Could not believe it!

Grab'a seat flight from Auckland to Vancouver only $1000 return!

Great news, so Maureen and I are flying to Canada in a couple of days.

You have to be quick with the 'grab a seat' cheap fares, thankfully this time we were the lucky ones.

Temperature in Vancouver will be about 10deg. We will be leaving our early summer temps of 23 but Autumn in Vancouver is a sight to experience.

I have put some more of my poems on my pages so see you there.

A leg of NZ lamb (very small, enough for one meal and a bit of cold) now costs $50. This is outrageous... when we farmed in the mid eighties we were lucky to get $25 for the whole animal (on the hoof)
Thankfully a generous local farmer (we farm sit for him and his wife when they holiday) has offered us a hogget (year old lamb) I helped with the butchering and we ended up with 25kilos for $80. Brilliant!! and enough meat to share with our family.

Oil from the stricken tanker (It's as big as two rugby pitches) has now reached the beautiful East Cape and some of the offshore Islands. They have managed to pump out 100 tonnes of gue but still 1100 tonnes to go!!

NZ all set to win the Rugby World Cup this week-end but we are all aware that the French team is very capable and may well have a few crafty tricks up their sleeves. Look out for sneaky drop goals.

Rugby World cup.

Watched Wales verses France last night. Wales deserved to win but their kicking was shocking.

What a great game, tonight its NZ verses our arch rivals 'The Aussies'. No prizes for guessing who we are supporting.
Meanwhile I have joined the thousands of volunteers ready to clean oil off the beaches if our coast is affected. So far so good, the weather has been kind and pumps are being put in place to extract (marmite like) fuel from the stricken tanker which is a mere 12k off Tauranga Harbour.

What a pack of wallies, how on earth, with modern gps systems they managed to hit that reef no one can figure. Anyway it must be NZ turn for a sea disaster and I always wanted to say that 'I was in oil', so am waiting for the call to arms.

Found a dead frog on the drive today, hope I didn't run it over. And I thought they had all disappeared. Perhaps it is a sign that if NZ play France in the rugby final......guess what?!!!

Can the NZ All Blacks win the Rugby World Cup? Now that Super star Dan Carter is out of the running we are all concerned and fearful of defeat. Fancy that, one man out of fifteen has got all NZ Rugby fans breaking out in a cold sweat.
In the scheme of things, namely... Riots and mahem throughout the world, drop in confidence regarding the NZ Dollar and the end of the world predicted for 2012... why are we concerned with a game where men get into huddles, kick an egg shaped ball and make passes to other players.
Anyway trout fishing season opened last Saturday and yours truly nabbed a couple of beauties.

daylight robery

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY?

It was only a matter of time before someone suggested introducing a Capital Gains Tax. The NZ Labour Party are preparing to hit us with just such a scheme if they win the November election. Where else was there to go?
On the other hand, in order to glean more votes, the same people have decided to ease the tax burden by not charging a Goods and services tax (GST) (or VAT in the U.K) on vegetables. This has to be wonderful news for vegetarians and vegans.
A recent and quite disturbing advertisement on the telly, depicting vegetables being played as musical instruments has encouraged many people, in the unlikely event of a change of Government, to think along the same lines.
Every time a new tax is introduced some tax avoidance whiz kid discovers a way around it or a way to take advantage of it. All legal and above-board of course. The answer to this ‘no GST payable on all vegetables’ scheme is to milk it for all it's worth. So here's the plan...
Drive around in a pumpkin, it was okay for Cinderella. Sounds ridiculous but a friend of mine who owns a golf driving range in the Medway towns of England cleverly disguised his Mini as a great big golf ball clearly an innovative idea that NZ's could emulate

The possibilities are endless...
Purchase a banana boat with no GST to pay.
Tax on clothing would be avoided if the ladies wore grass skirts and coconut bras and the guys donned cabbage leaves.
Diamonds would be a tax free investment, think carrots.
Instead of a weekly wage, think monthly celery.

I shall not apologise for the somewhat pathetic vegetable puns they are a fair match for the proposal.
On a more serious note, a Capital Gains Tax is unlikely to put money in the IRD kitty in the foreseeable future. We all know that properties purchased a couple of years ago have not yet reached their original value, and will probably not gain a cent for a few more years, so no capital gain there.
Here’s a thought: Why penalise investors and folk who want to better themselves and are prepared to endure the risk of failure, by taxing them on such schemes? These people will be punished through paying personnel tax as well as a C.G.T. whereas the ‘live today and don’t worry about tomorrow’ people will be left alone, tax free. If you are determined to tax people on any gain acquired, why not have a look at, cars, boats, art works, in fact every item that is bought then sold at a higher price.
I have the answer, clear and simple. We need a similar tax to the one introduced in England hundreds of years ago. Such a revenue gathering system will put new light upon the subject of a fair tax for New Zealand. It is a tax that represents a window of opportunity, transparent and well worth looking in to. Simply called, ‘The Window Tax’.
This so called Window tax was introduced in order to raise money from the wealthy, without upsetting them. Many people in Britain opposed the idea of an income tax, saying that it was an intrusion upon their privacy. The populace opinion was that the Government of the day had no right to force any one to disclose their personal income (yes, times have changed). The new tax consisted of two rulings, a flat-rate house tax of two shillings per house and a variable tax for the number of windows amounting to more than ten windows. Of course the tax dodgers would take pains to brick over all windows exceeding the ten exemptions in order to pay less tax.
Typical of the prideful attitude of ancient, wealthy aristocrats, instead of bricking in their windows they put in as many as possible. This was done to demonstrate to their peers that they were extremely well off. Today’s equivalent in such one-upmanship would be to tow your new Lamborghini behind your new Bema. Either way when you consider the glass palaces of our major cities, such a tax could be very lucrative.
An intriguing aside to the story is that the English language was embellished by the window tax because it gave rise to the saying, ‘daylight robbery’, which some would agree is a fitting description for the NZ Labour Party’s proposed Capital Gains Tax.

I am reluctant to politicise, moralise or dramatise.
Blogs are generally oversubscribed by clever political commentators and moral reformists,(probably have been guilty of same) My plan was to come up with an amazing piece of original script, have it down and dusted in double quick time, grab the fly rod and catch the evening rise. That was my goal!
Goal setting. We all have great intentions but who actually grabs a sheet of paper at the age of consent and writes down their life goals? We know we should, if we want to be wealthy and have a go at life,we should put pen to paper look into the future and make plans. Personally I have trouble figuring out what I am going to do the day after tomorrow, let alone jotting down my one year, five year and twenty year goals.
You could say, I have happily joined the camp of, ‘let’s fire an arrow into the wall and draw a target around it’, fraternity. And why not, I say. Where is the fun of knowing what you will be doing this time next year. I hate organized but embrace spontaneity.
I am aware of a well known proverb that advises, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish’. So maybe the answer is to have a foot in both camps and be ‘spontaneously organized‘. So for a change, let’s say, ‘go to it, you spur of the moment people’. Yes, I am going against the grain, perhaps even starting a revolution of non-conformists. Today, I say to these well organized, goal setters, ‘Yes I am revolting‘.
No one can deny that spontaneity has in a global sense proven to be, at the very least helpful, often miraculous and sometimes tragic.
Reality television is the ‘in thing‘. We, the viewer, are led to believe that everything happening in a particular program is off the cuff. The fact is that these, mainly American, shows are chock full of ‘planned spontaneity’, without which we would all be bored to death and switch channels.
Once, a long time ago I did attempt to set a goal. When the kids were very young I made the decision to go around Australia and pick fruit. They have their own families now and take great joy in pulling my chain regarding the pending apple picking trip. Needless to say, as yet it has not eventuated but we live in hope.
The problem about setting goals is that for them to be achievable there has to be a date attached. If I had said to my kids, ‘April 20th next year we are going to be picking fruit in Australia‘, well, we would probably still be there today.
With me, things just sort of happen. Like everyone there have been ups and downs, some negatives but oodles of positives. Maybe if I could start all over again I would give the goal setting a go.
So to the younger generation I say think on this; Imagine you are a soccer player for the Manchester United team, it’s a cup final, at home at the Old Trafford grounds. You run onto the pitch to the cheers of a 76,000 capacity crowd. The whistle goes….kick off, …but what has happened…. Someone has removed the goal posts. Result, absolute chaos, you have no idea what to aim for.
So maybe I should try and set myself some goals…. hold on a minute, I believe I did just that …… Now where is that fly rod.

Disappearing Frogs...what’s causing them to croak?

Ladies...have you thought about finding a prince and settling down happily ever after? All you have to do is kiss a frog. Sadly what is happening in NZ is not a fairy story. Frogs might not be that easy to find.
True there are still one or two puddling around in the bush blocks, but most folk have noticed a definite lack of the once robust species.
We used to see them hopping across the country roads after a healthy rain fall, naturally many were unfortunately squished flat but we didn’t care, after all we argued, there would never be a shortage of frogs. We heard them croaking in the garden, in the creeks and parks, sometimes they made such a din we wished they would go away or croak once and forever. Our kids thought it a great adventure to catch a few tadpoles, put them in a jar and watch them transform into adulthood.
Let’s forget about the puns and frog-kissing for a moment and ask a serious question that at first glance does not sound at all serious...Where on earth have all the frogs gone?
I realise that by writing about the apparent disappearance of the humble frog it appears that I have joined the happy band of tree-huggers. Frankly, I don’t give a damn because the greenies are right in so many ways and after carrying out my own research I realise that there are some things we need to be concerned about.
I am alarmed about the blatant use of dangerous substances. Killer chemicals endanger our wild life and have the potential to harm everything from the bottom of the food chain upwards, to you, me, our children and grandchildren.
Is the apparent decline of the frog due to these sprays, was a question that warranted some detective work. It prompted me to read a few of the operator’s instructions on readily available herbicides.
Apart from making sure to wear protective clothing, tantamount to being encased in full body armour plus face mask, to use said herbicides; you have to be a licensed operator, watch for wind drift, keep away from crops used for human consumption and the weirdest instruction of the lot... ‘When using herbicide sprays on drains or river banks, make certain you are not spraying near water!’ In other words you can spray the sides of drains when they have dried up. (How ridiculous)
What, you ask, has this got to do with frogs or the lack thereof? Well for a start Mr and Mrs Frog like waterways and their preferred habitat is under attack. A herbicide spray called ‘Atrazine’ which in this country is often camouflaged through the use of numerous other product names, is banned in Europe but still available here as a broad leaf weed killer.
I have no doubt that any toxic spray will kill small insects and you do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that frogs eat small insects and by so doing come into direct contact with such sprays.
I could show you reports that claim Atrazine causes the development of prostate and breast cancers and worse in laboratory rats. These reports, readily obtainable from the internet, warn that humans could suffer similar carcinogenic problems as displayed in laboratory tested rodents.
But we are talking about frogs and hold on to your hat because it is not a pretty picture. Apparently, a visiting American scientist studied the effects of Atrazine on New Zealand frogs and came up with a real frightener. Long term exposure to low levels of Atrazine, ... 2.5 parts in a billion of water,... were found to have emasculated nearly 75 % of laboratory frogs. Of these, at least 10% turned into functional females who mated with males unexposed to the herbicide and produced viable eggs, (how weird) the remaining 90% showed fall in libido, lower sperm count and decreased fertility.(how sad)
Is it any wonder they are disappearing!? Look at it this way, what these reports are intimating is that Freddy Frog is not into mating because he is either flaccid or has become Freda Frog.
All this is scary stuff especially when you consider that the four types of New Zealand indigenous frogs are now endangered species. If this deadly product Atrazine and similar herbicides are so lethal that they can chemically castrate male frogs, turning some of them into females, we had better do something about making sure our children live happily (and safely) ever after. Oh! Sorry ladies, you can forget about the Prince idea, after all, how will you know whether you are kissing Freddy or Freda?