Right, where was I? Oh yes...
Last weekend we went on a Christmas meal harbour cruise and as we waited for the rest of our party to arrive we were passed by two midgets dressed as pirates. This was a bad omen for the evening to come and left me wondering two things.
Firstly, where does a midget go to get a pirate costume that fits a small adult frame with little legs and secondly, are midgets really cut out for piracy? There’s probably lots of rape and pillaging that needs to be done above waist level and it must be devilishly hard to steer the Black Pearl through the treacherous waters around the Isla De Muerta when you have to stand on a box.
Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t have anything against midgets (not even my lower body) but I have a brother who is absolutely terrified of them. He wouldn’t even watch Time Bandits when we used to put it on. Ok, that film seemed to be shown a lot in our house but I’m sure this was purely out of therapy rather than out of familial cruelty. It was hard to tell with my family, but because of this I always associated midgets with bowel loosening terror. To see them dressed as pirates or ninjas or other purveyors of human misery (Nazis, Priests, Bon Jovi, etc) only serves to ramp up this image in the dark recesses of my brain.
The three hour cruise got under way and all seemed to be going ok. This was until the DJ arrived. I don’t like DJs as they tend to be pricks or buffoons and it was the one reason I didn’t want to go on this cruise, recommending instead that we go on the Waipa Delta paddle steamer which is meant to be a cut above.
Anyway, this guy not only fell into the “buffoon” category, he crashed through the floor of it and tumbled headlong into the fenced off area marked “incompetent fuckwit”. He started off his set with an excuse that the booked DJ had been struck down with something that prevented him performing his duties for the night. Presumably the booked DJ had a premonition that midgets were going to make him walk the plank if he played the Oompa Lumpa song from Willy Wonka and thought the better of turning up. As he stood there in his black shirt with white musical note braces and tie (looking like a 1920s Chicago hitman who specialised in not only killing music, but also torturing it and then cutting off its body parts to send a message) DJ Excuse went on to explain how he hasn’t DJ’ed in three years and that he was used to working with vinyl. We took this diatribe to be a joke at first, but how very wrong we were.
After enduring the first few tunes we left to go outside and snagged a table near the midgets in case it all kicked off, albeit it at knee level. The alcohol was reasonably priced so that flowed quite freely as we tucked into the BBQ grub, and the world didn’t seem so bad.
Suddenly the boat swung around and quickly made for port. Mystified by this (we were around only an hour and a half in) I looked up and was surprised to discover that the midgets had disappeared. Had they taken over the boat? Were we going back to the harbour to commit below the belt mayhem and murder? Was the DJ hanging from the yardarm for one too many cracks about being there on “very short notice”? I ran down to the cabin and discovered it was none of the above. There was the DJ, mic in hand telling the circle of ladies that the Beyonce cd is now scratched beyond all hope of recovery and there were the midgets drunkenly dancing along to the Time Warp. I could hear Edward Teach spinning in his grave.
It turns out we had simply run out of plastic forks and were making for the harbour to pick up more. One hasty re-supply later and with the crew refusing to let anyone escape the boat, we set sail once more on our voyage of terror.
After several more jumping cds, unexplained silences and frankly dreadful attempts to explain it all (“my speciality is vinyl”, “the boat is rocking too much”, “I have Parkinson’s…shabba!”, etc) I couldn’t take any more and left, shaking my head at the circle of women who were gyrating on the dance floor to Boney M’s seminal classic “Mary’s Boy Child” and heading for the top deck to throw myself into the unforgiving black waters of Auckland Harbour.
As I stood there contemplating taking the easy way off the boat I was steered away from self termination by a majestic sight in the darkness. With the glittering Auckland skyline behind it, the paddle steamer Wapia Delta (streamed with blue lights from her bow to her stern) chugged her way past our boat and lit up the black waves as she passed.
With the universe holding it’s breath for this fleeting moment of beauty, one of the three expatriate middle aged ladies standing to my left piped up...”Eeee. It’s just like Blackpool, with the trams all lit up.”
Only when the moment was broken could I hear Beyonce’s Single Ladies being played in the Delta’s main cabin as it occurred to me that the DJ who had called in sick had obviously got a better gig. As I squinted into the cabin I could see the beautiful people of Auckland enjoying themselves with not a midget or a pirate in sight.
My faith in humanity forever tarnished I headed back to the cabin to find my wife harassing the DJ and pulling at his braces before she was whacked on her arse by a midget with a plastic cutlass.
Never trust this man with your Ipod...
Last weekend we went on a Christmas meal harbour cruise and as we waited for the rest of our party to arrive we were passed by two midgets dressed as pirates. This was a bad omen for the evening to come and left me wondering two things.
Firstly, where does a midget go to get a pirate costume that fits a small adult frame with little legs and secondly, are midgets really cut out for piracy? There’s probably lots of rape and pillaging that needs to be done above waist level and it must be devilishly hard to steer the Black Pearl through the treacherous waters around the Isla De Muerta when you have to stand on a box.
Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t have anything against midgets (not even my lower body) but I have a brother who is absolutely terrified of them. He wouldn’t even watch Time Bandits when we used to put it on. Ok, that film seemed to be shown a lot in our house but I’m sure this was purely out of therapy rather than out of familial cruelty. It was hard to tell with my family, but because of this I always associated midgets with bowel loosening terror. To see them dressed as pirates or ninjas or other purveyors of human misery (Nazis, Priests, Bon Jovi, etc) only serves to ramp up this image in the dark recesses of my brain.
The three hour cruise got under way and all seemed to be going ok. This was until the DJ arrived. I don’t like DJs as they tend to be pricks or buffoons and it was the one reason I didn’t want to go on this cruise, recommending instead that we go on the Waipa Delta paddle steamer which is meant to be a cut above.
Anyway, this guy not only fell into the “buffoon” category, he crashed through the floor of it and tumbled headlong into the fenced off area marked “incompetent fuckwit”. He started off his set with an excuse that the booked DJ had been struck down with something that prevented him performing his duties for the night. Presumably the booked DJ had a premonition that midgets were going to make him walk the plank if he played the Oompa Lumpa song from Willy Wonka and thought the better of turning up. As he stood there in his black shirt with white musical note braces and tie (looking like a 1920s Chicago hitman who specialised in not only killing music, but also torturing it and then cutting off its body parts to send a message) DJ Excuse went on to explain how he hasn’t DJ’ed in three years and that he was used to working with vinyl. We took this diatribe to be a joke at first, but how very wrong we were.
After enduring the first few tunes we left to go outside and snagged a table near the midgets in case it all kicked off, albeit it at knee level. The alcohol was reasonably priced so that flowed quite freely as we tucked into the BBQ grub, and the world didn’t seem so bad.
Suddenly the boat swung around and quickly made for port. Mystified by this (we were around only an hour and a half in) I looked up and was surprised to discover that the midgets had disappeared. Had they taken over the boat? Were we going back to the harbour to commit below the belt mayhem and murder? Was the DJ hanging from the yardarm for one too many cracks about being there on “very short notice”? I ran down to the cabin and discovered it was none of the above. There was the DJ, mic in hand telling the circle of ladies that the Beyonce cd is now scratched beyond all hope of recovery and there were the midgets drunkenly dancing along to the Time Warp. I could hear Edward Teach spinning in his grave.
It turns out we had simply run out of plastic forks and were making for the harbour to pick up more. One hasty re-supply later and with the crew refusing to let anyone escape the boat, we set sail once more on our voyage of terror.
After several more jumping cds, unexplained silences and frankly dreadful attempts to explain it all (“my speciality is vinyl”, “the boat is rocking too much”, “I have Parkinson’s…shabba!”, etc) I couldn’t take any more and left, shaking my head at the circle of women who were gyrating on the dance floor to Boney M’s seminal classic “Mary’s Boy Child” and heading for the top deck to throw myself into the unforgiving black waters of Auckland Harbour.
As I stood there contemplating taking the easy way off the boat I was steered away from self termination by a majestic sight in the darkness. With the glittering Auckland skyline behind it, the paddle steamer Wapia Delta (streamed with blue lights from her bow to her stern) chugged her way past our boat and lit up the black waves as she passed.
With the universe holding it’s breath for this fleeting moment of beauty, one of the three expatriate middle aged ladies standing to my left piped up...”Eeee. It’s just like Blackpool, with the trams all lit up.”
Only when the moment was broken could I hear Beyonce’s Single Ladies being played in the Delta’s main cabin as it occurred to me that the DJ who had called in sick had obviously got a better gig. As I squinted into the cabin I could see the beautiful people of Auckland enjoying themselves with not a midget or a pirate in sight.
My faith in humanity forever tarnished I headed back to the cabin to find my wife harassing the DJ and pulling at his braces before she was whacked on her arse by a midget with a plastic cutlass.
Never trust this man with your Ipod...
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