The Birthday Girl

Today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me. To celebrate I shall give you all a gift to treasure, laminate and stick above your bed or bog...a photo of me dressed up as Supergirl.

I'm at the stage in my career where I don't get out of bed for less than five bottles of pinot, $100 cash and a pound of grapes, and luckily that was exactly what this gig was paying. So I got out of bed. I even did my own makeup. I'm so beautiful. So very very beautiful. Women must hate me when I become more beautiful than them by simply donning a blond wig, green eye shadow and some lipstick for my lips and cheeks. I was part of a 'meet and greet' duo which required me to say, 'Hi, you look SUPER!, I'm SUPERgirl, welcome to our SUPER Christmas party, I hope you have a SUPER time!' I didn't have to say that, but I find it's easier to relentlessly repeat one line so you can stop thinking and go to your happy place to kill yourself.

Actually it wasn't that bad. At least I wasn't alone. I was meeting and greeting with Superman!

We make a lovely couple. Regular readers might recognise Superman as Lucius Malfoy to my Severus Snape or as Randy to my Candy. I've sort of already posted this next photo, but it's my birthday so I can do it again to further reinforce how pretty am.

I'd be very surprised if any women reading this are not seething with jealousy and making sure their boyfriends and husbands don't catch a glimpse of me looking so pretty and provocative. In this one I think I look a bit like an emaciated Susan Boyle on crack. I'd love to tell you how old I've turned today but instead I'll let you guess from these photos. Some people might say I'm too old to dress up as women for wine and grapes but to be honest, there's not much else I'm qualified to do...except maybe become a high school drama teacher. And now these photos have been released onto the interweb that career bridge has probably been burnt as well. Just as well.

New On-Bored

I never learn. Blogging about something you despise, in this case a Canadian band that rhymes with Bickelnack, will inevitably lead to advertisements appearing on ones blog for the very thing you have been raging against. The machine that is Google Adsense cannot distinguish between pro or NO! And the only winners are Chad Kroeger and Brother.

Thank you Greg for promoting my new album. Love Chad.

I was going to be horrendously clever and pay 1000 monkeys to click on Bickelnacks's ad without buying their album, and not stop until the band was bankrupt so I could call them Nickelbankrupt, or one of the monkeys took lots of drugs and typed the complete works of William Burroughs. Then I noticed the advertisement was from Marbecks Music, and as much as I'm disgusted at 'New Zealand's leading music specialist' peddling such filth, I cannot bring myself to go all rogue-clicker and destroy an institution that's been operating since 1934. Also I suspect some of the monkeys may not be able to resist buying Bickelnack's album to throw their own shit at.

On the subject of monkeys, I watched 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' on an Air New Zealand flight last month and thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the bit where Bright Eyes started burning like fire and killed Draco Malfoy. If all the monkeys had escaped to march on Alberta to throw shit at Chad Kroeger it would have been even better, but you can't have everything.

I returned to Christchurch again a few weeks ago and was excited to see what new filmic offerings Air New Zealand had ready for my viewing pleasure while I harassed harassed flight attendants for yet another plastic bottle of Brancott Estate Reserve Merlot. I went straight to the 'New On-Board' screen and to my horror saw this...

Not much to choose from is there. I'd forked out an extra $30 and all I was getting was a gluten free salmon meal, four bottles of merlot, a gin and tonic and a whole lot of bloody Harry Potter films. Why do I need to see Harry Potter films? Everyone knows that Draco Malfoy gets killed by an ape and Voldemort turns out to be Harry's father and gets his end away in a Qantas toilet while flying to Mumbai. Boring! How can a whole lot of Harry Potter films be considered suitable viewing for a 'New On-Board' classification? If the section was called, 'Films That Feature Lots of Plummy British Actors Except Hugh Grant That You've Probably Seen a Million Bloody Times on the Tele', I would understand, but honestly Air New Zealand, this is a misleading and shameful act for a national carrier. Still, there was another whole page of 'New On-Board' films to go, so surely I'd find a recently released cracker there to get me through the next three hours...

Look Greg, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

WTF! So, out of 12 'new' films, eight were Harry Potters, one I'd already seen, one was released in 2007, one in 2009 and Horrible Bosses, which admittedly was released in 2011, but has Jennifer Aniston in it who I cannot face since searing my eyeballs on 'Love Happens'.

I'm flying back to Melbourne on Friday and if there isn't a serious shake-up in the movie selection there will be serious trouble. I may pretend I didn't order a gluten free meal when really I did. I may order 20 Brancott Estate Merlots and hand them out for free to grateful Seat+Bag passengers. I may even express my anger by playing Words With Friends up-to, during and after take-off, and if challenged by an power-hungry tyrannical trolley dolly, sprint down the aisle, lock myself in the toilet and continue playing Words With Friends with Ralph Fiennes and Alec Baldwin  until one of us comes out on top.

Nationalback

Bad things are happening again.

The first bad thing happening again is this.

If you know me you know Nickelback makes me spit with rage. Just as I was about to spit with rage I saw this right next to it.

It seems even the Nickelback poster-putter-uppers know any sane person wouldn't be able to resist spitting on Chad Kroeger's latest assault on everything good in the world. Chad Kroeger is a total total utter utter dick dick of immense proportions who probably has a tiny tiny dick dick. I know my posts of late have consisted of calling people dicks and crudely paint-shopping human heads onto dogs and mythical creatures, but I'm sure it's just a phase. If you're looking for a sophisticated and sagacious musically political statement go here. If you're happy to see a photo of me dressed up as Chad Kroeger, lead singer of Nickelback... read on.

This is one hell of a skeleton to drag out of the closet, but my hypocrisy threatens to eat away at me until I become a skeleton who is too weak to open the closet and let the other skeleton out. Here is a picture of Chad Kroeger.

And here is a picture of me in my Chad Kroeger costume, distributing free copies of Nickelback's third album 'Silver Side Up' to poor unsuspecting children at Auckland Zoo in 2002.

The costume captures with uncanny accuracy Chad's long flowing locks, facial hair and enormous head, and as you can see by the photo, the children couldn't resist him. I was mobbed and hugged and generally treated like a nine foot furry Jesus with a box of free CDs and the occasional free ice-cream. I did this many times and the shame lingers still. I sold out in the worst possible way. I would have felt better if I'd handed out bags of fags, crack and copies of Mein Kampf. I inflicted Nickelback on the untainted susceptible ears of young children who should have been listening to beautiful music like 'If You Come Back' by Blue, instead of 'How You Remind Me.' Wow. I've just listened to If You Come Back and if he hasn't already Gary Barlow should be calling his lawyers, because it's a complete rip off of Gary's opus 'Back For Good'. Why couldn't I have been dressed as a nine foot Gary or Robbie handing out free copies of Take That's third album 'Nobody Else'? Why!

Right, now that's out of my system I'll move onto the other bad thing that's happening again. I'm flying to New Zealand on Sunday for a few weeks work and barring a political miracle, I shall arrive on the first day of the second term of the fifth National Government. They may even garner enough votes to govern alone. The previous national government introduced major cuts in social welfare spending, introduced market rents for state houses, retained a tax on pensions despite promising to abolish it, sold the BNZ, NZ Rail, The Ministry of Works, the commercial arm of Radio NZ, Contact Energy and its 51.6% share of Auckland International Airport. Auckland International Airport is very profitable and it looks like its profits are only going to increase. They divided the Electricity Corporation of NZ into Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power and Genesis Power with the intention of selling them off. They introduced the Employment Contracts Act to abolish collective bargaining and weaken the power of unions. Government standards in building were relaxed in the belief that market forces and competition would lead to high quality construction, but market forces and competition decided to build a whole lot of leaky homes instead. The really scary thing is that a lot of these decisions were just a continuation of what the previous Labour Government had been up to.

And now it's happening again. John Key wants to sell more of NZ's profit making assets and even financial analysts say it's a stupid short-term solution to avoid borrowing money. If it goes ahead the only winners will be the Australian investment banks advising John on the best way to do it, one of which will reportedly receive more than $100 million for their 'services'. The fifth National Government will hit the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society and increase the disparity between rich and poor. The New Zealand rich/poor gap is ninth worst in the world, so at least we don't have far to fall to hit rock bottom. As shown by his handling of The Hobbit episode, John is happy to trample over the rights of workers and will change employment law retrospectively to keep the men with the money happy. Especially if he can nab photos like this during an election campaign.

It's all getting a bit serious so I'll finish with my one and only encounter with a National Party MP. Years ago I was on an Air New Zealand flight from somewhere to somewhere, and walked down the aisle to find Ruth Richardson sitting in my seat on the aisle. She was busy scribbling down the best way to use high unemployment levels to pull labour costs down, so I politely 'ahemed'. She said without looking up, "I need this seat, I've got work to do." I was slightly taken aback and said, "I think you're sitting in my seat." She replied, without looking up, "I need this seat to work, you can sit in the middle." I hate sitting in the middle. Ruth Richardson hates sitting in the middle. Everyone hates sitting in the middle. Her seat was in the middle but Ruth felt she was entitled to sit on the aisle because everyone knows it's much easier to find ways to shaft the underprivileged on the aisle than in the middle. She could have asked if she could swap seats, she could have looked at me, she could have smiled, she could have even said a solitary please or a solitary thank you as I squashed past her to sit in the middle. She could have stood up to let me sit in her seat but no, she was too busy working. Her sense of entitlement to my seat was overpowering and I sat in the middle and said nothing. I wish I'd had the intestinal fortitude to say no, but I didn't. I cast my vote today and said no. I also made sure I had an aisle seat for my flight on Sunday.

Two Dicks Talking and a Microphone

John Key is a dick. He's worth about $50 million so he's obviously a clever dick, but he's still a dick.

It's not nice or clever to call someone a dick but I can't help myself.  John Key is the bell to my Pavlov's dog. Every time I see his grinning face I shake my fist and scream, 'You sir, are a dick!', before drooling uncontrollably while trying to lick my balls.

No Greg, you're a dick.

I've never met John Key. The only connection we have is that we both went to Burnside High School and got B.Com degrees at Canterbury University. Then our paths diverged. John went to Harvard and reaped $50,000,000 as head of Asian Foreign Exchange for Merrill Lynch. I went to Auckland and reaped $50 by dressing up in green tights and waving a cardboard sword.

Spot the dick.

I'm sure if John met me he would think I'm a dick. He may not drool and try to lick his own balls, but I'm pretty sure he would take one look at me in my spotted tights and chuckle to himself, 'That pale waify young man is a dick. I can't believe he was head boy! I can't believe he has a B.Com degree! I can't believe we went to the same high school and university! I know what, I'll get Anne Tolley to close Burnside High and Canterbury University down just like we closed down my primary school, and destroy any record of his existence. And just to rub it in, I'll cut all funding for the arts and plays and all that other prancy stuff dicks do and give the money to Peter Jackson, because PJ's my mate and we had a great chat on my talkshow on Radio Live. I mean, if there's no money in theatre and dance and stuff, why do the dicks do it?'

I've asked myself that question many times.

I was just getting used to John Key being a dick before I saw a photo of John with an even bigger dick. Not content with being a dick and leading the country for three more years, John's decided to try and insert the mother-of-all-dicks back into parliament just in case enough dicks don't vote for him to let him dick the country singlehandedly.

It's quite a clever move. John Banks is a cock colossus and no matter how much of a dick Key makes of himself, Banksie is assured of cocking things up to a whole new level. Not only is Banksie a dick, he's also a bit of a racist, (I know I put in lots of links, but click on this one, watch it for 30 seconds and then go have a shower), and a bit of a homophobe. Here's a delightful wee Banksie gem from the 1993 parliamentary debates on outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexuality.

"The problem with this homosexual business we've now made legal in his country is that so many of these creeps have now boldly crept out of the wardrobe and parliament is soon going to legislate... to allow sexual deviants or people with sexual alternatives to work... with immunity."

The only positive trait of John Banks I'm aware of is that he's a big supporter of the SPCA and likes dogs. Then again Hitler liked dogs as well.

John and John invited every journalist and cameraman in the country to their tea-party, and then got the shock of their lives when somebody managed to leave a microphone in a pouch on their table and record their 'private' conversation. Apparently they talk about how to get rid of another dick called Don. John Key thinks what happened is 'News Of The World' journalism and the publishing of the tape could in some circumstances lead to suicide, even though he "genuinely can't recall" anything he said and there's nothing of interest on the tape anyway.

I'm sure someone will leak it soon. Here's my guess on what we'll hear.

John Key: 'Have you heard of Greg Cooper?'
Banksie: 'Yeah. He was dressed as a dog at an SPCA Function I gave a speech at.'
John Key: 'He's a dick.'
Banksie: 'Yeah, he's a dick.'
John Key: 'Is that your pouch?'

A Twitter of Tibetan Mastiffs

It's been well over a month since my last post, which in blog months is 7 months and in dog blog months is 49. I read somewhere you should be tweeting at least every two hours to build a Twitter following, but I have no idea what the vital statistics are with blogging. A tweet every two hours means twelve tweets a day, or approximately 360 tweets a month. If you were a tweeting dog this would equate to 2,520 tweets a month, 84 tweets a day, or approximately 3.5 tweets an hour, which wouldn't leave much time for sniffing dog bums and licking your dog bollocks. The only person I follow who can out-tweet a dog is Stephen Fry, perhaps because he looks a bit like a big cuddly dog with an astounding vocabulary of barks.

This is shit but I spent 10 minutes on it and don't want to feel like I wasted my time.

I'll digress here before this becomes a post of Stephen Fry's pate crudely pasted on pictures of pooches using Microsoft Paint.

George 'Gatling-Gun' Michael, as he is known in the Twitterverse, can give Stephen a good run for his money when his anger is roused, although he then usually goes quiet for a few days to recover and sing Club Tropicana with his big orchestra. The really fantastic thing he does though is occasionally end tweets with an 'and'. 140 characters isn't enough for George to express his outrage and when he starts firing nobody else you follow can get a tweet in sideways... except for Hamish Keith. What's even better is that Hamish managed to lob his tweet through the one minute window straight after George's 'and' tweet, so you could read them together before George's follow up. George was angry with the portrayal of two gay characters on Eastenders and Hamish was angry that no one remembered today is Armistice Day. So together they go...

So far, Christian has been beaten up 3 times that I can remember, and is now accused of child molestation. Sayed has been disowned and no one seems to remember that this is Armistice Day end of WWI at 11 am - we commemorate the defeat at Gallipoli & ignore the peace.

Either my life is tragic or that's incredible. Two tweets from two men who have probably never met each other combine to create a mystic megatweet full of hidden depth and wonder. This sort of thing should be actively encouraged by forcing everyone who tweets to pop an 'and' at their end. I'm sure Twitter could bump up the character allowance to 144, (which is a square and a MUCH more pleasing number than 140), so Tweeters don't feel short changed. Then we could all just sit back and watch the wonder unfold. Rather than a series of unconnected observations, our feeds would become a neverending story...ahhhhh, ahhhhh, ahhhhh.

This one only took 5 minutes but I'm much happier with it.

Surely someone out there could talk to someone and make this happen... the neverending tweet that is, not Limahl's head on a Tibetan Mastiff.

Just before I finish I'd like to start up what I hope will be a sporadically amusing section of the blog called 'Only In Australia'. Let's kick things off with this photo of a truck I spied this morning parked on Little Collins Street.

And a close-up to truly appreciate the genius at work.

Only one question. Did they know? Oi. Oi. Oi.

ENO OH-NO!

I'm writing this post under the influence of my spasming gullet. It hasn't spasmed for quite a while but due to a combination of over-exuberant fisting in the ring and swallowing big meat, I'm now spitting saliva into a glass to avoid swallowing anything. I could post a picture of the glass, which is almost full of my frothy boy bile, however nobody needs to see things like that. Just putting the image in your imagination is enough.

But enough of that, let's talk about Kate Bush. I was getting a bit weepy listening to This Woman's Work yesterday when I remembered that Kate wrote Wuthering Heights when she was 18. 18! Quite a few of the songs off her first album were written when she was 13! 13! 18-13=5. 5!

Sorry. I've just been side-tracked by three recent comments on the Wuthering Heights YouTube link. If you watch the video you'll see them but if you haven't got time I'll copy and paste them here, because unlike 99.999% of YouTube comments, these are quite funny and not racist.

• my cat, mr. nibbles took first place in our towns talent show performing this number. only hitch was, he refused to wear a red dress...insisted on white...little dickens..and quite cheeky.

  dbeard451 5 days ago 9
• Is it bad im doing A-level English and this is the closest i've come to studying the book?

  Trinitykill 1 week ago 5  

  fuck this song, I read the book constantly expecting her ghost to come back because she sings the chorus creepingly like "I've come home", argh it just fucking ended with that wanker Heathcliff dying and no walking Cathy corpse to be found, disappointing.

  asapics 10 hours ago

I hope Kate has read these comments, how she would laugh! Kate is great and to my shame I didn't know much about her until my musically astute partner Sarah showed me there's a lot more to Catherine Bush from Bexleyheath than that Heathcliff song and the one she does with Peter Gabriel. Peter originally wanted Dolly Parton but she turned him down once she found out he was only pretending to be Kenny Rogers on the phone.

She's releasing a new album soon and if it's as half as good as her last double disc delight Aerial it will be a bit disappointing but still OK. These days she lives in a castle somewhere and writes songs about her whiteware. It's a fantastic song and features 8 bars of the best lyrics you'll ever hear...

 Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy
Get that dirty shirty clean
Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy
Make those cuffs and collars gleam

Gullet update: no spasms for 20 minutes and an empty wine glass.

I've written three songs in my life and I can say with all honesty they were, are and always will be a steaming pile of musical and lyrical KFaeCes. The sloshing sound as I swish my cup of bile has more musicality than the self-indulgent crap I committed to 24 track, 2 inch tape back in 1996. This is hard to admit, but all three of the songs I wrote, played, sang, engineered and produced were worse than ANYTHING done by THE FEELERS. Yes...they were that bad. And I was 22. Three years older than Kate when she wrote Wuthering Heights.

These audio monstrosities were recorded at Westside Studios, near Shepherds Bush in London. I was working there for free doing important things like making tea and buying fags for fat producers. It was bloody great fun and I got to meet some big names, although half the time I didn't know it. One day a bald middle-aged man turned up and I went out to help him carry in his gear. 'Hi, I'm Brian', he said. 'Hi, I'm Greg', I said. Then I carried in his H3000 Ultra-Harmonizer and some other knob boxes. We had a nice chat about New Zealand and I made him a cup of tea. Later, Sam the Kiwi assistant engineer, (who played drums on one of my dirges although he was very drunk at the time), asked me if I knew who the bald middle aged man was. I said 'No.' He said 'Brian Eno.' I said, 'Oh yeah, he does stuff with U2 doesn't he?' Sigh.

The B50U2's and some balding guy.

Before I get onto my three songs I'm sure you're all desperate to know of any other famous people I met and if they were nice and if I recognised them so I'll shamelessly name drop by name, if I recognised them and whether they were an arsehole or nice.

Jimmy Nail YES Arsehole.
Robson Greene NO Nice.
The guy who did the TV show with Robson Green NO Arsehole.
Elvis Costello YES Nice.
Nenah Cherry YES Nice. (Even after I repeatedly called her Stella.)
Brett Anderson YES Odd.
Bernard Butler YES Nice. (Didn't stop me nicking his wee amp which he left behind though.)
Suggs YES Nice.
The lead singer from UB40. YES Nice. (Although he was off his chops and kept screaming 'I'm a fucking Maori' at me.)
Johnny Marr NO. Very nice. (That probably will have changed after I sent him off in the wrong taxi at 2am.)

I can't remember a lot about the three songs I recorded on my reel of 2 inch tape but what I do remember is much too much. One of them was called 'Close To Special' and was about Godzilla accidently stomping on someone he loved in Tokyo. I kid you not. I can only remember the first four lines and they went like this...

Tokyo, is on its knees,

I could crush, the city with ease.

People stare with saucer eyes,

Smitten by my brilliant disguise.

Smitten by my brilliant disguise??WTF was I thinking? I was drunk quite a bit of the time but that's no excuse. Another of my tunes was entitled 'Toronto' and not only rhymed Toronto with 'The Lone Ranger and Tonto' but featured a chorus reminiscient of John Rowles in the Gerard Roofing TVC that went...

I wanna go T, T, T, T, T, T, T to Toronto.

Over and over and over again. I can't remember anything about the third song which is a minor blessing. I even had the naive audacity to play them to one of the studio owners Clive Langer and after listening to them he managed to keep a straight face and say, 'Well, you've written three songs Greg, that means you can write some more.'

Thankfully I didn't take his advice, although I left that reel of 2 inch tape in London, so the world may still be in danger.

Gullet update: no spasms for two hours and another empty wine glass.

Band of Brothers

Lots of people are playing rugby in New Zealand at the moment. Lots of people are watching people play rugby in New Zealand at the moment. Not lots of people are watching our play about people playing rugby in New Zealand at the moment. That's OK though. We're doing our play in the frigid Fanzone and everyone knows plays are best enjoyed in a toasty warm theatre with a glass of wine in one hand and your penis in another. That's not strictly true as you don't always need wine to enjoy a play, but it certainly helps, especially if you want to glass an actor or cut your wrists at half time.

Although our audiences have been small, they have been perfectly formed and appreciative of our artistic endeavours. One small boy was so appreciative he came up after the show and gave me $4. His mother refused to let me give it back and the cherubic wee creature gazed up at me with pity, his eyes clearly saying, 'You need this more than I do.' It was exactly the same look I'd received from the cherub who gave me a tiny parcel of glad-wrapped bacon sandwiches after my portrayal of the Big Bad Wolf in everyone's favourite kids show 'Blowing Bacon'. It takes a special sort of talent to make four year olds feel sorry for you

Speaking of kids, one woman was apoplectic with rage and confusion and accused the event organiser of staging a 'kids show fuck fest'. I admit some of our content is risqué. We say 'bullshit' once, 'feck-kekkin' quite a lot, one of us dresses up as a giant testicle and all of us dress up as the Village People, however it's hardly a fuck fest. The only fuck fest performance I've ever been involved in was an illicit short film entitled 'Horny Ambush', shot during downtime while making 'The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe'. Although there are only four copies in existence I'm forever terrified one will leak onto YouTube and cripple my extensive international film and television career. I'm not proud of what I did, but in my defence I'd hardly slept for two months and was wearing green tights.

Another highlight was having the New Zealand Army Band open for us. This was a BIG deal. The New Zealand Army Band are huge in New Zealand and not only are they the ARMY, they are also a BAND. Here's a picture of them tromboning.

There's a lot more to the New Zealand Army Band than trombones though. They have trumpets, and tubas and snare drums and I've heard rumours if the National Government can sell our Skyhawks, they are going to invest in a lethal sousaphone. New Zealand doesn't have enough money for an army and a band so John Key came up with the brilliant idea of sticking bayonets onto trombones, mortars in tubas and grenades in French Horns and voila, you have an immaculately dressed killing machine that can also play 'Sweet Georgia Brown' and 'Let Me Entertain You'. Often the last sound an enemy combatant will hear is 'Hold That Tiger' before they explode or get stabbed in the face by a trombone bumper.

Parp...parp....parp....parp...PARP...PARP...PARP....PARP...STAB...Hold that tiger!

Scary stuff!

Just before I finish I'd like to bring your attention to the 'Subscribe via email' box in the top right corner of your screen. If you put your email address in the box and click the 'Subscribe' button you will have subscribed to my blog via email and every time I blog you will get an email telling you how to increase the girth of your member. You may even get an email telling you I've blogged...who knows.

Legs 11

29 years, 5 months and 16 days ago I played my first game of football. I was on the right wing for Nomads United AFC and we lost. Here is a photo of a photo of me before we lost.

Today people pay $1.99 for apps to make their photos look all retro like this, but all I had to do was take a photo of an old photo with my old old iPhone and it came out all blurry and bigfootish for free.

Gerry Brownlee in the Avon River

I hadn't thought about my short and unsuccessful football career for many years until a few days ago, when I found myself dressed as an All Black in a park while tens of young children kicked balls and ignored me. It was a Saturday morning and it was cold and I was wearing short shorts pulled up high like an 80 year old man. As I looked at Potpinto dressed as a giant testicle my mind drifted back to those frosty football mornings on Tulett Park, dressed in the Chelsea red, white and blue of Nomads United AFC, the second oldest football team in the Christchurch area.

If you can't tell it's me from the face the legs are a dead giveaway. They haven't changed in 29 years and here's a photo to prove it.

The 2011 RWC Opening Ceremony

As you can see the only difference between my 8 year old and 37 year old legs is the complete absence of colour. It's as if my lazy 8 year old heart decided it couldn't be arsed pumping bloody blood to my legs, leaving them to translucently wither like two sad saplings on the White Tree of Gondor. As all my manly male friends filled out their hamstrings and quadriceps with ease my upper legs stubbornly refused to thicken up and remained milky, thin and insipid. I even started squatting at the local YMCA in a vain attempt to bring on the beef, but soon stopped when I found myself at the bottom of a squat unable to rise and had to ask the female trainer to lift the bar off my shoulders. No fat hammies were worth that kind of embarrassment.

I can't remember much about my football days. I was placed in the 10Fs and from memory that was the team where all the uncoordinated athletically inept boys with pencil legs were placed to make sure we couldn't spoil any other teams with our bad apple ball skills. We were absolute shit. We lost every single game except one when the other team didn't turn up. Our coach's pigeon toed son was in goal and he never tied his laces and fell over often. I was the only one who bothered to obey our coach's instructions by staying in position, meaning I spent 90 minutes every Saturday morning freezing my tits off running up and down the right side of the field as 19 other boys flew around like an angry solar system orbiting a ball I never saw. Even the opposition goalie would join the melee once they realised there wasn't a chance in hell we were ever going to launch a shot at goal. Our valiant coach ran up and down the sideline screaming 'Don't bunch!' as I ran up and down the sideline wishing I was in my nice warm bed thumbing through The Sword of Shannara.

I was terrified of the ball so my weekly 90 minute shuttle runs were a minor blessing. Possessing the ball meant you were ripe to be kicked in the shins by all of the opposing team trying to get the ball off you and most of your own team trying to get the ball off you. I did not consider that to be fun and on the rare occasion when somebody passed to me I immediately kicked it back to them and ran in the opposite direction. During one memorable game our goalie decided he wanted to join the thrashing throng and after some hasty negotiation I agreed to swap positions with him. He pulled his jersey half over his head and immediately tripped over his laces. I got mine halfway over my head and tripped over him. As we both lay blinded in the box like thrashing red, white and blue worms in the sun the other team scored and an unknown assailant kicked me in the shin....probably our coach.

As I gaze at that blurry snapshot of my life on a sunny Saturday morning in April 1982 I am filled with questions, all of which start with 'What the fuck....? My brother was rather good at football so had I convinced myself genes would get me through even though his legs were wide and colourful? Was I foolishly inspired by the All Whites qualifying for the 1982 World Cup? Maybe I was drunk?

Anyway, if you want to see my 8 year old legs running around a park you'd better be quick. Here's the schedule and once we're done my legs will return to long pants and Australia with no hamstrings attached.

BYO CBD

Most of you will be aware that Christchurch is significantly smaller than it was this time last year. Gerry Brownlee, the Earthquake Recovery Minister is significantly bigger than he was this time last year. Unless you're Rachel Hunter, Phil Keoghan or Scribe there's no way you're getting into the CBD to see where Christchurch is going however I have discovered the truth and with no regard to my personal safety shall divulge it to you all. Gerry Brownlee is eating Christchurch. I have created a stunningly realistic and disturbing representation of Gerry Brownlee hard at work in the red zone, eating bars, yeah wall to wall, door to door, hall to hall, he's gonna eat 'em all.

Gerryzilla hard at work

By the end of 2012 it is estimated 60% of the Christchurch CBD will be in Gerry's tummy but will that be enough to sate Gerry's insatiable appetite for all things historic and Gothic? Not bloody likely. This is just the beginning. Once New Zealand has elected the one Key to rule them all, Gerry will be unleashed to stomp up and down the length of The Long White Cloud eating anything with a smidgen of beauty or design aesthetic. Gerry and John's wealthy friends will erect tilt-slab monstrosities to celebrate before Gerry shits bricks over any electorate foolish enough to have elected a Labour MP.

On a happier note it's a beautiful sunny day and the entire country is fizzing at the bung with the prospect of watching Jonah Lomu being shot out of a cannon with a million bucks worth of fireworks up his bum. The RWC opening extravaganza is also going to feature 1000 dancing volunteers and video projections so it sounds like we're in for a big flash mob with some flash slides. I can't wait. Maybe The Feelers will sing their Jesus Jones song as Jonah Lomu's bum lights up Gerryzilla on top of Mt Albert breathing fire into Helen Clarke's old electorate office? Hayley Westenra might have a wardrobe malfunction during the national anthem when Vince Harder makes a grab for her right tit? Peter Jackson might just CGI the whole thing and we'll never know? Who knows.

All I do know is that the National Government will not allow the All Blacks to not win the Rugby World Cup as this is the only thing that could stop them getting into power. If you've seen that marvelous film The Running Man you'll know what can be done with televisual-trickery and I suspect Weta Digital are already whipping up AB wins galore with their MASSIVE software as I type. If the US can fake a moon landing PJ can fake a World Cup win in his sleep. PJ owes John and Gerryzilla big time for coming into bat for him during The Hobbit fiasco so I'm sure he'll do a terrific job.

I'd like to finish now with a shout out to all the beavers beavering away on The Ultimate Beaver Campaign 2011. As a dwarf said in Twin Peaks, 'It is happening again.' Like the inhabitants of Twin Peaks, the beavers know something terrible is going on but have no understanding of why it is happening and how to stop it...happening again. Recently Pom Poms let me know that my blogs of that time are being circulated amongst the bewildered beavers, so to those of you who continue to contact Nippon Meat Packers and struggle under the weight of ineptitude that is the Grand Beaver, I wish you a big kia kaha from the bottom of my beaver.

CHRISTchurch!

Don't need to write much about this. If you're not familiar with Christchurch it won't mean much. If you are it will.

Cashel Mall

Blue Feelers

It's been over a month since my last post. I'm sure you've all been thinking I must have got famous and had no time to blog due to endless drunken drug fuelled sausage fry ups with Kate Winslet at Richard Branson's house, but thankfully nothing could be further from the truth. The only jet-setting I've been doing is crossing the Tasman Sea many times to travel around New Zealand screaming at Feelers posters. Here I am screaming at one in New Plymouth.

FEEEEEEEEEELEEEEERRRSS!

Their new album is called Hope Nature Forgives but clearly nature is still angry with them and punishing us with hurricanes, earthquakes and lightning strikes on Richard Branson's mother. I was all ready to flop out my fire sprinkler to pisstreat their poster but my good friend Cal, who kindly captured my primal scream, said I shouldn't in case some of my revenge urine ended up splashing her jacket which I'm wearing because it was bloody freezing and I didn't have a nice warm jacket and she had two. To be honest the jacket looked much better on me that it did on Cal so if she is a true friend she will give it to me. She already gave me two pairs of her jeans so must have finally realised all her clothes look better on me. If you go here (NSFW) you will see me in her yoga outfit and I look pretty pretty.

I think for my next post I will listen to the entire new Feelers album naked and type my responses in a stream of conscious tourette's so look out for that one.

Here are some more photos from the last 37 days...

New Plymouth is in Taranaki where family violence is NOT OK! It IS OK! everywhere else in New Zealand though, especially in households that own one or more FEELERS! albums.

Another thing that is NOT OK! is JETSTAR!

JETSTAAAAAAAARRRRR!

I was on the top flight to Wellington...JQ286, aka FA-Q286. Look when we were originally scheduled to leave. Look when we were scheduled to board! Look at the current time! Not a word of an explanation or apology from Jetstar, just a big FA-Q to the 286 saps who had saved $20 they were now wishing they could spend on razor blades, Hennessy and Feelers albums. The only good thing about flying Jetstar is that you don't have to suffer through Air New Zealand's hilarious inflight safety briefing video. Still, it could have been worse. At least when we finally got to Wellington I wasn't the owner of this suitcase...

JETSTAAAAAAAARRRRR!

It snowed in Christchurch. That was The Feelers fault. I was cold. That was Cal's fault.

Where's my jacket CAAAAAAAL?!

Here's a meal I cooked with the cat looking on enviously in the background.

I was so excited about eating it I forgot to chew my steak properly and spent the next three hours hunched over the toilet tickling my soft palate to bring it all back up again. I can't blame anyone else for that except my spasming gullet.

Here's a photo of an abandoned vacuum cleaner at the steps of Collingwood train station that looks exactly like the vacuum cleaner I abandoned in Auckland. For a second I thought it was my vacuum cleaner that had followed me to my new home like a cat that likes to suck things but it wasn't. I felt a bit sorry for it until I realised I hated that vacuum cleaner and it sucked almost as much as The Feelers. I blogged about it here.

Right, one last photo to give you a feel for some of the entertainment I was involved in providing. This one was taken at Doug & Dot's Motel and Spa/Laundry in Blenheim.

Great stuff!

This has been a bit of a bitchy negative blog so I'm going to finish by providing a link to a young man who I firmly believe to be the next BIG THING! in NZ MUSIC! His name is PattyBoy and to my shame I'd never heard of him until my friend and director Heroic Faun Number 3 sent me an email this afternoon. If you only click on one link in all my posts make it this one! The backing dancers in 'Buzzy' are worth the price of admission alone and anyone who can make autotune sound out of tune in the seminal dance anthem 'Disco Erection' deserves to be noticed by a wider audience. He's even got skinnier whiter legs than mine. O for awesome!

Leek and You Will Find

I was already in a mood last night before the creme fraiche pushed me over the edge. Reluctant to face another two hour stint tomorrow without access to the Koru Lounge I sent a cheeky request to Air NZ asking for a free pass based on the fact I'm flying heaps with them at the moment, I've blogged about their lounge twice and I always coil my headphones beautifully using the over-under method before leaving the aircraft.

They said it may take up to 72 hours to respond but it took Roberta less than an hour to shoot me down.

I know this has come out unreadably small but if I make it bigger it gets too wide and slips underneath my 21 members. All you really need to know is Roberta told me to take a flying leap and if I wanted access to the Koru Lounge in Melbourne I could pay $40 in Christchurch which only goes to prove she didn't even read my cheeky request properly. I shall take my revenge tomorrow by ordering at least four red wines on the flight and pissing in the aisle Jetstar styles.

To recover from the disappointment I decided to cook my meal of the moment, Jamie Oliver's Grilled Fillet Steak with the Creamiest White Beans & Leeks. I know Jamie is very busy stopping the world from getting fat but you'd think he'd have come up with a better name for this dish. I would have called Meaty Leeks, or Creamy Meaty Leeks, or My Meat's Bean Leekin' or Show Us Your Knob (of Butter). I went to Coles because I want to cook like a Masterchef cooks but it seems nobody on Masterchef wants to cook with leeks because they didn't have any. How can a supermarket claim to be super or a market when it doesn't have any bloody leeks! Everyone loves leeks! They're long and succulent and Welsh like Tom Jones.

Tom Jones about to take a leek.

I bet they have loads of leeks in the Koru Lounge. That's probably why there were none left at Coles. I walked to Woolworths which is much bigger than Coles and sure to have leeks even though Masterchefs never shop there. Sure enough there were leeks for Africa and butter beans, (which New World in Bishopdale Christchurch do NOT have at ALL....unless you're willing to buy four cans of Four Bean mix and pick out the butter beans...assuming that the butter beans make up a quarter of each can which is a big call, so you'd better buy five cans just in case), but everything turned to custard when it came to the creme fraiche.

Creme fraiche is never easy to find because nobody knows what it is. Do you look in the creme aisle or the fraiche aisle? Nobody knows. I think creme fraiche is French for fresh cream but it's not fresh it's sour and I don't like asking anyone where it is because I never know if I'm saying it correctly. I'm pretty certain your creme should rhyme with phlegm but should your fraiche rhyme with fresh or creche? I wandered around for a good 15 minutes muttering and blustering and banging into people with my basket of butter beans before pouncing on a hapless Woolworths employee stacking spuds.

'Excuse me, do you know where the creme fraiche is?' (I rhymed it with fresh this time.)
'I don't think we have any. It's one of those things we sometimes have for six months and then we don't.'

WTF?? Is there a season for creme fraiche? Do the creme fraiche cows dry up for six months? Is there a French fraiche cartel called OFEC that ruthlessly controls supply to drive up prices? He told me it's usually in the cream section but I knew it wasn't because I'd already screamed at the cream three times. I followed him and he couldn't find any either but told me to wait because his fresh produce supervisor could confirm the absence of creme fraiche once and for all. Then I saw this.

That's right....there was no creme fraiche!

Except for the one in my BASKET!

Hollllaaaaaaaaaaaa!

I had nabbed the last fraiche in Australia. It had been hiding at the back behind the cooking cream and now it was mine. I could see an old woman near death looking enviously at my creme fraiche and I thought about licking it and offering it to her to see if she'd take it but instead just slapped her in the face with my pack of 25 peel and seel envelopes. Wooly boy returned to confirm there was definitely no creme fraiche and I let him finish before producing the evidence to shame him for life. The look of utter bewilderment on his face was priceless. I think I could have pulled Ving Rhames out of my bumhole and he would have looked less surprised. Here's a photo of me at home full of the joys of creme fraiche.

Here's a photo of Jamie Oliver's Leeky Meat Bean Cream.

And you won't find that in the Koru Lounge.