A fab looking tree round the corner from where I am living.

See? Not quite as impressive as the Sydney Harbour Bridge but it is a harbour bridge none the less!

The little known All Black Golfing team Haka. Pretty scarey huh? you can see why I "chose" to lose the golf game.

"Damn it! I came all the way to the North Shore and not only did I forget my camera, but I left my right hand behind aswell!"

Welcome to sunny Auckland. Or, since Lord Of The Rings, Orkland. Picture taken from the pub where I smashed my opponents at poker, but days before. Little did the barstaff know that they were in the presence of a poker playing Goliath.

16th October 2006.

I have been in Auckland for a while now, and I must firstly apologise to everyone who has been missing my posts on here. I doubt that I have a huge fan base but I have received a few e mails from people asking if I had simply become bored with writing my nonsense. The fact of the matter is that I have moved from the hotel that I was staying in and rented an apartment for a short while. I have managed to get the phone line hooked up, but I am still waiting for the appropriate modem to be able to get online from there. I have been able to pop to the coffee shop across the road but it is quite expensive over there so I keep my time to a minimum. You can take the bloke from Yorkshire but never the Yorkshire from the bloke. The apartment, or as we in Yorkshire call them, a flat, is only a small studio one with a small living area, a kitchen, bathroom and sleeping bit is quite nice really. Has all the mod cons and is nicely done out. Unfortunately it over looks the street and the traffic noise can be quite loud if you have the balcony doors open. If I had been lucky enough to get one higher up and on the other side of the building, then I would have had a great view over Auckland harbour. But, alas, no. So here I am and quite comfortable, thank you very much for asking.

The guy from the real estate agents who is renting the place to me was really funny. He was like a caricature of a Japanese man. His accent was exactly like one that you might see in a sitcom and he was always flapping! In Yorkshire we have a phrase that sums him up. Didn’t know his arse from his elbow! It turns up that this trait stopped being quite so endearing as once I had moved in; I came home from shopping to find that someone had been in my flat! He forgot to tell me that the flat is up for sale and that people would be popping by, from a different estate agent, to show prospective buyers around the place. It wasn’t the estate agents fault, as he thought the flat was not occupied. I have since given Mr. Wang, from the letting agency, the benefit of a Leeds lads’ stern talking to. While I have been having a few drinks, I met up with a bunch of lads from Dundee. They are good fellahs and quite silly. One, Gary, is about 4 feet 9 inches tall. Mini ME! I have a picture of us on my phone but I will have to see if I can get the picture on here. I was having some good banter with him. A small fellah without a chip on his shoulder! What a novelty! I was in the toilet of a pub when Gary and Michael walked in, looked at the urinal and shrugged. The lip of the urinal was about two inches too high for Gary, even on his tiptoes. Without breaking a smile or acting as if anything was out o the ordinary, Gary unzipped and approached the plate. With equipment in hand he pushed his elbows out and Michael picked him up and held him up while Gary had his wee, not stopping their general chit chat all the way though! When finished Michael put him down, washed his hands (his own, not Gary’s) and walked out. Gary did likewise and seemingly didn’t see what was so funny about a 26 year old man being lifted by his 24 year old friend for a wee!

Greed got the better of me when I first moved into the flat. I went to Foodtown for grocery shopping and, although I tried to be conservative, walked the half a mile home needing to rest every 20 paces! But everything I bought was absolutely necessary. Especially the 2 crates of beer. While I was in the supermarket, I was left in stitches by one particular sight. Now, I am not sure if this is a “had to be there” moment, or whether it is just me that finds this kind of thing funny. While queuing up at the check out, I was following a Chinese looking guy. Paying no particular attention to him, it suddenly occurred to me to look at his purchases. 15 cans of spam were piled onto the conveyor belt, followed by a tube of toothpaste! That was it! Nothing else. Just me? Ok! Just to note that New Zealand shopping trolleys are as hard to drive as English ones.

After settling into the new pad, I was just relaxing and watching TV. They have loads of English programmes on here. Everything Must Go!, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Top Gear, the lot. Except that they are about 6 months behind England. So a little piece of home is keeping me company. The major difference is that the wording that they can use on NZ TV is slightly more relaxed than in the UK. No one batters an eyelid if a news reporter or presenter, when talking about youth crime figures for example, refers to the next generation of Auckland’s adults as “just bad little buggers!” Even the drink driving adverts are more overt. Overt adverts? Sounds like the name of an advertising agency? No? Carry on. Where were we? Drink driving adverts…. The closing caption is; “Drink driving. If your mate is pissed, then you’re screwed!” Can you imagine that in England? The other adverts are a little more crude too. The Toilet Duck advert finishes off with; “Toilet Duck, helps stop nasty skid marks!” Of course the advert features a duck in a racing car, zooming around the bowl, but the message is clear! If you are having a case of sticky otters then Toilet Duck will persuade the guilty stains from the side of the bog! Somehow I doubt that the ITC would allow Andrex to have the tag line; “Andrex, gets the crap out of every nook and cranny!”

There is a Maori TV channel too. In England we don’t really have too much of a problem having to consider the needs of indigenous popular culture, except for them pesky Welsh folk wanting to hear that crazy language that they speak. Even the Scots are happy to grumble about us under their breath and celebrate when England lose at anything. Here the Maori channel is a spot where the deep culture and historical merits and information are broadcast to inform all of the population about the plight, needs and future of the founders of this country. It is vital that this happens, as it would be a real shame if the roots of this culture were watered down, overlooked and infected by the diseases of western TV shows. It nice to see that there is somewhere that can broadcast without having the Simon Cowell type cheap populist ratings winner formats, ruining the intellectual content of the shows. What is especially refreshing and different, is the Maori channels singing contest, where people phone in to vote for their favourite performer each week, with one being eliminated by the home audience after a critique by a panel of experts, until one is left as the eventual winner. The name of this show? Get this. I defy you not to laugh. Maorioke! Classic! To be honest, I have never watched the show but I refuse to allow that fact, or the fact that I have no idea if it resembles Pop Idol in any way, get in the way of my version! Maorioke! Brilliant!

I have been out and about a tiny bit more than my last post. This is because I went to a restaurant in the city centre and was entertained during my meal by the enormous skills of a Kiwi accordion player called Tracey. She is only tiny and has to carry around this huge accordion! Without seeming facetious you would have thought that a petite person would pick an instrument more befitting her frame than a great big squeeze box! The recorder perhaps? Or the triangle? Anyway, she was talking to me after she finished her gig and offered to show me around a few places over the next few days, which I accepted. First port of call was Mission Bay for lunch. It was really beautiful and made me see why Auckland is well loved by visitors, rather than the very ordinary city centre. To get there you have to drive along a number of bays and across a sea wall bridge that is only just above the sea level. It was stunning, but as you can probably guess, Danno forgot his camera again. After lunch in a nice restaurant, I came home for my constitutional afternoon nap while Tracey escaped my boring conversation to go to work. Next day, she picked me up and took me for a tour of the North Shore and the bays up that way. I got some great photos of the city from across the harbour. Crossing the Harbour Bridge wasn’t quite as stunning as Sydney, but it is nice enough, none the less. After a game of crazy golf (Rock and Roll!) it was back to try and sort out the internet access in my flat. Living the dream or what! By the way, I lost at crazy golf. Playing against a girl, I did the gentlemanly thing and took a dive. I could have beaten her if I wanted. Easy. I let her win.

I suppose my most touristy thing that I have done since being here is the reverse bungee from the foot of the Sky Tower. If you haven’t seen them before, you basically sit in an iron egg and have two huge elastic bands fire you hundreds of feet into the air, where you bounce around for a bit and the pikies at the bottom attempt to catch your change and wallet as they tumble back to earth. I knew it would be fast but it really is good fun! I did it at night and after a good few beers, so I was pleased to say that despite a few hairy moments, I managed to not throw up on the amassed crowd below. It wasn’t too expensive either so it was definitely worth doing. The Kiwis don’t realise how cheap things are here. For something like that in the UK it would cost at least £50 but it was only half that, if not less. Even parachute jumps are cheaper here. The cost of a dive here is about $250, or about £100, so I am reliably informed. In the UK I reckon you would be lucky to be allowed to jump off your own garage roof for that cost.

Going to play in the New Zealand Pub Poker league tonight! Free entry and it is in a pub! Fab!


See you all soon!

Bowel Check = Residential.



17th October 2006.

Quick update. I won the poker tournament. There were about 35 people playing and I came first. Nice! I was on a table with French people who knew what they were doing but weren’t that good. My trip 2’s were looking ropey on 4th street when all in against a pair of 5’s who hit the low straight but a second 3 on the river gave me the full house! Then when the aggressive blinds had me all in down to the last 4, I was dealt 7 2 offsuit! Great! When the flop came out 10 2 10 I felt a little better but then came a third 2 again! 7 2 ….the best hand in poker! Then when heads up I was dealt 7 2 of clubs….. I cover the all in bet easily against the French girl who had a huge chip lead at one point and hit a 2! Come to papa! The prize…. $50 bar tab! I had one pint of Guinness and then the rest went to the bar staff and the other players who had hung around. Generous Danno! International Man of Generosity! Went to another bar where I met a midget comedian called Jimmy. He was fab and stood on a stool to order a drink!

The bad news is...I am online but only on dial up. There is no broadband in my building. It looks like quite a nice new building but the wires are the wrong kind! Bummer! I will have to make do with this slow nonsense and use the high speed access at the coffee shop if I need to do really important stuff. Not that likely that I will have important stuff to do but hey ho!


Bowel Check = Triumphant.