One of the many things Lynton Arney (the nice breeder of nice Border Leicesters in SA) passed on to me was a quote: “Never underestimate a farmer’s powers of observation; but be cautious of his powers of interpretation.” He was talking about sheep and EBVs but lets take this a bit wider....
Now I’m not sure if I can really call myself a farmer yet but the trip from Sydney to Queenstown saw two instances of the caution with which I should treat myself:
- “This is your captain speaking, just to say we have on board the most modern navigation system on the market, state of the art and we will be using this to land at Queenstown.” OK, firstly why say this unless there is an issue - it would have been far better to say nothing. My interpretation of the statement was - ‘we need all the help we can get and it still might not be good enough’. I instantly remember an ex of my brother who was an air hostess admitting even she freaked out landing at Queenstown. We flew in between imposing (and close) mountains, over the huge (and deep) lake and the navigation system was working sufficiently hard on our behalf. It was never really going to be a problem ... though i did kiss the tarmac on landing!
- The New Zealanders speak very differently to the Australians (I know I should know this already but I was finally observant on landing). They have an alternative usage of vowels. Especially unnerving is their pronunciation “i”s as “e”s and vice versa. The first tannoy annoncement I heard, for a few weird seconds, appeared to end as follows “...would all pissengers proceed to great sex”.
Observation and correct interpretation are two very different things!
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