Yes, But What About The Children?

1:  JonKey and the Microphone.
All media people, politicians, and lawyers have one teeny, tiny thing drummed into them from birth. It's this: treat all microphones as live. And anyone who is having a "private" conversation when there are thirty or forty reporters, journalists, camera and sound guys milling about should always look at strange bags on their table and ask them that vital question" "WTF?" Ickshilly, as JonKey would say, his security people missed it, too.
I don't think for a moment that JonKey and The Banks-Robber suspected they were being recorded as they sat their in the full glare of cameras and camera lights. The fact is, however, they never even once considered the possibility. Call it arrogance. Call it ignorance. I call it idiocy, compacency, and incompetence. Now, the argument about whether they were having a private moment has been hashed over. It seems to be about a 60/40 split, with the 40% being those who would just die for their JonKey, he's so cute. If it was private, I ask, why didn't they ask that the cameras be turned off? Oh, yes, that's right: they wanted the gullible to see they were getting on famously well. The JonKey just doesn't want anyone to hear how famously well they were getting on. So well, it seems, that The Banks-Robber was just tickled pink to be taking instructions from the JonKey on how to get rid of The Embarassment, a.k.a The Brash-Faced Liar.
The JonKey is busy surfing a tide of undeserved popularity into the election. I think someone should be standing behind him at all times (Tony Ryall would do - he's a spectacularly empty suit) whispering "Remember George Dubbya, Remember George Dubbya".

2:  Did Doug Graham Really Suffer The Loss of a $12,000 Nest Egg?
Doug Graham, one of the very few right-wing politicians I have ever had any affection and respect for (due to his sterling work on the Waitangi Tribunal) has shown himself to be as craven and morally deficient as our incumbent PM.
Graham, lest you forget, was on the Lombard board went the company went tits up, owing some $125 million to investors. In yesterday's "Stuff" ( http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/5975891/Graham-I-did-all-I-could ) it was reported that he had told the court hearing (yes, he's up on criminal charges over the Lomad fiasco) that he had himself lost a $12,000 retirement fund when Lombard imploded, and he could "ill afford to lose it".
What? Remember, this is a man who was a Cabinet Minister for many years, earning over $120,000 per annum. He's a top flight Remuera lawyer, with a partnership in a big firm. He's a Director, earning thousands in fees. And he can "ill afford" to lose a measly $12,000?
Here's my take on that statement: if it's true, then he's a hopelessly dreadful money manager, and is therefore incompetent to sit on any board of any investment / finance company. If it's not trrue and he could easily afford to lose $12,000 (and a quick check of his bank and trust funds will show this very quickly) then he's perjured himself, and should be tossed in the brig. Pronto.
Also: Dougy-boy claims that he didn't know what the word "impaired" meant when applied to loans. Uh - say what? I hate to raise that incompetency word again, but sheesh! If you don't know the language, stay out of the conversation, Dougy-boy!
Oh - also: he said he resigned his position on the Board that day after Lombards was put into receivership, because he felt "there was nothing more I could do". Very noble, I'm sure - except of course there was nothing more he could do. The company was in receivership. He'd been fucking fired!

3: Celia Lashlie - lashing out?
An earlier headline to this story (again, Stuff) http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/5981627/Too-soft-mums-put-sons-at-risk said that Celia Lashley has Lashed Out at Mums. That's now the lead sentence. Celia Lashley, of course, has done nothing of the sort. She has simply pointed out that parents of teenagers (not just Mums. Dads, too.) have to be firm with their kids, and to not let them get away with stuff.
We can take a lesson from her, by writing filthy emails to publications that let us down with mis-leading headlines.

BREAKING NEWS: I have a job interview next week. Fingers crossed.

Listening to: Simon and Garfunkel, "Bridge Over Troubled Waters". Still a great album.
Reading: Greg Bear "The City at the End of Time". No one could ever accuse Greg Bear of thinking small.
Movies watched: DVD: "Black Death", with Sean Bean. "Green Zone", Matt Damon. Both good. And we took the plunge and blew some bucks on a movie-theatre experience, "The Debt", Helen Mirren. Worth the blowing of dough.

Yes, but that's politics, isn't it?

The New Plymouth chairman of ACT, Morris Hey, has challenged the glorious Donkey to honour a deal and pull the National candidate for Epsom from the "race" for that seat, in order to let the ACT candidate, the oily John Banks, win - and thereby deliver 5 more seats for a Right Wing coalition.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/campaign-trail/5919090/Key-urged-to-pull-candidate-from-Epsom
This is, of course, not only deeply distasteful and cynical - it is about as anti-democratic as you can possibly get.
Not being entirely naive, I do understand that this kind of scurrilous deal-making has been a part of our political and electoral landscape since our second MMP election - hence my headline. But we do come back to a plain and basic truth that my old Granny taught me when I was a wee tacker: the fact that everyone does a thing doesn't make that thing right. To take Paul Goldsmith from the Epsom ballot in order to manipulate the result will be to take choice from the Epsom voters. There are undoubtedly a number (yes, 3 is a number) of Epsom voters who don't want Banks to be their local representative to Parliament, but who can also not bring themselves to vote Labour, Green, Mana, Maori, or (heaven forbid) United Ennui. If Goldsmith is removed from the ballot these people will be disenfranchised. Yes, Goldsmith will probably get to Parliament anyway, because he's high on National's list - but that is beside the point.
Meanwhile, Labour's campaign has, in many ways, proven the wisdom and courage of the decision to keep the Labour billboards local, and keep Phil Goof's (typo intentional) face off the posters. I don't actually believe billboard campaigns make much difference. You can't say anything of lasting value on them. To condense a heavyweight policy down to a five word slogan does nothing to inform anyone - although I'd be happy to be disabused. Perhaps they are very effective on voters who can't read, and who get their political news off a once-daily 2 minute news broadcast on The Rock or Hauraki.
I am getting depressed by Goof, though. I think the man is intellectually honest, but I'd like to see some real outrage in the face of the constant stream of half-truths and evasions from Jonkey and his band of lickspittles. Yes, he called the PM a liar. No equivation: he told the Jonkey to his face that he was a liar. He got a wet and warm Jonkey Donkey smile in response. I swear I could hear Women Of A Certain Age from as far afield as Gore going "Aaaaaw, isn't he lovely?" as they clutched their heaving bosoms. Goof has got to stand up in the debates and show where and how National has deceived us all over the past three years. He has got to let loose the dogs of war and show us how National is so far in bed with the Corporations that they can take it all orifices and still keep a smile going.
Labour's policy of extending the superannuation qualification age is right on the button. I do wonder why they couldn't have introduced it three years ago, though - oh, wait: it was politically dangerous. Well, Labour was toast three years ago, they're toast now, so where's the difference?
The Greens are going to be Labour's saviours. unlike the other parties (all of them) Green are at least honest. They call a spade a bloody spade. They're revealed the only somewhat revolutionary policy idea
so far - that of having a publicly owned organisation set up for people to invest their Kiwisavers through. It has the potential of saving up to 50% of all fees, giving ordinary NZers up to an extra $150,000 in their bank accounts at the end of their working lives. Mind you - even with the Greens, Labour won't get in. Notunless Goof actually does stand up and actually start shouting. Stop being so bloody nice, Phil!
National, of course, will hate Green's idea: anything that takes money out of their corporate masters' pockets and puts it into the hands of the workers will be seen as a Bad Idea, and consigned to the depths.
With a lovely smile, of course, as Jonkey Donkey 'splains that it's undemercritic, and that the markets must set the levels, and oh, pshaw.
Reading: I'm on a Len Deighton spree. Reading Hook, with Line, and Sinker waiting. But i also have the latest bernard Cornwell arrived from the Book Depository! What's a man to do?
Listening to: The Windy City Strugglers, "Snow On The Desert Road'. marvellous.

I'm back.

And I'm as mad as hell.
I'm mad because I'm unemployed, and I don't like it one little bit.
I'm mad because frate's fickle finger has firmly forced its way right up New Zealand's fundamental orifice for the fourth time in 18 months, and I deon't like that one little bit.
I'm made because our incompetent media is fawning over our Prime Minister, the Donkey Jonkey, as though he was the heaven-sent boy - and I don't like that one little bit, either.

In the past four years this tiny nation has endured a series of blows that would have floored Muhammed Ali. There's been the rocketing right hook of the recession: a punch that sent us reeling onto the ropes. It was no shock to those who questioned the wisdom of the West's ferociously greedy scramble toward unsustainable and unreasonable corporate growth and profit, but it has still not affected those who caused it. There was the combination hit of two massive earthquakes, bam-bam, right-left, that killed dozens and tore the heart from one of our most gracious cities. Fate's left jab caught us on the point of the jaw when a ship's master exercised his right to stupidity by driving his heavily-laden container vessel onto a tiny reef, causing an oil spillage that shat poison onto our beaches. And even while we're still cleaning up that near-disaster, we've been hit by a massive uppercut as an ill-maintained gas pipeline ruptured, sending god knows how many tonnes of  "natural" gas into the atmosphere, and closing down half the nation's industries and businesses.

And our PM smiles and nods, and the nation's dreamers and droolers prepare their voting hands to send the simpering fool back into power "because he's such a nice chap".

But what am I really mad about? That one's easy: as we soporifically waltz toward an election, Her Majesty's loyal opposition in New Zealand has decided on a daring campaign tactic: they want their policies to take centre-stage, instead of dressing up their leader like a store-front dummy and making the election all about him. After all, we're not yet a republic, and presidential-style campaigns aren't at all appropriate for our type of democracy. And how did our lick-spittle press report on it? By asking Donkey Jonkey what he thought! Where's the analysis, children? Why not ask the people who have set out on this daring new road? What about talking to Phil "I'm so dull I could just shit" Goff about it? The man's actually showing he has balls of steel, a finely tuned sense of self, and the courage to believe in the New Zealand public.

Well, he's going to be handed his hat, and advised to not let the door slap his arse on the way out, becaused, my dear, the great New Zealand public is enchanted by the Donkey Jonkey. He's our Nero, tootling while we dance toward disaster, and we - sated on bread and circuses - are cheering him as he steers a course, Titanic-style, toward the nearest iceberg.

Bah. And humbug.

Reading: "Arguably", Christopher Hitchens. And "Kraken", by China Mieville. Both excellent.
Listening to: Arcade Fire, "Neon Bible".
This week's Movies: "Midnight in Paris", te new Woody Allan flick. I hate Woody Allan. I loved this movie. I've also have just caught up with "The American", George Clooney. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

Of shoes, and ships, and ceiling wax

I've been thinking. Normally, this would not make me any friends, and would, in fact, make me snicker a bit. But it must be said that I do dream, and i do look to the future, and I do wonder about our past. What could we have done better / differently, and what can we do in the future to make it better for our grandchildren..
So when I read this  http://www.slate.com/id/2283469/pagenum/3 I continued cogitating. I looked back into my dusty memory pool, and pulled out a book that I read in the late 1970s. I still have it, somewhere. I don't recall its name, but it was written by Jerry pournelle, a famous scince fiction writer. it was a series of essays on what we can do now (in the 1970s) and etc.
Pournell postulated different ways of lifting payloads into space that weren't reliant on out-dated rocket technology. Among the ideas he investigated was one that was first suggested by Arthur C Clarke, another sci-fi writer: he wrote 2001.
The Space Elevator. Pournelle and Clarke both knew that the materials to build such a thing existed only theoretically in 1975, but were coming soon. And yes, we have them now: buckyballs, carbon fibre, mono-molecular fibres - building materials of enormous strength and durability. materials which make Clarke's Space Elevator a practicality. Simply tie one end to an equatporial base, build it up really, really high, and tie it to a big heavy thing at the legrange point. Start sliding stuff up and down it.
Current payloads cost around $100,000US per pound to make, at the very least. It costs another $150,000US per pound to get them into orbit. The elvator would begate most of those costs. It could also collect vast amounts of solar power, and safely carry it down to the surface... enough energy to run large nations. It would give us a base from which we could go and collect asteroids, to bring 'em back and mine them: endless clean minerals.
And yes, it would be expensive. Probably oh, $100Us for every man, woman, and child on earth. The thing is, it would bring wealth to a large number of impoverished people. Nice dream, Socialist Pete.
Reading: Reed farrel Coleman, "Innocent Monster". looking good.
Listening to: Ennio Morricone movie themes.

Anniversary Weekend

We've just had a long weekend: Auckland's Anniversary Weekend. And it has seen me going out and about a bit: off to a cast party Saturday night, rehearsals on Sunday night, and to the movies and a meal on Monday night.
Meanwhile, of course, Jenny worked. Both Saturday and Monday. This is neither fair nor desirable, but it is still very much needed. I look forward to the day that I am bringing enough dough in so we can actually let her retire - but that day is a few months away yet, I fear.
Rehearsals are going well. I'm getting a good idea of the character, and what can be done with him. I have bought a cane as a physical prop (in both senses of the word), and it does work. When we go "books down" - when we're rehearsing without the script in-hand - we'll see the physicality of the play start to make more sense. Right now the books are getting in the way, although having the words right there does help. I have what seemed to me to be a lot of lines, but compared to Mrs Bennet and Elizabeth I'm practically mute. Mute, gruff, and lovable. That's me.
We went to see "Black Swan" last night. How it has made Oscar contention is beyond me.The story is a series of (admittedly well-crafted) cliches - I've seen Schwarzenegger movies that told more original stories. The only story-part that I didn't accurately predict was the ending - and that's because it was completely unpredictable: it simply couldn't have hapened.
We went to the Capitol Theatre, on Dominion Road. It's a recently re-furbished 1930s style theatre, and is absolutely delightful. The foyer's a tad cramped, but that's not a bother. The concessionary doesn't sell popcorn - yay! The seats are wide, and comfortable, the screen is excellent, the sound system very, very good. And - big bonus - there's plenty of free parking about. But wait, there's more: ticket prices are $15: that's cheaper than Hoyts, with their stale-popcorn smelling auditoriums.
After the movie (we went to a 6.00pm session) our friends took us to a Chinese dumpling shop for a meal. I was astounded: we all ate superbly, and when the bill came it was for $23. I shall be doing that again. You can't feed 4 people at McDee's for that amount.
Listening to: "Wondrous Stories", a collection of 33 prog-rock tracks, various artists. Pompous, loud, funny, and quite, quite wonderful.
Reading: Harry Sidebottom, "Warrior of Rome". Just started, might be a goody.

Selling the Family Sil... woodshed.

So. Our delightful and eternally chirpy Prime Minister, Smilin' Johnkey, has given his State of the Nation speech. On the same day Bazza Obama gave his. I don't think that Johnkey stole any of Bazza's thunder, though.
Johnkey came out with a few startlingly *new* and *original* ideas, though: let's flog off the Family Silver! No-one's ever thought of this before, and he is to be commended for his brave and forward-looking thinking. He reckons he can raise a few billion bucks by selling off 49% of a couple of our energhy generators, and of our state owned solid energy mining company.

And, by the way, our family silver has all been sold off already. By the ninnies and simpering fools of the Labour Party, 1980-style, and their rapacious replacements, the National Party. All we have left to sell is the family woodshed. That's where we keep the stuff that's going to keep us warm this winter.
Johnkey, craven fool that he is, reckons these assets will, of course, be immediately snapped up by ornrey New Zulnd Mums and Dads.
Hm. Newsflash, Johnkey: ordinary New Zealand Mums and Dads can't afford to buy shares. It's the extraordinary ones who can: the top 15% of our population who actually have spare money. 85% of us don't. And those who do will buy the stock, and sell it the moment Mr Bigcash from Norway or Canada or Germany comes along and offers them a 10% premium.
And when someone own 49% of the stock in a business, they get to have a seat on the board. That means they get to talk to politicians. That means that, in a couple of years, the government will sell what's left... and more money will be shuffled off-shore, and more jobs will be shuffled off-shore.
I wish that Johnkey could be shuffled off-shore. The man's a trollop, and should do well servicing the johns on Wall Street.
Reading: still on the same. No time for reading right now. Sob.
Listening to: Them Crooked Vultures. Hmm. Not bad at all.
Picture is: new Zealand's oldest union hall. It's on the outskirts of Greymouth, I think.

What Is Going On?

I am outraged. It's called "Honour Killing", and it seems to have come to New Zealand. Nothing is, as yet, proven. What is known is that a woman has been cruelly burnt to death, and that her husband has fled the country, taking their four year old child with him. She was, and he is, Indian, recently arrived in the country, from the part of India where it is a recommendation that a man kill his wife / sister / mother / female neighbour if he believes she has let the side down. Perhaps by looking at another chap a bit longer than the 3.2 seconds as proscribed in some holy bastard's book.

The woman in question was found at the side of a country road, on fire. Who ever it was that killed her did so by dousing her with petrol, and setting her alight. It may not have been her husband, of course: he may have fled from the evil sons of bitches who did do it.
But probably not. All the indications point to this being a so-called "Honour Killing".  The Police obviously know stuff that we don't know - but they have let it be known that they are investigating it as an "honour Killing".
The concept is beyond nauseating. Honour? I think not. There is no honour in murder. The pathetic little man who did this has no honour. It is horrible that such vileness happens in the world. This is the kind of state-sanctioned behaviour (a la Pakistan) that isn't calculated to give anyone capable of mature reasoning a positive POV of their culture.
And now it has happened here, in tiny New Zealand, where - just 20-odd years ago - we featured a stolen five year old Ford Cortina on a Crimewatch-type TV programme.
Listening to: Paul Simon, "Rhythm of the Saints". Silly information time: Rhythm is the longest vowel-free English word.
Reading: Still reading "Quiller: Balalaika". Adam hall was a genius. Go look in your local library - if you're lucky you might find his stuff on the shelves. He also wrote under his real name, Elleston Trevor. Wrote the original "Flight of the Phoenix".

Twice on a Thursday

It's Thursday, and I am annoyed. twice.
The first, somewhat minor one, is that I just left a comment on a Blog I follow - Maundering Mutterer. She writes beautifully, and she's a buncha fun to read. But I tried to leave a comment, and the damned machine practically asked for my passport. I had to login to Google before I could leave the comment - despite already being logged in. Bah. And Bloody Humbug.
The second annoyance is a little larger. Here in Kiwiland we're just bringing some of the scoundrels and scallawags who profited out of the last financial meltdown to court. One of them, a creature whose name doesn't deserve to be spoken by anything resembling a human being, ran a finance company that seemed to dump a lot of dough into this man's boat and personal bank account in the months before going tits-up.
Right. This man lives in a multi-million dollar house, drives a flash European sports car - $200K worth, and enjoys his days out on his yacht. Sorry. Did I say "his"? No, don't be silly: they're all owned by his family trust. He, personally, is bankrupt. Doesn't have two scruples - er, dollars - to rub together. Ri-i-ight. So he's applying for Legal Aid - so I, as a faithful taxpayer, can pay his legal fees.
When the Redhead and I were busy being unemployed a year and a half ago, we were in desperate straits. We were down to our last $6. That is to say, after budgeting carefully, we had $6 a month left over in our bank account. We talked to the powers that be about bankruptcy: we couldn't, because of that $6 a month. We lost our house and our savings. We had nothing. And couldn't declare bankruptcy.
And here's a creature with more money than god whoo is BANKRUPT? Morally, certainly. Ethically, definitely. Financially? I suspect he has more than $6 a month to play around with at the end of the month.
Bastard.
Reading: Adam Hall, "Quiller Balalaika". Adam Hall's Quiller books are the best cold war espionage books written. Better than Le Carre. Better than, well, anyone. Balalaika was his last, completed just days before he died. It is brilliant.
Listening to: Dolly Parton, singing "Stairway to Heaven". They do play some wierd stuff on Matinee Idles.
The Picture is a kitten I met at a very pleasant Devonshire Tea place up at Puhoi. The world is a very nice place when it has kittens in it.

Pride and Prejudice

I know that this is not an original title. It's been used many times before, and will be used many times again.
But i wasn't trying for originality. I used it because tonight, folks, is the first rehearsal night for "Pride and Prejudice". I'm cast as Mr Bennet, which is good. I don't think I would have made a good Elizabeth.
Every time I start a new play I go through all sorts of quiverings, the greatest of which is: what the hell am I doing this for?
It's a lot of hard work, in cold, damp theatres, usually with inadequate changing / make-up rooms (not that I will be using any make-up: the mutton-chop whiskers will suffice.) There'll be squabbles, there'll be people who know sweet f***-all about acting, the theatre, or reading. There'll be fear, there'll be moments of "oh crap oh crap oh crap I've forgotten the next line".

But, at the end of it, there'll be A Play. An astonishing thing: twenty or thirty people people working together to make a single, living thing that lasts a night, and then is reborn, phoenix-like, the next day.

Listening to: American Graffiti soundtrack. God, some of those old songs were crap.
Reading: Not much. No time: still working on T Jefferson Parker, "The Fallen". It is very good.
Paper Heroes:
A Gent (be clever, here) has advised me not to put any more on the webby blog thing. I have been given ideas on where to take it, what to do with it. And it might (yeah, right) involve money. Hopefully, not my own. At least initially. I don't mind if it ends up being mine...

Tunisia, bullets, and near misses.

This is my cat, Cleo.  The name "Cleo" is short for C-Leo-paw-print. When she was a kitten the markings on her back looked like a Lion's (Leo) paw-print. I couldn't call her Leo. So I added a C. She is very cute, has a beauty spot, and controls her tail when she's sitting down by putting the tip under her front paws.
I was listening to the wireless a little earlier. Well, you have to, when there's quality programming like "Matinee Idle" on.
A news report came on. I heard an item about Tunisia, and how the people were a tad restless, and started chucking stones at the constabulary, or Army, or some othe servants of the people. Apprarently these uniformed defenders of the right to protest then took it upon themselves to rspond to the thrown stones by firing their weapons, loaded with - and this is where my eyebrow got raised, quizzically - "live" ammunition.
It strikes me that the phrase "live ammunition" is obfuscation. A bullet has one purpose: to kill something. You can have blank ammunition - the sort that doesn't have a death-delivering bullet inserted into the neck of the cartridge. And you can have live ammunition, which is designed to kill you. Or, preferably, someone else.
Perhaps we should drop the term. Imagine, instead, if we used "death ammunition". Sounds uglier, but it is more, well, accurate. Kind of like a sniper's bullet...
It was either Terry Pratchett or Tom Sharpe who pointed out that it's difficult to "thrash someone to within an inch of his life". Whichever writer it was solved the problem by having his whipper shackle the whipee to a wall, and then proceed to beat the wall to within an inch of the victim. You'll note that the victim wasn't actually touched, but at least the whip landed within an inch of that individual's life.
It's right up there with "near miss". If something nearly misses you, it - quite obviously - hits you. So when two aircraft have a near miss incident, they actually don't. What's being described is a near hit incident.

 "Gosh, I nearly missed you," say one pilot to the other as they were both falling from the sky. "Another metre and I would have missed you.."

But I do like "death bullets".

Listening to: the radio. Matinee Idle. Very funny.
Reading: T Jefferson Parker, "The Fallen". Also my Pride and Prejudice script. Rehearsals start on Tuesday, and my mutton-shop whiskers are setting in well.

It's Totally Unreason... ing

A few blogs back I promised a musing on love. I've dropped a few liners, but done nothing serious with the topic.
But it occurs to me that there is one thing I can say about love. It arrives and stays without reason. This is important. There is no one reason for why I love Jenny, or Gillian, or Roland, or Adam, Micah, Georgia, Theo, Jeff, Kathy, Joy, and so on. One can include animals: Cleo, the stuuningly alive Spike, who died more than a year ago. The view from the top of Mount Messenger, the sound of a right-hand surfbreak at Whangamata, the taste of a fresh Thai carrot salad, the feel of the air after a thunderstorm, a distinctive blues song that comes to the ear across a busy street. The moment I start interrogating myself as to why I love any of them, things start diminishing. There can be no single reason, because there are thousands of reasons. And each of those reasons has to do with who I am and what I have become with them in my life. To love Jenny, Gillian, and all the others is, in no small measure, to love myself.
The examination, in other words, is something that makes me smaller. Not the subjects and objects of my care and concern. Me. It has taken me a long time to understand that the best thing to do with love is to simply accept it.
Love can have no conditions placed on it. Love is free, and independent. Love is not a part of me: I am a part of it. Love is an elemental impulse, one that tickles the hindpart of my brain, one that has nothing to do with higher reasoning. It is.
There's a famous line in the Bible: I am who am. It's a supremely arrogant line when put into the context of a god, but it has a refreshing humbleness when stacked up against that most unreasoning of human afflictions, Love. Love is what Love is. Grammatically ugly, I know - but resolutely forceful.
Reading: "Impact", Douglas Preston. Trashy potboiler, but fun. Much like a Tom Cruise movie.
Listening to: Neil Worboys and the Real Time Liners. The kind of blues music you hear across a wind and rain-swept street that makes you yearn for smoke-filled bars, a bowl of red-hot chilli, a bottle of teeth-achingly cold beer, and the close companionship of a better than good friend.

Flies.

Time does it, I know. But more impoprtantly, so do flies. Flies fly. A fly flies. Flying flies are horrible, nasty, and they know just how to piss off an old bastard.
An example, from today, with a preamble.
I've been sleeping poorly of late.Hot nights, combined with an arthritis storm. My left forefinger has swollen to twice its normal size, and it ispainful to touch. Fortunately, I've always typed with the second finger, the digitus secundus, a latin glomeration that I've just invented to cover my lack of knowledge.
Anyway: bad finger, creaking neck, hip that grates, and a knee that ain't great. Put together, it means bad snoozing.
So, this afternoon, as it's a Public Holiday, I decide to take a nap. I hit the pillow, and start snoozing... but a frigging house fly, the well-known musca domesticus (to display my knowledge of something that I actually know) decides to say "g'day".
I was, because of the heat, on top of the bed. I was wearing tee shirt and shorts.
Everyone has a 2 square inch patch of skin on their forearms, near their elbows, where there's not much flesh between bone and skin surface. The menacing musca landed on that are, right hand side. I shooed it away. It went to the same place, left arm. I shooed it away. it went to the right arm...
Everyone* has an ankle or two: the bastard fly got bored with my arms, and went from ankle to ankle. Zip, zap. Then back to the patch near the elbows. I got so damned suspicious about these areas smelling of decaying dead flesh that I gave up, and sprayed each part with an expensive cologne. Suck on that, bastard fly. I sat outside, with a G and T, and hordes of frigging flies decided they really love expensive cologne.
I then got out the Black Flag, and killed a gazillion of the fucking things.
I'm not fond of flies.
Reading: comic, Battler Britten, an update of the old "Air Ace"comix I read as a kid. Written by Garth Ennis, who's a brilliant comic writer.
Listening to: "Matinee Idol", on the steam wireless. Not right now - but everyone in the world should listen to this programme: it is just about three centimetres beyond brilliant.  Radio New Zealand National, from noon 'til five, weeekday afternoons, while silly season continues.
*Qualifier. Everyone means those people who have a full complement of limbs.
Love you long time.