Prawn to Bishop

I have no time for the self-anointed Bishop Tamaki. Even less time for him after Garth George’s revelations in yesterday’s NZ Herald and Tamaki’s performance on last night’s Close Up. Despite everything said to the contrary by Tamaki and his cohorts, Tamaki is nothing more than a self-delusional megalomaniac. Read this from Tamaki’s autobiography, and I repeat autobiography—Tamaki wrote it himself: “Never before have the forces of religious, political and social activism converged more powerfully than in the life of Bishop Brian Tamaki.” Has Tamaki not heard of Mohandas Ghandi? We are now told that any of “the 700” approaching The Bishop must kneel before him and those bringing gifts can approach closer than those who aren’t. I can only imagine that those bringing a Harley Davidson for the Bishop, as has happened in the past, can qualify to get right up his arse. Personally, I am just grateful to The Bishop for allowing me to be in the same city. Bishop Tamaki tells us that such protocols and covenants are simply manifestations of respect determined and dictated by members of his church, not by himself. Again he is being disingenuous. One gets the feeling that nothing happens in that church that is not initiated by Tamaki or, more likely these days, his chief henchman and head of the church’s “political arm”, Richard Lewis. Tamaki’s response to the various accusations swirling around and about the church hinge on two factors, that it is all a beat-up by the media and that his church is full of love and does good things. There may be some truth in the first, and Tamaki was essentially made in the media, and he has probably sound evidence for the second. But one is drawn to the conclusion that Tamaki is now out of control and that his church and ministry is less about loving God than loving Tamaki. Or does he now think they are one and the same?

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Home Sweat Home

Last week someone said to me that moving from one home to another was the single biggest cause of suicide during the Victorian era. I find that hard to believe. Poverty surely would win, in that era and any other. But being in the midst of a move—which this person knew about so his statement was neither particularly helpful nor tactful—I can attest that it is pretty traumatic. It has an air of uncertainty that no amount of planning or organisation can completely vanquish. Indeed I can state from personal observation that the more organised you are the more stressful it is when things start to go wrong. My wife, whom I can state emphatically is the most organised person I know, planned this move almost on her own. She did a superb job. Not so those entrusted to implement her plans. Our so-called “professional movers” (three of them) can be best be characterised as The Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse on draught horses. They wreaked mayhem but at a pace more redolent of Helen Clark’s libido. As a consequence our move took longer than expected and was more expensive than anticipated. But…we are now ensconced. And this weekend, with that slow but still chilling clip-clop clip-clop receding into the distance we plan to enjoy every moment of our new home.

Samoan Shoes

Last night I dreamed that my wife left me, my new house fell down, and so did I…down a 600-metre cliff.
Dream interpreters will have a view on what that means. I would be interested in hearing from them. But what I think it means is that I need a holiday. Fortunately, next week I am getting one.
But the remarkable thing about that dream is that it didn’t include anything about my work. Given that work has figured relentlessly and remorseless in previous dreams, except when it’s inducing a sleepless night, I would think it would have figured in this one.
I have had a bad week. But others have had it worse, far worse. I think here most of the people of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga and also the Philippines and Indonesia. Many had little to start with; now they have lost everything, including lives and loved ones.
Now we have the call to help: food, shelter, medicine, people, money.
And shoes.
I heard yesterday that one of the more pressing problems is that there are so few shoes in Samoa and so much glass on the ground. Cut feet are compounding the island’s medical problems. That’s something I didn’t think about and good on those who did—and created a specific charity: Shoes for Samoa. I don’t know how widespread that is, but here in my local town you can donate shoes through the supermarkets.
Today I’ll head down to the supermarket to hand over a few shoes, then I’ll take a break to move into a new home that is still standing with a wife who is still with me.
Life for me, though still not a dream, is not so bad after all.