Music Reviewers Are Crap

I loathe self appointed authorities on everything. Its people like them who think that they know it all that stuff it up for those of us that actually do.

Take music and movie reviewers. It must be a miserable existence having a job that has you finding fault in the things that are there for you to enjoy in the first place. I say ‘job’ but it really is a misleading term because how fucken hard is it to listen to music or watch movies all day? Even if they are shite, it would still beat the Groundhog Day drudgery of office life I reckon. You can’t open a bag of Twisties and start treating your body like an amusement park ride at your office desk that’s for sure.

Isn’t it interesting what people will say in a job interview because they think its going to get them the job? My personal fave is when they start dissing the current or previous boss and colleagues in the mistaken believe that it will somehow make them come across in the interview as the only person who did any work at their previous job. What it actually makes them look like is a moaning, back stabbing prick that will be doing the same thing to me should I be silly enough to hire them. They might as well walk into the interview with a tee shirt on that says “I’m A Cunt”.

Maybe they all end up getting jobs as music reviewers?

I happened to read a music reviewers online blog the other day. This blogger, who we shall call Simon, because his real name is actually Simon, is a fat man who blames you for making him fat. He’s the kind of guy that stopped getting invited to party’s years ago because he likes to tell the host that their choice of music was crap. He’s the type of guy that when he throws a party, very few attend because he likes to tell his guests that their choice of music is crap. He’s the kind of guy who reviews a music concert that he didn’t have to pay to see and says it was crap. The 10 000 other concert goers who actually paid for their tickets would disagree, but hey, what the fuck do they know? They’re all crap.

Simon and I actually have a wee bit of history. He was the first columnist I had ever read that got on my tits so much that I actually wrote to the newspaper to tell him just how much of a penarse I thought he was. He had written a review for a concert that I had been at that was so completely off track I actually questioned if he'd been in the same room as I, but then the review had started with something like "I hate this band" and pretty much went down hill from there anyway. Maybe its just me but I tend to think reviews should be about the event, not another chance for some fat fuck to tell you how miserable he is being at someplace he never wanted to be anyway.

Simon has that hoity toity air about him that all critics have about them because they think they’re better than you and I. They hate anything ‘popular’ because that translates in loser speak to ‘crap’. The irony of this of course is that despite gagging for the attention and adoration of the masses, the critic is caught between wanting to be talked about by everyone, but not so much that it makes him / her ‘popular’. Because then they’d be crap.

All music reviewers incidentally have the same list of favourite obscure bands, whose CDs they practically have to give away at the Warehouse because no one else buys them. Everything else musically, in the mind of the music critic, is crap. Bands that sell trillions of records and who bring delight to the trillions of people who bought them, are crap. Why? Because a fat man who can’t figure out why his stumpy pecker is a constant shade of Twistie orange and who has a black belt in being an arsehole said so.

I used to come across this kind of nothing argument almost every day when I worked in a music store. People trading off bands like they were sports teams. Who gives a shit, really? If you like a band and they rock your world then enjoy it man. Don't let some geezer who's sphincter sealed itself up years ago because all the shit was coming out of his mouth tell you otherwise.

Simon's latest blog is a list of bands he thinks are ‘over rated’ and who are therefore in his mind – wait for it – crap. Now I may be new to the blogging biz but I know enough to know that when you start making a list of anything, then you’ve clearly run out of ideas.

Simon? Merry Christmas mate. P.S Your blog is crap.

Cheer Up Emo

The world is full of arseholes, figuratively speaking, but that shouldn’t mean folk have to act like one. Take for instance the foreskin in Nebraska who took an AK47 to the shopping mall because life got a little bit tough for him. What a cocksucker.

You know that it is we the people promote this kind of bullshit. That’s right, you and I. Not because we allow video game companies to make first person shooter games, or Hollywood to glorify violence on the big and small screen. No, that stuff has always been there and always will. We do so by buying the newspapers, the magazines and the pay TV news channels that run endless post massacre articles on the waste of space that ultimately immortalise him in the eyes of other wasters who long to be adored.

These are gonads that aren't satisified being just like all the other freaks and geeks on YouTube, stapling their genitals to a piece of wood and farting near an open flame. No they want to be news worthy and fuck me if there isn’t a world waiting to appease them. Just like the popularity of the link to the story about some cooze shagging in a public place, we’re all gagging to hear about the next Emo who goes postal because his boyfriend dumped him.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike Emos, I think everyone should own one. But it does strike me that Emos are just Goths who think they’re too depressed to be called Goth. Back in my day, when gay meant happy, kids went Goth for the same reason kids today go Emo – they didn’t want to have their hair cut when their Mum said so, they didn’t want to bathe and they needed an excuse to listen to crap music that noone else listened to like the Cure. Emos could actually save themselves the money they spend on eyeliner by presenting themselves to the nearest heterosexual man who would be more than happy to give them two black eyes each morning. Cheer up Emo, for fucks sake.

Now I may not be the sharpest dildo in the draw but I can’t help but think there’s something retarded in not wanting to conform but yet still aligning yourself with a group of folk who all, wait for it, conform. How does that work?! If you wanna be out there, then walk round in the buff, not many folk are out there doing that right at this moment in time.

I tried playing the ‘too cool for school’ card myself once, or rather twice actually by not going to either of my two school formals. I made out like I didn’t want to go because everyone else actually was, but in truth it was down to my mother being tighter than a nuns nasty with money and not wanting to shell out for the suit hire. The bitch. But I can’t complain, we had the necessities of life like a 12 seated mahogany dinner table that cost more than the house and we weren’t actually allowed to ever sit at. There was only the four of us mind you so maybe that’s why. We made it look empty.

No there’s only one sure fire way to deal with these wannabe martyrs. Ignore them. Don’t publicise, analyse or glorify their actions. Obviously its news but lets stick to the bare facts and report something along the lines of “Loser Kid Fucks Up Mass Murder By Only Shooting Seven”. Belittle the guy even in death by taking the piss out of him because he only shot seven in a crowded mall with an automatic rifle, which is a poor effort really. Prove to all that want to be like him that even in death, society will still see you as a loser.

At the end of the day it’s up to us, you and me, to not buy this shit when it sees print. Because like it or not, we all play a part. Just like as in the death of Princess Diana, our hands inadvertently have blood on them for creating the demand that drove the paparazzi to chase her through the streets of Paris. You personally may not have bought the mag that ran the photos, but you can bet your Mum, sister or slightly effeminate mate helped the cause by buying the latest Womans Day whilst waiting in the queue at Woolies.

Incidentally, sealed sections in chick mags have become decidedly lame these days. If I’m getting my wife to buy the mag for the sealed section I want to see full on bush, milkers and hell why not, cock. If all I’m getting is animated diagrams and raunchy forums all written, one handed, by the same fat guy then I’m going to start stapling that fucker back up and returning it under the pretence of false advertising. I might even include several polaroids of myself depicting the type of imagery one expects to find in a sealed section. And don’t give me the ‘10 best positions’ rubbish again because we all know there’s only two – the one where your partner does all the work and the one where you just need to lie there.

I wonder if Emos have their own positions? I doubt it. I can only imagine depression sex begins and probably never ends in the missionary mode. Cheer up Emo, for fucks sake.

I Like To Watch

Do you think that someone should tell Terri Irwin that she doesn’t need to wear the whole khaki outfit anymore? If its functionality she wants then blue and grey camo is both functional and fashionable. Khaki I’m afraid, is neither.

It has been a few days since I last blogged, the four of you that read this (not counting myself) may have noticed. I have been busying myself with watching the great man David Beckham play football and rather more disturbingly, having dreams involving close mates and their girlfriends.

In my latest, Big Gay Ray, who is not really gay, he’s only it for the monthly subscription to Does My Bum Look Big In This? mag, was showing us all at work a photo of his missus sleeping in the nude. The photo is taken from the top of her head (she’s lying down, face up) and has Ray at the foot of the bed with his thumbs up and a look on his face that says “Yeah, here’s a photo of my missus sleeping naked, score!”

But that’s not the weird bit. I want to know who took the photo? It’s not Ray, cause he’s at the foot of the bed and his missus is asleep so either the camera was on a timer, or there was a second pervert in the room. I'd take it up with him but seeing as the whole thing is a figment of my imagination it might not go down too well.

I used to work with a guy who would regularly hand round Polaroid’s of his missus in the buff. He had that same look on his face too. Obviously its cool to have watch other guys ogle your naked girlfriend. I can’t say that I’m rushing off to set up the camera in our bedroom just yet, but who knows, if the lighting is right and the mood is set?

This girl was attractive enough but always drunk or comatose in the photos, which kind of makes it illegal for him to be taking photos methinks. And he was always going on about how she was a ‘psycho bitch’. Gee I wonder if that was because she heard he was passing around nudie pix of her?!

Why does shit keep getting smaller?

Like Tim Tam balls and mini bite size versions of all the crap food you’d normally buy whole but get sucked into buying smaller portions because you think you’re eating less. Ever notice how you end up paying more for the smaller portions though? The food companies want you to think that they’re doing their bit in fighting obesity by making every thing smaller, but it all counts for shit when you have to buy double to make up for the fact you’re still as hungry as fuck.

Speaking of small balls, my wife believes there is a direct link to my up-tightness and the size of my man fruit. Her theory is that every time my anus puckers in anger i.e. every time I blog, it shrinks my manberries on account of the two being connected. So much like Tim Tam balls, mine are now available in minuscule but the good news is you can eat more of them. Now that’s what I call portion control.

Asians are great for making shit smaller. The ones that live across the street from me aren’t into small as much as they are into secretive. You hardly ever see them but I’d swear there are about 30 people living in the one house. Why just today they managed to move one sibling out and an entire trailer load of his stuff, without even lifting the garage door any higher than the bowl they cut their hair with.

I did once catch a glimpse inside their garage and I was surprised to see the thing was full of car tyres. I was expecting bags of rice but no, piles and piles of car tyres. I suspect they’re making them in there, that’s why the curtains are always shut. Pure uncut retread manufacture, it’s middle New Zealand’s latest epidemic. I’m actually damn tempted to go over and ask if they have any that will fit the ol’ passion wagon just quietly but I don’t want to let on I’ve spied on them whilst lying on the floor, under the coffee table, in our lounge just so they couldn’t see me.

Who doesn’t like to watch aye? Why just the other day I found myself in quite the predicament. Whilst closing the curtains I noticed the next door neighbours teenage daughter and her friend alone in their room, in their pyjamas, playing Singstar. Because they were in their pyjamas I knew it wouldn’t be long before they started stripping down to their grundies, shaving each others legs, having pillow fights and probably practising their pashing. I’ve seen enough girlie product ads to know that that’s what girls do when having a sleep over. My god was I tempted to turn the light out and watch.

And then Big Gay Ray appeared in their window with his thumbs up….or was that just another one of my dreams?

Teen Had Group Sex in Public View - Part Deux

Nearly a week on and this particular story is still one of Stuffs Top Ten most viewed items - now that's a lot of folk hoping there's a picture or two and I reckon it's a bit like when you can't find anything in the pantry to eat, but you keep checking back every 20 minutes to see if there has been any change...

Teen Had Group Sex in Public View

You know, when you read a newspaper headline like “Teen had group sex in public view”, you would think they would have the decency to include pictures.

Now I’m not talking about pictures of the act itself, although if they were to print those I, like thousands of other horny males would fell compelled to view them. We wouldn’t enjoy it mind you. No, what we really want to know is was she hot or not? Because it’s bad enough reading a story that makes it seem as though everyone else is getting better sexy time than you, but if it was a hot chick putting out too? Then that would keep a lad going for quite some time I can tell you.

It never is of course. Like when you hear some teacher or babysitter has jumped her 14 year old male ward and we all think ‘Oh yeah, another Penthouse forum just wrote itself’! Then it turns out, when you finally see a picture of her, that she’s the type of bird you’d have to roll in flour to get to the wet bits and suddenly it’s not so cool. Or prostitutes, who in the movies and TV are so pretty they could be waitresses and are so ridiculously hot that it’s almost unbelievable that they would need to be paid for sex. Almost, but not quite. Hey, if the top is coming off, we’ll believe anything.

These misconceptions we fellas have are down to Porn. Ever since we realised it did something if you played with it, we’ve been right sucked in by the one medium that has served as our single most comprehensive guide to sex and relationships and led us to believe, quite wrongly I’m told, that every girl wants in the bum. Porn it would seem, has a lot to answer for.

But then so too has my mate Big Al who this week made me view the single most disturbing thing on the web that I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen a lot of disturbing things. Yet ironically, repulsed though I was, I had to watch it all right till the end. Again, it’s a male thing; we have to watch because if we don’t, we worry that we might miss some tidbit that makes us a better lay. it didn't hold any such gems unfortunately, but it has put me right off chocolate Mr Whippy icecream.

Coffee enemas. Now there's something that had to be thought up by a sexual deviant. It's all the rage in detox land, is pumping a couple of cups of cold coffee up your date. Does wonderful things to your colon they reckon. Quite frankly, if you're the kind of cat that is willing to pay someone a huge amount of your hard earned cash for them to suggest jamming something up your shitter is going to make you healthy and you take their word for it, then I'd recommend replacing the coffee with a pistol and pulling the trigger until it goes click. You twat.

My mate Jase’s Mum and dad had a mega porn collection. In truth it was only half a dozen tapes but in the eyes of a roomful of 16 year old boys with swollen testes, that was a mega haul. Conveniently for us, they were into their stock car racing and would travel every other weekend meaning that we chaps would head up to his house for a sleep over and 24 hours of masturbating our brains out. At night we would all lay on the floor in the lounge in our sleeping bags, with our knees bent, watching back to back skin flicks. Every 20 minutes or so someone would make a 10 minute visit to the toilet, where they either were doing what I was doing, or there was a really bad shared case of the runs happening every other weekend too.

Thankfully those days are no more and the new generation of wankers can surf the net one handed in the privacy of their own room. Even so, I still reckon that out there somewhere, even now, a group of lads are trying to play it cool and not make it too obvious to anyone else in the room that they’ve cracked one over the video with the bad tracking they’re all watching.

Ever notice how attractive blonde girls seem to be hanging out in twos or threes these days? It’s quite the phenomenon. I thought it was standard sheila practice to hang out with at least one poo chick and thus increase your chances of being noticed, but that doesn’t seem to happen any more. Thankfully we blokes still live by those rules, and will often surround ourselves with several of evolutions missing links in order to bump up our chances of being noticed by a threesome of blondes. It usually backfires though and inevitably we end up as a group of munters who all think we’re better looking than the guy next to us. Which we're not.

So I guess if all the blondies are hanging together and the sultry brunettes that look good in any number do their own thing, then the poor old Plain Jane’s and aesthetically challenged have to either go it alone, or have group sex in a public place.

But if only we could see the pictures to make sure that’s how it goes….

A Mans Home...

Once upon a time, houses were for living in. Now they’re a form of currency and if you have several of them you’re a right smug bastard. If you don’t have any, you’re fucked.

We don’t own our house because I refuse to pay an extra thirty grand over what its worth just because the present owner knocked down the wall between the shitter and the shower. It used to be the only reason you did that was because you liked the smell of shit whilst you showered, or it turned you on to watch your sister shower. Now you can actually make money out of your perversion and what’s more, a homosexual man with an uncanny sense of colour coordination and a black belt in Fung Shui will appear on a TV show telling you to do so.

The housing market really blew its load a few years back when the rampant consumerism the experts refer to today as ‘status anxiety’, reached its zenith and there was no more money to be made from ramming bling, home entertainment systems, cars or having children up peoples arses. The only thing left to fleece was folk’s houses. Oh sure, children still rank high on the ‘must have’ list though. These days it’s important that one owns an orphan, preferably an African with some sort of disease, but an Eastern European or Asian one will suffice. Best not to refer to ‘owning’ it though, ‘rescue’ or ‘liberate’ is a far better way of admitting you paid ten grand to a corrupt gun running drug lord for the privilege.

At this point, some very important folk like those that make TV shows, publish magazines and write newspapers collectively put their heads together and decided that property was the new black (Or Eastern European or Asian) and started a saturation campaign of DIY home improvement shit. Now it’s all over the fucken place. You can’t even turn on TV without some home improvement program hosted by some washed up celebrity ramming his or her big ideas down your throat. And if it’s not DIY, then it’s a weight loss program. Why not combine the two and have the fatty fatty boom booms lose weight by renovating houses? That’s one less hour of shit on TV anyway.

I love how these shows suggest things like hiring furniture and artwork to make your place more appealing to potential buyers. They do so because a) it’s their way of saying you have no fucking taste and b) they are paid by or have supply contracts with the pricks who rent out furniture! If I was selling my house I would tell them to lick my ring – if somebody wants to see what their furniture looks like in my house then they better pile it all onto a trailer and bring it with them to the open home. And TV shows make it all look so easy don’t they, with their big budgets and endless experts who in real life charge $500 an hour to tell you that your taste in furniture sucks.

Owning a home now is no longer about owning a home at all, it’s all about renovation and flogging it off to some daft cunt for far more than it is worth. Not surprisingly when this actually happens, the vendor cracks an almighty chubby over an overpriced sale and the extra cash they just made. But this hard on lasts only until they have to buy their new house and a small thing called karma whacks it back down to a flaccid state when they have to shell out far more for a house than it was worth. It sure is a vicious cycle this housing biz.

Stay at home Mums and dole bludging bums fucken loved the housing boom too because they’ve now all got jobs as Realtors. Whereas they used to have clean schools after hours or do paper runs to pay to make ends meet, they now need only do a two day course on how to use MS Office, the photocopier and booya, they’re facilitating 6 figured cash transactions. All of which makes the person selling your house, or selling you the house, about as knowledgeable as the deadbeat at Farmers when you ask him to point out the benefits of one stereo over another. Honestly, you’ll get more info off the box then you ever will by asking the guy in the purple polo shirt. Don’t even bother trying to ask the same question at The Warehouse.

Which is fair enough, they’re discount stores and they save money by employing morons, but I think you would be justified in expecting a little more know how from someone employed to sell houses. But then you don’t have to be qualified to sell houses, par se. The guy who owns the real estate company and takes most of the money you pay Sheryl to market the house does, but Sheryl herself doesn’t. He drives a big fuckoff shiny, four wheeled drive, top of the line Beemer too, if you hadn’t noticed. It has a personalised plate that says something like ‘REALTR’ when it should read something like ‘TITWNK’. And does this guy take a pay cut if your house doesn’t sell for as much as Sheryl promised you it would? Not likely.

What ever happened to the notion of owing a home that had a decent yard for the kids to play in too? I grew up with a full size trampoline, decent size pool and a small creek in my back yard, but that was just Naenae for you. Now when you buy a house in a newly developed part of town you’re lucky if there’s enough lawn for the cat to cack on. Even then the wanker who owns it is trying to sell that bit separate to the 64 members of the same Sri Lankan family who all live in the one town house over the back fence. They can't wait to build that extension that will mean you can't even open your back door fully!

Yep, the housing market these days is a lot like Monopoly really. Only Monopoly is a board game and the housing market is real life and the only actual thing they have in common is whether you’re playing Monopoly or playing the housing market, there’s always a fat bastard in the middle with a chubby fist full of cash – yours!

Dumb and Dumber

I’ve got a great idea for a TV game show. Its working title is ‘Blind Root’, which may be a bit ‘edgy’ so I’m open to suggestions at this early stage of planning.

The premise will be that each week one contestant has several sexual encounters (all on camera of course), whilst wearing a blindfold and then has to rate their performance. Then back at the studio they have to work out who was who by simply playing with their bits. If contestant number one picks his / her best Blind Root they get syphilis as a prize. If not, they don’t go home empty handed, they get pubic lice from one of the more mediocre roots.

This is not a new concept of mine. I’ve actually had this idea for some time but I’ve had renewed hope it will make it to TV this week after seeing them kooky Koreans choose their nations first astronaut by reality game show. It was an Astronaut Idol type concept and I hope there’s a second instalment for when all the astronauts are up in space; Who Gets To Come Home? idol. Now that would make for some good viewing and seeing as it’s a mission funded by the Ruskies, the chances of them running out of cash half way is not as far fetched as it would seem.

Them Asians really know how to do reality TV game shows though. Most of theirs involve self torture, or pain and that makes for good TV, especially in Asia where they like to bury their European girls in bath tubs of sand on the apartment room balcony. Here in New Zealand we just do idiocy on our shows, like Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old, copied from the American show of the same format.

Actually the first episode set all sorts of new viewer ship records here because all the paedophiles tuned in thinking it was called “Are You Tighter Than A 10 Year Old”. Needless to say they quickly realised their error and returned to trawling Bebo and Facebook.

This is entertainment at its lowest ebb. You take several shit for brain adults and prove just how thick they are. Everyone watching feels great because they realise they’re not as thick as the contestant and the kids on the show, the real stars, feel great because they know they're not as thick as the contestants. It must be one hell of an audition process. I would never have believed that we have so many dip shits in New Zealand but obviously I was wrong, for once in my life.

It can't be easy being labelled like homemade jam. You’d think that if you were slightly slow the last thing you’d want is for the van you’re riding in to read ‘Special Needs School’ in big letters along the side, wouldn’t you? I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the van load of spastics I passed on the way home the other day riding in just such a van. Man, they can’t even have a quiet dribble in the van without being labelled for all to see. I did wonder though if the ones sitting at the back thought they were getting a longer ride home....

I am dubious of reality shows though and of just how much editing goes into the process. Some folk are suckers for a good dose of edited make believe, like all those that watch rubbish like Sensing Bullshit or any other show that deals with ‘mediums’ solving anything. Just watching it wouldn’t be so bad I reckon but when people actually believe that what they’re seeing is groundbreaking stuff then that gets on my tits.

No medium or physic has ever been attributed with helping to solve a crime. Ever. Not just here in NZ but in the world. Now if that’s not definitive proof that the edited, scripted, shake stuff off camera to make it move production you just watched is the biggest work of fiction since the bible then what is? The reason this rubbish is on prime time telly and not buried in the twilight hours where only the kiddie fiddlers surfing Bebo would watch it, is because too many potential contestants for Are You Denser Than A 10 Year Old tune in and cop out at 8.30pm!

Mind you, the scariest thing I’ve seen on the box for quite some time was an ad for David Gray’s Best Of CD. I didn’t even know that Mr Elevator Themes had one hit song, let alone enough of them to make a whole collection of 10 – 12 tracks. I reckon guys like Gray, James Blunt and NZ's own Greg Johnson should all be locked in a room together with a few empty 1.2 litre Coke bottles and be forced to listen to each others songs.

The last dude standing who hasn’t hung himself with his own guitar chords gets to be a contestant on Blind Root.

Shits, Giggles and Dirty Dreams

Life is full of unwritten rules for all the important things that no one ever thought to write a rule about, like taking a dump at work or not bowling a beamer first ball in backyard cricket.

The dump rule usually kicks in around age 13 or 14 when the homophobes at school stop kicking cubicle doors in like they have done their entire school life, thanks to the onset of puberty and the fact that their chopper has started to look decidedly teeny when compared to those actually taking a crap. From that point on the rules for men defecating in a public place are set in stone and are pretty much obeyed by all. Except the guy who used to kick down toilet doors. He spends most of his adult life sitting on the toilet wondering why his pecker stopped growing in College.

Men’s shitters, unlike the magical mystery world that is the female rest room, are not blessed with multiple thrones. We’re lucky if we get two to service on average, 40 guys per floor. Now each of them is going to unwrap a picnic bar at least twice a day, three times if the going is good, so unwritten rules are essential in ensuring a smooth transaction and a pleasant experience for all. Otherwise its carnage and the sinks and urinal would get used - which is often the case if Mr High Fibre gets in early and puts a cubicle out of action. At my work, we even have a shower in the men’s which is definitely an option in the event of a full house, but I suspect only those with the consistency of Mr Whippy are going to find the going good in there.

It works a little like this: Dumper A kicks things off when he parks up in the morning and gets things going. In due course Dumper B will arrive and it’s at this point shit gets serious (literally). Dumper A must begin the paperwork, making enough noise in the process to drown out Dumper Bs down trou, throning and any embarrassing sound affects that usually occur after holding in a turtle head all the way from one’s desk to the cubicle. Whilst Dumper A flushes, belts up and washes his hands, Dumper B is charged with releasing the mother load then and there whilst under the cover of the noise screen supplied by Dumper A. Dumper B can then enjoy his time in quiet contemplation until the arrival of Dumper C, at which point the process begins again.

Simple huh? But then there’s always someone who wants to stuff it up for everybody. Like Silent Guy who sits in silence the whole time, forcing anyone arriving into an awkward standoff that is only broken by the occasional squeaky fart that slips out from a nervously puckered anus. Or Mr Power Turd, who has hardly gotten the tweeds down when something akin to 63 baby potato’s dropping from a great height into a bucket of water can be heard. Let’s not forget Mr Explosion, who makes like an egg in the microwave and spends 30 minutes having to mop himself and quite possibly the walls, up afterwards. These guys are messing with the karma of the carzie. One day I'll be a dinner party guest of theirs and I'm going to take a dump in their cistern at home as a payback – after a few days it'll reek but they'll never find where the smell is coming from. Pure genius.

And what about the unwritten rule that pertains to not being able to tell a colleague or mate that you just had one hell of a sexy dream starring her? There’s nothing to stop you telling them of course but in my considerable experience, most girls don’t dig it, which confuses me to this day because wouldn’t it be the ultimate compliment knowing you were in someone’s dreams? When Big Al told me at work the other day he had had a dream about me I was right chuffed, only he wouldn’t go into any detail and now I just feel dirty.

And it’s not something you necessarily want to tell the wife either, although she has no hesitation in telling me about all her deep sleep rendezvous with various movie and rock stars. With inequality like that is it any wonder so many men are falling victim to that terrible social affliction that often goes un-noticed, self rape?

My mate Bruiser had a PG13 one night many years ago over Grace Kwan off Shortland Street and has had a soft spot for girls of the Asian Persuasion ever since. Not that he’s scored any since but it does go some way to explaining his close friendship with our good mate Matty, the four foot two Asian man in the flared trousers.

So I guess I’ll have to play by the rules and keep that one to myself. Maybe the memories will keep me focused during the next silent standoff I have in the men’s.

P.S Rach, I had a dream the other night. I was great, you were a close second.

Life Is A Puckered Anus

My good mate Big Gay Ray has a new big bore exhaust on his passion wagon. Ray’s not really gay by the way – he just helps out on the weekends when they’re busy.

The exhaust is impressive alright and it comes with two settings: obnoxious and jet engine. Because it needs to be legal, it came with a silencer that makes his exhaust sound like the automobile equivalent of a puckered anus. When he takes it off though it sounds so much like a 747 just passed you by at ground level that its you who has the puckered anus. He tells me he’s working on his own modification which he simply refers to at this developmental stage as a ‘loudener’. Bugger me.

It’s funny just how many of us get off on pissing people off these days isn’t it? The times have certainly changed from when I was a boy and so too has the reasoning behind having the same things. In my street, back when my balls were naturally smooth, the bogan up the road who had the Dixie horn on his Valiant set it off every time he passed us kids by cause it sounded like the Dukes of Hazard and we though it was cool. He loved the attention and we loved his horn. It was a mutual reach around, hypothetically speaking. Anything else would have been just plain wrong.

Now the bogan up the road has an exhaust like Rays on his Mitsi. He’s a boy racer and feels the world has something against him, which we do, we hate his fucken exhaust and the fact he likes to leave his car running several minutes before and after he’s left or arrived. The exhaust doesn’t mark the car perform any better, it only makes him look like a bigger wanker than I suspect he is. That’s why boy racers lower their seats incidentally, so as to safely have a jimmy at the lights with no one noticing.

Back in our day 'loud' was a Hemi V8 roaring up the street, But man was it a good loud.

My local Dusties always leave the recycling bin in the middle of the driveway so that I have to get out and move it before I can pull into the garage. Every weekend I take the time to sort my recycling to make it easier for them and that’s the thanks I get. I imagine they think I’m taking the piss by sorting my plastics and in some perverse way probably think I’m making them out to be too stupid to sort it themselves. Well, I wasn’t, but I’m beginning to see the light fellas. One more bin in the driveway and we’ll see how pleased Sione is when he has to sort my fecal matter because I’m more than happy to shit in a plastic bag every day for a week and chuck it all in the recycling bin.

Speaking of which - is it just me or am I the only one who doesn’t find Bro Town funny? I thought we’d done all the 'fresh of the boat' penis, puberty, toilet and Asian jokes that one little country could muster?! It was funny the first few times Billy T did it but 47 wannabes later and the shine has worn off I reckon. But maybe that’s just me? But you know a show’s really crap when Politicians are lining up to appear on it. They might not be the smartest cats on the planet but politicians have an eye for anything that appeals to the lowest common denominator in terms of intelligence, because that means votes.

Lets not forget Posties who jam crap into your letterbox when it’s clearly full and ignore all the rubbish they just pushed out the arse of it. Junk mailers are the big perps of this too. I realise that delivering the junk mail doesn’t require anything vaguely resembling a physics degree but use some common sense, if its full, it ain’t going to go in. My wheelie bin is pretty close to the letter box, pop it in there, that’s where it will end up eventually anyway.

I’m always genuinely surprised to see how dedicated junk mailers are to their jobs. It’s only junk mail after all and if I was faced with having to deliver a couple hundred copies of K Marts latest rubbish to every house in a 5km radius on a day when it's blowing like fifty bastards, then I’m going to do the world a favour and dump those bad boys in the first creek, clothing recycle bin, Post Box or Church grounds that I came across.

But then that’s life isn’t it? One puckered anus releasing on another. Every time I don’t turn up to an appointment I’ve booked I piss someone off. Every time I don’t pick up something I ordered at great cost to the place that got, I piss someone off. Every time I whiz all over the toilet seat in the men’s at work because I can’t be bothered touching it to lift, I piss somebody off.

And Big Gay Ray doesn’t really mean to piss anyone off with his big bore. He may be afflicted with the terrible social affliction that is fire crotch, but he’s not an angry man really. He’s a genuine car enthusiast who likes to deafen boy racers at the lights with his portable jumbo jet engine.

And there’s nothing wrong with that I reckon.

Mail Order Bride Awareness Week

Ever notice how every week seems to be Something Awareness week?

I reckon there has to be more awareness weeks now than there are actual weeks in the year. I forgot what this week’s was only moments after hearing it because I’ve become so immune to them. It may have been Hyperspadia Awareness Week actually. Who knows?!

It could be Mail Order Bride Awareness week though judging by the turnout I witnessed at my local mall the other night. Either that or a catalogue delivery had just arrived. I counted several such couples in roughly a 30 metre radius whilst dining at the food court and quite frankly it made me gag. Admittedly that usually happens when I eat food that’s sat under heat lamps for a day but this was more than campylobacter at work.

Once upon a time it was only the filthy rich dirty old man that could afford to fly over to the Far East and bring home their favourite hand maiden. But now the perversion has become a phenomenon and you don’t need to be rich to get one these days, just filthy. I know why this has happened though. We’ve all had our barren spells and contemplated paying for it, or begging a good friend for a pity shag, or even done stuff to a cooked chicken we’re not proud of - desperate times can call for desperate measures. But now the desperate have the Internet to thank for allowing them to make a life partner out of someone who looks only marginally like the picture they posted.

Ting Tong benefits of course. She gets whisked off her tiny little Asian feet by the man who looks only marginally like the picture he posted, to a life away from the overcrowded, poverty ridden country where she spends her days cooking and cleaning and giving five dollar boom boom. Now she spends her days in clean green New Zealand, cooking and cleaning and giving five dollar boom boom. Not quite fairytale stuff, but close.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t begrudge anyone their happiness and whatever gets you through the day is fine by me, but its not real happiness is it? Is now buying a five kg bag of rice at the supermarket every week to be used in every meal you eat worth it? Is it satisfying to have a totally subservient spouse who feels they owe you a happy ending every time because you rescued them from their predicament? Why not just buy a doll; it’s certainly a cheaper option? It’s definitely a sad day when it’s easier to pick a mail order marriage in a crowd than it is a Brethren – and they dress up!

If you had a Brethren themed party do you think actual Brethren would try and gate crash it? It wouldn’t be long for them to be ousted if they did though; they’d know a little too much about the faith to pass for fakes I reckon.

Anyhoo, the stereotypical guy in the ThaiBride scenario is usually an older gentleman and I can sympathise with their lack of alternatives as they get on in their years. And I’m all for respecting your elders and allowing the older generation certain liberties as a sign of respect, like allowing them to go ahead of me in the supermarket or bank queue. But I draw the line at cutting them slack when they do the idiotic things that only old people do, like driving dangerously or crossing the main road when the traffic lights are green. Ever noticed how that seems to happen a lot?! Just because you’re old doesn’t mean that the rules of the land are wavered whenever your tight sphincter leaves the house.

Case in point - the older couple who decided they were exempt from such rules when they jay walked their way through the two main roundabouts in J Town on the weekend. Completely oblivious to all but what their tunnel vision allows them to see, they missed the fact that there was a pedestrian crossing several metres back up the road that was put there to allow safe passage through the high speed arterial route. A fact I would not have needed to point out to them had I hit them with my passion wagon as they would have then been lying on the said crossing.

I suspect the woman’s Depend undergarments paid for themselves given the sound horning I gave them both. By the look on her face I dare say the white linen trousers (that all older women seem to wear on the weekends) wouldn’t have fared so well though. For my troubles I got that one index finger gesture that all old people give. What is that exactly? It’s not the bird and it’s not the fingers. It’s just a point. What up wit dat?

All humour aside, it was a fucken close call, even by my Ninja reflex standards and it proves a point, that just because you’re old, you don’t have to be ignorant. You don’t have to order a Ting Tong online either, but if it keeps you away from the cooked chickens at Woolies, then so be it.

Clothes Maketh The Man

The World Cup is over, finally. Let’s be honest, it was over two weeks ago when we sucked the big kumara and took a baguette up the pooper from the French. Since then it’s really only been a case of waiting to see who the Saffas would meet and beat in the final. In fact nobody was more surprised two weeks ago to see the All Blacks lose than the Saffas because the cup was theirs to lose after that. I’d hate to imagine just how many celebrationary games of soggy biscuit got played that night at their hotel.

Canterbury of New Zealand will be chuffed though. The Saffas wear their shirts and as one of my early entry’s revealed, the clothing company had called on some World War Two technology to give teams jammy enough to be wearing their jerseys a 3% increase in performance. Looked like it worked for the Saffas aye? After all they had to beat two of the luckiest, but not necessarily the best, teams to win the cup. Ireland on the other hand had a 3% change too, only theirs was a decrease as they bombed out at the group stage against all the odds. Scotland got through the group stage, just, but were really only making up the tight titty top numbers at that stage.

But despite all that, at least one Kiwi brand is on top of the world right now so full credit. Interestingly the All Blacks have never won the World Cup since signing up with Adidas. Maybe there is something in that? And we’re not really too perturbed rally that the Boks won. A gloating Saffa is only marginally more bearable than a gloating Pom and neither team beat us so we’ll hold on to that as the only comeback we’ll have for the next four years.

The All Blacks had a wonderful reception upon their return to NZ too. It certainly surprised them alright because they were expecting to be at least bottled as they came through customs. It surprised me too because the first step in accepting mediocrity is celebrating it. We must be getting used to losing huh?

Nope, it didn't take us long to get over it and onto more serious matters like the palaver we had last week about suspected terrorists training in the bush up north who were planning and plotting to rage a guerrilla war against the state. Or so the media said. I’d hate to imagine just how many games of celebrationary soggy biscuit got played in newsrooms up and down the country the night that story broke.

Now I’m not going to go into whether anything the Police did was kosher or not because a) I work for them and am therefore biased in my opinion and b) it all sounded like a few fellas sneaking off for a quiet bum in the wopwops to me. But if between giving and receiving these lads are playing with illegal firearms then that shit is serious. That alone is worth locking the nutters up for, because guns can kill. So too bums if not handled right.

And nothing makes someone look like a terrorist than wearing a balaclava on national TV whilst you’re trying to protest against having been called a – wait for it – terrorist. Obviously not the sharpest tools in the shed these guys, I wonder if we really have anything to worry about? I can understand you wanting to protect your identity in a TV interview if you’re dobbing in the Black Power or some Triads, but when you’re trying to convince the nation that you have nothing to hide, then hiding your face is probably not the best start.

Now the hoodie on the over hand – by that I mean a hooded sweatshirt, not an uncircumcised male - is a wonderful garment isn’t it? Nothing else quite says ‘non confrontational’ quite like the hoodie. Why is it some folk like to drive with their hoodie on? Is it because they think they can’t be seen? Like the outstanding example of a state funded education system who nearly tasted cold hard Hyundai steel through his driver door today - on account of him being parked in the middle of the major roundabout in J Town. He had decided to not give way to the car before me but chickened out half way through only to find that the distance between that car and me, was quite a bit shorter than he had anticipated. Wearing a hoodie in a car tends to do that to ones peripheral vision I suspect.

I got a nice finger in response to my seven seconds of horn which is fair enough I suppose; I was clearly in the wrong in expecting the right of way like it says in that shit stirrer of a publication; The Rode Code. Oh how I wish sometimes that my reflexes were not those of a highly trained Ninja or that my passion wagon was not the mint ride that it is, for otherwise I would gladly t-bone fuckers like that without prejudice. If I hit the prick hard enough - which I would - I could write of my car and claim a new one each time. Hey, it’s not insurance fraud if you’re in the right!

And in my claim I could mention that I had a Cantebrury rugby jersey, size extra tight in the boot. And a balaclava although strictly for non terrorist purposes. Now that would be believable.

Your Body Is A Wonderland

Why have testicular implants never caught on like the boob job has?

I always ponder this, funnily enough, whenever I handle kiwifruit. Surely having a couple of giant walnuts bouncing around in the third sock would be the ultimate in virility advertising? Nothing says ‘baby maker’ like carting your two veg around in a wheelbarrow that’s for sure. But the negative would far outweigh the positive I suspect. Them bad boys would bounce around and slap each other silly with any movement vaguely resembling exercise and as we all know, no one wants to handle bruised fruit. Not to mention the very real risk of accidentally sitting on one of them. I can imagine in some parts of the world you probably pay good money for a teste up the ringer but I wouldn't be all that keen to find out why, even if it were my own.

So it will never catch on like having fake milkers. We fellas just don’t care about our assets that much that we’d have them enlarged. Clearly it’s not high on the wish list of you sheilas either because if it was we’d all be doing it, especially if we thought it would result in us getting some. Like watching Greys Anatomy with you – we don’t do it by choice you know.

I was watching a show on the box the other night on cosmetic surgery and some bird who rated herself as all that and a bag of chips was having the fat hack sawed off her thighs in an attempt to appear more attractive. It didn’t help that she had a face for radio I thought or the personality of a soggy malt biscuit, but clearly to her it was her fatty thighs holding her back. I can never get over just how brutal and primitive cosmetic surgery is, especially the liposuction. I’m surprised the doctors don’t just cut to the chase and angle grind the fat off.

I’m not a fan of surgically altering what you’ve got – unless you’re a Mongol and surgery is the only option of having less folk heckle you, then that’s fair enough I suppose. But for pure vanity is it really worth it? Botox for instance, in its purest form is one of the most poisonous naturally occurring substances in the world and even though the stuff they inject into the eyebrows is watered down, that’s still a hell of a lot of faith to put in some geezer who calls you ‘darhling’.

Some guys are even having it injected in their scrotes in order to decrease the wrinkles apparently?! What the fuck? It’s meant to be wrinkly fellas, if you want smooth then get a fagina I say. Hell I don’t even let the wife near her retired wedding present if she hasn’t trimmed her nails and yet these guys are willingly waving needles around the man purse? It’s just not right. It’s all fun and games alright until someone ends up in the emergency room with a coke bottle up the arse with the excuse “I slipped on it whilst in the shower”.

And bleaching the anus – that’s when you know that this shit (no pun intended) has gone too far. Who came up with the idea I wonder and what were they doing in order to have this epiphany? Sure, there’s nothing I like better than giving myself a good ‘ol cheeks apart brown eye in the mirror each morning either, but I’m quite happy to let toilet paper do its thing or in the are case of a truly melted Picnic bar, a baby wipe. But bleaching the damn thing? I think I’d prefer deep heat and the broomstick to be perfectly honest.

No, cosmetic surgery is definitely whack in my book. But actually working your body to become a better you – now that I’m all for and not only will they become fitter and physically stronger, but the self esteem that these people so often lack will often appear too I reckon.

There’s no quick fix with exercise though, like everything worth doing you have to keep at it and stay motivated and to do so has to come from within yourself and if you’re lucky enough to have them, from a supportive network of friends, family and colleagues. Why spend your hard earned money having some sadistic bugger plane the fat from your thighs or paint your date with bleach in order to impress people who don’t really care anyway?

Because life’s too short I reckon to have botulism injected in your eyebrows or your sack, or your man berries enlarged to the size of kiwifruit. Work with what you’ve got and enjoy it. Your body is a wonderland and even if you don’t think so, someone is longing to take that ride.

Yes, even if you have a brown anus.

Radiohead vs Nicky Watson

Radiohead, the once cool but now crap alternative band for the angst of my generation, have done something quite cool again this past week.

In a world where everything can be downloaded from the net at no charge and at no risk bar a few Trojans – viruses, not condoms – they’ve decided to heed the age old adage of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ by offering their latest album online for free download before it hits the shops. The cool bit is you pay as much or as little as you want for it. It’s totally up to you.

Naturally, Radiohead fans have wet themselves and crashed the website in a rush to download the album. They’re an honourable lot too with most of them admitting that they paid nothing, bar the 40p transaction fee to download it. So there you go, even when you offer a geek the chance to be honest he doesn’t take it. How low will these people go I ask myself?! Oh the inhumanity of it all. But Radiohead don’t seem to care, they made trillions from their first couple of albums before it all went to shit, musically anyway, so I suspect the income factor on new recordings is not high on the priority list for them these days.

The music industry has freaked though. James Blunt for one has done his nut which is a bit rich coming from a guy who can lay claim to being the most played but equally most hated artist out I reckon. Maroon 5 would be a close second in my book - does any other band actually sound like they're giving each other a blowie whilst they play as much as those dudes?! Blunt must be doing alright though because he seems to hook up with some fantastic birds. He either has a huge chopper or a tiny one and like Tom Cruise, pays his missus for a little more than just the housekeeping.

Record companies have poopooed The ‘Head for making their music free to all because from their point of view ‘it sets a dangerous precedent’. You bet your arse it does! It means that other bands might take up the cause and start offering their new music direct to the listener, the fan, the consumer at a cheaper rate than the $30 we pay these days for a piece of coded plastic. Every bugger who touches the recording after the actual artist adds a 100% mark up to the cost of a CD, you can be sure of that. In this day and age there is simply no need for a recording to pass through so many hands anyway, not when it can be marketed direct to my living room via the intraweb.

And for an industry that talks a big game about dealing with piracy, I don’t see or hear many artists taking the same stand Radiohead has. Why don’t successful bands put pressure on their record labels to lower the wholesale prices of their music? It sure won’t stop the freeloaders but it’s a damn good start for people like me who actually want to reward the artistic endeavour it took to write an album full of original music and want to pay something for it. Releasing your music legitimately online it seems is only a path taken by the struggling to break it artist and the savant act like Radiohead, who don’t give a rats about the money or the sales any more.

One new release you’d have to pay me to download though is the new Nicky Watson calendar *shiver*. If Nicky Watson is New Zealand’s answer to Pamela Anderson then I want to know what the fucken question was and who asked it?! For all the naive, easily influenced young ladies out there reading this – Ames, that means you – here’s a free insight into the mind of the quintessential ClubDes man and hopefully some peace of mind for you: We don’t dig football size bitty and most men don’t. Over rated rock band drummers do, but that’s because they were breastfed well into their teens and exhibit the mentality to prove it. The only guy who enjoys seeing girls with a rack you could hide a small Asian family between is the surgeon who pockets twenty grand to implant them.

Watson must be getting desperate for the money too because in her calendar she is as airbrushed as one of my old 1/24 scale Tamiya models. She looks more look 3D rendered porn than she does real which will no doubt please those into 3D porn, an audience I suspect not too far separated from those that find Nicky ‘all that and a bag of chips’ anyway. 3D porn aye, what is up with that?! Now I can understand an animator getting a little bored in his downtime and rendering some girl on girl action late one night, we did the same in the back of our maths books at school. But now it’s gotten well out of hand. Why would anyone choose a drawing over the real thing when there’s so much of it on offer? For free even.

Maybe it harks back to the early days of a boys sexual awakening when the first girl he ever had a semi over was Daphne on Scooby Doo and her knee high boots. The minx. She was gagging for it too. Even now, on the odd occasion, Kim Possible in her cheerleader uniform can get a fella a little bailed up in the morning…

Or so I'm told.

Four More Years?!

I only have a few words to say about the rugby. No piss take either because I know some of my dearest mates – Bruiser, Rosie, Dog, Trace, Simmo, Matty – will all be feeling it a lot more than I. Those boys live and breathe their rugby and I know they’ll be taking it pretty tough. Not to mention the father-in-law who I suspect probably left the room when he knew the writing was on the wall and would have missed the final 20 minutes of the game anyway.

I don’t have any answers to the many questions that they are bound to be asking of themselves, only an epiphany to share that dawned on me about the same time four years ago. I don’t think I’ve watched a full game of rugby since (other than the Petone Senior Thirds).

Professionalism has been the great equaliser in terms of world rugby. Bigger countries with a bigger pool of players to pick from and bigger wallets to pay them with are better prepared and better coached than they ever were. They know it and we’re trying hard to ignore it.

Since the year dot, The All Blacks have been the dominant force in world rugby. It was our game dammit, we even taught the clowns who came up with the concept how to play it properly. But them days are gone and the rest of the rugby playing world, although envious of our past, are no longer intimidated by it. The professional rugby world owes New Zealand nothing. Reputation counts for nothing these days, it only helps ticket sales.

We’ve won everything rugby has to offer for so long. Even between World Cup tournaments we still win it all, but I believe we’ve forgotten how to desire a win. We want to win, but it’s not the same thing. When France, England or South Africa walks onto the pitch to face the ABs they know that for the next 80 minutes, they are equal to the other fifteen jokers standing in black. These other sides are not constrained by a legacy of expectation that smothers them. Any thing can happen on the day and as the Frogs proved today; it comes down to who wants it the most. Old Frenchie desired the win over an opposition that no one said they could beat. England showed the same desire to beat an opponent they were not suppose to beat either.

Desire. That one simple, primal denominator that occurs in everything competitive.

I don’t doubt the commitment of the players, well of some I do actually. Contemplate this: When you had in your notice at work, do you do your best work in the last two weeks of your job? Or are you counting the days? So how does that compare to someone who has already indicated that they will no longer stay and play in or for New Zealand after the World Cup?

As for the other players, I think we have to be honest with ourselves. They’re as Kiwi as we are and they grew up with same mindset we all have, that the All Blacks deserve to win everything because that’s the way it’s always been. All Black management might well shield the players from the media hype in a tournament like this, but they’re still in regular contact with loved ones back home who undoubtedly maintain the same pre conceived notions of how the tournament will pan out. They’re Kiwi after all and that’s what we do.

We think so highly of these guys because they are highly paid, highly trained athletes, but they are human after all. They are the product of a country that no longer knows how to fight to win something for the first time, not in a rugby sense anyway and we are slipping into infamy because of it. We are as a nation producing these men and we are as a nation are supporting them by remaining ignorant to the fact that New Zealand no longer dominates World Rugby. The playing field, as they say, is a level one. I think the day we collectively realise it is the day we might stand a chance of getting our desire to win back.

Like the couple who bought tickets for the semi and final because they assumed the ABs would be playing both games. Like the sports guy on the news last night, the authority on nothing, proclaiming an easy win. Like every washed up expert I saw or read this week – themselves failures on the World Cup front – who all predicted an easy win to the ABs. It was a nobrainer, they said. Certainly was alright. And here we are again, four more years.

The England football team has only won the football World Cup once, in 1966. They have never looked like winning it again. The All Blacks will have to wait four more years to prove they aren’t about to do the same.

Local Body Erections?

It’s local body election time in J Town. That time of year where some of the saddest campaign hoarding's ever pop up, only to be pulled down just as quickly by some of the saddest individuals ever.

As amusing as it is to see them all torn down every morning, it’s not so cool to see the old folk volunteers who turn up later in the day to erect them again. There are certainly no frills when you start at the bottom step of local body politics, especially not when Grandad has to re-erect your woody for you each morning. And Bill Gates has a lot to answer for. One of his most heinous crimes is rolling out a software package that makes anybody think that they’re a half decent desk top publisher. My eight year old son could do a better job at putting a poster together compared to some of the efforts on show this election.

How effective are campaign hoardings anyway? I mean really. Has anybody in the history of the world ever decided to vote for some cooze on the basis of their picture having been stapled to a fence? I doubt it. But some folk really get into it, a couple of peeps in J Town are driving around with bumper stickers that read ‘Bring Back Jack’. Who the fuck is Jack and what ever happened to bumper sticks that actually meant something like “My Other Ride Is Your Mum” or “Fancy A Bum - You Might Like It”?

They all look so depressing, that’s the problem. I got the candidate info pamphlet in the mail the other day. I tried to read it because you know me, I like to make informed decisions but I think I‘ve had more fun watching my cat defecate in the neighbours garden. But then that’s what you get when you have 57 Christian Scout Master Rotarian's all preaching the same thing. Sure, there were a few hippies chucked in for good measure and possibly one ethnic minority but it’s not much of a selection is it? No wonder we New Zealanders don’t get into politics half as much as we should.

Here’s a good reason why we should though. Some Maori bird up North has taken a national treasure claim to the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal. Her idea of a national treasure? Her husband of one year, a Tongan over stayer who is being deported because a) he overstayed and b) he’s been convicted of assault on – wait for it - his wife. What a lovely couple aye? She hopes by having him classified as a treasure, the Government will not be able to legally deport him. Now instead of kicking the claim to the kerb like any self respecting Government department should, the Tribunal is allowing it to be heard! So you and I, the taxpayer, will be funding the several days it takes for this genuine grievance claim of the indigenous people of this land to be heard.

Is it any wonder then that in this country we have people with the mentality to hold up banks with a screwdriver, because our politicians put more effort and money into being politically correct, than being accountable and proactive towards the health, education and criminal justice systems of this country? And it all starts with us not paying enough attention when it comes to voting in the guy who decides whether its two or three ply that will be on the roll in the local library’s shitter.

A screwdriver. To hold up a bank no less. I mean come on - guns for show knives for a pro it might be, but a screwdriver?! What's the guy going to do if you don't give him the money? Unscrew the legs from your desk? Open a tin of paint for you? Geez, it doesn't get much more hardcore than that.

So I really should take more notice of our local body candidates, for like it or not, they’ll eventually move up the ladder to national politics and if they reach that stage, it’s too late to vote the buggers out.

My decision then will be based on the simplest of criteria. I’m going to vote for the candidate with the best nungas. A decision made easier when 90 percent of the candidates have moobs. Now that would make for interesting campaign hoardings – topless candidates. The men aren’t going to fair so well but I’m betting the women won’t have their hoardings torn down every night. Unless they’re well stacked and then all the perverts will pinch them. The really shy ones won't take the hoardings though, they will just park up alongside them several times a day and have a jimmy in the car.

It’s a strategy that worked well last time round for one of our incumbent councillors who just happens to be a reasonably attractive young lady who has just the slightest hint of closet naughtiness about her. Or is it that just my imagination? I’m sure ever picture I saw of her last election was of her in a tighty whitey and thus at least half of the eligible voters in the ward, all the males, voted for her main policy points. There were two of them.

So there you go. All the scientific proof you need to show that even if sex doesn't win you a local body election, it certainly makes it a hell of a lot more interesting.

Facebook vs Bebo vs Who Gives A Shit?!

People keep sending me invites to Facebook. It’s the site that ‘sends’ the invite of course but either way, it’s getting on my tits.

Facebook is the new Bebo which is nothing to write home about as far as I’m concerned because Bebo is quite stink. Facebook is the new way to annoy the fuck out of someone who doesn't subscribe to the 'you're not cool if you're not on it' theory. Maybe it’s that I just don’t get it but there’s something about sites like Bebo and Facebook that I don’t trust and it’s not just down to the fat paedophiles pretending to be 15 year old boys who frequent them. Call me frigid (my wife does) but I just don’t think it’s kosher to put that much of you on display to potentially, millions. It’s like the old saying, don’t put on the Internet what you wouldn’t feel comfortable putting on the supermarket notice board.

Which is a shit saying really because who puts anything on the supermarket notice board anyway?! But you get my drift.

Maybe it’s the anonymity of having potentially millions view your stuff that makes it so appealing. Read that line again and it probably doesn’t make sense a second time either but it’s actually quite breath taking and some of my best work. It’s called being poignant. Allow me to illustrate my point: A guy at my work has a Bebo profile that has revealed that he prefers a spot of rimming. News to us, the people he spends ten hours a day with but it sure does explain a few things and obviously for him, it’s easier to be honest in the face of a million strangers than it is to be openly gay amongst 20 colleagues. He’s a big fan of High School Musical, apparently.

These sites are a great way to communicate with friends people tell me. No doubt, but you know what, so is talking face to face over lunch or coffee. How about taking the time out from posting the latest pics of you pissed at yet another dead beat party to actually meet your friends, in person? Sites like these are the new text message, which was the new email, which was the new note passed in class when the teacher wasn’t looking, which was the new - wait for it - way of talking to someone face to face! That’s the IT revolution for you.

What’s the real point of these sites I wonder? Well actually, there’s two points. One is to deliver soft porn to those too cheap to sign up to a hard core sight. In my one and only visit to Bebo I was awestruck by how easy it was to click my way through an entire generation of adolescent girls and their personal photos. Now I’m as big a fan of girls in various stages of undress as the next guy, but afterwards I actually felt for once in my life, like a dirty old man. I wasn’t invited to view these photos, I knew none of the people in them but through the wonders of the virtual world I managed to view the intimate moments of most of them. About the only thing I couldn’t do online is leave a little something special in their undie draw.

The second reason is because all those girls want to be noticed. By someone, preferably by the hot guy at school whose name is all over their schoolbooks, but by someone, anyone. So they add photos of them with their mates getting pissed, or getting ready before going out to get pissed, or the morning after they got pissed, just so someone will notice. Someone will notice alright, they’ll notice that you get pissed easily and frequently. Is it any wonder with so much personal stuff on show that it’s not long before the one hand surfer comes a knockin?

I love the photo of possessions though. Here’s my cool stereo or here’s my cool shoes. Who gives a shit?! In my day, if a mate had something you liked, you pinched it. My mate Bruiser had his entire G I Joe collection decimated in roughly a ten minute period the first and last time he bought them to school. My collection conveniently increased by about a third that day.

Here’s the sticky tissue that really gets me about these sites though – how do they make their money? Everyone is in it for the money, that’s just life Jim, but these are free to join sites, so where does the income come from? Banner ads? Have you ever clicked on one? So then what do they do with all that info they have on all their members when no one clicks on enough banner ads to make it profitable? I wonder. I wonder a lot.

I’m going to sign up to Facebook alright, because a perv’s a perv and it’s always better when it’s free. But the only pictures I’m going to use on my profile are going to be of my genitalia. It will be all very tasteful though, I won’t cheapen myself. I’ll have a courtesy trim before hand and ensure I optimise the lighting to best effect and I’ll mix up the angles a little, a few undersides here and there, some nice point of view images. I wonder how many hits I’ll get from my friends. At least one initial hit I suspect and then as alluring as I’m sure my pink bits are, I suspect no one is going to be particularly interested in my profile. Which says it all really.

Except maybe the guy at my work.

Porno Dad vs The Socially Irresponsible

My son walked in on me checking out naked women on the Internet the other day.

I say women, but really it was only the one and there was not a pink bit to be seen. Not that an eight year old sticks around long enough to note those finer details. I was watching Alicia Silverstone do her bit for the rabbit food eating community in their latest ad, the one where she hops out of a swimming pool supposedly nude. I doubt she was fully nude though, because in this day and age only truly naive celebrities like the chick from High School Musical pose nude in private and are then shocked when it ends up on the interweb. I doubt Alicia would take that risk – although I’m sure I’m not alone in wishing she would. The High School Musical girl was decidedly average by the way, in case you were wondering my opinion.

So although it wasn’t the good stuff I was looking at, it might as well have been. I made matters worse by acting like it was the good stuff when my boy walked in and tried to frantically minimise the full screen playback, only to reveal the picture of her lying nude on her side, the shot that the vegans are using for their banner ads. Needless to say my son acted pretty much as I suspected he would, promptly running off to tell his two mates in the lounge that dad was looking at naked ladies on the computer.

I guess that will make afternoons quieter around here. None of the neighbourhood kids are going to be allowed over to Porno Dad’s house no more. I don’t quite know how I’ll make it up to my son. His school is having a German cultural day soon and I’m guessing that in the aftermath of this incident, the Waffen SS uniform I planned to wear is not going to go down well. Nor I suspect, is my Hitler Youth Bake-A-Cake stall that I had planned to man.

It’s tough being socially responsible sometimes. For some people it’s far easier to be ignorant and a Mongol, than socially apt. I’m not talking about serious stuff like pinching the neighbours lingerie from her clothesline, or whether or not to call in that controlled burn off of yours that just jumped the fence. Doing the right thing with that kind of stuff is a no-brainer for we the majority. But fear not, for the socially irresponsible are all around us and you don’t need to look very far to find them.

Take for example, shopping trolley etiquette. How is it that some folk can’t even manage to control a metre long trolley in a series of straight, flat, three metre wide aisles? These are the pricks that bang and broadside you more than once because they’re oblivious to anyone else around them. Why does that happen? The supermarket is hardly sensory deprivation central and there are no blind spots in the frozen section, so how the fuck does it happen? And these pillars of society are then heading out to a car in a car park near you?! Yeah, nice one.

What about the munter that spends five minutes riding the seventy metre escalator only to then not know where he’s going when he hops off at the end? There are only two choices mate, take a chance at life I say and stop holding every other bugger up behind you, fortune favours the brave after all. This kind of genius likes to stop in doorways and the centre of walkways too, to make other life changing decisions like "shall I dump here at the mall, or wait till I get to the mother-in-laws?". Mention that he / she might be in the way and they’ll look at you as though you just laid a warm steaming cable on the nice white linoleum floor.

The list, quite literally, is endless. How about folk who never return hired DVDs on time? People who make a new queue - that they are then at the front of - when one clearly already exists. Arseholes that dent your car door with theirs. One of my personal faves is when people walk through a busy car park believing that they have the right of way, waltzing in and out of your every blind spot to be right behind or in front of you as you look to plant the pedal. The poindexter who did so to me on the weekend came close to tasting cold hard Hyundai steel, I kid you not. He certainly got a mouthful of language that could only have come from a Porno Dad.

But even he was surpassed in the ‘fuck me right off’ stakes today, by his mate Wayne Kerr, who parked his people mover just far enough away from, or close enough to, the petrol pump at my local servo to mean that no bugger could use it. I enjoyed glaring psychotically at his entire family sitting in the car whilst I stood in the rain pumping my gas.

Yep, social irresponsibility is everywhere alright and unless they allow me to start carrying firearms there’s not much chance of it ending. Maybe I’ll take to wearing my Waffen SS uniform out when I go out shopping….

When Car Ads Go Bad - Epilogue

My reply email from Ford NZ arrived the other day. I had written to them expressing the opinion that they were being a bunch of dicks in getting so worked up over the LTNZ ad.

Predictably, it was all very formal and waxed on about just how much Ford puts into road safety in NZ. And as I read the first few paragraphs I could just tell that the writer was gagging to say "our cars don't crash" and sure enough, about three paragraphs in, there it was. Strictly in marketing speak mind you, because the bullshit never stops when you're trying to sell something. More so when that something was just made out to be as fallible as the competition.

So I rest my case. Mind you, if there's one thing I like more than being right, it's proving pricks are wrong and I'm tempted to go take a Ford for a test spin and drive it off the nearest cliff just to prove a point.

But that will never happen, because their cars don't crash.

When Car Ads Go Bad

Here's a little something that left me a wee bit moist this week. Ford NZ have chucked a spaz because the latest road safety ad features one of their cars skidding off the road and down a bank.

Obviously the marketing guys at Ford shit themselves upon seeing it for the first time, they thought their worst fears had been realised – someone had leaked the out takes of their last ad campaign to the media. When they realised that it wasn’t they went into what promotions people always do in a panic situation, they initiated full bullshit mode.

The poor sheila who was obviously out of the room when they had the ‘so who’s going to front up to the media with this crap’ vote, spent several minutes on last nights television news pointing out that thanks to the anti-dandruff-traction-stabiliser thingee that comes as standard on all new Fords, this accident would never happen and therefore the advertisement mis-represented them unfairly. They had, she pointed out almost believably, received several calls from concerned Ford owners.

Really? Several calls you say? I would like to know what these owners called about. It’s a pretty sad day when after seeing an ad on TV you decided to call the manufacturer of your car. A product recall due to spontaneous combustion might do that, but a road safety ad? More importantly I would like to know how they knew the number to ring. These are the same organisations that are notoriously impossible get a hold of when you’re looking to lay a claim after your car spontaneously exploded into a ball of flames and yet, on a lazy Sunday night, several frantic people were able to contact them and express their concerns that the car in the ad looked a little like theirs? I don’t think so Ford.

Let’s read between the lines here. What Ford is trying to tell us is they don’t think that their cars crash and therefore we should excuse them from contributing to road safety. They forget that the weakest link in all this is the driver. Yes, the technology that goes into car safety has come a long way but as yet, no braniac has yet invented a system that fully negates the unpredictably of the munter behind the wheel.

I put car manufacturers right up there in this lack of moral responsibility they exhibit with tobacco companies, McDonalds, the oil companies and the guy at our cafeteria who put onions in my mate Big Gay Rays ham, cheese and pineapple toasty. He didn’t have any pineapple, so he figured onion would be a good substitute. By the way, Ray’s not actually gay. He says he’s only in it for the bumfun.

Here’s where a car company like Ford has the average munter fooled. They make fast powerful machines and market them as super cars that will never fail you. They make ads where the very relaxed, fresh from a colonic Joe Average driver throws his car around mountainous S bends like he just don’t care. Now the law says that they have to show a disclaimer in their ads and they do, but they make it as tiny and as blurry as legally possible so you can’t see it. It reads something like this:

“This ad was made on a closed road that our professionally trained driver of several years experience had 64 days to practice on. We worked out before hand just what we needed to do in order not to fuck it up. Joe actually drove this stretch of road 43 times and never once did he get out of first gear thanks to maintaining the 10kmh speed restriction recommended by our stunt co-ordinators. Then we fast forwarded the whole thing to make it look like he was doing a 110kmh. Enjoy your 60K metal casket, dumbass.”

And they have the gall to pack a sulk over an ad that features an unbranded model of theirs in a road safety campaign?! Will they lose sales over it? I doubt it. I suspect that the guy who traditionally buys this type of Ford doesn’t actually pay any attention to any road safety ad. He’s far too busy rushing to make his next colonic. And after all, she’ll be right.

Ever notice how the owners of Fords and Holden’s tend to be fat buggers? I’m not one to unfairly generalise, but think about it next time you see one puffing his way from out behind the wheel in a car park. I often wonder, did he get fat by working at a desk job all these years to make enough money to buy the thing? Or did he buy it because he needs the power to transport his weight around? Does he in fact have a tiny chopper? Both my neighbours own one and yes, both are big individuals. One dude is a lady though so it can’t be a case of penile dwarfism, although she is a bit mannish and I have my suspicions.

Ford New Zealand, proud to be behind the All Blacks, but not road safety. Nice one.

NB: Incidentally my mate Skids loves Fords, but he doesn’t actually own one. So you’re alright by me Marcus.

The Simple Life

Do you remember the days when shit was simple?

Not taking a shit mind you, because that’s always been simple. Even when you were wagging school and spent the whole of fourth period under the Naenae over bridge next to the railway tracks like me and my mate Tim often did, taking a shit was simple. I recall the first time I needed to unwrap a picnic bar whilst there I hobbled off to the tree line (from the knees down) and gladly dropped the tweeds. I had been ready to use the natural fauna as a substitute for the ‘ol two ply, but Tim, who had done this before I could tell, suggested I take a few pages out of my maths book. That day was the best use of a maths book, ever.

Tim incidentally, is the only guy I ever had the misfortune of walking in on whilst he was having a quick game of solitaire on his bed. A most unfortunate incident for us both and one that still makes me shiver to this day. Tim dropped out of school a year before me and did nothing but masturbate his brains out for that entire year. Information that would have been useful to me well before that fateful day I turned up unexpectedly after lunch whilst wagging some class. In his defense though, I did arrive unannounced, had my headphones on and failed to knock as the front door was open. In doing so I broke several key rules of WankClub, of which all we males are lifetime members.

Funny thing though is that after all the nightmares, the one lasting memory I have of him in that mental picture is that he actually looked quite bored whilst treating his body like an amusement park ride. I suppose whacking one off every hour would have that affect on you. And this was before the internet too, so all a fella had for inspiration was whatever catalogue came through the mailbox that day or Mums Woman’s Weekly.

But them were the days. Simpler times, when it wasn’t just about making the biggest profit in the shortest amount of time. When pre packaged food portion sizes were actually filling. Ever notice how they seem to be getting smaller and less substantial, but perversely more expensive? That really burns my gnads. But these companies play on the fact that no bugger is ever going to be sad enough to weigh the stuff from week to week and point out the discrepancy.

My best mate’s sister however, is one of them folk. Whilst flatting together she took out a campaign of accountability against a fruit toast maker. Their wrapper said ‘no peel’ and man did she hold them to it. Every slice was meticulously examined and if it contained peel, she circled it with a vivid and sent it back to them. Her reward for doing so? A preformed letter of thanks and a voucher for a freebie. The standard retort of any company that sells a product or service - chuck them free shit and hope it goes away.

I work for a government department and we have a subsidised Cafeteria. That should mean value for money and for a while it has. But now the almighty dollar is more important than a good feed and the prices have gone up whilst not surprisingly, the quality and quantity have come down. My mate DougalMac, who is a bit like a man in a raincoat standing outside a primary school when it comes to percentages (dodgy), works it out to be a 75% increase in price! Not bad for a non profit business aye?!

Certainly the ‘leek and potato’ soup I had the other day was non profit. It was green, but that was about as ‘leek’ as it got. I suspect the grounds man had run the hose through the lawnmower catcher to make it, such was the quality of my soup.

Companies are of course, out to make a profit. But that shouldn’t mean it has to be at a 200% margin. For a few years I worked at a privately owned music store chain that only had a mark up of 75%, which is still a lot when you consider how cheap it is to physically make a CD, but we undercut all the big retailers and kicked their asses in sales. We knew this because a) we were far busier and b) when they eventually bought us out and compared the books, they soiled themselves at just how much money we had made in comparison.

Now admittedly I spent most of my 6th form Economics class hiding the duster out of the reach of our vertically challenged teacher, but even I know that if you sell shitloads more of something at a marginally cheaper price than your competitor you make a lot more money. So why don’t more companies do it today? Create some competition dammit!

Just like back in the simple days. When a dollar at the dairy around the corner from my mate Bruiser's bought you a Popsicle, a K bar, a fifty cent mixture and a game of Street Fighter 2 on the Spacies machine outside. And some big Maori kid would always inevitably ask if you could spot him a 20 bro, or give him seconds. And you would, because he was big. And Maori. And you were Caucasian.

Shit was simple back then and life was good.

Conspiracy Theory #1

I thought I’d lighten the ClubDes mood a little by talking about child abduction.

I want to share with you a theory I’ve got on a high profile case of the above, not that I mean to trivialise it in any way, shape or form. Please do not get me wrong here, I would be beyond devastated were the same to happen to me or any of my family or friends.

Now I know that I take the piss most of the time, about trivial things like sliced cheese and frightened Caucasians being chased down by terrifying natives, of which I can speak with some authority incidentally. I had the pleasure of growing up in a low socio-economic area where Polynesian, Maori and Pakeha lived in equal numbers. It was in all fairness a very nurturing environment in which to spend my formulative years and I wouldn’t now change a thing about that period of my life – but it did have its humorous side.

At college we Caucasians were either one with the Bro’s or you were a Bogan. Or a stoner. Probably both. But for those of us that grew up with the Bros the choice was a natural one and that meant playing rugby league every lunch time. The natural order of things was quite simple. The Palungi (the skinny white dudes) stayed on the wings and would occasionally get the last pass, long after the movement had finished or had gotten so far out of bounds no one but you and your fellow paleface on the opposite wing cared anymore.

For most of us, that was choice. We liked it that way. But there were two juniors who ignored the first rule of BroClub which was ‘don’t take the piss’. These guys ‘scored’ so many tries at lunch time that they decided to actually take up rugby league on Saturdays because they were sooo good. Their words, not mine. That meant they’d be lining up against the same guys who had so generously tossed them the ball before the final lunch bell rang. Now shit was serious.

Neither lasted the full first game. It is widely reported that the brownest things on the pitch that Saturday were the white shorts belonging to the two honkies that had broken the first rule of BroClub. Needless to say, they never played lunch time league again. Maybe they would have done better if they had of worn tight titty tops?

Anyways, back to the point of this particular blog. Everyone has heard the tragic story of Madeline McCann, the three year old girl who went missing from her hotel room whilst her parents were in the restaurant downstairs eating dinner. I won’t pass judgement on their parental skills at this part of the narrative for I am about to do that a few lines further down. This all happened in Portugal and has captivated Europe, not so much here in NZ because we have a she’ll be right attitude.

I’m a pessimistic type of fellow (you may have noticed) and I like to question, or rather, not believe most of what I see and hear. Unless it’s on the internet, then it must be true. So straight away I’m having some doubts as to what’s actually happened here, more so when I never ever see the parents lose it whilst fronting one of the many media conferences they’ve held. Now I watch a lot of news (because I’m boring) and I am yet to see these two cry once and that doesn’t sit right with me. I’d hate to put myself in their shoes but if my son went missing, I’d be about as coherent as Sly Stallone.

And then something a little too freaky naughty happens - the case goes global. Internet sites, sports teams and rock stars start promoting the cause and wearing the tee-shirts. Who’s getting the money from those tee-shirts I wonder quietly to myself? Why are so many people getting on the case? Is it because it has a catchy slogan? There sure are a lot of missing kids in the world, do they have highly orchestrated multi media campaigns too I wonder? I’m really pissing my wife off by this time with all my out loud wonderings.

So here’s my theory. What if this is the biggest hoax since the Da Vinci Code? For those that don’t get what I mean by that, check out the list of the top selling non fiction titles of all time – it ain’t on there. Neither is the Bible but that’s another blog. It’s a horrible thought I know to have over what is a contentious and emotional issue, but it’s not impossible, is it? Who could do such a thing you may well ask and truth be told I ask myself that too but there’s always a first time. It would almost be right up there with marketing obesity causing fast foods to innocent children, wouldn't it?

Perhaps it's more a sign of today’s society that you can no longer believe anything you see on the news or in the papers? Not the intranet though, it’s all true on there.

I hope I’m wrong but if I’m right then dang, that’s whack.

Why China Doesn't Play Rugby

It hasn’t taken long for the bullshit merchants to crank it up at the World Cup. Not surprisingly it’s taken us Kiwis to set the bar for the coming weeks.

Clothing manufacturer Canterbury of NZ claim to have invented a top that increases performance by up to 3%. Tell ‘em they’re dreamin. It may be as tight as a mans anus but the only thing a tight top reveals is how fat your fans are – and you can take that from someone who’s football team found that out the hard way a few seasons back. These days, when a coach talks about how someone’s ‘shown a lot of guts out there’, it’s more likely to be thanks to the tight jumper than his testicular fortitude.

Canterbury’s ‘idea’ is called ionisation and its technology derived from the Luftwaffe. That’s right, the bastards who bombed my mate Keith’s local fish and chip shop during the war. Ironic isn’t it that they couldn’t conquer Ol’ Blighty but years on their technology is helping to fleece thousands of Scotsmen out of NZ $160 for their national rugby jersey.

I’ll tell you what keeps a joker cool on the field and it ain’t his jersey. It’s the constant fear of stuffing it up in front of the thousands in the stands and the millions (if you’re one of the four big rugby playing countries) watching on the box. Fear sweat keeps you cool, not a painted on titty top. As for tight tops making it harder to tackle an opponent, well that gem of marketing bullshit lasted about as long as it took you to read it.

Incidentally the All Blacks ditched Canterbury a few years back for Adidas, a German firm that can trace its beginnings back to Nazi Germany and apparently, does alright for themselves these days. My mate Rosie won’t buy Adidas because he’s a man of principal. His Grandfather (and mine) fought the mighty Hun so that we wouldn’t have to forcibly wear their clothes – now our national team is sponsored by them and we pay to wear their lightweight leisure garments! If only dear old Adolf were around today to see that all his efforts weren’t in vain. Unfortunately he died in Argentina a few years back.

The same old corporate crap is rolled out at every football World Cup too – where it’s always marketed as Adidas vs Nike. Regardless of who wins on the pitch, both will sell shit loads of overpriced two ply sporting garments all of which were made in Cheapsville, China. They don’t play rugby in China and I’m not surprised. If you and your children spent all day making the stuff for 20c in the hand, you’re hardly likely to want to pull it on afterwards and crash tackle each other. Besides, you have to be up half an hour before you go to bed for work the next day anyway. So who has the time for rugby in China?

China really is the sphincter of the world isn’t it?! I mean okay fair play, the World was well on its way to an Al Gore documentary before China started cracking a turtle head above the full bowl that is the environment, but they’re a bit like a fella who doesn’t get his first pube till well into his teens, a late bloomer. Now they’re making up for lost time and hammering in the final nail on the Worlds coffin in their quest to westernise themselves.

All of this sportswear propaganda really works though because we buy house loads of the stuff. We actually believe that by wearing the stuff it will make us faster and stronger and of course most importantly, better looking why we do it. The reality is that it doesn’t now and it definitely didn’t back in the day when the world’s athletes had nothing more than a pair of stubbies and a wife beater to wear. It’s all a bit like an airline trying to tell you their planes are faster because of the extra smooth paint they use on them.

Take my word for it, the only thing that is going to make a Scotsman run a personal best at the rugby World Cup is a giant Polynesian chasing him down the sideline and not a $160 top!