Phew!

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...

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.

Allez les rouges!

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.

Six hundred to one

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.

Rugby World Cup thoughts

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

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, to 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

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.

11/9/11

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

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.