A Special Place

Queen Victoria is purported to have stated that she was not amused. By what or by whom I know not. But she would have been in good company in New Zealand this week. The country, rightly, is in a sombre mood. There can be very few who have not been touched deeply or do not share the grief of the Pike River families. Much continues to written of the tragedy and Fryday is tragically ill-equipped to add anything profound, except to state that there is one individual who should take Fryday’s cue and shut his mouth. He is an embarrassment and, as their self-appointed spokesperson, a further and unnecessary infliction on the grieving families.
My own week has been lightened immeasurably by the arrival, occupation and company of a French family. The family includes my goddaughter of whom I have responsibility for her spiritual guidance and upbringing. Again I am ill-equipped. I have to rely on the good sense of the girl herself to lead the right path through life. I am sure she will—a week with me has undoubtedly shown her the result of taking the wrong path. The fact she is now heading toward Hamilton will undoubtedly complete that education.
Their command of English is excellent but still provides some amusing moments such as “get a grip, mate” delivered with a soft and lilting French accent. They apparently learn that from television. And I too have learnt from observing them. I have learnt that there is much in this country that is totally foreign to—well—foreigners. Hokey Pokey ice cream is one of course. But I didn’t realise that Jaffas was another. Smokers too. And you should have seen their surprise and delight when they ordered hot-dogs from the Leigh Café to find they came as some unidentifiable object on a stick. There is nothing like that in France.
No doubt as they travel through New Zealand they will find much more that is unique to this little country of ours. And whilst those children will not know it –and nor should they—their presence has given me a near-xenophobic pride in New Zealand, particularly the way in which we as New Zealanders compassionately and sincerely dealt with Pike River. New Zealand ceased to be a country; it became a family. Could that have happened in another country? In France? I don’t know. Perhaps. So, I won’t call it unique to New Zealand. Just very very special.

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The Two Faces of Facebook

There is a passage in The Social Network when Facebook co-creator, Mark Zuckerberg, says the servers serving the site and its 500 million friends must stay up. If they go down, he says, Facebook goes down and so does its credibility and quite possibly its future.
Well, this morning Facebook went down. It’s still down, at least for me. So, do I feel dispirited, distraught and deprived? No. I love Facebook but I am not addicted to it or reliant on it. For me it just serves as another way of keeping in touch with friends new and old. It doesn’t teach me anything or otherwise enrich my life and I can see why some don’t understand Facebook or its popularity and others openly despise, fear or simply ignore it.
But it’s there. There to share.
It’s there with its zillions of photos of drunk teenagers making silly finger signs, trash-talking students, stupid surveys, myriads of ads and invitations to parties at Castor Bay. Facebook can be stupid and stupefying.
But it’s also there for families and friends to share, to chat, and to upload photos, thoughts and memories in a manner that mail—even email—cannot accomplish.
I have heard some elderly folk lament the lack of personal contact and somehow blame Facebook for that. Well of course families and friends are different these days. Only it seems in Hamilton do they still stick together, picking on their banjos. The rest of us, as my own family attests, are spread throughout the world. Facebook is a way of bringing us together, keeping us together.
So there are two faces to Facebook. On balance I would have to venture the opinion the world is better off for having it.
Even if Facebook is still down on me; I am not down on it.


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A Nod is as Good as a Winkler

One of my more humiliating episodes of a life richly episodic was in a play called I Hate Hamlet in which I played the great American actor John Barrymore teaching a young actor how to play Hamlet. I am no Shakespearian actor. I was excruciating and it was fully ten years before I returned to the stage—and that was in drag!
But as bad as I was, it wasn’t as bad as the television appearance of Henry Winkler when he attempted a soliloquy from Hamlet. True to their wont (and credibility) the American audience cheered and whistled as The Fonz finished his farcical and facile portrayal. The point is, that audience thought Mr Winkler couldn’t really act in high theatre and in their admiration for him—or more accurately The Fonz—it is was lost on them that they were exactly right. But The Fonz was the epitome of cool in those days and Mr Winkler played him brilliantly particularly when we consider how remarkably uncool Mr Winkler looks these days.
So what has all this to do with Len Brown?
Mr Brown was cool too. Particularly when compared to that walking stress-inducement John Banks. That may have been the reason for the landslide vote in his favour.
But already after just two weeks in office and in conversations I am having with others I am detecting some disquiet and disappointment at Mr Brown’s performance so far. His Obama-like vision seems to have cooled somewhat and already I am hearing that he is starting to prevaricate on promises made and to hedge on some key issues.
However, it is early days. Mr Brown may yet become the best mayor Auckland has had in decades and Fryday will be proved wrong.
But if I am right, Mr Brown’s election campaign may just prove to be nothing more than a great acting performance deserving both the acclaim Mr Winkler undeservedly got and the public derision I deservedly did.
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