Mei guan xi

The last few days have reinforced my belief that I'll need to work for myself eventually. Anything that has brought me even a modicum of success has been something I've done by myself, and now that I'm in my mid-thirties, I can't see that pattern suddenly changing. Plus if I'm semi-serious about ever living with other people for any length of time, I don't think I'll be able to work with other people too.

My percussion course unfortunately got cancelled due to low numbers, so I decided to so something different. I enrolled for a course in Mandarin. I had my first lesson last night. My first impression: it's hard. You've got those all-important tones to negotiate, but the minute you try and form a basic sentence, all those tones go out the window. It's nothing like anything I've attempted before. The words don't feel like words at all, but just sounds, which means there's little to get a handle on. Compare Chinese to Indonesian, where the words for "open" and "closed" are "buka" and "tutup" respectively. Now I look at "buka" and think of "bocca" which is Italian for mouth, and imagine a wide-open mouth. As for "tutup", that reminds me of "shut up", hence closed. When you're trying to learn Chinese, those kinds of memory aids are far harder to come up with. And let's face it, Mandarin is not the prettiest of languages. With all its monosyllables, it hardly flows like, say, French or Italian. The Italian word for beetroot is "barbabietola", which with those three B's surrounding a rolled R, is a pleasure to say. The same goes for "pomodoro" (tomato), and you can see all those four O's lined up like four big juicy Italian tomatoes. In Mandarin, nothing on the same planet as those two words exists. But in case you think I'm bagging Chinese, it does have some really nice features. Word order seems extremely sensible to me. The word for "understand" is "ming bai" (I can't get the tone markings easily) which literally means "bright white". How great is that? A relationship is "guan xi" (Chinese life is all about your guan xi), and to say something doesn't matter, you say "mei guan xi", which means "no relationship". Makes sense, doesn't it? It's also a reminder, in case I needed it, that if you're not in a relationship, you don't really matter. I'm already looking forward to lesson two. (I'll try and get on the Batucada drumming course.)

I spoke to Mum, Dad and my brother on Monday night. Mum and Dad had just got back from their amazing Nordic cruise. While they were away they had an offer on their third UK property accepted. They're turning into tycoons. My brother passed his SAS course, but frankly (after what happened last year) I was just glad he got back in one piece, with only a few bruises and cuts to his hands. I still have no real idea of what he went through. How my little brother does it I don't know.

It's almost two weeks since I went to Auckland on a shiny new plane. On Saturday I went to the autism group, where the turnout was relatively low. It was great to see the facilitators and some of the old faces, as well as new ones. The topic, which people talk about in turn at the start of the session, was the pros and cons of 21st-century life. Gosh, where do you start with that one? Firing up the Auckland Transport app on your smart phone at 11pm and getting on the right bus with 30 seconds to spare, through to people not talking to each other because they're glued to their smart phones. The worst part of living the 21st century, in my opinion, is that the amount of hatred and cruelty in the world is the same as it was in the 20th, if the events of the last few weeks are anything to go by. On Sunday I saw Bazza in Papakura, and couldn't wait to leave his house with the unshuttable loo door and a combination of two strong smells: disinfectant and Bazza. He bought me a kebab meal which didn't quite do it for me, to put it mildly. (Bazza still plays tennis. He recently chipped in $1000 to help buy a defibrillator, after someone from an opposing team collapsed and died during an interclub match.) On Monday I met Richard at the very pleasant Pukeko café in Parnell. Richard had been sick with flu and it was good of him to catch up with me at all. I saw three movies: What We Do in the Shadows (a Wellington-based comedy vampire movie that wouldn't have worked at all if it was Auckland-based), The Lady From Shanghai (a slightly weird film noir from 1947 with a dramatic ending; it was part of the film festival) and The Armstrong Lie (also part of the festival, this was a fantastic documentary I thought). I didn't see everyone I'd hope to. I couldn't contact Mandy at all. Brendan lives near Albany and meeting up just got too hard; I had to make do with a 70-minute phone conversation which he dominated with his conspiracy theories on both Malaysia Airlines disasters. On Tuesday I caught up with the former facilitator of the Wellington autism group. We met at Zarbo in Newmarket. I had a great meal there, including a small piece of a gigantic salmon. She then took me to visit her house in Titirangi. They've done a lot of work on the property, especially the garden which, with its stream running through it, really makes the place. The Auckland property market has gone crazy in the 2½ years since they bought the house and its value has increased accordingly. She then drove me to the airport - nobody had ever done that for me in Auckland before, so I felt quite privileged.

The Glasgow Commonwealth games is in full swing. I'm not watching any of it. I was here for the Auckland games in 1990; it was all very exciting and a very big deal. I still remember the "This Is the Moment" official song. Some people have asked what the point of the Commonwealth Games is any more - "you might as well have a games for countries that begin with P" - and I kind of see that point. The argument I don't get though, is "the standard isn't as high as the Olympics, so it's crap and not worth watching." I've seen tennis matches between players ranked well into three figures and been totally captivated. The corollary of that argument is that if the best players are there, it must be worth watching. The Indian Premier League has many of the world's best cricketers, but to my mind it's manufactured crap and I can't see why you'd want to watch it.

My brother's ordeal, and one eternity to go

Today I sold Julie's Nissan Micra that she bought new in early 2009. It's a classic grannymobile. I don't know what colour you'd call it. Peach? Shocking pink? I felt ever so slightly silly as I drove it to the car yard. At first they would only offer $6000 - it needs some work on two panels and the colour could be a turn-off - but when they came up a thousand Julie eventually accepted on the phone. It'll be interesting to see what price they put on it at the yard. I wouldn't be surprised if it's ten or eleven grand. Julie's just found out that she might be moving from her Newtown rest home to a retirement village up in Napier next weekend. She doesn't think she can drive anymore, with her arthritis and neuropathy, so she was desperate to offload the car. This whole Napier thing has come out of the blue after a conversation Julie had with her niece. If it does happen, I won't be too disappointed that she's moved away, but I probably will go and see her. Any excuse to get in the car and well away from here.

I phoned my parents last night. They'd just got back from three days in London. They saw two shows and visited the Maritime Museum (which has changed a lot since I went there when I was 16) and a lot else besides. Today they depart from Newcastle on a two-week Nordic cruise. Where all this appetite for cruising has come from I have no idea. Maybe appetite is the word: you can stuff yourself silly if you want to.

This weekend my brother - a reservist in the British army - is embarking on a two-week SAS selection exercise in the Brecon Beacons. I have a hard time even thinking about what he'll be going through in the coming fortnight. Three people died from dehydration in last year's exercise - it was all over the news in the UK. With just a map and compass, you really are on your own there. I guess that's the whole point. But some of the soldiers involved, like my brother, have survived combat in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. That they should put their lives at serious jeopardy in a training exercise just seems so wrong. I'll be keeping a close eye on the weather forecast.

Kevin knows the date I want him out by (well actually he doesn't, because that date has long gone). But he knows the date I told him, and assuming he's gone by then, I'm now half-way to having this place to myself again. It already feels like an eternity, so I've just got one eternity to go. At work yesterday I was doing a fairly menial task, but it was strangely therapeutic too, and the last thing I wanted was to come home to 24/7 Kevin and nonstop TV.

On FiveThirtyEight they were trying to get a measure of the off-the-mapness of Germany's 7-1 win over Brazil, largely by comparing it with famous blowouts in American football. But they missed one crucial fact: gridiron isn't on the global sporting map to begin with. No result in that sport, however shocking, can reasonably compare. You can say the same about rugby, although the All Blacks are a global icon, and if they were beaten 70-10 by Australia in a World Cup semi-final (heaven forbid), that would send out some pretty big shock waves. Only two sporting events in my memory come anywhere near Germany–Brazil. The first was Michael Johnson's 19.32 in Atlanta, when he obliterated his own world record and the rest of the field. That second 100 metres was stupidly fast. The other one that sticks out is Isner–Mahut. Not the same sort of achievement of course, but tennis is a global sport, and that match even overshadowed the last football World Cup, as well as the Queen's visit to Wimbledon, while it was happening.

Had Holland won that shoot-out against Argentina, their passage to the final would have been unsatisfactory (a dodgy late penalty to beat Mexico, followed by two consecutive wins on penalties). With Argentina getting through, I know the result I want on Monday morning: a convincing win for Germany, or failing that, any win for Germany. Before the final we've got the third-place game, which has a bit more meaning (and intrigue) this time than it normally does.

World Cup memories etc. II

I spoke to Kevin and made it fairly clear that his tenancy will end this year, not next year or the year after. That means it'll probably be six months before I get my own space back, and that's a helluva long time.
Mum and Dad are in the UK and fly to Bordeaux early next week. Dad is really enjoying the sights and sounds of St Ives and Cambridgeshire. There's a lot more life there - human and non-human - than in Geraldine. I'll give them a ring on Saturday, on which day Mum becomes eligible for a gold card. That's hard to believe. She still seems fortyish to me.

The World Cup is now just hours away. I wanted to arrange a tipping competition for work, something simple where you just put in $10, pick eight teams in advance, and get points based on how well your selected teams perform. I'm normally hopeless at organising anything, but something like that I could comfortably manage and would actually enjoy doing. Then I thought better of it, realising there is virtually zero interest in the World Cup around the office. It could have been an embarrassment if, say, only three people entered including me. And what if I'd won? In Auckland these sorts of competitions ran all the time. I did reasonably well, even in the rugby ones, despite (or maybe because of) my lack of rugby knowledge.

In my last post I said 1990 was my favourite World Cup. That's got a lot to do with England's performance and being a kid, but perhaps it was the last competition where football (in the UK at least) was a working-class game, instead of the money-making machine it's become since. The 1994 World Cup in the States wasn't bad at all, and it got plenty of coverage back home. England weren't involved, but Ireland were, and they caused an upset by beating Italy in their opening game. There was one big black mark on the '94 competition however: the Colombian player who scored an own goal was shockingly murdered on his return home.

I've read some online comments about past World Cups, and most agree that 1998 (France) was better than 2002 (Japan and South Korea). For me it was the other way round. In '98 I'd had way too much of all the England hype and I wasn't too disappointed when they were knocked out. Plus I was in the middle of my A-levels which I knew I wouldn't do very well in. The motivation wasn't there. One of the highlights for me was Jamaica making it. By contrast, in 2002 I finished my university final exams on the eve of the tournament, and after months of intense study and high-pressure exams I could watch the games entirely guilt-free. Senegal's win over France in the very first game set the tone nicely (Senegal were like the new Cameroon); there were upsets galore. England negotiated their group of death, then beat Denmark comfortably, then faced eventual champions Brazil, and with a bit of luck... The only real downer was some dodgy refereeing which helped South Korea reach the last four at the expense of Italy and Spain.

The 2006 tournament in Germany promised a lot (the hosts beat Costa Rica 4-2 in the opening game) but didn't seem to deliver much, even if Togo and Angola added a bit of colour. I quite enjoyed 2010, mainly because of what I was doing (travelling for some of it) and New Zealand's performance - it's a cliché but they really did punch well above their weight by drawing all their games. This one will be interesting for sure, with so much non-football stuff going on behind the scenes. England play Italy on Sunday in, as far as I see it, a brand new stadium in Manaus, in the middle of a rainforest, where there's next to no interest in football. England's second match, against Uruguay, is in Sao Paulo, which according to Google is 1670 miles from Manaus. It sounds like unnecessary burning of fossil fuel, and an equally unnecessary logistical headache.

At least this time the World Cup will be played in a (mostly) hospitable climate in a country that actually cares about the game. If it really takes place in Qatar in eight years' time, heaven help us.

Limbo land - and the NHS

Work is starting to get a little frustrating. My boss says he'll come over in ten minutes to discuss something or other, but it always ends up being at least an hour, and then he'll only spend a few minutes with me before attending some vital meeting. Most of the time I'm left in limbo land. I am getting to know about the drainage networks, but as for actually using our systems to do work relating to the networks, I feel almost completely clueless. And most importantly, I'm spending too much time doing bugger all. In my contract it says my salary might be negotiable after three months. Well I'm half-way there already, and if I ask for a raise in another six weeks they'll think I'm having a laugh. The good news is that I'm going on a two-day course next week, which may (or may not) help me understand one of the programs we use.

During one of my "bugger all" periods at work this morning I read this article on the Guardian site. It's an absolute must-read. The bloke who wrote it (and a book) is the same age as my grandfather (Dad's dad) would be if he were still around. The article illustrates what a difference the NHS has made to millions of people in the UK, from someone who remembers all too vividly what life was like before it: if you became seriously ill and couldn't afford health care, you died. The NHS isn't perfect, but the proposed alternative, where people lucky enough to have money can effectively jump the queue, is surely a huge leap backwards.

Mum and Dad left Christchurch yesterday morning on their eleven-week voyage; alright for some. They'll be taking in the UK and France, and are also going on a Nordic cruise. They're currently on a stopover in Singapore. I emailed the Guardian article to him - I knew he'd be interested - but told him not to read it yet because it's too depressing.

When I walked home this evening I realised I didn't want to go home (which no longer feels like home) but didn't want to be at work either. I was quite happy being in limbo land.

Southern excursion

I got back from the South Island on Saturday. Only eight passengers were on the flight from Timaru to Wellington - I hope under-half-full planes don't become a trend; we know what will happen to the Timaru service then.

I arrived on Wednesday. Dad had lost a fair bit of weight. He bit his tongue in the night and couldn't eat properly for the next week. Not much happened on Wednesday although I did get my hair cut in Temuka for just $14. On Thursday we visited my aunt and uncle (who has survived with cancer longer than anybody expected, and isn't getting any worse) in Hampden. On the way we stopped off at Riverstone Kitchen near Oamaru, a really weird place with a castle and moat. Attached to the restaurant, there were a few barns piled high with more gifty junky stuff for sale than you could imagine. They also grew their own fruit and vegetables - that was pretty cool. We then drove down the coast and stopped off for lunch to see a school of dolphins and several seals. We went as far as Moeraki and had a drink there before having fish and chips (which came from the "world famous" shop in Hampden) with my aunt and uncle.

Mum took me out for golf on Friday. I don't know why she bothered - I'm completely hopeless. On some holes I lost count, and I'm normally OK with counting. On the ninth hole - the last we did - I got a par three that came out of nowhere. In fact I wasn't far off a two. Some family came over for dinner.

On Saturday morning we saw my cousin's eight-year-old son play rugby - it was his first time playing with proper tackling. He played for a team called Celtics, against teams from Geraldine and Temuka. There were four mini-games going on at once, and they must have been doing that up and down the country. Both my dad and I felt a bit out of place there, but really everything happened with the right level of seriousness given the age of the kids. It's not good when you see parents get too emotionally involved, living vicariously through their kids. Grass-roots sport, both for adults and children, still seems to thrive in South Canterbury. The sport section of the Timaru Herald is full of things like Maureen McClutchie winning some golf trophy with a score of 92-23-69 (I just made that name up, but it's usually McSomething or O'Something), and presumably all those scores are important to somebody.

With the mystery of MH370 (my dad thinks the pilot committed suicide), an early candidate for word of the year is "ping". When I got back home, it was more of a case of "pong" emanating from downstairs. That aside, things are working out OK with Kevin. I do nearly all the cooking, but at least that way I control what I eat (I'm not sure I'd trust him). I met up with Tom yesterday; I still find him hard work at times, and I'm glad I didn't take him on as a flatmate.

Guess what - my parents are coming to Wellington for three days on Wednesday (they'd forgotten about my trip when they booked their flights; they could easily have booked to come up here at the same time as I was going down there). After that I doubt I'll see them for a while - they're going on a big overseas trip in early June.

Eight more days at work.

Depression - it doesn't take time off over Christmas

Maybe I'm coming out of yet another depressive spell, and soon it will be completely wiped from my memory. I hope so. In case it does get wiped, I'll mention right now that things got seriously shitty.

I've had all the physical symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, without (yet) the chronic bit, plus a whole load of really crappy stuff going on in my head.

I was able to finish work at three on Christmas Eve, but still felt (and looked) completely shattered when I got home. I remember it being an unpleasantly weird day for me, but I've mostly forgotten the details. Dad was also struggling: his tablets to help him pee less often during the night had the side-effect of reducing his blood pressure. We went to church at St Joseph's, a modern building just around the corner. The sermon was unlike anything you'd get in Geraldine. The priest told a story, but not the nativity story, and even used a spade as a prop. At times he switched to Spanish - he must have spent some time in South America. There was also a lot of Maori being spoken, even though I could hardly see any Maori among the 400-plus-strong congregation.

On Christmas morning Mum put the turkey in the oven, then we went for a long walk (at least 10 km) around the bays. It was good to make the most of the sunny weather, but neither Dad nor I was quite in the right state for that sort of distance. Mum forged on ahead, anxious that the whole apartment block might have burnt down, though at least the seismic risk problem would have been solved. The building was still intact when we finally got home, and we had a good Christmas dinner: turkey, ham, lots of vegetables, Christmas pudding, not much alcohol. Mum even made those extremely tasty devils on horseback (prunes wrapped in bacon). It made a nice change having it in my flat with the sun streaming in, and with just the three of us. (I don't think I could have faced a big extended-family Christmas, and I'm pretty sure Dad couldn't have faced that prospect either.) It turns out my brother also had a quiet Christmas with a friend of his - they go back a long way. We then went over to my cousin's place and sat outside (and grazed, as if we needed more food) in the early evening sun.

On Boxing Day we took my old TV to the tip (that cost $5), picked up a few $2 books from there, then drove around the coast. Mum and Dad had their eyes on properties and for-sale signs - they'd like to buy an apartment here at some stage. That evening we played Scrabble. Mum had a really good game, as evidenced by the speed at which she played (the whole game only lasted an hour) and how little complaining she did. I didn't do so well. I had a bunch of letters that didn't go together (F, U, V, W) and no esses or blanks or anything remotely useful like that. I did have the J and the X - at the same time, quite late in the game. Mum must have beaten me by forty-odd, with Dad, who was unlucky to get stuck with the Q, a bit further behind.

Yesterday I was at work, and it was a shocker of a day. At one point I ended up in the store room. I couldn't find anything I needed, and I must have balanced myself on two box trolleys, rocking back and forth, knocking brochures and letterhead and envelopes off shelves, not really caring. It wasn't too bad being in the store room really, as long as I didn't attract anyone's attention, or heaven forbid, someone actually came in. They didn't. At lunchtime I ventured outside, as always, even though the weather was horrible. I sat in the food court and opened Love in the Time of Cholera at page one. I read and re-read the first few lines over and over, not getting anywhere. As far as work was concerned, I might easily have entered incorrect bank account details and a lot worse. Walking to and from work, and even just around the office, was painfully slow. Later we saw the second Hobbit movie, which I thought was very good, even if I struggled to concentrate for 2¾ hours. If I suffered from arachnophobia I probably wouldn't have lasted very long. The end, which absolutely invites you to see part three in a year's time, was a bit of a surprise to me.

Mum and Dad flew back home this morning. We'd had a pretty good Christmas together, even if both Dad and I were struggling. No arguments, apart from the one on Monday when I broached the topic of work. That's always been the number one source of arguments with my parents. After dropping them off at the airport I went to the market then attempted to put up a small ad for a flatmate in New World in Newtown. I asked one of the staff who wasn't very helpful - they don't have that facility - and in reply I dropped the F-bomb on her. When I got home, for some reason I remembered that the darts would be on so I found a live stream. I saw an extremely high-quality match where a bloke by the name of Peter Wright, sporting a mohican and a tattoo of a snake on his face, averaged a whopping 106 but still only squeaked past his younger opponent 4-3 in sets. It's changed so much since I watched it as a kid - with all the walk-on music and cheerleaders, it's become a lot like the rugby sevens. I received a website-related email that I was supposed to act on, but it was all beyond me. I got very frustrated and rolled around on the floor shouting. I walked into town and sat out on the waterfront for a while. There's nothing like Christmas to make me even more aware of the passing of time, and I just sat there with my head in my hands. Life is slipping away and Mum and Dad and me, we're all getting older and it's all happening so damn fast. My brother's getting older too and I have no idea when I'll see him next. I've now had eleven Christmases since I landed in Christchurch. Christmas in 2023 or 2024 doesn't even bear thinking about. I happened to bump into my cousin and her family. Their youngest was riding a bike; he picked it up almost instantly just a few days ago. When I got home I made myself go to the gym. That's probably the best thing I could have done. I then spoke to Richard, and I'm certainly feeling better now. I came off the Efexor a few days earlier than planned (because I was feeling terrible) and that might have made me feel even more terrible. It's anyone's guess.

The 60th anniversary of the Tangiwai disaster, which killed 151 people, received some media attention (including a very unjolly radio programme on Christmas afternoon) and with such a huge death toll I'm utterly ashamed that I didn't know anything about it before.

Sometimes I think they should bring back public flogging. Those teenagers who attacked that German couple camping in Whakatane on Boxing Day certainly deserve it.

About ten days ago Louis Theroux did a programme on American autistic kids and their incredible parents. Boy do those parents have it tough. I'm glad they touched on life for these kids after childhood. The saddest bit for me was when the mother of an autistic boy talked about praying for a miracle every time she goes to church. Her (non-autistic) daughter said, "Mom, God made him that way" to which the mother said, "Yes, God made him that way to teach me a lesson."

Here's hoping my mini-revival continues. I'll be catching up with Martin tomorrow.

Game shame

Back to work today, and a reminder of why it was so nice to have that week off.

The autism Christmas party went well tonight I thought. There was plenty of food and plenty of chat. There were also a few games going on. Tom had brought along Cards Against Humanity, a game he'd printed off the internet. When I got the gist of the game (I'd never heard of it), I was really surprised he (and not Rob, a guy who might be into that kind of thing) had brought it. It's a party game, but certainly not a nice party game, and not (I would think) a game that anyone on the spectrum would enjoy. All the pop-culture references, the sexual themes, the potential to cause serious offence. It's an extremely "neurotypical" game and I'm glad I didn't play (the novelty would have worn off for me after ten minutes) but I must admit that hearing "bitches" followed by "crystal meth" followed by "a big black dick" coming from the next table, at an autism Christmas party, was hilarious. At our table we played Bananagrams, a fast-paced word game; 8:30 came around extremely quickly for me playing that, and I could quite happily still be playing now (it's ten past midnight but I couldn't sleep).

My dad has an exhibition in Timaru. It opened yesterday, with no shortage of food and wine to hopefully entice potential buyers. And they did buy: Dad sold six paintings on the day. That might (or might not) sound like a modest number, but some of those were the bigger, more expensive ones. There's definitely wealth in South Canterbury - people have sold farms and found themselves with big bank balances all of a sudden. As well as cars and (occasionally) paintings, they've been spending their money on overseas travel, and that might be why five the six paintings Dad sold were scenes from outside the country - in the past it's always been local scenes that have sold.

Possibilities

So the Christmas party came and went. It wasn't that bad. I was very glad I missed the events of the afternoon, pictures of which formed a never-ending slide show. The food was good. I drank enough to look like I was almost participating, but not enough to put me out of commission for the next day (which, I'm guessing, is less than it once was). One of my older colleagues impressed me as she told me about her vinyl collection (5000 records). The event didn't finish till midnight and some people would have carried on at some establishment (The Establishment?) on Courtenay Place, but I sloped off at about nine. The chances are (70%?) I won't be attending next year's party.

I got an email on Friday that made me a bit more optimistic about 2014. It wouldn't take much (just one or two lowish-probability events that appear to be outside my influence!) for things get much better, and for all kinds of possibilities to open up, and break the cycle of impossibility that I've found myself in.

On Thursday night another British guy took a look at my flat. He'd seen the Pak 'n' Save ad, not the TradeMe one; the demographics of the two would be slightly different. He'd be a bit older than the other guy, maybe my kind of age. He worked as a tree surgeon and was still in his work clothes. I'd be more than happy for him to move in, but it seemed he needed somewhere a bit sooner than I could offer. I feel a bit funny showing people around (although it was easier with him than the younger bloke). Why has he got this much space to himself? Did his wife leave him and take the kids with her?

Mum and Dad will be spending Christmas with me. They're staying from the 22nd (next Sunday) to the 28th. I'm looking forward to it. My cousin wants us to go over to their place but my parents aren't that keen, and neither am I. We want to keep things as low-key as possible, especially after last year when things got high-key rather quickly.

I played a lot of MGMT on my week off. Yesterday I heard a song by Elton John on the radio called Grey Seal - luckily it was on the Sound and I was able to search their playlist and find it. I'd only ever heard it a couple of times before. Great song, even though I'm not sure what the lyrics mean. I must check out more of his stuff.


I didn't go to the cricket but I snapped this picture of the scoreboard on Friday - the third, and as it happened, last day of NZ's win over the West Indies. It doesn't make happy reading for the Windies - you can see that their last four batsmen were all bowled for a duck in the first innings, and they were forced to follow on. I note that they had both a Samuels and a Sammy on the team - there must be some joke there about playing it again.

Tomorrow the autism group have their Christmas party. Plenty of new faces have appeared this year, and some have gone too. The only male facilitator we had - the one whose football team reached the semi-finals of the Chatham Cup - left because he was too busy. That's a shame - he was a thoroughly nice bloke, and he provided some balance to the other facilitators.

A matter of life and death

Yesterday morning, my time, my actuary friend from Birmingham emailed me. His father had passed away. He had been ill for a very long time. When my friend was just three he suffered a heart attack; he had to "watch himself" ever since. In the last few years he got steadily worse. He survived longer than anyone expected, and it is of some consolation that he was around to see his daughter's wedding in April of this year. I didn't meet him very often - the last time was when I visited the UK in 2010 - but he struck me as a very kind, warm-hearted (if ailing) man. I wrote my friend an email this evening, or attempted to. What do you say? I said that his dad must have been very proud of his son, and he couldn't have had a better son to look after him. Which was true. It was only when I wrote back, from the quiet of my living room, that the passing of such a kind, gentle bloke really hit me.

In other (far better) news, my own father got his results back from his prostate biopsy and he's been given the all-clear. That's a huge weight off his mind. It's not just the cancer, it's all the treatment and horrible side-effects - incontinence, extreme fatigue, and whatever else. And the fact that so many false-positives from the biopsy render all that treatment unnecessary. All in all, it's a big sigh of relief.

I didn't mention the results of the blood test I had a couple of weeks ago. Which means they were good, or else I surely would have mentioned them by now. My thyroid is working perfectly normally and I'm not at risk of diabetes. Cholesterol is still a slight concern. My level of bad (LDL) cholesterol is down, but the good (HDL) stuff is down too, so my ratio, which is what they worry about these days, has hardly changed. My doctor said I should take all cholesterol readings with a bucket of salt (which, funnily enough, contains zero cholesterol).

Last night Tracy, Tom and I played a co-operative board game called Mice and Mystics. There are mice, who are the good guys, and a variety of bad guys such as rats, spiders, centipedes and cockroaches. And of course a cat, although we didn't come across him (or her) last night. The game is in fact a story comprising eleven chapters; you can play just one chapter (as we did last night) or a full "campaign" that follows the story from start to finish. We each took on the part of a different mouse, each with its own special powers. Tom's mouse, for instance, was fast and agile with a prehensile tail which could carry a weapon. My mouse, by contrast, was slow and plodding but it wielded a sodding great hammer that could knock out anything that came near it (if the right symbols came up on the four dice I rolled). The currency used in the game wasn't money or gold or silver, but cheese. I was impressed by how one bloke could think of such an intricate story, and then turn it into a playable board game. The game pieces were a work of art, literally as we found out - Tracy had painstakingly painted them with a fine brush, except the centipede and spider which she hadn't got around to yet. We ended up losing the game through a series of unlucky dice rolls; in fact we did well to last as long as we did. I got a bit confused with all the rules, but Tracy was always able to clarify matters. Mice and Mystics is a new game; the only similarity with the much older Risk is the amount of dice-rolling involved. Hopefully we'll try a few more games. In spite of its flaws Risk is probably still my favourite: it'll take something to beat the smell you get when you open the box.

Tom emailed me tonight. Now he wants to move into my flat. Oh shit. I didn't even read his whole email. I saw he wrote "no pressure" but I know I'll feel a shit-ton of pressure if he moves in. He can't move in. I can play board games with him, exchange emails and ideas with him, and chat with him in person. But not live with him. I wouldn't be able to relax. How on earth I tell him it's a no-go I don't know.

Some people in my team at work have joined a football team. They asked me if I was interested. "I'm really just a watcher." This Friday they've got a get-pissed-and-do-karaoke night. Either I go, and feel horribly out of place, or stay at home (which would be the far easier, and cheaper, option). I drift further apart from them whatever I do. Then in a couple of weeks they've got the Christmas party. This isn't my favourite time of year.

I'm obviously not a proper Kiwi (more about that in my next post) because I think it's a shame Ireland didn't hang on to beat, or at least draw with, the All Blacks. Not that I watched the game or anything.

It's not working

I spoke to Dad yesterday. He's been really unwell since he had his prostate biopsy on Tuesday. The timing of the procedure wasn't good - he hadn't fully recovered from his ordeal on the plane. He reacted badly to an antibiotic he was given - when he called the hospital he was told to stop taking it immediately. Dad gave me all the gory details of the colour of his pee, a subject which came up on this blog recently (although he certainly wasn't talking about just a tinge of red). He was thankful of Mum's golf trip to Alexandra, which she'd been looking forward to for months. She's been swanning around Central Otago in blissful ignorance of Dad's pain. Had she been home, the atmosphere would have made things even more painful, not that there was much she could have done anyway. I spoke to him again earlier today and he's sounding much brighter - that's just as well because Mum gets back this evening.

As I said last time, I am feeling better now, but there's an elephant in the room in the shape of work, or more precisely my boss, and it's sapping me of mental energy. I don't dislike my boss, but I really don't like her being my boss. I think it's pretty obvious that she doesn't care about me nor my colleague doing the same role (my previous boss did care, or at least did a good job of pretending to). I find it almost impossible to concentrate except on the rare occasions that she's away. Some of it is me - I'm really bad at constantly switching between tasks and I don't work well in a team that's so big you can practically see it from space, especially when they're all so outgoing. We've just had our self-appraisals; on Friday I filled in mine and basically hijacked it by giving a critique of the new set-up. I was restrained to begin with, but when I filled in the last box I pulled no punches. Maybe that wasn't my brightest idea, but I saw no other way of communicating my frustration, and on Friday I was well past caring about the consequences. As Christmas approaches, things won't get easier for me in a hurry. The Christmas function, appropriately enough, is on Friday 13th December.

At 5:02 on Friday morning our boss sent us an email. She likes to talk about how busy she is. She pretends to be annoyed by this, but really she's proud of it. I see this from a lot of people. In the 21st century, lack of time has become a status symbol.

Instead of buying a property, and all the angst that has gone with that, I wish I'd bought shares in Xero. If I'd put my entire deposit into Xero shares in December 2011, I'd be a millionaire now. I'll often have lunch near the stock ticker (which is located right beside Xero's head office) and see a half-day increase which would be reasonable in half a year. (I get out of the office every lunchtime whatever the weather, for my own sanity.)

The drink-drive limit is coming down. I don't think it will make much difference (in fact I remember an experiment in the UK which showed an improvement in driving ability under the influence of a glass or two of wine) but the government bowed to public pressure. It's people way over the limit who are the problem, and they're not going to care whatever the limit is. I'm not sure I get the zero limit for drivers under 20 either. It's dangerous to drive with any alcohol up to your 20th birthday, but after that you can have two or three pints and you're fine? This makes no sense to me.

Last night they had the big fireworks display on the harbour. I watched it from the big balcony a few floors up - a good vantage point, even if there was a crane in the way which you can make out from this photo:

Tracy pulled out of our scheduled Risk resumption this weekend - she had better things to do. I was looking forward to it (if nothing else it would have taken my mind off the "elephant"). Hopefully we can still play tomorrow night. I emailed a friend in the UK, a fairly regular board gamer, to ask what he thinks of Risk. "They've since come out with Express Risk - it's a much better game that uses cards instead of a board, and it's done and dusted within half an hour." What? How can that be "much better"? You can't take over the world in half an hour! And if there's no physical board (i.e. map), you might as well play on a computer.

Here's an interesting YouTube video (well I think so anyway) where someone generates random numbers using a radioactive substance. Humans are really bad at understanding probability and randomness. Imagine a NZ Lotto draw, where they draw out seven balls numbered from 1 to 40. Say the first number drawn is 6. That means that 5 and 7 shouldn't come out, and probably not 4 or 8 either. Because 6 is a low number, the other numbers are more likely to be high. Because 6 came out this week, we shouldn't expect to see it next week; in fact the next few weeks should be entirely sixless, until it's 6's "turn" again. And so on. Of course none of that is true (except that if the first number is low, the probability that the next number is high does go up a little, simply because there's now one fewer low number to choose from) but the human mind can't get away from thinking that future outcomes are dependent on the past. I agree with the guy in the video who said it would be fun, for a change, to pick Lotto numbers using radioactive material.

There was more cricket at the Basin yesterday. I noticed three of Wellington's batsmen made joint top scores of 62. Something dodgy is clearly going on - there's no way that can be random. Update: I saw the end of the match today. The green team (Central Districts?) declared, to try and force a result, but Wellington chased down 310 with three overs and four wickets to spare.

Before work tomorrow I'll get my thyroid and cholesterol tested.

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.

Risky business

I'm feeling better now than I've done in months (probably since May) and have no real idea why. The diet, the pills (I'll be dropping back again on Friday), the long weekend, who knows?

Dad is supposed to be back now, but with the storm, I've no idea whether his flight actually took off when it was scheduled to. When someone in my family attempts to fly somewhere, myself included, a severe weather event is almost guaranteed. I gave him a ring at the weekend, and also had a longish chat with my brother who was a mixture of happy (that he's with his friends, half a world away from his horror story) and cheesed off with his financial situation, which is about as bad as mine.

Dad's trip to the UK has meant I've spoken to Mum on the phone even more than usual. I'm happy with that - we get on pretty well these days. She hasn't been feeling 100% for a while but stubbornly refuses to see a doctor. She thinks it's all down to the food she eats. That includes the rash on her upper arm that keeps slowly expanding.

The highlight of the long weekend for me was my first ever proper game of Risk. We played at Tracy's place - the same crowd (well, three is a crowd) of Tracy, Tom and me. The idea was that we'd play for two hours, and whoever occupied the most territories at that point would be the winner. I was fortunate to snag Australia early on, and it was close for the lead between Tom and me. As such, most of my attacks were directed at Tom. After about 90 minutes we felt like we were just getting going (man it's a long game) so we upped the time limit to three hours. I focused almost exclusively on the Southern Hemisphere, and as I threw more than my fair share of fives and sixes, I was able to control South America and/or Africa. But my luck ran out and Tracy, who had kept a low profile, came marauding in. At the three-hour point my yellow army still occupied more regions than Tracy's red (Tony's green army was on the wane), but with someone making such a strong fightback, finishing at that point wouldn't have been "right", so we decided to adjourn until the weekend after next, at my place. How do we do that? Ah yes, take a photo of the board. I'm not sure I can wait so long to play again - it was a very absorbing three hours. Tracy has so far had one extra turn (she started), I'm next up, and I'm already thinking what I should do with my new complement of eleven yellow plastic cylinders. Tracy said after an hour that she was doomed, but I think that was a bluff. She's a smarter, more experienced gamer than either Tom or me, and I'm sure she knows it.

My hand-me-down copy of Risk is the 1963 version. The actual copy can't be that old - it's probably early seventies, which admittedly is still pretty damn old. Even after playing one session I can see that Risk has its flaws, but it's still an excellent game, and in its time it must have been revolutionary. Board games up to that point were: roll the dice, move your counter the number of squares indicated on the dice, then do what it says on that square (if anything). Risk is a complete departure from this. Plus it does seem to simulate war rather well at times - often I was thinking, yes I took that territory but boy did I lose a lot of men doing it. I'm glad I've got this version which requires you to choose, in turn, where to place armies on the board at the start, rather than having them randomly determined. I think that choosing territories adds an extra dimension.
The instructions give me a window on what life was like in the sixties and seventies. "The rules which follow are new and are the result of continuous research and testing ... They develop strategy sooner and make for better play." So you knew the game took seven hours, but that wasn't a problem?! Wow. In 2013 a mass-market board game taking more than a couple of hours would be a non-starter. The time factor is probably the biggest criticism of Risk. Then there's the role of luck - it's hard to determine how significant that is given the sheer number of dice rolls in a game. Thirdly there's a rich-get-richer mechanism (the more territories you've got, the more armies you get, which enable you to control more territories...) - that would probably be my biggest complaint.

Before the game we talked a bit about computer programming. Both Tracy and Tom love it. "It's fun." Well, programming for its own sake, or even to achieve a goal I don't care about, ain't my idea of fun. I did a short programming course at uni but we weren't actually taught anything, as far as I could see, and the two or three people on our course who already knew about the language drip-fed the "answers" to the rest of us who were completely clueless. If, on the other hand, my program is doing something I'm interested in, you know, creating an app or something, I could see myself learning the relevant language.

On Sunday I went to sit out on the bank at the Basin, and to my surprise there was a four-day game going on between Wellington and Otago. The home side were doing well, and when one of the batsmen was dismissed for a century, on came Jesse Ryder for the first time since March when he almost died following that attack in a Christchurch bar. As it happened, his father, his girlfriend and other members of his entourage were right in front of me. I spent more time watching them than any of the players. Ryder raced to 48 by the end of the day and was out for an impressive 117 on Monday.
(Edit: I shouldn't pretend to know anything about domestic cricket. Jesse Ryder had moved teams over the winter and was now playing for Otago against his old side.)

This morning Birmingham and Stoke played a memorable match in the League Cup. With the score at one apiece, Blues had a man sent off on the stroke of half-time. Unsurprisingly Stoke, the superior side on paper, capitalised to go two goals up. Eleven minutes to go and Blues bring on Peter Løvenkrands, and what do you know, he pops up to score twice in the final six minutes to force extra time. Only three minutes into the extra period and Stoke go back in front. Blues are dead on their feet as they try to scramble another equaliser which they somehow manage in the 118th minute. It sounded far too good a game to be decided on penalties (and don't forget, Birmingham played the last 75 minutes a man down) but alas Blues missed their first two spot-kicks and that was pretty much that. For all my cynicism about football and team sports in general, this was a "feel-good" game for me, in spite of the final result.

Update: Dad is back; I just spoke to him. No problems with the scheduling, but he felt very ill at Hong Kong after an ultra-cramped Virgin Atlantic flight, and was worried he wouldn't be able to continue his journey. He vowed never to fly with Virgin again. He flew with Air New Zealand (a far less painful experience) on the second leg.

Human nature - isn't it weird?

Mum rang me yesterday morning. She was fed up with the golf club (a few years ago I didn't think that would ever be possible) but most of the conversation revolved around me. Mum made a comparison between me and my brother - he's more resourceful, more resilient, can handle "situations" more easily than me. He'll just "get out there and do things". Gah. "But it's not your fault that it's harder for you - that's just the way you're made." Right. As I see it, the difference is that my brother's "situations" are precisely that. They come and go. And he's got friends, connections, supports. My problems are a way of life (and the money thing just adds an extra layer).

As usual on a Saturday morning, there were some interesting programmes on the radio yesterday. One was about the rise of China. It was interesting talking to a Chinese woman at one of those meet-ups. She said that for centuries China had a collective culture, but in urban centres this culture has been overhauled by an each-man-for-himself culture that's (scarily) far stronger that we have in NZ. She was interesting to talk to; I later emailed her asking if we could catch up, but she ignored or deleted or didn't get my message or it went into her junk. Or something.

Later they interviewed Gary Greenberg, author of The Book of Woe, which talks about the DSM (the mental health manual if you like). It's fair to say he's not a fan of the DSM, which seems to be driven by big pharmaceutical companies. In the latest version Asperger's was controversially removed from the list of diagnoses, with all kinds of ramifications for people who had previously been diagnosed with the condition. Luckily for Kiwis we take less notice of the DSM than they do in America.

Yesterday was a bright sunny day and in the afternoon I sat on the freshly-mown bank of the Basin Reserve and read. A few others were doing the same. One bloke was practising his guitar. The groundsman was hammering in the advertising boards that had come down in the storm. I was attacked by a big bumblebee and didn't mind: it reminded me of when I was a kid - bees were more plentiful and life was simpler. (In China they don't just have bees; they have killer hornets.)

Work last week was tolerable. On Friday afternoon there was a scare as a suspicious white powder was found on the 18th floor. There were cops and people in orange hazmat suits. I was hoping we'd have to evacuate and could all go home. People get louder as the weekend approaches - Friday afternoon is the time I least enjoy being in the office.

My cousin's youngest boy has turned five and started school. Private school. The same place his older brothers go, although they just went to the local state school until they turned eight. I'm not convinced it's the right place for the little one. He's not academic like the other two. My cousin's husband said he never would have sent any of the boys to private school, not that he has anything against it, it just wouldn't have crossed his mind. There was a similar situation in my family. I went to a private school (public school as they illogically call it over there) from 11 to 16. I sat the entrance exam, the idea being that they'd only send me there if I got a scholarship. I passed the exam OK, but didn't get a scholarship, so that was that. But then Mum decided to stump up the money (she made all those kinds of decisions - paying for education would never have entered Dad's head), knowing that my brother sure as hell wouldn't pass the exam if he were to take it the following year. To me it felt like a giant waste of money. The school - which for so many parents was all about image - didn't do much for me.

I was thinking how much I'd like to get into psychology (although how could I study that at the moment?). It's something I've been interested in for years - far more so than goddamn life insurance. As Tracy has alluded to on occasions, if human nature isn't natural for you, and you have to learn it, you become an expert in it (it's a bit like when you learn a foreign language; you often end up knowing more about the structure and grammar of that language than your mother tongue). I don't think I'm an expert at all, but I do think my Aspie tendencies have helped my understanding of human nature. If it seems really bizarre that people happily pay a dollar more for the milk with the fancy label than the one without, even when they know both bottles have come from the same cows, you'll make a note of that. Or that if you can't remember last night, you must have had an amazing night. Or that you'll happily vote against something at a body corp meeting even though it doesn't improve your lot at all, it just makes someone else's lot a bit worse. The list goes on, and for me it's fascinating. (Occasionally I've been able to take advantage of other people's "weird" human nature, online poker being an example.)

In a few minutes I'll be going to Karori to play badminton.

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!

Scare

I hardly feel amazingly wonderful now, but compared to a week ago I'm much better. For over a week I wasn't good at all. Going through my old blog posts, I can see that my brain has filtered out some of my worst experiences.

Last night Dad told me about his latest big scare. He had a blood test for prostate cancer (PSA test) and the result was alarmingly high. He flies to the UK next week and they were going to put off his actual check (for lumps) until he got back but he insisted he had the check before then. Although his prostate is enlarged they didn't detect cancer,so he feels he's dodged a bullet there, but he'll have more tests in early November. Prostate cancer isn't easy to treat but you can survive with it for years - there seems to be a lot of variation in how aggressive it is. Dad isn't looking forward to the flight - it takes a lot out of him. He said he'd never go direct again.

Tuesday's second America's Cup race really was exciting - no doubt about that - and after today's race the Kiwi team have several match points up their sleeve. So as long as they don't capsize they should be OK. It'll be a real boon to Auckland if they can host it again. The races, and everything that goes on in between them, have received wall-to-wall coverage in NZ. But in San Francisco most people are aware that there's some kind of, y'know, boat race, and that's about it.

In contrast to the yachting, New Zealand's Davis Cup promotion tie in the Philippines received very little coverage at all, but it was a drama-filled contest that finished in the early hours of the morning, local time. The Kiwis somehow got over the line, with Michael Venus coming from two sets down to beat Treat Huey (great name) in the deciding match. I can't quite decide whether I should get back to playing tennis again. The exercise would be hugely beneficial to me I'm sure.

On Monday I played board games with Tracy and Tom. The first game we tried was a card game where you had to put various inventions in chronological order. It was more interesting than it sounds. I guessed reasonably well, making up for how little I actually knew. The other game was what they call a "programming" game. You roll dice which you then put in an ordered sequence to direct a robot through a rather complicated course. I got confused and kept rolling "backwards" when I needed to go forwards, or vice-versa, and didn't get very far.

I'm going to Auckland tomorrow. I still have to pack. I've got quite a few people I want to catch up with. When I get back I'll be thinking about flatmates.

Not so hot

My parents have been lucky with the weather on their visits to Wellington, but their luck ran out this time. Yesterday things turned particularly nasty. I said goodbye to Mum and Dad this morning as they drove off to catch the 8am ferry but it was cancelled and they were soon back on my doorstep. They caught the next ferry early this afternoon and are probably still driving home now.

Last night we went to the "Splash" watercolour exhibition at the cathedral. It was officially opened by Bill English, who encouraged people to buy on the night, but very few red dots appeared. Among the well-known professional artists, and people like Dad who's professional but not well-known in New Zealand, were a lot of dabblers. My parents, especially Mum, found the whole thing a bit disappointing. The market for watercolours isn't what it was. The average age of the clientèle (if you could call it that) was very high: younger and middle-aged people no longer seem to be interested. The show runs for two weeks though, so Dad might still sell something.

After the exhibition we ate at an inexpensive Malaysian restaurant. Just like last time we went there,  a big group was celebrating someone's birthday. Loudly. We walked home in the strong southerly and near-horizontal rain.

Talking of paintings, I now have one of Dad's originals on my wall. It's one of two paintings of Wales that Dad did for my brother and I when we were small. He's given me a print of the other painting, which appeared on the cover of my grandmother's book. I've been looking forward to having some of Dad's work. I also now have two family photos, and an old edition of Risk (early seventies?) but the most practical addition to my flat is a dining table. It's the one we had when I was growing up - Dad paid eight quid for it at an auction.

Mum and Dad did a few bits of DIY such as painting the window sills (which needed doing) and generally moving stuff around (which really didn't). Mum would ask me what I thought of the position of this or that and I just said, "if you're happy, I'm happy." It's funny, I live here and I pay the mortgage (well, try to) but it often feels like it's my parents' place rather than mine. I don't mean to sound ungrateful - I do care about what this place looks like, just not as much as they do.

As usual I had tried to debate the pros and cons of property ownership with my parents, and got nowhere. They're blinkered on the issue. They're always looking at houses, leafing through the  Property Press, peering through real estate agents' windows. And more recently, actually purchasing properties (they now own three). At least Mum can see that the property market is harder to negotiate than it once was, but Dad views it as a guaranteed path to prosperity. "The best time to buy is always now." I have bought a spacious, well-designed, well-kitted-out flat in a handy location. But it's also caused me a lot of stress and I've felt little of this sense of freedom that your own place is meant to provide. All this seismic stuff obviously hasn't helped, but there's this pressure to keep this place looking a certain way (how my parents think it should look?) that didn't exist when I wasn't living in my own place. It's perverse isn't it? It's comparable to the difference between a temporary job (pressure off) and a big, scary permanent one (pressure most definitely on). There's also the issue of being in a body corporate, which does impose real restrictions like not being allowed pets.

On Monday night my parents stayed with my aunt and uncle in Palmerston North. Tracy was well enough to invite Tom and me over to play board games that evening. Tracy's mum was there, and the state of her flat made me feel envious. There was stuff everywhere and her mum couldn't have cared less. She also has a cat which would be nice. We played two games. The first was called Biblios. You had to collect sets of coloured cards, some of which would be auctioned off at the end of the game. The rules were simple but there were a lot of strategic decisions to make; if I'd thought more carefully, or been luckier, I might have won. The second game was Takenoko, that bloody panda game, and again I drew all the wrong colours and finished last. When I got home I unpacked the Risk, colour-sorted the hundreds of blocks (representing armies) and tried to figure out the game. I found the world map quite funny. I never knew the Ukraine was so damn big, or that South America consists of only four countries. New Zealand has conveniently been left off the map altogether. Would I be right in guessing that most non-Russian Risk players have never heard of Irkutsk, Yakutsk or Kamchatka outside Risk?

On Tuesday night I played Scrabble with Mum and Dad. I recently bought an egg timer (I'll soon be eating a lot of eggs) and thought it would be a useful addition to the game because Mum is quite competitive and can take an age to put down a word. Unfortunately an egg timer doesn't really work because you have to wait for it to drain. Shortly after abandoning the timer Mum took almost ten minutes to make PORN. It's been worse. Mum was annoyed that she hadn't drawn an S and I'd had two. Oh no, I thought as I picked the last remaining S. To make life easier for everybody I "uncheated" by swapping it for another letter when no-one was looking, and she got the last S. Mum disallowed my EX (for 25) near the end of the game, I let her have her way even though it's most definitely a word these days, and I was stuck with the X at the end. I still won with a score of 215.

Apart from the economic benefits it could bring Auckland (and New Zealand) should Team NZ win, I really don't care about the America's Cup. It's all about big money and big egos. I heard the American team start on minus two points (due to their "cheating") and therefore need to win 11 of the 17 races to claim victory, but surely it's 10, right?

I left work a little early today, went to the gym, and watched Millionaire Hot Seat. Compared to the original Millionaire, which is an extremely well-designed game show, Hot Seat leaves me cold. Today there was a woman who went on an impressive run of right answers (many of them educated guesses), only to fall at the last hurdle. Her wrong answer saved the TV company $99,000, and I'm guessing that's why Hot Seat was introduced.

The muppet factor

Sunday's drama has made my work week more manageable - no matter what happened at work I was unlikely to feel as much of a muppet as I did on Sunday. Still, pretending to care, like in this morning's meeting, can get tiring after a while. Some people have meetings virtually all day every day and I wonder how they cope.

Dad has had a painting accepted for a exhibition in China. Painters were invited to submit their work, so it's safe to say the submissions were of a high standard, and only a small fraction of them were selected. In other words Dad has done well. He's also exhibiting some paintings here in Wellington this weekend - they're bringing them up in the car and will be arriving tomorrow.

With the situation in Syria comes the concern that my brother might be sent there. He's currently in the reserves of the British army.

Rugby's Ranfurly Shield is an interesting concept. Upsets in rugby are rarer than in other sports (such as football), and because a team only plays a handful of home games in a season, it can hang onto the Shield for years. Or not touch it at all for years. Otago, who I always thought were a big player in NZ rugby, got their hands on the Shield last weekend for the first time in 56 years. Yikes. I hope they hold onto it for a while.

The US Open tennis is in full swing. Well sort of - there's a lot of rain and no roof. Marion Bartoli isn't playing. She retired from the game after her incredible Wimbledon triumph. It's a shame that tennis should lose such a classy player.

In more sports news, there was a controversial and highly bizarre match in the league cup between Yeovil and Birmingham yesterday. You can read all about it here.

Six point oh no

At 2:30 on Friday we all got under our desks as the latest "big one" shook the building. Despite being a 6.6, a tick above last month's big shake, it didn't feel quite as violent. What really got me this time was the look of terror on some people's faces. They looked, dare I say, shaken up. So that was work over for the week, although we had to wait for the all-clear before we could go home. It's at times like these that I'm grateful I can just walk home; the roads were gridlocked as people wanted to get the hell out of the city on a Friday afternoon. I had a look around my flat when I got home; there were no additions to last month's plaster cracks. I spoke to one of the other owners - we agreed that for a building that's supposed to be as dodgy as hell, it's come out of these two big shakes remarkably well. That nine-storey lift shaft on Lukes Lane, which will hopefully come down soon, has become a symbol of Wellington's earthquake risk. This time the small town of Seddon really felt the full force of the quake - I was reading about a couple who had moved there to get away from Christchurch.

The size of the subsequent aftershocks has taken me by surprise. We got a 6.0 as I was ordering fish and chips. Fish Fins in Newtown were still open - I'd been looking forward to that all week. "Would you like lemon salt and pepper?" Yes please ... uh oh ... holy shit ... are you OK? I had visions of vats of hot oil toppling over - at least the hospital isn't far away. We've had a bunch of fives and high fours, some of which have woken me up, and I haven't really wanted to go to sleep in the first place. My body clock is way out of whack right now.

Mum and Dad have used the shakes as an excuse to ring me almost hourly. They're driving up this way soon to take four paintings to a watercolour exhibition. I'll be seeing them on the 30th - I think they'll be staying here for six nights. Yesterday Dad and I had (another) argument about home ownership. I'm beginning to regret going anywhere near the property market.

I spent ages last night trying to watch 56 Up without my making my computer terminally ill with viruses. It was showing at the film festival but my brother was here, it was his birthday, the weather was good, and it simply wasn't going to happen. I eventually found it online, complete with Chinese subtitles, and watched all three parts. I last saw the series in 1998 (42 Up as it was then) and what an experiment it has been - effectively a real-life soap opera that only airs once every seven years. Neil was the most interesting of the lot, and the one I could relate to the most, but all the participants were fascinating in their own ways and I found all of them likeable (except perhaps Pete who seemed a bit conceited to me, and only participated this time to promote his band). Many of them shared a dislike for the programme ("people think they know everything about me") and I can hardly blame them - there is something eerie about it. But those same people also felt morally obliged to take part, and I suppose it helps if you get paid for it. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that all fourteen participants (ten of whom are blokes) are still alive - you'd have got long odds on that in 1964.

I'm about to watch some folk music at the Museum of City and Sea with some people from Meetup.com. Update: The music was good and it helped me relax a bit. The bloke who played the Irish songs had been to Kerrytown where my grandfather was brought up. On the way back I took a picture of the offending lift shaft, complete with bouncers.

Some nice vistas (I hope)

What a crazy start to Wimbledon with Federer, Nadal, Sharapova and several other big names all out in the first round and a half. There have also been a record number of retirements (seven last night); the All England Club made a statement defending the preparation of their courts. Maybe the players, rather than the courts, are underprepared - the grass-court season is so short. In 2015 the gap between Roland-Garros and Wimbledon will be extended to three weeks (I've always thought the biggest thing that needs changing in world tennis is the calendar; that's a good start). I was reading an old Sports Illustrated article from 1975 advocating sweeping changes to the game. It could almost have been written today. I'm glad only a few of the suggested changes have actually come to fruition in the last 38 years. The sit-down at the end of a set (and not after the first game of a set) was definitely a positive change that came in around the turn of the century.

Now that Mum has some spare time, she watches a helluva lot of sport on telly, especially netball and basketball. Dad despairs at the amount of netball she watches - often back-to-back games - and I can see where he's coming from. I mean the game itself can be watchable but it's the competition that seems so contrived. So what if the Swing are thrashing the Sting. Dad wishes she made better use of her brain. When I was about eight she attended night classes in maths. She taught me some of what she learnt - for ages I thought "integer" rhymed with "beggar".

Dad has started getting bad headaches again. They're not quite the debilitating migraines he had for so long, but they're bad nonetheless. And they follow the same weekly cycle, starting on Wednesday, worsening on Thursday, peaking on Friday and tailing off over the weekend. If he starts getting full-blown migraines again, life could soon become intolerable for him, not just because of the pain but also Mum's total lack of sympathy. Many times Dad would be writhing around in bed in agony, and Mum would accuse him of "playing up" as if he were a disobedient child. She wouldn't pop in every now and then to see how he was. Nothing like that. And heaven help Dad if they were supposed to go out somewhere. All hell would break loose. I love Mum dearly but her attitude to Dad's headaches (or any other illness he might have) is something I can't forgive.

I helped Dad with his computer issues, or tried to (I'm no expert). Their PC is painfully slow. On several occasions Dad mentioned taking a hammer to it. Of course they've got bloody Vista, and as we all know, Vista means death.

Yesterday's flight from Timaru was a very pleasant one, although being on the sea side of the plane I missed what would have been a great view of the snow-covered mountains. As always the whole experience of flying from Timaru was almost totally stress-free.

A view of the mountains outside my parents' house in Geraldine yesterday. You could see the wind blowing the snow off.

This was on the way to the airport.

At Timaru airport yesterday. My brother's skydiving operation uses the same model of aircraft.

Shortly after take-off yesterday, from inside the 19-seater plane.

After a really nice time away (I needed the break) It was back to work for me today. I missed a lot of excitement with last Thursday night's storm: there was talk of windows blown out and screaming kids. The coast took a real battering.

Until I started talking to customers, I didn't realise how tight money is for so many people. For so many customers it's absolutely vital that we deduct premiums on the right day or else the money won't be there. We're often talking twenty or thirty dollars. Being paid fortnightly instead of monthly can make a huge difference. For me it wouldn't make a lot of difference whether I was paid quarterly or hourly. I don't earn much and I have a mortgage so why are things so different for me? The main reason is simply that I only have to provide for one person, not four or more. I did once earn considerably more (if not big bucks) and that has helped my financial position. I can also thank my parents who have always been careful with money; their attitude has rubbed off onto me. Plus, unlike most people, I rarely have the urge to spend. More stuff often means more hassle. Funnily enough, in my old job in Auckland, as my salary increased my discretionary spending went down. With each exam I passed and every step I took up the pay scale, I built another layer on top of my house of cards which could come crashing down at any time.

Mum turned 64 two weeks ago; Dad's 63rd birthday is tomorrow. To celebrate and to show appreciation for everything they've done for me (such as picking me up from Christchurch) I bought them six bottles of wine while I was down there. They didn't think I should spend money on them while I'm trying to pay off my mortgage on my current income. A few years ago I'd buy a case of twelve more expensive bottles and they wouldn't think I was being extravagant. They worry a lot about how much money my brother and I have (or not).

I played badminton last night in Karori with the anxiety group. The organiser was intent on making a competition out of it all. She wrote the scores down and covered up the sheet after every game as if it was all a big secret. Someone on the sidelines scored each game but lost track so badly it seemed points were being given out randomly. Of course it doesn't matter but I find it hard to concentrate when someone shouts out "six-all" and you know you should be a handful of points up (or down, as the case may be). We had some very good rallies; it would be nice if this could be a regular thing.

I saw an interesting article on the Guardian website, provoking (so far) over 1700 comments. Apparently so-called Gen Y-ers (I'm right on the cusp of that age range) are supporting the Tories. The article starts off by saying, "If you want a good idea of where Britain might be headed, go to Peterborough." I had to laugh at one commenter who said, in that case heaven help us. I lived in Peterborough for eight months before moving to NZ. My flat wasn't much to write home about (and that's being kind) and my job was poorly paid but I have quite happy memories of my time there.

Relaxing

I normally find it hard to relax, but I've managed to recharge my batteries here in Geraldine. Nothing much has happened here, and I've hardly seen anybody except my parents, but seeing lots of people and attempting to achieve things tends to stress me out.

After the cold snap that straddled the shortest day, we've had two lovely days here - those crisp mornings and clear days that you get so often in this part of the country. Yesterday we dropped in on my uncle, the one with terminal cancer. He seemed remarkably chipper, he hadn't lost any of his several interests, and had even regained the weight he'd lost. I never would have imagined he'd recently received a death sentence.

Mum and Dad have a variety of fruit trees as well as a vege patch, giving them an even bigger supply of homegrown produce than we had in England. It would be nice to have something similar myself one day. We've just been picking cooking apples which will go into a crumble. I made an apple and rhubarb crumble for my work colleagues last week (they were doing some kind of pudding week). They said they liked it but it's hard to tell what they really think. Dad mentions a time in the seventies when he brought homemade wine into work (making wine was a popular pastime back then). He knew it was disgusting but his colleagues politely drank it all.

Dad is getting a new website made up for his paintings. He wants a picture of himself on the home page (I agree that he should have one) and wanted me to take a suitable photo of him - an "arty, moody" one as he put it. "Just use your nous," he told me. But I've got no nous when it comes to arty, moody photos of people. Do you want the apple tree in the background or not? In fact I rarely take photos of people full stop, as Dad found out when he saw the pictures I took of my trip in 2010. I was peeved when he dismissed all the shots I took. He mentioned his cousin, a potter, who has made a living not from selling his pots so much as selling himself. There are photos of him, immaculately coiffed, all over the internet and in print. I accused Dad of being as vain as his cousin. I did take more photos and he eventually chose one. If I have a tinge of autism it comes to the fore whenever people-related photos are involved, especially arty, moody ones.

Yesterday morning I watched Dad fly his glider at Pleasant Point. He spends many an evening tinkering with balsa wood and glue - he enjoys building his planes and gliders more than flying them. He has excellent fine motor skills; of course his living has relied on them. Yesterday we met a young guy who had spent a fair sum on an impressive ready-made plane, and an 81-year-old bloke who grew up in St Ives. He remembers the town in wartime when its population was only 3500 - long before the sprawling estate was built - and everybody knew everybody. He's also an anti-bike-helmet advocate - he thinks helmets (which aren't compulsory in the UK or continental Europe) are a psychological and practical barrier to cycling in NZ, and the health of the nation is worse as a result. I think he's got a point.

Wimbledon, the greatest tennis tournament on earth, starts in a few minutes. The automatic entrants to the main draws were joined by a number of qualifiers. To qualify for the men's main draw you had to win two best-of-three-set matches followed by a best-of-five; there was no tie-break in the deciding set of any match. Because of the long final set and the fact that you're more likely to reach it in the best-of-three format, you would expect a best-of-three to last longer than a best-of-five once service dominance reaches a certain level. I'm guessing the cut-off point would be around 85% of points won on serve; I promise to do the calculations and post the figure here.