Well, laughter MIGHT be the best medicine but that’s the last time I’ll try to laugh off a virus!! I’ve pretty well been on my back since 9 September and only really felt human again yesterday – and this from someone who normally fills up with Panadol and Dispirin, has a crappy night and bounces back in the morning…so if anyone tells you that this swine flu thing is just another ploy by the big pharmaceuticals, please give them a poke in the eye with lots of love from me…

So what’s been happening in my world in the fortnight or so since transmission was so rudely cut-off? The mancave has proven stable on its piles but roofing will have to wait til I get back from the UK next month: just shifting the roofing iron down from the top of the house drive to the site put me on my back gain last week – so much for trying to get out and about in the fresh air. Replaced the spouting along one side of the guest house today and felt quite sprightly about it so am really hoping the bug is gone for good – has been a great day for that sort of thing – looks like the weather is about to go down the gurgler tomorrow but that’ll allow for a decent systems test of the new fittings. And the spurt of water from the downpipe when we ripped away the rusting spouting is a good sign re the water levels in the tank – especially leading into spring and summer when tank levels can become kinda problematic.

The UK…really had hoped that the virus might have been my way out of this trip but couldn’t bring myself to BS the doc on Thursday when she cleared me to travel pending another 3-4 restful days…so while the lessons workshop will be professionally enlightening and possibly even challenging, the travel plan means I get to miss both the Interbella presentation at Ft Leavenworth on Thursday morning Kiwi time and tDavid Kilcullen’s presentation in Wellington next month. Still such is life and hopefully (not for the lack of pleading and hint-dropping on my part) both will be recorded for enjoyment at a later date.

And on the topic of flu, avian this time not swine, what is it that possesses chickens? We have 7 (down from 10) chicken who have 1.1 hectares over which to free range at the moment. If Darwin was right, then the nature of the surviving 7 is a real insight into why ‘birdbrain’ is quite definitely an insult of the highest order…all this space over which to roam, chock full of seeds and bugs and other chicken delights and the Death Wish Chickens (DWC) would rather stray on this side of the fence where the canine forces of darkness roam…if nothing else, I don’t think we have to fear global takeover from chickens anytime soon…

We watched The Rock (Dwyane Wassissname)’s version of Walking Tall on telly the other night. I have to ask myself why would you bother? The original story is so much better, if you have to remake it as a platform for some up-and-comer, why not just remake it? Like the old folk are always saying, if it ain’t broke, it don’t need no fixin’ – how to take a great true story and degrade it into a crappy beat’em up in an hour and a half – anyone who is interested should Google for Buford Pusser and read up on the real Walking Tall story…it’s worth it…

I really struggle with this predilection so many have with taking something old and trying to make it better for the modern day and just so totally dropping the ball on it…the original The Four Feathers is a true classic, even in grainy black and white, the triumph of a man over his environment and himself – does he need a trusty native helper? No! So why bother…newer is NOT always better and 9 time out of ten, I’d probably go for the source, the original…

The superficiality of many modern productions seems to echo the lack of deep thought we see so often in other areas – just skim the surface and hope she’ll be right – so ironic when in the 30s, 40s and 50s when so many of the classics were produced, life actually was pretty simple. Now we up to our ears in complexity and our main philosophical approach to it is the embrace blandness….

In terms of the rare one in ten, I would have to rated the ‘re-imagined’ Battlestar Galactica as a plus plus success, not so much a replacement for but a great complement to the original 70s series – Lorne Greene will always be the best Adama (probably all that experience with wagon trains and Indians from Bonanza) whereas Edward James Olmos, while very gritty, is still the small team leader, Castillo, from Miami Vice…

Unlike the original which left fans hanging for decades (the less said about the second season the better), this story does come to a definite conclusion. What it is you will have to sit through Series 4 to find out – and the preceding series – otherwise it will make little or no sense so no cheating sneak peeks – it does mean though that I will have to go back to the drawing board for a back story for my epic as other writers keep beating me to the draw on getting my ideas out in the open; really just a case of great minds….I have a new spark that I hope to flesh out while overseas, probably in some dodgy 600 year old pub where my muse will appear through the bottom of a pint (or a number of them)…

Having now restored normal services, the plan is to keep up daily updates using the combination of Blackberry email to blog tools once we go wheels up on Wednesday…