Economy is a tight spot in airlines. You board with a middle seat pass and realise that an enormous, bearded man is in the more coveted aisle seat next to you. My other flight mate was a pakeha banker. The Fearsome One didn’t talk until landing cards were handed out. I lamented to nobody in particular that I didn’t have a pen. The banker was watching Dunkirk, but the man from New Guinea’s highlands began to search every pocket unsuccessfully for a pen. Finally he asked a stewardess, for one, insisted I use it first, and then as I stowed away some stereotypes, he said he was a trainee pilot. Even cramped travel broadens the mind.Sometime, somewhere…
Sometime, somewhere, you wake up to life. You are going along in life and then either gradually or very suddenly the axis on which life was moving completely changes.
Encounters… with a flying pot
So you’re at the kitchen bench and acting like a 16 year old – though you know that was half a century ago. You plonk a heavy pot almost playfully and… misjudge. Its rim heads with relentless accuracy to the one part of your foot not covered by slippers.
Letter to a Mayor…
It’s autumn so it’s timely to let a weathered leaf from the season of our life drift into the summer of another’s – in this case New Plymouth Mayor, Neil Holdom.
Some time ago he described baby boomers as ‘ the most selfish generation’. And then on Facebook and presumably a few other places, he apologised. His j’accuse was similar to comments by any of the critics of boomers, some so young they could pass for the grandchildren of the first boomer cohort.
My friend – the earwig
Let me start with tomatoes. My home grown tomatoes have thin skins and flesh as dense and true as wild meat. I have red, orange and pinkish heritage type with a variety of wonderful favours. But we have a short growing season and my toms are just about finished, which is why my wife bought some supermarket tomatoes.
I ate half of one.
The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu
When this wacky titled book, turned up – some new age novel I thought.
Not so. This is a true story about the jihadist takeover of the real Timbuktu and the remarkable story of one man’s finding, collecting and then saving hundreds of thousands of priceless manuscripts in Timbuktu.
The Plight of Perfectionism – (part two)
Perfectionism is a personality trait, wrote Mary Ellis on Kiwiboomers earlier this month.
It is not, she added, the same as striving for excellence or having high standards:
To Waiheke with love
Bumped into an old friend the other day. Goes by the name of Waiheke. Used to know the place well when the S.S. Baroona chugged into the channel and about an hour later, discharged us on to Matiatia’s humble wharf.
Who Really Owns Cadburys, Dunedin?
Property is a commodity, a possession, which may be sold or disposed of as the owner sees fit. After the transaction is legitimised by a legal document, justice and all democratic and economic requirements of fairness to all parties is served. It’s simple really.
Going off the rails…
Were we supposed to go WOW! when the Government announced it would build a rail link to Auckland airport by… 2030? Maybe 2050?
TV3 news (sorry, Newshub) carried the story last month. And it featured something so familiar that it felt like déjà vu, yet there it was on our TV screens.