DRY CHRISTMAS

It's been an interesting Christmas so far - no wine or any other form of alcohol

NO BOOZE FOR CHRISTMAS


I'm taking Tramadol for the Shingles pain and alcohol is forbidden.

Our guests (who have just left) and The Old Girl made up for it though, scoffing bottle after bottle of the enticing delicious nasty stuff. I haven't had a drink for 3 weeks now. I don't crave it or miss it necessarily but I do like wine and like to try different (good) ones.

I might stop taking the Tramadol on Saturday and have some wine on New Years Eve (just to keep my palate up to par you understand).

COMING RIGHT

I've been ill for the last three weeks - Shingles.

The rash part of it was relatively short lived but the nerve pain is the worst I've ever experienced.

Apparently this pain can last for weeks, months or, in the worst scenario, for years.
Getting on top of it quickly is the answer apparently and when I was first aware of it my sister who is a GP wrote me a prescription for an anti-viral medicine. This, if taken within the fist 72 hours can help offset the long-term nerve pain so hopefully it has worked.

The short-term pain though is a bugger. I've always been wary of using pain-killers and opioids scare hell out of me. My sister and my regular doctor however have impressed on me the need to use strong pain killers at the early stage of shingles. "No time to be stoic, you've got to hit the pain hard" they've both said.
As a result I've got Tramadol, some sort of opioid that after long term use would require going through withdrawal!

Hopefully these will do the trick. The problem is that I cannot drink wine while I'm taking them.
Yesterday at Christmas dinner with friends some outstanding wines were opened and all I could do was have a sip of each. It was like being a guest at Richard's place and being served up lemonade.

Bummer!

CHRISTMAS LETTERS

It's too late to write these and send out now if you haven't already done so.

We didn't.

We never do.

We received the usual long one from some friends who have been sending them out for the last 30 years or more.  It usually sits in the easily recognisable envelope for a couple of weeks before The Old Girl summons up the energy to open and read it.

Christmas Letters have been around for a long time. I bet you don't know, although Robert might, that the original Christmas Letters were the Gospels written by the, um, gospellers I suppose.
Only a few of these survive today, the most commonly known ones are those written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John but there were others that, over time have been quietly forgotten about if not deliberately eradicated.

The word Gospel is from the Old English god-spell which means "good news" or "glad tidings" and was used a bit by Paul (or Saul), you know, that joker who was always bothering the Corinthians and the Ephesians with letters - sort of like early version of SPAM.

Now as well as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the other most famous gospels were those written by Peter, Thomas and Judas. These were all quietly disappeared for obvious reasons (to those religion-savvy people out there) but in short Peter couldn't be relied upon because he wrote upside down; Thomas' veracity was in doubt and Judas - well you all know about Judas.

Matthew and Mark largely wrote for Jewish audiences and banged on a bit about the kingdom of god and stuff like that.

Luke wrote for Gentiles and sought out a different demographic - the Poor. A bit like Donald Trump appealing to all those disenfranchised red-necked and toothless mid-West crackers in the USA.

John, the youngest went for the 'dude' market lacing his writings with Hunter S Thompson and William Burroughs-like acid-trip and drug hallucination imagery.

Its a pity (in historical terms) that the Gospels of Nigel, Eric, Uncle Jeffery and Great-Aunt Ruby aren't still around.

Nigel was a bookkeeper (scroll gatherer really) and 'entertained' his audiences with endless recounts of the plusses and minuses in the temples accounts and would regale everyone with hilarious stories about how the books nearly didn't balance until he found that shekel that had rolled under the tabernacle. I think that the disappearance of Nigel's gospel isn't due political or religious misgivings, it's probably been screwed up and hidden up a chimney somewhere by someone who had just had enough.

Eric, also known as Eric the Odd wrote his gospel in a way that was pitched towards children - kind of like Enid Blyton but with more overt sexual innuendo. His references to the turgid member of god needing to be succored etc. finally got to be too much for the church police and so. like Jimmy Saville, old Eric has now been binned.

Uncle Jeffery initially wrote his gospels in a lively spirited manner talking of Christ's adventures performing miracles - sort of Boy's Own stuff. Eventually, with senility settling in he repeated himself a lot and kind of forgot about Jesus, God and the Holy Ghost completely and rambled aimlessly about shooting tigers in Bengal and chasing elephants in Africa. Sad really.

Great-Aunty Ruby could have been the most famous gospeller. Unfortunately there were a couple of things against her. She was a woman (supposedly but no-one dared to check) and she smelled a bit funny - a combination of urine and musk that was a bit off putting when you got close to her. Since, in those days gospellers didn't have the benefit of social media platforms to broadcast from and, with no sound amplification equipment, listeners had to get up close, her gospelling days were numbered.
This was a shame as her anecdotes and tips from anything from cooking to dating would have been useful to young people today not unlike Richard (of RBB)'s pissy pithy sayings in Italian.



I hope that this has been useful and, if you want to inform everyone of your fabulous year, start preparing that letter earlier next year.

So long.

ESSENTIALS

I used to get about with a few dollars folded up in my pocket and some change which was enough to go to the pub, the pictures or out to dinner.

Later on I bought a wallet, a slim leather one that held some paper money, my drivers licence and, eventually, a credit card.

A few years later I added a cash card and maybe some kind of club ID card like Air New Zealand Koru. Soon after came loyalty cards like Farmers, Fly Buys, One Card and a host of others.

Nowadays just about every retail shop you use, organisation you belong to or service provider has given us cards to ID, scan or purchase with. It's getting out of hand.
Yesterday I counted up the cards I had in my wallet (and not the ones that I'd taken out a while ago and put in a drawer). There were twenty one of the suckers. My wallet was groaning. I've got to do some more culling as I can't comfortably get my wallet in my pocket anymore.


The problem is though that Murphy's Law dictates that the card or cards you leave out will be needed at the next purchase, museum visit, rozzers pullover or as access ID.

Now ho metrosexuals like Richard and TSB no doubt carry 'man bags' to put all their stuff in, being organised schoolteachers.

Robert has probably built his own and keeps adding to it.

As for me, I hate those prissy 'man bags' and have to resort to carrying a small back pack wherever I go to carry (now) the wallet, cellphone, car keys, house keys and sundry other bits of essential rubbish.

And to think that I used to mock The Old Girl for her handbag contents.

THEY DON'T MAKE 'EM LIKE THIS ANYMORE....

.... or maybe Robert does?


DOWNUNDER

RECKLESS

RECKLESS



I've been in Auckland for a few days, driving down and back this time for a change instead of taking the bus.

I just arrived back up north, leaving Auckland in the early evening. It was a reasonably easy drive except for one incident.
On a long stretch with a passing lane I was tootling along at 100km in a line of traffic and I could see in my side mirror a car racing along at what must have been 140km/hr. There was a big gap behind me and the closest vehicle in my lane and the passing lane was running out. Rapidly. The moron could easily have slotted in behind me which wouldn't have been too much of  problem since there was a big line of cars and trucks in front of me. But, no, the idiot decided to get one more car ahead and passed me as as/after the passing lane ran out, forcing me on to the shoulder.

I gave him the universal sign of wanker.

I held it for a few seconds so that he could see it in his rearview mirror which he obviously had going by the animated conversation that he had with his front seat passenger (another guy) who was turning around looking back towards me.

At this point I should tell you that I was on my own as The Old Girl is in Adelaide for a couple of weeks. In the past when similar situations arise and I communicate with miscreants via a range of 'universal signals' ......

..... The Old Girl would tell me off saying "Stop that. You'll get punched in the nose one day."

"She don't like that kind of behaviour"

Well, today I thought about her advice as the speedster in front decided not to overtake any other cars and to keep just in front of me. When the next passing lane came up he slowed to about 80 km and when I moved out to overtake sped up rapidly to stop me doing so. His car was some sort of grunty Toyota. Mine is a Toyota but definitely not grunty - more like something that your grandmother or Richard would drive so had no pick up and I signalled left again and moved back into the inside lane at which the arsehole in front slowed down again.

"Great"  I thought, wishing I was driving my old Rover turbo or the VW Passats we had in the past.

We drove on for another 30kms or so with the passenger in front looking back and conversing with the driver. Now they didn't try and run me off the road or anything but they created a dangerous situation and even 20 or more minutes later were still obviously rankling that I had taken umbrage at their stupid and dangerous driving.

As we were coming up to the turn-off for Whangarei Heads which splits off from the road to Whangarei, I moved to the right lane but the car in front, seeing this decided to move right at the last minute. The traffic lights were red but I could see (by the cross traffic lights) that they were about to change and so quickly moved left again and went straight through leaving them stuck in the right turning lane hemmed in by other cars. I continued on through Whangarei and took the slightly longer route to the Heads.

Now I may have been a bit paranoid but I had The Old Girl's warning in my mind and didn't want to be driving on the round the bays road to the Heads with a possibly 'P' influenced driver playing some sort of tag game. I didn't sight the car again and arrived home safely.

SILLY OLD BUGGER

I played tennis again today. The local tennis club meets on Tuesday mornings and last week Rod and I went along and signed up.
We bashed balls around for a couple of hours before deciding that we could do this.
I must admit that the old joints were a bit stiff afterwards and I had to soak in the bath afterwards.

Today my play was a bit better but I managed to hurt my wrist. It's bloody sore and I had to get a wrist band and voltaren tablets from the chemist.

Looking up the internet I discovered that there is such a thing as Tennis Wrist. I'd heard of Tennis Elbow before but not this. It's a sort of tendonitis at the lower ulna area and even the great tennis players get it so I'm in good company.

It was really hot today - a scorcher. We play between 9AM and 11.30 at which time it is just too hot to play. I went home and then straight in for a swim as it was nearly high tide. The water was beautiful - very refreshing.

I hope the wrist comes right by next week.

SELECTING A NEW PRIME MINISTER

Welcome to the Prime Minister Selection Panel where candidates must pass the mandatory pronunciation stage before progressing to the next level.

As you know Shonkey the outgoing Prime Minister could never properly pronounce New Zealand which has led to embarrassment around the word and given comedians like John Oliver fuel for mockery.

We have of course thousands of applicants and will process these in small batches.
The first batch will be led off by Shonkey himself.

Shonkey:  "Nyoo Sillund"



Bill English: "Nyu Zullind"

Pam Corkery: "New Fuckin Zeeland"

Paula Bennett: "Newzland"

Amy Adams: "New Zeelind"

Don Brash" "Singapore"

Gerry Brownlee: "Nah Zullin"

Judith Collins: "Neeow Zeland"

Gareth Morgan: "My Zealand"

Roshan Nauhria: "New Zealand"




And the winner of the first round is .........

THWARTED

When I was a kid I used to do a paper round in Wellington.

People of my generation (born in 1952) will remember this as 'paper boys' were a usual sight around the suburbs between 4 and 6pm Monday to Saturday.

In Wellington we delivered The Evening Post which was a decent regional daily now a casualty of media enterprise rationalisation and printed media decline at the hands of the new 'social' media.

When I came home from school I would get my 'paper bag' - a canvas satchel that could hold up to 40 or 50 newspapers. This had a shoulder strap that could accommodate most weights except for those very heavy Thursday and  Saturday papers which were expanded with sports and racing news. I would, at about 4pm wait at the nearby bus stop for the newspaper delivery van to drop off my delivery items. These were pre-sorted by the individual route - a horrendously expensive and (commercially speaking) inefficient delivery system by todays standards but, at the time worked.
I would load up and set off. My route was a few streets in my neighbourhood, delivering The Evening Post to subscribers. It was a pretty easy job made only difficult by winter weather (rain, cold and thunderstorms) and by the 'gangs' from neighbourhoods at a distance from where I lived.

The 'gangs' at this stage weren't the GANGS that we have heard about from the 1970s onwards.

The neighbourhood 'gangs' were clusters of kids of all ages that lived in the same street or couple of streets near to where they lived. Generally the were quite inoffensive but were a bit territorial as indeed I, my brother and friends were.

See:

 LIARDET STREET 'GANG'

On my paper delivery route, which was about three or four streets away from where I lived was Mana Street which had a group of feral kids known (not surprisingly) as the Mana Street Gang.
I was at this time about 10 or 11 - grown up and street-wise. I used to plan my deliveries with a leisurely run through the 'safe' streets and then a quick dash down Mana Street which had a dangerous, curving walkway in the middle. This walkway was downhill for  me and surrounded by bush.  On many occasions I was ambushed by the Mana Street Gang who would challenge me and try to beat me with sticks and throw rocks at me. There were always three of four of them - enough to make it threatening. Now this didn't happen every day but it did happen enough times for it to be of concern to me. At one stage I took to wearing a shoulder protection harness that I got from some neighbours who were American football fans This obviously was far too large for me and looked ridiculous but it gave me a measure of security and, when carrying those heavy Thursday and Saturday papers, stopped that satchel strap digging into me.

I remember on one of the Saturday deliveries, with a heavy load of papers,I was unable to quickly navigate the 'ambush gully' and the Mana street Gang who were hiding in the bushes jumped out on me. They were brandishing wooden swords which at the time were the aggressive toys of the day and which we all made.

These ones were pretty good and the leader of the Mana street Gang had a pretty impressive one. It had silver studs along the 'blade' and across the cross-piece which made it look a bit more imposing than it really was. When they jumped on me and rained blows, as we were all pretty close I was able to bash into them using my heavy paper  bag as a weapon and winded a couple of them. The cumbersome shoulder harness worked out pretty well as the guy with the fancy sword was shaken by the fact that he failed to deter me and I was able to wrestle it away from him and make my escape.

The next day, Sunday, I decided to modify the captured sword. My dad had a great garage that was chock-a-block with tools and work benches. I added to the silver studs with cut-off lead headed roofing nails that were both bigger and heavier. The result was a wooden sword cross knuckle duster.

On my next delivery day, Monday, I was ready in case those Mana Street jokers came at me. I had practiced my routine with some fancy swings, jabs, parries and feints which were made all the more difficult because of the weight of the sword. I had it hidden in the satchel ready to draw. I raced through my other streets delivery and was all hyped up for a confrontation. My heart was racing and I must admit that I was a bit shaky.

As I approached the pathway where the previous confrontations had happened I grabbed the handle of my sword ready for the inevitable ambush. Nothing happened.  When I approached the driveway of the next house a woman stepped out and she gave me a bit of a fright. I jumped. She put out a reassuring hand and said that she had witnessed the Saturday encounter and wanted to apologise for her son's and his friends behavior. She called to them to come out and apologise and, duly, four of these little bastards scrotes penitents emerged and mumbled sorry to me. I left (keeping the sword) and never had a problem again. Soon after I was 'promoted' with a paper stand job on Saturdays on the corner of Grey street and Customhouse Quay making more money in one 2 hour shift (from tips) than the 6 day paper round job.

I must admit though that I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get a chance to scone those bastards with my modified sword. From my point of view they deserved a 'skelping'.

WE'VE GOT TO GET OURSELVES BACK TO THE GARDEN

JONI MITCHELL - "WOODSTOCK"


I got back into the garden today.
I finished off the fern and flax tidy-up along the side of the house. I can actually see the pathway again.

BEFORE

AFTER

The Old Girl isn't up here this weekend as she has some work things to do in Auckland before going to Adelaide again for a couple of weeks but if she was here she would no doubt give me a C plus for the job. I can live with that as it is after all a pass.

Inspired by this I then proceeded to do other gardening things.

• Weeded the backyard garden.
• Sprayed weeds invading the gravel parking area.
• Mowed the lawns.

I had some trouble with the mower which is usually so reliable. Once I got it to start it would go for a bit before conking out. I cleaned the spark plug and fiddled with the fuel system managing to burn my thumb on the exhaust mechanism in the process. Bummer. Eventually the motor ran sufficiently to cut the lawns (to a C minus standard).

All good and finished. Some friends are coming around this afternoon to play snooker. I've had ice on the burned thumb so hopefully it'll be OK.

RELIGION IS THE OPIATE OF THE MASSES - (but not in Glasgow).

I've been re-watching Rab C. Nesbitt on Lightbox and You Tube over the last few months.
There are many series but all are about life in Goven, a Glasgow urban suburb made up of unemployed and disaffected lower socio-economic people. I think you can imagine an equivalent in New Zealand.
I've never been to Goven but have been to Motherwell in Glasgow which is quite similar. Dire, impoverished with an undercurrent of violence. Going into pubs is a lottery. You certainly wouldn't ask for a Rose or a Chardonnay Richard in a couple of the ones I've been in.

Anyway, this episode here from series 2 - episode 6 is well worth a watch. This episode has religion as a theme and I thought that it might appeal to Robert.
Episodes are just over a half hour but well worth the time spent viewing. Pathos and pain underneath the humour. Enjoy!

Rab C. Nesbitt

STOP BEING A BLOKE ....

....and ask someone.

This is a refrain often said by The Old Girl when I'm out and about shopping, travelling (getting lost) or visiting government departments.

Today I decided to tackle the ferns and flax that have taken over the garden at the side of the house to the point that the path is closed off.
The last time I did this was about three years ago before we went to Canada and the UK. The tenants were good about everything else to do with house maintenance but obviously never used the path that runs along the side of the house.

I began with the tools in the toolshed. Actually I just made that up to impress 'Two Sheds Robert'.
I don't have a toolshed. I have tools scattered about :

• In the laundry
• In the woodshed
• Under the house
• In the gas bottle box on the deck
• In the garden (sadly all rusted now).

I'm not very good at DIY, home maintenance and looking after equipment.

The clippers, shears and other things were all bloody hopeless and couldn't see to the ferns let alone the flax.

I looked up my mate Google and checked out hedge clippers and trimmers and everything electrical and seemingly labour-saving. Google told me that The Bosch ISIO III was the man so off I went to town. I called in to Mitre 10 Mega first and found a Bosch ISIO III  at the handsome price of $119. The young salesperson who came along to advise me said that it could definitely cut through ferns and probably cut through flax but he didn't exactly inspire me with confidence in his gardening abilities so I thanked him and headed off the Bunnings. I found a Bosch ISIO III there as well for $124 but before acting on their price-matching promise I asked the older German gentleman whether it could cut through flax. He was horrified and told me that goodness no, that just wouldn't happen. He said that the only thing to deal with flax was a curved Japanese tool that Bunnings didn't stock but which could be found at the Stihl store.

I thanked him and went out to find the Stihl store which he had vaguely indicated as 'out there somewhere' and I couldn't find it. I should have asked him.

I decided to go to the farm goods store named Our Place which is a big warehouse type shop dedicated to supplying everything that a farmer needs ( or more likely the amateur lifestyle block ex-city people). On entering the store I was about to do my usual of wandering around trying to find what I want, not finding it and wandering out but I was greeted by three women at the counters. They asked me (not quite in unison or I would have suspected that they were Sirens) what I was looking for.

SIRENS

I confessed on the spot that I was looking for a curved hand-tool for cutting flax. One of the women said that she knew exactly what I was looking for. It was a Niwashi. I looked at her and said that she had to be kidding. No she said and wrote the name down on a bit of paper and even drew a little picture of what it looked like!

At this stage I thought that I'd slipped into a scene from Bob Dylan's Highlands song where the waitress knew what he wanted before he ordered and suggested that he wanted a hard-boiled egg.

HIGHLANDS

I, like old Bob in the song said good, give me one but like the waitress in Bob's song, my salesperson said that they didn't have any Niwashis. She did however suggest that Mitre 10 Mega Store might have some.

Off I went (back) to Mitre 10 Mega Store armed with my little piece of paper with the name Niwashi written on it along with the cute drawing.

I avoided the helpful young chap and went straight to the garden tools section....and.... asked someone. An older woman this time. I asked her if they stocked the Niwashi to which she said yes and, surprising myself, I asked her if it was good for cutting flax. She replied that it went through flax like cutting butter and that she had been using one for four years.

So.

Job done.

All good and on returning home (by this time it was about 4PM) I got stuck in. The little tool sliced through the invasive flax, ferns and other pesky vegetation like that proverbial butter.

I hacked away for a while until 5PM called heralding the distinct possibility of a cold Chardonnay.

Looking at the work of less than an hour I was pleased and now know that I'll be able to do this over a few days.

I've learned something today.

If in doubt - Ask someone!

SUMMER

Click here:

IN THE SUMMERTIME


I love Summer.
It's still a few weeks away from official Summer but up North it's happening NOW.

The Pohutakawa trees out front are flowering and I've already been in for two swims, yesterday and today. Me. The wuss who takes ages to get into the water.

Tonight I made a 'Summer' meal. Tuna steak, baked potato and a rocket, pear and parmesan cheese salad.

This took no longer than 10 minutes to prepare and cook:

• Scrub a small/medium sized potato (Agria), prick and microwave for 4 minutes.
• Wash some baby rocket leaves, finely slice a pear, shave some parmesan, mix in a bowl with a light sprinkle of a good Balsamic vinegar.
• Lightly pan fry a small tuna steak (keep it red in middle).
• Put on plate and, voila (sorry no Italian), a superb Summer meal.

Looking at the cost of this (for one but not much more for two or more) we have:

• Potato - maybe 20 cents
• Salad - $1.50 of rocket, 50 cents worth of pear and maybe 50 cents of parmesan and 20 cents of Balsamic - total $2.70.
• Tuna - $3.00.
• Total meal - $5.90 max.Total meal - $5.90 max. 

As I ate this, with each mouthful my body felt good. My gullet and I'm sure over the next few hours my heart, colon and bowel will rejoice.

Let's compare this with any sort of take-a-way meal that I could have had (and which unfortunately too many people this evening have had).

The cost of the sugar, fat, carbohydrate and poor protein in a hamburger (with chips) or KFC cremated chicken (with chips) or some sort of taco (with chips) would be a lot more than $5.90 per serving and I guarantee that the vital organs of the consumers would be screaming "No, not more of that shit'.

OK, so I ruined the 'feel good aren't I the bees knees' feeling by downing a few glasses of wine (Chardonnay and Pinot Noir) but will refer you to the phenomenon of the Mediterranean Diet which is the balance of wine with healthy food.

Better than drinking those sugary drinks that are pushed by the Take-A-Way outlets. that cause way more problems than a few glasses of wine do.

THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND

I'm discovering that even though I'm getting as old as Methuselah, in some ways I'm just a 'babe in the woods'.
There are things around me that I just don't understand.
here are some of them:

DJs

What the fuck is this all about? This modern phenomenon of people who select and spin records (badly) at dances and social gatherings and go by weird nicknames who become 'stars' and release collections of their 'hits' are idolised and get paid huge amounts of money.

Supermodels.

Anorexic skanks who don underwear and prance about in high heels get labelled 'supermodel' and get paid ridiculous amounts of money. They get drunk, drugged up and behave badly but still seem to be role models for generations of impressionable young people.

Women.

Overpaid TV and Film actors.

Especially those from USA. They are the new 'aristocracy. They also get drunk, drugged up and behave badly but still seem to be role models for generations of impressionable young people. In the UK (or what used to happen before the lure of big bucks in USA) acting was a profession with journeymen actors (from the ordinary to the sublime) got paid wages. If they were good they bought their own house and a car. They didn't buy six or seven mansions around the world, own private jets and have million dollar parties.

Social Media

OK, I blog but I'm bewildered by all of the platforms that other people (mostly young people) communicate daily hourly by the minute with friends family associates and 'friends' (those thousands of strangers who link to them).

Pike River body retrieval

Why can't the 'powers that be' just let the family members go in and retrieve the bodies.
Make them sign waivers that they do so at their own risk with no call back if they have an accident or indeed don't come out.

This is just the start but I have to go and cook my tea.

GETTING AN EYEFUL

This morning, while I was lying in bed in our Auckland apartment (14th floor) I noticed a video camera mounted drone hovering outside the window.

I looked at it for some moments, thinking that it was operated by engineers checking out the building before it occurred to me that engineers wouldn't be doing this at 6.50AM.

I called The Old Girl who was in the bathroom and alerted her to it. When she came into the bedroom and I pointed to it, it sped away north back towards other buildings around the university.

Now I know that I look pretty hot in the morning so maybe, as it is International Gentlemen's Day, the drone operator was a woman who wanted to get her jollies by checking me out.

Like this?

Or like this?

.....or, it was operated by some Peeping Tom deviant who gets his jollies from looking in apartment building bedroom windows to sneak a peek at young female students in their knickers.

I think the second scenario is more likely.

I reported this to Auckland City Council in case there have been other incidents and so it could go on record.

Unfortunately this 'invasion' is becoming more prevalent. The activity currently slips between the cracks in our legislation and police offences as, peeping into a window is a criminal offence but using a drone-borne video camera isn't. This needs to be sorted.

To make it worse, currently a householder cannot take action against these drones as shown by the guy in Waikanae who stomped on one when it landed after having been filming his children. He was sentenced and had to pay compensation to the scrote who was driving the damned thing.

Go figure.

MISSING YOU ALREADY

Ring ring ring ring .....

Donald:  - "Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello (hey Mike, no-ones answering down in Noo Zeeland) Hello. Hello. Hello. Dammit. And I've got the best words too. Hello...."

John:   - "Hiya. This is John from Nyu Sillund. I'm not in at the mo. Pliss leave a mussage."



Donald:  "Goddammit. Mike this guy wants me to leave a message. I'll tweet him later"

(Donald puts phone down but forgets to disconnect it properly....)

" Hey Mike. Where the hell is Noo Zeeland anyway. Isn't it somewhere near Fiji? I like Fiji. Great water. I think I'll build a hotel there. Hey, don't those Feejeans wear grass skirts. Ha ha, you can grab their pussies easier that way. Ha ha"

Mike Pence, noticing that the phone line is still connected lunges forward to turn it off...

Mike:  "Fuck. Not again...."

GETTING REAMED UP THE ARSE

Yes, I know that you think that the title of this post refers to the inexplicable election of Donald Trump as President of those United States of America (soon to be known as the Altered States of America) but you are wrong.

Yes, the guy above has certainly 'stuck it up the arse (or ass) of America this last week, and, from the safe distance of New Zealand we've still felt the unwanted intrusion but what I had on Friday was an even greater intrusion.

COLONOSCOPY!

My GP on my last visit a couple of weeks ago told me the results of the Waitemata Bowel Screen test I took.

She said that it was positive.

I looked relieved and started to say "good, I'm...." before realising that in this context 'positive' is not the result you want. She suggested a colonoscopy to check 'what's going on down there' and that I could go on a waiting list for the free hospital treatment that we are all entitled to.

The problem is that the Waitemata Bowel Screen test has identified hundreds of people who need to have a check on 'what's going on down there' and basically there aren't enough qualified specialists to run the tests. It requires proctologists and 'Misters' with a lot of other 'ologist' suffixes to be trusted with running little cameras up people's bottoms - not at all to be trusted to nurses, especially female nurses even those with many decades of experience so - a long waiting list. Go figure.

Fortunately I have Southern Cross medical cover which enabled me to 'jump the queue' for the medical procedure and I was able to secure an appointment within two weeks. Securing this appointment in such a quick time though is not without its costs. Southern Cross medical insurance costs us many thousands a year and I often wonder when I'll get a 'return'. The procedure costs about $3000. My insurance means that I get this for 'free' but have to pay an excess of $500. The Southern Cross consultant cheerily explained to me that once I pay the $500 excess then I won't have to pay that excess again for any other surgeries or medical emergencies over the next 12 months. 

Oh Joy.

So, the colonoscopy.

A colonoscopy involves ........... on second thoughts (that's not a reference to Second) .... you don't want to know.

The best thing about a colonoscopy (and I suppose any medical procedures) is the drugs.

In this case I think that it's Rohypnol or something similar. This is the 'Date Rape' drug of choice for perverts, rapists and 'men-about-town' out there.

I must admit it made me feel quite marvellous and to not be at all perturbed that some stranger(s) had inserted an invasive device up my back passage while I 'willingly' slumbered on.

I think that the procedure was positive ..., no negative ...no pos  ... fuck I don't know ... the doc (Mr) told me afterwards that it was OK and just confirmed that I had diverticlae which I knew anyway and that my GP would be in touch. I think that's what he said as I was still under the effect of the Rohypnol or whatever the yummy stuff he had given me so if he'd said "all is OK and I fondled your balls while I was down there" I probably would have  said "that's all right, you're welcome".

An aside: Marist Brothers and priests should put this drug into the drinking water at schools - it would save them and their new pope a lot of hassles.

Now I wait for confirmation from my GP but I think that my arsehole is OK.

I don't think that this arsehole is OK though.

How the hell can you elect a guy that makes fun of someone with Aarthrogryposis as Trump did when mocking Serge Kovaleski.