What's Cooking

Congratulations to Alison Holst for deserved recognition in the New Year’s Honours list. I have never met her, but Mrs Holst strikes me as a self-effacing, gentle woman of the sort destined sadly to fade into memory. Or am I being too harsh here? Perhaps the matronly and maternal are resilient enough to cope with a rapidly changing world that places greater store on the quantity of your Facebook friends than the quality of your scones. I certainly hope so because we need women like Mrs Holst. We men need women like Mrs Holst as a constant reminder of a happier time of unthreatened self-delusion that women ruled the kitchen, and men the rest. It was of course never true but Mrs Holst, and millions like her with her gentle smile, made it seem so and we men, hungry for aggrandisement, dined richly if a little blindly at her table. Still do. Fryday wishes everybody a spectacularly enjoyable 2011.

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Now playing: Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone
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Getting your leg over

If I recollect correctly, hedgehogs, when I was young, would curl up on the road when faced with an on-coming vehicle. Most would therefore die—a fact the more observant and learned of the species learnt from. These days, they keep running. Similarly, the pukeko, within my lifetime considered a flightless bird, has learned to fly, albeit somewhat ungainly. But fly it does and it lives. I believe this is called evolution. Whether it is a divine consequence or just a consequence of pragmatism, I cannot possibly comment. But, whatever the reason, it has happened in a remarkably short time.
I have another example of recent evolution but this one can certainly not be attributed to a whim of God or even practicality; it just seems to have happened. When I was young, male dogs inevitably and with considerable élan, lifted a hind leg to urinate. These days they don’t—well many don’t. Have you noticed that? My own male dog, Luke, is a fine upstanding dog, except in one respect: he doesn’t stand to urinate. Rather he squats like a female. And he is not alone in this. I have seen this with many male dogs and I am drawn to the conclusion that some canine social engineering is at work here and that male dogs like male men (tautology) have succumbed to the pressure to adopt many of the traits of more dominate females of the respective species. As any married man will tell you it is the only way we can live the quiet life to which we males aspire. Dogs are obviously no different. They have to turn to their feminine side to stem the tide of the feminisation of the race. Men learnt do this in the 60s, when—as any old codger was fond of stating—men and women became indistinguishable. The nadir was the unisex toilet and I wonder from that how on earth the wall urinal has survived.
So my dog is a squatter. I didn’t think that much about that, least of all be bothered by it. Not until earlier this week when I took Luke to the vet. There we were—Luke and I—waiting outside in the sun when a Jack Russell and its owner approached us. The owner and I entered into a light conversation, which included inevitably admiring our respective dogs. Of course I detest Jack Russells but this was not the time or place. Nor was it the time or place for said Jack Russell to lift its leg and piss on my boot. But it did. The owner was shocked and apologised profusely. I was shocked as well but more about the lifting of the leg. It occurred to me suddenly that I hadn’t seen that from a dog in ages. Even Luke looked quizzical—is that how it’s done? Well, yes it is Luke, or it was. That was the way it was done. At least in the old days. Just leave out the boot bit. Luke I guess just metaphorically shrugged because he has never attempted to replicate the Jack Russell’s deed. No need I think is his view.
I love both my dogs dearly and equally and that will never change. But at this time when I am acutely aware of the passing of generations (see last Fryday) I hanker after the old days. Days when men were men and women were out the back. Days when men did it in front of a tree, and women did it behind a bush. There was a penile pride at play in those days. Not these days.
Haunted by those thoughts, I sometimes look at Luke and I think—Mate, as much as I love ya, can’t you stand up and be a man just for once? Just for me. Just for old times.

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Now playing: Traveling Wilburys - Congratulations
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In the light...

Yesterday I buried my father. That is not the literal truth; my father was cremated, not buried, and I certainly did not do that! But you get the point.
I have resisted writing about the death of my father until now because I thought you would find it (a) boring and (b) a solicitation for sympathy, when none was wanted nor needed.
The moment of death—and note here my refusal to use the euphemism “passing”, passing is what’s done in cars—was a relief and a release, not least for my father. His illness was long and cruel, particularly for a man for whom life was a banquet. He wanted to go. His reply to a caregiver in his last days was evidence of that. She asked him if he needed anything; he answered “a gun.”
As it was, his death was somewhat more sweet and serene. It happened just after he farewelled a woman who meant so much to him in his later years. And, if there is an afterlife, I believe there are enough people and dogs in it that knew Dad and would be there to welcome him. I think he knew that.
So, this Fryday is not about lamenting a lost father, though it stems from that, it is more about a lost love. At yesterday’s service I planned to read Dylan Thomas’s classic poem on the death of his father, Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night. It seemed apt and my favourite passage has all the power and intensity of a nail gun:
Do not go gentle into that good night
Old men, at close of day, should rage, rage
Against the dying of the light.
I love that passage but faced with the death of my own father I found myself questioning its veracity. What on earth was Thomas thinking when he wrote Do not go gentle…? Of course they should go gentle. My father did in that last tranquil moment. And the arrival of peace was I think a blessing. Did he “rage rage” against that arrival? No. He wanted to go. So he did. Simple. And I, at close of day, am thinking that my once favourite poem is, in the light of day, just a load of crap.


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Now playing: Various Artists - Amazing Grace (Bagpipe Instrumental)
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It's so wong

Down the road from the home I share with my wife, two dogs and a cockroach is a combined café and bookstore. It is a pleasant place to eat, read and meditate. It was also the gathering place of the Helensville literati, until he left. After a morning writing I took myself there for lunch yesterday. I hoped to recharge the brain with some good reading. Instead I purchased a Joe Bennett book. Just kidding. Joe is a good writer and very very humorous. He has a syndicated column in several newspapers and about 10 collections of those columns. He’s a Pom, now resident in Lyttleton. His commentaries on New Zealand life are dispassionate and, unusually for a Pom, perceptive and respectful. I don’t know how many columns Joe Bennett produces, but I am assuming he commits to at least one a week, and the subject matter ranges from his dog (frequently) to Paul Holmes (less so). HE MAKES MUCH OF THE MUNDANE. Which leads me to Bill English. I have nothing against our deputy prime minister, but I watched him on television yesterday and his performance in the House was insipid at best. His defence of Pansy Wong was toothless in the face of a sustained attack by Pete Hodgson. Incidentally, it was Pete Hodgson who gave us the parliamentary quote of the year the day before. After a not particularly funny and certainly laborious speech in rhyming couplets by National list MP Aaron Gilmore Mr Hodgson commented: “Mr Gilmore delivered his speech in verse, Not particularly well-written; certainly not terse.” Ms Wong was not well served by her deputy leader and if her command of English is not good her command by English is decidedly lacklustre. As indeed is he these days. I met him once and found him distant. I can live with that; more than I can live with the hypocritical joviality of Rodney Hyde, anyway. But what John Key and the government and New Zealand need these days is strength. The country is going through appalling drama at the moment and politically there is more to come with the Foreshore fiasco. To watch Bill English sit there so lacklustre and seemingly still smarting and sulking at being overthrown in favour of John Key is not a good look. He should retire and be replaced with someone—anyone—with more drive and direction. Joe Bennett fills the bill. So, sadly, does my cockroach Bill.

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Now playing: Allison Crowe - Hallelujah
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Of Nappies and Nipples

In his later years the great American actor Spencer Tracy was incontinent. Katharine Hepburn looked after him. She was his soul-mate, his partner, his life. She was with him when he died. Katharine was Spencer’s backbone. His rib. And it was in that guise that she starred in a movie with him—Adam’s Rib (1949). It of course evoked the biblical proclamation that God created Eve from Adam’s rib. Why the rib, I don’t know. I would have thought there is at least one other male appendage more crafted for creation than a rib. But a rib it was. I won’t mess with God. But that doesn’t explain nipples. If woman is derived from man, in that order, why does man have nipples? On a man, they must be about as useful as a George W. Bush dissertation on quantum physics. But they exist. And according to the Bible, they existed first on a man. Why? Was God experimenting? Is man an experiment—a try-out, a prototype—and woman the real thing? Did God, when He was designing the male architecture, say I’ll put one of those there and that one there and see if that works and if it does I’ll give them to Eve and make them super sensitive so that Adam has something other than apples to munch on? If that is the way it worked, I guess God simply forgot to take them off Adam. God can be forgetful—look at Hamilton. But if we do not accept God as the answer then there is still the question: why do men have nipples? For the answer to that, I trod the oft-trod passage of modern pilgrimage: I went from God to Google. And according to Google, all men are bisexual, which of course explains the rugby scrum. It appears that when we first appear, God has a bet both ways. It is only later in the piece that he bestows an extra piece. Or not. Meanwhile, the nipples stay. And maybe God has a point. Nipples do no harm. In fact, they give men a small glimmer of equality with women. Something shared. And in that context nipples have a stand-out quality—unique as a body part. I could kiss them for that.

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Now playing: Leonard Cohen - Democracy
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