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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