Cleaning Up Christmas

Christmas is nearly here!

Deck the halls! Jingle the bells! Pluck the turkey, slaughter the fatted pig and roll out the credit card; the season of socially enforced goodwill is upon us.

It’s weird that there’s very little that’s “nice” about Christmas; yet if you stop to point this out, you are labelled a Grinch or a scrooge. Well, what can I say but bah! humbug!

We encourage children to be greedy, we enforce generosity, build temples of debt and condone alcoholism. All in the name of Jesus. Boy, I bet he is pissed.

Having said all that, I do like the music. Well, not really. Mostly it’s eight shades of shyte. We roll out the same carols each year and sing them without even thinking about the words.

You might be thinking here that I’m having a real negative attitude day. Well, you’d be right – I mean, have you seen the traffic out there? A guy got pissed at me yesterday just because I wouldn’t let him make an illegal lane change and cut me off on Brooklyn Hill. He followed me home, tailgating me and making obscene gestures. T’is the season in-effing-deed.

But what’s at the heart of this attitude? It’s that, as a child, nobody told me the lyrics. I hate that. You must explain the lyrics to your children.

Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle all the way!
That’s easy enough, right?
Oh what fun it is to ride, on a one horse open sleigh!
Okay, now stop, and explain to the five-year-old from New Zealand, who’s never seen snow or a sleigh, what the crap you just sang. Why wouldn’t he be singing: “A one horse soap and sleigh” and wondering why the fuck Santa needs all that soap? What’s soap got to do with it? Did angels appear unto the shepherds and say: “Behold, in Bethlehem a child is born; best bring him a few bars of Knight's Castile.” Did Santa have to soap up the skids on his sleigh so it rode better?

Oh the hours of confusion that would have just been so easily solved if somebody had said: “It’s one horse OPEN sleigh… I know it sounds like we’re singing a one whore soap and sleigh; but we really aren’t.”

So there. I’ve made my point. It’s stuck with me forever, and I’m still bitter about it.

A Quick Lyric

OK, so I am behind on my blogging. I apologise.

And what’s worse is that The Darjeeling Ltd is coming on TV in like 10 minutes so I’m not going to give you a full-service blog right now anyway. Not that I have any topic to blog about except my current enjoyment of old songs.

For some reason my musical tastes rarely infringe upon the post-80s. The ‘60s rocked, but then, so did the ‘70s. For although the ‘70s gave us the musical mutilations of disco and punk (which disguised great music behind a wall of pointless attitude), it was a great decade.

Floyd did its best work in the ‘70s. So did Split Enz and, er, some other bands whose names currently escape me.

Yet what I’ve come to realise is that there is no reason to define music in terms of which decade it emerged. I have passion for The Beatles, The Stones and Led Zep. But, equally, I love Muse and Radiohead.

You can guitar solo me with Clapton and Frampton and Best, and I’ll give you Satriani, Vai and Johnson (that’s Eric, not Robert).

Truth is, music transcends. And that’s just one thing I love about it. I’m probably one of many who believe the film Almost Famous was written for me. I connect to it on an almost spiritual level. I guess that’s because it was written by somebody who loves music... almost as much as I do.

Having The Last Laugh

A friend of mine died at the weekend.

We were not close friends, but were close enough that I shed a few tears at the news and wrote her a long letter which she will never get to read.

Her name was Nicola. She was known to one and all as Mrs Barnes, or Barnsie. A bright, intelligent woman whose body, unfortunately, just couldn't keep up with all that her spirit demanded from it.

The best way to sum up Barnsie is: Fun.

She had this deliciously evil sense of humour, where she would feign outraged indignation at some comment I'd make, and then respond with a quip that would be even further down the sewers than I could handle.

Who else could keep an argument about Snoopy and the Red Baron going for over a month?

She died in Auckland after a major operation. We were all expecting her to pull through. It was inconceivable that she wouldn't. I was expecting to be joking with her at the office Christmas party.

But she's had the last laugh. You see, she left instructions not to be embalmed, which means her last big trip is from Auckland to Wellington... on ice. Good one, Barnsie.

So, in her memory I dedicated my Twitter posts today to death, or more specifically, making fun of death.

Here are some that I was quite happy with:

• I'd like to dig my own grave. I'd be like: "Man, I dig you. You're such an awesome hole in the ground..."
• ReinCARnation and Carma. Where you come back as a type of motorvehicle depending on your life. I'm comin' back as a Yugo.
• Debts: What you accumulate so you have something to laugh about when you die.
• What if Jesus' name wasn't Jesus at all? What if he was actually called Kevin? Then you could say: "I thought I'd died and gone to Kevin."
• When dealing with death, it pays not to do so from the bottom of the deck.
• In Hollywood it only seems to rain in cemeteries. Serious drought? No worries, build a cemetery...
• Death is so absolute. Wouldn't it be better if it was more vague? "Can't take your call right now, I'm kinda dead. Leave a message..."
• I got a message from beyond the grave. It was right behind this bloke's tombstone. It said: "Keep off the grass".
• If you find yourself at death's door, say "Can I interest you in a new set of encyclopedias?" and you'll be good for another 20 years.

Bill's Folly

I work with a hilarious bloke called Bill O'Byrne. I'd heard of him even before I started working here, but that was a couple of friends saying: "Oh yeah, he's a really nice bloke."

And it's true. He's wonderfully self-depricating and hilarious.

So he's started a blog in conjunction with the Dominion Post newspaper. The blog is called His Place, which (just between you and me) was reached after his suggestion of Men's Bits was rejected.

Anyway, his column kicked off with a hiss and a roar. Literally, as it happens.

He went up the coast and met these kids who had developed their own spud gun. Except they shoot apples, because a bag of seconds apples is cheaper than a bag of potatoes. They spray cheap hairspray into a chamber at the end of a PVC tube, ignite it and BOOM; the projectile is projectiling.

So Bill sets up the camera and rushes about 50m away with another video camera and prepares to be shot at. He's prepared to do this because a) he's wearing a cheap MIG fighter pilot helmet he bought off Trade Me; and b) he figures he'll have just enough time to duck out of the way of the oncoming apple.

Only one shot was fired. Nobody was hurt. But shit it was close.

I share this with you because the first time I saw it, I was LMAO, veritably ROFL; and I still LOL every time I watch it. (Ah, remember a time when you could laugh without letters?)

Anyway, enjoy:



Check out Bill's highly entertaining blog at: http://hisplaceblog.wordpress.com/

Good Karma? Sorry, No Buyers

Conclusion: Karma has substance, but no matter how genuine you are, happy thoughts just don’t cut it.

As a laugh last week I put two years worth of good karma up on New Zealand’s internet auction site Trade Me.

I wrote a blurb that went something like this:

Over the last two years I have been collecting good karma through various good and selfless deeds. Things like paying for lunch when I'm with friends (sometimes even with my own credit card), providing professional services free of charge, helping old ladies to cross the road (whether they want to or not), driving smelly old alcoholics home from the bottle store so they don't inadvertently get clean by walking in the rain. Generally lighting up the lives of the people around me each day with my sparkling personality. That sort of thing.

I let other people win at Lotto almost every week, I hardly ever run over old people in mobility scooters (despite the obvious temptation), at the track I always try to encourage the slower horses by putting money on them, I donate a lot of money to charity (a casino's a charity, right?), and when I'm robbing somebody at gunpoint the pistol is almost never loaded. That's got to count, right?

Anyway, all this good karma is stored up and I really have no use for it right now. I've got plenty on hand from the rest of my life and the last two years' worth really isn't going to make much difference. So I'm willing to transfer it to you for the very reasonable price of whatever it fetches at auction.

Sorry, instant karma not available as part of this deal.

I will, however, send you a non-binding official letter of authenticity describing the transaction for the benefit of the Universe. I will write it myself and possibly even frame it for you.

Now this was aimed at giving a few people a bit of a giggle; myself included. I especially enjoyed answering the questions:

Q: What are your delivery options? ;) markmie (37 ) 9:35 am, Wed 11 Nov
A: Universal courier, of course :-) 9:37 am, Wed 11 Nov

Q: I understand that instant karma isn't available, but is it gonna get me? bookiemonster (8390 ) 10:04 am, Wed 11 Nov
A: Oh, I'm sorry, I couldn't say for sure. Mr J Lennon is best to ask on that subject (I suggest a ouija board). I used to have sachets of Instant Karma (just add water), but unfortunately they sold out. The packaging was really cool, the sachets would just sit there and just shine on... like the moon, and the stars and the sun. 10:14 am, Wed 11 Nov

Q: Like a crazy diamond? bookiemonster (8390 ) 10:24 am, Wed 11 Nov
A: They would shine like they were riding a steel breeze. They'd shine like a raver, like a seer of visions, a painter, a piper a prisoner. They'd shine! And then there'd be a big long David Gilmour cosmic guitar solo. That's the sort of aura they had. But unfortunately, the Instant Karma sachets are no longer available. Just two years' worth of my good karma. 10:38 am, Wed 11 Nov

Q: Do you have a buy now price hugshot (305 ) 9:58 pm, Sun 15 Nov
A: It's difficult to put a price on good karma. Which is why I've put it up for auction. I figure, if you're selling the godly benefits of two years of (mostly, kinda) good deeds, then the subjective value to the purchaser would differ. That is, a nun would probably have no use for it at all, whereas a politician would probably pay a fortune in taxpayers' money to get hold of two years' good karma, to make up for the bad karma generated by simply being a politician. 9:43 am, Mon 16 Nov

The auction closed this morning. It had nearly 250 views (which was enough for Trade Me to put advertising on the page) was put on five people’s watch lists, but alas attracted no bids. I guess politicians don’t feel comfortable buying used karma off Trade Me.

So, a couple of days after starting the auction I got a great idea. I’d put up some happy thoughts, kind of to keep the karma auction company.

I made up some bullshit about how the happy thoughts were good and positive, but despite JM Barrie’s promises, they weren’t strong enough to get you airborne. I figured that if anyone was willing to pay the asking price ($1) I’d write down five thoughts that make me happy and email them.

I didn’t really push the auction and after two days it received only about 20 hits. Consequently I received the following email from Trade Me:

Dear Lindsay,
One or more of your listings have been removed because it doesn't appear that there was an actual item for sale.
Auctions should be for a genuine item that you're legally entitled to sell. The reserve price should be appropriate for the item's value and condition.
The listing/s we are referring to are: Happy Thoughts (#253533306)

Although it was open for me to contest this decision, I was concerned that taking issue with their decision might lead them to look at my Good Karma auction and remove that as well. But it just seemed strange to me that they removed something which was honestly going to be an item (even if only intellectual property) and left up the item that was complete rubbish.

I think perhaps that if the karma auction had come down I could have argued religious persecution. Because then Trade Me would be forced into the position of stating that karma does not exist. And I’d have about four seasons of My Name Is Earl to prove them wrong.

But happy thoughts? Well, I’m thinking that, ironically, the Trade Me administrator who took the auction down could probably have done with a few happy thoughts of his/her own.

Plastic Plane Morality

It’s no secret that I listen to The Edge radio station every morning. I love the Morning Madhouse – they seem to have the perfect balance of male, female, married, gay, pervy and the voice of morality (yes, this means you, Jay-Jay).

Each day they have the Twitter Top 10, where Jay-Jay collects 10 tweets that have caught her eye in the previous 24-hours. Then they pick one and it becomes the “Twitter topic” for the day; the basis for a general discussion with listeners.

I’m honoured to have had a few of my tweets mentioned on the Twitter Top 10 since it started.

Anyway, today’s Twitter topic was – did you go to school with anybody famous?

I didn’t enter the discussion, as I scoured my memory for those schoolmates that had gone on to great and mighty things.

Oddly, the only person of note that I went to school with was New Zealand’s first AIDS victim. I think he contracted it via the needle. He was in and out of prison a lot, and once it became common knowledge that he had AIDS he was treated abysmally. Prison officers wouldn’t even touch him without wearing rubber gloves.

Now, the small evil side of me was unsympathetic. And it has nothing to do with the disease – it was just that he stole a part of my childhood innocence.

You see, in my first year at school, at age five, I took my favourite toy to school. It was a little plastic aeroplane. I was fascinated with aeroplanes at that stage. I had this weird idea based on the war stories I saw on TV and from war stories my Dad told me. I was convinced that if any little Cessna or Piper Cub flew innocently over the town, that if I wasn’t under cover, it would swoop down and bomb me.

I would hear the plane and sprint for the nearest garage, or run inside the house. It was kind of a junior OCD.

Despite this, I loved aeroplanes. And so I took my favourite plastic aeroplane to school. And at playtime I went out to the sandbox and practised my take-offs and landings.

So I was playing innocently when this boy comes up and says: “Can I play?”

I was a sociable kid, so I said: “Sure.”

Then he said: “Can I have a go with the plane?”

Dubious, I said: “Do you promise to give it back?”

And he said: “Yes.”

So I handed over my treasured plastic plane. He took it and it swooped and dived with such violence that I feared for its structural safety. I became worried for the safety of the plane’s passengers.

So I said: “Can I have it back now?”

And he said: “No. It’s mine now.”

I said: “But it’s MY plane.”

He said: “No. It’s mine. And you can’t have it.”

I, naturally, burst into tears. C’mon, I was only five. Even the expression “suck it up” wouldn’t be invented for another 20 years.

But a teacher came along and, while possession is nine-tenths of the law, she knew that he was a thieving little shit. She made him give it back to me.

So my precious plastic aeroplane was returned. But it was somehow tainted by the experience. As was I. If that teacher hadn’t come along, I would have lost my treasured plane simply because I was being generous; as my upbringing had taught me to be.

This is why I will never forget him, even if, 36 years later, I cannot assuredly recall his name.

Reset the Trip Meter

In this age of internet technology and satellites floating overhead bouncing data in all directions at mind numbing speeds; it’s quite easy to forget just how big this world is.

It was kind of brought home to me a month or so ago where I watched a documentary on life in the 20th Century. The presenter noted that in 1900 the only way to get a message from London to New York was pretty much through letter and via a ship.

If you were lucky the message would reach its intended reader in about three weeks. Depending on the weather.

Only 60 years later you could travel from London to New York in under four hours on the world’s only supersonic passenger craft; the now defunct Concorde.

But even then communications satellites were starting to go up and hover in geostationary orbit, allowing people all over the world to watch The Beatles sing about how all you really need is love.

In the 1800s, settlers setting out from England for New Zealand faced a nine month journey, assuming the weather held and they didn’t float aimlessly in the doldrums for several weeks.

Now, on Twitter I have a friend, Cindy, who lives in North Carolina. I called her up a week or so ago just to say hi. And despite living some 14,000km apart (that’s about 9000 miles) there were no discernible delays as we waited for our voices to be electronified, processed through the data exchange, beamed to a satellite, beamed to another satellite, beamed down to another exchange, de-processed and sent to her portable telephone; which, in deference to the distance my voice had travelled, promptly went flat.

OK, maybe not promptly.

Now, let’s say for the sake of argument that we all still lived on Gondwanaland, but today’s distances applied. Or that I had a sea-going car that goes roughly the same speed over water as it does over land.

Right, so I fill my car with gas, pull out from Wellington Harbour and head north-east towards Los Angeles. The speed limit here is 100kph, and for safety’s sake, and for ease of calculation, I’ll stick with that.

"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with `s'."
"Sea?"
"Yep."
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with `h'."
"Horizon?"
"Yep."
etc

Assuming I had a buddy I could share the driving with, we would cover 2400km a day. So, if we left at midnight Sunday (to avoid the traffic) we’d pull in at Marina Del Rey about noon on Friday. Oh, but then there’s that bloody time differential to consider. Right, so we’d drive for four-and-a-half days and finally pull in at LA about 4am on Thursday. Which would be good, because, again, we’d beat the traffic.

After stopping for breakfast at Carl’s Jr (I hope they're open 24-hours), we’d be North Carolina bound. At only 3400km away, that would only be a day-and-a-half’s drive. We’d be pulling into Charlotte at about 7pm on Saturday.

Then we’d hoon off out to Cindy’s place, only to find that she already has company and it would be more convenient if we could come back next weekend.

My fault entirely. I should have dropped her an email to let her know I was on my way.

Space, the Final Front Desk

I saw an article today saying the Galactic Suite Ltd's Space Resort – the first space hotel – is set to open on schedule in 2012. The tariff is rather steep though at NZ$6.27 million for three nights.

And if that’s anything to go by their mini-bar prices will be exorbitant.

But it got me thinking, what would life be like aboard such a place? Especially once things got settled down and the wrinkles were ironed out.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Galactic Suite Ltd’s Space Resort, I’m your concierge, Hal.

“Now a few things to cover before you are escorted to your suites. First, and please remember this, no matter how stuffy it gets in here do NOT open a window. It’s a simple rule, but one that’s already claimed the lives of three of our guests.

“We ARE in a non-gravity environment and this applies to the whole hotel. It’s not possible to call room service and ask for gravity to be turned on in your suite. It just won’t happen.

“Please remember to strap yourselves into your bed before you go to sleep. We’ve had problems in the past with guests floating down the hallways while snoring and then staff members haven’t known which suite to return them to, and if we guess wrong… well, that’s another law suit.

“Just a reminder to keep cellphones, iPods and laptops turned off for the entire duration of your stay. They may interfere with the hotel’s navigation and send us all plummeting to Earth in one giant, screaming fireball. Which is a pretty hefty price to pay for a game of World of Warcraft.

“Feel free to use our sun deck if you want to catch some rays. Bear in mind the sun rises every hour-and-a-half and is only up for about 40 minutes, yet we still recommend using our special SPF10 million sunscreen with ultraviolet and anti-solar radiation filter. At this point I urge you to read the fine-print regarding unique tumours, rare cancers and inadvertently turning into a superhero.

“As well you’d know, this hotel has been credited with the responsibility for turning the Fantastic Four into the Quite Interesting Seven; with our company having been behind the accidental creation of Dr Paranoid, Captain Inert and, of course, Cheese Toasty Man.

“One of the temptations associated with being in this frictionless environment is to send yourself rocketing down the corridors to give yourself the illusion of flying. It can be exciting. Unfortunately, you have no braking or steering mechanism and the walls are just as hard here as they are on Earth.

“Feel free to look at the stars as much as you like. They’re a truly beautiful sight, but no, we cannot turn them off if you’re trying to sleep.

“Yes, the Moon does seem so close up here; but no, we cannot just pop over there for a barbecue.

“While we are in orbit, we lack the facilities to stop the hotel over your home town so you can wave to the neighbours.

“Once again, welcome to our hotel. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

Welcome To The Raw Chicken Diet

Growing old means consequences.

I’m finding that out.

Warning: What follows is graphic and falls squarely in the bounds of “too much information”. So, read it at your own risk.

You’ve no doubt heard me rave on about how wonderful New Zealand is. It’s true. But it’s also not safe in other areas. Specifically, we lead the world in campylobacter infection rates. That is, food poisoning.

So at a young age we are taught to cook chicken and pork thoroughly before eating. I do. I promise.

But about two weeks ago I bought some raw chicken kebabs, and in my drunken state I didn’t quite cook them enough.

Drunken logic: Yum, this chicken tastes so good. It’s very tender though. Really quite tender. Hmmm… it was frozen, maybe it needed more than 10 minutes per side to cook through? Never mind, I’ll drink spirits; the alcohol level in my blood will rise to new levels of toxicity and kill any nasty bacteria that might be circulating.

How was I to know that campylobacter was alcoholic? It has a higher tolerance to alcohol than the Sun has tolerance for heat.

When I was younger and this sort of thing happened, I would have a shocking couple of hours on the toilet and then it’d be all over. All done. Be careful and don’t let it happen again; at least for a few years.

No longer, it seems.

Monday was the calm before the storm. I thought back hungoverly to the weekend and honestly believed I’d gotten away with it. Ha!

Tuesday morning at work the urge hit me. I felt the first contractions. Like there was a riot happening in a football stadium that had only one door. I snuck off to the work toilets and let loose the dogs of war.

I swear, I was hanging on to the seat to avoid lift-off. Sweat was pouring off me and I was gasping like I was in labour and had just run a half-marathon in record time.

Finally, the riot subsides. I wash everything thoroughly and crawl out of the toilets; drag my lifeless body to my desk and drink three gallons of water to replace the fluids which had so violently departed my body.

I do about half-an-hour’s work and suddenly the bowel’s fire alarm goes again. Everybody out. And so it continues in the “never trust a fart” theme, until I’m absolutely exhausted and scared to stand up in case the convicts make a break for it.

And it stops.

I breathe a heavy sigh of relief and go back to life. Sensible, non-bacterial food with lots of fibre to slow things down. Cheese is always good to put the bowel brakes on, too.

So the weekend rolls around and I’m all happy again. Except no. You see the constant rush of excitement down there annoyed the exit area quite a lot. Enough for it to protest with the generation of a swollen vein, known simply by the term: "The h-word".

Now, as a rule, swollen veins in that general area are good – if you’re a bloke. But that is, as a rule, at the front of the equation. Swollen veins at the rear of the equation are just a pain in the ass.

So I drink my way through the pain over the weekend and apply large amounts of appropriate cream. (Since this process started, I’ve gone through half a jar of anti-bacterial hand-cleaner as well). By Monday the tail-end Viagra episode has settled to tolerable levels.

Then said vein bursts. And there is nothing quite like the first time in your life when you find blood pouring from the rear exit. And you’re checking all your clothing in case there’s some tell-tale seepage/splash-back deal going on.

Then what to do? I mean, it’s not like you can bung a Band Aid up there! Do you keep working? Do you hide your head in shame? How do you tell your boss you're sitting like that because of 'rhoid rage?

I guess it’s just a case of visiting the pharmacy, asking for some more appropriate cream, and sitting very carefully for a while.

Why have I written all this? Well, partly to get it off my chest. Or at least to get it out of me in some way other than the most recent popular port of departure. And partly because some people get enjoyment out of others’ misfortune. If you're one of them, I think I just made your day.

I Don't Mean to Be Invictus, er, Vindictive

Dear Clint Eastwood

Please don’t fuck us over. Truly, the ego of a nation is sweating in your palms.

I have long been a fan of your movies, both the ones you’ve acted in and directed. When I was growing up, you were The Man. No one threw a Hollywood punch like you, or managed to not look like a complete and utter dick despite having an orang-utan hanging off your neck.

In recent years you've turned more to directing, and have turned out some classics.

Now you are about to release Invictus – the story of how Nelson Mandela pulled South Africa together for the 1995 Rugby World Cup. How the love of the sport united the country, how they beat the odds and overcame the previously all-conquering All Blacks in the final to win the Webb Ellis Trophy for the first time.

I’m just going to detour here and explain a few things about the average New Zealander. We are relatively isolated and live on a small group of spectacularly beautiful islands that have pretty much been thrust into existence by tectonic plates. We like people from other countries, provided they like us in return. But the “like” is a default setting. We like everyone until they give us reason not to. And, oh my god, we have a sense of fair play. We strongly stand up for the underdog because, more often than not, the underdog is us. We’re kind of the little tough kid on the block who will stand up against the bully, just for the sake of it, and get a few solid blows in before he kicks the shit out of us.

Politically, we’ve gone toe-to-toe with the United States over all things nuclear, and France over their policy of nuking half the South Pacific just to see if their bombs worked. Militarily we’ve shipped off to the Crimean and Boer wars, First World War, Second World War (where Kiwi Charles Upham became the first combat soldier ever to earn the Victoria Cross and bar); we’ve had troops in Korea and Vietnam, and even sent our elite SAS to Afghanistan (where they had a 100% success rate on missions and earned a US Navy Presidential Unit Citation for “extraordinary heroism in action”).

So we’re a fiercely proud wee nation. And all we, and Aretha, are asking for is a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t. And if we don’t get it, that’s OK, too. Just please don’t be mean about it. Because pissed off Kiwis aren’t a pretty sight.

Which brings me back to Invictus. Rugby is almost a religion in New Zealand. It’s a great mix of politics and violence, and the All Blacks are the only team to have a winning record against all other countries.

South Africans, though, are almost as passionate about their rugby. In the 1995 Rugby World Cup the South African team beat the All Blacks. Well done. They did play well.

Now, New Zealanders all start muttering here. Because a couple of days before the final a handful of the Kiwi players snuck out of the hotel and went to McDonald’s for dinner. Now the irony does not escape us here; but these players woke up the next day all fit and feeling fine. The rest of the team, however, were all ill. Post-World Cup investigations revealed that what the rest of the rugby world was calling “sour grapes” was actually “poisoned coffee”.

The inability to provide clear and solid proof about this meant we, as a nation, just had to suck it up and move on. But it’s still a sensitive subject. Which is why I’m begging you, Mr Eastwood, to be tactful when dealing with this whole situation.

We’re trusting you to give the world a clear and accurate story. But you represent Hollywood. And Hollywood has a history of putting “based on a true story” at the start of a film and then just pulling the story and characters out its arse.

All we’re asking, Mr Eastwood, is please, please, please: Keep your arse closed and tell it like it was.

Speed Kills ... Kangaroos

I don’t mean to be critical of Australians. Honestly. I mean, it is a national pastime for New Zealanders to be critical of Australians, but I try not to be. I’ve been there. It’s a great place. The people almost speak English and only 90 percent of the wildlife tries to kill you.

Yes, the Aussies are crazy. But then, New Zealanders invented bungy jumping and the jet boat, put the first bloke on the top of Mt Everest and split the atom to eventually enable global thermonuclear warfare. We even had an early pioneer in flight, who arguably flew before the Wright Brothers (though all evidence of said flight was sadly lost in time). So really we are in no position to judge crazy, y’know?

But I digress.

One of the fun events in Australia each year is the V8 Supercars racing around the Mt Panorama circuit at Bathurst, New South Wales. It’s great – high powered saloon cars roaring around and around and around…

For any American readers: It’s kind of like NASCAR except (get this!) there’s bends that go both left AND right. And up and down bits. Often both at the same time!

Anyway, at a recent event the cars were roaring around when suddenly a kangaroo jumps from among the trees, over a barrier and out onto the road. A car swerves to miss it and then carries on its merry way. The kangaroo, undamaged, is nevertheless going: “What the fuck was that???” Interestingly, the car’s driver was simultaneously thinking exactly the same thing.

I don’t know the kangaroo’s fate on the day. But I do know that after consideration of the incident the Australian solution was this: Let’s shoot all the kangaroos in the area so this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.

This is despite the logical few suggesting: “Why don’t we just put up big fences?”

They have been car racing at Bathurst since, I don’t know, at least the 1960s. Forty years later one kangaroo jumps on the track during a race, and suddenly ALL the kangaroos in the area are doomed.

My solution is a compromise: The kangaroos should be incorporated into the race as a points bonus for the drivers.

“And Williams is coming off the mountain in first place. He’s got a five second lead on Murray, but only two roos to his tally. Murray, with seven roo carcasses to his name, could still take this race out…”

Or, if you’re more humanitarian, points could be deducted for hitting a kangaroo.

All I’m saying is that Australia has been given this natural gift of giant, bouncy marsupials. They should make the most of it.

In case you think I'm joking: Read about it here.

Addendum

So, I went looking for the specific clip on youtube (it's here), and what do you know, there's like 50 different clips of kangaroos hopping alongside V8s at Bathurst. Maybe they do just want to get in on the game.

It's A Global Conspiracy!

It was a momentous moment in my life this week.

After three years without any sort of VCR, I finally purchased an HDD DVD recorder. It’s awesome.

I use a cable service offered by TelstraClear, which broadcasts all the channels offered by digital satellite service, SkyTV. The signal’s pretty good, and the set-top box breaks down about as often as the old Sky box did.

I couldn’t get Sky at my new location, primarily because I don’t own the house and would have no right to install a satellite dish there (the landlords live in the same building, so I couldn’t even do it sneakily).

Sky introduced a Tivo-like service called MySky. It was much hyped; a box-top set that let you watch one channel while taping up to three (or four?) others – and all in high definition. Not to be outdone, TelstraClear announced it would be introducing a similar service. In July. 2008.

I was excited and keenly watched the months tick down. And as we went into September 2008 I was starting to get puzzled. But I held out. I think I saw a story about two months ago that said TelstraClear had finally decided what sort of set-top box it would introduce.

Eventually I gave up and took matters into my own hands. I was in the electronics store anyway, so thought: “Why not put a DVD recorder on hock while I’m here?”

Now I’ve got a year of “interest free easy payments” to look forward to. But at least I can suffer through it easier now with a cool new Panasonic HDD DVD recorder. Murphy’s Law now dictates that TelstraClear will introduce its new Tivo-like service sometime next week.

Anyway; my point, and I do have one, even though I’ve wandered like several hundred miles from it; was that the new HDD DVD recorder taught me something interesting about the whole electronics industry.

I’ve got a 32-inch Acer LCD TV that’s about two years old. The new DVD recorder remote has a function on it which allows you to turn the TV on and off, and change channel and fiddle with the volume. The manual came with a list of brands catered for, and a two-digit number to get the remote to work on said brand.

Acer was not listed.

Which left me puzzling; who do I call about this: The Acer people to find out what their TV code was, or the Panasonic people to find out why Acer TVs weren’t listed?

I chose the latter, and called the “customer care” line in Auckland. It was a toll call, but was answered (get this) by AN ACTUAL PERSON! A friendly guy named Graham.

I explained the situation, and Graham gave me this amazing revelation: Apparently, various technology companies around the world make and sell TVs for OTHER technology companies around the world.

Like, your new Panasonic could have been made by Goldstar for SONY in a deal with the electronics branch of McDonald’s and Rodney’s Chicken Shack in Waimate.

Graham suggested I find out through process of elimination. It was only a two-digit number, after all. So I went home and typed in codes up to 36 where it finally worked.

With this information in hand, I then went back to the DVD manual figuring that, logically, the code number would tell me which company manufactured my TV. This revealed unto me that my Acer LCD was made either by NEC or AIWA.

I now have absolutely no idea what to do with this information, other than to blog about it and let people who previously read this blog expecting entertainment to go: “Huh, he’s really losing it.”

Yes, this is true, but I’m losing it with a Panasonic HDD DVD recorder. So: Ha!

Quick: While Nobody's Listening

TV people do some strange things.

I realise that’s a sweeping comment. People who aren’t on TV do strange things too; but TV people are exceptionally good at it. Although I actually only have one example to call upon to prove my point.

I’m a big fan of rugby league; specifically Australian rugby league. League was a break-away from rugby union when rugby players in England’s coal mining areas noticed the clubs were making crap loads of money, but the players were expected to pay for their own shoelaces.

There were many arguments; and as is often the case where money is involved, neither side was willing to budge – ie, those who had the money refused to give it away and those who wanted the money weren’t able to get.

This was early 1900s. The break-away reached New Zealand around 2007 or so, and in 2008 a tour of Australia and Europe was organised. This featured some All Blacks and others, and was generally a success.

Oh, there was one Australian they picked up on the way to Europe. His name was Clive Churchill, and in Australia he is now considered the all-consuming godfather of rugby league, although nobody really says why, because that would mean acknowledging that he was there with a bunch of Kiwis.

Well, long story short, Australians embraced the game. Especially around Sydney where it now dominates rugby union and Australian rules (essentially Gaelic football).

Anyway, the 2009 rugby league season is coming to a close. The grand final between Melbourne’s Storm and Paramatta’s Eels will be this weekend. It should be a good match: the heart goes with Paramatta, the mind with the Storm.

In Australia, Channel 9 broadcasts the league. Being a commercial channel, naturally they slip ad breaks in as often as possible. But they also sell the rights to pay-per-view channels around the world which don't break for ads.

The team of Channel 9 commentators is led by an old chap named Ray Warren. He’s brilliant. Consummate professional is he. It's hard not to get caught up in the game when he's verging on a stroke everytime a player passes the ball. But he has this weird quirk that I just don’t understand.

When Channel 9 goes to a commercial he says: “And I’d just like to welcome all the viewers watching in New Zealand, in the UK on ESPN and in the United States…”

He slips this welcome in when the domestic audience isn’t there; like it’s our little secret. “Don’t, for God’s sake, let the Australians know anyone else is watching!”

Like it would be some massive blow to the Aussie TV ratings for the locals to discover that Brits, Yanks and Kiwis were watching the league, too. I find it very bizarre.

Now, for any North Americans reading this, I urge you to watch the grand final this weekend. The game’s excellent. It’s a lot like American football in principle, only the game doesn’t stop between downs (so it’s much faster), there’re six downs to a set and only lateral passes are allowed. Check it out.

What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted? They Freakin' Blog About It

It is spring here in the southern hemisphere … as in: Spring!

There are blossoms appearing (but still being blown off the branches by icy winds); lambs apparently born and frolicking completely ignorant of their big upcoming trip to Europe in time for the Christmas roast; and cute girls are wearing short skirts over-top of their winter tights.

Spring – one of the three seasons we can all agree on a name for. Spring, summer and winter have that commonality. We Kiwis call that other season autumn. North Americans call it fall. I’ve got to say, I think we have the upper hand in this, because “fall” indicates something is going to land on you.

“Come the fall…” makes me think either you’re going to fall down, or something is going to collapse on you. Autumn seems to make more sense. It’s so neutral. It even has that weird “umn” thing going at the end, like it’s not entirely sure of itself. It’s a true season of change.

But autumn is not what I wanted to discuss. Spring is a time of waking from winter’s dormancy, and as a long-term single guy I’ve actually found that the only time of the year when I really find my romance nerves twitching is spring.

It was this emergence of romantic feeling from its annual hibernation which probably caused me to spend an inordinate amount of this past weekend mourning lost love. While watching sport, of course.

It’s a love I treasure, but don’t often talk about. She was beautiful and exciting and full of life. It was like she’d been kissed by the God of Fun. She was a florist who would light up a room brighter than any bouquet.

We used to meet up occasionally and talk; have coffee or lunch, and it was all very chaste.

The major sticking point was that she was engaged. But that was OK, because she told him everything from day one and I, in turn, never tried to break them up. It was totally dysfunctional, but all above board as well.

No, we never kissed. Yes, I did see her naked. Yes, we did go on one (fiancé-sanctioned) date and it was a lot of fun. We both understood the situation: she wasn’t going to break up with him to be with me; and I wasn’t going to ask her to.

Unfortunately, he was Canadian and wanted to take her home to meet the family. They packed up and, oddly, moved to Australia – which is like 1600 miles in the wrong direction. Apparently it was a money thing.

I haven’t heard from her since. But I learned through acquaintances that they parted ways in Australia; then she met somebody else, moved back to New Zealand and is living up north somewhere.

I’m happy to be a fond memory for her. To me, she’s so much more. Why else, I wonder, would my memories return to her when spring so heartlessly jabbed at my slumbering desire for love?

Insert lonely sigh here.

Questioning the Laws of Zombieism

Honestly, I don’t have an obsession with zombies. There are just some things about them that kind of fascinate me.

I was watching Resident Evil: Extinction on the movie channel this morning before work. I’ve seen it before so I wasn’t so much following the story as wondering about a few strange things in this particular zombieverse.

I understand it’s the third in the Resident Evil trilogy and I haven’t actually seen any of its predecessors. But it seems that there’s a virus floating about that turns people into zombies and an evil corporation and Ali Larter wandering around as a superhot psychic kung fu and weapons expert who kills zombies with the same efficiency that a nuclear explosion kills moths.

I don’t know how long ago the outbreak of zombieism began in this story, but in this film somebody said six months. There’s a convoy of survivors in trucks, driving around trying to stay out of the zombies’ way.

Now these are some impressive zombies. For a start, the moment they became zombies they all put on trousers and grey, green or black clothes. There wasn’t a single zombie out there wearing a bright red Jean-Paul Gaultier dress or carrying a Prada handbag. Not even a yellow t-shirt.

Nearly as amazing were the survivors. They’ve been driving around a desert for six months and all the women still have perfect hair and makeup. Nobody’s going: “Shit, we’ve been out here for months, there’re no baths or showers around and we’re all rank.”

In the film a few people get bitten by zombies and a few more get eaten by zombies – who haven’t had a decent meal in forever so they're rather enthusiastic. Yet they’re still on their feet, staggering about. They all move at two speeds: Full and shamble.

The people who get bitten all slowly turn into zombies. Yet during the metamorphosis the other zombies still try to kill them. And I started to wonder; at what point do the other zombies just go: “Oh, he’s one of us now, we should back off.”?

And what do the zombies hope to achieve when they reach the changing victim? I mean, the bitten person is already zombifying. Do the zombies want to taste the last vestiges of the person's humanity?

Picture this: You’re a zombie and you’ve attacked a person and you’re gnawing on their leg. Suddenly their zombification is complete and you notice the flesh has kind of gone stale. Yuck. Now do you apologise to your new zombie colleague for chewing on them? Do shrug and give them a light-hearted “arrrrgggh”? Is this the sort of thing that happens all the time on zombie sitcoms?

I think, if it was me, I’d just give an embarrassing smile and say: “Y’know, I think you’d look just great with a red dress and a Prada handbag.”

My Little Splinter of Classic Mania

I love The Beatles.

I was raised in a fairly strict Baptist family and my mother’s kooky friend from a radical religious cult kept sending us comic books that were so conservative you had to pay them to open the pages.

These comic books were great masters of ideology. I seem to recall something about two Christians venturing out into the world doing God’s will. They prayed a lot and cast out demons and that sort of thing.

What I do remember is that the comics put the blame for the social revolution of the 1960s firmly at the feet of The Beatles. And I think that's just awesome. I did back then, too. It was my internal rebellion against God.

I had always liked them when growing up. I didn’t even mind that My Sweet Lord wasn’t talking about Jesus. What a rebel that George Harrison was.

The town I grew up in had one radio station and a playlist that stopped sometime in 1943. What it did have of modern music was stuff like Bobbie Gentry and certain slower numbers by Carole King. When it finally got hold of McCartney’s sentimental dirge Mull of Kintyre it went on high rotation for about three years.

But that was about as close as it dared get to The Beatles.

When I was 17 I finally bought a Beatles’ greatest hits tape. All the tracks I had heard from time-to-time and never knew who did them suddenly had a common name. I was instantly in awe.

I bought books and other best-ofs. I listened to Hey Jude every morning while getting dressed for over a year.

I determined that I liked mostly what came after Revolver, yet the first actual Beatles album I owned was Rubber Soul – bought second hand off a guy who was moving to Canada.

Then, about a year ago, a photographer friend at work gave me a DVD. I put it in the computer and discovered it contained every single Beatles album ever made. Including the three Anthologies and Let it Be… Naked.

Suddenly I was able to put everything in perspective. And there were some memorable moments. Such as when a mellow guitar slide in You Never Give Me Your Money on Abbey Road took me straight and vividly back to me as a four-year-old hanging out in the family lounge with my eldest sister’s friends.

Me and music have that sort of relationship.

But when you look at The Beatles you can see their music – although fantastic – wasn’t the entire source of their fame. The early Beatles flourished largely on the back of Brian Epstein’s marketing abilities. Their personalities and music obviously gave him a fantastic product to market; but it was because he marketed them so well that they succeeded so incredibly.

And I guess that’s why, 40 years later, their music still sounds fresh. And why they can market a Beatles Rock Band electronic game and why they anticipate it will sell millions upon millions of copies. Not to mention introducing a whole new generation to the music of the Fab Four.

So, welcome back John, Paul, George and The One With The Big Nose (who no longer answers fan mail, apparently).

A Flicker of Kiwi Cinema

New Zealand cinema has a long and interesting history. Well, it's got a long history. OK, it has a history.

Seriously, though, Kiwis fell in love with the big screen quite early. There were films being made here in the early 1920s and some bloke even devised an early way to make talkies (though his method never caught on).

Anyway, a guy I follow on Twitter is a big fan of foreign films. Him being overseas officially makes Kiwi films foreign. I offered to give him a list of cool NZ films he might be able to track down.

These are in no particular order, except that I quite like them.

Goodbye Pork Pie – this 1981 comedy is a Kiwi institution. A length of the country road trip with two unlikely fugitives in a yellow Mini. The yellow Mini remains an icon in this country. Not only did the film show Kiwis being Kiwis, it showed some things we either do (or want to do) that aren't exactly legal: smoke dope, car surf, steal petrol, stick a big middle finger at Mr Plod etc. Director Geoff Murphy was later lured to Hollywood to make sequels to bad movies (ie, Young Guns 2, Fortress 2 and Under Seige 2). Before he left, though, he made a string of top Kiwi films such as The Quiet Earth, Utu and the lesser Pork Pie clone Never Say Die .

Second Hand Wedding – is mentioned this early because it was directed by Geoff's son, Paul Murphy. This 2008 film is a light comedy about a goodhearted woman who loves hitting the garage sales to pick up some bargains. Almost qualifies as NZ's answer to Australia's classic The Castle but doesn't quite have the same deep-cultural-cringe-laugh thing going on.

Sleeping Dogs – NZ's first 35mm feature film appeared in 1977 and was directed by future Hollywood director dude Roger Donaldson (Species, Dante's Peak, The Recruit and The Bank Job). The story is of a man known as Smith (a young Sam Neil – Jurassic Parks 1 & 3, Hunt for Red October, Dead Calm, The Piano and Dirty Deeds to name but a few of nearly 100 appearances to his credit) who is on the run in a dystopian society. Donaldson – who is technically Australian, but we won't hold that against him – also more recently revisited his Kiwi roots with The World's Fastest Indian in 2005.

Once Were Warriors – put the dark side of NZ culture on the world stage. It was helmed by top director and bad transvestite Lee Tamahori, who later went on to make Mulholland Falls, The Edge, Along Came a Spider, the Bond flick Die Another Day and Nic Cage's 2007 flick Next. Tamahori jumped to mind because The World's Fastest Indian starred Anthony Hopkins, who also starred in The Edge.

Came a Hot Friday – a 1985 slightly askew comedy about two conmen trying to fix a horse race in 1949 NZ. Features a stand-out performance by late legendary Kiwi comedian Billy T James. James also appeared (vocally at least) on the next recommendation – Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale. This 1987 animated flick brought to life a beloved cartoon strip about everyday events on a disfunctional NZ farm. While in every theatre people walked out saying: "That's not how I thought The Dog was meant to sound..." it was always a hiding for nothing for writer/director/cartoonist Murray Ball. Everyone had a different idea of what The Dog was meant to sound like. The farmer was obvious, who else could play a Kiwi farmer but John Clarke? But Kiwis were too close to The Dog to realise Ball had actually made a good choice in Peter Rowley. The film was well reviewed and received elsewhere in the world. It also gave NZ its new unofficial national anthem, courtesy of Dave Dobbyn.

So far it's been largely entertainment over art, so let's head down Jane Campion lane with An Angel At My Table. The 1990 film stars Kerry Fox and is a sensitive and powerful story about the life of esteemed Kiwi novelist Janet Frame. Frame, a brilliant recluse who only died a couple of years ago, was so misunderstood as a child that she ended up in a mental institution and was scheduled for a lobotomy before her writing suddenly started winning awards.

Illustrious Energy – is a largely forgotten NZ film, but one I've always held in high esteem. It's a drama that follows the fortunes of two Chinese goldminers during the Otago gold rush. It is almost like a nugget of Kiwi cinema that you'll need to dig hard to find.

Snakeskin – when newbie director Gillian Ashurst decided she had to get a road movie out of her system she wrote Snakeskin. It's an east to west tale that goes from sunshine to darkness, comedy to dramatic tragedy, clean fun to dark perversion. This is done subtly, deliberately and paying homage to the genre all the way. Kiwi audiences expecting another Goodbye Pork Pie just weren't up for that. So when Snakeskin won a slew of awards at the NZ Film and TV Awards in 2001 people began mourning the decline of NZ cinema. In fact it remains a solid, entertaining film starring Melanie Lynskey (whom Americans will recognise as psycho girl from Two And A Half Men) and American Boyd Kestner (GI Jane, Black Hawk Down, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood). Sadly, Ashurst hasn't directed features since, though I understand she's still behind the camera, making documentaries.

The Devil Dared Me To – falls distinctly in the "watch it only once and pick a rainy day when you're already half drunk" category. I mention it here because, well, it had potential. And I try to stick with talent from Timaru (haha). After their off-the-wall series Back of the Y Masterpiece Television (see earlier blog) Matt Heath and Chris Stapp were somehow funded to make a big screen film. Sadly, they ran out of money at some point well before they expected to, which is why the film seems to ramble about and finish suddenly.

A couple of late additions: If you're looking for Kiwi comedy you pretty much can't go past Sione's Wedding. It's known elsewhere as Samoan Wedding and was largely the production of comedy troupe The Naked Samoans. It was a big hit here, but was unkindly reviewed internationally by screen nazis who simply didn't "get it". Maybe the jokes were too "in" for their liking. The general gist of it is a group of lads who never out-grew their teenage antics have been banned from the upcoming Sione's Wedding. Sione used to be part of the group. However, some fast-talking allows the boys the chance to attend; provided they can each find a date. A proper date. The plot unwinds in fairly obvious fashion, but the jokes – visual and verbal – truly make the film memorable.

No. 2 – was the first feature film by writer/director Toa Fraser. It starred esteemed American actor Ruby Dee as the matriarch of an extended Fijian family living in Auckland. In a superb mix of comedy and drama we watch her seek out the life of her family over the course of a day as she beligerantly browbeats her family into preparing a feast. Dee does very well, but I simply could not buy her as Fijian. That was my only criticism of the film, which throws its story out on many threads and then draws them together at the end. Also features a fantastic Kiwi jazz-blues song written by Don McGlashan and sung by Hollie Smith.

Well, I think I've wasted enough time on this. You might be wondering why I haven't even touched on the works of Peter Jackson. It's because his light shines so bright I don't want to dazzle you all. Seriously, PJ's stuff is second-to-none right the way through. Just watch everything for fun, laughs and lots of blood on the early stuff. From brain-eating aliens to lovesick hippos with machine guns to real-life murder to dwarfs with big feet to giant apes; he's done it all.

Sex – The Wheel Deal

I have a theory.

It has long been suggested that a man’s car is an extension of his penis. So those little guys who buy a flash car with a big engine are actually saying to the world: “My dick is soooo small that I am seriously overcompensating.”

And if you’ve got the money, why not? For a woman it’s relatively easy (if expensive) to go down to the plastic surgeon and say: “Up the cups from A to D, please.”

I’ve watched Dr 90210. I’ve seen it happen. [Though I’m so out-of-date I switched to Dr 90210 thinking “I wonder what Kelly and Brenda are up to this week?” – up to a C-cup as it turned out.]

Because boobs are a woman's most obvious visual sexual feature.

A guy, on the other hand, can’t go down to the surgeon and say: “I’d like another six inches tagged on, please.”

Because there are so many factors involved with the male plumbing. Blood rushes in to make it hard and is held there in a series of chambers. If you make things too big, then there’s the risk of being unable to maintain rigidity and consciousness at the same time. You can't just insert a 13-inch implant and expect Oscar-winning performances.

"We did have to graft off half your arse to provide the coverage needed... and it does look a bit like a patchwork quilt now..."

But there are some options available. You can have fat sucked out of the love handles and injected into the male mushroom of love. But this doesn’t make it longer, just fatter. So you end up two inches long and three feet wide.

Instead of all these options – of which men are extremely wary anyway; especially when it comes to someone else playing with his python with sharp tools – it’s far easier just to buy a flash car.

I was driving to work this morning and some idiot in a late model Holden was tailgating me down the hill. He then detoured to take a slightly longer route at high speed so that he could emerge from a side street slightly ahead of me down the road and cut me off.

Let’s face it. He was a massive tool with a micro tool inside a massive tool.

And it then occurred to me that everyone’s driving behaviour is different. And I began to wonder: What if people drive like they make love?

Boy racers in their Subarus, fluorescents, mags and twin-turbo engines. These are young guys effectively masturbating in public. They “dress up” and “go out” hoping for some “easy action”. They are car sluts. Sexually Transmissioned Diseases out there hogging the beds of our roads. And if they don't score, they'll get it done themselves.

Other guys will just be rude about it. These are the one-night-standers. They haven’t been caught out enough to improve their behaviour; so they cut you off at intersections, indicate when they remember, and – while less speed-freaked than the STDs – have no real regard for the speed limit. They might even have a late model BMW they keep in a garage and only drive at weekends.

If you get one of these guys in a relationship, he will steal the covers at night, never remember your birthday and dump you when he's reached your credit limit.

Fortunately, many drivers are family guys. They might have some bad habits, but overall they obey the road rules. The well-trained ones are happy to wait just that moment longer at an intersection to improve your day. The generous lovers who want to reach their destination, but also have regard for the comfort of their passengers. They love their car and take time to keep it well maintained without obsessing about it.

[I try to be that guy... try... haha]

Women? Well, my theory might apply there, too. After all, insurance companies keep insisting that women are better drivers than men. I think it could be because they’re confident they’ll get there, but time – and therefore speed – is not of any real consequence.

They're generous, too. Often unselfishly thinking of others. They'll let you in; but most of the time just to be friends.

Now, I’m painting with a fairly wide brush here. But I think it bears thinking about. And I will continue to think about it, as I sit at the lights on my way home tonight, wishing death upon the moron in the ponced up Mazda in front of me.

I Drive a Lexus ... Your Call

Car names attracted my interest at the weekend.

I find it odd that people are employed to come up with names for the company’s flash new vehicle. Some of them make sense – the Suzuki Swift, for example. Mazda’s series of RX2, RX3, RX7 and RX8s all reflected that they were experimental rotary engines.

Others we just don’t really think about: Ford’s long had the Falcon, which actually has no feathers at all. Holden has a Commodore despite the vehicle not technically being a yacht.

I saw one this morning actually, it was something like a Toyota Armada Illustrious.

When I was a kid my father had a penchant for Ford Zephyrs. He liked the Mark III with its v-fins and six cylinder grunt that allowed him to roar past the Wolesleys, Consuls, Singers and other ’70s shit that used to pollute the roads.

Zephyr – a light breeze. What were they thinking? Were they referring to the six-cylinder motor’s compression? Were they referring to the hurricane which accompanied one of these monsters passing you on the open road? They had the aerodynamics of a concrete slab.

But I digress.

I had an idea at the weekend that car manufacturers should be forced to name a car after its target market.

Like instead of the Honda CR-X you’d have the Honda Hot Blonde Chick.

There would be no confusion. You wouldn’t have some misguided middle-aged accountant accidentally driving around in a Honda Hot Blonde Chick.

No, instead the car sale ads would all be for the new Subaru Suicide; the BMW 5-Series Just Made Partner; the Volvo Moderately Successful Architect; the Mitsubishi Wannabe; the Ferrari I Make Way Too Much Fucking Money; the Porsche Drug Dealer; and the Toyota My Life Is Over minivan people-mover.

Hmmm... what would you drive?

Mr Potter, I presume?

The end is nigh.

No, not doomsday; I’m referring to the end of the Harry Potter film trilogy. There’s only one book (two movies' worth) of information left to hit the big screen.

What amuses me, though, is the difference between those who have read the books, and those who say: “I’ll just wait for the film to come out”.

I’ve read the books. They’re light, easy entertainment and Jess certainly knows how to twist a good plot. The last book was a great thrillride.

Did you notice the pattern though? In each of the last four books an important character was killed off: Cedric Diggory in Goblet of Fire; Sirius Black in Order of the Phoenix; Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince; and Harry (briefly), Voldemort and a handful of others in Deathly Hallows.

People were sad when Diggory died; shocked when Black died and virtually went into mourning when Dumbledore took a terminal dive off a Hogwarts tower.

So I went to see Half-Blood Prince at the cinema last week. At the end of the film there were two distinct reactions among the audience, depending on whether they had read the book or not.

Those who had read the book: Wow, that was fun. I love how they played the teen romance thing for laughs. That was the lightest Harry Potter film in a long time.

Those who hadn’t read the book: What do you mean Dumbledore’s dead? Does he come back? That’s sooo sad. I’m just going to have a little cry.

Squeal, little piggy, squeal!

There’s a new channel on my digital TV service – it’s called Wild.

Now you’d think it would be some hot music channel or maybe a teen party channel; possibly even an outback Alaska channel. Nope. This one is the hunting channel.

I watch it occasionally because it’s hilarious. Unintentionally, of course. There are great moments when a guy will be stalking a deer or something and he’ll turn to camera to explain his great plan.

“Whisper whisper!” he’ll say excitedly. “Whisper whisper whisper whisper! Whisper!”

What’s he saying? Fucked if I know. He’s whispering and there’s wind blowing across the microphone. But I’m pretty sure his intention is to try to sneak up on his prey, line up a shot, and then blow some innocent animal into its afterlife.

The funniest one was at the weekend. I have no idea what show it was, but there was this guy in full army camouflage gear – including camouflage hat and green plastic-looking combat boots.

I mean, this guy was seriously looking the part. He was an M-16 and a grenade away from invading Iran single-handed.

And he was out hunting with his mother. She was about 80 and grey-haired and also wearing full army camouflage with hat and boots to match.

They were – and I’m glad I’m typing this because I cannot say it without falling down laughing – they were out hunting wild piggies with a crossbow. It’s true!

Anyway, I watched with morbid fascination as son set-up the crossbow and aimed at the little piggies; then Mom stepped up and took the shot. Now the crossbow bolt went whizzing across the field and implanted itself right through the gut of Mr Piggy.

Mr Piggy was surprised. He thought: “Hmmm… I best get the fuck out of here!” and started trotting off as fast as his little trotters would carry him.

But it was too late, because he already had a mortal wound. Now the crossbow bolt, incredibly, at the hilt, lit up in a fluorescent red; so what I saw was a little black pig-shape and a red fluorescent blur racing across the screen.

Now Mom (who would be Mum in New Zealand, but it was an American show), turns and smiles to the camera. And son steps up and says something like: “Now, I know there’s some people out there that don’t agree with this. But I cannot think of a better mother-son activity than hunting pigs with a crossbow. I love you, Mom.”

Then they set off after the disappearing red fluorescent blur, and take Mom’s picture with the now dead Mr Piggy. I’m sure in their very non-dysfunctional way they would have cut off the leg and belly roasts and headed on home.

Then there would have been the command: “Here it is, now cook it up, bitch.”

And the response: “Yes, Mom.”

Throwing shit on TV is not OK

Finally, New Zealand television has crossed the line.

Now we Kiwis are a fairly liberal bunch – we have a general principle of “if nobody gets hurt, there’s no problem”, which actually extends to “if somebody gets hurt, but you’re drunk, then that’s OK too”.

My favourite radio station, The Edge, doesn’t loop, so there’s often an inadvertent “fuck” on the air. On TV there’s a “watershed” of 8.30pm, by which time any kid under 16 has technically gone to bed.

That’s when local productions unleash the hounds. Sex, drugs, violence and swearing everywhere. Hell, that’s just the newsreaders. In fact, about 15 years ago there was an infamous case of a TV news show reporting on an old guy becoming a dad, and accompanied the story with an explicit porn clip of an old guy boinking a hot girl.

I recall (but am unable to provide details) that the New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) ruled that particular act a breach of its codes of broadcasting standards.

Now the BSA gets a few complaints thrown their way, mostly by the last vestiges of the Victorian morals crusaders who loudly proclaim they represent the “moral majority” when in fact they only really represent “the easily swayed weak-minded bastards who can’t be bothered arguing with a pig-headed idiot like you”.

But the BSA considers things like whether the TV station was aware of the offensive content, who the target audience was, what time it was broadcast etc.

It’s ruled on things like whether a news clip of suicide bombing was too violent for kids (it wasn’t); whether an interview with a guy who essentially thinks people should be locked up for life for littering was balanced (it wasn’t); whether showing topless women on motorcycles as news was indecent (it wasn’t).

Basically, the BSA is fairly liberal and open-minded. Three cheers.

But one of my favourite programmes has been ruled to have crossed the line. The show is called Back of the Y. It’s made on a shoe-string budget and features a couple of Kiwi blokes just being yobs. There’s various skits mixed in, such as Bottlestore Galactica and the inept stuntman Randy Cambell.

So what does it take to go “too far” on New Zealand TV? Pooman and Wees throwing shit around, and a woman eating the shit suggestively.

The complaint – made by a guy who has obviously never seen the first South Park short – included the claim that a scene depicting Jesus being beaten up by Santa Claus was a “hate crime”.

The complaint was upheld.

Now, I’m thinking that if that show was broadcast in America there’s a good chance it would bring an entire network to its knees. The phones would overload with complaints. The FCC would be throwing fines in all directions.

But it happened in New Zealand. And what was the BSA’s ruling? Well, first they noted the offending episode was a repeat screening which had attracted no complaints the first time it was shown.

Then they said they hoped the offending broadcaster would take their findings on board for next time.

Bite marks

A replay of the TV series Alaska Experiment screened here recently.

It’s about a group of people who go off in different groups and spend three months living rough in an Alaskan winter. By rough, I mean they have buildings to live in, but no electricity or running water.

They’re out there arm-wrestling bears for salmon, head-butting rocks to pass the time, chasing dangerous and ravenous gangs of mussels across the bay, practising their figure skating routines and generally trying to make the muesli last the distance.

Anyway, I caught part of one episode where a couple had an encounter with a wolf. They saw it and it ran off, but circled around and came close to their cabin while they were trying to hunt it. After all, you don't want a wolf hanging around, it might sneak up on the cabin in the middle of the night and blow the whole thing down. Wolves are good with explosives you know.

But the highlight for me was the bloke involved, who insisted on calling the wolf a “woof”.

“Yeah, the woof has been prowling around, it left woof tracks here and here, and the cunning woof doubled-back and got within 30 feet of the hut there…”

Wouldn’t you be totally pissed off if you’d bought like the meanest, ugliest, most vicious guard dog in the world – rubber band around the goolies and everything – and called him Wolf. Only to have everyone start calling him Woof. And finally you gave up and started calling him Woof too...

“Woof! Time for dinner! Woof! Woof! Here boy! Woof!”

People would think you were a werewolf.

What's in a Name?

Language is wonderful. One of the wonderful things about language is that words can convey feeling in a really specific way. They carry their own baggage.

Consider this: I watched Twilight at the weekend and was highly amused to find the vampires in the Twilight world, when exposed to sunlight, sparkled. They were like little diamonds. Quite the accessory for a woman to wear a vampire-skin bracelet.

“Yes, it’s an Edward Collin butt-cheek original. So it’s part of the moon that sparkles in the sun…”

Anyway, this interesting piece of Stephenie Meyer inspiration got me thinking… if vampires were truly to sparkle in the sunlight, surely that would be an integral part of the myth. And if so wouldn’t the naming be different?

Would Vlad the Impaler be quite so fearsome as Vlad the Glittery? Would Dracula instil the same fear in the hearts of humanity if he had been called Mr Sparkly?

Similarly, would everyone have gone to see Jaws if it had been called Big Tuna Surprise? Or Alien if it was called The People-Eating, Stomach-Popping, Acid-Dripping Sex Toy? Actually, probably yes on the latter.

No real message here. Just choose your words carefully. Which is always a good idea.

Twilit

Women of all ages are still melting in lust at the sight of Robert Pattinson in the film Twilight – a film I watched for the first time at the weekend.

I have not read the books, which I accept are probably a whole lot better than the film. And I cannot criticise the film, because it was a good, solid effort. And I also liked it the other seven or eight times I’d seen bits of it in earlier films.

First, let’s take a look at Mr Pattinson. Why are women of all ages attracted to this guy? What could it be about the perfect mix of angst and danger and haircut that’s so original it hasn’t been seen since the 1950s when it was first pioneered by James Dean?

The theme music; wow, how did I know it was going to be a supernatural flick when the theme was a bastardisation of The Smiths’ How Soon is Now, which had been previously used in 1996 film The Craft and the theme music to TV series Charmed.

Now mix in a bit of Bev Hills 90210 high school drama and you’re well on the way to a hit movie about vampires at high school; a theme never before touched. Joss Whedon – the dude who created Buffy – should sue.

A young woman falling in love with a vampire? “Hello? This is Mr Whedon calling for Khan Wee Suyem & Howe…”

OK, Bella was no Buffy. Buffy could more than handle herself one-on-one with a vampire. But take away her powers and we’re back to Twilight.

There’s that touching scene where Bella and Angel, er Edward, are together and Edward says: “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb”. How romantic. It’s a misquote of a misquote from the Bible (Isaiah 11:6) where it is popularly reported as: “…and the lion shall lay down with the lamb.” In honesty that particular passage says the wolf and the lamb should be together (which really messes with the Twilight story when you think about it), and the lion is destined to lie with the calf. Not so romantic if Edward says: “And so the lion fell in love with the cow”.

All that aside, a lion lying down with a lamb? In the biblical sense? That’s definitely in the “Thou shalt not!” category, people. And I think any pervert lion that tried it would do that lamb some serious physical damage in some very sensitive areas. That’s all I’m saying. Take that back to the Twilight scenario anyway you please.

Enter evil vampire James: The exact same close-up shot we’d seen of Brad Pitt in Interview With The Vampire. That was the film where Brad’s poor, brooding vampire Louis spent many miserable years eating animals instead of people on principle. My gosh, that sounds familiar.

Then there was the subtle wolves versus vampires antagonism going on which I’d been completely unaware of – at least until first seeing Underworld with Kate Beckinsale in 2003.

Anyway, enough picking the film apart. It has, after all, melted the hearts of women of all ages all over the world. Women who now plan to leave the dark, dangerous, brooding introvert they have been living with to go fall in love with a vampire.

Blog without purpose

Of course the purpose here is to entertain, and hopefully I will not disappoint. But you’ll notice there’s usually a topic or focal point to my rants. Alas, not this time.

I aim to blog at least once a week, and since time is up (so to speak) this week, I felt I had to make some contribution. But nothing has pissed me off this week. I have nothing to complain about. It’s been a good week.

Wait! Don’t hit the back button on the browser just yet, because two topics did spark my interest. One was Samantha Kerby’s trials and tribulations when trying to learn about Spiritual Monism in her philosophy class; and the other was Jupiter.

In an effort to help my friend Sam, I tried to learn something about Spiritual Monism – having previously believed it was simply a description of when you pray for money.

You know the joke about the Zen master who pulls into the Subway store and says: “Make me one with everything”? That’s essentially Spiritual Monism; the belief that everything, thoughts and energy and physical reality are all part of one giant, universal fart that is even now expanding into hallways of some giant unknown where it will be inhaled by truly unsuspecting beings and possibly kill them.

That’s my new theology, incidentally, that the universe is a really bad, wet God fart that He is trying to blame on someone else. “And God saith unto the peoples of The World: `He who smelt it, dealt it’. And it was So.”

Have you noticed how the Bible puts capital letters EVERYWHERE? It’s like they’re saying: “It’s all important. But we're not sure What is Important, so we'll just Capitalise Everything that seems like Somebody might find it Important 2000 years from now.”

Except Numbers. I never could get my head around Numbers. All that begetting. It probably represents the most sex there is in the Bible and yet there was no vivid descriptions of seduction or anything. That really would have improved sales, God. You needed a better Editor.

Oh yeah, Song of Solomon is meant to be all about seduction; but it’s all romantic shit – the fig trees of wherever and hold you like a tree and your body is as a Big Mac unto the senses of Jerusalem etc etc. It never even specifies whether it’s talking about a woman or a man. It could be the greatest gay seduction scene ever written. A thought which has no doubt caused several Bible Belt readers to go into cardiac arrest.

Woah, biblical outburst. Where did that all come from? Rambling again. And I never even had a point to make about Spiritual Monism. Except that it’s not what happens when you pray for money. That's called a Lotto ticket.

Jupiter. Let’s give it a hand. As a planet all I’ve known is that it’s big. Like BIG. We’re talking like pro-wrestler ego size here. Like if King Kong had his own aircraft carrier built to scale and it contracted a bad case of giganticism big.

But Jupiter, it turns out, is also our friend. Isn’t that nice? A big tough friend in the neighbourhood who's just floating around, looking out for us. You see, Jupiter's high gravity pulls in comets and meteors and random big floaty-in-space things and hurls them off out of the solar system. It is an effective guard against inter-stellar bullies.

In fact, scientists looking for life on other planets are now initally looking for a "Jupiter" which will provide it with the necessary protection.

Without Jupiter, the movies Deep Impact and Armageddon? Well, let’s just say “is it that time of the week already?”

And here endeth the lesson. Hope you’ve been entertained and educated. Though I’m pretty sure nearly everyone knows about the Jupiter thing already. All I want to know is why didn’t you bastards tell me?

Tyred And Worn Out After A Long Sqwark

John Cleese, talking about writing the sitcom Fawlty Towers with Connie Booth, said they basically took a big piece of paper and wrote down a plot outline where they essentially tortured this poor hotel owner.

They were designing Basil Fawlty’s life based on Murphy’s Law. The result was side-achingly funny.

So, in the interests of your entertainment, I shall relate my weekend tyre adventure.

I’ve had my car about 18 months and so far haven’t even had to open the boot, let alone change a tyre. That was until Saturday when I decided to go visit my nephews at my sister’s house in Mana (about half-an-hour’s drive up the coast).

I started out, but was fairly quickly aware that something was wrong. I drove about 500m and then pulled over, got out and discovered, yes, the rear left tyre was flat. Well, there was air in there, but slightly less than an asthmatic one-lunged geriatric with emphysema.

No worries, I thought: There’s a garage not far away, I’ll go there and inflate it. If it goes straight down again then I’ll just put the spare on.

So I drove slowly down to the garage, only to find that it was not only closed, but it was closed down! At this point the tyre was on its last exhausted puff. So I pulled into a car park to put the spare on.

I opened the boot and was relieved to find the spare was fully inflated. Phew. However, I was less enthused to discover that the bastard that sold me the car had neglected to leave me with a jack.

I had no choice but to drive home. Just after pulling out of the car park a woman walking past waved and pointed to the flat. I told her my predicament and she walked off.

Just as well we had this exchange, because I ended up following her about three-quarters of the way home. Eight kilometres an hour. Walking pace. About five metres behind this woman all the way. Had she not known my problem, she would have thought “Oh God! Psycho serial-killer!”

Meanwhile, I was having to wind the window down every few seconds to wave traffic through. These were quiet back streets which suddenly seemed like State Highway 1. There were cars lining up just for the view, I’m sure.

I get home and call up my nephews. One of them comes to pick me up. I go out there for the evening, and when they drop me back off they lend me a spare jack.

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon. I’m waiting for a moment between rain squalls to get out and change the tyre. Finally I pick my moment and head out there. First things first; loosen the wheel nuts.

I get the tyre iron and take to the first nut. It won’t budge. So I end up standing on the tyre iron to get it to turn. It does. Relief. But then I cannot get the tyre iron off the nut. It’s jammed half-way around the iron’s star-shaped hole.

The wind chill factor now is -3000 degrees and it starts to rain again. I take the tyre iron and wedged nut and retreat inside. I try hammering out the nut, without luck, then reckon perhaps the way to fix it is simply to reverse what caused it.

I venture back out and sure enough, tightening the nut back up easily lets me get the tyre iron off. And so I start on nut number two. It moves with some reluctance. Nut three – like it’s welded on. Then the tyre iron gave way, allowing it to turn around the nut with only an arm-numbing clunk each time it slipped.

I called my nephew.

He kindly drove half-an-hour in to help me change the tyre in Antarctic weather. His tyre iron makes short work of the other nuts. I haul out the spare tyre. He jacks up the car.

We take the flat tyre off. We go to put the spare on… except the wheel hub is too low. The car needs to be jacked higher. But the jack is now leaning at an awkward angle. Jack it up any further and the whole car could come down on us.

We put the flat tyre back on and lower the car. Then we put the nuts back on and I roll the car back to more solid ground. (Did I mention that we were trying to do this on a hill? The nearest flat ground being about 200m away.)

Eventually – third try – we managed to jack up the car. It went fairly smoothly from there; flat tyre off, spare tyre on, everything good. Though now I have to find the money to get the flat fixed, buy a tyre iron and a new jack.

Many thanks to my nephew, Anthony, for his help. I’m sure the dose of hypothermia we both gained from the experience won’t be fatal. Seriously, it took me over an hour to warm up again after the adventure, and another three hours before I was anywhere near approaching “hot”.

So, please, take this moment to salute my ineptitude.

A very sensitive subject

A couple of days ago I saw a programme about an issue that I really think it needs nipping in the bud. So to speak.

There was a documentary on TV about the increasing number of women having cosmetic surgery on their vaginas. Writer/presenter Lisa Rogers was curious about this trend and asked the simple question: WTF!

I’d read a preview of the show where Rogers quoted her father on the subject: “The thing is, Liz, if you’ve got a house you want to do up for a prospective buyer, you don’t start by decorating the cellar.”

There was one 21-year-old woman who had a chunk cut off her labia because her sister started spreading rumours her vagina was, well, excessive. This led to the woman being teased by blokes about labial inadequacy.

To paraphrase Jesus: Let he who hath more than two inches cast the first stone.

Anyway, the procedure was shown in full on the documentary and Lisa made the pre-cut comment: “Looks pretty normal to me”.

I agreed.

What I also found curious was that, in watching this programme, there was a lot of huhu on screen and I was watching with a kind of clinical detachment. There was no sense of getting jollies or anything like that.

So Liz talked to some male mates, who said pretty much that it’s not something men even think about. In fact, in the whole programme, it was only one arsehole toothless painter who said: “I like giving oral sex, so it’s important to me what it looks like”.

I guess you can afford to be that picky if you’re having to pay for every sexual encounter.

Anyway, I just wanted to reassure any women reading this, on behalf of sane hetero men everywhere – we really don’t care. If it’s clean and accessible, we are more than happy.

I have never, ever been in a group of men where the conversation has turned to labial proportions. There has been a lot of sexist and off-colour conversation, but never has this particular issue been at issue.

Generally, I think men just consider it an honour to be gazing upon one. It’s almost at a genetic level that a voice says: “Let’s not go looking a gift horse in the huhu.”

Simply: You don’t go to Disneyland and say: “I’m going home, I don’t like the colour of the gate.”

Ashton – Please Stop The Bloodshed

One of the interesting phenomena I’ve encountered on Twitter is the whole celebrity thing.

Celebrities sign up to Twitter, allegedly, to “get close to the fans”. And some celebrities are really into the whole Twitter thing. They will tweet quite a lot throughout the day.

Now I do appreciate that they have a lot of followers and will often have hundreds of responses to each tweet. But the ultimate effect is that most of their followers are left with the distinct impression they are being ignored.

I’ve devised various tactics for generating a response from the celebs, with minimal success. A weak joke about paparazzi prompted Lindsay Lohan to tell me to fuck off and die.

Kirsty Alley responded to a tweet gently complaining about her typing in caps all the time by claiming it was a sign of intelligence. I unfollowed her, stating at the time that she seemed to be the only celebrity using Twitter to become less popular with fans.

My latest attempt to provoke a response was to tell Ashton Kutcher that he was the only person now capable of stopping the civil war in New Zealand.

He ignored me.

Now the New Zealand Civil War doesn’t get a lot of publicity. In fact, hardly anybody knows about it. That’s because it’s being bitterly waged in the hearts and minds of… well… me.

Yet, according to Statistics New Zealand, 80 people a day are dying in New Zealand. And because it’s a civil war, these people can be claimed as casualties of war. That’s closing in on 600 people a week; or over 2200 a month – 29,000 a year.

And all Ashton Kutcher has to do is tweet that the New Zealand civil war is over and the bloodshed can stop. A truce will be declared and my multiple personalities can go back to living in peace.

Eighty people a day is an awful karmic burden to bear, Mr Kutcher, sir. I urge you end the conflict now.

Peace.

Sleepyhead thinks you're an idiot

One thing I really hate; I mean I loathe, as in bring on the bamboo shoot manicure despise is advertisers who think you are stupid.

They want you to purchase their product with your hard-earned cash but they also, in their ads, demonstrate that they think you are a moron.

In New Zealand there’s one company that is like fingernails on the blackboard every time I hear their jingle. This is odd, because I have absolutely no problem with the company or their products… just their ads.

The company is Sleepyhead. They make beds.

Their ads all start with a jingle they’ve had for years, where some guy cheerily sings: “Now you don’t buy a bed every day…”

There used to be a whole song, but that’s gone by the way. The announcer then cuts in with the mattress of the week specials etc.

The ads end with the end of the jingle: “…you can sleep on it!”

Brainless condescending bastards they are.

“Now you don’t buy a bed every day.” Think about it. Could there be a more bloody obvious statement?

"OH MY GOD! LOOK! The sky isn't falling!"

Or possibly:

*Yawn* *Stretch* Well, that was a good night’s sleep, I’ll just hit the bed destruction button and Sleepyhead will deliver a new one this afternoon. Not that there’s anything wrong with this one, it was brand new yesterday, but hey, I buy a bed every day.

What a waste. Thank God we have Sleepyhead to prevent such scenarios by warning us not to buy a bed every day, despite it being to their obvious economic advantage. Oh crap, my sarcasm meter just went off the dial.

So we come to the end of the ad: “You can sleep on it!”

WTF? That’s like trying to sell a new car by saying: “You can drive it!”

Here, buy the new Porsche 911 Carrera – it has four wheels, a motor and look, even a steering wheel. The driver sits here, in the driver’s seat, and uses these controls to make the car go brmmmm brrmmmm.

So Sleepyhead – a little heads up (so to speak). The only time I’ll be caught sleeping on one of your mattresses is if your ads give me a brain aneurism and I have no choice.

The Curse of Miscasting

I watched a film last night called Hero Wanted. I’m hoping you haven’t seen it or know anything about it because I want you to take a little test.

Put your casting director’s hat on.

Now, the plot is fairly twisty-turny but follows certain must-haves of the action-drama genre. There’s the protagonist who’s basically a nobody at the start but then ends up in a violent showdown gun battle with a gang of bank robbers at the end.

The hard drinking protagonist’s name is Liam Case. His brother Dylan is dead, and when we see the cemetery scene we also see his mother’s name was Marie. The woman in his life is named Kayla McQueen.

Although it’s never overt, you get the feeling Liam’s the good Irish Catholic type when he says the Lord’s Prayer before heading off for the final showdown.

This is after Liam’s learned the shooting and killing ropes from his dear old dead dad’s best friend, Gill. Gill has an English accent so I was picking him as former SAS.

Now, with these story points in mind who would you pick to play Liam?

I was watching the film and thinking: “This was written for Colin Farrell. Only it’s so badly directed he wouldn’t have had a bar of it.”

It was just a little too by-the-numbers to attract Farrell, I think. I posed the question to a workmate who suggested maybe Ben Affleck or Matt Damon?

In fact, the closest he got to the truth was when he jokingly suggested Jackie Chan.

Liam Case was played by Cuba Gooding Jr.

He tried. Oh God he tried to show that he’s got an Oscar at home. But what are you to do with a story that’s so blatantly written for someone else? Well, maybe change a few character names for a start.

Bring in a director who has a knack for telling a story. And a real vision; not just some vague semblance of an idea of how to set up a confusing end-of-story shootout.

So, if you want to watch a severely badly miscast film; try to find Hero Wanted. The title is oddly appropriate.

Tribute to a hot extra

I’m quite a fan of the theatre sports TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway?

It apparently originated as a British radio show which became a popular British TV show, hosted by Clive Anderson. It was then revived by Drew Carey and Ryan Stiles in America where it ran for about six seasons, rating reasonably well.

Producers loved it. It cost nothing to produce but was very funny.

But for me, one of the funniest things about the show was the American TV producers’ subtle manipulation of who’s visible on camera.

If you look behind Drew Carey as he’s seated at the desk, there’s inevitably about three super-model hot women sitting among the audience. There's never an uggo on screen. They all look like they've just stepped from the pages of some Anorexia Today glossy.

For the UK version; look behind Clive Anderson and it looks like a selection of rejects from a genetics research laboratory – all glasses, teeth and Adam’s apples. And that’s just the women.

It works in theory; people expect to see only attractive people on TV unless it's 60 Minutes or Jerry Springer. But there is a risk. In one episode of the American show there was one woman who was so hot… like a young Denise Richards on a good hair day hot… that I completely lost track of the show.

I was sitting there saying: “Just hurry up and finish the hoe-down and cut back to the hot girl!”

I was nearly in tears of regret when that episode ended. I had been briefly in love. Or at least infatuated.

So here’s to you hot girl over Drew Carey’s shoulder. Gone but not forgotten.