SOME CONTENTION

National wants to block gang members from receiving a benefit if they are unable to prove they don't have illegal income or assets.

Black Power spokesperson Eugene Ryder said:

"Taking away a source of income from people will encourage them to go out and get jobs".

sorry ......... a bit of misreporting there ..... he actually said:

"Taking away a source of income from people will encourage them to commit crime. "

 *****************

Look, there's arguments on both sides here. Ryder also said:

"Punishing families won't help anyone. I think Simon Bridges is talking to a part of society who have no idea about living in a low socio-economic areas. What he's doing is targeting people who are already on the cusp of society."

And he's right but National along with many of us have had a guts full of swaggering gang members who are big, fit, healthy and capable of work and who take benefits while continuing in a life of crime. Taking away benefits won't make any difference to their life choices but making community service conditional on receipt of benefits could be a step in the right direction as could any attempt to push them to take up employment.

WHO NEEDS A PLUMBER?*

Today I went under the house again to do a bit of 'do-it-yourself- repair on the leaking pipes.

I thought that if it did the trick then there was no point in telling The Old Girl what a bodgie job I did and the money I saved by doing it myself.

Once finished I crawled out again, scraped all the mud off and turned the toby back on.


Disaster. The water went everywhere and possibly worse than it was in the beginning.

I decided to ring a plumber.




















* Actually I do. I contacted one today who is coming around tomorrow to put an isolating valve on the pipes until he can spend some more time on it next week.

BOGGER!

Well, bugger really.
The crawl space under the house is a bit boggy hence the title of this post*.

The Old Girl alerted me to a plumbing problem yesterday when she moved a dresser in the spare room to expose a mouldy patch on the carpet next to the wall. The wall of this spare room is shared by the laundry wall which of course has complicated plumbing behind it. Running water could be heard behind this wall.

I went under the house to have a look. The dampness in the soil I'd noticed previously I'd put down to run-off from the back of the section as we've had some heavy rainfall recently. I'd planned in fact to crawl under the house this week to check if I could refit or add to the down-pipe connections.
When I reached the area of the leak - right up the back of the house and of course in the narrowest part of the crawl space - I could see water spraying out of the water couplings quite forcefully and up onto the floorboards. I lagged the joints with cloth to cut back the spray and leaks as much as possible and turned off the water at the mains. I e-mailed a plumber to call in the coming week. Given that it's usually 'Island Time' up here I might get a response sometime during the month of November. I'm hoping that I've identified the source of the leak and that some replacement couplings might do the job. I'm hoping that there's no leak in the piping behind the walls as this would be expensive to fix and would require dismantling the laundry wall.

Murphy's Law was really in action here with the leak being at the lowest point in the crawl space where you have to access by crawling on your belly and that we become aware of the problem on a holiday weekend when tradesmen are either unavailable or it would require another mortgage to call them out.

* We at The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ employ puns in our blog post titles to further amuse our readers.

PARAPHRASING ROBERT

"A bunch of grown men chased a ball around a paddock after one side mocked the dance of the other. The men in black broke a lot of rules and were punished.
I think I'll take my ball home. It's a silly game."

A WARNING TO RICHARD (OF RBB) AND ANGRY JESUS

We at THE CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ have noticed the increased use of profanity in your comments recently.

Please take this as a warning before any yellow or red cards are issued.

THE TOWER OF BABEL

The Tower of Babel is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages.
According to the story, a united humanity in the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating westward, comes to the land of Shinar. There they agree to build a city and a tower tall enough to reach heaven. God, observing their city and tower, confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world.

         - Wikipedia

It's an early conspiracy theory really.

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

In Auckland the Sky City Convention Centre, also under construction has been on fire for several days. The workers on the project, several hundred, are from New Zealand and around the world and speakers of many languages - not all English.

"We were telling people, you've got to get out, the roof is on fire." But many of the foreign workers didn't appear to understand him.

          - Craig Merz - Sky City construction worker.

The cause of the fire hasn't yet been officially identified but there is anecdotal evidence that a blow torch used by one of the roofing insulation contractors had been accidentally left on. This is yet to be proven.

I however have another theory. A conspiracy theory.

Account manager Charli Farman was sitting at her desk when the fire started. She saw a man in an orange construction vest standing atop the building for about four minutes.
"Then he just ran when the flames started to spread."

     - NZ Herald report

I hope that the police are checking up on this observation made from a woman who saw the start of the fire from her vantage point in another building. This to me sounds suspicious. A conspiracy theorist like me doesn't see this as an 'act of god' and certainly not an act by that vengeful and jealous god who burnt down the tower of Babel. This seems to be an act of sabotage.

The Sky City Convention Centre is owned by Sky City which is a gambling and hospitality organisation in turn owned by Sky City Entertainment Group which owns five casino operations in Australia and New Zealand. By their nature casino operations attract a lot of interest from both legal and illegal money organisations and investors any number of whom, as competitors may benefit from any misfortune that should befall Sky City.

I mean, it has happened before.

 Las Vegas — Bombing of Harvey's Wagon Wheel Casino 

STAYING UP NORTH

I'm not going to The Big Smoke today as planned.
Auckland Transport and emergency services don't need extra people cluttering up the inner city at present.

The Old Girl will come up here for the weekend which, as it turns out is a long weekend with Labour Day on Monday. I tend to lose track of holidays now that I'm retired and one day runs in to the other.
Today, as it's nice, I'll play tennis before getting in to the garden to try out my Niwashis.

Look out weeds!

LAZYBONES

LAZYBONES - LEON REDBONE

I woke about seven but, looking out the window saw that it's a bad day today so made a cuppa and went back to bed to read. I read and dozed and at about 10AM friend Rod texted to inform me of the rescue chopper searching for something at the other side of the bay. I told him I was still in bed but would look later.

"LAZYBONES" he texted back.

I guess he's right and that Robert would have been at work for about 6 hours by then and even old retired schoolteacher Richard would have shuffled off to read and snooze in front of a class somewhere. I felt slightly guilty and got up, breakfasted and made a new loaf of bread. It's still crappy outside with periodic rain and high winds which precludes gardening today.

I was actually looking forward to gardening as yesterday I bought three new gardening tools when I was in town. I was looking to replace my Niwashi flax cutter which is a great tool and which I mistreated by leaving out in the garden for a couple of months so now needed replacing.

NIWASHI

I bought a new one at Mitre 10 and while there bought another couple of Niwashi tools:

The Digi Digi is a formidable tool. It has a sharp edge on one side and a serrated edge on the other. It's highly honed and slices through roots and vegetation as easily as the flax-cutter. It is also fashioned as a digging tool and can be forced down into the earth to chop deep-seated roots. When I was paying for it at the counter the woman serving me took it out of the scabbard and held it to her chest saying "this could easily pierce the sternum". When I gave her a bemused look she blushed and said "I think I read too many Midsomer Murder novels".

The other tool I bought is the Niwashi weeding tool.

This should be able to dig and slice out all of those pesky invasive weeds in my garden and at the edge of the lawn.

It's a pity that the weather's no good as I can't use them today.

Oh, and that I'm a lazybones.

IT'S LIKE THE SECOND COMING

"WHERE IS HE"?

Waiting for a new post on Richard's Bass Bag is like waiting for the Second Coming.
I'm sure that even Robert's given up the religious pursuit and sits instead at his computer waiting. He's already said that his wife does - see HERE
I imagine Richard, who likes a good joke, calls to Shelley when he sees Robert coming up the drive - "SECOND'S COMING!"

The Second Coming
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Yeats is one of my favourite poets.

The internet tells me that:

"The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is a Christian and Islamic belief regarding the future (or past) return of Jesus after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago."

I guess both the Christians and the Muslims are going to have a long wait in vain.

Let's hope that Richard can deliver.*

* A little Catholic joke there.

SITTING AROUND WITH HIS THUMB UP .... ON THE FRET.

If anyone hasn't read Sam Kean's The Disappearing Spoon then they should get their thumb out of their arse and read this informative and very entertaining history of the Periodic Table.

Kean has also written The Violinist's Thumb which investigates DNA. I've got this ordered via my free reading on Overdrive and am looking forward to it. It promises to "explore the wonders of the magical building block of life: DNA."

"There are genes to explain crazy cat ladies, why other people have no fingerprints, and why some people survive nuclear bombs. Genes illuminate everything from JFK’s bronze skin (it wasn’t a tan) to Einstein’s genius. They prove that Neanderthals and humans bred thousands of years more recently than any of us would feel comfortable thinking. They can even allow some people, because of the exceptional flexibility of their thumbs and fingers, to become truly singular violinists."


Can't wait.*









* But wait - there's more.

Her's a pic of 'The Disappearing Woman:

FOUND IT!

Robert was surprised when I used the name 'Goddy' in a comment on my last post. He hadn't heard that before. I knew that it was said by Spike Milligan and I wracked my brains to find which character of his used it. GOOGLE was no help whatsoever which shows its limitations. I finally recalled the postman character in The Bed-sitting Room which I first watched at the Auckland University Arts Festival in 1972. Tony and Mike were with me. Here is the sequence where it's used:

"GODDY" - THE BED-SITTING ROOM

The Bed-sitting Room is brilliant in film, play or to read and I strongly recommend it.

THE ARCANE RULES OF RUGBY

Rugby Union is a complicated game with more arcane rules than the Catholic Church has and likely fewer people understanding them.

I've followed rugby since I was about 8 years old and played it for two years - in the 7th form at college and in my first year of university. I played Rugby League when I was a real little guy from ages 8 through 10 and then, at Intermediate Standard five switched to soccer. I was pretty good at soccer when at Marist Brothers Newtown when we had good teams. At Secondary school at St Patrick's College Wellington I continued to play soccer but the teams were pretty bad since soccer was frowned upon. See: HERE
I switched to rugby in my last year at college as I was tired of losing every game of soccer we played. I was pretty good at rugby and the team I was in won every game we played that year- the only one in the entire school and the league we played in - to do so.


I was a back when I played rugby. Backs comprise nearly half of the team of fifteen being seven players selected for their daring and dash. Backs are the players* who almost exclusively score the tries, kick the goals and win the game basically. I played as a back in positions of centre, wing and sometimes full-back. The rules were straightforward for backs - get the ball, pass it along the back-line and score the tries without dropping the ball forward (a knock on) or passing the ball forward (forward pass). Simple - and effective.

The people in rugby teams with fat arses are known as forwards. No-one really knows what they do as they generally keep to themselves, usually in some kind of a huddle with the forwards of the opposing team. Backs tend to keep away from them and it's generally easy to run around them and get on with the job of scoring the tries. There are eight forwards in a rugby team.

There is another player, the fifteenth known as the half-back. This person is usually a short-arse and daringly hangs around the forwards to retrieve the ball which they invariable let go loose. The half-back rightfully gives the ball back to the backs.

Over the years the forwards must have got a bit pissed off at not being the glamour of the team and invented all sorts of strange rules and disciplines that they didn't share with anyone else and I suppose it made them feel better. As I said, I've followed rugby for nearly 60 years and I still don't know what these forwards get up to and what all their inventions mean. Some of them are here of which I do know what some, not all, mean:

• Line-outs - where they line up and have a mini-game on their own before the backs get the ball.
• Binding - I think this is all those bandages that they wear on their arms, legs and heads.
• Blindside - I guess this is where they tackle a back who isn't watching.
• Breakaway - not sure.
• Feed - what they do before and after the game (see turnover).
• Flanker - not sure. It could be a misheard term that the backs use about them.
• Foot up - don't know.
• Front five - I think this is self-evident. Where are the other three are skiving off to though?
• Front row - could be the first three or the fact that the first three argue amongst them selves.
• Hooker - don't ask. What goes on on tour stays on tour.
• Jumper - I guess they get cold standing around all the time and need that extra layer.
• Lifting - they pinch the beers back at the clubhouse.
• Lock - what the barman has to do to protect the beers.
• Loose head - don't know.
• Loose forwards - probably a spelling mistake. They often lose the ball forwards (knock on).
• Maul - what they do to any poor back who gets too close.
• Pack - another term that the backs use as in 'what a pack of ...'
• Pushover try - I assume this refers to how easy the backs score tries.
• Ruck - don't understand.
• Scrum - a kind of organised huddle.
• Tight five - the front five who lifted and drank the beers I guess.
• Tight head - don't know.
• Turnover - the kind of meat or fruit pies that they eat at half-time.

Richard (of RBB) was a forward when he played rugby at college and in his first year of university.
He was quite good at it given that he was a forward.

Someone said this about him in a comment on one of my earlier posts:

""What's that? what? Hey did I ever tell you about when I was at college and one year I took the most ti ...."
Just for accuracy, I played hooker - not tight head prop. Big difference. One game I took 16 tightheads. I was lucky to have a strong forward pack and two very good props. "

Actually it was Richard who said that. I'm not entirely sure what he was talking about - taking 'tightheads'-sic. Maybe it was the turnovers he took. Anyway he's proud of the fact so I hope that they gave him a medal or a certificate. No doubt he used the fact as a chat-up line with women in his younger days. I wonder how that went?


*Note that we at The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ use the gender neutral term as there are many girls and women playing rugby nowadays at all levels.

INSIPIDITY OR STUPIDITY?

Well the Boring Challenge suffered from unprecedented popularity with 100% of contributors leaping into it with salivating enthusiasm.

I should have known of course given their past history but even I was surprised at their contributions.

• Lack of relevance
• Low reader interest
• Poor grammar*
• Insensitivity
• Over use of religious references*
• Oddness
• Mind-numbing boringness

* Only 50% of contributors were guilty of this

Were the outstanding features of the posts.

The result was a dead heat between Richard's Bass Bag and The Hypocrite.

Keep up the good wor ......... on second thoughts, have a well deserved rest guys.

ANNOUNCING THE BORING POST CHALLENGE

I had an idea that blog contributors to this forum could come up with the most boring posts to regale us with.
The posts will be judged on layout, format and ......


Oh, we already have a winner:  RICHARD'S BASS BAG - THURSDAY MORNING POST

"I THINK YOU'RE IN THE REALMS OF FANTASY AGAIN HERE JONES"

JONES

Shane Jones has always been an embarrassment. His stint with the Fifth Labour Government was marred by controversy. He got himself in bother over the use of a Crown credit card and made a mess of a Chinese businessman's citizenship application. He failed in his bid for leadership of the Labour Party and later jumped ship to New Zealand First. As eighth on the list he managed to get into the coalition government and holds the portfolios of Infrastructure, Forestry and Regional Economic Development. I'm interested in his role as it effects Northland and am hanging out for improvements to rail and roading for the area. I won't hold my breath for development of the port though and time is running out for the coalition and for this guy.

He's one of those people who thinks that he's smarter than he actually is. and has a high opinion of himself. Winston Peters and Jacinda Ardern both need to keep him in check and I guess give him a telling off behind closed doors.

Last month the PM had to give him a lecture on electioneering and appropriate use of position over comments he made in a speech to the forestry industry in Northland. She told him to take a break and to read the 'Cabinet Manual' while he was away.

"Minister Jones is about to take a short break over the [two-week Parliament] recess and we've agreed that he'll take the Cabinet manual with him," Ardern said at her post-Cabinet press conference.

The Cabinet manual states that ministers are responsible for ensuring that no conflict exists or appears to exist between their personal interests and their public duty.


Now, instead of reading the 'Cabinet Manual' Jones, while on holiday somewhere in Asia was photographed firing an AR-15 – one of the guns banned in New Zealand after the March 15 terror attacks.

While not illegal to do this outside of New Zealand it shows that Jones is tone deaf in the extreme. PM Ardern hasn't censured him but said:

"Would I have done it? Absolutely not," 

"But the most important thing for me is that that Minister Jones supports what this Government has done, and he does."

Jones, along with all NZ First MPs, voted in favour of the law which banned most semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines in New Zealand earlier this year.

Winston Peters, predictable chose not to censure Jones either but instead to go on the attack against the media for reporting the story.

What's wrong with this guy? He is a senior member of the government and is in a position of power and influence. Sure he's entitled to have a holiday and to have a bit of 'fun' while he's away but, given the atrociousness  of the very recent Christchurch mosque shootings, the fact that the perpetrator is yet to be prosecuted, and the fact that guns like the AR-15 are prime on the ban list you'd think that this buffoon would have thought better. Obviously not.

DIDDUMS

So Scotland lost to Japan last night in a nail-biter Rugby World Cup pool decider.
How sad.

To be somewhat fair to the Scots they played a cracker of a second half scoring two tries to one after being down 3 tries to one in the first half.

Why diddums?

Scotland bleated about the unfairness of their game being cancelled earlier due to the dangers of Cyclone Hagibis and threatened to take legal action. A cancellation would have triggered an immediate draw with no bonus points so Japan would have automatically gone through to the quarter finals. That's the rules. As it turned out they got trounced.

Now Japan will play South Africa in the quarters. It's a big ask to progress to the semi-finals but I hope that they pull another big performance out of the hat and beat the Boks.
New Zealand will play another whingeing team in the quarter -finals - Ireland. Ireland via management, team members and press haven't done themselves any favours recently by criticising and sniping at the All Blacks.

"Have a nice cup of tea boys"

That'll be a game to watch next weekend to be sure to be sure.

SIRIOUSLY!

That old fat idiot Donald Trump continues to threaten the existence of the USA and detente around the world.

There have been so many examples of his idiocy over the last week that it's hard to pick out any one thing. I've selected his ridiculous assertion that the Kurds didn't help America in WW2 (false as per usual).

(CNN)
During a press conference Wednesday, President Donald Trump mentioned that the Kurds did not join the US during the invasion of Normandy in 1944 as part of his defense for removing troops from northern Syria, providing Turkey with a clear shot to attack the Kurds.
"Now the Kurds are fighting for their land, just so you understand," Trump said when asked if abandoning the Kurds would make it more difficult for the US to gain allies in the future. "As somebody wrote in a very very powerful article today, they didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with Normandy," Trump said, likely referring to an article posted on the right-wing website Townhall.Facts First: The Kurds as an entity did not assist the US during World War II or at Normandy in particular, but that's because they couldn't.
The Kurds are made up of many different tribes and families that primarily live in Kurdistan, a region that spans across five countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Armenia. During the Second World War there was no Kurdish government in any of these countries, so there was no way they could have assisted the US in Normandy or any battlefront.
Experts CNN spoke with said that since the Kurds were not (and still are not) a nation state, there would be no way for them to enter the war. However, because some Kurds migrated to the Soviet Union following the First World War and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, individual Kurds may have fought with the Soviets against the Axis, as noted by The New York Times.Henri Barkey, an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN that entering the war would have been impossible for the Kurds.
"There was no Kurdish entity, or Kurdish political authority," said Barkey. "Just like many other people who did not have a state, (the Kurds) could not have helped the United States."
"World War II was a war among states and the Kurds weren't a state," Michael Rubin, an expert on the Middle East and resident scholar at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, told CNN. "It's such a nonsensical statement to start with," Rubin said of Trump bringing up Normandy.

Did this idiot go to school? He has no grasp of history nor of current geo-politics. He seems to read (scan) right wing propaganda and re-broadcast any outlandish proposition that suits his agenda. It's simply amazing that he's allowed to get away with it. Fact-checking by the mainstream media doesn't really cut it as generally the damage is done and the Trump acolytes re-distribute his garbage as 'truth' no matter how stupid it is.

NEW POST - THE CURMUDGEONLY INVENTOR

The Curmudgeonly Inventor came up with a new idea today.

TOUGHER SKIN

SLEEPY TODAY

I woke early this morning and checked the rugby. I couldn't be bothered staying up late to watch the South African Canada game but was interested in seeing the highlights. Of course I buggered things up when doing so and saw the final score before I got the highlights programme up. No matter though in this case as it was only a few minutes into the game when it was obvious that South Africa weren't going to miraculously lose to Canada even if Robert prayed his heart out to his god for such a result*.

I went for a long walk as again it's such a great day and walked longer than usual. On arriving back home I mixed up the ingredients and set the bread-maker to cook a loaf of bread and planned to go to the gym. I sat down to continue to listen to the audio book that I listen to when walking, driving or working out at the gym and nodded off.

I've just woken up after losing at least an hour and still feel sleepy.
It's time for a coffee I think to revive me and, unless I nod off again I should get out into the garden and do something about those weeds.

What are you up to today?

* That would be a miracle in itself as Robert doesn't watch the rugby beleieving that it's all too silly.

MY DAY - TUESDAY

I was accepted as a member of the PROBUS club this morning. I had to stand up at the front to be inducted and to be introduced. I didn't use the Grouch Marx quote as the members are all a bit old and I'm not sure yet whether they would appreciate it. I'm the youngest member I think.

The guest speaker today was interesting - the director of Planetarium North.

He gave an excellent talk on space observation history and future predictions. Interesting.

The friend who introduced me and who is now vice-president told me that when she joined a couple of years ago the club had guest speakers who would talk about where to buy walking sticks etc. She complained at how boring it was and the executive asked her if she could do better. Never one to back away from a challenge she has organised talks from various leaders of government, industry and society. Last month was an expert on solar energy in the home. Next month will be a presentation on Antarctica. Good on you Annette. Shake the old codgers up!

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

I missed tennis, a walk and the gym this morning because of the meeting. It's a really nice day and I'm just waiting for it to cool down a bit before I mow the lawn. Life is good today. It won't be in a billion years when the Earth is toast.

GET OFF THE GLASS

I support the ideas and  values of the climate change protesters but disagree a bit in their activities. Protest? Sure, go for it. I've done a bit of that in my time when at university. Have strong opinions? Yes, the more the better. That's what democracy is all about. A bit of disruption? Yes, sometimes you have to make people sit up and notice, to stop what they are doing in their busy lives and have a think about things.

But ........ I draw the line at bloody arrogance and taking disruption to stupid levels. Seriously inconveniencing people after you've made your point is the quickest way to alienate people and to lose potential supporters.

OK, that said, I'm amused at the silly dicks who superglued their hands to the ANZ bank windows in Lambton Quay.

Wellington

Idiots.

They got the idea I guess from protestors in Washington.

Washington

Look, it's good to make a point as I said. Go for it but if I was in authority in Wellington or Washington I wouldn't be in a hurry to take steps (and use up public resources) to carefully remove them. I'd leave them stuck there for as long as it takes for them to get tired of it or for their friends to take the time and expense to get their hands off the glass.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

I've been a bit lazy recently which has been exacerbated by tiredness from staying up late to watch World Cup Rugby. As a consequence my rate of blogging has slipped and is in danger of being at a frequency level of those other bloggers who visit.  Several times a day I get an idea for a blog but unless I get on to it straight away I either forget or the 'need' disappears. I should, of course ,write it down as the idea pops up and do a blog later.

HAL ROACH - WRITE IT DOWN

I have plenty of notebooks as mentioned in The Cultured Curmudgeon's previous post so should be able to do it. Richard said years ago (in a now discontinued blog) that he jotted post ideas in his notebook when out and about. He must have filled up the pages though as his recent posting is about as scarce as Robert's.

Some things I remember that might have been posts are:

THERE WILL BE TEARS

Today I was listening to Minister of Immigration Iain Lees-Galloway on National Radio announcing changes to immigration and reopening the Parent Category visa programme. I can see this being a recipe for disaster and that in the future people will be moaning about the pressures on health, housing, employment, benefits and superannuation as a result.

It reminded me of a couple of other bits of legislation that have caused problems.

• Allowing Pit Bull dogs into the country (1980s I think) that has created problems. Even though this breed is no longer able to be imported, the 'junkyard dog' types that came in and interbred with The American Staffordshire Terrier and other aggressive dogs leaves us with a legacy of dangerous mutts owned by irresponsible owners.
• Assault-type rifles and freeing up of ownership rules in the firearms legislation. Also 1980s I think. At the time this was ridiculous but the powerful farmers' lobby group and a stupid National government opened the floodgates to thousands of dangerous and impractical (for hunting purposes) firearms that now are costing the country millions (billions?) to get rid of.

THE WHITE SPORT COAT AND PINK CARNATION SOCIETY - A HISTORY

This is a biggie and one that my limited memory might not do justice to. I would have suggested that Richard takes this on by sadly he's 'dropped the ball' when writing a history of Murray Roberts and Company with only one post so far. If Mike and Tony got off their arses and created blogs this project could get off the ground.

A LIFETIME IN WINE

There's been a bit of conflict locally as to who should write this - The Wine Guy or The Curmudgeon.
There is a lot of material to make up numerous posts but both of us 'can't be arsed' to do it.

BEHIND THE SCENES WITH A BAND

This was to be a series like This Is Spinal Tap loosely based on The Prowse Brothers band but I lack the musical experience, the behind the scenes photographs, the funny anecdotes and of course, recently I'm being nice to Richard so this hasn't got off the ground either.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH SOME PEOPLE?

This was to be about the name change to Victoria University of Wellington .

What the hell is wrong with some people?

The people in question are those who forever want to change the names of things. The 'thing' here is Victoria University of Wellington.
A small group of compulsive changers ignored the input from current and past attendees of Victoria University of Wellington and have pushed through the new name:

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

That's just a small sample of what you've been missing. If I do get the notebooks out, jot down ideas and write the posts later then the blogging frequency from THE CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ will be back to what it once was.

NEW POST - THE CULTURED CURMUDGEON

THE CULTURED CURMUDGEON wrote a new post today.

THE PERMIT

THE CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ has many maxims, one being:

 "If you don't have anything interesting to say - say it anyway"

In that spirit you might find THE CULTURED CURMUDGEON's new post 'interesting'.

I appreciate that things might be busy down south, what with Russian hackers having found out about your spots and embarrassing little secrets: HACKED

Robert also probably has to go to some emergency church meetings to discuss the latest Catholic bishop scandal: SACKED

Do what you can.*










* Another of THE CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ maxims.

THEY'LL GET THE SOCIETY THEY DESERVE - UNFORTUNATELY

Now it might come as a surprise to some people but every now and then I get a bit pissed off at things.

The latest is in listening to National Radio today and the discussion on voting in local elections.
Apparently many young people won't vote because they don't know how to do a postal vote i.e. they don't know how to post a letter.

THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO POST A LETTER!

Well, fuck me. What have we become?
Are people, generally but not always younger, so engrossed in their smartphones and other gadgets that they are gradually or even rapidly losing sight of and contact with the world around them?
This is scary.

Many people also won't vote because basically they're too lazy. Apparently reading a little pamphlet that has detail of the candidates, making the selection and ticking the boxes on a clearly laid out voting form is too time consuming for some idiots who think nothing of wasting time on their phones, watching inane things on TV and other media and playing idiotic video games. It makes me mad.

We have a democratic voting system in this country where we can elect who we want to govern our country.
We also have local elections where we can vote for people to run local council, regional council, district health board, and other important organisations in the areas where we live.
These things are valuable rights that some countries in the world don't have and that people fight and die for.

Idiots!

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

It's a cold and blustery day up north and The Religious Curmudgeon has been indoors watching some interesting clips on YOUTUBE. He has posted a Sean Lock clip which is very funny.

MENTAL

NEW POST - THE DARKER CURMUDGEON

THE DARKER CURMUDGEON HAS A NEW POST:

MAKING PLANS

HOW MANY MEN DOES IT TAKE TO FILL IN A HOLE?

Last evening - it was after 5PM - 3 trucks arrived and parked at the bottom of my drive. They were marked 'DRAINAGE' on the sides and were contractors for the council.

One of three trucks at the bottom of the drive

I was worried that there had been a water leak although I hadn't seen any evidence of this so I filled the filtered water jug we keep in the fridge and the electric jug just in case.

The trucks disgorged eight men in hi-vis jackets who, because it started to rain put on hi-vis rain coats and began to unload picks, shovels and all sorts of equipment. They conferred for a while before one of them started up a pneumatic drill and began to dig up the 4 square metre patch of roadway that's been there for over a year. Three others stood about leaning on shovels and the rest scuttled back into the trucks and watched through the windows.

I wrote a post about the water leak that lead to the council contractors digging up the road and filling the hole in again in September last year See: SPRINGTIME
The repair job that they did to the road was a bit rough and I expected them to come back sometime to improve it. They did come back -  13 MONTHS LATER!

As I said, there were three large trucks with eight men in them. One of the trucks had a big bin containing hot tar mix. Once the hole had been dug (I don't know what they did with the material dug out) three men got out of the truck and started filling the hole with the hot tar mix. They smoothed it off and thumped it down using another machine that they got off a different truck. After one and a half hours it was job done. No water was turned off. There was no disruption.

I thought about the inefficiency of this. Eight men doing this job to dig up and fill in a 4 square metre patch of non-urgent roadwork. They started the job after 5PM so no doubt were on some kind of overtime.
This all comes out of our rates. If given the opportunity I'd have asked them to pay me to dig the hole and, once one person in a truck had dropped off a little bit of hot tar mix I'd have filled it in again. Even if I charged a  usurious rate the savings would be considerable.

EXCITING NEWS*

Generally up North things go along pretty quietly but today is a big day. The event is right up there with Richard getting a new door for his oven.

The new fridge was delivered today.

The old fridge had been acting up a bit over the last few months and last Tuesday decided to stop going altogether.

I went on-line and  found an appropriate replacement on the Noel Leeming site. The one I selected ticked all the boxes:

✔️On special (saving of $399)
✔️Fridge / Freezer (the freezer part is optional as it can also be used as a fridge)
✔️Can be delivered
✔️Old fridge and packaging  taken away
✔️Reputable brand

The brand is Samsung and it looks quite smart and has good consumer ratings.

I set the twin cooling dial to 'fridge' so that the top compartment can be used as a refrigerator. I can keep salad vegetables in there. I will take the movable ice-maker box out and store it for when we want to use the top compartment as a freezer.

This photograph staged for demonstration purposes only. Normally the doors will be kept shut.

This is just the kitchen fridge. We have a larger fridge/freezer in the other kitchen at the end of the house where we store larger items and, more importantly, the wine.






* Even when there isn't any great news we at THE CURMUDGEONS INC.ⓒ feel it important to at least bring our readers some news.