Pippa Middleton and the photo epidemic

Oh SNAP, TWO Middleton girls were pictured looking rather lovely last weekend, and out came the vultures.

LET US IMMEDIATELY HAVE A WITCH-HUNT!

Yes, I know a wedding was involved; this is probably a legitimate excuse for at least one of them. I am not good at blogging that stuff; I'll leave it to those who are, and stick to the bits that annoy me.

"At least seven U.S. websites are running the photos showing Miss Middleton stripped to a purple push up bra and flimsy white slip with an half-naked unknown companion doing a 'bump and grind' dance behind her. " We're talking the Not-Duchess-of-Cambridge here.
Wow, a whole seven? Can we do an Osama comparison now, or would that just be too disheartening?
Now, let's just examine the newsworthy items enumerated in that sentence.
A purple push up bra. That wicked girl, why did she not do the respectable thing and purchase immediately upon puberty a drag-down bra? Possibly not in purple? Total proof of degeneracy, if you ask me. Frankly, the damn bra looks much like every one I wore up till pregnancy; except not purple. Also, I think the fashion industry might have something to say about PURPLE. Amethyst, Antique Fuschia, Bright Lavender, Bright Ube, Byzantine, Ceil, Dark Orchid, Dark Pastel Purple...we could be here all night.
Flimsy white slip. Well, there you go! Why not an unflimsyone? News for you, people - they only come in flimsy; that's the point of the damn things. They are meant to shield modesty invisibly, as opposed to being stronger and thicker than the garments they are assisting, thus rendering them superfluous. The garments, I mean.
Half-naked unknown companion - hmm, there are two ways to read this and the photo seems to indicate that the half that was naked was the legal half, so to speak. The fact that he is unknown to the DM is probably a blessing for the poor bugger. Seems he was not unknown to his dance companion, nor was he forcing himself upon her, nor was she actually forcing him to be half-naked at the time, so I can't see any real cause for anyone beside the two clearly responsible (well, OK LEGALLY responsible adults) to get upset, but - ah, now we come to it, the BUMP and GRIND dance behind her.
Now, all I've seen (and I can't claim I've done an exhaustive search, because I have a life) is a PHOTO. Repeat after me, PHOTO.  Essentially this involves NO MOVEMENT. The author of the article infers a bump-and-grind dance; and I am happy for that author that they had a youth adventurous enough to imagine such a scenario, but mmmmmmm, projection?
But I guess "Holiday photograph of Miss Middleton relaxing in beach wear dance contest" is hardly likely to sell many papers.
I feel a Bah Humbug coming on.

Cross Country

Literally. We live on the sticky-out bit (as my daughter describes it) on the East Coast of New Zealand marked A, and the golf course she was playing today is on the West Coast, marked by B. It takes an hour. New Zealand is a *very* tiny country.

Differences? WAVES! Whenever we want to have fun belly-boarding, we cross country to Piha or Muriwai for the purpose. Muriwai is a famous black-sand beach. This is where Bruce McLaren of Team McLaren raced for practice. However, I have never been to Muriwai Golf Course; and such was my purpose today.
Beloved Daughter has done rather well at golf of late. Last week she spent three days up in Whangerei, having been selected for the Northland Quadrangular Girls golf tournament; this week came word that she was playing in the North Harbour foursomes, which feature six player per round in three pairs; thereby clearly demonstrating nothing at all to do with the number four.
Rained all the way and rained on us at setup time, thus ensuring that my hair would resemble a badly-washed paintbrush for the duration of the game. Then it cleared up and we had sunshine for holes 10-18 and a bit of 1 and 2, before the skies dimmed and the rain and wind returned for the remainder.
Beloved Daughter did rather well, ending fourth Stableford (don't ask. I have it on good authority).

Change of plan. Write bestseller, retire to this part of country.

Funky Gibbons

So, ballet concert night. One that could put my lot to shame, mind you. Admittedly the focus of the school is on stagecraft; and if that was what I was after this place would have my hands-down vote. They make a promise that your child "WILL be in the next full stage production", and by God, if someone has to suit the brat up in a full-body fur cover and kick them onto the stage to skid into position, so your kid WILL be in the next production.
OK, I exaggerate. But not by a lot.
Anyway; all very spectacular and full of showmanship, and my Beloved Daughter's friend should be proud of herself; she has clearly put in a lot of hard work and performed brilliantly. The Riverdance sequence was amazing, truly amazing; and the one en-pointe dance was spectacularly professional; I actually got to my feet to applaud that girl. Which is more than I did during the Funky Gibbon.
I. Do. Not. Pay. To. Attend. Ballet. Concerts. Where. I. Am. Expected. To. Stand. Up. And. Do. The. Funky. Gibbon. Especially to cover a major backstage scenery shift. Imagine the audience being told to hop up and do the hokey-pokey while the stagehands shift the castle so Odette can perch on a windowsill and watch Odile do thirty-two fouettes, I do not bloody think so.
Okay, technically I did not pay to attend this ballet concert. Beloved Daughters' friends' parents did (have I lost any orphan apostrophes there?) in much the same way as we buy tickets for them for Shani's ballet school concerts (please God not an empty auditorium) but the principle remains. Either way, I found myself sitting next to the Glowering Russian Mother, who is (happily) no longer glowering. This may have to do with New Man at her side. I'm happy for her. Russian Mum is Russian, and also in computers. She Mums one of Beloved Daughters' former classmates, a breathtakingly good swimmer, allowed to squeeze in a little dancing when swimming does not require her. I have never seen her do anything but glower, whether at school functions or her daughters' incredibly elaborate and expensive 11th birthday party. Tonight she was happy, communicative; even gave a pleasant little finger-wave to Eugene (estranged father of swimmer daughter) and that's the chummiest I've seen them. She's still pretty forthright (when adorable baby Dumbo appeared she asked loudly, "Is rat or elephant?" ) .
They're thinking of going to Dubai. Because she can't get the pay increase she needs here.
Damn, I thought I was drastic.

You're doing it wrong

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10717366

Bullying is set to become a crime for the first time in Australia as concern grows at the rise of abuse that has destroyed lives and driven workers and teenagers to suicide.

(Wrong. Bullying has always been a crime. Just not a punishable one.)

Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark is expected to introduce amendments to stalking laws in the state Parliament tomorrow, placing workplace and cyber bullying under the Crimes Act.

The new legislation will provide penalties of up to 10 years' jail.

It follows the 2006 suicide of 19-year-old cafe worker Brodie Panlock, who was subjected to "merciless" bullying by four colleagues at Melbourne's Cafe Vamp.

She was abused, spat upon, had fish oil poured over her and, after one failed suicide attempt, was laughed at and advised to try rat poison before jumping from a multi-storey carpark.

Her abusers, head waiter Nicholas Smallwood and waiter Rhys MacAlpine, with chef Gabriel Toomey and cafe owner Marc Da Cruz, were fined A$337,000 ($432,337) under occupational health and safety laws in what the dead woman's father, Damian Panlock, described as a "slap on the wrist".

No criminal charges were brought because bullying is not a crime anywhere in Australia, and is instead covered by workplace, compensation, discrimination and similar legislation.

Last year a Sydney security guard was awarded a record A$1.9 million in damages after bullying that included threats of violence, financial penalties, racial and sexual abuse, and excessive and unpaid working hours.

But until Victoria's new move, governments have been reluctant to include serious bullying in criminal law, despite research estimating that one in four employees is likely to suffer from it at some stage.

(Is casual bullying OK? Or comic bullying? Wake UP! Bullying is bullying, and trying to fence off serious bullying is a mistake.)

Workplace bullying is also estimated to cost Australia between A$17 billion and A$36 billion a year in lost productivity, damage to mental health and staff turnover.

The new Victorian legislation will also cover cyber-bullying, another area of increasing concern, especially among teenage students.

(And you're going to police this how? A recent attempt to introduce software enabling parents to monitor their kids mobile phone communications was greeted with howls of horror and cries of 'controlling behaviour', 'invasion of privacy' and 'violation of civil liberties' by the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties spokesman Batch Hales - see http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10714812)

Last year Victorian police used stalking laws to convict a 21-year-old man who hounded a teenager to suicide - but the cyber-bully was sentenced only to community service.

(Isn't that the teeniest bit like sentencing a paedophile to working in a nursery? Isn't the point that the bully has HARMED the community?)

A three-year survey of 16,000 children by Edith Cowan University found that during the period of the study the number of victims grew from 15 to 25 per cent of respondents.

(No. The number hasn't grown. The children have just learned that there are no repercussions, so they're willing to talk)

Clark said yesterday that under the new legislation - already known as "Brodie's law" - serious bullying would be treated as a crime if it could cause someone physical or mental harm.

(OK. Now just HOW are you going to go about defining serious bullying. Is there non-serious bullying? Where's the line?)

Mr Panlock told a press conference yesterday that the new law was better late than never.

"If someone else can be protected from scum like these people, and they know that they are going to be charged, and they are going to have jail time, they might think twice," said Mr Panlock.

(Yes, because that deters SO many murders in the States and so many child abusers and killers in New Zealand. Grow UP!)

And on a sadly related note:

Hail-Sage McClutchie

??/11/07 - 27/09/09

RIP

You Called Her What?

So, rummaging through a database, I came across the following wonderful moniker :
Mai Bich
I'm serious. And when my 15-year old collapsed ungraciously howling with laughter and whooping, "He should get that on a T-shirt!" I was reminded of the sad story of Fuka.
I'm still serious.
Fuka went to North Cross, which is an intermediate school on the North Shore. It is big, so big that the kids have their first names embroidered on their sweatshirts.
By intermediate I mean kids aged 11 through about 13/14.
So you can imagine the gusto with which Fuka was welcomed on the first day of school.
She's from the islands (yes, sorry, she is indeed a she; which makes the next part of the story worse) where her name is very traditional.
She explained that Fuka is actually pronounced differently than it is spelt, which you would imagine was a relief.
The F is pronounced H and the U is pronounced as a long O.
Meaning that Fuka is actually pronounced as Hooker.
You would have thought that at least the person taking the order for the sweatshirt might have taken a bit of time and gently explained to the parents that perhaps it was time to consider calling the child by her second name or something in light of the hilarity that was bound to ensue.
Unless perhaps that is where Mai Bich works.

Boys who play with dolls

Lizardmen.

If you're still reading, you probably already know where this is going.

My son plays with dolls. Not just any old dolls; the variety that have to be assembled SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY, and whose body parts' refusal to adhere correctly at the psychological moment will bring forth language that I may later have to ask my daughter to translate. After this they have to be painted, in paints whose shades go by names like Skull White, Vomit Brown (not to be confused with Bubonic Brown) , Rotting Flesh, Tentacle Pink and Graveyard Earth.

Hand to God.

In case Hand isn't enough

They play at tournaments, involving dices that have too many sides for Cluedo, templates that look considerably more complicated than the little perspex triangles and semicircles that are vital to their education, codexes that contain more clauses than some treaties I have studied, and rules that would cause the Inland Revenue to cry for death or mercy. There is an entire mythology behind this; I dimly remember him saying that the High Elves were the second eldest race (I think I fastened on them because they didn't do things like spawning - did I mention that reproduction for most species in this game is something you don't want to dwell on over coughing up phlegm?) and then he described the Lizardmen (his favourites) as being "rather literal".

"As in, they like to read?" I said, hopefully.

"Ah, no. It's just, they can be literal, but different, in how they interpret orders.".

He thought for a while.

"Like, see, a Skink priest (I'm too afraid to ask) might ask for water.  And one troop of Lizardmen might think he means he'd like a glass of water, so they'll bowl off and attack a palace and bring him back a goblet of water from the palace spring.."

"Along with the heads of the inhabitants?"

He's too busy explaining.

"...whereas another troop might think he means he needs the borders of the ocean to be where he is, so they'll reshape the landscape so he's got a beach in front of him."

I so love the understatedness of 'reshape the landscape".

This is a photo of a Stegodon, with a Skink priest wielding a spear under the arch on his back. Some of the model is not yet painted; we'll get back to you just as soon as we can get enough Rotting  Flesh to do the job properly.

Why Lizardmen?

"Dinosaurs are awesome. Dinosaurs with spears and shields are uber-awesome. Dinosaurs riding dinosaurs with spears and shields AND capable of inflicting skull-splitting madness are ..beyond awesome. "

I cannot actually top that.

Rearranging Geography at Sparrowfart

So, it's that time of year again. BattleCry - which is The annual wargamers tournament commences at 7 (!) in Kohimarama; I was out of bed at 4.45, showering and making bacon butties for a 5.45 wake-up call for the kids. On the road by 6; I think both boys were out by 6.15 or as long as it took to inhale a bacon buttie. We were there by 7 before 7; and the geeks were arriving in force. So we cleared out, and, honouring another tradition, drove back to the Westfield Mall for a coffee. Alone. At the Coffee Club. Overlooking the empty parking lot.

Note the balloon in the sky above the hills.

We were too early for the Coffee Club.

So we went for a stroll, pausing to note the following well-constructed advertisment.

I don't know what to be more worried about; the disappearance of Sicily, England rejoining mainland Africa, or the fact that New Zealand amounts to four coffee beans.