Avaunt

Happy Birthday son. May you have many more, all with accompanying thick and lustrous skull-coating.

Lance and I used to have air rifles when we were kids, and wander all around the suburb with them, you just had to be a TRIFLE circumspect, avoid walking down main roads, etc.

A couple of times we were sprung by police cars out on patrol, but times were simpler. Sample conversation

*quiet approach from behind by police car* Hello boys, what are you doing then?.

*startled but innocent teens all carrying rifles* Oh, hello Constable, we are going to Allisters house to shoot some targets.

Where does Allister live then ?

Mountain road.

Will his parents be home.

Yes, of course, it is Saturday . . .

. . . alright then, don't do any shooting along the way, OK ?

I remember once the constable was concerned because earlier in the week someones greenhouse had had a broken window and he simply asked us

"You don't know anything about Mr Boakes' greenhouse being shot at do you?" and our shocked disavowal being quite sufficient to settle the matter.

Gentler times.

Speaking quite literally now, I have to say to me it seems you are both saying the same thing for at least part of the question?

Just from different perspectives ?.

Neither one of you thinks the vaccine doesn't work, and I think you are both agreeing people shouldn't be forced to take medication they categorically choose not to ( either from actual medical reservations or genuine conviction ).

I have to say Dog, seems a pretty effective rebuttal when Christian points out

"People who have been vaccinated should have no cause for concern. 
If someone doesn’t want to get the vaccine and chooses to potentially expose themselves to a virus…why are you concerned about them?".

Of course, though I agree with him there, I suspect we may run afoul of one anothers ideals when you introduce the thought about the children or dependents of people who "choose" not to be vaccinated.  Death would be too good for someone who made such a choice for their child or dependent, in the face of the best scientific evidence . . . in my humble opinion.

Honestly though, someone contending that even after the defeat of the Nazis, the world seemed to continue to look more fascist. is just an enthusiast.

After the defeat of the nazis was actually the time all decent people began to clamor for justice and equality and representation, brought pressure to bear on their governments for civil rights to be a thing, and even though it took horrible pains and many rear-guard actions were fought, even the actual died-in-the-wool colonising states knew they were up to no good and had to mend their ways.

YES, it took too long, YES there were many entrenched bigots and exploiters and States that stank of the faults of fascism, to the worlds discredit . . . but the graph where fascism has been fairly recorded over time does not rise after 1945. In point of fact the two self declared fascist states were expunged . . . so it is impossible to say there was more of it. There literally was LESS of it.

The Musical "Godspell"

Still solid all these years later.

Live Long, and Prosper, Liege.

The Aussie guy didn't even get frowned at.

a. Did nothing wrong at all actually. He came over quite legitimately as part of the ANZAC bubble free travel zone. He had no idea at all he had even been exposed, word is that the Aussie tracking  procedure has still come up blank with how he was exposed. He didn't have any symptoms while in NZ. We have free travel, no masks except on public transport. There are no restrictions at all on the size or frequency of public gatherings. It just looked like he had said

"Right, how many of them can I infect then",

most people on holiday get up early stay up late and visit every concert and museum they can endure, right ?.

and b. He was already going out on a plane when he developed symptoms, so we couldn't lay hands on his Marsupial neck.

Interesting note re masks. He was masked the entire time he claimed. He felt worried because he was in a strange city, and just was protecting himself. May well have protected us too. About 5 or 6 % of people I see in the street here in Auckland, are masked. Probably people who have a vulnerable person they love in their person life I would guess.

Well,  it seems as if our luck has held still. Couple of weeks ago an Aussie visitor taking advantage of our newly open borders, ( NZ and OZ made a travel bubble between us . . . even though Australia was by no means as free of the infection as us ) traveled to our capital, infected with the delta variant, and then went to just about every mass gathering the city had that weekend. If you had sat yourself down with a map and a timer and planned it, you couldn't have had him go to more places spread further afield. He must have had his own vehicle.

And we simply dodged the bullet again. Doesn't seem to have infected anyone.

I feel like we have been egregiously lucky.

CLASSIC !

16 hours ago, Lou K said:

Shooting range you say?

Well, there was a shooting range once, but time hath its way with all forms and graces. There were also a couple of big market gardens but again, stuff gets develop-ed.

First time my dad came to visit the suburb, was 1943, my great Aunt had brought a house in the very same street, She actually brought the old Gollan family homestead which had been there since 1844 . . . i.e. 4 years after the initial purchase of Auckland land was made, from Ngati Whatua, which was the tribe who "owned" Tamaki Makaurau. That is the Maori name for Auckland, it means "desired by many" and the main Harbour Is the Waitemata

In the end, King's books are not much more then sensation, jump fright. None of it is profound or even meaningful, imo. John Grisham of the supernatural.

Nothing new under the sun of course. Exactly the same thing was done at the end of the War of Independence, itself a war about owning land. When I was in primary school, we had a "new Kiwi" teacher from Canada who had an intention of making sure the history of events wasn't quite forgotten yet.

"Facing difficulties with Spain over claims involving the Mississippi River, and from France who was still reluctant to agree to American independence until all her demands were met, John Jay promptly told the British that he was willing to negotiate directly with them, cutting off France and Spain, and Prime Minister Lord Shelburne, in charge of the British negotiations, agreed".

One of the (almost after-thought) resolutions of the peace agreement was that Loyalist forces, their dependents and property be solemnly protected by the new US government, and provision made for their protected removal to the various British possessions.

Instead quite deliberate movements of troops were undertaken by the US, so that they could be demobilized in various key travel choke points, to be mobs ready to rape and pillage the Loyalists as they left. The "courts" of the new Nation resolutely upheld any "American" claim filed against Loyalists, and blatantly ignored injustice and murder committed against Loyalists.

And all over the US people were given an "offer" for the land they owned, basically robbed of it by the "victors".

 I feel your pain.

During ww2 a guy who had come here after ww1 lived in our suburb. He was traumatized and a recluse. 

Originally his people were Dutch, but he had been brought up while under german occupation so mostly spoke their language. But had been a victim of them, his father murdered and his mum and sisters starved to death while refugees. Didn't stop the 1930s kiwis from persecuting him. Some of the shit they did . . . And then even though he was of an allied nation, the government QUITE ILLEGALLY chucked him into the "enemy alien internment camp"

When he died he left this really cool lagoon ( sort of, but not really a lagoon ) he owned, in a perpetual trust, which was worded something to the effect of "the unkind Aucklanders may never have my land for any purpose". And left quite a lot of money tied to defending the trust, in the hands of one of the top law firms of the day.

Quite fair. Poor bugger

lol.

No, I just thought you guys would like to get your foot in the exciting Auckland property bubble investment market.

( actually I wanted to show you the last moments of my idyllic childhood, where we had a river, volcano, quarry and shooting range all within half an hours walk.

All going under the hammer on sunday. )

https://www.barfoot.co.nz/property/residential/auckland-city/mt-wellington/house/814602

Come buy a nice old house in Auckland.

Technically it would be "Loki Shagging" though ?.

The Secret War : Spies, Ciphers and Guerillas. Max Hastings.

This is considered a "revisionist" history of WW2 intelligence, and he does point out where the "received wisdom" is false and does it often enough that those passages alone would make a credible book by themselves. However that is merely part of an astounding whole, the reach of his research is astonishing, comprehensive is a term hardly comprehensive enough to describe it.

And spoiler, the Russians actually did more, earlier, and more effectively, than the "perceived wisdom" has ever credited them with. The problem the Russian spy-masters had was Stalin didn't always want to believe them, especially early in the war.

The German problem was the same, with the simply astonishing corollary fault of their having five separate and mutually loathing competing spy services. Stuff they could have done if they had reliably and openly talked to one another is astonishing. They really were a pitiful and loathsome regime, some master-race when it couldn't even trust itself.

Great book, but like all Hastings works I have read, no sort of easy read.

I can think of only  one thing by him, and it was just one of a group of short stories on a particular theme by various authors, and not memorable in any way, shape or form. I def understand the thing about "better things to read", I am no sort of fan of the survivalist genre or its off-shoot into Sci Fi, and someone being a proponent of it would be sufficient black mark for me too. Life is too short.

I understand your distaste about the Quantrill thing . . .

My normal impulse of course is to try to expect the best of people, and, maybe ? a bloke who had been brought up in the South by particularly survivalist parents would end up with a dodgy name?.

Not a fan of Ing then ?

Lucky little Jimmy tho, living in an age when one could unashamedly sleep with a bunch of hippy-chicks.

I am astounded to be reminded that Mack Reynolds has been dead so long. Man, he was on a crusade of trying to shake the sheep, wasn't he?.

Pretty much exactly what I am concerned about.

I just don't see me making her happy long term, and I do not, do really really not, want to experience anything short term.

Couldn't bear another broken heart, and I KNOW I would not be able to insulate my heart from her in any other way than the complete way I have done now.

Quoting that Philosopher feller from last century   " everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn't end. "

No one is being paid to write my story as semi-happy, month to month, I can very easily write myself a tragedy if I stop being pragmatic.

The only reason we like each other is because she likes everyone and wants everyone to like her. Any other person who was so relentlessly optimistic and new-agey would have repelled me long since.

You can't help like her, it is uncanny.

But I could not live with her for a week. I worked with her for 3 days once on a large yacht . . . and I had to go looking for a bar fight to soak up the sweetness and light.

Besides which, I have seen her totally break two blokes hearts and lives in half, when she suddenly decided they were no longer suitable life partners. She moved in with a guy, melded their lives, he sold all his furniture because she liked to have her own . . . he was happy as Larry for three or four years . . . came home to find she had just decided it wasn't working and moved out without saying a word, because she can't deal with unhappiness. She has never spoken to him since, and I know his daughter, and the daughter was horribly sure for a year that her dad was going to die of despair.

She isn't perfect, and I don't need the threat of despair shown to me more than once to know what's what.

The guy with the axe is dead about an nth of a second after the painting was drawn.

Short story long, as they say . . .

This nurse I have known for like forever, my age, quite attractive if you like extremely blonde women ( She is so blonde it stuns people ) , grown up son and daughter, owns her own home, so on and so forth. She is such a nice, kind, dare I say saintly woman, that I am very lucky to count her as a friend. When she talks about her work, helping people who are in real distress, ( she is usually assigned either in a hospice or the ward for final stage Alzheimer's  patients because of her calm capability and  empathy ) her face emits a glowing light . . . and you remember of course how utterly skeptical I am of anything that smacks of the supernatural. However, I have seen it repeatedly, a literal aura of sanctity projects from her visage.

She does have faults of course, but so do I ( you are shocked, I know, but it is true, I am not perfect. )

Just too many dissimilarities in our aspirations and beliefs for there to be any point in other than friendship. A large amount of our time is spent laughing companionably at the other persons crazy ideas. She often tells me to mend my anti-spiritual ways, and I tell her to read more science journals, but we smile approvingly at the other person while they are mid-spiel. Before she met the last boyfriend she had, she made a real attempt on my solitary life, on the grounds that we have such a liking for one another, it would be a good match. But that is just crazy, not even oil and water, petrol and matches more like imo.

I love her like a dog loves its people though. The only person who hugs me now my mum is gone. That happened because about 6 or 7 years ago, she had sat an end of year exam for her career advancement, had thought she blanked out and blew it, and I found her crying at her part time job ( She washes yachts too, just three, as cash-money and probably also because she is the energizer bunnies blonde Kiwi mate, does not ever stop ) and when I asked her what was wrong, she climbed into my arms and sobbed her heart out. 

Now she confuses everyone who knows us by giving me a huge hug the instant she spots me, and another one when she says goodbye. She laughs when she notices me being uneasy about it too, I think she does it partly as "Tony therapy" tbh.

People get confused I suspect because who know me know I don't hug people, and the ones who know her seem to think something is awry . . . I suspect something based on appearance such as "Oh NOES, this is a THUG . . . why you hugs him ?". Many men around the yachts, of our age and CONSIDERABLY older, are very enamored of her and everyone knows her because of how kind and friendly she is, blokes are forever hitting on her and she is kind to them about it and doesn't hurt their ego. More than one yacht owner strongly disapproves of me because of the hugging I get, I have had more than one unkind comment made to me about it. There is one bloke, almost 80 years old now, who USED to quite like me, who now frowns like fury when he sees me.

So, anyway, out of the blue she mentioned something about a play. I was like

" . . . but you don't like Theater . . . " however I was as wrong as could be. I don't have anyone to share that part of life with, so immediately got tickets to

https://www.asbwaterfronttheatre.co.nz/auckland-theatre-company/2021/the-life-of-galileo/

and she was literally so confused at the idea of a DATE with TONY . . .  I had to explain the concept to her.

She and I are BOTH stupid excited at adult entertainment and harmless trusted company for same.

I have her also for the next season of the Auckland Ballet Company. December sometime.

The prospect cheers me.

Truly classic Antipodean face he is pulling.

"So . . . sand isn't tasty . . . but I refuse to let them laugh at me"

Oh, I am still grinding for Iron, my house is not much to write back to the Fjords about really. I just enjoy the scope of it. I have not been playing it these last three weeks, too busy getting mum and dads house ready for sale. Any time off cleaning or work, I am spending at the gym.

I did make a walled berth for my sail boat. And trying to tame some wolves I ended up freeing them from the snowline . . . and now my starting island is over run with wolves and has very few deer or pigs.