Not all animals are equal

Pity the poor possum. Totally despised in this country, huge amounts of money are justifiably spent on their eradication every year. If only they knew better they could migrate to Australia where they are regarded as cute furry little animals, loved and even protected. If you think about it, animal rights people, usually wearing leather shoes and leather belts, are surprisingly selective. I recall some years back when emotive scenes...

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A photo update

              See the story on the Van Nguyen family by going to 2013 then to June the 13th ...

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Silent nights, but hectic days

“A long time ago in Bethlehem, so the Holy Bible say, Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ was born on Christmas day.” So starts one of our most popular carols, although the composer says it’s not a carol, but a Christmas song. Written in 1956 in calypso-style by Jester Hairston, Harry Belafonte heard the song being performed by Walter Schumann’s Hollywood choir and sought permission to add it to his album ‘An Evening with Harry Belafonte.’...

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You'll truly wish you hadn't read this.

When I’ve read about some of the recent Lotto and Power Ball winners I am reminded of the story of the Englishman who some years ago who won over three million pounds on the football pools. The first thing he decided to do was to buy himself a car, so he fronted up to the Rolls-Royce agency and requested a brand new Rolls-Royce. The salesman asked him did he want a Corniche or a Silver Cloud? The man said he knew nothing about cars;...

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Will homes of the future need kitchens?

Anyone skirting the town of Masterton in the 1950s looking for a bite to eat or the opportunity to take home food cooked and ready to consume had surprisingly few choices. For special occasions fine dining was available at the Empire or Midland hotels, both owned by the Licensing Trust. They offered white tablecloths and serviettes, and a confusing array of cutlery that included fish knives that looked like oversized butter knives, and...

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A royal connection does wonders for business

I’ve been enamoured with Meghan Markle ever since I started watching Suits on Netflix about a year ago. The lawyers may have been playing the lead roles, but it was the paralegal who took your eye in most episodes. Well mine anyway. And so I am full of admiration for Harry, but then again that’s what prince’s do, don't they? They marry the most beautiful women in the world. And they don’t have to be handsome princes either; think...

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Pulling the wool over other people's eyes

When I was a kid, on every first day of April, at some ungodly hour of the morning, just before he went off to work, my father would wake me with some tall tale that would encourage me to leave the comfort of my room and make an inspection. A claim that it was snowing, or even that there was an elephant on the front lawn would fool me easily and I would bound out of bed to look out the window, only to met with a chant of: “You silly...

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A curmudgeonly report on the perils of travelling

We recently went on holiday to the ‘winterless north’ of New Zealand. When you’re retired the word “holiday” doesn’t have the same ring to it or the appeal that it once had and the old NAC slogan ‘flying is the way to travel’ now makes good sense. We drove on the roads and from Taupo north they are nightmarish with articulated trucks and campervans sharing the highway with cars and passing lanes seemingly few and far between.One of the...

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Coalition looking for a new high

I recently spoke to a lady who works as a counsellor at an alcohol and drug addiction centre in Auckland. She told me something I guess we all knew; the scourge of methamphetamine usage is reaching epidemic proportions. She said that the gangs are skilfully marketing the product. A “hit” costs about a $100 a time and most of the addicted require at least one daily dose. Naturally I wanted to know how anyone could afford a $700 a week...

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Is Jacinda going to take us back to the future?

I used to own a trucking company. Well, that might be a bit of an overstatement; in fact it was only one truck. Even then I only half-owned it; my partner in the venture was Max Stevenson, a rival butcher from down the road. Truth is we didn’t own much of it either; that prerogative went to the finance company. Anyway, despite being fierce rivals in the retail meat trade, we thought it prudent to combine our talents to jointly own a truck...

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And now, my far-sighted analysis of rugby

Both my parents were keen tennis players and to enhance their skills they built a volley board in our expansive backyard. It was quite an edifice, with a single tennis court sized concrete pad in front and the height of the board itself was about the same as the crossbar of a rugby goal post. This meant in the winter months I could use the structure to kick a football over and as a result I became fairly proficient at goal kicking. At...

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A tale of two Dicks in a bygone era

The Palmerston North squash club was holding a weekend tournament with a fancy dress cabaret in their clubrooms on the Saturday evening. The good-natured Masterton Police people had lent me two uniforms after I had displayed my mob clearing abilities on the Friday night over the road from the Masterton police station. “Uniforms” is a bit of an exaggeration; all we needed on a cold winters night were two great-coats and two helmets....

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How come we've never kept up with inflation?

Imbibers and diners venturing into Bannister Street’s revamped Joxer Daly’s (now known as the Craft Beer Kitchen) will likely notice a large wall hanging featuring a bevy of bountiful, boater-hatted, bow-tied butchers. Actually I’ve used a bit of artistic license here, remove the bevy and the bountiful; there are only two butchers, but I love alliteration. One of the above is Dan Simonsen; the other shall remain nameless for the sake...

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A lawless masquerade

Back when I was single I used to play squash. Not very well, but I played. I played after squash too. We all did. Belonging to sporting club was a necessary adjunct to life back in the days when the pubs closed at six. The clubs adhered to no such closing regime and stayed open till late so you could refresh yourself after a gruelling game of whatever it was you were playing. The police turned a blind eye to after hours trading most of...

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Is this the longest war?

I went to see the film Battle of the Sexes recently. In essence it’s the story of a 1973 tennis match between Billie-Jean King and Bobby Riggs which became the most watched television sports event of all time. Trapped in a media glare King and Riggs, aged 30 and 55 respectively at the time, were on the opposite sides of a binary argument, but to some extent the real story was about off-court issues. Male chauvinism, equal pay, women’s...

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Are you being served?

I was in a menswear shop in a shopping mall in another city recently. The franchise is noted for its fine polo shirts and I was gazing at their latest samplings when a shop assistant asked me if I needed any help. I assured her I didn’t; I was just looking I said. I have a number of this company’s particular brand of polo shirt, but my wife pointed out that these were new colours and were made of a vastly improved material from those languishing...

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A thoroughly modern navy

It was pleasing to note that the far-sighted New Zealand navy has finally pulled the plug on Morse code as a means of communication, 155 years after its invention. How thoroughly modern. What will they do next? Abandon keel hauling and walking the plank as a form of punishment? Samuel Morse came up with his amazing system where dots and dashes became dits and dahs in the middle of last century; he would have been somewhat gratified...

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The idle teenager

Before television was introduced to this country in the early 1960’s, music held sway. Drugs were unheard of, beer taps were turned off sharp at six, and in the evening radio was king. Apart from the “pictures” the only other form of entertainment, for the non-betrothed anyway, was dancing. In the mid-fifties a new form of dance swept the world and in 1957 some friends and I formed a rock’n’roll...

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