I like those odds...

The radio station that keeps me entertained during work, Radio Sport, have recently been running a competition offering the winner a free trip to any sporting event in the world in 2008. To enter you fill in a form on the website, then several times during the day they draw a name out and that person has an hour to call the station back. If you managed this, you were entered into the draw which took place last Monday. I eagerly entered and listened when I could during the day but sadly my name wasn't drawn out (or if it was I missed it).

The winner had selected the NRL Grand Final as his dream sporting trip anywhere in the world. For those who aren't clued up, this is the final of the Australian Rugby League competition. In Sydney. Wow. What a waste! You can pick anywhere and they will fly you there FOR FREE, give you tickets for the event FOR FREE and put you up in a hotel FOR FREE. Maybe this guy doesn't have very lofty ambitions, or has seen and done it all.

Either way, the station decided to run the competition again seeing as sending someone to Sydney would probably eat up about 2% of their budget for this. Can anyone see why I'm bothering you with this yet?

Yesterday I decided to buy a personal radio to listen whilst I'm out of the car mowing lawns. This turned out to be the best $10 I ever spent as during my final lawn today this happened....

CLICK ME

For those who aren't that technologically minded (hi mum), the gist is my name was read out, I called back and I'm now in the draw on Monday to win a free trip to the British GP. Apparently there are thousands registered for this so I've done pretty well to be picked out.

I think there's a maximum of around 100 people who could be in the draw, maybe a lot less depending on how many people didn't call back in the allotted time. So I've got maybe a 80/1 shot of a free trip home.

Sounds ok to me.

I don't like cricket, I LOVE IT...

I suggested a romantic weekend break in Wellington to Jo and she was very keen. By some coincidence England's first One Day International against NZ was being played there on the Saturday. It would have been silly not to go see it. Especially when Radio Sport were giving away pairs of free tickets for any talkback callers. CLICK HERE to hear what I had to say this time (about 6 mins in again and isn't very exciting I'm afraid).

We decided to be even more thrifty and make a road trip of it rather than fly, so we set off early Friday morning to make the journey down the length of the North Island.

We stopped first just shy of Taupo, at a place called Huka Falls...



Where the incredibly fast flowing water of the Waikato River was making it's way back to our taps in Auckland. We then went into Taupo itself and had lunch on the beach of Lake Taupo.

From there we headed on south and arrived in Wellington about 9 hours after we left Auckland.

I like Wellington, it's a more down to earth city than Auckland with a much broader spectrum of bars, restaurants and theatres on offer. It is very hilly and the weather isn't all that great which would probably put me off living there. It is still the only other place in New Zealand I would consider living though at this stage.

On the morning of the game we took the cable car up to the observatory and walked back down to the city through the Botanical Gardens before making our way to the stadium...labeled the Cake Tin. I was a bit worried about the gathering clouds but I really should have worried more about England making a half decent game of it. They didn't.

The ground wasn't anywhere near as full as Eden Park, or as vocal. But it was a good day.

By the way, the DJ at the ground confirmed what I knew already, if you want to get a kiwi crowd singing then you have 2 options...

Kenny Rogers', The Gambler works pretty well,



But nowhere near as well as The Exponents...



Heyesie (c. 1995) lookalike anyone?

Kiwis everywhere go mental for this song...guaranteed!

Twenty20...

My first taste of watching England play in person on these shores and it was a good one. After plenty of effort by Rob and I our fancy dress outfits were ready for action.

We convened in a park near to the ground and had a few pre-matchers - flagrant flouting of the public liquor ban but fortunately for us the coppers were all checking handbags at the gates. Here is me, Dave, Sonya, Rob and Milan being tidy kiwis...

On to the game. Last week it was the Wellington Sevens where it's almost compulsory to dress up, however Aucklanders don't have quite the same passion for looking ridiculous. It didn't bother us too much though...

It was a nice setting, a vociferous crowd and a great result. Get in!...

That sign wasn't too annoying.

A catch up...

The lack of posts may give the impression that I've done absolutely nothing since I got back but that's not strictly true.

Take a couple of weeks ago for example... Jo's mum scored some free passes to a corporate box for finals day at the NZ Beach Volleyball Open. She kindly donated the tickets to Jo so we went along with Rob, Bonzo and Sonya. Forgot my camera so here are a few images from day one my cursory internet search found. It was a great day and our box was nicely placed courtside, I felt like Spike Lee at the Knicks. We had an umbrella for shade and a cool box for the 3 beers we bought there. Definitely not for any illegally smuggled in ones. Sadly, the NZ ladies team lost to Brazil in the final to the delight of the samba gang who took over one stand but the mens team (ranked only a few outside Olympic qualifying) scored a fine win to save the day.

Last weekend Jo and I took a trip to one of the 400,000 beaches within an hour of Auckland. Even though it only took 40 minutes to get to Bethells Beach and we weren't there that long it felt like going away on holiday. The beach was pretty busy but given it's size that didn't matter. It's a west coast beach which means black, volcanic sand and wild surf. In fact, the Independent apparently voted it in the world's top 10 beaches a few years ago.

Finally, this week sees the start of the England cricket team's tour of NZ. I remember seeing the planned 2008 tour a few years ago when I was first thinking of making the big move. It sounded so far into the future, but here we are. The first game is a 2020 at Eden Park, just up the road, on Tuesday evening. This will be my first limited overs live England game, quickly followed by my second as Jo and I are off to Wellington next weekend, with the first ODI coincidentally there on Saturday. What a stroke of luck. For me, anyway.

Sadly no test matches in Auckland, the nearest being in Hamilton, mainly due to the poor attendances at tests at Eden Park in recent years. Speaking of which, I made my radio debut (any face for radio gags like Jo's are not welcome) the other day during a phone in on Radio Sport. For those who are interested in my view point, miss hearing my voice or simply fancy a chuckle as I get a dry throat and nearly choke only a few seconds in, the link is below. You have to skip forward about 6 minutes in for my bit.

Click here for me on my soapbox

More pictures to come in the next couple of days...

UK Trip - final post...

Better late than never.

It's 2 weeks since we arrived back in New Zealand and the whole trip seems like a lifetime away now. The flights back were a mixed bag - Lufthansa cocked up our seats and we were sat in the middle 2 of the bank of 4 for 12 long hours on an old plane with some non-descript film on a tiny screen 10ft away. Air New Zealand however provided much more leg room, personal entertainment systems and didn't run out of breakfast meals by the time they got to our seats.

We also had a pleasant mini stopover in Hong Kong airport. We were there for 7 hours, which seemed pretty daunting beforehand, but they have a transit lounge you can pay to get in to. We chose the 5 hour option with 2 hour nap. Comfortable seats, free food and drink, free internet and shower facilities. All for only 45 quid for the 2 of us.

In the end we got home feeling fairly well apart from the bad cold that laid Jo up for a few days. Now I'm feeling pretty settled back into life and work over here. Next on the agenda is to get fit for the new football season....3 months and counting...

UK Trip - penultimate post

I'm currently sat at my parents house, relaxing, no running off to various parts of the country for a drinking binge, just waiting for a home cooked meal to be prepared for one of the last times before I head back to NZ.


So why not spend this quiet family time with a quick (yeah, right) post?


First of all, thanks to everyone for making Jo feel so welcome on her first trip over to the UK. It'll hopefully be her first trip of many so it's been good for her to have a better impression of the British people than the 2 nutters screaming at her gave. Boz and Breeny really need to learn some manners.


She's in Paris at the moment but I think she'll allow me to speak for both of us when I say that it's been a great trip. I haven't been able to see everyone and those I have seen I haven't seen enough of, so sorry about that.


It's been a bit of an eye opener - I don't think we'll want to be doing a 3 week trip every 2 years. There's too much to cram in. I also don't want to move back to England, I enjoy New Zealand too much. So it seems there are 2 options...


1. Persuade all my family and friends to move to New Zealand or, if need be, Australia.


2. Make an annual trip back to England.


I'd better make sure my business is successful then...

UK Trip - post 4

After just the one Christmas in the sun it was back to the wintery wonderland festivities I'm accustomed to.

Here are the cooks doing what they do best...

With the turkey sandwiches barely digested we were on the road again. This time off to Ireland (North and South) for the wedding of my old pal Andrew Creegan and his lovely lady, Sharon. It was a great day and the ceremony went without a hitch (except the obvious one).

He's me and the man of the day...

We've got a Breeny coming through...

Check out James' site for some more pictures.

A few hours of recovery from the booze and the hotel bill (being able to charge drinks to the room is a dangerous business) were spent at Brodsworth Hall the day after we got back before we were back on our travels.

This time we were off to London for New Year. We arrived on the 30th just in time to get over to the ice rink in front of the National History Museum with Natalie and her boyfriend, Dan. There are a couple of pictures that I'll get my hands on and post, sadly none of my tumble (the only one of us to fall) nor of my near tumble where my arms flayed about as I did a triple John Salako before just about regaining my balance.

On New Years Eve Dan cooked us all a tasty full English before we headed out into London for some sight-seeing with Jo's sister Maree...

After the Eye and St Pauls we were back to Natalie's for food and drink, joined by her friend Sarah and boyfriend Bern before heading off to the Frog...

Despite the Frog being free entry it was pretty empty so after sending Dan on a reccy to the Sun we decided to move and pay the £10. The free ice shot and Fools Gold being played after midnight confirmed it was the right move.

The last sensible picture of the night - I'm just about clinging onto a look of sobriety...

It was an early rise on New Years Day. Jo and Maree were off to Paris, Natalie was off to work and I was driving 200 miles up the M1 to see my only Oldham game of the trip, away at Leeds. We were just off the back of a poor home defeat, Leeds were unbeaten at home all season. It was fairly obvious we'd be 3-0 up by half time. It ended 3-1 and Acres and Lunt who'd foolishly agreed to come to the game with me were pleasantly surprised with the feast of football on show. After several hours spent in the Elland Road car park we made it back to Harrogate for a curry with some of my old work gang - Errington and Millhouse came over from Manchester, Smaje and his girlfriend from Leeds and Kwai and Nicola from round the corner. It was great to see everyone again and even greater that Lunt didn't repeat his previous curry house show. He did however cause a mess at Acres' house where just about everything he touched crashed to the floor. Disaster for Lunt...

Now I'm back home and putting my feet up until the end of the trip and the journey back to New Zealand.

UK Trip - post 3 AKA The Stag Do...

What happens on the stag do, stays on the stag do is usually the unwritten rule when it comes to these events. But this time, rather than using it to mask any disgraceful antics, it's an excuse to keep this post brief (I can hear the collective sighs from here).

It was a fantastic weekend, so big thanks to best man James for organising it and to the stag, Andy, for getting married so my Donny Boy reunion was such a memorable one.

Friday night was a fairly straightforward one, beers in a few York pubs, being joined by revellers as they turned up from various parts of the country, ending in the Stone Roses bar which does exactly what it says on the tin. Here is group shot number 1...

It was a pretty heavy night and fortunately the York roads were wide enough to accommodate the side-to-side staggering (no pun intended) of the groom as we made our way home.

Day two started with a production line of bacon sandwiches and mugs of tea before we headed off to the sports hall for 2 hours of indoor football. Heyesie's team were clear winners, suffering their one and only defeat in their last game against us thanks to Joe's clever recording of the result on the whiteboard. A thrilling warm down peno comp was won by Jon Cope with some German-esque finishing.

After a quick(ish) turnaround we surprised Andy with the group blazers, then surprised him further when James presented him with his. Sadly the batteries were faultering on my camera at this point so I only have the one shot of the blazer squad...

James had organised a ghost walk which led us through the winding streets of York to a few pubs several centuries old via the occasional gruesome tale. After that, the indie club where Boz, on day release from Hogwarts, came into his own...

I really should stop promising these posts are going to be brief.

Finally, Happy Christmas one and all...

UK Trip - post 2

It's Friday afternoon and Jo and I are about to go our separate ways. Jo is off down to London to spend the weekend with her sister Maree and I'm off the other way on the east coast mainline to York for the stag do.

Since my last post we've visited family and friends, had a nose round Doncaster and even ventured across the pennines to catch up with the WW crew and have a look round the Manchester Christmas markets.

Here's Jo by a very familiar street sign...

And here she is by my old flat in Manchester, playing for the first time ever in a meteorological phenomenon not really heard of in Auckland...frost...

UK Trip - post 1

Well here we are in Brodsworth, and what a journey. It's a day on now so I'm a lot calmer and less inclined to do a massive, ranting post. In summary, it was awful. Want to know why? Ok, if you insist. I'll try and be brief though....

EDIT: You can save yourself an hour you'll never get back by skipping the bullet points.

* Despite checking in 3 hours before our flight we got seated on the back row for the NZ-LA leg where the seats only reclined about half way. The check in attendant didn't even ask us the usual aisle/window question.

* Our seats for leg two (LA-Frankfurt) were the middle 2 in the centre section of 4 seats - so someone on either side of us.

* I thought our luck changed in LA when I asked about our allocated seats and they managed to find us an aisle seat.

* I was wrong - we got on the plane and I was next to an annoying little kid who's mother's method of parenting was to ignore and read. Even when the kid took off up the aisle as the pilot was revving up the engines on the runway.

* This plane was fitted out about 20 years ago. No personal screens and the 2 films (in a 11 hour flight) were Hairspray and Licence to Wed. There weren't many 12 year old girls on the flight so not sure how they made those choices.

* Our connection to Manchester boarded 50 minutes after we were due to land in Frankfurt. We were delayed by 50 minutes though which lead to some sweaty palms on the airport. I asked a steward what the crack was and he told me there'll be more info given out nearer to landing.

* Info was the gate the Manchester flight left from. We grabbed our bags and sprinted off the plane to the gate, got to security checks (why? we were still in departures) and told the guy our flight left in seconds - he said "Oh it's ok, there have been a few Manchester passengers through just in front of you and no one from the desk has come to hurry people through". We eventually got to the desk I (after I was properly, or more accurately - improperly frisked and even had my passport and ticket x-rayed) and after being ignored a couple of times were told the flight had left.

* Back up to ticket counter to find out what to do next and were told we were now on the 1650 flight to Manchester - it was 1130 by this point. This had already been sorted out apparently so not sure why they couldn't have told us this and saved us the crazy sprint.

* Next was an hour long queue to pick up new boarding passes and the sourfaced rude cow at the desk didn't make that any more pleasureable.

* Back to ticket desk to get meal vouchers - 20 Euros. We wanted a sandwich and a drink which was about 12. If I was being optimistic I would have hoped for change, the very least I expected him to write down the remaining balance on the chit. But no, we had to use up the whole amount. We ended up chucking away most of the food (it's hard to find a hobo in need of a feed in a departure lounge) and the guy made a couple of euros pure profit.

No more worries after that, the short flight back to Manchester was fine and there waiting for us was my poor mum who'd been there to greet the arrivals on the 1125 flight.

In summary, in flight entertainment on Air New Zealand is fantastic, but don't sit on the back row. Flying with Lufthansa was horrible in just about every way. The only exception being one of the customer service guys in Frankfurt who let me call home twice and was actually helpful unlike the others.

Ha, a while ago I said I'd calmed down and I'll explain what happened in brief! Didn't quite work out that way did it?

Anyway, it's great to be home and in a way feels like only yesterday I left. We had a good nights kip and went for a walk around the village this morning. It was quite a change in temperature from NZ that's for sure...

I lived in Brodsworth for 20 years or so but Jo pointed out something I hadn't noticed before - you can join together the r and the n in the name of our neighbouring village with amusing results...

New Zealand and England can be very different. Jo was fascinated by the molehills. Sadly the moles couldn't be enticed out for the photo opportunity...

More pictures of our various adventures to follow (and less text I promise)...

2 days to go...

I really do need to put a new picture on here to shunt that shocking one of the 'thing' on my lip further down the page.

How about a couple from my only Christmas boozey night out in NZ this year? Nothing too exciting, just a few beers at ours with Rob and Dave speeded up by Lunt's variation on the dice game - using cards. After Bonzo spewed off the balcony after a joker we headed off to the Kingslander for a few more. We were all limited in the pocket so after a few beers and some splendid work on the pool table we were done.

Well, after nearly killing myself out in the heat today there's only one working day left before we fly back to England. It's a Saturday too just to compound the misery. But I suppose I am having 3 weeks off so I can't complain too much.

So this is my final post before I head back. It feels like a lifetime since I was living there, but it's only been 2 years. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone I left behind (well, everyone I was bothered about leaving behind anyway), I'm not so keen to leave behind the warm summer weather we're having at the moment.

See you soon!! (mainly aimed at my mum seeing as I don't have that many readers any more, except Rob's Brazilian stalker of course...)

Footnote: Apologies for the quality of the writing...too many "left behind"s and "after"s. My excuse is that I toiled for 9 hours in the heat today. Woe is me.

Goodbye mo...

It's the long awaited day... December 1st. Which means I can finally shave my 'tache.

Here is a filthy close up of the end result...

Today will also see me cut my hair for the first time in almost 3 months. I'm almost Dunc-like in my bouff...

I had the Rob Kidd '06 tache, here he is with this years version (one for his Brazilian fan club)...

A big thanks to those who sponsored me and raised a total of NZ$125 (Bradbury, Millward, Smaje and Rich Bibby). Not so big thanks to those who promised but never delivered.... James, Acres, Lunt. You 3 can buy me beers in England instead.

Big holiday countdown.... we fly in 15 days...

A few more years of hurt...

Failure by England. Again. But not even at the tournament this time.

As Mr Creegan pointed out to me earlier, this could be the wake up call English football needed and that hopefully it'll go the same way as France, after their failure to qualify for Euro96.

Here are my thoughts...

By my reckoning only 2 of the 14 who played tonight are regulars for one of the much vaunted top 4. The rest either only play a handful of games for those teams or play for a team who's season's goal is to avoid relegation.

Granted there are a few missing (Neville, Rooney, Ferdinand, Terry) but it just highlights the lack of depth. There are far too many foreigners playing and coaching in the Premiership and it is affecting the national side. Who was the last Englishman to manage a title winning side? Howard Wilkinson, the season before the premiership started.

Until something is done about this the England team will never get anywhere.

Take Italy as a good example - I believe they have around 70% Italian players in their top flight teams. And the majority of top teams have recently had Italian coaches... Lippi, Anceloti, Mancini, Trapatoni. They won the World Cup. I've nothing against quality foreign players in the premiership, there have been plenty over the years who've vastly improved the standard of football in England. But it's getting ridiculous when the majority of every starting side is foreign.

Another question I have about English football is why don't any of the top players play overseas? In this day and age where the world has never been closer together (except billions of years ago when it actually was physically closer), and where players could easily afford private flights and helicopters to get home to their mums for tea, why does not one English player play for a decent European side.

Same goes for the coaches... Our two most successful English coaches in recent times, Bobby Robson and Terry Venereables, both coached at the highest level in Europe.

McLaren has to go. The FA felt they had to appoint an Englishman after the failure of a foreigner, which I agreed with. Even though there was no particularly obvious candidate. But now it's almost certain we'll be back to an overseas search.

If it were up to me (and I'm normally the last to advocate a foreigh coach), it has to be someone who's coached in England with success. Which pretty much leaves only one candidate.... Jose Mourinho.

Gimme some mo...

James Christopher Creegan, get your goddamn hand in your pocket. The mo is taking shape now...

How about a sporting update? The indoor 5-a-side team Rob and I play for recently got promoted to the top division and then won our first game 4-0. Sweet.

Outdoors, the bowls season has started! It seems like ages since the last one ended with us champions of the BBC.

The first week was a washout but week 2 saw us pitted against the team who finished second last time round. We opened up a 5-0 lead, only to be pegged back. It was a tight game and although we were never behind, thanks largely to some good skip bowling from Casey, we went into the final end at 8-8. In the pressure situation Miller and I stepped up to send down our best bowls of the game to win it 10-8.

Good times.

Paper celebrations...

Last Sunday Jo and I celebrated 1 year together. How time flies...

We headed about 30 minutes up north to a town called Whangaparoa to take a stroll in Shakespear Park. As far as the city centre is concerned Auckland is pretty unremarkable. But one of the great things about living here is what lurks on the outskirts and in the suburbs. There are countless nice beaches all within striking distance and all relatively unpopulated. Perfect for the summer that is just about here now.

Here's Jo getting her feet wet with the vague outline of the CBD in the background...

The big prang...

After the liver-destroying 10 days of Lunt's visit a quiet weekend was in order. I worked all Saturday which was pretty profitable but also pretty tiring.

Sunday was a little more action packed. It started early as I got up to watch Great Britain give the Kiwis a good stuffing in the 2nd rugby league test then Jo and I took a drive to the park. Very relaxing. But all that was undone on the way home...

As I pulled up behind a queue of cars at some lights I heard a screeching of tires behind me. It took my body to be thrown forward to realise that someone was struggling to stop in sufficient time behind me.

SMASH!!

Fortunately for me I drive a very sturdy ute with the last couple of feet being almost entirely made of steel. Including the protruding tow bar.

So I came out of the fender bender with a slightly bent licence plate. The late braker, on the other hand, wasn't quite so lucky. My tow bar had burrowed so deep he was probably trying to change gear with it. His car, to use mechanical vernacular, was a right flipping mess.

To make things worse for the guy he didn't have insurance (not legally required in NZ). Let that be a lesson to you kids.

As far as I can remember this is the first accident I've been in since I was a little kid and someone hit the back of my mum's car. I didn't cry this time though, just moaned a little about whiplash. Cue my mum telling me I was 13 when that happened. And Jo telling me it was more than a little moaning this time...

Movember

You may be here because you're a regular reader, maybe you got my email and wanted in on the fun or maybe you're one of those americans who keep getting directed here after googling for pictures of Paul from the Wonder Years.

However you found your way here, no matter, welcome. So today is day 1 of Movember. I have a cleanly shaven face (well as cleanly shaven as my face can be) and I'm starting to think about what sort of mo I want or dare go for. I'll go for a few days of full growth then shave in the mo people want to see.

Below are a few possibilities so please use the comments box to vote for your favourite, or maybe even suggest a new one altogether.

I'm filled with dread - here are a few snaps from half way through last years Movember... Semi-mos

So check out these mos and let me know what you think...

Magnum Mo...

Wario Mo...
Private Walker Mo...

To donate follow the link on the right hand side of my page...

When Lunt came to town...

Richard Lunt arrived in town 10 days ago. He picked a pretty good weekend to turn up on with it being Rob's birthday and the Rugby World Cup final with a bank holiday to close.

While I worked midweek Lunt took off to the Waitomo Caves on a tour then to Rotorua where I met him for a Friday night on the tiles. Lots of fun. No time for a hang over as it was luging, zorbing then more booze on the Saturday.

I think we managed to fit quite a lot in and I was happy to see Lunt was in as good a form as ever.

Check his blog for some pictures and (less amusing) write up of his trip.

I took the soft option and, rather than upload a zillion pictures, have created an action-packed video for your enjoyment.

Clear your schedule - it's 10 minutes long...

Oops they did it again...

Having widely slagged off northern hemisphere rugby and already picked the 4 semi finalists for the Rugby World Cup, the All Blacks follow their Tasman cousins on the plane back home.

The fall out here has been pretty spectacular. Imagine what it's like when the England football team get knocked out of an international tournament, ie every other August, and then imagine if England were overwhelming favourites for that tournament.

Everyone and everything is to blame - the ref, their rotation policy, , reconditioning, lack of decent warm up games, the rules of rugby (my personal favourite). What it boils down to though is the ABs choked (again). They had plenty of time, possession and territory to set up a simple drop goal but they didn't.

Surprise, surprise, England are in the semis. I don't think anyone saw that coming. The game against the French should be close and is well worth forsaking the Sunday lie in.

I've probably lost the non rugby fans by now (99% of my audience), but if you're still here how about a little quiz? Most New Zealand sporting teams have a nickname, based around black, silver, fern etc. Here are a few examples:

All Blacks - obvious
All Whites - men's football
Black Caps - men's cricket
Tall Blacks - men's basketball
Silver ferns - netball
Football ferns - women's football
Black sticks - both hockey teams
Black cocks - badminton (seriously)

A new one was born recently and probably the best one I've heard yet. Who can tell me what the NZ lawn bowls team is called?

Another video...

Here's one I've been meaning to do for a while, a little montage of quad biking from mine and Jo's trip up north a couple of months ago...