Rolf Harris and cracking stats

Rolf Harris. He was on telly all the time when I was a kid. I remember him most from Cartoon Time when he did all those drawings in between clips. In 1993 he did his cover of Stairway to Heaven, complete with wobble board, which was rather good (and at the time I didn't even realise it was a cover!). All in all, I thought he was a jolly good Aussie bloke. Now, at age 84, he's been convicted of indecent assault on girls as young as seven, and he's likely to die in prison. You do that sort of crime, you do the time, even if you're 84. But it's worth remembering that it was a different world in the sixties and seventies. Since the scandal surrounding Jimmy Savile (he was also on TV all the time when I was small, and he seemed like a very dodgy bugger to me even then), several of these celebrity sex abuse cases have come to light, and we need to be a bit careful before imposing today's standards on events that happened decades ago.

Kevin likes to talk about his past. He recently talked about a time his girlfriend was stoned and almost burnt the house down by leaving a pan on the stove in the middle of the night, with two kids under two asleep. They didn't have smoke alarms. Apparently he wasn't stoned on that particular occasion, and he rescued his girlfriend and kids from the smoke and flames. He thinks he's a hero - "no-one gives me credit for saving those kids' lives" - and I tried to play down his hero status. At 22, and mentally a lot less, he was nowhere near ready to bring up a family, and neither was she. Sadly, he hardly sees his son and daughter from one year to the next.

I've started reading Quicksilver, the Neal Stephenson book that I borrowed from Tracy. She might be waiting a while for it. I have a feeling it'll be too clever for me. I finished Angela's Ashes which had the effect of making me realise I'm alive, and living with Kevin isn't all that bad. It really was miserable stuff. It also made me think what an amazing thing (from a food point of view) an egg is. You hear about super foods quite a lot; an egg is pretty much the ultimate super food. So many ways to cook them, and they're good for you (if you happen to ignore the dirty C-word). I ate two eggs a day during my one-month paleo experiment last October, and it hasn't done me any harm yet.

We're down to the last eight in the World Cup, and the classic matches keep coming. All eight group winners made it to the quarter-finals - I guess not many of the fancied teams finished second in their groups: they either went through as group winners or, in the case of Spain, Portugal and Italy, went home altogether. Five of the quarter-finalists required extra time, and two also needed penalties. The last three matches all went to an extra half-hour; those games were all goalless in normal time, but featured a whopping seven goals between them in extra time. All eight teams who played in Manaus, and therefore clocked up the air miles, have been knocked out. One of those was the USA, who were glorious in their extra-time loss to Belgium. Or at least I hope that the concept of a glorious defeat exists in American society.

What I hope the semi-final line-up will be: Colombia v Germany, Holland v Belgium.

Diving - probably my biggest hate in World Cup football - was the hot topic this week as Robben "won" that last-minute penalty against Mexico. A part of me thinks, wow, hats off to him for getting away with it, especially when it's someone that fun to watch, a bit like my admiration for an loose-aggressive poker player pulling off a crazy bluff. But there's one key difference - bluffing is a perfectly legitimate play in poker (indeed it's part of the essence of the game); diving to win a free kick or penalty is cheating.

I've been reading a few articles on FiveThirtyEight.com. It's an American site, most famous for Nate Silver's very accurate US election predictions. But it also covers sport, economics, social policy, whether we'll soon be paying to use the loo on flights... Most impressive is their analysis of footballer Lionel Messi - with all those charts and graphs, you get to see how, um, off-the-charts, this little man is. It's good to see some proper football stats for a change. People have this idea that stats don't "work" in football. Bollocks to that, basically, even if it's harder to quantitatively analyse football than cricket or tennis. Which brings me to Wimbledon. A lot has happened. Nick Kyrgios saved all those match points against Gasquet, then caused a huge shock in beating Nadal. Then Andy Murray got beaten today. Serena Williams hasn't been far from the headlines in the women's. But I haven't watched any of it and have only taken a passing interest really. With the World Cup and having a flatmate, something has to give.

Today was a crisp, sunny, South Island kind of day.

Part two of the fruit series

In this episode (!) we talk about satsumas. I’ve eaten two today – it’s hard to eat just one. Of course people don’t use the word satsuma over here, which is a shame, because it sounds so squishy and juicy when you say it. Mandarin, which is the preferred term in NZ, doesn’t quite have the same effect. Around Christmas time in the UK, we ate boxes of the things. My brother was the biggest satsuma consumer – he’d usually eat the peel too – and we’d all know about it afterwards (and promptly vacate the room). Because they’re so easy to peel, and divide nicely into segments, they’re great for kids. They’re obviously firmly cemented in British society, for there exists a football team, some way down the pyramid, who play in orange and are known as the Satsumas. Here’s one of their match reports from 2000, written in Comic Sans; it makes following a non-league team sound way more fun than supporting Man City or Chelsea or whoever. (There are also at least two teams known as the Tangerines, but that nickname doesn’t have nearly the same level of awesomeness.) Click here for the post about persimmons. I don't expect this fruit series to last very long.

That leads me on to the World Cup (again, I know). During a dull moment at work (there have been quite a few of those lately) I was following the final matches of Group C. Colombia had already qualified for the next round, leaving one of the Ivory Coast, Japan and Greece to take the second spot. I would have been happy with either Japan or the Ivory Coast making it, but please not Greece. Colombia were beating Japan comfortably, so the match between the Ivory Coast and Greece was a straight shoot-out. The African side just needed a draw; the Greeks had to win. With the score at 1-1, Greece were awarded a last-minute penalty which they duly converted to book their place in the last 16 at the expense of the Ivory Coasters. Greece managed to qualify despite scoring only two goals in their group games and letting in four – the same record as England, who finished bottom of their group. I don’t know what makes Greece so unlikable in football, but whatever it is, they won’t care. Talking of unlikable, Luis Suarez should get a very long ban, if not a lifetime ban, for biting that Italian player, if that's actually what happened.

My flatmate had a check-up yesterday on his backside. He found out that he has an anal fistula and will need more surgery. He wasn’t in a good mood when I got home. I do feel sorry for him sometimes. “Fistula” is a nasty word, isn’t it? It’s the same length as “satsuma” and even has some of the same letters, but somehow it sits right at the other end of the word-niceness spectrum. I guess the meaning probably doesn’t help.

Joe Bennett has written a couple of interesting pieces lately. There's this one about multinational companies and the people who "work" at them, and this one about those extremely unhelpful people you get at information desks at UK railway stations. Oh god. Why are they always so deadpan? I still remember a few years ago asking someone at Leicester when the next train to Peterborough was. She wasn't far off the computer-says-no woman on Little Britain. "Twenty-one twenty-four," she said, or whatever it was. What? That's over three hours away! At least look like you give a damn that I'll be stuck in this hole for ages. By contrast I found the Italian information-desk people, usually women, to be very helpful, even though my Italian wasn't exactly brilliant. Train travel was a lot cheaper in Italy too.

Mum only found out on Monday night that her brother had died. I'm surprised it took them that long to get to a computer, even in a fairly remote part of the Dordogne, as they knew he was in a bad way. According to Dad she was beside herself, as you can imagine. I still wish I'd gone to the funeral.

The simple things...

May - the Month of the Persimmon - is over, which means it's four months since Kevin arrived. I've eaten more of the sweet orange fruit in the last month than ever before. In fact I'd never had one before I moved to NZ. I cut them into four and usually (but not always) scoop them out with a spoon. Before coming to NZ I'd imagined "persimmon" was pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, but here they put the accent on the first.

Yesterday was the first day of winter, but you wouldn't have known it. What an absolutely stunning day it was. I didn't need anybody else to be able to appreciate it. This is what the beach at Seatoun looked like:

When I was in a café at Seatoun I saw an article in the paper about the popularity of retro technology with young people. Cassettes, typewriters, Polaroid cameras... fair enough, they've all been replaced by something (I guess) better. You can get digital Polaroids now. But wristwatches? Seriously? The clock on your mobile phone isn't an adequate replacement in my view.

For some reason that article made me think of teletext. It's well and truly been supplanted by the internet, but it was cutting-edge in its day and very convenient. There was none of the double screening that people resort to now. The BBC's version of teletext was called Ceefax and started way back in the mid-seventies, though its heyday was the eighties and nineties. I still remember some of the page numbers now - football was 302 and it was update minute-by-minute during games; the exchange rates were on 241, Mum's favourite page. The 400s were the weather pages, famous for the pixellated Lego-like maps. There were even games you could play, one of which was called Bamboozle. Sometimes a "page" was in fact many pages, and I'd have a knack for getting page 17 out of 21, when I really needed page 16, which meant I'd have to wait maybe ten minutes for it roll all the way back round. But back then I usually had a spare ten minutes. My grandma got a teletext-enabled TV long before we did (we were always a long way behind with technology) and for my eighth birthday she arranged a "happy birthday" message to be displayed for me on Oracle, ITV's teletext service. I miss teletext - there was something comforting about it (there was a real person on the other end), and it's a reminder of a simpler time. It went for good in late 2012, at the final switchover to digital TV.

As I said, yesterday was such a nice day that I didn't want it spoiled by any people, but as promised I saw Julie at her rest home. She did her best to spoil the day and make sure I absolutely never ever see her again, but I said I'd try and find some serviced apartments for her to move to, and that improved matters. She needs to get out of that place fast.

With it being a holiday, the autism group didn't run today. Instead they ran a games afternoon. We played Upwords and Bananagrams and other similar games - more up my street than some of the stuff I've been playing lately.

No weigh!

I stepped on the scales this morning and, wow, I lost six pounds on this life-changing diet. I'd clearly lost some weight - I've got less of a pot, just one chin, and less hamstery cheeks than I had a month ago - but I wouldn't have guessed I'd now be just eleven stone four. (I'm pretty au fait with kay-gees these days, but I prefer to weigh myself in imperial, if I do so at all.)

I've started using my iPod at work. The whole environment is far too distracting for me, except when my boss is away, then I can just about concentrate. My boss is very outgoing, and recently she's brought in some new people who (naturally) have a similar personality type, and from my point of view that hasn't helped. There are only two of us doing my role now, when once there were five, and while the overall workload has reduced, it's by nowhere near 60%. My colleague was off sick for three days last week, and guess what, we're now snowed under. My boss ensured me that we'd get some help from somewhere at some point but I don't believe her. (Probably the best thing about my job is that I do get on really well with my only "proper" team-mate.)

Every third month the contact centre people get a cash incentive if they take no sick leave in that calendar month. It's all or nothing - one sick hour and you don't get it. They brought it in a couple of years ago, when people were off sick a lot. If you ask me, incentivising on an all-or-nothing basis is a bad idea full stop, but this sick-leave incentive is seriously crazy. Whoever thought it up (who might that have been?) didn't think through the consequences at all. Last Friday was the first of the month, a sick-incentive month. Some of the contact centre people went over to their boss (who is also my boss) and made their opinions on the sick incentive known, but she was having none of it. She refused to even acknowledge that they had a point.

At this time of year, as the Christmas function looms darkly, I always think, surely I won't still be working here in another year?

About ten days ago there was a post in the Guardian about the growing inequality between London and the South East, and the rest of the UK. Someone made this comment:
Great Britain is a land of opportunity.
Inequality might be higher than ever before...but so is the reward.
Play smart, take a risk, and above all, work hard...and anyone can be successful.

I've seen this argument before: greater inequality is a good thing because it means wealth is distributed more fairly!

My dad was in a pretty bad way during and after his flight, but is a lot better now.

Tapering off and feeling better

I'm still feeling better. I've now reduced my Efexor to 37.5 mg a day - ten per cent of what I was on early last year - and hopefully when I come off it completely on 1st January I'll stop feeling (un)comfortably numb. (I heard that song on the radio this morning.)

So life has become more palatable all of a sudden. Work is an example of this - so much of what goes on there is (for me) excretory, but last week it didn't get me down too much. Yes, it's all shitty but it's got little to do with me. As an aside, it's interesting that I cope with work by minimising its importance, while some people - especially managers - vastly overestimate the importance of their roles, and perhaps that's a coping mechanism too. Another sign of my improvement was when I went to the gym today - I had no problems doing 500 pulls on that machine; in my depressed state I'd be flagging after 150 or so.

It's day 29 of my 30-day almost-no-carb diet experiment. Since I started I haven't eaten a single potato, nor a grain of rice, nor a strand of pasta, and I've hardly touched dairy. I've had maybe three or four bowls of cereal. A colleague felt sorry for me (even though I never mentioned my diet) and bought me a Boston bun and a sausage roll. I was cursing under my breath but I enjoyed them. A lot. I've drunk alcohol on two occasions, both times with my cousin. On the flip side I've eaten heaps of meat (mostly beef), a fair amount of fish, precisely 58 eggs, several bowls of fruit and bucketloads of vegetables. It's really interesting to see what happens to your pee when you eat a lot of asparagus. Or beetroot. Or both. (There's a technical term for beetroot-tainted pee - it's called beeturia, which is surely a made-up word.)

I'm still unconvinced about this diet, but it's got me thinking about food a lot more, and operating on autopilot a lot less. On Tuesday, when my experiment is over (I'll weigh myself then just for curiosity's sake), I won't revert to my previous diet entirely. I'll certainly try not to eat so many carbs. On the subject of food, here's an article about the shocking amount of food that is wasted in the UK. I doubt things are much better in NZ.

This article in the Herald made me want to go back to Birmingham. The university (the one I went to) is mentioned as one of the city's highlights. Birmingham has come on a long way for sure, even since I got to know the place in 1998.

Programming an Android app. Oh god. I tried to follow the tutorial provided by Android themselves. This will be self-explanatory right? They want people to make as many lots of apps so they can make lots of money, so it's bound to be simple. Um, no (except the bit about an "activity" - I understood that at least). I downloaded a free e-book that I thought might be useful. The introductory chapter told me in no uncertain terms not to think of programming an app (or reading the rest of the book!) until I know about Java. Apart from landing in Jakarta a few times I know nothing about Java, so that might be a good starting point. I'll take a book or two out of the library tomorrow. This will be a long hard slog.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a good read, but I don't think I'll try the other two books in the series. The Swedish language would be interesting to learn, not for any real practical purpose, but just because it looks like a cool language. It's rich in "strong" consonants like B, hard G, K, M and V, giving rise to such words as bekväm.

I spent some time (not too long) working out the probabilities for dice rolls in Risk. I know you can find the figures all over the internet, but to really understand what's going on you need to derive them. The 3v2 case (attacker rolls three, defender rolls two) is the most interesting. It seems obvious now, but when we played on Monday I didn't appreciate that, when you roll three dice, 6-5-5 and 6-5-1 are essentially the same thing (6-5-5 looks more impressive). They're both 6-5, which is actually the most likely of the 21 distinct outcomes (you'll roll that combination one time in eight). Once you've worked out the odds for a single attack you can then extend that to predict the likely outcome of an entire battle. There are some other things that seem obvious now but didn't at the time - if you own a continent, you don't necessarily have to fortify the inside borders of the continent; the territories just outside are just as good (or perhaps better, since you prevent your opponent from gaining control of the bordering continent).

I emailed Martin on Friday to say that if he wants to move in, drums are a definite no. I felt a bit bad - I wanted to encourage him to get back to his music, and I think that playing the drums well takes a great deal of skill. He hasn't got back to me yet.

Red card

I was in two minds over whether to attend Monday night's autism group, and before long I was wishing I'd stayed away. The bloke I'd previously likened to Gollum, who calls himself Mr Ronald, had a habit of taking more than his fair share of biscuits and chips. On Monday the rotund chap with the braces (I think I've mentioned him before too) had had enough of this ("take the whole fucking lot then") and things quickly got out of hand. Mr Ronald became very aggressive. Other people weighed in, a red Snapper card was brandished, and food went flying. We only had one facilitator instead of the normal three; I tried to back her up but others did the opposite. In the end Mr Ronald did get shown the proverbial red card and was told to leave. I didn't want to make a big deal of the food thing - I've seen it many times before, from Bazza and others. Hoovering up food seems to be a very common trait among autistic people. But the bloke in the braces made a really big deal of it. I'm happy that these kinds of things are pointed out, but he wants the whole meeting to be a teaching mechanism so that people can cope with the big bad outside world. That's not what I want, and if it turns into that I'll stop coming.

On Sunday I played badminton. It was less organised than previous sessions - we didn't have points tallies or anything of that sort. One guy was keen to play a game of singles with me - I felt a bit bad as I beat him 21-4. He was starting a new job, in the mental health sector, the next day. Some (most?) of the people there preferred chatting to playing. It was suggested that I do a squash meet-up at my apartment block. I'll probably arrange that in a month or so.

I hadn't been back long when Martin came over. He showed some interest in flatting here but nothing definitive. If he does move in he'll be bringing his guitar and drum kit. I can't imagine the guitar will be an issue for neighbours but as for the drums, if the darts are anything to go by...

An old colleague from Auckland has just started at my workplace. I didn't like him much (he just seemed, um, not very nice) but people can change a lot in four years and anyway he'll be working 24 floors above me so I won't see much of him. He played competitive badminton at a good level and would surely beat me 21-0.

I'm lacking in energy so often. I'm going to get my thyroid checked just in case.

The only way is up

Saturday's tramp was every bit as exhausting as expected, but I felt so much better for it. We did a loop, walking to the top of Kapakapanui the steep way, and coming back down the not-so-steep (but plenty steep enough for me) way. Only four of us did the walk, if you can call it that because all four limbs were required. The summit was at an altitude of 1100 metres, a 960-metre climb from the starting point. We waded through a stream at the beginning; I quickly felt out of my depth. I'd expended a lot of nervous energy in the previous two days and that probably didn't help. This was the steepest part of the track. My heart was pounding and I struggled to keep up; the leader put me at the front. After that I kept up a decent pace, with The Only Way Is Up playing in my head. We saw four mountain goats including a baby one (a kid of course). It felt good to reach the top. The low cloud meant we couldn't see a thing up there, certainly not the amazing view you get in the brochure.
We had lunch up there and gradually made our way down, stopping briefly at a DOC hut. It wasn't an easy descent - it was extremely muddy and slippery. Just as I could feel my feet warming up, they were back in the cold water: we crossed the stream nine times at the bottom. I felt pretty good at the end - I could do with this sort of workout more often.


I did the driving - about an hour each way. As I said before, I get nervous when I'm carrying multiple passengers because it's something I rarely do, and I always think I'm being judged. I shouldn't have been too worried on Saturday - everybody was nicely subdued. My car is more suited to this kind of driving than what I normally do around the city. When I lived in Auckland I went on long drives at the weekends all the time, but that's when I was younger and didn't have to worry about money so much (isn't it supposed to work the other way?).

On Friday we had our after-work boat trip. My stomach had been churning and I'd made regular trips to the loo - I'd been dreading it, not the boat bit but the people bit. The boat was quite a majestic catamaran that our company had chartered. There were two resident dogs - a Dalmatian and a Japanese Spitz. The sea was almost totally calm, making for a very pleasant trip out to Somes Island and back. One of my colleagues, we found out, lived on a boat for five years. “And now I’m working for …” She prefixed the name of the company with "effing". It's always interesting talking to her. Unlike some people in her role (taking calls from customers) she hasn't been institutionalised by working for an insurance company. The people bit, yes, that was hard work, as was the bit where they gave out awards for amazing this or awesome that. One award was a monetary prize for getting the most points (how you get points I don't really know). The woman who received the most points, by a mile, had just left the company, and there was a tie for second place. How did they resolve that? By splitting it 50:50 (money is good like that - it splits easily)? No, by tossing a coin. When we got back on land, some people continued their evening in a bar. It was nice having the next morning's tramp as a valid excuse - I got home around eleven.

Yesterday morning I rang Dad - he's in the UK until the end of the month, sorting out furniture for their latest flat. My brother was out. His mood has lifted immeasurably since he got back to England. He still has a short temper though - it's a trait he's got from Mum's side of the family. Dad and I agreed that would be nice if he could curb that, but if it's in your genes what can you do?

After hobbling to the market to buy all the vegetables and eggs I'll now be eating, Martin came over. I asked him if he'd be interested in flatting with me. He has a guitar and a drum kit, as well as a record player and a selection of vinyl. He's had to leave most of that at his parents' place for lack of space at his current flat - I said he'd be welcome to keep it here. I offered him $190 a week and I'll see what happens. We talked about our relationships with our parents. He said he never got much affection from his mother and could never hug her now - it would just be "really awkward". Wow, that's sad.

It's day two of my new diet and I've already transgressed. A glass of wine at my cousin's place last night, a chocolate chip cookie tonight, milk in my tea and coffee at work when I just wasn't thinking. Bacon and eggs for breakfast is something I could easily get used to though. I posted a comment on whole9life.com, talking about the challenges of a strict exclusion diet when you're depressed, and my slight skepticism of the regime. I got a helpful reply, but then the topic vanished and I could no longer log in. I thought for a minute I'd been banned and IP-blocked for speaking out of turn, but no, there were problems with the site. In conjunction with the diet (or my feeble attempt at it), I'm still weaning off Efexor. On 1st October I dropped to 75 mg.

Tracy and Tom came over last Monday night to play board games. We played a rather good co-operative game where you had to recover the parts of a plane to fly out of a desert before you die of thirst or get buried by a sandstorm. It came right down to the last card - make or break - and unfortunately for us it was break. The game was good but the best part of the evening was the chat.

I've felt two earthquakes in the last week - at about 5:30am on Wednesday (an awkward time) and 7:30am yesterday.

I've yet to vote in the local elections, not because I don't care, but because I have no clue who to vote for. I only know of two of the candidates, and I don't think name recognition is a very good basis for casting a vote. Oh, and I'm fed up with those billboards that mention "reviving" Wellington. It isn't dying!

The too-hard (food) basket

After two good days (by my standards) at work, I crashed again on Friday. No energy at all. I also had a lot of sinus pain. At least it was Friday. Finding out that next Friday night's six-monthly awards dinner/party will be held on a moving boat didn't help either. The desirability to me of any work event is dictated by how easy it is to escape. Plus I've signed up for quite a hard tramp, starting early on Saturday, and the last thing I need is a hangover.

I'm skeptical about this paleo diet which I haven't yet started. My "different" doctor had these five words to say about it: "It will change your life." Well yes, not being able to eat such basic foods as grain or even most types of potato is life-changing. What makes it so hard for me is the very reason my doctor suggested I follow the diet: my depression, which makes everything take longer, which means I can't afford to spend extra time on food preparation (which might mean I'm half an hour late for work). Also how am I supposed to explain the reasons for my diet to other people? It's very strict, and even if you've followed the rules to the letter for 29 days out of 30, you're deemed to have failed. I don't understand this: we're not talking about smoking here. Still, I haven't dismissed the idea entirely, and I plan to make a start next weekend (this will mean my 30 days include five weekends; it's much easier for me to control my diet when I'm not going to work).

On Friday's Millionaire Hot Seat (yes I watched that rubbish again), one contestant mentioned an autistic relative, saying that autism "is a disease with no cure". He wouldn't win any prizes for political correctness with that comment. Although to be fair, if you think about where the word "disease" comes from, autism makes life hard enough to certainly be a dis-ease. This morning's Attitude programme was devoted to Jimmy, a 22-year-old member of the Auckland group who I briefly met last week. You can instantly tell that he's on the spectrum. His big passion is films, and (all credit to him) he was keen to find work. He got a voluntary job at the Auckland Film Festival, ushering people to their seats in his typically brusque style. "Today I want you to smile," he was told. He then repeatedly got lost as he delivered flyers to shops and cafés. Jimmy's 18-year-old brother also has Asperger's; their mother said it was hard talking about her sons and having to explain everything. Their dad seemed quite outgoing and had a very good sense of humour.

It's that abrupt way of talking that I find most off-putting when I meet people on the spectrum. Tom was like that when I first got to know him. It was almost like talking to a robot. He's improved a lot in the last few months.

Yesterday I met Phil at the Café Breton in town. He was staying in Wellington for the weekend. I didn't mention that I was in Auckland last weekend (he might have thought I didn't care about him); he told me all about the big storm which I pretended not to know much about. The café was run by people from Brittany (hence the name) and I ordered my crêpe in French. It was close to the TSB Arena where the WOW (World of WearableArt) show was happening. It's the second-largest event in Wellington's calendar. There were crowds of people, mostly women in their late forties or older. That's a very different demographic to the one attracted to Wellington's biggest annual event. Phil talked about his struggle to buy property in the crazy Auckland market. He recently went to an auction for a place numbered 44 (that's "double death" in Chinese so he thought he might have stood a chance) but the bids got so high that he didn't even stay till the end. It sounded like my experiences in 2009, with an added $150,000 or so. As I sat at a café in central Auckland last weekend, I saw someone poring over the Chinese version of the Property Press (I didn't know that existed) and making phone calls. It's time they put a stop to foreign property ownership in NZ. Imagine a Kiwi trying to buy a place in Beijing or Shanghai.

Last Sunday's warm weather in Auckland took me by surprise after the storm we'd had hours earlier. I had a sinking feeling after talking to Mandy who updated me on various gossip from our ex-colleagues. She said she has no desire to keep in touch with them either, but feels obliged to from a professional perspective. I'm so glad I'm out of all of that. When she got back to her study I walked along Takapuna Beach, as I did most lunchtimes for about three years. I bumped into a woman who I used to see on the bus when I lived in Bayswater in 2004 (she had an intellectual disability and had supported employment) - I don't think she recognised me.

Judith Collins wants to revamp NZ's antiquated and horribly inefficient judicial system. About bloody time. Judges and lawyers do very nicely out of the current system.

I thought I heard on the radio yesterday that it was the tenth anniversary of Johnny Cash's death. This was actually a couple of weeks ago, not that it really matters. Here's the video of Hurt, which he did shortly before he died. It's hard to watch without getting a bit choked up.

Food for thought

I saw the doctor today. Not my usual doctor (I specified this when I made my appointment) but one who advocates a change in diet rather than endless popping of pills. I already watch what I eat, or so I thought. But she wants me to do the Whole 9 diet, a type of exclusion diet that is "guaranteed to change your life". No processed foods including grain, no dairy products, and definitely no sugar. Sugar is the food of the devil. On the flip side she says I should be eating lots of meat, the fattier the better, lots of fish, three eggs a day, and mountains of vegetables. "Isn't this the caveman diet?" "Yes, but I've been following it for months, and do I look like a caveman?" As it happened, she had more than a hint of a tash, but I decided not to comment on that. She had no problems with my plans to come off my nothing-matters pills, as long as I didn't go the cold turkey route, and she wrote a prescription for the small tablets to allow me to better regulate my dose. So I got something out of seeing the doctor today - that's not always the case.

Mum and Dad will be arriving in Wellington next Friday. They'll be staying six nights. I'd better make sure those shirts are all ironed. They're bringing up a dining table which could make a big difference - suddenly my flat will be suitable for visitors as well as any flatmates I might have. I expect they'll be bringing a lot of other bits and pieces that will probably serve to complicate my life rather than improve it. I'd be more than happy with just the table and some meat, if they're able to keep it cold for that long. I'll wait till my parents have been and gone before going on this life-changing diet for a month. (I'm skeptical but there's little harm in trying.)

Yesterday I was chatting to one of my colleagues about the housing market. She said that December 2011 wasn't a clever time for me to buy, and that Wellington's apartments are dropping in value like a stone, yellow sticker or not. People just don't want a bar of them. A lot of apartment owners must be in a negative equity situation. I'm not quite in that position: I took out a 68% mortgage, I'd get about 68% back if I were to sell now, and I've paid a bit more off since then. It's frustrating because I look around my flat and think, you know what, I've actually got a pretty good place here. Maybe coming off Efexor might help me see more of the positives.

I rang Bazza for his birthday last night. He said he thought it would be me because nobody else remembers. There were really only two topics of conversation: earthquakes and tennis. I'll probably see him next month - I fly up on the evening of the 20th in time for the aspie group the next day, and come back on the 24th.

David Shearer resigned as Labour leader today. He's always seemed like a genuinely nice bloke, someone I can trust. He didn't get very far as leader because he's not an orator, he isn't particularly adept at political gamesmanship, and he doesn't pretend to be your mate. In other words he's the polar opposite of John Key, who I no longer trust at all.

Is delusion healthy?

On Wednesday I met up with Danielle and a friend (or acquaintance) of hers, a bloke who I'm guessing was 45 or so. He was a short, stocky man, whose eyeballs looked like they might pop out. Like Danielle he had problems, but like Danielle he got by; he had a job in the education sector I think. The three of us sat in the food court in the Reading cinema complex and didn't say a lot. Danielle remarked that she hadn't been to the movies for years. She said can't concentrate for the duration of a film, and loses track of the storyline. I'm better now but I used to have the same problem (and maybe still do to some extent, depending on the type of film). Danielle and I went to the tramping club but only stayed five minutes and didn't put our names down for anything.

Yesterday my cousin and her family came over to my flat for fish and chips. The boys were quite loud, and in the absence of toys in my flat, they had to make do with cardboard and sellotape, which provided no end of entertainment for them. I ordered too many chips and must have eaten at least half of them myself, between last night's tea, today's lunch and today's tea. As Mum would say, at this rate I'll turn into a chip.

It's been another mild day here (although as I type, we're in the middle of teeming rain and a rare thunderstorm). People's complaints about Wellington's weather seem laughable when you think that today is the equivalent of November 5th in the Northern Hemisphere. I remember how cold that day could be when I was growing up.

I've started reading a book called What Is Madness? So far it seems to be pitched at a level above me. Perhaps if I'd studied Freud or any of the other famous psychoanalysts it might make more sense. However one thing I've found really interesting is the idea that a certain amount of delusion can actually be healthy, and that being too in touch with reality can cause you to go mad. As an example, some of my workmates are keen football followers; in particular they follow the top Premier League teams. The way I see it, football at that level is pretty much meaningless. The clubs with the most money buy the best players, and guess what, they usually win. A player might represent Chelsea, say, but he comes from South America! What does playing for Chelsea, a small part of London, even mean? My work colleague will watch "his" team on telly, shout at "his" Brazilian midfielder, possibly even thinking he can influence the outcome of the match from his sofa 12,000 miles away. That's sheer lunacy, surely. But maybe having these delusions (and this is just one example) brings meaning to one's life that prevents you from going mad.

If delusion is indeed healthy, then (as with most other things) it must only be healthy up to a point. A couple of weeks ago I got a birthday card from my aunt (Dad's sister). She's certainly exhibited delusional behaviour at times, and she's also had severe depression and been dependent on alcohol. When I saw her in 2008 she came out with "Some people get all the help; others, like me, are always helping everyone else." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. She's shown a distinct lack of care for just about anybody, all through her adult life. That includes her mother and her children. Her comment was entirely delusional, and instead of being a harmless sanity-preserving delusion such as the football example, it was a more serious delusion that seemed to be a result of losing her sanity. My aunt appears to be more sane now. Strange as it might seem, the death of her mother last year probably helped her mental state, and I don't think she's drinking as much. The fact that she sent me a birthday card is a good sign. But she's 65 now, and it's sad to see a life with so much promise (she was blessed with good looks and was highly intelligent) largely go to waste. I could write a lot more about my aunt and maybe I will some other time.

A final word about football, which I just said was meaningless. The last games of the Championship season (that's the second division) were played overnight. I was amazed by how tight the final table was. Leicester made the play-offs with just 68 points while Peterborough were relegated on 54 (a huge total to go down with). Birmingham, who were my team back when football was meaningful to me, finished slap-bang in the middle of the table with 61.

Food fight

Twenty people turned up to the autism group tonight. That's too many really. I don't know if I'll keep going (even though I'd like to keep in touch with some of the people there). Part of me feels I shouldn't be going anyway because I've never had a diagnosis. The previous facilitator was there (she'll be back permanently in April) with her four-month-old daughter. We spent half the evening talking about how future sessions should be run. One guy was clearly annoyed at me when I kept mentioning the Auckland group, but hey, it was an amazing group they had (and presumably still have) up there; for some reason I found those monthly sessions extremely uplifting. I'll be going to the next one on 16th March.

Cholesterol might be clogging up my arteries as I type, but I'm actually a little fitter and stronger than I was a year ago. I've been getting more exercise (going to the gym every other day as well as the occasional tramp) and I do have some self-control when it comes to unhealthy (but scrummy) foods. Some people don't. On Saturday I saw two women (overweight and fortyish) in the Pak 'n' Save car park tucking into the sticky buns they'd just bought. For a lot of people the temptation is just too strong to resist. Surely humans have always been this way; if anything our increased knowledge of what's in our food should make us less inclined to consume fat, salt and sugar. So why instead are we in the middle of a so-called obesity epidemic? The Guardian have been running a series to look at this very issue. I had to agree with this article which argued that we need to stop blaming fat people and start looking at governments, large corporates and society in general to tackle the problem.

I babysat for my cousin on Friday night. They had a Chinese takeaway but my cousin bought way too much food and the kids weren't interested, so there was enough left over for a small army, just for me if I wanted it. I thought I did pretty well not to eat it all.

Mum has just booked a flight to stay with me at the end of March. I don't think she realised it was Easter, but actually I'm pretty glad she'll be coming up then.

Don't give me that shirt

Today's work day was my worst in a while: my motivation and concentration started off bad and only got worse. I was still some way above head-banging level however.

Mum and Dad came up on Thursday. We met at New World in town; they were chatting with my cousin (the one who got married a year ago) and his wife, having bumped into them. The way I was feeling, my cousin was just about the last person I wanted to see.

On Friday we ate at a surprisingly inexpensive Malaysian restaurant on Courtenay Place. Good value for money. On Saturday we went to the market, then had a drive around the coast to Eastbourne. We were unprepared for such high temperatures as we walked part of the track that leads to Pencarrow lighthouse. Dad took quite a few snaps - he found the big Optimist sailing regatta to be a real goldmine. We stopped for an ice cream on the way home, then had fish and chips from Fish Fins in Newtown (I go there about once a month). That evening we had a game of Scrabble. The luck factor in the two-player game is high enough but with three players it's even bigger. There are three good reasons for that: (a) everyone gets fewer turns; (b) the order in which you play makes a difference - if there's a player who doesn't know (or care) about defence, the player who goes next has an advantage at the expense of the third player; (c) the outcome is more likely to be determined by which player goes out at the end of the game because the point swing is greater, in both absolute and (even more so) relative terms, and who goes out is largely down to luck. Of course when I'm playing with my parents, none of this stuff really matters but I like thinking about it and I can't help that. This time, as it happened, luck was on my side: late in the game I drew both a blank and an S, put down COOLESt for 66, and even though I got stranded with the Q, I won with a score of 217.

All in all, Saturday was a good day. As a family it's nice to enjoy basic things like sunshine, a walk, food and a game. Sunday wasn't so great as Dad and I did our best to fall out with each other. I did the 6.8 km Round the Bays in the morning. It was a good walk (apart from the last bit which I ran) but now I almost wish I hadn't bothered: at work they've been comparing times and photos - especially my ultra-competitive boss - and it feels like I didn't really participate. I often feel that way about things.

Mum just bought me some more bloody shirts. She's always buying me shirts. I've now got embarrassingly many shirts in my wardrobe. Until the weekend about half of them were in a large bag in the spare room, washed but obviously unironed. Mum fished them out and ironed them. When Mum starts ironing, there's no stopping her. Dad then had a go at me for leaving my surplus shirts unironed. It seems ridiculous now, but the way he said it was quite cutting and I took offence. I couldn't understand why he even cared what I did with my shirt mountain, and how he dared criticise me when I've spent many more hours ironing than he ever has. Dad made a few other digs in my direction: he obviously thinks I should be far more interested in interior design.

Luckily our falling-out didn't completely wreck the weekend. Dad lent me another Nick Hornby book - High Fidelity. The first chapter of the book was all about teenage relationships, so I found that quite a hard read, even if it was funny. I'm hoping the rest of the story will be less of an "inadequacy trigger" for me.

Since I last posted, the Blade Runner (Oscar Pistorius) was charged with murdering his girlfriend, while a meteor exploded in Russia injuring 1500 people. Frankly, with news like that, who needs books or films? Real life is plenty dramatic enough.

Nitty-gritty

I'm pretty bad at the whole eye-contact thing at the best of times, but after Monday night's autism meeting I realise that the moment I talk about a sensitive topic, all eye contact goes completely out the window. That was a good meeting - some of us really got down to the nitty-gritty. I've already been in contact with that guy about relationship strategies (from his email he's obviously a clever bloke). You never know, something might happen one day. If the Pope can abdicate I guess anything is possible.

Wrestling will be deleted from the Olympics after 2016. That's a crazy decision for a number of reasons. One, there's so much history behind the event at the games. Two, you don't need much money to compete in wrestling, so it's a sport that poorer nations have traditionally done well at. That poorer countries were able to win medals was surely a good thing. Three, they're replacing wrestling with sports like golf where the Olympics doesn't represent the pinnacle of the sport. It seems we've now got a new Olympic ideal: make as much money as we can.

On Campbell Live last night they compared the prices of supermarket shopping in NZ and the UK. A $200 shop in Auckland was a third cheaper in London. They cited the lack of competition here (only two players in the market) as opposed to the highly competitive situation over there (frequent price wars and loss-leading - I remember 7p loaves of bread and the infamous baked bean wars). Also many foods are tax exempt in the UK. The exchange rate (almost 54p to the dollar, when it was in the mid-thirties not so long ago) obviously doesn't help either.

Mum and Dad will be arriving tomorrow.

Autism - it's not just for kids

On the radio this morning Kim Hill interviewed Graeme Simsion, the NZ-born Australian author of the successful novel The Rosie Project. The main protagonist in the book has Asperger's, although Simsion doesn't explicitly mention it. It sounds like a good read - I must look out for it. Simsion ran an IT business, earning good money, before (in his fifties) turning his hand to writing. I was intrigued by two things he had to say. First that to become an expert at something (to the point of making a living from it) requires 10,000 hours of practice, whether that's writing or painting or golf or whatever, and since most of us can't afford to give up our day jobs we need to find those 10,000 hours on top of our full-time employment. So if I could manage thirty hours a week, that's seven years! I'll be forty by then, and probably overweight, living alone in a complete pigsty. His other comment related to people with Asperger's: they can (1) choose to remain social outsiders, or (2) learn what to say at parties and, as he put it, what wine to serve with which cheese, and gradually "grow out of it". That's all a serious oversimplification. It's possible to do something in between (have social contact without being the life and soul of the party) and for some people on the spectrum, fitting in is extremely difficult if not impossible no matter how hard they work at it. As for the "grow out of it" bit, that's a great way to perpetuate the myth that autism is "something kids have".

Yesterday our work team went out for lunch. I had a rather yummy lamb shank. I've given some thought to how easy or hard it would be to give various things up for a year. Alcohol: pretty easy; I enjoy a glass of wine or beer but I could easily go without. Online poker: harder, but I've managed fine so far and never get the urge to play. Meat: now there's a toughie (typing that has got me thinking of steak). Meat-free days are extremely rare for me (I'm still thinking of steak). Mmm. To be honest I don't eat huge amounts of meat but that's more a financial decision than anything else.

On Wednesday we had the day off to celebrate Bob Marley Day. I spent some time on my puzzles - I'm submitting some to an Australian publishing company - and had fun and games with my printer. I decided to cut my losses and buy a new (cheap) one. I also bought some extra ink that cost more than the printer.

Last Saturday I went on a tramp to Belmont trig station. It was good walk through a very pretty part of the world, if a little on the warm side: my nineties Barkers track pants are great for winter but for that kind of weather I really need a decent pair of shorts. Part of the track was called Baked Beans Bend. By now I'm used to names like Dead Man's Creek and Skull Gully, but Baked Beans Bend? Did the pioneers experience flatulence problems along that stretch? Or maybe they had issues at both ends, hence the Puke bit.

Last weekend there was a seven-hour doubles match in the Davis Cup. It was the longest ever doubles match and second-longest tennis match of all time. Stanislas Wawrinka (who lost that marathon to Djokovic at the Australian Open last month) was again on the losing side as he partnered Marco Chiudinelli, playing for Switzerland against the Czech Republic. The Czechs won 24-22 in the final set on their 13th match point. The sheer number of match points might be a record in itself. Gustavo Kuerten needed eleven to get past Magnus Norman in the final of the 2000 French Open; I remember that match because I bet on Norman to win the tournament before it started - he was in amazing form but seemed to be battling stage fright and a partizan crowd in the final.

My parents are coming to stay on Thursday for four nights. My flat needs a serious clean before then.

Pork bellies in store for breakfast

A few weeks ago on my walk to work I saw a billboard ad: "Pop into any BNZ store." Hmmm, something's not right with this sentence. But what? Ah yes, it's the word "store". I tend to visit branches of banks myself, not "stores". A store is where I buy things. I don't buy things from my bank, or at least I try not to. Anyway I forgot about this ugly use of the word "store" until today. I work for a company that sells insurance "products" (there we go again) on behalf of banks including BNZ; some of our call centre staff had received a ticking off from BNZ for using the word "branch" on the phone instead of "store". Seriously? It's time big business stopped bastardising the English language.

As well as the branch/store thing, the subject of sugar came up at work today. It appears sugar is slowly killing us all. Someone at work wanted to stop giving her kids Up & Go for breakfast because of its sugar content, but she couldn't think of anything to replace it with. I suggested Weet-Bix with milk and maybe a teaspoon of sugar, but that was a non-starter because it takes too long to make and eat. My boss (a bloke) agreed - "we're too busy to have a proper breakfast". It seems a lot of people nowadays lead such hectic lives that breakfast no longer figures. For me it's always been the most important meal of the day.

Talking of food, at the last autism group one of the guys (who has, shall we say, an elevated BMI) salivated when I mentioned the pork belly with crackling that I'd eaten at my cousin's place the night before. To be honest I don't blame him: it was utterly delicious.

Ham tomorrow

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.

Unconditional

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.

My parents' stay and one ring to rule them all

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.

Swinging madly

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.