One last blast on the vuvuzela...

Watched the Football World Cup in the comfort of a well heated lounge in New Plymouth Monday morning accompanied by wife, daughter, s-i-l, grandson, and a very large German Shepherd named Druss.

Spain deserved to win; for two reasons.

First they were the better team, primarily because their level of ball control both in the semi-final and final was superior to the opponents.

Second, they were less prone to the more insidious tendencies in the game. Whether this was because of their skills or not is moot (but not here).

All Blacks beat the Springboks on Saturday night. Not only unexpected, but a hearty thumping to boot; 32-12. Ahhh, the deja vu of history. NZ will not win the Rugby World Cup next year.

How to Re(a)d the News - 2

We went north (to Opo) for Easter, to enjoy the last of our summer. Very enjoyable it was too. That was, if you exclude the news...

On Sunday, the SST published this article. It was "speculative" to the extent that the name of one of the suicide bombers in the Moscow metro had not been confirmed.

This later article is bylined 2 April, a fact that might upset some seeing as how that was Good Friday. The News does go on...

When the shooting started Adlan Mutsaev and his friends were in the woods picking garlic. They had arrived in the forest earlier that day, together with a group of neighbours travelling in a battered coach. The plan had been straightforward: stuff their sacks, enjoy the countryside, and then head back home to the Chechen town of Achkoi-Martan.

Without warning, Russian commandos hiding behind a hillock opened fire.Adlan, 16, was with his brother Arbi, 19, and their friends Shamil Kataev, 19, and Movsar Tataev, 19. Shamil and Movsar were both wounded. Adlan was shot in the leg, but managed to hobble into a ditch. He hid. Arbi also attempted to flee, but men in camouflage fatigues caught up with him.

According to the human rights group Memorial, Arbi was forced to drag his two wounded and bleeding friends across the snow. Shamil begged for his life. But the solders were impervious. They placed a blindfold over Arbi's eyes. And then they opened fire: executing Shamil and Movsar on the spot. At least two other garlic pickers suffered the same fate: Ramzan Susaev, 40, and Movsar Dakaev, 17. According to his relatives, Dakaev had pleaded to be allowed on the trip with the others. Wearing a bright green fleece, he took a photo of himself in the woods with his mobile phone. It shows him proudly posing against a craggy backdrop of cliffs and trees covered in snow. A little over 48 hours later his body was discovered.

The misfortune of the four garlic pickers was to have unwittingly strayed into a "counter-insurgency operation" conducted by Russian forces in the densely wooded border between Chechnya and Ingushetia. The soldiers, apparently looking for militant rebels who are waging their own violent campaign against the Russian state, came across the unarmed group, brutally killing them amid the picturesque massif of low hills.

Normally this atrocity on a cold day in February would have raised barely a ripple of attention had it not been for the terrible events in Moscow this week. In a video address on Thursday, Chechnya's chief insurgent leader, Doku Umarov, said Monday's suicide attacks on the Russian capital's metro were in revenge for the killings of the garlic pickers near the Ingush village of Arshaty. He claimed federal security service (FSB) commandos had used knives to mutilate their bodies of the dead boys.

Now I know that this goes completely against the confirmation bias of people who believe that Islam is out for world domination.

Russia's counter-terrorism committee yesterday named the Park Kultury bomber as Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova, saying she was also known as Dzhanet Abdullayeva. Born in 1992, she came from Dagestan. Kommersant newspaper published a photo of her dressed in a black Muslim headscarf holding a pistol. It named the second bomber as 20-year-old Markha Ustarkhanova from Chechnya, describing her as the widow of a militant leader killed last October.

Linked or not, human rights groups say it is undeniable that the brutal actions of Russia's security forces have fuelled the insurgency raging across the North Caucasus region of Russia and the ethnic republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya and Kabardino-Balkaria. This largely invisible war has now reached the Kremlin's doorstep.

"People are abducted. People are killed. There are no guarantees of security," Magomed Mutsolgov, a human rights activist, told the Guardian yesterday, speaking from Nazran, Ingushetia's chief town. Law enforcement and security agencies have committed dozens of summary and arbitrary detentions, acts of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, as well as extra-judicial executions, rights groups say.

Typically, armed personnel wearing masks encircle a village or district in a "sweep operation". They force their way into homes, beat residents and damage property. Suspected militants are taken away. Many never return. Others are simply shot, and fake weapons planted on them, rights groups allege, citing interviews with victims and relatives.

According to Mutsolgov, the Kremlin's counter-terrorism methods have proved entirely counter-productive: "Violence produces more violence. It drives people to the militant underground."

The nature of the armed conflict in the North Caucasus has also mutated. From 1994 to 1996 Boris Yeltsin fought a war against mainly secular Chechen separatists who wanted – like the newly independent Georgians over the mountains – their own constitution and state. In 1999-2004 president Vladimir Putin fought a second Chechen war. The aim was to crush Chechen separatism.

Now, however, the Kremlin is battling another kind of enemy. The new generation of insurgents have an explicitly Islamist goal: to create a radical pan-Caucasian emirate with sharia law, a bit like Afghanistan under the Taliban. In February Umarov vowed to "liberate" not only the North Caucasus and Krasnodar Krai but Astrakhan – on the Caspian Sea -and the Volga region as well.

The rebels' tactics have also grown more fanatical. Umarov has seemingly revived the suicide squads used by his assassinated predecessor Shamil Basaev. Last summer a suicide truck bomber blew up Nazran's police station. Another bomber succeeded in ramming the car of Ingushetia's president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov. Monday's attack in Moscow was the first in the capital for six years.

I wonder.

Can anyone else see the same dots as I? The dots between action by the "infidel" and the increasing number of volunteers for suicide missions.

I wonder.

Will the connections between "action" and "consequence" ever be realised in the measurement of the futility of "conventional warfare" in the war against terrorism.

I know.

I do not have the answers. I would be immensely powerful and probably equally rich if I did.

It does seem to me that a very large part of the success of that "war" will come from the removal of "cause". Those "perceived (by the terrorists) causes" I would guess to include US support for Israel, poverty (watch for that one to become of even greater import), inequalities and inequities, and many more I can not imagine.

Perhaps it is another "quote" that came over the radio on Saturday afternoon -

If consumption per head of population in China were to reach the same levels as in the US at present we would need "another seven planets"

Totally unsupported (to my knowledge) by any scientific fact, but not an unimaginable conclusion to reach. After all, how many truly obese people do you see in China?

A holiday in paradise; well the Coromandels actually...

Well the first half of the employer enforced two week holiday has been completed satisfactorily with not a galah in sight at any time; head and shoulders are clean...

To the east of Auckland is the Coromandel Peninsula. A two hour drive can reach most parts of it, three hours can see you in Colville in the very north end of it. About two thirds of the way up is the township of Coromandel. Well you might expect that I guess. It is an area with a history based on timber extraction and gold mining and in latter years strong resistance to timber extraction and mining of any kind. Over the hill is the Whangapoua Harbour and beaches. So we chose Te Rerenga as home base; a nice quiet little spot; B&B.

One of the major "attractions" in Coromandel is the Driving Creek Railway. Like all good things, this one also has a good story behind it. GO follow up the link above; read it from the source. I had a sub-atomic sized contribution, one which I doubt any of the major players would remember. About two months after Brickell bought the property a group of us went down to help out planting trees around the entrance. I think there were about three or four that I managed to get in the ground before the alchohol kicked in and I spent the rest of the afternoon in a very pleasant haze.

Anyway, this is the trip around by Mrs p and me the other day...

The carpark starts the tour.


The gradient to the sheds in the background is about 1 in 25, about the average for the full length of the railway.




You can actually see the "Eyefull Tower" from the bottom of the railway. As you can see from some of the following images the weather was misty, drizzly, and I can't find a decent frame showing it... From bottom to top is over 110 metres, roughly 375 feet, with distance travelled on track about 3000m.


The lower terminus is shops,
workshops, and facilities
along with a statuary. (Oh, and sorry about the lean on that last frame; the consequence of trying to take a low angle using the moveable LCD screen on the camera instead of "getting down to it"...


The track is a marvel of amateur engineering. The DRC home site covers the whole topic; very well indeed. It includes two "spirals" (which are almost impossible to photograph) and three "switchbacks".








The last switchback is suspended over the edge of the main ridge. I can testify to the fact that at the end of the level, it is some 10m above ground at least.

How does a switchback work? This gives the idea. We are about to head down to the right, and up to the left you will see the next train waiting for us to clear the switch.

You can see a red back in the carriage ahead of me. It belonged to the taller of these two; among the more interesting of the travellers on the train. I wondered if they were visiting this happy little chappie who I found sitting in a quiet corner at the Eyefull Tower.

Actually, I have always liked Barry Brickell's work. He has a sense of humour that I enjoy, and it comes through in different and quirky ways... like this - at the top of a 1.2m high (4 feet for Americans) pot in the statuary.

And that was just the first morning...

A new world -

of wearable art.
A previous winning garment - 2007 if I recall right...


There are some events in a person's life that deserve to be commemorated in style. One of those is a 40th wedding anniversary. Well, at least we agreed that it was an appropriate thing to make into an excuse to have an expensive - and expansive too - weekend off.

One of the things we have promised ourselves for quite some many years has been the annual "World of Wearable Art" event.

This uniquely NZ event is, by their own promotion, "indescribable". It is a competition. It is undeniably entertainment. It started as a personal desire of a Nelson woman to transfer art to something wearable; not as body paint but far more sophisticated than that. That was 20 years back. The show has since been sold to Wellington City.

So it was that last Thursday SWMBO and the probligo climbed into the silver budgie and got themselves transported from Auckland with 16C and gentle SWers, to the 6C and light SE'ers of Wellington. For those who live in "temperate maritime" climes no further description will be necessary. For those who do not, I can not imagine living in snow for three months of the year either.

Checked in, checked out, showered and shaved, and then dinner was sought. As time was disappearing somewhat rapidly and we had not been able to (completely) agree what we wanted, or to understand what the hotel was providing, we ended up with a $60 per person set menu as part of the hotel's promotion of WOWA. What a time to try and work out the "polite" way to eat prawns (the Aussie king variety). The beef filet was acceptable. The desert - what was it? I can not remember. Wellington weather being what it is we (wisely as it happened because it rained, twice, during the trip) taxi'd from hotel to Events Centre (yes, that is what it is called).

Thursday night was the opening night of WOWA, and in the absence of the cash required to buy a stage-side table, or the influence to nab an awards night seat from the hoi-polloi, this was the best night we could choose. It gave us the opportunity to outwit the judges; and we think that we did because we still think our award selections were far better then theirs. Anyhoos, any show that starts with the Topp Twins wandering on stage initially in the dark like patrons who have got themselves lost somewhere twixt door and seat, wondering "why the f??? are we here?", and then combines two hours of non-stop entertainment with the showing of "clothes art" in five different classes passes any description other than "Go see it for yourself!!".

Wellington weather being what it is we were able to walk from Events Centre to hotel completely dry though almost suffering from exposure (hypothermia) by the time we returned.


Friday was spent with the exploration of immediate vicinities. Our hotel (if you must know) was right at the nor'west end of the central city a step or three from Parliament and the rail station. So during the morning we covered most of Lambton Quay, Featherston St and the area down to the waterfront. That included Wellington Museum (not to be confused with Te Papa a Tongarewa which is scion of the National Museum). The Wellington Museum is well worth the visit too. Interesting, well presented, with several probligo family connections even if the name was not mentioned specifically.

As I mentioned at the beginning, one of the excuses for this weekend of excesses was our 40th wedding anniversary. That event was celebrated Friday night. We had hoped to eat at one of NZ's finest but again did not have the where-with-all to buy someone else out of their table, so there was a couple hours spent Thursday afternoon debating the likely risk attending the choice of one (of the very many) other eating establishments around town. We got it down to a choice of two, from which (sorry Bisque at Bolton) we selected Arbitrageurs. It happened that Arbitrageurs was an easy walk down the street from the hotel, the weather was fine if somewhat chilly but sufficed to refresh the appetite.

So a very delicious meal was enjoyed. I will start with the recommendation. If ever you find yourself in Wellington at the same time as having a desire for good food and wine, then I would stake my life on Arbitrageur providing the necessary satisfaction at the very least provided that the chef remains under the present management. The only caveat is that it is not the cheapest eaterie in town. The other side is that the food is absolutely first rate. The cellar is enormous. We shared three courses and wine by the glass to match our respective selections at a total cost of $180. We came away with the feeling that we had spent very wisely. For the record the selections were; Pea and ham soup, beef casserole, creme brulee for her; vegetable soup, roast pork loin in piece and creme brulee for the probligo. Oh, and finding Arbitrageur is not easy. There is only a single wood door to the street with a discrete sign over. Inside, seating (by my count) for about 80.

That said, a sleep-in on Saturday morning was almost compulsory. An energetic walk to the far end of town for breakfast was well-rewarded with good standard NZ fare in abundance (Vivace, thank you) followed by more walking through the "entertainment precincts" of Manners Mall, Cuba St mall, and the near eastern end of "town". In between times we thought we should go have a look through parts of Te Papa that we may not yet have seen. We got no further than the main foyer where there were people presenting and celebrating PRC's 60th birthday. That made for a couple of interesting hours between lunch and heading back to the hotel. There ensued a fairly serious discussion on food for the evening meal given that a) we were pretty near broke; b) travelling back to Auckland the next day; c) still felt well fed from the previous evening; d) wanted something fairly simple to eat.... and ended up selecting Habibie, a "Lebanese" restaurant in the entertainment district we had frequented during the day. An enjoyable meal with friendly staff for a very reasonable $75 including a glass of wine.

Sunday. A day of rest for some. A day of worship for others. For us it was up at 6a.m., no breakfast, and taxi to the rail station. Rather than travel by silver budgie back to Auckland and then spend the rest of the day doing chores we had decided that we would take the silver dinosaur (in the form of The Overlander) and spend some 12 hours watching the scenery passing by at close range as against 4 miles down. There was an element of trepidation in this because the weather had been so foul as to likely preclude any interesting scenery but we were most lucky.
The mountains were magnificent. The greens in the bush and fields were straight from McCahon.

To add to the attraction was the addition of truly dinosaur propulsion between Fielding and Taihape in the form of a WAB 4-6-2 steam locomotive. What is more it was fed with real live dirty COAL.

Lunchtime at Ohakune...
It was a very tired probligo and wife who were met at Britomart just after 8 that evening by a rather lost but definitely not prodigal number one son who kindly completed the circle for us back to Howick.

Open letter to Brian Edwards…

…if ever he should pass through my door here, where a virtual bottle of Old Dark and whatever he might like would be shared and enjoyed.

A couple weeks back Brian, you compared Granny Herald with The Australian; unfavourably and rather critically. I was a little upset at that comparison, I admit. Not because I disagreed, quite a ways from it!

It was a little mean-spirited though, to describe Herald as a tabloid rather than a broadsheet solely on the basis of the use of teasers on the masthead. It does make that front page appear more like one of my wife’s weekly magazines than it does a newspaper. Personally, I rather refer to ignore them.

I have had the great fortune (I think I can admit to that) to having spent the past four days in Wellington. One of the pleasures was getting close and personal for those few days with DomPost.

There are two points of difference which make the difference, at least during those four days.

First, and biggest, is the fact that DomPost still has a “World” section, as a separate section and containing (eyeball and wine-soaked measure) roughly twice the column space that Herald manages to squeeze between the Editorial and op-ed pages, advertisements and back page bearing in mind that is usually devoted entirely to photographs and a human interest interview.

Second, and for the past four days at least, was an almost total absence from the Dom’s pages ( only one mention as I recall) of Pammy Anderson.

I wish that I had kept a copy of the comments I made to Herald during the three years I was on their “survey panel”. I more or less gave that up as Herald seemed more intent on moving toward the things I was against, and abandoning the principles I felt should be their strengths.

What does make for even greater cringe in the probligo’s case is that the wider “news” media seems to be getting even worse. Given that our hotel’s idea of media access was controlled by an electronic system geared to selling personally selected movies (the movie selected will not be shown on your account) than easy access to old preferences including steam radio I have the strong impression that television news was full of fashion, fashion week, and Pammy Anderson in particular. A quick thought here to Geoff and Sean – I missed you guys a lot!

Where this has got me is a point I tried debating over the past few years. The “news” globally and not just in NZ (based upon the evidence of newspaper websites) is in a parlous state.

It is not a case of objective, analytical presentation of current events. That, as a principle of independent reportage, no longer exists. It is officially extinct.

Oh, you can find a few vestigial, though degenerate, evolutionary descendants provided that you are able to extract the few kernels of news from the surrounding sweet, pulpy, fleshy fruit of political patronage and loyalties.

The cause? Sadly, I think that reflects more upon the readership than the purveyors. Brian, let’s face it. We are dinosaurs from an age past.

Our mid-winter break...

This being somewhere near the middle of the long stretch from Queen's Birthday weekend and Labour Day SWMBO and the probligo took themselves off to Te Aroha for a day trip to one of our favourite waters for a good soak and lunch. Travel time is about 1 1/2 hours and a fairly good drive at that. Weather was atrocious the night before but we went anyway nothing daunted.

The photo is a montage, of the storm cloud clearing the top of Te Aroha, and the rain still persisting down in the Orongomai to the south. It would have been a far more dramatic photo had I been able to take it when we arrived about 3 hours earlier; but it will do.