Late last week Gar & I booked tickets back to my homeland. Good ole Qantas gave us a 2-4-1 deal we couldn't resist. We'll be winging our way back to Wellington, with some overland trips to Hastings & Dunedin planned.

In other kiwi news - the All Blacks won a lackluster game against the Welshmen in a cold Millenium stadium. Fortunately the roof was closed to provide rain-cover as it wasn't a pretty night. Garmon and I made the London-Cardiff round trip which totalled 8 hours travel, plus hours waiting in Cardiff after the game thanks to the stupidity of FirstGreatWestern trains (they aren't "first" and they definitely aren't "great"). They failed to put on any additional trains to London despite the rugby crowd & 100s of advanced bookings, then couldn't even get the trains they had scheduled to leave on time. It was a frustrating end to the day. From getting up Saturday morning to returning that night I was awake 20 hours.

And some good news to end this on - today I received a Christmas parcel from NZ... and it's not even December yet! I have to take it home for Gar to hide from me until the 25th.

Tonight I'm off to my local tenants & resident's association meeting where I think our street is going to get voted out of the association. It may not be an entirely bad thing as the other "local community" is a good 10 minutes walk away, so not really all that local.

On Friday night I'm off to see Sigur Rós play at Alexandra Park - which I am VERY excited about.

Then on Saturday I'm having a day trip to Cardiff to watch the All Blacks beat the Welsh team! I absolutely can't wait despite the 7am start and return trip on the train after the game.

Promise to write again soonish.

On Saturday Garmon and I grabbed our bacon butties, headed across the road to London Fields and stood watching a man dance with a 13 tonne digger. It was an exceptional performance lasting about 20 minutes, and I wish the crowd was triple its size so more people had seen it! The dance was delicate, almost a love story, between a man who appeared to be in his 50s and machine. It was a very unlikely duet & hard to describe its beauty! It made me think more about the skill and artistry of the machinist and his machine - and I think I appreciate more the art of the construction worker when I next pass a building site. If you've not seen the clip on YouTube, check it out below!

Here's a link to an interview with the dancer, Dominique Boivin and a YouTube clip:

The Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill is Banksy latest art offering and it's not graffiti but rather a social commentary about the orgins of our food, set in a faux pet shop. If you can't get to Greenwich Village, New York, visit the website to watch video of animatronic fish-fingers, hot dogs hanging out, and an old sad-looking Tweety swinging back and forth in his cage.

My favourite? It has to be the chicken nuggets...

I found this article fascinating - my government wants ISPs to stop providing their Internet service to anyone accused of copyright infringement - no requirement for proof needed. Fortunately there is an election coming up soon... oh, and a Facebook group.

Update - blog posts on this issue: Guilty till proven innocent - New Zealand copyright act, In Defense of Piracy, Inimical to the public good