Fixed and Floating

Twists and turns

2012-01-28T21:41:00.003+13:00

Today I went on my first walk as part of the tramping club. My preparation was less than ideal: I (stupidly I guess) stayed awake till 2:40 this morning to listen to the second men's Aussie Open semi on the radio. The 4¾-hour match had as many twists and turns as a snake slithering down a spiral staircase. From what I could tell neither Djokovic nor Murray was quite at their best, but it sounded like a gripping contest, at least when that Aussie commentator (whose focus was on everything but the tennis) got out of the way and Richard Evans and Chris Bowers took over. Perhaps the pomminess of those two announcers endears them to me, but they do seem extremely knowledgeable about the game. It was a shame, after such a close-fought match, that Murray couldn't quite make it. I'm now listening to the women's final between Sharapova and Azarenka. It's 3-3 in the first set; if it remains close you can expect the gruntometer to hit record levels. I saw Sharapova play in Melbourne in 2005 - the grunting on that occasion was almost hilariously loud. For the record she thrashed Li Na, who wasn't anything like the player she is now.

Fortunately the walk started at eleven but I was still felt badly starved of sleep. We met at Karori Park and walked the Skyline Walkway over the top of Mt Kaukau to Johnsonville. It was a nice day for it - OK it was windy as heck, but we had bright sunshine the whole way. I took a few photos and chatted to some of the others in the group to begin with, but I tired towards the end. It was the first real strenuous exercise I'd had in ages, and of course that's one of the main reasons I joined the club in the first place. I carried my new backpack, which I bought in Auckland, but it was too big for a trip lasting a few hours like today; I might try and get a smaller one off Trade Me for my next day trip. The trips are categorised into about six difficulty levels - today's was the second easiest level. On the club's website it says "You can be as fit or as unfit as you like!" I'd dispute that - if you were really unfit, you'd have struggled today. Maybe that's a measure of my pomminess - being brought up in the UK gives me an idea of what "really unfit" is.

Nonna

2012-01-25T07:22:00.006+13:00

In 2008 Gran published a book which covered her long, interesting and varied life, concentrating mainly on her childhood which was spent in Wales. She wrote very well I must say, even if the motivation to write eluded her at times. I took my copy of the book up to Auckland with me – I thought some of my friends might find it interesting, especially the photos.

My grandfather was a Squadron Leader in the RAF. In the sixties they were based in Naples, which sounds like a crazy but beautiful place, if that makes any sense. My grandma liked to be known as Nonna, the Italian word for grandmother; that’s what we called her most of the time. I was taken by surprise, therefore, when I saw this shop a couple of minutes’ walk from the motel I stayed in:

What, if anything, the shop is selling I really haven’t a clue, but it’s full of old guitars, amps and Radiohead memorabilia. Not a granny to be seen. The umlaut is a bit of a mystery too.

I’d planned to make a (bad) joke about her becoming a Nonna-genarian at her next birthday but alas she died four months too soon. I’ll miss her a lot. She was very good to me as a boy: she (embarrassingly) favoured me over her other two grandsons.

In 2000 I flew with her to Cairns to visit my parents (Mum did a year’s teaching exchange over there). We spent a week in Penang on the way over there. Later that year she visited me in Lyon and almost died on the flight. Her heart had stopped beating for an extended period although she didn’t know that at the time. I vividly remember her being wheeled out, well after all the other passengers had gone through, looking almost unrecognisable from the Nonna I knew. She seemed to perk up though, so I took her around Lyon’s attractions, oblivious to how ill she was. In the summer of 2001, when she realised what was up (after one or two more episodes), she got a pacemaker fitted. The four-hour-plus operation was not without a hitch – afterwards she said it would have been nice to have “sailed away” then, as she put it, but she still had six or seven good years left in her. She visited New Zealand for the third time in 2005, having come here in ’89 (with my grandfather, while we lived out here) and ’98 (with Dad). In ’06 I made a trip to the UK; she and I spent a week in Paris. In ’08 I made another trip to England and went on a short holiday to Italy with a university friend; in those four days Nonna had slipped a lot – she must have had a stroke while I was away. A week earlier she was hooning around town in her Nissan Micra (well, not exactly: she went at about the same speed as farmers go in their tractors, but at least she was driving) and now she was trying to make phone calls using a TV remote or a calculator. Knowing the importance of one’s independence I tried to convince her to get back in the driving seat – she went 100 metres down the road and that was the last time she ever drove. She did bounce back but was never quite the same. I’m so glad I managed to see her in 2010 – although she’d slipped a long way, she was still her at that stage.

I’ve been staying at a hotel on Great South Road, close to Remuera train station and only a few doors down from the offices of Lifeline, which I unfortunately pulled the plug on half-way through the training programme.

Richard and I met up in Newmarket on Saturday before attending the Asperger’s group at their first meeting at the new location. Unlike the old place it doesn’t have an outdoor area, which is a shame, but its acoustics are much more suitable. About 25 turned up – I’d almost forgotten how positive an experience those monthly meetings were for me. It was really good to see Chris in a more positive frame of mind – 2011 was something of an annus horribilis for him I think. I felt a certain sense of shame as I made less than positive noises about my work when others in the room would have given their right arm for any kind of job.

On Sunday I took the train to Papakura to see Bazza. He’d obviously been busy cleaning – his flat had a strong smell of disinfectant. He hasn’t done a bad job with his place really and for somebody who doesn’t drive he’s got everything close at hand. He doesn’t have a lot of mod cons but he’s got Sky, so we watched some of the Aussie Open which, unlike in past years, I haven’t been following closely. He has a habit of talking incessantly during the game, and calling balls out that are in (which he also did in matches involving him!). His pronunciations of players’ names and nationalities can be amusing at times. For instance I never knew that Djokovic came from Suburbia. I’m glad I caught the match between Na Li and Kim Clijsters – a repeat of last year’s final – in which Clijsters dodged four bullets to come from 6-2 down in the second-set tie-break, sneaking through in the end as the Chinese launched a fightback of her own in the deciding set.

On Monday I met Mandy, my old work colleague, in Takapuna. Unlike me she’s making big positive strides in her job and is even dating one of her high-flying workmates. We had pizza at Mac’s bar – or whatever it’s called – on the main drag.

Today I’ve been catching up with Richard, who showed me his wonderful drawing of Emma, and I’m now sitting peacefully in Cornwall Park – one of the best bits of Auckland I think – writing this on my laptop. My flight goes at seven. It’s back to work tomorrow and who knows what’s in store for me there.

She's gone

2012-01-19T19:21:00.003+13:00

Dad just rang me. Gran passed away a few hours ago. She was 89.
There was no quality of life any more, so this is for the best, but it's still quite a shock.

I'm flying to Auckland tomorrow evening.

Gran

2012-01-19T07:31:00.002+13:00

Dad emailed me yesterday to say he'll be making an unplanned trip to the UK. His flight leaves on Sunday. He'd been in contact with Gran's home; they said things were looking bleak. He did book a last-minute trip over there at the end of 201o. That time she recovered before he stepped on the plane - he rebooked his flight - but I'm less optimistic now.

I met Danielle again at the tramping club. Someone gave a talk on a trek they did a year ago that took in Mt Aspiring. Unfortunately Danielle left before the talk - she seemed interested only in signing up for trips; I couldn't encourage her to stay. Whether I'm anywhere near organised enough - or practical enough - to do any sort of overnight trip I really don't know.

Sickie

2012-01-17T10:10:00.008+13:00

After my near-meltdown at work yesterday, I decided to take today off. I'll get as much work done by being at home as I would at work. Hopefully with my batteries recharged I'll be better tomorrow and I'll go in. It gives you some idea of my struggles at work that I can increase my overall productivity by calling in sick. It's only my second sick day in nine months so I should be fine.

On Saturday I had dinner at my cousin's place. I wasn't feeling wonderful but I instantly felt better when the three boys greeted me at the door. Tim, the middle one, fired his water pistol and wanted me to have a go. He informed me that they did have three water pistols but one was broken. I promptly broke both the other two in the space of two minutes! Oh dear! I felt pretty bad about that and bought Tim a slightly less breakable water pistol from Farmers on Sunday. I'll give it to him the next time I see him. A whole industry of water guns, potato guns, dart guns and you-name-it guns has suddenly sprung up, judging by the arsenal on display at Farmers.

My cousin came up with a wonderful idea for a business opportunity that could, who knows, extricate me from my current job. I'd be perfectly capable of doing all the donkey work but unfortunately I've got the business acumen of a woodlouse. I'm still positive about giving it a go. My cousin told me not to worry about my job - "you know it's hard for them to sack you" - but that's hardly the point. Being bad at, and totally uninspired by, my job doesn't help my self-esteem. It'll make me more depressed, my performance at work even worse, and my struggles to hang on to my job even more desperate. And if I start shouting and swearing and chucking things around the office I'll become decidedly more sackable. This is just the situation I was in three years ago.

I suggested that I see the Muppets at the cinema with the boys this weekend, but of course I'm off to Auckland this weekend, so I'm a muppet for suggesting it.

Last Wednesday I met up with Danielle from the autism group. She's very shy, even by my standards. We had dinner at the Moroccan restaurant next to Taste of India on Cambridge Terrace, and then went to the tramping club. There are in fact two tramping clubs that meet in the same building. The one that I'll be joining is the Wellington Tramping Club, not the Tararua one that lost a member two weeks ago. I'll be going on an easyish (I hope!) day trip at the end of the month. They had a map of the Tararua ranges on the wall - it really is a completely different world from the urban one I live in and all very intriguing. From that point of view, as well as all the exercise I'll get and new faces I'll meet, I'm looking forward to it. I'll be a bit apprehensive too though.

Danielle washes dishes to earn some money. It's not a great job but it's a job, which I know (speaking from experience) is really important. That's what is so sad about the gradual loss of checkout operators and airport check-in desk people. I had three dishwashing jobs from 1996 to '99. My first was at a 1000-year-old pub. It was very busy on a Saturday night and I always stank of fish when I got home. I was happy to do the job even if the social aspect to it wasn't a lot of fun. The pub had a massive electrical fire in '97 although I wasn't working there that particular evening.

Danielle will be 26 tomorrow. I'd like to get to know her a bit better. We'll be going to the tramping club again tomorrow night.

On Sunday I bought this album from Kiwi band Steriogram for three bucks (!), for the cover as much as anything else. The album was released in 2010 but the cover reminds me of their (amazingly brilliant if you ask me) Walkie Talkie Man video which came out about the time I arrived in NZ.

It's great that you can use the Basin Reserve as a park when there are no matches going on. You can't use the bit that people play on of course, but on a sunny afternoon like we had today, it's very nice to just sit on the freshly-mown grass bank and read a book.

RIP Blanket Man 1957-2012 - and a tricky work day

2012-01-16T20:32:00.009+13:00

I used to see Blanket Man, a.k.a. Ben Hana, ten times a week, but I won't be seeing him any more. He died yesterday at the age of 54. Last time my parents were up I said I didn't think he'd be around much longer, but last week I saw him moving around - that seemed to be a good sign. He obviously touched a lot of Wellingtonians, judging by this impressive makeshift memorial on Courtenay Place today. That he was able to pursue his harmless (if unconventional) lifestyle in peace says a lot about how tolerant Wellington is as a city. Somebody suggested today that there should be a theatre production based on Blanket Man's life.

In contrast, someone who keeps on surviving is my grandma. She spent last week in hospital as her recurring bowel issues presented themselves once more. Somehow they removed the blockage but she's terribly weak now and I don't know how she keeps bouncing back. I did speak to her at Christmas, for the first time in months, but I don't think she knew who I was. Dad still rings her but he says it's pretty hopeless now.

I've been suffering from varying degrees of depression in the last week or so. I reached a low point at work today, which was just like a typical work day in early 2009. The day began just about tolerably and then rapidly deteriorated. My head seemed to be filled with thick fog, I had no idea what I supposed to be doing and I got quizzed by my boss - "Where did this come from? What does the factor of 1.59 mean?" - but I had absolutely no idea where anything came from or what anything meant. My memory of any specifics was non-existent. My desk phone rang. It was the property broker. Fuck. I ignored it. My mobile rang immediately afterwards. Fuckfuckfuck. I picked it up. "It's Steve Jones." "I know who it is. You've got thirty seconds." Did I really just talk to him like that? At 3:30, just after I'd completed a report that wasn't worth the virtual paper it was written on, I could very easily have caused some property damage but got myself out of the building before I became dangerous. I walked slowly around the block, at one point stopping to bounce backwards and forwards against a wall on a side street. At fourish, after I'd calmed down a bit, I got back to the office. I still didn't get any work done, but at 5:15, as I was about to go home, someone from Marketing asked me a question. And guess what. For the first time this year I knew the answer!

I'm not sleeping well at the moment. I don't think I got to sleep before midnight at all last week. Last night was no different. I remember the red digits reading 0:49 when I got up, read a couple of pages of a book about symbols (why are traffic lights red, amber and green?) and got back into bed. I must have fallen asleep at 1:30 or so. I woke up at 7:51. Fuck.

Last week I told my boss that I missed the exam deadline but I was coerced into sitting an exam in the second half of the year. I know that if I do enrol for an exam, it'll be priority E or F for me, and the grade I'll get in the exam will be something similar.

I've got plenty more to write about but I feel absolutely cream crackered. I apologise for the swearing.

Whoosh! There goes the deadline

2012-01-09T21:47:00.004+13:00

I didn't sleep well last night as I anxiously contemplated the next few months; the howling wind probably didn't help either. Today at work was therefore an even bigger struggle than usual. I had a fair bit to do and was given the third degree by my boss. At one stage I had just about every spreadsheet under the sun open.

I don't participate in many work converations any more - most of the time I literally can't due to my lack of Mandarin - but the ballooning tragedy did crop up today. People were comparing riding in a hot-air balloon to bungee jumping and parachuting. Despite the horrendous accident at the weekend I'd happily go up in a balloon while I'd be cacking my pants doing either of the other two. I would do a parachute jump though, preferably a tandem with my brother who is now a veteran of several hundred jumps. But I think I'd give the bungee jump a miss.

At 12:45 today my mobile rang - it was the electricity company wanting to replace the meter at my flat. They rang me last month as I was walking home in the pissing rain after locking myself in the loo at work that day. Now I vaguely remember them saying something about the 9th but it was pretty much in one ear, out the other. So at lunchtime today I had to beetle home (as Dad would say - he says "beetle" a lot) so they could install this bloody meter. Half-way to my flat I remembered that all the meters are stored in a room with a combination lock. Neither I nor the two meter men had a clue what the code was, and after five minutes of faffing around I beetled back to the office.

Here's some excellent work news. I can't do an exam in the first half of 2012 because I've missed the enrolment deadline! I'm not exactly up with the play on the current exam system so I had no idea the cut-off date was so early. According to Stephen Fry's book, the late Douglas Adams (who frequently had writer's block) said "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly past." This particular whooshing sound is music to my ears.

Hot-air balloon disaster

2012-01-08T21:28:00.007+13:00

Eleven people died yesterday morning in the Wairarapa when their hot-air balloon went up in flames. Imagine being up there, 200 metres above the ground, the basket in flames, able to do nothing. This account (from the Herald website) gives you some idea:
"And it shot up in the air, which I guess was because of the heat, and we saw two people jump out and everyone was screaming - the screaming was just terrible - and then when the canopy went up in flames it just dropped."
I'm still a bit puzzled by what happened - whether it hit a power line before bursting into flames - but it will all come out I'm sure. If yesterday had been anything like today in terms of weather, those eleven people would still be with us.

I've hardly poked my nose out the door today, such as been the wet and windy Wellington weather. Yesterday was fine though for most of the day.

Friday wasn't a good day at work. I really didn't want to be there. More about that next time.

Ham tomorrow

2012-01-04T20:36:00.004+13:00

I read today that a longstanding member of Tararua Tramping Club (the one I was about to join) fell to his death on New Year's Day while on a solo tramp in the South Island. It must be very sad news for everyone at the club and it goes to show that there's an element of risk no matter how experienced you are. I'm about to email the woman from the autism group; I'm sure she would have known him. He sounded like a kind, easy-going bloke.

I had an unusual dream (or possibly a nightmare) about my flat. I had four dogs to contend with for a start. Then I wanted to advertise for a flatmate but somebody put up an ad for me, stating that only actuaries need apply. I'd rather have the dogs.

Mum wrapped up some ham to take back with me. Every Christmas and New Year it's the same story. Ham and salad one night, ham and potatoes the next, ham and ham the night after. Not that I mind particularly.

I finished Stephen Fry's autobiography in time to give it to Dad before I hopped on the plane. He really is an amazing man. The mind boggles as to how he managed to pack so much into his twenties. How I wish I had a quarter of his talent with words. He left his life story tantalisingly poised on the subject of his cocaine addiction, which he says will require another book.

Time to get back

2012-01-02T17:03:00.004+13:00

I spent New Year's Eve in Timaru with Mum, Dad, my aunt and uncle and their two friends. Seven of us in all; I was the only one under sixty. In some ways I find it easier to socialise with people much older or younger than me, or for that matter people who don't speak good English, because I'm not expected to have much in common with them. We turned up at the stupidly early time of half-five, so by the time the last fireworks had been launched we'd been there seven hours. I got very bored, but I've endured a few 31st Decembers in the past that were far worse than merely very boring. I lucked out on the various games but didn't mind donating $8 - if it wasn't for our donations the show wouldn't survive. To his amazement Dad won a kilo box of liquorice allsorts on the chocolate wheel. The best act was probably a bloke who managed to escape from a straitjacket while riding a tall unicycle. The fireworks were, for a city of Timaru's size, rather impressive.

The next morning I was alone in the house as Mum was at church and Dad, despite his headache, had gone to Pleasant Point to fly his model plane. The phone rang; it was my aunt. She wanted us to come over for a meal. My god. You've had people staying with you for a week, you spent seven hours last night with people, and now you want more time with people?! I said I'd wait till Mum got back. I told Mum, who didn't want to go out for a meal any more than I did. Dad sure as hell wouldn't want to. To my surprise, Mum (who finds it very hard to say no) spared us all by picking up the phone and uttering that really big two-letter word.

I've come to realise that Mum isn't as sociable as I thought. As for Dad, he's never been particularly sociable. He needs human contact but a little goes a long way. He's worked by himself for over thirty years and that's never really bothered him. I'm a more extreme version of Dad. Several weeks in a row without significant time to myself and I go mad. The implications that has for any possible relationships in the future aren't worth thinking about.

Mum took me out for a hit of golf again last night. I did nine holes in 66. On the eighth I ran up a twelve, twice hitting a tree and twice hitting absolutely nothing, but on the last hole I made a shock par three after hitting the pin with my second shot and sinking the shortish putt that followed. Mum and I have also played tennis a few times. She's noticeably got quicker around the court and it's probably just as well that we haven't been scoring.

Today has been a dull, inside kind of day. We hang around for ages waiting for more relatives to arrive. I wish I'd pushed off in the car. Tomorrow I'm going back to Wellington. It's been good to see my family, and get on the tennis court and even the golf course, but it's time to get back.

Performers

2011-12-31T11:47:00.003+13:00

Geraldine Cinema changed hands 18 months ago and it no longer seems to show the best movies. The flip side of this is that live bands now play there. Last night I saw the Shot Band with my parents. The band hail from Wellington, just like many of New Zealand's best singers and musicians. They were joined by some local acts including a young woman of about twenty who sang in a dark, almost medieval style. It was a good evening's entertainment, exceeding my expectations, and if anything the dilapidated old cinema added to the ambience. At just $15 each, it was exceptional value.

Last week we watched the Royal Variety Performance on telly. A real stand-out performer for me was Sam Wills, a mime artist known as The Boy With Tape On His Face. His act was simple but very clever at the same time, and showed me how some blokes of my age make a living. Not everyone applies on Seek for the privilege of pumping out pointless pieces of paper. I Googled him and was surprised to find that he was a Kiwi. Not only that but his performing career began in Timaru, just like Hayley Westenra who was also a Royal Variety performer. I know who I would rather see. The subject of Miss Westenra came up at work recently; we all agreed on one thing: none of us could stand her.

A few hours from now another year will have slipped by. I get on quite well with the head of our department at work but he's very much a product of last century. He's never quite sure what to call years in the modern era. He normally comes out with "two-eleven"; I can tell he longs for the simplicity of "eighty-two".

Two-eleven, or twenty-eleven as I call it, hasn't been a bad year but it took an expected path for me which was at times very stressful. My decision to take the Wellington job was without a doubt the toughest decision I've made in my life. For the first time ever I drew up a list of pros and cons of staying and going, assigning weights to the outcomes. It was a close race which staying won with a score of exactly nil. So I literally couldn't win. I recently learnt a new word - zugzwang - which describes a situation in chess where every possible move puts you in a hole, so to speak. My decision was a zugzwang - I was choosing between two undesirable options; I'd rather have stayed where I was. While waiting for my offer (or not), I had another interview with a company called One Path, aptly named because after ten minutes of the interview there was only one path I was interested in and it was marked Exit. In the end it was probably the possibility of regret (if I didn't take the job) that swayed my last-minute decision to accept.

My first six weeks or so in Wellington were tough. I was in a strange town where I didn't know anybody (I still don't really), in a job I basically didn't want. I was depressed so I saw the doctor who nearly doubled my Efexor intake. Things improved, but whether it was the drugs or just getting used to my new home I don't know. A real turning point was the trip I made to Auckland in July. It was great to catch up with Richard and some of the others at the autism group but I found Auckland a depressing place and was glad to get back.

I don't plan to be in my job twelve months from now but plans rarely work out. Getting up in the morning with precisely zero chance of doing anything meaningful in the coming day gets to me after a while. If my job wasn't supposed to have any meaning in the first place, I could handle that a lot better, but the fact that it's built up to be something of vital importance, and I just don't see it, makes me think there's even wrong with me than I originally thought. The whole corporate thing will always be a struggle for me. When it comes down to it, I've never been a team player, and the bigger the team the more difficult it becomes. I feel a sense of guilt when I compare myself to a teacher or a mental health worker or even an artist, who gives something to the world almost on a daily basis.

I'd love to feel that I was good at my job. I did get that feeling in my earthquake work. That boost to my self-esteem meant that I cared what I looked like when I left home in the mornings. I tried to look like me. In my current job I just try to look vaguely presentable, putting on the first shirt that I can find.

A year ago I'd never have imagined I'd be a property owner. I'm very glad I did it - I think my purchase was a sensible one - but I'm not excited about it as perhaps I should be. That word has been used by various relatives in the past week: "How exciting!", "You must be so excited to have bought a house!" But really I'm not. I'm relieved, I think I've made a good financial decision, and it will be "nice" to have my own space, but that's about it. It does bother me that excitement is an emotion largely consigned to the past. Is it the job or the drugs, or both?

Tonight we'll be going to the Caroline Bay Carnival for New Year's Eve. I'll probably be forced to sit through a concert with music from Barry Manilow or Daniel O'Donnell before throwing a few dollars at the chocolate wheel.

Kathmandon't

2011-12-30T16:44:00.009+13:00

A few months ago my cousin said that Jan Cameron doesn't get enough credit for founding Kathmandu, a successful outdoor clothing company. I wholeheartedly agree with her. Walk down any Wellington street between April and November and you'll see that a big black Kathmandu puffer jacket is almost compulsory attire. You do see other brands but Kathmandu - who admittedly picked a excellent name, evoking images of trekking through the Himalayas - is clearly the dominant force. Their market penetration is impressive it must be said. And why does everyone need to dress like they're about to scale K2 anyway when it's a positively balmy 15 degrees?

Kathmandu have a BIG 60% OFF SALE! on right now. I'm not certain about this, but given that they have such a sale virtually all the time, and it is just after Christmas, it's a fairly safe assumption. They have a store almost opposite my office. I did pop in there once to see what I was missing. Big black jackets were reduced from $649.90 to $259.90, or something like that, but they were still well above what I was prepared to pay for them. I suppose most people are paying for the brand. That makes no sense to me. If I'm going to be a walking billboard for you, shouldn't you be paying me?!

It's amazing how susceptible people are to advertising, branding, pricing, the shopping experience and everything that goes with that. I like to think I'm immune to branding but of course I'm not quite. I'd think twice before buying a Yang Song car, mainly because the brand name would be unknown to me so I wouldn't trust it. But I'm less susceptible than most and feel qualified enough to provide some anti-consumption tips:

1. If you think it's a rip-off at two hundred and something, the fact that it's reduced from six hundred and something doesn't make it any less of a rip-off.

2. If you have to buy A to get B free, then B isn't free at all.

3. It doesn't matter whether it's $39, $39.90 or $39.99. It's forty bucks.

4. Those ads where you can buy make-up "worth $250" for the special price of $50. If it was really worth $250 they wouldn't be selling it so cheaply.

5. There's nothing wrong with loyalty cards, so long as you don't change your spending patterns to pick up more points, which is of course what the shops are trying to get you to do.

6. Are you still at school? If so, it might be worth buying one or two brand-name items, if you (or your parents) can afford it, to fit it with the other kids. Otherwise be yourself and save some money.

After telling Mum I wanted to join a tramping club in the new year, you can imagine what she bought me for Christmas. Not one but two items from Krapmandu, sorry, Kathmandu: a thermal shirt and a lightweight waterproof jackety thing that folds up to occupy the same amount of space as your undies. Handy for trekking and despite my misgivings about the company I will wear them.

Phil

2011-12-30T09:47:00.004+13:00

For the last few months I've been meaning to post some handy money-saving tips. Christmas - well, one Christmas present in particular, served to remind me of this. But in this post I'd like to write about my catch-up with Phil before it all slips from my mind. My next post will be on the subject of money-saving I promise.

Mum and Dad came into Timaru with me on Wednesday as I met up with Phil for lunch at a place called Zest. I'd much rather have gone on my own. He's back in Auckland, in his old job with the navy in Devonport after spells in Denmark and Dunedin. He'd like to move back to Dunedin. He studied at Otago and likes the Wellington-style bohemianism that exists in the city. At forty he'd quite like to buy a property but thinks he'd be throwing money away in Auckland even though he could put down a large chunk of the purchase price. He asked me for advice on real estate, as if I somehow had a clue. It made a nice change to talk about something other than job applications even if we're both far from thrilled about our current jobs. The story on the mini golf course also took a different twist this year. Instead of losing by a semi-respectable six shots, I was thrashed by fifteen.

When I'd said goodbye to Phil I got a text from Mum asking to meet in the Loop Road. This didn't make any sense to me - they can't be in a road - so I texted her back asking her to be more specific. I did eventually find my parents, and my aunt and uncle who they had since met up with, and they had a good laugh at my expense. "You know, in the car park, inside the Loop Road. Do you not know where the Loop Road is?" Oh I see. I guess the car park is technically in the road, but that's not how my brain works, and if you'd just let me go into town by myself you could have saved me all that hassle.

Yesterday we went south to Moeraki. Dad took a few photos of views to paint - his stock of paintings is depleted following his successful exhibition. Until yesterday I didn't know that a cormorant and a shag were the same thing. In Stephen Fry's book he recounts his time as a yound schoolmaster at an English boarding school where the dormitories were all named after seabirds. A particularly troublesome dorm was called Cormorant. It's just as well they didn't call it Shag.

A level-par Christmas

2011-12-27T21:48:00.008+13:00

I survived Christmas. About a dozen of us turned up at Mum's sister's place. I had a sore tummy before we even started eating, so was glad when we eventually got away. Christmas Day is always stress-inducing for me even though I'm never involved in the cooking. Heaven knows how you're supposed to talk to all those relatives and concentrate on not overcooking the Brussels sprouts.

Mum and Dad bought me Stephen Fry's autobiography. He really is an amazing bloke. I watched a documentary a few years back about his bipolar disorder; he said he wouldn't be "normal" for all the tea in China. That wasn't the only present my parents bought me - I'll talk about the other one in my next post.

I played six holes of golf with Mum tonight. I did them in level par. That's my par which is twice the figure shown on the card. On the first hole I sunk a 20-footer for a bogey eleven. I did the rest in 7, 7, 10, 5 and 8, hitting just about every tree imaginable.

Tomorrow I'll be meeting Phil in Timaru, just like last year and the year before. We've been hopelessly out of touch in recent months so I'm looking forward to it.

No let-up for Christchurch

2011-12-24T18:33:00.004+13:00

Just what Christchurch residents needed for Christmas: more quakes. They copped a bunch of them yesterday including a 5.8 and a 6.0. I was outside for the first of those, and didn't feel it, but I was in the living room with Mum and Dad for the second one which we certainly felt. I'd never felt a "proper" shake prior to this month but I'm now almost getting accustomed to them. I was lucky that I flew into Christchurch the night before.

Some good news for Dad - he has sold four more paintings at what has been a very successful exhibition for him in Timaru.

This morning I hit a tennis ball for the first time since April. Mum used to play a lot - this season she's joined the local club. This morning we knocked up for an hour at the Woodbury courts. I enjoyed it more than I imagined I would. We were both rusty - and Mum couldn't run down as many balls as she used - but maybe I'll look at joining a club in Wellington next season. I remember playing - and losing - on those courts in '89 for St Joseph's, the school I briefly attended in Temuka.

We'll be off to church in half an hour. Dad and I only "do" church once a year. Tomorrow we're having Christmas dinner at my aunt's house in Timaru.

Unconditional

2011-12-21T21:56:00.004+13:00

Today is the longest day. It's also the day my purchase went unconditional. There were no surprises in either the LIM or the builder's report, so I gave my solicitor the go-ahead. Tomorrow I'll hand over $35,000 as the initial deposit. I'll be able to move in on the 43rd day from today, which by my calculations is 2nd February. I guess I should be over the moon, but it still feels like a leap into the unknown.

I popped into Moore Wilson's for the first time last night. It's what you might call a "high-decile" supermarket which is why I'd never shopped there before. But the range of meats and cheeses on show there (that was the only section I visited) was mouth-watering - it felt like I was in Parma again. I bought a variety of cheeses as a Christmas present.

Every Tuesday I have a catch-up with my boss. He didn't mention exams this week, and I sure as hell wasn't going to. Maybe if I don't talk about them they'll go away.

The (staged?) outpouring of grief shown on TV following the "dear leader" Kim Jong Il's death would be laughable if it wasn't so scary. Millions are starving to death in that nuclear basket case.

I've never been able to solve the Rubik's cube. At least two of my cousins can. At the weekend I was at my cousin's house, getting nowhere with her cube. After half an hour I'd completed one side. I asked my cousin if she could finish it off, but what I'd done was no good because the colours of the edges weren't lined up. C'mon! That took me half an hour! She did solve it from my position but she prefers to start with white, not the blue that I started with.

Here's a flashback to 1992. Anyone remember Tasmin Archer's Sleeping Satellite? Great song, with quite deep and meaningful lyrics.

My next post will be from Geraldine.

What's wrong with me?

2011-12-19T20:07:00.006+13:00

OK, I already know the answer. It's "a lot". But my biggest flaw is a complete inability to handle most social situations. My only real coping strategy is to take myself out of the situation entirely but sometimes that isn't possible. On Friday we had our staff Christmas party. It was during a work afternoon so I couldn't exactly just vanish into the sunset after we'd all eaten. The food was good but having to talk made it a lot less enjoyable. I hardly drank anything because I was babysitting my cousin's kids that evening, giving me a good excuse to miss the after-party. Four hours were more than enough for me. I'd have much preferred four hours stuck at an airport - yes there are lots of people at an airport but you don't have to talk to any of them and you can at least pass the time by reading a book or staring at all the Rolexes you'll never be able to afford. I just wish I could get something out of these sorts of events, or at least not find them hellish, but it's been this way for nearly twenty years.

The Auckland autism group had its Christmas party last Saturday. It would have been a far more enjoyable (and meaningful) occasion for me than the party I did attend the previous day. I was delighted that they introduced an annual Emma Foster Award to be given out to somebody who has shown a number of positive qualities such as courage, perseverance, initiative, helping others and helping the environment. Fittingly Richard won the inaugural award. I suggested to Jen Birch that they name something after Emma to ensure that she is never forgotten, and this is a wonderful way of doing just that.

I've still got plenty to do to ensure that my offer goes unconditional before Christmas. Some of that will depend on the council getting the LIM done on time (and that the results are all OK). Going unconditional pre-Christmas would enable me to can move in three weeks earlier than otherwise (and crucially before the lease on my current place expires). Then I'll have to finalise the terms of my mortgage, which is where the title of my blog really comes into its own.

On Wednesday I'll be going a meeting at the local tramping club with a woman from the autism group. Hopefully I'll get to see a bit more of Wellington (and the rest of NZ) in the new year while meeting people and burning a few calories (which I need to) at the same time.

I'm flying down to Christchurch (unfortunately I couldn't get a flight to Timaru) on Thursday evening. The break should do me good.

Edit: Kim Jong-Il isn't just ill, he's dead.

Here we go again

2011-12-15T20:03:00.006+13:00

My offer on the flat was accepted on Monday evening. The vendors had come back to me at $358,000, eight grand above my initial offer. I then split the difference and they accepted. The haggle stage was quite painless. First and foremost, I just wanted to get it all sorted. Some people lose sight of that and instead of thinking "I'll try to buy this property at a reasonable price" they think "if move my bishop to this square then I'll back him into a corner and ... gotcha!" I wasn't in the mood for games, talking of which New Zealand dramatically beat Australia by seven runs in the Hobart test match that day.

Eleven turned up to the autism group. One of the older members wasn't feeling 100% and had to be taken home. This was our last meeting with the current facilitator who is moving to Auckland - she must be nuts! (Her husband has got a job up there, but still.) It's a shame to see her go, but if she gets involved in the autism scene in the Big Smoke she'll do an excellent job I'm sure. We made tentative plans for the group after Christmas - I'm hoping we can start meeting up socially outside the fortnightly sessions.

I should have been really happy after the third-of-a-million-dollar deal went through. But there are still several hurdles to negotiate and I've been bombarded by property-related phone calls and emails throughout my work days.

My mental state has been fragile since the weekend; yesterday it took a sharp nosedive. Work, life and everything became impossible. As for work itself, it was 2009 all over again. I locked myself in the loo and banged my head against the wall and the sink. I didn't hurt much at the time but I certainly felt it later. Work has definitely become trickier since my new boss arrived. Until then I was getting by, never really achieving anything but never letting that get me down. Work was just there. But my boss is very switched on and highly motivated at work, i.e. the exact opposite of me. The nuts and bolts of the job matter to him, and he expects them to matter to me, so I've been getting feelings of total inadequacy. Buying property, which makes staying in employment even more important, probably sent me over the edge.

I nearly didn't go to work today - I was going to take two days off including tomorrow's Christmas party - but I heaved myself out of bed eventually.

Putting any problems I might have into perspective, a journalist was murdered last weekend just yards from my work. He was a good man, just walking home after his night shift at Radio NZ. After a gruesome killing like this, I wonder whether bringing back the death penalty wouldn't be such a bad idea, if only you could guarantee that they get the right person. And there was I thinking I was safe in Wellington.

On a much lighter note, Birmingham play their eighth and probably final European match of the season, needing a miracle and the dodgy head-to-head rule to progress. But it's been fun.

House-hunting - getting serious

2011-12-11T19:31:00.004+13:00

It was nice to have Mum and Dad here for a few days. We got on well - in fact I've been getting on better with Mum than I've done for ages. My parents spent a fair bit of time eyeing up properties for me; I was very grateful for this because I'm pretty clueless in that regard. On Tuesday they took a look at an apartment I found a month ago (and was still up for grabs) and to my slight surprise they really liked it! It's five minutes walk from where I live now, on the other side of the Basin. The block of flats is hardly a thing of beauty. It was built in the late nineties and looks like a behind-the-goal football stand (which is sort of appropriate because it is right next to a sports ground, just for a different sport). But inside it's spacious and well looked after. It's got 2½ bedrooms on two floors with, to be honest, heaps of space for one person. Talking to my brother, he would definitely say it was a place he "wouldn't want to rattle around in". All the fittings are modern and it's been well maintained despite being tenanted for several years (I could take on tenants if I buy it). Its asking price had been reduced by $16,000 and on Friday I put in an offer for a further nine grand less. It's a complicated business, this whole house-buying thing. I really hope my offer is accepted, not because I'm emotionally wedded to the property but because I want to get it over and done with. If it falls through, there's one (possibly two) in Brooklyn that I'm interested in. Tomorrow is the big day when I expect to find out.

I've been in New Zealand eight years and two weeks and there's still plenty of stuff I haven't figured out yet. Like why all real estate agents, solicitors, insurance salesmen and mortgage brokers are ex-All Blacks. Or Black Caps. What is it about kicking a football that instantly makes you knowledgeable about financial products or legal matters? Precisely nothing, but of course in NZ being a highly successful international sportsman (or woman) elevates you to God-like status. What's more, people trust you. It's completely different in the UK where no-one in his right mind would buy a house from Wayne Rooney. Over there you've got an Etonocracy running the country; here you have an Allblackocracy. I don't know which is worse.

The house-buying process (at least I hope that's what it is) has in some ways been a nice distraction from my other big decision - whether to do more actuarial exams. My new boss is trying to twist my arm. I almost hope he could the whole hog and break it so I wouldn't be able to write the exam. It would feel like the ultimate backward step after the decision to quit my job two years ago. The thought of it - that there's no way out - has made me feel quite down today it must be said.

My boss is five years younger than me. He had told me he was 28. For some reason the subject of weight came up at work, and to show how many pounds he'd lost he dug out an old passport photo with a late January 1985 date of birth, making him 26. However he comes from China where you're considered to be one at birth and a year older at the turn of each Chinese year. He was born just before the turn of the year so by Chinese rules he is indeed 28 and will in fact turn 29 before his "real" 27th birthday (because it's an early start to the next Chinese new year). You get old quickly in China.

On Wednesday night (the night before my parents flew home) we ate at a Vietnamese restaurant on Majoribanks Street. I had beef noodles which were appetising without feeling full. We then played Scrabble again. I won but had far more than my fair share of good letters. Until the end, that is, when I had four I's on my rack. Mum and Dad both had an "I" each, and with no place to put them (no QI allowed in our game, folks) the game ended with only three of the nine I's having been played. I wonder if that's some kind of record. I should point out that Mum consistently took an age to put down a word - she's actually pretty competitive - and we didn't finish till after eleven. I must get an egg timer before we play next.

We had another quake on Thursday morning. A mere 4.2, it was certainly noticeable from my elevated position. I'd call what I experienced a "double wobble".

Bought the flat or fallen flat? I'll find out tomorrow.

Rock 'n' roll

2011-12-05T20:07:00.005+13:00

Mum and Dad are staying with me for the third time in four months. They'd only just got off the plane on Saturday evening when we had to go a barbecue at my cousin's place. It was a long way from a party, but we had some unexpected rock 'n' roll as I felt my first ever proper earthquake. I was surprised by the loudness of it, and for a split second I thought it might turn into the big one. It was big enough for me anyway; as a wild guess I said it felt like a 5.8 - I overestimated by just 0.1 as it turned out.

We visited four open homes yesterday. Three of them were out of the question - one had a serious damp problem and you had to hold your nose. I'm eliminating lots of properties and not finding many suitable ones. Still, there are three currently in play.

The three of us played Scrabble last night. Mum is pretty good at Scrabble really - she's got a good brain and (not wanting to criticise) could make better use of it. I won a nail-biter by three points, 240 to 237. Those scores aren't bad for a three-player game involving none of those silly but useful two-letter non-words. Dad's 164 wasn't to be sneezed at either. Mum went first and got FoRAGER straight away for 64; I responded soon after with ENTRIES (lucky to have that combination) for 63.

I found this article (well, survey really) from the Guardian today. It paints a bleak picture of Britain's future, and probably the future of Western society as a whole. I've been thinking for a while about how technology is killing jobs. Check in your baggage at the airport, or even do your grocery shopping, and you'll see man increasingly being replaced by machine. Jobs are vanishing. "Get a job" is something you hear a lot, but when there are fewer and fewer jobs out there, what do you do? Find something you're good at and "create" a job yourself I guess.

I followed bits of a cricket match at the Basin yesterday. I could only really see the scoreboard from my flat, and there weren't many people in the stands, but the match was almost as close as last night's Scrabble - Wellington lost to Otago by six runs. By the way there's a flat for sale four floors above me in the same apartment block; that's one of the properties currently in play.

Family matters

2011-12-01T20:53:00.003+13:00

Yesterday I caught up with perhaps my favourite cousin. She lives and works (as an accountant for one of the "big four") in Christchurch but had some kind of course or conference in Wellington. Tonight I've been babysitting for my other cousin - I enjoyed reading two chapters of James and the Giant Peach to Tim (son number two).

Mum and Dad are coming up on Saturday and will be staying five nights with me. They must really like Wellington! Dad has done surprisingly well at an exhibition in Timaru so they might be feeling quite flush when they get here. I'm really pleased for him - although they're in good financial shape, he still feels a certain amount of pressure to sell his work (some of which has been applied by Mum I think). I guess the only way he knows his paintings are appreciated is if people buy them. No doubt we'll look at some open homes on Sunday.

Unfortunately my football predictions came true. Blues were a bit unfortunate to lose 1-0 in Braga after being on top during most of the first half in which they missed a penalty. And to cap it all off, Brugge came back from 3-0 down with 17 minutes to go to win 4-3 in Slovenia. You couldn't make it up. Now Blues have to beat Maribor at St Andrews and hope that Braga somehow win in Bruges. Well, for Blues fans it's been blissful escapism from the grind of league football, and don't we all need to escape occasionally.

E for excruciating

2011-11-30T22:23:00.000+13:00

I got my hair cut yesterday during my lunch break. I had to talk which I really wasn't in the mood for. It was also the most expensive haircut I've had in my life.

I went swimming last night and will take a break from it for a while. I've got a skin condition - it seems to be dyshidrosis (awkward spelling). Lots of tiny bubbles appear under the skin of my hands, mostly around the base of my fingers and in between my fingers. The bubbles burst, the skin cracks, peels and sometimes bleeds. The Wikipedia page mentions chlorinated water, which seems quite likely given how much worse it has got since I started swimming, so I'll give it a rest and see if it improves.

My new boss mentioned the dreaded E-word - exams - in yesterday's weekly catch-up meeting. He recommends that I resume them sooner rather than later. Oh no. At Monday's autism group I said I'd like to be my own boss one day; some people there thought that would be very stressful. My dad has been his own boss since 1977 and has never been unduly stressed by it.

Tomorrow morning (our time) Birmingham play Braga in Portugal in the penultimate group-stage match of the Europa League. Win and Blues are into the next round, but that's a very tall order. My prediction is that Braga beat Blues while Brugge beat Maribor in the other match. Then Blues thrash Maribor in the last round of matches but it will all be for nothing because Braga and Blues play out a draw that sees them both through. Blues would miss out despite an impressive haul of ten points. Let's hope I'm wrong.

My two seconds of f(l)ame

2011-11-27T20:48:00.004+13:00

Yesterday was election day and it turned out to much more exciting than I expected. Not because of the election, although that certainly had its moments, but because of the fiery publicity stunt in Cuba Mall. I was sitting on a bench outside Matterhorn, trying to do the crossword, when a car pulled up (it's a no-car zone there) displaying some message about fractional reserve banking. The driver, wearing an orange high-vis jacket, got out and spray-painted a dollar sign on one of the benches and "What is fractional reserve banking? Google it!" on the ground. He then asked the handful of us who happened to be there what fractional reserve banking was. I made a reasonable stab at his question. Next he said he was about to do some magic trick to make his car disappear, and offered to pay $1000 to anyone willing to record it. Nobody had a camcorder handy and I got back to the cryptic. Then BANG! and the car was suddenly in flames. I must have shouted an obscenity or two, then dashed into the comic shop where I watched the car go up in smoke. The stench was terrible. A couple of shop owners tried to extinguish the flames before the fire brigade and police came. The man made no attempt to get away; I think he wanted the publicity and chose election day to pull off his pyro party trick. I made a police statement and even gave a statement to some student journalists. I have since Googled "FRB", yes I can see problems with it, but setting light to your car in a public space isn't how I would choose to raise awareness.

On last night's news, there I was! My first ever TV appearance, as far as I know.

I've always quite liked elections even though I switch off from a lot of the political machinations that take place in between. The first election I clearly remember was the UK election of 1992 when I was twelve. You had more charts and graphs than you could possibly shake a stick at, and boy did I love that! Peter Snow was very excited by his swingometer and so was I. Unlike Kiwi elections, the polls in the UK don't close until 10pm and the bulk of the results aren't known until after midnight, which was well past my bedtime. Mum and Dad let me watch for a bit, but it was only the next morning that I learnt that John Major's Tories had won a close race. We happened to live in Major's constituency of Huntingdon. It's true blue there, so under FFP your vote is rendered pretty much meaningless.

By the time '97 rolled around, the Tories had been in power my whole life, and I have to admit it felt good to see Labour sweep to power in a sea of red, a landslide win largely brought about by the disproportionality of FPP. In 2001 I was old enough to vote but was living in France; I could still have voted if I'd wanted to but in that particular election I couldn't see the point.

So I voted in a general election for the first time at the age of 25, and as I was out of my electorate I got to cast a special vote. Boy did I feel special. For some reason I found the NZ election of 2005 fascinating. Just like in the UK, urban areas tend to go red while rural electorates vote blue, but the way the votes are counted means the story plays out very differently on the night. In the UK, the votes for each constituency are pooled together and counted in one location, so the very compact urban (left-leaning) areas are counted quickly, while remote areas (the Orkney Islands being an extreme example) take all night. So Labour tend to sprint out to an early lead only for the Tories to come back strongly at the end. In NZ, each polling station counts its votes separately; some booths in the back and beyond in Canterbury may only get a dozen (probably National) voters, but in urban electorates like mine some stations will take thousands. This all means that the pattern you see in the UK is reversed in NZ. This wasn't something I'd thought about, so when Labour overturned a big deficit to sneak home, it took me by surprise.

Three years ago we had a change of government but everything played out almost as expected. This time I found the whole thing a lot more interesting. The biggest highlights and lowlights for me:

The Greens. It'll be 11% when the specials come out; maybe a 14th MP. Both Turei and Norman are highly intelligent people, they ran a great campaign, and I think the party will continue to do well until green policy becomes so "obvious" that such a party no longer needs to exist. In Wellington Central (yes I know we're all hippies here) the Greens trailed Labour by just twelve votes (in the party vote) on the night.

Winston First. I didn't see that one coming. He will add some flavour to the next three years even if I wouldn't trust the man as far as I could throw him, and he come with the nice little side benefit of preventing National from getting an overall majority. John Key's asset sales just get that little bit harder.

John Key himself. National didn't really score a resounding win in this election, but Key sure as hell did.

The badly-designed referendum. If you answered yes to the first question, do you answer the second? Who knew? And how many people had the foggiest idea of what all the other voting options were? I've got a maths degree and STV messes with my head (despite that I still thought it was the best non-MMP option).

The tied vote in Christchurch (specials still to come). What are the odds of that? And it goes to show your vote really does count - who would have thought that?

The TV3 coverage. Really good I thought, even from Paul Henry who I haven't always had much time for. Just one thing - I wish they'd stop saying "60% of the votes have been counted." No, 60% of the polling places have been counted, which is a totally different thing.

It's been another glorious day in Wellington (even if it's blowing a gale now). This morning at the waterfront market there was some march involving drums and bells. I had no idea what it was about. But I love the fact that Wellington people care about stuff and like to express themselves. That's the sort of place I want to live in.

We've got the autism group tomorrow night. No doubt the election will take up a fair old chunk of proceedings. If you're autistic, I'm guessing a big National win isn't quite what you want.

Cinderellarised

2011-11-26T21:48:00.001+13:00

Congratulations to Winston First. Not only have you got back into parliament (dammit), you've invented a new word!

Chinese whispers

2011-11-25T21:18:00.006+13:00

It was a strange day at work today. It seemed to be dominated by two hour-long conversations between my boss and one of my immediate colleagues, in Chinese, just a few feet away from me. I found it all a bit unnerving. What are they saying? They both speak good English so what is it that they don't want me to hear? I heard more Chinese spoken in the office today than English. I didn't like it, but apart from learning Mandarin (which is something I'd actually like to do one day) there's not much I can do about it.

A phrase I've heard a lot during this election campaign, especially from National, is "getting ahead", as in "if we raise tax rates for higher earners, hard-working New Zealanders will find it harder to get ahead." The phrase is bandied about as if everyone can get ahead. Well I'm sorry, but for someone to get ahead, somebody else has to fall behind. Then when you put in the hard yards and overtake a few people, guess what, there are a whole bunch of people who are still ahead of you! The thing is, hard work absolutely should be incentivised, but for many people, whether they get ahead or fall behind is due to circumstances as much as anything, and a lot of people work their butts off just to stand still.

It might be breaking the law if I were to post election predictions on voting day, lest I influence the thousands of swing voters who frequent my blog, so I'd better do them now (two hours before the deadline) just in case. I'm picking National to have enough seats to govern alone, despite getting below 50% of the vote, due to a fairly large proportion of "wasted" votes (I don't think either Winston First or ACT will make it).

National................64 seats
Labour..................39
Green....................13
Maori......................4
Mana.......................1
United Future..........1
Total....................122

Election - keep MMP!

2011-11-23T20:55:00.005+13:00

Some news for all you who have followed the fortunes of Fixed and Floating since 2009: Andy got married last Saturday. It's all happened fairly quickly but good for him I say.

Last night I spoke to Julie, who also figured fairly prominently in the early stages of this blog. She has had what you might call an annus horribilis, but the good news (for both of us I think) is that she'll be moving to Wellington before long.

I also went swimming last night; it was even busier than usual. If you weren't careful you could have lost an eye.

On Monday I woke up to a force nine gale and the weather hasn't got a lot better since.

It seems National, or should I say John Key, is nailed on to win this election. I struggle to see why he's quite as popular as he is. Politics goes in cycles I suppose - the timing is right for him - but more than anything he's cultivated a brand, and in 2011 brands are, well, Key.

I've been thinking a little more about MMP and electoral systems. MMP isn't perfect but in my opinion it's clearly the best of the five options on the table (the second-best being STV). The biggest flaw with MMP (but please, still vote for it!) seems to be voters' lack of say in which representatives from a particular party make it into parliament. It's all down to the party list; us voters have no input into its make-up. But how about this? Instead of getting two votes at the election, you get just one, which goes towards choosing your electorate MP and the number of MPs each party gets. There are still top-up seats (like the current list seats) but these go to the best runners-up. Say for example National get half the votes throughout the country, that will entitle them to 60 of the 120 seats just like it does now. Say National also win 45 of the 70 electorates, then the 15 best runners-up from National also make it into parliament, although unlike the winners, these MPs don't represent their electorates - they'd be called "additional" MPs or something like that. How you determine "best" would be up for debate, and the current 70-50 split might need looking at, but it's fairly easy to understand and (I hope) better that we currently have. The BRU method - it has a certain ring to it; Kiwis tend to like a good BRU.

I've also been thinking about the whole concept of electorates. The world is smaller, so where we live is less important now than it used to be (which means first-past-the-post, which is totally geographically based, gets gradually worse over time). Why not carve people up using some other variable such as age or occupation? Where we live is often down to chance, and there can be huge differences even within electorates (especially in big cities - I always find the results by polling place the most interesting of all, and it wouldn't be stupid to use to those figures to help decide which suburb or street to live in).

Finally on the subject of the election, whether the winning party is blue or red or green or pink or yellow, or some combination, for most of us it won't make a lot of difference.

All sorts of crap

2011-11-15T20:54:00.003+13:00

I went swimming tonight as I usually do on a Tuesday. I continue to be amazed by the number and variety of tattoos on show. I've got no problem with them but I've never come close to even thinking of getting one myself. Am I missing something?

We had the autism group last night. Ten of us turned up; we now have a "topic" to begin the meeting, just like in Auckland. This perhaps helped the evening follow a more positive course than the previous one. However there was one bloke who talked about crap rather a lot, and when I say crap I actually mean crap. A real positive to come out of the meeting from my (selfish) perspective: I'll be meeting one of the women for lunch tomorrow. There's also a woman who goes tramping regularly; that's something I wouldn't mind getting into - it has all kinds of benefits: exercise, meeting people, seeing parts of the city and country that you otherwise wouldn't, exposure to vitamin D, and much more besides.

When I got home I gave my brother a ring. He's about to go away on a two-week trip for his new marine security job. He'll be paid handsomely - £4000 - danger money I suppose.

Yesterday I acquired a new boss at work. He's originally from China - for some reason the Chinese gravitate towards these kinds of professions - and has a two-letter surname that, despite its brevity, I'm unsure of how to pronounce. Friday was a particularly weird day at work. We had our elevenses at 11:11 on 11/11/11, while my actual work was the financial equivalent of deciding which games and goals to arbitrarily exclude to make a football team's league table position look semi-respectable. I was more than happy to publish the real data but my boss and his boss clearly weren't.

The weekend was one of contrasting weather - a vile Saturday followed by a gloriously sunny (and verging on hot) Sunday. The pleasant weather continued into yesterday. The highlight of my weekend - if you can call it that - was my attempt at house-hunting. I looked at three places, but none of them were really suitable. The last place needed earthquake strengthening.

A got a text from Phil about the annual pétanque tournament on Waiheke. He lost in the final for the third year running! I don't know who beat their team in the final but I bet it was Patrick, the dreadlocked Frenchman whose teeth are a mixture of yellow, brown and non-existent.

Berlusconi has gone. Hooray! (even if it did take a debt crisis to get shot of that megalomaniac).

The general election is a week and a half away. It doesn't seem long since the last one. To be honest I don't think it matters much who wins, although I will vote nonetheless (for whom I really don't know). Since I've lived in New Zealand I've felt gradually less attached to the political process, even if I've moved to within a stone's throw of where it all happens. As for the referendum on our voting system, that's a much easier decision for me. I'll be voting to keep MMP. Sure it needs the odd tweak (some restriction on defeated electorate candidates remaining in parliament through their party list would be nice, and I'd no longer allow parties who win an electorate but gain less than 5% of the party vote to get their full allocation of seats). But a return to first-past-the-post (which looks like the only alternative in the running) where some votes are vastly more important than others, and a party can govern with fewer votes than its defeated rival, would surely be a step backwards.

Elevenses

2011-11-10T22:16:00.002+13:00

Tomorrow is 11/11/11, a rather striking date when you see it on the page. We'll see nothing like it again in our lifetime. What's more, it's one of those rare occasions when the crazy date format they use in America works just fine. At work we'll be celebrating this once-in-a-century event with a morning tea at 11:11 (when else?); the Brits might call it elevenses.

Life has been fairly uneventful since my parents came to stay. Last Tuesday I felt a bit down after work because it seemed I was locked into my current job for ever. My low mood didn't last long.

I guess the only news of any significance is my first real attempt to buy a house. I put in a tender for that Lego-style place in Hataitai. Expecting to be miles short of the accepted offer, my tender of $325,000 was "only" $10,000 shy.

7,000,000,000

2011-10-31T21:50:00.004+13:00

The world population has reached seven billion, give or take a few New Zealands. It's still growing scarily quickly, although not exponentially (a lot of people use that word without knowing what it means). To give some idea of how fast it has grown:

If you're 10 today, there were 6.22 billion people in the world when you entered it
If you're 20 today......................5.41 billion
If you're 30 today......................4.56 billion
If you're 40 today......................3.79 billion
If you're 50 today......................3.11 billion
If you're 60 today......................2.59 billion
If you're 70 today......................2.33 billion
If you're 80 today......................2.10 billion
If you're 90 today......................1.89 billion
If you're 100 today....................1.76 billion

Mum and Dad spent the weekend with me; they flew back this afternoon. Just like last time we were lucky with the weather. We looked at a couple of open homes (for me), visited Te Papa briefly, had dinner with my cousin, ate at a Thai restaurant the other night, did a lot of walking, and played two games of Scrabble, neither of which went well for me. My parents seem to enjoy Wellington - they'll be coming up this way again in early December. Overall it was a pretty good weekend.

Both the places I looked at are up for tender, with the same deadline day (this Thursday). They both had serious promise. The first was a three-bedroom flat in Aro Valley; it was the first time I'd been to that area which has a slightly bohemian feel. It had a lot going for it but two problems - it's probably out my price range and it doesn't get a lot of sun. The second flat was a smaller (and more affordable) two-bedroom one in Hataitai, part of a rather bizarre-looking Disney-style complex built in the sixties. I didn't expect much but was pleasantly surprised when I ventured beyond the weird exterior. It was actually very nice inside and I might be tempted to put a conditional tender in.

We had the autism group tonight. A turnout of nine including two new people. There was a wide range of topics as always. One young woman there was an exceptionally good French speaker, far better than me. The pronunciation of "vase" somehow came up: this poem tells us all how we should say it:

Some greet with lusty “Rah”s
A reference to a vase.
Another bares his claws
At folks who don’t say vase.
But many use the phrase,
“Please put these in a vase,”
While still a stronger case
We now can make a vase.

I discovered Foster the People today. I really like Pumped Up Kicks. With one YouTube view for every 200 people on the planet, it must have had a lot of airplay, but I hadn't heard it until today. Which planet have I been living on?

Phew!

2011-10-25T21:03:00.004+13:00

I can't say I enjoyed the final - it was too tense for that. Things didn't go according to the script at all. Something must have been wrong with Piri Weepu - he would have struggled to hit a barn door from ten feet - and when Aaron Cruden had to go off I knew we were in for a nail-biting evening. Then up stepped Stephen Donald (who had never played in a World Cup match before!) to kick his penalty two inches inside the upright. The French played an absolute blinder and scored almost immediately after; the All Blacks somehow clung on to their single-point advantage for the next half-hour. The match could so easily have slipped from their grasp but considering how well they played throughout the tournament, they deserved the win. I was hugely impressed with the French for how graciously they handled such a close loss after being the better side in the second half. Dusautoir was a worthy man-of-the-match. As for the IRB fining the French team for their challenge to the Haka, that's serious overkill but perhaps we shouldn't be surprised.

Overall the tournament has been a real success, helped greatly by Kiwis' passion for rugby, their willingness to get behind some of the smaller teams, and the Pacific Island population who supported their teams with such fervour. On one of my lunch breaks I almost got crushed in a Samoan sandwich in the central city. My only regret from the final is missing out on some betting opportunities with the TAB. I haven't bet on sports for years, and would really think twice before betting on a sport like rugby where my knowledge is pretty sketchy. But $3.80 on a close All Black win - by twelve points or less - looked overpriced to me. Another one that stood out was a "race to ten points". The ABs were clear favourites to reach ten points before France did. However the third possibility - that neither side would ever get to double figures - paid a whopping $50.

Good news - I got my lease extended until 18th February. Tomorrow I'll be taking a look at a flat in Mount Cook.

Last night I spoke to my brother - he's currently based in Poole on the south coast but has just bough a one-bedroom apartment in St Ives, where we grew up.

It's been a long week at work...

2011-10-21T19:34:00.002+13:00

so it's just as well we've now got a long weekend.

The World Cup has almost reached its dénouement. Kicking off soon is the Bronze Final, which is a contradiction in terms really. I'd just call it a third-place play-off, but it has to have a snazzy name these days, even if it makes little sense. It's a bit of a meaningless game (and why does it have to be at Eden Park?) but there seems to be slightly more riding on it than usual. I'll watch it and hope it's a good game (that Wales win).

As for the big one, well I think France are extremely lucky to be there. I've heard some people say, "they're in the final so they deserve to be there" but I don't subscribe to that view. That's like saying the guy (or girl) who nicked my car in early 2010 deserves to have it. Tonga beat them in one of the all-time great upsets (which I was privileged to see in person), and if the schedule had been fairer on the less-fancied teams they might also have beaten Canada, in which case France would have been on the plane three weeks ago. Before the tournament I talked to one of my work colleagues (who unlike me actually knows something about rugby); we estimated the All Blacks' chances of lifting the trophy at 45%. Now I'd say it was twice that. The ABs look very businesslike in their approach; they're taking nothing for granted. There's always the possibility Les Bleus will pull something out of the bag, but I don't see it happening. The French theme tune to this World Cup is "On ira tous au paradis". I think the ABs will send France à l'enfer in a 28-10 win.

In other sport Birmingham had a sublime win in Bruges last night. Pablo Ibáñez, one of Blues' defenders, suffered a nasty head injury and was stretchered off after a lengthy stoppage in play. Then in the 100th minute (how often can you say that?) up popped Chris Wood to give Blues a famous 2-1 win, the first ever by an English club in Bruges. Several thousand Birmingham fans made the trip to Belgium; they would have gone crazy at the end of the match I reckon.

Compatibility issues

2011-10-18T20:35:00.005+13:00

I went swimming tonight at the Freyberg pool as I now do every Tuesday. As mentioned at last night's autism group, the Germanness of the pool's name is apt: ve vill not haf fun in ze pool. All the lanes were busy, right from the aqua-jogging (a.k.a. swogging) lane to the slow, medium and fast swimming lanes to the swim squad lanes. I stuck firmly to the slow lane of course.

Last night's group was great actually. There were two very nice new people and a lot of very enjoyable (and at times quite amusing) conversation. It's a real joy to see someone's face light up when they are excited about a particular topic, as happened on a few occasions last night. I'd really like to get to know some of them better, preferably by meeting up outside the fortnightly sessions.

The meeting came at a good time for me. Yesterday was a bit stressful with the realisation that I might have to be out of this flat soon. My lease expires on 15th November; the flat has just been sold, the new owners still want tenants but, as I found out yesterday, on a one-year contract. That's a hell of a long time. Far too long for me. If I can negotiate something in the coming days, great, otherwise I'll have to be out of here pretty sharpish. A pain in the butt really because I was happy to stay here for the time being, just without the inflexibility of being locked in for so long.

Also increasing my stress levels was a phone call I got on Friday with a potential offer of an actuarial job, subject to an interview. In February following my can-we-just-get-this-over-with actuarial interview (not the one for my current job) I promised to myself I'd never have another such interview. Declining the offer (which I did today) was the only sensible option, for a whole raft of reasons. Today, by the way, is the sixth monthiversary of my job. When I started I had serious doubts as to whether I'd survive that long. I should however mention that I achieved absolutely nothing at work either yesterday or today, so I'm surviving but that's about it.

On Thursday I met somebody I hadn't seen since I was nine. Rose came from Temuka - her parents were friends with mine when we lived there - but now lives in Wellington. She's single and works as an art teacher. My mum and her aunt (I think) swapped our phone numbers. It was funny meeting up with someone I hadn't seen for 22 years and wouldn't know from a bar of soap. We were in the café on Cuba Street for a couple of hours - longer than I'd planned. We had a coffee and a small meal; we got on OK but I ran out of things to say. We agreed to meet up again some time, probably to see one of the many live bands in Wellington. Then on Saturday Rose rang me to say that it was good that we met but that "nothing romantic would come of this - we're not that compatible". This was a bit of a surprise comment because I'd never suggested anything like that, but I think she was concerned our families were trying to hook us up.

As I was writing this, I got a call from my parents; they're coming up for a quick visit the weekend after next, having snagged flights from Timaru through Air New Zealand's reverse auction for a very cheap $78 return for the two of them.

It's crunch time!

2011-10-16T15:55:00.006+13:00

A few hours from now, Australia and New Zealand will square off in their eagerly-anticipated clash. When it comes to trans-Tasman rivalry, it doesn't get any bigger than this. At about 8:30pm our time, Nigel Richards of New Zealand takes on Andrew Fisher of Australia in the final of the World Scrabble Championship in Poland.

If you think Scrabble is a frivolous activity compared to that other game taking place at the same time, think again. At the elite level, Scrabble is War. And what could be a more natural basis for war than the English language? I use the English language every day without thinking about it. When it comes to putting my head up some poor bloke's bum in a scrum, on the other hand, that would require very serious thought on my part. In actual fact, competitive Scrabble bears little resemblance to the English language as we know it; I think the game could benefit from a cull of so-called words like QI and ZO from its official dictionary. I enjoy Scrabble, on the odd occasions that I play it, but I'd never consider playing it competitively because learning long lists of words (or more accurately, combinations of letters) leaves me cold.

Nigel Richards won the biennial event in 2007 (from over 100 players) and was runner-up two years ago. So that's three successive finals for the Kiwis (in contrast to that odd-shaped-ball game in which NZ haven't made the final since 1995). They play a best-of-five-game final, having finished first and second after 34 games over five days (Nigel had 25 wins; Andrew 23). I note a Kiwi actuary finished in the top third of the final standings with 18 wins and a draw. As for tonight's final, the ABs (that's the Alpha Blacks) surely have the upper hand. New Zealand contains a ten-point letter while Australia consists solely of measly one-pointers.

Update: It's one game all in the big final, while New Zealand will be playing in another final next weekend after the All Blacks convincingly beat the Wallabies. There was a big fireworks display in central Wellington during the rugby match.

Update 2: Kiwi Nigel Richards is the world champion for the second time after winning the final by three games to two.

Allez les rouges!

2011-10-15T20:18:00.003+13:00

I hope Wales beat France in tonight's semi-final (kick-off is forty minutes away). I tried calling my Welsh grandma after they beat Ireland last weekend (even if she wouldn't have a clue about rugby any more) but couldn't get through.

Score predictions for the two semis:
Wales 21 France 17
New Zealand 28 Australia 10.

Edit: Wales didn't make it. That match was proof, if you ever needed it, that the best team doesn't always win. France were second best by a long way in that match, but benefited greatly from that controversial red card in the opening twenty minutes. Let's hope the ABs win tomorrow and give Les Grenouilles a good hiding in the final.

I don't get it

2011-10-10T19:34:00.004+13:00

I've never been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome and I don't plan on getting a diagnosis, but lately I've been pondering a few of the things so-called "normal" people do that I find quite baffling:

1. Dancing.
I can't remember when I last danced. It was definitely in 19-something. Unlike some of the other items on my list, I really wish I did get dancing because some people really seem to enjoy it. In a way I do get it - music is extremely evocative; hear a song on the radio and I'll be transported back to where I first heard it, possibly ten or twenty years ago. Sometimes I'll involuntarily tap my foot to music I like, and dancing is just an extension of foot-tapping. But the bit I really don't understand is when everyone decides to dance in a big group at a nightclub or somewhere similar. Why there, why not at Pak 'n' Save or any of the other places you hear music? Someone once tried to explain it to me along the lines of "Pak 'n Save is shopping, nightclubs are social" but that didn't cut any ice with me.

2. Buying clothes.
This could be a man thing as much as an Aspie thing, but why do people keep buying new clothes to replace their perfectly good "old" (but really still quite new) ones? I understand that clothes serve various purposes - to keep you warm and to express oneself being two obvious ones - but buying the latest style achieves very little by way of self-expression. Plus getting rid of perfectly good clothes is very wasteful. I do buy clothes from time to time, mostly from second-hand shops or on TradeMe. On the odd occasion I buy something from a standard clothes shop, it's usually for work purposes.

3. Leaving someone's house.
When I was growing up, I could never understand why someone would say "right, I'd better be off now" at 8:30 and still bloody well be there at five to nine. It still confuses me now. What is it, some kind of game? If so, how come nobody explained the rules to me.

4. Watching sport on TV.
I watch less sport than I used to, but the rugby World Cup has made me think of this. I've never seen the attraction of watching sport on TV in a large group, such as in a pub, when I can do so from the comfort of my home where I can see the screen and hear the commentary but can't smell other people's bodies.

5. Weddings.
Do I really have to elaborate? One of the (male!) presenters on breakfast TV recently said "weddings, they're just so much fun" and I had to switch over. However, if a really close friend of mine were ever to get married, I'd be so happy for that person that I'm sure I'd find the occasion a very joyous one.

Six hundred to one

2011-10-04T21:29:00.002+13:00

On Saturday I saw the game between France and Tonga with my cousin, her husband and their three boys. It was some game, and quite an upset, with Tonga the deserved victors. There was a great atmosphere inside the ground, perhaps helped by the unexpected path the match took. Despite living almost a year of my life in France I was more than happy that the Tongans won; what a shame they lost to Canada earlier in the tournament - three wins would have seen them qualify for the quarter-finals at France's expense. A quick Google search told me that Tonga's population is just over 100,000 while France have 600 times more people and it's not as if they don't care about rugby there. That gives you some idea of the scale of what Tonga achieved.

Turbulent times at Timaru airport

2011-09-29T18:46:00.003+13:00

I'm back in Wellington now after recharging my batteries on the South Island. Yesterday when I arrived at Timaru airport, it was all rather confusing. I couldn't even find the international terminal and it wasn't at all clear which zone to check in at. My flight was due to take off in half an hour; would I make it? I searched for a long snaking check-in queue, which would inevitably be for my flight, but I couldn't find one. I did however see what looked like a check-in desk and tried to attract someone's attention. Eventually a bloke came out and took my piece of paper while I dumped my bag on a set of glorified bathroom scales. He then handed me my boarding pass: I would be seated in 1F. Wow. The front row! Is that business class? No, the very front row is first class, surely. That must be what the F stands for. I saw a few other planes take off and land, mostly with no passengers, then I fancied a coffee. There was a coffee machine but no information as to how I was supposed to pay for my beverage. Credit card or cash? Which currencies did they accept? Maybe if I put one of the paper cups under the nozzle and press the flat white button, something will flash up on the screen. Would you believe it? Free coffee came out!

It was soon time to board the plane. As it turned out, the F didn't stand for first class, and it wasn't even business class. What's worse (on a sunny day like yesterday), I didn't even get a window. But boy what a stress-free way of flying it was. If only all airports could be like that.

Rugby World Cup thoughts

2011-09-28T11:17:00.005+13:00

Mum and Dad have Sky so I've watched a few games since Saturday, and to my slight surprise I've enjoyed at least some of what I've seen. I'm pretty clueless about rugby - it seems a very unnatural game to me - but I've got some idea about formats and scheduling of competitions, and in that regard the World Cup could do better.

1. One of the Samoan blokes (the coach?) said the schedule discriminates against the less-fancied teams, and he's dead right. It's particularly tough on the better less-fancied teams like Samoa who have a realistic chance of progressing to the knockout stages. The best sides play all their games at the weekends, giving them nice seven-day intervals between matches, while the weaker teams face four-day turnarounds. They should follow their football World Cup where they play two games from Pool A, then two from B, then two from C...
Admittedly five-team pools make matters more complicated (one team will have to finish their pool games before the other four) but the current schedule, which heavily favours the best teams, could be vastly improved upon.

2. Why did they make the draw years in advance of the tournament? So much can change in two years; good teams can become average and vice-versa. For instance Argentina, who were ranked fourth when the draw was made, are now (I think) ninth! In the interest of fairness (to avoid a big imbalance in the strength of the pools) they should again take a leaf out of football's book and do the draw eight months or so prior to the competition.

3. Yes I know Christchurch had a series of catastrophic earthquakes that meant they couldn't play there, but shutting the whole of the South Island out of the knockout stages of the World Cup is, in my opinion, shocking. They spent serious money on the stadium in Dunedin, which has so far been a big success, so why aren't they playing one of the quarter-finals down there? OK its capacity is "only" 40,000 but for just one quarter-final I don't see that being a problem.

4. Once again there have been too many blowouts. I'm not a big enough rugby fan to appreciate all the amazing play involved when South Africa thrash Namibia. Cutting the number of teams to sixteen could help (and would certainly help some of the scheduling issues) but a better solution would be for the "lesser" sides to become more competitive by playing more matches at an international level.

For all that, the World Cup has clearly been a big success so far, and any criticism or advice that I offer should come with a big "I don't really understand rugby" disclaimer.

Fiddling the fudge factor

2011-09-26T11:00:00.004+13:00

On Saturday afternoon I took a 19-seater plane from Wellington to Timaru. It made flying seem so easy. I didn't have to arrive at the airport three hours early, take my shoes and belt off or have all my deodorant confiscated. In fact, to my surprise, there was no security at all. Wellington looked stunning from the plane but then it clouded over so I couldn't see much, but we flew right over Temuka - and the cemetery where my grandparents are buried - as we came in. It was noisier and more jerky than a 737 but a pleasant enough flight and so much more convenient than flying to Christchurch, tp say nothing of international air travel.

That evening we went to Woodbury for my uncle's 70th birthday and to watch the All Blacks take on France. There was a big crowd, big enough to make watching the rugby a less than enjoyable experience for me. There was considerable variety in how much people cared about the game, from life-or-death All Blacks fanaticism to "it would be quite nice if France won, actually." When it became obvious that the men in black would win comfortably I sidled off to the next room which acted as a chill-out lounge.

Yesterday Mum, Dad and I drove to Moeraki, or close to there, stopping off at Oamaru with its quite spectactular stone buildings, Kakanui for a tasty lunch, and Timaru to drop in on family. Last night we watched a cracking rugby game between Argentina and Scotland (getting excited about rugby, whatever next?), Argentina scoring a late converted try, the only try of the game, to sneak home 13-12. So far (to my mind) there has been an inverse relationship between try-scoring and excitement. The game was played in the driving rain of Wellington; a wonderful advert for the city.

I'm grateful for these three days off work. Things got a little awkward last week. My boss seems to have it in for me regarding our draconian clear-desk policy. Sometimes I'll arrive in the morning to find everything, however innocuous, has been whisked off my desk by my boss, into a locked cabinet somewhere. It's annoying and embarrassing having to ask him for it back every time, particularly as my next-door colleague leaves more (and more sensitive) paperwork on his desk than I ever do and nobody bats an eyelid. I've now set up a daily alert in Outlook to remind me to lock everything away before I leave for the day, otherwise I'll keep forgetting: at that time of day all I think about is going home. As far as my actually work is concerned, it gets more bizarre by the week. If things don't add up, I'm required to introduce a fudge factor, and if I have to change something so that the fudge factor no longer works, I'm then required to fiddle the fudge factor. Before long I've lost track of what's real and what's imaginary.

It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care

2011-09-20T21:26:00.004+12:00

That's a quote from Office Space - great movie - when Peter has a meeting with the two Bobs, and it's a quote that applies to me in my job. Another quote which applies to me is "...my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job." Sometimes even the fear of being fired isn't enough to motivate me. Not only does what I do on a day-to-day basis not matter to me; I can't quite fathom that there are other people in the office for whom it clearly does matter. People who think about work outside work! It's a weird situation I'm in, just going through the motions in what is supposed to be some big spiffy career job, although it doesn't seem that weird to me because I'm so used to it.

It would be really cool to feel that I was good at my job. I did get that feeling when I worked on the earthquake claims, and that made me feel good about myself. Because the quakes had caused so much mayhem I felt I was helping somebody somewhere, and it was obvious what I had to do when I turned up in the morning, so I went ahead and did it. In contrast in the last two weeks (and the rest if I'm honest) in my big spiffy job I've been all at sea. I don't know what goes where, I can't seem to remember a damn thing (not caring probably doesn't help there) and most of the output I have produced has been somewhere between dodgy and hopelessly wrong. My boss is partly to blame - he isn't a great communicator so I'm often left in the dark - but mostly the problem is me, and recognising that isn't great for my self-esteem.

One fringe benefit of my job is that I got to see a World Cup game on Saturday - South Africa against Fiji. On Friday an email was sent around the office; six free single tickets were up for grabs. I got my hands on one of them; I benefited from the lack of demand for single tickets. On Saturday I wasn't really in the mood for watching rugby, but I took a longish walk to the stadium and got there as the anthems were playing. The atmosphere was good at the start - all the non-South African fans were behind Fiji and for the first twenty minutes it was nip-and-tuck, but then the Boks got a try, then another try, then another try... In the second half I lost interest but I was glad I saw the game - it would have cost me $120 had I bought the ticket. I got the shuttle bus back to Courtenay Place, got a very tasty butter chicken from Taste of India, and watched Ireland's shock win over Australia on telly. Gee whiz.

On Friday they had drinks after work, taking in the All Blacks match with Japan which kicked off at eight. I went home for dinner then joined my colleagues in town as the game started but I wish I'd stayed at home. Being in a crowded pub with work colleagues who have been drinking for three hours is a recipe for stress.

Last night we had the autism group. I really enjoyed it; we had a smallish turnout (five?) which actually helped my enjoyment of the session I think.

This Saturday I'm flying to Timaru and will be taking three days off work. I'm looking forward to both the flight (which in such a small plane will have some novelty value) and spending some time with my parents.

Hail Mary (and some Grand Slam miscellany)

2011-09-13T22:01:00.003+12:00

Wellington was pelted by a hail storm this lunchtime; the stones were the size of peas and quickly blanketed the street outside my work. Apparently this was a once-in-a-decade event, which means I can pencil in golf-ball-sized hailstones for next Wednesday.

Two drama-filled finals rounded out this year's US Open. Yesterday Serena lost it (her temper and the match) against Sam Stosur. She said told the umpire she was "unattractive on the inside", among other things, after making a (correct) ruling against her following an ill-timed "come on!" before the point was over. A shame because it took some of the attention away from Stosur who played an absolute blinder by all accounts to pick up her first grand slam title. Serena was fined $2500 which is a bit like fining me a fiver.

This morning Djokovic outlasted Nadal in a four-hour-plus breakathon. It would have been a joy to watch I'm sure. Djokovic had come back from the brink to defeat Federer in the semis - two sets and two match points. Since the turn of the century, a remarkable number of grand slam champions have won their titles having been a solitary point from elimination. Here's the list, which took a fair bit of Googling for me to come up with (and I hope I haven't left any out):

Roland Garros 2001: Gustavo Kuerten saved one MP in the 3rd set of his 4th-round match against Michael Russell.
Australian Open 2002: Jennifer Capriati saved four MPs against Martina Hingis in the 2nd set of the final – one at 5-3, two at 6-5 and another in the tie-break.
Australian Open 2003: Serena Williams came from 5-1 down in the 3rd set of her semi-final against Kim Clijsters, saving two MPs at 5-2.
US Open 2003: Andy Roddick saved one MP in the 3rd-set tie-break in his semi-final against David Nalbandian.
Roland Garros 2004: Anastasia Myskina saved one MP at 6-5 in the 3rd set of her 4th-round match against Svetlana Kuznetsova.
Roland Garros 2004: Gaston Gaudio saved two MPs against Guillermo Coria at 6-5 in the 5th set of the final.
Australian Open 2005: Serena Williams saved three MPs in the 3rd set of her semi-final against Maria Sharapova.
Australian Open 2005: Marat Safin saved one MP in the 4th-set tie-break in his semi-final against Roger Federer.
Roland Garros 2005: Justine Henin saved two MPs in the 3rd set of her 4th-round match against Svetlana Kuznetsova.
Wimbledon 2005: Venus Williams saved one MP against Lindsay Davenport at 6-5 in the 3rd set of the final.
Wimbledon 2009: Serena Williams saved one MP in the 3rd set of her semi-final against Elena Dementieva.
US Open 2011: Novak Djokovic saved two MPs in the 5th set of his semi-final against Roger Federer.

An honourable mention goes to men's Wimbledon 2001: Rafter was two points from defeat against Agassi in the semis, Ivanisevic was two points from defeat against Henman in their semi, and then Goran was again two points from defeat against Pat before lifting the trophy.

In other sports news, Kiwi Chris Wood scored a hat-trick for Birmingham as they beat Millwall 3-0 on Sunday night.

11/9/11

2011-09-11T22:19:00.004+12:00

I've just watched the World Cup match between South Africa and Wales. Really good game, just a shame Wales quite get over the line, so to speak. When Wales had a penalty kick bizarrely ruled as a miss when it looked perfectly good to me, they were destined to lose by three points or fewer. The match was played in Wellington; I saw plenty of supporters of both sides in town today. "Wales have the wind at their backs, no South Africa do..." Ha! Welcome to Wellington.

The terrorist attacks on America happened ten years ago today. I remember that horrific Tuesday afternoon (as it was for me) very well. I'd had a pretty dreadful summer with the panic attacks and had just got things back on an even keel; I was working nights sorting mail to the tune of Kylie Minogue's I Can't Get You Out of My Head so I was at home during the day. At about 2pm my grandmother called to tell Dad and I that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. We switched on the TV and saw the second plane hit. It was mindblowing to see that live and the world changed for ever because of it.

Life in the slow lane

2011-09-10T12:48:00.005+12:00

After work on Monday (83% blokes in our team), I attended the Wellington autism group where there were 100% blokes. All eight of us. You could pretty much cut the testosterone with a knife (not really). It was a good session though and we were graced my Matt Frost's presence. So he does exist in real life after all!

I felt I hadn't been getting enough exercise so on Tuesday I swam for the first time at the Freyberg pool. It was very different to anything I was used to. No lilos, no kids, definitely no fun. The pool is roped off into lanes for every one of the 15 hours a day it's open; the lanes are marked as fast, medium and slow. I swam in the slow lane most of the time, sometimes moving to medium. Even though it was hardly relaxing, I liked the 33-metre pool and will try and go once a week from now on. I'd definitely had a workout but man was I hungry afterwards.

I've lived in New Zealand nearly eight years and still haven't got my head around Kiwis' attitude to physical pursuits, especially swimming, cycling and running, the disciplines that make up the triathlon (and boy do they love their triathlons here). In the UK I used to ride a bike to, heaven forbid, get from one place to another. That's almost a foreign concept in New Zealand; here everyone is dressed in their Lycras, primed for Serious Exercise. OK, some people ride their bikes to work, but it still seems to be more an exercise thing than an A-to-B thing. I noticed this week, advertised in big letters in a shop window, a sports bike that was reduced from about 2½ times what I paid for my car to only 1¾. I remember when I lived in Bayswater in 2004 I used to drive along Lake Road (on the North Shore) in my '84 Bluebird, amazed at the speeds people got up to on their bikes.

Last night some kind of World Cup thingy started in Auckland. There was a great sense of occasion there - the rugby was almost a sideshow as far as I was concerned - but all the public transport issues helped confirm what I've thought for some time, that as a 21st-century city Auckland doesn't function.

Last Saturday I had a look (from the outside only) at one or two houses in Hataitai and Miramar. I still need to get a bit more serious.

We need to talk about it

2011-09-02T07:29:00.003+12:00

Suicide. More people die that way in New Zealand than on the roads, and the deaths are just as preventable, but it's almost a taboo subject. Our attitude needs to change, otherwise we'll continue to see over 500 people a year taking their own lives, as it appears a member of the Auckland autism group did last month.

One theory I had for our high suicide rate was high gun ownership rates, especially for men who live in remote areas, but some figures I saw last week - yes, the topic is finally receiving media coverage - did not include shooting as a common method. Here's an article I saw yesterday, suggesting a link between antidepressants and youth suicide.

In other disturbing news, an 88-year-old man from the Wellington suburb of Newtown - not far from me - was found in his apartment, having been dead for a year. It's a shocking indictment of the society we now live in. If and when I buy a property, I'll make sure I pop in on my neighbours from time to time.

Lacking motivation - and business speak that drives me barmy

2011-09-01T18:07:00.002+12:00

I need to look at places to live (my lease runs out in ten weeks) and I need to get out and meet new people, but for whatever reason I can't get my butt into gear. And as for my motivation at work, the less said about that the better. It all seems gloriously pointless, and it could really get me down if I let it.

On Monday our replacement for the six-foot-five Samoan bloke arrived. I can't quite pick her age but I think it starts with a two. She's worked at half of the Big Four and doesn't lack self-confidence. The way she was talking today, you'd think it was her fourth year at the company, not her fourth day, but that's Gen Y for you.

Now for some words and phrases I hear all the time at work and wish I didn't:

Touch base: as soon as someone says this (which for some of my colleagues is every other sentence) I totally switch off from whatever else they might be talking about. I don't let anyone touch my base. Ever. Where does this phrase come from? Some say baseball. My knowledge of baseball is sketchy but I don't think the phrase "touch base" is actually used in the game, and when a player does touch a base, he does so alone, not with anybody. My theory is that the phrase comes from expeditions, where you would make contact with base camp.

Migrate: a good word describing something quite exciting. Birds, animals, and sometimes people do it. But computer data doesn't, goddammit! "At close of play on Friday all the TFI data will migrate from the ABC system to the XYZ system." No it won't. It'll move. Or shift.

Populate: this one's very similar to "migrate". The word comes from the same root as "people", although there's no reason why you shouldn't apply it to rats or even trees. But populating the cells in a spreadsheet?! Ugh.

It is what it is: what does this even mean? I'll hazard a guess that it means precisely bugger all, apart from maybe "who cares?". People use this phrase to sound deeply philosophical, but to me it just sounds bloody annoying.

Chillax: this isn't business speak, but I've heard it at work a few times so I'm including it. This "word" is real fingernails-on-a-blackboard stuff. And what's more, unlike "chill" or "relax", it doesn't sound particularly soothing. In fact it sounds like a weapon that could do serious damage.

K: in writing, K is a handy abbreviation for "thousand", but it's people talking about K that I don't like, and I can't quite put my finger on why.

FYI: again, a useful abbreviation, sometimes employed by Inuit who've had enough of the whole eskimo thing and proclaim: F*** Your Igloo. Most often you see FYI in an email, used in a similar fashion to "NB". Occasionally you see it used as a noun: "just as a quick FYI, stop touching my base." But yesterday I heard someone use it as a verb: "I was eff-why-eyed into that email." Eww.

Birmingham have Chris Wood - a Kiwi - playing for them. He's now scored in two consecutive matches. Take a look at this goal, the third in Blues' win over Nacional last week. It's just like watching Brazil.

Rampant Redmond!

2011-08-27T18:11:00.003+12:00

Rampant is a cool word. I remember Norwich had a street called Rampant Horse Street, which is a damn good name for a street if you ask me. Anyway, rampant is a word that's been used to describe Birmingham's display in their 3-0 win over Nacional, in particular 17-year-old Nathan Redmond (airborne in the picture below) who scored the opening goal.

Blues have now qualified for the "real" stages of the Europa League, and will play six games between now and Christmas, two each against Brugge (or Bruges if you prefer), Braga (of Portugal) and Maribor (of Slovenia). If they somehow come through all that (by finishing first or second in the four-team group), a knockout stage will ensue. This is Blues' first foray into Europe in half a century and to be making these trips from outside the Premier League makes the experience arguably even more special. Birmingham will now play a minimum of 56 matches this season, while the maximum is a (totally pie-in-the-sky) 82!

By the way I visited Bruges once, when I was seven. The last time I saw Blues play was in 2002 - they beat Watford 3-2 after leading 3-0. They won promotion that season, beating Norwich on penalties in the play-off final.

Sod the Blacks, come on you Blues!

2011-08-25T18:27:00.002+12:00

I've got my hands on a rugby World Cup ticket. France v Tonga on 1st October with my cousin, her husband, two of their boys and a friend of theirs. Even though I'm not big on rugby (at all), I can't imagine New Zealand getting the World Cup again for a very long time (and even then it'll probably be as some joint effort with Australia) so I'd like to at least say that I went. None of the others are big rugby fans either, so we sensibly avoided the overpriced All Blacks tickets. We didn't fancy forking out three figures each to watch them thrash Canada 76-7 or whatever.

Changing to the spherical ball, Birmingham City (a team I saw play a handful of times and probably my favourite team) are playing in Europe this season. They won last season's Carling Cup with a fine 2-1 win over Arsenal in the final, only to get relegated from the Premier League a couple of months later. But lifting the cup got them a place in the Europa League play-offs. Last week they travelled to Madeira to take on Nacional; the game finished goalless after Blues hit the woodwork three times. The return leg is in Birmingham early tomorrow morning (my time). It's really a toss-up (Blues have home advantage but the away goals rule means that any score draw would send Nacional through). If they do make it through, Blues will be guaranteed six more games in Europe. Some fixture congestion perhaps, but a lot of fun. I hope they do it.

Some Wellington pictures

2011-08-25T18:10:00.005+12:00

Wellington's winter wonderland has at last disappeared, making way for a mild, sunny last few days. Here are three pictures taken (on a grey day) very close to where I live. The first is a view of the Basin Reserve, probably the most famous cricket ground in New Zealand, snapped from the ninth (and top) floor of my apartment block. I can see the scoreboard from my flat, so if an exciting situation appears to be brewing I'll be able to watch the action for free (with the help of binoculars) from the top floor. That's if I'm still living in this flat when the cricket season comes around.

The other two photos are of graffiti, street art, call it what you will. There's no shortage of it in Wellington, and if you can get past the mindless tagging, some of it is actually rather good. Both of these examples are by BMD whose fantastical animals make him (as far as I'm concerned) the man. The second "arms race" piece is fifty feet across.

Too young

2011-08-21T21:43:00.004+12:00

It's been a strange week. First the weird Wellington weather just got weirder as snow fell in the city for the first time since 1976. None of it settled where I live or work, but some of my colleagues, who live higher up, got a fair old coating of the white stuff. It was pretty cool actually to see it fall from our office window on Monday - it was like being a kid again.

On Tuesday I got an email from Mandy, my ex-colleague from Auckland, telling me she'd had a decent-sized win on Lotto. She didn't give a figure at first, so I replied asking if she'll let me drive her new Aston Martin the next time I'm in Auckland. In all honesty I expected her prize to be in the hundreds or lowish four figures, but in fact she won $40,000! While not exactly life-changing it'll be a huge boost to her, especially after everything she and her family have been through. Her prize came from a must-be-won draw of Bullseye, a game where you have to pick a number from 0 to 999,999. Nobody won the top prize (for getting the number spot-on) and the second prize (for getting within five) wasn't won either. So the jackpot was split ten ways among the third-division winners of which Mandy was one.

After receiving such happy news the previous day, on Wednesday I found out that one of the younger members of the Auckland autism group had sadly died two weeks earlier. He crashed is car into an oncoming truck at Dairy Flat, north of Auckland. It is likely that he did so deliberately. He had a number of quite complex conditions that certainly made life difficult for him. On that one day earlier in the month, he perhaps decided it was all too much. He also attended the men's depression group from time to time. I met him several times; I never got to know him that well but he always seemed a pleasant enough chap to talk to. He just needed some help. As Richard said to me in a text, perhaps he is finally at peace. He was just 23.

At Saturday's autism group they remembered him and also Emma who would have turned thirty last weekend.

Life most certainly is precious. I have the utmost admiration for those who help people with mental health and other problems. They have a very challenging job and for some reason society doesn't recognise this; most mental health workers are badly paid. Although I'm hardly coining it in my job, when you consider how little of any consequence I achieve, my pay is obscenely high.

This afternoon I rang Bazza for his birthday. He doesn't have a lot of friends so it's important that I stay in touch with him.

It's snow joke

2011-08-14T18:11:00.005+12:00

I'm hunkering down in my Wellington pad (what a great word "hunker" is) with the temperature hovering at just one degree. We had a few flurries of snow this afternoon - not an everyday occurrence on even a once-a-decade one. The sun did come out earlier in the day but since then it's felt like England in February.

Great news: Common sense has finally prevailed in the Arie Smith-Voorkamp case (the Asperger's chap who "looted" those two light bulbs after the Christchurch quake). The police have "dropped it". Thank heavens for that.

My parents' stay and one ring to rule them all

2011-08-07T20:49:00.003+12:00

Mum and Dad spent four nights in Wellington last week and flew back to Timaru yesterday morning. We got on really well, maybe because I was at work all day and only saw them in the evenings! They really liked Wellington - it was the first time they'd spent more than a day here - and they said what I've been thinking in the last few weeks: all things being equal (which they rarely are), Wellington is miles better to live/work/eat/sleep in than Auckland. You can be yourself here more easily, it's got a soul that Auckland desperately lacks, and everything is far more convenient: the waterfront, shops, markets, eateries, bars, cinemas, theatres, etc.
Now I just need someone to experience all that stuff with. There are two problems I face: (1) people are scary, and (2) when I'm depressed I don't give a damn about "stuff". However I'm currently in my longest non-depressive spell for months.

We ate out twice, once at a tasty Thai and on Friday at an even tastier Italian. Those would be two of my three eating-out choices, the third being the rather bog-standard fish and chips. On Thursday we saw Soap at the St James. We were in the "cheap" seats (which at $50 they hardly were) at the front of the back section, if that makes sense. But as the show started everyone gradually moved forward to fill any gaps in the rows in front of them. Apparently it's tradition at the St James to do that; in my (limited) experience if you've got tickets for row J or whatever, you have to stay there. We did advance a few rows once we'd figured out what was happening, then it was on with the show. I didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't what we got. I guess I expected more water, some bubble bath, you know, soap. What we did get was an enjoyable mix of comedy and circus. We wondered if the performers were Russian gymnasts who didn't quite make the team. My favourite part (there were many contenders) was the woman who lay on top of a bathtub and juggled various objects with her feet.

After telling Mum and Dad how bad my flat was, they were pleasantly surprised. I think lowering their expectations (to almost zero) was a good move on my part. On Saturday I took them to the airport - a seven-minute trip which impressed them. Hopefully they'll be back fairly soon, and I can get a not-too-expensive flight to Timaru in the near future.

At 3:30 yesterday, disaster struck. I shut my front door behind me, and instantly I knew what I'd done. Shit. I'd locked myself out. After some serious fannying around (making phone calls, leaving messages in desperation, wondering if there was a caretaker with a master key, thinking of ways to force my way in, and finding out how much a locksmith would cost) I found one of the property managers' landline number in the White Pages. Some more farting around ensued but she got the spare key out of the office on Courtenay Place. I met her there; she charged me $50. A locksmith would have been about $250. I still had my car keys and was tempted to spend two nights in my car if I was locked out until Monday. I got back into my flat at sixish. That was a drama I could have done without but it was an accident waiting to happen. Having my car keys and my arsenal of house keys on separate rings, I was asking for it. I'd nearly locked myself out several times before. I've now got one ring (to rule them all) - a lot of keys to carry around but it's the only sensible option.

This morning we had blue sky and bright sunshine, the temperature was well into the teens and people at the waterfront market seemed to think spring was on its way. By afternoon the temperature had nosedived and it was horrible out there. Despite the weird Wellington weather, I think the move to my new(ish) home will be worth it in the long run.

Bail me out

2011-07-25T22:20:00.002+12:00

At work today I pressed various buttons in various spreadsheets, achieving nothing. The one button I really needed - the ejector seat button - was nowhere to be seen.

Tonight I we had the autism group. A record attendance of eight, half of whom were new faces. I'd say it was my most enjoyable session yet. Whether that was down to the people, or because it provided a nice contrast with my shitty day at work, I don't know.

Amy Winehouse. I remember a couple of years back dreaming that she had died. When it happened for real last weekend it was hardly a shock, but still very sad, especially because she had no real friends at the time of her death as far as I can tell. Today they were playing one of her albums in JB Hi-Fi. I hung around in the store for a while to listen to a few of her songs which just happened to suit my mood. I thought she was a very good singer; sadly she joins the long list of artists who died at just 27.

The Big Smoke

2011-07-22T21:00:00.013+12:00

I touched down at Auckland airport on Saturday lunchtime; from there I made my way to the autism group. I'd forgotten what a head-spinning occasion it can be, and that's speaking as someone who has never been diagnosed with any form of autism. Trying to keep track of ten conversations (or monologues) at once is no easy task. But for all the acoustic challenges the monthly meeting presents, it's still a wonderful thing they've got going up there. Autistic adults need all the support they can get. The Arie Smith case was a major topic of discussion again. The point I made (when I finally got a word in edgeways) was that Cantabrians are less tolerant of people who are a bit "different" than those from other parts of the country. In addition to having Asperger's, Arie is gay, and I'm sure that doesn't help his cause in red-and-black territory. Whatever, it should be blindingly obvious to police that he has a disability, and they should show some compassion (and common sense) by dropping the case.

That evening I settled into my hotel room in Parnell. The woman at reception wanted to know my ZIP code, then told me my room was on the first floor when it was on the ground floor. She sounded perfectly Kiwi to me, so what was with all the American terminology?

On a sunny Sunday morning I went to La Cigale, the popular French market nearby. I only bought some odd bits of fruit but was fascinated by their wine cellar. When it comes to the price of vintage wines it appears the sky's the limit. I couldn't figure out why a bottle sometimes differed in price by $100 from a seemingly identical bottle right next to it. Maybe Richard (who is something of a connoisseur) could give me some idea.

This 1957 Chevy was parked outside the market. A beast of a car with a number plate to match. Forget all those vowelless what-the-hell-does-that-say combinations you see so often; this one gets straight to the point. On the subject of plates, the letter G has started to appear as the first letter of standard (non-personalised) issues. It took a long time to get through the F's in spite of all the combinations like FAG and FUK that they must have skipped over - a sign of the tough economic times I guess. My Camry dates from the two-letter system - appropriately, given my reluctance to make decisions, those two letters are UM.

Sunday afternoon was a bit stressful as I hung around in the city, not really knowing what was happening. This wasn't anybody's fault but by the time we saw the final Harry Potter movie (Richard, another member of the Aspie group and myself) I was really past caring. The film was good, I think, but I hadn't seen any of them since number two and I struggled to concentrate. I was feeling a bit low and my mind was in a dozen other places.

Monday was an unusually busy day for me on the social front. First I met Julie in Devonport for coffee. The mental health system in Auckland has failed her, she's seen six figures disappear in failed finance companies, and most recently her dog (which he was very fond of and gave her some purpose in life) has been put down. She was understandably upset when I saw her. The good news is that she intends to leave Auckland and make a new start (at the age of 65) in Wellington.
I then met Mandy, the only contact I've kept from my last so-called big job. She left the company last September, nine months after I made my exit. She now works for another insurance company and is much happier there. We walked along Takapuna Beach in the sunshine, something I used to do regularly before our offices moved to an impersonal business park where there was nothing to do at lunchtime but attempt the crossword. As a side note, who should I meet on the bus from Devonport to Takapuna? None other than Bazza, for whom going to the shore is almost a day trip.

I had a quick catch-up with a guy from an employment agency who I still keep in touch with, and then met Andy in the Mad Dogs and Englishmen pub in Wairau Park for a drink. In his life things are moving at breakneck speed: he's got engaged (he met his fiancée just six months ago) and there's talk of houses, kids and all those things normal people have. Andy left shortly after six but I stuck around and ate a lamb shank (tasty and more meat than I'd bargained for). I got back to the hotel at around nine and eventually fell asleep watching darts on TV in a flashback to the early nineties.

On Tuesday I met Richard at his new flat in Greenlane after losing my bearings a bit on the way. He lives with three females if you include the Siberian Husky. I think it's a very positive move for him. We had lunch at a nearby eatery and a decent chat. He hopes (as do I) that he can make a trip to Wellington in the coming months. I then hung around town, which is something I did quite a lot of over the long weekend. When the time came to catch the Airbus I was very glad to leave: I find central Auckland an incredibly soulless place.

On Wednesday - my first day back at work - I felt pretty low. All my thoughts were a function of the state of my mental health. That evening though I spoke to someone in the UK about my business idea, and since then I've been back almost to normal, whatever normal is any more.

Having a smashing time at work

2011-07-14T21:14:00.004+12:00

Here's a bad analogy to describe what work is like at the moment. It's like a game of tennis where I'm hitting nice-looking forehands and backhands but don't know what the object of the game is. Keep the ball inside the lines? Outside the lines? Try to hit the lines? Hit my opponent? Smash the window of the car parked outside?

Perhaps surprisingly, this state of confusion isn't getting me down. My business idea (i.e. my Plan B) is starting to take some kind of shape, and I've got a long weekend in Auckland to look forward to. On Saturday I'll be popping along to the Aspie group and seeing the latest (and last) Harry Potter film.

Good news: after getting a second opinion (and without shelling out 80% of its value), my car is back in action.

Arie Smith-Voorkamp: for heaven's sake let him go

2011-07-12T20:54:00.006+12:00

Last night I attended the Wellington Asperger's group. The hot topic of conversation was Arie Smith-Voorkamp, the young Asperger's man who "looted" two light bulbs from a vacant building following the February 22nd earthquake in Christchurch. I was moved by last weekend's Sunday programme in which he and his partner were interviewed; it was upsetting to see how the police had treated him. Public opinion has been highly supportive of Arie since the programme aired. I hope that common sense prevails and the police decide not to waste any more hours and taxpayer dollars on this case. Let the man go.

Here's an interesting autism-based website - humans.org.nz - which has an article on Arie.

We had two new members at last night's group. It was a pleasure to meet them. This Saturday I'll be at the Auckland group for the first time in four months. I'm looking forward to that a lot.

My boss left last Friday; work has already ratcheted up a few notches since then. In the last two days all my feelings of inadequacy have flooded back. A short break from the office (I'm taking next Monday and Tuesday off) could be just what I need.

No great shakes...

2011-07-05T20:29:00.006+12:00

At 3:35 this afternoon I felt my first ever earthquake. I was just sitting at my desk at work and it felt as if someone had jogged the table. I'm used to sudden movements now - the rickety lift in my apartment block greets you with a mini-earthquake whenever it stops - so I probably wouldn't have given today's tremor a second thought if the word "earthquake" hadn't been mentioned. It was a 6.5 (yes a biggie by the raw measure of magnitude) located just west of Taupo but 150 km deep. The depth explained the pattern on Geonet's intensity map - what looked like a random hotchpotch of greens and yellows over a wide area instead of a more concentrated Christchurch-style pattern. Here's Wellington's seismograph:

On Friday night I spoke to Gran (now in her 90th year) for the first time since I moved to Wellington. After endless answerphone messages and being transferred to nowhere by reception, I'd almost given up hope of ever getting through to her. She was very confused but at least she knew it was me and was looking forward to a plate of fish and chips. I think and hope I made a positive impact on her. Dad reckons that he and I are the only two people able to make such an impression; I'm inclined to agree, so I must make a persistent effort to call her once a week.

I happened to wake up at two o'clock on Monday morning in time to see Djokovic's virtual walk-on-water second set against Nadal, which he won 6-1 en route to his four-set victory in the Wimbledon final. With 48 wins and only one defeat this year, he really is operating on a different plane.

Tennis so good it sent me to sleep

2011-07-03T16:53:00.003+12:00

Yesterday I was pretty much zonked. I watched the men's Wimbledon semis in bed on Friday night, or tried to as I dozed off at regular intervals. By the morning I hadn't seen much tennis and I hadn't slept much either, although to be fair I did see the first three sets of Djokovic's win over Tsonga and I'm very glad I did. The athleticism of both men blew me away; at one point they were both on the ground but were still able to continue the rally.

I didn't watch any last night's women's final. Wasn't expecting that result at all. Well done to giant-killer Kvitova whose "kv" combination is trickier than the "zv" of Zvonareva and Zvereva. As for tonight's match between Djokovic and Nadal, it promises to be a real barnburner - wouldn't want to pick it.

Last night I had a very tasty butter chicken curry from Taste of India on Cambridge Terrace, then spoke to Richard on the phone. He's now found himself a new flat - after two years in a far-from-ideal boarding house that's a huge relief. I look forward to seeing his new place in two weeks. (I had half-jokingly suggested he move into the spare room in my flat, and if it didn't happen to be a few hundred miles away he might have been keen.)

After picking up some fruit and vege (and a Boston bun) from the market I had lunch at my cousin's and spent most of the afternoon there.

Here's a first (I think) since I moved to Wellington: zero rain all weekend!

Putting my own job into perspective

2011-06-28T20:29:00.004+12:00

Some not-so-great news this morning. My brother is off to Afghanistan. Mum and Dad only found out when a pile of bumph from the British army arrived in the mail. He's already put his body on the line enough thank you very much, which is why he wanted out of the army. But they recently persuaded him to stay by giving him a new (supposedly front-line-free) role. Of course my brother (thirty next month) is experienced and a very useful man to have on the front line, so they'd love him to go. My own job feels pretty damn good all of a sudden.

Last night I attended the Asperger's group, which took place at their offices in Thorndon instead of at a pub. There were five of us, a massive improvement on the previous turnout. Unusually for Asperger's groups, women were in the majority. The other bloke wasn't your typical Aspie at all (there's no way I would have picked him) - I wondered if he had ADHD instead. The two women I hadn't met before were both in their twenties and very easy to get along with. The topic of conversation changed at lightning speed; not every topic would be printable in your local gazette.

My car failed its WOF in style; I was quoted a ridiculous amount to get it up to scratch. I took it in on the way to work and was wearing a suit so perhaps they saw me coming. I don't trust car mechanics any further than I can throw them so I'll get it tested somewhere else, hoping all the "failure notes" didn't get permanently stored in the system, and see what happens.

Being able to survive without a car is one of the (several) great things about Wellington. It's also just as well I've got off-street parking or else I'd face a $200 fine. I'm amazed the local council can issue fines for expired WOFs - it should be a police matter surely. Parking fines for expired WOFs and registrations are a regressive form of tax for two reasons: people with lower incomes are more likely to have to park on the street and get clobbered with the fine in the first place, and of course if you earn less the $200 is a bigger proportion of your income.

Wimbledon is in full swing but it's not the big deal to me it once was. I no longer meticulously write out a draw sheet with all the winners and losers and scores. I no longer bring my bedroom TV down to the living room so I can watch two matches on different channels at the same time. My move to New Zealand didn't help. But still I've been keeping vaguely up to date with the action. The top women's seeds have been dropping like flies. Sharapova must be the favourite now, but I'm rooting for Marion Bartoli. Her unusual playing style and bouncing around between points make her seem completely mad. We need more of that in tennis. She plays her quarter- final tonight. After her last three matches (saving three match points, then winning 9-7 in the third, then beating Serena) she probably thinks she can't lose.

Update: I put the mockers on Miss Bartoli. All that bouncing around caught up with her in the end. She saved three more match points in the second set against Sabine Lisicki, then levelled the match on a tie-break only to lose the third 6-1. Sharapova on the other hand stormed into the semis, beating Cibulkova 6-1 6-1.

The joys of work IV - and seeing the doc

2011-06-20T19:12:00.005+12:00

I saw my GP today; our meeting was hardly a success. He devised a rather ingenious Plan B, which was to keep executing Plan A. In other words keep taking the tablets. "Surely you must have goals at work," he said. Goals? Wha-ha-huh? I guess not getting into trouble is a goal. He made too many assumptions about me. People love to pigeon-hole don't they? He did make one valid point, that I should get more exercise. He said I should be burning those calories first thing in the morning, but with my recent habit of leaving the flat at the same time as I mean to start work, that might be a struggle.

When you work for a multinational company there are a lot of rules, written and unwritten. Now I'm not anti rules necessarily, but I like rules to be there for a reason. For instance in poker a flush beats a straight. That's because you're less likely to make a flush than a straight (half as likely as it happens). In the corporate world a flush beats a straight because somebody says so; the following month a straight beats a flush because somebody else says so; a few months later the rules have changed again - straights and flushes no longer count at all - and you don't know whether you're Arthur or Martha any more.

Doing life

2011-06-16T20:00:00.004+12:00

It's all a bit of a struggle at the moment. I'm having to force myself to "do life" but at least I am pushing myself. I've made an appointment to see the GP on Monday. I'm almost on the maximum dose of Efexor and it isn't doing the trick I'm afraid.

At work I've been trying to dodge the whole issue of exams. Even if I can stay in my job without doing them, there's a sense that by not doing them I'm "not really participating". Work this week has been tricky: my concentration span has shrunk almost to nil.

Wellington is a great city (more about that soon) but if you don't know anybody and you're depressed, it matters little whether you're in Wellington or Auckland or Timaru or Timbuktu. In fact if you're in the wops (to use a good Kiwi expression) it's in some ways easier because you don't see everybody having a good time with their friends.

Monday's earthquakes were upgraded to 5.6 and 6.3. GNS now say there's a 30% probability of a quake measuring 6.0 to 6.9 occurring in the next year. That raises two questions. First, when we're getting quakes on faults that aren't even on the map, how the hell do they calculate this? Second, what's the probability of a seven or above? Is that too scary a prospect to mention?

Swinging madly

2011-06-13T21:06:00.003+12:00

I get back from lunch today and there's talk of another sizeable shake in Christchurch. Five point five. I send Mum (who's 130-odd K's from the epicentre) a did-you-feel-it text, but got no reply. An hour later though and she replies: "I felt this one - the lights were swinging madly and the whole house was rocking." That was a six. Even Dad, who has a knack for either sleeping through big quakes or being out of the country, felt that one. This is a big setback, and I think the last straw for many Christchurch residents.

On 31st May GNS Science estimated a 23% probability of a quake measuring 6.0 to 6.9 in the next year, and over 90% likelihood of a 5.0 to 5.9. In two weeks they've already had a six and two 5.5s! One of their seismologists said that "on a world scale this is reasonably unusual in so far as we're getting quite large aftershocks." In other words, this is not normal. Finally!

Sushi is ridiculously popular here in Wellington. I've had it from time to time but it's never really grabbed me. Until tonight, when totally by accident I found a sushi bar on Woodward Street. You see them make it and you can pick and choose what you want. I expected my selection to come to eight or nine bucks but it was only $5.70. Very tasty too. I could easily have had more.

After the sushi I went to the Asperger's group for the first time, except it wasn't much of a group. Just the facilitator and me! It was good getting to know her; I'm amazed we had so much to talk about. I hope this can be the first step towards making contacts in my new city. The group is aimed (I think) at those at the very mild end of the spectrum. We met in a pub for a start.

The joys of work III (and some music)

2011-06-12T16:28:00.002+12:00

My boss resigned on Friday. "Could I have a quick word?" he said to me. My heart started to race as I feared my boss and I would soon part company, which indeed we will, although I was worried the circumstances might have been different.

I haven't been in my job long enough to have built up much of a bond with him - unlike in the earthquake job where my boss and I did have a rapport of sorts. It's funny to compare the two jobs actually. Three months ago people were amazed that I could make the same word appear in fifty cells in Excel without having to type it in fifty times. Now it's a case of "What are you doing man? Don't use the mouse, you muppet! Just run this macro, hit Ctrl-Shift-Enter, then press F9 in that pivot table, and Bob's your uncle."

Last week was a frustrating one. I didn't do much at all, and what I did do was of little significance. I don't know what my future holds there. I do find some of the concepts interesting, but I'll be honest and say that between 5:30pm and 8:30am I hardly give my job a moment's thought. Well I think about my job all right, but not what I actually do in it. It simply isn't important enough to me. I can get away with that for now - I'm still the new boy - but eventually I'll be found out.

Lately I've been getting into the Canadian band Arcade Fire. I'm ashamed to say that two months ago I hadn't even heard of them, but I think they're brilliant. I really like two of their songs from their latest album, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) and The Suburbs.
And if you've got a spare twelve minutes handy, check out this. Putting as much energy into my job as these guys do would be quite something.

The joys of work II - and some cause for alarm

2011-06-06T20:17:00.007+12:00

As I said in my last post, I get on OK with my immediate colleagues. I guess we're all relatively experienced (in terms of age at least) - there are no Kids of '88 in our team, no tricky Gen-Y upstarts to deal with. I'm not so sure about some of the other people on my floor however. The bloke who sits opposite me and works in Finance is six foot five and twenty stone. Now he's fine, but his boss (a she) most definitely isn't. I really feel for the big man, as well as the woman he sits next to. "Now the figures in the 87002 account don't reconcile with the 70501 account, and did you forget about the 54101? How long have you been here now? How could you possibly not remember? This really isn't good enough." And so on, and so forth. It isn't pretty to watch and can be quite distracting. It's interesting though how having a boss from hell can create solidarity within a team. In a similar vein, we had a variety of full-day workshops in my last corporate job, ostensibly to instil in us the company's values: unity, integrity, fraternity and whatever else. But the real reason (perhaps) that they ran the workshops was that most of the staff hated them and would want to rebel, together, against them - thus creating unity and fraternity via the back door.

Last Thursday at 8pm I heard an alarm go off. It sounded a bit like a car alarm, maybe 50 or 100 metres away. Oh wait, maybe it's a fire alarm. It doesn't sound like it's in this building though, so unless I get a knock on the door I'm staying right here. Then someone knocked on my door. "It's a real fire! Get your tag!" What tag?! "OK don't worry, just get out!" And I got down those stairs pretty quickly, thankful that I lived on the fourth floor and not the ninth. Of course it wasn't a real fire at all but a six-monthly drill. The alarm could do with being a bit louder if you ask me. And that tag, well I've since found it attached to the fire extinguisher, which was last checked in June 1989. It was good to meet some of the other residents out in the car park. The subject of earthquakes came up, and supposedly this concrete building (constructed in 1970) would hold up OK, though I'm not convinced. Christchurch had another big aftershock yesterday - a magnitude 5.5 - followed by a string of smaller tremors.

The joys of work

2011-05-30T19:25:00.002+12:00

I've now spent about 240 hours in my latest workplace and as yet I've hardly mentioned it. Maybe that's a measure of how much my current work means to me. I hope not. Certainly there have been days when I'm pretty sure I've achieved nothing, but I haven't yet had a day when I've achieved less than nothing (I sure did in my last big corporate job), so that's got to be a positive.

Our office is near the top of a skyscraper and, on a sunny day like we had today, offers a panoramic view of the city and the harbour. There are seventy of us, or thereabouts, with a similar number on one of the lower floors. Considering it's the end of May, a surprising number of Christmas decorations adorn the office. There also some interesting signs, such as the two contradictory ones in the loo: "Save power - turn off the lights" and "DON'T switch off the lights - repeatedly turning the lights on and off reduces the life of the bulbs by 50%." So you can't win.

I'm in a team of six. Luckily my immediate colleagues all seem nice enough people. My boss is fortyish; his wife is in the same profession. The bloke I sit next to is just a shade older than me; he's got a small son whom he wants to ensure doesn't follow in his father's footsteps, instead hoping that he becomes handy with a hammer. The only female member of our team is 28; she emigrated from China at the turn of the century, since when she's acquired an extremely good command of English. None of those L-and-R mix-ups. She lives with a Kiwi partner.

The number two in our team, certainly in terms of experience, is a particularly interesting bloke. He's talkative and speaks quite passionately and at length about certain issues. His keen sense of humour often revolves around word play. I wonder whether he might have Asperger's, albeit in a mild form considering he's got three teenage kids and has no problem dealing with "life stuff" as far as I can see. That leaves only the boss; he's in his late fifties, is softly spoken and as yet I haven't had a lot to do with him.

The good news is that it seems whatever was getting up my nose last week didn't come from this flat at all. And talking of the flat, I bought some furniture for it yesterday. I haven't bought a lot of furniture in my life so far, so I have very little idea of how much it should cost. I spent a little over a grand on a chest of drawers, a bookcase and a bedside table. Is that a lot? Who knows?

Strike!

2011-05-21T14:42:00.006+12:00

In Auckland I had a job, some good friends, some non-scary social groups and an exercise machine. I’d built up a structure of sorts. It wasn’t perfect – it was draughty and it sprung the odd leak occasionally, but at least it held up. Then I packed up and left, effectively taking a wrecking ball to the whole damn thing.

What would happen next was anybody’s guess. All bets were off. Five weeks later all bets are still off. At times life has been manageable, even pleasant; at others I’ve been in the depths of despair.

I’ve always been sensitive to dust and fumes; since I moved into this flat last weekend something has been getting up my nose, blocking it and giving me sinus troubles. I knew I’d never find the ideal flat in the short time I had, and for the amount I was prepared to pay, but I thought I’d at least avoid one that makes me ill.

The movers did a brilliant job on Tuesday. I was amazed at what they did squeeze into that tiny lift. Only the base of my bed had to be hauled up the stairs. As well as being very efficient they were a pleasure to deal with.

At work they have a social club. It only cost a few dollars to sign up so I did. Last night after work they went bowling, at a much swankier establishment than the one in Newmarket I went to with the Asperger's group at the end of March. There were bright lights, big screens showing Super 15 (or however many it is now) matches, table-inset scoreboards and (as is always dangerous) an unlimited bar tab. I went along relatively fearlessly (how scary can bowling be exactly?) but I should have been more wary. The bowling was secondary to the booze, the high-fives (the number of times I’ve had to tell tennis partners that I don’t do high-fives) and the banter. I can never let myself go in those situations, no matter how much I’ve had to drink, and as I’m now on 300 mg of Efexor I should hardly be drinking at all. When people talk to me I never know how to respond – they might as well be speaking Swahili. For the record I did hit three figures in all three games. I left at around nine, but it felt much later.

My boss recently broached the subject of exams, giving me the amazingly wonderful news that I don’t have to do them. Great! The only reason for doing them would be to give the illusion to my colleagues of participating in this whole big career thing. At 31 I’m too old for that sort of subterfuge. Seriously.

On Thursday night I saw Paul at the Reading cinema on Courtenay Place. I kind of like comedy sci-fi, especially British-made comedy sci-fi about three tits and spaceman balls. I didn't think it was amazing, but being able to relate to some of the protagonists helped, and anything that gets a few laughs out of me must be worth seeing.

This afternoon I’ll go to an art gallery and give them one of Dad’s business cards (“there’s this watercolour painter I know from the South Island who’s really good…”). Paintings aren’t selling like they used to and that’s been getting him down. In Wellington people tend to care about art more than the rest of the country; I think this could be a good market for Dad to tap into.

Speaking of Dad, if he had the chance he’d be out of Geraldine like a shot. Of course Mum is happy as Larry there with her golf, gossip, church, golf, golf, and more gossip. And why shouldn’t she be? She’s worked hard all her life. But having been born in Geraldine she’s unaware, or chooses to ignore, that Dad lacks stimulation there.

That’s all until next time, as long as the arsenic in the paint in my flat doesn’t get me first.

Nutters Club etc.

2011-05-16T18:06:00.003+12:00

All Saturday night and half of Sunday it chucked it down. It really was a ludicrous amount of rain even by Wellington's high standards. When it cleared up I grabbed some fruit and vege from the market - a cheaper and more interesting option than New World or what have you - then got the dreaded red light when I tried to swipe myself in. Due to a mistake or miscommunication, and all the other crap (normal and abnormal) I've had on my plate, I thought I had one more day in my apartment than I actually did. To get back into my flat I had no choice but to charge an extra night (and $130) to the company - which I'll probably have to pay (and even if I don't, my boss and all the HR people will think I'm hopeless). It's always the way for me - save a few bucks here, lose one-frigging-thirty there.

After all that shambles I moved into my new fourth-floor apartment. It's big enough, has a nice view and gets the afternoon sun, but it's a bit grubby, is starting to come apart at the seams, and has a slight prisony feel about it. The movers are coming tomorrow. We'll have all sorts of fun and games getting all my stuff (or not) into the flat.

I had a 20-minute walk to work this morning but I might as well not have bothered. My head was filled with this fog which made everything practically impossible. You needed GPS to navigate your way around all the labyrithine spreadsheets but I couldn't pick up a signal.

Last night I listened to the Nutters Club show on Radio Live. As an eff-why-eye for the 75,432 Kiwis who read my blog, the show runs from 8 till 10 on Sunday nights. The highlight of the show was undoubtedly Michael Kimber - a very eloquent bloke who has suffered from mental health problems and severe insomnia. To paraphrase his most salient point, he said that depressives you hear about in the media are either celebrities or sociopaths; 95%+ of depressives are neither (and most are in fact the polar opposite of both categories).

Got to go. Hopefully this week I'll see Paul. I need something to cheer me up.

One happy family

2011-05-14T14:39:00.001+12:00

Last weekend was a pretty good one. On the face of it nothing special happened, but Mum, Dad, my brother and I were together for the first time in 7½ years, and that was special enough. It was great to see my brother. It was also great to see that he hadn’t changed much. Some people are all talk, no action; he’s the exact opposite.

We’re different in many ways – his penchant for firearms being just one example – but we got on well. Unfortunately (for me) he was coerced into staying in the British army, so won’t be coming to New Zealand to live any time soon, but I hope he can make semi-regular trips out here from now on. With no family in the UK, Christmas is a lonely time for him, so he might visit then.

On Saturday night we had very tasty fish and chips with my aunt and uncle. Earlier that day Dad and I had fun and games trying to watch a dodgy version of 2001 – A Space Odyssey.

My brother flew back on Thursday. I hope we manage to stay in touch. Seeing him – and the rest of my family – over the weekend gave me a much-needed boost. Bumping my Efexor up to 300 might have helped too.

Home at last

2011-05-03T21:17:00.002+12:00

Auckland was struck by a deadly tornado this afternoon. At least one person was unlucky enough to lose his life; there are reports of a second fatality. Tornadoes are extremely rare in New Zealand but as one-in-fifty-year events now tend to occur every other week, maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised. The Albany Mega Centre (a large shopping mall) lived up to its name – it was the “mega centre” of the twister. In future I’ll be even more inclined to avoid shopping malls than I already am. I’ve texted everyone I know back in the Big Smoke – they’re all thankfully OK.

In contrast it has been a glorious day in Wellington, as usual. Now I feel vindicated by my decision to leave Auckland and escape all their nasty weather.

The flat search has finally come to an end. What a relief. I’ve taken a two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor of a tower block in Mt Victoria, overlooking the Basin Reserve. My flat should get the sun, so I can look forward to basking in Wellington’s endless summer. With sorting out accommodation and everything that happened in Auckland, it’s been an extremely busy day of texting on my forty-buck phone. On the way back from signing the application form I found a cheap eatery on Courtenay Place, not far from the Blanket Man, called Cozy Bar (or something like that) – I got a chicken and salad roll and a rocky road cake for four dollars.

The other big news item has been Osama bin Laden’s death. His name was on everyone’s lips in late 2001 but lately I’ve hardly heard him mentioned. I found the chants of “USA, USA” in Washington at the news of his death a little disturbing – that hardly seems a good way of increasing the nation’s worldwide popularity.

So I can cross finding a home off the list in big fat marker pen. I can almost – dare I say it – relax.

Update: I just spoke to my brother on the phone. One of his friends had been killed in a motorbike crash in the UK. He doesn’t know whether he’ll be back for the funeral. He’s now lost so many friends in so many accidents it’s almost unreal. I’m looking forward to seeing him on Friday.

Seeing my brother next weekend

2011-04-29T17:35:00.003+12:00

I saw the doctor on Tuesday. He seemed more knowledgeable about Venlafaxine (or Efexor) than the female doctor I saw in Auckland. Basically he said if I want to get the proper effects of the drug I need to be on a proper dose. He's put me on 225 (I was on that for a short spell before but I dropped back after some stuff-up with the prescription) and has given me enough ammo to go to 300 if I feel like it.

Apparently some fairly well-known people will be tying the knot a few hours from now. I can't get excited about the royal wedding I'm afraid. I just hope that somebody else (most likely a group of people) doesn't decide to throw their idea of a party as well.

Here's the good news - I'll be seeing my brother (who was two days old when Charles and Di got married) next weekend. It's been such a long time. And to think I used to see him every day! It's scary how easily families can drift apart.

Juggling eggs and feeling scrambled

2011-04-24T14:09:00.005+12:00

Yesterday was an up-and-down sort of day. On a “mood scale” from 0 to 10, I swung back and forth from a hopeless 1½ to a just-about-manageable 4. I entered a couple of inner-city lifts that normally stopped at real estate agents’ offices but yesterday weren’t going anywhere. I didn’t care. It was quite nice being in a lift. In Dick Smiths I was overwhelmed by all the lights and noise but sensibly got out before I did thousands of dollars worth of damage. I also chatted briefly with the busker I met last weekend. He juggles with up to four Head tennis balls, often dropping them. I can manage three and had a go myself. I asked him what the trick was for doing four; it looked to me like an optical illusion where you do two in each hand simultaneously. He only had 70 cents sitting on his rug; I threw him another 70. I suggested he might get more money if he diversified a bit – different coloured balls, tennis rackets, clubs, I even mentioned eggs. He just nodded and chuckled. I could do his job, if only I had the balls, so to speak.

Yesterday I was losing it, swearing and punching pedestrian crossing buttons, but when my mood scale was at four I steeled myself to view two flats. The first was in Brooklyn, right next to the cinema. I mean right next to the cinema. It had a spacious deck, but all you could see from it was the cinema wall. I couldn’t have fitted my bed in either of its two bedrooms. The 77-year-old landlord was charming and it’s a shame I’ll almost certainly never see him again, but I still couldn’t take the place. The other was in Te Aro – I walked to it from my apartment – and was potentially great but a bit pricey. If I was moving in with a flatmate it could have been a goer.

I got home and writhed around on my bed. Oh shit. I’ve got all this stuff to do with no hope of ever doing it. I rang Brendan in Auckland and we spoke for 2½ hours. I don’t think I’ve ever talked on the phone for that long before. He was very helpful; I’m lucky to have him as a friend. We clarified what I already knew, that applying for the job in the first place wasn’t particularly clever. Brendan was going through a bad patch himself a few months ago and he seems a lot better now.

It’s really hard to care about flats, my job or a lot else at the moment. Nothing excites me any more. My get-up-and-go has got up and gone. I really wish I could get it back.
In that earthquake claims job, for a minute there I actually cared what I looked like when I walked out the door in the morning.

Two things to say about Wellingtonians:
1. You lot who keep complaining about the weather obviously haven’t got very big problems.
2. “It’s too far away.” Bollocks! You have no idea what “far” is.

I’m struggling a bit with the complexities of living is 2011. What the f*** is Blu-Ray? Bluetooth? How does a T-stick work and why should I care? So for me, Good Friday’s supermarket sweep at Hamilton’s Pak ‘n’ Save was a good news story. The store automatically opened as usual, even though it was a public holiday, due to a computer glitch. No staff were present so people just filled their trolleys to the brim and left without paying. What was wrong with a man or woman with a key?

I might pop to the cinema (if I can face it) to see Paul. The film I mean.

Eagle vs Shark

2011-04-22T20:48:00.004+12:00

At the last Asperger's group I went to, or was it the one before that, Eagle vs Shark was recommended as a "must-watch Aspie movie". I've just watched it for the first time on DVD and can see why it got the recommendation. I thought the Awesome tracksuits were awesome, as was the whole concept of the Crazy Burger - two slabs of meat with bread in the middle. Lily looked like one of my female friends from university (but a lot more feminine!) - this friend has been married for over four years now. I got another flashback to 1998 when the Stone Roses song This Is The One played; my first-year room-mate (who hailed from Barnsley and spoke with an almost incomprehensible accent) played that song over and over. The bit where Jarrod met up with his old classmate (who was now wheelchair-bound) made me wince.

What interested me the most was Jarrod's ego. A lot of socially awkward people I've met in real life (including some with Asperger's) have pretty damn big egos. Bazza was a fine example - he liked to play up his tennis skills and physical prowess, when in reality he's not exactly a picture of health. Once he laughably compared his current self to a young Elvis. Often a public display of arrogance is a way of covering up one's own insecurities, but I doubt that's why Aspies can sometimes appear arrogant. Possibly they just boast without realising it can be socially inappropriate - I don't know.

The best thing about seeing Eagle vs Shark in Wellington (and something I was unaware of until I saw it) is that it's a Wellington movie. Yes! And full of music from the Phoenix Foundation, surely one of Wellington's best bands. I liked the bit from the director at the start: "if you managed to rip this movie off the internet, congratulations for getting away with a crime."

Today I spoke to Richard on the phone, then took a trip up the cable car at his suggestion. It was a great view from up there on a sunny afternoon. I then walked back. This evening I took a walk along Oriental Parade. I'll get my head around Wellington eventually I hope.

Just as an aside: having visited this we-never-close internet café a few times, it appears there are some we-never-leave customers. For me, having Channel 63 on the telly is a big plus.

Rabbit in the headlights

2011-04-21T20:11:00.004+12:00

I've made a doctor's appointment for Tuesday. That's just as well - if my pills run out I could end up in a bad way rather quickly.

So I should be getting some more Venlafaxine next week. The big question is: will that be enough? So far, with the possible exception of my time in France ten years ago, I’ve always resisted the temptation to self-medicate. My dislike of being out of control has something to do with that. But if my stress levels stay elevated for much longer the urge might prove too strong.

If I’m to avoid going down the slippery slope, my best bet is probably to get some beta-blockers prescribed. I’ve got a couple of packets of them with me but a Google search tells me they’re well beyond their shelf life. The good news is that, as far as I can tell, you can combine them safely with my antidepressants. I last took beta-blockers in 2001-02 and they were great! Sure, in the first couple of months I had a few feelings of unreality (unreal, man!) and I got tired a lot, meaning I couldn’t really perform that well, but my increased self-esteem more than made up for those side effects.

When I see the doctor on Tuesday it’s vital that I’m put in touch with a support group of some kind.

This moving thing was all so ungoddamnecessary. For most of my life, being myself has meant being by myself. The Asperger’s group and the men’s group had gone a long way towards changing that, but thanks to the move, a return to people-are-very-scary-and-must-be-avoided seems inevitable. My work colleagues are nice people (although I’ve yet to stuff up any spreadsheets so perhaps I’m jumping the gun a bit there), but they still have the potential to be quite judgemental. The constant feeling of being judged is exhausting – I feel like a rabbit in the headlights. When I got back to my apartment last night I had no energy or inclination to look for flats or carry out any of the other tasks on my to-do list. I just wanted to curl up into a ball.

These feelings affect my performance at work too – they dominate my thought processes, leaving little room in my brain for dealing with the matter at hand.

I never felt this tension when I was doing the earthquake work. I could just turn up, do my work and go home, so I never felt under pressure. But in my new job I have to, you know, talk and shit. Well just talk I suppose, although I’m so nervous that frequent trips to the loo are an added bonus.

I don’t know why I never thought of this before, but I might well have Avoidant Personality Disorder. Wikipedia gives these six symptoms:

Persistent and pervasive feelings of tension and apprehension;

Belief that one is socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others;

Excessive preoccupation with being criticized or rejected in social situations;

Unwillingness to become involved with people unless certain of being liked;

Restrictions in lifestyle because of need to have physical security;

Avoidance of social or occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact because of fear of criticism, disapproval, or rejection.

I've got all six of those, except maybe number four where "certain" would be too strong for me. We’re social creatures so having this disorder isn’t conducive, unfortunately, to living any sort of normal life. That’s assuming I’ve got the disorder; maybe I’m just a bad and selfish person for wanting to avoid other people.

Wednesday was my birthday. As it was only my third day at work, and I didn’t want the attention, I didn’t tell anyone. Besides I wasn’t au fait with birthday protocol and I’d fallen foul of that before in 2004. That evening I went round to my cousin’s place; she’d baked a rich dark chocolate cake. Where she found the time for that I don’t know. On top were two candles: a number three candle which she’d used for the boys’ birthdays (and can use again for Jack’s next birthday) and an astronaut-shaped candle to represent the one. After we’d all hoed into the cake, 60% of it was still left. I couldn’t eat the rest of it myself without being sick so yesterday I came clean about the whole birthday thing and took the remainder to work.

I’ve now got a long Easter weekend. I want to hibernate but will have to force myself to go on some kind of flat-finding mission I guess. I know that staying in my apartment wouldn't be clever in the long run. Last night the Canadian woman behind the desk at the internet café was trying to translate some French; I helped her with a couple of words. This morning I chatted for a minute or two with the Pom in the three-bedroom apartment next-door – he’s also just arrived having lived in Auckland for several years. So I can talk to people in short bursts without much effort. Social situations and building relationships are a different ball game entirely.

I saw on the news last night this bloke who turned up to a Britain's Got Talent audition dressed like a slob (à la Susan Boyle, kind of) only to produce a stirring rendition of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car which has had two zillion hits on YouTube. Great song. Perhaps I'm missing the point of it but I've always thought it's about hopes and dreams: "I can be someone."

The new job - my first two days

2011-04-19T18:01:00.004+12:00

Wellington is great. Just walking around the city gives me a buzz. But it's still New Zealand, which means that things tend to be closed in the evenings. I don't have internet access in my apartment so I've been searching frantically for an internet café that's open after six and to my surprise found this one on Manners Mall that never closes.

I'd been staying with my cousin in Wadestown until Sunday. Very nice people though she and her husband are, I didn't find it easy living with them, mainly because if I don't have my own space I'll gradually go round the bend. They're both highly successful and knowledgeable people, especially my cousin who's a real go-getter, and they're bringing their three boys up to be highly successful and knowledgeable too. At the dinner table one of the boys wanted to know what cholesterol was. If I'd asked my mum that at that age, she'd have told me it was bad fat or something along those lines, but my cousin gave a full-on diatribe. They do so much for the kids and themselves but still go to bed before ten - heaven knows how. I marvel at people who seemingly pack 25 hours into each day; they manage about 32.

My uncle, who turned 70 last week, was also there; I've always got on well with him - he's a bit of a misfit just like me. On Saturday we watched a fascinating programme together called Mind Over Money, all about financial bubbles and the irrationality of human behaviour when money is involved. It was on TVNZ 7, a channel which is unfortunately facing the axe. I've been encouraged to enter the housing market, and might still do so, but buying a house might just be one big decision too many at the moment.

On Sunday I felt pretty terrible and I had thoughts going round in my head at a hundred miles an hour. Starting a new job the next morning was the last thing I wanted to do. I felt better when I moved into my apartment which is a stone's throw from work. My company are generously putting me up there while I find something more permanent. It's a very nice, clean, spacious apartment with everything I could possibly want - it's a shame I can't stay there for good.

The next morning the alarm woke me up but I couldn't face getting out of bed (the horrible weather didn't help) so I hit what I thought was the snooze button. I awoke again half an hour later. Right, so I guess that button isn't snooze. I was worried I might be late on my first day but as it happened I still arrived in plenty of time.

My office is on the 25th floor, and being Wellington there are civil defence cabinets dotted around so we can hopefully all survive if (or rather when) the big one hits. We get great views from there when weather allows which it did today, unlike on day one. As for the work itself, it won't be easy for me. My colleagues all seem friendly, more so than in my first "big" job, and the whole outfit seems refreshingly lacking in ra-ra-ra (that's a technical term) but I'm still likely to find it hard. A lot of things that might be obvious to some people are less obvious to me. Do you want this report finished by lunchtime, by next Friday or some time in late August? You seem very busy there - is it OK to interrupt you? Maybe I have Asperger's after all.

The other difficulty I face is that it's still life insurance. Unlike the recent earthquake work, or the flood-risk mapping work I did in the UK, I might find it hard to care about all the life-insurance-based figures and spreadsheets I'll have to negotiate. I can't ever imagine buying life insurance myself, because nobody depends on me financially and my history of depression would force my premiums up. In the back of my mind (or maybe the front) I'll know I'd rather be doing something else with my life. And then there's the exams - eek.

Lunchtime is the highlight of my work day. Central Wellington is food heaven. I asked one of my colleagues what she does for lunch. She said she either brought her own (which is what I've mostly done in my previous jobs) or went to Subway, then she told me where Subway was. Subway? C'mon! I mean there's nothing wrong with Subway, in fact I've been there more often in my life than any other fast food joint by some margin, but there are so many other eateries in the city to try that eating at Subway seemed frankly daft. I'm working my way through the nearby food court, trying not to turn into a fatty.

Adding to my state of panic over the weekend, the two biggest poker websites - Poker Stars and Full Tilt - were seized by the FBI and closed to American players. I've got US$3800 sitting on those two sites. I shouldn't lose the money, especially as I'm outside the States, but the whole thing is all a bit scary. I'd like to cash out but I've got no permanent address so I'll have to wait.

We've got a late Easter this year (who keeps moving Easter?) which gives me a very handy long weekend. There's a lot to do - finding a doctor and a support group are top priorities. Then I face the small matter of finding a flat or a house.

Tomorrow is my birthday. It's my second since last Easter so I'm getting old quickly. I'll pop over to my cousin's place tomorrow but there won't be a big birthday celebration. I'll be turning 31 but after a month of birthdays you can pretty much stop counting.

I'll give Richard a call tomorrow. I certainly haven't forgotten everybody in Auckland and I'll book a flight up there before too long.

Something beginning with W

2011-04-16T16:41:00.008+12:00

I arrived in Wellington on Thursday evening. The drive down, with the exception of the last little bit which involved considerable guesswork, was no trouble; I was blessed with excellent weather. I spent Wednesday night at Turangi, a popular fishing spot just south of Lake Taupo and a very pleasant place to break up the journey. The next morning, I had lovely bright sunshine as I drove along the Desert Road - the first time I'd been that way since 1993 when Mum would have pointed out Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu. Driving long distances on a nice day when there is little traffic makes me feel so much more alive. I had lunch at Bulls, a town that doesn't have a lot to offer except its name. No bull! A town like no udder! Every shop in the town came with a tagline such as "drink-a-bull", "bank-a-bull" or "irresist-a-bull". The toilets were "relieve-a-bull". I couldn't blame them for cashing in on such a memor-a-bull name. Shortly after I passed a sign telling me I had entered the roaring forties latitudes, the sun disappeared and it hasn't been back since.

Driving in Wellington is interesting to put it mildly. The topography of the city brings the z-axis - up and down - very much into play. There are hairpin bends and precipices to deal with, which would be tricky enough even if I did have a clue where I was going. I did get to my cousin's place in Wadestown in the end. My uncle is also staying here, so with my cousin's husband and three boys, she's seriously outnumbered. Tomorrow I'll be leaving to stay in a hotel in town; I'll be more than happy to do that. I don't find it easy being in someone else's house, easy-going people that everyone here is.

Today I was pleasantly surprised to learn that affordable property, to buy, actually exists in Wellington. I might take a look at a few uncomplicated one or two-bedroom flats, ones that would hopefully be easily saleable if I do decide to move on. It's been tipping it down with rain pretty much from the moment I got here. Yesterday was also windy, but today is calm, which only means the rain is sticking around. I spent some time in the city yesterday and my first impressions were, hey, I think I'll like this place.

Last night I played I-Spy with the two older boys. One of them picked the letter W. Hmm, let me see. Window? Water? Wind? Wellington? Why?! And on Monday I'll have Work.

Update: a 5.3 quake has just hit Christchurch, cutting off power and phone lines.

Adios Auckland

2011-04-12T19:58:00.002+12:00

The truck has been and gone (my "about 10" boxes of stuff ended up being 26) and in the morning I'll be gone too. My last day in Auckland has been a glorious one weather-wise. The last three days have been quite exhausting - hell, the whole process has been so drawn-out - and it'll feel good to finally be on my way. Tonight I grabbed a pizza from Delissimo's - a slightly tacky burger and pizza joint in Devonport. It was the first time I'd been there since it opened a year ago - the foot-high Comic Sans sign outside had always put me off. "How spicy would you like the pizza?" "You know, fairly spicy." Big mistake.

I attended the men's group for the last time on Wednesday. Another positive addition to my life that I'll have to do without. Yesterday I met up with Andy, who runs the group and has become a good friend over the last two years. I'll admit I hardly oozed positive vibes when we discussed my move.

Now, in spite of everything, I promise to be more positive. This could be the best thing I ever do.

T minus 57 hours

2011-04-10T22:57:00.003+12:00

Not long now, and still so much to do.

Yesterday I had a farewell lunch with the Asperger's group. Richard sent out the invite. He's been such a good friend; I'll miss him a lot. That he gives so much to others having been through so much himself is quite remarkable. We sat in the courtyard of Ironique in Mt Eden on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Richard gave me what looks like a good bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from his work; another of the members made a card by hand (she's very good at that) which everyone signed.

After that I drove to Papakura to return Bazza's Cardio-Glide exercise machine. I got a lot of use out of it but he needs it more than I do. When it comes to his weight, he's in that most famous of rivers, de Nile.

On Monday night I had my last (ever?) outing for Belmont. It was an away game at Campbells Bay club. Very picturesque surroundings even if we were confronted by a plague of scarab beetles. We lost a tantalisingly close doubles 11-9 in a super tie-break (we never had a match point nor were we ahead at any stage either in the shoot-out or prior to it) but I'm happy to report that I won my last (ever?) match for the club, 6-1 6-1 in the singles. My overall singles record for the season: P11 W7 L4. Doubles: P19 W4 L15. Eek! Who knows where or when my next match will be, if at all.

Well, better go. So much to do, so little time.

No text please, I'm British

2011-04-03T18:15:00.000+12:00

My mobile phone is stuffed. Water got into it, and now the writing on the screen comes up upside down, backwards and very faint. I'm not making this up. I had no idea the digital brain of a cell phone was fiendish enough to produce upside-down back-to-front text. If anyone who has my cell phone number is reading this, please don't text me. Not until I've got a new phone anyway. At a push (and if I've got a mirror handy) I might be able to read your text but you won't get a reply.

Luckily I'm not one of those people whose cell phone is a fifth limb. Yesterday at the tennis club someone wanted to know what time it was. Nobody in her vicinity had a watch. I remarked on this, and the consensus was that people don't need watches any more because they've all got phones. Well I disagree. I feel semi-naked without my watch, which my aunt bought me for my 18th birthday. Admittedly I'm obsessive about the passage of time - I always know what time it is: it's one minute since I last looked at my watch - but a "proper" analogue watch gives you a better picture of its passage. Time is a gradual, cyclical process, not a series of digits that clicks over every minute. There are a variety of jewellery shops close to my current work. My favourite analogue watch on show has a dial showing the year. It goes up to 2299 - I might have added a couple more centuries myself - but it's still a nice touch. Unfortunately it sells for about forty grand. Continuing the same theme, the clocks went back overnight. The extra hour has proved very useful - it's a shame we can't put our clocks back every weekend.

Wednesday's tennis never happened, but then on Thursday at 6:15 the phone rang and I had to drop everything and immediately drive to Albany to play. Great. We carried on our previously rain-drenched doubles match where we left off at one set all. The super tie-break rule was waived and we played a normal third set, but we didn't last long, going down by the final score of 6-7 (1-7), 7-5, 6-2. When we played a very solid - and quick - game on my serve to close to 4-2, I thought that might send out a message to our opponents, but whatever the message was it fell on deaf ears: we only won one more point. A couple of stats from that match: It was my ninth night-time doubles loss in a row. Also it was only the second time in my life I'd won a tie-break but lost the match. The other time was a singles match in 1996. The score: 7-5, 6-7 (1-7), 6-2. How I remember that I've no idea.

In the singles I put together a steady performance to win 6-3 6-1. The first set could have gone either way - a couple of net-cords towards the end of the set proved crucial. The rallies were long as we both tried to work each other around the court. I was able to stay in a lot of points and was more consistent, and I guess that's why I won. As a team we lost by four matches to two.

On to Saturday. For April it was a scorcher, but there was no escaping the tennis court. I would play my last ever match with Bazza - we're both leaving the club. Unfortunately we couldn't finish on a high note, going down 1-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7-3). The score in the first set was highly deceptive - they had points for just about every game. We led 3-1 in the third and were tantalisingly close to victory at 6-5 and 30-all, but it wasn't to be. It was some time since I'd last played with Bazza but he hadn't changed one bit. Dodgy line calls which I sometimes had to overrule and calls of "yours!" when it was far too late. I thought we both played fine given our limitations, which are pretty severe on the doubles court: we're both hopeless at the net. He can be infuriating to play with (even more so if you don't "get" him) but we've had some very good matches over the years - it was perhaps fitting that our last match would go all the way to a deciding tie-break.

We played another tie-break in the first set of the mixed. This we won, 7-2, but there was still a sense of inevitability about the final outcome. Their man had a very tricky slice serve and a strong net game, both of which brought them numerous cheap points. All of our points required far more work. Things just didn't add up. Despite our best efforts we duly lost the last two sets 6-2, 6-3. For the second time in three days, but 15 years after the only other time, I'd won a tie-break in a losing cause. A disco started up as our match was finishing. It was to celebrate the club's 75th anniversary and was mainly for the kids' benefit although adults were invited too. It was a themed disco: you had to dress up as something beginning with B. I saw a banana, a ballerina and Bob Marley (which given the number of kids present, might not have been appropriate). I could have had an absolute field day dressing up as Bazza but I wouldn't have dared.

But that's not all! Tomorrow night I've got more tennis. My last pair of matches for the club.

This morning I went to the French club for the last time. I spoke perhaps more French there than ever before. My imminent move got me some attention I suppose. After that I met up with Richard in Mt Eden for lunch. We had a long and enjoyable chat as always. That's something I'm going to miss for sure.

The decision from hell

2011-03-27T15:00:00.000+13:00

First things first, it would be really nice to put paragraphs in this post. I'll leave it up to you to put them in, like this: ***New paragraph*** When I decided eventually to accept the job, I was only one week older than I was when I got the offer. I felt like I'd aged ten years. If I knew the job application process would provoke so much anxiety in me, I never would have applied in the first place. I was offered the job six weeks after the interview for Pete's sake! During that time I was drip-fed information which I tried my hardest to ignore. It was just like a Lotto draw, except one ball is drawn per week, and if you win you get to swim with sharks. Handcuffed. The Asperger's group last Saturday was particularly tough for me. I've met some wonderful people at the group and have made stronger connections there than I ever did in 5½ years at my last "big" job. I arrived early to make the most of possibly my last session. The first person I met was Chris, someone I've talked to a fair bit over the last year. He never seems happy but he's got a good heart and is someone who (if I could spend some extended time with him) I think I could help. By Saturday I still hadn't signed anything and my decision lay in the balance. I talked to one of the facilitators at the group - a warm, kind, gentle person who recognised how hard my decision was. I've build up a framework of support in Auckland; by accepting the job in Wellington I was about to destroy it. On Saturday night, as I lay in bed at half-past two struggling to cope, I thought to myself, nobody is forcing me to take this job. At 9am on Monday I'll get straight on the phone, ring that bloody 04 number, turn the job down and I'll be a blissfully free man. And on that thought I drifted off to sleep. On Sunday I had a swim in the sea; a dog came up to me as was lying on the beach and I thought how great that was. This is what life should be about, surely, not board meetings or exams. I had the same feeling as I bagged some feijoas from the tree outside Autism House. Before I came to Auckland I didn't even know what a feijoa was but I've since come to like them. That evening I talked to some more people and if any one of them had told me definitively not to take the job, that would have made my mind up. But after talking to my cousin who lives in Wellington, I thought more about the current job market and having to move out of my flat come what may. I made the decision at 1pm on Monday after talking to my current boss. He couldn't guarantee a timeframe, and that was that. I popped outside for lunch, not happy with my decision. I bumped into Chris from the group - he was crossing the road dangerously and I had no choice but to do the same if I was to catch him. I got his cell phone number. I'd made my decision but wasn't at all happy with it. According to Monday morning's weather forecast, the issue wasn't whether it would rain later in the day, but how much. So at least I wouldn't have to worry about tennis at six o'clock. Except it didn't rain. Oh god. If I had to write down the top fifty things I wanted to do that evening, tennis wouldn't have made the list. Considering how terrible I felt, I played remarkably well in our doubles match. Of course at sevenish it absolutely tipped it down. We should have called an end to proceedings earlier; we ended up stranded at - from our point of view - 7-6 (7-1), 5-7. We're scheduled to complete the match (which is meant to be decided on a souped-up tie-break rather than a third set) as well as the singles (where that crazy tie-break rule doesn't apply) this Wednesday. Last Wednesday we had the men's depression group. Another big positive in my life, hence it was another flashpoint for me. I still wasn't happy with my decision, and the consensus among the group was "what are you doing man?!" Yesterday I went tenpin bowling in Newmarket with some people from the Asperger's group. Well about a dozen people actually. The place needed a bit of a makeover I thought. It was full of Engrish signs (am I being racist? - I hope not), such as "Please keep your figure out of the ball machine." At the weekends you can play two games for $13, but if you're under five (and therefore can't hold the ball) you get two games for the amazing low price of $11! The last time I went bowling was in Peterborough in 2003 (I went once a week then) and I swear the music playing yesterday came from exactly the same tape. When I played regularly I was consistent but unspectacular. Yesterday I was inconsistent and unspectacular. I found the afternoon quite stressful with all the noise and someone always wanting to talk to me about something when I was quite happy not to talk about anything. I successfully avoided any mention of the two W-words: work and Wellington. Adding to my stress levels, I had to pick up and drop off Graham who lives in Albany. We got lost twice; I felt knackered and like a right muppet. I'm now looking forward to exploring Wellington - of all my fears (and there were and still are plenty) the city itself isn't one of them.

Panic with a "capital" P

2011-03-16T22:10:00.000+13:00

Yesterday morning, six weeks after my interview, I got a phone call from Wellington. They offered me the job! Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't...PANIC!!!

I had a swim after work tonight - that was relaxing. I'm looking forward to attending the Asperger's group on Saturday, perhaps for the last time.

The current state of the job market

2011-03-14T21:14:00.000+13:00

I snapped this job ad (at least I think that's what it is) outside a shop selling Kiwiana in Queen Street. If this ad is anything to go by, I might struggle to find work when my temp job finishes. New Zealand has two official written languages, and this sure as hell ain't one of them. To add insult to injury, they put a bloody kiwi on it!

I played tennis tonight (it was club night). I found the whole experience painful and couldn't get home fast enough.

My depression has come back in the last few days. Any meaning, any certainty that we all need in our lives to stop us from going mad, has been missing from my life. At work on Friday they gave everyone who'd worked on the earthquake (including me) a free massage. Not a full body one by the way! I took up the offer but could have done with something longer and more vigorous. I should say that work has been the one thing keeping my head above water. Just.

I still go to the men's depression group once a fortnight. It's good for me (and everyone else there I'm sure). My only criticism is that Brendan tends to dominate proceedings; I emailed Andy today with a suggestion on how to stop him from taking over. In the second half of last week's session we watched a dreadful movie - that was fine by me because I was about to nod off.

I watched with disbelief on Friday night as a giant wall of water swept everything in its path, wiping whole towns off the map. Many thousands have lost their lives. It was some relief to see a scientist on TV tonight play down the risks of nuclear Armageddon. The earthquake registered a colossal nine but after the Christchurch event we can all get our heads around big earthquakes. The tsunami was mind-blowing stuff but we get warnings of tsunamis in New Zealand and know what they're about. Mention nukes though and you're entering a whole new sphere: Seriously Scary Shit.

I don't normally listen to National Radio but have done since the Christchurch quake. On the way back from tennis I heard this song (called Son Mystère and sung in French) by a band from Berlin called 17 Hippies. I presumed they were new but have actually been around since '95. Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5wMh2pVYHc

Tennis tales II

2011-03-12T12:05:00.000+13:00

On Monday night we played Milford who always seem to have a strong team. As soon as I clapped eyes on our opponents I knew we'd be in for a tough time; I recognised some faces from previous losing encounters. In the doubles I played with a young guy - twentyish - who blasts seven bells out of the ball. He's got all the shots, including deft touches at the net and a safe but effective second serve, but he can't bring himself to use anything sub-Scud. His service games were a nerve-wracking experience as fuzzy yellow bullets whistled past my ear at something approaching Mach 2, often landing beyond the baseline. I haven't won a night-time doubles match for ages and have been on the wrong end of some real hidings. Nothing changed on Monday as we went down two and two.

Due to the way we split up the team, my singles opponent was someone I didn't play in the doubles. His doubles match was a real marathon though, so after our bash-and-crash I had an hour to wait while I watched him play. He was from Eastern Europe and took tennis seriously. What else could you expect from someone whose first name was Boris and whose surname began with B? He went through an elaborate service routine, seemingly measuring the exact angle of trajectory while at the same time trying to get into the zone. This was a bit scary because I don't even have a zone. If that wasn't enough he had four rackets (clearly worth more than a grand between them) and explained that they all had different levels of string tension, acceleration and whatever the hell else. Maybe he did this just to intimidate his opponents I thought. But when I lost the first set 6-1 without playing at all badly, maybe not. If anything I was relieved to get one game. Early in the second set we had a lot of long games and long rallies. I dug deep in those points, still expecting him to thrash me but at least I'd make him thrash me. I won those tight games and when I'd opened up a lead in that set he deviated from his game plan, rushing his play and making uncharacteristic errors. I won that set 6-1 although it was closer than that really. Looking back I think he was saving himself for the third. He reverted to Plan A in the decider. I made too many mistakes (for me) and I lost it 6-1. What a crazy match!

Natural disasters - will they ever end?

2011-03-11T22:02:00.000+13:00

I'm just watching pictures of the tsunami resulting from the monster 8.9 earthquake that struck just off the north-east coast of Japan. Oh my. Japan's preparation for earthquakes is shit-hot, as are their building regulations, but when faced with a five-metre wall of water travelling at forty miles an hour, what can you do? Houses, cars, boats, a whole airport, all washed away.

I imagine the loss of life from the tsunami will have been far greater than from the earthquake itself, massive though it was. They've already had eight aftershocks at least as big as Christchurch's 6.3.

Tennis tales I

2011-03-07T22:39:00.000+13:00

I found out this morning that I’ve got seven weeks to vacate my flat. Where I’ll go, and with whom (if anybody) I really don’t know.

Yesterday I went to the French club in Browns Bay, which was convenient because I then had to play interclub tennis at Torbay, a prospect I wasn’t too thrilled about. Before I took to the court I couldn’t have cared less about winning or losing – I just wanted to get home. It was all doubles, partnering players who were at a decent level and clearly would have some emotional attachment to the final outcome. That wouldn’t make it any easier for me. It was very windy out there and at the start of the men’s match I could hardly get a ball in play. When we hung on to my serve in the fifth game to trail by just one, we could easily have been 5-0 down. But then I somehow, from somewhere, found my range and was helped by my very steady, skilful and experienced partner. We had two set points at 6-5, but a barrage of big serves got our opponents out of trouble. Tie-break. Spare me. At that stage I couldn’t have imagined we’d get the result we did – a 7-6 (7-1), 6-1 win.

The highlight – if you can call it that – of the mixed match came on my own serve, when we were leading 4-0 and 40-30. I served what I thought was an obvious double fault, my second ball landing a few inches wide. They didn’t call it, but sometimes opponents don’t call balls that are obviously out. I thought nothing of it, called “deuce”, and stepped up to serve the next point. My partner didn’t like this, saying I should have waited for them to call it, and taken the point and the game if they didn’t. I simply said, “I’m not a win-at-all-costs person,” which she clearly was. Anyway we were well on top and I felt we could win fair and square without needing points like that. We lost that game but wound up 6-1 6-3 winners. Looking back on the afternoon’s play, the conditions benefited me. I didn’t have the technical ability that others out there possessed but if I’m in the right frame of mind I can scrap and get balls back, keeping my unforced error rate down. When it’s blowing a gale most points will end on an error so if you can just keep the ball in play you’re half-way there.

I guess I should tell, briefly, my horror interclub story from a fortnight ago. I won just two games in just four sets, making it my worst overall result ever. Whether it was my worst performance I’m not so sure – there’s no shortage of contenders to choose from. My depression was a definite factor – that evening I didn’t want to be anywhere near a tennis court. Both games I won (both!) were in the singles, against someone I’d played once before in 2005, back when I enjoyed the game. That time I won in a tough three-setter. As for the doubles, the less said about that the better. The big positive was that the evening’s exercise (what little I got) seemed to give me the initial boost I needed to drag myself out of depressive hell.

Tonight I have to play again – I expect my love-hate relationship with the game will continue.

Beyond why

2011-03-05T15:27:00.000+13:00

It's eleven days since the devastating Christchurch earthquake but computer issues have prevented me from writing properly about it until now. It reminded me a lot of September 11th: just like ten years ago I was at home on a Tuesday afternoon in late summer, recovering from a depressive spell and generally minding my own business. Then I switched on the TV and everything changed. Rightly or wrongly I couldn't keep my eyes off the screen.

This time it took me a while to fully comprehend what had happened. Logically I thought, this is New Zealand, a first-world country. We have strict building codes. Yes I know the focus of the quake was only 5km from the surface but any modern building will surely withstand a 6.3, right? Wrong. What I saw on TV didn't look like New Zealand at all.

Just before 4pm my old boss called me. When he offered me a job I just about bit his hand off - that three-month spell after the September earthquake was hugely positive for me. The next morning I found out that the company had been affected in the worst possible way by the quake. They lost three people on the top floor of the PGC building, one of whom had come over from Sydney to work on the September event. Other staff members were extremely lucky to escape after being trapped for hours. The atmosphere at work on 23rd February was understandably eerie. For the first two days work was fairly slow and I followed all the latest news on the internet, hoping that my workmates would find their Christchurch colleagues had miraculously been rescued. The initial low volume of work contrasted with the immediate aftermath of the September quake which caused no loss of life, meaning property was people's number one concern, so clients were claiming within hours of the event. Priorities were very different after the latest quake - if you don't know whether your wife is alive, cracks in your heated swimming pool are some way down the list. On the third day following the quake, however, business picked up rapidly, and last week was pretty busy. It's good being busy and it's good doing real work that matters to real people without it being too stressful. As one of the few people who have benefited from the disaster, I absolutely had to donate something. I've so far given $43 or about two hours' wages.

In the wake of the earthquake I've learnt two important things about the human race. One, we're extremely fragile. One minute you can be talking on the phone to a work colleague and the next you can be under ten feet of rubble. Two, the vast majority of the human race are good people. The amount of goodwill we've all seen in the last eleven days bodes well for the future of Christchurch. It will take the city an awfully long time to recover from this, but I'm confident it will bounce back.

I saw an interesting piece from Jim Hopkins in the Herald last weekend. After a catastrophe such as this, the question on everyone's lips is Why?
Why did Christchurch get hit by two massive earthquakes in under six months? That's almost unprecented.
Why was this insurance worker killed by the quake while his best mate, who sat twenty feet away on the other side of the office, got out without a scratch?
Jim Hopkins isn't religious and neither am I, but he said that sometimes you have to accept that things just happen. In other words, they're beyond why. I'm inclined to agree with him.

Our darkest day

2011-02-26T17:15:00.000+13:00

I was in Devonport library just after 2pm on Tuesday when I heard someone say "six point three". That's pretty big I thought, but even when I saw pictures of the half-destroyed cathedral I had no idea of the scale of the disaster. Then I got home and switched on the TV and could hardly believe my eyes. It can't be New Zealand. This doesn't happen here.

Shortly before 4pm the phone rang. Suddenly I had work again, at the same insurance brokers that gave me a job following the September quake. I was very grateful to be back at work, even if I seem unable to get work without a major natural disaster occurring. It was only when I turned up for work the next morning that I knew the company had suffered in the worst possible way from the quake. Their Christchurch offices were based on the top floor of the Pyne Gould Guinness Building; they lost three people.

I'm in an internet café and have to go.

Heading downhill

2011-02-21T09:25:00.000+13:00

After my last blog post, which followed my last ever actuarial interview, I slid rapidly downhill. In the last few days I've had this real end-of-the-world feeling. I might have a big decision to make in the next 48 hours, and I don't like any of my options. The phone went on Thursday (I let it ring six times before daring to pick it up); it was someone from the Wellington company wanting to touch bloody base with me. They have had difficulties contacting one of my references and now want me to contact this person. That's a decidedly awkward prospect. Possibly having to move out of my flat when the new owners move in is an extra complication.

If I'm offered the job, my parents want me to take it. Mum said, "everyone I've spoken to has said it's easy to make friends in Wellington." You've known me for nearly 31 years and you still have no bloody idea. It isn't easy for me to make friends anywhere. Of course she does realise that; I think she was just encouraging me to take the job. She worries a lot about me and if I take the job everything will be sorted and she'll have nothing to worry about any more.

My cousin in Wellington thinks I should seriously think about going full-time with my puzzles instead of taking the job down there or applying for any other jobs. On Friday I spent some time trying to come up with an algorithm for making and solving a certain type of puzzle. I might as well have been in Bletchley Park trying to decipher the Enigma machine. If I do make my puzzles a full-time job, how will I move into a flat? I'm reminded of Danny Bhoy's attempts to find a flat. "So what do you do for a living?" I'm a comedian. "You must be joking."

On Saturday I attended the monthly Asperger's group. More than thirty turned up. On the whole they are such a good bunch of people. I have definitely made some connections with a few of them - losing them would be a big deal. Dad said I'd be earning good money in that job so I could just fly to Auckland whenever I felt like it. There was one bloke I'd never met before who had many of the traits of Asperger's. He was clever but could appear quite arrogant at times: "I like to play chess but can't find anyone good enough to play against." He was a mathematician who worked at home as a computer programmer. He was also interested in puzzles and games; we spoke at length about my puzzle and he could be a useful guy to have on board. People like him must struggle in relationships, or so I thought - I was surprised to learn that he's got five kids from two marriages.

My depressive symptoms have returned with a vengeance. Everything has slowed down and become a chore, I've been unable to concentrate on anything, and I've felt tired a lot. I slept for nearly nine hours on Saturday night but yesterday I couldn't stop yawning.

Last night I went with Julie to see The King's Speech, with Colin Firth playing the part of the king. I thought it was very good. Speech defects are common but they don't get a lot of media coverage. My grandmother, if she was still with it, would have enjoyed it immensely I'm sure.

My computer died on Thursday - it will need a new motherboard which won't be cheap. It's been a hassle not having a computer, but at least I can't play poker. What a distraction that can be.

Emma – one year on

2011-02-21T09:17:00.000+13:00

One year ago today, Emma passed away. She was a special person and an inspiration to us all. We must never forget.

A line in the sand

2011-02-16T15:44:00.000+13:00

Yesterday I had my last ever actuarial interview. That's a promise. On the ferry into the city, I thought about all kinds of stuff, but mostly I thought about why I wasn't thinking about the interview. I felt a real sense of déjà vu; I'd been there before, several times. For no apparent reason the Pet Shop Boys song Let's Make Lots of Money was going round and round in my head. Outside the tower block was a 15-foot-tall snake-like sculpture made out of hollow metal. I got this sudden urge to want to climb it. If I had climbed it, what would anyone have done? I don't remember much about the interview, except that it couldn't end fast enough. Thankfully it was all over in forty minutes. I ran down Queen Street and caught the ferry with a minute to spare - normally I'd have happily waited half an hour for the next one, but I was desperate to get the hell out of the city. It felt good to have drawn a line in the sand.

The good news (potentially) is that an agency rang me this morning about a possible temp job with Auckland Council where I'd be working with large spreadsheets and databases. I'd be delighted if they gave me the job. If last year's earthquake work is anything to go by, getting the Council job would benefit me enormously. My mental health (which as I write is some way short of perfect) would likely improve, and a lot of other doors would open up for me. For one it'll make moving out of this flat easier (and now that it's been sold, I might have to).

Last week I read Simon Baron-Cohen's Autism and Asperger Syndrome - the Facts. There's a lot to take in; the brain is one hell of a complicated piece of kit. The link between Asperger's and depression is hardly a surprise. A recurring thought whenever I'm depressed is I don't fit in. People with Asperger's face a daily struggle to fit in. I answered the Autism Quotient (AQ) questionnaire at the back of the book, scoring 28 out of a possible 50 (the average bloke scores 17 while 80% of people on the autism spectrum score 32 or above). A high but not autistically high score is just about what I expected. I dislike (and am very bad at) planning and organising; that took a few points off my total. But maybe because I was never diagnosed as a kid, I came into contact with mainly neurotypical people so some of their traits might have rubbed off on me.

On Monday I spoke to Gran in her home, although she no longer knows where she is. She lives in a dreamworld. Since she went to hospital at the end of last year she's been in rapid decline. It's sad for someone who had such a brilliant mind to deteriorate like this, but that's old age I guess. I'm so glad I was able to see her last year; she might not have known whether it was New York or New Year, but she was still very much Gran as I remembered her. My dad flies out to the UK next Monday - I don't envy him one bit.

I've felt things get on top of me today. I really just need a good sleep.

The Bazza aftershave saga

2011-02-13T21:26:00.000+13:00

Following on from that tennis match: there were creepy-crawlies of various kinds all over the court, totally oblivious to the fact that their lives depended on the duration of our match. I struggle to sleep after a long match; I must have finally dropped off at around one o'clock. I played this afternoon too - nothing remotely serious which was just as well; it was baking out there.

On a not totally unrelated topic, Bazza has been in the news again. Alison (a member of the tennis club who has been very good to Bazza over the years) had bought him some aftershave for Christmas. The real reason for the present was Bazza's tendency to pong; unpleasant odours emanating from him had been a talking point at the club. I'm not sure he's used aftershave before, but since Christmas he's been lathering the stuff on. Alison rang me on Friday - evidently Bazza had got the wrong end of the stick about the present. He sensed a whiff of romance in the air (my initial reaction when she told me this was to burst out laughing) and invited her to spend the weekend at his place in Papakura. When she said no, followed by "sorry mate, I think you've got the wrong idea," he completely lost the plot, subjecting her to a barrage of shouting and swearing. Alison was quite upset when she spoke to me. This morning I called Bazza (I'd given him time to cool off) and he surprised me a little by admitting he was totally out of line. Tomorrow he'll be coming over to Belmont to give Alison a bottle of wine and a letter of apology (the round-trip will take him roughly half a day). Hopefully he won't lose a friend over this.

Talking of friends, Bazza doesn't have many, not that it seems to bother him. People have said he's got Asperger's - he certainly has a lot of its traits - but how could I discuss this with him? I think he could really benefit by going to the Auckland Asperger group.

When Alison phoned on Friday I thought it would be the people from Wellington. I imagine they aren't going to offer me the job now, but stranger things have happened. If they do still offer me the position, I've pretty much decided not to take it. It took me a long time to make that decision - I'm an indecisive person. I remember a couple of years ago having to fill in a form about how depression affects me. One of the statements on the form was "I have difficulty making decisions". It gave me about seven options along the lines of "strongly agree" and "slightly disagree". I remember thinking, am I very indecisive? Moderately indecisive? Just a little indecisive? There were so many options that I just couldn't decide.

I've got another actuarial interview on Tuesday. So far I've hardly given it a moment's thought. I'll do some research tomorrow but I know my heart won't really be in it.

Last weekend I met up with a few of the Asperger's guys at Cornwall Park. I should invite them over to Devonport in a couple of weeks.

Don't give up

2011-02-09T11:23:00.000+13:00

On Monday I got a last-minute call-up to play tennis that evening. We played the doubles first - we were well beaten, 6-3 6-2, by a pairing who (unlike us) were competent at the net. I don't know what we could have done differently. While the doubles was a straightforward match, my singles was anything but. The very first game had nine deuces and pretty much set the scene for the rest of the match. I led 3-0 in the first set but really it was a much harder contest than that and it wasn't going to get any easier. The frame of my racket, which had a hairline fracture after coming into contact with various non-ball objects in the last two years, suddenly went "CRACK!" and I had no choice but to bring out the spare.

Changing rackets threw me a bit and I lost four games on the spin. I recovered to move within two points of the set at 5-4, 30-15 on my serve but my opponent played some excellent points to break me and I surrendered the set in a tight 12th game after nearly an hour. In the second set we carried on where we left off: long rallies, long games, my opponent hitting most of the winners while I tried desperately to hang in there. The winners I hit were generally on the run when he'd earlier dominated the rally. I won most of the big points in that set to win it 6-2, but it took a much greater physical toll on me than that score might suggest.

In the third set I was struggling. "Come on legs, move," but they wouldn't. From 1-1 I lost the next four games in ten minutes and it was surely all over. I then seemed to get a second wind, hit a couple of winners, and suddenly the match took on a different complexion. I still had a mountain to climb though and I had to rely on luck to some extent. He possessed most of the big shots and I sensed that if he really wanted to go for the jugular there was little I could have done to stop him. My legs were moving now, a lot, mostly a few feet behind the baseline, as I tried to chase down every ball. At least I was giving myself a chance. By 10:45 I was the winner, 7-5 in the final set. I never faced a match point although I was two points from defeat. I'm still not sure quite how I did it (I'm sure it involved a healthy portion of luck) but it goes to show that you should never give up.

Oh no (continued)

2011-02-04T11:43:00.000+13:00

So on Tuesday I flew down to Wellington for my interview. I'd done some preparation, but not much. The interview, near the top of one of Wellington's swankiest high-rise buildings, lasted almost an hour and a half. I was interrogated by a panel of three, so they were certainly taking the process seriously. It wasn't easy - in an interview that long, it's hard to disguise the fact that in nearly six years I did very little work of any substance. It's also hard to pretend that I want to do that line of work as a career, above anything else (in fact I didn't even try to pretend that). Most of my answers were pretty woolly. On balance I didn't perform badly, but I put my chances of being offered a job at about 10%. It would all depend on how desperate they were - if they were really desperate and the other applicants were really bad, I might have a chance. That's where the 10% came from.

I like Wellington. The city centre has a nice feel about it, in contrast to central Auckland which has very little feel at all, nice or otherwise. Tuesday was a lovely sunny day; that of course enhanced my impression of the place. After the interview I caught the bus to my cousin's house. It was good to see her - I've always got on pretty well with her. She and her husband have three boys, eight, six and two - they're all such good kids. During the night a storm sprung up. The house shook; sleep was decidedly difficult. The gale continued the next morning and it became very apparent why people joke about Wellington's inclement weather. About 300,000 people live there and they must all be nuts. In all seriousness, coming from the UK, the weather would be the least of my troubles. My biggest challenge would be lack of familiarity. I said Auckland doesn't have much "feel", but I've been here for seven years, know my way around (kind of!) and most importantly I've made some good friends in the last year or two. A couple of years ago moving would have been easier, but now could I possibly face having to start all over again?

I visited Te Papa on Wednesday morning - mostly the natural history section - and spent some time on Cuba Street, one of Wellington's more colourful areas. My cousin (who works from home as a patent attorney and earns roughly 5.4 squillion dollars a year) kindly took me to the airport and I arrived home around five.

On Thursday morning the company rang me. I fully expected (and, if I'm honest, hoped for) the big fat no. But no, it wasn't the big fat no. They wanted to check references and to see my degree certificate and exam results letters. Suddenly my chances had shot up to something like fifty-fifty. Could I really face actuarial work again, especially in a city I don't know? Later that morning I got another phone call, this time from a recruitment agency in Auckland who might have a temporary job for me, and then on Friday morning I got a call about another actuarial job that I'd basically forgotten I'd even applied for - I've got an interview (near the top of some big tower in Auckland I expect) scheduled for Tuesday week.

Applying for that job wasn't a pleasant experience. For a start they're a big company and they're Australian. I had to fill in this online application form but first I had to register with their site, or whatever, and pick a password. This was a reminder of everything I wanted to get away from when I left my last big job. The passwords for this site had to have three vowels, four consonants, two digits and a currency symbol, and at least two letters from each row of the keyboard. You couldn't use any letters from your name, your parents' names or your pets' names. Think these companies don't know your dog's name? Think again. They know everything about you. Worst of all, you had to change your password pretty much every time you logged in, and you couldn't use any of your last 48 passwords. Have I used dvu8a7$!Mkiq yet? Buggered if I know. Is it just me or are endless impossible-to-remember passwords a defining feature of the start of the third millennium?

Yesterday I played tennis. A lot of tennis. I turned up in time for a 1pm start but I had to wait nearly two hours to get on court: there were so many matches to finish, and they seemed destined never to finish. My partner in the men's match is getting on a bit (to put it mildly) but played at a very high standard back in the day. His name is on the honours board several times. He won his first club championship in (I think) 1961! The thing that really got me was how quick his thought processes were on the doubles court, especially at the net (where my thought processes are usually "oh shit"). It went without saying that I did most of the running. The very first game was an 18-point, one-ace, three-double-fault affair on my serve. We lost it from 40-love up and it seemed to confirm some of my feelings about tennis in recent times: that it's like pulling teeth, only not as quick, more painful and far less fun. That reminds me, I have to see the dentist on Tuesday. Bazza was watching our game from the sidelines. When we nosed in front for the first time, he said "if you stay ahead you'll be fine." Yes Bazza. If we never relinquish our lead at any stage, we'll probably win. But it wasn't to be. What made the difference in the end was the serve of one of our opponents. He was just warming up in the first set, but in the last two sets he was on fire. A dodgy line call at 3-all and deuce in the third set didn't help our cause, and at 5-4 we had to break Mr Impossible to stay in the match. They quickly moved to double match point, but he double-faulted, I got one of his big serves back and we somehow had a break point on his serve for the only time since the first set. We can still do this! Hmmm. Bam-bam-bam, we didn't get another return in, and it was all over, 4-6 6-4 6-4. A very good match though, I must say.

On to the mixed. Another match that could have gone either way. I'd never played with my partner before but she was a very consistent player. We just got there in the first set, 7-5 after falling behind early, but in the second set I got more and more frustrated with my inability to hold serve. "We go up 40-frigging-15 but every time I still lose my serve. What the *beep* am I supposed to do?!" At 4-5 down in the second it was my serve. I was still yet to win a service game; it was pretty remarkable that we still had a chance to win. Again we get to 40-frigging-15. Inevitably they get back to deuce. But, shock horror, we win the next two points for 5-5. We broke in the next game, and then my partner (who never lost a service game all match) staved off three break points and we won the match. It was a hot afternoon (and early evening - we finished at 6:45). The tennis was very attritional by doubles standards, but it felt quite satisfying when it was all over.

I'm about to meet up with some of the Asperger's group at Cornwall Park to celebrate Bob Marley's birthday, which is a national holiday here in New Zealand. Although this year it falls on a Sunday and people don't get a day off work for it. I'm sure there will still be that debate about whether the official Bob Marley flag (the name of which I can't pronounce) should fly on the Harbour Bridge. I'll be crossing that bridge very shortly so I'll find out whether that flag got the thumbs up.

Oh no

2011-02-04T11:12:00.000+13:00

When I gave up actuarial work at the end of 2009 I really wanted to do something else with my life. Now it seems I'm being dragged back in that direction whether I like it or not. And I don't like it.

Need a boost

2011-01-31T16:38:00.000+13:00

I'm flying down to Wellington for my interview tomorrow. You're supposed to be determined to succeed at job interviews, they're supposed to matter, but I'm really struggling to motivate myself. Today I had a look at the long list of questions that I made for my successful interview seven years ago. I got Mum to be interviewer and to randomly ask me questions from my list until we were both exhausted. I must have really wanted that job. Now I wonder where all that determination came from. I saw the doctor last week and we agreed to increase my dose of Efexor to 225 mg to hopefully put some much-needed oomph back into my life.

This afternoon I went into town to meet up with Richard and some of the others from the Asperger's group. It was a bit windy out there but it good to see everyone again. In fact it was good to see anyone. There was some sort of regatta on the water today for Auckland Anniversary Day as well as a display of aerobatics.

Last night I made the 45-minute trip to Papakura (it was quicker coming back) to see Bazza for the first time in several months and watch the tennis. As soon as I walked through the door, he took my blood pressure with his new gadget. Then I had to get on the scales. Thankfully I passed my warrant of fitness. Mr Fish and Chips has turned into a health freak all of a sudden! He took his own blood pressure three times (!) while I was there. I got back home at 1:30am.

Bazza talked quite a lot during the tennis. I didn't expect anything else I guess, and at least he's fairly knowledgeable about the game. Even after the first two games we had a pretty good idea of the likely outcome of the match. It seems to me that Murray works himself into a frenzy before a big final like this, sapping himself of energy before the match has even begun. When you're as emotionally worked up as I sensed he was, it's hard to think straight. Murray has a lot of variety but he kept playing Djokovic's game, trying to outhit his opponent from the baseline. His low first-serve percentage didn't help either. Djokovic in contrast seemed to be enjoying himself. I never knew quite how quick around the court he was; maybe it was his fancy shoes. It would have been nice to see Murray win, but unfortunately it wasn't to be. In the end I picked the winner of both finals even if my score predictions were miles out.

One final thing: I've had to produce five puzzles for an American company on the subject of ice hockey. This wasn't easy - my knowledge of ice hockey is (or was) almost non-existent except for all the fights they have - but it's amazing what you can do with Google.

Wellington and wet & windy Wilma

2011-01-29T20:23:00.000+13:00

So I was in Devonport on Thursday, about to pick up my medication and some bananas, wondering whether I should have broken my jack badugi, when my cell phone rang. I'll be flying down to Wellington on Tuesday for a job interview! Oh boy.

A couple of weeks ago I applied for an insurance job I saw on Seek. It was based in Wellington, doing the same sort of thing that I did in Auckland for nearly six years and was so glad to escape from. But what the hell. There's no harm in applying, right? So last Friday I got a call from one of the blokes I'd potentially be working with; we spoke for half an hour. I think I came across well over the phone; I did my best to sound knowledgeable but also as friendly as possible, using some typical Kiwi phrases like "mucking in", but I still thought the odds were against me getting an interview (although when I think about it a bit, it's a fairly specialised line of work).

Finding out that I would be having an interview sent me into a mad panic. Christ, I've been in Auckland for seven years, I've finally got used to the place, finally made some good friends, and now I might have to leave. I can't do that. And I'll have to do all that corporate shit again, and worst of all, exams. Should I even go for the interview?

Since then I've had a haircut and my suit dry-cleaned and have calmed down. In fact now I'm looking forward to the interview. Well not the interview itself if I'm honest, but visiting Wellington. I haven't been there since I drove from South Canterbury to Auckland to start my last big job in March 2004. The company are paying for my flights (good isn't it?); I'll be spending Tuesday night there and will head back the next day. My cousin lives in Wellington with her husband and three boys - I didn't think they'd particularly want a fourth, but apparently I'm OK to spend the night with them. From what I can tell I'll like Wellington - its compactness gives it a soul that Auckland badly lacks. But could I leave everything in Auckland behind? My friends and support networks? Love it or hate it, the tennis club? You can't underestimate how important friends are. Moving away from them would be a big deal.

I'm hopeless at interviews, especially competency-based ones like this will be. And of course they'll want to know about all my stunning achievements in my last job (Richard earlier emailed me with some good ideas for things to say there). The chances that I'll actually be offered the job are therefore pretty slim, so the problem of having to leave Auckland is one I'll face if and when I come to it.

Tomorrow I'll be going to Papakura to drop in on Bazza who I haven't seen in ages. We'll be watching the men's final of the Aussie Open - Djokovic against Murray. What an opportunity this is for Murray. Last night I fell asleep twice while listening to radio commentary of his hard-fought win over Ferrer. The women's final will be starting in a few minutes. Here are my predictions for the two finals:

Kim Clijsters to beat Li Na 6-4 6-4
Novak Djokovic to beat Andy Murray 6-3 7-6 4-6 7-5.

It's just as well those matches are played at night - it's forecast to be 40 degrees in Melbourne tomorrow. On this side of the Tasman we've been feeling the effects of Cyclone Wilma (great name, don't you think?). Water has leaked into my bathroom for the second weekend running, but compared to some people that's nothing.

It's not All Black

2011-01-26T10:06:00.000+13:00

I've just started reading John Kirwan's All Blacks Don't Cry which my parents bought me for Christmas. JK has done an absolutely brilliant job of raising the profile (and reducing the stigma) of depression in New Zealand. I've never particularly liked famous sportsmen using their celebrity status to push products, services or agendas, but in this case all the media exposure is to be applauded. Just as Blam Blam Blam didn't say, there's a lot of depression in this country. If one of the greatest ever All Blacks can have it there's no shame in you or I having it.

So far it's been interesting reading. Playing international rugby, and having mates who are all called by their surnames with a bonus O or Y added to the end, couldn't be further from the sort of life I led at that age. But my experiences of depression and anxiety were very similar. So similar in fact that reading his descriptions of panic attacks brought back memories from ten years ago that sent a shiver down my spine.

I'm quite good at remembering dates (though not as good as one particular member of the Asperger's group) and it was 18th April 2000 when I had my first panic attack, two days before my 20th birthday. It was the Easter holidays at university and I was staying with Gran in Houghton (Mum and Dad were living in Australia at the time). I was walking back to Houghton from St Ives, and about half a mile from Gran's place my heart started racing for no apparent reason and I struggled to breathe. I held onto a gate because I thought I might collapse. It was scary stuff. When I got back to Gran's I really felt knocked for six, but I gradually forgot about the incident. I then spent a few days at my aunt's place in Wales before going back to university. I had exams on my return to Birmingham and I was finding the study a real drag, but for those few days everything felt horrible. Grey, metallic, yuck. It perhaps doesn't help that a lot of Wales is grey: a lot of grey slate is used in buildings and walls, and the sky is grey most of the time. When Gran asked me what was wrong I said I wanted someone to shoot me. She then gave me a pill - Valium I think - which I happily took. At the time I didn't know I was depressed.

Fast forward to 15th March 2001. I was in Lyon for my third year of university and happened to be in the middle of a tennis match - the second round of a tournament. I lost the first set 6-2 but was 5-2 up in the second when - bam! - I was struck down again. My heart raced, I couldn't feel my limbs, I was short of breath and totally disorientated. I hung on grimly to the fence, sat down for a bit, then stupidly carried on playing. I staggered on for a few more games, losing in a tie-break. I've had a bit of a love-hate relationship with tennis ever since. Thinking I had a serious heart problem I called the doctor late that night. She gave me an ECG test and everything was fine. I spoke to Dad on the phone and he suggested panic attacks - I instantly rejected that idea because, well, I wasn't panicking about anything. I spent the next four days in my room, then went to hospital to get more tests done. Blood tests, X-rays and heaven knows what else. Nothing showed up. I had more "episodes" and more of those horrible grey spells that lasted three or four days. I was worried and confused.

In June I moved back to the UK and I'd pretty much forgotten about my weird episodes until they returned with a vengeance. On 9th July 2001 - the day that Goran Ivanisevic won Wimbledon in that classic Monday final - I had a two-hour panic attack (although I still didn't know that's what it was). I was utterly convinced I was going to die. Unlike my previous shorter attacks which I got over fairly quickly, this one took over my life. For the next few weeks I slept an average of five hours a day, while for the other nineteen I thought of nothing but death. For three weeks I held down a job packing mobile phones into boxes but I never went out of the house for any other reason - I was too scared to. At work I was standing up the whole time and expected to topple over at any moment; eventually I quit.

I was called up to play interclub tennis. In Mum's words, "it'll do you good". Two men's doubles matches. How would I possibly cope? That day it rained. Surely I won't have to play. But the courts dried up just enough and play I did. Nothing seemed real. Was it some strange dream? I'm pretty sure we lost badly in the first match, but all I remember was the very appropriate Slade song Mama Weer All Crazee Now stuck on a loop inside my head. Early in the second match I decided I couldn't go on. Nobody at the club seemed to mind this and I got a lift home. "That was quick," Mum said. "How did it go?" When I told her, she was incredulous. "You what? They'll never invite you to play again." As if I cared about that!

I'll admit that quitting the match was embarrassing though. It's not something I'd ever done before. I soon developed agoraphobia, which meant quitting anything that took place outside the house. I knew I couldn't go on like that. I had to back to university in seven weeks - how could I do that if I couldn't even leave the house by myself? I rang the doctor. I laughed uncontrollably during my appointment (this has happened to me more recently as well). "I'm worried I might lose it," I said. "You're already losing it," was his reply. He diagnosed panic attacks, gave me beta-blockers and some white pills called Citalopram, and said that in seven weeks I'd be fine.

The pills didn't kick in instantly. I started to hallucinate and became very sensitive to light and noise. Supermarkets were a no-go area. But my doctor was right. When it was time to go back to Birmingham, I was fine. OK, I felt tired a lot of the time, and still had the odd panic attack, but crucially I now knew what they were and I wasn't in constant fear of the next one. I actually felt considerably better than I did before I had the panic attacks (John Kirwan said something similar). For the first time in a long time I was happy in my own skin.

For once I wasn't ashamed of just being me. Between September 2001 and June 2002 I can honestly say I was happy. I knuckled down, studied hard, and came out with a good degree, thinking I'd killed off the depression beast for ever. As I was to learn later, perhaps you never quite do.

Isner–Mahut all over again?

2011-01-23T21:54:00.000+13:00

Mum said she'll ring me at the end of the match between Kuznetsova and Schiavone at the Aussie Open. When that will be is anyone's guess. They're currently locked at 14-all and deuce in the third set, making this the second longest women's match ever. Schiavone earlier saved a whole bunch of match points.

Update: Schiavone has just broken and will serve for the match. Again. This is crazy stuff.

Update 2: She was love-30 down in that game but Schiavone did it! 16-14. I'm Skyless by the way, so I've just been relying on live scoring and speed-of-serve data. It looked like Schiavone was just popping her second serve in, not that I can blame her after 4½ hours. And if any of you think that was the longest professional women's match ever, you're wrong.

Real people - not so scary after all

2011-01-17T13:56:00.000+13:00

Yesterday I really didn't want to leave the flat. I'd already agreed to play tennis with Andy at 4pm though so I didn't have a lot of choice. I'm so glad I did venture outside - the tennis did both of us good I think, even if we were both sweating like pigs at the end. We might try and fix up another encounter for next weekend. I had a quick dip in the sea after the game and then drove to Remuera to celebrate Richard's birthday. Five of us turned up; this made for quite a relaxing evening. Richard made a pasta dish and the rest of us contributed something for dessert. The second half of yesterday confirmed what I already knew: when you're not feeling great, leaving the house and making contact with other living, breathing humans (even though you really don't want to) can often be the best thing.

On Saturday I attended the monthly autism social group. Due to the time of year only fifteen or so turned up, so for a change we were able to hear ourselves think. The social group is a wonderful way for people with autism to get to know one another, but when attendances are at their normal levels it can become an acoustic nightmare - difficult to contend with even if you don't have the condition. The smaller numbers made the afternoon virtually stress-free for me; as usual there were some interesting topics of conversation. I got a surprise phone call from a recruitment agency in the middle of the session - it seemed unusual to get one in the weekend, so for a few brief seconds I got excited, thinking they might have a job for me (did I use the word excited there?) - sadly it wasn't to be.

My two potential flatmates (Richard and a female member of the autism group) have ramped up their flat-finding efforts. Both of them are currently in less than ideal arrangements and would move into a new flat last Tuesday given the choice. I also want to make the move (I'm paying over the odds for this place and I've lived on my own for too long already) but for me the urgency isn't quite the same. I've lived on the Shore for nearly seven years and have got pretty used to it over that time, so for me it's a case of crossing the Harbour Bridge when I come to it. I spoke to Mum on Friday - she said I need to find a job before I even think about finding a flat, and (how often can I say this?) I wholeheartedly agreed with her. Not many agencies or landlords will take you on if you're not working and I'd rather not have to lie on their forms. Besides, having work gives you many more options.

This morning I went to a WINZ seminar. They're always fun (!) but this time something had changed. Normally the League of Gentlemen job centre sketch (click here for the hilarious and cringeworthy YouTube clip) isn't far from reality, but today you could tell that some of the people in attendance actually wanted work. Three years ago the Devonport-Takapuna-Milford area had an unemployment rate close to zero; that's far from the case now. The bloke running the workshop didn't stop talking; this became annoying but he did make one salient point: you can reply to as many ads and be on the books of as many agencies as you like but unless you know people it'll be tough. An inability to build relationships with people has been my downfall all along.

Comfortably numb

2011-01-16T12:51:00.000+13:00

According to Andy, the Pink Floyd song Comfortably Numb is about someone with a mental health problem who sees a psychiatrist, gets put on some medication, and is "fixed" (i.e. isn't depressed any more) but is no longer the same person ("this is not how I am"). I don't know whether his explanation is correct but it fits the lyrics and general feel of the song. I've heard that song - and other Pink Floyd stuff - a lot since I've lived in New Zealand. For some reason they're bigger here than in their homeland - ask a man on the street in a British town to name three Pink Floyd songs and he'll probably say, "Another Brick In The Wall, and, er ... there was more than one? Sorry, I don't know." Another UK group who are more well known here than in their mother country is Supertramp. I bought their greatest hits album last week. For some reason I like all that progressive stuff and I'm not sure why.

Back to the point. Comfortably numb is pretty much what I've become of late. I don't know whether I can totally blame the Efexor but I'm sure it's a factor. I remember when I used to be excited about things, passionate, enthusiastic, but those days are just about gone. Living by myself isn't helping either - more about that in my next post, whenever that is.

And no, the depression hasn't totally gone away either, despite what the subtitle of this blog says. I'm playing tennis with Andy in about an hour and then going over to Remuera to celebrate Richard's birthday. Of course I want to celebrate Richard's birthday but it's stinking hot, I hardly slept last night and I'd be quite happy just staying here and not seeing anybody.

Cryptic crossword

2011-01-15T11:33:00.001+13:00

Last month I had a cryptic crossword published in my local mental health service newsletter. I meant to post it a couple of weeks ago but posting files (other than images) on Blogger seems an impossible task. What you can do however is save them in a remote location on the web and post a link to the location here. So if you want to see my cryptic crossword (and who knows, print it out and try it), click here. And here's a sneak peek of what you're letting yourself into:

Have fun!

Views from the South

2011-01-07T15:25:00.000+13:00

I'm back in Auckland now; I flew up on Tuesday. My flight was hassle-free, as was the bus to the ferry terminal which got me there just in time for the 10:30 ferry. Except there was no 10:30 ferry, or any ferry at all for that matter. It never occurred to me that it was a public holiday, and anyway I thought the 10:30 ferry ran every day, public holiday or not. At least that's what my timetable says, but since when could you trust those? I was lucky enough to find a bus to Takapuna, but then I had no choice but to blow $20 on a taxi.

Nothing happened on New Year's Eve - I thought we'd go to the Caroline Bay carnival but we did that on Sunday instead. We watched the concert - the star attraction was Suzanne Prentice, supposedly some world-famous-in-New Zealand country and western singer. She didn't do it for me. The concert was hardly Gorillaz material, but hey it was free. From the concert we had a few goes on the chocolate wheel, paying for the dream of winning a box of chocolate, for we never looked like actually doing so. For some reason, out of all the games and side shows, people tend to gravitate to the chocolate wheel - it's the Texas hold 'em of the carnival. I also tried my hand at the darts game - I did hit one of the potential money-spinning black stars, only to reveal a "sorry mate, you haven't won" ticket. I like the carnival though. This was the 100th edition of it; they continue to make good use of the money people lose chasing chocolate-coated dreams.

On Monday I played nine holes of golf with Mum - this was her first hit-out since her back started giving her trouble. The pain had subsided so she risked a half-round and thankfully the pain didn't come back. Golf differs from most other sports in that (as far as I can see) tactics don't play a huge part. That's not to say I don't think mental strength is important (in fact I think it's vitally important), but it's rare that you say, hmmm, which way should I aim it this time? It seems that all players are trying to do the same thing with the ball, just that some execute it much better than others. I'd also say that natural talent plays a bigger part in golf than it does in, say, tennis. I've had a lot of wins over more naturally gifted opponents in tennis just by chasing down balls and staying in points. Such a concept doesn't exist in golf. Talking of natural talent in that game, I don't think I've got the necessary amount of it. I hit some nice drives and made five semi-respectable double bogeys, but I also ran up a nine on a par-four, not to mention one hole where I got mired in a bunker and gave up.

On the way to the airport on Tuesday we popped in to see one of my cousins (probably my favourite cousin) who lives in Christchurch with her husband and 11-month-old daughter (whom I'd only previously seen in photos). Then I hopped on the plane and it was back up here again to begin the Long Job Search. It was good to see Mum and Dad, and I was sad to leave them behind at the airport. It was also good to see some of my extended family again, even if conversation became hard (or impossible) at times. Much of the conversation was simply gossip about people in the local area, and Dad and I, who haven't lived there since childhood, were automatically excluded. At least I don't live there all the time. Dad, who does, feels understandably left out. In fact he feels totally marooned in Geraldine - he's too far away from everything and has little in common with the people there. I would say in 2005 and '06 this put him on the verge of depression; more recently he's come to (dare I say) accept his fate. With the current economy he's struggling to sell paintings, and although my parents are comfortably off I feel sorry for Dad.

I don't know when I'll be down there next. Hopefully it won't be too long until I am. My brother plans to come over at Easter, so if and when he gets his A into G and books a ticket (you never know with him) I'll grab a seat to Christchurch.