Gollum's Commercial Breakdown

I’m finding the adverts her in Sauronville hard going. The standards tend to swing between shockingly awful and risqué to say the least. Some of the stuff that happens pre-watershed has the wife and I exchanging wide eyed looks of bemusement. Though to be fair, they showed an advert for Skins at 7pm and bleeped out “f*cking” but left in “tw@ts”. Random.

Richard Till is the most annoying creature in all of Mordor.
It’s not the sound of this shrill voiced ghoul’s human voice.
It’s not even the way this grinning, dead eyed spectre leers at you from the screen trying to lure you into its food based doctrines.
No, it’s the way the voice falls and rises at stupid moments to miss any sort of point or structure. He could be saying anything, be it “eat healthily”, “worship me, mortals” or “kill your family. Take the knife and do it now!” but you won’t hear it. You’ll just focus on his annoying cadence. Actors held in the thrall of this hideous abomination stand beside him declaring unswerving allegiance to his unholy cause in order to further add to the subliminal programming.
Only the most disciplined amongst us can find the strength to switch the channel before it is too late.

Sky City is the local big casino run by Australians. We went in at New Year and it just looked like every other casino we have ever been in, with its gaudy carpet, dead eyed faithful throwing dollar after dollar into unforgiving slot machines and lots of Orientals.
They have recently tried to change this image by running an advert showing young, hip, financially secure, fun-loving individuals gambling, laughing, drinking and dancing alongside middle aged, artificial hip, financially secure, getting out of the care home-loving individuals enjoying themselves as best they can with full colostomy bags and a pacemaker.
I have it on good authority that all of the individuals featured are either actors or staff and do not represent the real punters, many of whom were too busy to be pulled away from the slots or bingo to appear on camera. Plus they were all wearing shorts, and that isn’t the image that Sky City wants to project.

Infomercials are also rife here with a special place in hell being reserved for the AA Insurance one which looks like it is a daytime chat show and is there just to have the AA bloke being “interviewed” spouting about his competitive rates and premiums. Even for Christchurch, apparently.

The most annoying ad has to be for the “The Amazing Maze In Maize” which is just those five words being shrieked more or less in tune by a man who is having his testicles cooked in a George Foreman grill.

However, the crowing turd in the pipe is the new raft of Burger King ads.
These started off quite innocuously with the Burger King (who looks uncannily like a man in a Barry Gibb mask) playing tennis before being informed that sales of his beefy goodness were down in Hobbiton.
The next ad has him at the airport where he refuses to take off his crown to go through security and does a runner over the barriers. Yeah, just the kind of thing you get shot to death for at any US airport. Well, that and looking remotely Middle Eastern, anyway.
Then he is viewed on airport security tapes making his way across the tarmac after presumably hijacking an airliner. I guess the Air Marshals must have missed him.
Once he reaches NZ he proceeds to annoy people by turning up unannounced and then shoving a burger at them.
He turns up on the porch of a guy playing the banjo (which goes to show that these are merely generic ads rather than country specific which are then slightly tailored using voice overs. It also explains the lack of Maoris in the ads) and starts dancing in that hillbilly kind of way. You know, the kind of dance that is used by many a slack jawed yokel to woo his own sister (who is also his mother).
After gracing us with this delight he shows up next to a very nervous looking guy in a sauna and invites said naked man to get his jaws around his Whopper.
Finally, in the spirit of all mask wearing sociopaths he appears silently behind a couple who are kissing in a car.
So, essentially you have a creepy bloke in a mask showing up when you least expect it as an advertising gimmick for BK.
No wonder the sales are in the toilet.

Sh*te At The Museum 3: Nick Griffin Must Die

We went to the Auckland Domain last week to visit the museum. When the wife heard it was a war memorial museum, there was much rolling of eyes, gnashing of teeth and general complaints about man’s inhumanity to man. When she heard there was a Holocaust section she soon perked up though.
She’s a strange, strange woman.
Anyway, here are some highlights and lowlights…

Highlights-
The museum itself is stunning well built and sits on a hill overlooking the city, which is a fine testament to those who have fought and died for this beautiful nation.
The memorial inside is spectacular and there is a library section where you can search the electronic database for names and get their entire service records as well as available bios and photos. It’s sombre reading.
The Maori history section is likewise excellent and contains a Marae, a massive Waka and an in depth section on the frankly mental Maori Wars. It also has a huge section on early colonial history and development which I found very informative for the 3.5 seconds the wife allowed me to view it.

South Auckland's sole unstolen VCR, preserved here for posterity.

The Volcano experience is a lounge area you go into with a TV and couches and a bay window (which is actually just a screen projection) overlooking Rangitoto. The TV eventually fires up and after a short faux news clip about earthquakes, the water in the bay starts to boil, the earth shakes and the volcano goes off like Cheryl Tweedy on a nightclub toilet attendant.
The aftermath is one of a devastated buildings, destroyed vegetation and the sun barely peeking through a sky still raining ash. To be honest, it looked a lot like the pictures I’d seen of modern day Christchurch.

Lowlights-
The section on Pacific history left me a bit cold. Maybe it’s the European in me but history should be exciting and full of murder, religious intolerance, genocide and horses becoming Senators. The Pacific history was all about war canoes, tribal skirmishes and thrilling tales of fishing or mango collecting. Which is fine if you are into that stuff, but really dull if you have lived in the same country as Prince Philip.

Nazis. To quote Dr Henry Jones Jr "I hate these guys". So, every time I see Nazi memorabilia it makes my blood boil. Despite the fact that I was in a museum with a large WW2 section I still had the first pangs of disgust when I turned the corner to find a large V1 bomb strung up over the stairs. I needn't have worried, though as the actual dedicated Nazi section was quite small, comprising of a corner of the exhibit and featuring a large swastika flag, a hundred or so Nazi party badges and a dagger. There’s probably a larger display in Nick Griffin’s living room (and sadly, not shoved up his arse along with some rusty razor wire and a rabid jackal).

Growing up there was always a stereotype about Japanese tourists with cameras. I never fully understood this until a bus pulled up outside of the museum and about 30 Japanese tourists piled off, each holding a camera. One bloke even had three cameras on him. One huge SLR slung over one arm, a video camera over the other and a small digital one. As all were probably digital, why would he need all three? His wife just had a small digital and they were both taking pictures of the same thing.
Maybe Japanese foetuses are given small cameras to film the birth on their way out of the womb. It would certainly give a whole new meaning to the "Box Brownie".
Anyway, once they were let loose they were snapping everything in sight, which meant I was in their way. A lot. One even tutted at me at he tried to take his twenty seventh picture of propaganda poster.
Now, I’m not having a go at the Japanese here but like many nations the people who choose to be tourists are sometimes not the best ambassadors for their home nation. I can think of a few Brits I have known who only wish to order egg and chips while abroad. Very loudly.
But, the shutterbug remains as an enduring image of the Japanese, much like the Kamikaze pilot and tentacle porn.

Hell Mariachi

A few weeks ago we had to take a trip to the hospital after the wife had a back injury. Despite the fact that the driver took us over the bumpiest roads imaginable we made it there safely, signed in at the desk and had our pick of seats in Accident & Emergency, which had the capacity to hold about 30 people but held 3 at this time. Including us. The only other patron was a woman who had a splinter or something.
Once swiftly seen, we navigated our way to the pharmacy before trying to exit the maze of corridors. The problem with Auckland is that the terrain is volcanic and therefore very hilly. You can go in one door at ground level and by the time you get to the back of the building you are two floors up and watching knuckle dragging locals tipping a stolen Ford Falcon into some lava. Anyway, we ended up in the bowels of the hospital and eventually came to an upward sloping corridor where we could hear organ music. Thinking that this was being piped through the sound system but still needing to ascend anyway we went up the slope and the music got louder and louder. At the top of the corridor was a way out to the back of the building and staff car park, but on the right was a man playing the organ. There was nobody else around.

Once out we didn’t venture back into the hospital so I had no way of knowing if this music was being piped through the rest of the building (I couldn’t see how) or if it was just a bloke playing the organ for the delight of departing staff members.

Orakei has a Maori womble. I’m not joking. A Papa Smurf a-like, this old man makes a daily circuit of the neighbourhood rooting in bins, hanging out in front of the nearby dairy (local vernacular for a corner shop) and generally warping the very fabric of space/time with his military grade body odour. Bedecked in a beanie hat and parka (even in the height of summer) and with a face that has more lines than Kate Moss’s coffee table, he wanders the streets getting into daily adventures worthy of a Mike Batt tune. One day I’ll actually stop and talk to him to hear his rags to tatters story, but until I lose my sense of smell I’ll keep a respectful distance and he can remain a local enigmatic legend. Albeit it one who smells of piss.

The Mexican restaurant in Mission Bay has reopened. It has now been renamed Two Amigos and rumours are afoot that it is still owned by the same miscreant who closed the place down after doing a runner with 15k of compensation money. I’m thinking that the name is a bit of a throw off as the homophobic tossrag seemed to be dead against anything involving Two Amigos. We went past the place the other night, and despite the fact that the waiter was wearing a huge sombrero; the place was emptier than Tiger Woods’ sponsorship diary.

The 6IXTH S3NS3

I’ve had enough of personalised number plates. After spending the best part of five months ogling them and not the beautiful Auckland surroundings, I’ve finally given up the ghost.
So, here’s a round up of the plates I’ve seen so far…

The Geeky Ones
H1TMAN- This guy genuinely had a barcode above the plate and an Agency sticker on the dash.
X MAN- Though to be fair, this might not be a comic fan. It could be a transsexual.

The Honest Ones
DUMBER- Found on a humvee, which says it all really.
VODKA- Certainly goes a long way to explaining how this jeep was being driven.
B1GDOG- Having sighted the driver, I have to agree, though the plate MUNTER would have been more accurate.
V1AGRA- On a 1930’s ford being driven by a very old man. With a huge smile on his face.
CHOLLO- On a car driven by a very large Hispanic gentleman.
MY WILI- On a Toyota Will VI. Again being driven by a smiling old man.

The Misleading Ones
SALADS- The advertising for this owner-operator company car was somewhat offset by the fat guy driving it.
RADBOD- It wasn’t. Really.

The Ambiguous Ones
GAS IT- I couldn’t figure out if this person had flatulence, was pro-electric or just being anti-Semitic.
BENDS- Either someone suffering from nitrogen in the blood, or declaring his sexual proclivities.
RIDEZY- Come to think of it, the driver did look a bit morally loose.
K8S L8- I wasn’t sure where this was coming from. Is Kate tardy? Is she dead? Has she skipped her period?
WAXN IT- Is this person a surfer or merely fond of Brazilians?

The Zuh? Ones
HO COIL- I don’t know what this is. My gut reaction is it is something a pimp ensures his ladies have to stop them getting preggers.
WHY 2K- Why indeed.
ASK GOD- Just begging for the underplate writing “why I am driving like a retarded orang utan”.

The Gobshite One
BLING- On an SUV in the city centre. This thing had blacked out windows too, which juts proves the adage that the darker the windows on the SUV the likelier the possibility that the loser inside cries themselves to sleep every night.

The Regrettable Ones
BJS- I don’t think the driver even noticed.
BUL177- On a Porsche than was just asking to be keyed.
MET WAT- On a company car. Think about it.

But the winner by a country mile is NOBASS.

I don’t know what the driver was aiming for, but in the absence of plates saying SLAVE1, BALL5 or FUKNUT then he gets the prize.

In future I’ll just report by exception, though if I see any car with the word PLAYER/PLAYA or any alphanumeric combination thereof then there may be a short delay in my bloggage while I stand trial for murder.