La vien rose

Went to see the film La vien rose about Edith Piaf last week. Found it reasonable in the story line, but it had too much flashback for me so it became a little disjointed. However the acting was a different story, particularly that of Marion Cotillard as Piaf. She was extraordinary. I noticed it seemed to gloss over the war period.

To sum up the state of the Hollywood film industry, I got my better half 10 film tickets for Xmas 2006. This gave entry to our local multiplex and since then we have only attended two films - one French as above, and the other being "The Queen" - British. So three films to go. At the present rate it will be 2009 before we use them.

And Hollywood wonders why they are not getting the patrons.

The new Cabinet was announced today. Was Trev really demoted. Watch for a comeback if the win the next election. Almost as important was the announcement of the Super 14 teams. I will have to study them before commenting.

Get in behind Trev

Mallard is my local MP and I have, over the years, had some interaction with him and have always found him reasonably helpful and inclined to act rather than talk. Probably a trait that has got him into the hot water he now finds himself. I would guess his career prospects are down the gurgler. You would think that Goff must be the front runner to replace Clark.

Interesting that it was Tau Henare (who I have a bit of time for) as their "relationship" goes back some years as Tau is Tuku Morgan's brother in law.

When we are overseas and being hassled by hawkers etc we speak a few words of Maori in an attempt to pretend we don't speak English. We usually start of with Tau henare, Matui Rata Pakeha Aotearoa. Has only worked a couple of times.

Telecom - a promise for faster (but at what cost?) Broadband. Again, although a new captain at the helm, seeing will be believing.

On the personal front I am involved with a Seniors Expo (which could have been organised better although there are some outside factors that have not helped) and we have now got a wireless connection for our laptop so we will see how that works out. I read on the Aardvark site about another insane Copyright problem. In Canada they put some Public Domain (according to Canadian law) sheet music on the Net but got a complaint from a German firm claiming the were breaching German Copyright. As per usual you know who won. It is like saying to one country you can't publish something that is legal in your country because it breaks anothers laws. Madness.

Its all yours South Africa plus some sex and petrol

What a poor game. It is often possible to have a tryless game that is a great game - good skills, a close encounter etc. But I don't think this was one of those. The almost try was ruled correctly in my view.

A classic that the claims of non-consensual sex against the Kiwi League player did not seem to have been able to go further as he filmed the "event". But again League is in the gun as going outside the "role model" role - if indeed they and other sports people should be setting standards of morality?

Labour Day tomorrow but most holidays don't worry me now but I did see that the price of petrol has risen in anticipation of people returning. But having said that for once I saw that BP was $1.63 while Mobil was still at $1.60 so that is something. I bet it won't last more than 24 hours.

Painting and the best of the tournament

Kipp went to Playcentre the other day and tried his hand and face at painting!!

At least he enjoyed himself!!

He came round on Friday as I said in the previous post and was looking a lot cleaner. Will be with me again tonight as they are all going to the Opera and leaving me to watch the final of the Air NZ Cup and to look after him.

C'mon the Lions.

The Bronze Medal. To prove I can't pick 'em France was completely destroyed by Los Pumas and who said Argentina were one dimensional. It was the best game of the tournament in my view and also probably with that first try after halftime they scored what is probably the best try so far. The try when the had a man in the "bin" was also a beauty.

Congratulations Argentina!!

Down to the wire

Down to the wire - well the final between

South Africa - England.

I hope for the good of the game that South Africa thump them and with style. Winning ugly is England. Although New Zealand has not been short of that, and winning is everything, it is now a professional game (entertainment) competing with many other options. I think France to beat Argentina and South Africa to win.

It seems like the rest of the planet, we have joined the world of the terrorist (and a huge explosion in Pakistan today). Yeah right! I think our ones are just a few of lifes nutters and are small time compared to the overseas variety and hopefully, basically harmless. But having said that we can't be too careful and if they do have illegal weapons then that cannot be allowed. But it certainly brings out all sorts of views.

I have been reading Scott Adams book about his cartoon character Dilbert. It took a while to grow on me and some are not funny (or I am too thick to get it) but some are hilarious.

Ran our first Blogging for Seniors class at SeniorNet (apart from the Course test class) and I certainly gained the impression that it was one of the more enjoyable ones.

Kip and crew are coming for tea tonight and of course it is the Labour Day weekend although holidays don't really affect me now.

Another day another game

Frogs - Poms Jaapies - Argie Bargies
I hope France and Argentina but can't see the Argentinians doing it although France can.

Nothing else on at the moment except the usual with SeniorNet teaching underway again.

Crime Comment - Another stupid decision. Six guys abuse and one of them attacks another chap. He retaliates and stabs his attacker in self defence. We all know the answer to the question of who goes to jail (He got 2 years!!). The NZ world continues to be mad.

Four more years

Oh Oh Tragedy !! - defined as any event with a sad and unfortunate outcome. There are dozens of words to describe the All Black defeat. Calamity - disaster etc etc.

What can I say - the Ref was pathetic, the IRB who won't allow linesmen to point out a forward pass are pathetic, the Referees Appointment Board who appointed a man who has only ref'd one test of any significance (France- Italy) - the other 5 all being the Pacific Five Nations , pathetic etc etc.



Then again, we should have won even allowing for that.



Was it Rotation? Who knows, but the coaching team will have to go. That is the price of failure in N.Z.

But the Cup itself is great with England showing that the scrum is an integral part of the game; Argentina have been a revalation; Georgia great and Fiji another surprise package. My thoughts a week ago was no Northern Hemispere teams but now it could be no Southerners although I am sure South Africa will be there.

Short Holiday

We have been away visiting Havelock North, Napier, Hastings, Whakatane, Ohope Beach and Te Awamutu.
We went to Havelock then on to Wakatane and stayed at Ohope with the plan to visit White Island. Sadly we couldn't as the weather was too bad. We will probably make another attempt next year. However, we stayed with friends in Te Awamutu for a couple of days which was terrific as we did a lot of catching up with old times.

But the interesting thing was the house numbering system. Rather than the usual one it numbers houses on the metres from the end of the road. Our friends house is in a short grove and as they lived at 85 our first thoughts were that we had the wrong number. As we entered the street we saw the first house was number 10 with the next number 26!!

He later explained the reason for the metric numbering system is that it enables each house to be located quickly by electronic tracking systems for emergency services. I had never heard of it before and he believes about 3 other NZ towns have it.

Our general feeling was that most of the small country towns are looking pretty prosperous.

Onto religion - RUGBY - It is now all on and we can only hope that all the planning comes to fruition. As for the jersey colour problem. We have played in BLACK for over 100 years and these other ratbag countries are now trying to change their traditional colours to match ours. I hope it really backfires on them on the the field.