The Bain of my life

Being the target of not infrequent attacks in the media, most recently this week, I am well aware of the danger of uninformed comment. In my case, as in most cases, those making such comments believe they are dealing with facts and certainties. Fact is they are not. Certainties exist, of course: we know, for example and for certain, that anybody who says they are acting in your best interests are not, that rugby league is a better game than rugby, that Hamilton is New Zealand’s placenta. But much else is speculation, opinion and perception. Such is the case with the David Bain case. I could voice an opinion as to guilt and innocence, many do, but it would be just that—opinion. Uninformed opinion. I wasn’t there on the day of the murders, nor have I spent a day at any of the trials. So, I am sitting on the sidelines and, despite some very good media coverage, I am nowhere near in a position to enter a verdict on this one. Ultimately, though, there will have to be one, and that will come from a jury. I don’t envy them, or anyone directly involved in this case. It will be okay if they find David Bain innocent, but a guilty verdict? What will happen then? The ramifications of that don’t bear thinking of and I can’t but help wonder whether that very “fact” won’t have some bearing on how this trial is conducted and its eventual verdict. But that is only speculation, opinion and perception. Right now, ahead of a leisurely weekend, I prefer the comfort of certainties like a Bulldogs win and one for the Warriors. Have a good one.


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Coming out in the Walsh

So, Tauranga has lost Winston Peters and the 2011 Rugby World Cup? What is it doing right to deserve that? Hamilton wants to know. Rugby has also been in the news this week with the expulsion from the game of erstwhile leading referee Steve Walsh. Apparently there is a drinking issue. Strange, I thought there was always a drinking issue with those in charge of rugby. Maybe it is just because Steve is from the Southern Hemisphere that he stands out and is being penalised. He probably doesn’t like gin either. But Walsh’s troubles are insignificant to another facing rugby this week; that’s the commencement of the NRL season. Now, as everybody knows, and none will dispute, rugby league is the superior game. Indeed followers of all sporting codes will welcome tonight’s first game of the 2009/10 NRL season. Those who are particularly starved of good sport—i.e. Super 14 followers and golfers everywhere—will be salivating at the prospect. Unless they are of course masochists and living in Hamilton and therefore self-delusional and luxuriating in lives of misery. For the rest of us, with actual lives, rugby league is 26 weeks’ of sheer panacea akin, but not exceeding, our enjoyment and relief last year at the departure in one year of both Helen Clark and George W. Bush. It is the best of times…the worst of times can now be forgotten.

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Bruce Almighty

It was an ugly scene, with that cigarette. If Robert hadn’t been in agony before, he certainly was now. The woman had stubbed it out on his back—no, not stubbed it; ruthlessly ground it in—while Robert lay prone on the floor. Of course, he deserved it. He was the bad guy, she was incensed by Robert’s treatment of her hero; and when the hero had finally got the upper-hand and had thrown Robert from the ring into the crowd she had exacted revenge.
Those were the days when you could smoke in the Auckland Town Hall while watching the wrestling (or just about anything else). It was also the days when Robert Bruce reigned supreme as the predominant bad guy of Steve Rickard’s professional touring troupe. Robert was the man wrestling fans loved to hate. He was also one of the nicest guys I ever met.
I never met him back then, but I did later when Robert started his Ugly talent agency for “real” people and I was looking for such people for television commercials I was producing. The first time I met him, in his dusty photo-laden office in K Road, I was in awe of him, slightly frightened and respectful. But I liked him. I wasn’t alone. Everybody liked him. Unusually for his businesses—both as a wrestler and as a talent agent—everybody trusted him. He was honest.
Robert died this week at the age of 65. I am told about 100 or so friends turned up at his funeral. And about as many cats and dogs (Robert was vice-patron of the SPCA). I wasn’t there; Robert and I lost touch years ago but he was here in my thoughts for much of this week. The big man had taken his final fall. And this time there would be nobody stubbing out cigarettes, just genuine warmth for a hard man with a soft side.


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