Some scenes from March

I say some, because this is just a preview. Last night was my designated “upload all the photos” night. Because last night was Virtual Tennis evening, when women-folk & children desert the homestead to er… drink & gossip I think. And so that’s the night Wilma & I have an extended walk through the gardens, then an extended loaf around at home in between cooking something manly like steak & eating it with onions between two slices of bread, watching another episode of Firefly & possibly attending to sadly neglected pastimes like blogging.

Usually.

But last night, before steak, before Firefly & during photo upload, Mrs Llew returned from a business trip to THAT city in the north & announced she was too tired for Virtual Tennis (the “Virtual” indicates that no-one so much as goes near racquets or balls).

And no way was she eating steak.

And get off the computer. (Actually, that last bit was just implied).

And no fecking way was she watching any crappy western in space.

So here’s as far as I got. More to come.

But to keep you on your toes, this episode of Scenes from March was brought to you by ITC Entertainment.



Der rinky dink (ydinky dinky dinky dink)



Der rinky dinky dink (ydinky rinky dinky dink)



Der rinky dink (ydinky rinky dinky dink)



Der rinky dinky dinky dink (ydinky rinky dinky dink)



Der rinky dinky dinky dink dah dah



Der rinky dinky dah



Der rinky dinky dink




Der rinky dinky dinky dink dah dah

Der rinky dinky dink

Der rinky dinky dink!

Der rinky dink (ydinky dinky dinky dink)

Etc

Interestingly…. This theme wasn’t used until series 2, but it is the one that everyone remembers (well some of us anyway).

young naked girls humiliated and caned outdoors videos - Yahoo! Search Results

I'm so proud! I came in at No. 4 in this Yahoo search.

young naked girls humiliated and caned outdoors videos - Yahoo! Search Results

This, rather appropriately came in from Youngstown, Ohio.

Hello Youngstown.

The Mod Squad

Oh... and by the way... Scenes from February were brought to you by The Mod Squad.

Scenes from March, will be posted soon...

The Mod Squad TV Show Unofficial Home Page w/ Theme, Pictures & Episode Guide

Firefly

Thoroughly enjoying it - have now seen the pilot, and half of the 2nd episode.

It's fascinating to see the story arc progress to the outright carnage that is Serenity.

Pleased to see also, that Mal's shooting of the assassin mid "monologue" was not the first time, the pilot has a similar scene that is just priceless.

Missed by the diarists

Last week, two noted bloggers were looking for someplace nice in Wellington to enjoy a yarn & a coffee. One noted blogger pointed to a café in Woodward Street, outside of which, sat our esteemed Foreign Minister & a friend, enjoying a smoke & a coffee.

“Let’s try here” said the noted blogger, “maybe we can start a brawl with Winston.” The other noted blogger agreed, but expressed disappointment that it wasn’t Russell Crowe.

“The wages of starjacking are much higher with Russ. Plus, we’d get to hang out with a movie star, however briefly.”

The two settled in, had their coffee & nattered inconsequentially about crimes perpetrated on the English language, mutual friends, and sundry wankers of their acquaintance. They also copped a quick look at the famous Miss Ten, who was completely unaware that two noted, yet pretty anonymous fellow bloggers were checking her out.

Afterwards, they sat back & watched our esteemed Foreign Minister, as he and his friend crossed the street to gaze at a (very) pinstriped, yet single breasted suit in a well known & quite expensive menswear shop window.

Turning, the esteemed Foreign Minister noticed the two noted bloggers regarding him with interest. He gave a broad smile, and a warm laugh. One noted blogger remarked,

“It would suit you”

The esteemed Foreign Minister laughed heartily, then looked wistfully back at the suit for a moment, and with a smile, his parting shot was,

“I couldn’t afford it”.

And laughing loud & long again, he made his graceful departure.

To chip? Or not to chip? My 2c.

I personally like the idea of micro-chipping my dog & cats. I’m presuming that next time one of them goes missing, the SPCA will scan the chip & give me a friendly call to say they have my little Tiddles & could I go get him. Although theoretically, they can do that right now by looking up the number on the collar tag (for dogs anyway). In practise, I'm not sure they do.

What I don’t agree with is making micro-chipping compulsory on the grounds that it will stop dogs attacking humans. Um… exactly how will it do that?

A microchip is just like a plastic collar tag except that it cannot be seen, and it cannot taken out (very easily or humanely anyway) and put into another dog.

A micro-chip does not allow animal control officers to track the movements of dogs (as one journalist I read recently seemed to think). If a stray is found, it will have to be taken someplace that has a micro chip reader (vets, & SPCA typically have them these days), to see if it has a chip & if so who is the registered owner.

Because a micro-chip is invisible to the casual observer, dogs will still need a plastic collar tag as well. Otherwise how are animal control officers to even suspect a dog is unregistered?

The extra cost of chipping is not likely to encourage the owners of unregistered dogs to register & chip them. Quite the opposite.

Working dogs (of which farm dogs are a subset) currently command a lower registration fee than pets (so the notion of “one law for all dogs” has always been bullshit). Quite rightly too, so far as I know the fee is even tax deductible. If the chipping of working dogs is also to be mandatory, and I have no real problem with that, except I would expect there would also be a reduced fee. But when it comes down to it, I have a suspicion that the cost of these chips isn’t that different from the cost of a piece of moulded, engraved, coloured plastic, and so why shouldn’t the cost be absorbed as much as possible into already bloated dog registration fees?

But finally, I’ll go back to the question that is at the crux of the issue, and I’d love someone to answer it:

How will micro-chipping dogs reduce the incidences of dogs attacking humans?

Here’s a very good article (from, gasp! Investigate!) on the whole dangerous dogs thing.

And... UPDATE!

Because I've been over here ranting & even agreeing with most folk... here's what I think would be more effective than micro-chips.

1. Enforce the current dog laws - I have little confidence that the proposed laws will be enforced, because there is very little evidence that the current ones are.

2. Register the owner, not the dog. Shift the focus onto the owner. Treat dogs like guns.

Micro-chipping is a red herring. Although... I will be getting my dog micro-chipped. And all future cats.

I don't do theme parties...

When I was a teenager, at a party, I had this rule:

When someone started playing Ten Guitars... I would go home. No exceptions, even if it looked like I might finally score with a school hottie... 10 Guitars meant it was time to go. Fortunately, such was the frequency of my scoring success with the school hotties... I never had to face this dilemma. But if I had, I'd have been strong! Maybe.

I have other arbitrary rules though. Notably, I don't do theme parties. Well, not since the 1980s, when I went all out & attended a fancy dress party as a banana. It was a triumph! I retired on a high.

And I can't imagine why anyone would want to inflict the stress of a theme party upon their guests. For god's sake, if I wanted to dress up like... a pimp or a prostitute, have no doubt, I would indulge that odd desire.

There is one exception to this, I would attend a Zorro party in suitable attire. In fact, I think I've mentioned this before, but I've always thought that a Zorro party would be a real wheeze... one where everyone has to come as Zorro. And drink tequila.

Mrs Llew kind of agrees, except she thinks everyone should attend any theme party, no matter what the theme... as ABBA.

So anyway, the point of this is that a close family member has decreed that his 40th birthday party this weekend will have an 80s theme. I have no idea why, since obviously he was born in the 60s...

Should I conform, I have decided that my persona may well be The Thin White Duke David Bowie. Unless a really big suit lands in my lap, in which case I'll be David Byrne.

Or maybe I'll go as Zorro anyway.

But any good ideas? What would YOU go as to an 80s party?

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi & the Traffic Cop

This is astonishing!

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Friendly Greeting

Hat tip to David Farrar

Today's mystery photo...

No prize... I have little idea what it is either. Except that it did come off my camera, and is conceivably, a picture of the lining of my pocket.

While no-one is looking....

... I can raid the pear tree....



Click for a larger image...

If Monet had a dog

Er... must do something about the shaking....

A babe in distress...

A babe, underwear and er... a really big phallic symbol (I'd be giving it away if I were more specific). How can you go wrong?

The Skreeching Skraeling: A babe in distress...what to do?

Hat tip to Silent Running

I'm with Frank! Daylight saving all year round.

Opinion: views on the news on Stuff.co.nz: At the end of the day, everyone wins with daylight saving

Was going to y'know, actually write something about it, but Frank Haden has done the hard yards for me. And also, I'd never have known that daylight saving reduces crime & energy consumption! It's true!

There may also be four girls for every guy, but I haven't finished the article yet to be sure.

Oh, WTF, I'm going to say it...

I always assumed he was gay.

New Zealand's source for entertainment news, gossip & music, movie & book reviews on Stuff.co.nz: What the Kiwi gossip mags say

Geek Credentials Intact

After watching Serenity last week & thoroughly enjoying it, I re-established my geek credibility (is that oxymoronic? Anyway, I say re-established because for some years I WAS… well I hesitate to say I was a Trekkie, but I was a regular viewer of Star Trek the Next Generation – it may have been the Counsellor responsible actually, she could “feel” things. Particularly in crowded lifts. And then later… uh… I think I’ve abandoned grammar & punctuation at this stage of the post… I was an even more avid watcher of Babylon 5, which was cool. Very cool. And very cleverly plotted – the guy must have had several walls of flow charts to keep up with all the loose ends that he actually did, eventually tie up. Say, are there some brackets to close somewhere?…)

So uh… I re-established my geek credentials by giving into temptation & buying the Firefly box set. God knows when I’ll get to watch it. But I am looking forward to it.

In other random DVD musings, I also bought myself Rififi, a superior heist movie made in France in the 50s. Rumour has it that it influenced Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.

And in other merely random musings… We have tickets to the Stones!! Yay. Never seen them before, and let’s face it, in the 1970s & 80s when I might have had the chance, who’d have thought that they’d still be touring now? Actually, M is the biggest fan in our house. We wake up to the Stones (and INXS, Queen, & AC/DC) blasting from the teen room. We spend our evenings listening to her play Paint it Black on the guitar...

Calling all sponsors! Hellooooo!!!

Last weekend, amongst other things, we looked after my two young nephews, aged 6 & 8. They're pretty good. Although I challenged the 6 year old by, instead of saying "You can have a toasted sandwich", allowing him to choose his own lunch from the menu. Bacon & eggs on toast, which proved a challenge in the knife & fork dept. Big ups to the little guy though, he was determined to manage all by himself. And nearly did.

Amusement aside, that's why we have a dog & chose a lunch venue with an outdoors area... she cleaned up the overflow thanks very much.

It was a mad flap of a weekend though, netball trials for M on Saturday morning, pick up the boys, back into town for M & T, then out to SunnyO for a walk along the beach & an evening watching Wallace & Gromit.

The next morning was brutal. Brutal. We were up at 6.30am getting M ready for her first ever triathlon at Raumati. There was some faffing around to be done, so the boys & I dropped the girls off, then raced off to do that faffing. Got a text an hour later from T (who was the diligent support person) to say the M had come first in the swim section. Heh... this was a bit of a surprise as she'd only had two ocean swims in the way of practise. Apparently she emerged from the sea looked around & almost panicked when she saw no one near her & then it dawned... "Feck! I must be winning!"

By the time the boys & I got back, it was onto the last leg, the run. T had been watching carefully which girls from M's age group (13-19, and please bear in mind that she is 13...) had finished... and somewhat skeptically said "I think there have only been a couple so far...."

And then M was racing in & the crowd roared! And people were noting that that was the girl who won the swim section.

And so we waitied around for the prize giving, to see if we could find out if she came high up the rankings. And also in case we could score a spot prize.

Well... no prize, but to our astonishment she had come 3rd. On her first try. And the girls who came 2nd & 1st were not younger than 17, and seasoned tri-athletes (we've looked them up on the web).

And M was then quite the girl of the moment, with people coming to ask her name & offer advice like "You need to work on your transition" (shucking the wetsuits for biking paraphernalia & bike), to which she answered "I know, I know, but that was my first one, I'll be faster next time." we wait now with bated breath for the sponsorship deals to come through.

Show me the money! Or the sports car even.

Serenity

Been a while since I mentioned any movies. Possibly because we haven't seen much worth mentioning.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Don't Panic! It won't matter if you miss it. In fact, we didn't bother watching to the end.

There was something else too.... um...

Be Cool - y'know, the sequel to Get Shorty. Let me say this again... Don't PANIC! it won't matter if you miss it. In fact, if you've seen Get Shorty, you've seen most of it already, since the makers seemed determined to retread every situation, joke, and character again. With one exception...

Every now & then a movie throws up a genuine surprise, that 3rd billed actor who might be well known, but who turns in a scene stealing performance that seems hilariously at odds with their usual image. And so, I give you, in the guise of a gay stuntman & standin, wannabe star with only one risible facial expression... The Rock!

Yes, the best thing about Be Cool (and that includes the disappointing dance scene with Travolta & Thurman) is the Scorpion King. Almost worth watching just for him.

But all that's unimportant. Yesterday I was quite sick & took the day off (fine now more or less thanks), and after enduring for most of the day, the nagging of a needy visiting tradesman... I finally got rid of him & settled back on the couch in front of Serenity, fully expecting to fall asleep a few minutes in.

I can't be bothered (and neither do I have the time) to find links for this post), but I have never seen a single episode (nor the original movie) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - but I know grown men & women who swear by it. And in its absence, they worship at the altar of a TV show called Firefly written & produced by the same guy as Buffy, Joss Whedon.

Bear with me... Firefly is a western in space, imagine the universe that Han Solo & Chewbacca inhabited before they met Luke & Leia.

Anyhow, Firefly was cancelled after one season.

But lo! As happens, such was the demand, that Joss Whedon cobbled together money & support to make a movie in the wake of Firefly. That movie is named for the ramshackle spaceship, Serenity.

Phew, we got there.

So, Serenity, I had been told that if I hadn't seen the preceding series, that I would find it hard to follow, but that wasn't the case. Maybe enough fanboys & girls had explained the back story to me.

Serenity is an action packed, funny, thoughtful piece of work. To call the protaganists antiheroes, is probably understating - when we meet them, they're planning a bank heist (of sorts), and there's a priceless moment when the captain is quietly listening to a sinister assassin (as they say in the Incredibles) "monologuing", when the assassin comes to the part:

"I'm not here to threaten you, I came unarmed..."

"Good" says the captain, drawing his gun & shooting him. (He's wearing armour though & survives to do some threatening later).

I can't remember the names of any of the characters, except that the captain is called Mal, and the psychic waif they're protecting (who turns out to be somewhat more than meets the eye) is called River.

River can kick butt BTW. Seriously.

Anyway, I daresay we'll never see its like again. Hardly Citizen Kane in space, but it is well worth a look.

Yay! The census is upon us!

I'm always torn... hide out in the bush or row to the 12 mile limit & miss the whole thing, or diligently fill in the forms with nonsense to make my mark on this year's census.

Religion: Bacchanalian Reveller? None of this Jedi shit.

Ethnicity is the big one this year, a whole lot of people want to be recorded as New Zealanders... personally, I think Pakeha would be preferable to that, NZer is just a nationality, but the word pakeha does to me, evoke pretty much the same thing as NZ Euro.

In the interests of collecting useful information for the Dept of Statistics, I think we owe it to our nation to put something sensible & relatively accurate down. If we all put New Zealander, we might as well not ask about ethnicity at all. Then I think, we can get on to arguing about other questions, like gender.

There is a little nagging suspicion in (not just) my mind, that the people advocating New Zealander don't think that say 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generation Chinese say, are eligible. But maybe I'm wrong.

Technically, for me, ethnicity would be European (and don't anyone give me "but the UK isn't part of Europe!" shit.) Although I'll make a nod towards my adopted nationality & tick NZ European. Close enough.

Now, I hope no-one's jumped the gun & filled in their forms already! The whole point is to make this an accurate snapshot of tonight. What happens (as someone, perhaps at the end of the link below even, has mentioned) fills in the form & then dies before tonight? The whole census will be out by 1! You don't want to be responsible for that sort of fiasco do you?

Not that the census is necessarily that accurate anyway, go browse the last one at the Stats website, there are all sorts of anomalies, which can probably be put down to people not knowing which end their arse is at.

For instance, do you think everyone knows whether they own or rent their home? Who their landlord is? Get this, there are some 64,000 households residing in State Houses at present. The figure in the census, when it is published, will tell us that there are only about 55,000 or so. No-one knows why this is. There are bound to be other similar discrepancies.

And remember, when they come to pick up your completed forms, even if you live down a long winding zig zag path, at the end of a cul de sac, that no-one ever comes down, they will. So make sure you're wearing trousers & not smoking say, anything illegal when they can't find the front door & come around the back & surprise you. Not that that has happened to me of course.

Opinion: views on the news on Stuff.co.nz: Imagine a home where the Jedi can roam...

Reader assistance required.

2 things.

1. I need to get a guy pretty much 3 storeys up to the roof of my house to perform some maintenance on the chimney. There are some challenges:

The roof tiles are so brittle, that the solution must not actually touch the roof.

The chimney is some distance from the road (maybe 15 metres or so?)

$1000 and upwards for scaffolding for what is probably a 30 minute job when he's there seems outrageous.

Anyone got a novel soulution to suggest? I am looking into cherry pickers, but it'll have to be a big one.

and...

2. Anyone know where to get a GREAT bacon sarnie in the Wellywood CBD?

Scenes from February

Da da da da da da daaaaahhh



Da da da da da da daaah



Da da da dada da da daaaah



Da da da daa dah....



Da da da da da da da da da da daaah



Da da da da da da dah



Da da da da da da dah



Da da da da da da dah



da da da da dah



da da da da da da



Wheeee diddle diddle dah...



Da da da da da daaah



Da da da da da da dah



Da da da dada da da daah



Da da da da dah



Da da da da da dah....



February is a Quinn Martin production.



I will courier a Big Mac (TM)

Anywhere in the world

To the first person who can name the TV theme tune that I have transcribed above.

And who starred in it.

And where they are now.

pink growlers netball team

Due to a staggering series of word related coincidences... I am no. 1 in the google search for:

pink growlers netball team

Way to go me!

And way to go my new reader from Stockport, England!

pink growlers netball team - Google Search

Just for Peter

Who thinks that this is the same photo just slightly enhanced each time I post it.

it's true.

Don't expect me to make a habit of this...

I mean, posting birthing stories. But this one made me laugh, and it's quite sweet.

A tribute to being prepared, even if it's all in vain.

"As I took a corner at speed on my way down the narrow, twisting hall to the bathroom, I carefully articulated a set of instructions loud enough for the boys to hear. Which is to say, I gabbled desperately: "Don't worry about the tub it's too late I'll be in the bathroom if you need me plug in the heating pad for the baby's clothes aaaaaaaaaaargh oh my god here we go again I think this might be it!""

"A small, perfect, bluish-purple baby somersaulted down into my hands and I laid him down on the bathmat, pausing only a second to wonder who had cleverly put all the dark towels into the birth room and left only the white ones in the bathroom. Oh, that's right, me."

"...the birth tub sat forlornly in the corner with about an inch of water in it for the next couple of days, until we siphoned it out the window."

Public Address | Busytown | Oops, I did it again

Lovely start to the day (yesterday)

I'm on morning walkies at the moment, expect a few like this...

Bend over & take it like a student!

Graham Reid over at Public Address has written a nice piece covering what you probably could & possibly would remember from events in your life. Or what most people could & would remember anyway.

I remember when I was caned at school. I think this was the only time it happened, because by & large, I was well behaved. I can't remember the name of the teacher who did it, but I can remember what subject he taught, and the circumstances that led up to it. And man, what a miscarriage of justice it was.

But Pontllanfraith Technical Grammar School, Gwent, South Wales, 1972. Metalwork class. The school was a redbrick institution & the teachers were given to swooping around the corridors in their academic gowns. I can't remember the name of the principal, but I do recall his DP was known as Jet (probably a Mr Jones, there were a few).

The metalwork teacher was a severe looking black haired guy with glasses. Generally he was OK. The class was full of light industrial machinery & tools, drills, lathes, that sort of thing. At the beginning of the year, the teacher made a big point of telling us that when we were using any of the mechanised tools, we must give the job all out attention. All of our attention. He would not be brooking any power tool mishaps in his class.

And so, whenever I was using a lathe (clumsily) or a drill (inaccurately), you could be sure that I was so focussed on the job at hand, that not only was there little chance of an accident, but I was also unaware of anything else happening around me.

One day, late in the year, I was drilling holes in an aluminium coat hook (as you do), when completely out of the blue, and unusually, as we were halfway through the lesson, the teacher began calling the roll. I was oblivious. Until... it slowly dawned on me that the class had gone dead quiet, except for my drill, and when I looked around I realised everyone was looking at me.

The teacher made some sarcastic remark. I figured out what was going on, apologised, but thought to myself "Hang on, I was doing what he told us." And then, with a wry smile to my classmates, I went back to drilling holes & concentrating on safe operation of a drill.

Something unexpected then happened. Unbeknownst to me, the teacher began calling the roll again. From the beginning. And sure enough, a minute or two later I became aware that the class had gone quiet again. I heard one guy, Geraint Lewis (for some reason I remember him) giggling. I looked up to see everyone's eyes on me again. I stopped the drill.

The teacher marched down the class, then marched with me back to the front. He then administered a punishment, not technically a cane, but I think, a steel yard rule.

And it wasn't the pain ... it probably didn't hurt that much anyway. It was the injustice. He caned me for following his instructions to the letter.

Bastard. I'll bet he doesn't remember it.

Public Address | Random Play | If your memory serves you well

Blonde scoring....

Priceless.

noizyboy's noizyblog - Goooallll!

hat tip Noizy.

Celebrity look-a-like.

So I tried this... using the Mr Potato-head photo below.

And it seems (although the sunglasses may have skewed the result), that I look most like 1. Tom Cruise, 2. Lou Reed, and 3. Morihei Ueshiba.

Er... that last one seems to be the out-of-left-field contender. Although given he doesn't look like the sunglass wearing type, maybe this is who I look like most of all?

Hat tip to that well known Britney impersonator Martha.

Wanda Harland: I Britney

Vodka ad goes down badly with Russian women - Bwahahahaha!!

"A liquor company is offering a Russian bride as first prize in a vodka promotion, a gimmick Russian women in New Zealand say is offensive."

New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz: Vodka ad goes down badly with Russian women

"For the single Kiwi bloke who might not be an All Black or very good looking, this is a chance to get hooked up with somebody pretty hot," said (Chief executive Geoff)Ross.

The image of the woman scrubbing a floor was tongue in cheek, he said.

"The ideal woman for the Kiwi bloke is one who keeps him fed and looked after all day and meets all his needs."

My turn to be stereotypically offensive... isn't vodka like, a chick's drink? Shouldn't they be offering hot Russian grooms?

Reminds me of that used car lot out the Hutt Valley that was giving away massage parlour gift vouchers with every used car bought a few years ago...

Yet another harbour view from 6.45am today.

The day turned out better than expected...

Rhetorica Stupenda

Recently posed to me (and quite probably nicked from that well known American comic - whose name escapes me - who specialises in these sorts of dry aphorisms) ....

If you're in a space-ship travelling at the speed of light, what happens when you turn on the head-lights?

Help! Wilma is missing!

Well I dunno what I've done - I was going to change Wilma's image in the top corner (gone) with Mr Potatohead below, but Mr P's image is too big, and I couldn't be bothered reducing him in size, so I left Wilma as is.

But now she's gone! I've gone & taken the URL out & put it back in & she appears in my profile... but not on the blog.

Any ideas?

What the hey, everyone does it.

How to fix the Winter Olympics

Holecity take a look at the Winter Olympics...

"Doubles Luge: Some friends of ours believe luge of all types should not be considered a sport. We think if anyone has the balls to strap themselves to a little sliver of wood and rocket down a hunk of ice at 90 mph, we're going to give them the benefit of the doubt. But doubles luge, where two hefty people wear skintight rubber-fetish costumes, get into the horizontal reverse cowgirl position, and flop around like a two-headed beached whale in heat, is not something we ever want to see again. Our eyes! They burn! "

SportsHole - How to fix the Winter Olympics:

And while I'm here, is it just me or is TV coverage of the WO shite? And why isn't one of the Sky channels providing some sort of alternative coverage?

Howlybag whining ends. Don't you dare nominate me.

Doctor, doctor...

Watched Grey's Anatomy last night. And i mean, it's OK, it makes me laugh, I think Sandra Oh is pretty amazing, but should probably smile more. And Patrick Dempsey is completely unrecognisable. And is that the gay character from Melrose Place or am I mixing it up with Desperate Housewives?

What struck us mostly about the show, however, which for the uninitiated is about a hospital, a patient or two & the romantic pairings of the people who work there (novel idea for a show eh?), is how many goddamned doctors there are!

You might think: Hospital = doctors. And up until recently, I'd have agreed. But that was before I made two extended visits to our local hospital with an injured person. We were there 4 hours each night. And I swear, we spent 3.5 hours of each night just sitting around because there were no doctors to see us. At first, we were attended to quickly (excepting the 2nd afternoon, when we'd been rung & told to get down there quickly, and when we did, they had no record of us...), but then there was an extended wait for the consultant to confirm the younger doctor's diagnosis, then an extended wait, then x- ray, then an extended wait, then another consultation, and the nurse will come & unplug all those things & pull out all the tubes & will fight you if you try to leave with the nitrous oxide, and take out your drip etc. And then an extended wait again, then the nurse comes & does all of that, except you stand well clear of the nitrous because she's watching you and she looks tough, and then we can go! And it is now 10.30pm, but hey, your shoulder is now back in place & you should get some strength & feeling back in your arm & hand over the next month or so...

I feel bad about moaning, because doubtless they were attending to more serious cases. But still... fuck that.

How's the new phone?

Glad you asked.

I turned down the model with an mp3 player, to get a slightly better quality camera. However, the phone has a built in FM radio, a feature I've long thought a good idea, and I do enjoy plugging myself into Morning Report for the walk into town.

I've also managed to save 4 other radio channels so I can switch between them when necessary.

I have turned on predictive texting, and turned up the font size (where I have been able to figure out how) on most of the screens. So that Hawkeye Llew can read them.

Haven't tried any games yet, nor any of the WAP features, but I have set up a fairly comprehensive contacts list, including a couple of email addresses - mine and photobucket.

And on that note... I'm slowly getting to grips with the camera.





Someone (actually, two someones - a local optometrist, and my dentist) come to the Lawn to whack golf balls around. You can often find one or two that have gone amiss. Someone's been stockpiling them in a pohutukawa tree.

Cruise and Opera have the power

Saw this yesterday. They haven't changed it, so now it's fair to point it out.

The headline says "Cruise & Opera", the article refers to Hanks & Oprah.

New Zealand's source for entertainment news, gossip & music, movie & book reviews on Stuff.co.nz: Cruise and Opera have the power

Nice work guys.

Say it slowly...

Fatwas

Cowboys don't cry

In which we reference two Public Address posts with one blow...

Cowboys don't cry

This was the catchcry of a fellow I went to school with, known by all as "AJ" because these were his initials. A year older than me, clever, incredibly sporty, and unambitious. I last encountered him during a holiday job at a paint factory where he spent his daytime hours driving an electric buggy around towing pallets of paint tins.

He allegedly spent his recreational time in various ritzy bars telling women he was a racing car driver.

Anyhow, at the first sign of a "howlybag", the call would ring around the factory:

"Cowboys don't cry!"

please do visit Island Life & make your nominations.

Left Hand, say hello to Right Hand

Yeah banging on about poor service is a cheap and obvious shot I know – but what the heck, eh? As a passive sport its not bad fun (and it sure beats hunting with Dick Cheney).

I’m sure everyone’s got a tale of woe regarding service provision (sic) that’s a little less than stellar, but my recent experiences with getting Sky Digital (name changed to protect the innocent) installed at home were an invaluable source of fascination with bureaucratic minutiae.

So yeah, after years of resistance, we finally broke down and decided to get Sky. What with the dual attractions of Disney Channel and the impending Soccer World Cup to whet the appetite, we folded like a cheap suit last week.

After a little bit of research we worked out the best installation incentive for us (which meant loads of free pay-per-views), and booked the installation for two weeks hence.

That very same evening (spooky) we received a cold-call from Sky, offering an even better deal (half the install fee plus 2 months free). It was too good to resist, particularly in our weakened state.

So we decided to take the second deal.

I mentioned to the friendly telesales dude that we had an existing installation already booked, but we’d like to take the second deal, which also had in its favour an install scheduled for 2 days hence instead of 2 weeks (by now our anticipation was fevered).

“That’s easy to arrange sir, all you have to do is ring the people with whom you arranged the first installation, explain the situation, and cancel the first deal”

“Uh, sure, but those first people are YOU, aren’t they?” I said, already feeling a little uneasy about the limitless possibilities for cock-ups.

“Oh no sir, while they are part of the same company, we work out of different offices, and you’ll need to contact them direct”.

“Hmmm, OK, well I’ll give them a buzz in the morning”.

So next morning, I rang and cancelled the first deal and installation, no problems.

2 days later on D-Day, P has cancelled her plans to wait patiently at home for the Sky TV installer, who was due between 9 and 12.00. Around 12.00, she rings Sky TV, who announces that they have no record of the scheduled installation and that the Telesales team should have notified them if it was, indeed, arranged.

“Well, it was definitely scheduled through your Telesales area, and I’ve definitely taken the day off work to be here, so it would be great if you could send someone over now” P said.

Miraculously, after a little more coercion from P and a couple of phone calls up the food-chain, an installer arrived to do the job that day at about 3.00pm.

Meanwhile, at the same time I get a strange call at work from Sky TV Telesales.

“Hi, is this Mr L?”

“Yes”, I say

“Mr L, we have been trying to get hold of you for several days now, but we only have your home number, and all we get is your answer machine.”

“Well, that’s because we are usually all at work or school during the day. When you encountered the answer machine, did you by any chance leave a message?”

“-Silence-“

“OK, I’m guessing you didn’t leave a message. Do you want to tell me now?”

“Ah yes Mr L, we were ringing to let you know that your scheduled installation for today cannot be done, and will have to be rescheduled for next Friday”.

“Hmmm, OK, my wife P has taken the day off work today for this installation, and I don’t think either of us will be able to take the day off next Friday. But I think P has already been speaking to Sky today, have you called our house this morning?”

“Ummm, that wasn’t me who rang. I’m not sure who that could have been”

“OK, why don’t you call her now?”

“Sure”.

So this poor fool from Telesales calls P at home.

“Hello Mrs P, I am ringing to apologise. Unfortunately your scheduled installation for today has had to be rescheduled”

“Well” said P, looking at the Sky TV installation dude in our living room busy doing his stuff, “Have you heard the ancient Arabic parable of the left hand talking to the right hand?”

“-confused silence………..”

So is there a moral to the story? – Nah, but there must be some kind of weird inverse mathematical relationship between the monopoly of a service and the inherent difficulties customers face in obtaining it (witness the recent struggles of Keith at Public Address to get a phone service.)

New Toy Alert!

This little fellow is the Nokia 6155. It's not the flashiest phone on the market, but it does all I want & need, and more. There's a similar model with a MP3 player, but not quite as good a camera & I decided I wanted the camera more.

Anyway, that's not important.

Now I need (because this is the first phone I have owned that has this facility) an appropriate ringtone.

I'll take advice - the theme from James Bond (like, because I'm totally cool!), or The Good the Bad & the Ugly (like, because I'm totally cool!)? Both of which sound... like, totally cool.

The stupid frog is not an option.


Ringtones : Telecom New Zealand Limited

Hamilton wins V8 street race

I for one couldn't give a hoot that Wellington missed out (before anyone leaps on me, I also wouldn't have given a hoot had we won it).

Hamilton would seem the perfect place for such an event: the picturesque river beside which the course will presumably run; a receptive population for whom the term "petrol-head" seems as custom-made as their vehicles...

My only question is... when the race actually starts, who will notice any difference?

New Zealand, world, sport, business & entertainment news on Stuff.co.nz: Hamilton wins V8 street race

Hey, aren't you Bilbo Baggins?

I sat next to Ian (Bilbo) Holm on a flight between London & Bangkok once, in I think, 1995. It was a hugely crowded flight & cattle class was living up to its name.

I looked at the guy, and I knew instantly it was Bilbo, even though he hadn't yet played Bilbo, but I was familiar enough with his work.

I wondered what he was doing in economy, I mean, even then he was very well known in the UK, and fairly well known elsewhere as a result of films like Alien. Not sure if the Sweet Hereafter was out by then... someone later suggested that as the flight was so full, that was the only seat he could get.

Anyway, I could tell he wasn't happy about being there, he told me as much. He resented having someone sitting next to him too. Even someone as charming & interesting as me. He didn't talk much, but it was a long flight & I managed to wheedle some information reluctantly out of him.

He told me he was an engineer of some type, who regularly spent time in Thailand. I refrained from my gut reaction "Hah! You're Ian Holm!" reasoning that he was irritated enough & clearly valued his anonymity.

I refrained also from asking him what it was like working with Sigourney Weaver. That might have given the game away. I speculated that perhaps he was off to Thailand to play a curmudgeonly engineer & was getting into character. Or that he was embarrassed to be a well known actor who could only stump up the fare for a seat in economy class. Or that he was so tight fisted that that's all he was prepared to pay for.

I expected the flight attendants to molly coddle him. But they didn't. I guess you'd have to be Brad Pitt in economy class for that.

I wish I could remember what he was reading, probably something very worthy involving a character he might one day portray. But I can recall that it was neither a script, nor an engineering plan or report.

Anyway, to this day I regret being too polite to call his bluff & ask him if he wasn't really an engineer, but an acclaimed British actor of the stage & screen. Hey, we could have hit it off & he might have stayed with us when he was in NZ for the Lord of the Rings! (and since we're fantasising, why wasn't it Cate Blanchett?)

Can anyone tell me if Ian Holm was filming in Thailand in the mid 90s?

Chuck Cunningham syndrome

Fascinating! I for one, have always wondered why, in Happy Days, Richie's older brother disappeared after season 1 & was never ever mentioned again. (See also My 3 Sons).

Many more examples. For instance, what happened to all the other major characters who featured in the novel & film version of MASH, but not the series...

Chuck Cunningham syndrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seasonal musing

Where do all the extra florists come from? Is there some temp agency that keeps the names of florists on the books for special occasions?

Must be.

And how do they get all the roses to peak on that one day? Where do they all come from anyway?

And come to think of it... who cares?

Meanwhile on the home front, was proudly astonished to have the young one come & tell me at 8am one morning last week "There's a great movie on that you should be taping!"

And without further ado, I can reveal that despite having no idea who Dr Ernesto Guavero became, she was telling me she'd seen the Motorcycle Diaries earlier in the week on Sky, and respectfully thought I should be recording it.

As it happens, I was recording it & gratefully asked if she could refrain from changing channels until it was finished.

She & I also watched The Godfather one night last week. And I can report that that movie STILL has it. I look forward to number 2 in the near future, which in case I haven't mentioned it before, is THE best movie ever made.

In weekend news, I spent most of it with a chainsaw in hand, thinning out the self seeded forest down the back of the house. It's starting to look nice now. Mrs Llew filled the gap created by my newish brick wall with compost & replanted the herbs & lettuces.

Oh, and most joyous of all, we are now getting to our front door down our newly completed steps. Gaining access through our own property is quite the novelty. Still a long way before the job is finished, this particular 3 month job was started last July... luckily, we're not paying by the hour.

And I've asked this before & elsewhere... but given the choice of going to Boulot or the Matterhorn for dinner, which would YOU choose & why?

What's in a name anyway?

There are, I think, nearly 800 people in my organisation. Nationwide that is. I believe there are maybe 130 people in the building I work at. People come & go, although there are a core group of people who have been here for decades... and people move between business units quite a lot.

I'm often a little dismayed at how few names I know of the people I work with. This is exascerbated by the fact that everyone seems to know me...

"Hello Abyssinia" they say in the lift (I was born in the brief time when it was all the rage for parents to name their kids after obscure countries).

"Hi... er..." and I'm thinking Kyle? Kelvin? And generally fudging it. it's particularly embarrassing if this happens shortly after I've sat in a 3 hour meeting with Kevin.... or Ken... or whatever. And it'll turn out his name is David. But that doesn't matter, I'll have forgotten by the next time I see him.

I'm one of those people for whom newly introduced names just pass through me like radiowaves.

"Hi, I'm John."
"Abyssinia, pleased to meet you er... um..."
"John"
"yes... of course... pleased to meet you Colin."

My wife tells a story of when in her very first job, she was some executive's PA, and he called her in one day to say there was some guy in reception, whose name he couldn't recall.

"I can't remember if he's John, or Ian, can you go down & get him & make sure you introduce yourself & get his name? Then quietly tell me before you usher him into my office."

So my wife went down to reception, greeted the guy by introducing herself.

"Hello, I'm Tanzania, Don's PA."
"Pleased to meet you Tanzania, I'm Ian"

So she took him back upstairs, slipped into her boss's office ahead of him & whispered,

"It's John."

Cuban Dreaming

It's definitely something about that street. Now it's (and has been before) the Anvil House, Civic Chambers end. And oddly, I've worked in both of those buildings in previous lives...

And the big (non existent) carparking buildings that are opposite them (where the Michael Fowler Centre & council buildings really are.) Which I often find myself in.

And in this version (which I know I've dreamt several times before to some extent) I am also to be found at or outside a nightclub approximately where the Loaded Hog is (is it still the Loaded Hog?), which is next door to my inner city apartment. In Bond Street, not that far from Anvil House. It used to be the Bond St Tavern, and the Anvil House crowd used to drink there regularly.

For some reason last night, I was sitting outside the apartment, in the little lane that separates it from the nightclub, and inexplicably I was clad in a dressing gown, trying to peer through the windows of my apartment to watch the TV. Then it dawned on me... the TV would be easier to see if I were inside... but then I wasn't the guy in the dressing gown at all & I was watching him instead. As he did a little dance that alarmed his housekeeper.

I'm not sure, I may be missing important bits out.

Later, or maybe earlier, I was on a ship, berthing at Panama, where my friend Ed & I watched a guy foolishly swimming with crocodiles & being attacked by them. I may have been dreaming this because Panama is the only place I have seen crocodiles in the wild. But in a startling coincidence, I see David at Darwinian Evolution has blogged about guys swimming with crocodiles today...

In other coincidental news... Ed flew out of Wellington yesterday bound for a week's holiday in Cuba.

But no journalists last night, which is probably a good thing.

The things you see...

Anyone familiar with the sight of that guy that wanders around town with part of a sheepskin rug on his head?

I dunno, mid 30s perhaps, normal looking guy.

Except...

He gives the air of being homeless - aside from the sheepskin rug, he's often wearing some odd clothes... old trousers, sometimes some sort of woven apron, an old bag slung over his shoulder, and a fur coat that looks like it was made for a woman...

Well today I rode in a lift with him. Still had the rug & the bag. But wearing a nice suit. And sneakers.

Some people saw him as the lift door closed & burst out laughing. Which was not good for my composure during the ride to the 2nd floor...

Dreams

Dunno what it is recently (like, intermittently over the last few months), but I've been waking up in the middle of dreams. Now, I don't know if it's just me dreaming this... but I'm wondering if I'm visiting the same places in my dreams. Alternatively, I may be visiting different places, and just dreaming that they're the same places I've dreamed about before, or dreaming that I know these places well.

Since I only remember dreams when I have woken up in the middle of them, I have no idea if I'm visiting these places & people each night, although it seems possible.

When I was a teenager, I read all the Dennis Wheatley books, the ones about satanism & the like. Wheatley espoused this theory, that people DO actually visit each other in their dreams, so that if I dreamed one night that Mainlander Mike & I are drinking in a bar someplace, then Mike has had the same dream.

I discreetly tested this theory years ago (not with Mike), and I think I can safely say that it is bollocks, the people you meet in dreams are just figments of your subconscious mind. And sometimes even, I can dream of one person, yet assign in my mind the name of another person that I know to them.

It's so confusing...

But I get the impression I'm visiting Cuba Street (Wellington, not Petone). Although it's not Cuba Street at all, in my dreams I think "Cuba Street", but they bear little resemblance.

In fact, I seem to be visiting a small number if antique/2nd hand stores in Cuba Street. Which don't actually exist. But they're all run by crusty old men. One has dusty old luggage for sale, and old milk urns & the like. Another has old posters & books, and the old man who owns it seems to know me. Further, last night I was rummaging around the books & posters with er... a well known journalist that I have never met (his first appearance in my dreams as far as I can tell). I was trying to show him a brochure of the new mobile phone I want to buy. I mean. WTF? Although I do actually want to buy THAT phone & have a brochure at hand...

Further, when we got home (not my home, but appeared to be some flat on the Terrace), my wife (although, not my actual wife, but in fact someone I DO know...) came home with a lot of friends & chinese takeaways & appeared to know this journalist quite well. I was irritated because I wanted to watch an unidentified DVD & did not want to socialise. Also, I'm not a fan of chinese takeaways.

Then I woke up.

In previous dreams, I have just been in a hurry to get someplace rather urgently, but have ended up just rummaging through old luggage & milk urns & the like instead. Possibly because I have no idea where I am in a hurry to get to. Also, to some extent in those dreams, Cuba Street resembles something from Blade Runner...

What can it all mean?

Missing diver found alive

Way to go Rob Hewitt!!

New Zealand, world, sport, business & entertainment news on Stuff.co.nz: Missing diver found alive

My Sky!

Hot shit! I want one!

One out of the box by Russell Brown | New Zealand Listener

More on the subject from Graham Reid, here.

3 conversations (in the car).

Me: The car is really filthy.
Tempura: Hey, Marzipan, I've got a great idea for how you can earn your pocket money this weekend!
Marzipan: Wash the car? OK.

The next day, Tempura & Marzipan are out driving.

T: Hey, look at those girls over there, offering a car wash for $4!
M: Aw... yeah, but that'll be real low rent, bargain basement stuff. Not like I'll do.

Later that day.

T: Look, Aloysius, those girls washing cars.
Me: Excellent!
M: But I'm going to wash the car for my pocket money!
Me: But now we know the going rate!
M: Hey, but that'll be a really crappy car wash! $4! It's an insult to a car like this. Um... how do you wash a car anyway?
Me: Why don't you check "How To Do Just About Everything" book!

And I can report that the car now gleams, the instructions in the new bible having been followed to the letter. Although I have no idea what the cost was...

Christmas comes twice a year.

Not sure how it happened, but in the weekend a bag of unopened Christmas presents was discovered hidden in an obscure corner.

Mostly crappy kids' stuff (a voice controlled car that retailed it seems, for $9.95). But one of them was for me! A massive tome called "How To Do Just About Everything" by Courtney Rosen.

How to get on TV (tick)
How to carve a turkey (tick)
How to become a celebrity
How to write a business plan

You name it!

It's a very cool book. Amazingly, we have yet to think of something that it doesn't cover.

Amazon.com: How to Do Just About Everything: Books: Courtney Rosen

Sun, Sea & Sand

Honda Prelude makes emergency landing in Otaki paddock.

The girls were at the supermarket, I was in the shower after a hard day's chainsawing. Suddenly, the extractor fan stopped. Power cut I figured, and confirmed that shortly afterwards by trying all the lights.

So I popped next door & asked if their power was out too - it was. Someone took out a powerline, apparently.

Later, I got a call on the mobile "Have you heard about the crash?"

"No" I said, but I have heard about the power..."

"Well, all the traffic to the beach is blocked, we're having to drive around the long way. You should go & have a look, it's just up the road."

And so Wilma & I went & had a look. Along with several hundred local residents & holiday makers. The emergency crew were very accommodating of us rubberneckers.











It seems a low flying Honda was forced to crash land through a concrete power pole, and about 50m of farm fencing, before coming to rest in the paddock beside the road. Luckily no-one was seriously hurt.

We surmise it was trying to overtake & encountered traffic coming in the other direction, forcing ther pilot to make an emergency landing. Power was restored within the hour.

Life Imitates SunnyO

"Hide set to follow Norm's dancing act"

Stuff.co.nz: Hide set to follow Norm's dancing act:

Don't say you weren't warned!

And so... onto the long weekend

And here's to a mad-dog free couple of days off from the grind.

In my near future I see sun, sand, water, BBQs, chainsaws & wine... (although the last two won't be at the same time.)

Have a good one y'all!

World famous in Welly...

Mate... already spoke to one person in the lift today who said she'd spotted a bunch of blokes dressed as Jamaican Netballers in a Featherston Street pub.

ChCh-Changes: Rugby Sevens this Friday and Saturday

Today's dog mauling story from Otaki

Honestly, while there are a lot of dogs in Otaki, and some (not many) do seem to wander about without their owners in evidence... (although to be fair, a lot of these wandering dogs actually belong to visiting holiday makers, not residents), it's not like you have to carry a baseball bat to protect yourself & your pet.

Or then again...

New Zealand, world, sport, business & entertainment news on Stuff.co.nz: Policeman hides his dog after attacks

Bull mastiffs are pretty scary dogs too.

Ticket to the Sevens available (Saturday)

If you're up for it, Mike has one available - just follow the link, leave him a comment (presumably with some way for him to contact you), and you never know, you may find yourself squeezing into a Jamaican Netball uniform & dreadlocks.

ChCh-Changes: Anyone want to come to the Sevens tomorrow?

Any questions, feel free to ask.

Don't you love that obliging offer?

A friend of mine used to respond to any university lecturers who offered this assistance, by raising his hand & asking "Who cut your hair?"

I prefer more of a challenge. And so I just replied to our helpdesk with:

What is the capital of Uzbekistan?

And fairplay, they came back to me within about 20 seconds with "Tashkent".

I need some questions in reserve that are not so easily googled...

Know your Pit Bull

This is the famous beast itself, the American Pit Bull terrier. Lovely looking dog eh?

However, American Staffies & others are commonly regarded as Pit Bull terriers too.

This is a Bull terrier & is, I think, what most people believe is a Pit Bull. They are not related. Ugly beast though.

Pit bull - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unsurprisingly, there is dispute about this Wikipedia entry, mostly about how vicious or otherwise these dogs are.

SunnyO TV # 2 - Destination Lost

WTF?

I kept expecting Gilligan to turn up.

So we rushed & failed to get dinner ready in time & ended up in front of the TV eating off trays...

...expecting a Lost special telling us what had happened in the first season. And it was pretty incomprehensible, but I explained to the viewing team that the show had a reputation for being innovative & edgy & this incomprehensible flashback show was probably intended to be that way.

Then it ended & the real recap began in somewhat more linear fashion. Maybe I read the Listener wrong. Anyway, we then realised we'd just watched the final episode of season 1.

So we settled back down, having done the dishes during the ad breaks.

And still... I can't get over the feeling we've seen it all before - Gilligans Island meets Twin Peaks? Or is that too easy? Anyway, it's not quite right. Gilligan's Island meets the Twilight Zone.

In the end, it's doubtful we'll tune in for season 2. So maybe scratch that one off the list.

Interesting to note that while Gilligan didn't appear, Mira Furlan from Babylon 5 did.

SunnyO TV. Sensing Murder. Medium viewing.

We don't watch much TV at SunnyO. This is despite having approximately 90 TV channels at our beck & call. It's just that there never seems to be much on. I tape movies in the middle of the night to watch later. In fact, a freshly minted recording of Bad Santa should be sitting in the machine right now waitng for me to get home. Come to poppa....

Mrs Llew is a New Year's Resolution sort of gal. I won't bore inspire you with all her current resolutions, but one of the more notable is that this year, she intends to get "into" more TV. The crappier the better. Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, um... can't think what else is on the list, although she was very interested to hear that a programme called Lost is very popular in some circles. I'm guessing the BattleStar Galactica is exempt. But who knows really. Actually, I quite like the look of Criminal Minds, that IS Mandy Patinkin isn't it? "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father: prepare to die." He's in the SunnyO hall of fame because he partook in the very best swordfight (along with Cary Elwes as the Dread Pirate Roberts) ever committed to film. The best. Ever. Run out now & rent or buy the Princess Bride.

And oooh... I notice flipping through what's on TV2 that Duck Dodgers is screening... Cool!

Anyway... Sensing Murder. We started our New year's viewing badly by arriving 20 minutes into the show. For a while there I was convinced it was the TV3 weather woman hosting, but noted later that it is Rebecca Gibney, swaying eerily before the usual "supernatural" backlighting visuals. I can't remember, but if the soundtrack wasn't produced by a theremin, the spirit of theremin was certainly present.

The gimmick is that a little known murder case is exhumed, and a couple of mediums (media?) are put on the job to uncover new leads, and if possible, solve the crime.

Last night, there was this woman, and I guess, bearing in mind that we're seeing edited highlights, what she managed to channel from the spirit world was pretty impressive. From nothing but a photo of the victim (25 year old Luana Williams, who disappeared in 1986), she divined the victim's surname, where she lived, where she once worked (previously unknown to the police), an ex-boyfriend (never a suspect), and possibly, where she died & is buried.

The other medium was a little less impressive (in the bits we saw anyway), and when they fed him some of the new leads thrown up by the first medium, he claimed his spirit world broadcasts were being crossed with another, more recent (and more recently reported) murder that took place in the same place. Seemed like an easy out for him.

But then I've always been skeptical of this sort of thing since I took a message for a flatmate from a clairvoyant moaning that my flatmate had not turned up for her appointment. I mean... shouldn't the clairvoyant have known in advance? In fact, I've said this before, why do you even have to make an appointment with a clairvoyant? Can't you just decide when you're going & they can call you if it doesn't suit them?

I digress. The show then cheated, and brought in a third medium... who apparently quite independently led them to a spot in the middle of a 170 hectare park in the middle of nowhere, just 5 metres away from where the first woman had led them earlier, and stated "She's here!"

This guy even dug a big hole & got quite upset that he didn't find her.

And fair play, they brought in a truckload of people & equipment & dug a lot of holes. And still didn't find her. Although I was a bit underwhelmed by the guy with a machine who said "there's definitely something solid like a box down here. This IS a burial site". Then when they dug about 2 metres down & came across a quite insignificant root, backtracked with "Well, this could be what the machine picked up". Burial site my arse.

But still, at this point I was rooting for them to bring a big digging machine in & really take the place apart. Native trees and all. Because while I'm not entirely convinced that we weren't shown a lot of mis-steps & red herrings, what they did show us was really interesting, and let's face it, if they'd found her, it would have been fantastic.

BTW: I'm "sensing" that someone from TVNZ came here recently looking for Alasdair Kincaid... look, if this leads to some sort of Frank Flash or Friday Night revival, I want a finders' fee.