UK CHRISTMAS

Look, just quickly - I don't have time for this rubbish but here's something to get you off my back.

UK CHRISTMAS

GETTING BACK INTO IT

I've been a bit more active today now that my knee is improving.
I played tennis first thing this morning and managed to last the whole session (on Tuesday I only managed an hour and a bit and was in pain afterwards).

After lunch I played lawn bowls for a couple of hours and then went for a swim.

I'm missing my walks but will give it a try this weekend when The Old Girl comes up. We have a great choice of walks around here, from the easy-on the-flat type through to the bush walks and the mountain walks. I'll start with the easy-on the-flat ones.

Getting better and back into it is a bit of a challenge and also a bit of a balancing act. The Old Girl forbade me playing tennis and golf after my accident a few weeks ago and I've generally followed her prohibition, only lying to her about my tennis today. The big problem is, as she's coming up tomorrow and staying until Tuesday, is in convincing her that I'm still too infirm to vacuum floors, clean windows, surfaces and bathrooms and generally need assistance in these areas.

BUSTED

As Secretary of THE CURMUDGEONS INCⓒ I must support the Chair THE CURMUDGEON in his recommendation to members to not take direct action against Angry Jesus, Baxter and the other members of The Bass Bagging Confederation.

I'm mad as hell about it though.

To what levels will this rag-tag bunch of has beens stoop to try to gain back readership and ratings?

Oh well, soon, as The Curmudgeon predicted some time ago the Bass Bag bus station will soon be just an abandoned hub.

See HERE

WHANGAREI LEADS AGAIN

New statistics have been released that show that in Whangarei 7665 milligrams of methamphetamine is used per week per 1000 people.

That's nearly four times the 1953 milligrams used in Christchurch. Auckland's use of methamphetamine is 2824 milligrams.

Testing of wastewater has shown this. Testing is only done in the 3 cities - Christchurch, Auckland and Whangarei. If Nuova Lazio was tested no doubt it would show a high incidence of Picosalax use.

**************************

I guess this explains the crazy drivers we have up here just like these idiots in this American video:

METH DRIVER

WHO'S COUNTING?

Richard (of RBB) once used to brag about his readership numbers on his blog(s).
It's strange that he's been quiet of recent. Well, his readership is obviously seriously down and no wonder. Not only has the content of posts diminished but the frequency has also. I guess that this is a metaphor for his ageing.

But, GOOD NEWS! THE CURMUDGEON's posts year to date 2017 have reached 258, passing the previous record of 255 posts in 2011. Well done The Curmudgeon. And this doesn't cover the posts from my own blog, all the other Curmudgeons and the associate members. This is an awesome result and it's only November 24. The year has still to run with that busy December blogging period yet to influence the posting numbers.




Let's all drink to that.

EATING SPAM

We've got a little gobbling insect that gets into our letterbox that eats the mail. I've never seen it but it must live close by and I guess sees when the mailman puts mail in the box. If we leave the mail  for a day it starts getting nibbled.
If we leave it for more than a day it can almost be consumed.

I had to laugh at this real estate flyer that I took out today.

It's almost gone yet the letter from ACC about my knee injury was completely untouched.
Clever little gobbler. Maybe it likes spam.

THE PERUVIANS ARE BOOBIES

PERUVIAN BOOBIES

Sorry, I meant this one:

THE PERUVIAN BOOBY

What a pack of unsportsmanlike bastards!

The Peruvians have been giving the New Zealand football team a hard time in advance of their match today, deliberately trying to upset their travel and sleeping arrangements.

This has gone beyond merely being actions by rabid fans, it now has official governmental sanction. See this report:

"Peru fans ramp up dirty tricks
Peruvian football fans have seemingly taken their efforts to disrupt the All Whites' build-up to Thursday's crucial World Cup qualifying playoff match in Lima to new heights.
Literally.
After several low key (yet highly suspicious) attempts at making life harder for Anthony Hudson's visiting team - including a delayed flight from Wellington, and inexplicably long bus trips to the JW Marriot hotel in Miraflores and the Estadio Nacional - a series of "prolonged fireworks" woke up players in the early hours of Wednesday morning (local time).
Three military jets have conducted a spectacular low flying swoop over the All Whites team hotel in Lima this morning.
This is a seeming continuation of the intimidation - an ear-splitting fireworks display took place outside the hotel at 3am local time this morning.
The New Zealand team are based in the JW Marriott hotel, in one of the most upper class areas of the capital on the coast.
They will be relaxing and preparing for the match, and would surely have heard the thunderous, shrill sounds as the jets flew by, as the noise was ear piercing.

One of the military jets that flew over the All Whites' team hotel.
The noise was audible across many blocks all down the main street of Avenida Larco, and as the jets passed by there was loud cheers and applause from all the assembled Peruvian fans out on the streets.
The underside of the jets were emblazoned with Vamos Peru (Come on Peru) in huge red letters.
It feels like the intimidation level has gone up another level, with constant reminders that the All Whites stand in the way of a nation's football dreams."

- Michael Burgess. NZ Herald

TUESDAY MORNING

It's a lovely day today up north. I woke really early (for me) at 6am and have pottered about drinking tea and having breakfast - a cheese toasted sandwich, a strange choice but I had some white bread to use up.

This post is quite mundane along the lines of Richard's and Robert's posts  - "...I got up, went to the toilet, made coffee, took dogs for a walk..." kind of thing.

mundane

ˈmʌndeɪn,mʌnˈdeɪn/

adjective

1. 1.

   lacking interest or excitement; dull.

   
   

   "his mundane, humdrum existence"

   
   

   synonyms:

   humdrum, dull, boring, tedious, monotonous, tiresome, wearisome, prosaic, unexciting, uninteresting, uneventful, unvarying, unvaried, unremarkable, repetitive, repetitious, routine, ordinary, everyday, day-to-day, quotidian, run-of-the-mill, commonplace, common, workaday, usual, pedestrian, customary, regular, normal;More
2. 2.

   of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one.

   
   

   "according to the Shinto doctrine, spirits of the dead can act upon the mundane world"

   
   

   synonyms:

   earthly, worldly, terrestrial, material, temporal, secular, non-spiritual, fleshly, carnal, sensual; raresublunary "the mundane world"

In fact I might create a new blog THE MUNDANE CURMUDGEON.

Anyway, as it's a nice day I think I'll play tennis this morning and, if the weather holds and the wind doesn't come up I'll go kayaking.

AM I WRONG?

The Old Girl is due up here soon. I'm going to pick her up from the bus. She works in Auckland during the week and tries to get 3 day weekends up here if she can. This weekend she has to go back on Sunday because she has early Monday meetings.

I've done my usual whip around with cleaning cloths, glass cleaning sprays and the vacuum cleaner but know that the housekeeping won't be up to standard.

Oh well, at least I can say I tried.

I KNEW THAT WOULD HAPPEN

THE CURMUDGEON attempted to comment on a Post made by Robert (the whatever he was at the time) on his blog but was cut off for some reason.

THE CURMUDGEON in his usual erudite manner which of course is tempered with affection and caring said in his (unpublished comment) that, and I quote: "It would be a waste of time to go into too much detail in my dissection and condemnation of this Post as the Posts are already way past their 'use by' date and will soon be deleted along with, possibly, the entire blog".

Well that turned out to be prescient as all of the Posts in Robert's blog were deleted which explained why THE CURMUDGEON (the poor old overworked chap) was unable to get his important missive through to Robert's many several one reader.

YUMMY APPLE ROUNDS

After golf this morning I stopped off at 4 SQUARE to buy something to go with a cup of tea when I got home.

I spied these yummy treats and bought a packet.

I went out to the car, put the apple rounds on top and unlocked and got in.

I drove off.

It wasn't until I got home that I realised I'd left the apple rounds on top of the car. They weren't there when I got home.

Bummer*











* with a capital 'B' for Richard.

BIG SHOES

My mate Rod, the one I called the Old English Geezer in an old post came round on Sunday for us to go down the road to play snooker with the old guys.
I laughed and gave him a hard time as he was wearing these brand new white sneakers that he'd just bought from The Warehouse. There were so shiny white that they were blinding. They looked like there was something wrong with him.... there was.

Rod has small feet and takes a size 8 shoe. He said that these shoes were size 11.
He bought them because they were on special at about $50 down from $200. He claimed they were Nikes. I saiid " Yeah Right" and didn't believe him. They were like boats and in fact I said to him that if his motorboat crapped out he could row home in these. He wasn't happy at that and The Old Girl said I was being mean.

I emailed him a link to  that video clip of the boring guy. See here:

MOST BORING VIDEO

Yesterday I didn't go to tennis but Rod did. The people at tennis gave him a real hard time. The mean bastards like me made fun of the shoes and all took turns feeling the space where his toes should have been and the caring ones (the women) expressed concern that he might trip over in them an injure himself. He went home and changed them. When he did this he discovered that one was a size 11 and one was a size 12. They weren't even a matching pair! Silly old bugger.

Oh well, he now has a reason to take them back to The Warehouse and get his money back.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE WAY BIRDS POOP?

I was watching a sparrow this morning.
It was out on our deck, hopping about, pecking and rubbing its beak on the garden furniture (which fortunately hadn't blown over in the high winds we had during the night) when suddenly - poop!

Just like that. Out shot a stream of poop. It didn't appear to have ben planned. The bird didn't take up any specific position. No, it was just going about its normal business and then did its business without changing tack.

Humans (except of course for babies), cats, dogs and most other animals plan on taking a dump and position themselves accordingly.

Birds don't seem to give a shit ..... er, well they do give a shit, lots of them but they don't seem to care where or when they do it.

What's that all about?

PARENTAL SKILLS - WHAT PARENTING SKILLS?

We went to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017 at the Auckland War Memorial Museum yesterday.

This is outstanding and I hope that you get to see this.

If you do go on a week day when there are no kids there. We went on a wet Sunday morning - bad decision. I'll go again next time when I'm in Auckland at a quieter time. Kids were running amok and showed very little interest in the displayed photographs. When they did show interest it was invariably misplaced.

At one point a kid was jumping up and slapping his hands against a photo. He (about 7) did this several times. His gormless dad was standing about 3 feet away and watching. I had enough. I stepped forward and said to the brat "That's enough you can stop doing that". The kid stopped and slouched away. Gormless dad did and said nothing.

MAJOR ARSEHOLE

ASSHOLES

GRRRRRR!

Hearing that the David Byrne concert in February was cancelled made me go "GRRRR".

This made me think of The Old Girl. She says "GRRRR".
Grrrr is an onomatopoeic word. It's funny because you don't think of people actually using it as it's normally just written but she does.

When I hear her going "GRRRR" it's best that I disappear. I was in the hallway the other day when I heard the "GRRRR" from the bathroom. When I poked my head around the door I got the full blast of "Why can't you put the top back on the toothpaste properly".

Other triggers for the "GRRRR"are: me not stacking the dishwasher properly; me not emptying the dishwasher; me not hanging out the washing properly; me not folding the washing properly; me not tucking in the sheets properly .................. etc.

ROAD TO NOWHERE

ROAD TO NOWHERE

Bummer! I received the New Zealand Festival 20178 catalogue through the post yesterday and was delighted to see that David Byrne was scheduled to perform in Wellington on 28 February.

I immediately checked Air New Zealand for cheap flights and was just about to book but then, wisely, decided to book the concert tickets first. It turns out that Byrne's New Zealand trip has been cancelled.

I'M HERE

The Swiebodzin Jesus (Poland) that I mentioned in a previous post -

YOU CAN'T BRING THAT IN


 - has been completed.

It started from the head

with the body in segments added.

Robert will no doubt be pleased.

A REAL BREW

Richard thought that by doing some painting he deserved a beer afterwards.
He probably had a bottle of some pansy lager.
What he needs to try is some real beer in a man size glass like you get in Yorkshire:

It helps, in that neck of the woods, to wear a flat cap.

STONED AND HAPPY

I looked for Willow this evening as she hadn't come in for her dinner.

I found her sitting in the pot of Catnip I planted. She was looking most pleased!

THIS IS HIGH

Too bloody high for me to paint.

Photo changed to please a pedantic old schoolteacher

GETTING OLD AND DO-LALLY

The Old Girl's favourite film is Bladerunner so she happily saw the 'sequel' Bladerunner 2049 the other day and enjoyed it. I will go to see it soon.

Bladerunner was loosely based on Philip K Dick's novella Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which she has read, so, when we saw that Netflix were going to be screening a new series - Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams we tuned in last night. I clicked on what I thought was the link and we watched an hour long programme about computer hacking and political intrigue. It looked a bit futuristic so all was good. When the programme rolled over to the next in the series with a continuation of story-line and the same characters The Old Girl said "I thought that this Philip K Dick series was going to be all one-off stories". I checked and sure enough we were watching an entirely different series named Mr Robot.

Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams doesn't even start until next week.

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF CRAP

We went to see Kingsman 2 The Golden Circle today as it was a grey Sunday.

Boy was this crap.
The special effects are outstanding but it left me with an overwhelming feeling of a huge waste of money - not just the money we spent going to see it - no the millions of dollars spent in creating a load of crap.

I think of all the great novels, old and new that haven't been made into films because of lack of funds or worse, ones that have been made into films but have been done badly and on the cheap.

Unfortunately filmgoers today aren't interested in quality they just want a lot of stupid violence and effects.