Pagani in Paris

How many hundred thousand people are playing this world cup daq?

I don't know, but there are so few still in front. Today's chart position: 239.

I know you're rooting for me.



If only the cash were real.

Paris is going off.

The tooting and shouting started with Patrick Vierra's second goal and exploded when Zinedene Zidane hammered home number three, so cool, so complete, in extra time. (His Wikipedia entry was amended to include that goal within an hour).

Allez Les Bleus.

What a game. Everyone wrote off France after the dull first round, coming as it did after the train wreck of the 2002 title defence. Deep down I think most of us thought France was going out tonight. Didn't stop me putting £500,000 of unreal BBC world cup daq cash on a France win though, to double my money.

At around 9 tonight Paris went quiet. The night turned drab when Spain shot ahead on that penalty. And then ugly Frank equalized and the roars truly seemed to shake the stone apartment buildings all over town.

France looked good tonight, their passing sparkled, they were creative up front and flooded the defence. Notice too how elegant the game is when sides try to prevail on flair and skill instead of hacking the legs out from under their opponents.

The streets erupted with that second goal. The horns on buses over the road drowned out the roars after a while.

There was a tense couple of minutes as the French commentators went hysterical, unable to say much more than the time left on the clock and the Spanish charged at our goal again and again.

Then Zizou scored.

We flung open our windows. Neighbours up and down six floors all down our street on both sides flung open theirs. We put on an outrageous Edith Piaff version of La Marseillaise and blasted it out to the street. Revellers rushed onto the road. The Eiffel Tower lit up and I'm sure another searchlight beam was switched on. Someone seemed to press a fast forward button and spun the searchlight faster.

In less elegant capitals they take to the streets and fire their guns in the air. How fortunate madness in Paris only makes fans climb in their cars and drive around honking. And we live in a quieter neighbourhood. I saw a Vespa speed by with three people on board, revving like crazy and the horn on permanent blow. Firecrackers went off, teenagers sang 'allez Les Bleus'. Those tinny little French commuter cars with sunrooves slightly larger than the roof sped past honking with groups of cheering lunatics standing in the roof window waving their shirts - possibly because there hasn't been much football flag-waving yet.

And this is only for making the last eight.

Patriotically listen to La Marseillaise here.

A terrifying message from Al Gore.

I think I promised to keep updating progress in the BBC world cup daq as long as I kept going up.



Heh.

Meanwhile, interest is growing all over the Internet in a secondary competition to identify the ugliest player at the World Cup.

Goofy Ronaldinho, whose poster is all over Paris selling pasta and baked beans, has to be a starter.

It's very hard to go past Rooney.

But Ribery of France and Tervos of Argentina make a special pair, don't they?



Graeme has been on monitoring the World Cup eurovision hair leaderboard.

Stand outs he has identified so far include:

Spain's goalie - peroxide mullet

Ukrainian striker - greasy, straight long dirty blonde hair with dark roots, Tom Petty cut, held back with Alice band

Swedish midfielder - two rat's tails (sadly, now eliminated from the competition.)

I can't imagine many sporting calamities worse than Italy going out to Australia in the second round of the world cup.

Still, getting past them with a dodgy penalty in the fifth minute of extra time is a bit less than satisfying.

But then again, I was at Wellington Stadium when Jonathan Kaplan stole the Bledisloe Cup off the All Blacks by playing on and awarding consecutive penalties until Australia got within shooting range and John Eales put that kick over in the fifteenth minute of extra time. No, I still haven't recovered, actually.

So a dodgy penalty in the fifth minute of extra time? Tough. Read it in the papers tomorrow.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

The summery buzz in the St Germain began to disappear into bars a little before 9 on Saturday night.

In the pale blue and white striped shirts of Argentina and green or red fan shirts of Mexico they stood around in front of the the widescreen tvs and the bar filled with half a dozen languages and many, many more accents.

From the first whistle Mexico charged, with speed and fury and in minutes they scored. The bar erupted, lights flashed on and off, happy, joyous fans erupted and the Argentina fans sat with their mouths open in shock. Then minutes later Argentina blazed back with a goal of their own and a new set of fans threatened to bring down the walls. The boys in green and red set up a 'Meh-hee-co, Meh-Hee-co' chant and were quickly contesting against 'Argentina! Argentina!'

In the European summer nights, the buzz is everywhere.

Argentina 2; Mexico 1 (extra time).

Just for the hell of it I thought I would go into Google Earth and take a random shot of the Tuscan country side. So I found a place a bit like we're headed to. Nice grounds, a pool, that sort of thing. Something like this:


By the way, how's the Wellington winter doing?

Hi Graeme.

Yeah so here's the Paris forecast this weekend.



And I see Wellington is pretty consistent and stable:



So you wouldn't be fiddling around with the controls on the heater. Turning it down or anything.

Notice that percentage gain in the last week and the ever-rising chart position.



I know how dull it is. But not to meeee. It's all about me. I promise to stop posting this soon. Just as soon as the figures reverse and I start tumbling.

Yesterday was the day of the Fête de la Musique, with music events all over Paris.

It's been held on the 21st of June every year since 1981.

The principle is that anyone can play music around the city without a permit.

That's right! Without a permit.

Italy 2; Czech 0.

Italy go through top of their group, avoid Brazil and get probably Australia in the second round.

I'm following the World Cup by trading 'shares' on the BBC's world cup daq. A week ago I was ranked about 80,000th. Now I'm up to 2231.



Unfortunately, the cash is not real.

Dammit.

Since I bought my beautiful ibook on 1 April 2003 it has been my constant companion. I love it. It is easily the best toy I have ever owned. I have never ever got excited about a computer before. But this one did everything, so stylishly, so easily, it was just gorgeous. It gave me music and photos, connected me to the world, stored all my notes about everything, organised me. I got a burst of joy every time I used it. Can a machine actually be a friend and a colleague? No, but it sometimes felt like it. I used it every day for three years, always for hours a day - sometimes for most of the day. It has had thousands of hours of use. It has a got a bit battered over the year.

A month or so ago, I bought a very funky new desktop machine to be my main machine. I connected it up to the laptop and it sucked everything off the laptop then reorganised it, so when I switched on the new one it was configured with everything and in the way I was used to (that's a cool Apple thing, by the way. Migrating to a new computer could not be easier). And then I tooled about with my groovy new machine for a few days and the next time I went to switch on the ibook it threw a jealous sulk. Broken. Now the repair shop has quoted me more than it's worth to repair it. So its time is up. I am grieving for it, sadly.

Seriously, I will miss it. I will replace it because life is no longer bearable without a laptop. But I will never forget my first Apple.

I know exactly how this guy feels.

I meant to note this during the Korea game the other day...all but three of the South Korea team have the name 'Lee' or 'Kim'.

Imagine the Seoul phone book.

Slovakia has chucked out its government that 'would make Mrs Thatcher go weak at the knees', a flat-taxing, asset privatising, inequality promoting government that replaced the nutty retro-nationalistic left government before it. There is a an excellent quick summary of why this is interesting here.

Slovakia got hothouse economic growth and a surge of foreign investment that has turned it, against all expectations, into the automotive manufacturing center of Eastern Europe. But it also saw sharply increased inequality in income and wealth; and while unemployment went down, the jobs created were mostly available to the young, the urban, and those willing and able to pick up stakes. Jobs may be going begging in the capital, but a few hours west, on the Ukrainian border, the unemployment rate is over 25%.

My own view is that there is a pattern in the former satellite states of Eastern Europe that whoever is in office gets thrown out. This in turn is largely explained by widespread disappointment over economic progress since independence. There was an article in the Economist earlier this year stating living standards are lower (average gross national income-PPP) in every former Soviet state in Europe except Belarus (they would be higher in the caucuses, though). Belarus is richer only because it has had a generous energy subsidy package from Russia to keep it, and the thug Lukashenko, in the thuggish Russian sphere.

But just think about that - seventeen years after the revolution and the the average person is no better off in real terms in the whole of eastern Europe. No wonder governments get changed like dirty shirts. It's amazing democracy has stood up so well (of course, in some states such as the Balkans, democracy didn't stand up at all and that is why those countries have gone so far backwards).

Tonight's big Sweden-England game is pretty big for England. They usually draw these two teams and England only needs a draw to finish top of its group. Sweden would be happy with that too.

But to tell the truth England is leaving me a bit cold. Maybe it's because I get most of my World Cup news from English sources (but pix and commentary from Latin sources) - and the tone is unmistakably sullen and grim. There is hysterical over-reach in talking up England and a balancing fury at the players, coach, referees, other teams and the world for not living up to the ludicrous expectations.

The one redeeming feature is that everyone was bagging Beckham and he's been England's player of the tournament so far. Josie may have developed a thing for Crouch-stick.

At the start of the tournament we decided (ahem, I decided) our three teams would be England, France and Italy. Two of those teams have had at least one dismal game and England have been ... so-so.

To be honest the three teams that have excited me so far are Spain, Germany and Argentina (of course Argentina). And maybe Ecuador if I were allowed a fourth, though any of the other three look like they would grace the final.

Still, it's very common for the eventual winner to start slowly.

Italy haven't lost a game for twenty matches in a row.


UPDATE: England, 2 Sweden 2.

This was a good game and England played at speed. They didn't look so feckless up front. They went 2-1 ahead after 83 minutes, only to concede a second equaliser to their bogey team in the 90th minute. No pix of Uncle Sven when that one went in but we're betting he didn't mind too much. The result still means England go through top of their group.

Josie definitely has a thing for Crouchy.

An excellent post on the joys of completing French bureaucratic procedures to get a driver's licence.

It includes:

Study and learn the Code de la Route. This is the huge and diabolically difficult body of knowledge everyone in France has to master before getting a driver's license. It includes things like a sign with a bicycle facing left versus a sign with a bicycle facing right, and the dates of opening of mountain passes.

You just know someone thought "Spex Appeal" was just the shet when it came to picking a name for their little optometry shop.

You thought all those hair 'salons' with names like 'Hair Today' were unique, didn;t you. Take a deep breath and check out another bunch of the most hideous shop names alive.

10

Like a Bo Derek movie, Joey turns 10 today, the 20th.



He got cricket gear. Pads, gloves.

All he needs now is runs and wickets.

We drove to Fontainbleau on Sunday.



Nice stair case.

We ate lunch at Berbizon. The whole 'paint the countryside instead of just religious artifacts' thing got going there, with Rosseau and his buddies staying there and painting the soft luscious French fields and its forests.


Naturally the town is full of little galleries now, shovelling landscapes out the door. They were crammed with people and some of the dullest painting I've ever seen.

On the other hand, I dined on a perfect steak. Steak that good - hell I would paint the cow.

At nine minutes past nine, nine minutes after the start of France's second World Cup game last night Thiery Henry slammed a cross into the net and registered France's first world cup goal since they won in 1998.

If we hadn't been watching on tv, we would have felt it. It seemed Paris exploded. We had the doors open to the street to let in the summer night and the stone buildings rocked from the roar.

It sounded like the noise you hear a mile from a football stadium: Thousands of happy people shouting at once. Right down the street, around the block, in rue after rue, there was a release.

There hasn't been much football nationalism on display. Flags have been rare, football shirts are so unusual I saw them discounted in a shop. But the fandom is there and it came out in the night. It positively shook the city.

For the rest of the game the cries of despair and frustration, the oohs and ahs, floated down the street and bumped the stone about.

You could hear the fury when South Korea scored. No one thinks France is going far in this tournament. But hope springs.

France, 1 Corée du Sud, 1.

This might be an extremely esoteric post...

When I studied mass media, instead of doing something useful with my youth, there was an irritating academic rivalry between competing theories of news values.

On one hand, a market theory claimed the content of your newspaper is filled with exactly what the market wants, a theory that kinda drowned beneath all the sniggering at its obvious idiocy.

Then there was an even more vegetative Marxist school, promoted by lamentable red brick universities in the UK, that promoted variations on the theme that the newspapers are filled with the propaganda of the ruling classes. Or something.

Along came an Australian academic called Keith Windschuttle, who cut through the crap. Remember, this was the eighties and rubbishy faux-left academia was pretty much the dominant scene in the arts faculties of the Western world. His demolition of the Marxist line was particularly memorable (and to prove it I'll do it from memory) - he said the idea that Marxist academics could see through the propaganda of the news media while yer working classes needed to be enlightened amounted to saying

"the Marxist fingers go click and the working class dreamers will awake from their slumber."

His theory was that mass media is simply a reflection of pop culture, which in turn is a dynamic beast, a sea into which many tributaries flow.

Windschuttle became something of a hero, among our classmates at least and I think I could safely say there was a heavily liberal bias in our class. In fact they made up about half the membership - and the entire leadership - of the very lefty Labour Party on campus, of which I was the President at the time. (Yeah well, so you were perfect when you were twenty.)

Now, twenty years later, Keith Windschuttle has been stuck on the board of the ABC and the federal Opposition ALP is criticising his appointment because, they say, "he is widely regarded as extreme right wing."

I can't say I've followed KW's career at all, so I don't know what he's been up to in the intervening decades but actually his media views were not extreme right wing. They were just right. Having correct views about media news values might not be a qualification for a media board, but it's it's better than nutty views.

He wrote a seminal book about the way news media treated unemployment, and advocated what was called a 'socialist' solution. Consciously or (media studies in-joke here) most likely unconsciously virtually every reporter who covers unemployment today is in some way influenced by that book. He also wrote a book more recently criticising leftish historians for exaggerating racism in Australia's past. Don't know much on that topic, but it's interesting that his critics take it as axiomatic this makes him a right-winger. But it doesn't.

I'm slightly disappointed to see his website doesn't carry his older books, the ones that made him one of our heroes. That may be because they're out of print, or it may be because he has repudiated his views. On the plus side, he has written a piece skewering Noam Chomsky for the latter's disgraceful, pro-fascist performance since September 2001.

It's interesting that the same classmates who admired Windschuttle in the 80s thought Kim Beazley was a buffoon. Kim Beazley is now the federal leader of the ALP, which is attacking Windschuttle's appointment.

Hmmm. Windschuttle good then, Beazley buffoon. Some things never change.

But I know what makes me laugh.

Someone uses a rock and a lump of wood to prop up a sculpture. Then the sculpture gets taken away. And an art museum thinks the rick and block are the sculpture. So they put it on display.

This afternoon.



UPDATE 0-0

Oh well.

It was passionate and exciting. It was 35 degrees outside according to the temperature outside the chemist over the road. The city was rolling in the soft heat. It felt like Singapore without the scent of rotting vegetation. I went to a scruffy bar because it reminded me of watching rugby at Lovelocks' Bar in Wellington. It wasn't packed at the start. The fans sitting round were drinking wine. And then it filled up as people finished work and packed the bar, beer-drinkers arrived, the noise levels rose and rose. French sports fans enjoy their sports as entertainment. It's not serious and gritty, but robust and energetic.

The French football team plays as if it were playing chess. There are complex moves taking the ball up through the midfield but then they try the same complexity in front of goal when brutality is called for and it all goes soft. They haven't scored a goal since they won the World Cup in 1998. They don't look like scoring one. They could have lost this game 2-0; The Swiss were spectacularly unlucky on a couple of shots, but it would have been an injustice all the same.

Brazil had obvious flair, their touches look light and creative. But they also look as if they are a team of superstars trying to show off their tricks. They seldom look like a team building together towards a goal. But they were playing Croatia who were pretty strong.

So far, Brazil and Germany have looked the most convincing sides to my highly inexpert eye.

I mentioned a while back that this site featured on the front page of msn search for the (misspelt) 'Ségolène Royale'.

Now it turns out a bit worse.

My blog stats showed a few visits coming in from Yahoo. Turns out this site is currently - at time of writing - the number one Yahoo search result for anyone searching for 'Ségolène Royal nude'. Spell it right - 'Royal', without the extraneous 'e' - and we're down a bit in tenth. Still on the front page.

Why anyone is searching for that - well the world wide web is a big place. Ewww.

Meanwhile, La Royal is beginning to take strong policy positions. Last week she came out and asked whether the 35-hour week is damaging chances for the unemployed. She has called for the parents of delinquents to be sent to parenting school (where do I sign up?). She even questioned gay marriage. Like the weasel on amphetamines, Nikolas Sarkozy, she is appealing to the public outside her own party's comfort zone.

The Socialist Party has saddled her with a platform that would make her unelectable. (It wants to tax companies differently according to whether they distribute profits as dividends or reinvest them. The French socialist party is possibly the nuttiest social democrat party in Europe. It's always a sign of nuttiness when you point out to someone their policies will ensure they can't win, and they respond that it doesn't matter, the important thing is to be 'right'). But if Royal has the nomination in November she will ditch that rubbish by early 2007, in time for a smooth run to the Presidential run-offs.

The prospect of a Sego-Sarko election looks high - and it will be a great battle.

It's exam season for high school seasons. You can kinda tell by looking at the high school students because there is a universal exam-season look on the dials of kids, no? And a universal study-avoidance way of behaving.

According to this excellent blog, the first exam is philosophy. Essays might be about:

"Can one judge the value of a culture objectively?"

"What is happiness?"

"Is there any sense in trying to escape from Time?"

From the link, I also like:

"Why do we want to be free?"

"Can one be slave of a technical object?"

And I think should all have a view on these subjects. Otherwise, ummmm, 'what is the point of knowledge'?

Oh...the answers:

a) No.

b) Sauvignon blanc, cricket, maybe a boat.

c) Yes. But only if Newsweek will give you the cover.

d) So we are affordable to cheap spouses.

e) I'll answer this as soon as I get off the phone.

This is spectacular.

A Welsh company invented a device that repel teenagers - a high pitched whine that only kids can hear because us grown-ups go deaf starting with the top range, right?

Then the little blighters turned it round, in what the NYT fittingly calls 'technological jujitsu', and now the kids are using the high pitched whine as a mobile phone ring tone so they can hear their phones ringing and adults can't. In classrooms, for example.

Paris temperatures over the last day:



And what Wellington's wind looked like on the barometer:



Cool global weather programme, eh.

Good start.

It truly truly is World Cup fever.

The temperature raced up over thirty degrees this afternoon. And in the heat every now and then a tooting car passes the window waving an indecipherable flag. I have pieced together evidence and worked out what's going on. Yesterday Ecuador (go on, bet you cannot name a single colour in its flag) beat Poland. Then today Trinidad & Tobago pulled off a draw with Sweden. No, see, you didn't know theirs either. Both events caused fans to celebrate - as if either will reach even the third round.

The opening ceremony yesterday was laughably bad. Think of every German cliche from the 70s, right down to the Eurovision song belted out by Steven Seagal's German identisch.

Then Germany power-smacked a not-bad Costa Rica. They shot again and again from outside the penalty box. Fantastic shots. The first goal...the left wing went round his man and shot past the keeper from 25 metres to go in off the post in the top right hand corner. Perfection. The last goal might have been better - 30 metres, maybe, in front, power hit through the defenders, curling away again right into the top right corner leaving the goalie with no chance.

I would never watch a Germany-Costa Rica game were it not for this orgy of sports. But, wow the World Cup is really something.

** Apparently, 'soccer' is a word invented by rugby playing toffs, coined from 'Association' and meant as a put down. In future, it's 'football' for me.

***The ABs were depressingly bad this morning. I watched at the James Joyce bar, with Irishmen who were happy for an hour. They almost had me willing an Irish win by half-time. Kelleher, Nonu, Rawlinson and maybe Mealamu shouldn't play for the All Blacks again unless they lift their game enormously. So'oialo and Jack should not be having off nights like that. The line-outs, still rubbish. How can this be? It was a B-Team backline, of course.

As of about now, Carlo has spent over half his life in France.

It's hard to get Carlo speaking French at home, though when someone asks him a question in French he responds as easily as if he was asked in English. And he and Maria sometimes have conversations in French, when they;'re watching the French cartoons especially.

Today we bussed down to Carrefour, because sometimes you just have to spend €300 on a shop. Yeah, NZ$600 and it was about what you would get from Foodtown on Saturday. (The Carrefour is near Roland Garros, so we perved at the tennis glams coming and going for a while. Nice hats, nice cars, flowing dresses, hot sunglasses, that sort of thing).

Once we got inside, Carlo spied a book, in French, about tv cartoon character Franklin. "Yes," I assured him, "it's Franklin." He frowned up at me. "No, Daddy. Eets Fronklar." Then we went round to the divine fish section and Carlo rushed up to a dead mullet and shouted, "Daddy, Daddy! Poisson! Poisson!"

I was writing to a friend tonight and Martha Davis and the Motels were on the itunes and I was just thinking that song may be almost as close to perfect as any.

It reminded me I saw this documentary on MTV a little while back. It was part of a series where they put bands back together, and this one I saw featured the Motels. Martha Davis and the Motels. Josie swore she had never heard Total Control. So I played it and I got weepy and she still hadn't heard it.

Martha Davis now is old and big, a bit dinged up. But unbelievably charismatic. That song was forever associated for me with sixth form and now it is forever associated with walking along rue Vernier. I have work to do on 'forever'.

Were Daniel Barnes not an all-round good guy, he would deserve a good spanking for putting it in a Subaru ad, even if the ad is for the smartest car you can buy.

Yes. Yes! Yes! Yes!

There is not a word of this I disagree with, from the conversion to classical cotton boxers in the 90s to the discovery boxer briefs are just better. They have, ummm, hold. Like a hand is holding on to the wearer.

I'm sorry, men need to talk about this stuff. Don't be sexist and just dismiss our needs.

The sun is setting in Paris just before ten, which means it's still light at 10.30.

Outside the cafes on the footpaths all over the city, Parisians are sitting in the cool lavender light, sipping drinks, arguing, flirting, watching.

Parisians dress so well, once you notice it you can't stop looking. There is no polar fleece. None. Anyone who doesn't look smart is almost certainly an outsider. Even the t-shirts have a designer touch and seem to be seen on male models alone.

This year navy and white preppy summer looks are back in the shops for men. (At least in my favourite shops - Celio, for example, for bottom end. Poids et measures for top end). It is a colour a scheme I like and would suit me, except the fashion's twist this year is tennis jerseys cut very trim around the waist. You have to be nineteen and anorexic, like I was at 19. Imagine a white blazer with very light blue pin stripe, a blue polo and a pink cashmere jumper tied round the neck. Or blue knee-length naval shorts with a white pinstripe and a white v-neck (with a blue line around the collar). White, blue, pink with gentle brown or yellow trim. It's a classic faux-naval summer sports look. It's the exact opposite (of course) of the ugly military grunge punk'd garbage look of the last couple of summers - and much more flattering.

The summer sales start in just a couple of weeks.

I usually despise flash animation on websites. It's slow to load, clumsy and done without the user in mind. I've had countless web designers come up with ideas for installing flash on various websites over the years and declined them all.

But that doesn't always have to be the case.

For example, this site is worth a visit. Just to see flash animation in action, of course.

(From this Wellington blog).

The tide changes roughly every twelve hours, which is about how frequently events in Iraq have been described by one war apologist or another as a tide change.

The killing of the murderous maniac al-Zarqawi is may be a sea change, George Bush says.

Perhaps he'll be right.

Or perhaps over time someone will reflect on the improbability that a single goon was able to frustrate the combined armed forces of the US and the UK. And then Mr Bush will say al-Zarqawi was just one figure whose importance can be over-stated. Just like Osama bin Laden, whom neither Mr Bush nor his cronies any longer talk about.

The Economist reports, "one of France's most prestigious high schools has announced a programme to help disadvantaged students." It will provide thirty poor kids with a private tutor, free housing, a laptop computer and tickets to cultural events, all without tuition fees. [That link may be behind a subscription wall].

The idea is that this special attention will get the kids into the elite grandes écoles. If you want to be anything in France you more or less have to go to one of those schools, see.

What a typically hopeless solution: Instead of getting rid of a corrupt and inefficient system that limits avenues to achievement to those lucky enough to go to the right school, they let a very tiny number into the right schools. This doesn't only penalise the poor kids who miss out on opportunities, though they pay the most obvious price. It also means wider French society is denied the fruits of those kids who would make it but don't - the entire society misses out on the lost contribution of those kids' potential. Bigotry comes at a terrible price, and it's paid even by those who defend the system to secure their own relative advantage.

I wish I could say this was only a French problem.

"Finally, A Human Evolved To Hold Whisky, Smoke A Cigarette And Operate A Mobile Phone Simultaneously."

In other science news, Popular Science reports tinfoil hats don't actually stop the government from reading your brain waves.

Not that there is new found interest in royalty or anything, just because they let us in their nice house...

But it seems the chief of the metropolitan police has said, 'New evidence and witnesses have emerged in the investigation into the death of Princess Diana.'

Can't help thinking I can help Sherlock solve this one: Her driver got juiced and smashed the car into the wall of a tunnel at very high speed. Mmmkay?

Perhaps the coppers are looking for the clues left by this dude in Sweden who killed his partner and dumped her in the lake then Googled for 'blood stains', 'fabric cleaning' and 'murder without body'.

The excuse for absence is that we've been to Buckingham Palace, which is not - to tell you the truth - a sentence I have previously found it necessary to write.

Anyway the Queen was busy, apparently, so Charles handed the medal to Elspeth and we all agreed that was better since he will be the King one day.

Here is Elspeth's rather glamourous ONZM:



It was the only kiwi honour among a hundred or so handed out on the day (though we did see Len Cook, the former NZ statistics head, who was there to get a UK honour).

We took turns in the cab to say, 'ah, to the palace, thanks driver.'

The palace is less opulent than the French palaces. More tasteful. There is a lesson here: The French royals are currently separated at the neck; The English are still collecting. It pays not to go too far.

Whoever designed the guards' helmets had a sense of humour. Especially the pointy brass ones with pretty ribbons coming out the top.

The guards inside wear little brass breastplates, which clearly date from a time when guards were not so burly. They also wear thigh-high patent leather boots with super-hero flashes at the top. They would not be out of place at certain gay night clubs. They are...heroic.

The white gloves are something else.

The guards have a head-never-moves glare ready for those of us who can't help smirking. As I say, it pays not to go too far.

The chandeliers would send Linda Clark into seizures of ecstasy.

Someone shines all that brass. Someone polishes all that gold leaf. Someone dusts every inch, every vase, every painting.

No one shushed us for giggling.

The Prince talks to every recipient. Talks, not just a 'how do you do?'. An equerry gives him a brief prompt. Someone researches every recipient. The Prince has to swat.

They didn't serve tea. Or cucumber sandwiches.

Ladies don't have to wear hats, but it might be best to splash.

There is a temptation to linger on the way out to secure one's place in as many tourists' photo albums as possible.

When we left we went to Starbucks.