Cantankerous curmudgeons I have read

M & I had dinner and drinks a while back with a mate who works in arts publishing. He works quite closely with the editor of the Capital Times, and somehow our conversation got on to the serial letter writers who inhabit the 'your say' columns in the weekly newspapers. If you have every picked up a Capital Times or similar publication I am sure you know the names of the most grievous offenders- H Westfold from Haitaitai, RO Hare from Lower Hutt, and Ronald R Smythe from Mount Cook.

Someone came up with the idea of giving these three misanthropes regular newspaper space in the form of a rotating opinion column. Unfortunately (if only for sheer humour value) this never seems to have taken root.

To generalise about their polemical output: H Westfold produces the most letters, RO Hare spends his time rebutting H Westfold's latest missive, and Ronald R Smythe seems to react to whatever miscellany offends his ultra-conservative tendencies. My favourite is Ronald R Smythe. He is consistently hilarious, whereas the other two are sometime tedious at times.

For example, he sent in a pearler of a letter a couple of months back which generated a few responses, and I quote in full:
Recently, I was having a conversation over a glass or two of sherry with an acquaintance of mine who resides in the southern side of Wellington’s Mt Cook suburb. He was distraught over the changes proposed for the electoral map, which would see him move out of Wellington Central and into Rongotai.
Whilst I could assure him there would be no loss in the market value of his residence resulting from the move, I could not say the same for his state of mind. No longer would he have the opportunity to help elect a sensible, conservative parliamentarian to represent him – he would be flung into a ludicrously safe working-class Labour seat. To add salt to the wounds, Rongotai is represented by a woman!
Electorates should be set for life, allowing middle-class citizens to choose to live among like-minded people, and ensure representation by economically sound people – preferably men. I feel genuine remorse for my good friend, seeing his opportunity for electoral peace of mind taken so cruelly away.

There are a couple of issues in the letter above. The first is that the man drinks sherry. The second is factual accuracy. As one politically aware respondent pointed out, this letter is riddled with factual errors. Personally, this only adds to Ronald R Smythe's appeal.

In fact, bring on the fan club. I would much rather support someone who is not 100% factually correct but who makes me laugh, than some pedant who gets their facts right but bores me.

I Heart Ronald? Bring back the Smythe? The possibilities are endless.

Can you spare $50 a week?

Today I had coffee with a friend who had a couple of weeks in Samoa recently. We both agreed that Samoa in June was infinitely preferable weather wise to New Zealand in June. She was quite taken by the idea of buying property there, or a least a patch of land near a beach (in x years time, where 5 < x< 20). I thought this would be a little binding, and my preference would be to go there for frequent extended holidays.

This got me thinking: how much would it cost to go on holiday to Samoa, every June, for the entirety of June?

Cost of holiday: $50 p/day budget all inclusive once there => $700 for two weeks => $1400 four weeks. I reckon you could probably stretch your money further if you tried, but $1500 p/month is definitely quite doable if you are staying in a Manase / Taufua / Fao Fao level beachside fale.
$1000 flights return.
Thus for a total spend of $2500 you could spend next June in its entirety in a beachside fale, drinking copious amounts of Vailima and cocktails. When (If) that gets a little tiresome you could volunteer at the local school or similar.

How much per week? If you are away for four weeks, you will need to save for 48 weeks to fund this. Thus, $2500 /48 = $50 approximately.
So, if you can afford to put away around $50 a week for the rest of the year, you can take the entirety of June as a holiday and spend it on a beach in Samoa.

Annual Leave: Another factor here is leave from your employment. Presumably this would take a little bit of negotiation, but if you managed to negotiate for a higher than usual annual leave entitlement- say six weeks- then you will be in the great position on holiday of having your income in New Zealand being higher than the day to day expenses you are incurring in Samoa. IF you could somehow negotiate eight weeks leave (which would probably entail taking a pay cut) you could extend your holiday to two months, but that is a pipe dream for me at the moment.
If neither of those are options you can always take leave without pay, which is not totally bad.

If you get bored of Samoa one year you could go somewhere else for a month- say Vietnam or similar- and then go back to Samoa the following year.

Can you spare $50 a week?

Things I have learnt while packing up my life

One of the more tedious parts of preparing for a trip overseas of indefinite length is dividing my material possessions into one of three categories:
a) Take with me (clothes mainly- only a backpack on holiday, plus a couple of boxes of work clothes sent in advance)
b) Store at parents' residences (nice furniture, exotic glassware, miscellaneous household goods)
c) Sell or give to Salvation Army (everything else)

For me, CDs and DVDs fall into b) as I would feel embarrassed to give some of my movies to the Salvation Army.

Thus I have discovered that the attrition rate for CDs within my care is around 3.7%, as I have 15 CD cases with no CDs within. With DVDs my attrition rate is much better, as I have only 1 DVD case with no DVD within. Unfortunately, it is one of my favourites. Why couldn't the DVD leprechauns take one of the crappier movies in my collection?

Last mention of Facebook I promise

One thing which has surprised me about Facebook is the whole confirm/reject friend conundrum.
I mean, I like to think that there are parts of me which are able to act in a socially acceptable manner. So what is the socially acceptable response when someone asks to be my friend, but I have never interacted with them in any kind of meaningful manner?
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against this particular person. I try not to have anything against anyone. Except John Cena.
But I have never exchanged small talk beyond monosyllables of greeting, never gone out for a beer with them, never met up to go to a movie, never emailed or texted them, never talked smack with them at a party, never misbehaved at the back of a rehearsal with them.
What is the correct response? I don't want to reject them, does this mean I confirm as a default option? Why can't there be a third option, and what would that third option be called? All I wanted was an easy way to stay in touch with my peeps when I am overseas...

Edit: okay, Russ's facebook analysis is much funnier.

Facebook

We've both signed up for facebook so if anyone reading this is our friend and wants to see more regular photos once we are actually on the road find us there. Facebook is a strange thing, kind of like a popularity competition - how many friends do you have? You are given the option of accepting or rejecting friends - rejecting people who think that they are your friend - that is aweful! Please, friends don't reject me... Was interested to see that there are already photos of me on it, just goes to show how little control you have over these things! Anyways photos will go up there too.

Notice

Simon and Marie have now both given notice at work. A little premature with 8 weeks still to departure date but, I guess that they may start to become suspicious with all the hits on travel websites etc. Giving notice is astrang thing, usually you can't wait to do it, having got to the point where you hate your job, hopefully have another one and can't wait to leave. Not this time - like jobs, don't have another one, and don't know what leaving holds...
8 more weeks til departure date and counting...

1/2 Marathon

Yay, congratulations Simon for completing the 1/2 marathon last weekend. Despite strong Wellington winds he kept running the whole way and finished in under two hours. Not bad for someone who started running only 3 months ago!!