A Soft Election

John Key tells me on his Facebook page that he is starting his morning with a sausage sizzle in Taupo. I am drawn to the obvious conclusion John having his sausage in such a place is far more edifying than his having a hamburger in Hamilton. I have no idea how Phil (me with confidence not) Goff is starting his day—though I can understand if it is with a degree of tiredness and resignation. I imagine that both leaders are greeting this last day of formal electioneering with relief that it is nearly over. I know I am. The aspirations of the leading candidates have hardly been inspirational for the rest of us. I find it interesting and little disquieting that most interest in tomorrow’s result lies with the performance of the secondary parties—most notably The Greens, New Zealand First, Mana and, making a late surge—those happy clappers of the new right, The Conservatives. Perhaps that is how it should be. After the hard twelve months we have been through, to wind up the year with a soft little election to play with may just be what we need and deserve. I am up for it.

Of words, wines and whines

Many whiskeys ago I was asked to write the blurb for a set of labels for a new wine. I must have been successful because the wine sold well and today is considered something of a benchmark among the Marlborough whites. I should be happy but I am not. The result says less for my way with words than for the way of words, and their ability to sell.
You see, I wrote the blurb knowing very little about wine and without having even opened a bottle of this particular brand. I made it all up and delivered characteristics to these wines that to this day I have no idea whether they were accurate.
It didn’t seem to matter.
What seems to matter in this world is the degree of pretentiousness you instigate, instil and infuse into wine writing. The thesaurus is the bible of the wine writer. Where else would they find such meaningless descriptive linguistics as “unctuous”, “intimidating”, “forthright” and (my favourite) “fleet of foot"?
It is almost the purest style over substance in writing. The facts should in wine writing not only not get in the way of a good story, they should be banished to the bottom of the cellar forever hidden from the light.
As evidence, let’s look at some examples I picked lately. The wines don’t matter, the words do:
· The fine milk chocolate appears alone at first and gradually begins to flirt with elegant notes of wood and warm spice which bloom and disappear
· The fruit is restrained, the texture is soft, and there’s a smidgen of that ethereal ‘Sideways’ character lurking in the bottle.”
· The delicate nose succumbs and seduces. Lulls you into a false security before the onslaught…
· El Cid remains resplendent in this evocative red from the steppes (sic) of Spain.
· The palate offers the slightest of orange chocolate with the citrus providing a loving and gifted partner upon a marriage bed paradoxically redolent of Scottish heather.
That last one, and the propensity to evoke all kinds of other tastes, provoked one frustrated drinker I know to exclaim, “Why can’t it (wine) taste like grapes?” The wine writer I know replied simply, “Then it would be grape juice.” True. But about the only thing in wine writing that is.

Living next to a Garrett

It’s not for me to speak ill of the (brain) dead, but if the reports of former Act MP David Garrett’s bizarre behaviour are true he certainly deserves public condemnation.
You’ll remember Garrett. It was he who was forced to resign from Parliament last year after revelations he stole a dead baby's identity to obtain a false passport and had an historic assault conviction.
Since then, this week he pleaded not guilty to a drink-driving charge; last month he was suspended from holding a lawyer's practising certificate for 12 months and ordered to pay court costs of $8430 after a Law Society disciplinary hearing. The hearing related to a false affidavit he swore while facing charges over the false passport.
He was previously censured by the Act Party over lewd comments, made homophobic comments on a television show panel, and has been accused of drinking heavily and using online dating sites to meet women while still married.
Now he is reported to have locked his wife and children out of their Kaukapakapa house and told his wife, a Tongan, to “go back to your tribe.”
Now you might be of the ilk that says this simply makes Garrett a man’s man. If you are I guess that’s not sunburn on your neck. For the rest of us he is, at best, a dork and it’s galling to me to have him living just up the road.
So, when it comes to David Garrett, I am feeling anything but neighbourly. If you want to read the full story, you’ll find the report on which this Fryday is based on the Stuff local news website.

A rest is as good as a change

To save the planet one has to first get on it, and The Greens’ election manifesto shows little indication of that happening soon.
I admit The Greens are passionate and sincere in the beliefs, but I also believe that they are terrified of having true power and a mandate to put some of their more wacky policies into action.
The latest, announced today, is to ban the sale of lollies, sweet drinks and chips at school. Now, that may sound laudable to some, and it certainly is not new, but that’s not the point. The point is that, as a policy, is it likely to secure for The Greens one additional vote that they weren’t going to get anyway? It’s hardly a deal-breaker.
To be fair, there are more substantive aspects to the party’s education policy. For example, they want to reduce class sizes to 20 (probably impractical) and do away with National Standards. But, again, is any of that going to swing any new votes their way?
And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Nothing much is changing or will change with this election. It is, for me, amounting to little more than a huge yawn. I am not saying, as some do, that the result is a foregone conclusion; I am saying there is little that is new, little that is visionary, little that captures the imagination (or my vote) from any party in this election.
Given the traumatic 12 months this country has had that yawn quality may just be the welcome change this country needs.
But it is still an election and it is still sad that the political parties disappoint in the way that they do.


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