A Fryday About Nothing

Occasionally Fryday is torn between its self-imposed responsibility to deliver a new piece every Friday and the demands on its time from other projects. More rarely, Fryday simply wakes with nothing to say and, because nothing is planned or written before Friday, time soon runs out to write anything at all.

Such is the case today.

I woke with nothing to say. I can fall back on Trump, as indeed many would like to do. But, I covered him last week and I detect that most of us are all a bit trumped out, so we need a break. I could talk about the Port Hills fires, but they have been well and truly—and rightly—canvassed; the horror of the fires and their impact is apparent for all to see. 

There are of course, always the Fryday staples: Hamilton, Whetu, useless objects, and the various correspondents, such as Cecil C. Sackrider, Fryday employs around the world. But, I can’t think of a more useless object than Donald Trump, and all my correspondents seem to be busy. Fryday can be a very lonely place when not populated by these people.

So, there is nothing to galvanize my thoughts on this day and, yes, as predicted, I am running out of time.

Perhaps I need a change of scene and a change of pace. A journalist acquaintance tells me that next week he is off to the Cook Islands to do a travel piece. Lucky bugger. Travelling and being paid for it. That’s perhaps what I need. I read an article this week on the slowly developing North Korean tourism industry. It is apparently tightly controlled, but it is there. I wouldn’t mind trying that. However, my preferred destination is, and after once visiting it will always be, Paris. That is where I would like to go next. And if North Korean President for Life Kim Jong-un is affronted by that then he has at his disposal (pun intended) several demonstrable mitigation options. Apparently, poison being one.

So, as I look at the clock above my desk, I see that it is 6:50 a.m. NZT (2:20 a.m. in Pyongyang, so I won’t wake Him) and I still haven’t written a word on Fryday. 

That means, there will be no Fryday this week. I have simply run out of time to write anything.

And if you are wondering why I have taken 399 words to reach that conclusion, just put it down to Fryday’s attempt at delivering “fake news”. According to Mr Trump, apparently everybody’s doing it.

Job done.

Have a good weekend.

Dear God: The Trump Years: #1

Trump Annex

Office of The President of the United States of America.

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, USA

Telephone: You’re Crazy, right? Twitter: @millionsofpeopleloveme.

2/10/17

Dear God

You have got to be right, right? Am I right?

Of course I am. Hey, I am terrific, right? But sometimes, God, you also got to be wrong. Am I right? You know I am.  You know the feeling. You’ve been there. You created Mexico, for God’s sake. How wrong can that be? Right?

And sometimes—not often—I get it wrong. That’s right. I get it wrong. I admit it. There I said it. Knock yourself out. I said it. I am wrong. That’s right, I was wrong when I said I would be the greatest President God ever created.

I know you got a lot of smart people, around you God. But to say they created me? C’mon! Not in their wildest dreams. Not in their wildest dreams could they have created me. C’mon! It’s like throwing Saint Peter into a property deal in The Bronx. They’d kill him down there. They love me down there.

I created me.

You know, people say to me. All the time they say to me. Mr Trump, how can a man like you who is worth millions and millions of dollars, who has done the greatest deals of all time—yes I have—who wears the greatest ties—aren’t they? Aren’t they great? How can you be so modest?

And you know what I say? I say, look at me. I am terrific. I have everything. I own modesty. Yes I do. I own it.

So, God, that is why I say you created me. ‘Cause I am great like that. I let it go. I give you the credit for me. After all, and after Mexico, people got to believe that you got something right. Am I right?

Donald J. Trump

Donald J. Trump

President of the United States of America.

PS: Are you on Twitter?

Friends

I have always supported the commonplace view that birds of a feather flock together. People of agreeable disposition tend to gravitate to each other for the sheer pleasure of it and out of mutual respect. Less agreeable people, and I know the description is subjective, tend to do the same. They gather for a time to complain, bleat and generally bemoan the fact that the rest of the world does not share their opinions (which they inevitably state as gospel) and indeed won’t take them seriously.

I think you know the type.

The distinction between the two groups is that generally within the first group friendships ensue and endure; for the second, such friendships are rare—ultimately even mutual malcontents get sick of each other. Loyalty rather than self-interest is not a strong point for this group.

I have been thinking of this today because yesterday was Facebook Friends Day and because a group of my friends is in some serious strife resulting in them being vilified and judged. Some of those who have been most vitriolic in this instance are, in my view, very much in the second group and a second commonplace saying “those who throw stones…” comes to mind.

What my friends may or may not have done is not for me to judge. There are those more professionally qualified than I to do that, and to their credit they do so based on what is put before them and not on conjecture, assumption and envy.

My only judgement, the only one I am qualified to make, is whether my friends should remain my friends. I have made the decision that they should do so. In fact, I never seriously considered otherwise. They were my friends yesterday and nothing so far presented to me suggests that will change tomorrow.

Yet the suggestion can be made that in making my decision I, somewhat ironically, lack judgement.

I have little time for that, and for one compelling reason: people who imply that, do not understand friendship. Friendship is not finite but nor is flimsy. It is not vacuous; it is not a whim; it is not shredded by circumstance, and a strong and genuine friendship does not—I repeat—does not make you vulnerable. Instead it lifts you, consoles you, accommodates you, strengthens you, and, in many ways, makes you.

So, here’s to friends. They and loyalty are for now and forever our saving graces.

And no matter what else is happening in the world at this time, nothing, but nothing, can Trump that.