WWW comes of age in Wikileaks
11th December 2010
If anybody still doubted the influence of the World Wide Web in our lives, two recent events illustrate how deeply it penetrates the machinery of society and how poorly we respond to its challenge.
A report earlier this week that the government plans to beef up security legislation, giving the SIS and other agencies greater powers to intercept and monitor emails, radiates a Big Brother chill. Mr Key argues the changes are necessary ahead of the Rugby World Cup because that event makes us a more likely target of terrorism. Critics respond that the World Cup is simply an excuse for the State to restrict our freedom.
This story is played out within the shadow of WikiLeaks. The uproar from that organisation’s release of 250,000 leaked US government emails continues to roll around the globe, gathering steam with each passing day. The furore appears to stem less from the content of the emails (which, if we assume the media has focussed on the most provocative, are hardly earth-shattering) than from how it up-ends traditional frameworks of power and privacy.
Wikileaks, like most offspring of the Web, seems a loose gathering of geeky minds. Whether they are subversives intent on bringing down the world order or champions of freedom depends on your point of view. The fact is, this small band of hackers and provocateurs wields more global power at this moment than many nuclear-armed nations. And, unlike nuclear arms or even the now-familiar terrorist threat, the most powerful nations of the world have no effective response.
The arrest in London this week of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, on charges of sexual assault is risible. Here’s an average guy whose desktop organisation has just embarrassed the world’s greatest power and most of its allies and friends, who is living openly in the middle of London with neither bodyguard nor bullet proof vest, and the worst they can do is throw him in the slammer on accusations of rape.
In Wikileaks the World Wide Web has come of age. For 15 years we’ve been told the Web has the power to radically change the world in the same way that, say, the industrial revolution did, except the Web will do it faster. Most of us have gone along thinking the Web is just another tool, like TV or air conditioning, that we can bolt onto our existing structures but essentially continue to operate as we’ve always done.
Governments have clearly thought the same. They have embraced the Web because of its enormous appetite for information while failing to appreciate that it works as a two-way mirror. Just as governments can use the Web to peer deeply into the lives of their citizenry, so can those same citizens peer right back into the heart of government. And what a black heart it is.
Assange has thrown a challenge to the establishment as fundamental as the storming of the bastille or the Declaration of Independence. Like any revolution it is defined by its ingenuity in out-flanking the mighty. The US government will strive to keep Assange in prison for the rest of his life but that will count for nothing – around the world fifty other Assanges are already sucking classified information out of government files.
When the world’s most powerful nations have had their cyber-weapons turned against them our own government may reflect on the risks of its intention to muscle-up surveillance of email traffic. Invading our privacy may backfire.
But the lessons of Wikileaks are not just for governments. Few individuals appreciate the breadth and depth of their footprint in cyberspace, or its potential consequences. And just as governments may realise the only way to keep information secure is to revert to diplomatic bags, so we each must accept that when we embrace the Web we abandon privacy.
The Web revolution will be complete when everybody knows everything, and nobody cares.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Alcohol reforms miss the point
13th November 2010
Driving through Ashburton on a hot Thursday evening I notice two young women sitting cross-legged on the grass of the Borough school’s playing field, sharing a bottle of Bernadino. They are a picture of summer.
As I drive past the radio reports progress on the government’s alcohol reform bill. If it becomes law it will almost certainly remove the bottle of Bernadino from this happy scene.
The government has grazed across the 150 or so recommendations of the New Zealand Law Society to reform liquor laws in the face of growing unease about our booze culture. In doing so they have chosen to focus the spotlight of reform almost exclusively on the drinking behaviour of 18-20 year olds.
If the government’s bill becomes law this age group will face a zero blood alcohol limit for driving and a split drinking age of 18 for on-license consumption and 20 for off-license purchases. Adults will face fines up to $2,000 if they serve alcohol to young people without their parents’ permission.
Public health advocates criticise the reforms for appealing to populist sentiment while ignoring the real drivers of booze culture. They argue that 18-20 year olds comprise fewer than 10% of binge drinkers and that the reforms fail to address issues of advertising and price-cutting. Opposition speakers in parliament claim National is skirting the tough issues around alcohol law reform for fear of getting offside with middle aged voters and the powerful alcohol industry.
The focus on youth shows the government clearly bending to public pressure from recent high profile deaths of young people after binge drinking. They aim to turn back the clock on youth drinking which many believe has got out of hand since laws were relaxed a decade ago.
It’s hard to see the proposed changes to access and supervision having much effect on young people’s drinking habits. Even 35 years ago when I was just 17 and the drinking age was 21 we could still buy booze. If we couldn’t find it in Invercargill we drove up the road to Winton where they would slip us cartons of Speights from the back of the bottle store. Then we’d retire to somebody’s front room and get happily plastered, sitting on our cartons so nobody could knick our beer.
The question of supervision strikes a tender spot in kiwi culture. As a teenager I don’t remember anybody’s parents pulling me up for having alcohol in the first place, never mind the effect it was having. Perhaps they were quietly looking out for us, knowing that if they got too heavy we’d just go and drink somewhere less safe.
I took a similar approach with my own children and I am sure I would have driven them off if I had expected their friends to show up with parental permission before drinking in my home. This part of the proposed reforms will be unenforceable and probably counter productive.
What restricted my drinking as a teenager was not access or supervision but price - we simply couldn’t afford to buy a lot of booze. Alcohol was not a grocery item as it is today. It was not marketed aggressively through advertising and discounting, and there was certainly no youth market. In this context the government’s unwillingness to address price and advertising severely limits the usefulness of any reforms.
Underlying everything in this debate is our society’s deeper relationship with alcohol. I am no more of a drinker today than my parents were but that hasn’t stopped my children having the occasional bender any more than it stopped me when I was 18. For better or worse, alcohol is a rite of passage for our youth that sadly becomes a way of life for some in adulthood. As long as we allow alcohol to fill this role any law changes will be window dressing.
13th November 2010
Driving through Ashburton on a hot Thursday evening I notice two young women sitting cross-legged on the grass of the Borough school’s playing field, sharing a bottle of Bernadino. They are a picture of summer.
As I drive past the radio reports progress on the government’s alcohol reform bill. If it becomes law it will almost certainly remove the bottle of Bernadino from this happy scene.
The government has grazed across the 150 or so recommendations of the New Zealand Law Society to reform liquor laws in the face of growing unease about our booze culture. In doing so they have chosen to focus the spotlight of reform almost exclusively on the drinking behaviour of 18-20 year olds.
If the government’s bill becomes law this age group will face a zero blood alcohol limit for driving and a split drinking age of 18 for on-license consumption and 20 for off-license purchases. Adults will face fines up to $2,000 if they serve alcohol to young people without their parents’ permission.
Public health advocates criticise the reforms for appealing to populist sentiment while ignoring the real drivers of booze culture. They argue that 18-20 year olds comprise fewer than 10% of binge drinkers and that the reforms fail to address issues of advertising and price-cutting. Opposition speakers in parliament claim National is skirting the tough issues around alcohol law reform for fear of getting offside with middle aged voters and the powerful alcohol industry.
The focus on youth shows the government clearly bending to public pressure from recent high profile deaths of young people after binge drinking. They aim to turn back the clock on youth drinking which many believe has got out of hand since laws were relaxed a decade ago.
It’s hard to see the proposed changes to access and supervision having much effect on young people’s drinking habits. Even 35 years ago when I was just 17 and the drinking age was 21 we could still buy booze. If we couldn’t find it in Invercargill we drove up the road to Winton where they would slip us cartons of Speights from the back of the bottle store. Then we’d retire to somebody’s front room and get happily plastered, sitting on our cartons so nobody could knick our beer.
The question of supervision strikes a tender spot in kiwi culture. As a teenager I don’t remember anybody’s parents pulling me up for having alcohol in the first place, never mind the effect it was having. Perhaps they were quietly looking out for us, knowing that if they got too heavy we’d just go and drink somewhere less safe.
I took a similar approach with my own children and I am sure I would have driven them off if I had expected their friends to show up with parental permission before drinking in my home. This part of the proposed reforms will be unenforceable and probably counter productive.
What restricted my drinking as a teenager was not access or supervision but price - we simply couldn’t afford to buy a lot of booze. Alcohol was not a grocery item as it is today. It was not marketed aggressively through advertising and discounting, and there was certainly no youth market. In this context the government’s unwillingness to address price and advertising severely limits the usefulness of any reforms.
Underlying everything in this debate is our society’s deeper relationship with alcohol. I am no more of a drinker today than my parents were but that hasn’t stopped my children having the occasional bender any more than it stopped me when I was 18. For better or worse, alcohol is a rite of passage for our youth that sadly becomes a way of life for some in adulthood. As long as we allow alcohol to fill this role any law changes will be window dressing.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Warner Brothers presents The Hobble
30th October 2010
Smaug Warner, king of dragons, reclined on a bed of diamonds in a vast cavern deep beneath the Hollywood hills. His enormous body was encrusted with jewels and the scales on his long neck were trimmed with all the currencies of the world. Giant screens around the cavern displayed the many cash cows of Smaug’s global empire and from a hundred ATMs an unceasing flow of cash fell like gentle rain on Smaug’s back.
Faceless, Smaug’s executive, slunk into the cavern, a frown on his brow.
“Your Warneriness, I have troubling news.”
Smaug turned a malevolent eye on his servant, “trouble for who, Faceless?”
“You should see for yourself, oh Smaug.” Faceless waved a remote control at one of the giant screens. An image flashed onto the screen of a city in a distant land, bathed in sunshine. On the streets of the city a crowd was marching and shouting angrily.
“What ‘as this to do with me?” grumbled Smaug.
“It’s Muddle Earth, your Smaugness, where you sent the new cash cow. They don’t like it.”
“Don’t like it!” bellowed Smaug, “I’ll roast their hides. Who’s our man in Muddle Earth?”
“His name’s Jackass. Sir Peter Jackass. You remember, he has served you well in the past.”
“So, why doesn’t ‘e serve me well now?” Smaug stopped suddenly and a small flame flickered around his nostrils. “Faceless,” he whispered, “I think it’s time for you and me to take a little trip.”
The following afternoon at about 3pm the sky over Wellywood, capital of Muddle Earth, darkened as the great shadow of Smaug fell upon it. The enormous dragon circled the city once, twice, and landed heavily on the waterfront, crushing the national museum and upsetting coffee cups in a hundred cafes. Sir Peter Jackass was waiting to greet his master.
“Jackass”, growled Smaug, “I want answers and I want them fast or you’ve seen the last of my cash cow in this miserable place.”
“It’s the hobbles,” wailed Jackass. “They’ve got this onion and are refusing to feed the cash cow.”
“Onion?!” raged Smaug. “My cash cow will not eat onions!”
“No, no, it’s not an ordinary onion. It’s a trayed onion.”
“Enough! Who runs this country?”
“Ah, that would be me,” simpered a voice beneath Smaug’s left shoulder. A smallish man with a nervous smile stood on the waterfront. “Please don’t do anything rash, Mr Smaug, your highness. I’m sure we can sort this out.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jonkey.”
“Donkey?”
“No, your Smaugness, Jonkey.”
“Jonkey, my ass! You’ve got about 15 minutes to sort this problem or we’re out of ‘ere.”
Jonkey looked around nervously. “Will the other Warner Brothers also be coming, your Smaugness?”
Smaug lifted his head and roared with laughter. “The other Warner Brothers! You know what ‘appened to them?”
“No.”
Smaug’s giant face came to rest within inches of Jonkey. “I ‘et ‘em.”
“You ate them?”
“First I ‘ated ‘em. Then I ‘et ‘em. And that’s just what I will do with you if I don’t get some answers quick smart!”
Jonkey shuffled nervously. “We’ll do anything to keep the cash cow, great Smaug. I’ve talked with my advisors and what we’ll do is make an example of some of these troublesome hobbles, smash their onion, you know the sort of thing, and I’m sure the rest will see sense.”
Smaug looked menacingly at Jonkey. “I don’t want them to see sense. I want them to suffer, I want them to be my slaves!”
“Slaves, oh yes, I’m sure we can do that. Slavery should be no problem, oh magnificent Smaug.”
Smaug leaned closer until his smoky breath made Jonkey’s eyes water. “You believe in free trade, don’t you, Mr Donkey.”
“Yes, yes, indeed. We welcome free trade.”
“So do I, especially the free part. So ‘ere’s what else I want. You and your miserable ‘obbles will pay for all the feed my cash cow eats.”
“Certainly, great Smaug, an excellent idea,” nodded Jonkey helplessly.
“And if you take very good care of this cash cow, I may send you another one some time.”
“That would be very desirable,” glowed Jonkey.
“And then again, I might not,” grinned Smaug.
Several weeks later Jonkey stood at the window of his office looking across Wellywood. Lines of hobbles, their backs bent under huge loads, struggled beneath ashen skies towards a far hillside where the great cash cow dominated Muddle Earth. Crowds of sullen and angry hobbles clamoured at the gates.
His advisor watched the gathering crowds uneasily. “Me and the lads have been talking, Jonkey, and we think you should make yourself invisible for a while, just until things calm down. “
Jonkey sighed, “invisible? Yes, perhaps you’re right. Well, that should be easy to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had a message from Smaug. He said he’ll give me a ring next week.” Jonkey smiled to himself.
30th October 2010
Smaug Warner, king of dragons, reclined on a bed of diamonds in a vast cavern deep beneath the Hollywood hills. His enormous body was encrusted with jewels and the scales on his long neck were trimmed with all the currencies of the world. Giant screens around the cavern displayed the many cash cows of Smaug’s global empire and from a hundred ATMs an unceasing flow of cash fell like gentle rain on Smaug’s back.
Faceless, Smaug’s executive, slunk into the cavern, a frown on his brow.
“Your Warneriness, I have troubling news.”
Smaug turned a malevolent eye on his servant, “trouble for who, Faceless?”
“You should see for yourself, oh Smaug.” Faceless waved a remote control at one of the giant screens. An image flashed onto the screen of a city in a distant land, bathed in sunshine. On the streets of the city a crowd was marching and shouting angrily.
“What ‘as this to do with me?” grumbled Smaug.
“It’s Muddle Earth, your Smaugness, where you sent the new cash cow. They don’t like it.”
“Don’t like it!” bellowed Smaug, “I’ll roast their hides. Who’s our man in Muddle Earth?”
“His name’s Jackass. Sir Peter Jackass. You remember, he has served you well in the past.”
“So, why doesn’t ‘e serve me well now?” Smaug stopped suddenly and a small flame flickered around his nostrils. “Faceless,” he whispered, “I think it’s time for you and me to take a little trip.”
The following afternoon at about 3pm the sky over Wellywood, capital of Muddle Earth, darkened as the great shadow of Smaug fell upon it. The enormous dragon circled the city once, twice, and landed heavily on the waterfront, crushing the national museum and upsetting coffee cups in a hundred cafes. Sir Peter Jackass was waiting to greet his master.
“Jackass”, growled Smaug, “I want answers and I want them fast or you’ve seen the last of my cash cow in this miserable place.”
“It’s the hobbles,” wailed Jackass. “They’ve got this onion and are refusing to feed the cash cow.”
“Onion?!” raged Smaug. “My cash cow will not eat onions!”
“No, no, it’s not an ordinary onion. It’s a trayed onion.”
“Enough! Who runs this country?”
“Ah, that would be me,” simpered a voice beneath Smaug’s left shoulder. A smallish man with a nervous smile stood on the waterfront. “Please don’t do anything rash, Mr Smaug, your highness. I’m sure we can sort this out.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jonkey.”
“Donkey?”
“No, your Smaugness, Jonkey.”
“Jonkey, my ass! You’ve got about 15 minutes to sort this problem or we’re out of ‘ere.”
Jonkey looked around nervously. “Will the other Warner Brothers also be coming, your Smaugness?”
Smaug lifted his head and roared with laughter. “The other Warner Brothers! You know what ‘appened to them?”
“No.”
Smaug’s giant face came to rest within inches of Jonkey. “I ‘et ‘em.”
“You ate them?”
“First I ‘ated ‘em. Then I ‘et ‘em. And that’s just what I will do with you if I don’t get some answers quick smart!”
Jonkey shuffled nervously. “We’ll do anything to keep the cash cow, great Smaug. I’ve talked with my advisors and what we’ll do is make an example of some of these troublesome hobbles, smash their onion, you know the sort of thing, and I’m sure the rest will see sense.”
Smaug looked menacingly at Jonkey. “I don’t want them to see sense. I want them to suffer, I want them to be my slaves!”
“Slaves, oh yes, I’m sure we can do that. Slavery should be no problem, oh magnificent Smaug.”
Smaug leaned closer until his smoky breath made Jonkey’s eyes water. “You believe in free trade, don’t you, Mr Donkey.”
“Yes, yes, indeed. We welcome free trade.”
“So do I, especially the free part. So ‘ere’s what else I want. You and your miserable ‘obbles will pay for all the feed my cash cow eats.”
“Certainly, great Smaug, an excellent idea,” nodded Jonkey helplessly.
“And if you take very good care of this cash cow, I may send you another one some time.”
“That would be very desirable,” glowed Jonkey.
“And then again, I might not,” grinned Smaug.
Several weeks later Jonkey stood at the window of his office looking across Wellywood. Lines of hobbles, their backs bent under huge loads, struggled beneath ashen skies towards a far hillside where the great cash cow dominated Muddle Earth. Crowds of sullen and angry hobbles clamoured at the gates.
His advisor watched the gathering crowds uneasily. “Me and the lads have been talking, Jonkey, and we think you should make yourself invisible for a while, just until things calm down. “
Jonkey sighed, “invisible? Yes, perhaps you’re right. Well, that should be easy to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had a message from Smaug. He said he’ll give me a ring next week.” Jonkey smiled to himself.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Chilean miners’ ordeal is just beginning
16October 2010
It came as no surprise to hear that the Chilean miners, trapped 600 metres underground for 69 days, were debating who will have the honour of being the last person to return to the surface. They understand that, however desperate their entrapment has been, life back at the surface will be infinitely more complicated.
I imagine each miner entering the small capsule with the nervousness of an actor stepping on stage or a defendant rising to the court room. They ascend through layers of living rock that should have been their tomb and emerge, blinking and reborn, into the harsh Atacama sunlight to find themselves the stars of a circus.
A thousand journalists from across the globe have gathered at the mine head and their presence, more than the drama of the miners, has attracted politicians and celebrities, sniffing an opportunity to burnish their public profiles in the glow of a good story. Even if the miners regime for the past 69 days has included daily media training most of them will still find life at the surface more bizarre and terrifying than the warm darkness and camaraderie underground.
They are now public property and the public will demand a return on its investment. The politicians, celebrities and media have not camped outside this mine for two months just to turn away quietly after the first – or even the final – trapped miner emerges. Our heroes may have anticipated the embraces, tears and handshakes that will greet them as they step out of the cage but are they prepared for months and years in the limelight?
Family and friends will pressure them to cash in on their unique fate. Media agents will hover at the back of the scrum to sign exclusive deals for their stories. Like the All Blacks the miners will quickly be sorted into various price categories according to their physical prowess and ability to manage public life. A few individuals (the youngest, the oldest, the leaders) will command the highest fees.
Initially most will enjoy their fame and the public will not begrudge their fortune. After all, these men have suffered terribly and, by all accounts, they have no job to return to and no other means of supporting their families.
One or two will discover a talent for public life. They will appear on talk shows and gala events, with a local beauty draped on their arms. They will open shopping malls and endorse political campaigns. They may become politicians themselves, assuming the mayoralties of small rural towns in dusty corners of Chile where they will live out their days as idle figureheads, stoking petty jealousies and factionalism.
Most, however, will quickly tire of their celebrity status, yearning for life as it used to be and will never be again. Like Rip Van Winkle they will find that those 69 days underground have changed them even in the eyes of their families. Secrets have come to light. A few wives have met a few girlfriends while their men languished in the darkness and some of these relationships will go bust. In the end a few of our heroes will suffer more on the surface than they did below.
Their greatest loss will be the camaraderie. For 69 days they have proven themselves a stunningly successful team. Like soldiers returning from a battlefield they possess a unique bond forged in the heat of adversity. The means of their rescue, each man hauled out individually, breaks that bond with almost cruel abruptness. They deserved to come out together, emerging with arms around each other through the smoke and dust of a gaping hole. What a picture that would have given the world’s press! What a moment to bring closure to the tale, to frame and hang on the wall.
As it is they will be scrubbed clean, dressed in their Sunday best and posed for a picture with their rescuers. Then all will scatter to the four winds, the mine head will revert to desert and far below the chamber will crumble like Tutankhamen’s tomb.
16October 2010
It came as no surprise to hear that the Chilean miners, trapped 600 metres underground for 69 days, were debating who will have the honour of being the last person to return to the surface. They understand that, however desperate their entrapment has been, life back at the surface will be infinitely more complicated.
I imagine each miner entering the small capsule with the nervousness of an actor stepping on stage or a defendant rising to the court room. They ascend through layers of living rock that should have been their tomb and emerge, blinking and reborn, into the harsh Atacama sunlight to find themselves the stars of a circus.
A thousand journalists from across the globe have gathered at the mine head and their presence, more than the drama of the miners, has attracted politicians and celebrities, sniffing an opportunity to burnish their public profiles in the glow of a good story. Even if the miners regime for the past 69 days has included daily media training most of them will still find life at the surface more bizarre and terrifying than the warm darkness and camaraderie underground.
They are now public property and the public will demand a return on its investment. The politicians, celebrities and media have not camped outside this mine for two months just to turn away quietly after the first – or even the final – trapped miner emerges. Our heroes may have anticipated the embraces, tears and handshakes that will greet them as they step out of the cage but are they prepared for months and years in the limelight?
Family and friends will pressure them to cash in on their unique fate. Media agents will hover at the back of the scrum to sign exclusive deals for their stories. Like the All Blacks the miners will quickly be sorted into various price categories according to their physical prowess and ability to manage public life. A few individuals (the youngest, the oldest, the leaders) will command the highest fees.
Initially most will enjoy their fame and the public will not begrudge their fortune. After all, these men have suffered terribly and, by all accounts, they have no job to return to and no other means of supporting their families.
One or two will discover a talent for public life. They will appear on talk shows and gala events, with a local beauty draped on their arms. They will open shopping malls and endorse political campaigns. They may become politicians themselves, assuming the mayoralties of small rural towns in dusty corners of Chile where they will live out their days as idle figureheads, stoking petty jealousies and factionalism.
Most, however, will quickly tire of their celebrity status, yearning for life as it used to be and will never be again. Like Rip Van Winkle they will find that those 69 days underground have changed them even in the eyes of their families. Secrets have come to light. A few wives have met a few girlfriends while their men languished in the darkness and some of these relationships will go bust. In the end a few of our heroes will suffer more on the surface than they did below.
Their greatest loss will be the camaraderie. For 69 days they have proven themselves a stunningly successful team. Like soldiers returning from a battlefield they possess a unique bond forged in the heat of adversity. The means of their rescue, each man hauled out individually, breaks that bond with almost cruel abruptness. They deserved to come out together, emerging with arms around each other through the smoke and dust of a gaping hole. What a picture that would have given the world’s press! What a moment to bring closure to the tale, to frame and hang on the wall.
As it is they will be scrubbed clean, dressed in their Sunday best and posed for a picture with their rescuers. Then all will scatter to the four winds, the mine head will revert to desert and far below the chamber will crumble like Tutankhamen’s tomb.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
A late night at Auckland’s Sky City
2nd October 2010
A small boy sits on the floor in the foyer of Auckland’s Sky City hotel. He wears a green back pack and carefully eats a banana. He is oblivious to both the tide of humanity flowing around him and to the leaping architecture that dwarfs his small frame.
Sky City is not just a hotel; it is shops, restaurants, a casino, convention centre, theatre and, of course, the iconic Sky Tower.
It is not so much a building as an enormous creature sprawled across downtown Auckland. Watching the small boy I see that he and I and all the many people flowing through this place are like hapless victims of a sci-fi experiment where we have been shrunk to microbes and released into the body of a large beast.
The vastness of the organism is beyond our comprehension so we experience it as a series of disconnected but intense episodes filled with light, colour and sound. We flow through its veins and tubes, swept along on a tide of conversation, laughter, food, drink and money.
Money is, above all else, the life force of this huge creature. It gushes from ranks of ATM machines and attaches momentarily to our wallets and hip pockets like oxygen molecules to red blood cells before vanishing into cash registers, bar tabs and room service. Most of the money ends up in the casino, an enormous heart that endlessly pumps huge volumes of cash through its many intricate transactions.
I leave the boy with his banana and drift towards the casino. As I near the entrance a beautiful young woman approaches me, wearing a dress with a short silver skirt and bodice so tight it could be sprayed on. “Will you be here at 7?” she asks. I could as easily turn back the tide as say no to this woman. I nod and she attaches a small yellow band to my wrist with the tenderness of a mother bandaging a child’s grazed knee. The wristband informs me that I could win $50,000.
The casino gaming floor is a circus of flashing lights, sudden bursts of music and a deep sense of urgency like a muscle cramp. It is a largely male environment and is overwhelmingly Asian. Croupiers stand at their gaming tables like priests, intoning their various litanies. There is roulette, black jack, baccarat and games that I can make no sense of, with oriental names like wai tai and sow mai.
I watch a solitary Chinese man playing roulette. The croupier, a young Asian woman, deftly stacks up piles of grey chips and slides them over to the man. He spreads them across the numbers embossed in the felt playing surface, half a dozen on this number, ten on another. The young woman flicks a white marble into the running track over the spinning roulette wheel as the man continues to place his chips.
As the marble slows she makes a spreading motion with both hands, a silent benediction that closes the bets. The marble drops, she places a small glass talisman on the winning number and sweeps the unlucky gambler’s chips into a round hole where they vanish with the smallest clatter. The Chinese man shows no reaction. She produces several more stacks of chips and slides them across the table to him.
All around the room, at every table and slot machine, I see the same curt efficiency and lack of emotion. This looks more like work than entertainment. Nobody laughs or even speaks much. Nobody appears to notice when a troupe of stunningly beautiful women parades through the room wearing feathered head pieces and not much else.
I lose myself in a maze of poker machines and emerge later onto a balcony overlooking the gaming floor. Above me the room vanishes towards a distant ceiling lit like a constellation. I recall Coleridge’s poem about Kubla Khan’s stately pleasure dome in Xanadu. From where I stand Sky City is a pleasure dome and these are indeed caverns measureless to man.
Far below me the Chinese gambler sits at the roulette wheel, his grey chips flowing into the hole in the table. Does he know how that poem ends? In this great pleasure dome does he “suck the milk of paradise?”
2nd October 2010
A small boy sits on the floor in the foyer of Auckland’s Sky City hotel. He wears a green back pack and carefully eats a banana. He is oblivious to both the tide of humanity flowing around him and to the leaping architecture that dwarfs his small frame.
Sky City is not just a hotel; it is shops, restaurants, a casino, convention centre, theatre and, of course, the iconic Sky Tower.
It is not so much a building as an enormous creature sprawled across downtown Auckland. Watching the small boy I see that he and I and all the many people flowing through this place are like hapless victims of a sci-fi experiment where we have been shrunk to microbes and released into the body of a large beast.
The vastness of the organism is beyond our comprehension so we experience it as a series of disconnected but intense episodes filled with light, colour and sound. We flow through its veins and tubes, swept along on a tide of conversation, laughter, food, drink and money.
Money is, above all else, the life force of this huge creature. It gushes from ranks of ATM machines and attaches momentarily to our wallets and hip pockets like oxygen molecules to red blood cells before vanishing into cash registers, bar tabs and room service. Most of the money ends up in the casino, an enormous heart that endlessly pumps huge volumes of cash through its many intricate transactions.
I leave the boy with his banana and drift towards the casino. As I near the entrance a beautiful young woman approaches me, wearing a dress with a short silver skirt and bodice so tight it could be sprayed on. “Will you be here at 7?” she asks. I could as easily turn back the tide as say no to this woman. I nod and she attaches a small yellow band to my wrist with the tenderness of a mother bandaging a child’s grazed knee. The wristband informs me that I could win $50,000.
The casino gaming floor is a circus of flashing lights, sudden bursts of music and a deep sense of urgency like a muscle cramp. It is a largely male environment and is overwhelmingly Asian. Croupiers stand at their gaming tables like priests, intoning their various litanies. There is roulette, black jack, baccarat and games that I can make no sense of, with oriental names like wai tai and sow mai.
I watch a solitary Chinese man playing roulette. The croupier, a young Asian woman, deftly stacks up piles of grey chips and slides them over to the man. He spreads them across the numbers embossed in the felt playing surface, half a dozen on this number, ten on another. The young woman flicks a white marble into the running track over the spinning roulette wheel as the man continues to place his chips.
As the marble slows she makes a spreading motion with both hands, a silent benediction that closes the bets. The marble drops, she places a small glass talisman on the winning number and sweeps the unlucky gambler’s chips into a round hole where they vanish with the smallest clatter. The Chinese man shows no reaction. She produces several more stacks of chips and slides them across the table to him.
All around the room, at every table and slot machine, I see the same curt efficiency and lack of emotion. This looks more like work than entertainment. Nobody laughs or even speaks much. Nobody appears to notice when a troupe of stunningly beautiful women parades through the room wearing feathered head pieces and not much else.
I lose myself in a maze of poker machines and emerge later onto a balcony overlooking the gaming floor. Above me the room vanishes towards a distant ceiling lit like a constellation. I recall Coleridge’s poem about Kubla Khan’s stately pleasure dome in Xanadu. From where I stand Sky City is a pleasure dome and these are indeed caverns measureless to man.
Far below me the Chinese gambler sits at the roulette wheel, his grey chips flowing into the hole in the table. Does he know how that poem ends? In this great pleasure dome does he “suck the milk of paradise?”
Monday, September 20, 2010
Birds of a feather flock to elections
18th September 2010
The Electoral Commission has hit upon a brilliant strategy by aligning this year’s local body elections with the Bird of the Year poll conducted by the Forest and Bird Society. Clearly local government election organisers, whose triennial event gathers about as much interest as a share in South Canterbury Finance, hope to ride the wave of voting fever generated by the prestigious bird poll.
Forest and Bird officials, concerned Bird of the Year may be sullied by association with mere, or even mayor, politics hasten to draw distinction between the two elections.
“Bird of the Year is noble democracy,” argues spokesman Colin Finch. “Voters pick their favourite bird according to virtues like plumage, song and character, not according to where they stand on sewage treatment schemes.”
Nevertheless in some parts of the country local body elections have acquired a distinctly avarian character, with candidates accused of “ruffling feathers” and “strutting like peacocks.” Journalists scrutinise candidate lists to identify pecking orders, while the few candidates of character are dismissed as “birds of paradise.”
This commentator is much too circumspect to suggest Ashburton’s election candidates seek to align themselves with Bird of the Year. As far as we know none of our local candidates is eligible to stand in the Bird of the Year election and any resemblance to birds is merely, or mayorally, coincidental.
Despite assurances from candidates that they will not encroach on the bird poll Mid-Canterbury Forest and Bird has appointed scrutineers from the political wing of the Ashburton Fanciers’ Club to oversee the local government campaign.
Head scrutineer, Wing Commander Snowy Breast, claims there are already signs of interference.
“The mayoral candidates have been challenged more than once to get their ducks in line, although any further reference to ducks may be unkind to Mr O’Malley, as the currently sitting duck - I mean mayor.”
Wing Commander Breast admits it will be difficult for any of the mayoral candidates to burnish their reputations as birds of the bush.
“At a stretch you could imagine Mrs Tasker as a wattle-throated tui in a kowhai tree, but the noble physiques of McKay and O’Malley render them definitely flightless, and probably farmyard. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Domestic poultry is in many ways far better suited to the rough and tumble of political life. If you’re in a scrap you could do worse than have a feisty cockerel or a bad-tempered gander as your friend.”
Colin Finch believes mayoral candidates will only fail if they try to gain popularity through Bird of the Year.
“Mr McKay should be particularly careful. He’s already had his wings clipped on Environment Canterbury and I’d have to say the dodo’s never been a big mover in Bird of the Year.”
In response to these criticisms Electoral Commission officials have hit back, arguing that some local body candidates are in fact birds seeking to leverage their popularity with Bird of the Year voters by standing for local government. They claim that an old rooster has been mayor of Invercargill for years and both leading candidates in the Auckland mayoralty race are turkeys.
And which of the two elections should voters pay the most attention to? Wing Commander Breast is in no doubt. “Y’know, local government has its uses but the real future of the country will always be shaped by Bird of the Year.”
And which bird gets his vote? “My vote for Bird of the Year? That would be the missus, same as always.”
18th September 2010
The Electoral Commission has hit upon a brilliant strategy by aligning this year’s local body elections with the Bird of the Year poll conducted by the Forest and Bird Society. Clearly local government election organisers, whose triennial event gathers about as much interest as a share in South Canterbury Finance, hope to ride the wave of voting fever generated by the prestigious bird poll.
Forest and Bird officials, concerned Bird of the Year may be sullied by association with mere, or even mayor, politics hasten to draw distinction between the two elections.
“Bird of the Year is noble democracy,” argues spokesman Colin Finch. “Voters pick their favourite bird according to virtues like plumage, song and character, not according to where they stand on sewage treatment schemes.”
Nevertheless in some parts of the country local body elections have acquired a distinctly avarian character, with candidates accused of “ruffling feathers” and “strutting like peacocks.” Journalists scrutinise candidate lists to identify pecking orders, while the few candidates of character are dismissed as “birds of paradise.”
This commentator is much too circumspect to suggest Ashburton’s election candidates seek to align themselves with Bird of the Year. As far as we know none of our local candidates is eligible to stand in the Bird of the Year election and any resemblance to birds is merely, or mayorally, coincidental.
Despite assurances from candidates that they will not encroach on the bird poll Mid-Canterbury Forest and Bird has appointed scrutineers from the political wing of the Ashburton Fanciers’ Club to oversee the local government campaign.
Head scrutineer, Wing Commander Snowy Breast, claims there are already signs of interference.
“The mayoral candidates have been challenged more than once to get their ducks in line, although any further reference to ducks may be unkind to Mr O’Malley, as the currently sitting duck - I mean mayor.”
Wing Commander Breast admits it will be difficult for any of the mayoral candidates to burnish their reputations as birds of the bush.
“At a stretch you could imagine Mrs Tasker as a wattle-throated tui in a kowhai tree, but the noble physiques of McKay and O’Malley render them definitely flightless, and probably farmyard. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Domestic poultry is in many ways far better suited to the rough and tumble of political life. If you’re in a scrap you could do worse than have a feisty cockerel or a bad-tempered gander as your friend.”
Colin Finch believes mayoral candidates will only fail if they try to gain popularity through Bird of the Year.
“Mr McKay should be particularly careful. He’s already had his wings clipped on Environment Canterbury and I’d have to say the dodo’s never been a big mover in Bird of the Year.”
In response to these criticisms Electoral Commission officials have hit back, arguing that some local body candidates are in fact birds seeking to leverage their popularity with Bird of the Year voters by standing for local government. They claim that an old rooster has been mayor of Invercargill for years and both leading candidates in the Auckland mayoralty race are turkeys.
And which of the two elections should voters pay the most attention to? Wing Commander Breast is in no doubt. “Y’know, local government has its uses but the real future of the country will always be shaped by Bird of the Year.”
And which bird gets his vote? “My vote for Bird of the Year? That would be the missus, same as always.”
Monday, September 06, 2010
Hubbard’s life a Shakespearian tale
4th September 2010
As I, the taxpayer, unexpectedly find myself the owner of a multitude of farms, a helicopter company and various other going concerns, along with $600 million dollars of ‘toxic’ debts courtesy of a certain finance company going belly up this week, I have resolved to take my responsibilities seriously and seek advice.
Turning to the most reputable financial advisor I know, William Shakespeare, I find Allan Hubbard has been here before me. Hubbard’s life and career are written in the words of Polonius to his son Laertes. It’s a piece of fatherly advice that establishes Polonius as a tedious advisor whose later death at the end of Hamlet’s sword is a relief to the audience. But it is a handy guide to success in business and, by the way, a window into Allan Hubbard’s rise and fall.
All that we know about Hubbard is captured in this single speech: his famous frugality (“costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy”); his loyalty (“those friends thou hast…grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel”; his reserve (“give every man thy ear, but few thy voice”); and his graciousness in adversity (“take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement”).
Ah, but then we come to the nub; “neither a borrower nor a lender be,” and, let’s face it, Mr Hubbard was both. Never mind that he conducted both with extraordinary success for 50 years, Polonius would have waited that long just to savour his downfall, and even now the crows of public opinion should be feasting on Mr Hubbard’s carcase. But here’s an unfathomable thing: from the wreckage of his life’s work Mr Hubbard has salvaged two priceless articles – friendship and the means of renewal.
Friendship is the greater prize. Polonius advises against lending “for loan oft loses both itself and friend.” Mr Hubbard has lost his lendings but retains his friends. In fact they flock to the defence of his reputation and honour. You get the feeling these are not just friends whose loyalty was secured through the government’s deposit guarantee scheme, but people who genuinely care for the man.
The loyalty of his friends lies partly in the second article – the means of renewal. Polonius cautions that “borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,” and ain’t that true. How often in recent times have we seen the flash Harries and charlatans, the ex-rugby league stars and high rollers living up large on money borrowed from guileless investors. They self-destruct when their enterprises can no longer sustain their lifestyles. Not so Mr Hubbard. A lifetime of thrift is a perfect platform on which to rebuild his fortune.
Age and ill-health may have the last say in this saga but if Mr Hubbard is to rise above his misfortunes he will need to demonstrate two further qualities promoted by Polonius. Finding himself in a fight he must bear it “so the opposed may beware of thee:” in other words, tough it out.
Finally, “this above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” I would say Mr Hubbard understands this very well.
As for me, the new owner of South Canterbury Finance, when I reflect on the events of the past week I find Polonius’s measured advice drowned out by the more street-wise Mr Micawber. “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
There are no prizes for guessing which side of the balance sheet we’ve landed on.
4th September 2010
As I, the taxpayer, unexpectedly find myself the owner of a multitude of farms, a helicopter company and various other going concerns, along with $600 million dollars of ‘toxic’ debts courtesy of a certain finance company going belly up this week, I have resolved to take my responsibilities seriously and seek advice.
Turning to the most reputable financial advisor I know, William Shakespeare, I find Allan Hubbard has been here before me. Hubbard’s life and career are written in the words of Polonius to his son Laertes. It’s a piece of fatherly advice that establishes Polonius as a tedious advisor whose later death at the end of Hamlet’s sword is a relief to the audience. But it is a handy guide to success in business and, by the way, a window into Allan Hubbard’s rise and fall.
All that we know about Hubbard is captured in this single speech: his famous frugality (“costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy”); his loyalty (“those friends thou hast…grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel”; his reserve (“give every man thy ear, but few thy voice”); and his graciousness in adversity (“take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement”).
Ah, but then we come to the nub; “neither a borrower nor a lender be,” and, let’s face it, Mr Hubbard was both. Never mind that he conducted both with extraordinary success for 50 years, Polonius would have waited that long just to savour his downfall, and even now the crows of public opinion should be feasting on Mr Hubbard’s carcase. But here’s an unfathomable thing: from the wreckage of his life’s work Mr Hubbard has salvaged two priceless articles – friendship and the means of renewal.
Friendship is the greater prize. Polonius advises against lending “for loan oft loses both itself and friend.” Mr Hubbard has lost his lendings but retains his friends. In fact they flock to the defence of his reputation and honour. You get the feeling these are not just friends whose loyalty was secured through the government’s deposit guarantee scheme, but people who genuinely care for the man.
The loyalty of his friends lies partly in the second article – the means of renewal. Polonius cautions that “borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,” and ain’t that true. How often in recent times have we seen the flash Harries and charlatans, the ex-rugby league stars and high rollers living up large on money borrowed from guileless investors. They self-destruct when their enterprises can no longer sustain their lifestyles. Not so Mr Hubbard. A lifetime of thrift is a perfect platform on which to rebuild his fortune.
Age and ill-health may have the last say in this saga but if Mr Hubbard is to rise above his misfortunes he will need to demonstrate two further qualities promoted by Polonius. Finding himself in a fight he must bear it “so the opposed may beware of thee:” in other words, tough it out.
Finally, “this above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” I would say Mr Hubbard understands this very well.
As for me, the new owner of South Canterbury Finance, when I reflect on the events of the past week I find Polonius’s measured advice drowned out by the more street-wise Mr Micawber. “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
There are no prizes for guessing which side of the balance sheet we’ve landed on.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The station’s not worth saving
21st August 2010
I’m being asked for money to save our railway station. I’m not immune to the request, having taken an interest in the debates that have steamed around the building for years.
I know the station. I’ve looked at it. I’ve looked at it closely. I’ve walked around it and kicked the tyres. I’ve pulled over on West Street and studied it across the rail yards. I’ve run my hands over its sagging weatherboards and whistled along the length of its platform.
And I’ve come to the conclusion it’s not worth saving.
Rather, I’ve come to the conclusion it’s not worth me giving money to save it.
This is not stinginess – I’m a soft touch for both worthy and unworthy causes. Neither is it a disregard for our heritage. There are buildings in our district I would give money and more to save.
But not the railway station - its liabilities outweigh its merits.
For a start it’s ugly. Try as I might I can see no architectural or aesthetic beauty in it. I accept that an old building should not have to be beautiful to be worth saving, but it helps. I also accept that it will look more attractive with some new cladding, unbroken windows and a coat of paint, but not much more. It will still be an old wooden shed knocked up on the cheap a hundred years ago.
And what about those hundred or so years? Don’t they make it worth saving? I’m not immune to the argument of age but, like beauty, age in itself is not sufficient argument for retention. Some buildings grow in stature with age: others diminish or simply become redundant. My house is a hundred years old and I consider it well worth saving because it is a good, hardworking building. It retains a purpose.
Sadly, the railway station does not have a purpose, which is why it has fallen so far into disrepair. It stubbornly resists the obvious functions for a building of its nature – retail, tourism or heritage chic. This is partly because it has been left high and dry as the commercial heart of town moved south, but also because it is not a building that draws people to itself. It has no vaulted ceilings or mosaic tiled floors to admire, no play of light upon stone, no intricately constructed window or colonnaded terrace, no splash of water from a fountain.
“Yes, but it has history”, its advocates cry. “It means something to us. Our sons embarked for war from this platform, lovers embraced, journeys that changed lives began and ended here.”
Now this is an argument I can just about reach into my pocket to support. The station is part of our story, it bears some of the burden of our collective memory. Except, once again, it remains a frustratingly mute witness to all that history. Standing on the platform evokes no sentiment, conjures no spirits, even for me who has been part of that history in my childhood, jogged through Ashburton in the hour before dawn on the night express from Invercargill, all steam and cinders, dashing into the buffet for a pie or an ice cream. The memory remains, but it’s not the building that calls it up.
Having a past is not sufficient argument for saving a building. It must also have a future. And here, perhaps, I lack vision. Should we save the station for a future not yet revealed? For that matter, do its supporters already possess a vision for its future that I am not aware of?
You see, I wonder how well this idea has been thought through. Let’s say we raise $400,000 to save the station from demolition. Then what? Do we raise another $400,000 to save it from collapse? Then raise some more to make it commercially viable? Or do we resign ourselves to the reality that it is not a going concern and keep raising money just to see it standing there?
Perhaps the future is in the past. In 20 years passenger trains may once more call at Ashburton. But I’m not gambling my money on it.
21st August 2010
I’m being asked for money to save our railway station. I’m not immune to the request, having taken an interest in the debates that have steamed around the building for years.
I know the station. I’ve looked at it. I’ve looked at it closely. I’ve walked around it and kicked the tyres. I’ve pulled over on West Street and studied it across the rail yards. I’ve run my hands over its sagging weatherboards and whistled along the length of its platform.
And I’ve come to the conclusion it’s not worth saving.
Rather, I’ve come to the conclusion it’s not worth me giving money to save it.
This is not stinginess – I’m a soft touch for both worthy and unworthy causes. Neither is it a disregard for our heritage. There are buildings in our district I would give money and more to save.
But not the railway station - its liabilities outweigh its merits.
For a start it’s ugly. Try as I might I can see no architectural or aesthetic beauty in it. I accept that an old building should not have to be beautiful to be worth saving, but it helps. I also accept that it will look more attractive with some new cladding, unbroken windows and a coat of paint, but not much more. It will still be an old wooden shed knocked up on the cheap a hundred years ago.
And what about those hundred or so years? Don’t they make it worth saving? I’m not immune to the argument of age but, like beauty, age in itself is not sufficient argument for retention. Some buildings grow in stature with age: others diminish or simply become redundant. My house is a hundred years old and I consider it well worth saving because it is a good, hardworking building. It retains a purpose.
Sadly, the railway station does not have a purpose, which is why it has fallen so far into disrepair. It stubbornly resists the obvious functions for a building of its nature – retail, tourism or heritage chic. This is partly because it has been left high and dry as the commercial heart of town moved south, but also because it is not a building that draws people to itself. It has no vaulted ceilings or mosaic tiled floors to admire, no play of light upon stone, no intricately constructed window or colonnaded terrace, no splash of water from a fountain.
“Yes, but it has history”, its advocates cry. “It means something to us. Our sons embarked for war from this platform, lovers embraced, journeys that changed lives began and ended here.”
Now this is an argument I can just about reach into my pocket to support. The station is part of our story, it bears some of the burden of our collective memory. Except, once again, it remains a frustratingly mute witness to all that history. Standing on the platform evokes no sentiment, conjures no spirits, even for me who has been part of that history in my childhood, jogged through Ashburton in the hour before dawn on the night express from Invercargill, all steam and cinders, dashing into the buffet for a pie or an ice cream. The memory remains, but it’s not the building that calls it up.
Having a past is not sufficient argument for saving a building. It must also have a future. And here, perhaps, I lack vision. Should we save the station for a future not yet revealed? For that matter, do its supporters already possess a vision for its future that I am not aware of?
You see, I wonder how well this idea has been thought through. Let’s say we raise $400,000 to save the station from demolition. Then what? Do we raise another $400,000 to save it from collapse? Then raise some more to make it commercially viable? Or do we resign ourselves to the reality that it is not a going concern and keep raising money just to see it standing there?
Perhaps the future is in the past. In 20 years passenger trains may once more call at Ashburton. But I’m not gambling my money on it.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Pipe dreams put Ashburton ahead
7th August 2010
Last Monday marked the deadline for companies to register interest in joining the Government’s ultra fast broadband project. So what? So, the future just got a bit closer.
Ultra fast broadband, or UFB (this industry spawns acronyms like oil gushing from a well), is the digital equivalent of an 8-lane motorway; and just as motorways unleashed the full potential of the motorcar so broadband unleashes the potential of the internet.
By comparison, the old dial-up connections that first hooked our computers to the world-wide web – and which are still a fact of life for some – are like piloting your car down a pot-holed dirt track. Dial-up’s fine for the emailed birthday greetings from your sister in Perth, but if she attaches a photo you wait…and wait…
We all cheered when broadband showed up several years ago. Accessing data at Megabyte speed lets us play around on Trademe, zip through online banking and peek at our kids’ latest holiday pics. At its best it allows us to play You Tube clips without the sound and pictures getting out of whack, but falls short of downloading movies. For users like businesses, schools and hospitals that have multiple computers accessing the internet at once broadband has become just too thin.
UFB lifts capacity from 2 or 3 Megabytes per second to as much as 100. This means that on a wet afternoon when the kids are driving me crazy I can download Shrek II in about 20 seconds and avoid carnage. For many businesses and public organisations UFB is fast becoming the minimum standard for operating successfully in the 21st century.
We all cheered again when the Government announced last year it will invest $1.5 billion to provide UFB for 75% of kiwis by 2016. Under pressure it coughed up another $300 million for a Rural Broadband Initiative to spread coverage to all but the most remote regions. The strategy will be in partnership with the telecommunications industry, which is a good thing because broadband networks cost a lot more than the Government’s commitment. Telecom claims to have already invested $3 billion in a network of fibre optic cables for broadband. They’ve been digging holes all over Tinwald in recent weeks just to prove it.
Other companies too are seeing opportunities in fibre networks, none more presciently than our own Electricity Ashburton which has been quietly stringing fibre optic cables along its network for some time and has formed partnerships with local schools and businesses. This has certainly been a smart move for our schools. Having a UFB “fat pipe” coming right to the gate pushes them to the front of the queue for further government funding to upgrade their old “skinny pipe” internal networks.
In this area Mid-Canterbury is well ahead of the pack. From my workplace at Southbridge School I look enviously across the Rakaia to the opportunities opening up for my teacher colleagues and their students in the Ashburton District. Selwyn District lags far behind in the race towards UFB. Perhaps this is due to the large shadow Christchurch city casts over Selwyn, stunting independent thought. More likely it is due to the absence of a locally-owned infrastructure company. Electricity Ashburton will be looking for opportunities to extend its network north of the Rakaia, with or without a successful bid for some of the Government pie.
At present UFB is synonymous with fibre optic cable. Fans of fibre talk it up as our biggest infrastructure investment since the national electricity grid. Others caution against flinging heaps of money at a technology that, in our fast-changing world, could be obsolete in a decade. Yesterday I was introduced to a new educational term, “M-learning.” As E-learning stands for the paraphernalia of computers and cable-based systems that serve them, M-learning stands for mobile, delivering the same services - and better - through the cell phones we carry in our pockets. How’s that for a “fat pipe” dream?
7th August 2010
Last Monday marked the deadline for companies to register interest in joining the Government’s ultra fast broadband project. So what? So, the future just got a bit closer.
Ultra fast broadband, or UFB (this industry spawns acronyms like oil gushing from a well), is the digital equivalent of an 8-lane motorway; and just as motorways unleashed the full potential of the motorcar so broadband unleashes the potential of the internet.
By comparison, the old dial-up connections that first hooked our computers to the world-wide web – and which are still a fact of life for some – are like piloting your car down a pot-holed dirt track. Dial-up’s fine for the emailed birthday greetings from your sister in Perth, but if she attaches a photo you wait…and wait…
We all cheered when broadband showed up several years ago. Accessing data at Megabyte speed lets us play around on Trademe, zip through online banking and peek at our kids’ latest holiday pics. At its best it allows us to play You Tube clips without the sound and pictures getting out of whack, but falls short of downloading movies. For users like businesses, schools and hospitals that have multiple computers accessing the internet at once broadband has become just too thin.
UFB lifts capacity from 2 or 3 Megabytes per second to as much as 100. This means that on a wet afternoon when the kids are driving me crazy I can download Shrek II in about 20 seconds and avoid carnage. For many businesses and public organisations UFB is fast becoming the minimum standard for operating successfully in the 21st century.
We all cheered again when the Government announced last year it will invest $1.5 billion to provide UFB for 75% of kiwis by 2016. Under pressure it coughed up another $300 million for a Rural Broadband Initiative to spread coverage to all but the most remote regions. The strategy will be in partnership with the telecommunications industry, which is a good thing because broadband networks cost a lot more than the Government’s commitment. Telecom claims to have already invested $3 billion in a network of fibre optic cables for broadband. They’ve been digging holes all over Tinwald in recent weeks just to prove it.
Other companies too are seeing opportunities in fibre networks, none more presciently than our own Electricity Ashburton which has been quietly stringing fibre optic cables along its network for some time and has formed partnerships with local schools and businesses. This has certainly been a smart move for our schools. Having a UFB “fat pipe” coming right to the gate pushes them to the front of the queue for further government funding to upgrade their old “skinny pipe” internal networks.
In this area Mid-Canterbury is well ahead of the pack. From my workplace at Southbridge School I look enviously across the Rakaia to the opportunities opening up for my teacher colleagues and their students in the Ashburton District. Selwyn District lags far behind in the race towards UFB. Perhaps this is due to the large shadow Christchurch city casts over Selwyn, stunting independent thought. More likely it is due to the absence of a locally-owned infrastructure company. Electricity Ashburton will be looking for opportunities to extend its network north of the Rakaia, with or without a successful bid for some of the Government pie.
At present UFB is synonymous with fibre optic cable. Fans of fibre talk it up as our biggest infrastructure investment since the national electricity grid. Others caution against flinging heaps of money at a technology that, in our fast-changing world, could be obsolete in a decade. Yesterday I was introduced to a new educational term, “M-learning.” As E-learning stands for the paraphernalia of computers and cable-based systems that serve them, M-learning stands for mobile, delivering the same services - and better - through the cell phones we carry in our pockets. How’s that for a “fat pipe” dream?
Monday, July 26, 2010
What would yiz be wanting?
24th July 2010
Revelations that some restaurants are charging customers “cakeage” for bringing their own birthday cakes lifts the lid on dodgy practices in the hospitality industry. Unreasonable charges, like crummy waiters, make a lovely grumble but the reality is that restaurants do this stuff because we let them. New Zealand diners are wiltingly passive. We have no backbone in the face of sloppy service and rortish prices. We plead to be ripped off.
Our salvation is in our own hands. To illustrate let me take you back 25 years to the Greymouth Motor Lodge and one man’s culinary crusade.
As a young TVNZ reporter in the 80s I spent a lot of time on the road with a film crew. Our cameraman was Cedric Heward; sandy-haired, 30-something, tight-jeaned and just camp enough to be particular about his personal comfort.
Cedric was the first person I ever met who complained in restaurants. He made a point of it and could find a dozen faults before we’d even sighted a menu: the furniture wobbled, the décor shrieked, the temperature was too this or that.
Cedric was not petty. He maintained we owed it to our burgeoning tourist industry to lift standards. As he said, “I can shut up and go away vowing never to return or I can mention the problems and give them a chance to prove to me why I should return.”
On one memorable trip we were staying at the Greymouth Motor Lodge, the Coast’s finest hostelry. We assembled, half a dozen of us, for breakfast. The restaurant faced the car park on one side and a concrete block wall painted camouflage green on the other. Outside a dismal rain was falling.
Our waitress was Gail, who was about 18, slatternly but striving to rise above herself. She stalked over to our table and greeted us in West Coast vernacular: “what would yiz be wanting?”
After some discussion most of us would be wanting bacon and eggs. Cedric quizzed Gail. Were the eggs battery or free range? Was the bacon grilled or fried? He was polite, prefacing his questions with “excuse me,” “can you help?” and the like. I observed that this was more irritating to waitresses than if he’d simply been rude.
Eventually we came to drinks. Coffee or tea satisfied most of us, but for Cedric hot drinks were a passion.
“Excuse me, do you have Earl Grey?”
“Who?”
“Or Orange Pekoe? Jasmine? Apple and cranberry scented fruit basket?”
“I’ll ask Warren.”
Gail sloped off to ask Warren. Warren was the manager but that morning he was filling in for the chef who’d failed to return from his possum traps. Warren’s beefy face could be seen through the serving hatch to the kitchen. He had large forlorn moustaches and looked like a walrus on a small screen TV.
Gail returned. “Warren says it’s Bushells.”
“Thank you,” said Cedric. “In that case just bring me some hot water and I’ll make my own.”
Cedric unzipped his money belt and fetched out three or four small boxes of tea bags. Gail eyed the boxes uncertainly, turned and padded back to Warren. There was a brief conference and much waggling of the walrus moustache. Gail returned.
“Warren says you’ll have to pay cuppage to make your own tea.”
“Pardon me?” replied Cedric.
“He says it’ll be $2.50 for the cup.”
Cedric stiffened. “Excuse me,” his voice was tense, the rest of us nervously shuffled our toast. “Excuse me, tell Warren this is not Tiffany’s and I won’t pay through the nose to make a decent cup of tea.”
More discussion with the walrus. Gail returned.
“Warren says this is the Greymouth Motor Lodge. We serve Bushells or you pay cuppage.”
Cedric drew himself up to his full sandy-haired, tight-jeaned height. His eyes swept the room and lighted on the forlorn carpark and the concrete block wall. “I suppose he’ll be charging me for the bloody view as well,” he commanded, and stalked out.
What was achieved? Who knows, but I like to think Cedric brought a little light to the hospitality trade that morning and spared future diners the perils of fringe pricing – corkage, cakeage or cuppage.
24th July 2010
Revelations that some restaurants are charging customers “cakeage” for bringing their own birthday cakes lifts the lid on dodgy practices in the hospitality industry. Unreasonable charges, like crummy waiters, make a lovely grumble but the reality is that restaurants do this stuff because we let them. New Zealand diners are wiltingly passive. We have no backbone in the face of sloppy service and rortish prices. We plead to be ripped off.
Our salvation is in our own hands. To illustrate let me take you back 25 years to the Greymouth Motor Lodge and one man’s culinary crusade.
As a young TVNZ reporter in the 80s I spent a lot of time on the road with a film crew. Our cameraman was Cedric Heward; sandy-haired, 30-something, tight-jeaned and just camp enough to be particular about his personal comfort.
Cedric was the first person I ever met who complained in restaurants. He made a point of it and could find a dozen faults before we’d even sighted a menu: the furniture wobbled, the décor shrieked, the temperature was too this or that.
Cedric was not petty. He maintained we owed it to our burgeoning tourist industry to lift standards. As he said, “I can shut up and go away vowing never to return or I can mention the problems and give them a chance to prove to me why I should return.”
On one memorable trip we were staying at the Greymouth Motor Lodge, the Coast’s finest hostelry. We assembled, half a dozen of us, for breakfast. The restaurant faced the car park on one side and a concrete block wall painted camouflage green on the other. Outside a dismal rain was falling.
Our waitress was Gail, who was about 18, slatternly but striving to rise above herself. She stalked over to our table and greeted us in West Coast vernacular: “what would yiz be wanting?”
After some discussion most of us would be wanting bacon and eggs. Cedric quizzed Gail. Were the eggs battery or free range? Was the bacon grilled or fried? He was polite, prefacing his questions with “excuse me,” “can you help?” and the like. I observed that this was more irritating to waitresses than if he’d simply been rude.
Eventually we came to drinks. Coffee or tea satisfied most of us, but for Cedric hot drinks were a passion.
“Excuse me, do you have Earl Grey?”
“Who?”
“Or Orange Pekoe? Jasmine? Apple and cranberry scented fruit basket?”
“I’ll ask Warren.”
Gail sloped off to ask Warren. Warren was the manager but that morning he was filling in for the chef who’d failed to return from his possum traps. Warren’s beefy face could be seen through the serving hatch to the kitchen. He had large forlorn moustaches and looked like a walrus on a small screen TV.
Gail returned. “Warren says it’s Bushells.”
“Thank you,” said Cedric. “In that case just bring me some hot water and I’ll make my own.”
Cedric unzipped his money belt and fetched out three or four small boxes of tea bags. Gail eyed the boxes uncertainly, turned and padded back to Warren. There was a brief conference and much waggling of the walrus moustache. Gail returned.
“Warren says you’ll have to pay cuppage to make your own tea.”
“Pardon me?” replied Cedric.
“He says it’ll be $2.50 for the cup.”
Cedric stiffened. “Excuse me,” his voice was tense, the rest of us nervously shuffled our toast. “Excuse me, tell Warren this is not Tiffany’s and I won’t pay through the nose to make a decent cup of tea.”
More discussion with the walrus. Gail returned.
“Warren says this is the Greymouth Motor Lodge. We serve Bushells or you pay cuppage.”
Cedric drew himself up to his full sandy-haired, tight-jeaned height. His eyes swept the room and lighted on the forlorn carpark and the concrete block wall. “I suppose he’ll be charging me for the bloody view as well,” he commanded, and stalked out.
What was achieved? Who knows, but I like to think Cedric brought a little light to the hospitality trade that morning and spared future diners the perils of fringe pricing – corkage, cakeage or cuppage.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
The private well and the public good
10th July 2010
The relationship between water and wealth in Mid-Canterbury is nowhere more striking than in the appearance of irrigation storage reservoirs. From the air our district looks like a water wonderland, the familiar patchwork of paddocks and shelterbelts now flecked with a new patchwork of glittering ponds, some the size of small lakes.
I assume giving up farmland to large ponds is economical for irrigators but I wonder if it is much of a leap forward in how we manage water. Do these lakes capture water that would otherwise be lost? Or do they simply gather water that was already allocated from, say, the RDR and which previously was spread through border dikes but now is sprayed onto the land by centre pivots and rotor rainers?
This gathering of water into reservoirs is a visible symbol of power in the debate over water use. It says, “this water is mine. I have harvested it, stored it and will use it as I see fit.” It privatises a resource that, when it flows in our rivers or settles in our aquifers, is a public good.
The privatisation of water is not confined to farming. The small yellow signs saying ‘private well’ that pop up on suburban lawns confer the same privilege upon the householder who thereby gives himself licence to suck up public water and throw it around with abandon.
The sustainability of these practices may be about to come under closer scrutiny. In this week’s press it was pleasing to see Ashburton Mayor Bede O’Malley encouraging us to put our names forward to join the Ashburton Zone Water Management Committee.
According to Canterbury Water, a stand-alone directorate of Environment Canterbury, the committee will work with locals to develop a wide-ranging plan for water resources in our district. Water zone facilitator Barbara Nicholas says the committee “will need to be able to deal with the complexities of water issues” to help implement the Canterbury Water Management Strategy (CWMS) in Ashburton District.
On the face of it this all sounds rather jolly. One imagines a committee of farmers, householders, business people and local politicians happily weighing private interest and public good and balancing the fine equation to everybody’s advantage.
But there is something in this proposal that doesn’t stack up. Why are we now forming a committee to develop a “wide-ranging plan” for local water management? Isn’t this the purpose of the CWMS and, if not, what has been the point of all the work and politics invested in that Strategy?
The local committee’s brief is to help implement the CWMS and there is a devil of detail in that little word “help”. In fact the proposition asks more questions than it answers. What substantive role does the local committee play? Will it have the power to decide between conflicting interests in water use? How will committee members be appointed? Will it be a fair representation of all stakeholders?
It is difficult to avoid seeing the local committee as window dressing, a trickle down of power like the last few drops from the aquifer. Mr O’Malley’s endorsement of people-power raises suspicion in itself considering his role in the infamous ‘letter from the Mayors’ that caused us to lose our right to a democratically elected Environment Canterbury. He is not the only Mayor in the region who, as local government elections approach, is hurrying to prove himself a friend of democracy.
Recent events at ECan tempt the conclusion that the future of Canterbury’s water resource has been stitched up between big business and the political Right. A local committee will be, at best, a very small voice in a room filled with commissioners and corporates, both single-minded in regarding water only as a path to prosperity.
Nevertheless, we should support the local committee. Even a small voice is better than we have at present. The committee’s small voice can claim a few column-inches in the local press and may in time grow to be influential. At the very least it may become a watchdog to expose the worst practices and to move forward our collective awareness of the fragility and finiteness of our water resources.
10th July 2010
The relationship between water and wealth in Mid-Canterbury is nowhere more striking than in the appearance of irrigation storage reservoirs. From the air our district looks like a water wonderland, the familiar patchwork of paddocks and shelterbelts now flecked with a new patchwork of glittering ponds, some the size of small lakes.
I assume giving up farmland to large ponds is economical for irrigators but I wonder if it is much of a leap forward in how we manage water. Do these lakes capture water that would otherwise be lost? Or do they simply gather water that was already allocated from, say, the RDR and which previously was spread through border dikes but now is sprayed onto the land by centre pivots and rotor rainers?
This gathering of water into reservoirs is a visible symbol of power in the debate over water use. It says, “this water is mine. I have harvested it, stored it and will use it as I see fit.” It privatises a resource that, when it flows in our rivers or settles in our aquifers, is a public good.
The privatisation of water is not confined to farming. The small yellow signs saying ‘private well’ that pop up on suburban lawns confer the same privilege upon the householder who thereby gives himself licence to suck up public water and throw it around with abandon.
The sustainability of these practices may be about to come under closer scrutiny. In this week’s press it was pleasing to see Ashburton Mayor Bede O’Malley encouraging us to put our names forward to join the Ashburton Zone Water Management Committee.
According to Canterbury Water, a stand-alone directorate of Environment Canterbury, the committee will work with locals to develop a wide-ranging plan for water resources in our district. Water zone facilitator Barbara Nicholas says the committee “will need to be able to deal with the complexities of water issues” to help implement the Canterbury Water Management Strategy (CWMS) in Ashburton District.
On the face of it this all sounds rather jolly. One imagines a committee of farmers, householders, business people and local politicians happily weighing private interest and public good and balancing the fine equation to everybody’s advantage.
But there is something in this proposal that doesn’t stack up. Why are we now forming a committee to develop a “wide-ranging plan” for local water management? Isn’t this the purpose of the CWMS and, if not, what has been the point of all the work and politics invested in that Strategy?
The local committee’s brief is to help implement the CWMS and there is a devil of detail in that little word “help”. In fact the proposition asks more questions than it answers. What substantive role does the local committee play? Will it have the power to decide between conflicting interests in water use? How will committee members be appointed? Will it be a fair representation of all stakeholders?
It is difficult to avoid seeing the local committee as window dressing, a trickle down of power like the last few drops from the aquifer. Mr O’Malley’s endorsement of people-power raises suspicion in itself considering his role in the infamous ‘letter from the Mayors’ that caused us to lose our right to a democratically elected Environment Canterbury. He is not the only Mayor in the region who, as local government elections approach, is hurrying to prove himself a friend of democracy.
Recent events at ECan tempt the conclusion that the future of Canterbury’s water resource has been stitched up between big business and the political Right. A local committee will be, at best, a very small voice in a room filled with commissioners and corporates, both single-minded in regarding water only as a path to prosperity.
Nevertheless, we should support the local committee. Even a small voice is better than we have at present. The committee’s small voice can claim a few column-inches in the local press and may in time grow to be influential. At the very least it may become a watchdog to expose the worst practices and to move forward our collective awareness of the fragility and finiteness of our water resources.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Rainfall Record a journey of the imagination
26th June 2010
In January 1958 - the month of my birth - a man living in Geraldine bought a simple school exercise book. On the cover of the book was a pen-and-ink illustration of a Greek temple, the name ‘Classic’ in flourishing cursive and a small template stating it met the New Zealand Standard.
He opened the book and ruled twelve columns across the first two pages. Above the columns he wrote the months of the year and in the margins he numbered the days of the month. On the cover he wrote, in block capitals as crudely drawn as the stones of the Greek temple, the words ‘RAINFALL RECORD.’
Thus began a momentous undertaking, a private odyssey that spanned a working life. When the final page of the book was completed in December 1996 this steadfast chronicler had recorded every drop of rain that fell, firstly upon Geraldine (until 1973) and then upon Woodbury, for 38 uninterrupted years. He began his measurements in points and inches – 100 points to the inch - and kept faith with this system as the world turned metric.
This was not a man who wielded a pen with ease. The numbers are heavy, often overwritten several times until the blue ink is a black gouge upon the paper. The occasional notations (“dry gales all Jan.” “Hurricane 110mph”) are written in block capitals.
Though the writing is clumsy the maths is pinpoint accurate. The figures for each month are totalled at the foot of the column and the columns collated to produce a “Total For Year,” recorded with a small flourish at the bottom right hand corner of each annual spreadsheet.
The author’s diligence is breathtaking. In the entire record there are only two noticeable slips: a two month period in 1979 when the entries are in a different hand and a moment in late October 1982 (Labour Weekend?) when he compressed three days of rain into a single figure – and noted the lapse of form.
At first and second glances the Rainfall Record carries no hint of the author. The columns of numbers stand mute upon the pages. The pages gather like a deck of bizarre Housie cards.
But look closer and you find small, tantalising glimpses of identity. On 5th April 1979 the rainfall – 17 points – is bracketed by the initials FS written in both red and blue ink, with the words “left from London Vic” beneath. Wedged into the spine of the book in 1983 is the stub of a baggage label with the name H. Simpson and a rusty stain that may have been a watermark. On the front cover, in small cursive writing in a style different from the hand of the recorder is the name M. Simpson.
Slightly more revealing – and infinitely more mysterious – is an inscription on the inside cover: “La Donna Mobilae (sic), Women are Fickle. Riggaletto By Verdi. Arnold’s 1933 musical memory while travelling to Rarotonga on RMS Makura.”
This unique document has fallen into my hands and I am captivated. The numbers are enormously powerful. They have the effect of a strange crystal ball that enables me to predict tiny details from the past with unerring accuracy. I can tell you that between 1973 and 1996 it never rained in Woodbury on 7th January. I can tell you that 8 inches of rain fell between the 12th and 17th of February 1986, followed by another 7 inches in a single day on 13th March, with the word “floods” like the toll of a bell.
I am captured too by the uncanny parallel with my own life. As I read the Record I picture myself as a child, a youth, a young man. The final entries were written just a month before I moved to Mid-Canterbury. By then I had lived in 16 or 17 homes in my 38 years while the quiet collector of the rainfall had lived in just two.
And that’s the greatest fascination – imagining the life of the author. Who was he? Indeed, was it a ‘he’? Could it have been a woman who went outside each day and checked the rain gauge nailed to a fence post or hanging from the end of the verandah? Who is “FS”? Why was Arnold travelling to Rarotonga in 1933?
Should I search for the facts? Or has the Rainfall Record always been, ultimately, a journey of the imagination?
26th June 2010
In January 1958 - the month of my birth - a man living in Geraldine bought a simple school exercise book. On the cover of the book was a pen-and-ink illustration of a Greek temple, the name ‘Classic’ in flourishing cursive and a small template stating it met the New Zealand Standard.
He opened the book and ruled twelve columns across the first two pages. Above the columns he wrote the months of the year and in the margins he numbered the days of the month. On the cover he wrote, in block capitals as crudely drawn as the stones of the Greek temple, the words ‘RAINFALL RECORD.’
Thus began a momentous undertaking, a private odyssey that spanned a working life. When the final page of the book was completed in December 1996 this steadfast chronicler had recorded every drop of rain that fell, firstly upon Geraldine (until 1973) and then upon Woodbury, for 38 uninterrupted years. He began his measurements in points and inches – 100 points to the inch - and kept faith with this system as the world turned metric.
This was not a man who wielded a pen with ease. The numbers are heavy, often overwritten several times until the blue ink is a black gouge upon the paper. The occasional notations (“dry gales all Jan.” “Hurricane 110mph”) are written in block capitals.
Though the writing is clumsy the maths is pinpoint accurate. The figures for each month are totalled at the foot of the column and the columns collated to produce a “Total For Year,” recorded with a small flourish at the bottom right hand corner of each annual spreadsheet.
The author’s diligence is breathtaking. In the entire record there are only two noticeable slips: a two month period in 1979 when the entries are in a different hand and a moment in late October 1982 (Labour Weekend?) when he compressed three days of rain into a single figure – and noted the lapse of form.
At first and second glances the Rainfall Record carries no hint of the author. The columns of numbers stand mute upon the pages. The pages gather like a deck of bizarre Housie cards.
But look closer and you find small, tantalising glimpses of identity. On 5th April 1979 the rainfall – 17 points – is bracketed by the initials FS written in both red and blue ink, with the words “left from London Vic” beneath. Wedged into the spine of the book in 1983 is the stub of a baggage label with the name H. Simpson and a rusty stain that may have been a watermark. On the front cover, in small cursive writing in a style different from the hand of the recorder is the name M. Simpson.
Slightly more revealing – and infinitely more mysterious – is an inscription on the inside cover: “La Donna Mobilae (sic), Women are Fickle. Riggaletto By Verdi. Arnold’s 1933 musical memory while travelling to Rarotonga on RMS Makura.”
This unique document has fallen into my hands and I am captivated. The numbers are enormously powerful. They have the effect of a strange crystal ball that enables me to predict tiny details from the past with unerring accuracy. I can tell you that between 1973 and 1996 it never rained in Woodbury on 7th January. I can tell you that 8 inches of rain fell between the 12th and 17th of February 1986, followed by another 7 inches in a single day on 13th March, with the word “floods” like the toll of a bell.
I am captured too by the uncanny parallel with my own life. As I read the Record I picture myself as a child, a youth, a young man. The final entries were written just a month before I moved to Mid-Canterbury. By then I had lived in 16 or 17 homes in my 38 years while the quiet collector of the rainfall had lived in just two.
And that’s the greatest fascination – imagining the life of the author. Who was he? Indeed, was it a ‘he’? Could it have been a woman who went outside each day and checked the rain gauge nailed to a fence post or hanging from the end of the verandah? Who is “FS”? Why was Arnold travelling to Rarotonga in 1933?
Should I search for the facts? Or has the Rainfall Record always been, ultimately, a journey of the imagination?
Monday, June 14, 2010
Punter predicts Tri-Nations trifecta at the World Cup
12th June 2010
On the eve of the football World Cup the Ashburton Guardian’s sports team has been joined by soccer commentator Ronny Tillard. Ronny, Immediate Past President of the Hinds Football Supporters Club, will provide expert analysis throughout the tournament. Our reporter caught up with Ronny in his y-fronts – sorry, in front of his wide-screen TV - primed and ready to go.
So, Ronny, what are your predictions for the World Cup?
Wouldn’t know, mate. Not interested.
Not interested?
Nuh, couldn’t give a monkey’s
But aren’t you in the Football Supporters Club?
Yeah, rugby football.
Oh geez, that bloody sub-editor! Look, Ronny, help us out here, we’ve got nobody else.
Why not, there’s heaps of people can talk about soccer.
Yeah, but they’re all talking to the big papers. Come on, give us a break.
Well, it’s against my better judgement, but if you want my opinion it’ll be New Zealand, South Africa and Australia in the final.
Er, you can only have two teams in the final, Ronny.
So one of ‘em will come third, but it’ll be a Tri-Nations trifecta, you wait.
How come you’re so confident?
Stands to reason. Look, it’s the first time they’ve played the tournament in the southern hemisphere and there’s only three southern hemisphere nations playing, so who’s got the local knowledge?
Local knowledge?
Yeah. You know how water goes down the plughole the other way in the southern hemisphere? Well, it’s the same with how a ball behaves through the air. When you kick a soccer ball in South Africa it curves the other way. All those northern hemisphere players won’t know where to turn.
How do you know this?
It’s all over Facebook, mate.
Anyway, what about the South American countries?
What about ‘em.
Brazil, Argentina, Chile – they’re all in the southern hemisphere.
Fair buck?
Yes.
I thought the equator did a sort of u-turn around South America.
No.
Well, that’s odd. Because they’re not real southern hemisphere people, are they?
What do you mean?
Well, y’know, they’re not like us. They’re sort of like, girls, eh?
Er, moving on, the All Whites have a real David and Goliath battle if they’re to win any games. How are they going to do it?
I reckon David and Goliath is the clue to success. You know the real lesson of that old story?
Tell me.
David broke the rules. You see, Goliath was out there with his sword and his shield and he was playing by the rules. The last thing he expected was some little snot-nose to pull out a slingshot. The Alrights-
All Whites, Ronny
They’ll be All Rights if they follow my advice. What they’ve gotta do is the unexpected, break a few rules.
Such as?
Pick up the ball and run with the bloody thing for a start. Pile in at the break-down, get a bit of go-forward and chuck it down the line. Watch those Slovakian faces when that happens.
Yeah, but the difference between us and David is the referee. We’ll get caned.
So you do it quietly. Stuff the ball under the jersey, get a couple of mates to shepherd you, dive over in the corner, ref’ll never notice.
Do you reckon our boys have got the star quality to pull off a few upsets?
I dunno. Who’s in the team?
Well, there’s Ryan Nelsen and, er...
Oh, I know, there’s that guy who broke his shoulder last week, he’ll be a big asset on the field. Then there’s Dan Carter.
He’s a rugby player, Ronny.
I know, but imagine if he played soccer. He knows which way the ball curves in South Africa.
12th June 2010
On the eve of the football World Cup the Ashburton Guardian’s sports team has been joined by soccer commentator Ronny Tillard. Ronny, Immediate Past President of the Hinds Football Supporters Club, will provide expert analysis throughout the tournament. Our reporter caught up with Ronny in his y-fronts – sorry, in front of his wide-screen TV - primed and ready to go.
So, Ronny, what are your predictions for the World Cup?
Wouldn’t know, mate. Not interested.
Not interested?
Nuh, couldn’t give a monkey’s
But aren’t you in the Football Supporters Club?
Yeah, rugby football.
Oh geez, that bloody sub-editor! Look, Ronny, help us out here, we’ve got nobody else.
Why not, there’s heaps of people can talk about soccer.
Yeah, but they’re all talking to the big papers. Come on, give us a break.
Well, it’s against my better judgement, but if you want my opinion it’ll be New Zealand, South Africa and Australia in the final.
Er, you can only have two teams in the final, Ronny.
So one of ‘em will come third, but it’ll be a Tri-Nations trifecta, you wait.
How come you’re so confident?
Stands to reason. Look, it’s the first time they’ve played the tournament in the southern hemisphere and there’s only three southern hemisphere nations playing, so who’s got the local knowledge?
Local knowledge?
Yeah. You know how water goes down the plughole the other way in the southern hemisphere? Well, it’s the same with how a ball behaves through the air. When you kick a soccer ball in South Africa it curves the other way. All those northern hemisphere players won’t know where to turn.
How do you know this?
It’s all over Facebook, mate.
Anyway, what about the South American countries?
What about ‘em.
Brazil, Argentina, Chile – they’re all in the southern hemisphere.
Fair buck?
Yes.
I thought the equator did a sort of u-turn around South America.
No.
Well, that’s odd. Because they’re not real southern hemisphere people, are they?
What do you mean?
Well, y’know, they’re not like us. They’re sort of like, girls, eh?
Er, moving on, the All Whites have a real David and Goliath battle if they’re to win any games. How are they going to do it?
I reckon David and Goliath is the clue to success. You know the real lesson of that old story?
Tell me.
David broke the rules. You see, Goliath was out there with his sword and his shield and he was playing by the rules. The last thing he expected was some little snot-nose to pull out a slingshot. The Alrights-
All Whites, Ronny
They’ll be All Rights if they follow my advice. What they’ve gotta do is the unexpected, break a few rules.
Such as?
Pick up the ball and run with the bloody thing for a start. Pile in at the break-down, get a bit of go-forward and chuck it down the line. Watch those Slovakian faces when that happens.
Yeah, but the difference between us and David is the referee. We’ll get caned.
So you do it quietly. Stuff the ball under the jersey, get a couple of mates to shepherd you, dive over in the corner, ref’ll never notice.
Do you reckon our boys have got the star quality to pull off a few upsets?
I dunno. Who’s in the team?
Well, there’s Ryan Nelsen and, er...
Oh, I know, there’s that guy who broke his shoulder last week, he’ll be a big asset on the field. Then there’s Dan Carter.
He’s a rugby player, Ronny.
I know, but imagine if he played soccer. He knows which way the ball curves in South Africa.
Monday, May 31, 2010
A Samoan in my cherry tree
29th May 2010
This sudden onset of winter has been like running headlong into a brick wall. I feel dazed and disoriented, I struggle to recall life before the skies blackened. But I must reach back to Sunday to fetch this story, to the antediluvian Sunday, the Sunday before the storm.
It was the Sunday of the Samoan in my cherry tree - not that it was intended to be. When I awoke, late, on Sunday morning I had no premonition of the Samoan, no expectation that at day’s end I would have lost not just the cherry tree but the plum tree too and come within a hair’s breadth of losing the great Leylandii.
The Samoans were gathering while I slept and the first hint I had of their presence was when I stepped out for my run. A middle-aged woman was walking along the footpath wearing a high-visibility vest, holding a bundle of leaflets or cards in her hand and taking an interest in the Redmond’s trees across the street. I thought nothing of it until I met another woman around the corner, and then a third. I imagined they were part of a religious campaign – God’s workers in high-viz vestments.
When I returned from my run a business card was stuck in my door. Southern Tree Services it read, with a list of felling, lopping, trimming, pruning and associated arboreal verbs and, at the bottom, a cell phone number and a name – Danny.
There are moments when things fall into place. I stood outside my door with the card in my hand and my eye fell on the ancient and once-beautiful cherry blossom tree that has been dying on the front lawn for years and which we have talked about removing for years: then a swift realisation that I had passed a gang of men with a truck and chainsaws a couple of hundred metres up the street. Of course – Danny!
I sprinted (well, okay, hastened) onto the street. Gone.
I sprang to the phone and dialled the number and there was Danny’s voice at the other end, measured, Samoan.
Five minutes later Danny was at my doorstep. He seemed slightly older than me and not much taller, but there is something about Pacific Island men, a certain gravity, that makes them enormous, and so Danny seemed to me.
I showed him the cherry tree and an old plum tree by the letter box. I asked for a quote to fell the trees and remove the waste. Did I want the firewood? Yes, that would be nice.
Danny thought for a moment. “$1250.00 for felling right to the ground. But today I give it to you for $1150.00.”
I said thank you and I will be interested to get another quote.
“$950.00,” Danny’s lips barely moved. And what about that enormous Leylandii threatening the house? “For that, another $850.00.”
I said I would check with my wife. Sylvia said I was mad. I accepted on the spot, minus the Leylandii, and asked when could he do it?
“Now,” replied Danny.
I don’t believe he put his fingers to his mouth and whistled but I know within three minutes the truck pulled up and nine large Samoan men tumbled onto my front lawn.
With acrobatic skills to rival Cirque de Soleil they dismantled the plum tree and the cherry. They climbed, swung, looped and dropped. They plied their chainsaws with a dentist’s precision. They heaved and carried. They sawed and stacked.
And all the time Danny watched. He watched from beneath the doomed trees. He watched from across the street. He watched on his knees while remediating an unruly chainsaw.
While he watched he bargained the fate of the Leylandii. “$750.00. No? Okay, $650.00.” I pleaded lack of funds. The Leylandii stayed.
Two hours later the two trees were gone, the paths swept, the brushwood removed and the firewood stacked behind the house.
During this the three women in high-viz vests turned up. We gave them cups of tea and Anzac biscuits.
And my instincts were right after all – they were doing God’s work, a fundraiser for their church youth group in Christchurch. Danny is both arborist and pastor, a man of the Word and, as I looked out across my suddenly two-trees-less garden, truly a man of his word.
29th May 2010
This sudden onset of winter has been like running headlong into a brick wall. I feel dazed and disoriented, I struggle to recall life before the skies blackened. But I must reach back to Sunday to fetch this story, to the antediluvian Sunday, the Sunday before the storm.
It was the Sunday of the Samoan in my cherry tree - not that it was intended to be. When I awoke, late, on Sunday morning I had no premonition of the Samoan, no expectation that at day’s end I would have lost not just the cherry tree but the plum tree too and come within a hair’s breadth of losing the great Leylandii.
The Samoans were gathering while I slept and the first hint I had of their presence was when I stepped out for my run. A middle-aged woman was walking along the footpath wearing a high-visibility vest, holding a bundle of leaflets or cards in her hand and taking an interest in the Redmond’s trees across the street. I thought nothing of it until I met another woman around the corner, and then a third. I imagined they were part of a religious campaign – God’s workers in high-viz vestments.
When I returned from my run a business card was stuck in my door. Southern Tree Services it read, with a list of felling, lopping, trimming, pruning and associated arboreal verbs and, at the bottom, a cell phone number and a name – Danny.
There are moments when things fall into place. I stood outside my door with the card in my hand and my eye fell on the ancient and once-beautiful cherry blossom tree that has been dying on the front lawn for years and which we have talked about removing for years: then a swift realisation that I had passed a gang of men with a truck and chainsaws a couple of hundred metres up the street. Of course – Danny!
I sprinted (well, okay, hastened) onto the street. Gone.
I sprang to the phone and dialled the number and there was Danny’s voice at the other end, measured, Samoan.
Five minutes later Danny was at my doorstep. He seemed slightly older than me and not much taller, but there is something about Pacific Island men, a certain gravity, that makes them enormous, and so Danny seemed to me.
I showed him the cherry tree and an old plum tree by the letter box. I asked for a quote to fell the trees and remove the waste. Did I want the firewood? Yes, that would be nice.
Danny thought for a moment. “$1250.00 for felling right to the ground. But today I give it to you for $1150.00.”
I said thank you and I will be interested to get another quote.
“$950.00,” Danny’s lips barely moved. And what about that enormous Leylandii threatening the house? “For that, another $850.00.”
I said I would check with my wife. Sylvia said I was mad. I accepted on the spot, minus the Leylandii, and asked when could he do it?
“Now,” replied Danny.
I don’t believe he put his fingers to his mouth and whistled but I know within three minutes the truck pulled up and nine large Samoan men tumbled onto my front lawn.
With acrobatic skills to rival Cirque de Soleil they dismantled the plum tree and the cherry. They climbed, swung, looped and dropped. They plied their chainsaws with a dentist’s precision. They heaved and carried. They sawed and stacked.
And all the time Danny watched. He watched from beneath the doomed trees. He watched from across the street. He watched on his knees while remediating an unruly chainsaw.
While he watched he bargained the fate of the Leylandii. “$750.00. No? Okay, $650.00.” I pleaded lack of funds. The Leylandii stayed.
Two hours later the two trees were gone, the paths swept, the brushwood removed and the firewood stacked behind the house.
During this the three women in high-viz vests turned up. We gave them cups of tea and Anzac biscuits.
And my instincts were right after all – they were doing God’s work, a fundraiser for their church youth group in Christchurch. Danny is both arborist and pastor, a man of the Word and, as I looked out across my suddenly two-trees-less garden, truly a man of his word.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Auckland Expands Racial Faultines
15th May 2010
Twenty brown faces turn to me as I walk into the classroom. They see my name tag and the greetings tumble out.
“Hi Peter!”
“Hello Peter!”
“Hello! Hello!”
Miss Fai’alofa is kneeling on the floor with a reading group. She stands and greets me shyly then shushes the children back to their work. I squat by a table where half a dozen six year olds are drawing pictures of volcanoes on computers. An older student helps them to master the drawing programme. They sketch cones and billowing clouds of smoke and select colours from the programme’s palette.
One little girl turns to me and brushes her hand against my hair. “You’ve got grey.”
This excites their interest.
“Where you from?” inquires a boy.
I tell them I’m from the South Island and ask if any of them have been there. A few heads nod excitedly.
“I been there,” offers one boy.
“Which part did you visit?”
“Aw, the Cook Islands,” he demurs.
This is Point England School in Tamaki, Auckland. Five hundred children attend this school, every one of them Maori or Pacific Islander. This is a tough corner of town, with the school graded decile 1A, which in edu-speak means the bottom of the heap.
“You have to realise,” said Russell the school principal, “nobody in this community is employed, and it goes back 4 or 5 generations for some. The definition of success in Tamaki is getting out.”
Tamaki was the product of post-war social engineering on a grand scale. A framed photo from 1948 shows rows of new-built state houses, freshly formed kerbs and streets cutting into open paddocks. Some of the first residents were members of the Maori Battalion, soldier heroes returning from Europe who found they had outgrown their country kaiks and were drawn to the big smoke.
Auckland was the dream of opportunity but somewhere the dream went wrong and today 20,000 of our least affluent citizens are wedged into an area as big as Allenton. It costs the taxpayers $150 million a year to sustain this community.
In this landscape of poverty Point England school is a beacon. Russell and his staff build hope and aspiration among their students: better still, they build achievement. These children are learning at or above the levels of any kids in Mid-Canterbury. Russell has flooded the school with digital technology, including a student-driven television station that broadcasts daily into all classrooms and weekly into the community. He has multiple programmes in art, sports and music to stimulate children’s interest in learning. Nothing is wasted, every intervention is weighed for its usefulness and everything rests on a foundation of excellent teaching and total commitment to the community.
Twenty kilometres away on the southern boundary of Auckland is Flatbush. Here the bulldozers are again busy, carving into farmland to build a community that will house 40,000 people within a decade. In Flatbush row upon row of grey tiled rooves and double garages mount the slopes and disappear over the ridge. A small remnant of native forest crouches in a gully. This is urban growth on a scale unknown in the South Island.
The brand new Mission Heights School towers over the rooftops of Flatbush. It is intended as a flagship of 21st century school design - the fact that it looks like a cruise ship run aground seems to have gone unnoticed. Its glass and steel galleries are abuzz with innovation, classrooms resemble high street boutiques with a confetti of computers.
But in this place of wonders it is the students that are the greatest curiosity. Almost every one of the 700 children at this school is Asian.
Flatbush, you see, is 21st century Tamaki. Like Tamaki it captures migrants, only this time the migrants are not from the Waikato but from India, China and Korea. Flatbush is becoming an ethnic enclave just as Tamaki did. No doubt this is accidental; to the town planners Flatbush is about roads and houses. In reality it is another social experiment, one that begins with a shiny new school and a thousand dreams of opportunity. We hope it will not end up 50 years from now as a ghetto.
15th May 2010
Twenty brown faces turn to me as I walk into the classroom. They see my name tag and the greetings tumble out.
“Hi Peter!”
“Hello Peter!”
“Hello! Hello!”
Miss Fai’alofa is kneeling on the floor with a reading group. She stands and greets me shyly then shushes the children back to their work. I squat by a table where half a dozen six year olds are drawing pictures of volcanoes on computers. An older student helps them to master the drawing programme. They sketch cones and billowing clouds of smoke and select colours from the programme’s palette.
One little girl turns to me and brushes her hand against my hair. “You’ve got grey.”
This excites their interest.
“Where you from?” inquires a boy.
I tell them I’m from the South Island and ask if any of them have been there. A few heads nod excitedly.
“I been there,” offers one boy.
“Which part did you visit?”
“Aw, the Cook Islands,” he demurs.
This is Point England School in Tamaki, Auckland. Five hundred children attend this school, every one of them Maori or Pacific Islander. This is a tough corner of town, with the school graded decile 1A, which in edu-speak means the bottom of the heap.
“You have to realise,” said Russell the school principal, “nobody in this community is employed, and it goes back 4 or 5 generations for some. The definition of success in Tamaki is getting out.”
Tamaki was the product of post-war social engineering on a grand scale. A framed photo from 1948 shows rows of new-built state houses, freshly formed kerbs and streets cutting into open paddocks. Some of the first residents were members of the Maori Battalion, soldier heroes returning from Europe who found they had outgrown their country kaiks and were drawn to the big smoke.
Auckland was the dream of opportunity but somewhere the dream went wrong and today 20,000 of our least affluent citizens are wedged into an area as big as Allenton. It costs the taxpayers $150 million a year to sustain this community.
In this landscape of poverty Point England school is a beacon. Russell and his staff build hope and aspiration among their students: better still, they build achievement. These children are learning at or above the levels of any kids in Mid-Canterbury. Russell has flooded the school with digital technology, including a student-driven television station that broadcasts daily into all classrooms and weekly into the community. He has multiple programmes in art, sports and music to stimulate children’s interest in learning. Nothing is wasted, every intervention is weighed for its usefulness and everything rests on a foundation of excellent teaching and total commitment to the community.
Twenty kilometres away on the southern boundary of Auckland is Flatbush. Here the bulldozers are again busy, carving into farmland to build a community that will house 40,000 people within a decade. In Flatbush row upon row of grey tiled rooves and double garages mount the slopes and disappear over the ridge. A small remnant of native forest crouches in a gully. This is urban growth on a scale unknown in the South Island.
The brand new Mission Heights School towers over the rooftops of Flatbush. It is intended as a flagship of 21st century school design - the fact that it looks like a cruise ship run aground seems to have gone unnoticed. Its glass and steel galleries are abuzz with innovation, classrooms resemble high street boutiques with a confetti of computers.
But in this place of wonders it is the students that are the greatest curiosity. Almost every one of the 700 children at this school is Asian.
Flatbush, you see, is 21st century Tamaki. Like Tamaki it captures migrants, only this time the migrants are not from the Waikato but from India, China and Korea. Flatbush is becoming an ethnic enclave just as Tamaki did. No doubt this is accidental; to the town planners Flatbush is about roads and houses. In reality it is another social experiment, one that begins with a shiny new school and a thousand dreams of opportunity. We hope it will not end up 50 years from now as a ghetto.
Monday, May 03, 2010
A small tale of the Taieri
17th April 2010
In 1980 a short history was published of the small community of Taieri Mouth, which lies on the Otago coast about 30 kilometres south of Dunedin. The history was a community project, the usual account of early settlement, a roll call of personalities and events, with a liberal selection of grainy, black and white photographs.
The authors acknowledged the presence of early Maori in the area before moving swiftly to European settlement, a succession of whalers, traders, gold diggers, sawmillers and farmers. In the early period when roads were uncertain the Taieri was one of those rare New Zealand rivers that was navigable for a fair part of its length, and the little settlement owed its existence to the shipping that came and went through the lower gorge and across the sand bar.
The occasion for the book was the completion of a new bridge over the Taieri River, a streamlined ferro-concrete structure replacing the original wooden bridge that was literally at the point of collapse. To the authors the new bridge was both a leap of technology and a symbol of progress. The book closes with fine expressions of civic pride connecting the labours of the past into an unbroken chain of prosperity stretching far into the future.
This week we have been holidaying at Taieri Mouth, thanks to the friend of a friend who owns a small bach – sorry, crib – at the point where the river makes its final turn towards the sea. I can report that thirty years after its opening the bridge is as fresh and functional as the day it was completed.
The town, sadly, has fared less well. In hindsight 1980 marked the high point of Taieri Mouth’s growth, as it did for most of small town New Zealand. The long unravelling of the 80s and 90s, from the removal of farm subsidies to the collapse of the inshore fishing industry, has reduced Taieri Mouth to a shell.
The school remains, and the hall. A dozen caravans are parked up for the winter at a cheerless camping ground. But there is no store, no café, no hotel, no obvious employment apart from three or four small fishing boats that still work gallantly from the riverside wharf. It is impossible to spend money at Taieri Mouth.
The population appears to have been sucked out on the falling tide. In four days we saw perhaps a dozen people, mostly tourists in campervans.
The community appears to have vanished but in its place has arisen a modern hybrid – the community of holiday homes. I should not call them homes - they are houses, baches, cribs - the weekend retreats of professionals and retired farmers. Ironically, as the town has crumbled I imagine property prices have soared, in keeping with our enthusiasm for every small vista of sea, lake and river. There are probably more buildings at Taieri Mouth today – and certainly fewer residents – than at any time in its history, and most of the newer ones are large, opulent and empty.
When we lived in England a few years ago there was a village near us that had become a popular destination for holiday makers. Wealthy people from London and elsewhere were buying houses at a rate that caused property to boom. In a short time the village was a tourist town, homes became too expensive for the locals to afford so the resident population began to fall and local infrastructure began to collapse.
In New Zealand large parts of our habitable coastline and lake shores have turned into similar strange modern ghettoes. To somebody unused to our peculiar lifestyle the sight of communities of often monstrously wealthy houses, of new streets and parks and footpaths, all silent for the greater part of the year, would seem bizarre.
To the historians of Taieri Mouth the new bridge must now appear a mixed blessing. It became the means of exit for the locals and entry for the bach owners, changing their town from a community to a silo.
17th April 2010
In 1980 a short history was published of the small community of Taieri Mouth, which lies on the Otago coast about 30 kilometres south of Dunedin. The history was a community project, the usual account of early settlement, a roll call of personalities and events, with a liberal selection of grainy, black and white photographs.
The authors acknowledged the presence of early Maori in the area before moving swiftly to European settlement, a succession of whalers, traders, gold diggers, sawmillers and farmers. In the early period when roads were uncertain the Taieri was one of those rare New Zealand rivers that was navigable for a fair part of its length, and the little settlement owed its existence to the shipping that came and went through the lower gorge and across the sand bar.
The occasion for the book was the completion of a new bridge over the Taieri River, a streamlined ferro-concrete structure replacing the original wooden bridge that was literally at the point of collapse. To the authors the new bridge was both a leap of technology and a symbol of progress. The book closes with fine expressions of civic pride connecting the labours of the past into an unbroken chain of prosperity stretching far into the future.
This week we have been holidaying at Taieri Mouth, thanks to the friend of a friend who owns a small bach – sorry, crib – at the point where the river makes its final turn towards the sea. I can report that thirty years after its opening the bridge is as fresh and functional as the day it was completed.
The town, sadly, has fared less well. In hindsight 1980 marked the high point of Taieri Mouth’s growth, as it did for most of small town New Zealand. The long unravelling of the 80s and 90s, from the removal of farm subsidies to the collapse of the inshore fishing industry, has reduced Taieri Mouth to a shell.
The school remains, and the hall. A dozen caravans are parked up for the winter at a cheerless camping ground. But there is no store, no café, no hotel, no obvious employment apart from three or four small fishing boats that still work gallantly from the riverside wharf. It is impossible to spend money at Taieri Mouth.
The population appears to have been sucked out on the falling tide. In four days we saw perhaps a dozen people, mostly tourists in campervans.
The community appears to have vanished but in its place has arisen a modern hybrid – the community of holiday homes. I should not call them homes - they are houses, baches, cribs - the weekend retreats of professionals and retired farmers. Ironically, as the town has crumbled I imagine property prices have soared, in keeping with our enthusiasm for every small vista of sea, lake and river. There are probably more buildings at Taieri Mouth today – and certainly fewer residents – than at any time in its history, and most of the newer ones are large, opulent and empty.
When we lived in England a few years ago there was a village near us that had become a popular destination for holiday makers. Wealthy people from London and elsewhere were buying houses at a rate that caused property to boom. In a short time the village was a tourist town, homes became too expensive for the locals to afford so the resident population began to fall and local infrastructure began to collapse.
In New Zealand large parts of our habitable coastline and lake shores have turned into similar strange modern ghettoes. To somebody unused to our peculiar lifestyle the sight of communities of often monstrously wealthy houses, of new streets and parks and footpaths, all silent for the greater part of the year, would seem bizarre.
To the historians of Taieri Mouth the new bridge must now appear a mixed blessing. It became the means of exit for the locals and entry for the bach owners, changing their town from a community to a silo.
Singing salmon and other fishy tales
3rd April 2010
I am charmed by the Californian Indian tribe, the Winnemem, that journeyed to the Rakaia River to entice their salmon home with song and chant. If you missed this tale don’t worry, it will reappear shortly as an art house movie, a story of loss and renewal with achingly beautiful cinematography of moccasins and feathered headdresses and big skies over Rakaia.
It is easy to deride the Winnemem for having a childlike grip on reality. Local salmon possess no collective memory of their Californian origin and are unlikely to be charmed by music. But at the heart of this tale is a search for identity. The Winnemem’s pilgrimage sits alongside the journeys of young kiwis to Gallipoli or, aptly, the iconic status Maori give to the foreshore and seabed.
Another tale this week is the government’s appointment of commissioners to run Environment Canterbury. There is something fishy about this story too. Sacking a democratically elected body is not without precedent – Labour did it to the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board – but to enshrine the decision in legislation passed under urgency is suspicious. Something more is happening here than meets the eye.
The assertion of the environment minister, Nick Smith, that the public has lost confidence in ECan is too glib. Cantabrians who consider the scope of ECan’s work will be well satisfied with the progress made to improve air quality, manage waste water, provide public transport and promote environmental education.
ECan’s downfall has been its failure to resolve the water debate. Management of water in Canterbury has not been as broken as Mr Smith and others have been asserting in recent days, but clearly it is the cause of growing frustration.
The issue boils down to a conflict between developers and conservers, those who want to use more water, mainly for farming, and those who want more of it to remain in our lakes and rivers. ECan’s board reflected both interests in about equal measure, a frustrating situation but one that is entirely appropriate if you believe in democratic process.
Water is a fundamental resource for all of us and the big question hanging over this week’s events is whether the new commission will fairly represent all views.
One cause for doubt is the now-famous letter from the region’s mayors which forms the basis of the minister’s argument about public loss of confidence. Who authorised this letter? Was it debated in council before signing? Whose view does it represent?
These questions must be answered to allay a strong suspicion that the letter merely reflected the views of the mayors. Their position is vulnerable because the letter appears to be a Trojan horse for the government, albeit a flimsy Trojan horse for there is so much in this week’s events to indicate that the real drivers are corporate farmers and other development interests. Organisations supporting the conservation side of the debate clearly think so. They have been quick to raise concerns about the decision, while development interests are either supportive or unusually silent.
Conservers of water have reason for concern. The legislation enabling ECan’s board to be replaced by a commission also suspends the normal process of hearing water consents before a tribunal and the environment court. The immediate removal of the Hurunui River consents from this process is a strong indication of how the government wants this to play.
Nick Smith tells us the commissioners will be well qualified to sort out the problems and, anyway, all decisions are finally his to make. If that is so desirable why do we have an environment court? It may be convenient to replace public process with backroom deals and ministerial edicts, but it will not serve our interests.
We must wait at least three years before we can elect representatives to run ECan again. That’s a convenient length of time to get our water resources sorted out – or sewn up. Rakaia salmon might do well to heed the Winnemem’s invitation and get out while they still have a river to swim in.
3rd April 2010
I am charmed by the Californian Indian tribe, the Winnemem, that journeyed to the Rakaia River to entice their salmon home with song and chant. If you missed this tale don’t worry, it will reappear shortly as an art house movie, a story of loss and renewal with achingly beautiful cinematography of moccasins and feathered headdresses and big skies over Rakaia.
It is easy to deride the Winnemem for having a childlike grip on reality. Local salmon possess no collective memory of their Californian origin and are unlikely to be charmed by music. But at the heart of this tale is a search for identity. The Winnemem’s pilgrimage sits alongside the journeys of young kiwis to Gallipoli or, aptly, the iconic status Maori give to the foreshore and seabed.
Another tale this week is the government’s appointment of commissioners to run Environment Canterbury. There is something fishy about this story too. Sacking a democratically elected body is not without precedent – Labour did it to the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board – but to enshrine the decision in legislation passed under urgency is suspicious. Something more is happening here than meets the eye.
The assertion of the environment minister, Nick Smith, that the public has lost confidence in ECan is too glib. Cantabrians who consider the scope of ECan’s work will be well satisfied with the progress made to improve air quality, manage waste water, provide public transport and promote environmental education.
ECan’s downfall has been its failure to resolve the water debate. Management of water in Canterbury has not been as broken as Mr Smith and others have been asserting in recent days, but clearly it is the cause of growing frustration.
The issue boils down to a conflict between developers and conservers, those who want to use more water, mainly for farming, and those who want more of it to remain in our lakes and rivers. ECan’s board reflected both interests in about equal measure, a frustrating situation but one that is entirely appropriate if you believe in democratic process.
Water is a fundamental resource for all of us and the big question hanging over this week’s events is whether the new commission will fairly represent all views.
One cause for doubt is the now-famous letter from the region’s mayors which forms the basis of the minister’s argument about public loss of confidence. Who authorised this letter? Was it debated in council before signing? Whose view does it represent?
These questions must be answered to allay a strong suspicion that the letter merely reflected the views of the mayors. Their position is vulnerable because the letter appears to be a Trojan horse for the government, albeit a flimsy Trojan horse for there is so much in this week’s events to indicate that the real drivers are corporate farmers and other development interests. Organisations supporting the conservation side of the debate clearly think so. They have been quick to raise concerns about the decision, while development interests are either supportive or unusually silent.
Conservers of water have reason for concern. The legislation enabling ECan’s board to be replaced by a commission also suspends the normal process of hearing water consents before a tribunal and the environment court. The immediate removal of the Hurunui River consents from this process is a strong indication of how the government wants this to play.
Nick Smith tells us the commissioners will be well qualified to sort out the problems and, anyway, all decisions are finally his to make. If that is so desirable why do we have an environment court? It may be convenient to replace public process with backroom deals and ministerial edicts, but it will not serve our interests.
We must wait at least three years before we can elect representatives to run ECan again. That’s a convenient length of time to get our water resources sorted out – or sewn up. Rakaia salmon might do well to heed the Winnemem’s invitation and get out while they still have a river to swim in.
Cigarette price rise lifts the ash cloud
1st May 2010
As the ash cloud cleared over Europe this week it looks like another ash cloud may be lifting in this part of the world with the government deciding on a hefty rise in the price of cigarettes. If politics mirrors society the almost unanimous agreement in parliament showed how marginalised smoking has become.
Many of us already live in a virtually cigarette-less world. My home is smoke-free, my workplace is smoke-free, the public spaces I move in are smoke-free. My friends and acquaintances are almost all smoke-free. My life has got to the point that when I occasionally get close to a smoker I am acutely aware of the ash tray odour. My rare encounters with smokers are glimpses of strange, refugee-like creatures huddled in the doorways of office blocks, sucking greedy and guilty on their ‘smoko’ fags.
How times have changed. I grew up in a fog of cigarette smoke. My dad was a packet-a-day man who only quit when the habit killed him at 55. In those days smoking was generally regarded as being good for one’s health and almost everybody did it. Our houses, clothes, hair and breath all reeked of cigarette smoke – first or second hand. Halls, pubs and offices were littered with ash trays.
Although we have pushed the cloud to the margins many New Zealanders continue to live in a fog of tobacco. There are groups that seem beyond the reach of education programmes and peer pressure to quit – especially young Maori women, for some reason.
The government’s decision to use price as a mechanism for change is a genuine no-brainer, given that most smokers acquire the habit during those crucial few years of adolescence when we park our brains and operate on hormonal overdrive. With cigarettes now costing nearly a dollar a fag it is going to take just a little more determination for a 13 or 14 year old to start smoking.
Can we foresee the day when New Zealand becomes totally smoke-free? Imagine a world where the few remaining smokers are gathered into zoos for people to ogle and point at; where airlines offer weekend package trips to countries where smoking remains acceptable.
Australia will not be on their itinerary because our cousins hiked their own cigarette prices the day after us, and trumped us by enforcing a 25% price rise compared to our modest 10%. There’s more: Australia will also require cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging with brand names displayed in identical font sizes and types. The reasoning here is that branding is part of the attraction for young smokers. The only decoration allowed on cigarette packets will be the usual horror pictures of gelatinous eye-balls and festering teeth.
Following Australia’s lead there is scope for much more creativity in reducing the attractiveness of smoking. How about placing a small model of a diseased heart or eyeball on a spring under the lid of every cigarette packet? Or fitting all cigarettes with a tiny microchip that plays recorded warning messages when lit? It would take a hardened smoker to puff on a cigarette that’s berating him with comments like “I’m gonna kill ya, buddy,” or simply, “what the f*** do you think you’re doing?”
People who take up smoking never look before they leap but the government’s message is that they can anticipate the price of smokes continuing to rise. May the rise be steep and the grip of cigarettes around our throats become history.
And when we’ve seen off the ash cloud we can get to grips with that other unnatural disaster – the tide of alcohol that washes through our communities like the floodwaters lapping Queenstown’s main street. But that’s another story.
1st May 2010
As the ash cloud cleared over Europe this week it looks like another ash cloud may be lifting in this part of the world with the government deciding on a hefty rise in the price of cigarettes. If politics mirrors society the almost unanimous agreement in parliament showed how marginalised smoking has become.
Many of us already live in a virtually cigarette-less world. My home is smoke-free, my workplace is smoke-free, the public spaces I move in are smoke-free. My friends and acquaintances are almost all smoke-free. My life has got to the point that when I occasionally get close to a smoker I am acutely aware of the ash tray odour. My rare encounters with smokers are glimpses of strange, refugee-like creatures huddled in the doorways of office blocks, sucking greedy and guilty on their ‘smoko’ fags.
How times have changed. I grew up in a fog of cigarette smoke. My dad was a packet-a-day man who only quit when the habit killed him at 55. In those days smoking was generally regarded as being good for one’s health and almost everybody did it. Our houses, clothes, hair and breath all reeked of cigarette smoke – first or second hand. Halls, pubs and offices were littered with ash trays.
Although we have pushed the cloud to the margins many New Zealanders continue to live in a fog of tobacco. There are groups that seem beyond the reach of education programmes and peer pressure to quit – especially young Maori women, for some reason.
The government’s decision to use price as a mechanism for change is a genuine no-brainer, given that most smokers acquire the habit during those crucial few years of adolescence when we park our brains and operate on hormonal overdrive. With cigarettes now costing nearly a dollar a fag it is going to take just a little more determination for a 13 or 14 year old to start smoking.
Can we foresee the day when New Zealand becomes totally smoke-free? Imagine a world where the few remaining smokers are gathered into zoos for people to ogle and point at; where airlines offer weekend package trips to countries where smoking remains acceptable.
Australia will not be on their itinerary because our cousins hiked their own cigarette prices the day after us, and trumped us by enforcing a 25% price rise compared to our modest 10%. There’s more: Australia will also require cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging with brand names displayed in identical font sizes and types. The reasoning here is that branding is part of the attraction for young smokers. The only decoration allowed on cigarette packets will be the usual horror pictures of gelatinous eye-balls and festering teeth.
Following Australia’s lead there is scope for much more creativity in reducing the attractiveness of smoking. How about placing a small model of a diseased heart or eyeball on a spring under the lid of every cigarette packet? Or fitting all cigarettes with a tiny microchip that plays recorded warning messages when lit? It would take a hardened smoker to puff on a cigarette that’s berating him with comments like “I’m gonna kill ya, buddy,” or simply, “what the f*** do you think you’re doing?”
People who take up smoking never look before they leap but the government’s message is that they can anticipate the price of smokes continuing to rise. May the rise be steep and the grip of cigarettes around our throats become history.
And when we’ve seen off the ash cloud we can get to grips with that other unnatural disaster – the tide of alcohol that washes through our communities like the floodwaters lapping Queenstown’s main street. But that’s another story.
Monday, March 22, 2010
A bridge not far enough
20th March 2010
In September 1944 my father found himself swept up in the battle for Arnhem, the allied army’s great doomed attempt to hasten war’s end in Europe. Dad awoke one morning to the thunder of aircraft and the sight of hundreds of American paratroopers descending into his small Dutch village. Their objective was a bridge spanning a narrow canal, an unremarkable structure that momentarily assumed significance by lying along a road leading to the campaign’s prize, the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem, gateway to Hitler’s Germany.
Bridges matter. They dissolve barriers, disrupt borders, allow the mixing of ideas and commerce. They become hubs around which people gather, villages form, cities muster. A bridge defeats gravity, enables us to become airborne, to sail over insuperable barriers. Bridges can be pretty or plain but are always romantic, where we can gaze down upon water or lift our eyes to a broader horizon. Sometimes they are worth fighting over.
The battle for Arnhem achieved fame on the screen in Richard Attenborough’s movie A Bridge Too Far. This week has seen the opening shots of our own bridge epic with the announcement of the District Council’s plans for a second bridge over the Ashburton river, although for the residents of Carters Terrace and Grove Street it’s a matter of A Bridge Not Far Enough.
As a Carter’s Terrace resident myself I can report that the announcement has been met with howls of dismay at the leafy end of Tinwald. Querulous mutterings of “why us?” issue from Grove Street while up and down Wilkins Road household appliances are being sharpened into swords, or perhaps ploughshares.
To complete our discomfort Fulton Hogan descended upon Archibald Street on Wednesday in one of their periodic frenzies of disrepair, turning our sole means of egress into a chaos of shingle and orange plastic cones in arrangements that would baffle even our heroic young paralympian snowboarder. Tinwald has become an enclave, a Sarajevo of the south. From behind the lines I can report that the mood here swings between defiance and despair. In Grove Street there is talk of bunkers and barricades while on my own street there are dark rumours of “Carter’s last stand.”
To be honest the malcontents are confined to the immediate area lying in the path of the proposed bridge. Civic progress, so prized by us all in its generality, suddenly becomes malign when it settles its bulky shape across our driveway. After 25 years of free market dominance our view of democracy has become distorted. It’s fine as long as I get my own way but if it intrudes on my peace of mind or - God help us - my property values, look out! On these occasions my behaviour is reduced to a single, needle-sharp acronym – NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard!
Tonight the NIMBYs are gathering on Grove Street, determined to resist this damnable blight. What they fail to appreciate is that democracy, while occasionally noble (my father may have thought this as the paratroopers descended), is mostly a messy business of negotiating narrow self interest. Everything is NIMBY and somebody always loses.
How can I remain so philosophical as a resident of the afflicted zone? It’s simple: I happen to live a block further down Carters Terrace. Option D-E leaves me smiling. Had the council gone for option F – Thompson Street – I’d be banging my drum up and down Baring Square with the best of them.
My advice to the guerrillas of Grove Street is to be positive. Consider how the bridge will draw together Tinwald and Hampstead. It will allow trade to flourish between these two great districts. Cultural exchanges will bring line dancing south of the river while we in turn will introduce our Hampstead cousins to Tinwald’s colourful drinking customs.
In time some of us may marry our daughters to the noble families of Chalmers Avenue and Eton Street, cementing bonds of brotherhood that will ring through the ages. Happy thoughts!
And if plummeting property values destroy our equity be comforted that it will also lower our rates.
On the other hand there will be the small matter of paying for a bridge…
20th March 2010
In September 1944 my father found himself swept up in the battle for Arnhem, the allied army’s great doomed attempt to hasten war’s end in Europe. Dad awoke one morning to the thunder of aircraft and the sight of hundreds of American paratroopers descending into his small Dutch village. Their objective was a bridge spanning a narrow canal, an unremarkable structure that momentarily assumed significance by lying along a road leading to the campaign’s prize, the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem, gateway to Hitler’s Germany.
Bridges matter. They dissolve barriers, disrupt borders, allow the mixing of ideas and commerce. They become hubs around which people gather, villages form, cities muster. A bridge defeats gravity, enables us to become airborne, to sail over insuperable barriers. Bridges can be pretty or plain but are always romantic, where we can gaze down upon water or lift our eyes to a broader horizon. Sometimes they are worth fighting over.
The battle for Arnhem achieved fame on the screen in Richard Attenborough’s movie A Bridge Too Far. This week has seen the opening shots of our own bridge epic with the announcement of the District Council’s plans for a second bridge over the Ashburton river, although for the residents of Carters Terrace and Grove Street it’s a matter of A Bridge Not Far Enough.
As a Carter’s Terrace resident myself I can report that the announcement has been met with howls of dismay at the leafy end of Tinwald. Querulous mutterings of “why us?” issue from Grove Street while up and down Wilkins Road household appliances are being sharpened into swords, or perhaps ploughshares.
To complete our discomfort Fulton Hogan descended upon Archibald Street on Wednesday in one of their periodic frenzies of disrepair, turning our sole means of egress into a chaos of shingle and orange plastic cones in arrangements that would baffle even our heroic young paralympian snowboarder. Tinwald has become an enclave, a Sarajevo of the south. From behind the lines I can report that the mood here swings between defiance and despair. In Grove Street there is talk of bunkers and barricades while on my own street there are dark rumours of “Carter’s last stand.”
To be honest the malcontents are confined to the immediate area lying in the path of the proposed bridge. Civic progress, so prized by us all in its generality, suddenly becomes malign when it settles its bulky shape across our driveway. After 25 years of free market dominance our view of democracy has become distorted. It’s fine as long as I get my own way but if it intrudes on my peace of mind or - God help us - my property values, look out! On these occasions my behaviour is reduced to a single, needle-sharp acronym – NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard!
Tonight the NIMBYs are gathering on Grove Street, determined to resist this damnable blight. What they fail to appreciate is that democracy, while occasionally noble (my father may have thought this as the paratroopers descended), is mostly a messy business of negotiating narrow self interest. Everything is NIMBY and somebody always loses.
How can I remain so philosophical as a resident of the afflicted zone? It’s simple: I happen to live a block further down Carters Terrace. Option D-E leaves me smiling. Had the council gone for option F – Thompson Street – I’d be banging my drum up and down Baring Square with the best of them.
My advice to the guerrillas of Grove Street is to be positive. Consider how the bridge will draw together Tinwald and Hampstead. It will allow trade to flourish between these two great districts. Cultural exchanges will bring line dancing south of the river while we in turn will introduce our Hampstead cousins to Tinwald’s colourful drinking customs.
In time some of us may marry our daughters to the noble families of Chalmers Avenue and Eton Street, cementing bonds of brotherhood that will ring through the ages. Happy thoughts!
And if plummeting property values destroy our equity be comforted that it will also lower our rates.
On the other hand there will be the small matter of paying for a bridge…
Monday, March 08, 2010
Weight Watchers in a bun fight
6th March 2010
Dieters have rushed to defend the decision by Weight Watchers to approve several McDonalds’ popular meal items. The move, which allows the fat-conscious to clip their ticket under the golden arches for the first time, has been scorned by dieticians and sundry other spoilsports but Weight Watchers clients give it the thumbs up.
Tracy (name withheld), a Weight Watchers client, was revelling in her first visit to Ashburton McDonalds last night. “Oh, this is like heaven! Y’know, I was never allowed into this place and used to hang outside while my friends came in. They’d pass me a couple of fries through the window and then I’d be over my points and I’d be so upset I’d go home and eat half a loaf of fried bread.”
McDonalds and Weight Watchers have worked secretly for over a year to develop the low-calorie meals. There are several items, from burgers to salads, all with catchy titles drawn from the boxing lexicon. We found Rachel (real name Beryl Flutey, from Dunsandel) tucking into a McFeatherweight burger and McFlyweight salad. “Well it’s basically a chicken burger with some feathers in it. I think the feathers kind of stop you from wanting to eat it all so it keeps your points down. And the salad’s called the Fly-thingee because it’s so light. I don’t think it actually has any flies in it.”
McDonalds’ food development manager, Bill ‘Tupper’ Knight, says the breakthrough was in the cooking oil. “We were experimenting with different kinds of low-cal oils and eventually stumbled on a linseed-based furniture polish. It’s a good hot cooker and it also makes the food really shiny, which is good from the marketing side.”
Weight Watchers believes the move will give it an edge in the increasingly competitive dieting industry. Difficult economic times and dieter turn-off had seen a slump in the sales of its own branded diet meals. Tracy agrees that the Weight Watchers meals are hard to stomach. “Honestly, I used to eat them at work because all the girls did and, y’know, you don’t want to be left out. But there’s a limit to the amount of shaved cardboard and tiny designer tomatoes you can put up with.”
Rachel agrees. “They taste like crap and they don’t really work. I’ve been dieting for 22 years and if I’d met all my targets I’d be, like, 18 kilos by now.”
“Same,” says Tracy, “and I’m still, y’know, really short too. So I may as well enjoy myself.”
Critics say the move will place dieters under pressure. “McDonalds is the evil empire for people trying to lose weight,” argues Chris P. Wafer of Sweet Fatties Anonymous. “Sending dieters into McDonalds is like setting up a chocolate wheel in a casino and telling all the compulsive gamblers they can go in there safely and use it.”
Weight Watchers claims the strategy marks a shift in the fight against obesity. In a press release it argues, “for too long we have told dieters to stay away from the temptation of fatty food. But the reality of daily life is that we live in a high-cal world. It’s important that dieters are exposed to temptation and are supported to rise above it with some safe food options.”
Chris P. Wafer rubbishes this argument. “Here at Sweet FA we believe this move is like setting up a soda stream in a public bar and telling all the alcoholics they can go in there safely and use it.”
Rachel has no problem with the temptation to eat McDonalds regular food items. “Yeah, of course I will. I mean I’ve eaten the healthy things so my diet’s sweet and now I can get into this apple pie. And I’ll need a thick shake to wash down the feathers.”
The move has attracted wide interest from other sectors. Gambling support groups and Alcoholics Anonymous are reported to be investing in chocolate wheels and soda streams.
6th March 2010
Dieters have rushed to defend the decision by Weight Watchers to approve several McDonalds’ popular meal items. The move, which allows the fat-conscious to clip their ticket under the golden arches for the first time, has been scorned by dieticians and sundry other spoilsports but Weight Watchers clients give it the thumbs up.
Tracy (name withheld), a Weight Watchers client, was revelling in her first visit to Ashburton McDonalds last night. “Oh, this is like heaven! Y’know, I was never allowed into this place and used to hang outside while my friends came in. They’d pass me a couple of fries through the window and then I’d be over my points and I’d be so upset I’d go home and eat half a loaf of fried bread.”
McDonalds and Weight Watchers have worked secretly for over a year to develop the low-calorie meals. There are several items, from burgers to salads, all with catchy titles drawn from the boxing lexicon. We found Rachel (real name Beryl Flutey, from Dunsandel) tucking into a McFeatherweight burger and McFlyweight salad. “Well it’s basically a chicken burger with some feathers in it. I think the feathers kind of stop you from wanting to eat it all so it keeps your points down. And the salad’s called the Fly-thingee because it’s so light. I don’t think it actually has any flies in it.”
McDonalds’ food development manager, Bill ‘Tupper’ Knight, says the breakthrough was in the cooking oil. “We were experimenting with different kinds of low-cal oils and eventually stumbled on a linseed-based furniture polish. It’s a good hot cooker and it also makes the food really shiny, which is good from the marketing side.”
Weight Watchers believes the move will give it an edge in the increasingly competitive dieting industry. Difficult economic times and dieter turn-off had seen a slump in the sales of its own branded diet meals. Tracy agrees that the Weight Watchers meals are hard to stomach. “Honestly, I used to eat them at work because all the girls did and, y’know, you don’t want to be left out. But there’s a limit to the amount of shaved cardboard and tiny designer tomatoes you can put up with.”
Rachel agrees. “They taste like crap and they don’t really work. I’ve been dieting for 22 years and if I’d met all my targets I’d be, like, 18 kilos by now.”
“Same,” says Tracy, “and I’m still, y’know, really short too. So I may as well enjoy myself.”
Critics say the move will place dieters under pressure. “McDonalds is the evil empire for people trying to lose weight,” argues Chris P. Wafer of Sweet Fatties Anonymous. “Sending dieters into McDonalds is like setting up a chocolate wheel in a casino and telling all the compulsive gamblers they can go in there safely and use it.”
Weight Watchers claims the strategy marks a shift in the fight against obesity. In a press release it argues, “for too long we have told dieters to stay away from the temptation of fatty food. But the reality of daily life is that we live in a high-cal world. It’s important that dieters are exposed to temptation and are supported to rise above it with some safe food options.”
Chris P. Wafer rubbishes this argument. “Here at Sweet FA we believe this move is like setting up a soda stream in a public bar and telling all the alcoholics they can go in there safely and use it.”
Rachel has no problem with the temptation to eat McDonalds regular food items. “Yeah, of course I will. I mean I’ve eaten the healthy things so my diet’s sweet and now I can get into this apple pie. And I’ll need a thick shake to wash down the feathers.”
The move has attracted wide interest from other sectors. Gambling support groups and Alcoholics Anonymous are reported to be investing in chocolate wheels and soda streams.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Toyota takes a dive
20th February 2010
A year ago we bought a Toyota Corolla. It’s a beauty – sleek, comfortable, drives like a million bucks and, according to the Dog and Lemon Guide, as safe as houses. In the past fortnight mounting revelations of faulty brakes, dodgy steering and sticky accelerators have made my Toyota seem as safe as a house in Haiti. I look at it sideways. What tiny menace lurks beneath its smooth features? What miniscule distortion of metal, what nano-slip of engineering mars a cable or lever or rod, biding its time, waiting to pitch me off the road?
I hesitate to read a newspaper or watch the news, fearful of further stories about my marred Corolla. Have the airbags been holed? Will the cigarette lighter explode?
I note with interest, and unease, that Toyota’s executives have decided, after a short interval of denial, to get everything off their chests. They are almost tripping over themselves in their rush to reveal the faults in their fleet, wisely realising that now the media is hunting them it will all come out anyway. They are wonderfully measured in their debasement of themselves, falling on their swords with the naked formality unique to Japan.
Interestingly, as the world’s most trusted car maker sinks to its knees it drags with it a host of lesser known but equally important businesses. One of these is Koito Industries. Koito is part of a group of companies that earn their living making components for Toyota and other companies. As far as I know Koito doesn’t make the sticky accelerators or slippery brakes that may or may not be fitted to my Corolla but it possesses a marvellous little scandal that is an intriguing sidebar to the Toyota story.
Koito makes aircraft seats. It sells them to airline companies all over the world and you are sure to have sat on its products. The airline industry has very strict rules about the safety of its seats. Each seat must be tested for strength and fireproofing. A few years ago there was so much demand for its aircraft seats a few of Koito’s engineers decided they didn’t have time to test each seat. They fabricated test results and even developed software that produced acceptable results when industry inspectors came to call.
There are now 150,000 suspect seats winging around the world in over 1,000 Boeing and Airbus planes. I’m sure I’ve sat in a few – they’re the ones that wobble and feel lumpy. Or was that just the inflight peanuts?
Koito’s dodginess creates a big problem for the airline industry, which is far more readily spooked than the car business by any taint of poor safety. Replacing or checking the safety of the seats will take time. In the meantime grounding every aircraft fitted with the dodgy seats would ruin half a dozen of the world’s biggest operators.
Airline companies are scrambling for strategies to reassure passengers they remain safe despite the risk of their seat falling apart beneath them. Some have suggested passengers should remain standing throughout their flight. Safety information has been modified to include advice about new brace positions for collapsing furniture. It is reported that budget airlines are considering ripping out all seats and requiring passengers to bring their own chair or sit on the floor. Early trials of this strategy led to problems with unbalanced aircraft as groups of passengers clustered together to play cards and complaints that passengers were looking up the skirts of cabin crew.
In Japan Koito Industries has been placed under an official improvement order – the industrial equivalent of home detention – while Toyota bandages its reputation. And as I nervously drive my Corolla to the airport I wonder if the seats on the aircraft will have been replaced by rows of beer crates.
20th February 2010
A year ago we bought a Toyota Corolla. It’s a beauty – sleek, comfortable, drives like a million bucks and, according to the Dog and Lemon Guide, as safe as houses. In the past fortnight mounting revelations of faulty brakes, dodgy steering and sticky accelerators have made my Toyota seem as safe as a house in Haiti. I look at it sideways. What tiny menace lurks beneath its smooth features? What miniscule distortion of metal, what nano-slip of engineering mars a cable or lever or rod, biding its time, waiting to pitch me off the road?
I hesitate to read a newspaper or watch the news, fearful of further stories about my marred Corolla. Have the airbags been holed? Will the cigarette lighter explode?
I note with interest, and unease, that Toyota’s executives have decided, after a short interval of denial, to get everything off their chests. They are almost tripping over themselves in their rush to reveal the faults in their fleet, wisely realising that now the media is hunting them it will all come out anyway. They are wonderfully measured in their debasement of themselves, falling on their swords with the naked formality unique to Japan.
Interestingly, as the world’s most trusted car maker sinks to its knees it drags with it a host of lesser known but equally important businesses. One of these is Koito Industries. Koito is part of a group of companies that earn their living making components for Toyota and other companies. As far as I know Koito doesn’t make the sticky accelerators or slippery brakes that may or may not be fitted to my Corolla but it possesses a marvellous little scandal that is an intriguing sidebar to the Toyota story.
Koito makes aircraft seats. It sells them to airline companies all over the world and you are sure to have sat on its products. The airline industry has very strict rules about the safety of its seats. Each seat must be tested for strength and fireproofing. A few years ago there was so much demand for its aircraft seats a few of Koito’s engineers decided they didn’t have time to test each seat. They fabricated test results and even developed software that produced acceptable results when industry inspectors came to call.
There are now 150,000 suspect seats winging around the world in over 1,000 Boeing and Airbus planes. I’m sure I’ve sat in a few – they’re the ones that wobble and feel lumpy. Or was that just the inflight peanuts?
Koito’s dodginess creates a big problem for the airline industry, which is far more readily spooked than the car business by any taint of poor safety. Replacing or checking the safety of the seats will take time. In the meantime grounding every aircraft fitted with the dodgy seats would ruin half a dozen of the world’s biggest operators.
Airline companies are scrambling for strategies to reassure passengers they remain safe despite the risk of their seat falling apart beneath them. Some have suggested passengers should remain standing throughout their flight. Safety information has been modified to include advice about new brace positions for collapsing furniture. It is reported that budget airlines are considering ripping out all seats and requiring passengers to bring their own chair or sit on the floor. Early trials of this strategy led to problems with unbalanced aircraft as groups of passengers clustered together to play cards and complaints that passengers were looking up the skirts of cabin crew.
In Japan Koito Industries has been placed under an official improvement order – the industrial equivalent of home detention – while Toyota bandages its reputation. And as I nervously drive my Corolla to the airport I wonder if the seats on the aircraft will have been replaced by rows of beer crates.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Why National Standards worry teachers
6th February 2010
As children returned to school this week a major reform of education was launched. It was the New Zealand Curriculum, the result of years of careful development, consultation and training. It is a unique document to bring New Zealand education into the 21st century. Teachers, principals and Boards of Trustees are excited about its potential.
The launch of the new curriculum has of course been completely overshadowed by the introduction of National Standards. This is no surprise considering the government’s determination that National Standards, not the Curriculum, will be the most important educational change in 20 years.
Debate around National Standards puzzles the public. Why are government and teachers at odds over a policy that seems so obviously good for children? Surely it’s a no-brainer to want to know how your child is achieving against a standard and to have that information reported in plain language?
So why the fuss? John Key tells us the opponents of National Standards are just grumpy teacher unions defending a vested interest in keeping their members comfortable. In fact concerns about the Standards began among academics and include a growing number of school Boards and at least one of Mr Key’s own cabinet ministers.
The most immediate concern is that the Standards have not been trialled. The government’s haste to implement an election promise saw National Standards written and introduced within twelve months, a timeframe that made a mockery of consultation and a stark contrast to the introduction of the New Zealand Curriculum.
The roll out of NCEA into secondary schools should have taught us the errors of introducing complex change without sufficient trial. The fact is we don’t know how well the Standards reflect what children can achieve. They draw together a range of assessment methods currently used in schools but not designed to work together to make a definitive (or simplistic) generalisation about a child’s achievement against a National Standard.
Another concern is lack of training. Teachers are experts in assessing children’s learning but the government believes too many are not up to scratch. Unfortunately this is not matched with resources for implementing National Standards. The $26 million announced this week for teacher development, along with a similar sum announced last year, are to support poorly performing schools identified by National Standards results. As this information will not be available until 2012 it is hard to see how the money will be allocated. In the meantime, apart from some on-line resources, most schools are receiving no support.
A grave concern of teachers is that data showing how their school performs will eventually be available for the media to construct league tables. The concern springs not from fear of accountability but from the real damage league tables do to student achievement.
The threat in league tables stems from the tendency of National Standards to become minimum standards. Schools under pressure to look good in the league table will devote their resources to lifting the greatest number of children up to the bar. This means they will concentrate on children just below the Standard, to the neglect of those above or well below. So both the bright and the most needy children suffer, with the ironic result that National Standards produces the very mediocrity and inequity it aims to eradicate.
This has been the experience in Britain and the USA. Both countries are now scrambling to extricate themselves from the disasters of high-stakes assessment. Anne Tolley claims we will not reproduce their mistakes because we have not opted for a single national test, but the danger lies not in how children are tested but in the use of the data to create league tables.
Teachers are frustrated by the Minister’s determination to make our education system appear broken. Mrs Tolley creates the impression that National Standards fill a gaping void. This is far from the truth. Teachers already know who is not achieving and are working effectively to support those children, often in the most trying conditions.
Mrs Tolley justifies her policies by repeating that 20% of students are failing. What she means is that currently 20% of students fail to achieve literacy and numeracy standards at University Entrance level (NCEA level 2). This figure has been dropping for some time and those groups at greatest risk of failure, Maori and Pasifika students, are already the focus of a range of interventions.
Education in New Zealand is world class, our teachers are professional and open to change. If the government agreed to trial National Standards and to legislate against league tables the opposition would largely vanish. Is that too much to ask?
Peter Verstappen
6th February 2010
6th February 2010
As children returned to school this week a major reform of education was launched. It was the New Zealand Curriculum, the result of years of careful development, consultation and training. It is a unique document to bring New Zealand education into the 21st century. Teachers, principals and Boards of Trustees are excited about its potential.
The launch of the new curriculum has of course been completely overshadowed by the introduction of National Standards. This is no surprise considering the government’s determination that National Standards, not the Curriculum, will be the most important educational change in 20 years.
Debate around National Standards puzzles the public. Why are government and teachers at odds over a policy that seems so obviously good for children? Surely it’s a no-brainer to want to know how your child is achieving against a standard and to have that information reported in plain language?
So why the fuss? John Key tells us the opponents of National Standards are just grumpy teacher unions defending a vested interest in keeping their members comfortable. In fact concerns about the Standards began among academics and include a growing number of school Boards and at least one of Mr Key’s own cabinet ministers.
The most immediate concern is that the Standards have not been trialled. The government’s haste to implement an election promise saw National Standards written and introduced within twelve months, a timeframe that made a mockery of consultation and a stark contrast to the introduction of the New Zealand Curriculum.
The roll out of NCEA into secondary schools should have taught us the errors of introducing complex change without sufficient trial. The fact is we don’t know how well the Standards reflect what children can achieve. They draw together a range of assessment methods currently used in schools but not designed to work together to make a definitive (or simplistic) generalisation about a child’s achievement against a National Standard.
Another concern is lack of training. Teachers are experts in assessing children’s learning but the government believes too many are not up to scratch. Unfortunately this is not matched with resources for implementing National Standards. The $26 million announced this week for teacher development, along with a similar sum announced last year, are to support poorly performing schools identified by National Standards results. As this information will not be available until 2012 it is hard to see how the money will be allocated. In the meantime, apart from some on-line resources, most schools are receiving no support.
A grave concern of teachers is that data showing how their school performs will eventually be available for the media to construct league tables. The concern springs not from fear of accountability but from the real damage league tables do to student achievement.
The threat in league tables stems from the tendency of National Standards to become minimum standards. Schools under pressure to look good in the league table will devote their resources to lifting the greatest number of children up to the bar. This means they will concentrate on children just below the Standard, to the neglect of those above or well below. So both the bright and the most needy children suffer, with the ironic result that National Standards produces the very mediocrity and inequity it aims to eradicate.
This has been the experience in Britain and the USA. Both countries are now scrambling to extricate themselves from the disasters of high-stakes assessment. Anne Tolley claims we will not reproduce their mistakes because we have not opted for a single national test, but the danger lies not in how children are tested but in the use of the data to create league tables.
Teachers are frustrated by the Minister’s determination to make our education system appear broken. Mrs Tolley creates the impression that National Standards fill a gaping void. This is far from the truth. Teachers already know who is not achieving and are working effectively to support those children, often in the most trying conditions.
Mrs Tolley justifies her policies by repeating that 20% of students are failing. What she means is that currently 20% of students fail to achieve literacy and numeracy standards at University Entrance level (NCEA level 2). This figure has been dropping for some time and those groups at greatest risk of failure, Maori and Pasifika students, are already the focus of a range of interventions.
Education in New Zealand is world class, our teachers are professional and open to change. If the government agreed to trial National Standards and to legislate against league tables the opposition would largely vanish. Is that too much to ask?
Peter Verstappen
6th February 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Fronting up to our grandchildren
23rd January 2010
January’s post brings a flurry of requests to renew annual subscriptions, mostly for environmental causes that we support in small ways.
But January’s news carries a raft of stories from the environmental frontline that are frankly despairing. Here are a few.
In Sweden authorities have revived wolf hunting. Wolf numbers have risen and 21 will be allowed to be slaughtered this season. The total number of wolves in Sweden is just 217.
Wildlife organisations across Asia are struggling to protect the remaining 3,000 tigers alive in the wild. Of the nine sub-species of tiger, three are officially extinct and a fourth probably so, leaving remnant populations of just a few hundred of each of the remaining five sub-species.
Four of the world’s eight white rhinos were flown from a zoo in the Czech Republic to a wildlife park in Kenya, in a last-ditch effort to stimulate breeding.
These and other stories lend a gallows humour to the UN’s designation of 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity.
Scientists have identified two episodes of mass species extinction since life began on earth – one of these included the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs. The causes of these events remain speculative, from rampant viruses to cataclysmic climate change as the result of volcanic activity or large meteorite impact.
Today we find ourselves in the midst of a third mass species extinction, but the cause of this one is obvious. It is human activity.
The market economy, which has miraculously transformed human existence, has been catastrophic for almost every other life form on the planet. Thousands of species of plants and animals have already vanished or will do so very soon, with consequences for the survivors that we cannot imagine.
Some species become extinct because they attract market value. A tiger is currently worth $US50,000, an irresistible sum for a poacher, and the market’s response to scarcity almost guarantees its extinction. Can you imagine the value of the final tiger?
Other species vanish because they command nil, or marginal, market value. Tropical rainforests, the planet’s nurseries for species survival, are rapidly disappearing because their sustainability is worth less than using the land to grow hamburger patties and soy beans.
New Zealand’s loss of species has also largely been the result of habitat destruction or the introduction of predators. Although we no longer knock down large areas of native forest we continue to plunder our least spoiled domains (developing dairy farms in the McKenzie Basin) and constantly ratchet up the pressure on already heavily-exploited environments, like Canterbury’s waterways and wetlands. Ominously, we learn nothing from either our own mistakes or the disasters of others.
The environmental causes I support are all worthwhile, and sometimes extraordinary. Sadly the scale of the disaster forces tough choices and most organisations opt for saving iconic species, knowing the public will dig deeper for the kiwi than for a native fish or frog. I notice a growing acceptance that it is too late to save much of the world’s wildlife in its natural habitat. In a few short years the ‘wild’ will have vanished, so efforts turn to creating sanctuaries, tiny arks of hope for small remnant populations. New Zealand has some remarkable sanctuaries, like Codfish Island in Foveaux Strait, a predator-free bolthole for kakapo.
But the cost and commitment of managing sanctuaries is enormous. Zealandia, a 225ha reserve in Wellington, costs $2million a year, much of this to maintain the 8.6km predator-proof fence. Zealandia has a 500 year plan to restore the sanctuary to a state that existed ‘the day before humans arrived.’ This means finding $2million a year forever.
Locally I support Te Ara Kakariki – Greenway Canterbury – an initiative to develop a patchwork of native bush across the plains, enabling the revival of bird and insect populations.
Each January I renew my commitment and my subscriptions, not with much hope that we can avoid environmental disaster, but so I have at least some reply to my grandchildren when they ask ‘what did you do to keep the world intact for us?’
What will you say to your grandchildren?
23rd January 2010
January’s post brings a flurry of requests to renew annual subscriptions, mostly for environmental causes that we support in small ways.
But January’s news carries a raft of stories from the environmental frontline that are frankly despairing. Here are a few.
In Sweden authorities have revived wolf hunting. Wolf numbers have risen and 21 will be allowed to be slaughtered this season. The total number of wolves in Sweden is just 217.
Wildlife organisations across Asia are struggling to protect the remaining 3,000 tigers alive in the wild. Of the nine sub-species of tiger, three are officially extinct and a fourth probably so, leaving remnant populations of just a few hundred of each of the remaining five sub-species.
Four of the world’s eight white rhinos were flown from a zoo in the Czech Republic to a wildlife park in Kenya, in a last-ditch effort to stimulate breeding.
These and other stories lend a gallows humour to the UN’s designation of 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity.
Scientists have identified two episodes of mass species extinction since life began on earth – one of these included the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs. The causes of these events remain speculative, from rampant viruses to cataclysmic climate change as the result of volcanic activity or large meteorite impact.
Today we find ourselves in the midst of a third mass species extinction, but the cause of this one is obvious. It is human activity.
The market economy, which has miraculously transformed human existence, has been catastrophic for almost every other life form on the planet. Thousands of species of plants and animals have already vanished or will do so very soon, with consequences for the survivors that we cannot imagine.
Some species become extinct because they attract market value. A tiger is currently worth $US50,000, an irresistible sum for a poacher, and the market’s response to scarcity almost guarantees its extinction. Can you imagine the value of the final tiger?
Other species vanish because they command nil, or marginal, market value. Tropical rainforests, the planet’s nurseries for species survival, are rapidly disappearing because their sustainability is worth less than using the land to grow hamburger patties and soy beans.
New Zealand’s loss of species has also largely been the result of habitat destruction or the introduction of predators. Although we no longer knock down large areas of native forest we continue to plunder our least spoiled domains (developing dairy farms in the McKenzie Basin) and constantly ratchet up the pressure on already heavily-exploited environments, like Canterbury’s waterways and wetlands. Ominously, we learn nothing from either our own mistakes or the disasters of others.
The environmental causes I support are all worthwhile, and sometimes extraordinary. Sadly the scale of the disaster forces tough choices and most organisations opt for saving iconic species, knowing the public will dig deeper for the kiwi than for a native fish or frog. I notice a growing acceptance that it is too late to save much of the world’s wildlife in its natural habitat. In a few short years the ‘wild’ will have vanished, so efforts turn to creating sanctuaries, tiny arks of hope for small remnant populations. New Zealand has some remarkable sanctuaries, like Codfish Island in Foveaux Strait, a predator-free bolthole for kakapo.
But the cost and commitment of managing sanctuaries is enormous. Zealandia, a 225ha reserve in Wellington, costs $2million a year, much of this to maintain the 8.6km predator-proof fence. Zealandia has a 500 year plan to restore the sanctuary to a state that existed ‘the day before humans arrived.’ This means finding $2million a year forever.
Locally I support Te Ara Kakariki – Greenway Canterbury – an initiative to develop a patchwork of native bush across the plains, enabling the revival of bird and insect populations.
Each January I renew my commitment and my subscriptions, not with much hope that we can avoid environmental disaster, but so I have at least some reply to my grandchildren when they ask ‘what did you do to keep the world intact for us?’
What will you say to your grandchildren?
Friday, January 01, 2010
Dr Robert presents a Christmas mystery
26the December 2009
The tides of Christmas have washed me into a strange backwater. I awake this Boxing Day morning to find myself cast ashore on the bank of the Wanganui River, a houseguest of Dr Robert.
Our presence in Wanganui is explicable in the ebb and flow of families. Years ago my brother John moved here and after many Christmas journeys to Canterbury with his family we have decided to return the favour.
Wanganui suffers more bad press than most towns - drive-by shootings, gang patches, Michael Laws and that confounded ‘H.’ In reality it is delightful, warmed by a climate that allows banana plants and bougainvillea to flourish. It is a town that seems to attract a greater than usual share of the bohemian, judging by the number of quirky bookshops and galleries and by the company at my sister-in-law’s work party the other night.
Our residence at Dr Robert’s is a small piece of uniquely kiwi theatre. With John’s house fully booked by siblings and grandparents we sought alternative accommodation. He put the word out that we were looking for a house. A mate at the rowing club mentioned a friend who might have something. The friend said no, he didn’t, but he knew a neighbour whose wife’s ex had left for Australia and his house was empty. And so here we are, guests of Dr Robert, a man we never knew existed until last Wednesday, a man we will likely never meet and yet whose life is laid bare to us.
This is a most unusual house, a crumbling wooden villa that has been tweaked and fiddled with until it is practically uninhabitable. It perches high above the Wanganui River, which, although still several kilometres from the sea, is rendered brown and purposeless in the grip of tide. The river squats like a Louisiana bayou.
The property too has a faded southern beauty. The house, aging and mildewed, sags on its haunches while the garden, acres of it, creeps and coils around it like a Tennessee Williams protagonist. Vines entangle ancient fruit trees and weeds rush through the gaps in the wooden deck. A collection of plant pots, fifty or more, gasp for breath on the terrace, their contents long desiccated.
There is, indeed, a mystery here. For Dr Robert has vanished. According to the neighbour (whose wife’s ‘ex’ Dr Robert is – or was) he simply walked out with wife and child. They say he is in Australia but the material part of his existence remains here.
The place is like an apocalypse movie where humankind has vanished without trace, taking nothing. Shoes and soft toys bestrew the front porch, beds are unmade or the covers hastily pulled across the sheets. A set of keys lies on the television. A blue towel is cast, crumpled, on the bathroom floor.
Kitchen drawers brim with cutlery and plates. The pantry is stocked, only perishable food has been removed. Children’s drawings decorate the refrigerator. In the master bedroom the curtains are drawn and there is a smell of gas.
Photos on the hall table show Dr Robert as a tall, well-built bearded man of about 60, unsmiling, his arm around the slender waist of his much younger Thai wife (a replacement for the earlier wife who came to prefer the neighbour). He wears a navy blue 3-piece suit, the waistcoat a little strained. She leans into him, one hand across his stomach, smiling radiantly.
Sylvia, unsurprisingly, is spooked by the house and would have refused to stay had there not been an adjoining flat that is clean, sunny and altogether less revealing of the lives of Dr Robert and his family.
Why did they leave? Where have they gone? What will become of this place? Will Dr Robert return or will the house and its contents collapse into ennui?
I have found only one clue to the mystery. Somebody has stuck a piece of A4 paper to the fridge with the inscription, in gothic text, “when you realise you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.” In this house the words have endless possibilities.
26the December 2009
The tides of Christmas have washed me into a strange backwater. I awake this Boxing Day morning to find myself cast ashore on the bank of the Wanganui River, a houseguest of Dr Robert.
Our presence in Wanganui is explicable in the ebb and flow of families. Years ago my brother John moved here and after many Christmas journeys to Canterbury with his family we have decided to return the favour.
Wanganui suffers more bad press than most towns - drive-by shootings, gang patches, Michael Laws and that confounded ‘H.’ In reality it is delightful, warmed by a climate that allows banana plants and bougainvillea to flourish. It is a town that seems to attract a greater than usual share of the bohemian, judging by the number of quirky bookshops and galleries and by the company at my sister-in-law’s work party the other night.
Our residence at Dr Robert’s is a small piece of uniquely kiwi theatre. With John’s house fully booked by siblings and grandparents we sought alternative accommodation. He put the word out that we were looking for a house. A mate at the rowing club mentioned a friend who might have something. The friend said no, he didn’t, but he knew a neighbour whose wife’s ex had left for Australia and his house was empty. And so here we are, guests of Dr Robert, a man we never knew existed until last Wednesday, a man we will likely never meet and yet whose life is laid bare to us.
This is a most unusual house, a crumbling wooden villa that has been tweaked and fiddled with until it is practically uninhabitable. It perches high above the Wanganui River, which, although still several kilometres from the sea, is rendered brown and purposeless in the grip of tide. The river squats like a Louisiana bayou.
The property too has a faded southern beauty. The house, aging and mildewed, sags on its haunches while the garden, acres of it, creeps and coils around it like a Tennessee Williams protagonist. Vines entangle ancient fruit trees and weeds rush through the gaps in the wooden deck. A collection of plant pots, fifty or more, gasp for breath on the terrace, their contents long desiccated.
There is, indeed, a mystery here. For Dr Robert has vanished. According to the neighbour (whose wife’s ‘ex’ Dr Robert is – or was) he simply walked out with wife and child. They say he is in Australia but the material part of his existence remains here.
The place is like an apocalypse movie where humankind has vanished without trace, taking nothing. Shoes and soft toys bestrew the front porch, beds are unmade or the covers hastily pulled across the sheets. A set of keys lies on the television. A blue towel is cast, crumpled, on the bathroom floor.
Kitchen drawers brim with cutlery and plates. The pantry is stocked, only perishable food has been removed. Children’s drawings decorate the refrigerator. In the master bedroom the curtains are drawn and there is a smell of gas.
Photos on the hall table show Dr Robert as a tall, well-built bearded man of about 60, unsmiling, his arm around the slender waist of his much younger Thai wife (a replacement for the earlier wife who came to prefer the neighbour). He wears a navy blue 3-piece suit, the waistcoat a little strained. She leans into him, one hand across his stomach, smiling radiantly.
Sylvia, unsurprisingly, is spooked by the house and would have refused to stay had there not been an adjoining flat that is clean, sunny and altogether less revealing of the lives of Dr Robert and his family.
Why did they leave? Where have they gone? What will become of this place? Will Dr Robert return or will the house and its contents collapse into ennui?
I have found only one clue to the mystery. Somebody has stuck a piece of A4 paper to the fridge with the inscription, in gothic text, “when you realise you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.” In this house the words have endless possibilities.
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