I have been slack lately because I have been productive and busy. I have actually been working, you see.
And the atmosphere around me has been somehow less than condusive to work and effort anyway, for no real reason other than mind and body being slowly dulled by drink, once again. It builds up after a period of grace and easy lifestyle and starts to tint everything a bit grey. Oh well, back to the tea for a bit I think :)

Nelson as a city is as charming as ever, not least because working here is, if not effortless, at least highly pleasant. And please do bear in mind I have been up to some pretty dull stuff to earn my crust.

The agencies in town here are likely my only real source of income, because no-one wants to employ an upstart like me who is only in the country for six to twelve months, even one as dashingly brilliant, handsome and polymathamatical as the glowing star whose words you now read. Suggestions of arrogance are not even to be entertained and you may address such piffle to the head butler at the foyer of my Winter palace.

I do have a regular spot at one of the fashionable bars in town every Saturday night, neatly allowing me to avoid costly splurges at least one night of the weekend and also to take poignant note of the habits and haunts of the citiy's drunkards. I have to admit it's actually one of the less fashionable of the so-designated bars, but it's actually quite a lot of fun, even if I do have to ask many people to reiterate their gurgled orders up to nine times (I counted).
There are some certain patterns to speech here where words that I would have thought as vital to coherency are left out. It's hard to think of an example but sometimes a sentence is cast towards me with less information than I, personally, need to not look like a wretched moron, which I have of course been doing a fair bit. It happens, often to me. Yes, of course it's other people not me. Of course it is.

Things on the phone have been easier and I beieve all the calls I have taken in this town so far made intelligable sense right off the bat, so perhaps I'm just missing a little something in the office or the bar or am just getting distracted by shiny objects, as so often happens. On the phone side of life, by the way, there are strangely only two mobile networks in the whole country, and one being an outfit called simply Telecom who use outdated technology and the other being Vodafone using, well, current technology global marketing and lots of seriosu men in dark suits with very thin watches, the latter essentially has a monopoly, though no-one seems to give a damn at all.

I've also been on a short contract working for the City Council doing possibly the most proper office job of my life so far, and my gosh aren't they a sweary bunch over there? Proper New Zealand charm as only they can do it, but bugger me if the managers aren't wittily cursing their oft-shitty luck in light-hearted fashion all through the days, the pleasant fuckers.

My laptop might have tried to conspire to get me into the working groove as it had small identity crisis recently, perhaps confusing itself with an etch-a-sketch by the look fo the screen, and (rather melodramatically, if you ask me) tried to exit this void on a tide of unnerving display malfunctions and a severely twitchy series of reboots.
It was not a happy moment watching what my only friend for 2000 kilometres rapidly decay into a broken children's toy nailed to a steamrolled typewriter, but I do get points for even noticing because I had just drunk two and a half bottle of wine by that point. Suggestions that I imagined the whole thing are unappreciated in the extreme and in all likelihood actually true.

I'd like to know why I drank quite to much that night, I have no idea myself except that it seemd a good idea at the time (and how many unplanned parenthoods and vehicular accidents have been coached at that school of thought?) but I woke with a hangover fit for Olliver Reed after a night out with George Best and thoroughly enjoyed my nine subsequent hours entering data on forms and stuffing envelopes at Nelson City Council's offices. Actually it passed more quickly than the previous day, possibly because I had a lengthy series of miniature strokes throughout the day in between data entry sheets that never became a real part of memory, and whatever the case it wasn't so bad.
Having a very nice bunch of people to work with makes all the difference, in fact it's a lot more important than the job, up to a certain level of extertise and/or commitment.

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I have also moved on from carbonara; it is behind me. The dish I now need to perfect is stuffed peppers, though I'm not sure that is quite the right copula. I've never tried them from a proper recipe before so now Delia is helping a fellow brit through the magical ether of the interweb and hopefully I'll have a couple of recipes cracked and ready by the end of the week. I'm trying to add string to my bow, as I feel it is perennially stringless and, as we all know, there never is a pile of goat's intestines to hand when you really need them. Hence the learny cooky stuff; soon to follow, when I get a longer contract, are weekly (at least) yoga classes and Spanish lessons.

The yoga really is becoming important as my poor dumb back (initially powered by my poor dumb brain when, years ago, I cleverly slipped a disc or some other such idiotic thing in my spine that needed to be snapped back into place my a medical professional) is starting to rebel against the cause, the cause being me, of course. When you get a nasty pain from walking or, my favourite, just standing still for twenty minutes, you know it is time to reach for the nearest hippy and start brushing up on your vedas.

But yes, I am still slightly obsessed with food these days because I have still not found many real friends (ones not contactable only by email, and with names like `AstroLord1976` and `W4rl0Ck`) and so, concentrating on eating and drinking, not necessarily in that order, have been scurrying around supermarkets clutching slightly arcane and frankly extravagant ingredients with which to construct mere handfuls of stuffed pepper halves.
The last one was pretty good but eventually it too was behind me, as all food is fated to be. That was the politest coarse way of saying I was ill again at the weekend, and I hope you all enjoyed the imagery :>

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From the Less-Lethal Desk (news not concerning me or my cunsumption habits) it seems that Nelson is the place to be this summer, oh yes. It should hit temperatures of, ooh, about half a billion degrees in places, and all nice-looking women are required by law to wear bikinis or less throughout the summer months. I may have made that last bit up. Apparently I may as well not have though, which is marvellous.

Even better, according to the rules I just made up, all nasty-looking women are bound by a strict 12:01pm curfew (and strong rope if necessary) and are not permitted to walk the streets before 9am either, making all but the very largest and latest of parties easy on the eye and even easier on the.... well, you figure it out. This is a family website, after all.
Not like the Manson family though. That would just be wrongheaded.

On that note mind you I probably have to reign in what can only be called my dark sense of humour, black as sin and pitiless as the grave as it is. I'm not sure that making friends is so easy when the first few jokes cracked in conversation make large mention of popular child killers and amusing references to Hitler, and so I shall try to at least not visit any more prenatal classes or nunneries in my quest for companions.

Apparently even fairly normal people also find this a little off-putting, so I may just by myself a load of trendy sports gear, disengage any sense of humour whatsoever and talk about little else than easy girls, awful booze and ridiculous cars and find a local gathering of slovenly retards with which to make acquaintance.

Or I could go back to my e-Buddies on the internet and compare sarcasm and dead baby jokes. I haven't decided yet.