Uriah Heap

There is honour in defeat. While the connections of one of these ‘stayers’ will collect the cup and squeak an awkward apology over the Riccarton PA there will be 11 others who manage to skulk away in silence.
One of the jockeys will sit and smile broadly to himself in the weighing room after having to give up at the 1200 when his charge snorted, wheezed and shortened stride at the first ask for any effort. Never a hope the jockey smirks, so bad I didn’t even have to ride out for 8th place prizemoney.
For most races my formbook-grinding winner-picker machine works on merit. For this average rating 83 lot though the settings were reversed so that it spat out the worst horses first.
Here are the results
Last - Gobstopper. Preferred racing style is to be a pacemaker for the other runners and then drop out to finish last. This has worked on 4 out of his 20 starts and can continue here.
11th - Bee Tee Junior. Will pull out and whack away in front of the grandstand first time around.
10th - Villa Elba. Earned the comment "too good" on trip to Southland. Something of a prerequisite I would have thought. Followed that win up with a "strong finish" to get within 8 lengths of a r68-er, whose form since reads 6-2-8-6-10. Carries the Zabeel line with shame.
9th - Kaharau. As ridiculous as it is that a horse with the Banks Peninsular Cup as its greatest achievement is topweight in the NZ Cup, he won't be finishing last, even with an extra 4.5kg on top of an average effort in last year's renewal.
8th - Zentangle. This one knows the game. Avoids effort by shaping to want a trip but when sent a yard over 2000m disappears in a puff of smoke.
7th - Sureasyouwereborn. Another jaded journeyman. Plods around in anything over 2000m with occasional success. Consistently mediocre. When your sire is named Lucky Unicorn you can only ever be a disappointment, and this one does not disappoint.
6th - Nothing Trivial. A trolling late entry. Well played by connections who rightly think that their sprinter-sired snowflake has a chance off his $10k Waikato hurdles win 9 seasons ago.
5th - Locally Sauced. This beast racked up over $40k in stakes after only 37 starts. What's more, it's only 6. Will be conserving energy for 10 further racedays before Christmas.
4th - Imperium. "Never a hope" in the Avondale Cup is encouragingly bad. Out of Ethereal and while there is only so far an apple can fall from a tree this one found a hill to roll down.
3rd - She's Poppy. No wins or placings from 5 starts on good gives the only hope of a poor run.
2nd - Sampson. Rarely puts in a stinker, wins good races. No interest here.

Which leaves us with...
 
1st - Pentathlon. Could be pulled up at the 1200 and still beat half this field home.

We certainly saw this happen with John Key. Always seemed a decent bloke, but when required, he became very "flexible" with the truth.

Richmond Tigers vs Adelaide in the Grand Final tomorrow. Richmond haven't got near a Grand Final since forever and their long suffering, fickle fans have poured out from the logs they've been hiding under. I've never liked Richmond as always thought they were soft and just failed to deliver (a bit like the Auckland Warriors or the Auckland Blues). However, two things - 1. They've easily got the best song and 2. Their star is a Kiwi boy. So just for tomorrow I might have to suck it up and say "Go the Mighty Tigers" 

It is very interesting to see the somewhat (sic) partisan approach subscribers and the general public have when it comes to deciding where Winston should align his party. His own party appears to be split 30/30 (40% undecided) and non-party opinion merely follows the voting patterns supportive of the major parties. Add to the mix an idea that Winston is in the process for personal gain/revenge and the pot just gets stirred.
Surely there are only two questions he needs to consider before making a judgement call (there is no moral high-ground under MMP).
First and foremost, is either or both major parties competent fiscally to govern the country. If the answer is only one of them then Winston has a clear and certain obligation to place his party along side that major party.
If both are judged competent then his obligation is then to broker a deal that sees the most progress being made towards fulfillment of NZ First policy. It was the policy that prompted the party vote and Winston has a duty to those who voted for him to pursue to his best ability the attainment of those policies.
Admittedly the judgement calls are subjective but that is why he achieved the 7%. None of his voter supporters expected NZ First to be a majority party, most I assume, wanted Winston in just the roll the election has given him.
All he now needs to do is fulfill his obligations first to NZ and then to NZ First.
"One man's opinion".
cheers

Socialist?? Both Labour and National hug the centre line so tightly any talk of "free market" on one side and "socialism" on the other is a fiction.

Love The Informant coming out on Thursday's now. Sitting back browsing through it last evening. Along with the fields, it's a good read.

Love The Informant coming out on Thursday's now. Sitting back browsing through it last evening. Along with the fields, it's a good read.

Love The Informant coming out on Thursday's now. Sitting back browsing through it last evening. Along with the fields, it's a good read.

In the news again with a Podcast by journalist Martin van Beynen titled "Black Hands". This because these words were uttered by David Bain to Police, shortly after the murders.
I don't know how to listen to Podcasts, but am interested to read some of the evidence again. For me there were so many small contentious matters delved into far too deeply, when some fairly obvious facts were barely touched on. 
One such fact is the suicide note - "You are the only one who deserved to stay" - typed on the family computer. The Defence said written by Robin Bain. However, it's in the past tense.It should read "You are the only one who deserves to stay", if written by Robin before he shoots himself.
And why would Robin decide, of all his children, that David deserved to stay? Why him, who openly stated he "hated" his father, argued with him regularly, and was very closely aligned with his mother, in the parents deteriorating relationship. Why not young Stephen; the 14 year old, high achieving, active school boy, who appeared the most normal out of all the family?

Well; that's another season done and dusted. Not too bad with the Canes largely reverting to how they were a few years back. They'll smash teams with the razzle dazzle in games that don't mean a great deal, but are shut out of derby games that really matter. They're not a bad team to support and at least we've now got one Championship in the cupboard. Maybe another - if we can snaffle home advantage in the Finals.
In the Final - I can't pick it. Maybe Lions, cause they at home.

There were at least two people who testified that Laniet had told them about being sexually abused by her father. These were often people who she didn't know particularly well. She also told people that she'd been raped in Papaua New Guinea when 11 years old and had a black baby, that she'd had a white baby, that she'd had an abortion, that she'd slashed her wrists in a suicide attempt. There was no proof any of these things actually occurred and David Bain himself said he did not believe any of them. 
Laniet was most likely a messed up product of a messed up family and made grandiose statements in an effort to secure attention. One thing she said that was likely true was in telling two or more people that her brother David had called a family meeting that weekend and that she had to go home for it. The fact that she was home at the house on that Sunday night would mean this statement was likely true.
 

This "North Shore" you speak of. Is that in Auckland? The place with useless Rugby League, Rugby Union teams, severe road congestion and $1 million average house prices. Us living in New Zealand (south of the Bombay Hills Demilitarised Zone) couldn't really care much about that.

I am happy to come out of the Trump closet and nail my colours to the mast. I would not have voted for Donald Trump and look on in disbelief at the manner in which he carries on.
When the US electioneering was taking place in 2016, I felt Donald Trump presented like a cartoon character in The Simpsons or Family Guy. The false hair, the plastic wife, the name calling of opponents, the grandiose promises, etc. I'd chuckle away and think, "All good for a bit of a laugh." I thought everyone was in on the laugh.
Then the American public went and elected him. Like the majority of NZ's I thought, "How could they possibly do that?" 
Now I'm asking "What does it say about American's, that they could elect a President such as Donald Trump?" He's continued to call people names, to tweet unsubstantiated claims (basically to tell lies), to put his family in places of high office, etc. 
For me, I feel NZ seriously needs to consider how closely we want to be aligned to a country with Donald Trump as their leader, knowing that the American people voted him into office.
 

Thanks goodness that farce of a series is over. Two biggest decisions.
1. Faumauinas tackle at the end of the 2nd Test. French Ref says "I know it was an accident, but I must penalise you."
2. Lions prop catches ball in an offside position at end of 3rd Test. French Ref says "I know it was an accident, but I must penalise you......no wait - lets scrum it."
Lets get on with the NPC and have much less of the TMO.

Yep been going up since 2011 Crusty. Most countries economies up in past few years. China has over 5% growth per annum I think I heard. What's that got to do with this thread?

I think Aqua might be one of those British rugby writers using "irony", which they say us Kiwi's don't quite get.

Slow motion replay makes it look like he's got so much time to consider his actions. In actual fact it's merely split second reaction in heat of game. He wouldn't have wrapped with the right arm, because that have meant tackling his team mate, so he braced. Still that doesn't matter these days. They don't try to guess what was intended, merely what occurred.
No arms, shoulder hits head = Red Card.

Slow motion replay makes it look like he's got so much time to consider his actions. In actual fact it's merely split second reaction in heat of game. He wouldn't have wrapped with the right arm, because that have meant tackling his team mate, so he braced. Still that doesn't matter these days. They don't try to guess what was intended, merely what occurred.
No arms, shoulder hits head = Red Card.

NO; he carries his cash around in his pocket tied up with a rubber band?

Canes showed great heart last night. Love the Canes.

It's catching on.
Waverley Races on Thursday - The "Up yours Jimmy - we've won the Cup" Hack Handicap, R65, 6 laps of the track, 3 going left handed, 3 going right handed, all horses supported by a cyclist seated behind the jockey.

I'm no National supporter. Far from it, but I do find this Barclay affair to be a waste of talent. Given we all know that Politicians are dodgy liars, does a bright young up and comer, who might make a great contribution to running the country in the future, really need to resign over taping his worker and then lying about it? What's the problem here? He's a Politician isn't he? Say sorry and get back to work I say.

It's catching on.
Waverley Races on Thursday - The "Up yours Jimmy - we've won the Cup" Hack Handicap, R65, 6 laps of the track, 3 going left handed, 3 going right handed, all horses supported by a cyclist seated behind the jockey.

That was a great Test match. Had a bit of everything really. Plenty of physical, top tries and not too much Ref. Loved it.

I had the man nailed back in mid May. He is ridiculously honest this bloke, don't worry about that.