The Town I grew Up In

The town I grew up in, Kaiapoi in Canterbury, was very much like any other small New Zealand town in the 50s. It was the epicentre for the largely rural community that surrounded it. The biggest businesses in town were the pubs and the stock and station agents. Kaiapoi also had the world famous (genuinely) Kaiapoi Woollen Mills, but that produced no distinction, no worldly view; Kaiapoi was, like every other small town, proud, parochial, xenophobic and crushingly boring.
Given that, the large cities were also like that, as I remember them.
These days, the cities, with the exception of Hamilton, have changed and changed for the better. Vastly more cosmopolitan, cities have lost all those traits of the 50s including, sadly, pride, particularly in Auckland. But they are at least better; the small towns are not. New Zealand’s small towns are still parochial, xenophobic and crushingly boring but any pride that is left is self-delusional. They are no longer the providers for the back-bone of New Zealand; the backbone of New Zealand is no longer the backbone (one is challenged to find out what is these days) and much of the towns’ workers gravitate temporarily, and their young people permanently, to the cities. They add nothing to those cities, other than a force of worker-ants, but they detract and diminish the town.
Until recently, that trend seemed to be reversing as more and more city dwellers, attracted to the rural lifestyle, were moving to the country, and places such as Rodney where I live growing expotentially and dramatically. But the declining economy put paid to that; people stay put. And the towns, after a brief renewal of hope, have resumed their sad decline.
There was one policeman in the town I lived. He was Jack Highstead. I doubt very much that he ever rose above the rank of constable. But he ruled the town and he protected the town and he didn’t need a stab-proof vest to do it. He’s gone now, of course. But his police station—that epicentre of both fear and reassurance remains. Only now it is a museum; much like the town and much of the country it served.


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On the Left Bank

Now if I was a Westpac employee and mistakenly transferred $10,000,000 instead of $10,000 into a customer’s account I would be seriously worried about retaining my job. Fryday feels sorry for that person. Mistakes happen, and this appears to a slip of the fingers that could happen to any of us. So I hope Westpac reacts compassionately and realistically in regard to their employee. Of the couple who absconded with the money I am more ambivalent. It was certainly fortuitous for them, given their parlous financial state, and you have to say they were opportunist. But my question is how did they do it? Any time I have gone to my bank (and I have a very friendly bank) to withdraw any sum exceeding $1000 I go through a series of checks. Now, if I also had a bad credit history, as this couple apparently has, and all of a sudden I was withdrawing millions of dollars in a single transaction, which they must have done given the time-frame, would not this have rung some warning bells? We’re told by a banking expert in the NZ Herald today that standard international procedure for large transactions ($250,000 or more) meant that even if the money had been transferred in stages, it would have been subject to a "value dating process", which would mean a delay of up to two days before funds became available. Seems that didn’t happen here. So this couple seems to be fortunate on a couple of accounts with their back account. Of course, they are now on the run and they may not win out in the end. Then again, they just might. It’ll be interesting to keep track of this story.


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Albert you didn’t know this

Ms Lee - a National List MP and candidate in the Mt Albert election - apologised yesterday after saying at a public meeting on Wednesday night that the new Waterview motorway would channel South Auckland criminals past the electorate and reduce crime.
As reported NZ Herald Friday 15 May.

Ms Lee has been rightly and roundly criticised for her comment. It was insensitive, inaccurate and I am sure deeply offensive to the citizens of South Auckland. It implies that the people of South Auckland are second-class, lack culture and vision and have little to occupy their days. It was a vicious attack—her suggesting that South Auckland people are so lacking in anything else in their lives that they would want to visit Mt Albert. Nobody wants to visit Mt Albert. Mt Albert people don’t want to visit Mt Albert. It vies with its sister, Mt Roskill, as the most crushingly boring place in Auckland. To suggest, as Ms Lee does, that even South Auckland criminals would have reason to visit Mt Albert shows an astonishing lack of knowledge about the criminal classes—South Auckland or anywhere. My friend Whetu, who crops up on these pages from time to time, tells me that it is a fundamental of good thievery that one steals only what one can sell.
ME: And you can’t do that in Mt Albert?
HE: Nope.
ME: Why not?
HE: Nuttin there.
ME: Nuttin…Nothing?
HE: Me cuz, Jonno, he a bit of an apprentice, you know. He went to Mt Albert to steal stuff.
ME: Did he? And…”
HE: A Bell TV, three lava lamps, six fondue sets, two Barry Manilow posters, four crates of National Geographics and a PYE Radiogram.
ME: He raided a second-hand store?
HE: Nope. An upmarket house in Grande Ave.
ME: So it’s not true that the new motorway will divert South Auckland criminals?
HE: Only get us through Mt Albert quicker to get to good places.
ME: Such as?
HE: Swanson.


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Fryday turns 10

Fryday is written on an antiquated Hewlett Packard Pavilion 500 laptop using Word 2003. It is then transferred to Microsoft Outlook and sent as an e-letter to a select and somewhat resilient bunch of readers. Finally, it is converted and posted to the Fryday blog, where it’s read by a much wider audience, over 10,000 hits at the last count. The content of each Fryday is never decided earlier than Friday, its designated day, and often it’s still not known when the writing begins. It takes 10 minutes to write. Its subjects range from the mass murder of Sea Monkeys (its most commented on edition ever), the machinations of my mate Whetu, GWB’s discourse with God and Helen’s with her therapist and many posts extolling the virtues of Hamilton. It started as a test of the theory that the pen is mightier than the sword when I decided to use a mass mailing to “fry” a company I characterised as Auckland’s worst panel beater. Fryday is still going, but so is the panel beater so I should have used a bloody sword. I tell you all this now because to the best of my recollection that panel beater post was exactly 10 years ago today—at least this month. Fryday has turned 10, and because I have lived with the bloody thing for a decade (with two short breaks) I hope you will forgive me noting the occasion with a little bit of a flourish. I have never regretted writing Fryday, but I do regret that various computer meltdowns and a late decision to commit each Fryday to a permanent Word file have meant I lost most of those early posts. If later readers of the e-letter are interested, some of those early postings can be found in the archives of http://frydaysblog.blogspot.com/. I would like to know from anyone who has any more on their computer.

The thoughts of Fryday today go to the families and colleagues of Senior Constable Len Snee, and his two fellow officers who this morning remain in hospital in a critical condition. Constable Snee’s body remains outside the house where he was shot, despite the extraordinarily brave attempts of some policemen to retrieve it while under fire. Amidst this horror there comes the emergence of courage and…pride.


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Now playing: The Moody Blues - Had To Fall In Love
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Pigs I Have Known

Today I am home with a mild dose of flu. It’s been percolating around my system for a few days without amounting to more than a couple of sore muscles and a table tennis like competition between temperature extremes. It’s a pig of a thing, but not, I hope, Swine Flu. However, prudence on my part and a pervading paranoia by others have kept me at home where, without any likelihood of an immediate duck (see last Fryday), my thoughts have swung to pigs and their lack of a spokesperson or advocate. You see, this morning on Morning Report, Charge d'Affaires at the Mexican Embassy in Wellington, Luis Enrique Franco, made a pretty compelling case for not blaming his country for the outbreak. He pointed out that the number of confirmed cases in his huge country was fewer proportionately than in many other countries currently. So, we can dispense with Mexico. However, as it is entirely natural in such matters for us to seek to blame someone, I guess it has to be the pigs. Poor buggers. Not only do they have to cope with having their very own flu, now they get blamed for giving it to us. Might they (pigs) well say that they are simply keeping it in the family—I believe pigs and humans are closely related, some closer than others. But the problem is they have no-one to say that for them. Not for your average pig, a charge d’affaires with an ornate, authoritative name. The last pig of note was called Babe and the most famous of all Piglet had a friend called POOH. No wonder nobody can take them seriously. As for activist pigs, there has been none since Animal Farm and that was a dystopian allegory, which sounds like a disease in itself. So your average pig is on a hiding to nothing on this matter. Even past “animal” pandemics such as bird-flu and horse-flu garnered more sympathetic attention because birds are cute and horses stately. But pigs? As I said, poor buggers. My croaky cry this Fryday? Give them a break, they have enough problems already.


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