Friday, April 28, 2006

The irony is killing me.

Saw this on the noticeboard at uni today - one of the better lost and found (and lost again) notices I've seen.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Noo Zild revisited

Around about every 10 months to a year or so, the need for decent cafe food, green fields, fab beaches and familiar but ever so slightly silly accents becomes too much for me and I jump on a jetplane back to Noo Zulland to check in with friends and whanau and get my kiwi fix.

So I did that last week - and it rocked as only NZ can rock.

Normally I travel somewhere then blog about it with tongue firmly in cheek - in a 'tee hee look at the natives' sort of way (who moi? condescending elitist snob? .... never!). Problem with doing that about NZ is that it's too goddamned cool and I am unashamedly one-eyed about it.

... except for the cannibalistic chickens in Raglan - they're fair game.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Grocery shopping - the new adventure sport

Dr Steph reporting for first blog duty.
As the hatter said in her introduction I am a kiwi in Nigeria based out of Melbourne, recovering from living in Vietnam and soon to be working in Nepal. An Ausvietigerianepalkiwi at last count.
However, my time here in Nigeria is drawing to a close.

And, inevitably, I am a bit sad to be leaving already. After all, it's taken me 4-months to work out where the lights for the tennis courts are, what time the bread lady comes with a station-wagon full of croissants to sell outside the clinic on a Saturday and where to buy food that is not 10x the rational price or made out of crude oil byproducts.
My efforts to obtain edible items fulfilling the above criteria had previously not taken me further than the Shell Camp down the road, to the shop in our camp which stocks Italian imported items that must have a discrete Gucci sign on them somewhere to justify their cost, and Park 'n' Shop (locally known as Park 'n' Steal) which sells everything from laptops to 500g bags of cumin seeds but never what you want or need at the time. There are many reasons for the difficulty in grocery shopping here:
a) my on call roster is not conducive to having days off
b) there is never a car/driver/mopol (mobile policeman – big black man with large gun who escorts you when traveling to prevent unnecessary hassles on the street) available when you want one
c) the traffic can reach prohibitive levels stretching the traveling time out to 3-4 hours to go the 12km to town
d) s#$% always happens just as you’re getting ready to go into town.

Somehow though, we managed to pull together all components of a shopping trip last Saturday, and found ourselves being shown around a Utopic warehouse of gargantuan proportions which brought to mind the feeling of a contraband cache of illicit foodstuffs amongst which we, the oyibos (foreigners) would take refuge behind a stack of pure vegetable oil as the authorities confiscated the gingernuts. Sating our starved senses on imported beef, duck, mozzarella and Chilean grapes we then went down town to do a basic shop at Park ‘n’ Shop. Due to the gridlocked and desparate thrusting of cars into an inadequate parking space it is soon to be known as “Not a show in hell of parking ‘n’ it’s daylight robbery what they charge in there”.
Not so the depot for soft drinks and beer located, logically enough, in what, from the outside, appears to be a hospital. Easy parking, cheap Star beer and the reassurance that in case of emergency God Heals.

Monday, April 10, 2006

A new sporadic guest blogger.

In light of my long-standing inability to blog regularly committment to supporting nascent blogging talent and well-documented laziness philanthropic leanings, I would like to welcome Dr Steph to the blogosphere as another Tramspotting guest blogger.

Dr Steph (ex-NZ, previously Vietnam, now Nigeria, soon to be Nepal) will no doubt get me off the hook and reduce the need to blog so often enlighten us with her many and varied experiences and pearls of home-grown wisdom, in between saving lives and trying not to get shot.

Welcome Dr Steph!

OK, it's out of my system now....honest

Also supplied by Timothy Mark Arnold

...who is a real person

... and who really did supply this pic

... honest.


When poultry gets silly.

Hmmm, seem to have inadvertently started something here. Within minutes of posting up the eeeeeeeeeevil swan piccy (see previous post) Timothy Mark Arnold had chimed in by sending me his own equally silly version.

Which also rather tickled my fancy.

It's a swan duck.

In a bonnet.

That sort of looks like a bunny.

I like bunnies.

So does Tim.

It's too early for me to be awake.



Hey kids - got your own poultry pic? Send it through to Tramspotting and you (and your duck) can get your 5 minutes of fame!

...

[sits down and starts pressing email send/receive expectantly]

Sunday, April 09, 2006

When swans go bad.

This pic accompanied a story about the inevitable spread of HN51 'bird flu' to Britain in today's Age.

It rather tickled my fancy.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

The Gambler, he broke even....

Note from the Mad Hatter: This week's guest blog is brought to you by Evil Monkey (ex-NZ, currently Philippines based) and the letter 'K'. Thanks Evil - you rock!

Today I noticed something in the Mega Mall.....


"What's this?" I say to myself. "Is Kenny Rogers, alive and well and living in the Philippines?

No....but his chicken is....


It seems that ol' Kenny's chicken is doing well in this nation of poultry fanatics. But even if you don't want chicken, there's always Kenny's Muffins:


But should buying food from a country and western singer disturb you somewhat, you can always turn to the Philippines other big chicken outlet, Max's Chicken House, which apparently is "The House That Fried Chicken Built":