George Dubya Goes Ballistic
July 4th 2006
Gladys stamped into the kitchen , kicking off her gumboots and slamming the screen door. “Those thieving, blimmin’ rats have been at my eggs again!” she stormed. “If this goes on they’ll be stealing the chooks next. This can’t go on.”
Uncle Harry bent over the farming page and said nothing.
The recent cold weather had brought a swarm of rats into the hen house. Harry hated rats but he also resented the way the chooks claimed Gladys’s attention. She spent more time fussing over her white leghorns than Harry thought was healthy.
“Harry?” Gladys’s voice had an insistent edge. Harry sighed.
“All right, Glad. I’ll put some baits out.”
“You’ll do no such thing, Harry Clout! What if my chooks eat those baits? No, it’s shooting or traps for those vermin.”
“Sounds like a job for young Sam.”
The following day Harry was working in the toolshed when he was hit in the back of the neck with a jet of cold water. Startled, he spun round and slowly raised his hands above his head. Confronting him was a pocket-sized commando brandishing a pump-action water pistol. A BB gun was slung over one shoulder, a home-made bow and a quiver of toi-toi arrows over the other. His face was smeared with green paint, but it couldn’t conceal the broad grin or mop of unruly blond hair that flopped across his eyes.
“Sam, you little blighter! That’s a poor way to announce yourself.”
Sam was delighted. “That’s one-nil to me, Uncle Harry. Anyway, it’s the holidays. Mum told you I was coming for the week.”
Sam was Harry’s great-nephew; ten years old and skinny as a waif. Sam loved mucking around on the farm. His passion, however, as his get-up suggested, was hunting. Harry was very fond of him.
“We’ve got a special mission, Sam,” Harry lowered his head conspiratorially.
“Cool!!!” Sam’s eyes shone.
“Not cool, Sam. Nasty. Rats.”
“Tough customers, Uncle Harry?”
“Yep, and lots of them, Sam.”
“Then it’s a good thing I brought my secret weapon.”
Sam hitched a small pack off his back and hauled out a half-grown cat.
“Uncle Harry, meet George Dubya.”
George Dubya swung in mid-air, his paws swatting at Sam’s wrist. He was as scrawny and under-sized as Sam, a motley of black and brown with a long streak of ginger down his spine.
“I brought him to get some lessons from Tiger, Uncle Harry.”
“Well, we’d better introduce him to the old master.”
Harry picked up Sam’s pack and steered him towards the back door. “How come you called him George Dubya?”
“Oh, that was mum’s idea. I wanted to call him Osama.”
Tiger, Harry’s huge and ancient tom, was curled up in front of the fire. His fur was grey with age and patchy around his shoulders and neck where he bore the scars of many fights. Tiger ruled Hardtop Farm with an iron claw and a single gleaming eye – he’d lost the other to fireworks in his youth.
Sam dropped George Dubya on the carpet and stood back. The young cat reached a tentative paw towards Tiger’s tail. Tiger lay unmoving. George Dubya batted Tiger’s tail then wriggled his hind quarters and pounced. He never got far. With one flick of an enormous paw Tiger batted the small cat into the wood box. George Dubya crawled out, dazed, and tottered onto the hearth rug. Tiger cuffed him gently then licked his ear. With the pecking order established the two cats settled down to sleep.
After dinner Harry prepared for the rat hunt. Gladys was washing dishes. “For such a scrawny boy that young Sam certainly can eat.”
“Where is he?” Harry looked around.
At that moment Sam appeared. “Look what I’ve made,” he crowed. In his hand he carried a spear, fashioned from a long piece of dowling with a four inch nail stuck in the end. “Those rats won’t know what hit them.” He whooped with anticipation.
Harry found his .22 and they set out across the frozen yard. Tiger stalked behind, with George Dubya scampering at his tail.
In the henhouse the chooks huddled on their wooden perches, muttering in their sleep. The large shed stank of chicken droppings and sawdust. Harry shone his torch into the rafters where, for a moment, the beam of light was reflected in dozens of pairs of gleaming eyes. Then the rafters themselves seemed to spring to life as dozens of rats scurried away from the light.
“They’ll have made nests in the sarking,” Uncle Harry whispered to Sam. “We’ll get up there and root them out. Follow me.”
Harry crept past the sleeping chooks into the feed room. A flash of grey fur shot past as Tiger leapt into the loft, followed by the ginger streak of George Dubya.
Harry and Sam watched in the spotlight as Tiger stalked along a rafter then reached up high into a gap in the roof. Three or four large grey rats tumbled out. Tiger caught one in his teeth and flung it through the air. It hit a roof joist with a crack that broke its neck, its body tumbling through the rafters to the sawdust floor below.
“You take care,” Harry whispered to Sam. “Stay on these planks so you don’t end up down there like that rat.”
Harry crawled forward on his stomach, following the beam of his spotlight. The air was thick with dust. A rat dropped in front of him and he shot it with the .22.
He was lining up another when Sam yelped behind him. He spun the light around to see Sam on his knees, the spear raised high above his head. With a wild cry Sam flung the spear. It whistled past Harry’s nose and embedded itself in a rafter.
“For goodness sake, Sam! You could have taken my head off!”
“I got him! I got him, Uncle Harry!” Sam was bouncing excitedly on the narrow plank.
Harry shone the torchlight onto the spear. A large rat was caught, dead through the neck, fastened to the rafter by the point of the still-quivering spear.
“Geez, Sam. That’s impressive. Now lie down before you fall down.”
Up ahead the rats kept dropping as Tiger worked his away along the rafters. Harry shot two or three more and Sam winged one with his BB gun.
Suddenly there was a flurry in the far corner and a yowl of anger from Tiger. Harry shone his torch into the dust and saw Tiger wrestling with the biggest rat he’d ever seen. As he watched the rat bit Tiger on the neck. Tiger howled with pain and fled into the darkness.
With a scrabbling of claws a small fury with a ginger stripe shot past Harry and hurled itself at the monster rat.
George Dubya was launched into battle.
Harry and Sam watched in disbelief as the tiny cat clung to the enormous rat. They wrestled along the narrow rafter, tumbling in the dust until, with a yowl they dropped into the henhouse, landing in the middle of the sleeping chooks.
The hens erupted in an explosion of feathers and squawks. They flew panic-stricken into the rafters and feed troughs. They upset water buckets and wedged themselves into nesting boxes.
Through the chaos Harry kept the beam of his torch fixed on the momentous battle until the rat, rolling to his feet, shot out the door and into the night with George Dubya clinging desperately to his back.
With the hens awake there wasn’t much more Harry and Sam could do. They headed back to the house, Tiger in front sporting a bloody scratch on his shoulder.
“Should we search for George Dubya, Uncle Harry?” Sam’s voice was worried.
“He’ll give up when he’s had enough,” said Harry.
There was a sudden scream from the house. Rushing into the kitchen they saw Gladys staring, horrified, at the floor. There, under the table, was George Dubya, covered in blood and dirt, his fur torn and one ear practically chewed off. Beside him lay the long grey tail of the giant rat, torn off at its root.
“Oh, look at the poor little cat!” exclaimed Aunty Gladys, “he must have a terribly sore ear.”
“Never mind his ear,” chuckled Uncle Harry, “that rat must have a terribly sore backside.”
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Conversations on a Wet Summer’s Day
January 13th 2007
Uncle Harry and his neighbour, Clayton Piles, were sitting in the implement shed watching the rain fall steadily from a slate-grey sky. A carton of beer lay open between them.
“Happy New Year, Harry,” offered Clayton, raising his can.
“Yep, Happy blimmin’ New Year,” replied Harry gloomily.
A fresh squall of rain sent small rivulets of water splashing through rust holes in the spouting of the old shed.
“They say it’s global warming that’s causing all this rain,” remarked Clayton.
“Global warming,” spat Harry, “I’ve never been so cold in January. Or so wet. See that paddock of grass seed over past the pines? I cut that a week and a half ago. I haven’t got near it since.”
“And I’m picking you haven’t had a lot of use out of that new irrigator.”
Harry sighed. “It’s funny, isn’t it. For years everybody’s been urging me to invest in irrigation. The moment I do, what happens? It rains for three months. I’ve got a hundred thousand dollars of rotor rainer rusting in the yard.”
“I see Gladys has found a use for it at least,” Clayton waved his beer can to where the irrigator was parked in the yard. It was hung with clothing, bed sheets and towels.
“Yep,” agreed Harry. “On the couple of fine days we’ve had she’s used it as a clothes line. She says it’s the biggest Hills Hoist in Canterbury. I was supposed to get that lot inside before the rain started. Gladys won’t be happy.”
“Is she not around?”
“She’s taken young Sam into town to get his ukulele fixed.”
Sam was Harry’s grand-nephew, a regular holiday visitor to Hardtop Farm and a bit of a handful.
“A ukulele,” Clayton laughed, “I didn’t know Sam was a musician.”
“He’s not a musician, he’s just highly strung,” retorted Harry. “The ukulele was a Christmas present. Actually, it could have been worse; his first choice was a set of bagpipes. Imagine the little tike blowing those around the house for three weeks.”
“And the ukulele’s broken, you say.”
Harry reached for another beer, looking sheepish. “Actually, that was my fault. I was doing a Jimi Hendrix impersonation and snapped a couple of strings.”
The two men sat in silence for a while, watching the rain. A couple of gulls swooped into the yard and Harry’s old dog, Rufus, growled at them from his kennel.
“Did you get any good Christmas presents yourself?” Harry asked.
“The usual stuff; socks, underwear, that sort of thing,” replied Clayton.
“Do you notice the labels on clothing are getting more outrageous, Clayton? Gladys gave me a pair of flash y-fronts with more tags on than a prize bull. To read them you’d think you were buying a new car, not just a pair of undies. The funniest one was the label that said, ‘warning: may contain traces of nuts.’ It put me right off wearing them, I can tell you.”
“I know what you mean, Harry. Joan gave me a pair of socks that claim they can turn me into a top athlete. There’s so much design and engineering built into them they’re even labelled ‘left’ and ‘right’. Apparently it’s crucial to get them onto the correct foot.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No way. According to the label, if I wear these socks correctly they’ll help me reach my personal goals. Actually, I’m wearing them now. I’ll show you.”
Clayton kicked off his gumboots. On his feet was a pair of new grey socks with the letters L and R stamped prominently on the ankle.
Harry peered at the socks. “Hang on, Clayton. You’ve got them on the wrong feet.”
Clayton looked at his feet and pondered for a moment. “Crikey, Harry, you’re right. No wonder I’ve been feeling unbalanced all day.”
“I noticed you were walking a bit strangely. I thought you must have been wearing some of those same undies as me.”
“It won’t have done my personal goals any good, having those socks on the wrong way around.”
Clayton bent over to change his socks.
“Speaking of goals,” said Harry, “did you make any New Year’s resolutions?”
“Oh, just the usual: drink a bit more, smoke a bit less, improve my work-life balance, you know the sort of thing. What about you?”
“Nuh, I gave it a miss this year. Gladys was pestering me to get a hobby. She even offered to buy me a ukulele so I could take up music like Sam. I told her I already have a hobby.”
“What’s that?”
“Farming. I mean, it’s got be a hobby, hasn’t it? We don’t do it to earn a living.”
“Not this year, anyway.”
A skiff of rain blew into the shed and the two men moved their chairs back. Harry pulled the carton of beer closer and helped himself to another can.
“Actually, I have got a New Year’s resolution of sorts,” he remarked. “I reckon if I can survive young Sam’s visit I’ll have achieved something.”
“Hard work, is he?”
“He’s just a bit too keen, Clayton. Last week he offered to do some roguing. I said that was fine. Well, the little blighter decided it was more efficient to get the rogues with the ride-on lawnmower. By the time he’d finished my wheat paddock looked like a giant had scribbled all over it. Every weirdo in the district was out here looking at it and talking about crop circles. ‘Crop circles, be buggered’ I told them. ‘It’s more like crop doodles.’”
“And then there was the business with the water race, wasn’t there?”
“Don’t remind me,” groaned Harry. “I was joking when I said if the rain kept up we could start growing rice. The next morning I woke up to find he’d dammed the water race, flooded twenty acres of barley and was running around with a sack of rice he’d grabbed from the pantry.”
At that moment Harry’s old Ford Fairlane splashed into the yard.
“Speak of the devil,” grumbled Harry.
Sam shot out of the car. “Uncle Harry! Mr Piles!” he shouted, “guess what!”
“I can’t imagine,” said Clayton.
“They said my ukulele was stuffed. So Aunty Gladys got me this.”
With a flourish Sam pulled a large object from the car.
“Bagpipes,” groaned Harry.
“Yeah, bagpipes. I can’t wait to start playing them.”
January 13th 2007
Uncle Harry and his neighbour, Clayton Piles, were sitting in the implement shed watching the rain fall steadily from a slate-grey sky. A carton of beer lay open between them.
“Happy New Year, Harry,” offered Clayton, raising his can.
“Yep, Happy blimmin’ New Year,” replied Harry gloomily.
A fresh squall of rain sent small rivulets of water splashing through rust holes in the spouting of the old shed.
“They say it’s global warming that’s causing all this rain,” remarked Clayton.
“Global warming,” spat Harry, “I’ve never been so cold in January. Or so wet. See that paddock of grass seed over past the pines? I cut that a week and a half ago. I haven’t got near it since.”
“And I’m picking you haven’t had a lot of use out of that new irrigator.”
Harry sighed. “It’s funny, isn’t it. For years everybody’s been urging me to invest in irrigation. The moment I do, what happens? It rains for three months. I’ve got a hundred thousand dollars of rotor rainer rusting in the yard.”
“I see Gladys has found a use for it at least,” Clayton waved his beer can to where the irrigator was parked in the yard. It was hung with clothing, bed sheets and towels.
“Yep,” agreed Harry. “On the couple of fine days we’ve had she’s used it as a clothes line. She says it’s the biggest Hills Hoist in Canterbury. I was supposed to get that lot inside before the rain started. Gladys won’t be happy.”
“Is she not around?”
“She’s taken young Sam into town to get his ukulele fixed.”
Sam was Harry’s grand-nephew, a regular holiday visitor to Hardtop Farm and a bit of a handful.
“A ukulele,” Clayton laughed, “I didn’t know Sam was a musician.”
“He’s not a musician, he’s just highly strung,” retorted Harry. “The ukulele was a Christmas present. Actually, it could have been worse; his first choice was a set of bagpipes. Imagine the little tike blowing those around the house for three weeks.”
“And the ukulele’s broken, you say.”
Harry reached for another beer, looking sheepish. “Actually, that was my fault. I was doing a Jimi Hendrix impersonation and snapped a couple of strings.”
The two men sat in silence for a while, watching the rain. A couple of gulls swooped into the yard and Harry’s old dog, Rufus, growled at them from his kennel.
“Did you get any good Christmas presents yourself?” Harry asked.
“The usual stuff; socks, underwear, that sort of thing,” replied Clayton.
“Do you notice the labels on clothing are getting more outrageous, Clayton? Gladys gave me a pair of flash y-fronts with more tags on than a prize bull. To read them you’d think you were buying a new car, not just a pair of undies. The funniest one was the label that said, ‘warning: may contain traces of nuts.’ It put me right off wearing them, I can tell you.”
“I know what you mean, Harry. Joan gave me a pair of socks that claim they can turn me into a top athlete. There’s so much design and engineering built into them they’re even labelled ‘left’ and ‘right’. Apparently it’s crucial to get them onto the correct foot.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No way. According to the label, if I wear these socks correctly they’ll help me reach my personal goals. Actually, I’m wearing them now. I’ll show you.”
Clayton kicked off his gumboots. On his feet was a pair of new grey socks with the letters L and R stamped prominently on the ankle.
Harry peered at the socks. “Hang on, Clayton. You’ve got them on the wrong feet.”
Clayton looked at his feet and pondered for a moment. “Crikey, Harry, you’re right. No wonder I’ve been feeling unbalanced all day.”
“I noticed you were walking a bit strangely. I thought you must have been wearing some of those same undies as me.”
“It won’t have done my personal goals any good, having those socks on the wrong way around.”
Clayton bent over to change his socks.
“Speaking of goals,” said Harry, “did you make any New Year’s resolutions?”
“Oh, just the usual: drink a bit more, smoke a bit less, improve my work-life balance, you know the sort of thing. What about you?”
“Nuh, I gave it a miss this year. Gladys was pestering me to get a hobby. She even offered to buy me a ukulele so I could take up music like Sam. I told her I already have a hobby.”
“What’s that?”
“Farming. I mean, it’s got be a hobby, hasn’t it? We don’t do it to earn a living.”
“Not this year, anyway.”
A skiff of rain blew into the shed and the two men moved their chairs back. Harry pulled the carton of beer closer and helped himself to another can.
“Actually, I have got a New Year’s resolution of sorts,” he remarked. “I reckon if I can survive young Sam’s visit I’ll have achieved something.”
“Hard work, is he?”
“He’s just a bit too keen, Clayton. Last week he offered to do some roguing. I said that was fine. Well, the little blighter decided it was more efficient to get the rogues with the ride-on lawnmower. By the time he’d finished my wheat paddock looked like a giant had scribbled all over it. Every weirdo in the district was out here looking at it and talking about crop circles. ‘Crop circles, be buggered’ I told them. ‘It’s more like crop doodles.’”
“And then there was the business with the water race, wasn’t there?”
“Don’t remind me,” groaned Harry. “I was joking when I said if the rain kept up we could start growing rice. The next morning I woke up to find he’d dammed the water race, flooded twenty acres of barley and was running around with a sack of rice he’d grabbed from the pantry.”
At that moment Harry’s old Ford Fairlane splashed into the yard.
“Speak of the devil,” grumbled Harry.
Sam shot out of the car. “Uncle Harry! Mr Piles!” he shouted, “guess what!”
“I can’t imagine,” said Clayton.
“They said my ukulele was stuffed. So Aunty Gladys got me this.”
With a flourish Sam pulled a large object from the car.
“Bagpipes,” groaned Harry.
“Yeah, bagpipes. I can’t wait to start playing them.”
Baldie’s Big Idea
December 9th 2006
When Uncle Harry tripped over the electric fence and broke his leg life suddenly became more complicated.
“It’s the worst timing, Gladys. We’re drafting lambs on Wednesday and the shearers are due.”
Aunty Gladys was sympathetic. “Harry, I’d help out, except I’ve got the Christmas cakes to bake.”
“How many this year?” Harry hated the Christmas cakes. They drove a stake through the heart of December.
“Twenty five. That’ll raise $500 for the new church window.”
“Yeah, well don’t forget you’ll have the shearers to cook for too. They’ll want some pies.”
“Don’t worry, Harry. The pies are in the freezer.” Gladys was proud of her meat pies and the reputation they enjoyed among the shearing gangs.
Harry was quiet for a few moments, brooding on his leg and the Christmas cakes. Then Gladys spoke again. “You could get Baldwin to help out.”
“Baldie! He’d be about as useful as me with two broken legs. He knows nothing about lambs and woolsheds.”
“Well, Harry, I can’t think of anybody else. Baldwin’s your nephew. He’ll do it for you.”
Baldie jumped at the chance to spend a few days at Hardtop Farm, “just to get stuck into a few of Aunty Gladys’s meat pies.” The following day he turned up for the drafting. Harry propped himself in a corner of the yards and waved his crutches at the lambs. Rufus barked himself to a standstill.
Harry could see Baldie was unhappy and at morning tea he found out why.
“This is not a good arrangement, Uncle Harry.” Baldie waved his hand across the yards.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, you couldn’t invent a more stressful environment for an animal. You’re sending these lambs away totally freaked out. It’ll spoil the meat, you know.”
“Rubbish, Baldie. This is the way we always do it.”
“You can do better, Uncle Harry. Listen, there’s a guy in North Canterbury who raises pigs and he does all this stuff to keep them calm, and you know what? He gets top dollar every time. The meat’s so much better when the animal is relaxed.”
“What does he do?”
“Oh, just simple stuff like playing music and not pushing the animals too hard. He’s worked on the colour scheme of his yards and put a few posters around and such.”
“Sounds like rubbish to me, Baldie. It might work for pigs but lambs are different. They’re going to get freaked out whatever you do.”
“It works though, Uncle Harry. You should try it with the shearing. Y’know, tidy up the shed a bit.”
Harry grunted in reply.
“That’s a yes, then?” ventured Baldie.
“No it’s not. Let’s get these lambs finished.”
Early on Friday morning Jumbo the shearing contractor turned up with his gang. He’d heard Harry was on crutches so he’d brought along an extra rousy.
“Tell your missus that’ll be a couple more pies for lunch,” Jumbo laughed. “Righto, fellas, let’s get into it.”
They walked into the shearing shed and stopped in their tracks.
The inside of the shearing shed looked to Harry like a wild west saloon.
“Or a whorehouse,” muttered Jumbo.
Baldie was standing on top of a ladder hanging a large mirror ball from the rafters. The walls around the shed were draped with green fabric. Posters of national parks and the All Blacks festooned the rafters. On the shearing board were two large barber’s chairs. Strange Oriental music was playing and the air was thick with incense.
“Baldie, what the hell is this?” demanded Harry.
“Sshh! Keep your voice down, Uncle Harry, you’ll spoil the karma. This is low-stress shearing, remember? You want top dollar for your wool, don’t you?”
Jumbo edged up to Harry. “Are we shearing today, Harry, or having a fashion parade?”
Baldie dropped from the ladder and flicked a switch. Two spotlights lit up and the mirror ball turned, sending patterns of dappled light through the shed.
“Beautiful, eh? The sheep will think they’re grazing under a tree,” Baldie said proudly.
Jumbo opened his mouth to speak but Baldie cut him off. “Set up one of your handpieces and turn on the machine, Jumbo.”
Jumbo did. When he pulled the cord the handpiece leapt into life but there was no sound from the shearing machine. Looking up Harry saw that Baldie had covered the motors with soundproof boxes.
“Nice and quiet, Uncle Harry. Stops the sheep freaking out.”
“But what about these bloody chairs?” demanded Jumbo, “they’re in the way.”
“Ah, that’s for the sheep,” said Baldie, triumphantly. “I reckon they need a bit of comfort, just like in a barber shop. It’ll save your back, too.”
Harry could see his day’s shearing going down the road. “Baldie, get rid of those bloody chairs. The rest of the stuff will have to stay or we’ll lose too much time.”
“And that music can go too,” chimed in Jumbo. “We’re not shearing with that yoga crap.”
Baldie was unfazed. “No problem. What do you want instead? Spanish lutes or Brahms lullaby?”
They settled for the Eagles, unplugged.
Harry’s next shock was discovering there were no sheep in the shed, or the yards. “It’s all part of the plan,” said Baldie. “We’ll bring each one in from the paddock separately, just walk it quietly. And I’ve padded the sides of the holding pens and put a few flowers around.”
Harry sent Rufus out to bring in the first mob.
Slowly the shearing cranked into gear. Baldie was unbearable. Wool had to be skirted and pressed well out of sight of the sheep “in case of separation anxiety.” Shearers were not allowed to swear, or even talk around the sheep, unless it was to compliment them on the quality of their fleece or ask how their day was going.
Jumbo pulled Harry aside shortly before lunch. “Harry, if we didn’t have Gladys’s pies to look forward to we’d be out of here by now. This is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever come across.”
“I’ll send him over to get the lunch,” Harry replied, “and we can get rid of that mirror ball while he’s gone.”
Baldie was a long time getting the lunch and was dismayed to see some of his work undone when he returned. The shearers gratefully hung up their gear and descended on the lunch basket. Jumbo pulled out a plate of sandwiches. He looked hopefully for Aunty Gladys’s meat pies, but they were nowhere to be seen.
“Now that bloody does it!” Jumbo roared. “Harry, you said there’d be pies!”
“Ah, well that would be me,” ventured Baldie. “You see, Gladys had made lamb and mint pies and I thought it would upset the sheep to think we were eating their mates. So I whipped up some lettuce sandwiches instead.”
The shearers roared in dismay. Harry rushed to save the situation. “Where did you put the pies, Baldie, you idiot?”
“Actually, Uncle Harry, I gave them to Rufus.”
Harry thought fast. “Jumbo, hang on. We’ve lost the pies but what would you say to one of Gladys’s Christmas cakes?”
“You’d better hurry,” said Baldie. “She was loading up the car when I came over with the lunch.
Uncle Harry grabbed his crutches and hobbled out of the shed. From the loading ramp he could see Gladys driving out of the yard. He waved his crutches and shouted. Behind him he heard angry voices. Turning, he saw the shearers grab Baldie and drag him onto the board, obviously intending to give him a haircut for ruining their morning.
Harry opened his mouth to intervene but lost his balance and toppled off the loading ramp, landing hard on Rufus swallowing the last of the pies and breaking his other leg. He heard Baldie bellowing over the acoustic strains of Hotel California.
“There goes the karma,” thought Harry, and passed out.
December 9th 2006
When Uncle Harry tripped over the electric fence and broke his leg life suddenly became more complicated.
“It’s the worst timing, Gladys. We’re drafting lambs on Wednesday and the shearers are due.”
Aunty Gladys was sympathetic. “Harry, I’d help out, except I’ve got the Christmas cakes to bake.”
“How many this year?” Harry hated the Christmas cakes. They drove a stake through the heart of December.
“Twenty five. That’ll raise $500 for the new church window.”
“Yeah, well don’t forget you’ll have the shearers to cook for too. They’ll want some pies.”
“Don’t worry, Harry. The pies are in the freezer.” Gladys was proud of her meat pies and the reputation they enjoyed among the shearing gangs.
Harry was quiet for a few moments, brooding on his leg and the Christmas cakes. Then Gladys spoke again. “You could get Baldwin to help out.”
“Baldie! He’d be about as useful as me with two broken legs. He knows nothing about lambs and woolsheds.”
“Well, Harry, I can’t think of anybody else. Baldwin’s your nephew. He’ll do it for you.”
Baldie jumped at the chance to spend a few days at Hardtop Farm, “just to get stuck into a few of Aunty Gladys’s meat pies.” The following day he turned up for the drafting. Harry propped himself in a corner of the yards and waved his crutches at the lambs. Rufus barked himself to a standstill.
Harry could see Baldie was unhappy and at morning tea he found out why.
“This is not a good arrangement, Uncle Harry.” Baldie waved his hand across the yards.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, you couldn’t invent a more stressful environment for an animal. You’re sending these lambs away totally freaked out. It’ll spoil the meat, you know.”
“Rubbish, Baldie. This is the way we always do it.”
“You can do better, Uncle Harry. Listen, there’s a guy in North Canterbury who raises pigs and he does all this stuff to keep them calm, and you know what? He gets top dollar every time. The meat’s so much better when the animal is relaxed.”
“What does he do?”
“Oh, just simple stuff like playing music and not pushing the animals too hard. He’s worked on the colour scheme of his yards and put a few posters around and such.”
“Sounds like rubbish to me, Baldie. It might work for pigs but lambs are different. They’re going to get freaked out whatever you do.”
“It works though, Uncle Harry. You should try it with the shearing. Y’know, tidy up the shed a bit.”
Harry grunted in reply.
“That’s a yes, then?” ventured Baldie.
“No it’s not. Let’s get these lambs finished.”
Early on Friday morning Jumbo the shearing contractor turned up with his gang. He’d heard Harry was on crutches so he’d brought along an extra rousy.
“Tell your missus that’ll be a couple more pies for lunch,” Jumbo laughed. “Righto, fellas, let’s get into it.”
They walked into the shearing shed and stopped in their tracks.
The inside of the shearing shed looked to Harry like a wild west saloon.
“Or a whorehouse,” muttered Jumbo.
Baldie was standing on top of a ladder hanging a large mirror ball from the rafters. The walls around the shed were draped with green fabric. Posters of national parks and the All Blacks festooned the rafters. On the shearing board were two large barber’s chairs. Strange Oriental music was playing and the air was thick with incense.
“Baldie, what the hell is this?” demanded Harry.
“Sshh! Keep your voice down, Uncle Harry, you’ll spoil the karma. This is low-stress shearing, remember? You want top dollar for your wool, don’t you?”
Jumbo edged up to Harry. “Are we shearing today, Harry, or having a fashion parade?”
Baldie dropped from the ladder and flicked a switch. Two spotlights lit up and the mirror ball turned, sending patterns of dappled light through the shed.
“Beautiful, eh? The sheep will think they’re grazing under a tree,” Baldie said proudly.
Jumbo opened his mouth to speak but Baldie cut him off. “Set up one of your handpieces and turn on the machine, Jumbo.”
Jumbo did. When he pulled the cord the handpiece leapt into life but there was no sound from the shearing machine. Looking up Harry saw that Baldie had covered the motors with soundproof boxes.
“Nice and quiet, Uncle Harry. Stops the sheep freaking out.”
“But what about these bloody chairs?” demanded Jumbo, “they’re in the way.”
“Ah, that’s for the sheep,” said Baldie, triumphantly. “I reckon they need a bit of comfort, just like in a barber shop. It’ll save your back, too.”
Harry could see his day’s shearing going down the road. “Baldie, get rid of those bloody chairs. The rest of the stuff will have to stay or we’ll lose too much time.”
“And that music can go too,” chimed in Jumbo. “We’re not shearing with that yoga crap.”
Baldie was unfazed. “No problem. What do you want instead? Spanish lutes or Brahms lullaby?”
They settled for the Eagles, unplugged.
Harry’s next shock was discovering there were no sheep in the shed, or the yards. “It’s all part of the plan,” said Baldie. “We’ll bring each one in from the paddock separately, just walk it quietly. And I’ve padded the sides of the holding pens and put a few flowers around.”
Harry sent Rufus out to bring in the first mob.
Slowly the shearing cranked into gear. Baldie was unbearable. Wool had to be skirted and pressed well out of sight of the sheep “in case of separation anxiety.” Shearers were not allowed to swear, or even talk around the sheep, unless it was to compliment them on the quality of their fleece or ask how their day was going.
Jumbo pulled Harry aside shortly before lunch. “Harry, if we didn’t have Gladys’s pies to look forward to we’d be out of here by now. This is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever come across.”
“I’ll send him over to get the lunch,” Harry replied, “and we can get rid of that mirror ball while he’s gone.”
Baldie was a long time getting the lunch and was dismayed to see some of his work undone when he returned. The shearers gratefully hung up their gear and descended on the lunch basket. Jumbo pulled out a plate of sandwiches. He looked hopefully for Aunty Gladys’s meat pies, but they were nowhere to be seen.
“Now that bloody does it!” Jumbo roared. “Harry, you said there’d be pies!”
“Ah, well that would be me,” ventured Baldie. “You see, Gladys had made lamb and mint pies and I thought it would upset the sheep to think we were eating their mates. So I whipped up some lettuce sandwiches instead.”
The shearers roared in dismay. Harry rushed to save the situation. “Where did you put the pies, Baldie, you idiot?”
“Actually, Uncle Harry, I gave them to Rufus.”
Harry thought fast. “Jumbo, hang on. We’ve lost the pies but what would you say to one of Gladys’s Christmas cakes?”
“You’d better hurry,” said Baldie. “She was loading up the car when I came over with the lunch.
Uncle Harry grabbed his crutches and hobbled out of the shed. From the loading ramp he could see Gladys driving out of the yard. He waved his crutches and shouted. Behind him he heard angry voices. Turning, he saw the shearers grab Baldie and drag him onto the board, obviously intending to give him a haircut for ruining their morning.
Harry opened his mouth to intervene but lost his balance and toppled off the loading ramp, landing hard on Rufus swallowing the last of the pies and breaking his other leg. He heard Baldie bellowing over the acoustic strains of Hotel California.
“There goes the karma,” thought Harry, and passed out.
Uncle Harry Goes Green
7 March 2006
Uncle Harry stared glumly from the kitchen window. Across the sheep yards the wide paddocks of Hardtop farm lay parched and shimmering in the late-summer haze. This was bony country at the best of times but in a drought the only things that grew in Harry’s paddocks were stones. A mob of sheep straggled into view, kicking up a small cloud of dust.
Aunty Gladys bustled into the kitchen with a load of washing. “Come away from the window, Harry Clout. You’ve been stirring that cup of tea for twenty minutes. Go on and make yourself useful. I’ve got a cake to bake – you’ll remember Clayton and Joan are coming over tonight.”
Harry remembered Clayton and Joan were coming over tonight, though the thought gave him little pleasure.
“I’m worried about the hoggets, Glad.”
Aunty Gladys, strapping herself into a faded apron, was having none of this. “I’ve no sympathy for you, Harry. We’ve been through this before and you know where I stand.”
“I’m not talking about the irrigation,” Harry replied, edgily.
“Well, what then?”
“It’s the hoggets. They’ve never known this place when it was green.”
Aunty Gladys snorted impatiently. “The hoggets don’t care about green. It’s feed they want, and you tell me there’s enough of that.”
“Well, yes, strictly speaking.”
“So, get out and feed them and let me make my cake.”
Harry trudged across to the shed, whistling up Rufus. Gladys was right, there was half a silo of barley he’d kept back from last year’s harvest, and the baleage they’d taken off the top paddocks in the spring. It would do them into autumn.
But it was the absence of green that concerned Harry. If the hoggets had never seen green grass how would they know to eat it when it finally grew? His cousin in Toowoomba said he’d seen a three year drought finally break and the sheep, half-starved, standing in green grass up to their bellies bleating for a few sheep nuts or a bit of sorrel. They didn’t know grass was food.
“We’ve got to get them used to a bit of green, eh Ruf.” Rufus wagged his tail appreciatively.
The following day Harry drove into town and spent a couple of hours at the recycling depot. He returned with 30 metres of green synthetic carpet.
He was rolling out the carpet when his neighbour, Clayton Piles, whistled to him over the boundary fence. A couple of years earlier Clayton had moved into irrigation and had been insufferable ever since. Relations between the two neighbours dipped further when Harry’s well ran dry for the first time in memory. Clayton said it had nothing to do with his irrigators, which may have been true, but Harry resented the superior attitude Clayton had adopted since the drought kicked in – as if, watching Harry’s cashflow dry up along with his pasture, he was sizing up the value of Hardtop farm.
“What are you doing with the carpet, Harry?” shouted Clayton.
“Oh, you might call it a bit of ‘future-proofing’,” Harry replied.
“It’s no substitute for grass, Harry. I can lend you some of that. There’s plenty under my centre-pivot.”
“This is not for feeding, Clayton. It’s to get the sheep used to the colour.”
“Or to wrap them in when they drop dead, Harry. Look at the poor creatures. You’ll get nothing for them at the works.”
“We’ve got the wool.”
“You can’t be serious, Harry. Even I’m not making money from wool, and my sheep are in a bloody sight better shape than yours.”
This was too much for Harry. He looked Clayton square in the eye. “I’ll bet you I get more for my wool clip this season than you, Clayton Piles.”
Clayton roared with laughter. “Harry, that’s such a stupid wager I’m not going near it. I’d be taking money off a child.”
So the bet wasn’t made, but from that moment an unspoken rivalry was established between Harry and Clayton.
Harry continued to search the district for green carpet, and gradually a faded patchwork began to spread across his paddocks. He made sure he fed out on the carpet each day, so the sheep would associate green with food.
Gladys was critical. “It’s a waste of good money, Harry Clout,” she scolded.
“It’s not costing much, Glad,” Harry replied. “That last load from the Working Men’s Club was only $50.”
“And it was rubbish - cheap synthetic carpet reeking of beer and cigarettes.”
“Well, I could hardly buy wool carpet, could I.”
“Why on earth not?”
“It wouldn’t be right, Gladys. It’d be like those dairy farmers in England feeding their cows on meat meal. We could end up with mad hogget disease.”
“Oh, don’t be stupid, Harry. The sheep aren’t eating the blessed carpet.”
Harry gazed quietly through the kitchen window. “And that’s where you’re wrong, Gladys,” he said to himself. In the past few days he had noticed some of the sheep were ignoring the barley, and that morning he’d seen a sheep actually nibbling a piece of carpet.
Over the next few weeks Harry quietly phased out the supplementary feed as more hoggets took to the synthetic carpet. Unbelievably, they seemed to gain condition. Most preferred the longer, deep pile carpets – “a staple diet”, Harry joked to Rufus.
Still, looking across at Clayton’s long-fleeced animals Harry knew he didn’t have a dog’s show of matching his neighbour’s wool clip.
The shearers arrived and in the shearing shed all the talk was of the downfall of wool. They reckoned business was so bad they’d all be milking cows within a year. In spite of that they remarked how good Harry’s wool clip looked. The fleeces were bulky, with a fine springy texture unusual for the breed or conditions.
After shearing the drought broke. Harry rolled up the sodden remains of carpet and let the pasture come through. The hoggets didn’t seem to miss their unusual diet, taking to grass with enthusiasm.
A week or two later Harry came in for lunch to be met by Gladys, very excited.
“Joan just phoned. She says Clayton is spitting mad. He’s been following the wool sale on-line and our wool has topped the lot.”
“What?” asked Harry.
“The buyers have gone mad over it. They’re saying it’s the biggest thing for wool since the Korean war and they’re all asking how you did it.”
“Did what, Glad?”
“Produced a natural wool blend off the sheep’s back, Harry. Your wool is 30% nylon!”
Uncle Harry was stunned. “Bloody hell,” he thought. “Now I’ll have to wean the hoggets off grass.”
7 March 2006
Uncle Harry stared glumly from the kitchen window. Across the sheep yards the wide paddocks of Hardtop farm lay parched and shimmering in the late-summer haze. This was bony country at the best of times but in a drought the only things that grew in Harry’s paddocks were stones. A mob of sheep straggled into view, kicking up a small cloud of dust.
Aunty Gladys bustled into the kitchen with a load of washing. “Come away from the window, Harry Clout. You’ve been stirring that cup of tea for twenty minutes. Go on and make yourself useful. I’ve got a cake to bake – you’ll remember Clayton and Joan are coming over tonight.”
Harry remembered Clayton and Joan were coming over tonight, though the thought gave him little pleasure.
“I’m worried about the hoggets, Glad.”
Aunty Gladys, strapping herself into a faded apron, was having none of this. “I’ve no sympathy for you, Harry. We’ve been through this before and you know where I stand.”
“I’m not talking about the irrigation,” Harry replied, edgily.
“Well, what then?”
“It’s the hoggets. They’ve never known this place when it was green.”
Aunty Gladys snorted impatiently. “The hoggets don’t care about green. It’s feed they want, and you tell me there’s enough of that.”
“Well, yes, strictly speaking.”
“So, get out and feed them and let me make my cake.”
Harry trudged across to the shed, whistling up Rufus. Gladys was right, there was half a silo of barley he’d kept back from last year’s harvest, and the baleage they’d taken off the top paddocks in the spring. It would do them into autumn.
But it was the absence of green that concerned Harry. If the hoggets had never seen green grass how would they know to eat it when it finally grew? His cousin in Toowoomba said he’d seen a three year drought finally break and the sheep, half-starved, standing in green grass up to their bellies bleating for a few sheep nuts or a bit of sorrel. They didn’t know grass was food.
“We’ve got to get them used to a bit of green, eh Ruf.” Rufus wagged his tail appreciatively.
The following day Harry drove into town and spent a couple of hours at the recycling depot. He returned with 30 metres of green synthetic carpet.
He was rolling out the carpet when his neighbour, Clayton Piles, whistled to him over the boundary fence. A couple of years earlier Clayton had moved into irrigation and had been insufferable ever since. Relations between the two neighbours dipped further when Harry’s well ran dry for the first time in memory. Clayton said it had nothing to do with his irrigators, which may have been true, but Harry resented the superior attitude Clayton had adopted since the drought kicked in – as if, watching Harry’s cashflow dry up along with his pasture, he was sizing up the value of Hardtop farm.
“What are you doing with the carpet, Harry?” shouted Clayton.
“Oh, you might call it a bit of ‘future-proofing’,” Harry replied.
“It’s no substitute for grass, Harry. I can lend you some of that. There’s plenty under my centre-pivot.”
“This is not for feeding, Clayton. It’s to get the sheep used to the colour.”
“Or to wrap them in when they drop dead, Harry. Look at the poor creatures. You’ll get nothing for them at the works.”
“We’ve got the wool.”
“You can’t be serious, Harry. Even I’m not making money from wool, and my sheep are in a bloody sight better shape than yours.”
This was too much for Harry. He looked Clayton square in the eye. “I’ll bet you I get more for my wool clip this season than you, Clayton Piles.”
Clayton roared with laughter. “Harry, that’s such a stupid wager I’m not going near it. I’d be taking money off a child.”
So the bet wasn’t made, but from that moment an unspoken rivalry was established between Harry and Clayton.
Harry continued to search the district for green carpet, and gradually a faded patchwork began to spread across his paddocks. He made sure he fed out on the carpet each day, so the sheep would associate green with food.
Gladys was critical. “It’s a waste of good money, Harry Clout,” she scolded.
“It’s not costing much, Glad,” Harry replied. “That last load from the Working Men’s Club was only $50.”
“And it was rubbish - cheap synthetic carpet reeking of beer and cigarettes.”
“Well, I could hardly buy wool carpet, could I.”
“Why on earth not?”
“It wouldn’t be right, Gladys. It’d be like those dairy farmers in England feeding their cows on meat meal. We could end up with mad hogget disease.”
“Oh, don’t be stupid, Harry. The sheep aren’t eating the blessed carpet.”
Harry gazed quietly through the kitchen window. “And that’s where you’re wrong, Gladys,” he said to himself. In the past few days he had noticed some of the sheep were ignoring the barley, and that morning he’d seen a sheep actually nibbling a piece of carpet.
Over the next few weeks Harry quietly phased out the supplementary feed as more hoggets took to the synthetic carpet. Unbelievably, they seemed to gain condition. Most preferred the longer, deep pile carpets – “a staple diet”, Harry joked to Rufus.
Still, looking across at Clayton’s long-fleeced animals Harry knew he didn’t have a dog’s show of matching his neighbour’s wool clip.
The shearers arrived and in the shearing shed all the talk was of the downfall of wool. They reckoned business was so bad they’d all be milking cows within a year. In spite of that they remarked how good Harry’s wool clip looked. The fleeces were bulky, with a fine springy texture unusual for the breed or conditions.
After shearing the drought broke. Harry rolled up the sodden remains of carpet and let the pasture come through. The hoggets didn’t seem to miss their unusual diet, taking to grass with enthusiasm.
A week or two later Harry came in for lunch to be met by Gladys, very excited.
“Joan just phoned. She says Clayton is spitting mad. He’s been following the wool sale on-line and our wool has topped the lot.”
“What?” asked Harry.
“The buyers have gone mad over it. They’re saying it’s the biggest thing for wool since the Korean war and they’re all asking how you did it.”
“Did what, Glad?”
“Produced a natural wool blend off the sheep’s back, Harry. Your wool is 30% nylon!”
Uncle Harry was stunned. “Bloody hell,” he thought. “Now I’ll have to wean the hoggets off grass.”
Brian the Banker Lends a Hand
Tuesday 7th November 2006
“Those thieving bastards! My post hole digger’s gone, along with about 200 litres of diesel. This is getting seriously out of control.” Clayton Piles was on the warpath. “What did you lose, Harry?”
Uncle Harry looked at the list in his hand, “that new generator I bought after the snow, a few power tools. Oh yeah, and they drove my 4-wheeler into the water race.”
Clayton and Harry were comparing notes on the latest in a series of farm thefts. “I phoned the police but they’re not interested. It’s time we took the law into our own hands, Harry.”
“What should we do?”
“I dunno, but I’ll be in touch when I think of something.”
Clayton’s ute spun out of Harry’s yard in a cloud of dust. It rattled down the gravel drive, passing a powder blue Holden inching towards the house along the grass verge. Harry’s heart sank. Here was more trouble – Brian, from the bank.
The Holden slipped quietly into the yard. It was a marvel: glossy, polished, totally unmarked by mud or dust. Since bank managers had started coming out to farms Harry and Gladys had noted their efforts to fit in to rural life: the spray-on mud and carefully-aged gumboots. One even had a bale of hay and a few woolpacks in the boot of his car.
Brian was not one of those. He made no secret of his hatred for dirt and dust, for the muck and smells of farming life. Brian drove on the grass to protect his bodywork and parked as close to the house as possible, to save wear and tear on his guccis.
Brian was tall and gangly, about 30, with a permanent five o’clock shadow, an irrepressible grin and a voracious appetite for Gladys’s scones.
He was also good at his job, which was usually bad news for Uncle Harry.
Harry walked over to the Holden as Brian unfolded himself from the driver’s seat, propped his sunglasses onto his forehead and grinned broadly, “gidday Harry, how’s the cash flow?” he gave his usual greeting.
Harry skirted the obvious answer. “Come and have a cuppa, Brian.”
“Any chance of a scone?”
Over tea and scones Brian got down to business. “It’s the same old problem for you crop and lamb fellas, you’re not earning enough.”
Gladys chimed in. “I’ve been telling Harry we have to diversify. You know, get a bit more income.”
“Your situation’s like this,” said Brian through a mouthful of scone. “You’re sitting on this block of land whose value has gone through the roof, but you’re not benefiting from it. Meanwhile your overdraft’s getting bigger and prices are down.”
“And you’re going to tell us we should increase our mortgage,” said Harry wearily.
“Well, that would help the overdraft and give you some working capital. But I know you won’t go for that so I’ve got another idea. Why don’t you do a bit of trading?”
“What? Livestock?”
“Anything. I’m talking about TradeMe. You can buy and sell anything. I’m right into it. Look at the stuff in this room alone.” Brian swept his arm around Harry and Gladys’s kitchen. “See those candlesticks on the mantelpiece?”
“They were a wedding present,” gasped Gladys.
“Polish them up, stick a photo on the website and you’ll be surprised what people will pay.” Brian was in full cry, “at home I sell off all the birthday and Christmas presents I don’t want. Then you get a bit of capital and you do a bit of buying, a bit of trading and you’re in business.”
Harry could see Gladys was not impressed. “Perhaps we’ll start with a few things from around the farm,” he offered.
Out in the yard Brian was a fountain of suggestions. “What about that hay shed? D’you need that? Or that cattle crate?”
“Perhaps the cattle crate could go, but I’d forget about the hayshed - it belongs to my neighbour.”
“Does it? I can never work out where your place ends and Clayton’s begins.”
“Mine ends at the pine trees, Brian, same as always.” Harry had given up trying to describe his boundaries to Brian. “I’ll tell you what. You set up this TradeMe thing. Start with the cattle crate and see what happens.”
Brian had his laptop open in seconds.
A few days later the cattle crate was gone and Harry had a few thousand dollars in his TradeMe account. “I’m doing a bit of buying for you,” quipped Brian over the phone. “You’ll be getting a few packages.”
Uncle Harry forgot about TradeMe for a day or two. Another round of farm thefts saw him lose a stack of fence posts and half a dozen chooks. Gladys got a call from Clayton’s wife Joan the same day to say they’d lost some chooks too. Now the women were on the warpath.
A few days later a courier van delivered 30 large cardboard boxes. Harry opened one and pulled out a plastic garden gnome.
“Why the hell are you spending my money on garden gnomes?” he barked down the phone to Brian.
“No worries, Harry. We got them dirt cheap and they’ll move nicely in the Christmas trade.”
A week later the gnomes had gone, replaced by 400 metres of curtaining from a refurbished hotel in Tauranga. But the promised windfall had yet to appear.
Harry called Brian again. “Look, Brian. I appreciate you’re trying to improve my cash flow but perhaps we’d better stick to selling stuff off the farm that I don’t need. If you want to buy something just get Glad a few new chooks”
“Sure, no worries, Harry. I’ll drop around at the weekend and scope a few more items we can put up for auction.”
Harry missed Brian’s next visit to the farm. He spent the weekend with Clayton and a few of the neighbours planning some strategies to manage the farm thefts. “The police reckon the beggars will try flogging off the stuff they nicked,” asserted Clayton, “so we have to keep our ears to the ground.”
Early on Monday morning Uncle Harry was surprised to see the blue Holden purring up his driveway. Brian shot out of the car like he’d won LOTTO.
“Brian, how’s my cash flow?” asked Harry.
“Gone through the roof, Harry. The stuff I posted really hit the spot with buyers. In fact I shot in here last night to ship off some of what we’d sold.”
“And what exactly did we sell?”
“Well, there were those drums of weedkiller in the back of the shed, that old auger you hadn’t used in a while and the irrigator from the far paddock, which went for a packet to a guy down in Fairlie.”
“What irrigator?”
“The one over in the paddock behind the pine trees.”
“Bloody hell, Brian!” Harry exploded. “That’s not mine, it’s Clayton’s.”
“Hang on. You said your property ended…”
“…at the pine trees. Not on the other side of them.”
Just then Clayton roared into the yard in his ute. “They stole me bloody irrigator, Harry! But don’t worry, we’ve got the thieving buggers!”
“Oh yes,” said Harry guardedly. Brian was edging towards his car.
“Yeah. Y’know I said they’d try to flog it off? When I told the police they ran a check. Apparently somebody sold an irrigator on TradeMe yesterday and the police say it’s a local account. Imagine that, Harry. One of our neighbours has been doing us over! Wait until we catch the scumbag. We’ll teach him a lesson, eh?”
The blue Holden was creeping quietly out of the yard.
“What’s up with your banker?” asked Clayton. “Typical, isn’t it. They always vanish just when things are looking up.”
Tuesday 7th November 2006
“Those thieving bastards! My post hole digger’s gone, along with about 200 litres of diesel. This is getting seriously out of control.” Clayton Piles was on the warpath. “What did you lose, Harry?”
Uncle Harry looked at the list in his hand, “that new generator I bought after the snow, a few power tools. Oh yeah, and they drove my 4-wheeler into the water race.”
Clayton and Harry were comparing notes on the latest in a series of farm thefts. “I phoned the police but they’re not interested. It’s time we took the law into our own hands, Harry.”
“What should we do?”
“I dunno, but I’ll be in touch when I think of something.”
Clayton’s ute spun out of Harry’s yard in a cloud of dust. It rattled down the gravel drive, passing a powder blue Holden inching towards the house along the grass verge. Harry’s heart sank. Here was more trouble – Brian, from the bank.
The Holden slipped quietly into the yard. It was a marvel: glossy, polished, totally unmarked by mud or dust. Since bank managers had started coming out to farms Harry and Gladys had noted their efforts to fit in to rural life: the spray-on mud and carefully-aged gumboots. One even had a bale of hay and a few woolpacks in the boot of his car.
Brian was not one of those. He made no secret of his hatred for dirt and dust, for the muck and smells of farming life. Brian drove on the grass to protect his bodywork and parked as close to the house as possible, to save wear and tear on his guccis.
Brian was tall and gangly, about 30, with a permanent five o’clock shadow, an irrepressible grin and a voracious appetite for Gladys’s scones.
He was also good at his job, which was usually bad news for Uncle Harry.
Harry walked over to the Holden as Brian unfolded himself from the driver’s seat, propped his sunglasses onto his forehead and grinned broadly, “gidday Harry, how’s the cash flow?” he gave his usual greeting.
Harry skirted the obvious answer. “Come and have a cuppa, Brian.”
“Any chance of a scone?”
Over tea and scones Brian got down to business. “It’s the same old problem for you crop and lamb fellas, you’re not earning enough.”
Gladys chimed in. “I’ve been telling Harry we have to diversify. You know, get a bit more income.”
“Your situation’s like this,” said Brian through a mouthful of scone. “You’re sitting on this block of land whose value has gone through the roof, but you’re not benefiting from it. Meanwhile your overdraft’s getting bigger and prices are down.”
“And you’re going to tell us we should increase our mortgage,” said Harry wearily.
“Well, that would help the overdraft and give you some working capital. But I know you won’t go for that so I’ve got another idea. Why don’t you do a bit of trading?”
“What? Livestock?”
“Anything. I’m talking about TradeMe. You can buy and sell anything. I’m right into it. Look at the stuff in this room alone.” Brian swept his arm around Harry and Gladys’s kitchen. “See those candlesticks on the mantelpiece?”
“They were a wedding present,” gasped Gladys.
“Polish them up, stick a photo on the website and you’ll be surprised what people will pay.” Brian was in full cry, “at home I sell off all the birthday and Christmas presents I don’t want. Then you get a bit of capital and you do a bit of buying, a bit of trading and you’re in business.”
Harry could see Gladys was not impressed. “Perhaps we’ll start with a few things from around the farm,” he offered.
Out in the yard Brian was a fountain of suggestions. “What about that hay shed? D’you need that? Or that cattle crate?”
“Perhaps the cattle crate could go, but I’d forget about the hayshed - it belongs to my neighbour.”
“Does it? I can never work out where your place ends and Clayton’s begins.”
“Mine ends at the pine trees, Brian, same as always.” Harry had given up trying to describe his boundaries to Brian. “I’ll tell you what. You set up this TradeMe thing. Start with the cattle crate and see what happens.”
Brian had his laptop open in seconds.
A few days later the cattle crate was gone and Harry had a few thousand dollars in his TradeMe account. “I’m doing a bit of buying for you,” quipped Brian over the phone. “You’ll be getting a few packages.”
Uncle Harry forgot about TradeMe for a day or two. Another round of farm thefts saw him lose a stack of fence posts and half a dozen chooks. Gladys got a call from Clayton’s wife Joan the same day to say they’d lost some chooks too. Now the women were on the warpath.
A few days later a courier van delivered 30 large cardboard boxes. Harry opened one and pulled out a plastic garden gnome.
“Why the hell are you spending my money on garden gnomes?” he barked down the phone to Brian.
“No worries, Harry. We got them dirt cheap and they’ll move nicely in the Christmas trade.”
A week later the gnomes had gone, replaced by 400 metres of curtaining from a refurbished hotel in Tauranga. But the promised windfall had yet to appear.
Harry called Brian again. “Look, Brian. I appreciate you’re trying to improve my cash flow but perhaps we’d better stick to selling stuff off the farm that I don’t need. If you want to buy something just get Glad a few new chooks”
“Sure, no worries, Harry. I’ll drop around at the weekend and scope a few more items we can put up for auction.”
Harry missed Brian’s next visit to the farm. He spent the weekend with Clayton and a few of the neighbours planning some strategies to manage the farm thefts. “The police reckon the beggars will try flogging off the stuff they nicked,” asserted Clayton, “so we have to keep our ears to the ground.”
Early on Monday morning Uncle Harry was surprised to see the blue Holden purring up his driveway. Brian shot out of the car like he’d won LOTTO.
“Brian, how’s my cash flow?” asked Harry.
“Gone through the roof, Harry. The stuff I posted really hit the spot with buyers. In fact I shot in here last night to ship off some of what we’d sold.”
“And what exactly did we sell?”
“Well, there were those drums of weedkiller in the back of the shed, that old auger you hadn’t used in a while and the irrigator from the far paddock, which went for a packet to a guy down in Fairlie.”
“What irrigator?”
“The one over in the paddock behind the pine trees.”
“Bloody hell, Brian!” Harry exploded. “That’s not mine, it’s Clayton’s.”
“Hang on. You said your property ended…”
“…at the pine trees. Not on the other side of them.”
Just then Clayton roared into the yard in his ute. “They stole me bloody irrigator, Harry! But don’t worry, we’ve got the thieving buggers!”
“Oh yes,” said Harry guardedly. Brian was edging towards his car.
“Yeah. Y’know I said they’d try to flog it off? When I told the police they ran a check. Apparently somebody sold an irrigator on TradeMe yesterday and the police say it’s a local account. Imagine that, Harry. One of our neighbours has been doing us over! Wait until we catch the scumbag. We’ll teach him a lesson, eh?”
The blue Holden was creeping quietly out of the yard.
“What’s up with your banker?” asked Clayton. “Typical, isn’t it. They always vanish just when things are looking up.”
Location! Location! Location!
23 March 2003
My daughter Corrie, at the age of fourteen, has developed all those finely-tuned behaviours for relieving a parent of money that are a natural by-product of adolescence. I swear she can smell or hear a wallet being opened from 50 metres. Usually I duck her impulses or suddenly urgent needs (“Dad, I really NEED those new shoes to go with the jeans I bought last time you opened your wallet”).
Right now, however, she’s got me over a barrel, and she knows it. Her gaze is unflinching, her eyes brimful with dollar signs, her hand as steady as the taxman’s. I owe her $750.00. To my greater discomfort, I know this debt could have been avoided. You see, it’s a gambling debt. I rolled the dice and lost.
I count my cash - $147.00. It’s no use going to the bank for a loan, my credit rating is zip. The only thing I can do is mortgage some property. What will it be? Vine Street? Piccadilly? The Waterworks?
I’ve always been terrible at Monopoly. In fact, I believe I’m on a thirty year losing streak, which doesn’t look like breaking in this game. My siblings still remind me what an atrocious loser I was at Corrie’s age (I owned the Monopoly set and used to regularly up-end the board and walk off with it). My downfall has been an abiding ignorance of the old real estate mantra: location, location, location.
Take tonight’s game, for example. I couldn’t resist buying Pentonville Road and The Angel, Islington. I even bought ridiculous Whitechapel – rent $4.00. I always fall for them because they’re cheap to buy and cheap to build on. I seem unable to learn that they earn pitiful rents and have no capital gain. Corrie, a natural entrepreneur, went for the top end of the market. Right now, my pale yellow counter sits on Regent-Street-with-three-houses. $750.00 please.
What’s really dispiriting is that this defect of character spreads into my life. I’m appallingly bad at buying houses. The first house Sylvia and I bought was wrong in about every possible way, except one – we adored it. It was a gorgeous wooden cottage with exposed beams and leadlight windows, lots of kauri and a mezzanine floor with sleeping platform. It was like a housetruck that had subsided gracefully onto a New Brighton sand dune. It was funky.
Only gradually did reality dawn: the sagging foundations, the non-existent drains, the rock-fiend neighbour who played Jimmy Hendrix VERY LOUDLY at all hours (he played rather well, but there’s only so much Hendrix anybody can take). It was in the wrong suburb. It was on the wrong street. It was on the wrong part of the wrong street. We had this family joke that I was the only person in the neighbourhood who got out of bed to go to work in the mornings. It was true.
Mind you, I’m convinced that luck plays a big part in successful property management. Take this game of Monopoly. I haven’t collected $200.00 for passing GO for the last eight rounds. Each time I pass GO I either land on Income Tax (“$200.00 please”, says the bank) or on King’s Cross Station, which is $200.00 rent to Corrie, who owns all the stations. In the last round I thought I’d cleared the hurdles. I landed on Chance, picked up a card that made me go back three spaces, right back to Income tax. It’s wrong, I agree, to expect handouts in life. But surely Monopoly could be a little kinder?
Our second house came much closer to being perfect. You know how real estate agents encourage you to buy the worst house on the best street? Well, we nearly pulled it off, only we bought the best house on the worst street. It was a lovely family home, with a large ragged section that we developed into a stunning garden, all-aluminium joinery, and an enormous in-ground swimming pool. We were very happy there, until we realized that Corrie and Marjan, at the ages of five and three, had memorized all the words of all the drinking songs sung by our hoonish neighbours. We decided to move to Mid-Canterbury.
Our mistake was that we didn’t sell our lovely family home – we rented it. Do not ever rent your family home. You will watch the beautiful garden revert to a tangled wilderness, the swimming pool become a slime-filled mire. The all-aluminium joinery will corrode and leak, that special shrub your godmother gave you before she died will be poisoned by an over-zealous cocker spaniel. The property market will sag. The retaining wall will crack. The hot water cylinder will explode.
You could end up, as I am now, selling off your houses at a fraction of their real value, to pay your Monopoly debt to your fourteen year old daughter. It seems such a fine, and random, line between success and failure. A few minutes ago I had a hotel on Bow Street, plenty of money and a Get Out Of Jail Free card. Now, my portfolio is a shattered wreck, cast upon a reef of mortgages. I count out the last of the $750.00 and prepare to roll the dice.
After six years in Mid-Canterbury - carefree years of renting – we are once more looking for a house to buy. This time I’m sure we’ll get it right: a good house, in a good part of town, with great neighbours and excellent prospects.
I roll the dice. A two and a one. I move my counter. One. Oxford Street. Two. Community Chest. Three. Bond Street. Corrie is merciless.
“Uh huh! Bond-Street-with-three-houses. That will be $900.00 thanks.”
Then again, perhaps my life is doomed to mirror my fortunes in Monopoly. So, if you have a crummy, over-priced, run-down old dump of a house in the wrong part of town, give me a call. I’ll be the sucker who answers the phone.
23 March 2003
My daughter Corrie, at the age of fourteen, has developed all those finely-tuned behaviours for relieving a parent of money that are a natural by-product of adolescence. I swear she can smell or hear a wallet being opened from 50 metres. Usually I duck her impulses or suddenly urgent needs (“Dad, I really NEED those new shoes to go with the jeans I bought last time you opened your wallet”).
Right now, however, she’s got me over a barrel, and she knows it. Her gaze is unflinching, her eyes brimful with dollar signs, her hand as steady as the taxman’s. I owe her $750.00. To my greater discomfort, I know this debt could have been avoided. You see, it’s a gambling debt. I rolled the dice and lost.
I count my cash - $147.00. It’s no use going to the bank for a loan, my credit rating is zip. The only thing I can do is mortgage some property. What will it be? Vine Street? Piccadilly? The Waterworks?
I’ve always been terrible at Monopoly. In fact, I believe I’m on a thirty year losing streak, which doesn’t look like breaking in this game. My siblings still remind me what an atrocious loser I was at Corrie’s age (I owned the Monopoly set and used to regularly up-end the board and walk off with it). My downfall has been an abiding ignorance of the old real estate mantra: location, location, location.
Take tonight’s game, for example. I couldn’t resist buying Pentonville Road and The Angel, Islington. I even bought ridiculous Whitechapel – rent $4.00. I always fall for them because they’re cheap to buy and cheap to build on. I seem unable to learn that they earn pitiful rents and have no capital gain. Corrie, a natural entrepreneur, went for the top end of the market. Right now, my pale yellow counter sits on Regent-Street-with-three-houses. $750.00 please.
What’s really dispiriting is that this defect of character spreads into my life. I’m appallingly bad at buying houses. The first house Sylvia and I bought was wrong in about every possible way, except one – we adored it. It was a gorgeous wooden cottage with exposed beams and leadlight windows, lots of kauri and a mezzanine floor with sleeping platform. It was like a housetruck that had subsided gracefully onto a New Brighton sand dune. It was funky.
Only gradually did reality dawn: the sagging foundations, the non-existent drains, the rock-fiend neighbour who played Jimmy Hendrix VERY LOUDLY at all hours (he played rather well, but there’s only so much Hendrix anybody can take). It was in the wrong suburb. It was on the wrong street. It was on the wrong part of the wrong street. We had this family joke that I was the only person in the neighbourhood who got out of bed to go to work in the mornings. It was true.
Mind you, I’m convinced that luck plays a big part in successful property management. Take this game of Monopoly. I haven’t collected $200.00 for passing GO for the last eight rounds. Each time I pass GO I either land on Income Tax (“$200.00 please”, says the bank) or on King’s Cross Station, which is $200.00 rent to Corrie, who owns all the stations. In the last round I thought I’d cleared the hurdles. I landed on Chance, picked up a card that made me go back three spaces, right back to Income tax. It’s wrong, I agree, to expect handouts in life. But surely Monopoly could be a little kinder?
Our second house came much closer to being perfect. You know how real estate agents encourage you to buy the worst house on the best street? Well, we nearly pulled it off, only we bought the best house on the worst street. It was a lovely family home, with a large ragged section that we developed into a stunning garden, all-aluminium joinery, and an enormous in-ground swimming pool. We were very happy there, until we realized that Corrie and Marjan, at the ages of five and three, had memorized all the words of all the drinking songs sung by our hoonish neighbours. We decided to move to Mid-Canterbury.
Our mistake was that we didn’t sell our lovely family home – we rented it. Do not ever rent your family home. You will watch the beautiful garden revert to a tangled wilderness, the swimming pool become a slime-filled mire. The all-aluminium joinery will corrode and leak, that special shrub your godmother gave you before she died will be poisoned by an over-zealous cocker spaniel. The property market will sag. The retaining wall will crack. The hot water cylinder will explode.
You could end up, as I am now, selling off your houses at a fraction of their real value, to pay your Monopoly debt to your fourteen year old daughter. It seems such a fine, and random, line between success and failure. A few minutes ago I had a hotel on Bow Street, plenty of money and a Get Out Of Jail Free card. Now, my portfolio is a shattered wreck, cast upon a reef of mortgages. I count out the last of the $750.00 and prepare to roll the dice.
After six years in Mid-Canterbury - carefree years of renting – we are once more looking for a house to buy. This time I’m sure we’ll get it right: a good house, in a good part of town, with great neighbours and excellent prospects.
I roll the dice. A two and a one. I move my counter. One. Oxford Street. Two. Community Chest. Three. Bond Street. Corrie is merciless.
“Uh huh! Bond-Street-with-three-houses. That will be $900.00 thanks.”
Then again, perhaps my life is doomed to mirror my fortunes in Monopoly. So, if you have a crummy, over-priced, run-down old dump of a house in the wrong part of town, give me a call. I’ll be the sucker who answers the phone.
How to Buy a Gold G-String in Ashburton
November 15th 2003
Halfway to the checkout in Farmers I realise I’m in trouble. Queuing ahead of me are two parents from school: they smile and we exchange pleasantries, their children greeting me with the shy half-smile of recognition reserved for teachers in the street. Behind me in the queue is a neighbour. A friend greets me across the aisle. It seems everybody I know is in this store at this moment. My cheeks begin to burn with embarrassment, my eyes flicker mistrustfully, a prickle of guilt and shame sweeps over me. A beacon for shop security staff, I grip the cause of my anxiety tightly in my left hand. I am about to purchase a gold g-string – man-size.
I have found myself involved recently in discussions about boys’ education, and the behaviour and achievement of males. Discussing gender roles with the twelve year olds in my class I am struck by their widely held view that girls can do anything but boys are permitted only a narrower range of behaviour, most of which falls in the ‘bloke’ category.
It’s accepted, for example, that while girls may play rugby, drive quad bikes and excel at computer games boys must not show an interest in netball or dance. My description of young Italian men strolling hand in hand through the sidewalk cafes of Rome was greeted with general revulsion. Boys, it seems, play rugby and soccer, but don’t pick up their clothes or dry dishes. Boys talk about Holdens but not their feelings. Boys look at pictures in magazines but don’t read the accompanying stories.
And boys, I predict, do not buy g-strings – even gold ones.
In the queue at Farmers my progress towards the checkout is accompanied by a gathering crowd of acquaintances. I screw the gold g-string more tightly into the now-sweating palm of my hand. How can I get away with this?
It dawns on me there are two ways to buy a gold g-string. One is to treat it like the emperor’s new clothes - simply pretend it’s not there and hope like hell nobody notices. Fat chance. This is Ashburton, remember. Why, oh why did I not make this purchase in Christchurch?
The second way is to brazen it out. As I reach the counter I hold the g-string aloft and proclaim to the shop assistant, a woman of a certain age, that I’d like to purchase this g-string please, and did she think it was large enough.
She doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Oh, you’re the fifth young man in here this morning wanting one of those. You must be in the show. I’m a member, you know, have been for twenty-five years. I’ll be watching to see how you young fellows shape up.’ She measures me with a small proprietorial twinkle.
A wave of relief sweeps over me. Here is both an ally and an alibi. I turn to my fellow shoppers with a nonchalance worthy of Mr Bean: gold g-string, perfectly normal.
The ‘show’is Just The Boyz, Ashburton Operatic’s all-male revue, which opened last night. As an entertainment the show is spectacular, if last night’s audience is any judge. As a study in male behaviour it would leave my students gasping, and would probably challenge the views most of us hold about acceptable behaviour for boys – even big ones. There’s the g-string, for a start. Add to that the dancing and singing, the make-up, the sequins. Oh, and the balloons.
The really interesting thing, as I point out to my teenage daughters, who struggle with the sight of dad shaving his legs, is what happens when you give twelve ordinary men permission to behave outside the square.
I mean, for myself I accept I’m a dodgy example of kiwi masculinity, given my well-publicised shortcomings with machines and team sports. But my fellow cast members are power houses of testosterone. These are men who regularly plough up the back forty before breakfast, operate a barbecue with one hand while steering a jet boat with the other and turn up at rehearsals with cases of Canterbury Draught.
Take Bryan, for example. Here’s a guy built like the rugby league prop he once was, who sports tattoos in places that rarely see daylight, with a missing tooth that gives him both a rakish demeanour and a fetching lisp.
Chris and John are pure Methven - rugged individuals both. Tony and Steve sport the beginnings of well-crafted beer bellies. Simon has a profile worthy of a Speights ad. Heath drives a Mk4 Cortina with perilous brakes and, I suspect, harbours an ambition to hang a pair of fluffy dice from the rear view mirror.
I’ve seen these guys splinter a dressing room door with a crowbar one minute and delicately apply eye-shadow the next. I’ve heard them discuss the finer points of leg-shaving while debating the fortunes of the All Blacks in tonight’s semi-final. We’ve stumbled through dance steps together, tripping over each other to complete moves a six year old girl in her first tutu would sneer at.
We’d all agree the theatre is an unlikely place for male bonding, but that’s exactly what Just The Boyz is about: a group of guys behaving differently – or behaving badly, depending on your point of view.
We hear a lot these days about men becoming second rate citizens and needing to find an answer to feminism. As I see it, just The Boyz is the perfect answer. Women may rule the world but, for this week at least, men rule the stage.
November 15th 2003
Halfway to the checkout in Farmers I realise I’m in trouble. Queuing ahead of me are two parents from school: they smile and we exchange pleasantries, their children greeting me with the shy half-smile of recognition reserved for teachers in the street. Behind me in the queue is a neighbour. A friend greets me across the aisle. It seems everybody I know is in this store at this moment. My cheeks begin to burn with embarrassment, my eyes flicker mistrustfully, a prickle of guilt and shame sweeps over me. A beacon for shop security staff, I grip the cause of my anxiety tightly in my left hand. I am about to purchase a gold g-string – man-size.
I have found myself involved recently in discussions about boys’ education, and the behaviour and achievement of males. Discussing gender roles with the twelve year olds in my class I am struck by their widely held view that girls can do anything but boys are permitted only a narrower range of behaviour, most of which falls in the ‘bloke’ category.
It’s accepted, for example, that while girls may play rugby, drive quad bikes and excel at computer games boys must not show an interest in netball or dance. My description of young Italian men strolling hand in hand through the sidewalk cafes of Rome was greeted with general revulsion. Boys, it seems, play rugby and soccer, but don’t pick up their clothes or dry dishes. Boys talk about Holdens but not their feelings. Boys look at pictures in magazines but don’t read the accompanying stories.
And boys, I predict, do not buy g-strings – even gold ones.
In the queue at Farmers my progress towards the checkout is accompanied by a gathering crowd of acquaintances. I screw the gold g-string more tightly into the now-sweating palm of my hand. How can I get away with this?
It dawns on me there are two ways to buy a gold g-string. One is to treat it like the emperor’s new clothes - simply pretend it’s not there and hope like hell nobody notices. Fat chance. This is Ashburton, remember. Why, oh why did I not make this purchase in Christchurch?
The second way is to brazen it out. As I reach the counter I hold the g-string aloft and proclaim to the shop assistant, a woman of a certain age, that I’d like to purchase this g-string please, and did she think it was large enough.
She doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Oh, you’re the fifth young man in here this morning wanting one of those. You must be in the show. I’m a member, you know, have been for twenty-five years. I’ll be watching to see how you young fellows shape up.’ She measures me with a small proprietorial twinkle.
A wave of relief sweeps over me. Here is both an ally and an alibi. I turn to my fellow shoppers with a nonchalance worthy of Mr Bean: gold g-string, perfectly normal.
The ‘show’is Just The Boyz, Ashburton Operatic’s all-male revue, which opened last night. As an entertainment the show is spectacular, if last night’s audience is any judge. As a study in male behaviour it would leave my students gasping, and would probably challenge the views most of us hold about acceptable behaviour for boys – even big ones. There’s the g-string, for a start. Add to that the dancing and singing, the make-up, the sequins. Oh, and the balloons.
The really interesting thing, as I point out to my teenage daughters, who struggle with the sight of dad shaving his legs, is what happens when you give twelve ordinary men permission to behave outside the square.
I mean, for myself I accept I’m a dodgy example of kiwi masculinity, given my well-publicised shortcomings with machines and team sports. But my fellow cast members are power houses of testosterone. These are men who regularly plough up the back forty before breakfast, operate a barbecue with one hand while steering a jet boat with the other and turn up at rehearsals with cases of Canterbury Draught.
Take Bryan, for example. Here’s a guy built like the rugby league prop he once was, who sports tattoos in places that rarely see daylight, with a missing tooth that gives him both a rakish demeanour and a fetching lisp.
Chris and John are pure Methven - rugged individuals both. Tony and Steve sport the beginnings of well-crafted beer bellies. Simon has a profile worthy of a Speights ad. Heath drives a Mk4 Cortina with perilous brakes and, I suspect, harbours an ambition to hang a pair of fluffy dice from the rear view mirror.
I’ve seen these guys splinter a dressing room door with a crowbar one minute and delicately apply eye-shadow the next. I’ve heard them discuss the finer points of leg-shaving while debating the fortunes of the All Blacks in tonight’s semi-final. We’ve stumbled through dance steps together, tripping over each other to complete moves a six year old girl in her first tutu would sneer at.
We’d all agree the theatre is an unlikely place for male bonding, but that’s exactly what Just The Boyz is about: a group of guys behaving differently – or behaving badly, depending on your point of view.
We hear a lot these days about men becoming second rate citizens and needing to find an answer to feminism. As I see it, just The Boyz is the perfect answer. Women may rule the world but, for this week at least, men rule the stage.
Blessed are the Cheesemakers
2004
The cheese barons of the world are poised to bring our nation to its knees. The European Union, whose sole purpose for the past thirty years has been to spoil our party, claims that cheese can only bear the name of a region if it is produced in that region. Because many of the hottest cheese zones on the planet lie within the EU this is grim news for our dairy industry and all who hold cheese dear.
Imagine walking into a kiwi supermarket and the only cheddar, edam, gouda, parmesan and mozzarella you can buy is some grotty little overpriced lump of whey imported from Cheddar, Edam, Gouda, Parma or Mozz.
The only big cheese centres holding out against this name-claiming madness are those paragons of restraint, Tasty, Mild and Colby.
If we are denied our traditional cheese names what on earth will we call our dairy products? ‘Old Clandeboye’ doesn’t have the same market clout as Fine Stilton.
I could sympathise with the Europeans if the move was based on fear that their good name was being splattered over inferior products, because that’s true. Most New Zealand cheese has the texture and taste of reconstituted shopping bags. But no, this is not about quality, it’s about marketing.
We’ve been down this road before. Ten years ago the winemakers of Champagne (France) told the makers of champagne (rest of the world) to get corked. Planeloads of hairy Gallic lawyers circled the globe, pouncing upon winemakers who were innocently producing champagne in the belief that this was the appropriate name for the product.
Terrorised by the garlic-breathing notaries these winemakers spent an unhappy couple of years experimenting with sanitised forms of the name. There was a brief period when wineshops groaned with shelves of Methode Champenoise and other corruptions.
Eventually they realised that champagne by any other name still tasted as sweet, gave up pandering to the Frogs, and called their product anything they liked. We still know what we’re buying and we enjoy it as much as ever.
The real victim in this action is the Champagne tourist industry, which lost its entire market exposure practically overnight. Tourism is all about getting your name in the public eye. Here was this completely unremarkable little corner of France (I cycled through it once and didn’t even notice) whose name was everywhere. All over the world people were spending billions to promote it. Denying them the right to use the name was the equivalent of McDonalds taking down all its signs. Not a smart move.
The cheese zones need to heed this lesson, because the fact is, the Big Names in cheese are miserable little European hovels. I know this because I’ve visited most of them.
Take Parma, for example. It’s little more than a jumble of uncertain rooflines with some of the biggest potholes in northern Italy. I went there, unwillingly, about twenty years ago. I was in the company of Maurice, a Belgian architect with whom I’d thumbed a lift out of some unpronounceable Swiss yodelling mecca. Morry was heading to Rome, which was fine by me, and insisted he buy me dinner at his friend’s restaurant in Parma along the way.
I didn’t read or speak Italian but I knew it was Parma when we passed the giant fibreglass cheese grater at the edge of town. The restaurant was at the back of a derelict farmhouse and was a passable attempt at recreating the manger in Bethlehem. My dinner was cheesy, and consisted of what appeared to be a twelve metre long single strand of spaghetti floating in a puddle of warm olive oil.
There was worse to come. As we were leaving Maurice presented me with a three kilogram slab of the fromage au ville – parmesan. I protested loudly. What did I, a backpacking waif of the highway, want with 3kgs of cheese? But Maurice insisted it would bind ties between our two great nations etc etc.
I carried that block of cheese for a fortnight, paring off scrapings with my Swiss army knife and vowing that one day I would turn the incident into a highly embellished story and slip it past an unsuspecting newspaper editor (yes!!). Eventually I gave the cheese to an old lady sitting on the footpath in a Naples slum.
The point is, Parma is rubbish without the mystique of parmesan. By the same token Cheddar is a twee little place in Somerset, with a gorge that’s more like a stomach and a couple of trinket shops selling monogrammed teaspoons.
The Dutch have turned their great cheese towns into clog-and-tulip Disneylands. Every day in Edam and Gouda merry bands of outlandishly dressed peasants called Hans dance around the village square with oversized cheeses while crowds of tourists ooh and aah at the Continental charm of it all.
Clearly this madness about restricting the use of names has to be nipped in the bud before it gets out of hand. For you can be sure that when the cheese zones have locked themselves up the great smallgoods centres of Europe will want to do the same. Hitherto innocent words like hamburger and frankfurter will be taken from us. Nimes in France will insist we pay every time we say ‘denim’. And you can bet the grasping descendants of English peerage will threaten legal proceedings if we continue to call our cities Wellington, Auckland, Napier and Palmerston.
Act now. Save our cheddar.
2004
The cheese barons of the world are poised to bring our nation to its knees. The European Union, whose sole purpose for the past thirty years has been to spoil our party, claims that cheese can only bear the name of a region if it is produced in that region. Because many of the hottest cheese zones on the planet lie within the EU this is grim news for our dairy industry and all who hold cheese dear.
Imagine walking into a kiwi supermarket and the only cheddar, edam, gouda, parmesan and mozzarella you can buy is some grotty little overpriced lump of whey imported from Cheddar, Edam, Gouda, Parma or Mozz.
The only big cheese centres holding out against this name-claiming madness are those paragons of restraint, Tasty, Mild and Colby.
If we are denied our traditional cheese names what on earth will we call our dairy products? ‘Old Clandeboye’ doesn’t have the same market clout as Fine Stilton.
I could sympathise with the Europeans if the move was based on fear that their good name was being splattered over inferior products, because that’s true. Most New Zealand cheese has the texture and taste of reconstituted shopping bags. But no, this is not about quality, it’s about marketing.
We’ve been down this road before. Ten years ago the winemakers of Champagne (France) told the makers of champagne (rest of the world) to get corked. Planeloads of hairy Gallic lawyers circled the globe, pouncing upon winemakers who were innocently producing champagne in the belief that this was the appropriate name for the product.
Terrorised by the garlic-breathing notaries these winemakers spent an unhappy couple of years experimenting with sanitised forms of the name. There was a brief period when wineshops groaned with shelves of Methode Champenoise and other corruptions.
Eventually they realised that champagne by any other name still tasted as sweet, gave up pandering to the Frogs, and called their product anything they liked. We still know what we’re buying and we enjoy it as much as ever.
The real victim in this action is the Champagne tourist industry, which lost its entire market exposure practically overnight. Tourism is all about getting your name in the public eye. Here was this completely unremarkable little corner of France (I cycled through it once and didn’t even notice) whose name was everywhere. All over the world people were spending billions to promote it. Denying them the right to use the name was the equivalent of McDonalds taking down all its signs. Not a smart move.
The cheese zones need to heed this lesson, because the fact is, the Big Names in cheese are miserable little European hovels. I know this because I’ve visited most of them.
Take Parma, for example. It’s little more than a jumble of uncertain rooflines with some of the biggest potholes in northern Italy. I went there, unwillingly, about twenty years ago. I was in the company of Maurice, a Belgian architect with whom I’d thumbed a lift out of some unpronounceable Swiss yodelling mecca. Morry was heading to Rome, which was fine by me, and insisted he buy me dinner at his friend’s restaurant in Parma along the way.
I didn’t read or speak Italian but I knew it was Parma when we passed the giant fibreglass cheese grater at the edge of town. The restaurant was at the back of a derelict farmhouse and was a passable attempt at recreating the manger in Bethlehem. My dinner was cheesy, and consisted of what appeared to be a twelve metre long single strand of spaghetti floating in a puddle of warm olive oil.
There was worse to come. As we were leaving Maurice presented me with a three kilogram slab of the fromage au ville – parmesan. I protested loudly. What did I, a backpacking waif of the highway, want with 3kgs of cheese? But Maurice insisted it would bind ties between our two great nations etc etc.
I carried that block of cheese for a fortnight, paring off scrapings with my Swiss army knife and vowing that one day I would turn the incident into a highly embellished story and slip it past an unsuspecting newspaper editor (yes!!). Eventually I gave the cheese to an old lady sitting on the footpath in a Naples slum.
The point is, Parma is rubbish without the mystique of parmesan. By the same token Cheddar is a twee little place in Somerset, with a gorge that’s more like a stomach and a couple of trinket shops selling monogrammed teaspoons.
The Dutch have turned their great cheese towns into clog-and-tulip Disneylands. Every day in Edam and Gouda merry bands of outlandishly dressed peasants called Hans dance around the village square with oversized cheeses while crowds of tourists ooh and aah at the Continental charm of it all.
Clearly this madness about restricting the use of names has to be nipped in the bud before it gets out of hand. For you can be sure that when the cheese zones have locked themselves up the great smallgoods centres of Europe will want to do the same. Hitherto innocent words like hamburger and frankfurter will be taken from us. Nimes in France will insist we pay every time we say ‘denim’. And you can bet the grasping descendants of English peerage will threaten legal proceedings if we continue to call our cities Wellington, Auckland, Napier and Palmerston.
Act now. Save our cheddar.
Darby and Joan
23rd September 2006
If I hear the words ‘Darby and Joan’ one more time I will scream.
Since Marjan peremptorily left home three weeks ago Sylvia and I have entered, if only for six months, a tremulous state of life-after-children. For these three weeks I’ve been peppered with ‘Darby and Joan’. It’s like buckshot in the backside.
“Oh, you’ll be clattering about like Darby and Joan,” exclaim our acquaintances.
This is usually accompanied by a simpering smile – half sympathetic, half conspiratorial – and a small delighted shake of the head and shoulders. I’ve seen these smiles and shakes before. They are normally reserved for aging and dotty relatives.
I was genuinely puzzled by this. Of all the expectations I had of life after Marjan’s departure this was the least anticipated. It never occurred to me to respond to the numerous enquiries about coping with life after children with, “oh, we’re going to turn into Darby and Joan.” Why would it? I’ve no idea who they are.
And neither, it seems, does anybody else. My enquiries as to what was meant by the comparison drew the same little smile and another little shrug, only this time slightly more patronising, as if to say, “oh yes, he’s losing the plot already. It’ll be Rosebank next week and then, phut!”
One frank soul eventually conceded she had no idea who Darby and Joan were, but did so in a way that conveyed I had spoiled the joke by asking.
To avoid further offence I did what all reasonable people would. I Googled.
Google came up with 1,980,000 responses to ‘Darby and Joan’. After reading the first entry I’d seen enough.
Darby and Joan (you may wish to turn to the sports page at this point if you are somebody who suffers ‘Darby and Joan’-isms) refers to "the type of loving, old-fashioned, virtuous couples.”
Darby and Joan were not simply old-fashioned. They were just plain old. John Darby died in 1730, for goodness sake. He and Joan were outed in a poem written by somebody called Henry Woodfall and published in 1735.
From this point the descriptions become simply creepy. If Darby was a fusty old geezer his wife was a nightmare – “as chaste as a picture cut in alabaster. You might sooner move a Scythian rock than shoot fire into her bosom.”
I don’t understand half of this. I know Alabaster had something to do with Otago cricket in my boyhood, and my dad used to cut long grass with a scythe, but those references are too subtle for me. Never mind, I get the drift of Joan’s character from that one dreadful word – ‘chastity’.
‘Chastity’ really hits the spot with my generation. It resounds with the knell of ‘spinster’, ‘duty’ and ‘honour’. Although I’m young enough only to have been a child in rather than of the 60s I nevertheless grew up determined, like all my peers, to rid myself as soon as possible of chastity in both word and deed.
Am I now to be told by all (and sundry) that my future – this ‘Darby and Joan’ future wished upon me – is a state of chastity? It’ll be bedsocks and chamomile tea next – (dear God, we have started drinking chamomile tea recently!).
I can state publicly that my plans for life after the children left home did not include chastity. But do my erstwhile well-wishers know something I don’t? Is Darby and Joanism inevitable? Have twenty years of parenting reduced my capacities to a game of Scrabble in the evening and an occasional wayward fumble?
If so, I plead with my daughters to return home. I repent the times I encouraged you to grow up and depart, taking the last autumn leaves of my youth with you.
But, to hell with it! I won’t be consigned to my dotage so easily. After all, I belong to the ‘me’ generation. If we can vanquish egalitarianism and invent botox it should be simple to eradicate Darby and Joan.
I say scrap these 300 year old role models and find a swinging 21st century equivalent. Recently de-childrened parents should be greeted with an affirming “oh, you’ll be just like”…who?
Hmm, let’s see… I know. What about, “oh, you’ll be just like Peter and Helen.” No? A bit too risqué? (she’s a termagent and he hugs men. Well, so do I, and I intend to continue even into my Darby and Joan years).
Alright, what about “oh, you’ll be clattering around like Don and Je Lan.” Perhaps not. We get the impression ‘the Don’ and his wife aren’t doing a lot of clattering. Could we say Don and whatshername - the night of the Roundtable? Are they a suitably fiery-bosomed model for today’s mature couple?
Or maybe we go with the French equivalent of Darby and Joan - c'est St. Roch et son chien.
I can hear our friends’ exclamations. “So your children have left home. You’ll be clattering about like Saint Rock and his dog.”
Sylvia will love that.
23rd September 2006
If I hear the words ‘Darby and Joan’ one more time I will scream.
Since Marjan peremptorily left home three weeks ago Sylvia and I have entered, if only for six months, a tremulous state of life-after-children. For these three weeks I’ve been peppered with ‘Darby and Joan’. It’s like buckshot in the backside.
“Oh, you’ll be clattering about like Darby and Joan,” exclaim our acquaintances.
This is usually accompanied by a simpering smile – half sympathetic, half conspiratorial – and a small delighted shake of the head and shoulders. I’ve seen these smiles and shakes before. They are normally reserved for aging and dotty relatives.
I was genuinely puzzled by this. Of all the expectations I had of life after Marjan’s departure this was the least anticipated. It never occurred to me to respond to the numerous enquiries about coping with life after children with, “oh, we’re going to turn into Darby and Joan.” Why would it? I’ve no idea who they are.
And neither, it seems, does anybody else. My enquiries as to what was meant by the comparison drew the same little smile and another little shrug, only this time slightly more patronising, as if to say, “oh yes, he’s losing the plot already. It’ll be Rosebank next week and then, phut!”
One frank soul eventually conceded she had no idea who Darby and Joan were, but did so in a way that conveyed I had spoiled the joke by asking.
To avoid further offence I did what all reasonable people would. I Googled.
Google came up with 1,980,000 responses to ‘Darby and Joan’. After reading the first entry I’d seen enough.
Darby and Joan (you may wish to turn to the sports page at this point if you are somebody who suffers ‘Darby and Joan’-isms) refers to "the type of loving, old-fashioned, virtuous couples.”
Darby and Joan were not simply old-fashioned. They were just plain old. John Darby died in 1730, for goodness sake. He and Joan were outed in a poem written by somebody called Henry Woodfall and published in 1735.
From this point the descriptions become simply creepy. If Darby was a fusty old geezer his wife was a nightmare – “as chaste as a picture cut in alabaster. You might sooner move a Scythian rock than shoot fire into her bosom.”
I don’t understand half of this. I know Alabaster had something to do with Otago cricket in my boyhood, and my dad used to cut long grass with a scythe, but those references are too subtle for me. Never mind, I get the drift of Joan’s character from that one dreadful word – ‘chastity’.
‘Chastity’ really hits the spot with my generation. It resounds with the knell of ‘spinster’, ‘duty’ and ‘honour’. Although I’m young enough only to have been a child in rather than of the 60s I nevertheless grew up determined, like all my peers, to rid myself as soon as possible of chastity in both word and deed.
Am I now to be told by all (and sundry) that my future – this ‘Darby and Joan’ future wished upon me – is a state of chastity? It’ll be bedsocks and chamomile tea next – (dear God, we have started drinking chamomile tea recently!).
I can state publicly that my plans for life after the children left home did not include chastity. But do my erstwhile well-wishers know something I don’t? Is Darby and Joanism inevitable? Have twenty years of parenting reduced my capacities to a game of Scrabble in the evening and an occasional wayward fumble?
If so, I plead with my daughters to return home. I repent the times I encouraged you to grow up and depart, taking the last autumn leaves of my youth with you.
But, to hell with it! I won’t be consigned to my dotage so easily. After all, I belong to the ‘me’ generation. If we can vanquish egalitarianism and invent botox it should be simple to eradicate Darby and Joan.
I say scrap these 300 year old role models and find a swinging 21st century equivalent. Recently de-childrened parents should be greeted with an affirming “oh, you’ll be just like”…who?
Hmm, let’s see… I know. What about, “oh, you’ll be just like Peter and Helen.” No? A bit too risqué? (she’s a termagent and he hugs men. Well, so do I, and I intend to continue even into my Darby and Joan years).
Alright, what about “oh, you’ll be clattering around like Don and Je Lan.” Perhaps not. We get the impression ‘the Don’ and his wife aren’t doing a lot of clattering. Could we say Don and whatshername - the night of the Roundtable? Are they a suitably fiery-bosomed model for today’s mature couple?
Or maybe we go with the French equivalent of Darby and Joan - c'est St. Roch et son chien.
I can hear our friends’ exclamations. “So your children have left home. You’ll be clattering about like Saint Rock and his dog.”
Sylvia will love that.
Books a Great Gift Idea This Christmas
December 16th 2006
Welcome to Kristmas Korner, The Guardian’s on-paper guide to great gift buying. Today we check out the bookshops and discover some sensational works from the literary giants of 2006.
First up, Donald Brash. Yes, National’s former leader has been hammering away with the Parker pen to get his side of the story into the shops before Christmas. The DonKey Years (Has-Been Press, $19.99) is a no-holds-barred expose of the relationship between The Don and his former protege, John Key. Brash depicts himself as an incisive leader who nevertheless retained a whimsical charm. The chapter describing late-night paperclip races is poignant and leaves the reader wondering how events may have shaped if Brash had just once let Key win by stringing more paperclips together.
Not satisfied with one offering Don Brash follows up The DonKey Years with All My Emails (Sneaky Publications, $89.99). Clearly The Don is still smarting over the leaking of his private emails and has gone for the jugular, publishing every email he wrote or received during his time as National’s leader. His mastery of text language is mprssv and the appendices listing his dry cleaning dockets are enthralling. This four volume work is a must for camping and beach holidays – perfect for pressing wild flowers and smiting those moths that fly into the tent late at night.
Prime Minister Helen Clark adds her voice with a colourful little stocking-stuffer nattily titled A Million Bucks! How the Hell Do We Pay That? (Smokescreen Publishers, $35.95). The book describes Clark’s views on the fiasco surrounding Labour’s election spending. It is a poor read; tendentious, self-serving and occasionally hysterical. The flow of the story is hindered by numerous appeals for donations and collapses altogether when Clark offers to auction New Year’s Honours to help pay the debt.
Clark redeems herself a little when she reflects on her early political career. The chapter detailing Labour’s 1980s policies, cleverly ghost-written by David Lange, offers new light on the inner workings of the party.
By comparison Brian Connell’s Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow? (Vanity Press, $3.50) is a swashbuckling tale of wounded pride, thwarted ambition and naked lust for power. Connell reveals a talent for racy prose in a story that is subtitled ‘a memoir’ but which we hope is at least partially fiction.
Connell’s emotion is raw as he describes his ejection from National’s caucus:
“I threw myself, sobbing, at Gerry Brownlee’s feet, clawing his ankle socks in despair. Callously, Brownlee, WHO HAD ONCE BEEN MY FRIEND, signalled to his rottweilers, Smith and Williamson. Seizing me by my flowing locks they hauled me from the room, my fingernails gouging deep tracks in the shag pile, and hurled me into the cold night. As the door slammed I heard cheers and, above all, a single voice (English’s?) crowing ‘who wants Rakaia? It’s up for grabs.’”
By the end of the book Connell, the self-styled Colossus of Chertsey, is a haunted figure huddled in a corner of the debating chamber popping bubble wrap while the tides of history flow around him. The reader is left asking, ‘is this man really our MP?’
To complete the political fare this Kristmas the Exclusive Brethren have published what they hope will be a best seller. Exclusive! The Brethren’s Guide to Political Lobbying (Almighty Press, $18.95) is a step-by-step hand book for the activist. The book covers fundraising, making contact with senior party apparatchiks, exerting leverage and remaining incognito. The short section entitled Counting the Cost is revealing.
Nicky Hager hits the shelves again with a sequel to The Hollow Men. His new book exposes the dieting industry and is called The Hollow Women (Fodder & Stouton, $29.95).
Local stories, always popular, are again a feature of the Kristmas season. Mid-Canterbury historian and erstwhile news hound Michael Hanrahan has published a sumptuous and imaginative survey of the Rangitata Diversion Race. Far Canal (Cryptic Holdings, $73.99) follows the journey of a dead sparrow, killed when sucked into the Rangitata river intake, along the length of the RDR.
Hanrahan displays a fine mastery of his material and a deftness of metaphor, carefully contrasting the sparrow’s tiny corpse with the regenerative power of the RDR’s water on the farmland of our district. Hanrahan fleshes out the story with anecdotes of the people and places bordering the RDR and many interesting pictures of concrete pipes.
There are moments of drama. When the sparrow disappears into the North Branch siphon we wait breathlessly to see if, like Pooh sticks, he will pop out the other side.
Far Canal, at 1400 pages, offers rather too much detail for the average reader. By the time the dead sparrow vanishes into the Highbank turbines in a puff of sodden feathers we too are glad to have reached the end of our journey.
That’s all for Kristmas Korner today. Remember, you can buy online at http://www.ivebeenhad.com/
December 16th 2006
Welcome to Kristmas Korner, The Guardian’s on-paper guide to great gift buying. Today we check out the bookshops and discover some sensational works from the literary giants of 2006.
First up, Donald Brash. Yes, National’s former leader has been hammering away with the Parker pen to get his side of the story into the shops before Christmas. The DonKey Years (Has-Been Press, $19.99) is a no-holds-barred expose of the relationship between The Don and his former protege, John Key. Brash depicts himself as an incisive leader who nevertheless retained a whimsical charm. The chapter describing late-night paperclip races is poignant and leaves the reader wondering how events may have shaped if Brash had just once let Key win by stringing more paperclips together.
Not satisfied with one offering Don Brash follows up The DonKey Years with All My Emails (Sneaky Publications, $89.99). Clearly The Don is still smarting over the leaking of his private emails and has gone for the jugular, publishing every email he wrote or received during his time as National’s leader. His mastery of text language is mprssv and the appendices listing his dry cleaning dockets are enthralling. This four volume work is a must for camping and beach holidays – perfect for pressing wild flowers and smiting those moths that fly into the tent late at night.
Prime Minister Helen Clark adds her voice with a colourful little stocking-stuffer nattily titled A Million Bucks! How the Hell Do We Pay That? (Smokescreen Publishers, $35.95). The book describes Clark’s views on the fiasco surrounding Labour’s election spending. It is a poor read; tendentious, self-serving and occasionally hysterical. The flow of the story is hindered by numerous appeals for donations and collapses altogether when Clark offers to auction New Year’s Honours to help pay the debt.
Clark redeems herself a little when she reflects on her early political career. The chapter detailing Labour’s 1980s policies, cleverly ghost-written by David Lange, offers new light on the inner workings of the party.
By comparison Brian Connell’s Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow? (Vanity Press, $3.50) is a swashbuckling tale of wounded pride, thwarted ambition and naked lust for power. Connell reveals a talent for racy prose in a story that is subtitled ‘a memoir’ but which we hope is at least partially fiction.
Connell’s emotion is raw as he describes his ejection from National’s caucus:
“I threw myself, sobbing, at Gerry Brownlee’s feet, clawing his ankle socks in despair. Callously, Brownlee, WHO HAD ONCE BEEN MY FRIEND, signalled to his rottweilers, Smith and Williamson. Seizing me by my flowing locks they hauled me from the room, my fingernails gouging deep tracks in the shag pile, and hurled me into the cold night. As the door slammed I heard cheers and, above all, a single voice (English’s?) crowing ‘who wants Rakaia? It’s up for grabs.’”
By the end of the book Connell, the self-styled Colossus of Chertsey, is a haunted figure huddled in a corner of the debating chamber popping bubble wrap while the tides of history flow around him. The reader is left asking, ‘is this man really our MP?’
To complete the political fare this Kristmas the Exclusive Brethren have published what they hope will be a best seller. Exclusive! The Brethren’s Guide to Political Lobbying (Almighty Press, $18.95) is a step-by-step hand book for the activist. The book covers fundraising, making contact with senior party apparatchiks, exerting leverage and remaining incognito. The short section entitled Counting the Cost is revealing.
Nicky Hager hits the shelves again with a sequel to The Hollow Men. His new book exposes the dieting industry and is called The Hollow Women (Fodder & Stouton, $29.95).
Local stories, always popular, are again a feature of the Kristmas season. Mid-Canterbury historian and erstwhile news hound Michael Hanrahan has published a sumptuous and imaginative survey of the Rangitata Diversion Race. Far Canal (Cryptic Holdings, $73.99) follows the journey of a dead sparrow, killed when sucked into the Rangitata river intake, along the length of the RDR.
Hanrahan displays a fine mastery of his material and a deftness of metaphor, carefully contrasting the sparrow’s tiny corpse with the regenerative power of the RDR’s water on the farmland of our district. Hanrahan fleshes out the story with anecdotes of the people and places bordering the RDR and many interesting pictures of concrete pipes.
There are moments of drama. When the sparrow disappears into the North Branch siphon we wait breathlessly to see if, like Pooh sticks, he will pop out the other side.
Far Canal, at 1400 pages, offers rather too much detail for the average reader. By the time the dead sparrow vanishes into the Highbank turbines in a puff of sodden feathers we too are glad to have reached the end of our journey.
That’s all for Kristmas Korner today. Remember, you can buy online at http://www.ivebeenhad.com/
Books a Great Gift Idea This Christmas
December 16th 2006
Welcome to Kristmas Korner, The Guardian’s on-paper guide to great gift buying. Today we check out the bookshops and discover some sensational works from the literary giants of 2006.
First up, Donald Brash. Yes, National’s former leader has been hammering away with the Parker pen to get his side of the story into the shops before Christmas. The DonKey Years (Has-Been Press, $19.99) is a no-holds-barred expose of the relationship between The Don and his former protege, John Key. Brash depicts himself as an incisive leader who nevertheless retained a whimsical charm. The chapter describing late-night paperclip races is poignant and leaves the reader wondering how events may have shaped if Brash had just once let Key win by stringing more paperclips together.
Not satisfied with one offering Don Brash follows up The DonKey Years with All My Emails (Sneaky Publications, $89.99). Clearly The Don is still smarting over the leaking of his private emails and has gone for the jugular, publishing every email he wrote or received during his time as National’s leader. His mastery of text language is mprssv and the appendices listing his dry cleaning dockets are enthralling. This four volume work is a must for camping and beach holidays – perfect for pressing wild flowers and smiting those moths that fly into the tent late at night.
Prime Minister Helen Clark adds her voice with a colourful little stocking-stuffer nattily titled A Million Bucks! How the Hell Do We Pay That? (Smokescreen Publishers, $35.95). The book describes Clark’s views on the fiasco surrounding Labour’s election spending. It is a poor read; tendentious, self-serving and occasionally hysterical. The flow of the story is hindered by numerous appeals for donations and collapses altogether when Clark offers to auction New Year’s Honours to help pay the debt.
Clark redeems herself a little when she reflects on her early political career. The chapter detailing Labour’s 1980s policies, cleverly ghost-written by David Lange, offers new light on the inner workings of the party.
By comparison Brian Connell’s Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow? (Vanity Press, $3.50) is a swashbuckling tale of wounded pride, thwarted ambition and naked lust for power. Connell reveals a talent for racy prose in a story that is subtitled ‘a memoir’ but which we hope is at least partially fiction.
Connell’s emotion is raw as he describes his ejection from National’s caucus:
“I threw myself, sobbing, at Gerry Brownlee’s feet, clawing his ankle socks in despair. Callously, Brownlee, WHO HAD ONCE BEEN MY FRIEND, signalled to his rottweilers, Smith and Williamson. Seizing me by my flowing locks they hauled me from the room, my fingernails gouging deep tracks in the shag pile, and hurled me into the cold night. As the door slammed I heard cheers and, above all, a single voice (English’s?) crowing ‘who wants Rakaia? It’s up for grabs.’”
By the end of the book Connell, the self-styled Colossus of Chertsey, is a haunted figure huddled in a corner of the debating chamber popping bubble wrap while the tides of history flow around him. The reader is left asking, ‘is this man really our MP?’
To complete the political fare this Kristmas the Exclusive Brethren have published what they hope will be a best seller. Exclusive! The Brethren’s Guide to Political Lobbying (Almighty Press, $18.95) is a step-by-step hand book for the activist. The book covers fundraising, making contact with senior party apparatchiks, exerting leverage and remaining incognito. The short section entitled Counting the Cost is revealing.
Nicky Hager hits the shelves again with a sequel to The Hollow Men. His new book exposes the dieting industry and is called The Hollow Women (Fodder & Stouton, $29.95).
Local stories, always popular, are again a feature of the Kristmas season. Mid-Canterbury historian and erstwhile news hound Michael Hanrahan has published a sumptuous and imaginative survey of the Rangitata Diversion Race. Far Canal (Cryptic Holdings, $73.99) follows the journey of a dead sparrow, killed when sucked into the Rangitata river intake, along the length of the RDR.
Hanrahan displays a fine mastery of his material and a deftness of metaphor, carefully contrasting the sparrow’s tiny corpse with the regenerative power of the RDR’s water on the farmland of our district. Hanrahan fleshes out the story with anecdotes of the people and places bordering the RDR and many interesting pictures of concrete pipes.
There are moments of drama. When the sparrow disappears into the North Branch siphon we wait breathlessly to see if, like Pooh sticks, he will pop out the other side.
Far Canal, at 1400 pages, offers rather too much detail for the average reader. By the time the dead sparrow vanishes into the Highbank turbines in a puff of sodden feathers we too are glad to have reached the end of our journey.
That’s all for Kristmas Korner today. Remember, you can buy online at www.ivebeenhad.com
December 16th 2006
Welcome to Kristmas Korner, The Guardian’s on-paper guide to great gift buying. Today we check out the bookshops and discover some sensational works from the literary giants of 2006.
First up, Donald Brash. Yes, National’s former leader has been hammering away with the Parker pen to get his side of the story into the shops before Christmas. The DonKey Years (Has-Been Press, $19.99) is a no-holds-barred expose of the relationship between The Don and his former protege, John Key. Brash depicts himself as an incisive leader who nevertheless retained a whimsical charm. The chapter describing late-night paperclip races is poignant and leaves the reader wondering how events may have shaped if Brash had just once let Key win by stringing more paperclips together.
Not satisfied with one offering Don Brash follows up The DonKey Years with All My Emails (Sneaky Publications, $89.99). Clearly The Don is still smarting over the leaking of his private emails and has gone for the jugular, publishing every email he wrote or received during his time as National’s leader. His mastery of text language is mprssv and the appendices listing his dry cleaning dockets are enthralling. This four volume work is a must for camping and beach holidays – perfect for pressing wild flowers and smiting those moths that fly into the tent late at night.
Prime Minister Helen Clark adds her voice with a colourful little stocking-stuffer nattily titled A Million Bucks! How the Hell Do We Pay That? (Smokescreen Publishers, $35.95). The book describes Clark’s views on the fiasco surrounding Labour’s election spending. It is a poor read; tendentious, self-serving and occasionally hysterical. The flow of the story is hindered by numerous appeals for donations and collapses altogether when Clark offers to auction New Year’s Honours to help pay the debt.
Clark redeems herself a little when she reflects on her early political career. The chapter detailing Labour’s 1980s policies, cleverly ghost-written by David Lange, offers new light on the inner workings of the party.
By comparison Brian Connell’s Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow? (Vanity Press, $3.50) is a swashbuckling tale of wounded pride, thwarted ambition and naked lust for power. Connell reveals a talent for racy prose in a story that is subtitled ‘a memoir’ but which we hope is at least partially fiction.
Connell’s emotion is raw as he describes his ejection from National’s caucus:
“I threw myself, sobbing, at Gerry Brownlee’s feet, clawing his ankle socks in despair. Callously, Brownlee, WHO HAD ONCE BEEN MY FRIEND, signalled to his rottweilers, Smith and Williamson. Seizing me by my flowing locks they hauled me from the room, my fingernails gouging deep tracks in the shag pile, and hurled me into the cold night. As the door slammed I heard cheers and, above all, a single voice (English’s?) crowing ‘who wants Rakaia? It’s up for grabs.’”
By the end of the book Connell, the self-styled Colossus of Chertsey, is a haunted figure huddled in a corner of the debating chamber popping bubble wrap while the tides of history flow around him. The reader is left asking, ‘is this man really our MP?’
To complete the political fare this Kristmas the Exclusive Brethren have published what they hope will be a best seller. Exclusive! The Brethren’s Guide to Political Lobbying (Almighty Press, $18.95) is a step-by-step hand book for the activist. The book covers fundraising, making contact with senior party apparatchiks, exerting leverage and remaining incognito. The short section entitled Counting the Cost is revealing.
Nicky Hager hits the shelves again with a sequel to The Hollow Men. His new book exposes the dieting industry and is called The Hollow Women (Fodder & Stouton, $29.95).
Local stories, always popular, are again a feature of the Kristmas season. Mid-Canterbury historian and erstwhile news hound Michael Hanrahan has published a sumptuous and imaginative survey of the Rangitata Diversion Race. Far Canal (Cryptic Holdings, $73.99) follows the journey of a dead sparrow, killed when sucked into the Rangitata river intake, along the length of the RDR.
Hanrahan displays a fine mastery of his material and a deftness of metaphor, carefully contrasting the sparrow’s tiny corpse with the regenerative power of the RDR’s water on the farmland of our district. Hanrahan fleshes out the story with anecdotes of the people and places bordering the RDR and many interesting pictures of concrete pipes.
There are moments of drama. When the sparrow disappears into the North Branch siphon we wait breathlessly to see if, like Pooh sticks, he will pop out the other side.
Far Canal, at 1400 pages, offers rather too much detail for the average reader. By the time the dead sparrow vanishes into the Highbank turbines in a puff of sodden feathers we too are glad to have reached the end of our journey.
That’s all for Kristmas Korner today. Remember, you can buy online at www.ivebeenhad.com
Small Treasures From the Past
December 2nd 2006
Clearing out my garage I discover, among books and papers, a small cardboard box the size of a teapot. Opening it I feel a breath of stale air upon my face, an exhalation from the past, from thirty years ago when I packed a collection of childhood treasures into the box. How they survived the numerous purgings of an itinerant adulthood I cannot say, but out they tumble now, chattering their stories.
The first object is a small, green, wooden money box with decorative metal brackets at the corners and a broken clasp. The money box is heavy, filled to overflowing with small coins from Holland, Canada, America, Thailand. There are a few Belgian centimes and a couple of Deutschmarks.
This moneybox was my father’s. He retrieved it from his family home in 1970, during the one trip he made back to Holland after immigrating. The collection of coins was gathered during that holiday and presented to me, along with the box, on his return.
I remember vividly my father’s journey back to Holland. It was the first time the wide world came into my life. We hung a map on the kitchen wall and marked his route upon it, highlighting the cities and dates of his stopovers: Bangkok, Amsterdam, Montreal, Chicago. He was away for three months. I remember myself and my younger sisters made small calendars totalling the length of his time away – 93 days – and dutifully crossed off each day as we went to bed.
At the bottom of the money box is a clutch of small brass medallions, each embossed with the head of a prime minister of Canada. They were once mounted on a plaque that hung above my bed, a gift from a cousin of my father, a farmer in Ontario. The most recent is Pierre Trudeau and I recall as a child feeling a strong affinity with Canadian politics when I saw that name – my middle name is Trudo. For years I rejoiced when my namesake won yet another election and my plaque remained current. I couldn’t tell you who the present prime minister of Canada is.
The second object I retrieve from the box is a cheap china ornament, a trio of small and very ugly monkeys demonstrating ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ Through my childhood this object sat on my dresser, collecting dust, jostling with model aircraft. Why did I keep it?
Seeing it now reminds me that I was a rather prudish child, sentimental and highly moralistic. I blame the homespun philosophy of popular culture in rural Southland during the 60s and 70s, the dreadful country music of Radio 4ZA where we were exhorted to Stand By Your Man and Stay On The Sunny Side of Life. I cannot say I have been guiltless of seeing, hearing or talking evil. Judging by the disapproving gaze on the faces of the monkeys I suspect I have not lived up to their message.
The third and fourth objects from the box are a bottle of nail polish remover and a small packet of cotton wool. These catapult my memory a few years ahead of the money box and monkeys, into my teenage years and my first encounters with the theatre.
At some point I must have outgrown my prudishness as I developed a love of dressing up and putting on plays. And, yes, there was nail polish.
Now that I think about it the nail polish wasn’t confined to the stage. I remember - I must have been 16 or 17 - trying to impress a local beauty at the swimming baths with adolescent heroics and failing miserably when she noticed my scarlet toenails. Perhaps that was when I acquired the nail polish remover and cotton wool.
I notice the bottle is almost full. Did I use it only once? I regret to think I failed to continue my nail polish habit into adulthood.
The final object in the box is a small crucifix, stamped from cheap metal, painted gold. It is made in Taiwan. This is an icon, presented to me on my first communion (“first Holy Communion” we chanted as kids) and hung above my bed. We all received a crucifix on our first communion. No Catholic would be without one as they walked the perilous path towards puberty.
Like many of my Catholic peers I have mixed feelings about my religion and its stark symbolism. It was a rebellious spirit that packed the crucifix out of my life. As a young man I was relieved to put the faith of my childhood behind me. Now, in middle age, I am as uncertain about this conviction as I am about many other things.
An acquaintance recently revealed to me that he is ‘a recovering Catholic.’ That’s cute, and probably sums up my own ambivalence.
I put the crucifix aside and pack the other objects back into the box. Perhaps I will rediscover them in another 30 years – a truly archaeological experience.
I hang the crucifix above the workbench in the garage. In my youth this would have been considered irreverent, but there you are – and there it is.
December 2nd 2006
Clearing out my garage I discover, among books and papers, a small cardboard box the size of a teapot. Opening it I feel a breath of stale air upon my face, an exhalation from the past, from thirty years ago when I packed a collection of childhood treasures into the box. How they survived the numerous purgings of an itinerant adulthood I cannot say, but out they tumble now, chattering their stories.
The first object is a small, green, wooden money box with decorative metal brackets at the corners and a broken clasp. The money box is heavy, filled to overflowing with small coins from Holland, Canada, America, Thailand. There are a few Belgian centimes and a couple of Deutschmarks.
This moneybox was my father’s. He retrieved it from his family home in 1970, during the one trip he made back to Holland after immigrating. The collection of coins was gathered during that holiday and presented to me, along with the box, on his return.
I remember vividly my father’s journey back to Holland. It was the first time the wide world came into my life. We hung a map on the kitchen wall and marked his route upon it, highlighting the cities and dates of his stopovers: Bangkok, Amsterdam, Montreal, Chicago. He was away for three months. I remember myself and my younger sisters made small calendars totalling the length of his time away – 93 days – and dutifully crossed off each day as we went to bed.
At the bottom of the money box is a clutch of small brass medallions, each embossed with the head of a prime minister of Canada. They were once mounted on a plaque that hung above my bed, a gift from a cousin of my father, a farmer in Ontario. The most recent is Pierre Trudeau and I recall as a child feeling a strong affinity with Canadian politics when I saw that name – my middle name is Trudo. For years I rejoiced when my namesake won yet another election and my plaque remained current. I couldn’t tell you who the present prime minister of Canada is.
The second object I retrieve from the box is a cheap china ornament, a trio of small and very ugly monkeys demonstrating ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ Through my childhood this object sat on my dresser, collecting dust, jostling with model aircraft. Why did I keep it?
Seeing it now reminds me that I was a rather prudish child, sentimental and highly moralistic. I blame the homespun philosophy of popular culture in rural Southland during the 60s and 70s, the dreadful country music of Radio 4ZA where we were exhorted to Stand By Your Man and Stay On The Sunny Side of Life. I cannot say I have been guiltless of seeing, hearing or talking evil. Judging by the disapproving gaze on the faces of the monkeys I suspect I have not lived up to their message.
The third and fourth objects from the box are a bottle of nail polish remover and a small packet of cotton wool. These catapult my memory a few years ahead of the money box and monkeys, into my teenage years and my first encounters with the theatre.
At some point I must have outgrown my prudishness as I developed a love of dressing up and putting on plays. And, yes, there was nail polish.
Now that I think about it the nail polish wasn’t confined to the stage. I remember - I must have been 16 or 17 - trying to impress a local beauty at the swimming baths with adolescent heroics and failing miserably when she noticed my scarlet toenails. Perhaps that was when I acquired the nail polish remover and cotton wool.
I notice the bottle is almost full. Did I use it only once? I regret to think I failed to continue my nail polish habit into adulthood.
The final object in the box is a small crucifix, stamped from cheap metal, painted gold. It is made in Taiwan. This is an icon, presented to me on my first communion (“first Holy Communion” we chanted as kids) and hung above my bed. We all received a crucifix on our first communion. No Catholic would be without one as they walked the perilous path towards puberty.
Like many of my Catholic peers I have mixed feelings about my religion and its stark symbolism. It was a rebellious spirit that packed the crucifix out of my life. As a young man I was relieved to put the faith of my childhood behind me. Now, in middle age, I am as uncertain about this conviction as I am about many other things.
An acquaintance recently revealed to me that he is ‘a recovering Catholic.’ That’s cute, and probably sums up my own ambivalence.
I put the crucifix aside and pack the other objects back into the box. Perhaps I will rediscover them in another 30 years – a truly archaeological experience.
I hang the crucifix above the workbench in the garage. In my youth this would have been considered irreverent, but there you are – and there it is.
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