Puffed enough

If I walk a mile, like I do to and from work each day, I feel like I've had a decent amount of exercise. Yesterday the challenge was to walk almost a vertical mile, up to the 1529-metre summit of Mt Hector, the highest point of the Tararua ranges. Even getting up in time to be at the train station by 7am wasn't an easy task. Our starting point, Otaki Forks, was over an hour's drive away. We'd only been going ten minutes and I was already puffed. I was in no mood for energy-sapping conversation. The six others, with the exception of Tom, were all experienced trampers for whom this kind of exertion was no big deal, so I felt out of my league. I took very few photos: most of the scenery, beautiful as it was, passed me by. The saving grace was the weather which was almost perfect. It turned a near-impossible undertaking into just a very difficult one. After 4¼ hours we reached Kime Hut, 70 metres from the peak. Our leader decided that we wouldn't go any further and that we'd only have a short stop for lunch because he had an organised murder mystery evening scheduled. Bugger you, I was thinking. We were a little quicker going down, and reached the bottom at 5pm, shortly before sunset. I didn't get home till seven; it had been a long day.

It was an exhausting walk, and if I said I enjoyed it I'd be lying. It wasn't just the physical exertion, it was the people too. How dare you talk merrily about corporate restructures or the tramping club photo competition when I'm struggling to put one foot in front of the other? The memorable Akatarawa "bush-bash" I did two years ago, while also being very hard work, was very different in that respect - most of the others were having a tough time too - and the whole experience was that much more satisfying.

It's now 3½ months since I had this place to myself. I still haven't got used to the change. Unless something out of the ordinary happens, I think I'm in for the long haul (I know, I know, it's my place, I can do what I like...) but I don't think it would be fair on Kevin to get rid of him till December, in which case I'm only a third of the way through this stint. I know it's just me, but I'm unable to concentrate on things anymore; it always feels like there's someone looking over my shoulder, and $25 a day isn't really enough to compensate for that.

Getting away

I'll try and make this quick. I still have tricky days, and although the new job is far more interesting than the old one, it's amazing how much the change in job hasn't solved. Although this week I've had a chat to someone who has given me an idea (or rather the impetus to pursue an idea).

I'd like to go away. Properly away. It's four years since I last did that. I'm considering going to New Caledonia, although I'll need to wait till I have enough leave. I have been there before - in December 1986 - and can't remember much about it other than the searing heat. That was on the way to New Zealand - an incredible journey for a small kid. Our UTA jumbo jet had a name - "Big Boss" - and we stopped in Bahrain, Muscat, Colombo, Singapore and Jakarta at some point on either the outward or return trip. In those days you had to refuel much more often. I remember looking out the window of the plane to the Australian desert that never seemed to end. Occasionally you'd see a road, a car, some sign of life. Anyway, Phil has been giving me advice on what to see (and how and when) if I do go to New Caledonia.

Last weekend Kevin went to see his parents (or "folks") in Masterton so I decided to invite Tom, Rhiannon and her boyfriend over on Saturday. Not a bad evening (lots of good food), but I couldn't totally relax. Too much talk of computer games and Game of Thrones-type TV series. Apparently I'm unusual in ever going to the cinema by myself. I don't logically get why going to the cinema alone is any weirder than going to McDonald's alone. On Sunday I walked up Mount Vic and went to my cousin's place for dinner.

Work is fine. On Tuesday I went on a traffic control course at the Brooklyn tip, even though most of it wasn't relevant to me. A lot of the people on the course were in their early twenties, and their attitude to the course made for an "interesting" day. In my lunch break I finally figured out how to set the clock in my car - it only took me just short of four years (I'd got used to adding or subtracting the right number of hours and minutes but it had recently started to annoy me) - and I don't even know which buttons I pressed. Talking of clocks, at 1pm today, quite by accident, I saw the animated clock in the Old Bank Arcade do its thing. I had no idea what would happen, and I was quite impressed.

On Saturday I'm going on a difficult tramp (for me) in the Tararuas - it's scheduled to take ten hours and at this point I'm wondering how I'll survive. If I do make it I'll put up some photos in my next post.

Space drum

I don't know if I can keep this blog up. I don't feel I have anything interesting to say anymore.

On Saturday I did the Butterfly Creek walk, as did Tom and Danielle, which meant that 37.5% of us walkers were also part of the Aspie group. The weather was perfect, and the cicadas were buzzing like crazy. We did almost 14 km so it was a decent trek. There was a bloke in his sixties who took me by surprise when he asked me "Ten forty-two?" Huh? It was after eleven. "Your scroggin." He had the numbers of all the scroggins and energy boosters and mixed nut selections memorised. I asked him what he did for a living - he was a financial analyst, probably for the government and at quite a high level, judging by how secretive he was being. He'd also done several marathons. We bussed to and from the track. After the walk, Tom and I went to Tracy's place to play that mice-kill-cockroaches-with-hammers board game.

On Thursday I had my lunch on Cuba Street and saw this young guy playing a flying-saucer-shaped
drum. I'd never seen anything like it, although the sound is somewhat similar what you get from a Caribbean steel pan. It's got a single note in the centre, surrounded by six or seven touch-pads. He was playing the drum so fast, it almost seemed to light up, as if he was playing level 58 of some souped-up version of Simon. It turns out that these space drums haven't been around very long, and if you're really lucky you might be able to snag one off Ebay for $1000. Ouch. So I won't be buying one in a hurry, but I'd like to do some kind of drumming course.

Some helpful hints from Christchurch

I'm watching a programme about the Christchurch rebuild on Prime. The estimated total cost is $40 billion. That's $100,000 for every man, woman and child in the city and its environs. Nearly a third of those people won't even be around when the rebuild is complete. And then there's the social cost. Three years on from the most devastating quake, mental health problems if anything will become more severe.

All walks of life

On Saturday I went on a walk to the lighthouse at Pencarrow with the tramping club. Ten of us did the walk. Danielle was there - she seemed to thrive on the mainly flat terrain; I struggled to keep up with her. There was Barbara, an American who has been on several of my walks including that (in)famous bush-bash we did in April 2012. We had a tattooed surfer dude by the name of Brad - I wondered why so many surfers are called Brad or Brett or Shane, and comparatively few are called, say, Nigel. Brad wanted to join the army and was doing the walk (with weights in his pack) mainly as preparation for his physical assessment. He had an inquiring mind and I felt he would do well for himself. There was a Japanese woman who, until she came to NZ, hated the very idea of walking or any form of physical exercise. And besides, she said, she was too busy. Leading the trip was a woman of about my age who was brought up in Elsworth, just a few miles from where I lived. She was with her boyfriend. We also had a woman about to begin a career as one of New Zealand's 1.7 million real estate agents. I asked her why agents get so much commission. "It's just the market." That's the 21st-century explanation for practically anything.

It was a decent trek and was more demanding on the way back as we faced the northerly wind. We climbed up to the lighthouse, New Zealand's first (it went live, so to speak, in 1859) - unsurprisingly it was pretty windy up there, but we had a great view and could see a snow-capped South Island mountain. Then we walked along by the lake before following the coastline back (into the wind, this seemed never-ending). I caught the sun a bit - I was exposed to it for five or six hours, and for some reason I didn't think to put on sunscreen. All in all it was a good day's walk. It was noted that I'd done plenty of day walks with the club but no overnight trips. Conversations about tramping gear ensued, but they completely missed the reason why I haven't been keen to move to the next level.

I might still be going to see the All Whites tomorrow with my cousin and her family. Or else I might be babysitting for her youngest. I don't know yet. I see NZ are paying $40 at the TAB to qualify for the World Cup. Those are extremely stingy odds - adding an extra nought would be a more accurate reflection of their chances. If the All Whites were to make it, it would be a candidate for the biggest story in the history of NZ sport.

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!

Big day for my brother

What should be the final chapter of my brother's saga will play out tomorrow. Let's hope common sense prevails and his ex-fiancée, an extremely poisonous and vindictive woman, doesn't cause any more damage to him than she already has. I'll be in touch with him during the day. Our body corporate AGM takes place at 6:30 tomorrow; the earthquake risk issue was already the elephant in the room before the recent shakes so it could be a marathon meeting. Hopefully the guts of it will be over by the time my brother's flight gets in around nine. I've taken Friday off work. I'm not sure what we'll do yet. The film festival is on - I really want to see 56 Up but I'm not sure that's my brother's cup of tea. We'll probably go on a long walk, weather permitting. He turns 32 on Saturday but he's never been a big one for celebrating birthdays. The most important thing is that I see my brother at all. He flies to the UK next Thursday and has vowed not to renew his NZ passport nor ever set foot in the country again, and although I'm sure his attitude will change, it's likely to be a long time before I next see him.

Last Saturday I did the Southern Walkway with four others including the leader whose extreme enthusiasm nearly drove me around the bend. She was about to change jobs; I don't envy her new colleagues. I didn't get much of a feel-good sensation from the walk (I didn't want to be with people) although the exercise surely did me some good. Danielle was there - she clearly doesn't like dogs (unlike many Aspies who are very fond of them). We finished up at Island Bay and could see the destruction caused by last month's storm.

Am I supposed to be excited by the arrival of the royal baby? Because I'm not. I'm much more excited about my friend Mandy's baby. A university friend sent me an email with news of people from the past. When faced with such news it's hard not to make comparisons: while other people have hopes and dreams and goals and plans and kids and stuff, I'm just going through the motions.

I've compared notes with my workmates and I'm alarmed by just how many aftershocks I've felt. If I had kids and plans and stuff I might not have felt so many, but I do seem to be in the dodgy zone. I've felt almost as many quakes as the smart-arse in Auckland who submits felt reports on Geonet, claiming to have noticed every single one.

Take more of these pills

Oh jeez. Things haven't been good this week at all. I saw the doctor today. He said I'm "undermedicated" and upped my Efexor to 225. Heck, you see me for ten minutes once in a blue moon and you think you know me. "We can go as high as 375." Yes I know. I've been there before. "There's no shame in taking antidepressants." Shame isn't the issue. I'd happily take a whole damn packet each day if I thought it would do me some good. "You're being quite negative. See, you're depressed. It must be your serotonin levels. I can help that. Take more of these pills."

This week life has seemed impossible. Especially work. It's my turn to handle the email inbox - I find that hard at the best of times (which these most definitely aren't). It used to be my turn every fifth week, then it was every fourth, then every third, and now it's every second. That's what happens when people leave, of their own accord or not, and they aren't replaced. Then there's the business of paying for this flat which has become a millstone around my neck.

They had a board games evening at the library last night. I went along after work but was only going through the motions. First we played Ticket to Ride; I did really badly but at least I had some clue as to what was happening. Then I got caught up in a game involving a rapidly-flooding desert island. I had no idea what I was doing and I sat there hoping we could all just bloody well drown so I could go home. It made sense that I should be playing a game where drowning was a serious possibility. Actually had I to see Julie before I could go home, and that made me even more anxious. I dropped my car at Julie's (I had to vacate the car park because we had someone clean the windows using a cherry-picker) and had a half-hour walk back.

Here are some pictures from Saturday's low-visibility walk. There was a major fire at the reserve earlier this year.

It drives me mad

I don't mind driving. In fact it can be quite pleasurable being in my own little bubble, listening to some music. Years ago when I lived in Auckland, and petrol prices were less of a concern, I'd often go for a long drive up north at the weekend. On my own. And that's the thing. As soon as I have passengers, driving becomes scary as all hell. What little sense of direction I have flies out the window and I become hyper-aware of every gear change and lane change. Will she think I'm too cautious? Too reckless? Too goddamn incompetent? I look in the rear-view mirror to see the expression on her face. If I'm by myself nobody's going to know if I've taken a wrong turn so the prospect doesn't bother me. I can relax, which means I can concentrate on the road. But when I've got passengers that all changes to the point where my judgement is impaired and I'm probably a danger to other road users. With certain people (like my parents, or someone like Martin who doesn't drive yet) it's not so bad, but with most people I can feel the pressure ratcheting up about ten notches. And that's what I felt yesterday as I took people the short distance to Happy Valley Road for the start of our tramp at Te Kopahou Reserve.

Instead of marvelling at the scenery I spent the first two hours of the tramp wondering if I can somehow get over this fear of driving with other people. It isn't completely irrational (if I had to guess, I'd say I'm five times more likely to have an accident in a car full of people than on my own). It's just as well we had the tramp yesterday and not today - it's seriously nasty out there now. Yesterday there wasn't much wind and only a light shower, but the low cloud made things very atmospheric. We started off on the Tip Track (so called because it overlooks the landfill site), walking past that slightly ridiculous castle. We then passed what looks like a giant football (made up of pentagonal and hexagonal panels) and is actually a radar station that keeps track of planes. That's what they tell us anyway. Next week we'll probably find out that it's used by GCSB for something more sinister. I struggle to remember much after that. There were some impressive views for sure (when the cloud didn't restrict them), but I was feeling a bit down and having a hard time taking much in. Some of the tracks were fairly steep but overall the trip was just at the right level for me. Today I was feeling the benefits of all that exertion without being put completely out of commission.

After the tramp I had a nice hot shower and popped over to my cousin's for dinner. She had a friend over; we listened to my cousin rehearse a presentation about patents and trade marks that she was due to make tomorrow for the University of the Third Age in Timaru. The talk lasted an hour but it was interesting; she'd made a good job of cutting out the legalese. Today's ghastly weather meant that all planes (and ferries) have been grounded in Wellington and her talk has been postponed till October. I braved the elements enough to make it to the market, then braved Julie this afternoon. She's a bit more positive now that's she's got a new doctor.

The driving-with-passengers-is-scary thing is really just a manifestation of my general doing-anything-with-anybody-is-scary thing. I wish there was a cure. Perhaps doing it more often would help. Maybe a flatmate would help; the extra income certainly wouldn't do me any harm.

The Phoenix Foundation are a very good band from Wellington. I had no idea they'd hit the big time in the UK, but a year ago Buffalo got some serious airplay on BBC 6 Music. I wonder why that particular song was "the one". That station nearly closed down; when I was over there in 2010 there was a big campaign to save it. I notice Cerys Matthews is hosting a programme right now. She's Welsh and was lead singer of Catatonia in the late nineties. She couldn't really sing but I liked the band anyway and have two of their albums.

Too cool

It's a fine Sunday in Wellington, even better than yesterday when I went on a tramp in the Orongorongo Valley. It was an easyish walk - we went at a fairly leisurely pace and there weren't any real steep climbs or descents. Only five of us did the trip - Danielle, who seems fairly weather-sensitive, pulled out at the last minute. The cool but dry conditions were pretty much ideal for tramping I thought.

I watched One News on Friday and was a bit puzzled by why Steven Adams' NBA draft was the number one news item. Not only that, but when they finally moved on from talking about his $2 million contract they said "in other news...", a phrase that's normally used after a huge news event, as if to say that everything else pales into insignificance. Yes, the NBA is a big deal internationally, and a Kiwi player landing a big contract deserves a mention. It's also nice to have a good news story for a change, especially when you add in the extra feel-good factor of his sister being a double Olympic champion. But in reality a seven-foot bloke making lots of money doesn't materially affect many New Zealanders, unlike Auckland's transport plan which (either directly or indirectly) affects us all. I would have touched on the Adams story at about 6:15 and only made a big deal of it during the sports section.

Talking of sport, Marina Erakovic's Wimbledon came to an end last night against Laura Robson (I followed the match on the internet). Erakovic totally dominated the early stages of the match, racing out to 6-1 5-3 in no time at all. But it seemed nerves got the better of her. (Even at the crappy levels I used to play at, I found that having a big lead against someone I didn't expect to beat could be nerve-wracking. At any moment my opponent could click into gear and steal the match from me, and I'd be powerless to do anything about it.) Erakovic double-faulted at crucial times and proceeded to lose eight straight games (despite having chances in several of them) to fall 4-0 behind in the third set. Robson hung in there, buoyed by the crowd who helped get her over the line as Erakovic mounted a comeback in the latter stages. Overall the Kiwi won 87 points to Robson's 81, proof that it's not how many points you win but when you win them. Erakovic maintained a high standard in all three matches; if she keeps it up she should soar up the rankings. I just hope that last night's loss (and she lost the match rather than Robson winning it) doesn't damage her psychologically.

This morning I had a coffee at Midnight Espresso on Cuba Street on the way to the market. There I read an article in the paper about the possible demise of Cuba Street as a bohemian enclave of Wellington. The word "gentrification" was used, and it was suggested that Newtown could soon be the cool zone. A new upmarket restaurant (which I could see from the café) has just opened where Peaches and Cream (a sex shop) used to be, right opposite an even more upmarket restaurant in Logan Brown. I think (and hope) that reports of Cuba Street becoming uncool are a bit premature. Today as I walked along that street on the way home, I caught sight of someone I guess was BMD, finishing off one of his spray-painted murals. He had long hair and a beard, much as I guessed he would, and I didn't dare talk to him as he was way too cool.

If anyone cares, this is my 400th post.

Feel-good factor

It's been a funny sort of weekend. My mood has run pretty much the whole gamut, which is unusual for me - I don't normally have much of a gamut. In my last year of university I'd sometimes wake up and feel I'd beat Agassi if we were to play in the final of Wimbledon. I don't mean thrash him - I'd have expected to go at least four sets - but I'd have still felt pretty good about the situation. That was a long time ago now, and I haven't felt like that since (nor did I ever feel like that in my earlier years at university).

I haven't been off the phone long. I talked to Julie for over an hour, or rather she talked to me. If you need your feel-good factor boosted, Julie isn't the best person for the job.

This morning I had walked to the top of Mt Victoria, down to Hataitai and back home through the tunnel. It was a fantastic day, and it's a great view from the summit of Mount Vic, seeing planes take off and land and boats out on the water. Being such a nice day there were heaps of other people wanting to do the same thing. I must make sure I go for a decent walk every weekend, pretty much rain or shine (the trips I go on with the tramping club don't happen all that often).

On Friday night I hardly slept so I didn't get up till ten yesterday. Ugh. I went to the market in the pouring rain, worked on my puzzles (that made me feel much better) and attended a meet-up group at the Ballroom (a pool hall on Courtenay Place). About a dozen showed up; we were quite a motley bunch. Also present, at the opposite end of the scale from our anxiety group, were a mob of rowdy beer-swilling 100-kilo-plus blokes, getting tanked up before watching the Warriors league game. After the pool, when I really felt like going home, we ate at a Mexican place on Cuba Street. I had a beef quesadilla. We sat at a table covered with marker-penned Spanish swearwords; I was surprised how many of them I recognised. After that we had a coffee at Espressoholic - that was probably my favourite part of the evening. I had an interesting chat with a woman who had emigrated from China two years ago.


At the back end of last week I struggled to concentrate at work. I also felt stupid because of the "mistakes" I made when entering data into what I think is an appallingly designed and totally counter-intuitive system. The best way I could describe the system would be to compare it to an online flight booking. Imagine you book a flight, you pay, you get one of those six-letter codes telling you that it's gone through fine, then you arrive at the airport and they won't let you on the plane because you entered your credit card expiry date with a dash instead of a slash. What really gets me is how some people find the system perfectly intuitive when I don't know if I'm Arthur or Martha. It's a recurring theme for me: ever since day one of my first job working for a large company, I've been trying to make sense of the nonsensical, and failing miserably.

I've signed up for another meet-up; on Thursday I'll be trying my hand at badminton. I don't think I've played since I was sixteen. I wasn't much good then (at least when they stopped me from serving overarm) and I don't expect to be any better this time, but it doesn't do you much harm to try these things.

Bouncing back (I hope)

This week I've been feeling stressed, anxious, depressed, the lot. I can't quite put my finger on why. There might be several whys. Sometimes there doesn't have to be a why at all. It hasn't been much fun feeling hopelessly inadequate, not sleeping well (that's a problem I haven't had in ages), and being even more obsessive about the passing of time than I normally am. There's been a lot of news - the plane crash that killed the 2 Degrees boss and his wife; Jesse Ryder; North Korea; Nelson Mandela; the new Chinese leader; and the George Taiaroa murder (that was absolutely terrible), but I've been too introspective to pay much attention to it and I feel bad because of that.

My uncle - Mum's third brother who's 69 - has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He smoked up until a few years ago. He's lived in South Canterbury all his life and knows people from childhood. I've seen him on a fairly regular basis, most times I've gone down south, but I've never got to know him that well. I've never felt we've got much in common. He's quite a complex character I think. He's been married three times and has seemed quite bitter ever since his second wife pretty much took him to the cleaners. I guess we're all terminal, but this has happened so suddenly (the news I mean, not the cancer which has probably been around for some time) that it's a real shock to Mum's family. My uncle is a very private person and although I haven't named him and hardly anyone reads this blog anyway, he'd probably shoot me if he knew I'd written this paragraph.

On Tuesday I saw Julie at the rest home. The place is run by the Catholic church (she isn't a Catholic herself but most of the inmates are) and you get the impression they're nearly all waiting for God. I think you can become institutionalised, and subservient, very quickly in a place like that. Julie plans to move out of the home later this month, into a flat that someone has hooked up for her. I've lost track of the number of times she's moved. She had some extremely dark thoughts when I saw her. I don't expect her next move to lighten her mood but I'd like to be proven wrong.

I was on edge for the rest of the week. By Friday the constant foot traffic behind my desk (to access the nearby loos and canteen) was starting to get to me. That lunchtime I got my hair cut at the cheapest place I know of in town, a barber's with old furniture, run by an old man. I think he recognised me from my previous visits. He asked me what I wanted and I made a bad job of pretending to have some clue. Inevitably when I returned to work, some of my colleagues noticed my chop and wanted to know where I'd got it done. Oh god. Our local CEO has now moved on to bigger and better things within the company, and on Friday afternoon she had her send-off. Lots of anecdotes, lots of jokes, lots of supposedly funny pictures on Powerpoint slides, and lots of wanting to get the hell out of there.

Straight after work on Friday I went round to my cousin's place for an Indian takeaway and a couple of glasses of wine. I don't drink a lot and when I do it's nearly always either with my cousin (her husband doesn't drink) or by myself. My cousin's husband showed me their Kindle. It can store up to 3000 books, and in some ways is better than a book. For instance you can't increase or decrease the font size in a physical book. Don't know what "repudiate" means? Just click on it and it brings up a dictionary entry. It felt like science fiction somehow. (Mum has an e-reader too but I don't think it's as sophisticated. It does however come with a lot of classics already loaded.)

I've so far resisted the temptation to buy a smart phone. Actually that isn't quite true; I haven't needed or wanted one so I haven't bought one. But this puzzle stuff will soon make one a necessity. So what do I get? I know, I'll ask Tom from the autism group. He emailed me screeds of information about phones, and went into all kinds of technical detail that I didn't even try to understand. Apparently it's all about what version of Android you have (Tom says I shouldn't go down the iPhone route) and whether it has a single or dual core. You can even get quadruple cores. I wonder, can you also get Apples with multiple cores? That brings to mind this sketch from the one remaining Ronnie.

Tom came over yesterday. He brought half a roast chicken and helped me with some tech issues, but oh boy. I was feeling anxious anyway and he didn't help. He's got an inquiring mind, which is generally a good thing, but it means he asks lots of questions. Yesterday I could almost physically feel the impact of each one. I had to explain why I wanted to go to America, which was hard because I didn't really know why. At one point he wanted to know if I'd done any home improvements lately. Well not really. I mentioned the chairs that I did with Mum last weekend. I said the stair rail needed painting. He said, yes, it looks really grotty. Thanks. "I can tell you're not interested in doing renovation." Thanks. While I was sorting out lunch he looked at those chairs and picked them up and turned them over. "Why aren't the screws in fully?" They don't go in all the way. Look, you try. They did go in all the way, but there was some good reason why we hadn't fully tightened them which I could no longer remember. Out came his Swiss Army knife and he started tightening the screws. "This one is missing a screw." Yes I know, they came in packs of fifteen, I'll get another one.
I'd had more than enough of Tom by this stage. I asked him how he planned to spend the rest of the day. He got the hint.

As I was walking through Te Aro yesterday, post-Tom, I saw this game of bike polo going on. I'd heard of it, and even Segway polo, but never expected I'd see it in action.

Today I went tramping at Cannon Point. I'd done that trip before, six months ago. Only four of us went today - some people (including Danielle) were put off by the dodgy weather. It did rain a bit, but nowhere near enough to outweigh the benefits of getting out and about when you've been feeling like crap. Even driving there and back seemed to be of benefit, and I now feel like I'm bouncing back from my latest bout of depression. It wasn't a very long walk; it took in the reservoir lake which must have provided most of the Hutt's water supply in the past. On the walk somebody mentioned smart phones and I said I was looking to get one; it was suggested I get the Galaxy Rav 4 or something. Whatever, it was clearly expensive. When I said I didn't want to spend more than $300 I got comments like "but a smart phone is such a useful tool; unless you get a good one you won't appreciate how powerful it is." That's OK if you've got the money.

I heard Hello Old Friend by Eric Clapton on the radio on Friday night. It's just a lovely song, simple as that, and I've been playing it a lot this weekend. For some reason it reminds me of Richard (as it happens he was born the same year that the song came out). I miss Richard. So much is made of where we live, but if you've got friends nearby that hardly matters.

Side(burn) bets

After missing the session a fortnight ago I decided to attend tonight's autism group. I'm glad I did because we had some interesting discussion. I got lucky with the subgroup I ended up in.

On Saturday I went tramping. We ascended Mount Climie, which was a bit of a climbie, to an altitude of 840 metres. The autism group is starting to take over the tramping club: of the seven who did the walk, three of us attend the group (Danielle, Tom who has been to my flat a couple of times, and myself). We were blessed with good weather.

I saw Julie at her rest home on Saturday evening. It was the first time I'd seen her after her shoulder operation. She was in a lot of pain - more than before - and didn't think it would improve. It was sad to see her life reduced to an eight-foot-square "cell", especially as she's still got all her mental faculties. She talked about ending her life; it's hard to know how to respond to that. She was struggling to sleep so I gave her seven sleeping pills (they were prescribed to me years ago but I never took them). She's since taken them all - presumably one at a time - but it probably wasn't a clever idea for me to supply them to her.

This third test between NZ and England has been a great battle which the Kiwis have dominated. They ran the English bowlers ragged earlier today and then held two stunning catches just before stumps. NZ now need "just" six wickets in the final six hours of play tomorrow to secure a shock series win. I hope they do it (I suppose I should have mixed feelings about that, but I don't, probably because NZ were huge underdogs before the series started).
Update: What a match, and what an absorbing last three days. Forget the "tee twenty" crap, this was proper cricket. It was a shame the Kiwis couldn't quite finish England off but both sides performed admirably today. Just when the game appeared to be fizzling out into a slightly tame draw, Kane Williamson popped up with two quick wickets to create a grandstand finish. The NZ team go to England fairly soon - it's a shame they'll only play two tests over there. To me a proper test series needs to be three matches at a minimum. And they're playing the shorter formats after the tests - what's all that about?

Yesterday I saw my cousin and her husband (I attended their wedding three years ago) with their two daughters, the eldest two-and-a-bit, the youngest just six weeks old. They now live in Auckland having returned from an extended OE in London. The puzzle stuff has given me a chink of light on the horizon; that's probably why all that family stuff yesterday was just about bearable for me.

Mum is coming up here on Thursday. My sideburns have got even bushier since she last saw them. If I were a betting man (!) I'd put up odds of 3/1 that she mentions my sideburns within the first five minutes. I'm probably being generous with those odds. I'd give at least 8/1 that she doesn't mention them at all in the time she's here. I'm looking forward to seeing her though.

I spoke to my brother tonight. He's staying with Mum and Dad, just for one night, and will be off in the morning. Until last Christmas I'd never known him to have a sustained period of unhappiness. It's upsetting to see it now. He plans to fly back to the UK, permanently, at his earliest opportunity.

Thud, thud, thud

Earlier this month I bought a dartboard and hung it in the spare room of my flat. I put it in the obvious place on the wall adjoining the flat next door. At the time I wondered whether this was sensible, and decided I'd never play after 10pm. Mostly I played between 8 and 10. I wasn't very good but the act of lobbing darts at a board while listening to the Sound (my new favourite radio station) helped me to relax. On Monday night I found an unaddressed letter in my mailbox. It was what I guessed it might be. Apparently the noise, which they imagined was a ball of some kind, has been tormenting my neighbours ever since it started. They'd lived here since the place was built 16 years ago and had never experienced anything like this. Oh god. One of them works an early shift and I kept him up till 9:45 one night. I felt terrible and apologised sincerely (I hope) in my letter, in which I blamed my non-existent flatmate. Needless to say the dartboard came down. When I bought this place in a large apartment block I did think about possible noise-related issues with neighbours but I never thought I'd be the perpetrator.

On Sunday the guy from the autism group came round. We had a long chat. It's not often I have any sort of chat with someone more introverted than me. He wasn't interested in playing squash or table tennis but was very interested in all things technological. I need the odd bit of human contact every now and then; he said he could happily get by with none.

This weekend I'll be going tramping in the Orongorongo Valley with my cousin's husband (Dave) and their eldest son (he's ten). We'll be camping overnight on Saturday. I'm looking forward to the walking bit (though with a kid I don't expect we'll go that far). The overnight bit I'm not quite as excited about. I'm worried my lack of practical nous will be exposed. Dave is extremely practical.

Something could be happening with my puzzles, and even if it doesn't, I've got some new-found determination to make something happen. This will involve hard work, publicising my business (perhaps using - gasp! - Facebook and Linked In) and for a while doing two jobs. There won't be much time for blogging I'm afraid.

Autism - it's not just for kids

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

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

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

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

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

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

End of the oneth month

I had a panic attack at work today, just as I was about to go home. I have no problems dealing with them but they do slow me down.

Today one of the call centre guys used the word "oneth" when reading out a date. It's the thirty-oneth of the oneth today; tomorrow will be the oneth of the twoth. When I think about it, there's no reason why we shouldn't say "oneth" for higher ordinal numbers that end in one. The word "first" is really a superlative meaning "nearest the beginning" (just like "best" and "most" are superlatives); it has nothing to do with the number (or digit) one. It's therefore a bit strange that we use "first" in combinations like "twenty-first" and "thirty-first" which have nothing to do with being nearest the start. But that's English for you, and unlike that bloke at work, I'm not going to start slipping "thirty-oneth" into conversation. (By comparison, premier is French for first, but they say vingt-et-unième for twenty-first.)

My short-term memory (seconds or minutes) is a lot better than it was when I moved into this role, but my medium-term memory (a few days) is as bad as ever. Sometimes I'll ring up a medical centre to ask for information about a patient; I'll often end up leaving a message. When the nurse rings me back two days later, I might vaguely remember leaving the message if I'm lucky, but I'll have no idea of the specifics. I might have left other messages on other phones in the intervening period, and that only makes matters worse. I always imagined my experiences were normal, but I've since learnt that other people do remember specifics of phone messages and other work tasks from days earlier. It seems that when I leave the office in the evening I empty my brain of everything I did that day.

Wellington (and the rest of the country) continues to bask in glorious summer weather. I've been amazed by the number of kids busking in the streets, trying to make a few dollars before school starts. This week I heard one girl singing "it's not about the money, money, money..." You know what, I think it is!
They'll have great weather for the Sevens. They gave out a few free tickets at work for Saturday, but I can't make it (I'm tramping) and anyway free would be too expensive for me - someone would have to pay me to go. I must sound so anti-fun with that last sentence, but the whole dressing-up-and-getting-hammered thing isn't really my cup of tea. I've always found the actual rugby games good to watch, but that's not what going to the Sevens is really about.

There were tragic scenes in Brazil last weekend as more than 230 people died in a fire at a nightclub, most of them from smoke inhalation. You can read an excellent article here about the reaction this terrible incident has generated, in the media and in Brazilian politics. It isn't pleasant reading. These are important times for Brazil - they've got a big population and a booming economy but massive inequalities between rich and poor, and major problems with violent crime. The spotlight will be on them as they stage the world's two biggest sporting events in 2014 and 2016.

Here are some pictures from Saturday's walk: a view of the city, a shot taken in the opposite direction with the South Island mountains in the far distance, and an iconic (I know that word is badly overused) fern frond. What great weather we had. I should also mention bush lawyer, a plant we saw a lot of. Its hooked spines will snag on anything.

Welcome to summer!

What a marvellous weekend of weather we've had. So Wellington does get a summer after all. Not every year obviously, but I shouldn't complain.

I'd like to think I made the most of the sunshine. Yesterday I went tramping; we set off from the club just before 7:30 (I took my car) to do the Wainuiomata Catchment walk through an area of bushland that is normally human-free. The park ranger met us at the entrance and gave us a guided tour of Drummond Ridge and Skull Gully (a name that conjures up vivid images and also made me wonder where the word "skul(l)duggery" came from). The ranger pointed out fauna and flora along the way, although there isn't much fauna and that's by design. Last August they did an aerial drop of 1080 poison, they have lines of stoat and possum traps at regular intervals, although they do have a population of wild pigs, hence when they find a trapped possum they often find only its head. He was an expert on matters ecological; intervening in ecosystems is such a fine balancing act - by solving one problem you can so often create another. The trip lasted seven hours, although we did take fairly regular breaks. To be out in the open air for that length of time, and to get moderately heavy exercise, did me the power of good (thankfully we only got dappled sunlight so didn't get too hot). I can still feel those endorphins now. I'll put up some photos in my next post.

I hadn't been home long from the tramp when I went over to my cousin's place for a barbecue. She's off to America on business next week - again. Her three boys are such a nice bunch of kids.

This afternoon I had a swim in the sea, for the first time since I've lived in Wellington. I swam at Seatoun; I'd hardly call the water warm but (unusually for me) I went straight in.

I tried to listen to the womens' tennis final but I fell asleep early in the second set. When I woke up Azarenka had just completed her comeback to beat the unlucky Li Na. I couldn't believe some of the negative comments that were made following what was quite a dramatic three-set match. I'm sure much of the negativity was due to the result - Azarenka got a bad rap for that time-out she took towards the end of her semi-final. Some people had this to say: "What a shocking match: 16 service breaks!" I didn't understand that. How does a lack of service breaks imply a high-quality match? All it means is high quality of serve.

The men's semis were both enthralling in their own ways. Djokovic's demolition of Ferrer recalled Federer's dismantling of Roddick in the 2007 semis. I watched that match six years ago - in which Federer looked like he could just about walk on water - and by all accounts Djokovic flicked the switch over to god mode on Thursday. Andy Murray's victory over Federer was much tougher, but when I had a look at the stats, it seemed Murray was the better player by some margin and Federer did well to take the match to five.

As for the men's final, it's a tough one to pick. I make Djokovic a slight (maybe 55:45) favourite; I'll go for a four-set win for Djokovic, 6-4 7-6 2-6 6-3. Overall it's been an interesting tournament that has raised a number of issues, not least the question of equal prize money for men and women. I'll try and explore one or two of these issues in my next entry.

Tennis comeback?

There's been some good news from my brother: his ex has chucked in her job and left the country (she's freezing her butt off somewhere in the north of England - she can't do much damage there). Hopefully this whole saga will now blow over and he'll be able to get on with life.

I've almost finished How To Be Good which is a shame as it's been a jolly good read. I found Hornby's depiction of "Barmy Brian" quite thought-provoking, especially the bit where Brian (he's about fifty) tells Katie what it's like to cook for himself (badly!) following his mother's recent death. There are shades of (Barmy?) Bazza, who also lived with his mother until she died in 2008. As Hornby says, "love ... is as undemocratic as money, it accumulates around people who have plenty of it already: the sane, the healthy, the lovable. I am loved by my children, my parents, my brother, my spouse, I suppose, my friends; Brian has none of these people, and never will ..." There are a lot of Brians in this world, living, breathing human beings, existing outside of society, unloved by anybody. OK, some of them have made a choice to live like that but most haven't, and it's all very sad. For some reason I've always found those sorts of people interesting, probably because I only really exist on the fringes of society myself.
By the way I find Tom (Katie's ten-year-old son) to be extremely unlovable!

After work yesterday I dashed to the Green Man (a bar quite close to work) to watch the tail-end of Serena Williams' shock loss to her compatriot Sloane Stephens. I was wishing I hadn't bothered (there was no sound and you couldn't watch it without something going on - like a game of pool - between my eyes and the screen). The underdog Stephens looked to be playing a blinder, and I was impressed by her fighting spirit after she lost what I thought would be the crucial game at 3-3 in the third set. I've never been a huge Serena fan, and Stephens seemed amiable, so I was happy with the result. (I'm always amused by Serena's official weight. On the Aussie Open site she's listed as 68 kilos, but they don't say which parts of her anatomy are included. Her bum? Maybe that's just her bum.) Sharapova fell heavily to Li Na in her semi-final this afternoon, and Stephens' excellent Open came to an end in her semi with Azarenka just as their match was getting exciting.

I've been following the tennis much more than I thought I would. I'm sure the no-poker thing has played its part (I don't miss the poker but I do miss having an "escape" - the tennis provides that to some degree). I emailed a comment (about tie-breaks) to their radio team and was surprised to hear it read out on air by Richard Evans, my favourite commentator. I'd like to make another comment about the weight of rackets. All this talk about tennis has made me at least consider taking it up again. I basically quit the game when I came to Wellington. At various times tennis has done me an awful lot of good, but it's also caused me a lot of angst on occasions, I'm a bit apprehensive about getting back into it. They're in the middle of the current season, so it's likely I'll have to wait till September in any case. Whatever, I need proper serious exercise on a more regular basis (I've put on weight and certainly feel more lethargic); at the weekend I've got an arduous tramp planned - hopefully that will help.

Workout

Saturday's tramp (see next post for photos) was a real workout. Luckily the weather was just about perfect. We started at the Brooklyn wind turbine, were greeted by ostriches along the way, and ended up at some Second World War bunkers at the southernmost point of the track following a steep descent over perhaps half a kilometre. Not all of us did that last bit; I certainly had second thoughts about it. We had lunch by the bunkers and then had to climb up that steep slope. I struggled. My heart was pounding furiously. At the top of the steepest section (it was still pretty steep for a good way after that) I took a rough measurement of my pulse using the second hand of my watch. Boom-boom-boom, tick, boom-boom-boom, tick. One-eighty. We got back to the windmill at about 3:30, then went to the café attached to the Penthouse cinema. It turned out the one of the trampers is an actuarial student, with three exams to go before qualification under the US system. He seemed almost as disillusioned with the whole thing as I did towards the end. I must say I felt good after all that exercise, though I've felt a bit washed out and unmotivated so far this week.

My poker cash-out cheque arrived today. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss online poker, but the withdrawal symptoms are starting to wear off now I think.

The highlight at work today was when a colleague of mine thought frangipani (the flower) was pronounced "fraggy penny". She was then persuaded to ring up a local florist and ask if they had any "fraggy pennies". On Friday we've got that damn Christmas party.

Last night the autism group had their Christmas party (of sorts); we played a few games of Tsuro (one of Tracy's board games) and ate junk food.

Bush walk and a sense of relief

I had quite a good weekend. On Saturday I went on a tramp: the Hemi Matenga bush walk near Waikanae. It took 3¼ hours and it was probably the most arduous trip I've been on since that infamous one in April. The wet weather certainly played its part; the trek up to the highest point was fairly gentle - unfortunately we couldn't see a thing from the lookout due to the rain - but the downward slope was steeper and I slipped a couple of times in the mud. Danielle had signed up for the trip but pulled out when she saw the weather forecast. That was a shame. She is a little unsteady on her feet when going downhill but she probably would have been OK with a pole. The bush was lush and green; the more seasoned trampers among us pointed out plants along the way, such as hen and chicken fern which develops baby ferns at the ends of its leaves.

When I got home after the tramp, I felt that pleasant feeling of accomplishment as well as that unpleasant feeling of being desperate for a pee. That evening I went round to my cousin's place to babysit while they went to see The Intouchables, but not much babysitting was necessary as the film was booked out so they came straight home.

Yesterday the depression group met up at Denny's on Willis Street. We had an interesting chat and all agreed that while public acceptance of depression has improved in recent years, people are far less accepting of social anxiety. The group also met on Wednesday for our regular catch-up on Cuba Street. Just like yesterday, six of us turned up on Wednesday including an older chap with big milky eyes who has bipolar disorder - it was good to see him for the first time in ages. They might be planning some activity along the lines of paintball, but hopefully less painful. A poker night has even been mentioned.

Dessert island

Only four people went on yesterday's tramp in the rain - the sensible ones (Danielle included) stayed away. We didn't get too wet and it was surprisingly warm as we walked from Willis St up to the Brooklyn wind turbine. There were lots of facts of figures on a board near the turbine which I found interesting. Coming down was quick. After three hours it was nice to get home and dry off having benefited from the exercise.

Tonight I attended the autism group with sixteen others. It was good to see Tracy who has recovered from her latest bout of illness. In an email prior to the meeting we were given two topics for discussion. The first of those asked which three items we would take if we were stranded on a "dessert island". Cream, a spoon and some scales? A dessert island sounds like a lot of fun, but with my dairy ban I'd find it quite challenging at the moment. The other topic was our most memorable travelling experience. We split up into two groups and spent half the time on each subject. We struggled a bit with the desert island topic but were more at ease when talking about our travels. I could have talked for hours on that subject, having been lucky enough to have had many memorable trips as a kid, but only had time to talk about my trip to and from New Zealand with my family in 1986-87. Things got rather tense on a couple of occasions at the group. One trait of autism is a lack of empathy and there was a distinct lack of it on show tonight.

One of the two TV monitors we have at work (the one that I can actually see from my desk) was unusually tuned to Sky Sport today. This morning they showed extended highlights of Chelsea's match with Manchester United (Man U won 3-2 as it happened). I was thinking how the Premier League is really just a series of exhibition matches. You see some incredibly skilful football played by some of the best players in the world, but the games are meaningless as the teams may as well be hand-picked. In the afternoon they showed live coverage of what turned out to be the deciding game of the hilariously-named World Series. Is American baseball just like professional football, in that the clubs (or franchises) with the most money can afford the best players and therefore win? Is the physical location of these teams as meaningless as in Premier League football? I'm guessing so but I really have no idea.