Phyllis J. Fenwick: Letters from North Korea.

Fryday is fortunate in having readers throughout the world who take time to comment on various posts. We rarely publish those comments, but are no less grateful for them.  Even rarer do we give Fryday over to another writer. An exception is the self-styled and self-appointed  “international correspondent” for Fryday Miss Phyllis J. Fenwick. Miss Fenwick, 86 years old, is on a perpetual quest for the ancestral breeding ground of the Devonport guppy—a fish that the whole world, apart from Ms Fenwick, knows could not possibly exist. Often, as in this case, she writes to Fryday about her adventures. If you would like to know more about those and Phyllis and her doomed quest, including her recent trip to Somalia, she has a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/phyllis.fenwick.3. Currently, Phyllis is on her search in North Korea at the personal invitation of “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong-un. Whilst there is difficulty communicating with the outside world, she did manage to get this through to us earlier this week. Have a good weekend and remember: nothing should be taken too seriously.

Dear Fryday Friends
Greetings from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. As you can imagine, I am so excited to be here. Ahead of me, I am told, is to be an audience with the young president for life, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Why such a young man should want to meet an old woman such as me, is beyond me.
However, I am told that he does and is even most insistent on it, so perhaps he too shares our interest in the ancestral breeding grounds of the Devonport Guppy and is willing to materially assist my search.
Certainly, everybody has been most helpful since I arrived. There was a representative of the North Korean Government there to meet me when I arrived at Incheon airport in South Korea. He very quickly ushered me into a car and we headed north. A nice young man who sadly smiled very little, he said through an interpreter that we would be travelling on back roads for the most part so I could see as much of the country as I could. How very kind of him to think of that. When we arrived at the border with North Korea, he said he would have a new experience for me. Indeed he did! Instead of crossing the border as most tourists do, he took me through a very special tunnel under the border! I felt very special. He said that the tunnel, I believe it is three miles long, was dug single-handedly by Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il in three days! Extraordinary!
Now I am in Wonsan, the administrative seat of the province of Kangwon. I am impatient to head north to the nation’s capital Pyongyang to meet the President, but I am told the delay is because I first have to be greeted formally by Kangwon’s governor. The problem is that they do not yet know who it will be this week. And here, my friends, we arrive at one of the most outstanding revelations yet of my thus far short stay in Korea.
Contrary to what I was told before leaving for Korea, North Korea is not an authoritarian state ruled by a dictator. In fact, and here I am sure you will be as astonished as I, it is the most democratic country I have ever visited.
The people here all owe that to their much loved supreme leader Kim Jong-un who carries on the tradition of his father Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim II-sung (I am wondering if they are related to that dreadful Kim Dot-com, but I think not).
According to my guide and his interpreter, the family has always been insistent all North Koreans have a leadership opportunity. Kim Jong-un personally selects the country’s leaders, as did his forefathers before him, and to ensure that everybody gets an opportunity those leaders rarely last more than a week.
What a wonderful system. New Zealand has much to learn from North Korea.
So, I am waiting to find out who Kangwon’s governor is to be this week. I am sure he will be very nice.
Indeed everybody I have met has been most obliging, and most industrious—perhaps too industrious. Yesterday, I spoke to my guide and his interpreter about the breeding habits of the Devonport Guppy. Just three hours into my dissertation, the interpreter rose and said he and his guide were required elsewhere on urgent government business. They promptly left and I haven’t seen them since. When I mentioned this to the manager of my hotel, he said I was not to worry. He said that many North Koreans disappeared and were never seen again. Funnily enough, he must be one of them. I have not seen him since, either.
Yours sincerely, your friend,
Phyllis J. Fenwick (Miss).

Wogistan: A Space Odyssey

The Democratic Republic of Wogistan (Inc.)

Office of the Foreign Secretary

123 Bruce Springsteen Boulevard (third door on right). Telephone: 125.

Email: Info@officeoftheforeignsecretary.govt.wg

Mr Honi Harawira

Parliament Building

Auckland

Aoutearowa

Keaora  Mr Honi

We have investment opportunity for Mr Honi Harawira in Democratic Republic of Wogistan (Inc). Investment opportunity only available to much moneyed peoples with time on hands. You like.

You invest in Wogistan space programme to send rocket, President Yoseph Flagrantlie, to moon. Suit peoples who like travels. We know you Honi Harawira likes travels. We offer you seat on flight. You claim one fifth of moon as sovereign territory of Peoples Democratic Republic of Aoutearowa. Rest goes to Wogistan.

But weight theres more Mr Honi Harawira. Take offer today and we gives you second seat on flight free. You takes your partner Kim Dotcom with you?  We wave excess weight charge. Rush moneys to us today and you and Kim Dotcoms on trips of your life times.

Ring now!

With sincere facilitations,

Yoseph xxx

Yoseph Wankerstan

Foreign Secretary The Democratic Republic of Wogistan (Inc.)

Proprietor Spartacus Male Gym and Bathhouse.

Terms and conditions of offer: No return on investment (or rocket).  Mona not included. She find work in my bathhouse. Offer approved and endorsed by Mr John Key esteemed prime minister of New Zealand and peoples of New Zealand.

Our Gift to America

Kim Dotcom has well and truly overstayed his welcome. The perception of him as a big lovable bear much maligned by American business is gone. The same can be said of Nicky Hager whose ridiculous books seemingly owe more to innuendo and vagaries than substantive facts. Put the two together and one is reminded of Laurel and Hardy, and just not in physical resemblance. They, too, were buffoons.
I was away for the election and where I was the New Zealand election was not mentioned, so I had to bring it up. In a vain attempt to elicit interest and empathise with America and Americans, I mentioned that our popular prime minister John Key had an embryonic and empathetic relationship with their president Barrack Obama and the two regularly played golf together.  That just drew what I thought was an unnecessarily churlish response: everybody plays golf with Barrack Obama. Okay, let’s start again. Have you heard of the All Blacks? No. Sir Edmund Hillary? Who? Kim Dotcom? Is he for real? No, but let’s not go there. And there the breakfast conversation ended, with the pancakes still to be served. It is often said of Americans that they know little and care less for anything outside the United States. I believe that to be largely true. One of my early conversations (with a shuttle driver in New York) went like this:
HE: Where you from Bud?
ME: New Zealand.
HE: Noo Zealand? Wow.
ME: Yep.
HE: What language you folk speak there?
But strike them when they are not hungry and hanging out for pancakes (or tips) and you will find Americans warm and friendly and engaging. They can also be genuinely interested in you and your country. My shuttle driver again:
HE: What football you folk play?
ME: Rugby.
HE: Rugby? Wow. Well, I never.
ME: Never played it?
HE: Never heard of it.
So, if the starting point is that they don’t know of rugby or of the All Blacks, there is little point in pursuing discussion about New Zealand.  The Knowledge vacuum is simply too vast. Besides, my mission was to enjoy their country—which I did—not educate it—which I didn’t.
It saddens me however that the starting (and end) point should be the All Blacks and rugby.
I believe we have much more of substance in this great country of ours.
Much more that we should and should share with the world.
Much we could and should give, to America in particular.
Something they want.
Kim Dotcom.

Wogistan Greets Kim

Things I'll never get to see...

One night last week I heard what I thought to be at least a couple of kiwi on my front lawn. By the time I got out of bed to see them my dogs had chased them off. I hope I get another opportunity and if I continue to live in the Far North with its surprisingly healthy population of kiwis then I no doubt will. But upon pondering the perspicacity of my Kiwi I thought of things I doubt I will ever see—not in my lifetime and perhaps not in yours. Here is my list:
1.     A movie sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey. The trailer for the first movie in the excruciating trilogy is bad enough and they want to make two more?
2.     Auckland councillors forgoing their business-class perks or declining invitations to visit some other world’s most liveable cites such as in Nepal and Finland.
3.     Len Brown serving a third term.
4.     A fourth term for John Key.
5.     A David Cunliffe led government.
6.     Any international traction of credibility for Eastern Ukrainian’s self-styled freedom fighters.
7.     Ditto Vladimir Putin.
8.     An end to Treaty settlements.
9.     A world without Mike Hosking—not that we are trying hard.
10. A world without Paul Henry—and we are trying hard.
11. More convenient folding of the otherwise stunning Kleenex Flushable Cleansing Cloths.
12. A funnier programme than QI.
13. An end to the high-rotate run of the once funny Cigna Funeral Cover commercial.
14. An end to the high-rotate run of the once funny Kim Dotcom.
15. An end to the high-rotate run of the never funny John Banks—sorry, we have already seen that.
16. A ministerial resignation between now and the election
17. Anyone still reading Mills and Boon.
18. An admission by Hone Harawira that, in the end, he is just “funning us.”
19. Kiwi sheep placenta anywhere near my face.
20.  Gerry Brownlee hopping over any more fences.

Stranded in Paradise (with apologies to John Dix)

Charles Dickens, novelist, social commentator and lecturer, also owned and edited a weekly publication called All the Year Round. I have three annual anthologies of that periodical, including the seventh volume, which is for the year 1862.
In that volume is a story of special interest to me, given that I now live in the Bay of Islands.
It is apparently a true story, written by a clergyman who in 1859 was swept out to sea in the bay and stranded on one of its islands for seven months.
He was then found by local Maori (Ngapuhi) whom, our clergyman recounts, he initially faced with some trepidation, not knowing whether they were to rescue him or eat him. They did neither, electing rather to leave him on his island prison—their boat being already overloaded with “wives, slaves and children”. They did however promise to send back a larger rescue boat on their return to the mainland. And that duly happened.
The story, whilst interesting, is of no great significance in New Zealand’s history; the country’s maritime antiquity is replete with such strandings and larger and more tragic shipwrecks. But that very anonymity is perhaps where the most intrinsic interest lays—nobody else as far as I know except me, and now you, know of the story of the marooned, lonely and despairing clergyman and “his” island. Yet the account, if true, is so full of direction and description that it may be possible for someone with a greater knowledge of the Bay of Islands than mine to be able to pinpoint and identify the island.
Such identification will add little to the sum store of our communal knowledge. But, who cares? In these days of incessancy rather than interest—Kim Dotcom, Len Brown, budget blowouts, et al—can the location of New Zealand’s very own Robinson Crusoe’s island home be any less interest?
I won’t bore you with those descriptions here, but I am happy to extract and send them to anyone interested, and particularly anyone with the interest and knowledge to identify the island.

When Money Talks, Money Walks

I must say that the Internet component of the Internet-Mana Party has put up some good-looking candidates with impressive credentials. Compensation for the other component, I guess.
Nevertheless, that may still not be enough for them to win any seats unless they can get in on the coattails of a Hone “What me Opportunist?” Harawira win in Tai Tokerau—and from what I am hearing in the north that is far from a foregone conclusion.
Without Hone, I don’t think Kim and his cronies can win at all—so any success in September will be well and truly a case of money talking. Kim Dotcom will have bought Hone, bought Mana and bought whatever seats those stained coattails will gift him. 
As for Hone, what has he bought? A lot of trouble? Perhaps. But he is no stranger to Trouble and if Trouble earned frequent flyer points Hone Harawira would not have to have so many taxpayer funded trips.
I think the greater question is what has he sold? Mana press officer Pam Corkery says the party and its principles will remain “unsullied” by the purported $3 million inject. I agree with her.  Hone and his party have not sold out, certainly not on a matter of principles, in that area they have nothing to sell. No, I think Hone and his party—or maybe just Hone—may have entered into this agreement for more prosaic purposes, based perhaps on precedent rather than principle.
Kim, some times money talks, some times it just walks.

Whetu Calls: The Political Party

-->From time to time one reaches a watershed in one’s life. Each day is different, but some contain events so momentous they change your life and set it off in a new direction. Such a watershed happened to me recently and as a result I see new vistas opening before me and much that is fading into darkness and memory behind me. Of the latter there will be few regrets. There is much I wish to consign to the darkness from whence it came. Whetu may well be one of those. However, it is not to be…

ME: My god! How did you find me?

HE:  Kia ora bro.

ME: You are the last person I expected to see up here. How did you know I was here?

HE: I got cuzzies up here. They told me youse arrived. Choice place youse got here. Cost you a lot?

ME: What do you want Whetu?

HE: I is on the campaign trail.

ME: Campaign? What campaign?

HE: Political campaign, bro. Me an a few cuzzies joined a new party and we’s putting up some can…candy…canner…peoples in the next election.

ME: You? What on earth could you offer the country?

HE: Wells, as that Kennedy fella said ask not what you can do for your country, instead ask what your country can do for you.

ME: Other way around.

HE: Not for us bro.

ME: So, I suppose you want a campaign contribution? Is that what you are here for?

HE: Youse mean money?

ME: I’s…I mean money.

HE: Nah: we got all the money we’s need.

ME: How on earth did you get that?

HE: Cusin Hone got us to join the Kim Dotcom party. Said he was rich bro and we could fleece—borrow—alls we like from him. Sweet bro.

ME: You have joined the Internet Party?

HE: Yus bro. The in-to-the-net party. That’s us. All the moneys and all the fishing we wants. Sweet as.

Guy Forks

Anna Guy

Someone said, probably on more than one occasion, that comparisons are odious. As an all-enveloping statement it is not strictly accurate and should not preclude us from making comparisons. Nevertheless some comparisons are odious, particularly when the comparisons are of odious people such as Kim Dotcom and Hone Harawira and Russell Norman and Colin Craig. The first coupling seems a strange love-fest at the very least, and the second, a defamation and counter-claim, is a waste of space and time. When we compare all four we must be drawn to the conclusion that the common factors are that they are all superficial, stupid and seemly oblivious to the “who cares” reaction they generate among most of us. Bit like Anna Guy really.

Kim

-->

To me, having an innate aversion to a name is irrational and illogical. Yet I have it.  In my early days the name was Felicity. But at least I could explain why I disliked Felicity—I disliked Felicity. Felicity Smith was a girl who followed me in every primary class we attended. She latched on to me like a limpet and it was only when we went to separate secondary schools that she stopped. Felicity was never popular and was as a consequence lonely and morose—which only added to her problem and in retrospect my own: the guilt I now feel for the way I treated her which ran along the lines of I don’t want to be associated with you because you are bad for my image.

That said, I still have an aversion to the name Felicity. But at least I have an explanation as well.

But how do I explain Kim? Why do I not like the name Kim? Is it again that I associate it with the traits of some people I do know of that name though not intimately—Kim Kardashian, Kim Dotcom and Kim Jong-un? Maybe.

I am such an evil devious bugger that I even went on the Internet to find other people named Kim whom I could dislike. What I found surprised me—not the number of people, but the number of sites devoted to the name Kim. There is of course the omnipresent Wikipedia listing, but there also any number of sites listing famous people named Kim (they all seem to come up with the same three I did) and one site for “Men named Kim”.  There is even a site for people who wished they were named Kim. For those of a scientific bent there is a Web-thesis on the gender-neutrality of Kim.

None of these sites adds much to the store of common knowledge but they perhaps illustrate the fact that you can find anything about anything on the Internet, and that there are too many people with too much time on their hands. Like me.

I will now go and do something useful.  Before I go, however, there are some riders to this Fryday. They are:

1.     I know very few people named Kim.

2.     The only Kim with whom I have a close acquaintance is one of the loveliest people I have met and of whom I have the greatest admiration and adoration.

3.     None of the other Kims I have mentioned have invited me to any of their parties (in the case of Kim Dotcom he seems to have invited everybody else) and thus allowed Fryday to form a different opinion of them. Until they do…

And finally...Felicity. My hope there is that she has grown to live a full and happy life.  That won’t assuage my guilt, but it will at least allow me to think she has the strength and the depth to smile benignly and knowingly on my apology.
Happy Valentine’s Day Felicity, wherever you are.

El Walrus v El Teflon

At the beginning of the Kim Dotcom affair we were told implicitly that there was something dark and devious about Mr Dotcom and his operations. Whilst that may be the case and we are yet to hear any evidence to the contrary, recent revelations would suggest “dark and devious” better describes the behaviours of our own organisations and individuals. First it was the Police and the paucity of evidence upon which they based their search warrants, then was the alleged rorting and befuddled behaviour of John Banks. More recently there was the revelations about the role of our super-intelligence agency the Government Communications Security Bureau. And now, even our Prime Minister Teflon John is being hit, and it is starting to stick. Incidentally when Googling Kim Dotcom for Fryday, Google informed me that others who had made the same search had also searched for John Banks, John Key and Julian Assange; now that is a fast-developing unholy trinity if there was one. Strangely, the other search subject was Steve Wozniak, who is not even on the same planet as the others, let alone the same ilk. This affair has not ended here. A not always prescient Fryday invited you as far back as May 4 to watch this space; more was coming. More is coming. Sadly, we won’t have TVNZ's top investigative reporter around to investigate it. Just Kidding.

Banks for Nothing

Friday usually starts for Fryday with the donning of tracksuit pants, the push-button immediacy of the coffee machine and overnight email correspondence. This morning the tracksuit pants were put on backwards, the push-button immediacy was forestalled by an empty reservoir and my only email was a promise that I could “get it on all night” if I purchased some pills. I have re-clothed myself and refilled the reservoir, but after two very late nights (which I think contributed to the pants), I despair of a present inability to get it on all night, pills or no pills. It’s been a busy time and whilst that can affect all things, including relationships, I am emboldened by a strong relationship and a will to win—with or without the whiskey. I am a bit like Banks in that regard. John Banks is the antithesis of the Teflon politician; every piece of mud thrown at him sticks. He attracts it. Yet he disregards it, seemingly with aplomb and superiority. As an experienced politician he might be relying on the much held belief that it will all blow over. Banks might be right in that, but I think not. This thing is already as big as Kim Dotcom and will get bigger. My understanding is that too many people know too much about this affair, and Mr Dotcom controls them, what they know and the timing of delivery. Watch this space—or any space—it's coming. Banks on it.

The Con, The Com and the Kims

Two Kims have figured prominently in Fryday’s life of late, the first with pleasure the second vicariously. Our friend Kim Gordon and her husband Glenn gave birth to their first child, Lola. From the photographs I have seen Lola looks a delightful little baby and, even if she is giving a Kim a few sleepless nights that suggest the baby could be more aptly named Barry, Kim and Glenn are still wonderfully blessed. Congratulations.
The other Kim is also a baby, a big bear of a baby: Kim Dotcom. I knew nothing of him before the police raid on his Coatsville rented mansion, but I have taken a fascinated, vicarious and voyeuristic interest since. Who hasn’t? Go on, admit you have. This is not how the other half live; this is how the other 0.00007% live. Not for the likes of you and me. And am I full of envy? Of course I am. They say that money can’t buy happiness. That is so much BS. Of course it can; it can also apparently buy you a prison term but that is another story. One sidebar story was that Mr Dotcom has been refused bail because he posed a flight risk and allegedly had the resources to falsify the necessary documentation—presumably a passport. Hello? The guy is six foot zillion—are you going to tell me that Emigration won’t recognise the differentiation, discrepancy and distinction between the imposing figure in front of them and whomever the passport identifies? I am not saying let him out; but really this reason, if alone, is such a crock.
I am ambivalent about Dotcom. I know nothing of him, other than of his lifestyle. I have never used his on-line service—never knew it existed. I am in no position to judge him, nor would I want to. What I can say is that for however brief a moment Kim Dotcom added interest to an otherwise fairly dreary summer.
Kim and Glenn Gordon would not have thought it dreary I think; summer gave them the most blessed gift possible. But for the rest of us it’s somewhat worrying that Kim Dotcom and his mansionarial machinations are all we got.


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