Blog
Enjoy Lisa Scott's reviews and blogs: guest blogger for NZBM 2009 as well as past blogs from NZ writers and commentators.
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As I promised you readers of blogland last week, this week I am going to give you the 'no-no' practical jokes that Kevin Ireland censored out of my book, Life Among the Larrikins. He’s a really nice man, who is only trying to cure me of some of my more outrageous, loutish behavior.
Anyway he doesn’t know about this secret 'blog' of mine, so I’ll get these out into the electronic publishing world – ha, ha.
I mean what’s the harm in these little simple japes?
There’s people putting out hard-core pornography on the internet, not to mention paedophiles stalking young children, and adults talking dirty to each other!! Disgusting. Makes the following cute little tricks totally harmless, doesn’t it? Mind you, don’t do these to your friends. Well, maybe the ones who deserve it. Over to you.
Number one – “Gladwrapping the toilet bowl”. Self-explanatory, actually. Don’t forget to take out the light bulb in the toilet after you’ve done it. Only works at night, of course, especially if there’s a party going on. (I’ve never done this.)
Number two – “The undertaker”. Do this late at night preferably. Send an undertaker round to your enemies’/friends’ house to pick up the departed one’s body. (I’ve never done this, but it sounds like it could shake someone up.)
Number three – “The Lottery”. A “birthday party” night trick. Firstly, video the winning lottery numbers one Saturday. Then buy a ticket in the following week’s lottery, making sure you include the last week’ winning numbers on one line. Give it to your mate as a gift, then at the party slip in the video when he is not looking, and make sure everybody watches the nights TV draw. WARNING! Check first that they haven’t got a bad heart (and that you don’t really need them as a friend anymore.)
Number four – There is another one, but even I think that’s disgusting. The late Barry Crump used to do it (I haven’t – but he used to do Number One, too. He taught it to me. Though I never did it. Naturally.)
Anyway, there you are. But to give everyone you love some good, clean, laughs, buy my book Life Among the Larrikins. Published August 8, by Cape Catley Ltd. RRP $29.99. Great Father’s Day/Christmas gift. For all the family.
Really. Truly. So long. Terry
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Now that I’m starting to speak “Techno-talk”, to my older grandchildren’s delight, but not mine I assure you, could some kind reader from “Blogland” please email me (there, I’ve done it again – curses) and tell me what “blog” means?
Why must the idiot technocrats who infest our world invent a strange and new language that only they and their cohorts understand? Could it be that it’s because they can’t spell or understand basic English? I think so. Just imagine what “texting” is going to do to today’s generation’s understanding of English communication. I shudder to think. Imagine “texting copy” in newspapers, magazines and books. No, I can’t and will not.
Am I starting to sound like a “grumpy old man”? Good. Because I am. I love that UKTV programme because I really identify with it. And, while on the subject of technocrat fools, why do the designers and manufacturers of televisions and hi-fi stereos insist on making them black, with black knobs, marked with infinitely small symbols and words that can be read only by using a magnifying glass?
Again, even the words (and especially the symbols) used on these knobs cannot be found in the dictionary. Fools, fools, fools.
Hang on a minute. The penny’s just dropped. This is all a great practical joke, isn’t it? I should have known as I am ‘the King’ of practical jokers. How embarrassing.
To think that my book, Life Among the Larrikins, is all about legendary New Zealand practical jokes, and all this time I myself thought that you could buy only black electronic equipment. Ok, you got me.
Now “blog” me the address of the Auckland electronic stores that sell white equipment, with white knobs, with black lettering and instructions in bloody English!!
My final “blog” is coming up next week. so I think I’ll sign off from “blogland” by telling you all (if anyone’s “listening”?) the “no-no” practical jokes you can pull off on your enemies. My editor wiped them off my original manuscript. I don’t think my lady publisher even saw them. She is nervous enough as it is about some of the ones that are in my book.
What the hell! I’ll give them to you “bloggers”. Anyway, all this stuff just eventually disappears into the ether.
Doesn’t it?
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What’s a 'blog'? Bloody hell! My lady publisher has asked me to write a 'blog' of 300 words or more, every week for three weeks. I am a proud member of the Luddites’ Society and haven’t the slightest idea of what she’s talking about. I am computer illiterate and always will be, as long as I keep hearing about the costs, hassles and dangers of computers.
I possess the world’s greatest computer between my ears and all I need is my 'writing stick”' and a pad and I’m off. Bugger all these 'electronic aids' that keep today’s boys inside day and night, when they should be outside climbing trees, jumping off wharves, robbing orchards, playing backyard cricket and football, riding bikes, terrorising girls and old ladies, fishing, playing the wag from school and other healthy pursuits available to all young New Zealanders. What this country needs is more larrikins and fewer nerds.
To my everlasting shame, none of my three young New Zealand grandsons play the gentle game of rugby. Only one plays any winter sport at all, and that’s soccer! Oh dear. But we do support him.
Another of my grandsons (unnamed but loved nevertheless) spends all of his time locked in his electronic cave of a bedroom surrounded by thousands of dollars worth of equipment. He gets paler and taller by the day, and I suspect he even hangs from the ceiling like a bat. The granddaughters are all tougher than the grandsons, so that’s what feminism has done for a once-proud rugby family. Bloody sad, really.
I wrote Life Among the Larrikins, around 60,000 words, over two years, using a ballpoint pen. When my beloved typist complained that my writing was like a spider dipped in ink and running all over the page, I had to agree. From then on I printed the last 30,000 words – I suffered too! The fact that she is now able to translate Ancient Sanskrit on Egyptian tombs for archaeologists is an added string to her bow. But does she thank me? Never. I might not give her my next book to type. But then I think I will – just to punish her for all the cheek she gave me while I wrote my first one. ( In fact, she’s having to type out this 'blog', so ha ha.)
Watch out for my next 'blog'. I’m starting to get good at this!
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