Key Performance Indicators

There is such a thing in employment as a purported measure of an employee’s performance. It is called a Key Performance Indicator (KPI). There are usually a number of them and like most “new” things in this area they are unwieldy and the product of discredited American theories and bored New Zealand human resource departments. But there is one KPI that does have some merit and it has woken me with a shuddering thought. John Key has completed his much-vaunted 100 days in office and Fryday is yet to find anything for which to criticise him. This is despite our criticism of his election night speech and our consequent misgivings. However, this doesn’t mean he gets 10 out of 10. He still portrays the wide-eyed wonderment and hint of panic of a boy in his first brothel. That doesn’t inspire confidence. Hor are his speeches particularly inspiring, either in content or delivery, and we are yet to see him tested by an Opposition still to rally its fractured confidence. But Key is not boring; I cannot even accuse him of that. He has set a cracking pace completing all his promises and pledges for the first 100 days in office. When ruthlessness was required, such as forcing the repeal of the Electoral Finance Act, he has displayed it. He has even experienced that leading, and uniquely New Zealand, barometer of a strong leader—being jostled at Waitangi; Barack Obama should be so lucky. No, one has to give it to Key. He is yet to do anything wrong and has done much as that is right. If Fryday were to display anything other than guarded respect for him we would rightly condemn it as the indecorous chronicles of a curmudgeon. I wouldn’t want that. We’ll give Key and his KPIs another 100 days and hope for some better news then.

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P

The vicious bashing of 85 year-old World War II veteran Eric Brady is a hideous occurrence. Mr Brady has broken left and right jawbones, cracked cheekbones, bruising and swelling to his face and chest, a cut elbow, and a possible fractured eye socket. He was attacked after leaving the Papatoetoe RSA last night.

Such attacks are all too common these days. But the brutality of this one, together with the age and innocence of the victim has lead not to the usual question of “who did this?” but rather of “who could do this?” It’s a fair question; this attack, unprovoked as it was and on a man almost defenceless, defies belief. Nobody of right mind could do it—would do it. But then of course he clearly wasn’t of right mind.

Police are looking for a Maori or Pacific Island man of skinny or athletic build, who was wearing a black or dark coloured top, white trainers and black shorts. It is pure conjecture what he was on, though the mind immediate flies to pure methamphetamine. Very little else leads to such senseless violence. I speak from experience, having on two occasions been in threatening situations due, I am certain, to the presence of P. Neither lead to much, but then again I am not 85 years-old nor, clearly, defenceless.

But is it not the case that P is now so prevalent that all of us have been affected by it—directly or indirectly? I believe so. I also believe that we are long overdue in having an aggressive campaign against it. The government has to step up and stamp out P, with all the resources it can find. And immediately. Otherwise, there is a very real danger of this thing getting out of hand, if it hasn’t already done so.

Mr Brady was in a stable condition in Middlemore Hospital awaiting surgery last night.


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The Heat is On

So, yesterday Auckland recorded its hottest day since temperatures were first taken in 1868. The highest is now 32.4c. The NZ Herald report is a bit ambiguous about the previous high, but it does cite 28.2c recorded earlier this month as being the highest this year. Hot it was, but I would have thought that we had higher temperatures than that in 141 years, and I know that Christchurch and other lesser New Zealand cities can boast of much higher temperatures quite often. But we have to believe what the Met Office tells us; short of their actual forecasts, that is. So, it was 32.4c and unless we managed to escape to the beach or have the facility of air-conditioning to waft the kind of chill down our spine more commonly associated with a tax audit, then we would have had a decidedly uncomfortable day. Indeed I heard many people complain about it, but as I work for a local council and live in a country that contemplates allowing Maori to charge for the haka I am no stranger to complainers. Indeed, I have one or two complaints of my own, one of which I hope to have operated on next month. But I digress. The proponents of climate change will claim that we can expect more of this. And worse. They may well have a point, evidenced by the fact that one of their most visible (and least audible) spokesmen, Keith Locke, has the capacity to raise my temperature at the very mention of his name. But I cannot subscribe to their view. I prefer the Met Office’s explanation that yesterday’s temperature was due to the sudden clearance of cloud along with a gusty northwest wind. The Met Office does however agree with the Greens in their prediction that there will be more of these temperatures. Whilst there will be some who will greet that prospect with delight I think they will diminish in number as the incessant heat takes its toll with a great deal more rapidity than the NZ Transport Agency currently exhibits taking theirs. I myself will have to contemplate going to colder climes. Hamilton is a prospect; for some reason I always feel a chill in the air when I go there. I could probably encounter a chilly reception in Crawford Texas where George W. Bush now resides. If I want real frigidity I most certainly would get it by turning to my wife and suggesting a channel change in the middle of the Australian Tennis Open. She would derive a similar benefit were she to suggest to me that Sex Vixens From Outer Space is any less than the greatest movie of all time. But I am willing and able to bide my time and sit out these high temperatures in the hope that whomever governs our temperatures will soon decide to be a little less playful and impose upon Himself a more pragmatic and compassionate discipline. Otherwise I might be drawn to the terrible thought that Keith may have a point. Hmmmm. I think I’ll turn on Sex Vixens again before its too late. Now they really are HOT!

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Getting a Complex

There used to be only two great mysteries in life, Graham Henry’s rotation policy, and the mind of a woman. Now there is only one. Someone repeated an old joke to me the other day. It goes like this: A scientist has invented a new bra for women. It holds breasts securely, prevents wobble and jiggle and allows no nipple show-through. His male colleagues beat him to death. I fear that were I to invent a mechanism whereby men were able to understand women I would suffer a similar fate at the hands (or is it the fists?) of women. Of course, and fortunately, there is no chance of that. Hamilton has more chance of being taken seriously than I, or anyone, has of inventing anything that could even start to explain the inner complexities of a woman. Man is incapable of such complexity. It is for them an unreachable and unfathomable concept. It cannot even be conceived as a goal. It is no coincidence that those men who have come closest, the world’s great artists, have either become alcoholics of suicides or both. Men simply cannot cope. Men are simple creatures. That’s why we have rugby. Women are not. That’s why they have knitting. So, if a woman’s complexity defies explanation does it necessarily follow that it is denied celebration? No. We men should celebrate everything that is woman and all that she provides and all that she asks. They are what they are. That is what makes them so beautiful to live with.

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Bess and the bunnies

Bess, the border collie, lives in a world of her own. Admittedly, it is a world within a world. But she zealously protects hers from ours behind a veil of charm, simplicity and innocence. She is in short a border collie boasting impenetrable borders.
But there is one incongruity in her character that belies her passive demeanour and wide-eyed innocence. And that is her propensity, long-ingrained I am sure, to make mincemeat of rabbits. Give Bess a sniff of a rabbit, or even more chilling, a sight of one, and Bess turns into the doggie equivalent of a homicidal maniac. I have no doubt that if we were to have the misfortune of all the infamous maniacs who putrefy history gathered watching Bess and the bunnies, they would say with one voice, “Now, that’s class!”
One event, more than any other, exemplifies this. It happened when Bess was in the charge of my then partner, now husband, Mike. Mike, too, often dwells in a world of his own, so it was some time before he discovered the dog he was supposed to be taking for a walk was no longer walking. Instead, Bess was digging frantically 100 metres back in their shared paddock. Despite calls to resume the walk, the normally subservient Bess refused such demands and proceeded about her self-imposed task with ferocious intent.
Mike approached, only to recoil in horror as Bess extracted from the burrow she was excavating the first of many baby bunnies. The killing, for such seemed an inevitable consequence given Bess’s passion and commitment to task, was mercifully quick. But that didn’t stop Mike getting on the cellphone to me in a panic.
I gave a deep sigh and for the moment set aside the politics of Paramount for the events of the paddock. I had been there before. Many a bunny had taken the train to Bunny Heaven with Bess as their enthusiastic conductor.
“There’s another one,” said Mike down the phone, his voice displaying his anguish. “And another.”
“How many’s that?” I asked calmly.
“Three, I think. No, four. Five.”
By the time Bess finished her killing-spree the number was eight, maybe nine, despatched with gay abandon and, mercifully for the bunnies, now inhabiting a Bess-free world. Bess, in return, happily returned to her own.
That night we three sat quietly. Mike was clearly in shock. I thought to myself “welcome to the farming world Mike” but said nothing. Bess just lay there with a quiet smile enlivening her normally passive face. But then she lifted her head.
And sniffed.
“Oh God, not again,” I heard Mike cry.
“You deal with it. I’m going to bed.”
MFI