Close your eyes else it won’t work and say tangu,

Thus goes the legend of the magic flying carpet.  I did not need a magic carpet tonight as I took a journey into another world.  I went to the movies and watched The Water Diviner. I will not talk about the movie as that may ruin it for others, I gave it 4 stars, it was excellent Russell Crowe has made a great movie.

You have seen them

that is if you use face book, those little e cards saying things like taking your ex back is like putting a poo back where it came from, or that moment when you see your ex

I used to believe in forever…

but forever was too good to be true (AA Milne), I was reflecting on this quote as I read 16 Thoughts On Life from Winnie The Pooh  http://www.morefm.co.nz/16-Thoughts-on-Life-From-Winnie-The-Pooh/tabid/520/articleID/11484/Default.aspx .

Bring On The Clowns.

I was reading a book this morning and it reflected that life was like a circus.  Well perhaps the author has seen my house on one of our chaotic days, joking aside I thought about the preposition and it had some merit.

Mark Mitchell MP 100% Vindication for Stupidity

Mark Mitchell, National MP trumpeted that the Sydney seige was a 100% vindication for the anti terror legislation that he was in charge of in New Zealand.  The old adage that goes it is best to shut your mouth

Oamaru, Timaru, Waipukurau, Pokeno Mercer, Tuakau

Not quite Ka Mate, but it sufficed for us as very young children, t was our version of a haka.  The words were intoned as authentically as we could and upon Tuakau we would grimace and leap into the air making our best pukana faces as possible.

So What Is Love?

Well consistently this self same question is at the top or very near to the top of all Google searches.

BMW vs Honda?

A strange question perhaps.  I am in the position of having recently bought another vehicle.  Retired the faithful Nissan to that great graveyard in the sky,possibly being made into nails as we speak!  I did have a bit of a hard time deciding what to buy but I have to say my ego was not involved.

Five years, and change for incinerating a man alive

I have heard often that as we get older we become more conservative, considered, careful even.  I see that I don’t fit that model very well.  I have always had my moral, philosophical compass awry in many ways.  As a member of a conservative christian group I refused to sign a petition that was advocating to continue to criminalize homosexual behavior and yet I was willing to call sex outside of marriage immoral.  I find myself with many different positions on morality, that which is crime and as to sex outside of marriage….  I don’t believe in the death penalty but I think life imprisonment should mean life.  I read constantly of cases in New Zealand where it is my earnest belief that the judiciary are just on another planet.  The case of the killing of Terry Martin Smith is stark evidence of a system that is cancerous, it needs swift treatment, excision radiation or chemo it matters not it needs to be attacked and dealt to quickly.  A very quick summary, two men accused another of being a paedophile.  Shay Barry Webster, and Jason Alistor Barr accused Mr Smith of sexual interest in children, they then poured petrol on him and then set him on fire.  They wer not chrged with murder as the crown did not think they could prove murderous intent http://tinyurl.com/nudh2rm.

Webster and Barr were drunk at the time, they pleaded guilty to manslaughter and they were sentenced to 6 years imprisonment of this they must serve two years and six months.  If this were not true it would be a scene in a comedy show, the central clown is the Judge and the Sideshow Bob is the Crown who did not charge these upstanding gentleman who between them have amassed over 100 convictions with murder.  I admit I am not in full possession of the facts, nor am I a lawyer however, I do know they could have been charged with murder and or manslaughter.  One of these killers is 22 years old, there is a high chance they will re-offend when they are released from prison, many of these convictions are for crimes of violence.  It matters not whether Terry Smith was a paedophile (however in this case he was not)  extra judicial justice of this kind is no different to the the necklaces of South Africa or the knee cappings of Northern Ireland.

The problem with this incident is that it is not isolated.  Justice Maunders has got it so wrong that I do not believe he should be on the bench.  If you pour petrol all over someone then pull out a lighter and flick it someone is going to die. The unfortunate thing here is that the killers did not spill any petrol on themselves.  Allegedly they were too stupid to know that such an action would cause their victim to die and they did not intend to kill him, but they were careful enough not to set themselves on fire I presume.  Inebriation is not a defense against criminal behavior.  I can only think that perhaps the judge was inebriated when he handed the sentence down.  Justice Maunders in one foul swoop has re-victimized Terry Smith’s family.  He has effectively told them that this was a misdemeanor conducted by a pair of naughty boys who made a stupid mistake.  An ex policeman got 8 years jail for selling methamphetamine.  I know of a case where a man got 5 years for conspiracy to sell methamphetamine.  Don’t get me wrong I am not saying those jail terms are too harsh.  How is it that Justice Maunders can become so out of step with society that he can hand down such a pathetic sentence that in reality is a slap over the wrist with a wet bus ticket.  It is no small miracle that this pair didn’t get discharged without conviction.

This dislocation from the real world is a cancer and needs to be stopped.  Parliament needs to reveiw sentencing.  The laws around parole need to change their needs to be truth in sentencing and where life is taken there needs to be real and meaningful consequences.  If we stand by and wring our hands we are just as complicit as those who hand out such pathetic sentences.  We need to contact our politicians and tell them whet we think and demand that they do something about it. There are times when I am ashamed to be a New Zealander.  This is one of them.  There is no justice in this world, but there must be accountability.

I hate bare floors

So said a cousin to me recently.  We were discussing the carpets in his home that he had been renting out.  It brought back to my mind my childhood.  We were renters until I was 12, when my parents bought a home.  There were quite a few that I remember and some I can’t however one of the enduring memories was the cold floors.  Insulation in homes at that time in the 60’s and seventies was unheard of. The homes we rented were old, and generally had no curtains, perhaps roller blinds (that’s another story). Invariably they had some sort of a passageway which as soon as mum was able would be furnished with a runner of coconut matting.  This was hard wearing very coarse fibre, it served a couple of purposes, one was decorative.  Greeny blue kind of hues from memory, bound down the edge either side, it was probably sold by the yard. It did a good job of trapping dirt, akin to sandpaper it would scrape the sand or dirt of your feet waiting to be gathered at some stage.  I have vague memories of a very old vacuum cleaner, electrolux most likely but I remember the carpet being taken outside and beaten and the remaining dust and dirt being swept off the floor.  It also served as an instrument of torture, ideal for dragging siblings along resulting in some pretty impressive carpet burns!

I did not equate bare floors with poverty, not one of the things in my mind really, most of the houses I have lived in as an adult have been carpeted including one which had shag pile in the dining room…. go figure.  these days I equate carpets as places where dust mites can congregate, at some stage i am most likely to pull up the carpets in my wooden floored house.  The native tongue and groove flooring is too beautiful to be hidden really.  I prefer wooden floors, they have spring in them, perhaps if I owned a house with concrete floors I may have a change of heart.  Poor curtaining I certainly equate with poverty and other more nefarious and darker things. There are some things that I equate with poverty.  Boiled mince is one of those things.

I remember with some shame in the early days of my marriage my wife (now ex) served up boiled mince for dinner.  I was how shall we say this, intemperate in my response.  You see it provoked a reaction in me.  We as children ate pretty well, the staple meat was sheep meat, rarely beef,chicken was even more scarce and pork well I remember roast pork for New Years Day, I don’t remember it any other time.  Mum was an enthusiastic cook and everything was made with love, which made up for most things, dad made a superb gravy! Potatoes came in a sugar sack 40 pound at a time, when dad didn’t have them from his garden.  We were never in danger form under-cooked vegetables!  Desserts were simple, My favourite was bread pudding, dago, rice and tapioca well not for me is all I will say.  Home preserved fruit and fresh cream straight from the dairy factory where dad worked well that was something else!  But I remember boiled, grey, gluggy,glutinous,mince on occasion and to my mind that was poverty.

I cook mince often these days but it is varied from sphag bol to lasagne, mince chowmein hamburger patties, meatballs. More versatile than sausage but good value and quick to prepare.  Today as I thought about this post i was thinking of how much I would like a leg of Mutton, not lamb or even hogget but old-school mutton.  Way beyond my price point these days the cheapest meat would have to be chicken, a far cry from my childhood.

Tomorrow I become unemployed my contract is finished at school.  Right now if I were a horse I would be shot, I have a couple of severe injuries and according to the specialist probable permanent nerve damage, it is frustrating to sit around, and be able to do so little at the moment.  i rebel against it every now and then but then pay a high price for even very moderate activity, the other day after i got out of a swimming pool, ( a hot soak after a gentle 4 k circuit around  Mauao or Mount Maunganui or the Mount as it is known by many) I had to sit down where I was before I fell down.  I contemplated seeking assistance, however the thought of getting a wheel chair and the attendant fuss of that gave me determination to grit my teeth and make it to the changing sheds.  the narrative of disability like that is really unpleasant.

Unemployment in the past has not particularly bothered me.  I am versatile I have earned money in various ways from milking cows, swinging a hammer, driving trucks. it doesn’t  matter i like work.  Not even being able to mow my lawns that is another matter.  Not working equates with poverty in my mind. I hate it and the attendant issues it brings.  The pressures and lifestyle choices that it impacts upon one and my family above all is particularly unpleasant.

I know we will be ok,I know how to live cheaply, I have good friends and great kids that has to be enough for now and i am grateful for it in my life.

Paul