Interesting Times

As one reaches one’s dotage one finds the greatest of pleasures in the humblest of activities.

Gone are the great events of the past—the road-trips, the late-night poker, party crashing, the unrestrained (and restrained) sex and not caring what scotch one drinks.

They have been replaced with reading the Rodney Times.

Now I know this is not everybody’s cup of tea (another new-found pleasure), but the Rodney Times can be an interesting read. As a newspaper serving a largely rural area it gives insight into the lives and activities of a disparate if somewhat smug community.

I can take any edition as evidence of this. Yesterday’s for example. The lead story is an armed robbery of a bar not far from here, and under that story, on the same page, RT trumpets the lowest recorded crime in 15 years. The juxtaposition shows the editor has sense of humour.

But like so many things it’s only when we take something further that it gets interesting. The Kumeu Volunteer Fire Brigade is hosting a hoedown night, the mayor sat in a chair in Warkworth, Wellsford Kindergarten has a three-day (!) pumpkin festival, and we are told that on May 5 and 19 there will be ukulele lessons in Orewa—one is required to bring one’s own ukulele, though practice ukuleles are available for those not so endowed. I have bought mine.

As if to prove that even Rodney has a seedy undercurrent, we are told in the headline on page 15 that there is a Chery (sic) ripe for plucking. Unfortunately, that is another of those events now beyond my capacity and ability. With that as an appetiser though, one inevitably gravitates to the classifieds. If one is looking for raunchy escort ads one is disappointed, “Hire a Hubby” doesn’t quite mean what you think. But you can still get an Aurora Psychic Reading (“the best in New Zealand”) and whilst I am devastated to read that I have not won the Kaipara College Easter Raffle, it was at least won by Fryday reader Leigh Wilson, and Mr Mike Walker is happy to add the piano to my ukulele tuition.

The untutored may well think that reading a paper such as the Rodney Times is like a trip to Hamilton. But, I submit here, that is unfair. A trip to Hamilton is never great, never humbling, and certainly never a pleasure.

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Virgin Territory

A friend of mine recently and cleverly described France as a country as much in need of change as it is against it. I am sure this holds true of many countries. But my friend’s adroit and intimate view of France (she lives there) will confirm what many of us feel about the perpetual Peter Pan of Europe.
It is also the way I feel about the district in which I live—Rodney, just north of Auckland in New Zealand. Rodney is something of an eddy in the comparatively swift current that is Auckland. Those who choose to swim against the current are grateful to be swept into the Rodney eddy to rest, relax and enjoy the relative peace and solitude. Some only visit, while others plan to stay forever. It is the latter who seem most reluctant to accept change to their quiet little backwater. But change is about to be forced upon them, for later this year Rodney will cease to exist as a legal entity. It is about to drown as Auckland bursts its banks, literally and figuratively, and floods its hinterland. We are all to become part of one of the largest metropolises by area in the world. We are to become each of us one of those much-maligned In New Zealand and derided elsewhere commercially crafted articles—an Aucklander. Uncharacteristically for the normally indecisive Auckland we even have a date for it: November 1. Most of us approach our date with decadency with the same foreboding we would an adult circumcision and we anticipate much the same pain. Only this time we in Rodney will be adding something rather than taking away from what could (still) be the biggest cock-up in recent New Zealand history. Nevertheless, we are ready for you Auckland. Come and have us. Do your will. Deflower us if that is your want. But forgive us if, while you do so and you have your wonton way, we Rodneyites lay back and think of Hamilton.

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Unreliable Rodney

I don’t know whether it is the economy or the emergence of reality TV and docudramas such as Border Patrol but we are in danger of losing sight of one of life’s staples—humour. There doesn’t seem to be much of it around at the moment, certainly in New Zealand. We are taking ourselves far too seriously.
I knew last night we were below par when I saw Rodney Hide on TV, devoid of his incessant and ingratiating grin. Of course he was meeting Auckland’s mayors and that would swipe the smile off anyone’s face—but, still, Rodney Hide? The dancer par excellence, the workout king, the judicator of jovial, the Yellow Peril? Yes, we are in parlous state when Rodney starts to take himself seriously. We have to fall back on Keith Locke.
I blame Billy T. James.
The late great Billy T. James gave us the apex of New Zealand humour, taking up that mantle from the earlier John Clarke. There has been nothing of their kind since. In them we set the bar too high. I doubt we will ever attain that level of humour, at least from our entertainment sector, again. And these days “comedies” such as Diplomatic Immunity inflicted upon us are less of a laugh than laughable. If Billy T. James was the apex of New Zealand comedy, Diplomatic Immunity is the nadir, akin to the long-forgotten (thankfully) Melody Rules.
TV, through this and other comedic attempts, fails us.
So do politicians. Because if we have now to resort to relying on politicians to give us a good laugh we are well and truly in trouble—Keith is silent, Winston is gone and Rodney is, clearly and sadly, no longer reliable.


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