You may have noticed that I like to rip on the public sector. More specifically, I like to rip on the inane, meaningless and otherwise garbled things that people love to say and do around the office.

But that's not to say that I don't come across my fair share of idiocy in other parts of society. As a public servant (well, for one more week anyway) it's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one who has to face this crap- you all do too.

And here's Exhibit A- an excerpt from a travel agent's brochure I picked up this week:


Pay careful attention to the disclaimer at the bottom: please note these maps are indicative only.

What are they trying to protect against here? Is there a problem with people taking these maps to scale? Has there been a rash of trans-Atlantic rowers attempting to sue Flight Centre because their brochures were insufficient navigation aids? Or have some travellers burst back into the travel agent's store triumphantly brandishing the brochure, a compass and a tape measure, shouting "aha! You know I went and measured the coast of Madagascar and your map is not entirely accurate! It's indicative only!"

Well, I guess they're covered against those risks. Those crafty devils at Flight Centre stay ahead of the curve.

Handy tips

Someone has put up some signs around the office which give helpful tips on how to be efficient. It includes the usual things like ‘arrive at meetings on time’, ‘stick to deadlines’ and so forth. You know, that sort of blindingly obvious best-intentions rubbish that everyone knows, but noone follows. About as helpful as health advice of ‘eat your veges and get lots of exercise’.

But even meaningless clap-trap like ‘work as a team’ looks like a work of Shakespearean genius compared to this gem:

Be pro-active.

That’s it. Be pro-active. Not even ‘be pro-active about [something]’. Just be pro-active. In general. I’ll be sure to write that into my next performance agreement.

What makes it even worse though, is that I can just see my colleagues walking past this sign, pausing to read it, then nodding solemnly in agreement.

A Mexican, a German and a lizard walk into a bar

Nothing about this story makes any sense.

Apparently there is a multi-million dollar trade in endangered animals. But who is looking to buy a black market gecko? What do you do with a rare $200,000 NZ gecko? To anyone on the street, it’s just another lizard. And yet anyone with enough knowledge of reptiles to appreciate it would also know that it had to have been smuggled. I can’t imagine that the bearded, bespectacled members of the British Herpetological Society (yes, really) are the kind of people to engage of trafficking of any kind. Unless there is some kind of reptile fetish among the Mafia? Godfather, this month’s haul include a case of diamonds, 2 keys of coke and a New Zealand Northern Brown Skink.

And check out the attempted smuggler’s accomplices- a stockbroker from Switzerland and a Mexican chef. How did these guys met in the first place, let alone come up with an idea for an international lizard smuggling ring? It sounds like the lead characters in a sitcom.

The glitz, the glamour, the amalgam

As part of my pre-travel preparedness I decided to get a check up from the dentist. And probably well overdue, since the last time I had a check was in 2003.

Normally, this would be an opportunity to have a whine about how much it costs to see the dentist (and for the record, it was just under $400 for a check up, touch up of a filling and some work from the hygienist). But something other than the wallet-lightening really got my attention.

This particular dentist offers discounts for some groups, such as students and senior citizens. Nothing strange about that. But they also offer a discount for people who work at Weta Workshops. Huh? In case you don’t know, Weta is the special effects studio that does work for movies like the Lord of the Rings and Avatar. And apparently everyone in New Zealand is falling over themselves to suck up to these people.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a world-class facility, and they do amazing work. But what is so great about the movie industry that means they get all this special treatment? In case you don’t know, the NZ government gave a $45 million rebate to the makers of Avatar (which has now made more than $2 billion). These breaks are only available to movie-makers, and over the last few years we've paid out almost $200 million to movie makers. If you’re in the business of, say, researching a new cancer vaccine then you’re shit out of luck. Try working with movie stars next time, poindexter!

Now, the theory goes that these grants encourage more film making, tourism and so forth, and therefore makes a lot more money for the country, in the long term, than the grant itself. While some of this may be true, although I can’t see how Avatar would encourage tourism to New Zealand, it doesn’t justify why one industry gets special treatment over others.

The industry representative defending the scheme even says that Avatar had come to New Zealand "purely for the technological filmmaking knowledge built up here”. You know, it sounds like it’s not the rebate at all, but the quality of the work that secures Weta’s role in the industry.

Meanwhile, Fox Studios gets a $45m bonus and the staff at Weta get cheap dental work. Too bad I’m in the decidedly un-sexy public sector and have to pay full price for a polish.

Crazy pills - day 1

Today I took my first dose of Lariam. That's the anti-malarial drug that can lead to psychotic disturbances.

The following information is reassuring:

In the 16 years since Lariam was introduced, it has been increasingly implicated in a string of health effects that include seizure-like episodes, uncontrollable shaking, vertigo, memory lapses, frightening dreams, debilitating depression, paranoia, delusions and hallucinations, homicidal rages, and attempted as well as successful murders and suicides.

And this is from the internet, so it must be true!

Now I have this really odd situation of sitting around waiting for the drug-induced psychosis to kick in. But if you're expecting it, will it still freak you out? Or will you instead have rampant placebo-effect, and suspect every thought you have as being some kind of disturbance?

I think the best bet is to try and forget about it, and just go about things as usual. So, I'm off to sail a cheeseburger through the Grand Canyon with my monkey co-pilot. Mine is the voice of a new god.

Punny business

Some things lend themselves to gratuitous use of puns and humorous misspellings. Hairdressers, for example. I’m pretty sure it’s a condition of your hairdressing licence that you come up with some groan-inducing title for your business, such as Curl Up and Dye, The Razors Edge, or Upper Cuts. The same goes for retarded text-speak style spellings. The best one I’ve seen is Devine Hairworx.

But the reigning capital of frivolous business names is Waipukurau. I’m not sure why- possibly some combination of low adult literacy and airborne syphilis I think. On the main street of Waipukurau you can see a crafts store called Scrapbookin’ 2D Max and the Gifts X Setera gift shop. It works on so many levels.

Of course, this sort of moniker malarkey isn’t appropriate in all cases. Newspapers would be pretty thin if editors couldn’t rely on puns or alliteration in their headlines, but they wouldn’t dream of doing so for a serious newsevent. You can get away with it for sports and entertainment, but not when the local orphanage burns down - “building standards debate heats up after orphanage fire”.

So I was a bit surprised to see a doctor’s surgery around town which is called Surgeonz. Call me a stickler for proper English, but there are some professions I would prefer to use correct language. I’d like to be confident that my doctors, judges and airline pilots have sufficient IQ to at least spell properly, and take their business seriously enough to warrant a grammatically correct title. If you’re running a cake shop or teddy bear store, then knock yourself out with the silly business name. But I’d prefer not to fill my prescription at Dr Kool’s Diskount Drugz.

I’m not even sure why they went for the alternative plural z in this case? Is it to show that they are a Kiwi business- well I think we can nut that out based on their premises in Wellington. Are they appealing to Generation Text? Are they offering diagnosis via Facebook?

Patient- Help, I have a shooting pain running down my left arm and I can taste metal.
Doctor- lol maybe uv caught teh ghey from teh interwebz nah jk haha u shud be fine

You can't make this shit up.

Waiter! This steak tartare is rare!

Great timing. A couple of days ago I’m wondering why we need an awareness campaign for people to avoid being hit by the ball at the cricket. Cos, you know, cricket balls sailing over the boundary kinda goes with the territory.

But the Italians have topped that. In a classic case of I-got-what-I-asked-for-and-I-don’t-like-it, the Italians are upset that people are getting scared from horror movies. People go and see horror movies to get scared. That’s the point. So the basis of their complaint is that the movie is too good.

A good round of awareness campaigns should solve this issue. People need to get warnings about the movies they are planning to see, such as:

Avatar- warning: this movie contains characters recycled from movies I made 20 years ago, a plot ripped from Disney, and so much ham that any Jews in the audience would be better off eating a bacon-wrapped porkchop than watching this.

Die Hard- warning: this movie is about guns, explosions, cheesy one-liners as villains are dispatched, and stars a gruff anti-hero who oozes machismo. This is NOT a movie about a sensitive young woman who overcomes adversity and an abusive partner to become happy again, and who finds that true happiness is in the hearts of her children.

Anything starring Matthew McConaughey- warning: this movie is about a self-centred douche bag who uses women and will never fall in love, but you’ll be surprised to learn despite a wager to the contrary, he finds love where he least expects it.

Luckily, there are selfless politicians watching out for the poor children who may have found the horror movie too, err, horrifying.

The head of the Italian parliamentary committee on the rights of children said “if it's too late to impose an age ban, we should put in place some sort of warning, particularly for parents, so that they are aware of the risks.”

And the name of this watchdog? Alessandra Mussolini, who is described as a right-wing politician. Well, she’d have to be really.

Side effects may include death

If you ever want to give yourself a good case of the heebie-jeebies, then visit a travel doctor and tell them you’re planning a visit to Africa.

The doctor’s recommendations fall into 3 categories- the mandatory (i.e. you can’t get back into the country without proof of this vaccine), the recommended (you’ve got a reasonable chance of coming across this) and the nice-to-haves (very unlikely but how risk-averse are you).

Regardless of the risk category, the description of each potential illness fits the same basic template – “this is a microscopic organism which is undetectable, untreatable and normally fatal”. Great.

But the best is malaria treatment. You get a range of options, each of which is perfect for the backpacker travelling around Africa:

Option A- no side-effects, but this a daily tablet which costs $10 per dose. Given that you have to take your medication 3 weeks prior and post Africa, you’re looking at $70 a week for 14 weeks. Next.

Option B- this is a one a week dose, so it’s got convenience on its side. You may experience some psychiatric disturbances, however, including depression and hallucinations. Anecdotally, I’ve heard of people going mental on the tour bus and ripping all their clothes off in some kind of anti-malarial mania. Although the 12 Kenyan ales you were drinking in the back seat may have been a factor.

Option C- this is a daily pill, and has the unfortunate side-effect of making you photo-sensitive. Real handy for a trip to Africa.

The good doctor also kitted me out with a handy travel pack, which contains all kinds of first aid treatment and medication. It also includes a reference book, which guides you through symptoms and the appropriate treatment options.

Although I did wonder if the “diarrhoea treatment flow chart” could have reworded…

Know your England

Asterisk- a star-shaped piece of punctuation, used to denote a conditional statement. Looks like this:

*

Asterix- a cartoon Gaul, famous for his potion-imbibing, Roman-bashing exploits. Looks like this:

A subtle difference, but an important one, I feel.

Warning: rain may cause you to get wet

So it’s official. Cricket is a dangerous sport. No, not facing down a 160 km/h delivery from the world’s fastest bowler, but being a spectator. That’s right, the world’s most boring sport (try explaining to a foreigner why one game lasts 5 day) places spectators in imminent danger of mortal injury.

At least, that seems to be the concern, as New Zealand cricket has decided the there is an undue risk of the fans being sconed by an errant ball sailing over the boundary ropes. And what do you do when you get concerned? Why, you start an awareness campaign of course.

Now, I’m a bit of a cricket aficionado, but you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that batsmen hitting the ball around the park is fairly fundamental to the game. So, perhaps reading books and sleeping isn’t the ideal activity in a sport based around the objective of striking small projectiles as far as possible.

But we need to protect people from themselves. Common sense isn’t enough, you really have to spell it out.

Avatar: a how to guide

James Cameron’s guide to making a blockbuster

• Step one: Steal all your ideas, oops I mean, "draw inspiration" from classic movies

• Step two: prepare a script

• Step three: Use your direction skills to get stellar performances from your actors

• Step four: charge a modest entry fee, so that you can share your art with as many people as possible

• Step five: Enjoy the accolades from your peers