New News From Niue Nieuws From Niue Niue Niue Neeny Nanoo Niue Nieah Nieah

Takumi Murakoshi poses
wiith Miss Niue, on Niue.
Pacific Ocean in background.

(Click for prettier.)

No further details until I learn to read Japanese or find someone who can. Maybe my pals on Undernet #tokyochat can shine some light on the Pacific Adventures of Takumi Murakoshi. From his large collection of travel photos, I suspect he may be afflicted with a bad case of the dreaded and incurable Wanderlust, as I am.

Well. I've been to Hudson Bay and seen the polar bears. Has he? I've been to Nain. Has he? What patches does he have on his backpack? What cloisonnee pins does he wear on his Silly Guy Travel Hat?

It is possible that this particular Miss Niue is Sinahemana Hekau, in the 2004 Miss South Pacific Pageant, whose day job is Assistant Crown Counsel. (Fakaalofa lahi atu! to you too!)

Or maybe not. There's a New Miss Niue every year. That's how these things work. Miss [ ...... ] has a shelf life of exactly One Year, and then they go Out Of Code.

(Does her mother know what she does for a living? Is the Beauty Queen thing just an elaborate smokescreen to hide her day job from the extended family?)

~ ~ ~

One of the very oddest aspects of Reality as we have come to Perceive and Modify It is an enormous volume throughout the Planet of purposeful, willful, intentional confusion between Where You Really Are, and Pretending Or Claiming To Be On Niue, and its famous domain suffix .NU

In Realityland, you may be in Chester, Pennsylvania USA, renting a room in the basement from your Uncle Al, who has broadband.

But in your mind, in your soul, in your heart, in your spirit, in your ka, and then, via your fingers and PayPal, in C-Space, you and your activities are magically wafted to the Pacific Melanesian coral atoll island of Niue. To certain kinds of people with computers, mice or trackballs, and keyboards, Nieu is a better place to try to be than Tahiti and Martinique were to Gauguin.

According to someone who actually travelled there recently (this might have been an article in some slick teknorag like Wired), Niue consists of about 40 thatched huts, many of which bear address plaques purporting to be the headquarters of global banks. Inside, two or three card tables and folding chairs, PCs, a T2 connection, and some pleasant employees who say they really don't know very much about the bank and recommend you direct all inquiries via e-mail. Sometimes one hut houses several global banks.

New News From Niue Nieuws From Niue Niue Niue Neeny Nanoo Niue Nieah Nieah

THIS JUST IN: (Agence Vleeptron-Presse) -- A mining corporation claims to have discovered that Nieu, the actual, physical, geographic island, is the geological dome of the largest deposite of Uranium ever found on this rock. Watch This Space For Further Developments.

Make me an offer on my vacuum-tube circa 1955 portable Uranium Prospector's Geiger Counter; which I bought from an ad in the back of Science Digest when I was 14. The goddam thing still works clicketyclickety. (With one tiny qualification, but I've been reliably told you can solve that if you go to Cuba.)

PizzaQ:

Why do you have to go to Cuba
to make my Geiger Counter work?

Niue is, sort of, more or less, an Independent Sovereignty. But they have a voluntary arrangement with New Zealand (a Much Larger Independent Sovereignty, with Soldiers and Money and some boats and helicopters military transport aircraft) that goes something like this: If anything Important ever happens, New Zealand will decide what to do about it. And that will be Okay with everybody who counts on Nieu, that will be Okay with the Assistant Crown Counsel and Miss Nieu.

Ukulele Lady

(entirely from memory from a cover by Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band)
Music: Richard Whiting
Lyrics: Gus Kahn, 1925
No MIDI dammit, but if you look through your collection
of Wurlitzer Player Piano Rolls, it's No. 13127 --
tablature, perhaps for the Ukulele, is available,
even in the Republic of China, through Googling.)

I used to linger in the moonlight
on Honoluuuuuuuulu Bay
Fond mem'ries cling to me by moonlight
Though I am faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar away

Where all the beaches
Are filled with peaches
Who bring their Ukes along
And in the wiki-waki moonlight
They love to sinnnnnnnnnnng this song:

If you like-a Ukulele Lady
Ukulele Lady like-a yoooooooooo
If you like to linger where it's shady
Ukulele Lady linger toooooooooo

Maybe she'll sigh
(or maybe not)
Maybe she'll cry
(or maybe not)
Maybe she'll find somebody else
By and By

to sing to where it's cool and shady
When the wiki-wiki-waki woooooooooo
If you like-a Ukulele Lady
Ukulele Lady like-a yoooooooooo

==================
we now return you to your fantasies
of unimaginable sudden wealth
==================

STANDARD BANK LONDON

5TH FLOOR CANNON BRIDGE HOUSE

25 DOWGATE HILL LONDON

EC4R 2SB UNITED KINDOM.

GOOD DAY TO YOU,

MY NAME IS MR.DON NEWPORT,

WORKING WITH THE MINING FINANCE DEPT.

WITH STANDARD BANK LONDON.

WE HAD A FOREIGN CUSTOMER WHO DEPOSITED A HUGE SUM OFMONEY WITH OUR BANK,

WHO LATER DIED AS A

RESULT OF PLANE CRASH IN 1999. BEFORE HIS DEATH, HE TRANSFERED THE SUM OF

US$26.5M (TWENTY-SIX

MILLION FIVEHUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED SATES DOLLARS) TO A BANK IN AMSTERDAM,

HOLLAND.

SINCE THE DEATH OF THIS CUSTOMER, I PERSONALLY HAVE WATCHED WITH KEEN

INTEREST TO SEE THE NEXT OF

KIN BUT ALL HAS PROVED ABORTIVE AS NO ONE HAS COME TO CLAIM HIS FUNDS OF

US$26.5M (TWENTY-SIX

MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) WHICH HAS BEEN WITH

THE BANK IN HOLLAND

FOR A VERY LONG TIME. ON THIS NOTE I DECIDED TO SEEK FOR WHOSE NAME SHALL

BE USED AS THE NEXT OF

KIN AS NO ONE HAS COME UP TO BE THE NEXT OF KIN.

IN VIEW OF THIS I GOT YOUR CONTACT THROUGH MY COUNTRY`S FOREIGN TRADE

MISSION AFTER I WAS

CONVINCED BY PROVIDENCE THAT YOU COULD BE USED AS THE NEXT OF KIN.THE

REQUEST OF THE FOREIGNER AS

A NEXT OF KIN IN THIS BUSINESS IS OCCASIONED BY THE FACT THAT THE CUSTOMER

WAS A FOREIGNER AND

YOU SHARE THE SAME SURNAME AND SOMEBODY IN LONDON CANNOT STAND AS THE NEXT

OF KIN TO OUR LATE

CUSTOMER.

I AGREED THAT US$5 MILLION OF THIS MONEY WILL BE FOR YOU AS A FOREIGN

PARTNER FOR PROVIDING AN

ACCOUNT, WHILE THE REST WILL BE FOR ME,THEREAFTER, I WILL VISIT YOUR

COUNTRY FOR DISBURSEMENT

AS I AM ALMOST DUE FOR RETIREMENT.

THEREFORE, TO FACILITATE THE IMMEDIATE TRANSFER OF THIS FUND TO YOUR

ACCOUNT AS ARRANGED, YOU

MUST APPLY FIRST TO THE BANK AS A RELATION TO THE DECEASED INDICATING YOUR

PRIVATE TELEPHONE

NUMBER,AND FAX NUMBER FOR EASY COMMUNICATION AND LOCATION WHERE THE MONEY

WILL BE REMITTED.

UPON THE RECEIPT OF YOUR REPLY, I WILL SEND YOU BY FAX OR E-MAIL THENEXT

STEP TO TAKE.

I WILL NOT FAIL TO BRING TO YOUR NOTICE THAT THIS BUSINESS IS HITCH-FREEAND

THAT YOU SHOULD NOT

ENTERTAIN ANY FEAR AS THE WHOLE REQUIRED ARRANGEMENT HAS BEEN MADE FOR THE

TRANSFER.

YOU SHOULD CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY YOU RECEIVE THIS EMAIL OR CALL ME ON MY

NUMBER +44-704-012-8295

or 0044-704-012-8295,PLEASE DO NOT CALL ME ON MY OFFICE NUMBER.

TRUSTING TO HEAR FROM YOU.

YOUR RESPECTFULLY,

Mr.DON NEWPORT

+44 704 012 8295

N:B all response should be mailed to: don_newport@mail.nu