If I were a carpenter

I miss George W. Bush.
I miss Helen Clark.
I miss Hone.
The heart has been ripped out of Fryday by their departure from the political scene. Elsewhere, writing about Hamilton has become almost as boring as the city itself. Len Brown remains a cheap shot but is already shot, everybody knows it. Whetu, I think, has gone back to prison.
Fryday has nothing to write about.
Except our Canadian-born ambassador for New Zealand Eleanor Catton.
I know it is opportunistic. And I know her remarks are largely a media beat up.  But that doesn’t make those remarks any less offensive to me, or any less spurious. Let’s look at the facts (as I seem them, and does that mean they are less fact than conjecture?):
1.     She feels uncomfortable about being an ambassador for New Zealand. Setting aside that she isn’t, at least in a formal sense, all I can say is don’t be. An ambassador, that is. Nobody asked you to be. And, if you are uncomfortable being one, don’t pretentiously say you are one.  Leave that accolade to those who are genuinely and outspokenly proud of our nation.
2.     She complains of New Zealand’s tall-poppy syndrome. Well, I can’t recall anyone in New Zealand, when she won the Man-Booker or since, who didn’t celebrate with her that distinction. As a nation, we applauded her. None criticised her. And the fact was, the sub-text for Man Booker, “books you are guaranteed to start reading but not to finish”, was quickly swept under the carpet by a laudatory nation. It seems Ms Catton has also done some sweeping herself lately; this tall poppy has “carpeted “her New Zealand Order of Merit (2013), Doctorate of Literature (Victoria University, 2014) and Governor General’s Award for English Language Fiction (2013)—all fine fertiliser for a tall poppy.
3.     She criticises the Government for being neo-liberal, profit-obsessed. Well, it is that same government (and by direct association its profit obsession and tax-payers) who subsidises her position and salary at Manukau Institute of Technology and even the publication of her books by Victoria University Press. If I were a carpenter—or any other tradesperson—I wouldn’t get Government support. I am not sure why Ms Catton, or any other writer, thinks they warrant it. Or why the Government does, for that matter.
I think I had a thing about Eleanor Catton. An emerging thing. I thought there was a new Fryday thread—a new Hone. But now that I have vented. I don’t think there is much more to be said of her. But I do thank her. It is years since I heard the word hua.
For that, and for her and for Mr Plunket, I am a grateful hua.