Are you there 99?

An Australian inventor has developed a shoe phone.

It might have made sense way back in the 60s long before mobile phones were invented when Maxwell Smart and his sidekick Agent 99 were defeating the forces of evil on our TV screens in Get Smart. But I’m not sure that it would have any more than novelty value now.

Though you can watch and listen to the inventor  explain its benefits here.

I agree it would make it much easier to find the phone on your foot than in a pocket or bag but I don’t think I’ll be in the market for one.

The sort of things you’re likely to stand on in a paddock mean it’s not a good idea to put your footwear to your ear. Sorry about that, Chief.

Why do taxpayers own TVNZ?

The loss of 90 jobs at TVNZ  is sad for the people involved, but it leads to a wider question:

Why do taxpayers own two television stations?

I can’t remember the last time I watched TV2 but unless it has changed there is nothing on it to justify public ownership.

TV1 has a few programmes which might not appear on privately owned stations, but like Agenda, for instance, they mostly screen at times few people find convenient to watch them.

There may be a case for public service television but TVNZ doesn’t provide much evidence for it.

Rats & mice

Forget Beatrix Potter and her sweet little animals dressed up like cuddly dolls, there is nothing attractive about mice.

They may play an important role in nature’s great story and if they stay outside as nature intended I’m happy to leave them to it. But once they skitter inside, as they inevitably do at this time of year, I declare war and I take no prisoners – when it comes to mice inside I aim to kill.

It’s not something I take any pleasure in, but it’s a job which has to be done and I do it. So, contrary to the stereotypes about women and mice I don’t leap on the nearest chair when I spot one. Instead I top up the poison which is left in various places accessible to mice but not children or other animals, bait several traps with peanut butter and wait.

It doesn’t usually take long before I start catching them and having baited and laid the traps it’s usually my job to empty them too which, thanks to the modern plastic ones can be done by pinching one end which lets the mouse fall out the other without having to touch it.

Only once have I been faced with a live mouse in a trap and that had been caught by a leg. Killing remotely by poison or trap is one thing, bloodying my hands by doing the deed directly is another but I couldn’t leave it to suffer until someone turned up to help. I decided drowning was the least painful way for the mouse and me so filled a bucket of water and dropped the trap in.

However  much I don’t like mice I can cope with them dead and alive but I have to confess that rats are another story.

I don’t take any comfort from the theory they’re more afraid of me than I am of them, because it that was the case they’d die of fright before they even saw me and the one I noticed sunning itself on the step by my front door the other day couldn’t have been more relaxed.

I backed away, summoned my farmer who grabbed a spade to dispatch it but it was too quick for him. He went to find the poison but we’d run out and we both forgot about it. But I’ve just been reminded again because the rat which I saw on Sunday or a close relative has just run up the side of the house.

It’s the outside but that’s still far too close for comfort.

Aaaaah!

We’ll help pay for yours if you help pay for ours

I’ll accept that we’re all going to pay for Auckland roads  if they’ll accept that we all need to pay towards the off-farm costs for the development of irrigation.

It’s all infrastructure which has a national benefit.

They still don’t get it

TV3 is still going on about the extra staff member for larger electorates because the funding covers not just wages but office costs too.

Well of course it does. If you have another electorate agent in a large electorate s/he needs a base, phone and computer to do the job.

Like Tracy Watkins  they still don’t get it.

As Macdoctor says:

This is money being spent on grassroots government, rather than policy think-tanks. This is money spent on public access to government rather than ministerial Limos.

The money is to help MPs service their impossibly large electorates and the biggest benefit is to the public not the politicians.

Maybe the reporters should leave Wellington and see for themselves just how difficult it is for people in the provinces to see an MP whose duties are spread over tens of thousands of square kilometres.

Top o’ the morning

It’s St Patrick’s Day.

He’s the patron saint of Ireland which is a good excuse to tell this true story:

My farmer was waiting for a receptionist at a hotel in Ireland when the bloke ahead of him asked if she could put his computer in the hotel safe.

The receptionist replied that the computer was too big, but she could put it beside the safe.

P.S. The Inquiring Mind celebrates St Paddy’s day with music.

UPDATE: He’s also got an Irish toast  and a cartoon.

Objective standard of uselessness

About as useless as tits on a bull is the standard pronouncement on abject uselessness in rural circles but thanks to Mr Gronk I’ve come across another  more genteel standard.

(I pause here to apologise to any readers of a sensitive nature who are upset by the word tits which is not one I’d normally choose to employ, but while breasts might be more refined and offer the advantage of   alliteration     I’m reliably informed that the coarseness of the phrase adds to its potency).

Useless as a chocolate teapot is not only a delightful and more refined phrase, the concept has been put to the test  .

It may not surprise you but the chocolate teapot was found wanting as a recepticle for containing tea and its uselessness thus measured established  the veracity of the phrase.

Whether or not that makes it more or less usefull as an expression of uselessness when compared with tits on a bull is still open to debate.

 Hat Tip: Mr Gronk

Let the community own their hospital

The Queenstown community wants to take over the ownership and management of the Lakes District Hospital.

The community model has worked well for Balclutha, Dunstan, Gore and Oamaru.

When what was then Healthcare Otago announced it was pulling out of rural services in the late 1990s, the Waitaki District Council stepped into the gap and formed a Local Authority Trading Enterprise (LATE) which became Waitaki District Health Services Ltd.

It built a community owned, publicly funded hospital which provides a wider range of services than would be available if it was under the ownership and control of the Otago District Health Board.

Balclutha, Dunstan and Gore hospitals are run by trusts rather than LATEs but they too are successful and all show that hospitals don’t have to be owned by the state to provide publicly funded services.

The Southland Times asks, whose hospital is it anyway?

It’s the communities and community owned and run models in neighbouring districts provide good examples for Queenstown Lakes to follow.

We went to the show and we saw . . .

With competition from the Ellerslie Flower Show in Christchurch, the Wild Food Festival in Hokitika, golf in Arrowtown and the Motutapu Icebreaker combined with uncertain economic conditions, I wouldn’t have been surprsied if the Upper Clutha A&P Show had been quiter than normal.

But both Friday and Saturday were busy and people weren’t just looking. You could buy almost everything from a tractor to a silver bangle and stall holders I spoke to said that sales were going well, easily on a par with, and possibly better than last year.

At the National Party tent Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean and Agricutlure Minister David Carter had a steady stream of callers and almost all were positive.

Conversation often got round to the recession but there was no sign of it in Wanaka at the weekend.

It’s only fiction

Why the fuss about Jeffrey Archer’s latest novel which tells the story of George Mallory as if he made the first ascent of Mount Everest?

It’s not, as the headline says, an insult to Sir Ed Hillary. It’s a novel, a work of fiction, not  a biography which means although it’s based on real life there is no need to worry about letting the facts get in the way of the story.

Even if it was purporting to tell a true story there’s no insult to Hillary. Successful climbs are like successful flights – getting up is only half way, you haven’t succeeded until you get back down again and Mallory died on the mountain.

Glammies have the yum factor

 

We left the Wanaka Show before the winner of the Glammies was announced and I haven’t managed to find anyone who can give me the details.

In the meantime I can report that all the samples the crowd were given to taste were delicious and bring you some photos of proceedings:

It’s a tough job but Agriculture Minister David Carter, Blanket Bay Chef  Mark Sycamore and farmer and former All Black Richard Loe were coping quite well with the delicious aroma coming from the barbeque while they waited to judge the Glammies.

David, a farmer, shows he doesn’t just know how to raise good lambs, he can cook them too:

But he’s not about to swap day jobs with chef Graham Hawke:

Graham explained the cooking process to onlookers and gave his tip for succulent lamb – rest it for as long as you cook it. I’ve followed that advice since hearing him give it at the inaugural Glammies a couple of years ago and it really does make a difference to the tenderness.

The lamb entered in the Glammies was cooked for 10 minutes and not given to the judges for tasting until it had been rested for 10 minutes.

P.S.

Graham is a chef at Flannagans Seafood Resaturant in Invercargill but the delicious lamb he served yesterday and  this recipe show he can cook produce from the turf as well as the surf.

UPDATE: Kelvin King has left the full results in a comment below.

Stable government

Garrick Tremian from the ODT.

Labour not interested in Maori or provinces

Is Labour in denial or do they no longer care about the Maori vote and the provinces?

Their ill informed crticism on the extra funding to enable MPs in big electorates, including two of their own MPs, to employ an staff member suggest it’s the latter.

Maori Party leader Tariana Turia didn’t miss the opporutnity this gave her:

For Labour to suggest this is ‘outrageous’ or ‘secret’ is bizarre when they have sat on the same committee I have, year in, year out, hearing about the inequities of this issue”.

“Even more bizarre, when two of their MPs, Nanaia Mahuta and Parekura Horomia, have also been saddled with the burden of travelling across large electorates, and will also receive the extra support”.

“I guess it shows what value Labour places in meeting the needs of the Maori electorates”.

Wee parties might survive with niche support but it’s not good for democracy or the country if a party which is supposed to be a major one writes off Maori and provincial voters.

Did you see the one about . . .

A new study has revealed that if you don’t eat you’ll eventually die at Laughy Kate.

Fonterra Blues at Quote Unquote.

Drug companies vs doctors at the Visible Hand in Economics.

Only Turn Left at Watching Brief.

On the dismal science at Anti-Dismal.

I think I get it now from The NZ Home Office  (a new blog which has joined my list of regular reads).

The teacher robot at Lolly Scramble.

The reinstatement of titular land titles at Pundit.

Bo Peeps

My mother called them Bo Peeps, her granchildren named them Granma’s Jam Biscuits.

Whatever they’re called they’re easy to bake, almost foolproof and make lots.

I’ve included the imperial measurements because that was what Mum used, the metrics are my not very precise conversions, but they work.

Bo-Peeps

25og (8oz) butter                     160g (6oz) sugar

1 egg                                       360g (14oz) flour

4 tsp baking powder               1 tsp golden syrup or 1 tsp vanilla 

 

Cream butter & sugar, add egg & syrup or vanilla if using and beat well.

 

Add flour & baking powder & beat until mixed.

Roll teaspoons of mixture into balls, place on baking tray leaving enough room for them to spread a wee bit.

 

Make thumb print in centre and fill dent with jam.

 

 

Cook moderate oven (180ish?) for about 15 minutes until lightly golden.

P.S.

It’s best to use real raspberry jam  because the bought stuff usually has a setting agent which makes it run more when cooked.

P.P.S. – Deborah has been using an old recipe of her mother’s too -  you’ll find how to make feather bread rolls at In A Strange Land.

Running out of the blue

Hundreds of runners, walkers, mountain bikers and their supporters are converging on Wanaka today for the Motutapu Icebreaker.

It’s an off-road marathon or 50 kilomtere mountain bike ride through stunning scenery.

Among this year’s entrants will be Cardrona farmer Anne Scurr who is doing the run to celebrate her sons’ recovery from depression and to raise funds for the Mental Health Foundation .

You can make a donation here.

For another story on running for a cause, Gooner’s post at No Minsiter on the Taupo Iron Man run is inspirational.

Stoozing student makes $2000 from interest free loan

The ODT reports on how an enterprising student made $2000 by taking out student loans from different banks and investing it.

The student, who prefers to remain anonymous, employed a system known as “stoozing”, which works in a similar way to the international “carry trade” – where money is borrowed at a low rate in one country and invested at a high rate in another.

The student realised banks trying to attract students as customers had created a similar, legal, opportunity for free money within New Zealand.

“Stoozing” is a slang term to describe an activity where money is borrowed at 0% interest and invested elsewhere. Eventually, the borrowed money is repaid but the interest it has earned remains with the “stoozer”.

. . . At the beginning of last year, the student visited four banks and set up bank accounts with 0% overdrafts. He then withdrew all the money – amounting to $6000 – and invested it for one year in a safe term deposit at a rate of 9.25%.

He’s a business student and he’s already shown he can spot and act on an opportunity others mightn’t see which shows he has an entrepreneurial streak which can’t be taught at university.

However, interest rates were much higher last year and Westpac media relations manager Craig Dowling points out there are risks in stoozing:

“The opportunity for arbitrage – the old term for stoozing – is lower in a low-rate market such as we moved into over the past six months so there should be decreasing propensity to stooz.”

Short-term deposit rates with Government guaranteed institutions such as banks were about 3.5%-4% per annum, and there was a definite risk involved in chasing higher returns.

“That needs to be considered, because if a gamble turns bad, the stoozer could find themselves in debt, way beyond their means.

“In the case of a student who stoozes and loses, it could be to the tune of the bank overdraft and if they haven’t established a good relationship with one or other bank, they might find zero interest in return.

One of the criticisms of interest-free student loans was that they’d be used by people who didn’t need them because a scheme which offers something for nothing will always attract people who don’t need the money but see an opportunity to use it to make more. 

I know students who’d earned enough in holiday jobs to take them through the academic year who took student loans and invested the money. One bought shares and did very well, but the risk/return ratio for that would be much higher now than it was a few years ago.

UPDATE: To clarify – the loans the student took were bank loans which as Kiwiblog  points out are loss-leaders to attract new customers, not interest-free student loans from the government scheme.

Brownlee clarifies extra funding for big seats

The innacurate reporting on extra funding to enable MPs in six Maori electorates and the four biggest general electorates has spurred Gerry Brownlee into issuing an explanatory media release:

Six out of seven Maori seats and all other constituency seats covering a geographic area larger than 20,000 sq km are set to each receive an extra $40,000 to hire another staff member.

Four Maori Party MPs, four National MPs and two Labour MPs will be able to employ an extra staff member so that they can better service their widely spread constituents.

Media reports suggesting that the Cabinet has recently extended the increase to include more MPs, or tried to keep it secret, are simply wrong.

“This funding increase was clearly spelled out in the post-election agreement the National Party reached with the Maori Party as long ago as November last year,” Mr Brownlee said.

“It has been a freely available public document since then, even if some journalists haven’t read it. To state that we haven’t told anyone and have secretly extended it to National MPs is a shocker.”

“This funding increase was clearly spelled out in the post-election agreement the National Party reached with the Maori Party as long ago as November last year,” Mr Brownlee said.

“It has been a freely available public document since then, even if some journalists haven’t read it. To state that we haven’t told anyone and have secretly extended it to National MPs is a shocker.”

“The increase is something that was recommended by an independent review,” Mr Brownlee said

. . . “This is not about political patronage. The issue of servicing geographically very large seats to allow constituent’s access to their MPs has been a problem since MMP was introduced in 1996,” Mr Brownlee said.

It should be noted the extra staff member will not apply to Tamaki Makaurau, the seat of Pita Sharples, due to its smaller urban size.

Would it be safe to hold my breath while I wait for TV3 to apologise for last night’s beat up?

If any questions remain on this issue, it’s why Hauraki-Waikato which covers an area of 12,580 square kilometres will get an extra electorate agent when Taranaki King Country (12,869 sq kms) and East Coast (13,649 sq kms) don’t?

To The Show

A poet has written a poem which evokes the sights, sounds and smells of an A&P show so I searched all my books for it as an appropriate choice for this Friday’s poem since it’s show weekend in Wanaka.

I couldn’t find the one I was looking for but I did come across To The Show  by E. Muriel Attewill in New Zealand Farm & Station Verse,  published by Whitcombe & Toombs, 1950.

To The Show

 

They tied a halter round my head,

They pushed me here and there.

They patted me and prodded me,

And taught me how to lead.

They brushed at me and scrubbed at me,

Then lathered me with soap,

They clipped my hair and frizzed my tail

And polished horns and hooves.

They took me in a jolting truck

Onto the Showgrounds gay,

Then washed and brushed and spruced some more

And fed me wisps of hay.

They led me round and round the ring

While knowing judges stared –

But I was not a champion,

And came home – just a cow!

 

E. Muriel Attewill.

Public main beneficiaries from more frontline staff

The Dominion Post does a much better job   than TV3 did of covering the issue of funding an extra staff member in the largest electorates. But it still doesn’t get it quite right.

National is under fire for pumping tens of thousands of dollars in extra entitlements the way of the Maori Party and four of its own MPs at a time when the rest of the public service is under orders to show restraint.

The Cabinet has signed off a $400,000 boost, with most of it going to the Maori Party’s four MPs, under their coalition deal with the Government, and National MPs Bill English, Chris Auchinvole, Colin King and Jacqui Dean, because they have large electorates.

This isn’t an entitlement for MPs personally. It’s money for front line staff which is exactly what National said it would focus on and while it will help MPs service their electorates better the major benefit of that is not to the MPs but the public who need their MPs’ help.

The PSA doesn’t understand that either:

The Public Service Association, which acts for public servants, said the Government’s timing was surprising, given its drive to lower costs in the public service.

. . .”People will have to judge whether that’s a good priority versus other programmes that may be cut or indeed people finding themselves out of a job.”

Front line staff seems like a very good priority to me.

No Right Turn  has a similar point of view:

While some might quibble at them spending – gasp! – $400,000 a year on it, people in large rural seats have an equal right to participate in our democracy, and it is money well spent.

Every citizen should be able to have relatively easy access to their electorate MP and one extra staff member in the larger electorates will help reduce the cost and difficulty many people now face in getting help when they need it.

Hat Tip: Kiwiblog