Doomed.

'Tis the end of days ....

apparently.

BTW what I had last week (see below) was in no way related to the current goings on.

Although I may have said that I had Swine Flu before it became fashionable.

Sick

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting at a press conference of a soon to be retired MP when the first stirrings happened.

Deep down in the recesses of my gut things began to get a bit squirelly. You might know the feeling. It's when you think your OK but deep down somewhere inside you have this suspicion there's a little demon that's about to fuck you up.

The longer the press conference went, the worse I felt. And, boy, did it go on. For nigh on 50 minutes we were treated to some of the finer points of law on legislation around property rights and ownership. Half an hour in and I really wasn't feeling too good. 10 minutes later I was feeling even more rotten and lurking in the back of my mind was the nagging suspicion I really was about to throw up. Not something you want to do at the final press conference of a MP who's had a three decade political career.

So as the presser dragged on I became increasingly scratchy. And I feel I really should apologise to my colleagues who were at the event too. My apparent shortness of temper was nothing to do do with the continuing questions. It was the fact I really wanted to get the hell out of there before something truly dreadful happened.


Sure enough just minutes after the event was over I was hunched over a toilet emptying the very depths of my stomach. Much to the discomfort and dismay of the person that happened to walk into the bathroom halfway through.

And that's pretty much been the pattern for most of last night. Horrendous projectile vomiting on the hour every hour. Feeling like my guts have been forcibly wrenched from my insides on a long length of dirty rope and wondering where the hell it was all coming from. Surely after the third or fourth spew there can be nothing left to lose? But no it seems stomachs are like the Tardis - they can fit more on the inside than you'd ever suspect.

Every muscle from my thighs to my throat have had the most rigorous workout they've had in ages. Never mind the ab-master - if you want to tone your abdominals try chowing down on raw chicken and let the salmonella do the rest. I swear to God the crunchies you do when dry retching are far more intense than anything you can achieve in a gym.

Still, as bad as last night was, it pales in comparison to this experience. I reckon I've got off lucky.

The Basin Reserve and Significant Moments in NZ Cricket

Well, at least the ones I have been at.

February 1986 - Richard Hadlee gets his 300th test wicket claiming the scalp of Aussie Captain Allan Border.



And then there's yesterday. Saturday April the 4th 2009.

Perennial test batting bunny Chris Martin calmly lofts Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh back over his head for a four.

(and I'm gutted I can't find a photo of this momentous occasion)

A Funny Thing

Yesterday Christchurch hosted an international conference on potatoes.

Ok that's strange enough. It's kind of weird that something so humble as a potato can be the the subject of international focus.

But what made the event so delightful was one of its attendees.



















Yes it was former NZ Prime Minister Jim Bolger - aka "Spud" Bolger.

Delightful!

Dark Days

It's a pretty fraught time to be a journalist in New Zealand at the moment. Retrenchment, lay-offs, cut-backs, and redundancy are words with which we are all becoming too familiar. A wide range of broadcasters; TRN and Radioworks in radio, and Prime and TVNZ in television, are all in the process of shedding staff.

Or, as out bosses like to tell us, adjusting to the current economic climate.

90 staff are being axed at TVNZ of which around 20 are from news and current affairs. This follows on from cuts TVNZ made but a year or so ago when around 160 people were sent down the road. It's hard to see what fat, if any, there can possibly left to trim within TVNZ's news unit. How on earth they're going to cover morning news, the midday bulletin, the 4.30 pm bulletin, news at 6 and the late news, beggars belief. Add into that its commitments to TVNZ7 and its news service and one has to surmise it's an impossible task for those that are left.

But as bad as things are at TVNZ the situation at Prime News is far far worse. Its 5.30 news show already operated on a shoestring and, with no disrespect to those who work there, its quality always was well short of what it should have been. This is now going to go downhill double quick. From what I've been told the production, camera, and editing staff have pretty much been massacred. The show will now be piped out of Sydney based on the efforts of 4 video-journalists (three in Auckland and one in Wellington) and very limited production support.

Basically Prime News is now terminally fucked. There's absolutely no way they will be able to produce a credible news programme on those numbers. My suspicion is that their bulletin will either be cut in length, or canned altogether, within six months.



To all my colleagues out there who are now facing a fraught future. My sympathies are with you.

Thieving Bastards.

I'm a smoker.



It's a dirty disgusting habit and becoming less fashionable every year. But before you moralise at me, let me remind you the additional tax revenue the Government gets from my addiction is helping pay for your healthcare, retirement, and the like.

You're welcome.

So it's fair to say I am somewhat pissed off at the practices of Bellamy's - the firm that holds the monopoly on catering and cafe services at Parliament. A few weeks ago they decided to up the price on cigarettes. If you walked into any dairy, supermarket, or convenience store around the country you'd expect to pay $11.50 for a pack of 20.

Not at Bellamy's.

There they'll sting you $17 a pack for your nicotine pleasure.

F**kers.

The Kiddie Effect

There's a major difference between our current Government and the previous one that I only found out about today.

It turns out the current National Party led Cabinet is a lot more fecund than that of the old Labour regime. Apparently, between them, our current collection of Ministers have 19 school age children.

That compares to just two when Helen Clark was chairing the meetings.

Now I'd hate for anyone to read too much into this (no comments about them being a bunch of f**kers please!) but apparently it has had some interesting ramifications.

It's all to do with the ministerial residences. You see under Labour most Ministers ended up renting apartments. But apartments are hardly the best residence when you have kids underfoot. So it seems the powers that be have been having a bit of time locating suitably appropriate digs for our new ministerial warrant holders.