What a horrible country New Zealand is becoming

Unlike most nations we've managed to avoid arming our regular police force… until now. NZ Police cars will now have a stash of various firearms in the boot - available at a moments notice. 

It's a clear indication of which direction a once largely peaceful nation is heading.

That being said it's worth noting that the police are still reluctant to use them.

And… we remain number two in the world peace rankings.

Which all leads me to believe I've used the wrong heading for this commentary. It should read "What a horrible nation…" because after all it's still the most beautiful country in the world - n'est-ce pas?

Remember when you were young…?

… and observing  your parents reading the newspaper you thought they were naff? I mean what could be more boring than reading a newspaper?

Some 20+ years later I'm sitting in the lounge on a very rainy New Years Eve reading the New Zealand Herald. Since my time in the UK, where I read The Times (a beast of a paper compared to the tiny Herald), I've garnered a love for the weekend paper. Mainly because as well as giving a summary of the news it tends to tell a few 'human interest' stories as well.

It's something I miss in Turkey and especially so as the English translation of the Turkish news is heavily oriented towards politics. In addition, something I find mildly amusing is that the 97% Muslim readership newspaper has without fail had a scantily clad woman (not wearing much) on their home page, yet she is absent from the English version!

Moving from newspapers to television for a second... At first I enjoyed TV One's daily end of news reports on Good Sorts (people who do good things in the community). Then I became bored with it - this was all when I was living in New Zealand. Now on my return I'm proud that we at least have Good Sorts as a regular feature on the daily news which, let's face it, in every country in the world is dominated by bad news.

This leads directly to what I was reading in the newspaper this morning which is the New Years Honours (British honours system).

Whether you are a Royalist (kral taraftarı) or not it's still great to read that there are many people out there doing good works. I confess to thinking that the granting of honours has become over zealous (ateşli) in the last few decades and the pessimist (karamsar) inside of me can't help but think it's just to promote the flagging interest (ikaz davranışı) in the Royals.

Either way it's great to hear the good news and it's often inspiring too.

Ho Ho Ho (burp)

In the best of Christmas traditions I've over eaten. Now don't be fooled into thinking I've been gorging on cake, ham, booze and the rest. No no no.

I'm on my own and last night along with the cats I didn't have any dinner. So after a very long morning and part of the afternoon sorting through my junk I was hit with a massive pang of hunger.
Now this isn't your normal pang of hunger - this is the mf of hunger pangs (to paraphrase and cheat a little from Pulp Fiction, thanks Quentin).

So being the extremely proficient chef that I am I went to the fridge, took out a pack of 6 frankfurters, cooked 'em up, nuked 6 pieces of toast, slapped on way to much cheese, and ate like I was never going to eat again.

Hence my stomache is now trying to escape my body like a baby trying to escape it's mother.


~


Whilst we are talking of movies, and I realise it's not the best time to mention non-Christmasy movies, I'd really like to bring a couple of brill ones to your attention.

Firstly, there's Adam Resurrected, and secondly PU-239.

Be warned: neither are light hearted, nor pleasant, however in a dark sort of way they are both uplifting insights into the human spirit. Well I think they are anyway.

I happened to catch both of them over the last 2 days by chance and thus I'm now passing them on perchance you may see them.

Christmas spirit and all that.


~


Lastly, a pic I just happened to come across in my travels that I really liked.

How? I put "Swedish Christmas" into Google Images and this was one of the results.

Tarakihi

A New Zealand tarakihi fish fillet. Tarakihi is a Māori word. 

Choices

Life is full of choices. 

I estimate we make over 1000 choices every day and that's being conservative.


Before you finish making a choice to disagree let's have a closer look.


Every morning before I've left home I've made a bunch of choices.

I chose what time I would get up. I chose whether I would get up at all. I chose to make my bed. I chose to have a shower. I chose to brush my teeth. I chose to have breakfast. I chose to wear my green pants. I chose to do my hair. I chose to put my washing in the machine. I chose to have breakfast. I chose to have museli. I chose to have hot chocolate. I chose to get to work/school on time so I chose to take the car to the train station because I was running late...

These choices may seem inconsequential. Maybe they are...




What about these choices that I made at the same time as the ones above?

I chose it's important to get up. I chose it's nicer to be clean, smell good and have sparkling teeth. I chose to give myself a running start with the day by eating. I chose to have a tidy room...

What about these choices?

I choose that it's important what I think about myself - not what others think.

I choose to appreciate what I do have - not to focus on what I don't have.

I choose to smile.

I choose to say "thank you".

I choose to say "sorry".

I choose to have a great day.

Life is full of choices.

What will you choose today?

Found!

It's all very exciting. I've found some of my World Updates!


When I left New Zealand back in 1996 I started emailing family and friends every now and then to update them on what was happening on my side of the world. These updates were known as "World Updates".


I thought I had long lost them but when I came to NZ recently and had a chance to look into an old PC I found a few of the very first ones.


They are now loaded onto this blog starting at No 1 :)

Listen to this - Bu dinlemek

Bir Değil Bin Ömrüm Olsa - a song by Yasin

Whirling

Just saw some whirling dervishes. It was pretty spectacular :)


It wasn't in the cultural centre mentioned in the link but in Sirkeci Station ("Sir-keji") which made it a bit different. Whilst quite expensive for the one hour session I reckon it was worth it. Both the Sufi music and the dancing were great in their own right.


The actually whirling itself is beyond comprehension physically. It must take a while to master.