Top 5: My Worst Moments of 2010

It’s that time of the year again when everybody who is anybody – or just a wanker with a blog – is making their ‘Best Of’ and ‘Worst Of’ list for the year just past.

Now I’ve said before just how much I loather a list maker, but then I went and made several of my own which is as funny as me pooh-poohing James Blunt when his new song came out a few weeks back now, only for me to not only have now bought it off iTunes, but have since learnt to play it on the guitar.

But then that’s just me – making statements I never keep.

So after some deep soul searching and a pretty decent trawl through the memory banks here is my list of disappointments this past year. Pack a lunch because shit is about to get deep.

1. I got Swine Flu and it nearly killed me. That pretty much sucked.

2. All the football teams I’ve coached this year have lost more games than they’ve won. But from those teams came more rep trialists and players than any other one team in each grade, so I must be doing something right.

3. That last one is not a disappointment; it’s me turning a frown upside down.

4. Lost, the TV show, finished in an ending that was emotional on two levels; it ended six years worth of wtf moments with a big tear jerker and sadly heralded the last time we've seen Kate (Evangeline Lilly) on TV other than in those 'Because you're worth it' ads. I love you Kate.

5. Natalie Portman is pregnant and unless she found a use for all the pendants of mans milk I’ve been sending her then I suspect that sadly, it’s not mine.

So stay tuned for the Best Of which like the above is totally subjective and complete arse to anyone but the writer, but hey, it’s not like you’ve got anything better to do right?

What has she done with all my pendants I wonder...?

Jump Jet Dreams And BBQ Goodbyes

Why does depressing news always arrive only days before the likes of Christmas? I’ve had two such moments in as many weeks and I won’t lie to you, both ripped my undies, emotionally speaking.

The only time I’ve ever actually ripped my underwear is that one time in Standard Four where I had a shart of epic proportions during class and had to flush them down the toilet as they were literally, unsalvageable.

But don’t tell anyone aye? Least of all my mother who always wondered what happened to my camo green, A Team Y fronts. Has there ever been a more useless invention than the opening in the front of Y fronts?

The theory being of course that when a fella wants to have a wee he will open the fly, reach into the opening and well, you know. Let me clear one thing up right now; that’s too many openings and too many points of failure, especially when you’re 10, at school and in fear of the toilet door being kicked down at any moment.

See that kind of carry on frightens a young man and his appendage into urinal stage fright and would often lead to many, many minutes spent waiting for either every other bastard to leave before you could pee, or to desperate thoughts of cool things that would take your mind of the fact that you’ve been standing there for 15 minutes.

Like Harrier jump jets.

Which were officially retired this week in a decision that will end the dreams of many a young shy pisser like me who grew up wanting to fly one of the coolest things ever, second only to the thought of a flying tank.

The Harrier was a jet that blew the pubescent mind because not only did it go forwards, but up & down (on the spot) and backwards. Fuck. Yes. Oh sure, helicopters can do those things, but you can’t load 14,000 kg of whip ass onto a helicopter.

There was something innately sexual about a Harrier too. Maybe it was the big air intakes that looked like nubile breasts, or just the simple fact that it was so pants wettingly awesome, but it turned young boys like us on even more than the underwear section of the DEKA catalogue. Did it what.

The RAF Harriers took their last operational flights this week and it was a deeply moving sight, so much so I proceeded to spend the next few hours spooning the car, it being the biggest metal object I could get my hands on at such short notice. And yes, the F35 Lightning that replaces them is a jump jet too but it’s not the JUMP JET. That title belongs to the Harrier.

I probably could have handled the news a lot better if I wasn’t already at such a low ebb with the heartbreaking news that Mrs ClubDes had decided it was time to retire the family BBQ of 10 years.

Now I’m not one of those guys that get deeply primal and protective about his right to barbecue. Not by a long shot. If truth be told I’d actually prefer someone else did the cooking but I appreciate the emasculation one undergoes if, when surrounded by other men, a fella turns the tongs over to the missus. So I don’t.

But I’d much prefer to sit back with a cold beer and listen to me old mate James Blunt on the wireless than to sweat it out like a rapist in front of a hot girdle and proceed to spend the rest of the evening smelling like meat.

That said though, when I do take the reins, I crank out some quality shit; no char grilled or burnt anything when I’m on the job. I guarantee it. It’s all about temperature control bitches.

So I was disappointed to see an old friend go, especially as I had constructed a mega set of new legs for it when the old ones had given way due to being cheap as chips, made in China rubbish. It was some of my best woodwork and reminded me of weekends spent wasted away in Granddads’ shed, building shit.

Like scale model Harrier jump jets. Oh yeah.

Check out the rack on that!

Damn You James Blunt

Damn you and your new song which I tried so very hard not to like.

But you got me again with your catchy lyrics, your sun swept video and that strangely alluring effeminate way you carry yourself. Not to mention that mouth of yours that looks big enough to hold a couple of balls in it.

I’ve since bought it off iTunes, dammit, but I nearly didn’t because I’m almost sure I can make out that somewhere in the back ground, some poof (other than you) is playing a ukulele. Which has to be the most deeply disturbing trend in music these days. Or as my mate Marco put it so aptly “Ukuleles. What’s up with that shit?”

Ukuleles are right up there with surfers who then go on to be musicians in my big book of things that fuck me right off.

As are clowns who decide to take over the stereo at small intimate gatherings and play some reggae dub step rubbish that you’re most likely to hear blaring out of cars in the Coromandel. Not cool bro, not cool.

Now I admit that guys like Jack Johnson probably sound awesome playing their out of tune guitars when everyone is huddled around the camp fire, high on sea water, surfboard wax and whatever it is they’re all smoking but lets face it, who wouldn’t aye? Even Blunt and his lose-the-will-to-live-when-you-hear-it numbers about being somebodies lover would rock that particular party.

There’s just one thing I can’t get my head around regarding James Blunt and that’s the fact he was in the army for six years, as a Captain no less. He saw action in Kosovo and even stood guard at the coffin of the Queen Mum when she carked it in 2002. So at some point the guy had some semblance of an impressive life before he started singing about perving at strange girls on the train.

Knowing that makes me wonder what it was like serving with the guy. Did the other Captains wake each morning to find him serenading them, naked, from the end of his bed in the Officers Mess? Nakedness, by the way, is acceptable during wartime. Incidentally no one worries about trivial things like the size of your cock when there’s every chance you’ll be dead by bed time.

Did he sing to them whilst in the communal showers and in those poignant, quiet moments that always inevitably arise in times of conflict, did he try out new numbers on the troops and if so, what did they make I wonder, of the lyric ‘three wise men having a semi by the sea’…

Speaking of strange girls; I have this moral dilemma I feel I should share with the group.

Most days I drive past a not unattractive young, solo Mum struggling to make her way up the Mount Kilimanjaro that is our hill, pushing bubs in his / her pram. Often, depending on the weather which lets face it, in Wellington is usually shit, I contemplate stopping and offering her a lift.

Which I could easily do because I’m usually alone, drive a big booted passion wagon with plenty of room for a pram and usually have a car seat for when we pick up the niece. But the thing that stops me every time is the thought that it’s a fine line between being a well meaning guy and a well organised sexual deviant, at least in her eyes. So I don’t.

Ah well. At least the thought is there I suppose. She probably wouldn’t get in when she heard the ukuleles pumping out of the iPod anyway.

Damn you James Blunt.

Two balls minimum I reckon...