Studies in stupidity

Tuesday, 21 May 2013

Studies in stupidity

An awful lot of money is expended by governments and public bodies engaging so-called academics to carry out studies. Now that might sound like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. After all we need to know certain information in order to plan for many different private and public organisations and with studies that actually move forward our understanding I have no problem whatsoever.

However I am seeing an increasing number of really stupid studies that seem to be telling us things that nobody with an IQ in even double digits should need a study to find out. It is annoying enough to see public money wasted in such a reckless way, but even more frustrating that I can’t become recognised as an academic and manage to grab some of this bounty for myself.

The latest of these forays into the frivolous is the study carried out by Otago University that trumpeted its astonishing findings to the nation via the pages of the NZ Herald this week. 'Right to success' belief can cause students to struggle screamed the headline to a story that informed us how students who had an exaggerated belief they had a right to success are more likely to struggle come exam time.

But the stupidity doesn’t end there; it goes on to ‘reveal’ that these same students whose own opinion of themselves was much higher than their academic prowess, performed worse than their peers in the final exam – but only when they found the paper more difficult than expected.

Well I never. Fancy that. And it took a huge slab of money from vote education that instead of being been used to educate our students tells us that little twerps who have lost touch with reality vis-a-vis their own capabilities are more likely to fail. Duhh!

And this study was not only funded by Otago University, but also published in the International Journal of Higher Education. Higher than what, I wonder. Higher than kindy education? No wonder the world is going to hell in a handcart.

If journals bearing such a prestigious sounding names as that are according studies of the bleeding obvious such importance, I have to wonder if there just might be a chance for me to grab some of the coin that is being freely tossed about.

Why don’t we commission a study into why we spend so much money on studies into such ridiculous ideas as the one above? I’m sure the answer to that is just as obvious, but for anyone who doesn’t see it; the answer is that governments, councils and bodies administered by them love to spend money on everything but their core functions. They also like to appoint wankers to carry out these idiotic activities so they can turn out press releases to divert our attention from the real issues and enable our shamefully unimaginative newspapers to fill a few more column inches without having to leave their desks and write anything intelligent.

Rather than print slop like this the Herald should have been out there grilling this twat about how his study had improved the lot of students at Otago Uni or slam Heckyeah Parata up against the blackboard and get her to explain why there is insufficient money to fund our schools properly but always enough to fund stupid studies like this one.

I have a few ideas of my own for some ground breaking (or is that wind breaking) studies that should improve the world just as much as the example above.

How about a study into why when I fill my car with petrol I am about $120.00 poorer? Why should this be? I am wondering if it could somehow be related to the fact that I actually have to pay for the stuff. It’s just a theory, mind you, but I’m sure if someone was to chuck me a hundred thousand or so I could investigate that fully and come up with a conclusion that would benefit the whole of New Zealand.

Alternatively I could carry out a study into the meaning of life. This I suggest could be a life- long study and I could drip feed my startling revelations via a series of annual reports which I know would be eagerly anticipated by a grateful nation. I could probably knock out between 700 and 1000 words of absolute bollox, much as I do on a regular basis these days except that the taxpayer would be paying me a handsome retainer to do it.

Yes, I think I could get used to that. They can expect my submission very soon.

Where’s the Wally?

In the last couple of weeks we have gained a new catchphrase into our lingo and we have been ‘privileged’ (?) to become familiar with somebody few of us had ever heard of before. Having said that, most of us would have been no poorer for never ever hearing of this prick, but life is like that sometimes. We can’t go back. The prat is now well and truly out of the bag.

I am referring of course to the one and only (thank God) Arrant Grabmore, that lowly National list pillock with delusions of adequacy.

Grabmore is likely to have one of the briefest careers of any of the overfed, over privileged tossers with whom he soils the benches of this Parliament. He has in the course of a couple of weeks gone from zero to zero and back again, managing to completely miss out the hero part of that particular cycle. He has offended a waiter, some diners, some tenants, possibly also his partner and his idol/idle/leader along with every right thinking person in New Zealand.

Boorish little twats like this should have been given a good kicking in the schoolyard and had this sort of arrogance knocked out of them before they got out of short pants.

For the benefit of anyone who has been in intensive care for the last week or a medically (or otherwise) induced coma, I will give you a little history of this twerp.

He was born in Christchurch in 1973 and spent most of his working life either working for Government Departments or sucking up to National Party shakers and movers like the reptilian Ill Health Minister and State Sold Enterprises Minister Tony Vile. He spent some time working with a couple of accountancy firms as well where he apparently advised utility companies. That probably explains why so many of them are so arrogant, although I shouldn’t give too much credit to whippersnapper Grabmore as he is still pretty wet behind the ears in this regard. A really smart arsehole, unlike Grabmore, knows how to insult and throw his weight around without bringing the roof down on his own pointed little head.

Grabmore suffers from an over-inflated sense of self importance derived from his overwhelming inferiority complex. And who can blame him? He is after all clearly a twit and he looks like a Jianqi clone, which is enough of itself to make anyone feel inadequate.

His political career if you can call it that has been pretty much a disaster from day one. He began by putting out his own PR in which he managed to boast about so much he has been referred to satirically as the go-to man for everything. He claimed a qualification for himself that he did not actually hold and seems to have sung his own praises pretty comprehensively – but it must be remembered this has been a totally solo performance for young Grabmore, much as I suspect, like his sex life.

He stood for the Christchurch East electorate in the 2011 election and lost, but almost got in on the Natsis' list. However his election night celebrations were somewhat premature (and I am tempted to make another reference to his sex life here, but won’t) and following the final counts the Green’s became entitled to one more seat at the expense of the Nats. As a result Grabmore as their lowliest lister lost his spot to Mojo Mathers. I’ve no doubt that this loss must have rankled with him particularly. First of all he lost to a party he probably perceives as the anti-Christ; then he lost to a woman; and finally he lost to a woman with a disability. To Mr Perfect In Every Way, this must have really impinged upon his own mojo.

However the universe often moves in mysterious ways and because young ‘Grabbers’ was such a proficient arse licker he remained on the Natsi list and thus when Blockwood Smith resigned from Parliament last year he was ushered in to the back benches.

This appears to have inflated his already bursting sense of entitlement and so it was that he got sloshed at a Natsi conference and behaved like a buffoon in a Christchurch restaurant. Here he uttered that now famous line, “Do you know how I am?” when refused more wine due to the fact he was pissed as a chook. He then got stroppier and threatened to tell his ‘Dad’ (Jianqi) on the waiter and have him bash him up (fire him).

His behaviour was so bad that one of the people he was dining with was so embarrassed he wrote a note to the waiter apologising for the little shit.

Then when the faeces hit the fan, little Arrant wrote a note of his own (in crayon) in which he apologised for the behaviour of his group. This of course pissed off his fellow diners who had all been apparently behaving perfectly appropriately. His esteemed leader was then contacted as they always are in these cases and as is always the case with Jianqi’s particular style of ‘laissez-faire’ management nothing has been done. Jianqi has made some grumbly noises and delivered his usual po-faced response about the miscreant letting himself down and his behaviour falling below the standard expected etc etc etc... yawn; but sod all else.

In a case like this there is always more and you can rely upon the media to start finding it soon. They have already found another instance where Grabmore has chucked some tenants out of their accommodation in circumstances that seem less than fair and certainly less than polite. It looks as though he might have upset his partner at the same time, so he looks destined to become an even bigger little Johnny no mates than his steamed leader.

Of course more will unravel from all of this and eventually Jianqi will have to drop this Wally because he will become too much of a distraction. He certainly won’t be the first MP Jianqi has supported to start with, held on grimly for several weeks and then eventually had to chuck out. Pansy Wong-Number immediately springs to mind and I know there have been one or two others as well, especially if one includes coalition partners.

In any event even if Grabmore manages to stifle any further revelations you can be sure his list place at the next election will be expressed in three digits. Of course none of us should be remotely surprised by all of this as it is exactly the sort of arrogant attitude that most of this Government carries around with it all the time. The only difference between young Arrant and his fellow party members is that the others have learned how to tone theirs down when other people are watching or listening.

But I feel sorry for the waiter, who after all was only doing his job. It is illegal to sell alcohol to pissed pricks, so he was merely doing what he oughta.

But most of all I am sorry that he didn’t have the presence of mind to call for silence in the restaurant and announce that the person next to him didn’t know who he was and ask if anyone could come forward and help him in regaining his memory. It would have been an absolute scream if nobody had come forward.

Only the cronies (dum dum dum dum dee doo wah)

Want a great job, a sinecure, a safe un-sackable position for as long as you feel inclined to bother with it? Then try sucking up to Jianqi and his merry band of brigands.

There will always be a welcome in the hillside for those who toe the party line and suck the party whatsit.

The National Disgrace under Jianqi is hurtling out of control through their current term. The indecent haste with which they are making changes that are un-mandated by the wider electorate, despite the fact they were able to coalesce into a government (?) after the last election is truly mind-boggling.

But it is not just the damaging policy changes such as the asset sales and the ‘clarification’ of the laws governing the actions of our secret squirrels that are the worry. Although God knows they are wreaking enough damage to the economy and to our basic freedoms.

What is even more disturbing is the flurry of political appointments that are likely to continue long after this government has left office. These are people who are appointed to jobs that have traditionally been seen as being apolitical and although it has always been the way that successive governments have appointed people they like to these positions there has been a change in the way Jianqi’s lot have tackled it.

Ian Fletcher was appointed to the role of director of the Government Communications Security Bureau in January 2012. This happened after the State Services Commissioner Ian Rennie had told Jianqi he had a list of possible candidates but didn’t like any of them. Helpful Jianqi instantly had an answer for him and suggested an old friend of his for the position. But he went further; he actually contacted that old friend directly and told him to apply for the job (wink, wink).

Thus it was that Ian Fletcher was the only applicant seen by the SSC and was duly appointed to the position. It would seem that his lack of relevant experience did not count him out of being considered the most suitable candidate for the job. But then I suppose with nobody else on the short list then he must have at the very least been the best candidate on offer.

Of course Jianqi later denied knowing Jesus. er Ian (at least three times by my count) and then when he suddenly had a moment of recall he tried to say he knew of him, but didn’t really know him. Of course as we all now know that was also uncovered as an outright lie in due course and then came the real killer punch; Jianqi forgot he had actually contacted Fletcher directly and advised him to apply (wink, wink). This fact becomes even more disturbing when we learn that Jianqi had also forgotten to advise the SCC that he had done this, leaving Mr Rennie with a big eggy stain all over his dial when the story got out.

The timing of Fletcher’s appointment was also interesting; immediately after the GCSB had waded in illegally to Kim Dotcom’s home and trampled all over his civil rights so that Jianqi could cuddle up to the FBI.

This demonstrates that Jianqi, who claimed more brain-fades than an Alzheimer’s patient over this fiasco, knew very well that his bully-boys had overstepped the mark and that he was going to need ‘some friends in high places’ to ensure the whole sorry saga didn’t come back to bite him on the bum.

The next example of National Disgrace’s cronyism occurred when Judith ‘Little Bo-Tox’ Collins appointed Dame Susan Devoy as race relations conciliator. Another hopelessly under-qualified candidate for an important role.

But was she under-qualified if you look at it from the Natsi’s point of view? Well, no, not really. In fact she was ideal. She was a sporting icon, a dame of the realm, and a really good supporter of the Jianqi government and all the principles it stands for. She had the ideal background of having been involved with a campaign to raise awareness of mental illness, which would enable her to understand politicians better. Then she was involved with a campaign to raise awareness of muscular dystrophy (I’m still not hearing anything about race relations yet). She is a good role model for women – she even wrote a support letter for Tony Veitch after he kicked his partner in the guts and then of course she made some stunningly tactful pronouncements on how Waitangi Day should not be a public holiday and then had a swipe at women in burquas. 

No I’d say she was well qualified to sit on a fence as she did the minute that rude cow from Denmark slagged of the welcome she got when she visited here recently.

With a dame like that in the position, we need never worry about any ethnic minorities getting above themselves or (gasp) having the damned cheek to seek some human rights.

But with her latest appointment Little Bo Tox has really bested herself and steals the cronyism title well and truly away from Jianqi. Given her latest enraptured adoration of Margaret Thatcher, Jianqi should be very afraid. Yon Bo Tox has the lean and hungry look (or in her case, the over made up and greedy look).

This time the hard faced one has appointed someone from within the ranks of her own (sorry Jianqi’s own – getting ahead of myself there) government to a plum role. Ooh hoo Jackie Blue has been appointed as Equal Opportunities Commissioner. This is another role that is supposed to be apolitical which is appropriate because Little Bo Tox’s phone is ringing but she doesn’t want to talk to anyone now, be it John Wayne or Chairman Mao.

Admittedly Jackie Blue has been a spokesperson on women’s issues so there is some sort of qualification there, but for her to be actually taken out of parliament to take on the role is dodgy to say the least. Blue hoo has been in parliament for three terms and never made it to a cabinet spot. One can’t help but feel that the job is some kind of compensation for that with the pay-off that the Jianqi Government has another friendly face in another high place and they can be sure their policy objectives will not be undermined by some disruptive soul who wants people to enjoy human rights.

With all this cronyism going on, I can’t wait to hear who the next ‘ideal’ candidate will be and what plumb job they will take. What’s your best guess? Mine is John Banks for Human Rights commissioner.

Listen... Do you want to know a secret?

Well if you promise not to tell then it is a fair bet you are not working for a department of the New Zealand Government right now. In a time when an increasing amount of data is stored about us all by the state and many other organisations, we are finding examples of how this data is not being looked after appropriately.

It is hard to imagine that this can be rocket science. The whole thing is simple really; you collect personal data you store it securely and you release it only to those who have a right to access it. All it takes for that to happen is to hire someone who can (a) read and write and (b) at least finished primary school.

Regular readers will know that I love sticking the boot into the Jianqi Government and to be fair for a nano-second they have not been the only ones on whose watch such blatantly negligent acts of disclosure have occurred. However it is also fair to say that this particular shambolic arrangement of village idiots masquerading as our leadership has presided over more leaks than a long serving public toilet attendant.

Since the little money market twerp with the slightly effeminate speech patterns and the permanent look of a possum caught in the headlights took the reins of office just lets recap what we have seen.

1.      In March 2012 we discovered that ACC (Accident Compensation Catastrophe) had inadvertently divulged all sorts of stuff about 6700 vulnerable sick and injured people including 250 sexual abuse victims to Bronwyn Pullar. In January of this year we learned that since then they have been involved in over 500 further privacy breaches and they are still breaching the privacy of Kiwi citizens at the rate of 1 per day.

2.      On September 11, 2012 we learn that WINZ (What Idiots New Zealand) sent out some great reading matter to one of their clients – only it was about another client. And just to make things even more interesting, when the recipient rang up and told them of their error and offered to bring the material back to them some cretin told them to just destroy it themselves.

3.      On 15 October 2012 we learned that the MSD (Ministry of Social Dysfunction) leave their information kiosks so unprotected that some 12 year-old kid with basic computer knowledge would be able to hack into them and of course someone did, laying bare all the secrets of many thousands more vulnerable people.

4.      On October 28, 2012 we heard that another punter had received from the IRD (Inland Robbery Department) a bunch of unsealed letters containing private tax details. Further investigations revealed that IRD had in the previous 12 months breached the privacy of 6400 Kiwis in 32 separate incidents.

5.      Now the latest breach du jour comes from the EQC (the Earthquake Cock-ups). They like to do things on a big scale, rather like the Christchurch earthquake. No little breaches by this mob, despite them originally claiming a mere 9000 people had been compromised. No; we find these geniuses have actually liberated 83,000 records which is reckoned to be every single one of the ChCh claimants. Well done them!

But I doubt we are finished with these stupid and inexcusable cock-ups yet.

Over the last six months the Government has kept persevering with the doomed NoNo Pay scheme for not paying teachers. Given that many teachers on leave have been paid and many more who have been working have not and another was sent on maternity leave well after she had passed beyond her fertile years, you would have to wonder how many breaches we have not yet heard about in this system.

But lest we think that is the end of the saga, let’s not forget several million of us have just completed a census form. Some will even have (rather foolishly) put their correct earnings information and religious persuasion an various other theoretically uncheckable bits of information into those sheets along with of course their name and current address. Imagine the fun Statistics NZ will have leaking those all over the country?

But, dear readers, there is a sublime irony in all of this. Have any of you ever tried to get a public report out of a government department or even some sensitive information about yourself? If you have you will know you are made to jump through more hoops than an Olympic gymnast and made to wait until you can no longer remember why you requested the information in the first place.

Yet every so often they have a kind of mufti day for information when they scatter it to the four winds like so many prayer lanterns to drift wherever they may and enlighten the lives of persons in places unknown.

It certainly makes the case for living in a cave in the back of beyond seem increasingly attractive.

Elephant’s trunk calls

It’s okay to drink and drive. It must be because I just read it in the Herald today. And not only is it alright to drink and drive; it is also okay to do both at the same time.

It’s times like these when you think you’ve either had too much to drink yourself or you have simply crossed over into a parallel universe. I don’t drink alcohol anymore, so I know it’s not that. As for the parallel universe; well I’ll let you make the call on that one. But bear with me for a moment before you leap to the conclusion that this old codger has finally and irrevocably exceeded his sell-by date.

It is apparently okay to drink and drive because when a couple in Nelson recently reported seeing a dimwit driving his car while swigging from a bottle of beer they discovered from the plods that he was not committing an offence. Yes; that’s right. Apparently the geniuses that drafted our drink driving legislation only took account of people behind the wheel being a menace if they had over a certain level of alcohol in their blood which might seem fair enough to some. It seems that as long as you haven’t hit the magic figure you are perfectly entitled to drive and swig because it is not an offence on the statute books to do so unless you are under 20 years of age when your allowable level is zero.

The cops will stop you if they see you doing this, but due to a combination of the hopeless legislation and the brain dead plods, you will not be prosecuted unless you are over the aforementioned limit. I say brain dead plods, because (a) I like saying it; (b) it is an accurate assessment of most of the boys and girls in blue (sad, but true, but more of that later) and (c) because it just goes to show how little imagination they have. Honestly I doubt that a roomful of them would have enough sparks of intelligence to burn the toast.

If I had been that copper I would have charged the prick with driving without due care and attention. You can’t tell me that he could concentrate on the road ahead and behind him and to the side of him while his melon is tipped back so he can slug down a draft of Lion Piss. In fact I would go further and suggest that if these bozos who draft our laws ever wake up enough to do something about this, they might as well make it an offence to be swigging ANYTHING while driving, whether it is beer, coffee, alka seltzer, or drain cleaner. The mere fact that you are removing your attention from the road momentarily and tipping your head back and driving with one hand means you are not in full control of your vehicle. The fact that you might get away with it nine times out of ten doesn’t mean it is safe. If you shoot somebody with a gun, on many occasions they will live to kick your arse later, but that still doesn’t make it safe.

We have already banned the use of hand-held cellphones in cars because they are a distraction. Although with the number of plonkers still using them in cars you wouldn’t think we had. So why not extend that commonsense ban to include anything that takes your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the road? Any answers? I’m buggered if I can think of any that would indicate the Government is actually serious about reducing the number of road crashes.

Of course this is another restriction upon our freedoms, but one that I think needs to be made, because most of the people on our roads are irresponsible idiots. Far too many of them are unable to safely drive their cars anyway.... or even walk and chew at the same time.

And while we are on the subject of drinking and driving I had a good laugh reading about the cousin-shagging moron from Masterton who came up with a cunning plan to avoid being done for drink driving. This seventeen year old retard had a couple of beers and then decided to drive his car. But because he realised he could get done for drink driving because the level for under 20s is zero (which already makes him smarter than the bozo at the Wairarapa Times who wrote the story and solemnly informed us it was 150mcgs), he decided that getting rid of the smell might throw the brain dead plods off the trail.

It might have worked if they had only wanted to get a whiff of his lovely fresh breath, but unfortunately our young Einstein decided the best thing to get rid of the smell would be his Lynx deodorant. After all it had kept him shagless for all of his natural life up to now so it probably should work fine in this case. Sadly for him it didn’t work, because the cops were proceeding down the road, as they do and following Police procedure when they stopped Mr Sweetbreath. As this neither involved wanting to shag him or reject his advances for that matter and instead meant breath testing him; the game was up. Furthermore as anyone with even a fraction of a brain knows, most deodorants contain alcohol, so our young Rhodes Scholar had just gulped down probably twice as much alcohol as his couple of cheap beers would ever have contained. Not that it mattered too much anyway as even the most minute reading would have meant that he was in the crap, given his age which was about the same as his IQ it would seem.

Oh, and further to the brain dead plods; some of you might have read the story in the Herald about the couple from earthquake city who had to go out and catch their own burglar because the cops were too stupid to do it for them.

They came home one day recently to discover their house had been burgled and it was apparent they had only just missed the burglars. It also appeared the burglars might be planning to return as their quad bike was sitting in the driveway. They rang the cops and told them what had happened and the fact that the crime scene was still red hot, but the plods responded by saying they wouldn’t be able to come out for 48 hours! 

So here was an extremely fresh crime scene and the strong possibility the offenders were still in the area, and yet the plods wanted the couple to carry on as normal and no doubt mess up the crime scene for two bloody days before even coming and checking it out.

Fortunately this young couple were made of sterner stuff and decided to lay in wait for the offenders to return. Sure enough, a short while later some young yob turned up and tried to get away with their quad bike. They pounced and the bloke knocked the little prick to the ground but then he got up and ran away. However the woman shot after him in her car and blocked the little shit in until her partner arrived and dropped him again. They rang the cops again and managed to hold onto him until they arrived. They have since had to do their own inquires with the offender and have basically done everything the plods should have done. Needless to say they are far from impressed. 

I suppose now they will be charged with assaulting the little twerp and driving without due care and attention, and some wimp in a wig will let the little scumbag go free.

It’s enough to drive a bloke to drink while it’s still legal to do so.

Stuff that would amaze even Mr Ripley

Fact or fiction? Statistics or lies? Those are the questions on the lips of many Kiwis today; or at least they should be.

We awoke this morning to read a breathless account of how the ruling National Party – the one under whose stewardship we have seen a massive rise in unemployment, a huge drop in living standards and for the average worker, no increase in income - has scored a 51 percent approval rating in the latest 3News political poll. This is the same party that has presided over the school closures/non-closures debacle in Christchurch and signed off on and continued to persevere with the Nonopay method of not paying those teachers who still have a job. It is also the same party that bailed out finance companies and offered tasty deals to SkyCity Casinos in return for them building a massive convention centre while ignoring those at the bottom of the economic slag heap.

And let’s not forget the Stormtrooper tactics they employed against Kim Dotcom, a naturalised New Zealander whose privacy is supposed to be guaranteed, while trying to cuddle up to the FBI over charges they have yet to prove.  These are also the same people who have covered up one cock-up after another, developed a condition I shall call amnesia convenientus whenever they were nailed with some particularly damning evidence. They also tried, Stasi like, to muzzle a photographer who accidentally overheard a conversation that was held in public between two public figures, while flagrantly compromising the privacy of beneficiaries and ACC claimants.

And 51 percent of us approve of all this? I feel a fucking great Tui billboard coming on.

Of course what this simply proves is that you can’t trust these sorts of polls. They are completely unscientific although the pollsters would tell you otherwise. The pollsters live in the world of statistics and probabilities where everything can be answered by a mathematical equation. The trouble is, when you are dealing with people, that mathematical equation has so many more variables than anyone can sensibly ever take account of. If you were to factor in every possible variable that could affect a poll’s results you would soon realise that you cannot ever accurately project such results.

For example how do we know that 51 percent of respondents weren’t died in the wool National Party members or supporters? Or that the respondents weren’t simply taking the piss? The fact is we don’t and neither do the pollsters, because even if they were to ask the respondents such questions, there is no way they could ever verify the answers. They reckon they can extrapolate the results and even give us a ‘margin for error’. That too is a fiction because it is only a mathematical probability based upon previous observations which could have been equally inaccurate. It has often been said that the only poll that matters is the one on Election Day, and that is hard to argue with. It is the only one you can trust, (always providing there is no jiggery pokery going on at the polling booth).

I wouldn’t even bother commenting on this were it not for the fact that I think polls like this are influential. The sheeple out there in Godforsakenzone actually think these things are correct, and of course because they ARE sheeple they like to stay with the flock. Of course the fact this poll was conducted by 3News, a company owned by Mediaworks, a company that was given a $43M loan guarantee, by... let me see who was it now? Oh, yes; the National Government might explain a few things. I’m just sayin’.

However the slippery poll is not the only unbelievable thing to catch my eye in the last week. The one day cricket series between the Black Caps and England was another. To be fair this one was pointed out to me by my very observant wife who is not slow to see connections others often miss.

The series began as those of us sad individuals who want to cheer on the Black Caps had hoped but not expected, with a three wicket win by the Kiwis. We watched it free to air on Prime and enjoyed the tense finish. Then came the second match where the Black caps suffered a severe drubbing by the visitors and lost by eight wickets. The two performances by the Kiwis were so different that it was actually very frustrating to watch that game which was also shown on free to air on Prime, but as the commentators reminded us; this now set up the final game to be a thriller with the series standing at one apiece.

It was only when we checked the TV Times to see what time we could sit down and watch that decider that little doubts began to creep into our minds. The third one dayer was not scheduled to be shown free to air on Prime at all; it had always been planned to be shown only on SkySport for those who had a Sky subscription. Now there’s a coincidence. Of course England went on to win that match as well (this time by five wickets) which was totally in keeping with their form, and that of the Black Caps. 

Now call me a suspicious old bugger, but I can’t help feeling that it was extremely convenient for SkySport that the Black Caps should shock everyone by winning the first match that was free to air and lose the second which was also free to air leaving the ‘exciting’ decider to be shown only to paying viewers. All the more so, given the current fuss about match fixing in regards to cricket matches and given also that we were constantly shown a little graphic in the top left hand corner of the screen during the second match that showed the odds one particular agency was giving for England to win the game. I’m just sayin’.

And finally another item to deserve mention in Mr Ripley’s ripping tales is the ongoing saga of the Act(ing) Party and little Johnny Banksia. The short-arsed one is under the spotlight yet again for allegedly being less than honest. No! Surely not! This time it seems the diminutive career politician (I don’t care where as long as I am elected there) is under scrutiny in relation to statements made in the prospectus of finance company Huljich Wealth Management of which he had been described as an executive director. It seems the prospectus contained a number of things that misled investors. No! Surely not! Another of the company’s directors, Peter Huljich has already 'fessed up to the fact that the prospectus contained misleading information and he has been fined $112,500, which would be a pathetic slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket for someone in his position. 

However the petite politician who was described as an executive director up until 2008, then later had his job description amended to simply director has now been asked to answer the allegations that he as an executive director was also liable for the veracity or otherwise of the statements in the prospectus. Interestingly his former partner in (political) crime, Dong Brash is facing the same allegations over the same prospectus. This all coincided with the Act(ing) Party’s national conference held at Allan Gibbs’ modest we two up two down, north of Auckland. There the miniature member managed to suck in the TV cameras to film him pretending to run up a hill, presumably to show that he was moving the party upwards. He enthusiastically told the reporter that Act could have six MPs if they get five percent at the next election (still clinging to the coat-tails rule). However he blithely ignored the fact that at the last election they Act(ually) got ONE percent and in the aforementioned 3News poll they got 0.1 percent. 

But given how inaccurate the latter might be that could just as easily be 0.0001 percent. I’m just sayin’.

Retreads in the future (or punctures on the road to retirement)

I was talking to a friend the other day who, like many of us, found 2012 to be one of the less rewarding years of his life. I notice that his was not a unique experience as a significant number of my friends have said something similar. I, myself would have to say that 2012 was one of the least enjoyable years of my life.

Hopefully my misfortunes did not in any way contribute to theirs! I do realise some of these bad experiences have a degree of infectiousness about them.

However from my observations it would appear that most of my friends who were less than thrilled about 2012 reached that stage independently of me.

It would seem that the year just gone might not have been the end of the world but it did bring a lot of nastiness from people in politics, scumbags on the streets, and the 1% for whom any slump in the marketplace was an annoyance rather than a life changing bad event.

My friend whom I started this blog about said he might take retirement this year if certain things didn’t look up for him. He is not a wealthy man who would readily choose such an option without consequences. But he is approaching the qualifying age for Universal Superannuation and feels he doesn’t want to go on struggling along for the rest of his life. He is thinking of choosing to enjoy the rest of his life rather than working himself into the grave.

This is a sentiment I can relate to. While I still have a handful of years before I am old enough to receive Super, I could well make that choice as well when the time comes, despite the fact that unless my fortunes turn around dramatically soon, I will not be ‘set up’ for retirement either.

I think 2013 is the year when we should all consider our retirement, but we need to get a couple of the myths and fairy stories out of the way first.

For many years the very well meaning Diana Crossan, our outgoing Retirement Commissioner has been egging us all on and encouraging us to think about the financial aspects of our impending retirement. This is sound advice and many of the suggestions that came from the Retirement Commission made very good sense......in theory. They would have made good sense in practice as well were it not for one thing; an increasingly large number of us need all of our income to cover our living expenses thus leaving no room for savings.

It is the very same Catch-22 that has led to our incredibly high level of personal indebtedness. I have often heard people from the generation prior to mine saying that people are mad to take out home loans as big as they regularly do these days. But what they fail to realise is that most people would never have any chance of owning a house if they had to save up a 30% deposit. They would be long in their grave before they ever got there because house prices have reached levels where even a 20% deposit is equivalent to more than a year’s wages for the average buyer. The only chance many first time buyers are likely to get is if they can wangle a home loan of 90% or more. This puts them in grave danger should they ever lose their job, which is becoming an increasingly common occurrence these days. Thus it doesn’t take a genius to work out that people who can’t afford to save money to get themselves into a house when they are young and healthy are going to be pretty well buggered by the time they reach retirement age, especially if one of the useless governments along the way has dismantled the Universal Super entirely.

But what about Kiwisaver I hear you ask? What about it indeed. Kiwisaver is not like Universal Super at all; it is an investment which means it is subject to all the pressures that any other investment is. Theoretically you could be paying into a Kiwisaver scheme all your working life and get to the end of it and find they have lost your investment. This is not as crazy as it sounds because we have already had the government tinkering with Kiwisaver and they haven’t been paying into it as they agreed to for some time now. Who will follow up and remind them on a regular basis until they make good the deficit?

Mind you I guess you could also find your government has spent your Universal Super as well. Chances are if your Kiwisaver did disappear down a hole (and into the pocket of some sharp money man) there would be nothing you could do about it because it is not a guaranteed income unlike the Universal Super was.

So I think we need to place far less emphasis on the financial aspects of retirement and more on the lifestyle implications. If this sounds simplistic, I am sorry, but some things are more important than money. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want heaps of it. It just means that when it comes right down to it, my peace of mind (or is that piece of mind?) requires that I am generally having a good time and when you don’t have any time to do things that make your heart sing, that is not a good time.

I am fortunate that I have found one thing that I quite enjoy doing and another which I love, albeit that I have discovered these roles extremely late in life. However I am also lucky that I have a whole heap of other things that I want to do when I retire. Actually I’d love to get on with many of them now, but that ugly bastard called reality says that if I try a stunt like that I will be ‘enjoying myself’ without a roof over my head and that would rather take the edge of any potential fun I might have. Thus I will have to keep scoping out those earning opportunities for a while longer yet and put my retirement ambitions to one side.

But mortality is a pretty random thing so I will be making my best efforts to have a good deal of fun in the meantime anyway. The Mayan’s were wrong (or taking the piss) but at the end of the day (not world) we just never know when that final curtain might come down. Make sure you have lots of fun in 2013; I intend to.