Columnists - Bob Irvine - Nelson Mail

Bob Irvine

Times change, but racism endures

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

The English identify with the bulldog, but the Scots are terriers. Witness my holiday reading, a couple of frayed gems by Scottish authors, found at a second-hand book sale in Takaka.

As camp as a row of fancy coffee grinders

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

"Be natural, be happy, be real, be relaxed, be yourself." Even my cereal box was on holiday. "Here at (name withheld), we passionately believe that simple ingredients are the best."

Man's earthly treasures

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

The little writing bureau in the op-shop received careful scrutiny. The price was reasonable, and it looked like an easy do-up, but the prospective buyer shook her head. "It's more stuff," she said wistfully. "When you reach a certain age you don't need more stuff."

Bums on seats, and knees

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

The young woman eyed me up. She was one of those dusky maidens who induced early European sailors to mutiny in the South Seas. I'm not sure what "dusky" means, but it was a fashionable look among maidens of the time.

A grand plan for an island crying out for a submarine

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

The Nelson Sculpture Trust is promising to revive its proposal for a huge artwork on Haulashore Island. In September, trust director Rebecca Hamid drummed up publicity for a jewellery exhibition in a shed on Wakefield Quay, overlooking Haulashore. She said she hoped the location would stimulate "informed debate" about the planned $2.5 million sculpture, setting the scene for a public meeting in early November.

We are on the wrong track

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Scene 1: The campground at Hahei on the Coromandel Peninsula has a bare patch of grass in the middle of it.

Cacoughany of politicking

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Election campaigns bring out the worst in people, and politicians too.

Magazine swap delivers Punch lines from the past

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

The Free Trade Agreement with Marlborough is working like a charm, reflecting the chummy mood nationwide as old foes hug in the honey-glow of the tournament that dare not speak its name.

Taking it to the streets

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Why run your own life when your phone will?

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: If Archimedes had taken a shower instead of a bath we might not know that a floating body displaces its own weight in liquid.

Dumping my waste woes on The Man

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: A hatchback is the Tardis on wheels.

Pester-pitch enough to drive a man to foam

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: I had just sat down to tea when the phone rang.

Things we do in the pursuit of fashion

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Bring back the bustle, I say.

Car parks are all we need for the good life

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: A working-class chap doesn't have it easy in this town, especially when Sunshine Wages turn to Shoeshine Wages – and no-one dirties their shoes any more.

Weighing in with gourds and song

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

A pumpkin served me wine.

Unbearable lightness of a fond farewell to summer

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

I don't like it.

B for battle, H for hope

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

A car stops in the middle of the road as I approach on foot. The elderly couple are obviously lost. What is it about Temuka and people asking directions? I know the streets well, but last time I was here I was still wrong-footed (as I've mentioned before).

It's the season for self-denial, so just give up

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

February is the month of abstinence, I hear.

Tent ghetto perfect pitch for summer

Everyone has a flooded tent story.

Wicked days, wicked nights

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

As a gift it was genius.

Beware of egg nog and wandering reindeer

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Christmas is a time to kick back and relax – while essential industries keep working.

Smallest room - biggest headache

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Warning: Contains nudity, offensive language and content that may offend.

In a lather over naked chrome

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

I hid them on the bottom shelf of the tea trolley. When my flatmate was away for the night I slid them out.

Let's focus on the fun stuff, seriously

BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

The gung-ho athlete of our office was like a thoroughbred twitching in the starting stalls for this one.

From the shafts of strife and awe

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Australians all let us rejoice

Dangers of the road less pedalled

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

A dotted line on the map ran beside the Opihi River up to Pleasant Point.

Drastic (waist) measures are required

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Mickey rules the world but he's still a dirty rat

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Bob's grand tour operation

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

The holiday plans are firming up, lightening my seasonal misery.

An FR on a PR for VNGF? LOL

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Sports advertising is crossing a baseline

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Snow had settled on the heads of some of the Giants' opponents, I swear.

Stirring even a laidback nature

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

My invoice is written. All that's lacking is an address to send it to. And with the first murmurs this week of a Government backdown on the plan to prospect for minerals in national parks, I had better get my skates on to find the client.

Greed is good

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Selfish is the only word for it.

Quite a few worth a canape or two

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

The canape classes are in for a hectic time, with two buildings about to open in Nelson: the Theatre Royal and the theatre judicial, a new courthouse.

The answer, Carole, is yes, yes, yes

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Like moths to the fame, we were.

Old tat gets the boot

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

These boots are made for hawking.

When I go, feed me to the trees

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

The deceased bore a look of serenity that was at odds with his loud Hawaiian shirt.

Poetic jive lionised in Norn Iron lives

OPINION: The Northern Irish have a way of speaking that is cockeyed poetry.

Bagels on board for big adventure

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Because it was there. The possibility, that is. Mountaineer George Mallory was talking about Everest. I was thinking of an equally daunting feat – a free-breakfast quadrathon from Nelson to Richmond on Go By Bike Day.

Some like it monochrome under the stars

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: We settle into the couch. "I think the rain might hold off," says my companion, glancing to the clouds above Fairfield Park. It has been drizzling most of the day, finally easing off in late-afternoon.

A slice off the poor old Y thing

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

The Cheese Machine has left the building. I don't mean Elvis in his cheddar-soaked Vegas swansong.

Toasting flying alarm clocks

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

"Presents For Men", the title reads. "Original, stylish and practical presents for men and boys of all ages". I had hit the mother lode.

Getting the hump with a camel

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

We do some things well. It doesn't take a London think-tank to tell us we have social capital in spades – horrible Stalinesque phrase, but we get the drift.

Idle thoughts on idyllic living

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

"Solon, a nobleman, poet and magistrate in ancient Athens, made many enlightened laws, among which was this gem – `that idleness was illegal'," wrote V McAloon in a letter to the Nelson Mail editor this week.

Let's hear it for compassion

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: Being drummed out of a book-reading group could be ugly. They probably slap you around the cheeks with a grubby paperback and send you packing. Or sit you in the corner with a Jeffrey Archer novel.

Interest is granted in RWC

The summons was foreboding.

Children of their universe

BY BOB IRVINE - © Fairfax NZ News

I was smacked as a child, and it never did me any harm. Can't recall what the first time was for. We were living in a house and it contained power points, so quite feasibly I was stabbing a knitting needle into one of them. Good parental discipline was called for. And it worked. I have never taken up knitting.