ON RUDENESS

As a curmudgeon I get accused of rudeness from time to time.

I don't accept this though as I'm not a rude person. I'm actually quite shy and sensitive - ask Mike at the tennis club. I do dislike stupidity though. And arrogance. You might as well add in ignorance, hubris, narcissism, pushiness, bullying, greed, pretentiousness, prissiness and self-importance to the list of my dislikes as well. Actually I dislike quite a few things but ... I'm still not rude. I'm shy and sensitive.

In Richard's recent post he recounted his experience at a group holiday gathering where he was given the (probably thankless) duty of playing background music on his violin while the others in the group were preparing or waiting for dinner.

Now I dislike a lot of things as I said above and maybe this includes Bossa Nova but I would never be so rude as that fucker who plugged his phone into Richard's amp to play some bloody Neil Diamond music. What was the song? Probably 'I AM... I SAID' going by his arrogance.

I guess that Richard did the right thing in the situation by quietly obliging and packing his stuff up. It would have made for an uncomfortable dinner if he'd told the fucker to fucking well fuck off. I hope that he slipped a bogey or something into his pudding when he wasn't watching.

I might think about the examples of rudeness that I've encountered. This, if you're lucky could become a new series.

 

FIVE FOR FIFTEEN*

It seems that the exciting  Bassic Instinct post was too exciting for some of the readers so I'd better tone things down a bit with this post.

"I couldn't sleep - my heart was racing after reading your post."

Richard (of RBB).

"I had to pray to Luz de Maria to settle down after that."

- Robert ka kite i nga mea i te rangi

* Not one of my bowling performances from my cricket glory days.

Today I played golf - the first time for a long while. I went out at 11.30 thinking that it would be too hot later. As it turned out it was too hot at midday so I only played 5 holes. I did however find 15 golf balls in the copse of trees by the creek at the back of the 5th hole. 

The big hitters on the tee of the 6th hole, when they slice the ball tend to hit it into these trees. Often they don't bother or don't have time to look for the ball. One guy must have been having a bad day as I found two Optima balls that looked brand new-just out of the box, They were about 20 metres apart and it looked like the hitter had taken another shot after losing the first ball and getting the same bad result. Bad for him - good for me which I think George Orwell might have said.

"I wish that I'd said that".

I headed home and ermt for a swim before having a late lunch - butter chicken pie bought from the bakery. This cooled me down (the swim not the pie) and I've been having a relaxing afternoon reading.

Dinner for me this evening will be linguine with pesto and pine nuts.

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

 

SOME MORE MYSTICAL NONSENSE

"Really. This time I could hardly be bothered."

BASSIC INSTINCT *

 The Curmudgeon stirred in his sleep. Something at the edge of his subconscious had pulled him from the deep dream he'd been having of Isabelle Adjani.

A tapping noise, at once rhythmic but annoying had intruded. He woke and reached out for Isabelle ... sorry, The Old Girl but she wasn't there! "WTF?" he thought before remembering that she was away working for 6 weeks in Pamukkalle Valley, Turkey. He eased himself to the edge of the bed and listened intently. Yes, there it was again, a rhythmic but annoying tapping. It couldn't be .....

Richard had positioned himself on the rise at the rear of The Curmudgeon's house. It had a clear view of the master bedroom windows and he had concentrated on the left one - the one that, when the blinds were opened afforded the best view of the majestic Mount Manaia.

His preliminary observations had confirmed that The Curmudgeon opened the blinds each morning and looked at the mountain. It was a magnificent sight ... well, TC was always naked.

Richard had scoped in the shot he planned to take and had researched wind and temperature conditions that would affect the trajectory of the bullet. He was ready.

He was too ready in effect and, inexplicably given his career choice and the musical instruments he played, was bored. He found himself humming that Czardas tune and involuntary tapping out what he thought was the beat on the stock of his rifle - the Springfield M25 7.62mm he favoured. He drifted a bit. Well, at his age he drifted a lot and was surprised when the window blinds were suddenly raised and The Curmudgeon looked out. TC was looking out directly at where Richard was nestled at the top of the rise. Panicked, Richard took the shot but, instead of gently squeezing the trigger he pulled it rather violently and the shot, the cheap shot went astray.

The Curmudgeon, after raising the blinds, instead of looking directly at the mountain, had, due to that annoying sound turned his head to the right. He saw something - a frantic movement a microsecond before the window exploded and a projectile tore past his ear. "Fuck!" he exclaimed. He looked down and quickly covered himself "Bloody Isabelle Adjani" he thought as he brushed off bits of glass and struggled into underpants (Swanndri red tartan) and shorts. Richard!

Richard cursed and quickly packed away his weapon, collected his things that were scattered around him. He only had the essentials - double bass, metronome, violin, violin strings, extra violin strings, coffee in a thermos, bag of meat pies, spare underpants (Swanndri green tartan), incontinence pants (just in case), self-improvement book, Italian dictionary, cellphone, slippers, medicines (heart, piles, anxiety, headache, arthritis, rheumatism, gout, constipation, flatulence and the special little blue ones). He packed these into the large suitcase, shouldered the rifle in its carry bag, grabbed the suitcase and headed off to his car that he'd 'conveniently' parked a kilometre away. "Hey! the parking was cheaper there" he remonstrated with himself.

The Curmudgeon swung into action. He creaked his way to a standing position and looked around for his socks which he eventually found under the bed. This involved getting down on one knee and gently rolling over on to his side to reach under the bed. He creaked his way back to a sitting position and put them on. "T-shirt" he thought and picked up the one on the floor, turned it the right side out and proceeded to put it on "Bugger" he thought when he looked down to see that it was stained with sauce from the pasta Siciliana he'd had for dinner the night before. "The Old Girl won't like that" he said to himself and went to his shirt drawer to find a clean one. He finished dressing and, put his shoes on and raced went to the back door. He didn't see but heard an old Mitsubishi car racing crawling away in the distance, "Bugger" he said.

TC knew that it would be hopeless to pursue Richard. This wasn't because he wouldn't be able to overtake him, the way he drove. No it was because he had a flat tyre. That slow leak had gotten worse. He'd purchased a new 12v air compressor only a few days earlier but hadn't yet taken it out of the box or read the instructions for use.

He knew what he had to do. He had to call Mike. Mike from tennis. I know what you readers think - Mike from tennis is a pain in the arse but - he has connections. TC eventually got hold of Mike, explained the situation and his suspicion that Richard was behind it. Mike said that he 'knew some people' and would get on to it. Before he could start an argument about the Labour Party, gun control, Trumpism and Princess Di, TC put the phone down.

Mike indeed 'knew some people'. He had in his early life been a member of the special forces (SAS) and later had been seconded to the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS). It didn't take long for his old contacts to find and update Richard's file. Richard was on file you see from his days as president of a fringe university group that had been initially labelled as dangerous, then downgraded to annoying and ultimately as harmless. It stayed on record though and Richard had for the last 50 years been under 'soft' surveillance. The SIS knew for example that he had been cultivating contacts with Italian dissidents and had hosted one recently. Watchers had reported his movements often involving carrying large bags of bulky equipment and of creating horrendous noises at night inside his house.

Mike's contact reported back that Richard, after leaving Whangarei had gone to ground somewhere. Undeterred they had then interrogated  interviewed Richard's family members as to  his whereabouts. All but one, being suspicious of the SIS and protective of Richard, assured the SIS officers that they did not know where he was. The one however, a brother named Robert said "I can't lie as that's a sin. I think that Richard's favourite town is Foxton. He enjoys staying in a motel there." 

*******

EPILOGUE

The motel in Foxton was raided' by the special forces on SIS instructions. The Springfield rifle was never recovered nor was the double bass or the violins (domestic ones). There was no sign of Richard or the old Mitsubishi motorcar. A thorough search uncovered a bizarre stash of old MAN magazines and other 1950s and early 1960s 'porn', empty and as yet unidentified wine bottles and huge boxes of rusted Evah Pirazzi violin strings. Investigations are still on-going.

The Curmudgeon, after having had the window mended and cleaning up all evidence of the event 'before The Old Girl got home' went about his business as normal. Well, nearly normal. He never again stood naked in front of that window that looked out on Mount Manaia and especially not after waking from a dream about Isabelle Adjani,

Robert sat in the confessional at Saint 'Salive church. He was mumbling and his confessor Father Offshaw had to ask him to speak up. "I prayed for him Father, I really did." he said through tears. "Ah don't fuss yersel' Rob" said the confessor "He was goin' to Hell anyways."

* A reader had complained that the posts are boring so I felt that a bit of excitement was needed in the posts kind of like the Denzil Meyrick novels I've been reading.

NOSUNDAY

It's a rainy Sunday but fortunately the cricket is on TV - T20 NZ vs Australia.

I'm sitting at the dining table typing this on the laptop as The Old Girl is working in the study. I'm set up for the afternoon and am just hoping that rain in Auckland won't stop or disrupt play. We need to win this game after losing the first two.

I have a loaf baking - a combination of wholemeal and pumpernickel (farting devil).

I guess that Richard was eating this in Marton as according to Robert he'd be using his rear to good effect on the garden tours although anyone following him wouldn't think it was funny.

The cricket score after 5 overs isn't good with Australia on 66 for 1 after a flurry of 4s and 6s and three dropped catches!

Maybe it'd be a good thing if the game was rained out ..... oops, hold on, NZ held on to a catch so it's now 67 for 2.

Oh - hold on again - it's raining and they have left the pitch.

Ho hum! I'll go and pre-prepare my pizza for dinner.

"ON THE FOURTH DAY ..."

 Regular readers will be aware that I have had some problems with keyboard lighting for the computer in the study.

I solved the problem, you remember for the keyboard to the laptop I use in the lounge. In case you've forgotten here's a refresher: LOUNGE KEYBOARD

When The Old Girl's away I've been nabbing the upright lamp system she uses in the rear lounge:

This is a hassle setting up however and I run the risk of forgetting to put it back before she arrives home. Not to be recommended.

I've tried various other lamps we have in the house but none have been satisfactory.

Yesterday however I found the ideal lamp that directs the light, not too bright, right on to the keyboard while being able to be tucked to the side and not obstruct the view of the screen or take up too much space.

Perfect, and it only cost $6 at the OP Shop.

"AND WE'VE GOT TO GET OURSELVES BACK TO THE GARDEN"

🎵 "We are stardust, we are golden. We are billion-year-old carbon.

And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden"🎵

Shelley has taken Richard away for a few days of pastoral delight. 

They've gone to Marton to look at and walk in gardens. I guess it's sort of like Adam and Eve but with clothes on (hopefully).

"Like I said, I'm off work today. That'll mean some practice being done. Tomorrow we're heading up to Marton. Yes, I know, no one heads up to Marton.
Well, some friends have rented a posh house in the country, near Marton, and we are part of the ten people stating there for three nights.
The idea is that we visit exciting local attractions, like expensive-to-see gardens. Sounds just like my thing!
I suppose that I could stay in the house near to nowhere and do some violin practice. Well, actually, I'm already paid up to see the expensive gardens, so I might as well have a look - there's nothing like a good walk."

        - Richard (of Richard's Bass Bag) 21 February 2024 

I hope that he's careful where he walks in those fancy gardens. Tiptoeing is best I think.

I think that this is where they are staying - an elegant country estate.

He say's that there will be 10 of them staying there so it'll be a wild old time in Marton this weekend.

The estate has nice gardens and is close to other estates providing private garden visits.

I hope that he behaves himself given that he's been obsessing over gumboot throwing recently.

Leave these bad boys in the car Richard

Let's hope that the gardens aren't left looking like this after his visit.

THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW WERE TRUE - PART NINE

 At tennis yesterday I was looking at the 'library' books that are there where players share books. I spied a couple of interesting titles but when I picked them up I decided not to take them. This wasn't because I wouldn't mind reading them but more to do with the fact that they were used and well thumbed.

Now before I get accused of being a 'hygiene crank' let me say that for many years now, I read all of my books on-line via the free library service collated by Overdrive or Libby.

I read or listen to audio books on my iPad so very rarely read a printed book except for those on our own bookcases.

This got me to thinking that, in this 'digital' and social media age, do people read printed books anymore? Well we know that they do but just not as much hence the decline of bookshops. Libraries must be feeling the pinch as well.

For years ,younger people and now more older people are getting their news on-line and using social media platforms like X, TikTok, YouTube etc. and through blogs. This in addition to the rise of pay-for on-line reading like Kindle and the free sites that I access. They rarely buy books and even more rarely borrow books from libraries.

Now, given that there are much fewer 'thumbed' books being handled and read, things should be a bit more hygienic.

This is true and goes hand in-hand with the rise of wet-wipe cleaning, hand sanitisers, proliferation of commercial and home cleaners and obsessive parents who won't allow their precious off-spring to get dirty.

Where is this going you might ask if you managed to get this far?

Pandemics.

That's where this is going. The resurgence of old infections and introduction of new ones like COVID might be due to lower immunity in people from obsessive cleaning and from being protected from 'natural germs'.

There are  concerns over being too clean which stem from the hygiene hypothesis, a theory first introduced in the 1980s based on research that indicated children who are kept in very clean environments have a higher rate of hay fever, asthma and a wide range of other conditions.

Dr. Carl Later a Beaumont allergist and immunologist said:

“While we do believe our immune system is influenced by both the environment and infectious exposures, it happens before we are born or during early childhood. As we grow up, our immune system grows up, too, and the influences become less and less profound. If you do have small children right now and are concerned about the development of their immune system, keeping your child safe while not going overboard is your best option.

As a general rule, excessive cleanliness to the point of obsessive compulsion is probably not a good idea. On the other hand, don't go out and dip the kid in the sewer and think that that's going to be good for their immune system. Common sense has to prevail.”

You can read what Lauter has to say in full: HERE 

For a more detailed look at the relationship between pandemic infections and hygiene and the anxiety and compulsive behaviour that can result - read this: A PERFECT STORM

I'm not advocation that we give up washing and being on top of personal hygiene but it is essential to keep things in balance. Parents being over-protective of their children might not be doing everything right for them and putting them at risk of severe allergies and suffering in the future.

I think though, that I'll continue to keep my mitts off grubby paperbacks, buttons in lifts, door handles and supermarket trolley handles unless I've cleaned them with a wet-wipe and or sanitiser first.

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

 

GEZUNDHEIT

" ... WELL THEY'LL PASS YOU BY .."

 Richard's latest post was about gumboots and, as he mentioned the Taihape gumboot statue rather disparagingly, I commented in Taihape's favour and recalled  a gumboot throwing competition I won many years ago.

Here's the thread of comments:

It's interesting that Anonymous made a call for stopping me from writing a post on throwing things as I had no intention of doing so but - I like a challenge so:

"No. I don't recall ever having thrown a gumboot before that time.
Wobblies, shit, baseballs. rocks, stones, softballs, (never sickies), cricket balls, tennis balls, basketballs, rugby ball, soccer balls, hammers, axes, paper darts, gliders etc were a given but never gumboots."

I forgot to include 'up' in that little list and there are obviously other things I could have included. In deference to Anonymous and any other miserable bastards reading this I'll limit my recollections to just two examples and select best and worst things.

BEST THINGS

I realised when I was quite young that I have a 'good throwing arm'. I'm not big or tall and while having (in past days) a slim and lighter frame, I had my father's strength and balance which made ball sports easy for me so whenever playing baseball (with the Mormons), softball and cricket (casually rather than school sports) I did well. Even with football, a 'good throwing arm' came in handy as a goalie in soccer and a centre in rugby. I could go on ... really, I could but as stated I'll limit myself to one example.

At a training seminar of senior executives - a two week live-in course at Waikato University in 1987 - we worked hard and long hours honing our marketing and management skills. It was a great team of about twenty people from around the country many of whom I have noticed progressing in politics, government, and leading corporate enterprises. It assisted in my career as well.

At the end of the course a cricket game was organised between the 'team' and educators and the university staff. This was a limited over game kind of like the One Days they do now but I think we limited to 30 overs each. As I hadn't formally played cricket at school I deferred to the 'team' members and staff who had - the usual suspects like Auckland Grammar, Kings, St Bede's, etc. - played in first and second elevens. The women of course (this was 1987) weren't considered for selection. They  provided the club sandwiches and dispensed the drinks).  As a result I was number nine in the batting order but after a couple of demonstrations showed that I could bowl pretty well. To cut a potentially 'Glory Days' long story short ....

.... sorry but I can't resist:

... I took three wickets with my bowling.

The 'team' was chasing the university opponents first innings of a pretty reasonable score and, after starting well, collapsed in the middle leaving me at number nine and another 'no-hoper' (according to the selection squad) at number 10 to try to save the game. I think that the 'team' members had given up at this stage (forgetting my four wicket haul in the first innings and got stuck into the drinks. 

I said to me partner - a great guy who has done well in business and hopefully life - "let's just go for it".

We did and bashed sixes and fours galore to quite quickly overtake the opposition score and win the match. I scored more than my partner and, because of my bowling success as well was deemed the hero of the match. The 'team' members and staff hoisted me on to their shoulders and triumphantly paraded me off the pitch and back to the clubrooms where many glasses of beer and wine were imbibed.

Now Bruce Springsteen (a great musician) might disparage other people's minor glories given that he performs in front of thousands of adoring fans, but for the average Joe, a bit of glory goes down well. I have to admit that, while being embarrassing  being hoisted away I still felt chuffed.

WORST THINGS

I have written about this before, see: THE CREEK

My older brothers and friends in our Liardet street gang* used to call on me when  distance and accurate stone-throwing was required. It was kind of like when siege machines were called on for castle attacks.

I was the man I must admit but there was a dark, well, maybe a darker side to my stone-throwing prowess.

At St Anne's primary school, when I was about seven, I remember finding an ideal throwing stone in the playground. It was smooth and egg shaped although a bit smaller than an egg. Some kid must have found it at one of Wellington's stony beaches and kept it in his pocket before losing it. I tossed it up and caught it a few times before throwing it as high as I could. It sailed up and came down at the far end of another playground where a bunch of kids were playing some games. I thought nothing more of this but then noticed a bit of a commotion and then the nuns hustled us back to class. Soon after an ambulance arrived. I could see it through the classroom window but couldn't make out what it was doing.

Now, to this day I don't know if my stone hit anyone and caused damage. I don't know if any kid was taken to hospital. I don't know if any kid returned from hospital. I don't know if any kid was spirited away to Robert's heaven. Honest. I was however more careful with my stone-throwing after this.

* Much tougher than The Garden Road Gang.

A TIDY STUDY IS A TIDY MIND

 The Old Girl arrives home on Tuesday from a one month stint away.

This of course means clean up duties for me prior to that.

Over the last couple of days I've done the dusting, cobweb removal, surfaces cleaning, vacuuming, bed linen changing and window washing - saving bathroom and kitchen cleaning for Monday.

Today I cleaned up the study which will soon become her office again. I must admit that I had got it into a bit of a mess, with crumbs, and coffee and wine stains on the desk and litter everywhere. Well, have a look at it now:

Hopefully she will be pleased before booting me out to the lounge and the laptop. The Macbook Air laptop is newer and has a more modern operating system making it faster with more bells and whistles but the screen is smaller. I prefer the iMac I'm typing on now and the study (office) is more conducive to the very important blogging work I do.

I apologise in advance if the quality of blog posts slips with this change and may not improve until she goes to Scotland for a couple of months from the end of March.

FOR ROBERT

 

Me in 1985 in Edinburgh.

It's a pity I didn't have the long Muck boots then. The bagpipes were in another room.

DYB DYB DYB

 It pays to be prepared.

(The kilt is there for Robert).

The old disparager from Whyonearthdoesitmatter made fun of my gumboot purchase yesterday. Well, disparager, this morning my neighbour alerted me to a water leak behind the retaining wall at the bottom of the driveway.

Fortunately the leak is on the roadside of the water Toby so it is the council's problem. The water to the house is still running.

I cut and dug out yukkas and other foliage around the Toby to make it easier for the workers.

This took me a couple of hours and I'm stuffed now as it is really hot today.

I had called the council first thing and got a call back from Downer's who have the council water maintenance contract. The guy said he was on a job at Ruakaka (about an hour away) and would get to mine ASAP.

They've just arrived and identified a much larger leak than I thought - a gusher - right behind the retaining wall and very low down. After consultation we agreed that they will dig a hole through the concrete at the bottom of our drive and run a new line from the mains on the road to the Toby thus by-passing the broken pipe or line. They will 'tuck' the new line in behind the retaining wall. This is less invasive and will mean that they won't need to get the digger in to dig up the neighbour's property. Hopefully this will work OK.

I showed them my new boots and offered my services. I think they were impressed but they said that they would be all right and that I could 'stand by' in case I was needed.

Standing by

It pays to be ready. Dyb dyb!

I FEEL LIKE LORD MUCK

 My new boots arrived in the post today

I bought them from Swanndri in the Muck Boots clearance sale. They cost $99 down from $245. I'm happy - what do you think?

The tags on them say that they are suitable for 'snowmobiling'.

It's better to be prepared with the diverse weather we have been getting - this time last year Cyclone Gabriel devastated Northland and other parts of the country. Maybe we'll get snowstorms soon.

Living in a coastal environment, having good water or wet weather gear is important. An interesting side-advantage though will be in having better access to the streams, lagoons and ponds on the golf course. Those elusive golf balls won't stand a chance.

It's fortunate that The Old Girl is still away (back on Tuesday). I was worried that they would arrive after she got home and she'd spot the courier post van driving up to the back of the house. 

"What are you going to do with those Matey?" she'd ask and I'd have to invent a whole lot of excuses, none being plausible. Now I just have to find a hiding place for them. Under the house in the basement I think - she never goes in there.

There's only one downside I've discovered so far. They are damned  difficult to take off. I need a valet or an equerry to assist me but doubt that I'll be getting one of those.

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

 

THE RAWHITI LETTERBOX MADONNA

DOES THAT MAKE ME CRAZY?

"I remember when
I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place
Even your emotions have an echo in so much space
And when you're out there without care
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Possibly."

I remember when sport in New Zealand was reported on a local, regional and national level and, when New Zealand teams or athletes were overseas, on an international level. 

We never heard of other countries' sports unless they were part of the olympics or the Commonwealth games or unless New Zealanders were competing against them. Golf and tennis were  the exceptions and, among English immigrants, English football.

Today we are inundated with British, European and South American football, American baseball, basketball and American football and Australian rules and rugby league. What's wrong with people? Are they crazy?

For the last few weeks our news, and not just sports news has been dominated by the bloody American Super Bowl (American football). Who the fuck cares? Well, lots of people unfortunately. All sorts of dweebs are coming out of the woodwork supporting one team or another and pretending to be experts on the sport, the leagues, the teams and the players. I blame social media ...

... and this bint.

How on earth Taylor Swift got to be so popular, rich and powerful is anyone's guess. OK, OK, I know - 'pop' stars have for decades been given too much recognition and money.

What's wrong with people? 

I blame social media.

THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW WERE TRUE - PART EIGHT

 

Trust me.

As you know The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ bring you readers information and snippets of news that you don't find elsewhere.*

Following the very successful THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW WERE TRUE - PARTS ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX and SEVEN which resulted in countless 'reads' and more than 50 comments, I thought it timely to  enthrall you with another- PART EIGHT - Colin McCahon's most famous paintings were actually painted by his children.

Colin McCahon was born on 1 August 1919 and died on 27 May 1987. His painting spanned over 45 years being in many styles - landscape, portraiture, abstraction, and the more widely known painted text.  He is regarded as New Zealand's most important modern artist and one of the pioneers in New Zealand modernism.

His first exhibited work 'Harbour cone from Peggy's Hill' was too abstract for the  Otago Art Society in 1939 and led to some dispute  and it was only stopped from being excluded from that year's exhibition because fellow artists threatened a boycott.

Harbour Cone from Peggy's Hill

Encouraged, McCahon continued with this style of painting for some time and, while not being deemed successful, was recognised as being a proficient landscape artist and latterly as a proponent of modernism.

Along with his landscape painting McCahon produced drawings and woodcuts for the Education Department for school journals and, with his wife, produced a series of 'pictures for children'.

These were moderately successful and led to his series of modernist portraits some of which had Christian themes.

He produced a lot of these when he wasn't painting landscapes for commissions and producing material for the education department and the house he lived in with his wife and four small children was littered with them.

One day McCahon discovered that his eldest child had scribbled over one of his paintings writing what he considered a commentary at the bottom left corner.

McCahon was livid and ranted and raved until his wife, like all practical women told him to get over it and that she in fact liked it better that way. Unbeknown to McCahon, his wife submitted the annotated painting to the, by now, more enlightened Otago Art Society where it won first prize and was purchased for a whopping sum by the New Zealand Society of Angels**.

This was a turning point in McCahon's life and the family's fortune as, inspired by the commercial success of the 'Angel' painting he got his son to 'annotate' many of the other paintings that were lying around including the landscapes.

Sales took off at such a rate that it was hard to keep up with demand so the other children were brought in to paint over the existing canvases and the new ones that Colin was churning out.

The initial annotated canvases soon developed into the more naively texted ones as the youngest children added their scrawls...

 

... and, after a while the background paintings were dispensed with and the children just painted straight on to canvases, boards, corrugated iron - anything that was in the shed.

It was a very successful family cottage industry and the output was prodigious. Many of the 'paintings' are still fetching insanely high prices at auctions to the present day.

When Colin died in 1987 it came to a close however. The family hadn't thought to produce the artwork under a collective name so that with no Colin McCahon any more they didn't have a 'named' artist to carry on.

The experience proved to be valuable though and the children, now adults, turned their skills to sign-writing and for many years ran a successful billboard business until, ironically, in the 2020s they were sued by the Colin McCahon artwork Trust (they had sold the rights to the paintings some years earlier) for copyright infringement and asked to 'cease and desist' with their large format billboards of Otago landscapes with advertising messages scrawled across them.

Remember: You heard it here first.










* APPROXIMATED NEWS
THE CURMUDGEONS INC. wishes to advise readers that any news, snippets of information, comments, editorials etc in this blog is near enough to the truth but we cannot guarantee accuracy, fairness or unbias. In the interest of satirical humour we expect readers to understand this.

** The New Zealand society of Angels was actually The New Zealand Society of Angles a part of Otago University Mathematics Department where the expensively produced logo contained a spelling error that no-one was in a hurry to correct, not having any pedantic ex schoolteachers on their staff.