STRANDED IN PARADISE

John Dix's book is a good read if you get a chance.


So - stranded -

It's a beautiful day here - warm and sunny and 'my' tui are singing.

I'm forbidden from playing tennis or going for a walk (The Old Girl's rules) as I've hurt my knee and have to give it rest to heal. I'll drive off to the gym soon as I can do exercises and weights that don't put any pressure on my knee but I still feel frustrated.
I have to get up on the roof to check the guttering so might do that after the gym although 'The News Of The North' - my neighbour Rod has just texted me to say that there's a big storm coming. There's no sign of it yet but the weather can turn quickly up here.

This afternoon I'll read my book and maybe watch something on Netflix. The blogs are a dead loss with neither Richard nor Robert likely to write anything that commands attention. There's only so many stories about house-painting, fitting of violin strings, oven doors and myths about religion that one person can stand. I guess I could look up You Tube for more snail racing videos.

"READY, STEADY....SLOW"

Richard wrote this as a comment on one of my recent posts.

Admittedly his age and dotage precludes him from writing witty comments but even so this was bloody rude. He's done this before I might add and that old expression the 'pot calling the kettle black' comes to mind.

“ "Oho!" said the pot to the kettle;
"You are dirty and ugly and black!
Sure no one would think you were metal,
Except when you're given a crack."


"Not so! not so!" kettle said to the pot;
"'Tis your own dirty image you see;
For I am so clean – without blemish or blot –
That your blackness is mirrored in me." ”

Richard to be fair has in the past written some clever and interesting blog posts but - these were in the past. His most recent offerings have been sometimes mind-numbingly boring like watching paint dry, grass grow or .....or ...... snail racing.

SNAIL RACING

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"TUI. THEY ARE GREAT BIRDS" - Richard (of RBB)

"Hey, seriously, good work with the Tui. They are great birds."

Said Richard in a comment on my last post.


I think he was thinking about this:  TUI GIRLS

COLLECTING TUI

We've got six tui living in a bottle brush tree on our property.

                                      The bottle brush is an Australian tree -

"Callistemon is a genus of shrubs in the family Myrtaceae. The entire genus is endemic to Australia but widely cultivated in many other regions and naturalised in scattered locations. "  - Thank you Wikipedia. 

The flowers have a nectar that tui seem to like and the warm weather we are experiencing must be aiding the flowering.

The tui are pretty noisy but I like the different songs they sing.   TUI SONG


I bought a tui feeder from Predator Free NZ  for my sister's birthday and liked it so I've ordered one for myself. I'm going to install it above the woodshed and close to the Callistemon.

This is bound to attract more tui than the six that already live here so it could get noisy.

Still, it's better than the bloody racket the neighbours make with their lawnmowers and weedeaters.

TIME FOR A CHANGE

The invincibility of the All Blacks is in doubt with some recent mediocre performances and the draw with South Africa last night where they allowed the 'boks' to score in the last minute.

Pathetic.

I see that Richard - he of the "I'll watch the games free at the pub" mentality thereby cutting into poor old SKY TV's profits was also disappointed at the All Black's draw. The poor old guy can't commiserate with a slap up roast dinner since his oven door fell off.  Yes, that's what I said HIS OVEN DOOR FELL OFF - how weird's that? What next? His washing machine will escape? His toilet will go on strike? Things are strange down in Nuova Lazio I tell you. No doubt he's eating lasagne and roast potatoes cooked in a pan on the hob.

Anyway - I digress, let's get back to sport. Since the rugby is disappointing I'd better watch beach volleyball but, As Richard has suggested, a more age appropriate version.

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK? - FIVE (GOOD ON YA MATE!)

You may have seen this bit of news from overnight:

'STEAMROLLER' CRUSHES CARS IN UPPER HUTT

No , it wasn't 'Crusher' Tolley this time but was someone who is pissed off at boy racers.


The guy was pissed or certainly over the limit to be in charge of a motor vehicle and there are on-going police investigations but, if it was a case of a pissed-off resident wanting to do something about noisy boy-racers then good on him.

SOME HYGIENE TIPS

No doubt some people will think I'm a crank but here goes:


I put the bed linen through the wash yesterday and, as usual took the cover off the duvet and put that in with the sheets and pillowcases.


As I did this I thought about hotel and motel rooms.

When I stay in these (including Air B&B places) I always take off the bedspread or duvet covers and throw them on the floor. Good hotels and motels should always wash the sheets and pillow cases but how many wash bedspreads, duvet covers and blankets?

A good hotel chain like Hampton do.

A very few do but most don't due to cost.

These are breeding grounds for all sorts of nasty diseases and I bet are filthy with legions of feet, bums and nether regions having been in contact with them not to mention the various bodily fluids that have been secreted onto them.

This leaves blankets and/or the duvet inners which are likely to be dirty as well but less dirty than the coverings. I tell you I've lain awake some nights wondering about this and generally don't enjoy staying in hotels and motels.

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

I always wash cups and drinking vessels in boiling water if I'm going to use them in hotel or motel rooms. Many places don't take cups and glasses away to be washed and don't replace with sterilised and clean ones. More often than not the housemaid team will simply rinse them out in the basin and then give them a wipe out with the cloth that they've been using to wipe down all of the surfaces including the toilet.

I recommend thoroughly washing out the electric jug if you are staying in a room where you have to go down the corridor to the toilet. It's not unknown for yobbos who can't be bothered doing that to piss in the jug by the bed.

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

Be wary of consuming items from mini-bars. Apart from the hellish costs of the wines, spirits and mixers there's always the chance that a previous occupant has drunk from the bottles and topped up with water or worse, piss.

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

Well that's it for now but I'll leave you with a little warning drawn from something that happened to me this morning when I went supermarket shopping.

If you are to wander about the supermarket make sure that you have your fly done up and that you don't have some unexplained white stuff on the front of your shirt.

The white stuff was cream cheese from something I'd eaten but the flies were definitely open.
Sorry about that.

Believe me, it's not a good look.

OFF TO WIDECOMBE FAIRE

I know, I know, I've been too nice recently and my posts have become a bit namby-pamby. It's time for some vitriol.

You know, or should do if you read my blog that a lot of things get up my nose. One of them is animated films.




I've nothing against animated films per se and have enjoyed many over the years like the Wallace and Gromit series, The Wind in The Willows, Fritz The Cat and lots of others.





Not having had children I've never gone along to all of those modern Disney monstrosities and all of the children's school holidays pap so don't have an appreciation or nostalgia for them.

But, in my defence I say - let them be. If people want to watch them then well and good. If the films are well made then all the better.

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

I've seen advertising for The Lion King remake (why they have to remake something that's only 24 years old is anyone's guess .... oh, I know....money). This is set to be a blockbuster and will drag along generations to watch it.

OK, all good but once again there is this bloody ridiculous emphasis on the actors who do the voice-overs. The characters in this and other films are either animated figures or cartoons. They don't exist. They are given voices obviously as the films are 'talkies' but basically any actor can do these voices. Why does it have to be a 'name'. This is a cop-out by the producers who are dragging along audiences who have images of Beyonce and John Oliver and Uncle Tom Cobley in their mind.

Uncle Tom Cobley and all

Admittedly in the new Lion King a lot of the actors are not famous names but there are enough that are. This all adds to the cost and limits the opportunities in the future for good and original animated films being made.

Bah!

GETTING SMARTER WITH AGE?

I hurt my knee at tennis on Tuesday and spent the rest of the day and half of Wednesday hobbling about on crutches.

I was supposed to drive to Auckland on Wednesday but abandoned the idea as, at the apartment I would be forced to walk steeply uphill after parking the car.

The Old Girl told me to take it easy and keep weight off my knee.

Of course this morning what did I do?

I went to tennis again and only lasted two games before my knee gave away again and I had to hobble away.

Stupid but now I've got no excuse for not doing some meditation.

A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

Wasn't that a great sporting result on the weekend?

I'm talking about the Silver Ferns winning the World Cup netball beating those incredibly talented Australians.

Well done to them and thanks for making me proud to be a New Zealander.

This of course follows on from the previous weekend when New Zealand's men's cricket team the Black Caps competed in the finals of the Word Cup cricket and just got beaten out by England on a technicality. I also felt proud to be a New Zealander then as well.

The Old Girl was up here on the weekend and we listened to the result on the radio. She then said something along the lines of ..... "It's typical, there was all the hoohah about the men's cricket and the team lost and now when a women's team wines we'll hear bugger all" (I paraphrased a bit).

I felt incensed at this and needed to remonstrate. I told her that I took exception to her comment and drew her attention to the fact that there are many sports where men take an active interest in what women are doing.

"Like what?" she demanded.

"Well" I replied, "Women's tennis, Women's Olympic long jump and of course women's beach volleyball" .......... just managing to duck the wet dishcloth that she'd been holding.

GOMMMMBLEALLBLACKSZILDMMMBBBLLL

The All Blacks narrowly defeated Argentina on the weekend and will have a tough match against the South Africans this coming weekend. This is a prelude to the soon to be contested Rugby World Cup in September so we thought that it would be a good idea to get some insights from the New Zealand Rugby's head coach Steve Hansen.

THE CURMUDGEON: Hello Steve and welcome to The Curmudgeon's sports roundup.

HANSEN: Mumble mumble mumble mumble.

THE CURMUDGEON: Er... yes, thanks Steve. With the World Cup just round the corner do you think that the All Blacks are prepared ?

HANSEN: Mumble mumble mumble mumble.

THE CURMUDGEON: Umm....OK ....umm..the Argies gave us a run for our money on the weekend do yo.....

HANSEN: MUMBLE MUMBLE MUMBLE...MU..umble mumble mumble mumble.

THE CURMUDGEON: OK, OK, got that (not really), what is your prediction for the South African game coming up?

HANSEN: Mumble mumble mumble mumble.

THE CURMUDGEON: OK Steve, we'd better wrap up now. Thanks (I think).

HANSEN:Mumble mumble mumble mumble mnewzild mumble.

PAW RUGG

"WE'RE SURROUNDED- SEND HELP!"

Richard braved the dangerous Kapiti Coast yesterday and faced up to one of his greatest fears - COWS.

See:   COW DANGER


Today at tennis a similar thing happened to me.

THE SOUTHERN FENCE

THE EASTERN FENCE

THE PAVILION IS SURROUNDED

I tried to explain to them that I don't eat beef (anymore) but they didn't want to know.

YOUR GRANDMOTHER WEARS ARMY BOOTS!

What?

THE BALLOONS UP!

Why do many voters like lying bastards?
We're witnessing the spectacle of a once world leading country having as their leader a fat, boorish, lying, fraudulent and self obsessed womaniser.

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

And the USA is no better having one of their own in Donald Trump.

“I don’t think I’ve made mistakes. Every time somebody said I made a mistake, they do the polls and my numbers go up, so I guess I haven't made any mistakes."  - Donald Trump

Boris Johnson looks set to being the UK's next Prime Minister even though he leaves behind him a trail of cheating and odious behaviour at university, in journalism and in politics. There are bewilderingly, many people who still see him as roguish with boyish charm (he's 55).

"My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters."  - Boris Johnson

Go figure.

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK - FOUR?

Well we all seem to be kept up to date with what that twittering fool Trump does - on a daily basis. It's important I guess as he steers us all to oblivion.

Have you read about his involvement in a submission to the Swedish government to free Rakim Mayers, a rapper who has been arrested for an assault?

THE INDEPENDENT

Why does a President of the United Staes of America get involved in this? Hasn't or shouldn't he have a lot more important things to do? There are crises (many of his own making) around the world that need sorting out including the incarceration of men, women and children in very poor conditions on his own southern border yet here he goes again, playing it up to the masses and listening more to billionaire celebrities rather than to his own advisers and the greater American public.

It's pathetic really.

MEA CULPA

Ok, the old mea culpa phrase is familiar to catholics, latin students and anyone who has studied law.

MEA CULPA
The phrase comes from a prayer of confession of sinfulness, known as the Confiteor, used in the Roman Rite at the beginning of Mass or when receiving the sacrament of Penance.
The expression is used also as an admission of having made a mistake that should have been avoided, and may be accompanied by beating the breast as in its use in a religious context.          - Wikipedia

 Over the last few years there seems to have been a great increase of 'I'm sorry' letters being presented in courts by wrong-doers seeking to have their sentences reduced. It's becoming a bit of a joke to see lawyers writing or encouraging their clients to write greasy and grovelling letters 'to the victim and the victim's families' that are just a blatant ploy to make their crimes and actions seem less nasty.


HOW TO WRITE A LETTER OF APOLOGY TO THE COURT


Now I've nothing against remorse and am all for rehabilitation but give us a break and don't expect me to believe a lot of this shit. If the scrote was really that aware of how his or her offending would hurt the victim then why did they bash the old lady, beat up the gay guys, set fire to the school, get pissed and kill that other motorist etc.

I'm sick of reading this shit virtually daily.

A SLOW MORNING UP NORTH

Trump :
Verb. To break wind from the anus, to 'fart'. E.g."There's a disgusting smell in here. Has someone trumped?"

Noun. 1. An act of breaking wind. 2. The resulting smell of having broke wind from the anus, a 'fart'.

TRUMP MEANS FART

EVERYBODY'S TALKIN'

HARRY NILSSON

The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ  - keeping you up to date with current events.

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY

AMERICAN BULLSHIT

It seems that it's always been there. I wonder when it started given that USA is a mixture of races and cultures that have been blended over several hundred years.
They tend to over-dramatise, over-sentimentalise, over-everything.

I've been listening to the recordings of the moon landings in 1969 and the palaver over Neil Armstrong's words on stepping onto the surface of the moon.
Being Americans they would have gone over this in the finest detail with Armstrong being rehearsed to death over what he was going to say that wouldn't embarrass the good ol' USA and make them all feel righteous.



Of course Armstrong fucked it up saying:

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

When he was supposed to say:

 "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Of course the American PR machine has for decades been spinning bullshit that Armstrong said it correctly but atmospherics washed out the missing  'a'.

Who cares?

If it had been New Zealanders up there we would have just jumped out of the bloody door without agonising over some 'clever' thing to say. There would probably have been a few "Woo-hoo" s and "Beudy"s and most likely the two astronauts would have jumped down together or had a race for the ladder.

HELTER SKELTER

HELTER SKELTER - THE BEATLES

“We're not in Wonderland anymore, Alice.” 

― Charles Manson

.

“I don't think..." then you shouldn't talk, said the Hatter.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

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

"When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide/ Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride"

                                   - Lennon/McCartney Helter Skelter 





Those and other lyrics were quoted by the madman Charles Manson when he was trying to build a scenario of an imminent race war that was going to blow America apart. Recent ridiculous announcements from that other madman Donald Trump suggest that these two jokers have things in common. Trump's racist comments might be symptomatic of an addled and diseased brain but could also be, from that addled brain, a last-ditch attempt to drum up support from an eroding base of diehard voters. Maybe he does think he needs a race war to get through his agenda.

Who knows? But certainly not who cares? These are dangerous times.






.

OK, HOO'S GOT IT?

I thought today of starting up a blog named:

THE WHITE SPORT COAT AND PINK CARNATION SOCIETY.

I checked out if the blog can have multiple authors so that Richard and I can both access and edit it and Tony and Mike in the future could also have editorial and authorship rights.
It turns out that only one address can be used but multiple authors can sign off each post with their own addresses. I was going to investigate the logistics of this but decided to see about setting up a blog account. I typed in:

thewhitesportcoatandpinkcarnationsociety.blogspot.com

and was informed that this address wasn't available.
Obviously someone else had already registered this.

Who?

Doing a google search didn't help as whoever had registered it had obviously deleted or abandoned it thereby closing off access to this blogspot name for anyone else to use.

Who would do such a thing.

Who?

My immediate thoughts went to Robert who has a habit of starting up blogs and then discontinuing them but I looked at the address name thewhitesportcoatandpinkcarnationsociety.blogspot.com and decided that there was no way that Robert could spell that and, if he did write it he would fall asleep while trying to read it for proofreading.

Who else would think about registering this address? Some shadowy internet character lurking in a garage somewhere ........

RICHARD

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE

DIRTY OLD MAN

I didn't shower or bathe today.

Even worse I'm still wearing the same clothes, socks  and underwear as I was yesterday.

When I say 'still' I haven't taken them off - I've just kept wearing them since yesterday morning.

The Old Girl (if she knew) would no doubt say to me:

"You're on the slippery slope matey. It was always a risk leaving you on your own during the week and here we are - you're looking like a bag of busted arseholes"

The Old Girl is very critical of me but I have to admit it's all done for my own good I'm sure.

In my defence, if I was having a conversation with her about this I'd tell her that I stayed up all night last night to watch the outstanding cricket final which, regardless of the outcome was the best sporting event I've ever been fortunate enough to see and, as it was about 6.30AM when I switched off, it was too late to go to bed.

I put the rubbish and recycling out, made breakfast and with dawn peeping up behind the mountain I just went about with the day's activities WHILE STILL WEARING THE SAME CLOTHES THAT I WAS WEARING ALL DAY YESTERDAY.

As it's been a cracker of a day I put through and hung out a load of washing, went for a walk, pottered about, brought in the nicely dried washing - still in those same clothes.
By late afternoon there didn't seem to be any point in having a shower or a bath so here I am - a dirty old man.

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON.

The Religious Curmudgeon has a new post as a response to Richard's alarming threat to start evangelising.

Now I know that we at The Curmudgeon's Inc.ⓒ said that we weren't going to clutter up this blog with religious rubbish this latest happening comes under the banner of news so merits being passed on:

THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

KEEP THE RUN RATE UP

KEEP THE RUN RATE UP

Thanks The Phoenix Foundation.

Well I've tried to find a way to watch the cricket final - New Zealand vs England - tomorrow night but haven't had any luck.

I registered with Sky Go and asked via an email if I can purchase a one-off access to tomorrow's match. No bastard from there has had the decency to respond. They could make a fortune if they got off their arses and developed a way for occasional sports watcher like me to access via the internet (without requiring one of their clunky boxes and satellite dishes), one-off games or tournaments the way that SPARKS has for the 2019 World Cup Rugby.

It looks like I'll be staying up all night reading and every now and then looking for updates on news channels.

Bastard.

Anyway - GO THE BLACK CAPS!

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK? - THREE

Princess Diana's niece stuns in see-through sheer dress

"The stunning niece of the late Princess Diana has stepped out in a rather revealing gown for a luxurious event in Italy.
Lady Kitty Spencer, attended a perfume launch at Lake Como, wearing a sheer pink Dolce and Gabbana dress."    - The New Zealand Herald.

Forget Brexit, USA politics, the Iran crisis, the World Cup cricket final and Salaima Fakaosilea's meth bust - The NZ Herald zeroes in on the important stuff.

BREAKING NEWS

Yes, you read it there my dear readers. Robert's blog has gone again and this time has caused a ripple in the blogging community with Richard (of RBB) leaving shocked comments on his blog.

"Yeah, was just defending you when he disappeared." said Richard on his blog when The Curmudgeon drew to his attention the fact that Robert's blog had disappeared.

"I was actually saying nice things about you!" he said in a comment that will last forever on the two remaining blogs in the community and which no doubt will be brought up from time to time to haunt him.

The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ dedicated to keeping you informed.

STILL WATERS RUN DEEP

I watched a Netflix film tonight - NEXT OF KIN (1989). It was OK albeit violent, redneck and vigilante themed with Liam Neeson in it (Richard will love it). It's set mainly in Chicago with a cop (Patrick Swayze) looking for the Mafiosa-type killers of his younger brother. The brothers originated from Appalachia which complicates things as the cop's older brother (Liam Neeson) is seeking old-style vengeance not unlike the Mafiosa-types' code. The cop's conflict is between his role as a policeman and his family responsibilities. The film was directed by John Irvin, a British director who made a lot of high energy action films.

The Appalachian roots of the film were important to the family responsibility and vengeance theme and there were some outstanding scenes of the hills, valleys, streams and forests of the eastern US countryside where coal mining has destroyed the natural beauty, ruined the health of the inhabitants but somehow is bound up in an inexplicable nostalgia and a hankering for the old ways. The brothers' home town was named 'Carbon Glow'!

Valerie Carter's  beautiful song Face of Appalachia ( written by John Sebastian and Lowell George) captures this:

FACE OF APPALACHIA- VALERIE CARTER

The screeching sounds of trains, cranes and mining machinery sound somehow beautiful in this recording which round out the 'hankering for the old ways' and trying to believe that the old days were better even though they were dirty, dangerous, impoverished and had no future. This is important to remember as it is these places and this way of life that the Donald Trump machine tapped into in 2015 and 2016 and is still doing so.

Why?

There is an incredible depth in America for the types of communities portrayed in this film and in TV series like Justified. The depictions of them are 'warts and all' showing poverty, joblessness, drug-dependancy and violence but the Americans love it. It has some kind of pioneering resonance in it to them which is tapped into by the fat orange fool. No matter that Trump is a ridiculously wealthy man of average intelligence and with an over- privileged and  really dumb family, the 'boondocks' people somehow identify with him. The Hester streets of New York City have been bulldozed and replaced by luxury buildings so the opportunity for nostalgia there and in other city and urban locations is

continually being worked over and replaced. It's harder to replace mountains, hills and valleys no matter how hard the mining companies try so these places in many of the USA states especially the mid-Eastern ones keep their resonance. The Appalachian scenes in NEXT OF KIN reminded me of my childhood in Vogeltown, Wellington and, more than 50 years later I have a vivid memory of the hills, valleys and streams that are now covered by streets and houses.

FACE OF APPALACHIA - JOHN SEBASTIAN

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK? - TWO.

Well the initial SO WHAT DO YOU THINK? post went down well with leading comments contributor Richard (of RBB) endorsing it and the concept:

"Sounds sick to me. Make money at any cost." He commented before going on to say:

"What a great Idea The Curmudgeon. I'm impressed at the innovations in your blog(s) and Robert wishes that he could do the same. Keep up the good work."

What a nice joker.

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

You may not have caught up with the cricket news but New Zealand pulled off a stunning win over India last night employing their obvious skills but, against such a good team as India needing to use some strong tactics as well. They were criticised for being too cautious in their batting but, as India discovered to their horror the pitch demanded care not bravado.

Listening to Morning Report this morning I heard the usual old misery guts moaners saying things like "what's the big fuss about it's only a game of bat and ball" and, "New Zealand were just lucky" etc. No doubt Robert will have said something similar (as he's wont to do). I often wonder how someone who bangs on about god, religion and an afterlife doesn't appear to have a soul sometimes.

GO THE BLACK CAPS!

.