Category: Uncategorized

Nothing much to say, just wanting to say that I’m happier now post-Pirating. I might not be able to make another entry for a few days and didn’t want to enter a gap talking about how miserable and emo I am. Today I am not miserable and emo, I am perky and successful and I love you all!
I have also learned that stress can be eased by friends scattered all around the world telling you ‘buck up’ in a supportive kind of fashion.
Tomorrow I’m attending a hui in Rotorua. A hui is, more or less, a meeting run according to Maori protocol. Should be fun – never been to one before. Will probably get a blog post out of it, I should think…

All you lubbers avast, for it be the 19th of September, and by the calendar that marks today as International Talk Like A Pirate Day, yarr!
Sure as my hand be a hook and my hat be skull crossbone’d, we’ll sing us some shanties and shake off the barnacles as we give free reign to the piratical heart that beats within our wicked pirate breasts. Set her sails, my likely lads, and pay yer respects to Davy Jones, for we be off to plunder the seven seas! Arrr!
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Tuesday ended fairly craply, but it’s hard to be glum in the face of pirate speak. Yarrr!

Prime TV’s big push continues with the launch in NZ of Flight of the Conchords, the HBO series showcase for Wellytown’s favourite sons Bret and Jemaine. Episode one screened earlier tonight. This episode had earlier been released into the wilds of the internets and I watched it on some YouTube clone ages back. Let me say this: watching it on a proper tellyvision with proper sound was much, much better. It made me laugh like a laughing man. Quality, quality stuff, and so Kiwi that it kinda shocks me. The full TV screen let me read the text on the promotional tourism posters in the NZ Consulate: “New Zealand – Like Lord of the Rings” was my favourite.
Nice one lads. UK readers will be pleased to hear it’s turning up on BBC Four on Sept 25.
Prime led into Conchords with its big new hope, Welcome To Paradise. We don’t do the trad sitcom well in this country, for whatever reason. Now and then something will click, but usually it has to break the format in some way to do it (stand up Lovebites and Seven Periods With Mr Gormsby). More often our sitcoms just clunk.
This one isn’t a Melody Rules-level stinker (the nadir of NZ TV comedy, a sitcom so bad that it actually destroyed comedy in this country for about five years, and if you think I’m exaggerating you clearly weren’t there), by any means. There were some nice bits of business and some promising moments, but it really had some problems, including – and this is the really unfortunate thing – the first five minutes. The opening minutes of a new comedy are crucial, but WTP really didn’t sell itself. Thankfully it settled down as it went along, which I think is the key to this sort of comedy in NZ – you need to undersell the gags or it just doesn’t work. Also, would it really have hurt to actually cast someone Irish to play the core character who’s Irish? Overall, I’m hesitant to say it’s going to be worth sticking with, but it’s early days and I’ll give it another look for sure. It has the best timeslot a Kiwi comedy could wish for, anyway.
Oh, the premise of WTP is “humour in a Kiwi backpackers hostel”. The Alligator knows that this is biting the turf of Kumara Junction, but we have to accept that, because Kumara Junction doesn’t exist. Yet.

Yes, there was a Rumpus. The sound system was incredible, more so than last year. Our six (!) DJs kept the music flowing until something like 4.30am. There was much dancing. And smoke from the smoke machine.
There was a Paris Hilton wall, a grid of Paris images with pens available for graffiti purposes. Paris had much to say during the night. I hope to bring excerpts from the Paris wall in due course because a lot of it was gloriously funny.
The Rumpletron did its thing, we had three tribes on the go this year but the Rumpletron was doing no better than chance on the genders. It is from 1981, not the smartest piece of software.
There was a scary guardian stove at the front door. This may have been my favourite thing about the party and it wasn’t even in the party.
I met some cool people, danced like a crazy person, ate too much chocolate, drank just the right amount of beer, and generally had an ace time. It was a good Rumpus. Tribe Swashbuckler rules.
More on the Rumpus:
Kate mentions her highlights
Nick does extensive writeup
Miz Foxy describes getting into the whip action.
Mash affirms the braggadocio
Adrexia keeps is short and to the point
D3vo tells you to come get free beer.
[added]Sproke got a wee bit drunk

New Zealand intelligence services are concerned over a rumoured “Rumpus” said to be taking place in the Wellington region tomorrow evening.
The leaked reports link this “Rumpus” to another gathering held over a year before in the same location, also called a “Rumpus”.
Internet experts have unearthed evidence of this “Rumpus” on the notorious gathering-place for subversives, Facebook.
“A Rumpus is a wild cacophony,” the report indicates. “We expect this to be a noisy gathering.” The word Rumpus earlier appeared in renowned anarchist handbook Where The Wild Things Are.
The central concern of the report is that the Rumpus might be linked to the re-emergence of the “highly dangerous” renegade military computer intelligence that calls itself the Rumpletron.
“The Rumpletron was a U.S. military weapons co-ordination programme that was struck by lightning in 1981, came to life, and escaped military control. If it has indeed surfaced in New Zealand then we must prepare for the advent of EPE (Extreme Party Excitement).”
New SIS director Dr Warren Tucker had no comment to make, and would not confirm whether undercover officers would attempt to infiltrate the Rumpus.
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The Beastie Boys knew what to do in this kinda situation

So, over two years ago Jamie sent this meme in my direction. (He’d picked it up from Stephen.)
Time to finally respond…
1. You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?
Hmm. I’m tempted by something by Jose Saramago, either The Cave or Blindness, but they’d probably be better memorized in the original Portuguese. Ulysses tempts as well, as it would stand endless revisitation, and it’s really long so that’d be a good way to impress all them renegade dystopian ladies. However you’d be followed around everywhere by drunk Irish nationalists, which could become irritating. I think I’m going to go for G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday, which is far from my favourite book, but just seems like the right one to pick.
2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
I can’t think of one in anything I’ve read, but I’ve fallen in love with almost every female character I’ve ever written. I think it’s part of the job description somehow.
3. The last book you bought is:
Jeepers. I have no idea. It’s been ages since I bought a book, on account of the no money thing combined with the massive backlog of books to read thing. I think it was Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilization.
4. The last book you finished is:
(Excluding endless academic-type texts) Jose Saramago’s The History of the Siege of Lisbon. Billy’s copy, I think. It was engaging enough.
5. What are you currently reading?
Pride & Prejudice, as per Stephen’s recommendation a wee while back. And rather fun it is, too.
6. Five books you would take to a desert island.
I’m going to copy Jamie and also say the one-volume Collected Works of A. A. Milne which, as a point of autobiographical trivia, was my default 21st birthday gift for about six months. The other four would be… Well, Ulysses for the endless re-reading… maybe William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy if I could get it in one volume… a King James edition of the Bible, with photocopied apocrypha stapled in the back… and The Great Gatsby.
7.Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
The Alligator, because he has read all kinds of fascinating stuff.
Off-Black, because the same reason actually.
Stephanie, because also the same reason.
You have permission to not answer until February 2010.
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Rumpus 07 approaches… it is Thursday 2am-ish as I write, so only 65 hours to go… It’s gonna be something rather special, I think. Hint: there will be chocolate AND beer.

(Image by the extremely well-named ArchiveTheNoo.)
A few weeks back, my sister Miriam presented a cup to a young Highland Dancer at the renowned Cowal Gathering in Scotland. The cup is new this year, and was named for Percy Patrick Geddes, our grandfather. The recipient was Angela Ramsay from Forfar.
I emailed Miri and asked her to scribble something down for a guest entry in this blog. She declined, and just gave me some notes, which I will print almost verbatim because despite her protests they do a grand job.
Miri and her husband Matt are both settled in Oxford, so the trip to the Cowal Peninsula meant going up to Scotland. I lived in Scotland for several years, so the start of her account fills me with happy nostalgia:

Can I ask how you lived in Scotland for so long?? Glasgow was terrifying. We made the rash decision to head into town for dinner Friday (Sauciehall (?) Street) as it was Matt’s B’Day. We witnessed a man running down the footpath brandishing his belt and whipping random members of the public as he ran past (luckily across the road from us). Shortly after a car drove across the wrong side of the street, onto the footpath near us and pinned a guy to a shopfront…
The violence continued on the ferry from Glasgow to Dunoon on the Cowal Peninsula (45 mins west of Glasgow). 10:20am and over half of the passengers were drinking. A brawl ensued and a man punched a teenaged girl in the face… I can only assume Edinburgh is more civilised.

Ah, brings a tear to the eye. Finally our intrepid duo made it to the Cowal Gathering, which is (as it bills itself on its website) the largest and most spectacular Highland Games in the world. And it being Scotland in summer, there was no doubt of the fine weather they would find!

The morning of the Games was kinda miserable- relentless rain and COLD (11
to 15 degrees that day- in August). We paid £10 each to get in- but that didn’t include the Grandstand (full) so we waited for 2 1/2 hours under an umbrella in the mud until the dancing finally started. Yay for the dancing!

Good to see they were treated like royalty as well. Hours under an umbrella in the mud! A few generations back the Presbyterian Church would have called such larking about an orgy and been done with it! Back in those days you were only allowed to kneel, praying, on a pile of rocks! Young people these days, don’t know how lucky they are. [Whereas, down in Yorkshire they really had it tough…]

Pipe bands were stirring (as expected). Food was appalling (as expected). Met Billy Forsyth and he mentioned how much he admired Grandy and how thrilled he was that we’d come. I was pleased we had made the effort though I can’t really say we enjoyed ourselves (and I was acutely aware that a weekend in Vienna would have cost us about the same). Prizegiving at last- presented Cup then missioned it to the ferry and train back to Glasgow… (wanted to get into and out of the central city before the sat night hijinks began).

And that, as they say, is that. I for one am very grateful that Miri and Matt went to such effort. Percy would have been proud to be remembered in this way, but I think it would have made him even more proud to have Miri go and present it the first time. Nice one, sister, nice one.
(Marg, email me or comment with more details about the cup – its actual proper title, for example… And if anyone knows the name of the girl in the photo, I’d like to record it, so she can google herself one day and find this blog post… Name added!

Warning: this will not be the most exciting blog post you ever read.
Cal instructed me to blog about my new shoes. I have new shoes. They are black Rockport WT Classics, good for the walking, and they fill a significant gap in the shoe arsenal. It is weird that I have a shoe arsenal. Now I can wear shoes that are appropriate to different kinds of clothing or situation! How splendidly bourgeois.
Last shoe purchase was in Feb ’03.* To repeat the key quote from that blog post: “Brian J once told me “Never skimp on shoes. Make sure you buy good ones, even if they cost a lot of money.” This may be the only thing he ever said that qualifies as wisdom.” I did spend a fair chunk of change on these shoes, but I don’t regret it at all. (At least, I didn’t until googling just now and discovering that I can buy these shoes over the net for half the price I paid… Blimey. Oh well, at least I got to support the nice little Kilbirnie shoe store.)
* I still have those shoes and they are still doing the business. These ones I expect to last even longer.
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Rumpus countdown continues… Saturday is creeping closer and closer…

The Rugby World Cup is underway. I watched the first half of All Blacks vs. Italy, then lost interest when it was apparent that it would be a thumping, but not an epic thumping. Other teams in the Kiwi pool will have drawn a crucial lesson, though: do not disrespect the haka. It just makes ’em angry. And you won’t like them when they’re angry…
Yes, I do indeed watch the rugby sometimes, and try in an offhanded way to keep track of it. This interest emerged about when I was twenty. The Sunday Star Times magazine had an interesting bit about this, looking at the rise of the Alternative Rugby Commentary in which the one true game just isn’t taken so seriously. I remember listening as a school student to Radio Active’s alternative rugby commentary, not while watching the game of course because I didn’t care at all then, and being very entertained as the po-faced angry macho culture was thoroughly skewered. (Turns out one of the culprits was John Campbell, NZ’s trusted face of current affairs journalism.) That probably played a part in turning me on to the game a bit – although I think it was watching Christian Cullen work some magic that really got my attention.
(The SST mag also it had an interview with the Real Hot Bitches, who are both real, hot, and bitchin’. Yet another reason to love the Wellingtown.)
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Zinefest was a blast. Spent some money and got some zines. It was well-attended, which made me very happy, as the word on the street is that it’ll be back next year. I hope so. Isn’t it neat that the rise of the internet is somehow also bolstering the revival of old-school craftiness and DIY culture?
On a related note: those people who see the new MySpace/Blogger/YouTube culture as undermining society? They really don’t know what they’re talking about, especially if they have written a book about it. Seriously, the ignorance on display in these newspaper columns and books and so forth, it just astounds me. I’m not talking about errors in ethnographic detail here, I’m talking massive misconceptions that are just plain ridiculous on their face. Prime example: anyone who talks about “the blogs” as if they start and stop at “political blogs engaged in left-wing/right-wing rhetorical warfare”. I’ve seen that one a half-dozen times already this year.
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Rumpus07 on Saturday. It’s gonna be really quite good.

There’s a new way to waste time in Wellington.
I dropped into Wellington Public Library the other day to see the zines. You know zines? Self-published micro-run magazines, usually at least partially handmade. The WPL has invested in a collection of ’em, over 500 according to the website. Many of them are available for reading up on the first floor, but there’s also a reference/archive collection of local zines held in the rare books area. Some are even available for issue.
It boggles my mind that you can go to the library and borrow a zine. Plus it makes for the happy.
The reading collection is fantastic, with lots of local stuff but heaps from overseas too, including copies of uber-zine Found Magazine. Local stuff includes plenty of issues of Bryce Galloway’s iconic Incredibly Hot Sex With Hideous People, the Muse feminist zine, White Fungus, and all sorts of other oddities. (Although as yet no sign of Seven Copies Of The Scream.) Highly, highly recommend that locals drop in.
Out-of-towners – do your libraries have zine collections? Go tell ’em to start one!
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On a related note, something for Wgtners to do tomorrow: go along to the Wellington Zinefest, celebrating self-publishing in NZ. 10am to 4pm in Wesley Church Hall, 75 Taranaki St. Free entry! I should be kicking around there for chunks of the day.