Sun

Yes - I saw blue skies yesterday!



My retinas were scorched, not by the blinding glare of the sun, but by the acres of porridgey flesh on display, as many Aucklanders hit the streets in t-shirts and (in most cases, inadvisably) shorts.

P.S. Advice to all - when consulting with one's doctor, have discovered it's not advisable to ask if he can prescribe an alternative to BZP. Perhaps also, should not have referred to Slimfast as one's "happy pills." I got a half-hour grilling, and a referral to a psychiatrist.

P.P.S. Anyone know if Ritalin is any good?

Funeral

I'm back. Forgive the unheralded departure; an elderly great-aunt did me the disservice of dying suddenly. This was annoying – I missed out on a really good shoe sale at Sybella.

Anyway, the Smiths thus shuffled forth from their various nooks, crannies, and snake pits for the funeral. I do not like funerals. One is expected to cry, and try hard as I might, the best I can do is make my eyes water a little, but the main reason I dislike them is the assemblage of the elderly. There, but for the grace of God, go my genes. There are an astonishing number of women of la famille in various stages of going bonkers. Really – I am not just being unkind. Fully-fledged, diagnosed dementia. Dementia is, I think, the cruellest thing.

One spinster aunt, having led a perfectly respectable and charming life (decades ago, she used to make babies christening gowns for Smith & Caughey’s), is now in a home, where she wears a stetson hat (not sure where that came from) and thinks other people’s closets are her toilet. Another seemed fine, and untouched by any mental malady, until one Christmas her nearest and dearest were surprised – to say the least! - when her carefully wrapped gifts contained certain items removed from her own body. I shan’t say anymore about that, but it was utterly disgusting.

Also went to a house auction that Mr and Ms W were keen on. A complete dump it was – probably one strong breeze away from falling over – and it got passed in at $1.6 million. Even I was surprised. Someone asked Ms W about the Baby Jesus (she is looking very large now), and she started talking in a loud voice about passing wind. Why do pregnant women always want to talk about such things? Several men within earshot moved away, so perhaps it was a clever technique to put off the other bidders, and not really a hideous lapse in propriety.

I see the rain has continued, unabated, in my absence. I am sick of it, and am going to go on holiday, somewhere nice and warm, free of deranged elderly (counts Parnell out!) and gaseous women. I just have to nag convince Mr Smith this is necessary.

Photos

A random assortment of photos I snapped around Auckland City this week...

Tanks on Queen Street.



No - Aucklanders haven't decided to deal to Mayor Hubbard for once and for all. I was told they were there for a parade. I had no idea what the parade was for, but said that sounded like fun, and how I would love to join in the occasion and drive the tank.

Someone informed me later the parade was 'Boobs on Bikes'. That explained why the men giggled like girls when I volunteered my services.

More Component artistry on Ponsonby Road.



The latest L&P campaign, which I thought very funny.



Can't believe it's still legal to make jokes about junk food, the dole, and mothers who can't be arsed cooking (child abuse!).

Mood

Mrs S has been a long-time, dear friend, but surely that will change, if her current mood does not.

Mrs S is never what one would call a 'laid-back' person, least of all when in her car. She is the sort who swears and shouts at other drivers – often lowering the window to do so - for (often imagined) traffic infringements, yet never seems to consider how her unvarying speed of 30 kms per hour might annoy others. She will barely crack 40 kms, even when on the motorway.

Her high-powered European car must quietly sob in its garage late at night, for the misery of a life half-lived.

Despite this, she is very good fun. But not yesterday. I began to think, one of us has gone quite mad, and I do so hope it's not me.

So. We were in the car, and I was navigating. I am quite good at this, I think. I do not shriek "turn left now" at the last possible moment. My instructions are generally quite unambiguous, like, "Come off the next motorway exit, turn left, then continue straight ahead." Mrs S dutifully came off the next motorway exit, turned left, then got into a left-turn only lane.

"Er, we are meant to go straight ahead here," I volunteered, wondering which part of "straight ahead" sounded like "turn left again."
Mrs S rolled her eyes.
"Oh," she said, in tones that intimated my incompetence was unquestionable, "bit of a communication break-down there." She rolled her eyes again.

And so it continued, with every word I uttered scrutinised and found lacking, yet the meaning entirely ignored.
Standing at a counter, I gazed at a collection of Clarins products.
"What are you thinking?" she hissed.
Even doing nothing was annoying to her.

I finally made it home. Mrs S came in briefly, said hello to Mr Smith, who grunted a cursory acknowledgement from his computer without looking up.
"What's Mrs S on?" he asked, after she had left.
I collapsed in a chair.
"The end of a sharpened stick, if she continues like that. She was an utter bitch all day."
"She's on something," he said.
"Well, she's on a diet, so probably diet pills of some sort."
"Hmmm." Mr Smith looked unconvinced.

She has porked up lately, so my money is on diet pills. However, if she continues in her current mood, being fat will be the least of her problems. I will push Mrs S into the path of an oncoming vehicle, and I will make sure it is one doing more than 30kms an hour.

Spring?

The sun showed its face long enough yesterday to make one think Spring might be on its way. I went to the Auckland Domain - one of my favourite places - to just sit and have a cup of coffee. It was really nice.







But then the clouds rolled back in, and it was rather cold and crappy again. I am not a fan of winter at all.

Green

Was looking up something on the Green Party website, when I spotted this photo.



Hmmm. I think Jeanette needs to invest in a decent haircut, and some lip-gloss.

Boring

What a dull week I have had. The weather is miserable, and activity on the social front-lines is minimal. Thus, I have little of substance to report (if, indeed, I ever do).

Who says Auckland has a man-drought? I passed SPQR last Wednesday, and there were two well-heeled gentlemen, sitting pensively at separate tables, drinking glasses of red wine. Went to Galbraith's Alehouse on the weekend (wet and sodden Sundays call for beer), and lo! No less than three gentlemen, drinking alone, reading books.

Get your best knickers on, Singletons, there are men ripe for the picking.

Sweat-shop labour and cheap, mass-produced goods - Ponsonby is becoming our own 'Little China.' All that is lacking is some dog-meat (no jokes about the All Blacks WAGs, please).

Far from being a stalwart stronghold of food and fashion, it is being infiltrated by nasty rubbish (I’m referring to the retail version of such, not the human kind, without which Auckland would be as dull as Wellington).

The hardware shop has gone, and has been replaced with some kind of 'two-dollar' shop monstrosity, a depressing accessories business down the Three Lamps end is openly flogging fake handbags (if Prada ever made anything as awful as what is in the window, Miuccia would be put in an institution), and the Goldmine warehouse has been happily pedalling its shonky cack for at least a year now.

Also, have discovered the secret to how local models keep their svelte figures – they can't afford to buy food! One young lady confessed that Karen Walker pays her models with a hundred-dollar clothing voucher to her own (sweat) shop. One hundred dollars! Goodness. That wouldn't even get one a t-shirt.


No wonder they are crying in her latest ad campaign.

Like

A Few Of My Favourite Things...

1. I really like these tops, made by Locher's, a shop in Paris.





2. A Chanel bangle engraved with the message "L'elegance, c'est la ligne." My French is très crap, so I think it translates as "Elegance, it is a straight line" (??) This sounds appalling silly, so everyone who knows better, please let me know what it means.

3. Just as well Dr Gregory House is a fictional character, because I am fairly sure I could be arrested in several countries for the things I would like to do to him. Woof woof!



4. Stronger by Kanye West is currently my absolute favourite song. The line where he quotes Pamela Anderson, "...that [which does not] kill me, can only make me stronger" is brilliant. However, I'm bound to be caught quoting, "So how the hell could you front on me? There's a thousand you's, there's only one of me."

Too right.