Classic quotes

From time to time, we all tend to open our mouths with pearls of wisdom and passing comments then regret doing so before even finishing the statement.  It’s quite amusing when it happens to someone else, and absolute gold when they happen to be famous.  Here are a few I found on the net......

Prince Phillip is famous for putting his royal foot in it and he trod rather heavily on a trip down under when he said this classic quote to an Aboriginal Australian.

“Still throwing spears?”

Former US President Ronald Reagan had this to say whilst testing his TV microphone before going on air. Mr Reagan didn’t realize the live feed was up and running and he was speaking to the pblic.

“My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

When declining an invitation from former Chinese President Jiang Zemin to extend his China visit, former Russian president Boris Yeltsin said,

"I only have enough food with me for two days."

Former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger had his post terminated but the ex Hollywood movie star had this announcement for the public.

“I think gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman.”

American actress Joan Crawford (1905-1977) uttered these regretful words when being told Pearl Harbour was gone (destroyed).

“Oh dear, who was she?”

Actress and former glamour model Brooke Shields showed the public she was the right person to front an anti-smoking campaign with this intellectual comment, which must have been the fruit of hours of research.

“Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life”

Britney Spears has a few silly quotes attributed to her and I am sure there will be more to come.

“I’ve never really wanted to go to Japan. Simply because I don’t like eating fish. And I know that’s very popular out there in Africa.”

Former BBC TV sports commentator Harry Carpenter winced with embarrassment after saying this whilst commentating on the Oxford – Cambridge University boat race.

“Ah, isn’t that nice, the wife of the Cambridge president is kissing the cox of the Oxford crew.”

I don’t think I can beat that one so I’ll finish there.

An interview with myself: Part 2

Q. What have you been enjoying the most since arriving in Darwin?

A.  Oohh, let me see.  A number of things really.  There are markets scattered around  the city area, especially on weekends.  Walking through the Mindl Beach markets on sunset is a vibrant and lively experience.  Getting some dinner from the dozens of international food vans and then sitting on the beach to watch the sun finish its journey for the day is a tradition up here.  I love having all the wild birds right outside my door – flocks of big red-tailed black cockatoos flying overhead, all sorts of parrots and honeyeaters flitting through our garden, storks and ducks flying between the lagoons scattered over the plains.  We have a hundred, if not more, Rainbow Bee eaters which roost in a colony along our driveway.  It’s an amazing chorus of commotion as they all have a final dust bath and flutter to their selected branch.

Q. What other things are you looking forward to?

A. Definitely the wet season which will start making its presence known again around October.  We saw the tail end of the last one when we arrived, but it will be much more brilliant to see a full season of it next summer.  The thunder rolls across the countryside with an unforgiving rumble, combined with the display of lightening in every direction.  As the season moves on, the torrential rain becomes part of the extravaganza culminating in a deafening drum of water lashing foliage and rooves alike.

Q. What are you not looking forward to?

A. The storms I just mentioned are amazing, but more rain, more heat, means that there is an unbearably stifling humidity for much of the day.  This oppressive humidity is what I am not looking forward to at all.

Q. Where to from here?

A. From Darwin you mean?  Well, that is yet to be discussed but I have a few ideas.  If I tell you everything now though, you won’t have a reason to catch up with me later.

Interview complete.

An interview with myself: Part 1

Q. So how have you been since we last communicated?

A. Well, busy to put it in one word.  After packing up our lives in New Zealand we now live in Darwin, with a two week long stopover in South Australia.  It was a whirlwind period and I feel like I have lost the past few months.

Q. Are you happy to be back in Australia?  I know you missed it a lot while living in New Zealand.

A. Yes indeed,  I did miss Australia and have written in the past  how I pined for the sounds of the Australian bush, the smell of eucalyptus, the bright wide open spaces and so forth.  Having said that though, there were always going to be things I’d miss about New Zealand once I had left.  So while I am enjoying being back here, I often think about what I have left behind.  I anticipate moving back there again one day, perhaps in the not too distant future.

Q. Wow, breaking news, we will save that for another interview then!  So, what was your first impression of Darwin?

A. Having been here many times as a tour guide, I did have some idea what I was getting myself in to.  It has certainly grown in the past 10 years though, with several high rise buildings now giving a definitive urban outline to the skyline.  It is remains a lovely, tropical and sunny city surrounded by blue ocean and palm trees swaying in the breeze.  The ‘dry’ season has just begun so the savannah woodland which makes up most of the landscape here has begun to dry out.  We live about half an hour south of Darwin, so I enjoy a drive through this harsh environment which then gives way to the tropical parks and gardens of Darwin city.  It’s a nice transition.

TBC in the next post

P is for Poi E

Poi E is sung by the Patea Maori Club, a very classic Kiwi song with great footage of New Zealand fashion in 1982!

An interview with myself.....part 2.

John Question: Do you see yourself staying in New Zealand for much longer?

John Answer: A little while longer, but not really sure beyond that.  There are a lot of changes going on at work at the moment, within the bigger organisation of the council and even within the New Zealand economy as a whole.  Things aren’t looking promising but we aren’t about to the flee the country in the dead of the night or anything.  We have flight booked to Tahiti next year!

John Question:  What is it you miss about Australia?

John Answer: There are the most obvious things like my family and friends.  They are by far what I miss the most.  Then there are a range of other things which I realise now, after being here for 3 years, that I took for granted.  I miss the wildlife, all the colourful birds with their equally colourful singing all day, I miss waking up to kangaroos staring through my bedroom window, I miss the colourful native flower displays which change with the seasons so there is always something to marvel at, I miss the high wispy clouds of summer and the heady smell of eucalyptus at night….I had better stop there before I do flee the country in the dead of night!

John Question: Is there anything like that which you think you will miss about New Zealand when you leave?

John Answer: Absolutely, I look around and see things that I feel are very unique to New Zealand and my time here and know that once I leave, they will be things I wish I had somehow enjoyed more.  I have met some great people over here, a few even that I would consider lifelong friends, so again, people top my list.  Other things will definitely be the beach at Raglan, it has so many moods and I have spent a lot of time there running around with Phil and the dogs. It’s a black volcanic sand beach and is always so beautiful in a rugged west coast way.  I will also miss the kebabs from the Turkish place on Brice Street; they are simply to die for.  I will miss the regular sound of rain as it falls soothingly all around, the vast expanse of green in a myriad of hues, being able to ski down the sides of a volcano, cheap trips out to tropical Pacific nations and again I will stop there because there really are so many things.

John Question:  Is there any message you would like the readers to take with them today?

John Answer:  Epictetus was a Greek philosopher who lived in the first century AD.  He wrote – “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do”.

An interview with myself.....part 1.

John Question: What’s the best thing you did today?

John Answer: I took the dogs for a predawn walk this morning up to the hill at the end of the road and watched the sunrise.  Stunning way to start the day.

John Question: What are your plans for the rest of this weekend?

John Answer: I have a list of random things I want to do, but probably won’t get to all of them.  I need to update my blog, make sure I do some yoga and some stretches and just generally relax.  I also need to start looking at accommodation in Tahiti for our trip there in February.  Generally, I want to relax and not think about work or anything negative that makes my soul feel heavy.

John Question: What is it about your work that makes your soul feel heavy?  I would imagine working with animals to be very soothing and joyful?

John Answer: And to a large degree it is, which makes the bad things about the job seem even worse (he chuckles).  Keeping animals in a zoo environment poses many challenges for those who work with them.  There is a constant need of enrichment, care, observation and training, not to mention the daily cleaning and feeding.  All of this can be different from one day to the next, so there lays the challenge of keeping on top of it all so in the end you are giving the animals a great life while keeping yourself sane.

John Question:  What would you be doing if you weren’t a zoo keeper?

John Answer: I would imagine I would still be tour guiding, or I may have finally got around to becoming a teacher.

John Question:  What do you think you will be doing in 5 years?

John Answer:  I seriously consider my options for the future because zoo keeping is a very physically demanding job and I have never seen it as the job I will be doing until retirement.  I hope that my next career change will see me back in the tourism industry again, either as a tour guide or a travel agent.  I enjoyed the customer focus of tourism as well as the travel.  I may end up doing a travel agent course sometime soon.

John Question: What do you think you will be doing in 10 years?

John Answer:  Again, tourism would be something to keep me happy for some years, but again I think I would like a change after a while.  Counselling is something I can see myself doing later in life.  The personal contact with people and the issues that they face attracts me to the role.  I have often been the one people come to for help and feel it to be some sort of calling.  Sounds corny but that’s how I feel.

The remainder of the interview will be published soon.

Aussies vs Kiwis....again...

Another example of how the Kiwis like to have a go at the Aussies.  All in good fun!

Did you know.....

In New Zealand it is illegal to wander the streets at night with your face blackened, and it is lawful to take a leak in the street provided that you maintain one hand on the rump of the horse while you leak, and you aim for the ground where the horse would leak onto. (Police Offences Act 1906).


Here are some more strange facts about New Zealand, just in case someone ever asks.....

	No capital city in the world is further south than Wellington.
	No part of New Zealand is more than 128 km from the sea.
	French Pass, which separates d'Urville Island from the South Island coast, is the only place in the world where two different levels of ocean can be seen at once.  This causes tremendously dangerous currents - sometimes the tide flows at up to 8 knots through the narrow Pass.  [The only time we went through there, we didn't know that.  Jeff said that was the closest he's ever come to putting our boat, Lady Fair, on the rocks.]
	More fresh water gushes up from cracks in the limestone at Waikoropupu, near Takaka, Nelson province, than from any freshwater spring anywhere in the world.  Over 2,100 million litres of water gush up every 24 hours.
	Fiordland National Park is one of the largest in the world at 1,228,348 hectares.  It is also one of the wildest and least populated.
	Fossil-bearing rocks in the Cobb Valley near Nelson have trilobites that are 550 million years old.
	Each year some 400 significant earthquakes are recorded in New Zealand, of which roughly 100 are likely to be felt without instruments, but aren't of sufficient importance to warrant public notice.  The biggest New Zealand earthquake in historical times was near Wellington on 23 January 1855.  It had a magnitude of about 8 on the Richter scale and was felt over about 940,000 sq km, tilting a block of land 50 m wide and 190 km long.  In Wellington the uplift was 1.5 m; great stretches of shore became permanently exposed (including what is now the airport).  The centre lay along the Wairarapa Fault, whose horizontal movement is estimated to have been at least 12 m compared with about 6 m for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.  Despite this huge movement, only 12 people died in the quake, because Wellington was still sparsely populated at that stage.
	Less than 5% of the population of New Zealand is human - the rest are animals, giving one of the highest ratios of humans to animals in the world.
	The first all-female group of pallbearers was six sisters who carried their father's coffin in 1974.  Mr James O'Brien died on 1 June 1974, leaving eight daughters, 6 of whom officiated as pallbearers.
	More rainbow trout in the 2-3 kg category are caught annually in New Zealand than in the rest of the world put together.
	Energy consumption per head in NZ on a kilogram-of-coal equivalent is around 3,000 kg.  This compares with 6,845 in Australia, 10,888 in North America and 4,023 in Western Europe.
	New Zealand has more bookshops per head of population than any other country; one for every 7,500 people (compared with one for every 19,000 in England and one for every 50,000 in the USA).
	The shortest term of a New Zealand Prime Minister was seven days: Harry Atkinson was appointed on 28 August 1884 and resigned on 3 September 1884, beating the record of his immediate predecessor, Robert Stout, by six days.
	The youngest person ever elected to a city council in New Zealand was Miss Vicki Buck, who won a seat on the Christchurch City Council in a by-election in May 1975, at the age of 19.  Her majority was in excess of a thousand.  (Vicki Buck went on to become mayor of Christchurch.)
	A total of 194,000 men (67% of all NZ males between 18 and 45) served in World War II.
	There are more Scottish pipe bands per head of population in NZ than in Scotland

Something to smile about.

Following on to my previos post taking the piss out of New Zealand, here is an add with a similar angle about Australia.

"Where the bloody hell are ya?"

For any Aussies who remeber the "Where the bloody hell are ya?" Australian Tourism campaign, with Lara Bingle, here is the New Zealand version. No offence to anyone, just a giggle.