Hard Labour

 

 

Hard Labour

 

If you are part of the current Labour Government and saturated with power you don’t know what to do with, you could be forgiven for thinking every day is Labour Day.

Ego and immaturity play games like that.

If you live in Auckland, and in the 11^th week of lockdown, you can be forgiven for thinking that Labour has had its day and it is time to move on.

Of course, there is only one Labour Day, and that is next Monday, extending the weekend by one day.

Sadly, for you in Auckland and to a lesser extent the rest of us in New Zealand, it will be a hard Labour Day. Variable restrictions on movement and gatherings  still apply, the spectres of non-compliance and illegal cross-border travel will increase, and the tourism and hospitality sectors will continue to stagnate, despite this so-called and erstwhile “holiday”.

It used to be a great day, the first after the winter and the harbinger of summer.

It was when we planted tomatoes.

It also used to be a celebration of the eight-hour working day, though this is largely forgotten, as is the actuality of a working day for many in our community.

But a celebration it was and will be again. And it is one we New Zealanders can be justly proud.

New Zealand was among the first countries in the world to adopt the eight-hour day and it was instigated by a Wellington builder called Samuel Parnell. For those of you reading this on the blog, that is the dude up top with the enviable sideburns.

In 1840, local shipping agent George Hunter commissioned Parnell to build him a new store.

Parnell accepted the commission but added a proviso.

These reportedly are his exact words:

“But I must make this condition… that on the job the hours shall only be eight for the day… There are twenty-four hours per day given us; eight of these should be for work, eight for sleep, and the remaining eight for recreation and in which for me to do what little things they want for themselves.”

Hunter replied that in London, workers were expected to be on site for 6am.

“We’re not in London,” replied Parnell.

That truism saw the instigation of the eight-hour working day, which we celebrate on Monday. It became official in 1899.

And so, we have a holiday on Monday, thanks to Mr Parnell. How much of a holiday in lockdown will depend on what we make of it. To make the best of it will require ingenuity and imagination. The good news is that is exactly what we are good at—being imaginative, innovative, being ourselves, not what the government wants us to be.

Enjoy the holiday, make it your own.

Where Helen Clark Lite is the only salvation.

 

We have a problem.

It is not Covid. It is not the prospect of economic meltdown. Nor is it that the McDonald’s horrendous “Monopoly” commercial with its creepy front figure is back.

It is that Jacinda Ardern—Helen Clark Lite—has lost it. 

The current signs are that she, the government she leads/controls, and their collective Covid response are spiralling downward out of control. Unlinked community cases are growing daily in terms of numbers and areas, vaccination and testing rates among Maori are the lowest of any ethnic community in New Zealand, and there is a failure to acknowledge—let alone, accept—that there is a gang element at play here putting the rest of us at risk.

And on that last point, it literally comes close to home for me. For those who don’t live in New Zealand and may not know, two sex workers, both with Covid, used forged papers to illegally cross police checkpoints to travel from Auckland to Northland. It’s known that they were travelling through Northland over several days, but because they are being “uncooperative” when questioned, little is known about where exactly they went and whom they engaged with. It is widely alleged they have gang connections—something the prime minister initially denied but has since gone strangely silent about.

Despite the prime minister’s reticence, the evidence of gang connections is compelling and for the prime minister to deny that, or even not to entertain the idea, is deeply concerning and does raise the suspicion she is not being wholly truthful—that her too-hard basket is becoming increasingly full.

But let’s get back to the link between Jacinda Ardern and Helen Clark. It’s been widely reported that Ardern has a huge amount of respect for Clark and considers her something of a mentor. Nothing wrong with that. Nor is it wrong that she may want to follow in Clark’s footsteps and stride the world stage in some capacity—probably a post with the United Nations.

But here is why I don’t think that is going to happen.

First, she is not Helen Clark. I was never a great admirer of Clark, but I knew she had gravitas and a fierce intellect. She is not the most charismatic person I have met, and I have met her several times, including being on the wharf with her the day the Rainbow Warrior was bombed, but she had presence and used that effectively without resorting to photo-ops. There is no superficiality about her, but there was a decisiveness that guaranteed this country of ours a clear direction.

Jacinda Ardern has none of that—offers none of that. Instead, we have someone who leads a shoddy, incompetent government that is almost entirely dependent on the superficiality of her television presence and the ministrations of a compliant heavily funded media to survive. Add to that last point, an equally incompetent Opposition.

I know some of you will disagree with that assessment. I can’t change that. But I do invite you to answer one question: In the four years of Ardern’s coalition and then Labour Government what has she successfully achieved? I said successfully. The Covid response? Initially commendable but turning to custard after the failure of elimination. Mental Health? Child Poverty? Affordable Housing? Homeless? The Health Sector? Policing? No significant achievements there.

What about her response to the Mosque Shootings and White Island?

Those last two only beg a second question: What did she do then that would be different to the response of any other prime minister in the same circumstances? You don't know. I don’t know. We’ll never know.

What I do know is that some serious questions are being asked about her competence, her credibility, her motivations, and her transparency and I have yet to see that, to this extent, in more than 49 years involved with politics.

And not just here in New Zealand. She is losing traction overseas where the media are railing against her and her perceived lack of policy and flexibility to handle the ever-evolving Delta pandemic.

Bloomberg once rated us the best country in the world in terms of our Covid response. In September 21 this year we were 38^th and in freefall.

Jacinda Ardern is not the person we hoped she would be. She could have been. She could have been our second Helen Clark, a true statesperson, rather than a lite version trailing in Clark’s shadow.

It’s a shame really. It was a shame that we didn’t give her three more years in Opposition to hone her leadership skills, to get her frontbench up to speed and eject those who were never going to make it.

But that didn’t happen and despite a wish not to be pessimistic I think we are about to see the consequences of that.

 

The (Un)Kindness of Strangers

 

It is unforgivable what New Zealanders are doing to New Zealanders now.

The ill-conceived, cumbersome, and intransigent MIQ Lottery System is leaving thousands of New Zealanders overseas unable to return home, and confronted by the debacle of a totally inadequate quota system.

We have, effectively and, in the government’s case, inefficiently, abandoned these people.

The Government will point to what in their view is a fact—that we are living in an unprecedented time. We’re not. We have faced pandemics before: Spanish Flu in 1918, SARS from 2002 to 2004, Avian Flu between 2013 and 2017 and ongoing cholera. In none of these cases, did the then governments close our borders stranding our people on the other side of them.

As a further rationale for their actions, or inactions, the Government tells us that the lack of MIQ facilities is a direct consequence of our inability to staff them. Their hands are tied.
Again, not the full story. It’s been almost two years since covid reached our shores and almost from the outset, there were calls for the Government to build a dedicated MIQ facility staffed by dedicated staff in a relatively compact, safe, and secure environment. Instead, we still have a hodgepodge of facilities which amount to little more than cattle pens, with staff spread thin throughout the country and struggling to cope.

The system has failed those people overseas. Yet the Government’s sticking to it, trying to explain and rationalise it and showing a grim and cruel determination to keep it going.

Regardless.

What it (the Government) is not doing is changing it, let alone apologising for it. 

 

Then there is the case of Winston and Rae Wallace. Stuff reported their plight earlier this week.

Mr & Mrs Wallace are stranded in Australia. They went there in mid-April, when travel was allowed, to help their daughter, who they say was desperate for support in these difficult times.

They could not return before trans-Tasman travel closed in July but hoped to return on October 29.

Their flights were then cancelled, leaving them stranded and unable to get space in a managed isolation and MIQ facility.

And now comes the point. Under the law, a person is entitled to the first 26 weeks of their normal rate of superannuation while overseas, provided they return to New Zealand within 30 weeks.

The Wallaces have been told their payments will be suspended on October 22 and, if they cannot return by November 11, they may have to repay six months’ worth of their pensions – estimated to be between $13,000 and $14,000.

In other words, they have the potential to be penalised severly for the failures of this government and MIQ.

I have a friend in a similar situation, though he is not yet overseas, but would like to do so for compassionate reasons.
When he wrote to the Ministry of Social Welfare seeking clarification on the pension situation, he received a reply which stated in part:

“I can advise that people who leave New Zealand after lockdown started on 26 March 2020 would not meet the criterion of being an unforeseen circumstance. This is because COVID- 19 and the effects on travel are widely known and accepted; therefore, it is reasonable to foresee that there could be issues returning to New Zealand.”

Again, really?

What my friend is being told is the Government expected us to know back in March 2020 that MIQ would be totally inadequate and there would be no compassion or flexibility offered.

Many months ago, the Prime Minister went on television and told us to be kind.

She didn’t need to.

It is my belief that, at least until recently, New Zealanders are inherently kind. It is who we are.

The only people not being kind, it seems, is the government she leads.

They are strangers to us.

This is not who we are.

 

Crazy Book Titles

 

An annual staple of early Frydays was the Hamilton Public Library Book of Lists. It listed those books which, for various reasons, attained a special place among the portfolio of books offered for loan by the library.

Unfortunately, the same books kept appearing on the list every year. Fifty Shades of Grey was the perpetual most loaned book; the most popular career book was A life in Hairdressing, and when it came to computers, the most popular books were A Step-by-Step Picture Guide to Finding Google on your Computer and A Step-by-Step Picture Guide to Turning on Your Computer. The only new books to puncture the status quo were: the most stolen book (from the library), Shoplifting for Dummies (2020), Jacinda—A Love Story (2021) and A Dummies’ Guide to loving Jacinda, Despite Everything. (2021).

With so few entries on the list, the list became unsustainable. So, I scrapped it.

Now, however, I have become aware of The Diagram Group and its awards for the oddest book titles of the year. These are, believe me or not, real published books. They make for interesting reading--the titles, not, I suggest, the books themselves.

I’ll start with the most scatorial of the year 2014. Finalists that year included:

·      How to Poo on a Date: The Lovers' Guide to Toilet Etiquette.

·      The Origin of Faeces.

 

Over the years the Awards have managed to accumulate some strange titles indeed. Here is a sample. Remember, they are real books and can be found on Amazon. I have given you links.

·       BOMBPROOF YOUR HORSE

·        WHO CARES ABOUT ELDERLY PEOPLE?

·       DOES GOD EVER SPEAK THROUGH CATS?

·        HOW TO DISSAPPEAR COMPLETELY AND NEVER BE FOUND

·       SUN-BEAMS MAY BE EXTRACTED FROM CUCUMBERS, BUT THE PROCESS IS TEDIOUS

·        HOW GREEN WERE THE NAZIS?: NATURE, ENVIRONMENT, AND NATION IN THE THIRD REICH 

·       HOW TO SURVIVE A GARDEN GNOME ATTACK: DEFEND YOURSELF WHEN THE LAWN WARRIORS STRIKE (AND THEY WILL) 

·        KNITTING WITH DOG HAIR: BETTER A SWEATER FROM A DOG YOU KNOW AND LOVE THAN FROM A SHEEP YOU'LL NEVER MEET

·        HOW TO TEACH PHYSICS TO YOUR DOG

·        MANIFOLD DESTINY: THE ONE! THE ONLY! GUIDE TO COOKING ON YOUR CAR ENGINE!

·       DATING FOR UNDER A DOLLAR: 301 IDEAS 

And my favourite:

·      TEACH YOUR WIFE TO BE A WIDOW[1]

So, there are some strange book titles out there and it seems to be that you can find someone, somewhere who has written on just about every subject imaginable. For example, a few years back I wrote a Fryday on the subject of toilet lids and their usage. I went on google to research that and found no fewer than 7,290,000 documents on the subject.

But me, I am above all that. I have life, substance, pride, self-respect and intelligence. You won’t find your Fryday friend writing drivel. Never! God help me if, through sheer boredom, I ever resort to putting pen to paper on meaningless subjects such as, well, for example,  Crazy Book Titles.

---

[1] This was one reader’s review of Teach Your Wife to be a Widow: I got my wife an Amazon gift card for Christmas, and she used part of it to buy this book. My health hasn't been the best lately and I've been very busy at work, so I think that she's being very prudent in learning how to deal with "final expenses" and take over the household finances and maintenance of the house and car. Yesterday another book arrived for her from Amazon: A Field Guide To Toxic Plants Of North America. I have such a thoughtful wife! She knows that I have a number of life-threatening allergies, and she wants to make sure that I stay away from anything that might harm me. Gotta go now, it's dinner time. She's made me a big salad that she says will end all of my worries about cholesterol.

 

The Second Coming

 

The Political Podium and how it is being used

 

The Prime Minister’s daily covid updates, usually at 1.00, are past their use-by date, no longer serve any useful purpose and have deteriorated to where they are little more than cynical manipulation for political purposes, bordering on the disgraceful.

Now, you may disagree with me on that. You may think the Prime Minister is doing a superb job communicating with the country and keeping us in touch and keeping us calm.

And keeping us kind.

But I would like to list the reasons that is not true. Some of the following may seem incredibly trivial to you, some of them are just nuances that normally would go unnoticed, but collectively they build a picture of pitch-perfect politicking. So, here we go.

·      Timing: The press conferences are scheduled for 1.00 pm. The Prime Minister is invariably late arriving, sometimes by up to 15 minutes (though she has got better of late). Why is that? If Chris Hipkins or Grant Robertson are running the conferences, they turn up on time. But the Prime Minister? No. There is no, I repeat no, valid reason for her to be consistently late. It is unbecoming of a prime minister and, to be honest, it’s rude. Simple as that. But I can tell you why I think it happens. Could it be because it gives time for fawning sycophantic Press Gallery journalists such as Jessica Much-McKay to blow the government’s trumpet as a curtain-raiser to the “big event”. Pure theatre.

·      Then there is the time the Prime Minister takes to get to the point—again, keeping us waiting for effect. These days, the announcement we are principally looking for is whether we are going up or down levels. Instead, we must wait for that one simple piece of information until Ashley Bloomfield has, in his droning delivery, gone on about the number of cases, scanning rates, genome sequencing, and vaccination rates. Why? Couldn’t that wait until later? But no, the Prime Minister needs to keep us waiting.

·      About Ashley Bloomfield, he has joined the growing list of bureaucrats and media that can’t bring themselves to say Auckland. I am sorry. But I am failing to understand why we are increasingly defaulting to a language of just 15 percent of the population, many of whom don’t speak or understand it themselves. And what is it about his use of the word motu as in “across the motu.” Motu means the country. Why can’t he just say the country? Dr Ashley Bloomfield has become the Andy Coster of the medical fraternity and is condescending and patronising of Maori and, for many of us, offensive and so unnecessary.

·      But now we come to the crux of why I think the Political Podium is past its use-by date—the Prime Minister and the Director General are bringing nothing new to the table. Watch this afternoon’s conference carefully—or, more accurately—listen to it carefully. The Prime Minister is prefacing just about every sentence with “As you have just heard Dr Bloomfield say…” or “You will recall me saying…” So, she is repeating what we have already been told. Why? Does she have nothing new to say and is just hungry for the screen-time?

My point is that if these press conferences no longer have anything to say, other than an update on the statistics, and possibly grandstanding by the Prime Minister. They should be mothballed, and a press release for the Department of Health could distribute the statistics. Now, you may counter that by saying that the press conferences open the Prime Minister to questions from the media. Do they? How about this question to the Prime Minister last week: “How important is it that people follow the rules of Level 4?”

Really?

Let’s dispense with the “press conferences" and, for goodness’ sake, get back to being treated like adults.

Have you woken up yet?

 

For those who don’t know, and many of you don’t, Fryday started four decades ago as an attempt by me to prove the pen was indeed mightier than the sword. I created the Fryday e-letter, one of the first in New Zealand, to fry a Glen Innes panel beater who demonstrably screwed me. That post is lost. Anyway, it didn’t work; he is still in business. But so, too, is Fryday, though it has mellowed and has recently taken a hiatus of a couple of years…until last week’s revival and my homage to Charlie Watts.

Thank you very much for your response to that.

My problem with Fryday is that I have no idea when I start what I am going to write. I get up at 6.00 Friday mornings, go to my computer and suffer. There is nothing.

So, this week I thought I would write about…nothing.

One definition of nothing is a lack of something.

Here in New Zealand and around the world there is a lack of common sense, augmented by a paucity of maturity. How else can we explain the deluge of wokeness that has rushed to fill the void left by the departure of those two great human traits—the remnants of which can be found only in the far reaches of the Outer Hebrides and visitors to Spike Milligan’s grave?

If I had seen that flood of wokeness coming, I would have got Donald J. Trump to ask God to send Moses back.

Examples abound, and I don’t want to give them credence by promoting them here. However, some of them are just plain silly and nonsensical. Why on earth would you not put a baby’s gender on the birthday certificate? Why would you tear down a statue of Abraham Lincoln (of all people) in Lincoln Park (of all places)? Why would you appoint newsreaders seemingly incapable of pronouncing Auckland and New Zealand? And don’t start me on the endless “issues du jour”.

None of this is, of course, new. When I worked in advertising in the 70s, an edict came out from Radio New Zealand stating that it was no longer acceptable to use the word manhole; it was to be replaced with person-hole. Thank goodness that didn’t take off, it could have injured someone.

The “issue” I have is that anybody who won’t embrace wokeness or criticises it is automatically labelled out of touch, reactionary, middle-aged or older, white, racist, and inferior. They might have a point on some of those points. I am white and at my age, if I bent a knee, I might not manage to get back up.

But look, don’t label me the way you want to label me. Don’t label me at all. You don’t know me. You only think you know me.

And don’t automatically assume that because you think you are right, I am wrong.

There is in my world, room for diversity. In yours? Apparently not. Ironic, eh?

Yes, the world was asleep before you woke us up. And good on you for doing that. But now you are taking it over the top and getting boring. So boring, in fact, that you are sending me back to sleep.

Good night.

 

Charlie and the Rockalate Factory

I didn’t hide.

I just dropped out because Fryday had nothing to offer you. Trump is gone—though Biden has Fryday potential. Covid was/is omnipresent and boring. Jacinda more so. So, Fryday had nothing. Nothing to offer you.

Then…

Then Charlie Watts died.

That came as a shock. Apparently, there were earlier reports that he was unwell, but I didn’t see them. And whilst he is the oldest of the current Rolling Stones (former bassist Bill Wyman, at 84, is older) Watts led a comparatively clean life and given the hedonistic excesses of the others we could have assumed that Watts might have outlived them. But, then there is the platitude ‘only the good die young’, if you can call 80 young.

I never saw the Rolling Stones play live. However, I saw plenty of video footage of their performances; I would recommend their concert movie Shine a Light to everyone. For me, the one lasting image from the early performances was the slight smile, the knowing looks and the eye-rolling he shared with Wyman while observing the theatrical antics of the front three: Jagger, Richards and Wood. Watts and Wyman always—somehow—stood apart from the others. Those who studied the group say that was also the case off stage. 

Richards in his excellent autobiography Life recounts the story of Watts retiring to bed in an upstairs suite rather than attend a party in Jagger’s suite downstairs. According to Richards, that didn’t sit well with Jagger, who rang Watts and demanded he come down. When Watts refused, Jagger yelled down the phone “You’re my f**king drummer—you get down here!” Watts agreed to the demand, but when Jagger opened the door to let Watts in he was laid out by a right hook from Watts who stood over him and said in a measured tone, “I’m not your f**king drummer, you’re my f**king singer.”

I have heard it said Watts and Jagger didn’t get on particularly well.

But they stayed together for almost 60 years and in the process gave us some of the greatest songs of the rock era, often with an intro beat from Watts.

Among his peers—and here I would recommend an excellent documentary on rock drumming Count Me In recently released on Netflix—Watts was ranked third best drummer of the rock era behind Cream’s Ginger Baker and Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham. Not surprisingly, The Who’s Keith Moon was right up there, as well. Unlike Moon, Watts was the very antithesis of what a rock-drummer should be and look like. Watts was quiet, measured, sardonic and disciplined. He was married to the same woman (Shirley) for 57 years. He could paint (a talent he shared with Ronnie Wood). Despite not being able to drive, he collected classic cars—whereas, of course, Moon was more prone to parking them at the bottom of a pool. He flirted with drugs and alcohol for a time until he was cleansed by of all people Keith Richards.

It is little wonder, therefore, that Watts described his role with the Stones as his day job. His “real job”, as he saw it, was as a Jazz drummer.

Will the band continue without him? Who knows? They are starting a tour of the United States next month with session musician Steve Jordan filling in for Watts. But beyond that…? The Stones survived the death of Brian Jones (though he had already been fired) and the resignations of Wyman and Mick Taylor. But can they survive this—or should they even try?

What will live on is the music and the memories. And, for me, that enduring and endearing image of the man with the slight smile and knowing look, who was up there simply doing his day job.

RIP Charlie Watts: 1941—2021. Loved you, man.

 

Trucking Hell

 I once spent a month in Scranton Pennsylvania one afternoon.

I didn’t see much of it: just a few suburbs and the inside of a dreary airport in which I was ignored by largely disinterested staff including a cop chatting up the sandwich jockey at the airport’s miniscule lunch bar. I didn’t know what to expect of Scranton, But I guess I expected more than this.

It was the town that featured in one of my favourite Harry Chapin songs—30,000 pounds of bananas—which recounts the true story of a driver of a truck “coming down the hill to Scranton Pennsylvania” losing control and crashing into a house, killing himself and spilling his load of 30,000 pounds of bananas. There was a story going around at the immediate aftermath of the crash in 1965 that the driver, Eugene P. Sesky, was decapitated; he wasn’t, but in a grim irony Harry Chapin was, 16 years later when he crashed into a truck and trailer unit.

Scranton’s only other claim to fame that I can tell was its selection as the site for the American version of The Office. Given that The Office’s creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant selected Slough for the British original suggests what they thought of Scranton.

Despite my impressions of Scranton, I have nothing against it, and I certainly have nothing but admiration for Pennsylvania. It is a beautiful state and wonderfully hospitable. One of my sons and I spent a night at a hotel there where we were joined by a bunch of bikers; from that point neither my son nor I bought a drink and by two in the morning the bar had run out of whisky. I attended a wedding there (another of my son’s) which was a momentous and memorable occasion; I was given a lengthy lesson on how to shoot “all kinds of varmints” using all kinds of weapons by a guy who was looking forward to coming down to New Zealand to shoot bears; and I acquired a new daughter-in-law.

I was also given lessons in history, including much about the great Battle of Gettysburg, not realising beforehand that Gettysburg is in Pennsylvania and that the Confederates got that far north. I could have crossed the state border and visited another place of history—Woodstock. But I didn’t. Perhaps next time.

I drove into Pennsylvania and flew out of Scranton. Those modes of transport are entirely apt: slowly in to relish the beautiful countryside—quickly out to escape Scranton.

I would recommend it to anyone.

By the way, the line “I spent a month there one afternoon” is not mine. It’s Harry Chapin’s, and he used it to introduce his song at live performances. I am guessing he didn’t do many of those in Scranton.

The Post about Posters

It is all getting rather silly.

In the wake of a killing of black man in the United States, as tragic and unjustified as it was, we have been subjected to an onslaught of morality-warriors once again telling us what to think and how to behave.

Yes, I know the killing of George Floyd is just the tip of a deep malaise, but it has led to one of the silliest slogans ever—Black Lives Matter (yes, they do and so does mine)—and a bitter and ill-targeted reaction, including defacing statues, rewriting history and the call to rename streets, towns and even regions because they are now deemed to unacceptable and/or offensive.

Okay, it’s the issue de année. Last year it was the Me Too movement, and this too will pass. But what is galling is that any gains made by such movements and no matter how laudable the intent, they are soon spoiled when they lapse into sheer silliness. The latest is this.

It seems that a recording studio has returned a series of 60s pop posters to the person who gifted them to the studio, because the posters, mostly of white artists such as the Beatles, Elvis, Yardbirds, etc, didn’t give a broad enough representation of gender or race to be featured in [the studio’s]  context.

In other words they are no longer appropriate.

That is ridiculous. They are what they are—a visual representation of the culture of the time. The fact that time is in the past doesn’t make the posters unacceptable and offensive let alone racist today.

The best that could be said for the recording studio's action is at least they didn’t destroy them. But it is still an over-reaction.

So, let’s put a stop to this silliness. Let’s acknowledge that there are wrongs being perpetrated in the world and they need to be addressed. But let’s also acknowledge that stifling the past rather than learning from it is not the way to do it.

As the Beatles said: Let it Be.