What the hell is wrong with you people?

Emeritus Prof. John Hogg OAM*

There is something of the sublime and ridiculous about the latest headlines surrounding 3D printing. While this apparently isn't new stuff as I learned to my mild surprise on National Radio this morning, it is at the cutting edge of various technologies. The first announcement from the University of Wollongong was that within a decade we will have the technology to use a 3D printer to create custom made human organs suitable for transplants. This is science at its finest: endeavour at the very forefront of human ability for the betterment of humankind as a whole. Last year I was privileged to make the acquaintance of a friend of my wife's family, foundation Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Wollongong, Professor John Hogg before he succumbed to cancer a few months ago. Ever the gentleman, John's chest would have swelled with pride at the thought that the department he created had taken an idea and developed it for the good of all mankind. The current shortfall in usable organs for transplant is a headache the medical profession has been helpless to address in the past. It has been hamstrung by the reluctance for people to come forward as donors and also by the fact that in most cases the donor has to already be dead. Couple this with issues surrounding genetic compatibility and you have a problem of excessive curliness. If the researchers are correct this is a breakthrough of wide-ranging beneficial implications.

The 'Liberator'. What the hell are you liberating
with that?

For every step forward though, there is some (brilliant) nutter intent on abusing the new technology. John's head would have shaken sadly had he known of the other piece of news that a law student in Texas had developed a plastic firearm capable of being downloaded and printed on a 3D printer. I am surprised that the primary outcry has been that as the only metal component is the firing pin, which is a common household nail, the firearm is almost undetectable at airports. Hang on a minute, that's the only worthy issue arising out of this? Admittedly, the current cost of a 3D printer makes it much more cost effective to make your own firearm out of old tractor parts yourself in the shed, or at least more cost effective to go and buy one somewhere. Surely the worrying issue is the greater proliferation of firearms to a population that isn't mature enough to use them? The inability for the United States to rein in its gun nuts has become a source of incredulous mockery (and here) and rightly so. It is ridiculously easy to point to the sheer number of incidences of serious gun crime in the US, especially in a week where 19 people were shot in a Mother's Day parade. Honestly, a Mother's Day parade. What is also bizarre to think is that this is a country which is not widely regarded as being in a state of civil war when so many people are shooting at other people. To me the argument that the second amendment right to arm bears holds less water than a small child with a bottle of fizzy drink on a long car journey but others make better arguments for imposing gun control in the United States. My incredulity stems from the notion that 3D printing is an amazing advance and has enormous capability for the good of all, but some schmuck can smell a dollar in it and wants to use it to sell some guns. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we're all fucking doomed: greed will be the power that will eventually undo us as a species and steward of the planet and a plastic firearm that you can download from the internet is symptomatic of that. I believe it's called the thin edge of the wedge.

* John and his wonderful wife Lindy got their gongs for their immediate and selfless actions following the Bali bombings. They were very nearly victims themselves but kept their heads to set up a makeshift triage to tend to the mutilated and disabled. Without their efforts dozens more would have died. John died at the start of the year from a particularly virulent strain of cancer and is dearly missed by everyone who had the good fortune to know him.

Bye Bye Dickhead

Finally Aaron Gilmore has stuck his sword upside down in the ground, run up and jumped on it. There is a slew of lessons to be learned from this sad, sad episode. Let's start with the soon to be former list MP:

• It would be rather trite to remind him not to be so rude to serving staff when being a public figure. I say public figure, he didn't really have much of a public profile before this. There was an immediate outpouring of public sympathy for the poor bastard who Gilmore threatened to have sacked, but knowing bar and restaurant staff as I do it is likely our man in the Heritage wasn't entirely innocent. However, I wasn't there and cannot speculate as to his behaviour, but I know what I would have done and it involves dragging the Hon member out the back of the hotel and giving him a bloody good hiding with a cricket stump.
• That chasing publicity and taking every opportunity to remind people that you're an MP is spectacularly unedifying. This piece of advice is way too late as he'll be gone after his valedictory speech tomorrow, never to return. Chances are, he won't crop up on the local council again either.
• If you're going to get on the tiles and make a tit of yourself, apologise once and apologise properly or don't apologise at all. If Aaron Gilmore had fronted the following morning, looking tired, tense but dignified and said "I was a bit of an arse last night. I'm sorry troops." he wouldn't be facing the boot from a job he was obviously proud to do. But no, it was "my group" and "we" and more amazingly when he released that he was quitting he made the main reason the stress he had inflicted upon his family rather than the fact he had made his own position untenable with the Prime Minister. Let's not forget that he is not being given the boot because he called a waiter a dickhead but because the version of events he gave His Keyness did not stack up against a set of text messages that ended up in the media. 
• Further, on the subject of apologise once or not at all: Gilmore took to facebook to give his spurious apology on behalf of his group as well as a media release. Just the once should have done the trick. It gives you a chance to cut and run and then get on with your job. What would have been refreshing was if Gilmore had fronted the media and actually said "Last night while at dinner, I got a bit plastered and got cut off by a waiter. I called him a dickhead and I do not apologise. I might have been pissed and behaving like a cock, but it happens sometimes. In the cold light of day, I am also not certain that the waiter wasn't a dickhead either." I would have voted for him next year if he'd said this.
• Treat every social media device as loaded. Any text message, facebook update and twitter can end up in the hands of someone who will use it to damage you. This is why his apology to the PM had to contain the facts, not some doctored version of them. If you're going to your boss about a balls-up you're responsible for, it is best to give an unadulterated, factual and preferably chronological recount of events. Trust me, I have had to do this before a few times. Any public figure should not be surprised when social media or text messages come back to bite them. This is why I will never run for public office - I have written the words midget pornography too many times.
• When Brendan Horan is coming out in support of you becoming an independent MP when you're booted from your own party, it must be time to go. At least ACT's David Garrett had the good sense to leave quietly, and he was a world class stupid bastard.

A significant contributor to Gilmore's downfall was The Media and while it made for a wonderful circus, there are a few points that the media could learn from as well:

"Mr Gilmore, we spoke to your mother this morning.
Well, not so much spoke as saw her in the shower."

• Accord some credit to the public for its intelligence. We did not need to be given a rehash of the story in every single article. I got as sick of hearing what happened in the hotel as I did of seeing Gilmore's stupid face in the headlines. It was like watching American reality television, which has to recount every single thing with added sound effects for the moronic viewing public who can not remember what had happened prior to the ad break. If someone was interested in this story they would have followed it from the very beginning and not needed to skim over half the article waiting for some new piece of information.
• The rapacious pursuit of Aaron Gilmore did not do much for the appearance of the press in this country. This was hounding on a British Red Top scale. It was just a few steps short of hacking his phone. It was always going to be likely that some hack was going to dig into his past  and find a few things, that while weren't illegal, did not make him look angelic. Ditto finding people who didn't like him as a person. Gilmore prided himself on being a controversial character so he was always going to have ruffled a few feathers somewhere along the way. The real story was that he bullshitted the PM when the PM was relying on his integrity, not that he bullshitted some bloke in a pub about how he was the Energy Minister in waiting.

The Prime Minister will have a well thought to-do list arising out of this too. I suspect that on it will be:

Armed with a taser, His Keyness looks forward to
Gilmore's valedictory speech.

• Electoral law reform prior to the next election to streamline giving recalcitrant list MP's the arse. While Aaron Gilmore has finally realised it is time to go, Brendan Horan still sits in the debating chamber around six months after being fired by NZ First for allegedly dipping into his sick mother's savings. True or not, this sort of allegation is not a good look for the party come election time. Winston is seething that he has to see the back of the former weatherman's fat stupid head* walking down the corridors of power like he owns the place. 



"Have you two ever thought about having a tilt
at parliament?"

• There may be a radical overhaul of candidate choice by the party in future. His Keyness has not been ably served by certain back benchers, lower list holders and electorate candidates in the past: remember Bob 'the builder' Clarkson? Melissa Lee, who missed a cracking opportunity to steal the barely cold Helen Clark's Mt Albert seat? It has been rightly pointed out that there is a dearth of suitable candidates and while certain character traits should be overlooked (Darren Hughes, a capable MP but a bit of a perv), being a cock isn't one of them.

So we say goodbye dickhead, but I wait in anticipation of a snorting valedictory speech to the house tomorrow. There is trepidation that Gilmore is going to leave with a few parting shots to his party, but it is unlikely that any personal comments will cause too much damage. It is the factual parting shots that should have them worrying. I can't wait.

*As a TV weatherman, Horan was wooden, unlikable and I used to want to throw rocks at him even then. When he burst into song in the debating chamber I nearly broke my glasses with the strength of my facepalm.

Can James Bond survive the off button?

I'm sure this post is going to tread on some toes but being the free thinking independent-minded young 90's woman I am, I'll run that risk and not give a flying fat one when I get hate mail.

Much better than Connery and starred in the
Spice Girls film. Obviously a career high.

I'm surprised at how often people either ask who the best James Bond is or just simply state that it is Sean Connery. This is a school that my elder brother subscribes to and being a dutiful younger brother I profess that it shagging well isn't. I originally dropped this truth bomb just to get a rise out of him and I still bring it up from time to time because he swells up to his full five inches shorter than me and he begins a volcanic tirade about Connery's iconic place in popular culture. As soon as he pauses for breath I just mouth the words Roger Moore at him and he's off again. It is tremendously gratifying. I don't believe for a second that Roger Moore was the best Bond at all. What I do believe is that asking who the best Bond was is like asking who was the best tennis player at the Outer Mongolian Open in 1963 because there just isn't a less consequential question to be asked. The whole Bond concept is utterly infantile, unrealistic and twee. I was thinking about this the other night when I was at a Japanese restaurant and I was served some sake, as Connery was in You Only Live Twice. He is offered a cup, takes a sip and says "Sake. And served at the correct 57.3 degrees Fahrenheit." Well fuck me: you're in Japan and sake is most likely to be served at its proper temperature there. Not only this, how is he supposed to know that it is 57.3F? I have reviewed and rated over a thousand beers and my appreciation of temperature lies between zero and twenty degrees. In between those ranges I can identify 'too cold', 'too warm' and several degrees of just right. I rather fancy that not even the best trained palate would be able to ascertain variation of temperatures to a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit and if it had been served to him at 57.4F he wouldn't have bloody noticed. I would further advance that stating to his host that he is being served sake at the right temperature is a pretty pompous thing to say and that Ian Fleming should have been slapped for writing such a thing.

"Do you exshpect me to talk."
No Mr Bond, just shut up.

It isn't just individual moments of pomposity that irk me. It's other things as well. Take for example Bond's womanising - if there was any justice in the world James Bond would have caught every STD under the sun and his knob would have dropped off. He is never rebuffed by a woman with a well-deserved knee in the groin and when he is sleasing on some unfortunate woman, he is never dragged outside and given a bloody good hiding by her husband. I am also irked by what the bugger gets away with, and I really must insist you open this link and watch the video to reinforce my point. Yes causing damage to other people's property is very funny, let's see how you enjoy having a tank driven into your town's war memorial you bastard, but Bond lives a life without consequence. He has never lost anything dear to him except when he lost his wife in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The acting was so lamentably bad that the concept of him losing a loved one was completely unconvincing and there seemed to be no on-going profundity attached. George Lazenby was dumped after this never to appear again and it was such a waste of an appearance of Diana Rigg by the way. There is something far more serious that Bond is responsible for and that is that he is responsible for fifty years of people butchering martinis: a martini should be made with gin and should always be stirred, never shaken. Vodka martini shaken not stirred indeed - if he'd come into my bar and ordered that I'd have belted him around the head with the cricket stump I usually kept handy* and handed him over to Blofeld. A properly made martini is a beautiful, well balanced drink. Shaking the shit out of it reduces its temperature so drastically that the subtler flavours of the botanicals in the gin cannot be appreciated, likewise the fruity herbal characters of the vermouth component. How many more innocent Martinis have to suffer an ignominious end because neither patron 'nor barman know any better?

"Mr Bond, I am arresting you for the murder of dozens of
 innocent Martinis and because you're a cock. Now, get in
the Jag and shut the hell up. Constable, fetch me a pint."

So James Bond is a womaniser, a smart-arse, a reprobate and a first class ruiner of good cocktails. Generations of men have fallen in love with the idea of emulating James Bond, armed to the teeth with gadgets, fending off women of dubious moral character and murdering people at will. This can't be a good thing for society. I'll admit that I was not immune and I used to watch the movies and I enjoyed them too, but I haven't bothered in years because I think I just grew out of them. I haven't seen a new film since Casino Royale and I won't bother either. It just doesn't interest me anymore and I find that the franchise has lost its importance. If I am asked who the best Bond is, I'll always mention Roger Moore or Timothy Dalton for sheer devilment but in reality it is a non-issue.  Who is better, James Bond or Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby? No contest. Give me a bloody good murder to watch any day. There is one thing that James Bond will never survive and that is being ignored.

*I had two, one named Cancer the Punishment Stump and the other called Uncle Chop Chop's Stick of Love. I still keep them handy around the house just in case some burglar is silly enough to break in while I am home.

Run faster Jono!

If ever there was a rugged brown scorch-mark on the pristine white underpants of life it would be the necessity of exercise. I am not fundamentally opposed to the concept - in fact I used to be extremely fit: once I did the Army's RFL test of a run in 2.4km in 8 min and 48 seconds, bashed out 110 sit-ups and 43 press-ups. On another occasion I once did 275 consecutive sit-ups when I was 19 years old. I also took part in the Army's March Against Cancer by being part of a relay team that ran around the South Island in 1999, stopping off at  towns along the way playing touch rugby against locals every evening as well as running a succession of 2km relay legs between those towns. I was the long jump champion of Linton Military Camp (2001) where I also came second in the High Jump. I augment my portfolio of athletic brilliance by saying that I was Cheviot Area School Shot Putt, High Jump and Discus (record) champion 1996. I would have won more events but I had shin splints. I was fast, I was young, I once scored seven tries in a game of touch rugby, I ran with grace and elegance and I ran for the sheer joy of running. (I will supply a photo of me aged 18 with the most ridiculous abdominal muscles you've ever seen... I had just finishing doing 275 sit ups)
Now I am old.
I can run, but I don't want to.

I'll be with you in a minute chaps. I just need to
finish my breakfast, have a coffee and sit down
 until it's time for lunch. Then I need to think about
dinner. Bat on without me.

Exercise is something bloody doctors recommend and I must say that the idea of sitting down and contemplating the world and everything in it is much more tempting than putting on a set of brightly coloured clothes to plod around the streets of Christchurch with the ever present thought that the previous me would already be at the finish mocking me. Bastard. You see, now I am locked into matrimony with Attila the Wife she makes me run from time to time whether I like it or not... always not. I go through the motions revelling in the state of affairs that her run is about the same pace but slightly faster than my brisk walk. Consequently when we run together it takes only a modicum of effort to follow and my mind can drift away contemplating things like rum without any physical stress. When I am running by myself I subconsciously emulate my old self and I get into a self-induced hyperventilation within hundreds of metres. I run too fast and running equals pain, yet today I voluntarily ran for about five kilometres for the sake of running. I did it because I felt it was about time to don some shoes and do it for the sake of my health. And so off I went, head up, steady breathing, looking to the horizon. My old self would have vanished into the distance in front of me, but I kept looking at points in front of me promising myself it was the finishing line. I would get there and carry on to the next imaginary point. 5 1/2km later I was done, chuffed, panting and proud of myself, but I mistakenly admitted to Attila later that I had a beer when I finished and any pride in my achievement was instantly nullified by womanly logic. You drank more calories than you burned on your run with that one beer.


I want to report that I have killed her and I feel much better about things now that I have inhaled a block of Whittaker's White Chocolate and Macadamia  but this isn't true... Bitch. 
Being a white anglo-saxon male and a diabetic, I face a battery of doctors, who for the rest of my life will recommend that I cut back on the things dieticians don't like (see the requisite page) and that I pursue a rigorous course of exercise. I am not done with running for a long chalk and I suppose I had better swallow what is ahead of me. Just don't expect me to do it willingly. Run faster Jono! Fuck off.