In the news

Toxic Algae from the Hutt River

We often take our dog, as does my daughter with her three dogs, to the Hutt River dog walk. However, following the death of two dogs due to a naturally occurring toxic algae dog-owners are being urged to stop their pets straying to what has become a deadly river. Two Basset hounds have already been killed by the toxic algae that have invaded the Hutt River.

As it happens, when I read the article about a the dog owner who lost two of his dogs, I realised I knew him through work and SeniorNet. We will be being careful in future and not letting Rhett into the river and instead will probably take him to Petone Beach more often.


In the Dom-Post the headline story on Saturday was about a 35 year woman who was brought back from the dead thanks to her quick-thinking seven-year-old son who phoned 111 when her heart stopped. I didn't realise that she was a friend of my daughters until she came around and pointed it out. Then again I haven't seen her for several years.

Happy Birthday

CHRISTINE

Born Monday 5 January 1948

Wow 60 - but only looks and feels 40. Looking at Google a lot of famous people have their birthday today ranging from the King of Spain to the only All Black captain to win a World Cup - so far - David Kirk. So she is in exalted company. Got her a present- we are going to arrange for some rememberance bricks to be placed at the Dowse Gallery for deceased family. Was given the idea by a friend who like many today had her parents cremated and no real memorial stands.

Sixty

She who must be obeyed is the big six-oh tomorrow.

The Soviet Dustbin and New Years again

A Soviet Union era story.

I was at a work function about 3 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and got into a discussion with an ex-Trade Commisioner to Moscow. He said he thought the Soviet Union would collapse within 20 - 30 years.
Whhhat!! - this is one of the worlds superpowers - he must be mad. Of course it had gone within about three years so he did know what he was talking about.

To illustrate his point that the economy and the country was a facade and disaster waiting to happen, he told me a story.

He went to visit a dustbin factory. The Central Planning Committee decided to put the factory that made the lids in one town alongside a river. The factory that made the bottoms was another town further downstream and the assembly point and sales department further down the river.

He asked me what do you think happened when they barged the lids and bottoms downstream for assembly. I thought they wouldn't fit. He said no, that was fine - in fact they were a great dustbin. Only one style but they were solid and would last for 20 years. However, when he looked around he saw piles of lids for as far as he could see just rusting away. Literally millions of them. He asked what was going on.
The answer was that for every bottom they made three lids so they just threw away two!! This had been going on for over 30 years.

He said this is crazy - why don't you make less lids. What - and put all those people out of work!! Mad capitalists.

This was an example he said of the inefficiencies of the system. More stories another day.

Meantime, New Years with an 's'. From todays N Z Herald about words that are becoming annoying

"....... would like to add "New Year's" to the list of words that should be banned. "The event is New Year as in 'where are you going for New Year?' Not New Year's. What is correct, however, is New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. But all you ever see and hear these days is: What are you doing for New Year's or New Years? It is now so rife I fear it may never be stamped out."

Quite right. It is 17th century English that Americans still speak today. But it is not confined to them as the Scots say "6 stones 4 lbs" and at a Rugby match Bill McLaren always said " the ball is now to be thrown into the lines-out"

The Beatles

I'm back again - or should that be "I'm bach". I said in a previous entry that I was reading Bill Bryson's book The Mother Tongue and it is an oddity of NZ that we pronounce the composer Bach as back but the Kwi beach house is (in the North Island) a bach - pronounced batch.

THE BEATLES

I found this on the Net. It has dozens of Beatles songs within it and your mission is to find the ones I've missed.

Please Mr Postman, see that this letter arrives safely.

Dear Prudence,

A long, long, long time ago, I asked you to tell me what you see and with eyes shut, you said, 'Do you want to know a secret?', She loves you, but you're going to lose that girl'.Well, I've just seen a face. It was yesterday, or was it the night before, when I saw her standing there.

I saw Lucy in the sky with diamonds, (sister of Michelle and now married to Roccy Raccoon), and it all came back to me.Lucy left me because she caught Polythene Pam as she came in through the bathroom window. I tried to act naturally, joked that everybody's trying to be my baby and played some rock and roll music.

But she kept on walking and in exasperation I shouted, 'Oh darling, wait, don't let me down, I need you'. 'I'll never meet another girl like you, you really got a hold on me', and other words of love to that effect. Lucy said, 'I don't want to spoil the party, I'm out of here, helter skelter, good night'.I said, 'honey don't, what you're doing is killing me, you can't do that, help, we can work it out, you like me too much, I want you!'.

She shouted back at me, 'You're boring, that's the word, boring!'. 'All you do is listen to Beatles music!'. 'Go have a drink with the boys, and other little piggies like yourself, me, I'll follow the sun'.I became angry. 'Girl, you can drive my car or take a ticket to ride on a magical mystery tour down the long & winding road to Kansas City, Vladivostock, Elwood, Pepperland or the sea of monsters for all I care'.

She made no reply. Only then did I realise that she's leaving home. I sent her all my loving, eight days a week in letters to here, there & everywhere.I would have travelled in a yellow submarine, I would have attempted to track her down all across the Universe.In my life, where did I go wrong?

Can you explain to me every little thing, any time at all? I'd like to laugh at the memory, but I'll cry instead. I tried to console myself, I thought, it's only love, but what if I needed someone again, if I fell in love with someone else? I sometimes wished I lived back in the USSR, before the revolution. It may all make sense to me when I'm sixty four. I should have known better. I'm a loser really, a nowhere man, a fool on the hill.Each morning I would wake up to depressive thoughts, like, I'm down, I'm so tired, run for your life what goes on, your Mother should know.

But then one morning, on my birthday, after a hard day's night praying to Lady Madonna, I saw a familiar face passing my bedroom window. 'Hey Jude, here comes the sun', I exclaimed. 'Good morning, good morning', came the reply.

So with a little help from my friends, lovely Rita, Julia, Shondra & dizzy miss Lizzy, I recalled what a wise man once told me, 'You've got to hide your love away', so I told myself, 'I'll be back, I will'!!And now, things are getting better. No more misery, now I feel fine flying, free as a bird. Now, I'm a paperback writer, no longer a day tripper on the roller coaster of life.

The royalties from book sales can't buy me love, but are fixing a hole in my Bank account. Now I can carry that weight of memories passed, I can simply let it be, and get back to being the person I once was. I have even returned to my daily jogs down Penny Lane and this boy could run through strawberry fields forever.

As they say in that classic Beatles song, 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-la-da, life goes on!'. Do you remember the Beatles?, Paul McCartney made a lot of money, a taxman's dream, but if I met him today, he would probably say of me, 'Baby, you're a rich man too', or something like that.

Yours Sincerely Mr Moonlight The End

Up in the morning, out on the job...

Up early the day after New Years Day.

One of my (old fashioned??) pet hates is the Americanisation of our New Zealand (not British) English. We now seem to say New Years with an 's' in a situation where we never used to.
But ce'st la vie!

Watched the History Channel the other night which gave a listing of the top 100 people of the millenium. I have probably seen it before, but as we all know free to air TV around this holiday time is terrible. Naturally I didn't agree with all the placings, the top 20 of which are listed below. I thought Martin Luther, Columbus and Gandhi were overated but when thought through, Gutengberg was a good choice over my favourite Newton. Also it seemed a bit Euro/Amero-centric. In the top 100 list Princess Diana rated 73, above such as Jonas Salk (97) !! So as it got towards the end it slowly became less reliable - IMHO.

Johann Gutenberg
Isaac Newton
Martin Luther
Charles Darwin
William Shakespeare
Christopher Columbus
Karl Marx
Albert Einstein
Nicolaus Copernicus
Galileo Galilei
Leonardo Da Vinci
Sigmund Freud
Louis Pasteur
Thomas Edison
Thomas Jefferson
Adolf Hitler
Mahatma Gandhi
John Locke
Michelangelo
Adam Smith



Only 44 days to Super 14.

Tuesday 1 January 2008

Another year. What will it hold. On the personal front we all hope it will be another wonderful and enjoyable 12 months. On the wider front I hope for some improvement but hold out little hope.

A new US President will be elected and to quote from the New York Times

" .. (the) ... shocking abuses of President Bush’s two terms in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more — so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.
We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America."

Is he the worst President the US has ever had? He must be in the top three. Unfortunately, although it can apply to many countries, I believe the US system of democracy is particularly poor in that it conspires against people of real competence and experience to be elected.

We will also have an election but, whatever that outcome, I think the status quo will remain.