What a storm in a teapot!!

It begins with all of the anticipation - …will he won’t he will he join the dance… - but not a sign of a lobster at all. For two weeks the media waited agasp for their invitation to the event of all electoral events; the expected invitation for Banksie to share a pot of tea with none other than the PM and the acknowledgement that Banksie was in fact a Nat in all but name for electoral purposes. Not only that, but the pot of tea was to come with shared electoral biscotti. In return for an undertaking (always an interesting word that, in circumstances such as these) to provide stable government the PM himself would ensure that his party would not actively contest the seat in which Banksie is standing.



The appointed day arrives. A media scrum is put down in a café on Broadway – another of those interesting coincidences that passes everyone by - the limousine draws up, the Banksie appears magically with entourage who dust the pavement from car to café and Banksie and PM repair to a table for a nice cuppa.



Once the media have played their part in supporting the election campaigns of the two, they are ushered out to press their noses against the windows and wonder just what PM’s talk about over a nice cuppa. Well, one industrious member of their number found out by (inadvertently) leaving his radio-mike in a bag on the table.



Since then, all manner of unprintables and several hundred tumbrills full of printables have been flying through the air.



Quite amazing then that no one has asked what the PM and Banksie were drinking. Choysa? Bell? Twinings? Or did the PM go the whole way and treat Banksie to a pot of Uncle Don's Best?

Now it all makes sense...

Thanks Wiley...

The Student Army

Get the title of "The Student Army" in your ears and what does it conjure? In my mind flickers of Tim Shadbolt, Helen Clark, the many many others at Auckland U in the early 1970's demonstarting (usually at the drop of a hat), drinking to excess (well, nothing has changed there), capping parades...

Here is a totally different picture for you...

From Grany Herald -

First, the power of nature. Now the power of Facebook.

Students are using their social networking skills to pull together a volunteer army of more than 1300 to help out the shaken Christchurch community.

An entrepreneurial Canterbury University student created a Facebook event page that brought 300 students, carrying shovels and wearing gumboots, on to the streets of Halswell and Hoon Hay ready to help affected residents yesterday.

The event page, Student Volunteer Base for Earthquake Clean Up, has 1356 people willing to help and the number is climbing rapidly as 5000 invitations are awaiting students to reply.

University student Sam Johnson created the Facebook page to gather the support of students during their extra week of holidays.

"We have a spare week to do some good for the community. It's the perfect opportunity to come out and do something decent," he said.

The event page reads: "Basically what needs to be done is door-knocking in teams and offering to help clear properties. Wheelbarrows, shovels, gumboots, yardbrooms ... hunt them out!"

Mr Johnson, 21, said he got the idea from other Facebook events created after the quake.

Hoon Hay resident Ellen Cooper said what the students were doing for the community was heartening.

"If anyone has never had faith in young people, well, now they should."

She said the students knocked on her door and asked if they could "do any hard labour".

Christchurch City Council gave the students a priority list of the most damaged areas.

TV news last night showed a group of about 30 digging silt from a major road and clearing the channelling on each side. From the wide views it looked like they had cleared some 200m of 4 lane street, judging by the piles of silt along the roadside. Now that is considerable effort seeing they are using shovels and wheelbarrows.

Another group (different area?) was digging out private driveways and access.


More power to their arms.

A quick visit to the past...

Isn't it curious to revisit blog posts like this one, five years after the event?

The news this week - best summary I have found comes from the Guardian...

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

The admission comes just after the eighth anniversary of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations in which the then-US secretary of state relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND. It also follows the release of former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memoirs, in which he admitted Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction programme.

I remember the news video of that speech well. I recall posting that I had the strong impression Powell was speaking with at least one of his minders (Cheyney? Rumsfeld?) "holding a gun" to his side.

Be that as it may, I hope that Mr Janabi has been able to comfort his conscience with the 20 talents of silver... sorry, German citizenship and Mercedes Benz car that he was given for his story.

More important, take the time to go back and re-read the commentary from the link I gave at the beginning. That was the beginning of the legacy he created.

On liberalism (with a small "l")

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

On matters of free speech... and letters to Editors

Its funny (peculiar) sometimes how things pan out in life. The letter I sent to SST was published (with some fairly injudicious editing. At least I can thank my lucky stars that they published it without (as TFS is always complaining) leaving out all of the sense of it. They did remove the “potty jockey” crack I had at Michael Laws. All in all it was about a half of what I had originally writ.

And therein lies the funny. Printed in small red letters above my contribution (as printed in SST) were the words “Winning Words”. Now if you look down to the end of the letters space you find a little note to the effect that you may win a ball-pen… It is now Friday and I haven’t yet seen it.

Not, you understand, because it is coveted; far from it as at work I use a very simple slim ball-pen refill (no cover or cap), a practice which stops me from walking out the door with it in my pocket and stops anyone else from knicking it off of my desk. I also have a very nice “special” at home which includes a wood barrel and cap turned by a very good friend and given me for my 60th. The wood is swamp kauri, reputedly (from the certificate Len gave me) aged at 6,500 BPE. Was there a hint there, old Len? It is a thing of beauty indeed and thus far unused. That might change when I renew my Will in a few weeks’ time. I also have (somewhere in the laboratory) a very expensive Scheaffer (like this one) fountain pen. Last time I used it (to sign my Marriage Certificate and the Register) I needed an ink cartridge for it and I ended up refilling the old empty with ordinary cheap ink.

I am wondering if the Subbie who re-wrote my contribution has claimed the pen as his own in return for the work he put in to get my letter published.

Rampaging idiocy posing as television presentation...

The following is the text of a letter I have sent to the Editor of old Granny Herald.

No, I do not expect that it will be published.

Sir,

He has apologised? Any apology from that man has the dignity and worth of the seven year old who knows that in better times he would have been facing a goodly walloping from the old man, but that now he might get a couple of hours peace and quiet in his bedroom.

There is no apology that he can offer, to Sir Anand, to New Zealand, or to anyone else, that would satisfactorily make up for his current sins.

If he wishes to do penance perhaps he could consider crawling naked across the Northern Motorway in the 5 p.m. rush hour tonight.

Alternatively, to just leave the country permanently might be sufficient apology.

Yours,

This is why it was writ...

On TVNZ's Breakfast yesterday Henry suggested Sir Anand's successor should look and sound more like a New Zealander.

Henry made the comments while questioning Prime Minister John Key.

"Are you going to choose a New Zealander who looks and sounds like a New Zealander this time ... Are we going to go for someone who is more like a New Zealander this time?"

Mr Key seemed taken aback and said that Sir Anand was a New Zealander.
...
I am sincerely sorry if I seemed disrespectful to him (Sir Anand), that was not what I intended and I certainly didn't intend to sound racist.

It was wrong for me to ask the questions that I did."

Henry said Sir Anand's background was far more "dignified" than his own.

"Most people think that I am British but the truth is much, much worse than that, like the Governor-General I was born in New Zealand but, however, I am at least half what they colloquially call in Europe a gippo (gypsy).

"So let me make it quite clear I will never apologise for causing outrage, however, I will, and do apologise for causing real hurt and upset to anyone, no matter what their background, who works to make this country a better country.

"So in that spirit I apologise unreservedly to Sir Anand and his family, he is a very distinguished man I am a gippo television presenter."

You want a sword to fall on? I got one. And it is blunt.

UPDATE -

Latest addition to this sorry story is that the offender (offensive offender) has been suspended until 18 October without pay.

That only leaves the question -

"Suspended by which portion of his anatomy?"

On Houseguests...

For the past four weeks (nearly) we have had a houseguest. This would not normally be a problem given that the commitment to a houseguest, the hospitality, the inconvenience, the reduction in privacy is finite and (in the normal course of events) expressed in the invitation.

It is in that last word that the problem begins – the present houseguest was uninvited, unbidden, very nearly unwanted, but - as the probligo household is discovering - family ties create obligations and commitments that are far stronger, last longer, and far more binding than an open invitation.

We are learning this as the result of a telephone call from numberoneson( #1son ) one morning, advising rather than asking that he would be moving in that night. It transpires that he confessed in the heat of a marital moment to having it off with another woman. I am not going to preach the probligo’s thoughts on the morality of the event(s). As far as I am concerned his actions and the (inevitable) consequences are his alone. I leave that part to him to get sorted. To make it clear, #1son is unmarried, has two children in the now defunct relationship.

The choices made by both our children have been handled on a very open laissez faire basis. There has never been, other than two instances of “your choice but you wear the consequences”, any pressure brought to bear on either despite some (quite normal) parental misgivings. Advice has always been freely and honestly given, but only when asked for and always on the basis that ”you might not like what you hear”.

All of which is, on reflection, incidental to the fact that the probligo’s household presently includes an unbidden and largely unwanted houseguest.

On Facebook and matters of privacy...

About a month ago, a tennis-friend of the Mrs probligo joined up with Facebook. There was no need for her to publicise this, nor did she do anything more than follow the process of form-filling to get her page set up.

The first that we knew of it was an email - through Facebook - saying the the Mrs probligo should join up and become a "friend".

That would also explain how Facebook got a hold of our email address.

What is inexplicable is that the email includes the names and Facebook addresses of four other people.

Those four people are -

the probligo's daughter, whom we know has a Facepage.

a lady the Mrs probligo worked with about 5 years back and with whom we have occasional direct contact.

Tommy Miesel whom I suspect might be the same gent I conversed with some years back on matters modelling.

Alan Erkkila, whom I presume might have a very direct relationship to an old whig.

And therein lies the mystery.

How was Facebook able to make the connection between the latter two and the Mrs probligo (or perhaps the probligo's private email address)?

"Boy"

The Mrs probligo and I went out to one of our occasional forays to the picture theatre last week. To bear in mind here, there were probably no more than 15 in the theatre at the session we went to but it was announced this morning that it has already overtaken "Sione's Wedding" as the highest grossing NZ film. We are a fairly stubborn nation; the creations of ex-pats like Jackson just do not count as "NZ films".

This one by Taiko Waititi definitly qualifies as NZ grown.

The film gets promo'd in the press as a "comedy". I can't agree with that. It has some light moments but that is all.

It is a topical and backward looking excerpt from the life of an 11 year old boy living in back-country NZ. I think that is where I start getting uncomfortable about it; it is about where I come from, it is about people I have known, went to school with, played rugby with, swum in the creek with, fought with, gone fishing with...

Will it make an international hit? I think not.

But for all that, keep a weather eye out at the festivals that come to your town. One never knows, you might get the chance to see it.

Link to home page in the header...

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...

Stories -

Take a look at the photo below. This is a person I met for the first time yesterday.

Think about who this person might be, and give me a quick two or three sentences on what you think the story might be.