Trust

Westpac Trust: Although they have now dropped the word Trust from their name - probably a couple of years ago. It was a carry over from when the took over Trust Bank. Anyway just had another argument with them They have taken away the paper/plastic forms to enable direct credits so I have to wait in a queue !! Crazy!!

They did it a few months ago but returned to putting the paper forms out but have now reverted again. The woman said I could use Internet Banking - I agreed; but of course (because of two signatures and a NPO account) they won't do it. They are pathetic. You wonder what idiots make these decisions?






General Trust: The 2010 ratings have come out and Cadbury, top for the past several years, has fallen to 36th equal with Watties taking top spot. In the chocolate makers Whittakers (which we now buy as Cadburys taste has deteriorated so much) has moved up to 5th.

As for people - (look at how many sportspeople are present)

1. Victoria Cross Recipient, Corporal Willie Apiata
2. Fair Go Presenter Kevin Milne
3. Former Olympian and Scientist Sir Peter Snell
4. Author Margaret Mahy
5. Former All Black and Mental Illness Spokesperson John Kirwan
6. = Former All Black Sir Colin Meads
6. = Film Director Sir Peter Jackson
8. Celebrity Chef and Author Alison Holst
9. Silver Fern Irene van Dyk
10. Olympic Shotputter Valerie Vili

Those we don't rate highly are as usual politicians -

Winston Peters (80), Tariana Turia (81), John Banks (82), Rodney Hide (83), Sir Roger Douglas (84) and Hone Harawira (85).

PM John Key went down 17 places to 70 and Phil Goff came 76th.

On TV, John Campbell (33) and Mark Sainsbury (34th equal) upping their places on last year (40th and 44th respectively) with TV3 news presenter Mike McRoberts was a new entry at number 14.

Occupations were about the same as usual -

Firefighters
Ambulace Officers
Pilots
Nurses
Doctors
Pharmacists
Vets
Army
Police
Teachers

and the usual suspects at the bottom were Real Estate Agents, Politicians and Telemarketers.

Soccer

Germany 4 England 1: Another farce with an obvious goal to England not being allowed. It is the game for cheats - why they don't let the score stand, as it is too late once the game is over, but punish the cheats (the Hollywood divers) by banning them for six months after the game. Maybe they need to bring in the standards that Golf sets - but there is too much money at stake. A Twitter post says it all.

Find out where that referee is from. And get MI6 on the phone. #eng about 5 hours ago via TweetDeck

Queen_UK

Elizabeth Windsor

End of June approaches

End of June: And finally 99.9% got my taxes done. Due 7 July of course. Also financially have to get the Rotary stuff in order and GST return done.

Rugby: Good effort with the Southern Hemisphere getting wins to every team. The AB's game was not good. France being thumped by the Pumas was a surprise except France is France. They have now named the Tri Nations squad - how Joe Rocokoko makes it is beyond me. I still can't see Soccer making any progress against Rugby - even if they had won the Cup!

Rugby is for men!!

Dexter: Have just finished watching this show on TV. Easily the best of the week with another fantastic ending to this seasons show. The way the weather has been lately with rain and more rain TV is a good option. The only free to air I watch except for news/sport is the satirical 7 Days on TV3.

18 Years

Rotary: Each week at Rotary the Sergeant announces misdemeanors, fun items etc as well as birthdays and joining dates. I hadn't taken much notice before as it seems like I have always been a member but I joined Rotary this week in 1992 - 22 June 1992 to be exact - 18 years ago at age 50.

How time flies when you are having fun!!

Rugby: The Junior All Blacks have beaten Oz 62-17 in Argentina to win the Junior World Championship. The good news, I suppose, is that they can go on and play here if they wish while in the North they would be blocked by overseas (mainly Kiwi/Boks) players.

A sporting weekend and a bit

Soccer: NZ 1 - Italy 1. A terrific result for us (I predicted 2-0 to Italy) even though the Ref gave a penalty to Italy that wasn't, but it seems our goal may have been from offside.

Rugby: Wales 9 - AB's 42. A relatively easy win after half time. However, they and Ireland are no SA or Oz although England had a one pointer over England. But I thought England were lucky. Further out I would hope since we stuffed up getting Robbie Deans as our coach we go to Warren Gatland after the World Cup.

Oil: A big spill in the Gulf of Mexico but the Americans seem to have a blind spot - they (like us) need oil. And it seems we have to go offshore. That BP may not have done all they could in the safety area is still not clear. The BP public relations is a real disaster with the CEO going off to watch the yachting. It is all about perception and Obama I would have thought would have been more with it. He is looking more like Bush every day.

Guess who - again!

Telecom: I have an old email address at myrealbox.com but I have let it expire as I have moved to GMail. I check it every 6 months or so to see if anything comes in and then tell them the new email address or unsubscribe.

By chance I went in the other day. I last checked it about 3 months ago and lo and behold an email from Telecom telling me that the 'Big Time' plan I am on will end (which I have commented in my blog of 20 May).

Why the hell they have gone back to this when they have contacted me via the Xtra account several times over the past 12 months is beyond understanding. So I emailed them. A waste of time as they sent back the usual automated message that I was wasting my time and should phone them.

I did. About 4 phone calls and a waste of an hour as, from the accent, I got sent to Manila, back to NZ, back to Manila etc. Being left on hold for 10 - 15 minutes at a time and getting cut off is just par for the course. They must easily be the worst corporate in the country (maybe the world).

I told them it is simple. Investigate the problem and get back to me every 24 hours if it takes longer. No - impossible; can't do that. Customer service is beyond them.

I still don't know if they have fixed it. Who knows as they basically promised nothing except they would 'escalate' the problem. Will you get back to me? Not really as 'I will escalate it"

I give in - for now.

Meantime I did as they said for our Laptop to Desktop connection and updated the Ethernet Driver. Made no difference so I will get our fixit man out to see if he can overcome it. Why I should have to pay for their incompetence is ..........!!!

The Jab and other things

Flu Jab: As usual I put off getting the 'free' flu jab but as it happened Monty was booked in for his shots. So I arranged with Sarah to go with them and get mine. Over in a second for me but not for poor old Mont as he yelled a bit but he soon got over it.

Rugby: A bit of a farce when a red card meant Ireland were down to14 men and when it was followed a few minutes later by a yellow it was truly all over. The Southern Hemisphere has again proven to be superior (no matter what Stephen Jones of the London Times might think) with NZ winning, Oz beating England and the Boks putting the sword to France. The solitary win was Scotland over the Pumas - a good win as they are almost impossible to beat at home.

I think in the modern game where it is an entertainment and a Red Card means 90% of the time the game is over (although Ireland made a good fist of it after halftime scoring 4 tries) the system should be the player goes off but another player comes on in 10 minutes to give some semblance of a contest.

Politics: All the hoopla about the politicians ripping us off with their credit cards - items such as adult movies, bikes, golf clubs etc are beyond a joke and are they thick. It would seem yes. The good news I suppose is that on a world scale they are the most honest around. Even if they pay it back the rules are that they mustn't charge personal items.

Also some items must be put in context as some spending such as the Trade Minister in Peru and taking taxis to a conference are reasonable and within the job description. However, the way around it is to bulk fund them. National and ACT are keen on bulk funding schools so we should give the pollie's XX$ and they sort it all out, salaries, expenses, trips, perks etc themselves.

Fat chance.

Weather: Still wet but improving slowly. Still cold.

Busy: As usual flat out with SeniorNet Newsletter/AGM also speaking to Grey Power this week. As for Rotary the same with AGM, Balance Sheet time and own Tax time.

Tragedy

Tragedy: A gunman has killed 12 people and injured 25 others in a rampage in the village of Whitehaven in Cumbria (The Lake District) in the UK. As per usual he is a nice quiet man.

People who knew him described him as "mild-mannered" and "the loveliest man you could meet."

We shall see in due course why with the strong gun laws in the UK he had a rifle.

Here we just had some female teenagers rob a dairy but unable to open the till they stole ice creams. They also had a gun. But we never ask the question - where did you get the gun. Don't tell us and your sentence gets doubled should be the rule.

Quiz: Back to form (2nd) but as usual - wrong questions, wrong answers but to make it even better he had a category Sport but he fouled it up and they were on Science!! Then again we took Geography as our bonus and two were science and one was on language???

Rugby: The AB's team they have announced is about the best we could get with the dozen or so injuries and Rene Ranger has just been brought in because two more are injured.

Queens Birthday: Coming up on Monday and we are to have the boys Sunday/Monday. So some older photos of the boys.

Monty and me at the Gracefield School playground.

Kipp imitating MontyMonty - growing up fast

Kipp being nosy