I have now been living in Kiwiana since 2002. I have embraced the mainland’s favourite sport, spent afternoons cheering the local team and evenings watching the All Blacks. And now there’s the world cup. But honestly:

What’s the frigging point?

We are getting inundated with rugby, on a national and international level: Nationally, there’s the emasculated, almost americanised provincial NPC. This has now been made completely pointless by ensuring that the teams from the previous second and third division can’t get promoted to the top division anymore. For my team, North Otago, this means to be stuck forever with the likes of South Canterbury in the same league, with no prospect of ever playing against the higher ranked teams, giving me no more incentive to cheer my team on. Why should they win, if they can’t get promoted?

Next in the neverending list of rugby is the ‘Super 14” (previously Super 12, previously Super 10, previously Super 6), an ever expanding ‘super league’ of rugby union teams from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, playing 13 round robin games plus semis and finals.

Then of course we have the testmatches of the All-Blacks: tri-nations, six nations, Lions, etc. Watching an All Black game these days is as common (and exciting) as seeing Paris Hilton being arrested for some minor misdemeanor.

And now the world cup is on. 2 weeks of group matches in which the usual six – nations teams beat the poor ‘minnows’ from such rugby countries as Romania, Georgia, USA, Canada (etc) by about 80 points in each game, just in the end to meet again in the quarter finals. By the end either Australia, England or New Zealand (sometimes France) win and male New Zealand asks itself whether it was really necessary to stay up all those nights. In soccer you have at least the chance of some of the lesser known teams causing a favourite to stumble (just look at the French in the last two tournaments), but at the Rugby World Cup? There is no chance in hell that any of the smaller teams will ever win against one of the six-nations teams (apart from Argentina, and they should have been made a part of that echelon a long time ago).

So, what’s the consequence of all this Rugby overkill? Ennui. I am as passionate about this year’s world cup as I am passionate about my choice of socks in the morning: Black, black or black, they look all the same anyway.

Just like Rugby on TV.

Here I am, sitting in front of my computer at work, 3 1/2 hours after France lost against Argentina in the opening Game of the Rugby Union World Cup, and I am already struggling:

The ‘official broadcaster’ of the tournament here in NZ, Canadian owned TV3, only shows me talking heads. No game action.

The official homepage of the world cup wants me to pay 50 US Dollars to subscribe to their ‘Mediazone’ and then lock me into a Windows only Mediaplayer hell.

ITV in the UK refuses to stream to IPs outside Britain, DSF in Germany seem only interested in showing you ads on their homepage, Foxsports in Australia only works with WMP 10. With other words, a Mac/Linux/BSD user in New Zealand either has to get up in the middle of the night to watch the bloody games live, or get Windows.

Looks like this tournament’s commercial sponsors won’t be getting  my eyeballs. Which is of course a shame, as I was just on the market for a new car, shaving cream and beer.

Yesterday the Fijian junta of General Bananarama reinstated a state of emergency. Taifun? Earthquake? Armed rebellion?

No.

It’s because the ousted ex premier Laisenia Qarase incites unrest by ‘repeatedly going to the media, misinforming the public of harassment’ (Lietenant-Colonel Mosese Tikoitoga, chief of Fiji’s land forces in this Radio New Zealand interview).

So, kids: if you ever get harassed and threatened by the fijian military and complain about it to the international media, don’t be surprised if the rest of your country will be put under oppressive military law for all your whining.

Gosh, what a bunch of eejits.

Feeling harassed: Commander Bainimarama

When it comes to immigration, New Zealand is strangely torn: on one hand the government is happy about every professional who is plugging the personnel deficits in the public services (doctors, engineers) and welcoming thousands of seasonal farm workers, but an Iranian asylum seeker whose employer and workmates vouchsafe for his excellent work ethic is supposed to be deported. Weird, ay?

Ali Panah left Iran 5 years ago and converted in South Korea to Christianity before applying for asylum here in NZ. After his Asylum was refused he was imprisoned and to protest his deportation he started a hungerstrike 2 months ago he just stopped.

Now, my query: If this guy has been paying his taxes for the benefit of the state while he was working why not just give him a work permit and save the money the legal proceedings and extradition process is going to cost? Even if the whole Christianity stunt is a fake, at least NZ has another hard worker and tax payer.

Problem solved.

Last week I wanted to get out of the fifth circle of hell, er, Germany for 3 days to get some fresh air, so I took the best girlfriend ever to one of my favourite destinations in this world: Aberdaron, a small village on the end of the Llyn peninsul in Wales is one of the most pleasant places to have a nice, quiet weekend. What I didn’t know was: it was still Summer Holidays and it was the Bank Holiday weekend. So, it was neither quiet nor isolated, but full of burned tourists from that land in the east the Welsh hate with deep conviction. I give you a hint: it’s not Germany. Anyway the weather was nevertheless perfect, and after we compensated the fact that all restaurants were full with two pints of lager and a packet of crisps each (well, we DID pass Runcorn earlier) on the beach, we spent the next day hiking on my favourite track.

Next day we drove north and checked out some of the larger dwellings in North Wales, being quite surprised by Bangor and its rather nice university.

Next morning back via the hilariously named John Lennon Airport in Liverpool, with an Easyjet flight leaving at 07:10, made easier thanks to the nice people at the Holiday Inn Express at the Airport.

….and I don’t know why, but Easyjet is so much nicer to fly than Ryanair. Maybe it’s the colour, or maybe because the cabin personnel was actually trained to smile.