A happy-go-lucky English rambler dude goes to New Zealand for a year. Here he interfaces with some of those he left behind and details his nefarious activities. Or summat.
Recently clicked on MP3s - 7th June 2005 The Lucksmiths - Warmer Corners
Jens Lekman - When i said i wanted to be your dog
The Trashcan Sinatras - Weightlifting
Teenage Fanclub - Man Made
Laura Veirs - Carbon Glacier
The Decemberists - Picaresque
The Eels - Blinking Lights
Thursday, July 04, 2002
Oh, just remembered something that happened tonight, might not be worth mentioning......
And before any questions are asked about the victory....
YES - It was a against a full team of able bodied, adult, men, who have played cricket previously on a number of occasions.
NO - We did not have sand in our pockets, or take any performance enhancing drugs before the game.
YES - It was despite me. I had my worst knock for weeks, a sub-duck of -6
NO - I wasn't completely useless! I took a rather flash one handed catch.
As it was the last game of the season - against the only other team that had failed to win all year, we've avoided the wooden spoon too! Hurrah!
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1:11 PM
Sorry for my webslackness lately. I have actually been doing some fairly fun stuff recently, but just haven't got around to yakking on about it yet. Mainly due to working long hours getting my software finished off before i leave the country, combined with laziness.
The best thing i've done recently has been snowboarding. Although at times during my first lesson at Mount Hutt i must admit i absolutely hated it, and became utterly frustrated. I was doing exactly what the instructor was saying, but would my blasted snowboard behave? No. Did i continually spin around completely out of control? Yes.
Happily though, after a couple of painful hours, i finally managed to control the fupping thing, and string together a series of controlled turns, hurrah!
As well as Snowboarding being fun, the whole day was made even more exciting by the highly entertaining driving of Greg "Snake" Chalmers. Toyota Starlets probably aren't designed for rally style driving, but Greg seems to get the most out of his. On the way to the car park, 1600m up the mountain, we overtook numerous other cars, including 4wd's, and did we bother with snow chains? Pah! Was i shitting myself? Mais oui!
Mount Hutt Access road
Driving back down was even more extreme, as we were running out of petrol, so had to turn off the engine at every possible opportunity, leading to a major decrease in the effectiveness of the brakes. Slightly alarming when hurtling down towards a hairpin with a couple of 100m drop on the edge of it. Once again we made short work of the girly 4WD's on our descent, but when a slight misjudgement trying to overtake a bus caused us to do a 180 spin, most of them re-overtook us. No doubt making them feel happier again about having splashed out thousands of bucks on their Range Rovers. Ho hum. All rather stupid i know, but along with the full on Trance tunes * that Greg insisted on playing whilst driving up the mountain, actually quite a lot of fun.
* While driving Greg has Mountain music (Trance, Hi-tempo Hip Hop) and plains music (Ambient, Prog etc). Good to see some thought being put into driving choons.
I also had a Paintballing session with "the lads" from work at the weekend. War is hell - I have the bruises to prove it.
Michael, Emma, Phoebe, Jo, Al and I are all off for a long weekend in Queenstown tomorrow. Obviously including plenty of snow related activites, at the Cardrona skifield. Recommended to me as "ideal for spazzes" by my own snowboard ninja sister.
It's my last weekend but one in NZ, and my last big road trip in NZ. Driving around, checking out the amazing scenery (Whilst trying not to plough into oncoming vehicles)has been one of my favourite things here. And my favourite drive by far, is from Christchurch down to Queenstown, via Lakes Tekapo & Pukaki and Mount Cook. If you need a second opinion, just ask Sanjay, he'll vouch for it's gorgeousness. I'm looking forward to it even more than usual now, as i got a stack of new CD's out from Christchurch library today (Throwing Muses, DJ Krush, Divine Comedy, Flaming Lips and, er, Groove Armada) Let's ROLL!!
Well in NZ - we are! 'The Man' has set up a series of webcams attached to small birds, fitted with aerials, which then send back data to the Central Control Bunker in Auckland. Don't believe me? Well click here, enter an address, and spy on the hapless proles below.
I'm at 146 (almost), High Street, Christchurch, and look something like this
I say a day, but due to the fickleness of the weather and the driver's side window on the mighty Toyota Corona, i only managed 20 minutes of skiing :o( Before setting off the car window got stuck in the 'down' position, and so the best part of an hour was spent dismantling the door, wiggling it around and working out how to put it all back together again once we'd finished.
Once we'd finally got there, we had to decide what method of snow-based propulsion to use. Went for skiing, as there wasn't time to have a lesson, and i had extensive previous experience in this discipline - a one week school trip to France 12 years ago, as opposed to a 2hour lesson in Swadlincote 2 years ago for snow boarding. Once this had been decided, and the relevant pieces of equipment strapped to the relevant body parts - we were off! I started with a mini slide about a minutes walk from the main 'lodge' thing, and was instantly reminded what a great laugh sliding around on snow is :oD I then ventured a little further and further up the nursery slope (With Michael regularly swooshing past me), and enjoyed each run more an more, probably never getting much faster than 10 mph, but happily i can still snowplough with the best of them (the nearby Playschool aged children anyway), hurrah!
However this was soon stopped by the spoilsport wardens, who decided that the gale force winds lashing snow into everyones faces, was somehow 'dangerous', and closed down the slopes, as well as the access road for a while too! So while i only got a few go's, the good news was that it was completely free, as we were refunded due to not managing an hour on the slopes. This brief go has whet my appetite for more snowy action though, so Michael (& entourage & maybe Jo & Wee Al) and I are off to Wanaka & Cardrona, in a week or so, for another bout of alpinism.
Comparing NZ skiing to my vague memories of European skiing, the main difference was actually getting to the ski fields. In France you can catch a cable car from the town centre, all the way to the top of the mountain. There's no such wussiness in NZ however, in typical no-nonsense ( / supid?) Kiwi style you drive up the mountain to the pistes. Snow chains were definitely required, as we drove up the rather preciptous road to 1600 metres! (That's 200m higher than Ben Nevis for non-mountain geeks). Seeing a packed car park, near the top of a 2000m mountain is a truly odd sight. Greg "Snake" Chalmers informed me today though, that the Mount Hutt road is about the best ski road around, and that if you found that worrying you're a big, girly, wuss (So i didn't mention to him that we caught the bus up to the top) :os
Note: Looking at this post, you may be thinking (a) I'm a bad loser, and (b) i have too much spare time. Guilty as charged on both counts. But in my defence i have to say (1) i feel a lot better now i've made my stand against the Rivaldo's of the world, and (2) i'm going snowboarding tomorrow. Are Rivaldo, or Ronaldinho? I think not. Ha! :op
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8:28 AM Friday, June 21, 2002
Have been taking advantage of the NZ tradition of drinking booze in the office on a Friday afternoon, to prepare for, in my opinion, the biggest football match of the 21st century.
Am heading down to Madison's pub to watch the game, and then going for a birthday (+ celebratory, hopefully) curry with Michael.
COME
ON ENGLAND!!!!
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6:37 AM Monday, June 17, 2002
The Indoor Cricket travesties continue. We had a game on Sunday night against a team whose members included a woman, and a child.
Did we still lose? Mais oui!
Attempting to look on the bright side, Michael and I had the biggest partnership for our team! (40) And i even contributed a positive amount to it!! (15). Sadly my bowling was as hapless as ever, and played a key part in narrowly averting a possible victory in the last over.
With any luck i'll be experimenting with another new sport next week - skiiing / snowboarding! Not decided which to try yet - is the potential for injury significantly better in one or the other?
It's been snowing it's arse off all over the mountains for the last few days, so snow levels aren't an issue. Fellow novices Jo & Michael will hopefully be accompanying me to Mount Hutt next Tuesday (There'll be less people to point and laugh at us on a weekday), as well as the higly experienced Wee Al - he's skiied in his native Scotland(tee + hee :op), and claims he can do parallel turns. Hence he'll be forced to give out free lessons to us all day.
Dear Mr / Mrs Whoever,
It's the year 2002. "Double glazing" and "Central heating" technology is widely available, and has been proven to work quite nicely.
It helps remove the need to sit on your sofa shivering, in 10 layers of clothing and a sleeping bag, in front of a crappy fan heater while trying to concetrate on critical world cup games.
Why not try it - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!
Yours Faithfully,
a rather nippy English-Vegetarian-Soccer-Wuss
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5:40 AM
I may be getting influenced by the Rugby types in the bars where i've been watching the World Cup, but doesn't there seem to be more & worse diving going on than ever before? Rather than watching out for pieces of "Liquid football" i find myself analysing every tackle for signs of diving.
In particular the South Korea Vs Portugal game last night. That second sending off was awful! Then, down to 9 men, Portugal attempted to get back into the game, not by using their silky skills, no, but by attempting to out-dive the South Koreans, Fernando Couto making an especially lame, defenders effort at one.
Having said all this, if England get through with any kind of dodginess, i may delete this post! Though i contest Roberto Martinez's opinion that Owen dived to get our penalty versus the Argies, it was a definite trip. Honest guv.
COME ON ENGLAND!!
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5:38 AM Friday, June 14, 2002
I thought i'd scored a mighty 15 runs at Indoor Cricket last night, but sadly it turned out that the scorer had got Michael and I mixed up, and it was me that had contributed -2 to our partnership of 13, not him. Still it felt like an improvement, as only a dodgy stumping (-5 runs) got me into negative figures (Hmm, i seem to be blaming other people a lot for my own Cricketing failures....). Bowling was also improved, only 1 wide in two overs, and I even managed to bowl one delivery that wasn't scored off!! Not getting any high velocity cricket balls in the face was a pleasant change too.
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9:49 AM Thursday, June 13, 2002
Life's been plodding along in a pleasant if not entirely exciting way lately.
Weekdays consist of :-
Wake up at 9:30am. Have breakfast while listening to the latest CD that Andy has lent me (This morning it was Grant Lee Phillips) or watching the Shortland Street rerun. Potter off to work at 11am. Do work till 6pm. Do emails / surf interweb / burn CD's till 8pm. Go and watch world cup in pub, or highlights at home. Nod off on sofa watching Bottom video rented from Alices.
Luckily weekends are a tad more exciting. Getting out and about up big snowy things - see below, and even doing a bit of jogging! I'd never really done any before, as in the past every time i tried to run my body (Knees and Cardio-vascular system in particular) let me know that it was extremely unhappy about all this high speed bounding around. But last weekend I managed to keep going (Albeit at almost walking pace) for a whole hour, the only worries being slight feelings of nausea, and occasional bouts of stitch.
This weekend brings Jo's house-warming 'do', and hopefully another spot of wintery rambling. I would joing one of the local mountaineering clubs, so i could do a bit of proper wintery climbing, and learn how to use ice axes, crampons etc, but as i've only got another month or so left here *Sniff* it hardly seems worth it. Though i could put back my flights a little bit further perhaps.....
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3:02 AM Sunday, June 09, 2002
Beard-Crime-Watch
Offender 1 - Who the hell does this cowboy think he is?!? Some kind of Beta band member? Personally i just think he's taking the piss out my favourite Folk music combo, Mulligan & O'Hare
Offender 2 - I can't believe anyone would dare to carry out such an audacious Beard Crime in this day and age? It reminds me of my own father's beard crimes, circa 1970. And people like this still wonder why their girlfriends are about to head off to the other side of the world? Tssk!
Speak the language of Beard-Crime
These beard fiends are everywhere now, if you should happen to meet one on your travels, simply find out which country you are in, then select the correct phrase from the list below:
