Boogie Neverland

The wife persuaded me to go to a club last night, mainly to see a friend of hers strut his stuff in his own unique style. Generally, nightclubs and I don't mix. I find the drinks limited and pricey and more often than not such places are full of the people I have spent my life avoiding social contact with. Not that I'm a snob or anything- I'm just more of a sociopathic misanthrope with acute homicidal tendencies and a low tolerance for bellends. Plus, I'm reliably informed that my dancing resembles the death throes of a man covered in burning napalm and even bellends don't deserve to witness that.
The choice of venue was a place in the centre of town called Boogie Wonderland and the first thing that struck me when we went in was the small number of clientele (I've seen more crowded bars in Saudi Arabia) and the fact that the DJ booth was contained within a large cup being held by two equally large hands. I was trying to get my head around this bizarre image while the DJ was going through his inane chatter and all I could think of was that it was meant to represent some sort of post-modern vegetable soup. There was certainly a cabbage involved, anyway.

In the Mixmaster Mug, DJ Crouton was playing a selection of the 30 songs known in Auckland's drinking holes. I swear to St Angelina, that the same songs followed us round all night. We went to three bars before the club and we heard the same tracks again and again. It's like every pub and club in Auckland has the same copy of "Now That's What I Call Utter Shite" that they pump out on an endless loop as some sort of Gitmo-esque punishment for being members of Al-Quoholic. While we are on the subject of bars, a stag party turned up at the Irish bar we started at. Every stag do I have been on has followed that trend. Is it a universal law that all stag parties, no matter where in the world they happen, have to visit an Irish pub?

Back in Disco Hell, when I spotted the Saturday Night Fever style light tile floor I was immediately reminded of the scene in Airplane with the bar full of rough freaks dancing to the Bee Gees. Sure enough, 20 minutes after, the Brothers Gibb squealed into life on DJ Crouton's decks and the freak parade began in earnest. All that was missing from this scene were two girl scouts kicking the crap out of each other and a man gesturing to a knife protruding from his back. Although, given recent events in Auckland, the latter could easily have shown up.

Finally, I spotted the behatted simpleton pictured posing above. With my very own peepers I've seen some surreal messed up shit over the years including genocide in Rwanda, objects moving across the room by themselves and several male family members dressed as women, but my jaw was agape as Brokeback Maori took to the podium.

He was dancing (if you can call it that) quite camply while at the same time performing some imaginary karaoke, which mutated into him pointing at various things on the ceiling, paddling an invisible canoe (though he did get bonus points for unfurling an invisible map, studying it and peering through a likewise invisible spyglass), some robotics, swimming and a moonwalk (where he just took strides backwards) before settling on whirling an imaginary lasso around his head and then pretending to haul in something at ceiling height (possibly an invisible llama stag on his way to meet the rest of the party at O'Hagan's Irish Bar). While performing all of this, he was smiling at friends across the room and occasionally winking at them.
One of my companions then pointed out the flaw in this process in that he didn't actually have any friends there and he was smiling at incredulous strangers, thin air and the back of people's heads. He was also drinking coke and nothing else, so alcohol isn't to blame this time. In any case, booze would probably interfere too much with his anti-psychotic medication, which obviously needed upping.

By the end of the night, he was still giving it his best and as we left I saw him start the lasso process all over again. He's probably still dancing along to the songs in his head as he waits in line for his meds.

In conclusion, there are some things the eyes should never have to witness, so I'm going to petition the local council to have the place renamed Boogie Neverland. For just like the late Michael Jackson's paedo palace, this is a place to be avoided if you don't want to lose your innocence.

Vote Saxon

We have had two celebrations here in Auckland recently. Firstly, it was the Auckland anniversary, which saw the harbour replete with seafood festivals, drinking, buskers, drinking and boating. There was three days worth of that, and I was quite impressed by how well the council did to set it all in motion. And had sufficient manpower to clean up the vomit from this deadly combination.

Secondly, there was Waitangi Day. I wasn't completely up to speed on the Waitangi Treaty but I've since read up and it seems that despite it being in existence for over 150 years, it has never been ratified, mainly as the Maoris got stiffed on the deal.

They're really quite relaxed about legal stuff, the Kiwis, but I'm sure they'll get round to it some time after watching the rugby.
Anyway, Waitangi Day fell on a weekend this year so despite that fact that everybody was upset that there was no day off, all were united in their hatred for the cafes and restaurants who were permitted to throw on a 15% holiday surcharge to add to the misery.
The two things that struck me about the day were the quality of the local festivities and the flag debate.

The local festivities for us took place down near the beach and (to paraphrase the missus) made the Craggy Island fair in Father Ted look like Cirque De Soleil. It was really, really awful. Mediocre grub, bad bands and thrilling rides that would be hard pushed to scare an Amish with a nervous heart flutter. The only good thing about it was the amount of Maori speech I heard. It's a remarkable language that when you hear it reminds you of a beautiful, lilting song. When you see it written down, though, it is something else entirely. It looks like the alphabet has just vomited.

The flag debate has been an interesting thing in that there has been pressure for the Tino Rangatiratanga (see what I mean?) flag to be displayed alongside (or sometmes instead of) the NZ flag. As an outsider, I don't know enough about it to make a decision, but if it was down to me I'd stick it to a public vote to either keep one of the existing flags or design a new flag incorporating both elements. While both exist in competition there is going to be grief. I doubt that will happen though as it is far too sensible.
There was also some fierce debate about who have the right to celebrate anyway. Some of the Maori rightly see the later settlers as immigrants. I can see their point as they only showed up a few hundred years ago with a bottle of Scotch, a firearm and promises of a great future together. A few years down the line and it all gets one sided and there are tears, bloodshed and a flurry of sexual diseases. Actually, this sounds like a few of my early relationships. I'll move swiftly along...
Being about as Anglo Saxon as it gets with my fair skin and lack of moles, I know that my lot have pretty much taken over every country at one time or another, mostly at three o'clock in the morning and using the "seduction" technique described above. We're naturally very good at nation theft and I can't visit Wales without wanting to cleanse half of the country with fire and enslave the remainder. I'm fairly sure everyone feels that way about the Welsh, though.
The Maori themselves aren't actually native to NZ either, having arrived here from Polynesia around 700-2000 years ago, so that has added fuel to the fire about who should be claiming the land. However, if we're going on that rule, then the Celts were in Britain before the Anglo Saxons built the place up, so by squatters rights we should let the dirt worshipping heathens from Cardiff run the place. What a nightmare that would be. It would be a like a chimp's tea party only with unibrows, leeks and severe genetic mutation.

Finally, these festivities have been able to quash the belief I held that, like the filthy Welsh, the people of New Zealand are a nation of sheep shaggers.
It's rubbish. From what I understand they rarely get to third base with their livestock.

A Tale of Two Sh*ttys

Attached are eleven images of Birkenhead. Five are from the suburb of Auckland with that name, a place I visited very recently. The other six are from the place I grew up in which I can only describe as a World Heritage Shithole filled with rain, rape and murder. Cunningly I have mixed them up and now task you to use your skill and judgement in discovering which picture belongs to which Birkenhead.
As a starter for ten, I'll inform you that only the Birkenhead I used to call home (and also the one point on earth from which all human misery can be viewed) would have a fire evacuation sign in a cafe that requests you assemble at the Wetherpoons next door. After all, you're burning to death in the Seventh Circle of Hell, why miss out on half price doubles?

To further aid your quest I have added a small description so you can hopefully distinguish between the two Birkenheads.

Birkenhead, Auckland- Located on the North Shore of Auckland, Birkenhead was settled in 1883 as New Zealand's only sugar refinery and quickly gained a reputation as an area where the successful middle class set up home. These men, usually professionals or business owners, would commute via ferry to the city. Today, Birkenhead is popular with soccer moms who drive their sons to football practice. The climate is warm temperate with humid summers and mild, damp winters. It last snowed in Birkenhead in July 1939.

Birkenhead, Merseyside- Settled by British hooligans in the 12th Century, Birkenhead is a lush and diverse crime scene with over 900 distinct types of scumbag, 600 varieties of mugger and most of the surviving members of my family. It boasts a startling array of criminal life sure to take your breath away, but only after first taking away your phone, wallet and kidneys. It no longer suffers from crippling unemployment since the local council made burglary a recognised occupation and today it is popular with twoccer mums who steal a car to drive their sons to community service or mugging practice. The climate is rainy with a strong chance of more rain, depression, pissing it buckets and glassing. The people of Birkenhead are a victim of crime every 26 seconds, though this is impossible to verify since everyone in Birkenhead has now had their watch stolen.

Hike A Virgin

This morning we awoke to two things. One was the unparalleled hellish noise of a cat throwing up a hairball just outside the bedroom. The other was the breaking news that a 19 year old Kiwi lass has sold her virginity for 45,000 Hobbit dollars in order to finance her education/sexual health treatment. There was much speculation that this could have been a promotional gimmick for the website where it was apparently advertised, whether or not the virginity carries a guarantee of authenticity and general discussion about the precedent this could set.
The general upshot of the people calling in to discuss was that they were for rather than against it, since it is her body and her commodity. Money may not be able to buy you love, but it can buy you sex and that's close enough for most Kiwi blokes it seems.

We got over to Rangitoto a few weeks back, which is a recent (geologically speaking) addition to the islands around Auckland as it rose from the sea about 600 years ago scaring the bejeezus out of the local Maori tribe who named it "Bloody Sky". A dormant volcano covered in black lava and with no water facilities once you leave the safety of the harbour really is an excellent choice when it is 34 degrees blazing sunshine. It could only be worse if it were erupting fiery arseholes onto a floor covered in white hot shards of glass.
By the time we reached the top, the ice blocks in the pack I was donkeying up there had melted, but the pack-less wife was happy to accept that her ice tea and brie were sufficiently chilled to be consumable. Had this not been the case it would have been my ass plugging the lava in the crater.
Anyway, the island is considered a protected reserve so animals aren't invited along for day trips and they ask you to search your bags for mice, rats, possums, cats, dogs and el chupacabra. You know, just in case you pack one instead of sun cream. We've all done it.
At night, hunters and specially trained dogs patrol the lava flows and young forests while traps have been set around the most likely inhabitable areas and baited poison is occasionally dropped from aircraft to kill off anything that might stumble upon it.
I found out later that a solitary cat has been seen on the island, hence the rather extreme man, er, moghunt.
I don't think the US Special Forces tried this hard to get Bin Laden.

As a final point, we have been tuned into a new station of a morning. It's called The Rock. We first saw it advertised at Big Day Out with posters saying "All other radio stations are shit" and "You lucky little f*ckers!" so thought we'd give it a listen to see what all the fuss is about. Suffice to say it is aimed at a very specific audience, with adverts for a CD compilation of The Best Drinking Songs In The World...Ever (followed by a loud belch), rampant sexism as well as effing and jeffing throughout. I bet the virgin buyer is a regular listener.