Written By:
notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, January 21st, 2023 - 69 comments
Categories: open mike -
Tags:
https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.jsKatherine Mansfield left New Zealand when she was 19 years old and died at the age of 34.In her short life she became our most famous short story writer, acquiring an international reputation for her stories, poetry, letters, journals and reviews. Biographies on Mansfield have been translated into 51 ...
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
Will they listen now?
Achieved with threats of personal violence against her and targetted misogynist slurs. The global far right gloat over their victory
https://twitter.com/banthebbc/status/1615935645469532160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1615935645469532160%7Ctwgr%5E4073a06756048ebb365d8fe8e54b37168c95ab33%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vice.com%2Fen%2Farticle%2Fn7zpgz%2Fjacinda-ardern-resignation-new-zealand-far-right
I always scratch my head when confronted with such people, how can people believe such tripe, where is their discernment switch, is it seized up and need of some CRC, or WD40, if you are in the US?
The fuckwittery is astonishing.
https://twitter.com/serenity22/status/1616324701382651904
https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/music/pink-floyd-rainbow
You have to wonder if they are even human.
The Pavlovian response of the Troll Bots…. ?
And this is the man who said when speaking about North Korea's Kim Jung Un: "You've got to be honest about what it means to lead a country – it means killing people".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_Carlson.
No further comment needed.
He is a vicious idiot Jenny.
It seems vicious idiots love each other
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
“Russia’s top propagandists, from former President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev to state TV host Vladimir Solovyov, have been spreading the same not-so subtle nuclear threat far and wide”
https://news.yahoo.com/putin-henchmen-threaten-tens-thousands-035652530.html
Apparently, the only one to be spared this threatened holocaust is Tucker Carlson.
Maybe like a cockroach, Tucker Carlson will be able to crawl out from under the rubble.
It's old, but a timely reminder that freedom of the press is important.
My DW and I just had a meeting with a guy from Harrisons Solar. I said it would be good for the government to start subsidising solar rather than building more dams etc.
He made an interesting comment. He said it would be better for the government to subsidise batteries. Because that would avoid the load problems power generators have to manage with large numbers feeding power back into the grid.
Food for thought.
The only type of battery this country should go near is the Onslow one, plus find a suitable site up north.
Indeed food for thought TSM – we have 10 solar panels on our roof plus one large hot water panel which was already in place when we purchased this property. It all helps with the power bill, especially during the spring, summer and autumn seasons. We even manage to export some power back to the grid during the winter months despite the pathetic buy back price. We thought long and hard about a battery to compliment the panels, but as the initial cost of the panels and installation depleted our savings somewhat, we didn't purchase one, simply because of the cost of them (this was 7 years ago). We may well get one if the price keeps reducing.
FWIW, I have lived off grid sonce 2003. Bradfords reforms were the impetus and we were relocating our house.
If you are grid-tied the newish technology Lithium batteries are the way to go. They are at their best when they have a grid back-up/trickle charge.
Partially in response to tsmithfield above, there needs to be some reform around ownership/kaupapa of the power companies too.
the problem with lithium batteries is no-one knows how to dispose of them yet at end of life. As always, it's not technology that should be leading but system change. In this case, cradle to grave thinking in design right from the get go.
Power generation should be nationalised and/or power companies forced to deal fairly in Just Transition terms with buying from grid tied solar households. I'm not convinced it's possible to transition to post-carbon with for profit power generation/retail irrespective of the tecnology.
The home battery and Onslow do different things. The home battery reduces and spreads load on the local grid in short time scales (days). Onslow works at a larger and / or longer scale, buffering wind and large scale solar when there's no wind or sun, and providing backup for dry years.
The biggest advantage / feature in Onslow is that it will completely upend the current electricity market by putting control of the peak electricity price with the State.
Ideally Onslow would be run in conjunction with the Clutha hydro system (Clyde and Roxburgh, with Hawea controlled storage), it would also have to be State controlled, that much power over the market would be untenable. So if it happens the first move would be to nationalise Contact, ie Government stands in the market for 100% of Contact or does a deal for the Clutha schemes. The remaining gen-tailers would be reduced to price takers rather than price fixers. Hence National hate the idea with a vengeance.
We still don't know if it's possible to build the thing, and at what price. Those investigations were supposed to be complete last year but have been delayed. Then there's investigations into how it's going to work in the market.
It's a very interesting proposal and I hope Labour gets another term (or two) to bring it to fruition, along with a vey different electricity supply market / industry.
There's other utility / grid scale storage options coming through as well. This popped up the other day, iron / air batteries that work at a grid scale and lower cost than lithium
For every house with full solar and unconnected to the grid in areas where they could be it means that the distribution price for every other user goes up as distribution is by far the biggest cost component of electricity supply. Why? Maintenance is hugely expensive as is capital cost and then every storm, earthquake, flood or other natural disaster is very costly for the lines companies. Don’t start on that old myth of if everyone had their own solar then there would be no distribution cost. That bullshit lasts until the first cold overcast winter.
Not being connected does not mean not being charged.
Numerous Rural water schemes have charges if the line goes past the property even if not connected. Big business will still need the supply net and it has to be paid for so what is the betting a similar "not connected – but it goes past so you could be" charge?
"For every house with full solar and unconnected to the grid in areas where they could be it means that the distribution price for every other user goes up as distribution is by far the biggest cost component of electricity supply"
I must admit to being 'that' guy.
TBF, I do live rurally and am independent in respects to water. Also looking to get indepent for the small amount of gas we use.
Part of Bradfords reforms that made me shift, was how the Lines Companies are not obliged to do a repair to the infrastructure of it isn't in their interests. Highly unlikely where I live TBF, but they were setting the rules to the market and I was responding to them.
Full disclosure, I do operate more from the heart reather than the head and it hasn't been a cheap excercise…
Onslow is a huge basin at quite a reasonable height in what is hopefully a quietish earthquake zone. The NI does not have anywhere large enough to do the job.
The Waikato hydro power stations are fed from Lake Taupō so could that be recharged by pumping some of the Waikato discharge back up to it?
I don’t know where any of the waikato dams are next to each other.
A hydro battery is almost always pumped a short distance from a lower dam to a higher dam. You typically need to pump from still water so you don’t try to raise sediment. You only pump a short distance to reduce the amount of power required to pump it. Otherwise you pump power into fiction on pipe walls.
Dams require some pretty stringent anchor positions, locations tthat are suitable for two largish dams next to each other are rare.
What about non-water based systems, where weights are lifted?
https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surprisingly-efficient-way-to-store-energy
Less land usage, can be set up anywhere and no need to fill and maintain a dam.
Has Wayne Smith contacted David Rennie about his old job yet? Has Farrah Palmer, Ruahei Demant …
"Worst PM ever" is trending.. I foolishly clicked it.. was relieved to see Aussies mentioning ScoMo and Kiwis nominating this tinpot dictator
https://twitter.com/m5gnolia/status/1616080119025790983?s=20
Hooboy…
https://twitter.com/Michell64931824/status/1616307896362618881
lol excellent
My feeling is that some of those disparaging of Jacinda Ardern and calling her a dictator and divisive would be fans of Muldoon.
He was a bully who attracted bullies. Ardern said we need to wear masks, they cried, bitched and grizzled. If Muldoon had said wear masks they would has praised his decisiveness and been his mask police.
Muldoon was just as restrictive on our mobility with Carless Days and 80 kmh speed limit.
Can just imagine his Covid response. Total border closure, internal as well, from day one, rationing, with assigned shopping times at supermarkets and any other way he could control peoples lives. All enforced by police and military. He'd have been right in his element.
For all that, he would not have had Ampol bully him into allowing Marsden Point to close.
He wouldn't have allowed it to be privatised in the first place.
Not so sure that Muldoon had clean hands. Quite a few of his mates had close association with his Think Big projects.
So he would have buckled to Ampol's bullying and subsidised them to keep it open? Although as tWiggle says below, he looked after his mates.
Oil companies were closing refineries all over the world, especially in Australia. Rationale for keeping a tiny orphan like Marsden Pt going was pretty thin, until everything goes to shit 12 months later, maybe
No loitering round Paliament grounds under Muldoon either. Police with batons would have been in licketty smart. I wondered at the time if Jacinda Ardern's softly-softly approach over the anti-vax protesters at Parliament was influenced by her father's experience on the Red Squad anti-protest policing unit during the 1981 Springbok tour.
I can't believe that liberals can't see what is happening. No, it's not an outlier. It's mainstream and common. Lesbians no longer have female only spaces (in Australia is now breaches Human Rights policy to run lesbian, female only events), they get banned from dating apps if they say female only.
They get told if they don't want dick that they are transphobic. There's almost no difference between that and homophobic straight blokes telling lesbians they just need a good root to come right.
When this pressure is applied to young women, it's basically conversion therapy. There are teens girls who are lesbian, who transition to being a trans man because being female is so goddamn awful socially, then later regret this and detransition only now they have no breasts, maybe no uterus, but have life long health issues associate with hormones and surgery including chronic pain and dysfunction.
Stonewall UK, one of the most influential gender identity lobby groups, is sending trans identified men who look like men into schools to do education work and in this case the dude is telling kids he is a lesbian. Fuck everyone who support this.
This tweet is one of many I see in my twitter feed like this every week. Because I pay attention, listen to lesbians and detrans people and make sure I know what is going on.
https://twitter.com/c_kennaugh/status/1616590576157163521
tbf, I haven't confirmed the veracity of the second tweet, but it is entirely consistent with everything else I see happening in the UK that has been verified.
The bearded bloke is called Alex Drummond. 50 something, no hormones, no surgery. Identifies as a woman and as a lesbian. Google "Alex Drummond Stonewall" to get the info.
Stonewall sends Alex around British schools talking about diversity and inclusion, and saying that this is what a lesbian looks like. When lesbians say "no" , Stonewall calls us sexual racists.
Thanks for confirmation.
I now about Drummond but didn't realise he was telling school kids he's a lesbian. What ages is that do you know?
No, I don't. Secondary schools I think.
Ditto for the gay men that are called transphobic for not wanting to engage with a vagina having 'man'.
Ditto for the heterosexual female who would not want to larp lesbian with their now trans identifying male partner, ditto for the heterosexual male who does not want to larp gay couple.
This whole thing of male being women and females being men is just so fucked up. Yet, all the Parties support it. Go figure and never mind the broken and castrated and desexed bodies of those that learned the hard way they were not trans just non conform to sexist stereotypes.
Kindness…..for whom?
Yes, gay men are as interested in "mangina" (yes, that is a word), as I am in "ladydick" or worse still "girldick". However, the homophobic ideology of gender identity denies the very existence of same sex attraction.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/gender-diversity/page-1
Why do some young people have such a "fucked up" sense of self? Baffling.
Why this "fucked up" urge/choice to be trans? So difficult to empathise with those who make this bad choice. Should it even be a choice? With appropriate (non-surgical) therapy/counselling/support, many could overcome their illness(es) and (potentially) go on to lead happy, fulfilling and, importantly, normal lives that wouldn't confuse or threaten anyone anymore than ‘normal’ people do already.
Life may seem miserable, and that will change. Cultivate resilience and be patient if you can – Georgina Beyer waited until she was 27.
Because even Georgina Beyer in the end was always a male. And no amount of lying will make that go away. And for what its worth, Self ID has very little to do with Transidentified people, no matter where they stand under the Queer/Trans Umbrella.
Self ID gives you the right to go into any female space by simply stating that you are a woman. Say that to the receptionist and she will let you into the female swimming hour at the CHCH pools, into the changing rooms/shower facilities of any gym, and of course lets you lift weights in the female olympic category where you then get to pretend that a 43 year old male on a daily dose of estrogen with a bunged shoulder is a women who competing against 20 year old girls has no supposed advantage. But then, stunning and brave indeed.
So there is a world of difference between Georgina Beyer who did what was good and right for them and the current Queer Ideology that wants to make you believe that your sex was assigned by some unknown deity and that you can 'change' that sex.
I sometimes wonder what Georgina would say to the current mess of males are women when males say they are women.
Indeed, like all transwomen she was/is male, and has chosen to identify as a woman, that apparently being her true 'sense of self' and so the identity she is comfortable with. Whether this means GB and/or her sense of self is "fucked up", or “stunning and brave“, is not for me to say.
Although they have always been a very small minority, trans people do seem more numerous that they once were. Perhaps they are only more visible, but either way it would be helpful (imho) to understand why a few teens seem fixated on adopting a trans ID, even to the point of surgery. Consensus expert opinion on various matters trans is a work in progress.
As you say, the whole thing is "just so fucked up" – why do they do it?
Why is it apparently so difficult for these teens to simply choose a conforming identity – some flavour of acceptable 'normal'?
Perhaps all sides can take what they need from words spoken 15-years ago.
and no matter how you choose to live, where and with whom, you will not change your sex. You will be male or female. And as a female i would thus like to not see males in female changing rooms, female prison cells, female hospital wards, female sports, female awards and so on.
And i would like for teachers to not socially transition kids that aren't theirs. And i would like for government to not force medical transition as the only healthcare available to kids who questions sex stereo types that they may or may not want to live under.
And i would like for doctors to not castrate and de-sex kids before puberty via chemicals and then via surgery finish the job a few years later. Cause non of that is reversible.
All these males are just that males. Georgina Beyer was nothing more then a male who cut their dick of and wore garments typically associated with females. That was that. And that was all. I can she /her them all day long, but it changes nothing on the fact that Georgina is not a woman, but identifies AS a woman. Georgina is male.
And males thanks to self id do not have to do what Georgina Beyer did in order to become 'woman' – as in human male with a fetish. You can be a woman. You literally just have to state so, and any female will have to be kind to you poor little thing who can't live unless you get to be were literally no one wants you to be. In the Ladies. Go figure. Brave and stunning!!!!!
Consistent with, and following on from my comment @10.2.2.1.1:
I believe that transpeople should be able to adopt a (non-conforming) gender identity that differs from their sex at birth – insisting otherwise seems (to me) punitive and ultimately self-defeating.
I'm opposed to irreversible gender-reassignment therapies for sexually immature people, unless consensus medical opinion indicates a high risk of severe/irreversible self-harm.
I believe that people have the right not to feel threatened, marginalised or otherwise put at risk by the behaviour of a minority of the tiny minority that constitutes the trans community.
That community does, however, have a right to exist – it cannot and should not be unmade. People who decide to leave the trans community should be able to do so on the same basis that they joined – voluntarily.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stunning_and_brave#Usage_notes
That is right.
Stunning and brave they are the most marginalised community ever, the ones that have government, police, academia and health do their bidding at the expense of women – human females of all ages and children in general.
https://twitter.com/womenreadwomen/status/1583356013016907776
So stunning. So brave. And for what its worth, i don't actually consider males who colonise female spaces, and who want to define what 'woman' and 'womanhood' as either brave or stunning. I consider them predatory, fetishistic, rapey and very emotionally and mentally abusive. And i would assume that in about 5 – 10 years time we will have a thousands of young people with no sexual organs, no sexual function, no reproductive organs, low bone density, all sorts of other health problem, mental health problems and a lot of people will say, but They CHOOSE Iit so ultimately they are responsible. Yes….totally.
Just as the surgeon Marcy Bowers that finished the castration process on Jazz Jennings did. You know the boy that got transed into a girl cause he liked his sisters bathing suit and his mum could not bare the idea that they may not be a proper boy and a cousin was a gender therapist and the rest is history faithfully documented on the Learning Channel making millions of dollars. The castration of boys is now entertainment.!!! So progressive.
Chemically castrated at 10 – surgically castrated at 17, and now at 21 one on his fourth revision surgery, obese, huge health issues and all he got for his trouble was the Eunuch Gender. Asexual, no sexual functions, no reproductive rights, nothing. Struggling to find a place in the world that fits him, struggling to tell his family that he struggles.
Just a poor castrated child that never stood a chance as no one dared to call the parents abusive, no one dared to call TLC who made millions of this poor childs abuse abusive and no one still dares to call Marcy Bowers a transwoman himself abusive for doing the job they does. And Marcy Bowers knows the damage they do.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10058951/Leading-transgender-medics-warn-children-given-gender-reassignment-surgery.html
and the interveiw on Bari Weiss substack
https://www.thefp.com/p/top-trans-doctors-blow-the-whistle
We can be kind to transpeople and we can be kind to women. We can have rights specifically for transpeople, and we can have rights for women. We can not however demand that women pretend that males can be women, and then let these males terrorize any woman – human females of all ages if they state that they are uncomfortable with males in their changing rooms, public showers, female swimming hours/sports/awards/competitions/olympic games, female prison cells, female senior housing, female hospital wards and so on and so forth.
As of now we rather call women – human females of all ages – bodies who bleed, bodies who have vaginas, bodies who give birth / are birth giving enabled, cervix havers, uterus havers, menopausers, menstruators, birth givers, afab, just to satisfy the needs of males who are not well in their own bodies and the women – human females will just have to suck it real hard and swallow, lest someone calls them Terfs and wishes violence upon them.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stunning_and_brave#Usage_notes
No-one has to like transpeople, as a group or as individuals – indeed, that would be pretty difficult if one focused solely on the images and impressions of 'transpeople' presented in The Standard. But they are here, and I'd guess not too many of them are truly awful.
It would be interesting to see where this issue (the "fucked up" transgender 'problem') will be in 80 years time, and if any satisfactory global final solution can be found, but we'll be long gone by then.
I do worry about the future of my (now distant) transgender niblings. They are brave (imho), and (subjectively) not particularly stunning.
Georgina Beyer gives an indication in this episode of Alice Sneddens's Bad News: Terfs.
(For which taxpayers contributed approx $48k for 12 mins.)
https://youtu.be/kQ37Nn5q8ec
"willfully deny" 😆
fuck, I can't believe how bad that video is. I want to Fisk it 😈
sexism, the real kind.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/20/violence-against-women-terrorism-police-met-rapists-murderers?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
women – human females of all ages, are they even human?
We do keep count. "Counting Dead Women".
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/02/the-81-women-killed-in-28-weeks
And we wonder why there's a trend of young females trying to become male…
I don't. I totally understand them.
I'm pretty sure it's not just old-fuddy-duddy bias on my part, but NZ Policing culture has improved greatly in the past decades. UK policing is having its own Louise Nicholls moment, where the longterm rancid internal culture can no longer be hidden. It will take time to change, as it has here.
A low-state government after the next NZ election will no doubt cut police staffing back again, to our detriment, despite the law 'n order hoo-haa being stirred up by right leaning politicos and press. NACT will focus on pushing more people into privatised prisons by increasing sentences and offences. They may even push for politicisation of the police, by introducing elections for Police Commisioners, as in the UK. Don't forget that Luxon rushed over to the UK to have a strategy confab with the Tories soon after getting his spot. Yay, more importation of UK and US 'failed state' libertarian moves for us if the election goes the NACT's way.
A young rapist got 9 month home D for 4 rapes a few month ago. He will out of home d in about 4 – 5 month.
Yeah, we here in Aotearoa totally have that under control, and that young bloke will have learned his lesson and never rape again, cause staying at home for 9 month at mum'n'pops, watching telly eating popcorn and masturbating to some shitty porn is exactly the punishment a serial rapist should get.
That is not a policing issue, that is a youth justice/courts/sentencing issue. The police in this case clearly took him to prosecution in a timely manner. I imagine his family rustled up a fancy lawyer who made all the right noises. I personally thought it was light for such a nasty set of actions, but generally I trust that the NZ judiciary system tries its best.
Despite the current government's woeful tendency to give in under public pressure to media-pushed causes, here the judiciary is acting independently, as it should. The place for judicial reform is not in the social media arena, but in thoughtful legislative and judiciary review. Otherwise, you're asking for cases to be tried and sentenced in the court of public opinion, an opinion often manipulated by those with hidden agendas.
Part of the cacophony of anti-vax anti-government noise comes from external actors who want to break down trust in state procedures, and to destabilise nations. I don't believe I'm being paranoid about this. The day after the invasion of Ukraine, I saw NZ anti-vax social media pages come out with pro-Russia content. Less than 24 hours after, while the Parliament protest was still under way. Almost identical content over several sites. Certainly not independently derived opinion from the posters. Anti-vax, anti-government conspiracies and pro-Russia position spread by the same sources worries me.
I'm more cautious now about government and state-process issues that blow up through social media and are picked up by the press. Especially when NZ scores high on social freedoms and government transparency. Change in our law and its implementation needs to follow proper process, not just be driven by outrage-of-the-day. Good cheese and good government both take time.
The police literally makes the case for the court. If the police does not make a case it does not go to court. So yeah, it is a policing issue, firstly and then the justice system is equally useless, in the meantime people get raped.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/91052680/10-years-on-police-rape-survivor-louise-nicholas-welcomes-final-commission-of-inquiry-report-response
Wasn't just my feeling that things had improved after Louise Nicholls' horrendous complaints of police corruption were finally dealt with.
Incredible.
The anti-woke and
slightlyheavily racist Dr. Caftan, after years of shredding Jacinda Ardern for being too right wing but also too left wing has cut and pasted today a thought piece on Chippy, quoting hard right wing dabblers, Luke Mouthpiss and Matty Hooters.Everyone says Hipkins will be a better PM than the best thing to happen to NZ politics in three generations.
The author of this crappy article is, as by nature, at sixes and sevens throughout. Still, it appears he's pumping the new PM to be the final solution to the Ardern problem which will no doubt have misogynist white boomers clinking crystal.
As if out of the Transvaal, this sick puppet actually said, “woman of colour” because he couldn’t bring himself to say Māori or Polynesian. Red flag right there.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/bryce-edwards-prime-minister-chris-hipkins-resets-labour-to-the-right/G3I23PBIO5H4JIN6ZFJNUA3PYE/
it shows how much attention is payed to policing others language by the woke. “Person of colour” is the preferred term in UK and America (a ridiculous term in my opinion)
but here “women of colour” is wrong speak
thats identify politics for you.
Well, you have admitted it is a ridiculous term.
as is person with uterus. or person with vagina. or pregnant people.
Any time we can not name something/someone properly for fear of offending someone who may or may not be that person, or of color, we just show how odious and idiotic is.
And yet, we do it. Lest we not be 'inclusive'.
Stupid, so stupid that he’ll never suspect that he's stupid.
https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1616112728581763073
https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1616184957403295745
Sounds like me in 4th form on 3rd declension Latin. 🙁
Or in my case, school C and quadratic equations.
I got into a bad situation at a usually protected unnamed beach north of Auckland. It was during the strong easterlies around New Year,
Watched some young people swim 50-60m to a pontoon in a heavy swell and thought I'd like to do that. The lad and I started out but two thirds of the way there I realised I was not comfortable. I know this beach and have swum to that pontoon dozens of times. But that day was different.
When you get into that situation all energy is devoted to trying to get to a point of safety and to keep breathing. The more exhausted you get the harder it is to not take on seawater. The need to keep going forward to safety does not sit well with keeping your head above water.
There are people all around me including my own boy but it becomes terrifying and I am only 10m away from the pontoon. I look out for my child in this heaving water thinking they are in trouble too. Dreadful situation.
We reach the pontoon and I lie down, shocked. The short trip out was into the wind and swell. I assured myself the return would be easier.
It wasn't. The same exhaustion crushed me 20 meters from shore but it was a steep beach and still I couldn't touch the sand. One gulp of water and I am done. Constantly looking out for the precious kid.
Near disaster but two things could have avoided it. One, don't feel like you have to swim because it's your only chance this summer. Two, study hard people's condition after they do the swim you want to do. In hindsight I could see they found it very hard and I should have recognised that.
The difference between life and death in NZ coastal waters is only minutes into a bad decision.
Stay safe.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300789577/spate-of-auckland-tragedies-two-people-dead-at-piha-beach
Bless you MB. I for one am glad you are still here.
I had a similar experience years ago….floating on my back and drifting out beyond the waves on a beach I (thought) I knew well. Next thing I knew two life guards are beside me. I look to shore, I am miles away, caught by a rip. So I set off closer in to shore with them and very glad too.
My take away was that even on days when the waves are tiny, going out beyond them is always a risk. That floating and drifting is not an experience for beach swimming, we must keep ourselves aware and safe and observant at all times.
Thanks, Shanreagh.
It felt like a very personal story to post on this site, but also very important because it's a real experience. Several people have had similar experiences in the water since, and are now dead.
Easily the closest I have been to drowning and it all happened within the space of 15 mins in a normally sheltered bay only 50m offshore.
God bless Jacinda for her compassion and her service.