The old grey mare she ain’t what she used to be …

Now Cadburys are at it. Instead of increasing prices they are downsizing. The king size bar used to weigh in at 250 gm. That’s what they were at Woolworths but a month ago. (Watch this link disappear). The new cardboard wrapped variety (coming to a shop near you) weighs in at 200gm folks. Hot on the heels of the downsizing of cheese and washing power (which is supposedly more concentrated) – pull the other one eh what?

So the scam is don’t increase the price – reduce the size. In fact, it is both prices increased with sizes decreased. The shopper had better be a good maths student!

Of course the price will be initially lower until all the old stock is phased out and then it will return to the old prices for what used to be King Size.

Should King Size now be called Queen Size?

You’ve either got or you haven’t got style …

I thought Colin Meads had it. But now he is going for the big SIR. Of course being a “good kiwi bloke” (an egalitarian sort), he insists it is not for him. It’s for the people who asked him to become a SIR (don’t you know). It is for his friends. It is for his wife. It is for the IHC, so he can get more money.

Ho .. ah hum

Cut the crapola Colin. Just fess up that you like the idea of being call Sir Colin Meads, even if you say you don’t. If that’s your game, fine! But don’t be so flaming disingenuous. As they say, you can’t have you cake and eat it! You want to be a SIR and still retain your stature as a “good keen kiwi bloke” then be honest. “I just kinda like thu ideya of bein a SIR”.

Sorry no deal. It is not the SIR business that gets me. It is the disingenuity.

Talk about identity politics!

Tammy, Tammi, Tami's in love ...

Who sang the song and in what movie? Winner gets a free dose of expired Tamiflu! Oseltamivir phosphate is just the thing to buck you up!

How does Nu Zulun stop the spread of the “killer” flu? Well, we become the only country in the world to make Tamiflu available over the counter at the chemist. But you have to present with symptoms. So we invite all those with raging fevers, hacking sore throats and non-stop coughing to congregate in their masses at the local pharmacy to collect their dose and meanwhile infect all the other shoppers and the beloved pharmacist.

We stay come out wherever you are! Bring your infection and spread it on the buses and in shops.

Oh, and perhaps some of you, the panicky among you, can also queue up, pretend you have symptoms and get your supply. Go for a run before you arrive at the chemist so your face is red. That will get your pulse up too - a key feature of a fever. Better still, wear a mask and cough intermittently. In fact, some of you would be better of with a mask all the time - flu season or not.

"You seem fine my dear"
"Oh no, I feel so awful ... it's a swine of a fever"

The end result – chemist shops shut all over the country due to pharmacists down with the flu (whatever variety) after continual, repeated exposure.

The chemist shop could become an incubator for all kinds of diseases to mix and co-habit as fever stricken patients descend in their hordes.

Well done Nu Zulun! Clever idea.

Come flu with me, lets flu, lets flu away ....

Flu is a swine of a thing at the best of times. Is swine flu the past tense of swine flies? Every night a news reporter deposits themselves outside Rangitoto College to stake our claim to fame as one of the first nations on the planet to have imported this “deadly” virus.

Trouble with this sensationalist reporting is that it may create the boy-who-cried-wolf mentality. I would call for more measured reporting, or else we may end up saying “there you see ... it amounted to a hill of beans just like the bird-flu panic”.

Sensationalist reporting: Flu victim becomes international celebrity. It all started with this particular pig. If 300 die, it will affect the economy to the tune of 235 million dollars. On a scale of 1-6 (the pandemic scale) it is a 7. One sneeze is all it takes to infect 1000 people around you. Pigs and birds get together to create a pig of a bird flu… a swine of a bird flu …

Meanwhile ... its back to stockpiling Tamiflu and masks …

Oh wheel of fortune, don’t pass me by …

Kate Star sang it back in the early 1950s

Jason Gunn – old motor mouth – is back. Not only do we have to suffer him on “dancing with the stars”, but now he returns to “wheel of fortune” some time soon.

He is a symbol of old Nu Zulun and the lack of alternative stars available. No other star makes me reach for the remote as fast as he.

However, in all fairness, thanks to Jason, I have recovered my love of reading and early nights. I get out the telescope also and gaze longingly at real stars.

But why is Mr Gunn – so ubiquitous over the years – celebrated?

It is a question that comes just under “what is the meaning of life?”

He is just so passed his used-by-date.

Or folks ..... can he just possibly .... reinvent himself?

Oh here we go again! Give me the remote somebody!!

Some things that happened for the first time, seem to be happening again ….

Or as Woody Allen supposedly put it “It is déjà vu all over again”. In fact it wasn’t Allen, it was the baseball player Yogi Berra. Other expressions include “same old same old …” And there was the Movie Groundhog Day. Of course Shakespeare put it best of all: To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, ….


The intense routineaity of routine should cause us perhaps not to take life so seriously. Our lives are constrained. The beginnings and endings, especially, of each day bear striking resemblance to each other. Sometimes you can’t help but see yourself as the director of a movie. It is that moment of dissociation from the ongoing flow of life that help a person see that the whole thing is really a bit of a game.

The secret they say is to enjoy the game, and not to take it too seriously. After all, where will you be 100 years from today?

lets face the music and dance ...

DWTS is now the abbreviation for a show that is dying a thousand deaths. I was listening to radio hosts discussing it this morning - but they could make no traction and little headway in their prolixity as none of them had actually seen the show.

I watched it last night (for approximately 7 mins). Then waves of nausea swept over me and I killed the TV and retired to my bed with a good book by John O'Farrell: An utterly impartial history of britain. The book placed me in a happier space. I am up to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

By the way, DWTS stands for Dancing with the Stars. It ought to stand for Dim Witted Tv Shows or perhaps Dumb Wallyish Tv Shows or even Disasterous Woeful Terrible Show ... but I am being tooooo kind!

Fundamental problem with Dancing with the Stars in NZ. With the sensible exit of John Rowles, due to exhaustion, there simply aint a single star.

All I am saying is give peace a chance ....

I saw a guy being interviewed on breakfast this morning (that self-congratulatory TV One programme). He was going on about the army, terrorism, strategic deployment of troops. It all sounded quite militaristic and even scare-mongerish. Apparently, we must be ready for the “worse case scenario”! Then I says to myself, “I know that face”. Anyhoo, at the end of the interview he is revealed as one Jim Veitch from the department of strategic studies at Victoria University. Apparently he is now in the School of Government (a more ghastly title I cannot think of).

Jim (in a previous incarnation) was in the religious studies area. Admittedly he is still into disarmament and arms control (thank God), but the way the interview went, one might have thought quite the opposite.

Anyhoo, perhaps Mr. Veitch’s shift is indicative of the state of education in NZ today. Perhaps it offers an even bigger insight into the state of religion in NZ today.

And as an afterthought, I thought that prayer was the way religious people got ready for the worse case scenario. “live by the sword … die by the sword” eh what????

Show me the way to go home. I’m tired and I wanna go to bed …

Exhaustion is a great thing. There’s mental and physical exhaustion. There is really tried and then there is burnout. I did a 10 km race walk on Sunday in 57 mins, doing the last 5 km in 27:40. When I finished, I was exhausted – but what a nice exhaustion it was! I had been aiming to break 1 hour (6 min per kilometre).

On the other hand, there is the exhaustion of John Rowles, who had to pull out of Dancing with the Boobs … oops Stars. Now that folks is not a nice exhaustion! It is an embarrassing exhaustion – one which will no doubt see the media mongrels have a feeding frenzy.

Good on you John! It is a thoroughly passed-its-used-by-date kind of programme. Without John Rowles the programme has really fallen on its ass.

What about an hour of racewalking instead! Now we guys and gals really know how to wiggle our hips!

Dancing in the dark to a new tune, we’re ….

Is anyone else as over Dancing with the Stars as I am. I have given up watching this latest piece of low-life viewing from TV One. Jason Gunn appears on the screen and the remote leaps into my hand. Unfortunately I saw an excerpt from the programme on TV One’s breakfast programme.

It showed Josh Kronfeld or whatever his label is … dancing with two protruding breasts attached to the vague glimpse of a women in the background. TV One, in its pathetically desperate attempt to increase the ratings, has gone for the lure of more flesh. They should call it “dancing with the boobs”.
Anyhooo judge for yourself