...and electrical substations.

My daughter Alex has been wanting to get a part time job, I'm all for it as most parents are.

I think a lot of us take the entirely professional approach, "It teaches them about responsibility and money management and time management" blah, blah, blah - bollicks!

It reduces the loading on my own wallet if I am to be completely honest.

..that aside, my first job did teach me something about all of those things.

- I learned that I was hopeless at time and money management and, the time spent out from under the watchful gaze of my parents lent me the opportunity to behave in a most irresponsible manner...

My first job was like that of most young lads of the time - a paper route.

In New Zealand at the time there were two newspapers (yes a whole two..). One was a morning edition, and still is, The New Zealand Herald. The other was an evening edition, The Star.

I chose the Herald.

The upside was that the circulation was higher and therefore you got paid more because you had more papers to deliver. The downside was that it had to be in the householders mailbox when they awoke.

This saw me out of bed at about 4:30AM every morning except Sundays and home again at about 6:00AM for breakfast.

I would meet with a friend David who ran a route close to mine and we would smoke cigarettes and make prank phone calls from a public phone outside the local dairy while we waited for our boss to drop our newspapers off.

Every few days we would come armed with several wire coat hooks or hangers stuffed in our carry bags.

The last part of both our runs ended at the top of a long hill and at the top of the hill was a very large substation. This substation supplied power to many surrounding suburbs, suburbs that were all just beginning to awaken and switch on their lights and stoves.

David and I would ready ourselves for a fast getaway down the hill and once prepared would take turns to hurl our coat hangers over the compound fence and into the maze of tall insulators, cables and associated and vulnerable extremely high voltage electrical wizardry!

For David and I it was the sparks and occasional fire that we liked. But every now and again we were also rewarded by seeing the lights in the area shutting down. In fact once we watched as every light in every house we could see went out.

We pedaled like demons down the hill that morning and when I arrived home out of breath and looking as guilty as sin - it was to find, much to my chagrin, that our house was without any power!

What a pair of little shits we were.

Currently listening to:

Ministry of Sound 2010 US edition

A small collection of things one should not do...

Yes I know most of these will seem like common sense to most people but I had to learn this stuff the hard way and now it is common to me too.

1) Do not adjust your car seat position whilst driving downhill and applying the brake.

2) Never speak badly of anybody without knowing who is standing directly behind you.

3) Never use a cigarette lighter to see how much fuel you have in your motorcycle tank.

4) Never actually eat those edible knickers.

5) An electric hot air paint stripper should never be used as a substitute for a hair dryer.

6) If it looks like poo, treat it like poo - do not be tempted to smell it, under no circumstance taste it.

7) Never attempt to impress your friends with a CO2 fire extinguisher without first being certain that it is not a dry powder type.

8) Although tempting one should not fall asleep naked in the sun.

9) Never shine a red laser pointer at the police helicopter.

10) Never fall asleep when working on an old CRT television set.

11) Don't use a pogo stick on a wooden deck.

12) Think twice before attempting to whiten your teeth with toilet bleach.