Tears for February 6, 1958

The date is when the plane carrying the Manchester United Football Club (MUFC) team back from their European Cup match in Belgrade crashed on take-off in Munich. Your Grandad used to take me to see them play every week but I can't remember any visits before the crash. My asthma started the week after the crash. When we took off from Munich returning from the Olympics I was genuinly terrified but nothing happened! Different airport.

Eight of the players were killed and the greatest football team of the era, maybe any era, was wiped out. Next February will be 50 years and MUFC are planning some very sensitive and well-thought out commemorations.

When reading the article linked in the prevous paragraph I got to the part about, 'But another striking aspect of the commemorations is an eagerness to include City and indeed the entire city. With a derby match falling closest to the anniversary, there were initial fears that any tribute, including the traditional minute’s silence, could be disrupted by opposition supporters, but the clubs have cooperated extensively over the plans, with City planning their own tribute, which may see a black arm-band embroidered into the kits that their team wear on the day.' I started crying uncontrollably; there must be a lot of suppressed emotion in there.

Of course, the connection with Manchester City Football Club is ironic. Cousin Peter (your Grandma's sister's eldest) is a shareholder and he and brother David and kids go to every home game of the cross-town arch (and MUCH less successful) rivals! I've told them in no uncertain terms, they should resign from the family.

Maybe we should all go to next February's 'derby' match.

One Hour in Cuba

The SNZ offices are at the top of Cuba Street in Wellington. When I first moved here I had an apartment at the bottom of Cuba so I had to walk the length of it twice each day, to and from work. It’s one of the most amazing streets in the world. The sights are mind-boggling; not the architecture but the people. As the Daily Express in Britain says on its banner, ‘All human life is there.’ Well, it’s definitely on Cuba Street although some of it is questionable in its humanity. I’ve long had an idea of sitting there for a day just taking photos of all the interesting people wandering around. I did it yesterday. Not for a day but for an hour. It’s enough; at one point I wanted to change lenses but was scared I’d miss a freak.

Here's a small selection. I have about 200 in total but I need to return as two 'regulars' didn't show; Raymond the Blanket Man and the Military Lady. Raymond is a Rasta-Maori guy who wears only a blanket year-round and lives on the street. Sometimes when he's sitting on the sidewalk the blanket slips off but his nakedness doesn't phase him. I may have mentioned him before; he was arrested for marihuana possession and sentenced to about 30 days detention. Being a quick-witted soul he asked for home detention :)

The Military Lady is about 60 (old!), quite short and very stocky. She always wears full battle dress, camouflage, field-helmet, combat boots, cross-chest webbing, field-radio in a backpack, the full deal. Its always very neat and clean and she marches down Cuba on a regular basis. Not to be seen during my hour though.

I have a vision of Wellington Council sponsoring a book with these photos and, I did once see a 6'6" tranvestite fairy complete with wings and magic wand.

Bend Me

David Beckham is in town with the LA Galaxy team and Victoria Beckham is in Vancouver! What a coincidence, quite amazing really; NZ is a rugby nation (even though the World Cup was a disaster) but we have breakfast TV embedded outside his hotel and everyone, everywhere trying to catch glimpses.

LA Galaxy play the Wellington Phoenix tonight at 7.15 and, at 7.05 there’s a low-level fly-past by the NZ Air Force followed by fireworks. I have a prime viewing position so, if the photo here is spectacular you’ll know I got it right.

Later
I know, it's not spectacular is it? Planes are too small, not enough of them and they're not low enough. Ah well. And there were no firworks.

SNZ Christmas in November

We had our office Christmas day out on Thursday. Very good Lisa keeps all the arrangements secret from us so everything is a total surprise and its terrific. This year we went to Te Papa to view a film of NZ history then boarded a CAT to go off-roading up above Wellington.

We passed various things like a HUGE wind turbine which is going to power the Universe and a wild deer wandering around somewhat lost.

We stopped by the sea for a BBQ lunch and played silly cricket.






I fell over looking for a lost ball!







This was followed by a sumptuous meal at a Greek Taverna and a splendid time was had by all.

Pacific Team Fiji

So, Fiji. Terrific. I could live there and maybe I should because my skin likes the place; anyways, first things first.

SPARC eventually folded and agreed I was no threat to National security if:

a) the invitation was a personal one and not through Swimming New Zealand
b) I was ‘only’ presenting to swimming coaches
c) There was no media involvement

So, no problem then; off I went.

I was in Auckland anyway so after some meetings I went to the airport to check in with Air Pacific. Good grief! What are airports about when you’re an ordinary traveller? They’re horrendous. Air Pacific is a partner with Qantas and I’m a VIP with Qantas’ arch enemy, Air New Zealand, so I had to cue for normal check in! It’s horrible. It takes ages. You’re luggage is restricted – I had to pay $35 in overweight charges. Then there’s no lounge to go to. You have to mix with everyone else and pay for your drinks and food and magazines. How do people do this? Why do people fly?

The actual flight was very nice and the Air Pacific staff were good. I landed in Nadi (pronounced Nandi, don’t ask.) I was supposed to be met by a representative of the company of the guy who was organising the Conference. Nobody appeared. Nobody approached me. Nobody looked as if they were looking for a ‘me’. So, I hitched a ride on a hotel courtesy bus and got it to drop me off at my hotel. When I’d checked in I phoned the organiser guy and told him I was in the hotel. ‘There was definitely some one there to meet you.’ he said. ‘No problem,’ said I, 'because I’m here.'

Some time later I got a call from the girl who was at the airport to meet me; apparently I look nothing like the photograph I’d sent. Usually these people hold up a sign saying, ‘Mister Clive’, or whatever, but not this chick. Anyway she arranged to pick me up and take me to the pre-Conference cocktail reception; very civilised. I have to say I’m not surprised she missed me at the airport. I don’t think I have ever met anyone with less chat, conversation, interest, intrigue, or just, downright, plain personality. Useless; and she’s in PR! The cocktail party was excellent, every Conference should have one.

The first presentation at the Conference was ‘A History of Fiji Swimming’. Well, the title says it all; b.a.b.s. Being aware of the history of our sport is really, really important but this presentation was not destined to galvanise a sudden surge in archival delving from the coaching community of the island. The historian read from a prepared script and told us he had hundreds of photographs to supplement his talk but he didn’t show any; b.a.b.s., b.a.b.s., definitely b.a.b.s.

The other presenters were top class. Shelly Clarke, an OW swimmer from Ozzie-land was so enthusiastic I’m sure everyone wanted to immediately dive in and try a 60km river race. Cathy, the physiotherapist to the Fijian rugby team (who lasted longer than the All Blacks at the recent World Cup!) was dynamite. And Damien Pedreschi was a revelation. Damien used to coach swimming in NZ but bailed out for a corporate life a few years ago. He kept up his interest in coaching through Triathlon and has two of his charges pre-qualified for Beijing, including the silver medallist from Athens, Brendon Docherty. He has mega-developed as an insightful presenter since his non-swimming involvement.

On the Saturday night (two-day Conference) we all boarded a bus and went to a restaurant at a marina. Definitely to be recommended for all Conferences.

We gathered for the second day and people were saying, ‘I saw you on TV last night.’ What? Apparently I’d made the 6’o clock News but I hadn’t seen any cameras which struck me as media, I thought they were coaches videoing the presentations. So much for no media involvement and maybe I’d be refused re-entry to New Zealand because I was subversive.

There was a presentation on drugs and doping which rivalled the history lesson. The presenters didn’t really know their subject and quite a few of us were deliberately avoiding eye-contact in case we cracked up laughing.

There are highs and lows at all Conferences but this was one of the most enjoyable in years; total cohesiveness among the Fiji coaches – most unusual in this sport – and a sense of togetherness and let’s move forward that I haven’t witnessed in ages.

After the Conference we went to the house of a cruise-ship chef. He does 3 months at sea and 3 months at home. Big house. Huge view over Nadi bay. All the people there had been ‘at it’ since lunchtime so they were totally bladdered. Then off to one of the local coaches homes for dinner; very pleasant. Alison had been an attendee at our October School of Coaching so I guess that’s where the invitation came from. Her husband is a pilot with Air Pacific.

I’d given myself a present of Monday off so I went sailing with a couple of the other pilots from Air Pacific. I get the impression that all the pilots with Air Pacific are something to do with Fiji Swimming. Hugh built himself a catamaran in his garage so of we went in that. Excellent. Hugh and Chris were hosts to Damien and I for the day and they were both ‘working’ at the time. They were ‘on call’ so they could, theoretically, have been called to fly a plane somewhere. However, Hugh is a 747 pilot and Chris is a 767 pilot. Air Pacific has one of each and both had taken off early that morning with no hassle so their ‘on call’ day was guaranteed to be pretty hassle-free. I lost my hat and we turned the cat round so Chris could dive ain and rescue it.
We had a topsail problem (don’t know the real sailing jargon) at the beginning of the day and had to emergency change a sail during the afternoon but that’s no big deal. An awesome day.

Tuesday morning I turn up at Nadi airport expecting chaos on the scale of a Greek airport. I was not to be disappointed but I’d forgotten how chaotic real chaos really is. Check in took ages, cues forever. Then a line up for customs which was preceded by a hand-baggage check. This was scary because I was way overweight and they were sending people back to check in their overweight hand baggage. Fortunately, I must have bluffed my way because they just glanced at my shoulder bag and allowed me through – no measure of dimensions and no weighing.

Walking from the terminal to the plane I waved to Chris, he of the hat rescue, as he was doing the pre-flight check from the flight-deck and when I boarded he called me into the cabin for a chat; now that’s upmarket.

Politics and Sport

I'm supposed to go to Fiji on Friday to present at their Coaches Conference. However, I'm now the subject of an impending full-court press by the New Zealand Government. Some months ago there was a military coup and the resident NZ High Commissioner was booted out. Then a few weeks ago some NZ businessmen were arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate the Prime Minister, a guy with one of the most fascinating names, Commodore Bainimarama; not a 1980's UK girlie pop group but a Fijian military Commander. The NZ Government website says, 'There is some risk to your security in Fiji and we advise caution.'

(Talk about coincidence; as I'm writing this, an advert for a package holiday in Fiji has just come on TV.)

So, understandably, the NZ Government is not too friendly with Fiji. They have a ban on sporting visits to NZ by Fijian teams but application can be made for exemption and they were recently allowed in to compete in the 'world' netball championships (16 teams!)

My invitation to the Conference is for me as me, not me as a Swimming New Zealand person but me as a swimming 'expert'. However, the Government, through their funding agency, SPARC, are not happy; they are about to start putting pressure on me to withdraw.

More updates as the week progresses.

Lakeside and Riverside Houses

I came across this photo in a copy of Conde Nast Traveller magazine while having my haircut. It's uncanny how close in concept it is to Vista del Largo/Rancho Relaxo; two, L-shaped wings framing a courtyard overlooking a valley ... and the arched double-windows etc.

Cunning Clint is currently working out how to reduce the floor area as its around 330m2 and that will cost too much. Last week we put a tower in the north wing to hold the stairs and it also struck me that we could put the library in the stair tower (winding up the stairs) and save area by deleting the original library room.

Still a work in progress.

Neil and Dawn's house had a big feature in Home+Entertainment magazine; here it is.

Irony is not dead

Day 2 of the b.a.b.s. Workshop today.

One of the presentations was from the Inspire Group; talk about a misnomer! They're producing a whole new section of web for the SPARCling website - possibly the most user-unfriendly site in the whole of the world wide interweb - and they announced and described ('scoped' in horrendous SPARC terminology) the project today. The subject matter of the new section is irrelevent but what was amazing is they did the whole presentation (about a web site, remember) without using a computer or screen!

Truly, they excused themselves by saying they weren't going to use PowerPoint so they are obviously influenced by Mr. Tufte and his understandable and believable view that ppt is the work of the Devil but they then didn't use any pixelated aids at all. Nobel-threatening gems such as 'users use different computers' and 'text prints faster than graphics' were thrown out to justify their lack of inspiration. Ppt is, indeed, the work of the devil but Mr. Tufte isn't saying don't use computers!

They handed out one spiral-bound booklet for each four- or five-ish people so everyone had to share and then proceded to draw words, lines and squares on a whiteboard to illustrate their proposed mouse-clicking sequence. 'When I click on this (point to word on whiteboard) it will come up with this page (draw square on whiteboard to ilustrate a page of text).' and then they held up the booklet open at a page showing screenshots of their mocked-up web pages.

They plan to 'go live' in 'mid-December' so beware. If you go to the Client Showcase page on the Inspire link it lists only three examples, big companies for sure, but three? One of them is Telstra Clear which has a case scenario and then 'The Solution .. click next' text at the end. Click on 'click next' and you'll see why I'm not inspired.

Oh, and their site uses Flash; 'nuff said.

p.s. Just found another howler; if you go to the Contact Us page on their corporate site you can't click though on their contact email addresses!

Gunpowder, treason and plot

Strange that a Protestant nation should celebrate a Catholic plot to destroy its 'seat' of democracy over 400 years after it occurred and make a martyr out of someone who was then hanged, drawn and quartered by commemorating their demise by burning them at the stake.

Still, that's England for you.

'Remember, remember the fifth of November ...' everyone loves bonfire night or 'Guy Fawkes' as it's known here in Godzone. The capital, Wellington, spends upwards of $100,000 each year on a firework display so last night I watched it from my balcony (can't do that from RR). Not as good as last year was my verdict but I have no piccies from last year.

We're all under threat from the Blessed Helen that, if we don't behave and stop frightening dogs and setting fire to children each year, fireworks will not be allowed any more. I like Helen, she lives just up the road and I feel sorry for her because she never looks happy but she needs a make-over; the photo in the Wiki spread is both old and touched up.

Anyway, don't try to blow up your Government and don't frighten the animals.

b.a.b.s.

We have a phrase in the office, 'Boring as batshit!' It's ideal for describing a lot of the stuff we hear and deal with on a daily basis and was certainly the most interesting (and possibly the most important) thing the previous Chief Executive Officer (CEO) donated to the cause.

It can't be that boring because Google takes 0.23 seconds to find 487,000 references to batshit and 0.34 seconds to find 1,500,000 for bat shit; what a difference space makes!

Today I, (High Performance Director, HPD) was 'sub'd' from the bench (voluntarily, I admit) for our National Education Manager (NEM) who was swanning around in Florida on 'holiday' to attend a 'Coaching Team' Workshop. Good grief! I should have known, shouldn't I?

One of the presentations was about the 'glue' which holds together the relationship between Regional Sports Trusts (RSTs), National Sports Organisations (NSOs) and Regional Sports Organisations (RSO's) while they manage their Coach Force Managers (CFMs). Apparently the 'secret' (and it was presented as a revelationaly key to the Universe) is to have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and a consequent Service Level Agreement (SLA) which defined the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Job Descriptions (JDs) for all the relevant parties. The whole thing was organised by Sport and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC) and it was b.a.b.s. Three letter acronyms (TLAs) were dispersed as if they were limitless in their abundance.

It was held at the Miramar Golf Club (MGC) adjacent to Wellington airport (WAP) and a very nice venue (VNV) it was; lots of nice wood and superb view of the links course though, due to the regular Wellington weather, not a lot of activity to be seen.

During the 'glue' presentation the second hand of the clock on the wall 'ticked' 60 times every minute but each one definitely seemed to get slower, the water in the jugs on the tables evaporated a significant amount, I counted 6,600 'louvres' in the wooden false ceiling composed of 11 rows of four sets of three by five patterned louvres - interesting, eh?

There were photographs of 'past Presidents' of the golf club visible through the doors on the walls in the corridor which seemed to be smirking and saying, 'I'm lucky; I'm dead.'

I've heard about animals gnawing their legs off to escape from Mantraps and I know from a very reliable source that octopuses eat their own legs to evade capture, 'Because its a very hard life at the bottom of the ocean, Mister Clive,' but to consider chewing my arm off to distract from a PowerPoint presentation is extreme, however I actually think some delegates started to decompose during the talk.

Fortunately I'd painted #4 'Wairarapa Wind' yesterday and some of the Resene paint had survived the two showers and scrubs I'd had since. There was a splodge of vivid lime green on my right thumb and in the sunlight drifting through the floor-to-ceiling, view-of-the-links window it appeared to be slightly damp and, therefore, fascinating.

Who says watching paint dry can't be more interesting than a SPARC workshop? Ally Todd (NEM), you owe me!

T.T.F.N.

Entering the Seventh Decade!

So, what did you do for your birthday, Daddy?

Well, I became a gardener for the most part of the day then became a gourmet food and drink reviewer :)

First we have to determine exactly when my birthday was. I was born on October 27, 1947 in Rochdale (scene of Mr. Kite's most famous appearance). So, if we're being precise I had not been on the Earth for 60 years until 11.30-ish pm Rochdale time. The wags amongst you may comment that Tsawwassen is 4 hours ahead of Wellington, Gambier is 7 hours ahead, Gilbert's Cove is 8 hours ahead and Rochdale is 11 hours ahead but, unlike the other centers, which are also a day behind, Rochdale is one hundred years behind. However, taking the cultural and technological lag into account we're talking either evening on the 27th in NZ or late morning of the NZ 28th before I entered, as one of my 'friends' pointed out, my seventh decade!

So, on the NZ 27th. I gardened. I did more physical work than I'd done for ages. More than walking 10k round a golf course whacking a small, white sphere at a brazillion miles an hour (just how many is a brazillion anyway?). I dug up small trees for transplanting and loaded lots of terracotta planters into the trailer. Then I uplifted two statues which are supposed to have lights on top but the lights have vanished. I then took all down the lakeside to get them away from Fernside before Bill and Toni move out. One of the tree-lings took flight on the journey down but I did get the rest of them down there.

The planters were unloaded; not an easy job by myself as some of them were full of plants and weighed a lot. The big snarly one is an aloe vera plant all ready for breaking off to rub into sore, cut hands.

Then I planted the First Tree. Hopefully it will dig itself in, 'take' and grow into a HUGE oak tree. I also planted a few other chestnuts of a smaller persuasion but this was number 1!

As soon as I'd finished planting it started to rain so that's a good sign - lots of good, healthy, antarctic water nourishing the hungry trees.

So back to Fernside. However, first I had to learn how to reverse the Discovery and trailer. I'd tried it before leaving for the lakeside but it's not an easy skill. However I managed to reverse the contraption in an orderly manner and was able to escape the lakeside and return.

So it was time to go out to dinner. All the five other Fernside guests knew where we were going but it was kept a secret from me. G'ma had sent some $$ so I'd 'invested' in a magnum of pretty decent Porters 1999 Steel Chardonnay and was fiercely clutching this to my chest as we rocketed (the driver was obviously in a rental car and, being from Auckland, enjoying the country roads) along paaast the sheep, llamas and emus in the Wairarapa paddocks. As we turned off the 'road' onto a gravel 'road' I recognised where we were and hurriedly laid the magnum on the floor in surrender. We were headed for the home of possibly the best wine-maker in the world, Neil McCallum; no point even trying to help out with the wine supply for that meal! Neil founded Dry River wines and used to employ Hammy's son, Andrew, who is now doing very well as the wine-maker at the DuMol vineyard in California.

So we arrive at the NZ Architect House of the Year 2007! The view was pretty awesome (but not a touch on RR) and the house design was interesting to say the least; the roof is a series of formed curves and I actually stood in Neil's wine cellar!!!!! The food was fantastic with the beef slowly rotisserie'd for four hours on the barbie. The wine, however ... well, the wine. What would you expect; absolutely historic. We started with a chardonnay (can’t remember the year), then a 1998 Syrah which was amazing, even historic. Also tried what Neil described as ‘an experimental Merlot’ and which I thought was not impressive at all. However, he explained to me it was 2007 and he was trying it as a challenge because no-one in NZ was trying Merlots. He was looking for an absence of all things NZ-Merlot-y so it could export well and pronounced himself well pleased. His opinion was that another five years and it would be where he wanted it. Finished off with a stunning Gewurz.

So that was Saturday's New Zealand birthday.

Sunday (Rochdale birthday) was spent packing stuff I have stored at Fernside so it can go into storage ready for transport to RR. Mid-morning I phoned the architect, Clint from Cunning Plans, and arranged to meet him late afternoon so we could 'finalise' the house plans; 'No biggie,' I said, 'I have no major alterations.' During the day I discussed the plans so far with a former President of the NZ Institute of Architects who was staying at Fernside so by the time I was due to meet Cunning Clint I had a gazillion changes. We played around with the CAD programme then planned to return after the evening out for more re-design.

The same eight from the previous night troddled off to Lake Ferry for ‘famous fish and chips’. The wine list had only Murdoch James stuff to which Neil announced he’d never tasted any of them and the in-your-face, attitudinal young waitress looked at him as much as to say, ‘You should get out more!’. We proceeded to taste them all.

Sunset was at 7.57pm and was a good one, going down behind the 'South' island (which is actually west of the north island) between an apparent cleft between two mountains. Unfortunately no-one had a camera because we saw the 'green flash'. Neil alerted us to it and said he'd been trying to see one for forty years. We all watched avidly as the last shiny bits sank below the horizon. Actually the sun doesn't sink at all, its the earth that rotates away from the line of sight, but I digress. Right at the last moment, maybe half a second before the last bit vanished it turned from yellow-orange to a bright apple green, then zap! Nothing. No more sun. It was amazing and will probably be another forty years before any of us sees it again. It wasn't a 'flash' as such, rather a bright glow but there it was in all its greeny glory.

We drove back to Fernside and then proceeded to punish all sorts of wines including the Porters 1999 Steel Chardonnay (excellent) until 2.30 am. A quick sleep and up at 6.30 to drive back over the Rimutakas and off to jolly old work.

That's what I did and I'm now well into my seventh decade :)

Brain Science & Rocket Surgery

We had a 'good2great' conference in Christchurch this week. One of the main speakers was a kiwi who works with McLaren F1 drivers, Dr Kerry Spackman. He's a neuroscientist and was fascinating.

If you drive your car down the road at, say, 100kph then floor the brake pedal in the biggest emergency stop you've ever done you'll pull around 0.7-0.8g. If you're crusing along in an F1 car at, say, 300kph then simply take your foot off the accelerator you'll pull around 1.5g in deceleration. At this stage you haven't even touched the brake. If you floor the brake you can hit 7-8g!!! Think about Top Gun - you'd blackout around 4g or 5g. These guys hit their brakes big time around 20 times per lap and do 100 laps; they're special.

'Nother thing - remember when F1 cars had 'skirts' to trap the airflow for a Bernoulli effect? Well they didn't have suspension then and the drivers' eyeballs would bleed and they'd pee blood at the end of the race because of the vibration.

'Nother thing; if you ran the cars upside down on the ceiling they'd stay there because of the 'down'forces - pretty common knowledge, but he said they'd do this at, maybe, 140 kph and if they hit a large bump they still stay up there!

'Nother thing - McLaren's budget is US$750,000,000 per year 'but if we need to spend more we can do'. Each practice lap costs around US$10,000.

They produce 100 newly designed or revised parts every week!

They have 5 PhD's working on the grease for the wheel bearings!

The speed limit in the McLaren car park is 10 kph and Sir Ron Denis sometimes hires police to radar check the employees! Weird.

Employees are allowed one photo on their desk - kids, wife, girlfriend, favourite dog etc, but only one. It is not allowed to be there after 8pm at night; it has to go into the desk drawer. Weirder.

Kerry was excellent - he's working on a 'Winner's Bible' due to be published in April 2008. Sounds well worth checking out. When I get the Conference notes on the Winner's Bible I'll send then through because the concept sounds useful for swimmers.

Good article here.