dredgy

Yesterday's local news was a little disturbing for me. I flicked on the TV to see what was making news for the day. Virgin Blue lost a nose wheel on one of their planes, someone was charged with some murder and 4 car crashes had occured with no fatalities. Towards the end of the news the anchor announced that I was the first person in the region to earn $100 million due to business and property interests. My first reaction was "Yes, finally I can get my Zonda shipped over", so I yanked out my wallet and I only had $100 in it. Which will not pay for a Zonda. I then proceeded to check my bank account just to make sure someone hadn't randomly deposited $100m into it. After I realised I was no richer, I rang the news station (which I will explain is a very small-time, regional station) to complain about the inaccuracies. They had not checked their facts, had no idea who I was and (after finally talking to someone who had an inkling of what I was on about) eventually they said something about it being the money I pumped into the local economy. I think stating that I have pumped $100m into the local council is stretching the truth to breaking point, I conduct most of my business interstate, so the actual figure would more likely be around $2m. And even that's stretching it. I also think claiming that I am on the Queensland rich list is a blatant lie. My property and business interests are worth peanuts thanks to the economy, and after a personal income tax of $27000 a week is taken from my salary, I have absolutely no money left over. So I'm not rich, and if I was on the rich list I'd be the youngest wealthiest person in Australia, which (I'm sorry), I'm just not. One of my best friend's is on the list though, so go bother him. I'm also definitely not Queensland's most successful property magnate as the news claims. I own 4 houses and a farm in Queensland, 2 of which are still mortgaged. The rest of my property is interstate - mainly in the Northern Territory and South Australia. So the news, in a space of around 20 seconds has had my mum and my friends phoning asking for money, and every charity under the sun asking for bloody donations. What I want to know is how could the media get there facts that badly wrong? They could just call me and ask, I have a public phone number. But no, on a slow news day they just make something up. Now I'm considering suing the station for $100m for inflicting pain and emotional distress because, for one brief, shiny second, I thought I could afford a Zonda.

It's been a busy few months. There's the good - which includes having my name on a contract worth $20m and a new shiny Koenigsegg (Yes, I'm allowed to call a Saab a Koenigsegg now). Then the bad, which involved getting sued. But still, my friends and I got together for a high-octane, adrenaline pumping activity. We went to play golf. Now we rocked up at 12pm to a golf course along the Queensland cost. It was a gorgeous winter day - warm, dry, nice breeze, it should've been a perfect day, but I was surprised to find we were the only people on the course younger than 80. Indeed, we were the only people on the course, aside an 80 year old gardener who was a lovely bloke. First of all, I was told off for not wearing a collared shirt. My retort caused us to be threatened to get kicked off. So I bought a polo shirt, hired some clubs, a buggy and bought some tees and balls. Then we set off. We played the first 9 holes without incident, but then we started getting bored. No one was around, so we had a buggy race. Then when I lost, I spent five minutes trying unsuccesfully to powerslide the buggy on a patch of dirt. That got us another warning. So we played two more holes until we came across a fantastic creek used as a water trap. So for no real reason we started hitting balls into the creek. The club manager was keeping a close eye on us by now, and kicked us out. Now golf could be a great day out. You get to hit things as hard as you can for no real reason other than to waste time, then you have motorized vehicles that are surprisingly fun when pushed and are great for kids to drive around in. But because of all the old codgers who want to preserve the dignity of the game - who take it too seriously and never go out just to have a bit of fun - there is no fun in it. If you do anything that's not considered professional on a golf course, you get expelled for being 'dangerous', 'reckless' and 'young'. So next time we have a free moment, we're going to try archery. Though professionals will be there to stop us shooting apples off each other's heads or using our buttocks as targets. So I doubt it will be any fun.

Well it's my splurging time of the year next month, and I thought I'd go with a new vehicle. I have 3 planes, two of which are under repair and I never have time to do anything with the third. I have 2 boats too, one goes very fast and one has a kitchen, so I really don't need another. Cars would be the next choice, but I already have twenty-three of them spread over the country. Even if we narrowed it down to supercars, I have a quarter of a million dollar Audi parked in Darwin. And I never use it. Hovercraft are two expensive, and you probably need a special type of license. A motorbike is just a no...though a quad does sound appealing. However, although I know I have too many and there is no logical reason for me to buy one - I want another car. And I want it to be Italian, and fast. In 2006, I bought an 'Italian Audi' - a Lamborghini Gallardo. The Gallardo is a brilliant car, it really is, but mine is very dead and I don't think I want another one. So I rang up Lamborghini in Sydney to ask about a Murcielago. It looks better than the Gallardo, its faster and its only $600000 but it doesn't speak to me. So then I swung by Ferrari in Brisbane, but every car there looked boring and lifeless. After that, I didn't even waste my time trying to track down a Maserati dealership...so I tried Pagani. The Pagani Zonda is my dream car, I have driven one once, and it was a life-changing experience. Even though I only drove it around a carpark. Motor Group Australia (the importers for Pagani) told me however that a brand new (customised) Zonda would cost me just under $2m. I have no doubt that the car is worth that, but I do doubt I'd make enough use of it to justify sending myself bankrupt. So now I don't know what to get - the Lambo, the Zonda or the British Noble M15. Ideally I'd like something cheapish, fast and Italian. So you never know, I may end up with an Alfa Romeo.

Life is a strange thing, really. My grandmother-in-law died last week, aged 102. She was very old, and through the funeral service I was just wondering how I'd go. I didn't want to die at 102, waay too much waiting around, doing nothing. I'm thinking 45 is the age I'd like to kick off. I am constantly told by lawyers, friends and family that I'll die because of my reckless impulsiveness and there is always someone from Greenpeace saying I'll drown to death if I don't turn off all my lights. (I've been to Norway, Alaska and up to Lapland in the last 5 years, it's still too cold up there). I thought I was dead last month when I was in a very fast car. At night. In the Northern Territory. At 280 kilometres per hour. A friend and I got very bored and rather drunk, so misread the speed limit of 130kph...still, never received a fine. I was sure I was dead when I went BASE jumping and the parachute delayed. Both these times, I was sure I was going to die, but it didn't matter because at those moments, I had never felt more alive. Because I spend more hours a day on a plane or in a car than I do at my destination, I assumed I would die on fire, at high speed in a collision of some sort. Until I got this week off. I decided for no apparent reason to not work at all, to just stay in my house at the Gold Coast and not budge at all. First thing I noticed was that after the travel-lag had worn off - I had bad insomnia. So I was up till 4am last...morning and was awoken an hour ago at ten past nine by some telephone man who needed to replace a socket in my kitchen. So I have been up one hour, doing absolutely nothing except wait for time to pass. I swear that this week, I'm going to die of boredom.

Back in September I bought a vast of expanse property, acres of which are full of mango trees. I was looking forward to eating fresh mangoes, and I didn't have to wait long before I gorged down 2 delicious crates of the sweetest kensington mango I have ever tasted. Due to a cruel twist of fate though I was in Sydney for most of January and in Saudi Arabi for most of February, so when I finally got the time to swing by my mangos, the wind had blown away most of the netting and my lovely mangos had been eaten by bats. I tried to re-net the area, but accidentally knocked over my shed when I was putting my plane into place, so had to spend several days reconstructing that. So it was nearly the end of mango season and I had no bat protection, so I decided to do what I do best - cut the land into little segments, and plop a suburb on top. That was going to be difficult to pull of in the economic climate, but if I was not gonna get my mangos, nor where the bats. So when I submitted plans for development 2 weeks ago, the council came by and told me I had some endangered mangroves on my property and that some mangrove expert would have to go by and have a look. Today was the day he chose to come. Which didn't help since I'd just arrived at Brisbane airport. Since Qantas was a bitch with their schedules, I had to charter some stupid King Air to fly me down to Rockhampton. I still managed to get to my place 20 minutes early while this mangrove dude showed up an hour late. He was the worst sort of man, the kind who cares about nothing but the environment. He was a greeenpeace hippie. I was expecting a Toyota Prius or a bicycle to be rolling up my gravel driveway, but he came in a land rover, which was falling apart at the seams and clouds of black smoke were filling the air. And the first thing Ecodude does when he emerges from all the pollution is, wait for it, criticise my car! The offroader I keep with me in Central Queensland is a Mercedes R Class, which is a pretty crap 4x4, but you can't criticise it for being unenvironmentally friendly when your car comes from the industrial resolution. Then he sees my planes. Apparently owning your own aircraft is the environmental equivelant of being Satan. I have a Cessna 150 and a Britten-Norman Islander - I have never even switched the Islander on, and the Cessna currently does not even have an engine in it but according to this guy, if I fly either of them, Tasmania will end up underwater. After 10 minutes of arguing, the guy still did not get that Tasmania was a completely pointless bit of land and that it being underwater would be a massive improvement for the world. So we set off to have a look at my mangroves. Me in my sensible Mercedes took the muddy way, causing no real damage to anything, while Ecodude went straight to my left, across the beautiful wildflowers that had sprung up in the last few days after Cyclone Hamish. Then his brakes were bad and he rolled into my creek and got bogged, pumping his Land Rover poisons into my private swimming hole and fishing spot. So I had to go back, get a bungee chord and tow him out, only for him to say that I had too many of these mangroves on the propery and that they were home to the same bats that eat my mangoes, so I'd have to do all sorts of tricky things so I could subdivide and keep the mangroves. But no one wants a suburban house 10 metres away from mangroves. So ecodude left, ripping up more wildflowers on his way and scaring a horse. He ripped up flowers, pumped pure carbon into the air, posioned my fish, scared my horse and generally left my place in a much worse state than it was before he showed up. But that's ok, because I am going to follow his example. Apparently, the best way to save the environment is by detroying it. So tonight, instead of flying back to Brisbane, I'm sitting outside, waiting for the bats, with my laptop and a .22