Christchurch & The Good Times

Well it didn’t take some Cantabrians long to reveal their real priorities after the big shake did it?

Some folk aren’t overly worried it would seem, about the loss of life, the lack of toilets or possible the public health issues that that will cause if left unchecked for much longer.

They’re not even bricking it over the massive loss of jobs and infrastructure within the area or even the cost to the local and national economy the quake has started to cause.

Instead they’re worried about missing a few fucken rugby games when the World Cup comes to town. Yeah because that really would be a disaster wouldn’t it?

Oh sure, not hosting any games will mean a massive loss of income to the city but hey, I say anything that means you don’t have to suffer 10,000 drunken Poms strutting around the place like their team is God’s Gift has to be a good thing doesn’t it?

Going by this new story it would seem that the economy down there is getting a pretty good ‘injection’ of funds anyway...

One thing is for sure, there have been some pretty disturbing scenes down that way that none of us will forget in a hurry. I witnessed a disturbing scene in Christchurch once and it had nothing to do with a natural disaster.

A group of us went down with then flattie and all round good guy Simmo for his younger brother’s 21st. Now he’s deaf is Simmos brother so the party was full of people hard of hearing, no problem there. Only it was karaoke.

Which I didn’t think was going to be a problem by the size of the speakers they were bringing into the venue before hand, only they didn’t stack them so much as lie them face down so as to send the phat bass beats through the floor where they could be felt.

Now deaf people can’t hear themselves so they don’t sing, they growl. Especially when they’re clapping in encouragement, which is not actually a bringing of the hands together in a classic sense, but a waving of them above the head.

Bruiser and I sat there not knowing whether we should laugh or bleed out of our anus thanks to the intestine churning sound waves resonating up from the floor.

They had the rugby on that night too. NZ verse someone. Half way through we of full hearing figured out that the sound wasn’t actually broken on the TV but on mute because nobody in the room needed to hear it anyway.

Then the stripper arrived.

Now this was a full on family affair; kids, strapping rugby players, Granny with the handy cam, the works. No one battered an eyelid when the talent turned up, in fact quite the opposite, they all moved in closer and started clapping (in sign language remember) and growling even louder than before.

The poor girl looked as petrified as the 65 year old muscle that came in with her, which in itself was weird but hey, we were well beyond the point of surprise by then. But to her credit she worked the routine like a pro and got the hell out of there before Granddad had the portable CD player unplugged.

Yes it was quite the night alright.

So all the best Christchurch; I have nothing but good memories of you, none of which involve rugby matches (although we did go to one that weekend too).