Oh, Christmas Tree!
December 2003
We stride, six of us, across the school paddock. My brother, John, leads the way, brandishing dad’s old crosscut saw, Spear & Jackson flashing in the summer sun. In defile we march, in order of age: John, Betty, then me (the lucky third), Mary, Jany and Robyn. John is fourteen, Robyn just three. We seek a Christmas tree, and announce our quest to the world -
‘Oh, Christmas tree! Oh, Christmas tree!
How merry are your branches.’
This is sung to the tune of ‘Oh, Tannenbaum’. It is the only line of the song we know, so we sing it over and over as we walk, a rallying cry that might set any young pine tree quivering with anxiety. Our weapons are various: the crosscut saw; a blunt axe. Mary waves an old tomahawk. Jany carries pruning shears. Robyn labours at the back of the line - ‘Oh, Tristris tree! Oh, Tristris tree!’ - in her three year old’s piping voice.
We slip through a wire fence, across the grounds of the maternity home and into a thistle paddock that is Roy Campbell’s farm. Our song dies as we approach the group of gnarly old pines, weathered by years of southerly gales that whip in over Foveaux Strait or sweep down from the Fiordland mountains. We’re not quite sure that we’re allowed to be here, and this faint premonition that we may be trespassing fuels our excitement. We prowl around the line of trees, gazing up, seeking out the perfect branch. There is much discussion and argument.
‘That one’s good cos it’s bushy.’
‘No it’s not. Look at the big gap half way up.’
‘This one! It’s got cones!’
‘Too high.’
Round and round, like Pooh and Piglet tracking the Heffalump.
Eventually we agree on a suitable branch, a noble and heavily-fronded branch that is far and away, we tell each other, the best on the trees. As always, we send John up with the saw. He climbs expertly, and then eases himself out along the branch, which bends gracefully towards the watchers on the ground, as if in homage to us, its nemesis.
‘Don’t saw on the side closest to the trunk!’ That’s Betty, reminding us of a previous, less successful, Christmas tree hunt. It sets Mary and Jany giggling and shouting. Robyn joins in, until John shuts them up with a growl from the tree.
He saws. The branch bends, cracks and settles to the ground with a sigh. We whoop with delight and rush to inspect our prize. On the ground, however, this branch looks a poor thing: too bushy at the base - too thin up top. We abandon it and resume our search. After we’ve repeated this scene three or four times, and branches lie like corpses, we return to the first one, decide it isn’t so bad after all – ‘nothing we can’t fix up with a few extra bits’, says John – and lift it up for the return journey.
Anybody watching from the windows of the maternity home would have observed a strange sight: a large pine tree branch wandering erratically across the school ground, propelled by six pairs of gumboots, and singing ‘Oh, Christmas tree!’ in a muffled, discordant voice.
Within the moving tree my face is pricked by pine needles, my nose itchy with pollen. Mary sneezes loudly behind me. I am giddy with the scent of pine and the warm, enveloping crush of the branch. My whole world is in this Christmas tree, with my brother and my sisters.
Robyn, encumbered with axe and saw, begins to wail. We stop and Betty picks her up, balances her on one hip while continuing to support the branch on her shoulder. We set off again, Robyn gripping a twig, beaming through her tears.
We cast our prize on the back lawn and, clamouring with the elation of the hunt, troop inside to tell mum. She surveys our tree with a practiced eye. We wait expectantly, breathless, for her judgement. Eventually she nods, declares that, with a bit of trimming here, and some extra foliage there, it will make a good tree. We cheer. John is sent off to the henhouse for the cream can to prop the tree in.
Later, in the evening, we unwrap the nativity set, one of mum’s prized possessions, brought from Holland years before. The tree, glittering with lights and decorations, seems to bend down to embrace the cardboard cave in which Mary, Joseph, the ox and ass, the baby, are tenderly displayed. Tim, the cat, delicately picks his way through the figurines and curls around the manger, one of our Christmas rituals that brings smiles and giggles from the younger kids.
I sit in front of the tree, giddy with excitement, and gaze into its branches. I am filled with wonder.
Thirty-five years later, as I reflect on Christmas as a child, these are the memories that spring to mind. I recall almost nothing about presents, food, visitors or parties. To me, the spirit of Christmas is a child gazing into the branches of a tree, gazing beyond the lights and decorations, into the folds and shadows of the pine needles, and discovering there, with wonder and delight, the life and hope, peace and re-birth that is the Christmas message. As an adult, the echo of that child still sends a thrill through me.
I wish you a Merry Christmas.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Who Killed Tulkinghorn?
26th December 2008
Whether the leitmotif is Christian or commercial most human behaviour at Christmas boils down to tradition. We strive, year in and year out, to recreate the festive season in a form that is familiar and satisfying. Although I consider myself adaptable, even adventurous at times, a diary of my Christmas week reveals the extent to which I am enthralled by custom.
Sunday 21st December.
Arriving at the point in the year when we can finally relax Sylvia and I are reluctant to engage with the hype of Christmas. Our response is to disappear into a good story. A visit to the Ashburton library unearths a BBC costume drama, Charles Dickens’ Bleak House in 15 episodes. We settle down for an evening of Jarndyce vs Jarndyce, fuelled by a batch of Sylvia’s famous rumballs drenched in cointreau. Within minutes we are lost in Victorian London among lawyers, ladies and litigation.
Monday 22nd December.
I have no pretensions as a pastrycook but years ago I picked up the habit of baking Christmas mince pies, small pastry delights that have become a fixture of our festivities. I spend the morning with rolling pin and cookie cutter. For a few hours fruit mince is, literally, my raisin d’etre and by lunchtime six dozen mince pies are cooling on the bench.
After lunch I venture out to the shops in a departure from the tradition of doing all my Christmas shopping at 5pm on the 24th. I buy jewellery for Sylvia, gardening tools for Marjan and aviator sunglasses for Corrie. In the evening we return to Bleak House where Krook spontaneously combusts, Esther’s hopes for happiness are dashed by smallpox and somebody drills a bullet through the black heart of Tulkinghorn the villainous lawyer.
Tuesday 23rd December.
Continuing to distance ourselves from festive frenzy we indulge another family tradition – the pre-Christmas tramping trip. Over the years we have polished this up as a highlight of our holidays. Usually we venture no further than the Mt Somers walkway but on this occasion we drive to Arthur’s Pass where Marjan is waitressing at a luxury tourist lodge. Her roster gives her a couple of days break and she joins us for a short tramp into the Edwards valley.
Marjan is reliably unpredictable. Halfway up the valley she remarks, “I’ve noticed your smell has changed. No offence or anything, but you’re starting to smell like an old man.”
I’m taken aback. Of all the signs of approaching decrepitude I never expected it would be my smell that undid me.
We climb towards the Edwards hut through meadows of shining snow grass and Mt Cook buttercups. Under a bright blue sky we debate the identity of Tulkinghorn’s murderer. Sergeant George is clearly the prime suspect but we agree that he is too obvious. Lady Dedlock has motive. Then again, it could be Guppy the striving law clerk or Hortense the estranged maid. We agree that Hortense is the most likely killer - she is French, after all.
Wednesday 24th December.
Christmas Eve. We rise early and head back down the valley. The Bealey river is thigh deep as we approach the car park and we walk the last few hundred metres through a blanket of purple lupins. We return Marjan to the tourist lodge where she opens her Christmas presents. In another departure from tradition she will not be with us on Christmas day and I feel saddened by this. There are moments when the journey of parenthood still throws up surprises.
We return to Ashburton and a flurry of wrapping paper and trifle. Corrie joins us from her job at the berry farm, we pack the car and turn towards Christchurch and the customary gathering of my family at my mum’s place.
Later in the evening I disentangle myself from nephews and nieces and accompany mum to midnight mass. Father Miles, the parish priest, is as confidential as a butler. From his lips the message of Christ’s birth reassures me just as it did when I was 10 years old. I stifle a yawn – it’s been a long day – and lose myself in the familiarity of it all.
The congregation clanks into Silent Night and Christmas slowly rumbles into view like a coal train emerging from the Otira tunnel. I wonder whether the small traditions I pursue so resolutely have any basis in reality or whether each festive season adds another ring in a slowly growing tree of fantasy. It’s Christmas - and I still don’t know who killed Tulkinghorn.
26th December 2008
Whether the leitmotif is Christian or commercial most human behaviour at Christmas boils down to tradition. We strive, year in and year out, to recreate the festive season in a form that is familiar and satisfying. Although I consider myself adaptable, even adventurous at times, a diary of my Christmas week reveals the extent to which I am enthralled by custom.
Sunday 21st December.
Arriving at the point in the year when we can finally relax Sylvia and I are reluctant to engage with the hype of Christmas. Our response is to disappear into a good story. A visit to the Ashburton library unearths a BBC costume drama, Charles Dickens’ Bleak House in 15 episodes. We settle down for an evening of Jarndyce vs Jarndyce, fuelled by a batch of Sylvia’s famous rumballs drenched in cointreau. Within minutes we are lost in Victorian London among lawyers, ladies and litigation.
Monday 22nd December.
I have no pretensions as a pastrycook but years ago I picked up the habit of baking Christmas mince pies, small pastry delights that have become a fixture of our festivities. I spend the morning with rolling pin and cookie cutter. For a few hours fruit mince is, literally, my raisin d’etre and by lunchtime six dozen mince pies are cooling on the bench.
After lunch I venture out to the shops in a departure from the tradition of doing all my Christmas shopping at 5pm on the 24th. I buy jewellery for Sylvia, gardening tools for Marjan and aviator sunglasses for Corrie. In the evening we return to Bleak House where Krook spontaneously combusts, Esther’s hopes for happiness are dashed by smallpox and somebody drills a bullet through the black heart of Tulkinghorn the villainous lawyer.
Tuesday 23rd December.
Continuing to distance ourselves from festive frenzy we indulge another family tradition – the pre-Christmas tramping trip. Over the years we have polished this up as a highlight of our holidays. Usually we venture no further than the Mt Somers walkway but on this occasion we drive to Arthur’s Pass where Marjan is waitressing at a luxury tourist lodge. Her roster gives her a couple of days break and she joins us for a short tramp into the Edwards valley.
Marjan is reliably unpredictable. Halfway up the valley she remarks, “I’ve noticed your smell has changed. No offence or anything, but you’re starting to smell like an old man.”
I’m taken aback. Of all the signs of approaching decrepitude I never expected it would be my smell that undid me.
We climb towards the Edwards hut through meadows of shining snow grass and Mt Cook buttercups. Under a bright blue sky we debate the identity of Tulkinghorn’s murderer. Sergeant George is clearly the prime suspect but we agree that he is too obvious. Lady Dedlock has motive. Then again, it could be Guppy the striving law clerk or Hortense the estranged maid. We agree that Hortense is the most likely killer - she is French, after all.
Wednesday 24th December.
Christmas Eve. We rise early and head back down the valley. The Bealey river is thigh deep as we approach the car park and we walk the last few hundred metres through a blanket of purple lupins. We return Marjan to the tourist lodge where she opens her Christmas presents. In another departure from tradition she will not be with us on Christmas day and I feel saddened by this. There are moments when the journey of parenthood still throws up surprises.
We return to Ashburton and a flurry of wrapping paper and trifle. Corrie joins us from her job at the berry farm, we pack the car and turn towards Christchurch and the customary gathering of my family at my mum’s place.
Later in the evening I disentangle myself from nephews and nieces and accompany mum to midnight mass. Father Miles, the parish priest, is as confidential as a butler. From his lips the message of Christ’s birth reassures me just as it did when I was 10 years old. I stifle a yawn – it’s been a long day – and lose myself in the familiarity of it all.
The congregation clanks into Silent Night and Christmas slowly rumbles into view like a coal train emerging from the Otira tunnel. I wonder whether the small traditions I pursue so resolutely have any basis in reality or whether each festive season adds another ring in a slowly growing tree of fantasy. It’s Christmas - and I still don’t know who killed Tulkinghorn.
Henry Plays God
2006/2008
Henry is no angel. He happily admits he’s not the teacher’s pet. He and his best friend Nathan, with the perfect logic of seven year olds, rate themselves as ‘the fourth or fifth worst boys’ in their Year 2 class.
So it came as a surprise to Henry when Mrs McMurtrie told him he would be God in the Christmas nativity play. She announced it to the whole class, which was hard for Henry. He quickly checked the reactions of his friends, and of the boys he would like to be his friends. Did they approve? He thought about saying ‘no’, but you don’t say ‘no’ to Mrs McMurtrie.
Henry felt proud, and scared. God had a big part in the play. It was God who had to command the star to guide the Wise Men to Bethlehem, choose the animals to share Jesus’ stable and the shepherds to do the adoring. He hoped Nathan would get the part of the sensible star, the one Mrs McMurtrie said God would choose to do the guiding. But Nathan became the giraffe instead, and didn’t even get to share the stable because his neck was too long to fit through the door.
So tonight, in the week before Christmas, the junior school is performing the nativity and Henry plays God. He wears a gold cloak and sits on a big throne, from where he can see the whole audience. Even through the bright lights shining right in his eyes he can tell the hall is packed. He wonders where mum, dad and his little brother are. It is hot and his nose itches.
Mr Jones the principal stands on the second step and claps in the usual way to quieten everybody down. He says something and then vanishes. The music starts and everybody looks at Henry. Slowly he stands and begins to speak…
Henry is among thousands of young children throughout the country who, this week and next, are renewing one of the oldest and fondest Christmas traditions – the school concert. Raise your hand if you never took part in a school concert. Just as I thought…
Do you remember those Christmas concerts? Waiting excitedly in the classroom until it was our turn to be marched to the hall through the twilight of a warm summer evening. Putting on cardboard masks, cowboy outfits or a pair of animal ears. Clutching a sword or a recorder. Standing at the side of the stage while teachers rushed about, moving wooden forms and ‘shushing’ everyone out of habit.
Then the performance. An animal pageant one year, a medley of Christmas songs the next, perhaps an original musical written by a talented beginning teacher or a play from the School Journal.
Most or our memories of school are quickly, blessedly, erased after we depart. Maths and spelling lessons are swiftly forgotten (though their outcomes, hopefully, linger). Good teachers and bad merge over time into a single darkening image. Classmates occasionally become life-long friends, but more often vanish into fragments: this one gave you a Chinese burn, that one shared a detention, the other kissed you behind the bikesheds – or did you just wish they had?
But often the memory of the Christmas concert endures. Even if we forget the details we recall the excitement that ran like a thread through rehearsals and performances, right to the moment when we snuggled into our beds late after the show, filled with jelly and ice cream, wrapped in warm words of praise from our parents and the promise of a half-day off tomorrow.
These memories remain powerful, I think, because they are memories of power. The concert is, for many a child, their first experience of being the centre of attention, of being in control. Standing on that stage, even if terrified, we instinctively sense we have the audience in our hands. For the duration of our performance we can make those grownups laugh or cheer or be silent. We can make them proud or disappointed. We can scatter their emotions this way and that, like straws in our hands.
At Christmas we celebrate the birth of a child who truly became the centre of attention. Christ exhorts us to seek our salvation in the example of children. Their innocence, zest for life and faith in their own essential goodness reminds us that we are divine and joyous beings.
Even Henry understands that we can never really play God. There is much in the world and even in our own lives over which we have no control. But at Christmas, when we celebrate a child’s birth, let’s remind ourselves that if we keep alive the child within us we may yet become the perfect creatures God intends us to be.
Happy Christmas.
2006/2008
Henry is no angel. He happily admits he’s not the teacher’s pet. He and his best friend Nathan, with the perfect logic of seven year olds, rate themselves as ‘the fourth or fifth worst boys’ in their Year 2 class.
So it came as a surprise to Henry when Mrs McMurtrie told him he would be God in the Christmas nativity play. She announced it to the whole class, which was hard for Henry. He quickly checked the reactions of his friends, and of the boys he would like to be his friends. Did they approve? He thought about saying ‘no’, but you don’t say ‘no’ to Mrs McMurtrie.
Henry felt proud, and scared. God had a big part in the play. It was God who had to command the star to guide the Wise Men to Bethlehem, choose the animals to share Jesus’ stable and the shepherds to do the adoring. He hoped Nathan would get the part of the sensible star, the one Mrs McMurtrie said God would choose to do the guiding. But Nathan became the giraffe instead, and didn’t even get to share the stable because his neck was too long to fit through the door.
So tonight, in the week before Christmas, the junior school is performing the nativity and Henry plays God. He wears a gold cloak and sits on a big throne, from where he can see the whole audience. Even through the bright lights shining right in his eyes he can tell the hall is packed. He wonders where mum, dad and his little brother are. It is hot and his nose itches.
Mr Jones the principal stands on the second step and claps in the usual way to quieten everybody down. He says something and then vanishes. The music starts and everybody looks at Henry. Slowly he stands and begins to speak…
Henry is among thousands of young children throughout the country who, this week and next, are renewing one of the oldest and fondest Christmas traditions – the school concert. Raise your hand if you never took part in a school concert. Just as I thought…
Do you remember those Christmas concerts? Waiting excitedly in the classroom until it was our turn to be marched to the hall through the twilight of a warm summer evening. Putting on cardboard masks, cowboy outfits or a pair of animal ears. Clutching a sword or a recorder. Standing at the side of the stage while teachers rushed about, moving wooden forms and ‘shushing’ everyone out of habit.
Then the performance. An animal pageant one year, a medley of Christmas songs the next, perhaps an original musical written by a talented beginning teacher or a play from the School Journal.
Most or our memories of school are quickly, blessedly, erased after we depart. Maths and spelling lessons are swiftly forgotten (though their outcomes, hopefully, linger). Good teachers and bad merge over time into a single darkening image. Classmates occasionally become life-long friends, but more often vanish into fragments: this one gave you a Chinese burn, that one shared a detention, the other kissed you behind the bikesheds – or did you just wish they had?
But often the memory of the Christmas concert endures. Even if we forget the details we recall the excitement that ran like a thread through rehearsals and performances, right to the moment when we snuggled into our beds late after the show, filled with jelly and ice cream, wrapped in warm words of praise from our parents and the promise of a half-day off tomorrow.
These memories remain powerful, I think, because they are memories of power. The concert is, for many a child, their first experience of being the centre of attention, of being in control. Standing on that stage, even if terrified, we instinctively sense we have the audience in our hands. For the duration of our performance we can make those grownups laugh or cheer or be silent. We can make them proud or disappointed. We can scatter their emotions this way and that, like straws in our hands.
At Christmas we celebrate the birth of a child who truly became the centre of attention. Christ exhorts us to seek our salvation in the example of children. Their innocence, zest for life and faith in their own essential goodness reminds us that we are divine and joyous beings.
Even Henry understands that we can never really play God. There is much in the world and even in our own lives over which we have no control. But at Christmas, when we celebrate a child’s birth, let’s remind ourselves that if we keep alive the child within us we may yet become the perfect creatures God intends us to be.
Happy Christmas.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Modern Pentathlon loses a limb
29th November 2008
The Olympic movement is in disarray after the IOC’s sub-committee for Failing, Unpopular and Just Plain Stupid Sports has decided to reduce the Modern Pentathlon from five events to four.
“The Modern Pentathlon is the silliest event in the Olympics,” asserted IOC spokesperson, Eva Botticelli. “It is not modern so we thought, what the hell, it might as well not be a pentathlon either.”
The Modern Pentathlon is certainly not modern. The brainchild of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, the event was first held about the time the Titanic went down. De Coubertin designed it to embody the ideals of the Olympic movement by gathering into a single event all the qualities of a “modern” soldier. Competitors must shoot an air pistol, fence, swim for 200 metres, ride a horse that is unknown to them over a showjumping course and run 3,000 metres.
Let’s break this down to see just how silly it is. Air pistols? How many armed servicemen or women go into the field of battle with an air pistol? Air pistols are the property of 12 year old boys who shoot at cans and the family hamster.
Fencing and swimming regularly descend into acrimony and were the cause of New Zealand’s Most Embarrassing Olympic Moment when, in 1948, our sole ModPen competitor, Rusty Robertson, formed the mistaken view that he had to construct 200 metres of fencing. Rusty had uncoiled 3 chain of barbed wire across the Olympic stadium before astonished officials dragged him away.
“A horse that is unknown to them” has strained the credibility of the Modern Pentathlon since its inception. Organisers have gone to ludicrous lengths to keep competitors and horses apart, even billeting them in separate countries on occasions. The 1968 winner, Russian Iva Revolstky, was stripped of his medal when photographs revealed him drinking in a bar with his horse the night before the competition.
The IOC’s latest decision is to merge the shooting and running events (I am not making this up) to “restore the credibility of the Modern Pentathlon and give it more audience appeal.” This is NOT A GOOD IDEA. It beggars belief that a sport already confined to a handful of competitors would place its remaining participants in such jeopardy. It will lead to scenes not witnessed since Gunsmoke.
The curious reasoning behind the decision is revealed in the ModPen Federation’s newsletter, Shoot Bang Fire! The newsletter reveals the intense pressure placed upon IOC officials by so-called ‘demonstration’ sports seeking places in the Olympic pantheon. Chief among these is line dancing and the newsletter reveals a history of bad blood between these two disciplines.
“The Modern Pentathlon must never give up its Olympic place to line dancing,” urges one contributor.
“Line dancing’s inclusion would forever besmirch the ideals of Pierre de Coubertin,” exclaims another outraged pentathlete.
The Line Dancers’ Collective has responded by surrounding the IOC’s headquarters in Brussels. Riot police called to the scene are reported to be joining the dancers in their protest.
In a further twist it has been revealed that de Coubertin intended the five events of the Modern Pentathlon to represent the five circles of the Olympic logo. With just a four-event pentathlon the IOC now faces having to drop one of the circles.
“Our view is that Oceania will be dropped,” says Botticelli. “After all, it is just a piece of ocean with Australia in the corner. We can shift Australia into the Asian circle and those other silly little countries will disappear under rising sea levels anyway.”
IOC officials, embarrassed at the prospect of a four-legged pentathlon, have suggested a compromise. Eva Botticelli continues: “we are investigating the inclusion of line dancing as the 5th event in the Modern Pentathlon. We believe this is a satisfactory compromise that will revitalize the sport and more accurately reflect the qualities of the modern soldier.”
Discussions continue.
29th November 2008
The Olympic movement is in disarray after the IOC’s sub-committee for Failing, Unpopular and Just Plain Stupid Sports has decided to reduce the Modern Pentathlon from five events to four.
“The Modern Pentathlon is the silliest event in the Olympics,” asserted IOC spokesperson, Eva Botticelli. “It is not modern so we thought, what the hell, it might as well not be a pentathlon either.”
The Modern Pentathlon is certainly not modern. The brainchild of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, the event was first held about the time the Titanic went down. De Coubertin designed it to embody the ideals of the Olympic movement by gathering into a single event all the qualities of a “modern” soldier. Competitors must shoot an air pistol, fence, swim for 200 metres, ride a horse that is unknown to them over a showjumping course and run 3,000 metres.
Let’s break this down to see just how silly it is. Air pistols? How many armed servicemen or women go into the field of battle with an air pistol? Air pistols are the property of 12 year old boys who shoot at cans and the family hamster.
Fencing and swimming regularly descend into acrimony and were the cause of New Zealand’s Most Embarrassing Olympic Moment when, in 1948, our sole ModPen competitor, Rusty Robertson, formed the mistaken view that he had to construct 200 metres of fencing. Rusty had uncoiled 3 chain of barbed wire across the Olympic stadium before astonished officials dragged him away.
“A horse that is unknown to them” has strained the credibility of the Modern Pentathlon since its inception. Organisers have gone to ludicrous lengths to keep competitors and horses apart, even billeting them in separate countries on occasions. The 1968 winner, Russian Iva Revolstky, was stripped of his medal when photographs revealed him drinking in a bar with his horse the night before the competition.
The IOC’s latest decision is to merge the shooting and running events (I am not making this up) to “restore the credibility of the Modern Pentathlon and give it more audience appeal.” This is NOT A GOOD IDEA. It beggars belief that a sport already confined to a handful of competitors would place its remaining participants in such jeopardy. It will lead to scenes not witnessed since Gunsmoke.
The curious reasoning behind the decision is revealed in the ModPen Federation’s newsletter, Shoot Bang Fire! The newsletter reveals the intense pressure placed upon IOC officials by so-called ‘demonstration’ sports seeking places in the Olympic pantheon. Chief among these is line dancing and the newsletter reveals a history of bad blood between these two disciplines.
“The Modern Pentathlon must never give up its Olympic place to line dancing,” urges one contributor.
“Line dancing’s inclusion would forever besmirch the ideals of Pierre de Coubertin,” exclaims another outraged pentathlete.
The Line Dancers’ Collective has responded by surrounding the IOC’s headquarters in Brussels. Riot police called to the scene are reported to be joining the dancers in their protest.
In a further twist it has been revealed that de Coubertin intended the five events of the Modern Pentathlon to represent the five circles of the Olympic logo. With just a four-event pentathlon the IOC now faces having to drop one of the circles.
“Our view is that Oceania will be dropped,” says Botticelli. “After all, it is just a piece of ocean with Australia in the corner. We can shift Australia into the Asian circle and those other silly little countries will disappear under rising sea levels anyway.”
IOC officials, embarrassed at the prospect of a four-legged pentathlon, have suggested a compromise. Eva Botticelli continues: “we are investigating the inclusion of line dancing as the 5th event in the Modern Pentathlon. We believe this is a satisfactory compromise that will revitalize the sport and more accurately reflect the qualities of the modern soldier.”
Discussions continue.
2011 election campaign has begun
15th November 2008
Comparisons in the media between the New Zealand and American elections have been unflattering to us. Our election, they say, was dull. It lacked personalities, momentum and any glimmer of history-in-the-making. If it’s true that the campaign never reached great heights this is simply because we hadn’t sunk to the depths of America under Bush. Our outgoing government was not an administration of ideologically driven numbskulls. And although we rewrote recent history by electing a male Prime Minister this is nothing compared to Obama’s epoch-making victory.
But if the campaign was dull the events of the past week have made up for it. Overnight our political landscape is transformed and like show-ponies on Cup Day all parties are scrambling to cover ground.
National, isolated for years by an MMP system that threw up few allies on the right, is suddenly everybody’s best mate. Quick-fire deals with ACT, United Future and the Maori Party have left Labour out in the chook shed with just the Greens and Progressives for company.
Why has John Key stitched up deals with so many partners? After all, he doesn’t need the votes of all these small parties and he knows there will be a cost to running a government that includes both Rodney Hide and Pita Sharples. National’s deal-making this week is really the first shot in the 2011 election campaign. They know that the next election is unlikely to be so kind to them and that they have three years to convince the electorate there is a natural grouping of interests in the centre right. This is why the deal with the Maori Party is particularly important. When the electoral mood swings back to the left ACT will dwindle but a centrist Maori Party will be an ally worth having.
And under Helen Clark’s tutelage National has learned a lesson or two about managing MMP. Labour’s decision in 2005 to run a minority government, criticised by National at the time and sneered at by right-wing columnists since, turns out to have been a good idea. It gives the minor partners in government at least the appearance of power while retaining the independence to keep their supporters on side.
This is important because, however risky MMP is for National and Labour, it can be lethal for small parties. ACT has a full hand of cards this week but it would have vanished completely in 2005 if National hadn’t thrown Rodney a lifeline in Epsom.
NZ First’s sudden death at the polls sends shivers through all the small parties. This was a party that once had 17 MPs, whose leader was Minister of Foreign Affairs, whose leader was Winston, for goodness sake. But without a safe electoral seat or 5% of the party vote it is nothing.
That one safe electoral seat can make or break an MMP government, which may be a weakness, depending on whose side you’re on. Only the Greens, through excellent branding, have managed to stay in parliament throughout MMP without an electorate seat. Others – Peter Dunne and Jim Anderton – cling to their seats like tiny life rafts.
NZ First’s best hope of getting back into Parliament is that sometime in the next three years a sitting MP has a falling out with his or her party and casts around for another vessel to sail back in on. Their 2011 election campaign should start now by ditching Winston, shoring up their networks and keeping an eye out for a potential sugar-daddy.
As for Labour, their behaviour this week has been most unbecoming for a party in defeat. The Clark and Cullen vanishing act has allowed them to move from wake to wedding with Hamletic swiftness. They seem almost buoyant in opposition and, with 43 MPs and an experienced leadership team, things could have been worse. As Treasury forecasts bleaken perhaps this wasn’t a bad election to lose. Suddenly 2011 doesn’t seem so far away.
The campaign has just begun.
15th November 2008
Comparisons in the media between the New Zealand and American elections have been unflattering to us. Our election, they say, was dull. It lacked personalities, momentum and any glimmer of history-in-the-making. If it’s true that the campaign never reached great heights this is simply because we hadn’t sunk to the depths of America under Bush. Our outgoing government was not an administration of ideologically driven numbskulls. And although we rewrote recent history by electing a male Prime Minister this is nothing compared to Obama’s epoch-making victory.
But if the campaign was dull the events of the past week have made up for it. Overnight our political landscape is transformed and like show-ponies on Cup Day all parties are scrambling to cover ground.
National, isolated for years by an MMP system that threw up few allies on the right, is suddenly everybody’s best mate. Quick-fire deals with ACT, United Future and the Maori Party have left Labour out in the chook shed with just the Greens and Progressives for company.
Why has John Key stitched up deals with so many partners? After all, he doesn’t need the votes of all these small parties and he knows there will be a cost to running a government that includes both Rodney Hide and Pita Sharples. National’s deal-making this week is really the first shot in the 2011 election campaign. They know that the next election is unlikely to be so kind to them and that they have three years to convince the electorate there is a natural grouping of interests in the centre right. This is why the deal with the Maori Party is particularly important. When the electoral mood swings back to the left ACT will dwindle but a centrist Maori Party will be an ally worth having.
And under Helen Clark’s tutelage National has learned a lesson or two about managing MMP. Labour’s decision in 2005 to run a minority government, criticised by National at the time and sneered at by right-wing columnists since, turns out to have been a good idea. It gives the minor partners in government at least the appearance of power while retaining the independence to keep their supporters on side.
This is important because, however risky MMP is for National and Labour, it can be lethal for small parties. ACT has a full hand of cards this week but it would have vanished completely in 2005 if National hadn’t thrown Rodney a lifeline in Epsom.
NZ First’s sudden death at the polls sends shivers through all the small parties. This was a party that once had 17 MPs, whose leader was Minister of Foreign Affairs, whose leader was Winston, for goodness sake. But without a safe electoral seat or 5% of the party vote it is nothing.
That one safe electoral seat can make or break an MMP government, which may be a weakness, depending on whose side you’re on. Only the Greens, through excellent branding, have managed to stay in parliament throughout MMP without an electorate seat. Others – Peter Dunne and Jim Anderton – cling to their seats like tiny life rafts.
NZ First’s best hope of getting back into Parliament is that sometime in the next three years a sitting MP has a falling out with his or her party and casts around for another vessel to sail back in on. Their 2011 election campaign should start now by ditching Winston, shoring up their networks and keeping an eye out for a potential sugar-daddy.
As for Labour, their behaviour this week has been most unbecoming for a party in defeat. The Clark and Cullen vanishing act has allowed them to move from wake to wedding with Hamletic swiftness. They seem almost buoyant in opposition and, with 43 MPs and an experienced leadership team, things could have been worse. As Treasury forecasts bleaken perhaps this wasn’t a bad election to lose. Suddenly 2011 doesn’t seem so far away.
The campaign has just begun.
RSA faces an uncertain future
1st November 2008
Hidden among the colossal news stories of the week is a snippet about the closure of the Lower Hutt RSA. Falling membership and financial strain have brought the club to its knees and, short of a miracle, it will fold. Gone. Kaput. The report says many other RSA clubs face a similar end.
At the Lower Hutt RSA the failure to attract new members is blamed on misunderstanding about the organisation. “People think we’re a bunch of old soldiers sitting around talking about the war, but I haven’t heard a war story in here for weeks,” said one member. But there can be no misunderstanding. Few organisations are more aptly named: the RSA is the Returned Services Association – a bunch of old soldiers. Perhaps the war stories have dwindled but its rationale remains the support of servicemen and women who have returned. Returned from what? From the battlefield; from what used to be called the ‘theatre of war.’
In which case the disappearance of RSA clubs should be something to celebrate, signifying as it does that we no longer participate in the large-scale acts of carnage that blighted or destroyed the lives of our young men and women in the past.
Did the founders of the RSA intend it to last forever? Were they so cynical? There is no doubt that the RSA is an icon of the ‘rugby, racing and beer’ generations, of weathered faces in smoke-filled rooms, of stern camaraderie and sober countenance. Some RSA clubs strive to break free of those images, to re-invent themselves for a new generation.
Lower Hutt’s neighbouring club, Porirua, recently ditched the military service requirement for members, throwing its doors open to the public. This has not gone down well with the old soldiers of Porirua and you have to wonder what the point is of having a Returned Servicemans’ Association open to everybody.
The Porirua plan appears to be the response of an organisation that has lost sight of itself. The economic imperatives driving the decision are the consequences of overly ambitious expansion. RSA clubrooms used to be just that; a room where members met, socialised and arranged small acts of charity. Over time many clubs expanded to include restaurants, bars and gaming parlours. They borrowed money to build bigger premises and it is the financial burden of these that now undermines the viability of the organisation as much as dwindling membership.
The Porirua RSA and others like it want to increase membership mainly to sustain their restaurants and bars, in which case they become no different than a hotel or working men’s club. Do the new members of the Porirua RSA participate in the other traditional roles of the club? Are they encouraged to march on ANZAC Day? Are they entitled to the benefits received by returned servicemen and women? Do they uphold the values of the club? Or is it just another watering hole?
This is one of those tiny stories that are compelling because they reveal a much bigger picture.
As a nation we are at a point of growth where, lizard-like, we are shaking off an old skin. Many of the structures that have served us well in the past will not be needed in the future. The RSA is just one of many organisations that struggle at this time. Churches, service clubs and voluntary groups all confront their relevance in the new society. Many respond by rebranding themselves: the WDFF becomes Rural Women, churches embrace rock music and Girl Guides transform into action figures.
Ultimately the continuance of organisations like the RSA depends not on branding but on a genuine need for their services. Painful though it may be to some, the RSA may disappear, or its name continue as a meaningless acronym on a chain of neighbourhood eateries. Like the Temperance Unions of the early 20th century it may eventually fall victim not to progress but simply to evolution.
1st November 2008
Hidden among the colossal news stories of the week is a snippet about the closure of the Lower Hutt RSA. Falling membership and financial strain have brought the club to its knees and, short of a miracle, it will fold. Gone. Kaput. The report says many other RSA clubs face a similar end.
At the Lower Hutt RSA the failure to attract new members is blamed on misunderstanding about the organisation. “People think we’re a bunch of old soldiers sitting around talking about the war, but I haven’t heard a war story in here for weeks,” said one member. But there can be no misunderstanding. Few organisations are more aptly named: the RSA is the Returned Services Association – a bunch of old soldiers. Perhaps the war stories have dwindled but its rationale remains the support of servicemen and women who have returned. Returned from what? From the battlefield; from what used to be called the ‘theatre of war.’
In which case the disappearance of RSA clubs should be something to celebrate, signifying as it does that we no longer participate in the large-scale acts of carnage that blighted or destroyed the lives of our young men and women in the past.
Did the founders of the RSA intend it to last forever? Were they so cynical? There is no doubt that the RSA is an icon of the ‘rugby, racing and beer’ generations, of weathered faces in smoke-filled rooms, of stern camaraderie and sober countenance. Some RSA clubs strive to break free of those images, to re-invent themselves for a new generation.
Lower Hutt’s neighbouring club, Porirua, recently ditched the military service requirement for members, throwing its doors open to the public. This has not gone down well with the old soldiers of Porirua and you have to wonder what the point is of having a Returned Servicemans’ Association open to everybody.
The Porirua plan appears to be the response of an organisation that has lost sight of itself. The economic imperatives driving the decision are the consequences of overly ambitious expansion. RSA clubrooms used to be just that; a room where members met, socialised and arranged small acts of charity. Over time many clubs expanded to include restaurants, bars and gaming parlours. They borrowed money to build bigger premises and it is the financial burden of these that now undermines the viability of the organisation as much as dwindling membership.
The Porirua RSA and others like it want to increase membership mainly to sustain their restaurants and bars, in which case they become no different than a hotel or working men’s club. Do the new members of the Porirua RSA participate in the other traditional roles of the club? Are they encouraged to march on ANZAC Day? Are they entitled to the benefits received by returned servicemen and women? Do they uphold the values of the club? Or is it just another watering hole?
This is one of those tiny stories that are compelling because they reveal a much bigger picture.
As a nation we are at a point of growth where, lizard-like, we are shaking off an old skin. Many of the structures that have served us well in the past will not be needed in the future. The RSA is just one of many organisations that struggle at this time. Churches, service clubs and voluntary groups all confront their relevance in the new society. Many respond by rebranding themselves: the WDFF becomes Rural Women, churches embrace rock music and Girl Guides transform into action figures.
Ultimately the continuance of organisations like the RSA depends not on branding but on a genuine need for their services. Painful though it may be to some, the RSA may disappear, or its name continue as a meaningless acronym on a chain of neighbourhood eateries. Like the Temperance Unions of the early 20th century it may eventually fall victim not to progress but simply to evolution.
Daffodils revive flower power
We were delighted when Carol announced at the end of the choir practice that the large bucket of daffodils was a gift to us and that there were several more in the back of her car downstairs. I gathered a small armful, wrapped them in newspaper like fish and chips and bore them home as a hundred tiny sunrises.
When I was a child my dad played five hundred in a local card club at the RSA hall every Thursday night. He was good at it and often we would wake on Friday morning to discover a box of chocolates or three tins of fruit that he had won the night before neatly arranged on the kitchen bench.
This week I have woken to a riot of daffodils – spoils of the choir. My impulsive arrangement in a glass beer jug has been successfully triaged by Sylvia and the blooms are now artfully arranged in several vases around the kitchen. One bunch consorts with a blushing cyclamen near the fridge, another plays ‘touch you last’ with an out-of-control aloe vera on the windowsill.
They beam at me, these daffodils, as I eat my breakfast and I find myself slowing down, drawn into their sunny smiles and silent chatter.
“Warm to us,” they say. “We are spring. Elevate yourself. Rise up. Lighten your heart.”
Perhaps this long, miserable winter has made me impressionable. Perhaps the current mood of uncertainty draws me towards a simpler truth. Whatever the reason, I am enchanted by these flowers. I gaze at them with Wordsworthian intensity, studying them in a way that I haven’t for many years.
To my astonishment I discover that daffodils are not the flowers they used to be. In fact they have completely transformed since I last checked. Where once they were uniformly yellow – yellow petals, yellow trumpets, yellow stamens – they are now a multitude of different colours. Some have white petals and delicate pink trumpets. Here’s one that looks like a fried egg, with creamy petals and a tight, darkly red trumpet. Another has petals like a dawn sky, pale primrose streaked with dashes of gold.
It is not just the colours that have changed; the daffodil’s shape too has transformed. Petals may be bold, soft and lacy or alluringly frilled. Trumpets are now an entire brass section: boozy, blaring tubas, tight-lipped trombones and snub-nosed cornets. There is one flower whose trumpet has completely exploded into four pieces as crazy and complex as a sea anemone or an Elizabethan ruff.
I have counted 9 different daffodils in the bunch I brought home from the choir.
These mutations are almost certainly not accidental. No doubt they are the product of artful and laborious propagation, of science improving nature. I would not be surprised to discover that the daffodil is now an industry, with jealously guarded patents and breathless investors whose fortunes stand or fall on the success of this year’s new varieties. In a world where almost every form of beauty has a price the bulbs that grew these blooms may be rooted deeply in the corporate mire. Even now a tiny fragment of Wall Street may be dedicated to daffodil stocks, and perhaps those stocks will be swept away in the backwash of the next insurance company or mortgage lender that goes bust.
And if that happens, then what? Will my daffodils turn to dust? Will they vanish like zeroes in my bank account? For that matter, are they less beautiful for being the products of genetic modification and corporate profiteering?
Of course not. They are as beautiful as babies, and as innocent. They gladden the heart and quicken the spirit. They are life.
We were delighted when Carol announced at the end of the choir practice that the large bucket of daffodils was a gift to us and that there were several more in the back of her car downstairs. I gathered a small armful, wrapped them in newspaper like fish and chips and bore them home as a hundred tiny sunrises.
When I was a child my dad played five hundred in a local card club at the RSA hall every Thursday night. He was good at it and often we would wake on Friday morning to discover a box of chocolates or three tins of fruit that he had won the night before neatly arranged on the kitchen bench.
This week I have woken to a riot of daffodils – spoils of the choir. My impulsive arrangement in a glass beer jug has been successfully triaged by Sylvia and the blooms are now artfully arranged in several vases around the kitchen. One bunch consorts with a blushing cyclamen near the fridge, another plays ‘touch you last’ with an out-of-control aloe vera on the windowsill.
They beam at me, these daffodils, as I eat my breakfast and I find myself slowing down, drawn into their sunny smiles and silent chatter.
“Warm to us,” they say. “We are spring. Elevate yourself. Rise up. Lighten your heart.”
Perhaps this long, miserable winter has made me impressionable. Perhaps the current mood of uncertainty draws me towards a simpler truth. Whatever the reason, I am enchanted by these flowers. I gaze at them with Wordsworthian intensity, studying them in a way that I haven’t for many years.
To my astonishment I discover that daffodils are not the flowers they used to be. In fact they have completely transformed since I last checked. Where once they were uniformly yellow – yellow petals, yellow trumpets, yellow stamens – they are now a multitude of different colours. Some have white petals and delicate pink trumpets. Here’s one that looks like a fried egg, with creamy petals and a tight, darkly red trumpet. Another has petals like a dawn sky, pale primrose streaked with dashes of gold.
It is not just the colours that have changed; the daffodil’s shape too has transformed. Petals may be bold, soft and lacy or alluringly frilled. Trumpets are now an entire brass section: boozy, blaring tubas, tight-lipped trombones and snub-nosed cornets. There is one flower whose trumpet has completely exploded into four pieces as crazy and complex as a sea anemone or an Elizabethan ruff.
I have counted 9 different daffodils in the bunch I brought home from the choir.
These mutations are almost certainly not accidental. No doubt they are the product of artful and laborious propagation, of science improving nature. I would not be surprised to discover that the daffodil is now an industry, with jealously guarded patents and breathless investors whose fortunes stand or fall on the success of this year’s new varieties. In a world where almost every form of beauty has a price the bulbs that grew these blooms may be rooted deeply in the corporate mire. Even now a tiny fragment of Wall Street may be dedicated to daffodil stocks, and perhaps those stocks will be swept away in the backwash of the next insurance company or mortgage lender that goes bust.
And if that happens, then what? Will my daffodils turn to dust? Will they vanish like zeroes in my bank account? For that matter, are they less beautiful for being the products of genetic modification and corporate profiteering?
Of course not. They are as beautiful as babies, and as innocent. They gladden the heart and quicken the spirit. They are life.
Electricity woes hit the South
My, how the world changes! Monday’s revelation that South Islanders can expect hefty power price rises for several years because we have to buy it from up North has knocked one of the chair legs out from under my generation.
In my formative years there were a few things you could count on: the government was National, the All Blacks were invincible and South Island power kept the lights burning in the North.
Since it was opened in 1965 the Cook Strait power cable has fuelled both pride and pique in Southerners. We’ve been proud to see ourselves as the nation’s engine room, churning out the megawatts to fuel the North’s homes and factories. At the same time the cable has been a focus for southern discontent. Feeling ignored by Wellington politicians? Ridiculed by smartarse Aucklanders? Let’s pull the plug and teach them a lesson!
So it takes a bit of getting used to the idea that the North Island now claims electricity among the many forms of power it exerts over the South, and that this situation is likely to remain for at least several years.
There are two components to our problem: a shortage of generating capacity and bottlenecks in transmission.
Electricity generation has always been a seesaw of supply and demand. In recent winters we have complained about the threat of power shortages, but in the past electricity was often in short supply. From the 1920s right through to the late ‘50s demand frequently outstripped supply as transmission networks grew faster than power stations.
Supply was eventually secured with the massive hydro projects that began in our part of the world with Roxburgh in the mid ‘50s and ended with the opening of the Clyde dam nearly 20 years ago. During those years – the ‘generation’ generation – our imaginations were captured by the scale and creativity of the projects. Benmore introduced us to the power of earth-moving machinery; Manapouri was a tribute to the tunneller’s art and the Mackenzie basin became threaded with gorgeous blue canals.
While the engineering was on display for all to see, the economics of power supply remained obscure. With the government taking on the responsibility for building the dams we paid in high taxes for the privilege of low power prices. It was only in the 90s, when the electricity industry was carved up into all those companies with ridiculous names, that reality began to bite. Power prices have been climbing steadily ever since and apparently we still have some way to go before the price we pay for electricity reflects the actual cost of producing it and getting it to our homes.
In the South Island the situation is complicated by other factors. In the past decade irrigation, industry and population growth have greatly increased our demand for electricity. At the same time power companies have shown themselves less willing than the government previously was to risk their capital in constructing expensive hydro projects. Cheaper and more flexible alternatives available in the North Island; such as geothermal, gas, wind and coal, are either missing in the South or have so far failed to gain traction with power companies and consumers.
Over the same period it seems our beloved Cook Strait cable simply grew old. Perhaps it was lack of foresight or maybe it was the error of trusting our infrastructure to market forces, but somehow we’ve reached a point where the cable can no longer reliably carry the load it once did.
The cost of refurbishing the cable has become contentious. Southern generating companies are being asked to pay the huge cost of upgrading the cable because it enables them to sell power into the lucrative North Island market. They argue that with power now heading south the North Island companies should share the cost.
It is easy to criticise the power companies for placing profit ahead of public interest, but we should remember that South Island power companies have in recent years put up several major projects to increase generating capacity. Each has been knocked back, largely for environmental reasons.
It will be interesting to see how scrupulous we remain as prices climb. Will we sacrifice our landscapes? Are we prepared to invest in power-saving technology? Whatever happens, it will hurt our pockets.
My, how the world changes! Monday’s revelation that South Islanders can expect hefty power price rises for several years because we have to buy it from up North has knocked one of the chair legs out from under my generation.
In my formative years there were a few things you could count on: the government was National, the All Blacks were invincible and South Island power kept the lights burning in the North.
Since it was opened in 1965 the Cook Strait power cable has fuelled both pride and pique in Southerners. We’ve been proud to see ourselves as the nation’s engine room, churning out the megawatts to fuel the North’s homes and factories. At the same time the cable has been a focus for southern discontent. Feeling ignored by Wellington politicians? Ridiculed by smartarse Aucklanders? Let’s pull the plug and teach them a lesson!
So it takes a bit of getting used to the idea that the North Island now claims electricity among the many forms of power it exerts over the South, and that this situation is likely to remain for at least several years.
There are two components to our problem: a shortage of generating capacity and bottlenecks in transmission.
Electricity generation has always been a seesaw of supply and demand. In recent winters we have complained about the threat of power shortages, but in the past electricity was often in short supply. From the 1920s right through to the late ‘50s demand frequently outstripped supply as transmission networks grew faster than power stations.
Supply was eventually secured with the massive hydro projects that began in our part of the world with Roxburgh in the mid ‘50s and ended with the opening of the Clyde dam nearly 20 years ago. During those years – the ‘generation’ generation – our imaginations were captured by the scale and creativity of the projects. Benmore introduced us to the power of earth-moving machinery; Manapouri was a tribute to the tunneller’s art and the Mackenzie basin became threaded with gorgeous blue canals.
While the engineering was on display for all to see, the economics of power supply remained obscure. With the government taking on the responsibility for building the dams we paid in high taxes for the privilege of low power prices. It was only in the 90s, when the electricity industry was carved up into all those companies with ridiculous names, that reality began to bite. Power prices have been climbing steadily ever since and apparently we still have some way to go before the price we pay for electricity reflects the actual cost of producing it and getting it to our homes.
In the South Island the situation is complicated by other factors. In the past decade irrigation, industry and population growth have greatly increased our demand for electricity. At the same time power companies have shown themselves less willing than the government previously was to risk their capital in constructing expensive hydro projects. Cheaper and more flexible alternatives available in the North Island; such as geothermal, gas, wind and coal, are either missing in the South or have so far failed to gain traction with power companies and consumers.
Over the same period it seems our beloved Cook Strait cable simply grew old. Perhaps it was lack of foresight or maybe it was the error of trusting our infrastructure to market forces, but somehow we’ve reached a point where the cable can no longer reliably carry the load it once did.
The cost of refurbishing the cable has become contentious. Southern generating companies are being asked to pay the huge cost of upgrading the cable because it enables them to sell power into the lucrative North Island market. They argue that with power now heading south the North Island companies should share the cost.
It is easy to criticise the power companies for placing profit ahead of public interest, but we should remember that South Island power companies have in recent years put up several major projects to increase generating capacity. Each has been knocked back, largely for environmental reasons.
It will be interesting to see how scrupulous we remain as prices climb. Will we sacrifice our landscapes? Are we prepared to invest in power-saving technology? Whatever happens, it will hurt our pockets.
Mr Connell’s Graceless Exit
6th September 2008
There is both irony and pathos in the photograph in last Saturday’s Ashburton Guardian that shows Brian Connell leaping for joy as he closes his office and departs his political career. To the uninformed this could seem to be a leap of triumph, a celebration of a distinguished and successful career. However, we know this is not the case, so what is the leap about?
The caption – I Survived! – hints at what is really on Mr Connell’s mind. This is the leap of the errant schoolboy who has served his detention, of the remand prisoner whose case has been thrown out of court on a technicality. Mr Connell is pleased to have survived his sentence in politics.
Who committed Mr Connell to the punishment he obviously believes his time in politics to have been? Clearly it was us, the voters of Rakaia electorate. Mr Connell’s message, in both the photograph and the accompanying article, is that he is glad to be rid of us. Unable to reflect upon success he instead uses his final hurrah to lambast party politics, the people of Canterbury, the Resource Management Act and New Zealanders in general. In an attempt to salvage his pride he manages to be as graceless in his departure as he was for most of his tenure.
Mr Connell belatedly reveals (oh, why could he not have admitted this to the candidate selection panel six years ago?) that he’s never believed in politics. In itself, this is not an insurmountable handicap to a successful political career. I know a clergyman or two who struggle to believe in God and yet minister successfully to their flocks.
Mr Connell’s real failure is that he obviously never understood politics. This is evident in his pride at not following the party line, speaking when he should have stayed silent and, above all, remaining his own man.
If Mr Connell had understood parliamentary democracy he may have realised that there are very good reasons for managing the affairs of society through well disciplined political parties. His judgements should not persuade us that our political system is weakened by not allowing a ‘maverick’ such as him to do as he pleases. Political systems that allow ego to flourish unchecked never produce good results for their societies. For better, not worse, we choose to mediate individual pride, ambition and extremist views through the mechanism of political parties.
Mr Connell’s insistence upon speaking his mind may have been simply naïve but it was ultimately selfish because in doing so he sacrificed the interests of his constituents to his ego. Principles and ideals are fine but parliament does not exist to serve members’ personal views. In a democratic society politics is the art of the possible. It requires discipline, compromise and patience. In his refusal to cultivate these qualities Mr Connell let us down. We did not fail him – he failed us.
Mr Connell is obviously an energetic and capable man. But as our MP he has been a flop. How disappointing then that his final words to us are so mean-spirited. If I had written his script for last weekend’s interview I’d have advised him to say ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’. Thank you to the local National Party supporters who backed his candidacy and worked hard to make his term successful. Thank you to the people who showed faith in him with their votes.
And sorry for not being up to the job.
6th September 2008
There is both irony and pathos in the photograph in last Saturday’s Ashburton Guardian that shows Brian Connell leaping for joy as he closes his office and departs his political career. To the uninformed this could seem to be a leap of triumph, a celebration of a distinguished and successful career. However, we know this is not the case, so what is the leap about?
The caption – I Survived! – hints at what is really on Mr Connell’s mind. This is the leap of the errant schoolboy who has served his detention, of the remand prisoner whose case has been thrown out of court on a technicality. Mr Connell is pleased to have survived his sentence in politics.
Who committed Mr Connell to the punishment he obviously believes his time in politics to have been? Clearly it was us, the voters of Rakaia electorate. Mr Connell’s message, in both the photograph and the accompanying article, is that he is glad to be rid of us. Unable to reflect upon success he instead uses his final hurrah to lambast party politics, the people of Canterbury, the Resource Management Act and New Zealanders in general. In an attempt to salvage his pride he manages to be as graceless in his departure as he was for most of his tenure.
Mr Connell belatedly reveals (oh, why could he not have admitted this to the candidate selection panel six years ago?) that he’s never believed in politics. In itself, this is not an insurmountable handicap to a successful political career. I know a clergyman or two who struggle to believe in God and yet minister successfully to their flocks.
Mr Connell’s real failure is that he obviously never understood politics. This is evident in his pride at not following the party line, speaking when he should have stayed silent and, above all, remaining his own man.
If Mr Connell had understood parliamentary democracy he may have realised that there are very good reasons for managing the affairs of society through well disciplined political parties. His judgements should not persuade us that our political system is weakened by not allowing a ‘maverick’ such as him to do as he pleases. Political systems that allow ego to flourish unchecked never produce good results for their societies. For better, not worse, we choose to mediate individual pride, ambition and extremist views through the mechanism of political parties.
Mr Connell’s insistence upon speaking his mind may have been simply naïve but it was ultimately selfish because in doing so he sacrificed the interests of his constituents to his ego. Principles and ideals are fine but parliament does not exist to serve members’ personal views. In a democratic society politics is the art of the possible. It requires discipline, compromise and patience. In his refusal to cultivate these qualities Mr Connell let us down. We did not fail him – he failed us.
Mr Connell is obviously an energetic and capable man. But as our MP he has been a flop. How disappointing then that his final words to us are so mean-spirited. If I had written his script for last weekend’s interview I’d have advised him to say ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’. Thank you to the local National Party supporters who backed his candidacy and worked hard to make his term successful. Thank you to the people who showed faith in him with their votes.
And sorry for not being up to the job.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Small gifts from abroad
23rd August 2008
Across the table lies a sculpted face, about the size of an oven mitt, carved or moulded from a tufa-like substance, the weight and texture of sandstone. It is the face of a man, creased in a grin so broad it has forced the eyes closed and wrinkled the bridge of the nose. The grin is beatific or idiotic, I’m unsure which.
It lies cheerily upon the layers of tissue paper from which it emerged, alive with fragments of story that tumble from it like the air miles it has travelled. Where does it come from? Who crafted its features? What cultural narrative styled those pointed cheeks, that upturned smile?
I know the story of this carving. I guessed what he was as soon as Sylvia unpacked him from between layers of clothing in her suitcase. I knew it from the weight of the object in my hands and the contours beneath the layers of tissue paper. The grin was the only surprise.
He comes from Exeter in south-west England. Sylvia will have bought him from one of half a dozen small souvenir shops in a restored warehouse on a stone wharf of the old waterfront, where the river Exe tumbles over a weir and coastal trading ships berthed 150 years ago. He is carved in the style of the gargoyles that decorate Exeter cathedral: the peculiar, often grotesque, figures that are flumes or pipes directing rainwater off the roof away from the walls.
This small figure is woven into our story. We once spent a year living and working near Exeter and explored the cathedral, the Roman ruins and the old waterfront, where we bought two or three miniature gargoyles and carvings. They have joined the accumulation of artefacts that decorate our lives, clattering and braying like the pots and pans of a tinker’s caravan. Little smiley man is a worthy addition.
Small gifts from abroad often possess value beyond price or provenance. I discovered this as a child, on those rare occasions when a parcel arrived in our household from Holland, wrapped in string and brown paper, criss-crossed with the purple tattoos of foreign postal services. It would lie in state on the dining table until dad got home from work and then be unwrapped with such care you’d have thought it held all the treasures of Samarkand.
The objects from these parcels flowed into our young lives like beacons. We pored over them for clues, for the stories our parents never told us, or we never listened to, about Holland, their early lives and the people who wrote those spidery letters on thin blue aerogramme paper. We marvelled at the bars of pale Dutch chocolate, the tablets of salty liquorice that I never developed a taste for, the cigars – Schimmelpenninck or Jacob van Hartog – and smooth linen tablecloths. We puzzled over decorative teaspoons, their handles with tiny enamelled coats of arms and names of towns whose vowels we could not master.
Years later there were other parcels, these from Sylvia’s mother Lyla, in England. Lyla pushed the limits of plausibility. She wrapped gifts in off-cuts of wallpaper, plastic shopping bags, recycled newsprint, and bound them with skeins of wool and pieces of string tied in knots that would have defied even Alexander the Great. She posted her final package to us a few days before she died aged 80, in November 1993.
A couple of months later, on a hot January day, we were moving house. Sylvia had hurt her back, the kids were fractious. There was a knock at the door and a postman with Lyla’s parcel. It had failed spectacularly, string and paper giving up, the contents spilling out. A diligent postal worker had gathered up the pieces, sealed them in a large plastic bag and sent them on their way. We unwrapped comics and sweets for the girls, a cushion for Sylvia and a prayer for our good health.
In the years since my childhood the world has shrunk to the size of a walnut, broadband and internet laying bare all its mysteries. With a few taps on a keyboard I can conjure products from anywhere on the globe. The system is efficient but the mystique has vanished. The small gifts I continue to treasure are those that arrive wrapped not in courier bags, but in stories.
23rd August 2008
Across the table lies a sculpted face, about the size of an oven mitt, carved or moulded from a tufa-like substance, the weight and texture of sandstone. It is the face of a man, creased in a grin so broad it has forced the eyes closed and wrinkled the bridge of the nose. The grin is beatific or idiotic, I’m unsure which.
It lies cheerily upon the layers of tissue paper from which it emerged, alive with fragments of story that tumble from it like the air miles it has travelled. Where does it come from? Who crafted its features? What cultural narrative styled those pointed cheeks, that upturned smile?
I know the story of this carving. I guessed what he was as soon as Sylvia unpacked him from between layers of clothing in her suitcase. I knew it from the weight of the object in my hands and the contours beneath the layers of tissue paper. The grin was the only surprise.
He comes from Exeter in south-west England. Sylvia will have bought him from one of half a dozen small souvenir shops in a restored warehouse on a stone wharf of the old waterfront, where the river Exe tumbles over a weir and coastal trading ships berthed 150 years ago. He is carved in the style of the gargoyles that decorate Exeter cathedral: the peculiar, often grotesque, figures that are flumes or pipes directing rainwater off the roof away from the walls.
This small figure is woven into our story. We once spent a year living and working near Exeter and explored the cathedral, the Roman ruins and the old waterfront, where we bought two or three miniature gargoyles and carvings. They have joined the accumulation of artefacts that decorate our lives, clattering and braying like the pots and pans of a tinker’s caravan. Little smiley man is a worthy addition.
Small gifts from abroad often possess value beyond price or provenance. I discovered this as a child, on those rare occasions when a parcel arrived in our household from Holland, wrapped in string and brown paper, criss-crossed with the purple tattoos of foreign postal services. It would lie in state on the dining table until dad got home from work and then be unwrapped with such care you’d have thought it held all the treasures of Samarkand.
The objects from these parcels flowed into our young lives like beacons. We pored over them for clues, for the stories our parents never told us, or we never listened to, about Holland, their early lives and the people who wrote those spidery letters on thin blue aerogramme paper. We marvelled at the bars of pale Dutch chocolate, the tablets of salty liquorice that I never developed a taste for, the cigars – Schimmelpenninck or Jacob van Hartog – and smooth linen tablecloths. We puzzled over decorative teaspoons, their handles with tiny enamelled coats of arms and names of towns whose vowels we could not master.
Years later there were other parcels, these from Sylvia’s mother Lyla, in England. Lyla pushed the limits of plausibility. She wrapped gifts in off-cuts of wallpaper, plastic shopping bags, recycled newsprint, and bound them with skeins of wool and pieces of string tied in knots that would have defied even Alexander the Great. She posted her final package to us a few days before she died aged 80, in November 1993.
A couple of months later, on a hot January day, we were moving house. Sylvia had hurt her back, the kids were fractious. There was a knock at the door and a postman with Lyla’s parcel. It had failed spectacularly, string and paper giving up, the contents spilling out. A diligent postal worker had gathered up the pieces, sealed them in a large plastic bag and sent them on their way. We unwrapped comics and sweets for the girls, a cushion for Sylvia and a prayer for our good health.
In the years since my childhood the world has shrunk to the size of a walnut, broadband and internet laying bare all its mysteries. With a few taps on a keyboard I can conjure products from anywhere on the globe. The system is efficient but the mystique has vanished. The small gifts I continue to treasure are those that arrive wrapped not in courier bags, but in stories.
The Spencer Truss – uplifting NZFirst
9th August 2008
In a week of high political drama, of leaked audio tapes and upset rubbish bins, the Ashburton Guardian’s political reporters have been tireless in their pursuit of sensational stories. In a journalistic scoop one of our team penetrated a private function room at the Grumpy Hog restaurant in Manners Street, Wellington last night where a special meeting of the New Zealand First caucus was being held. He filed this report online just ten minutes ago.
At first glance the only indication that this is a meeting of NZFirst MPs is the presence, the towering presence, of Winston Peters. The remaining 6 MPs, cleverly disguised as themselves, are completely unrecognisable.
The group is seated at a round table with a lazy suzy decorated with a bunch of geraniums. Two large microphones are suspended from the ceiling directly above the table. The only other people in the room are a Chinese waiter, several members of the parliamentary press gallery hiding behind a potted aspidistra and a shadowy figure in the corner of the room crouched over an audio recording desk and wearing a red jacket with the words “Labour Party Spy” printed on the back.
Winston rises to address the meeting.
Winston: Right, we’ll get straight down to business. We don’t usually meet between elections but you’ll appreciate that the recent activities of certain scumbags means we’ve got some work to do. There’s two items on the agenda: fundraising and party policy. Wait a minute.
He suddenly spins the lazy suzy so hard the geraniums fly off the table, spattering everybody with dirt and flowers.
Winston: You can’t be too careful – they can hide microphones anywhere these days. Right – fundraising. We’re gonna need plenty of cash for this election. What have you got, Ron?
Ron Mark: A couple of us have been going through the list of previous donors. There’s Owen Glen, Bob Jones and those Simunovich boys.
Winston: What do you reckon they’re good for this time around – a hundred k each?
Ron: Well, all things considered, Winston…
Winston: Yeah, yeah, I know. Who else is on the list?
Ron: The next biggest donor was Mrs Dorothy Thwaites in Paeroa.
Winston: How much did Dot give last time?
Ron: Three dollars.
Winston: See if she’s good for five.
Pita Paraone raises a hand tentatively.
Pita: Ah, Winston…
Winston: Who the hell are you?
Pita: I’m an MP.
Winston: Which party?
Pita: Our party – I mean, YOUR party, Winston.
Winston: I’ve never seen you in my life.
Doug Woolerton: Well, you have been away a lot, Winston.
Pita: Some of us near the bottom of the list were hoping that you could do some fundraising: you know, use your connections.
Winston: I did that last time and look at the mess.
Pita: Yeah, but you’ve got new connections now.
Dail Jones: Like that Condoleeza Rice, she’s pretty keen on you, she’d give us a few bob.
Ron: Or you could go on the dinner circuit, do some media training workshops, that kind of thing.
Winston: And where would we put the money? Every journalist in the country is sniffing around our bank accounts. I can’t open my wallet without a commission of inquiry or some such thing.
Doug: We can hide the money in a trust.
Winston: Like the Spencer Trust, I suppose? Bad idea, Doug.
Peter Brown: We could change the Trust’s name to throw them off the scent. Make it look like something completely different.
Winston: Suggestions?
Peter: How about the Spencer Truss? That gives us options. We could sell it as either a medical aid or something to do with construction.
Ron: Medical aid gives us some catchy marketing: “The Spencer Truss – providing hidden support!”
Doug: “The Spencer Truss – uplifting NZ First!”
Winston: Brilliant! Right, what else was on the agenda?
Ron: Policy.
Winston: Policy? We’ll do the same as we’ve done every other election – announce our policy the day after polling when we know which party we’re negotiating with. Right! Drinking time. Ron, call the waiter. Oh, and tell him to get rid of that bloody aspidistra.
9th August 2008
In a week of high political drama, of leaked audio tapes and upset rubbish bins, the Ashburton Guardian’s political reporters have been tireless in their pursuit of sensational stories. In a journalistic scoop one of our team penetrated a private function room at the Grumpy Hog restaurant in Manners Street, Wellington last night where a special meeting of the New Zealand First caucus was being held. He filed this report online just ten minutes ago.
At first glance the only indication that this is a meeting of NZFirst MPs is the presence, the towering presence, of Winston Peters. The remaining 6 MPs, cleverly disguised as themselves, are completely unrecognisable.
The group is seated at a round table with a lazy suzy decorated with a bunch of geraniums. Two large microphones are suspended from the ceiling directly above the table. The only other people in the room are a Chinese waiter, several members of the parliamentary press gallery hiding behind a potted aspidistra and a shadowy figure in the corner of the room crouched over an audio recording desk and wearing a red jacket with the words “Labour Party Spy” printed on the back.
Winston rises to address the meeting.
Winston: Right, we’ll get straight down to business. We don’t usually meet between elections but you’ll appreciate that the recent activities of certain scumbags means we’ve got some work to do. There’s two items on the agenda: fundraising and party policy. Wait a minute.
He suddenly spins the lazy suzy so hard the geraniums fly off the table, spattering everybody with dirt and flowers.
Winston: You can’t be too careful – they can hide microphones anywhere these days. Right – fundraising. We’re gonna need plenty of cash for this election. What have you got, Ron?
Ron Mark: A couple of us have been going through the list of previous donors. There’s Owen Glen, Bob Jones and those Simunovich boys.
Winston: What do you reckon they’re good for this time around – a hundred k each?
Ron: Well, all things considered, Winston…
Winston: Yeah, yeah, I know. Who else is on the list?
Ron: The next biggest donor was Mrs Dorothy Thwaites in Paeroa.
Winston: How much did Dot give last time?
Ron: Three dollars.
Winston: See if she’s good for five.
Pita Paraone raises a hand tentatively.
Pita: Ah, Winston…
Winston: Who the hell are you?
Pita: I’m an MP.
Winston: Which party?
Pita: Our party – I mean, YOUR party, Winston.
Winston: I’ve never seen you in my life.
Doug Woolerton: Well, you have been away a lot, Winston.
Pita: Some of us near the bottom of the list were hoping that you could do some fundraising: you know, use your connections.
Winston: I did that last time and look at the mess.
Pita: Yeah, but you’ve got new connections now.
Dail Jones: Like that Condoleeza Rice, she’s pretty keen on you, she’d give us a few bob.
Ron: Or you could go on the dinner circuit, do some media training workshops, that kind of thing.
Winston: And where would we put the money? Every journalist in the country is sniffing around our bank accounts. I can’t open my wallet without a commission of inquiry or some such thing.
Doug: We can hide the money in a trust.
Winston: Like the Spencer Trust, I suppose? Bad idea, Doug.
Peter Brown: We could change the Trust’s name to throw them off the scent. Make it look like something completely different.
Winston: Suggestions?
Peter: How about the Spencer Truss? That gives us options. We could sell it as either a medical aid or something to do with construction.
Ron: Medical aid gives us some catchy marketing: “The Spencer Truss – providing hidden support!”
Doug: “The Spencer Truss – uplifting NZ First!”
Winston: Brilliant! Right, what else was on the agenda?
Ron: Policy.
Winston: Policy? We’ll do the same as we’ve done every other election – announce our policy the day after polling when we know which party we’re negotiating with. Right! Drinking time. Ron, call the waiter. Oh, and tell him to get rid of that bloody aspidistra.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Petrol proves a hit with small investors
Pay attention, I’m going to make you rich.
Like me, you’ve been watching your assets evaporate in recent months. Your mortgage is going backwards, that rental property you bought a year ago at the top of the curve is running rapidly downhill and the dabble on the stock market proved to be very bad advice.
You look around and ask yourself what’s increasing in value? And the reply is – commodities. But little guys like you and me can’t afford shares in mining companies or steel mills and we can’t invest in milk unless we own a few hundred cows.
But there is one commodity we can all get a stake in. It’s local, it’s profitable and it’s available.
I’m talking about petrol, and I don’t mean trading shares in oil companies: I mean literally buying petrol.
Think about it. Four months ago a litre of 91 octane was worth $1.76. Today it’s $2.18. If I had bought 1,000 litres of petrol four months ago, costing $1,760, I could sell that today for $2,180. That’s a profit of $420 or about 25%. What other investment today will return 25% in four months? That’s 75% profit per annum!
What’s the risk? Nil. The international oil geezers say petrol prices are going up until 2013. It’s a sure-fire, can’t-lose, gilt-edged investment and you heard it from me.
Investing in petrol is perfect for small buyers like ourselves. Listen up and I’ll tell you how it’s done.
What I do is collect the empty milk containers and Coke bottles from the neighbours’ green bins on a Monday morning (I pretend to be jogging with an empty wool fadge). Then every time I fill up the car I also fill up a few extra containers. I’ve got about 3 or 4 hundred of these stacked in the garage. Recently I extended the mortgage a bit and moved into 10 litre paint buckets and I’m about to step up again thanks to a farming friend who’s just dropped off a few 100 litre offal drums.
You can pour petrol into pretty much any container but you have to be careful you don’t overreach yourself. A mate of mine rang BP recently and asked them to deliver a tanker load around to his house. He’d lined an old septic tank with polythene and reckoned he could get a few thousand litres into it. As it turns out there are rules about things like that, so my advice is stay fairly small and low key.
One thing you want to be careful about is security. You’ve got to protect your investment and we all know there are a few mongrels who’d be into your stockpile given half a chance – even here in Tinwald.
I’ve hidden most of my petrol in an old coal bin behind the garage. Other investors store it beneath the floorboards or behind the fireplace. One mate of mine filled an old beer fridge in his garage, which caused a couple of problems when some mates called around unexpectedly for a few bevies. Now he’s got two fridges, one labelled ‘beer’ and the other ‘petrol’.
I’ve been giving some thought to the selling side of things. Obviously guys like you and me can’t just set up a forecourt on the front lawn. However, if we keep it simple we can sell all we like and the people we’ll sell to are the idiots who, for the sake of a few dollars, drive their cars on empty and keep running out of gas. Apparently this is happening all over the place. So when I’m ready to sell I’ll simply fill the station wagon and peddle the stuff along a stretch of SH1.
The added bonus of this strategy is that guys who’ve run out petrol in the middle of nowhere will pay top dollar. I could probably charge $3.50 a litre and if they don’t want to pay I can rent them a bicycle!
Direct selling of this nature will become competitive and I predict we’ll see turf wars on popular stretches of highway, along the lines of the famous whitebait wars on West Coast rivers. With that in mind I’ve been putting out feelers to the Triads for security. The closest I’ve come is a local Tri-Hard gang up on Melcombe Street. They might do it - I’ll keep you posted.
Olympic fatigue strikes early and hard
I think I’ve peaked too early in my buildup to the Beijing Olympics. Two weeks from the opening and I’m exhausted.
The problem is I don’t know what to make of the Olympics any more. The original concept of a sports event has, like the guy at the bottom of the ruck, been obliterated beneath layers of marketing, drugs, jingoism and politics. Complicating this is the media’s obsession to cast these Olympics as China’s coming-of-age; an initiation ceremony that will somehow determine that country’s status in the global community.
But, true to the Olympic spirit, I am determined to be fortius, altius and speedius – to rise above myself and participate fully in the event.
I do this largely from guilt. Over the past several Olympics I have not pulled my weight. I’ve become increasingly detached from the pride, the hoop-la and the sheer stamina required to be a member of the 4 million-strong support crew to our athletes.
Instead of doing the hard yards I’ve soft-pedalled, tuning in only for the victorious soundbite or videoclip – “coming up to the line and it’s gold for New Zealand!” – and shunning the near-misses, the failures and the steady plodders. The only thing I recall from Athens are the final three minutes of whatshisname and theotherguy winning gold and silver in the triathlon.
I am sorry for this and I will try to redeem myself in the next few weeks. It won’t be easy – as an Olympic fan my match fitness peaked in 1972 (the men’s rowing eight) and 1976 (John Walker). Over the decades the malaise has spread to my interest in all sports. I no longer follow cricket, tennis, motor racing, the horses or even rugby. I’m not so much out of shape as off the planet.
Looking back, my single greatest error as a sports fan was my failure to make the shift from free-to-air television. Over a period of about a decade I shunned the enticements of subscriber TV and satisfied myself with the dwindling offerings on the traditional channels. Eventually my diet was reduced to crumbs and I turned off completely.
A couple of years ago I realised that, quite unintentionally, I had stopped watching television altogether. Like old friends we had sort of drifted apart and it became too much of an effort to get back together. My television sits in the corner of the lounge draped with a colourful scarf. It is now so out of date it ranks as ‘legacy’ equipment because it needs a special adaptor to connect a DVD player.
My relationships with other media follow a similar, though perhaps less final, trend. I do a bit of newspaper browsing and occasionally ping the sports headlines on National Radio. I use the internet constantly in my work but almost never for recreation or news.
On the rare occasions when I confront sporting events in the media, especially radio and television, it all seems too clamorous. The grace, the finesse, the dignity of the athlete vanish beneath self-indulgent broadcasting, mind-numbing advertisements and truly blithering commentaries.
You can see what I’m up against if I want to pull my weight as an Olympic supporter.
But I’m making a start. To regain the TV habit I’ve rented a few videos of ploughing competitions from the library. I can manage about 8 minutes of this - more with carbohydrate loading. This weekend I’m stepping up to a highlights package from the 1986 Ashes and I plan to spend a bit of time with my ear to the neighbour’s front door during the rugby test.
I figure some high altitude training will do me good so I’ve booked a couple of evenings watching Sky at a friend’s bach at Castle Hill.
With my limited build-up I will inevitably resort to doping like everybody else. My preferred option would be a live-feed internet implant. That should reduce my broad band and give me a passing chance of surviving the opening ceremony. I’ll see you there.
I think I’ve peaked too early in my buildup to the Beijing Olympics. Two weeks from the opening and I’m exhausted.
The problem is I don’t know what to make of the Olympics any more. The original concept of a sports event has, like the guy at the bottom of the ruck, been obliterated beneath layers of marketing, drugs, jingoism and politics. Complicating this is the media’s obsession to cast these Olympics as China’s coming-of-age; an initiation ceremony that will somehow determine that country’s status in the global community.
But, true to the Olympic spirit, I am determined to be fortius, altius and speedius – to rise above myself and participate fully in the event.
I do this largely from guilt. Over the past several Olympics I have not pulled my weight. I’ve become increasingly detached from the pride, the hoop-la and the sheer stamina required to be a member of the 4 million-strong support crew to our athletes.
Instead of doing the hard yards I’ve soft-pedalled, tuning in only for the victorious soundbite or videoclip – “coming up to the line and it’s gold for New Zealand!” – and shunning the near-misses, the failures and the steady plodders. The only thing I recall from Athens are the final three minutes of whatshisname and theotherguy winning gold and silver in the triathlon.
I am sorry for this and I will try to redeem myself in the next few weeks. It won’t be easy – as an Olympic fan my match fitness peaked in 1972 (the men’s rowing eight) and 1976 (John Walker). Over the decades the malaise has spread to my interest in all sports. I no longer follow cricket, tennis, motor racing, the horses or even rugby. I’m not so much out of shape as off the planet.
Looking back, my single greatest error as a sports fan was my failure to make the shift from free-to-air television. Over a period of about a decade I shunned the enticements of subscriber TV and satisfied myself with the dwindling offerings on the traditional channels. Eventually my diet was reduced to crumbs and I turned off completely.
A couple of years ago I realised that, quite unintentionally, I had stopped watching television altogether. Like old friends we had sort of drifted apart and it became too much of an effort to get back together. My television sits in the corner of the lounge draped with a colourful scarf. It is now so out of date it ranks as ‘legacy’ equipment because it needs a special adaptor to connect a DVD player.
My relationships with other media follow a similar, though perhaps less final, trend. I do a bit of newspaper browsing and occasionally ping the sports headlines on National Radio. I use the internet constantly in my work but almost never for recreation or news.
On the rare occasions when I confront sporting events in the media, especially radio and television, it all seems too clamorous. The grace, the finesse, the dignity of the athlete vanish beneath self-indulgent broadcasting, mind-numbing advertisements and truly blithering commentaries.
You can see what I’m up against if I want to pull my weight as an Olympic supporter.
But I’m making a start. To regain the TV habit I’ve rented a few videos of ploughing competitions from the library. I can manage about 8 minutes of this - more with carbohydrate loading. This weekend I’m stepping up to a highlights package from the 1986 Ashes and I plan to spend a bit of time with my ear to the neighbour’s front door during the rugby test.
I figure some high altitude training will do me good so I’ve booked a couple of evenings watching Sky at a friend’s bach at Castle Hill.
With my limited build-up I will inevitably resort to doping like everybody else. My preferred option would be a live-feed internet implant. That should reduce my broad band and give me a passing chance of surviving the opening ceremony. I’ll see you there.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Anti-Smacking law proves its worth
28th June 2008
One year after the notorious “anti-smacking” law came into force the screaming and shouting has begun all over again. Strident demands for a referendum to be held at this year’s general election are batted away by the government; the Opposition is gleeful, sensing another opportunity to bag Labour; Helen Clark reminds them they voted for the legislation in the first place; and somewhere in the depths of Parliament a clerk patiently works his way through politic’s answer to the New World Longest Docket Competition.
So, what has happened in the twelve months since Sue Bradford robbed us of the right to hit our kids? Have the wheels fallen off? Has the thin fabric of society been torn asunder? Yes! shout the law’s opponents. Innocent mums, dads and grannies are suffering the wrath of the state for the slightest rebukes, while a generation of children spared the rod are growing wild and lawless as a consequence.
The truth is more modest. In the past six months police have responded to 82 callouts under the legislation, which have resulted in just 4 prosecutions and, to date, no convictions. This is no upheaval.
The Child Discipline Bill had a single purpose: to remove the defence of ‘reasonable force’ in prosecutions of physical violence against children. As far as I’m aware it was never intended to outlaw physical disciplining of children, but this arose as a public perception during the passage of the bill, where it became the ‘anti-smacking law’, and so it remains in most people’s minds. The insertion of a clause in the bill giving police the power to disregard inconsequential complaints has done nothing to pacify its opponents.
‘Reasonable force’ is a fine legal precedent but, with reference to the disciplining of children, it is an oxymoron – a contradiction. Using force against children marks the departure of reason. When adults hit children they are, at least for that moment, neither reasoned nor reasonable - they have taken leave of their senses.
Some opponents of the law have tried to tell us otherwise. They claim to smack or hit their children in a calm and reasonable way, after patiently explaining to the child why they are about to undertake such an insane act. Who are they kidding? Children get hit when adults lose their temper and can’t think of anything else to do.
‘Reasonable force’ is often accompanied by cries of provocation: “the little bugger drove me to it,” “you can’t reason with kids.” I work with children every day. In my experience there are almost no occasions when children cannot reason or be reasoned with.
The only times I can imagine reasonable force being necessary with children is to restrain them when they are about to endanger themselves or others. No police officer would ever prosecute this.
The issue here is not the behaviour of children but the behaviour of adults. Most of us are kind and caring parents but New Zealand has one of the highest rates of child abuse in the world. Some of us enact the abuse, others observe it and do nothing while the rest of us look on with mild concern or fuel radio talkback with forced outrage. We scream against the Kahui family while failing to understand that the roots of evil lie in society’s general acceptance that it’s okay to hit kids. So important is this belief that thousands of us have signed a petition to restore it as a parental right. This is crazy.
We are told the anti-smacking law will never stop the worst cases of child abuse. I disagree. This law sets a standard. It places the safety and care of children above poor parenting. If the effect of the act is to make adults think twice before hitting children it will, in time, contribute to social change that will reduce even the worst violence.
The deputy police commissioner, Rob Pope, said this week that the act “provides another check in terms of alerting police to different standards of parental behaviour.” For years we have cried out for more police powers to intervene before extreme family violence occurs. It’s odd that, now we finally have something that does just this, so many of us want to get rid of it.
28th June 2008
One year after the notorious “anti-smacking” law came into force the screaming and shouting has begun all over again. Strident demands for a referendum to be held at this year’s general election are batted away by the government; the Opposition is gleeful, sensing another opportunity to bag Labour; Helen Clark reminds them they voted for the legislation in the first place; and somewhere in the depths of Parliament a clerk patiently works his way through politic’s answer to the New World Longest Docket Competition.
So, what has happened in the twelve months since Sue Bradford robbed us of the right to hit our kids? Have the wheels fallen off? Has the thin fabric of society been torn asunder? Yes! shout the law’s opponents. Innocent mums, dads and grannies are suffering the wrath of the state for the slightest rebukes, while a generation of children spared the rod are growing wild and lawless as a consequence.
The truth is more modest. In the past six months police have responded to 82 callouts under the legislation, which have resulted in just 4 prosecutions and, to date, no convictions. This is no upheaval.
The Child Discipline Bill had a single purpose: to remove the defence of ‘reasonable force’ in prosecutions of physical violence against children. As far as I’m aware it was never intended to outlaw physical disciplining of children, but this arose as a public perception during the passage of the bill, where it became the ‘anti-smacking law’, and so it remains in most people’s minds. The insertion of a clause in the bill giving police the power to disregard inconsequential complaints has done nothing to pacify its opponents.
‘Reasonable force’ is a fine legal precedent but, with reference to the disciplining of children, it is an oxymoron – a contradiction. Using force against children marks the departure of reason. When adults hit children they are, at least for that moment, neither reasoned nor reasonable - they have taken leave of their senses.
Some opponents of the law have tried to tell us otherwise. They claim to smack or hit their children in a calm and reasonable way, after patiently explaining to the child why they are about to undertake such an insane act. Who are they kidding? Children get hit when adults lose their temper and can’t think of anything else to do.
‘Reasonable force’ is often accompanied by cries of provocation: “the little bugger drove me to it,” “you can’t reason with kids.” I work with children every day. In my experience there are almost no occasions when children cannot reason or be reasoned with.
The only times I can imagine reasonable force being necessary with children is to restrain them when they are about to endanger themselves or others. No police officer would ever prosecute this.
The issue here is not the behaviour of children but the behaviour of adults. Most of us are kind and caring parents but New Zealand has one of the highest rates of child abuse in the world. Some of us enact the abuse, others observe it and do nothing while the rest of us look on with mild concern or fuel radio talkback with forced outrage. We scream against the Kahui family while failing to understand that the roots of evil lie in society’s general acceptance that it’s okay to hit kids. So important is this belief that thousands of us have signed a petition to restore it as a parental right. This is crazy.
We are told the anti-smacking law will never stop the worst cases of child abuse. I disagree. This law sets a standard. It places the safety and care of children above poor parenting. If the effect of the act is to make adults think twice before hitting children it will, in time, contribute to social change that will reduce even the worst violence.
The deputy police commissioner, Rob Pope, said this week that the act “provides another check in terms of alerting police to different standards of parental behaviour.” For years we have cried out for more police powers to intervene before extreme family violence occurs. It’s odd that, now we finally have something that does just this, so many of us want to get rid of it.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Public transports of delight
At 5 0’clock on Tuesday evening the only sound in the Palmerston North bus station comes from the carpet - a screaming cocktail of seventies psychedalia. The cafeteria is barred and shuttered and, apart from myself, the sole occupant is a frail-looking elderly woman with a red woollen scarf.
I’m hungry so I attempt to purchase a bag of ready salted crisps from a vending machine. I’m not good at these things and, after several attempts, end up with a Snickers bar.
I eat the chocolate bar and gaze out the window. In the past 20 years I have travelled in New Zealand by bus only a handful of times. Those years have seen public transport in heartland New Zealand eclipsed by the automobile. Where once the railway stations and bus depots took centre stage they now huddle on the fringes.
In Palmerston North the view from the bus station includes a Kut-Price car yard, a workshop and a row of flats. On this Tuesday evening a small circus has pitched up on a grassy area across the intersection. A row of lightbulbs marches uncertainly up the ridge of the circus tent.
The Intercity coach pulls in on time. I gather my bag and follow the elderly lady with the red scarf onto the platform and up the steps. The bus is newish and in good condition. I note the Designline logo.
Rising fuel prices have not yet driven the people of Manawatu back to public transport: only 6 of the 50 seats in the coach are occupied.
The driver bustles aboard, the only purposeful figure in the landscape, and prepares to depart. As the door shuts a long arm in a greasy brown raincoat reaches through and signals to the driver. The driver leans towards the door, there is a short conversation with the arm, money is exchanged and suddenly the arm and its attendant body are settling themselves in the seat across the aisle from me.
As the bus pulls out the new arrival snorts and writhes his way into his seat. He is large and infinitely greasy. He fixes a look at me and reaches his hand across.
“Quintin,” he exhales and the bus fills with the alcoholic residue of a hundred public bars.
“Peter.”
It’s like shaking hands with a cold meat pie.
After a time Quintin releases my grip but continues to peer boozily at me.
“Do I know you?” he charges.
“I’m not from around here.”
“So you’re from Wanganui?”
“No, but I’m going to Wanganui.”
For a moment this satisfies Quintin - but only for a moment.
“They wanna put an ‘h’ in Wanganui. Do you put an ‘h’ in Wanganui?”
I reply that I do not.
“That’d make it ‘Fonganui.’ The day they start saying Fonganui’s the day I stop going there. Yep.”
Quintin sags back into his seat.
For better or worse, I reflect, public transport brings us in contact with each other in ways over which we have no control. Perhaps that is why we fled to the isolation of private cars as soon as economics permitted. These experiences are often revealing, if not always pleasant.
Quintin snores as we pull into the Mobil station at Bulls. The driver announces he is ‘taking on’ fuel, like a steamship bunkering coal.
Quintin is galvanised by this and flails back to consciousness. He peers at his surroundings and snorts fiercely.
“Bloody Bulls again.” He turns to me, his interlocutor, once more. “I grew up in Bulls and d’you know why I left?”
He waits. I do not know why he left.
“I got sick of the jokes.”
“Jokes?”
“About Bulls. All sorts of jokes. My father…” Quintin is settling down for a serious chat now, “…my father owned a takeaway bar. You know what he called it? ‘Food on the Hoof’. Then this guy opened another takeaway bar across the road. He called his ‘The Udder Food Bar’. It was always like that. I buggered off in the end.”
“Where did you go?”
“Down the road, to Foxton.”
Exhausted by this effort Quintin collapses into his seat.
I wonder if Foxton has the ‘h’ problem.
I have travelled in countries where long-distance bus trips are a chaotic and colourful microcosm of society; where bodies sweat and jostle, chickens flap, mergers are sealed or broken and everybody talks at once. Will the looming energy crisis bring New Zealanders to that glorious state? Or will our transports of delight remain essentially Quintin-esque?
The Wanganui bus depot is a shopfront on the riverbank. We arrive in darkness. Small round taxis appear from nowhere and scurry about like tugboats. Looking back at the coach I see Quintin fast asleep in his seat. The driver is leaning over him talking gently into his boozy, dream-filled face.
At 5 0’clock on Tuesday evening the only sound in the Palmerston North bus station comes from the carpet - a screaming cocktail of seventies psychedalia. The cafeteria is barred and shuttered and, apart from myself, the sole occupant is a frail-looking elderly woman with a red woollen scarf.
I’m hungry so I attempt to purchase a bag of ready salted crisps from a vending machine. I’m not good at these things and, after several attempts, end up with a Snickers bar.
I eat the chocolate bar and gaze out the window. In the past 20 years I have travelled in New Zealand by bus only a handful of times. Those years have seen public transport in heartland New Zealand eclipsed by the automobile. Where once the railway stations and bus depots took centre stage they now huddle on the fringes.
In Palmerston North the view from the bus station includes a Kut-Price car yard, a workshop and a row of flats. On this Tuesday evening a small circus has pitched up on a grassy area across the intersection. A row of lightbulbs marches uncertainly up the ridge of the circus tent.
The Intercity coach pulls in on time. I gather my bag and follow the elderly lady with the red scarf onto the platform and up the steps. The bus is newish and in good condition. I note the Designline logo.
Rising fuel prices have not yet driven the people of Manawatu back to public transport: only 6 of the 50 seats in the coach are occupied.
The driver bustles aboard, the only purposeful figure in the landscape, and prepares to depart. As the door shuts a long arm in a greasy brown raincoat reaches through and signals to the driver. The driver leans towards the door, there is a short conversation with the arm, money is exchanged and suddenly the arm and its attendant body are settling themselves in the seat across the aisle from me.
As the bus pulls out the new arrival snorts and writhes his way into his seat. He is large and infinitely greasy. He fixes a look at me and reaches his hand across.
“Quintin,” he exhales and the bus fills with the alcoholic residue of a hundred public bars.
“Peter.”
It’s like shaking hands with a cold meat pie.
After a time Quintin releases my grip but continues to peer boozily at me.
“Do I know you?” he charges.
“I’m not from around here.”
“So you’re from Wanganui?”
“No, but I’m going to Wanganui.”
For a moment this satisfies Quintin - but only for a moment.
“They wanna put an ‘h’ in Wanganui. Do you put an ‘h’ in Wanganui?”
I reply that I do not.
“That’d make it ‘Fonganui.’ The day they start saying Fonganui’s the day I stop going there. Yep.”
Quintin sags back into his seat.
For better or worse, I reflect, public transport brings us in contact with each other in ways over which we have no control. Perhaps that is why we fled to the isolation of private cars as soon as economics permitted. These experiences are often revealing, if not always pleasant.
Quintin snores as we pull into the Mobil station at Bulls. The driver announces he is ‘taking on’ fuel, like a steamship bunkering coal.
Quintin is galvanised by this and flails back to consciousness. He peers at his surroundings and snorts fiercely.
“Bloody Bulls again.” He turns to me, his interlocutor, once more. “I grew up in Bulls and d’you know why I left?”
He waits. I do not know why he left.
“I got sick of the jokes.”
“Jokes?”
“About Bulls. All sorts of jokes. My father…” Quintin is settling down for a serious chat now, “…my father owned a takeaway bar. You know what he called it? ‘Food on the Hoof’. Then this guy opened another takeaway bar across the road. He called his ‘The Udder Food Bar’. It was always like that. I buggered off in the end.”
“Where did you go?”
“Down the road, to Foxton.”
Exhausted by this effort Quintin collapses into his seat.
I wonder if Foxton has the ‘h’ problem.
I have travelled in countries where long-distance bus trips are a chaotic and colourful microcosm of society; where bodies sweat and jostle, chickens flap, mergers are sealed or broken and everybody talks at once. Will the looming energy crisis bring New Zealanders to that glorious state? Or will our transports of delight remain essentially Quintin-esque?
The Wanganui bus depot is a shopfront on the riverbank. We arrive in darkness. Small round taxis appear from nowhere and scurry about like tugboats. Looking back at the coach I see Quintin fast asleep in his seat. The driver is leaning over him talking gently into his boozy, dream-filled face.
Monday, May 19, 2008
185,000 children living in poverty
Research by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) reveals that 185,000 children live in poverty in New Zealand.
There’s more. In the past 20 years New Zealand has had the fastest growing gap between rich and poor of any country in the developed world.
The link is obvious. The widening gap between rich and poor, like a slowly receding tide, has left those 185,000 children washed up.
This means there is a group of people half the population of Christchurch who are under-nourished, poorly housed, ill-fed and without the hope of participating fully in society. And for every child in this group there is at least one adult.
The problem I have, and where I think we should all feel uncomfortable, is that this situation is not an accident. It is the inevitable and foreseeable outcome of our actions as a society over two decades.
This number – 185,000 – should bury forever the myth of New Zealand as a land of equal opportunity. It also buries the last shreds of the social contract that prevailed during my childhood and youth. The terms of that contract were simple: those who were well off agreed to share some of their wealth with the less fortunate. It was, we told ourselves, the measure of a civilised society.
Poverty, especially the deep inter-generational poverty we are witnessing in New Zealand, is very difficult to overcome, but one crucial factor is money. 185,000 is the number of children living in families that receive less than 60% of the average household income which, in New Zealand, is already considerably lower than most of the countries we like to compare ourselves with.
The welfare state transferred money from rich to poor through taxes and benefits. It reflected a consensus that poverty was neither the fault of the poor, nor did they desire to remain forever dependent upon the state.
Perhaps the single biggest change in the past 20 years is the acceptance that the poor are to blame for their situation. To be a ‘beneficiary’ in New Zealand is to be cursed like an Old Testament leper.
The greatest blame is reserved for the unemployed. When the government introduced Working For Families in 2004 it elevated work as the crucial factor in determining social equity. To qualify for tax credits, Family Support and a range of other services you must have a job. “If you are working,” the government said, “we will top up your family income to a level where you can have a decent chance at life.”
Working For Families has been successful in reducing the number of people on the margins of poverty, but it has enabled other injustices to remain. It has shielded employers from the responsibility of providing a decent wage, and consigned many people to dull, repetitious, low-skilled employment that contributes little to our economy and nothing to their quality of life.
For the jobless Working For Families is a disaster because it streams government funding away from benefits.
Working For Families stems from the belief that the poor are idle and undeserving. But it is a mean-spirited society that does not recognise some legitimate reasons for not being in the work force. People should not be reduced to poverty because of long term illness or staying home to look after the kids.
Linking income support to jobs looks good in a buoyant market where jobs, even “McJobs”, are being created. I think we are about to see what happens when jobs start to disappear. The 450 meat workers who were laid off in Dannevirke this week have lost not only their jobs but also their access to Working For Families. Are they idle and undeserving?
I hold no hope that either Labour or National intends to reduce child poverty. Their policies reflect voter expectations and as a society we shrug off the problems of the poor. We forget that poverty is everybody’s problem. Poverty breeds crime, child abuse, ill health and ignorance. Morally, these are compelling reasons for change. As a purely fiscal argument it is much cheaper to lift people out of poverty than to pay for more prisons and hospitals.
Our politicians must hear the message that rather than cutting taxes they need to invest in some genuinely equitable social policy.
Ultimately this is about self respect. I am not proud to live in a country that turns its back on 185,000 children. Are you?
Research by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) reveals that 185,000 children live in poverty in New Zealand.
There’s more. In the past 20 years New Zealand has had the fastest growing gap between rich and poor of any country in the developed world.
The link is obvious. The widening gap between rich and poor, like a slowly receding tide, has left those 185,000 children washed up.
This means there is a group of people half the population of Christchurch who are under-nourished, poorly housed, ill-fed and without the hope of participating fully in society. And for every child in this group there is at least one adult.
The problem I have, and where I think we should all feel uncomfortable, is that this situation is not an accident. It is the inevitable and foreseeable outcome of our actions as a society over two decades.
This number – 185,000 – should bury forever the myth of New Zealand as a land of equal opportunity. It also buries the last shreds of the social contract that prevailed during my childhood and youth. The terms of that contract were simple: those who were well off agreed to share some of their wealth with the less fortunate. It was, we told ourselves, the measure of a civilised society.
Poverty, especially the deep inter-generational poverty we are witnessing in New Zealand, is very difficult to overcome, but one crucial factor is money. 185,000 is the number of children living in families that receive less than 60% of the average household income which, in New Zealand, is already considerably lower than most of the countries we like to compare ourselves with.
The welfare state transferred money from rich to poor through taxes and benefits. It reflected a consensus that poverty was neither the fault of the poor, nor did they desire to remain forever dependent upon the state.
Perhaps the single biggest change in the past 20 years is the acceptance that the poor are to blame for their situation. To be a ‘beneficiary’ in New Zealand is to be cursed like an Old Testament leper.
The greatest blame is reserved for the unemployed. When the government introduced Working For Families in 2004 it elevated work as the crucial factor in determining social equity. To qualify for tax credits, Family Support and a range of other services you must have a job. “If you are working,” the government said, “we will top up your family income to a level where you can have a decent chance at life.”
Working For Families has been successful in reducing the number of people on the margins of poverty, but it has enabled other injustices to remain. It has shielded employers from the responsibility of providing a decent wage, and consigned many people to dull, repetitious, low-skilled employment that contributes little to our economy and nothing to their quality of life.
For the jobless Working For Families is a disaster because it streams government funding away from benefits.
Working For Families stems from the belief that the poor are idle and undeserving. But it is a mean-spirited society that does not recognise some legitimate reasons for not being in the work force. People should not be reduced to poverty because of long term illness or staying home to look after the kids.
Linking income support to jobs looks good in a buoyant market where jobs, even “McJobs”, are being created. I think we are about to see what happens when jobs start to disappear. The 450 meat workers who were laid off in Dannevirke this week have lost not only their jobs but also their access to Working For Families. Are they idle and undeserving?
I hold no hope that either Labour or National intends to reduce child poverty. Their policies reflect voter expectations and as a society we shrug off the problems of the poor. We forget that poverty is everybody’s problem. Poverty breeds crime, child abuse, ill health and ignorance. Morally, these are compelling reasons for change. As a purely fiscal argument it is much cheaper to lift people out of poverty than to pay for more prisons and hospitals.
Our politicians must hear the message that rather than cutting taxes they need to invest in some genuinely equitable social policy.
Ultimately this is about self respect. I am not proud to live in a country that turns its back on 185,000 children. Are you?
Monday, May 05, 2008
Pipe Band Saved By Daring Strategy
Ashburton has been rocked this week by the announcement of a last ditch effort to save the town’s pipe band. The band has been reduced by age and shifting musical tastes to just five members – four pipers and a solitary drummer.
Band chairman Dougal Claymore has called a meeting on May 7 to pull the band from the brink of oblivion. Mr Claymore, speaking with the obligatory Scots accent of his office, described the band’s plight. “We cannae go on. If the people will nae rally to us ye’ll no hear the skirl o’ th’ pipes in this wee toon nae more.”
Treasurer Agnes McFinger revealed that the club’s assets have been reduced to 2 sets of pipes, a puncture repair kit and one ear plug. “To think we used to send out 600 pipers first footing on New Year’s Eve and now it’s come to this,” wept Mrs McFinger.
In response to the crisis the Guardian has set up a McThinktank. This group, whose members are anonymous for reasons that will become obvious, has prepared a report, with the nifty title Bagging the Band, to restore the club to its former glory.
At the heart of the package is a marketing campaign to freshen the band’s look and to bolster a recruitment drive. The McThinktank will replace the “hairy knees and tartan” image with the Paul Kelly dancers. It recommends a series of street concerts featuring the girls in hot pants and halter tops working out to a pipe band routine. These will be supported by a billboard campaign featuring scantily clad young women with pipes and drums and the slogans “Come and Play with Me” and “Beat my Drum you Big Scots Laddie.”
The report aims to improve all aspects of the pipe band. Marching is out, replaced by line dancing and Latin routines. “There is no entertainment in simply walking down a street,” the report’s authors claim. “We want our pipe band to become the Riverdance of Scottish performance. Imagine 30 pipers hip-hopping at the ANZAC Day parade backed by a dozen disco dancing drummers.”
But it is the band’s music that attracts most criticism in the report. “Pipe bands have been restricted for years by a limited and lacklustre repertoire, which is dictated by the limited and lacklustre instrument.”
In a bold move the report’s authors recommend the replacement of the traditional bagpipe with a modern digital version. The ‘digipipe’ replaces bag and chanter with a small laptop computer worn on a harness around the piper’s neck (the laptops are produced in various clan tartans). Small speakers are mounted on the laptops.
“The sight and sound of these machines is awesome,” claims the McThinktank. “Imagine 30 big strapping lads dancing down East Street with laptops round their necks playing anything from a Brahms concerto to techno-funk. Throw in the Paul Kelly dancers and you’ve started a craze.”
The report acknowledges the difficulties of commercialising the pipe band. “The bagpipe has limited revenue-generating potential owing to the essentially anti-social nature of its sound. The alarming quality of pipe music could however hold the key to commercial success. As most people are compelled to flee from the sound of bagpipes the music may be recorded for use in smoke detectors and fire alarms, and pipers may be hired to clear public bars at closing time.”
Bagging the Band reveals that the first bagpipes were made as duck calls for 18th century Scottish duck shooters. Their musical qualities were only developed during long, slow mornings in highland maimais, fuelled by large amounts of Scotch whisky. The report’s authors suggest an immediate and practical way the band could revive its fortunes is to hire itself out to duck shooters this weekend.
If all these strategies fail there is still hope for the pipe band’s remaining members. After all, five is still one more than the average rock band and as a last resort Mr Claymore and his companions should throw away their pipes and take up the guitar.
Ashburton has been rocked this week by the announcement of a last ditch effort to save the town’s pipe band. The band has been reduced by age and shifting musical tastes to just five members – four pipers and a solitary drummer.
Band chairman Dougal Claymore has called a meeting on May 7 to pull the band from the brink of oblivion. Mr Claymore, speaking with the obligatory Scots accent of his office, described the band’s plight. “We cannae go on. If the people will nae rally to us ye’ll no hear the skirl o’ th’ pipes in this wee toon nae more.”
Treasurer Agnes McFinger revealed that the club’s assets have been reduced to 2 sets of pipes, a puncture repair kit and one ear plug. “To think we used to send out 600 pipers first footing on New Year’s Eve and now it’s come to this,” wept Mrs McFinger.
In response to the crisis the Guardian has set up a McThinktank. This group, whose members are anonymous for reasons that will become obvious, has prepared a report, with the nifty title Bagging the Band, to restore the club to its former glory.
At the heart of the package is a marketing campaign to freshen the band’s look and to bolster a recruitment drive. The McThinktank will replace the “hairy knees and tartan” image with the Paul Kelly dancers. It recommends a series of street concerts featuring the girls in hot pants and halter tops working out to a pipe band routine. These will be supported by a billboard campaign featuring scantily clad young women with pipes and drums and the slogans “Come and Play with Me” and “Beat my Drum you Big Scots Laddie.”
The report aims to improve all aspects of the pipe band. Marching is out, replaced by line dancing and Latin routines. “There is no entertainment in simply walking down a street,” the report’s authors claim. “We want our pipe band to become the Riverdance of Scottish performance. Imagine 30 pipers hip-hopping at the ANZAC Day parade backed by a dozen disco dancing drummers.”
But it is the band’s music that attracts most criticism in the report. “Pipe bands have been restricted for years by a limited and lacklustre repertoire, which is dictated by the limited and lacklustre instrument.”
In a bold move the report’s authors recommend the replacement of the traditional bagpipe with a modern digital version. The ‘digipipe’ replaces bag and chanter with a small laptop computer worn on a harness around the piper’s neck (the laptops are produced in various clan tartans). Small speakers are mounted on the laptops.
“The sight and sound of these machines is awesome,” claims the McThinktank. “Imagine 30 big strapping lads dancing down East Street with laptops round their necks playing anything from a Brahms concerto to techno-funk. Throw in the Paul Kelly dancers and you’ve started a craze.”
The report acknowledges the difficulties of commercialising the pipe band. “The bagpipe has limited revenue-generating potential owing to the essentially anti-social nature of its sound. The alarming quality of pipe music could however hold the key to commercial success. As most people are compelled to flee from the sound of bagpipes the music may be recorded for use in smoke detectors and fire alarms, and pipers may be hired to clear public bars at closing time.”
Bagging the Band reveals that the first bagpipes were made as duck calls for 18th century Scottish duck shooters. Their musical qualities were only developed during long, slow mornings in highland maimais, fuelled by large amounts of Scotch whisky. The report’s authors suggest an immediate and practical way the band could revive its fortunes is to hire itself out to duck shooters this weekend.
If all these strategies fail there is still hope for the pipe band’s remaining members. After all, five is still one more than the average rock band and as a last resort Mr Claymore and his companions should throw away their pipes and take up the guitar.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
New theatre should be a ‘house of story-telling’
5th April 2008
One of the things that makes us human is the desire to hear and tell stories. From the raconteur in the local pub to Hollywood movie moguls, story telling takes and holds our attention. “Tell me a story” was one of the first complete sentences my children learned to say. And, like all parents, we told them stories: about our childhood, about our family, about heroes and villains, about adventures real and imagined.
Stories populate the imagination. They help us make sense of our world. They teach language and the codes of behaviour of our community. They provide comfort in defeat and give us words to celebrate victories.
In our lifetime technology has allowed story telling to flourish in ways we could never have imagined. Television, movies, music and internet expand the story teller’s art in glorious, digital techno-wizardry. Story telling has become industrialised, with vast fortunes earned and spent to fuel this most simple and fundamental human need.
On Thursday evening I had the pleasure of being entertained by story tellers at Ashburton College’s Festival of the Spoken Word. For 15 years the Festival has showcased the talented, the eager and the just plain hopeful among our young poets and performers. Sly, shy or swashbuckling they step into the lights to make us laugh or cry, to make us sit up and take notice, to make us think.
I have attended the Festival of the Spoken Word many times in recent years. I have observed young performers grow from timid 13 year olds to highly accomplished and, occasionally, brilliant actors and orators. I am always entertained and often awed by the apparent ease with which they tackle the most daring subjects, from Shakespeare to The Flight of the Conchords.
As Ashburton’s new theatre nears completion it is exciting to think we may finally have a venue to match the talent in our district. Shakespeare told us “all the world’s a stage” but these days actors and singers can no longer expect to attract audiences to street corners or draughty church halls. Audiences expect to sit comfortably in a theatre that has a few bells and whistles.
But bells and whistles come at a price and I notice that sometime in the past few months the new theatre has become the Ashburton Trust Events Centre. I am sure the new name reflects the Trust’s financial commitment to the project, both in funding the construction of the building and supporting its future operations. I believe the Trust will be a major user of the facility.
All this is good. The Trust does an excellent job in Ashburton. It is probably the only organisation in the district with the management expertise and financial muscle to make the theatre commercially viable.
My concern, which is shared by others, is that the move from a theatre to an ‘events centre’ will place the new facility beyond the reach of many local performers. Will the venue’s programme be filled with ‘events’ (conferences, trade shows and promotions) to the exclusion of theatre?
Already some local groups have become concerned that even if they can find a slot in the centre’s timetable they may not be able to afford the charges. A subsidised rate for local groups has been discussed but, as far as I am aware, no assurances have been made that the centre will be affordable to local groups.
In my view the new theatre should remain, first and foremost, a theatre – a house of storytelling. Yes, we have many ways of feeding our human desire for stories, but books, movies, DVDs and the internet fall short on two counts: they generally tell other people’s stories and they are essentially private.
Nothing matches live theatre as a shared experience of story-telling and as an opportunity for our stories to be performed by our people. I hope the Ashburton Trust Events Centre will become a place that excites us, that we become fond of for the store of memories it builds over the years. I hope we can balance commerce with community.
5th April 2008
One of the things that makes us human is the desire to hear and tell stories. From the raconteur in the local pub to Hollywood movie moguls, story telling takes and holds our attention. “Tell me a story” was one of the first complete sentences my children learned to say. And, like all parents, we told them stories: about our childhood, about our family, about heroes and villains, about adventures real and imagined.
Stories populate the imagination. They help us make sense of our world. They teach language and the codes of behaviour of our community. They provide comfort in defeat and give us words to celebrate victories.
In our lifetime technology has allowed story telling to flourish in ways we could never have imagined. Television, movies, music and internet expand the story teller’s art in glorious, digital techno-wizardry. Story telling has become industrialised, with vast fortunes earned and spent to fuel this most simple and fundamental human need.
On Thursday evening I had the pleasure of being entertained by story tellers at Ashburton College’s Festival of the Spoken Word. For 15 years the Festival has showcased the talented, the eager and the just plain hopeful among our young poets and performers. Sly, shy or swashbuckling they step into the lights to make us laugh or cry, to make us sit up and take notice, to make us think.
I have attended the Festival of the Spoken Word many times in recent years. I have observed young performers grow from timid 13 year olds to highly accomplished and, occasionally, brilliant actors and orators. I am always entertained and often awed by the apparent ease with which they tackle the most daring subjects, from Shakespeare to The Flight of the Conchords.
As Ashburton’s new theatre nears completion it is exciting to think we may finally have a venue to match the talent in our district. Shakespeare told us “all the world’s a stage” but these days actors and singers can no longer expect to attract audiences to street corners or draughty church halls. Audiences expect to sit comfortably in a theatre that has a few bells and whistles.
But bells and whistles come at a price and I notice that sometime in the past few months the new theatre has become the Ashburton Trust Events Centre. I am sure the new name reflects the Trust’s financial commitment to the project, both in funding the construction of the building and supporting its future operations. I believe the Trust will be a major user of the facility.
All this is good. The Trust does an excellent job in Ashburton. It is probably the only organisation in the district with the management expertise and financial muscle to make the theatre commercially viable.
My concern, which is shared by others, is that the move from a theatre to an ‘events centre’ will place the new facility beyond the reach of many local performers. Will the venue’s programme be filled with ‘events’ (conferences, trade shows and promotions) to the exclusion of theatre?
Already some local groups have become concerned that even if they can find a slot in the centre’s timetable they may not be able to afford the charges. A subsidised rate for local groups has been discussed but, as far as I am aware, no assurances have been made that the centre will be affordable to local groups.
In my view the new theatre should remain, first and foremost, a theatre – a house of storytelling. Yes, we have many ways of feeding our human desire for stories, but books, movies, DVDs and the internet fall short on two counts: they generally tell other people’s stories and they are essentially private.
Nothing matches live theatre as a shared experience of story-telling and as an opportunity for our stories to be performed by our people. I hope the Ashburton Trust Events Centre will become a place that excites us, that we become fond of for the store of memories it builds over the years. I hope we can balance commerce with community.
Chinese Actions in Tibet are Wrong
22nd March 2008
Twenty years ago as a young broadcaster I toured China with a polyglot group of kiwis. We were guests of a Chinese government that was just getting the hang of managing the outside world. Our party included a couple of MPs (both of whom, by the way, were seeking re-election), some trade unionists, businessmen, radical Maori, lesbian feminists and a boy scout.
Our chaperone was Mr Hu. Mr Hu had a gold tooth and chain-smoked – to the delight of the trade unionists. Mr Hu smoothed our passage through the Great Hall of the People, Mao Tse Tung’s mausoleum, dark satanic mills, the terracotta army and an apartment block exclusively for one-child families.
Mr Hu was a good party man in every sense. He drank us under the table each night while never forgetting his duty to communism. He was courteous and professional, but one thing baffled him. He could not understand multi-culturalism. At official functions he became visibly agitated while we mihi-ed, chanted and laboured through a litany of introductions. Why didn’t we unite and speak with one voice, he asked. Why did we show so little respect to our leaders - the politicians?
There is a luxury in totalitarian states of seeing the world in black and white. Power that resides in the barrel of a gun and not a ballot box makes absolute sense to the person holding the gun. When that power has been hard-won the rightness of it assumes a moral authority. In the West this was called the Divine Right of Kings. The Chinese were more prosaic: they called it the Mandate of Heaven. Traditionally in China this mandate resided in the emperor and his family. When that family lost its grip on power the Chinese believed the gods passed the mandate to whoever was strong enough to take over. It’s a familiar tale – to the victor go the spoils.
Mr Hu’s frustrations with our group’s messy multi-culturalism were the product of the black and white world in which he lived. I enjoyed Mr Hu and greatly admired what I saw in China, but I found his discomfort satisfying. In our stumbling way we were demonstrating to Mr Hu our commitment to human rights, particularly minority rights.
I’ve been thinking about Mr Hu this week as the stories of violent protest rolled out of Tibet. I’m sure these stories don’t air in China but I feel confident that if he saw them Mr Hu would absolutely approve of the actions of the Chinese government. It would seem perfectly natural to him that China asserts its authority over the Tibetans. He may even be puzzled that the Tibetans would challenge that authority. Can’t they appreciate the benefits of being part of China? Why do they cling to their feudal beliefs and out-moded practices?
Tibet suffers the same arrogance and destructiveness from China that colonised populations have endured for centuries. It’s the story of Native Americans in the Wild West, of Maori in colonial New Zealand, of Africans down through the ages.
The Chinese cloak their theft of Tibet in a bogus historical legitimacy, claiming it has traditionally been part of China. Their invasion of Tibet in the early 1950s was largely ignored by the international community. Tibet was a backward and useless little corner of a world that was preoccupied with the Cold War.
While China remained poor it had only limited power to realise its ambitions in Tibet. Tibet’s leaders were driven out of the country, replaced by Chinese administrators and soldiers, but daily life for most Tibetans was endurable and the country remained cut off.
China’s recent prosperity has changed things dramatically. Massive road and rail projects have connected Tibet to China and the world. China has flooded Tibet with settlers, bulldozed Tibetan villages and replaced them with factories and high-rise apartments. The intention is to edge out Tibetan culture and language, break up its institutions and gradually erase its identity.
Perhaps China has been emboldened by the Tibetans’ Buddhist pacifism. The events of the past week will have done little to shake that conviction. A few hundred protesting monks can do little damage to Chinese authority. Unless, that is, they find support from more powerful friends.
New Zealand has only a small voice but we’ve proved that when we lay aside our fears of standing up to bullies, when we act from our deepest convictions, we can make a big noise.
In my view this is one of those times. I think we should, politely but firmly, tell China that its actions in Tibet are wrong. To publicly demonstrate our beliefs is as vital to maintaining our own dignity and freedom as it is to defending the dignity and freedom of the people of Tibet.
22nd March 2008
Twenty years ago as a young broadcaster I toured China with a polyglot group of kiwis. We were guests of a Chinese government that was just getting the hang of managing the outside world. Our party included a couple of MPs (both of whom, by the way, were seeking re-election), some trade unionists, businessmen, radical Maori, lesbian feminists and a boy scout.
Our chaperone was Mr Hu. Mr Hu had a gold tooth and chain-smoked – to the delight of the trade unionists. Mr Hu smoothed our passage through the Great Hall of the People, Mao Tse Tung’s mausoleum, dark satanic mills, the terracotta army and an apartment block exclusively for one-child families.
Mr Hu was a good party man in every sense. He drank us under the table each night while never forgetting his duty to communism. He was courteous and professional, but one thing baffled him. He could not understand multi-culturalism. At official functions he became visibly agitated while we mihi-ed, chanted and laboured through a litany of introductions. Why didn’t we unite and speak with one voice, he asked. Why did we show so little respect to our leaders - the politicians?
There is a luxury in totalitarian states of seeing the world in black and white. Power that resides in the barrel of a gun and not a ballot box makes absolute sense to the person holding the gun. When that power has been hard-won the rightness of it assumes a moral authority. In the West this was called the Divine Right of Kings. The Chinese were more prosaic: they called it the Mandate of Heaven. Traditionally in China this mandate resided in the emperor and his family. When that family lost its grip on power the Chinese believed the gods passed the mandate to whoever was strong enough to take over. It’s a familiar tale – to the victor go the spoils.
Mr Hu’s frustrations with our group’s messy multi-culturalism were the product of the black and white world in which he lived. I enjoyed Mr Hu and greatly admired what I saw in China, but I found his discomfort satisfying. In our stumbling way we were demonstrating to Mr Hu our commitment to human rights, particularly minority rights.
I’ve been thinking about Mr Hu this week as the stories of violent protest rolled out of Tibet. I’m sure these stories don’t air in China but I feel confident that if he saw them Mr Hu would absolutely approve of the actions of the Chinese government. It would seem perfectly natural to him that China asserts its authority over the Tibetans. He may even be puzzled that the Tibetans would challenge that authority. Can’t they appreciate the benefits of being part of China? Why do they cling to their feudal beliefs and out-moded practices?
Tibet suffers the same arrogance and destructiveness from China that colonised populations have endured for centuries. It’s the story of Native Americans in the Wild West, of Maori in colonial New Zealand, of Africans down through the ages.
The Chinese cloak their theft of Tibet in a bogus historical legitimacy, claiming it has traditionally been part of China. Their invasion of Tibet in the early 1950s was largely ignored by the international community. Tibet was a backward and useless little corner of a world that was preoccupied with the Cold War.
While China remained poor it had only limited power to realise its ambitions in Tibet. Tibet’s leaders were driven out of the country, replaced by Chinese administrators and soldiers, but daily life for most Tibetans was endurable and the country remained cut off.
China’s recent prosperity has changed things dramatically. Massive road and rail projects have connected Tibet to China and the world. China has flooded Tibet with settlers, bulldozed Tibetan villages and replaced them with factories and high-rise apartments. The intention is to edge out Tibetan culture and language, break up its institutions and gradually erase its identity.
Perhaps China has been emboldened by the Tibetans’ Buddhist pacifism. The events of the past week will have done little to shake that conviction. A few hundred protesting monks can do little damage to Chinese authority. Unless, that is, they find support from more powerful friends.
New Zealand has only a small voice but we’ve proved that when we lay aside our fears of standing up to bullies, when we act from our deepest convictions, we can make a big noise.
In my view this is one of those times. I think we should, politely but firmly, tell China that its actions in Tibet are wrong. To publicly demonstrate our beliefs is as vital to maintaining our own dignity and freedom as it is to defending the dignity and freedom of the people of Tibet.
The (Narrow) Window of Opportunity
8th March 2008
I have good news: we can save the world and ourselves. This is the message from a group of Very Brainy People at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. They recently put their pointy heads together and considered all the major problems facing humanity and the globe: energy supply, terrorist threats, natural disasters, pandemic diseases. Voila! They came up with answers.
Take energy, for example. How do we secure a supply of clean, renewable energy for all? Simple: all we need to do is capture one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the planet and we’ll have all the energy we could hope for. Solution: “this will become feasible with nanoengineered solar panels and and nanoengineered fuel cells.” To think we’ve been angsting about peak oil and nuclear waste and these guys solve the entire problem with one slick move off the back of the scrum.
But that’s only the entrée. The idea that really made me sit up and take notice was their forecast for personal health. They claim advances in genetic technology mean that “within one or two decades, we will be in a position to stop and reverse the progression of disease and ageing, resulting in dramatic gains in health and longevity.”
Now there’s a thought to conjure with. If I was ten years older I’d be trying to pin them down on whether it would be one decade or two – that would be uppermost in my mind. But I’m 50 - only 50 - so I figure even at the conservative end of the projection, two decades, I’m in the zone. Like the boy racer aiming for the gap in the traffic I just have to stay straight, keep my foot down, hold my nerve and I’ll be through and into the wide blue yonder. If I can keep ahead of cancer and coronaries until I’m 70 I can look forward to, what? another 50 years? another 100?
It’s a dizzying prospect. Imagine what I could do with another 50 years of healthy living. I could travel endlessly, write and read books, be entertained with movies and TV programmes made by people not even born yet. I could enjoy the company of several generations of descendants, becoming a great-great-great-grandad. The window of opportunity opens wide.
But wait, there’s a downside to a world peopled with millions of modern-day Methuselahs. For a start, who’s going to support us? Like the man who is assured by his doctor he has 30 more years only to be told by his accountant he has just 20 there is a gap between vision and reality.
I have a beautiful financial plan, as finely balanced as a trimble. I accumulate capital for another 10 to 15 years then use it up over a similar period. That takes me to 80 – beyond that is blue sky. So, if technology is going to allow me to live until 120 do I plan to remain in the work force until, say, 90 or 100? Do I have to keep getting up early and going to the office for another 40-50 years?
And what about all the stuff we haul through life with us? Do I have to maintain a home and garden for another half century or more? That’s a lot of painting and lawn-mowing. Do I have to get used to the idea of working my way through another 10 or 12 motor vehicles?
Maybe not. Perhaps the scientific wonderland of the future will include self-painting houses and cars that never wear out.
And then there’s the simple human need for company. Will my spouse and my friends also make it through the window of opportunity? Or will my long twilight see me shuffling around Tinwald as a lonely remnant of a lost age, the butt of jokes from middle aged octogenarians.
I don’t blame the scientists for the flaws in their plan. The job of scientists is to conjure visions of perfection. Where my window of opportunity narrows is at that point where perfect science rubs up against human nature.
Individuals and societies are a tangle of half-grasped opportunities, of false starts and blind alleys. We’ve had 35 years since the oil crises of the 70s to solve the problem of clean energy, yet the world’s major economies continue to be run by a self-serving oilocracy. We could have solved world poverty a hundred times over but we made the mistaken of relying on the market to do it. Gene therapy could be a reality today except the medical research companies are competing instead of co-operating.
So here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll finish reading The Guardian, then step out into my day and simply enjoy myself. Why don’t you do the same.
8th March 2008
I have good news: we can save the world and ourselves. This is the message from a group of Very Brainy People at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. They recently put their pointy heads together and considered all the major problems facing humanity and the globe: energy supply, terrorist threats, natural disasters, pandemic diseases. Voila! They came up with answers.
Take energy, for example. How do we secure a supply of clean, renewable energy for all? Simple: all we need to do is capture one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the planet and we’ll have all the energy we could hope for. Solution: “this will become feasible with nanoengineered solar panels and and nanoengineered fuel cells.” To think we’ve been angsting about peak oil and nuclear waste and these guys solve the entire problem with one slick move off the back of the scrum.
But that’s only the entrée. The idea that really made me sit up and take notice was their forecast for personal health. They claim advances in genetic technology mean that “within one or two decades, we will be in a position to stop and reverse the progression of disease and ageing, resulting in dramatic gains in health and longevity.”
Now there’s a thought to conjure with. If I was ten years older I’d be trying to pin them down on whether it would be one decade or two – that would be uppermost in my mind. But I’m 50 - only 50 - so I figure even at the conservative end of the projection, two decades, I’m in the zone. Like the boy racer aiming for the gap in the traffic I just have to stay straight, keep my foot down, hold my nerve and I’ll be through and into the wide blue yonder. If I can keep ahead of cancer and coronaries until I’m 70 I can look forward to, what? another 50 years? another 100?
It’s a dizzying prospect. Imagine what I could do with another 50 years of healthy living. I could travel endlessly, write and read books, be entertained with movies and TV programmes made by people not even born yet. I could enjoy the company of several generations of descendants, becoming a great-great-great-grandad. The window of opportunity opens wide.
But wait, there’s a downside to a world peopled with millions of modern-day Methuselahs. For a start, who’s going to support us? Like the man who is assured by his doctor he has 30 more years only to be told by his accountant he has just 20 there is a gap between vision and reality.
I have a beautiful financial plan, as finely balanced as a trimble. I accumulate capital for another 10 to 15 years then use it up over a similar period. That takes me to 80 – beyond that is blue sky. So, if technology is going to allow me to live until 120 do I plan to remain in the work force until, say, 90 or 100? Do I have to keep getting up early and going to the office for another 40-50 years?
And what about all the stuff we haul through life with us? Do I have to maintain a home and garden for another half century or more? That’s a lot of painting and lawn-mowing. Do I have to get used to the idea of working my way through another 10 or 12 motor vehicles?
Maybe not. Perhaps the scientific wonderland of the future will include self-painting houses and cars that never wear out.
And then there’s the simple human need for company. Will my spouse and my friends also make it through the window of opportunity? Or will my long twilight see me shuffling around Tinwald as a lonely remnant of a lost age, the butt of jokes from middle aged octogenarians.
I don’t blame the scientists for the flaws in their plan. The job of scientists is to conjure visions of perfection. Where my window of opportunity narrows is at that point where perfect science rubs up against human nature.
Individuals and societies are a tangle of half-grasped opportunities, of false starts and blind alleys. We’ve had 35 years since the oil crises of the 70s to solve the problem of clean energy, yet the world’s major economies continue to be run by a self-serving oilocracy. We could have solved world poverty a hundred times over but we made the mistaken of relying on the market to do it. Gene therapy could be a reality today except the medical research companies are competing instead of co-operating.
So here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll finish reading The Guardian, then step out into my day and simply enjoy myself. Why don’t you do the same.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
New Slogan Excites Debate
23rd February 2008
Debate over a new slogan for Ashburton deepened this week with rumours that the District Council has committed millions of dollars of ratepayers’ funds to acquire the famous Tui catch-phrase.
Ashburton mare, Bede O’Malley, has refused to comment on the speculation, but in a terse press release Council spokesperson, Edgar ‘Tiny’ White (Parks & Gardens) has denied the rumours.
“There is absolutely no intention to use the Tui slogan in Mid-Canterbury,” he said. “It is Council’s view that Ashburton - Yeah Right would not capture the spirit of our community going forward.”
Mr White confirmed that a new slogan will be in place before Wheels Week in May.
“Over the years we’ve had a bit of grief about our slogan from the numerous petrol heads, sorry, ‘car enthusiasts’ who visit during Wheels Week. Whatever It Takes has tended to be seen by visitors as a licence for bad behaviour.”
Guardian readers agree. “Whatever It Takes was fine for the 90s,” writes Pickles from Hampstead. “It was a desperate slogan for desperate times but it led to some pretty poor decision-making about development in our district. Our new slogan will have to be a lot more self-respecting.”
“Whatever It Takes was rubbish,” blasts Miss Fortune from Chertsey. “It was the catch-cry of a superannuated call-girl.”
Many local residents are rising to the challenge of finding a new slogan that captures the spirit of our place. A vigorous debate has been raging through the Guardian’s website and editorial pages for weeks.
Predictably, many of the suggestions are inspired by local geography: Plain and Simple, Plain Magic and The Heart of the Plains are just a few.
These suggestions are vociferously rejected by others. N Spired of Allenton writes, “The slogan can be anything as long as it doesn’t mention ‘plains’ or ‘heartland.’ Do we want Ashburton to be linked to the word ‘plain’? And heartland has been done to death. Give us something more original!”
Others draw on Ashburton’s location at the centre of the South Island, or its close proximity to Christchurch. Ashburton – Just Down The Road is the choice of Mrs Ima Divot of Netherby. Which draws a response from Fred in Pleasant Point, who writes, “Mrs Divot should remember that from South Canterbury Ashburton is Just Up The Road.”
An undeterred Mrs Divot then suggests we could have two slogans: Just Down The Road for places north of the township and Just Up The Road for places south.
“What about, Ashburton – Middle of the Road?” offers Compromise from Tinwald. “I think that sums us up nicely.”
“Well, if we really want people to stop here why not The End of the Road?” retorts the feisty Mrs Divot.
“That would look just peachy on a sign at the northern end of town within sight of the cemetery,” observes Fruit Loop of Netherby.
Another tranche of slogans draw inspiration from the district’s major economic activities. Dairy enthusiasts have submitted Ashburton – Udderly Fabulous, Teats R Us and Land of Milk and Money. An inspired crop farmer suggests New Zealand’s Bread Basket or Serious Cereals.
A lively entry in the debate comes from The Lab Coat Girls from Talleys. “Dear Sir,” they write, “we work in the lab at Talley’s and we have a lot of fun. We tell our mates we work in a pea lab and, oh, how they laugh! Anyway, we thought what about a slogan that celebrates the vegetable industry? Some suggestions are: Ashburton – Have a Pea. Or what about Minted Peas, or Mixed Vegetables? We think these really are what Mid-Canterbury is all about.”
“Those girls need to get out more,” responds Grizz from Methven. “No, for a slogan you’ve gotta look at our resources, and that means water. I reckon Ashburton – Pour It On is a winner. You could paint it on big signs hung from centre pivots across highway one at each end of the town. You could even have the centre pivots working so visitors to the town would get a little shower on their way through. That’s a ripper idea, I reckon.”
“Actually, the whole point of a slogan is to give us an edge over our neighbours,” argues F. Lukes (Dr). “So what we should do is trump our neighbour’s slogans. Take Rolleston, for example. Their slogan, Town Of The Future, begs to be topped. I suggest we make ours Ashburton – The Future Starts Here.”
“Once again I point out the proximity of the cemetery,” pipes Fruit Loop of Netherby.
“And none of these ideas capture the vibrancy and energy of the district,” laments Speedy of Rosebank. “My suggestion is On The Move! or On The Run!”
“On the Run sounds great,” chime in the Lab Coat Girls. “It could go with Have a Pea.”
With quality debate such as this our new slogan is bound to be a winner. But whatever we decide to call ourselves one thing is certain. To the rest of the country we will always be, affectionately, Ashvegas.
23rd February 2008
Debate over a new slogan for Ashburton deepened this week with rumours that the District Council has committed millions of dollars of ratepayers’ funds to acquire the famous Tui catch-phrase.
Ashburton mare, Bede O’Malley, has refused to comment on the speculation, but in a terse press release Council spokesperson, Edgar ‘Tiny’ White (Parks & Gardens) has denied the rumours.
“There is absolutely no intention to use the Tui slogan in Mid-Canterbury,” he said. “It is Council’s view that Ashburton - Yeah Right would not capture the spirit of our community going forward.”
Mr White confirmed that a new slogan will be in place before Wheels Week in May.
“Over the years we’ve had a bit of grief about our slogan from the numerous petrol heads, sorry, ‘car enthusiasts’ who visit during Wheels Week. Whatever It Takes has tended to be seen by visitors as a licence for bad behaviour.”
Guardian readers agree. “Whatever It Takes was fine for the 90s,” writes Pickles from Hampstead. “It was a desperate slogan for desperate times but it led to some pretty poor decision-making about development in our district. Our new slogan will have to be a lot more self-respecting.”
“Whatever It Takes was rubbish,” blasts Miss Fortune from Chertsey. “It was the catch-cry of a superannuated call-girl.”
Many local residents are rising to the challenge of finding a new slogan that captures the spirit of our place. A vigorous debate has been raging through the Guardian’s website and editorial pages for weeks.
Predictably, many of the suggestions are inspired by local geography: Plain and Simple, Plain Magic and The Heart of the Plains are just a few.
These suggestions are vociferously rejected by others. N Spired of Allenton writes, “The slogan can be anything as long as it doesn’t mention ‘plains’ or ‘heartland.’ Do we want Ashburton to be linked to the word ‘plain’? And heartland has been done to death. Give us something more original!”
Others draw on Ashburton’s location at the centre of the South Island, or its close proximity to Christchurch. Ashburton – Just Down The Road is the choice of Mrs Ima Divot of Netherby. Which draws a response from Fred in Pleasant Point, who writes, “Mrs Divot should remember that from South Canterbury Ashburton is Just Up The Road.”
An undeterred Mrs Divot then suggests we could have two slogans: Just Down The Road for places north of the township and Just Up The Road for places south.
“What about, Ashburton – Middle of the Road?” offers Compromise from Tinwald. “I think that sums us up nicely.”
“Well, if we really want people to stop here why not The End of the Road?” retorts the feisty Mrs Divot.
“That would look just peachy on a sign at the northern end of town within sight of the cemetery,” observes Fruit Loop of Netherby.
Another tranche of slogans draw inspiration from the district’s major economic activities. Dairy enthusiasts have submitted Ashburton – Udderly Fabulous, Teats R Us and Land of Milk and Money. An inspired crop farmer suggests New Zealand’s Bread Basket or Serious Cereals.
A lively entry in the debate comes from The Lab Coat Girls from Talleys. “Dear Sir,” they write, “we work in the lab at Talley’s and we have a lot of fun. We tell our mates we work in a pea lab and, oh, how they laugh! Anyway, we thought what about a slogan that celebrates the vegetable industry? Some suggestions are: Ashburton – Have a Pea. Or what about Minted Peas, or Mixed Vegetables? We think these really are what Mid-Canterbury is all about.”
“Those girls need to get out more,” responds Grizz from Methven. “No, for a slogan you’ve gotta look at our resources, and that means water. I reckon Ashburton – Pour It On is a winner. You could paint it on big signs hung from centre pivots across highway one at each end of the town. You could even have the centre pivots working so visitors to the town would get a little shower on their way through. That’s a ripper idea, I reckon.”
“Actually, the whole point of a slogan is to give us an edge over our neighbours,” argues F. Lukes (Dr). “So what we should do is trump our neighbour’s slogans. Take Rolleston, for example. Their slogan, Town Of The Future, begs to be topped. I suggest we make ours Ashburton – The Future Starts Here.”
“Once again I point out the proximity of the cemetery,” pipes Fruit Loop of Netherby.
“And none of these ideas capture the vibrancy and energy of the district,” laments Speedy of Rosebank. “My suggestion is On The Move! or On The Run!”
“On the Run sounds great,” chime in the Lab Coat Girls. “It could go with Have a Pea.”
With quality debate such as this our new slogan is bound to be a winner. But whatever we decide to call ourselves one thing is certain. To the rest of the country we will always be, affectionately, Ashvegas.
Let’s Give It Up For Lent
9th February 2008
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.”
In the church a long line of worshippers shuffles silently towards the altar where the priest stands holding a large cup filled with ashes. As each person kneels before him he dips his thumb into the cup, bends down and, murmuring the incantation, inscribes an ashen cross on each forehead. The worshippers return silently to their seats, ash-marked heads bowed in prayer.
As Waitangi Day swirled through Aotearoa this week a couple of older, darker celebrations tangled in its coat tails. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent in the Christian calendar, a six week period of abstinence that culminates in Holy Week, the great celebration of Easter. Because it is tied to Easter Ash Wednesday does not fall on a fixed calendar date – it is a ‘movable feast’. This year it happened to fall on Waitangi Day.
In my Catholic youth I attended Ash Wednesday mass to be marked with ash on my forehead and reminded of my mortality – “and to dust you will return.” Back home us kids would peer in the mirror, rubbing in the ashes with our fingers or teasing each other when soap and water failed to remove them.
Then our conversation would turn to what we were ‘giving up’ for Lent. Giving things up for Lent was the most significant calculation in a Catholic child’s year. We were expected to sacrifice some small pleasure or privilege for six long weeks. This, along with praying our rosary beads every night and abstaining from meat on Fridays, was intended to strengthen our faith.
Usually we gave up eating sweets – which wasn’t such a great sacrifice in an age when sweets were not as mainstreamed as they are today. Sometimes we sacrificed pocket money or a favourite TV programme. Alternatively we could take on extra duties around the house: hanging out the washing or bringing in the firewood.
We resisted these sanctions and tried various strategies to avoid them. We proposed giving up homework or spinach. I remember one of my sisters offering to do the dishes more often and my brother generously agreeing to give up his share of dishes duty so she could meet her goal.
Mum invariably quashed these creative solutions.
However, in a brilliant theological sleight of hand we managed to convince her of a loophole. She agreed that giving up eating sweets did not mean that we had to give up buying or acquiring them. So we accumulated our sweets, hoarding them in glass preserving jars under our beds, counting them up as we counted down the days until Easter. Lent for us finished on Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week and I remember the agonies we suffered after gorging ourselves on lollies. To this day I cannot face an acid drop without thinking of the yellow candlewick bedspread and dusty carpet of my childhood.
Like many Christian festivals Lent overlays older traditions. In the northern hemisphere Lent coincides with the end of winter and early spring (in Dutch ‘Lente’ means spring). For our ancestors this was always a lean time, when food supplies were running low. They fasted by necessity. The Christian church simply appropriated the practice as yet another expression of faith. It was a clever move – a rumbling tummy was easier to endure when one believed it was earning a few credits in the afterlife.
In hindsight I was short-changed as a child. It was many years before I discovered that Ash Wednesday was the second half of a double act: that it followed Shrove Tuesday, pancake day, Mardi Gras (literally ‘fat Tuesday’ in French). And it wasn’t until I travelled to Holland in my twenties that I discovered Mardi Gras is the climax of Carnival.
Carnival is a pagan festival the Church never completely subdued. It continues to this day, mostly in Europe and Latin America, a raucous outpouring of parades, masks and grotesqueries; of eating and drinking to excess; of sinning and confessing (being ‘shriven’). No wonder it was mislaid in my small Catholic childhood.
Times have changed. Lent has vanished and now every day is Carnival. Carnival suits the spirit of our age, where we are expected to live to excess. In a consumer society there is no room for abstinence, fasting or restraint.
I miss it a little. Giving something up brought a sense of accomplishment. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if we revived Lent. Imagine if the big box retailers announced they were putting prices up for a few weeks to reduce sales, or they were closing every Friday until Easter because we all had enough stuff. Imagine if we shunted advertising from our TV screens and junk mail from our letterboxes.
I’d happily give up sweets to see that.
9th February 2008
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.”
In the church a long line of worshippers shuffles silently towards the altar where the priest stands holding a large cup filled with ashes. As each person kneels before him he dips his thumb into the cup, bends down and, murmuring the incantation, inscribes an ashen cross on each forehead. The worshippers return silently to their seats, ash-marked heads bowed in prayer.
As Waitangi Day swirled through Aotearoa this week a couple of older, darker celebrations tangled in its coat tails. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent in the Christian calendar, a six week period of abstinence that culminates in Holy Week, the great celebration of Easter. Because it is tied to Easter Ash Wednesday does not fall on a fixed calendar date – it is a ‘movable feast’. This year it happened to fall on Waitangi Day.
In my Catholic youth I attended Ash Wednesday mass to be marked with ash on my forehead and reminded of my mortality – “and to dust you will return.” Back home us kids would peer in the mirror, rubbing in the ashes with our fingers or teasing each other when soap and water failed to remove them.
Then our conversation would turn to what we were ‘giving up’ for Lent. Giving things up for Lent was the most significant calculation in a Catholic child’s year. We were expected to sacrifice some small pleasure or privilege for six long weeks. This, along with praying our rosary beads every night and abstaining from meat on Fridays, was intended to strengthen our faith.
Usually we gave up eating sweets – which wasn’t such a great sacrifice in an age when sweets were not as mainstreamed as they are today. Sometimes we sacrificed pocket money or a favourite TV programme. Alternatively we could take on extra duties around the house: hanging out the washing or bringing in the firewood.
We resisted these sanctions and tried various strategies to avoid them. We proposed giving up homework or spinach. I remember one of my sisters offering to do the dishes more often and my brother generously agreeing to give up his share of dishes duty so she could meet her goal.
Mum invariably quashed these creative solutions.
However, in a brilliant theological sleight of hand we managed to convince her of a loophole. She agreed that giving up eating sweets did not mean that we had to give up buying or acquiring them. So we accumulated our sweets, hoarding them in glass preserving jars under our beds, counting them up as we counted down the days until Easter. Lent for us finished on Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week and I remember the agonies we suffered after gorging ourselves on lollies. To this day I cannot face an acid drop without thinking of the yellow candlewick bedspread and dusty carpet of my childhood.
Like many Christian festivals Lent overlays older traditions. In the northern hemisphere Lent coincides with the end of winter and early spring (in Dutch ‘Lente’ means spring). For our ancestors this was always a lean time, when food supplies were running low. They fasted by necessity. The Christian church simply appropriated the practice as yet another expression of faith. It was a clever move – a rumbling tummy was easier to endure when one believed it was earning a few credits in the afterlife.
In hindsight I was short-changed as a child. It was many years before I discovered that Ash Wednesday was the second half of a double act: that it followed Shrove Tuesday, pancake day, Mardi Gras (literally ‘fat Tuesday’ in French). And it wasn’t until I travelled to Holland in my twenties that I discovered Mardi Gras is the climax of Carnival.
Carnival is a pagan festival the Church never completely subdued. It continues to this day, mostly in Europe and Latin America, a raucous outpouring of parades, masks and grotesqueries; of eating and drinking to excess; of sinning and confessing (being ‘shriven’). No wonder it was mislaid in my small Catholic childhood.
Times have changed. Lent has vanished and now every day is Carnival. Carnival suits the spirit of our age, where we are expected to live to excess. In a consumer society there is no room for abstinence, fasting or restraint.
I miss it a little. Giving something up brought a sense of accomplishment. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if we revived Lent. Imagine if the big box retailers announced they were putting prices up for a few weeks to reduce sales, or they were closing every Friday until Easter because we all had enough stuff. Imagine if we shunted advertising from our TV screens and junk mail from our letterboxes.
I’d happily give up sweets to see that.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Geocaching Sweeps the World
Miles stands at the edge of the bush on the old Woolshed Creek tramline and studies the small device in his hand. It is a GPS unit, a Global Positioning System, about the size and shape of a cell phone. It shows him exactly where he is on the planet and, of greater interest to Miles, where he is going. The small screen displays co-ordinates, arrows and distances.
“It’s this way,” Miles waves his right hand like General Custer rallying the cavalry, “about thirty metres into the bush.”
We plunge into the trees, closing in on our prey.
Welcome to the world of geocaching, a digitally-enabled treasure hunt. It is fun, infectious and is sweeping the world. It is also unique in using digital technology to encourage physical activity.
If you have never heard of geocaching I can tell you it is happening in your neighbourhood, on your street, perhaps right under your nose.
The story of geocaching begins with the US military – but keep reading because the story is positive. In the 1980s the US Defence Department developed a network of satellites to provide super-accurate navigation. Civilian use of this network was severely restricted by the military scrambling the signals from the satellites. In 2000 the US government turned off the scrambling, allowing you and me to buy GPS devices with accuracy almost as good as the army’s. Today, for a couple of hundred dollars, you can buy a small GPS unit that allows you to locate your position or track objects to within a few metres, anywhere in the world.
Geocaching sprang up as an inventive use of this new and powerful technology. A geocache is a small treasure chest hidden by a player who then advertises the co-ordinates and a description of the cache on a website. Other players pick up the co-ordinates and try to find the cache.
Simple? Ho hum? Well, not quite. Caches can be extremely difficult to winkle out, as we discovered in the bush at Woolshed Creek. Steep or difficult terrain limits the accuracy of the GPS so the treasure seeker may still have to cover quite a bit of ground in a manual search for the cache. A cache’s location may be masked by cryptic clues. There may be a series of co-ordinates that have to be followed before the cache is reached. There are other variations: Offset Caches, Multi-Caches and even Virtual Caches.
Caches may take a number of forms but the few that I have seen are plastic lunchboxes with a notebook, a pencil and a collection of trinkets and other small objects. The successful treasure hunter records his or her name or caching nickname, the date of discovery and a comment in the notebook and swaps an object.
At Woolshed Creek, when we finally found the cache hidden deep within a rock crevice, one of our companions took a plastic light stick from the cache and left a small soft toy. Occasionally you may find a small engraved metal disc, a geocache ‘coin’, which I’m told is a collector’s item. I have also heard of objects being tagged with a small electronic tracking device enabling the person who first planted the object to track its progress from cache to cache.
When a cache has been found the successful geocacher records the find on a website, allowing the owner of that cache to keep track of the cache’s success.
Anybody can hunt for geocaches and anybody can hide a cache. Owners of caches are encouraged to manage their cache, checking it occasionally to make sure it is in place and has not been vandalised. Caches can swap owners: a friend recently took over the management of one on Quail Island.
Geocaching builds on older versions of the same idea. When we lived in England several years ago we were introduced to Letterboxing, a version of caching using written instructions, maps and a mailing list. We scrambled around Dartmoor, startling wildlife and wading through nettles, in search of ‘letterboxes’. I don’t think we ever found one.
If geocaching seems a bit too much like Morris Dancing or playing quoits, don’t be too hasty in your judgement (some of your best friends may be geocachers, or even Morris Dancers). It is highly infectious and a novel way to explore the countryside. When planning a walk or trip, check the website first for co-ordinates of geocaches in that area and plan your route or itinerary around them.
You may not have to go far. I’m told there is a geocache within 500 metres of my home and there is probably one close to you. You may walk past it daily, it may be visible from your front gate – if only you knew. Google ‘geocaching’ and get started today.
Miles stands at the edge of the bush on the old Woolshed Creek tramline and studies the small device in his hand. It is a GPS unit, a Global Positioning System, about the size and shape of a cell phone. It shows him exactly where he is on the planet and, of greater interest to Miles, where he is going. The small screen displays co-ordinates, arrows and distances.
“It’s this way,” Miles waves his right hand like General Custer rallying the cavalry, “about thirty metres into the bush.”
We plunge into the trees, closing in on our prey.
Welcome to the world of geocaching, a digitally-enabled treasure hunt. It is fun, infectious and is sweeping the world. It is also unique in using digital technology to encourage physical activity.
If you have never heard of geocaching I can tell you it is happening in your neighbourhood, on your street, perhaps right under your nose.
The story of geocaching begins with the US military – but keep reading because the story is positive. In the 1980s the US Defence Department developed a network of satellites to provide super-accurate navigation. Civilian use of this network was severely restricted by the military scrambling the signals from the satellites. In 2000 the US government turned off the scrambling, allowing you and me to buy GPS devices with accuracy almost as good as the army’s. Today, for a couple of hundred dollars, you can buy a small GPS unit that allows you to locate your position or track objects to within a few metres, anywhere in the world.
Geocaching sprang up as an inventive use of this new and powerful technology. A geocache is a small treasure chest hidden by a player who then advertises the co-ordinates and a description of the cache on a website. Other players pick up the co-ordinates and try to find the cache.
Simple? Ho hum? Well, not quite. Caches can be extremely difficult to winkle out, as we discovered in the bush at Woolshed Creek. Steep or difficult terrain limits the accuracy of the GPS so the treasure seeker may still have to cover quite a bit of ground in a manual search for the cache. A cache’s location may be masked by cryptic clues. There may be a series of co-ordinates that have to be followed before the cache is reached. There are other variations: Offset Caches, Multi-Caches and even Virtual Caches.
Caches may take a number of forms but the few that I have seen are plastic lunchboxes with a notebook, a pencil and a collection of trinkets and other small objects. The successful treasure hunter records his or her name or caching nickname, the date of discovery and a comment in the notebook and swaps an object.
At Woolshed Creek, when we finally found the cache hidden deep within a rock crevice, one of our companions took a plastic light stick from the cache and left a small soft toy. Occasionally you may find a small engraved metal disc, a geocache ‘coin’, which I’m told is a collector’s item. I have also heard of objects being tagged with a small electronic tracking device enabling the person who first planted the object to track its progress from cache to cache.
When a cache has been found the successful geocacher records the find on a website, allowing the owner of that cache to keep track of the cache’s success.
Anybody can hunt for geocaches and anybody can hide a cache. Owners of caches are encouraged to manage their cache, checking it occasionally to make sure it is in place and has not been vandalised. Caches can swap owners: a friend recently took over the management of one on Quail Island.
Geocaching builds on older versions of the same idea. When we lived in England several years ago we were introduced to Letterboxing, a version of caching using written instructions, maps and a mailing list. We scrambled around Dartmoor, startling wildlife and wading through nettles, in search of ‘letterboxes’. I don’t think we ever found one.
If geocaching seems a bit too much like Morris Dancing or playing quoits, don’t be too hasty in your judgement (some of your best friends may be geocachers, or even Morris Dancers). It is highly infectious and a novel way to explore the countryside. When planning a walk or trip, check the website first for co-ordinates of geocaches in that area and plan your route or itinerary around them.
You may not have to go far. I’m told there is a geocache within 500 metres of my home and there is probably one close to you. You may walk past it daily, it may be visible from your front gate – if only you knew. Google ‘geocaching’ and get started today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)