if anything has become nastier and less entertaining.


I made mention of Killing Eve and its unworthiness in a previous post HERE

The producers, critics and supporters (fans) bleat on about the fact that this is dark comedy. Well, I believe that this is another example of younger generation people not being educated enough to understand what 'dark comedy' or black humour is. This programme has 'humour' more like pantomime humour rather than subtle satire like Jules Feiffer's Little Murders or anything by Alfred Hitchcock.

Violence and killing shouldn't be portrayed as funny. This is something that Killing Eve's creators and fans don't understand.

SHUT UP!

I was watching Jurassic Park on Netflix the other day and man did I get annoyed at having to turn the volume down every time there was some 'action' going on. Then I'd have to turn the volume up again to hear the dialogue (why I bothered I don't know) and then down again etc.

The reason was the annoying, very loud and intrusive music that the dickhead director (Spielberg in this case) thought was essential to the film. John Williams concocted the shit and probably won an Oscar for it but I hated it.

I find with watching Netflix films and series that I have to turn the volume down during 'action' scenes as the music is so loud and have to turn it up again to hear the dialogue.

Why do films need music?
OK, some films and TV series are enhanced by judicial use of music - The Sopranos, Pulp Fiction, Easy Rider, The Royal Tenenbaums, Miller's Crossing, Apocalypse Now, The Departed - to name a few but generally film scores are crap and are annoying.

I get especially irked at films that have car chase scenes and the musical director uses ridiculously loud, 'bang crash' music to accompany it. It's as if they've contracted out to a kid to do it.

Jaws is probably an exception.

DELETED FACEBOOK*

* Well, deactivated anyway. Getting rid of Facebook is like trying to scrape shit off a blanket (I assume). I'd deleted deactivated Facebook from our two main email accounts some time ago but started a new one up on our gmail account last year as it was convenient to use it to access other social media accounts like Neighbourly. This of course is Facebook's insidious way of inveigling its way into our lives.

I deactivated this account because I'm pissed off at Facebook's response to NZ's Privacy Commissioner to change its live-streaming after the Christchurch mosque attacks:

FACEBOOK DOESN'T CHANGE

Facebook still hasn't taken proper steps to stop the Christchurch shooter's video from being shared:

FACEBOOK'S A BASTARD

OK, it's a drop in the ocean or pissing into the wind but I wouldn't be happy if I didn't do this.

Now that I've deactivated it I'll go through the ridiculously convoluted process of deleting it, ignoring all of the dire warnings that Facebook throws up about how deleting the account will delete all of the account information and remove ability to login to the service. No photos, friends, messages, status updates, etc. According to Facebook, once your account permanently deletes, there is no way to restore your account or your data.

Whooooo .... scary. Let's do it.

BE CAREFUL OF THAT FISH

Here's another toned down post so as not to get you readers too excited.

PART TWO - BE CAREFUL OF THAT FISH

My friend Rod is scared of most things. He's a bit timid not unlike Richard (of RBB) who's afraid of cows, heights, mice, fast driving, elegant menswear shops and tritones.

Today when I was coming home from the gym I saw Rod parked by the side of the road loading his kayak onto his trailer. I stopped to give him a hand reminding him that he had told me that he would be out fishing this morning and that we had agreed that I would get my kayak out and go out to join him. He didn't stay out for very long even though the water was calm and it hadn't started to rain yet.
He said that he was very nervous about fishing on his own as someone had told him that if he caught a large kingfish it could tip him out of his kayak or drag him out of the harbour and out into the ocean blue.

KAYAK FISHING

I thought that he was joking at first but he was serious. He was genuinely afraid.

It was kind of like Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea.

I listened attentively and sympathised with him I scoffed and called him a silly old bugger.

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS NEW ZEALAND

Just a recap on that funny NZ Tourism campaign of last year.
If you didn't see it here are two Rhys Darby videos:


OFF THE MAP

GET NZ ON THE MAP