The Last Day Of The Year...

It's the last day of the year.
A good time to give more serious consideration to loving our fellow man.
No matter what his or her differences.
To walk the talk and actually do unto others
as we'd have done to ourselves.
And all that sort of thing...

The White Rhino, Having Been Around For Seven Million Years, Survives Another One. Just...

The Northern White Rhino has been on this planet for around seven million years and its species has survived another one, just.
With the demise of the forty four year old named Angalifu at the San Diego zoo a few weeks ago, there are only five of these magnificent creatures left in the world.
Five. It looks like we're about to witness
the end of another species.
But who knows what next year will bring...

Can You Believe This...

Have you heard the one about the idiot,
the car and the kayak?
New Zealand's local Coromandel police recently caught the driver of this car driving down a busy coastal highway with a kayak strapped across the vehicle. Yes, across the vehicle.
Fortunately the idiot hadn't driven very far
when  apprehended.
Unbelievable...

This Beautiful 1951 Bedford Housetruck Maid Of Dreams Could Be Yours...

Jill and Rob's 1951 Bedford Housetruck
Maid Of Dreams is one of the most beautiful traditionally styled housetrucks you'll see anywhere in the world today.
It featured here a while ago and now after many happy years of travelling around New Zealand, it's now someone else's turn to enjoy this remarkable and unique Gypsy Housetruck.
And live the dream.
There's more information about this wonderful grand old lady of the road here.
If you can dream it you can do it...

A Naked Cyclist Gets Fined. For Not Wearing A Helmet...

A naked cyclist in New Zealand's Timaru was fined the other day.
For not wearing a helmet.
In Australia and in New Zealand, wearing a helmet is compulsary and non compliance can result in a fine of  up to $3,000
And in another act of bureaucratic and judicial craziness again in New Zealand where stupidity is alive, well and thriving, a Marlborough couple were fined $20,000 each for not wearing helmets while driving their farm quad bikes.
It's a mad mad world we live in...

Napier Dentist Gary Winter Gives Free Emergency Dental Care For A Day...

It was the twelfth day before Christmas
and in the spirit of the season of goodwill Gary Winter from  DentalOnRaffles decided to give something back to the local Napier community.
Knowing full well how some people just cannot afford dental treatment, he and his staff worked all day giving around one hundred Hawkes Bay folk who arrived and enjoyed sharing the day, the sunshine and each other's company, free emergency dental care.
They filled more than thirty teeth and performed over one hundred extractions in what Gary says was the most gratifying and humbling experiences of his thirty eight year career.
And yes, it's definitely something they'll do again.
Good on you Gary and thankyou...

The Pohutukawa...

The Pohutukawa.
New Zealand's Christmas Tree.
Merry Christmas...

The Hatchling. A Very Cute Little Teardrop Camper...

Peter Pavlowich's Casual Turtle Campers feature in Lloyd Kahn's latest book, Tiny Homes On The Move and he's just completed creating his latest little teardrop camper, The Hatchling.
There's more about it here.
I think it's gorgeous...

This African King Lives In Germany and Rules His Hoehoe People In Ghana By Skype...

King Bansah, ruler of the Hoehoe people of Ghana has lived in Germany since the 1980's when he came there as a foreign exchange student. When he was crowned king of his two hundred thousand subjects back in Ghana in 1992 he decided he and his German wife Gabriele would stay in Ludwigshafen near Frankfurt where he has a car repair garage.
Togbe Ngoryifia Cephas Kosi Bansah returns to his homeland to visit his people about six times a year, and while at home in Germany he rules his people using the telephone and Skype.
As any modern monarch would...

Some Day...

Someday you may be as old as I am.
Please take my advice and don't waste your short life. Invest your youthful vitality in your art.
Share the best of your spirit with the world.
Your body will die but you cannot die.
Don't worry about petty things like bodies, money and possessions, they pass with the body and are meaningless.
Don't worry about what anyone thinks of you. Don't seek approval except from yourself.
Your art and ideas are signs of your spirit.
Your beauty endures forever.
As you do...

Tim Berners Lee, The World Wide Web Inventor, Says Access To The Internet Should Be A Basic Human Right...

Sir Tim Berners Lee, the computer scientist widely credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989 says that access to the internet should be a basic human right.
A recent report shows there are billions of people, around four and a half billion, who can't get online and that government controls, surveillance and censorship are on the increase.
Tim I know you've got your own barrow to push but there are billions of people out there with no food or shelter, to my mind much more of a human right and necessity.
Let's get our priorities sorted...

Another Amazingly Creative New Zealand Housetruck...

When parked up this wonderfully creative
road legal housetruck transforms into The Amazing Castle Truck.
It's a magic carpet, a home on wheels,  and a fantasy castle for its owners Justin, Jola and their son Piko.
Completely self contained, it's a spectacular home created by creative genius and engineering wizardry. There's a lot of that sort of thing in New Zealand and there's more
about this amazing housetruck here and here.
Of course, it's a Bedford...

The Wagon Of Fools And Other Land Yachts...

The Wagon of Fools is a famous land yacht painting by the Dutch artist Hendrik Gerritsz Pot. It was painted in 1637 and depicts the Haarlem weavers, having abandoned their looms to follow Flora, Goddess of Flowers. Flora, her arms laden with tulips was riding to an imminent death along with a selection of tipplers, money changers et al.
Before that in 1600, in the second image, the wonderful wind chariot or land yacht featured was designed by inventor Simon Stevin for Prince Maurice of Orange.
The next two images aren't quite as salubrious but still part of land yachting history and the last image features land yachts at New Zealand's Muriwai Beach.
It was then and still is, a lot of fun...

The Pakistani Taliban. What Gutless Disgusting Evil Cowardly Bastards You Are...

To the Pakistani Taliban.
What evil, gutless, disgusting, cowardly, murderous bastards you are. Or were.
You must have been very proud of yourselves, attacking a school, killing more than one hundred and thirty defenseless, innocent children, then setting fire to some of their teachers, making the children watch before you murdered them.
In the name of religion...

A Few Of The Outstanding Images From The 2015 Sony World Photography Awards...

As usual the Sony World Photography Awards give us an opportunity to view some outstanding images submitted already from around the globe.
Entries close in January 2015.
Andrew Suryono would be one happy man with his simply gorgeous and amazing image of this Orangutan in Bali using a banana leaf to shelter from the rain.
Jubair Bin Iqbal's image of a Hindu monk in a mango garden in Bangladesh. 
Arief Siswandhono's daughter overcomes her fear of the family cat.
An Ethiopian man collects wood.
And Gareth Lowndes was up early to get this image of a hot air balloon near Dubai.
There's more here.
The gorgeous little Orangutan does it for me...

And You Think You're Doing It Hard At The Coal Face...

Perhaps next time you're feeling hard done by
at your workplace, when your tea break isn't long enough to finish the crossword, spare a thought for some of the women working in the most atrocious conditions in Munshiganj, Bangladesh. These women spend their days shoveling and sorting waste coal with little more than a spade and a makeshift sieve.
Wearing no protective clothing, working often in bare feet and inhaling the most toxic dust that causes horrific lung diseases, they're paid less than twenty dollars a week.
These women don't know what a tea break is
but they can still smile.
For some, life is hard at the coal face...