Life Savers

I am persuaded that Helen Clark is not the man to replace John Key as leader of the opposition.

If she is loses next year’s general election, she is surely gone for good, having done little good. That of course is a personal political comment and you may well disagree. I, like Helen, simply do not care. She and I share the view that the opinions of others are a quirk of nature to be tolerated, though better suffocated at birth. Ours are politics of predetermination rather than conciliation.

Nevertheless, your opinion is not the point of this Fryday, so we may without hesitation and with some considerable satisfaction move on from that to my concern. My concern is that when Helen goes so will Fryday. Helen, George W. Bush, Brian Tamaki and fundamentalists everywhere have been the cornerstones upon which Fryday has been built. If I should lose one of my cornerstones next year with Helen and the year after with George can Fryday survive?

Brian Tamaki may well be building God’s house. But he hasn’t the strength to build Fryday, and when Fryday forayed into other areas such as sex, which it did recently, I received no reaction at all—admittedly, par for the course with most of my sexual excursions.

So, you see my dilemma? You Fryday readers love Helen Clark and George W Bush. And when you see them you lose all interest in sex.

I am left with the euphemism of blank shots and the contemplation of a life after Fryday. And that may well be something you may want to contemplate as well, or else suffer the real prospect of in future considering your role in its demise.

The choice is simple: if you don’t want sex, vote Helen back in.

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A Uniform Honour

Next Saturday I will shall in a room with 200 men in uniform. If I was one of the Village People that situation may have a certain erotic appeal. But I am not and it does not. It does however enable me to demonstrate my core communication competencies because I will, in that situation, be Master of Ceremonies for the Rodney Emergency Services and Rural Fire Officers Honours Awards. I was a member of the audience at the same event last year and was pleased to accept the award of Media Personality of the Year—there not exactly being a tsunami of other contenders. This year I am on stage, introducing our new mayor and her council and trying to keep these 200 men (which in fact include many women) in order. That may be difficult. The honours night is an opportunity for them to let their hair down—those who have hair; No.1s seem to be somewhat obligatory among this group, including the men. But they are good people who serve the community selflessly and bravely, as I saw personally during the hurricane earlier this year. So, whilst public speaking may not be a pleasure (erotic or otherwise) for any of us, for this event, for me, it will be a privilege and an honour.

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A Plea For Common Sex

Few would doubt the veracity of sex as a cornerstone of life. In fact, it is the beginning of life and, in the stuff of urban legend, sometimes the reason for its end. At the beginning of our life as a race it was raw and animalistic, a state it lost and never regained until the 1960s then lost again. For sheer finesse and advancement in sex the high point was the Nineteenth Century when the Victorian Era drove much unbridled sex underground and quantity was by necessity replaced by quality: Queen Victoria therefore truly became the Mother of Invention. Throughout its history sex has been sold. It is and always has been a commodity. Today it is the prime disposable commodity. One minute it is there, next minute it is not, then its there again. For some of us, it lasts even longer. But we all use it, then lose it, and then use it again. Some even abuse it. All have the capacity to enjoy it. Those who don’t or can’t would do well to look at technique—easily fixed (write to me), or conditioning—change your church. There is no reason why, in some capacity and in some form, we can’t all enjoy sex; the Internet has made sure of that. Of course there is a downside or two to sex: some children actively cringe at the thought of their parents still “doing it.” There are some people I cringe at the thought of their doing it as well, but we won’t go there (I hear the cry of “cop out”). But in general terms, to paraphrase the Mitre 10 Mega man, “Sex is Good”, though his actual saying, “Big is Good” is also relevant…I’m told. So, whilst we all get wrapped up in the packaging of modern life: politics, fashion, gossip, race relations and politics again and, in this, Fryday is no different and is indeed a key culprit, here’s plea for once in a while let’s just talk about sex. Let’s make a promise to ourselves to move on from the era of elections to that of erections. I’m up for it!

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Logo Bull

I don’t know about you, but I am feeling sorry for the Auckland City Council over this logo issue. The introduction of a new logo is almost invariably greeted with the twin cries of “It cost what?” and “my ten-year-old could have done better than that.” Auckland’s new logo has elicited the same response as did Te Papa and Auckland, eh! before it. Closer to home, I had much the same trouble with the Welcome to Rodney gateway signs. So, there is nothing new here and, as so often happens, spin doctors are hung out to dry trying to defend the indefensible—the indefensible here being debate on a largely subjective issue with a populace believing it knows it all. Compounding this is the logo’s similarity to Triangle Television’s, and here the designers can be taken to task for not having done their homework. Then there is the apparent one million dollar price tag and the timing of the introduction so soon after councillors and candidates made rates control an election issue. So, it all becomes a bit of a mess. My friend and erstwhile colleague Mark Fenwick is trying to handle this for the Auckland City Council. Mark has some saving graces that will enable him to handle this with aplomb: he is experienced, he is placid and, whilst he is fully committed, he never lets the job get to him. Nevertheless, he has had a litany of issues that have seen him cornered into becoming an apologist for his council—most notably expensive junkets of councillors and staff. In my very similar role to Mark I have never had that magnitude of issue but ‘in the small pond’ of Rodney I have had the higher visibility, which may or may not have worked against me in the recent elections. I did lose that election, and some attribute the loss to my association with council as its “spin doctor and apologist.” I don’t. I don’t know why I lost, but it may well have been because of who I am rather than what I am. I just didn’t hack it. But we move on and I have moved back to council in a new and challenging role. And if in the future I find myself regretting the missed opportunity of becoming a councillor I shall simply create and put out there a new logo for the council to take my mind off it. Have a good weekend.

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