The Town I grew Up In

The town I grew up in, Kaiapoi in Canterbury, was very much like any other small New Zealand town in the 50s. It was the epicentre for the largely rural community that surrounded it. The biggest businesses in town were the pubs and the stock and station agents. Kaiapoi also had the world famous (genuinely) Kaiapoi Woollen Mills, but that produced no distinction, no worldly view; Kaiapoi was, like every other small town, proud, parochial, xenophobic and crushingly boring.
Given that, the large cities were also like that, as I remember them.
These days, the cities, with the exception of Hamilton, have changed and changed for the better. Vastly more cosmopolitan, cities have lost all those traits of the 50s including, sadly, pride, particularly in Auckland. But they are at least better; the small towns are not. New Zealand’s small towns are still parochial, xenophobic and crushingly boring but any pride that is left is self-delusional. They are no longer the providers for the back-bone of New Zealand; the backbone of New Zealand is no longer the backbone (one is challenged to find out what is these days) and much of the towns’ workers gravitate temporarily, and their young people permanently, to the cities. They add nothing to those cities, other than a force of worker-ants, but they detract and diminish the town.
Until recently, that trend seemed to be reversing as more and more city dwellers, attracted to the rural lifestyle, were moving to the country, and places such as Rodney where I live growing expotentially and dramatically. But the declining economy put paid to that; people stay put. And the towns, after a brief renewal of hope, have resumed their sad decline.
There was one policeman in the town I lived. He was Jack Highstead. I doubt very much that he ever rose above the rank of constable. But he ruled the town and he protected the town and he didn’t need a stab-proof vest to do it. He’s gone now, of course. But his police station—that epicentre of both fear and reassurance remains. Only now it is a museum; much like the town and much of the country it served.


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Now playing: The Band - Last Of The Blacksmiths
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On the Left Bank

Now if I was a Westpac employee and mistakenly transferred $10,000,000 instead of $10,000 into a customer’s account I would be seriously worried about retaining my job. Fryday feels sorry for that person. Mistakes happen, and this appears to a slip of the fingers that could happen to any of us. So I hope Westpac reacts compassionately and realistically in regard to their employee. Of the couple who absconded with the money I am more ambivalent. It was certainly fortuitous for them, given their parlous financial state, and you have to say they were opportunist. But my question is how did they do it? Any time I have gone to my bank (and I have a very friendly bank) to withdraw any sum exceeding $1000 I go through a series of checks. Now, if I also had a bad credit history, as this couple apparently has, and all of a sudden I was withdrawing millions of dollars in a single transaction, which they must have done given the time-frame, would not this have rung some warning bells? We’re told by a banking expert in the NZ Herald today that standard international procedure for large transactions ($250,000 or more) meant that even if the money had been transferred in stages, it would have been subject to a "value dating process", which would mean a delay of up to two days before funds became available. Seems that didn’t happen here. So this couple seems to be fortunate on a couple of accounts with their back account. Of course, they are now on the run and they may not win out in the end. Then again, they just might. It’ll be interesting to keep track of this story.


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Now playing: Ry Cooder - River Come Down (PKA Bamboo)
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Albert you didn’t know this

Ms Lee - a National List MP and candidate in the Mt Albert election - apologised yesterday after saying at a public meeting on Wednesday night that the new Waterview motorway would channel South Auckland criminals past the electorate and reduce crime.
As reported NZ Herald Friday 15 May.

Ms Lee has been rightly and roundly criticised for her comment. It was insensitive, inaccurate and I am sure deeply offensive to the citizens of South Auckland. It implies that the people of South Auckland are second-class, lack culture and vision and have little to occupy their days. It was a vicious attack—her suggesting that South Auckland people are so lacking in anything else in their lives that they would want to visit Mt Albert. Nobody wants to visit Mt Albert. Mt Albert people don’t want to visit Mt Albert. It vies with its sister, Mt Roskill, as the most crushingly boring place in Auckland. To suggest, as Ms Lee does, that even South Auckland criminals would have reason to visit Mt Albert shows an astonishing lack of knowledge about the criminal classes—South Auckland or anywhere. My friend Whetu, who crops up on these pages from time to time, tells me that it is a fundamental of good thievery that one steals only what one can sell.
ME: And you can’t do that in Mt Albert?
HE: Nope.
ME: Why not?
HE: Nuttin there.
ME: Nuttin…Nothing?
HE: Me cuz, Jonno, he a bit of an apprentice, you know. He went to Mt Albert to steal stuff.
ME: Did he? And…”
HE: A Bell TV, three lava lamps, six fondue sets, two Barry Manilow posters, four crates of National Geographics and a PYE Radiogram.
ME: He raided a second-hand store?
HE: Nope. An upmarket house in Grande Ave.
ME: So it’s not true that the new motorway will divert South Auckland criminals?
HE: Only get us through Mt Albert quicker to get to good places.
ME: Such as?
HE: Swanson.


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Fryday turns 10

Fryday is written on an antiquated Hewlett Packard Pavilion 500 laptop using Word 2003. It is then transferred to Microsoft Outlook and sent as an e-letter to a select and somewhat resilient bunch of readers. Finally, it is converted and posted to the Fryday blog, where it’s read by a much wider audience, over 10,000 hits at the last count. The content of each Fryday is never decided earlier than Friday, its designated day, and often it’s still not known when the writing begins. It takes 10 minutes to write. Its subjects range from the mass murder of Sea Monkeys (its most commented on edition ever), the machinations of my mate Whetu, GWB’s discourse with God and Helen’s with her therapist and many posts extolling the virtues of Hamilton. It started as a test of the theory that the pen is mightier than the sword when I decided to use a mass mailing to “fry” a company I characterised as Auckland’s worst panel beater. Fryday is still going, but so is the panel beater so I should have used a bloody sword. I tell you all this now because to the best of my recollection that panel beater post was exactly 10 years ago today—at least this month. Fryday has turned 10, and because I have lived with the bloody thing for a decade (with two short breaks) I hope you will forgive me noting the occasion with a little bit of a flourish. I have never regretted writing Fryday, but I do regret that various computer meltdowns and a late decision to commit each Fryday to a permanent Word file have meant I lost most of those early posts. If later readers of the e-letter are interested, some of those early postings can be found in the archives of http://frydaysblog.blogspot.com/. I would like to know from anyone who has any more on their computer.

The thoughts of Fryday today go to the families and colleagues of Senior Constable Len Snee, and his two fellow officers who this morning remain in hospital in a critical condition. Constable Snee’s body remains outside the house where he was shot, despite the extraordinarily brave attempts of some policemen to retrieve it while under fire. Amidst this horror there comes the emergence of courage and…pride.


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Pigs I Have Known

Today I am home with a mild dose of flu. It’s been percolating around my system for a few days without amounting to more than a couple of sore muscles and a table tennis like competition between temperature extremes. It’s a pig of a thing, but not, I hope, Swine Flu. However, prudence on my part and a pervading paranoia by others have kept me at home where, without any likelihood of an immediate duck (see last Fryday), my thoughts have swung to pigs and their lack of a spokesperson or advocate. You see, this morning on Morning Report, Charge d'Affaires at the Mexican Embassy in Wellington, Luis Enrique Franco, made a pretty compelling case for not blaming his country for the outbreak. He pointed out that the number of confirmed cases in his huge country was fewer proportionately than in many other countries currently. So, we can dispense with Mexico. However, as it is entirely natural in such matters for us to seek to blame someone, I guess it has to be the pigs. Poor buggers. Not only do they have to cope with having their very own flu, now they get blamed for giving it to us. Might they (pigs) well say that they are simply keeping it in the family—I believe pigs and humans are closely related, some closer than others. But the problem is they have no-one to say that for them. Not for your average pig, a charge d’affaires with an ornate, authoritative name. The last pig of note was called Babe and the most famous of all Piglet had a friend called POOH. No wonder nobody can take them seriously. As for activist pigs, there has been none since Animal Farm and that was a dystopian allegory, which sounds like a disease in itself. So your average pig is on a hiding to nothing on this matter. Even past “animal” pandemics such as bird-flu and horse-flu garnered more sympathetic attention because birds are cute and horses stately. But pigs? As I said, poor buggers. My croaky cry this Fryday? Give them a break, they have enough problems already.


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Now playing: Bruce Springsteen - Livin' In The Future
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Love a duck

I have a friend who rather enjoys a good duck. If he could, and he often does, he will have one in the morning and another at night. I have even heard tell of him phoning his wife to tell her he is coming home for a duck in the afternoon.
The guy is insatiable.
Personally, I have never yet had one that satisfies me. I am told I am strange in that regard. There are few indeed, I am told, who do not enjoy a good duck. Even when it’s not done right, it’s good, I am told. Yes, I am told. In other words, people talk a lot about ducks they have had. And will have. It seems an obsession for them; one I, somewhat sadly, cannot share.
But is that indeed symptomatic of my strangeness? Am I indeed unique in that regard? I think not. Whilst I have nothing but circumstantial evidence for this contention, I can point to quite a number of people who, through their demeanour, and their silence on the subject, give every appearance of never enjoying a duck or indeed perhaps never having had one—of note, anyway:

 Helen Clark
 Tariana Turia
 Gordon Brown
 George Bush Jr (but not, sadly, senior)
 Tom Cruise
 Geoff Boycott
 Most Canadians
 All Dutch
 Greenpeace activists
 Green Party
 Osama bin Laden

But, like many on this list, I can be “turned”. In fact, I am receptive to a duck right now—right now, as I write. Right now, as I look out my window and at my brand new fire-red BMW, called Pricilla, and a f**king duck sitting on the bonnet! Oh yeah, you had better believe, and here I put my wife on notice, I am in for a good duck tonight on a plate!

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Now playing: Kris Kristofferson - For The Good Times
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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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Now playing: Jimmy Webb - MacArthur Park
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Helen Back

It is hard not to seem churlish and graceless when one writes disparagingly of a politician when she leaves office. But hypocrisy is worse and there is a fair bit of that going on now at the resignation from office of Helen Clark. Of course there are people who regret her leaving—many like her, admire her and some even idolise her. But even they will agree that Helen Clark is far from everyone’s cup of tea and the near universal plaudits she is now getting are, in many cases, disingenuous. And that is why I am delivering one final Fryday on Helen Clark; I have a perspective. I doubt that there has been any New Zealand Prime Minister who reigned (sic) for so long for so short a legacy. Yes, she did achieve a few things, but in my view most were ideologically driven and of limited benefit whilst others, such as her incessant apologies to all and sundry, were simply vacuous. Yet it is exactly these “achievements” in which she claims most pride in her valedictory speech. She cites the Civil Union bill, recompense for Waikato-Tainui, the dissolution of titular honours. Yet all this is not leadership, not visionary, perhaps not even productive. It is tinkering. And that is all Helen Clark did—tinker. She says at the end if her speech that she came into the House hoping that she would leave it having contributed to making New Zealand a better place to live in. She says she has. I cannot find any evidence of that.

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Now playing: Harry Chapin - Vacancy
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Dear Michelle VII: The Good Doctor

1 April 2009


Dear Michelle

I never thought I would find myself attracted to a man
I know you know this. We have discussed it. You and I are of like mind on this. It is a fundamental of the synergy and homogeny (interesting word) of our relationship. Peter knows it. Dear, sweet, practical Peter. As he said to me, as I remember, when we discussed my needs, “It doesn’t really apply to me, does it?”
But I find myself attracted to this man. I find it a strange sensation, as if I am embarking on a new life-stage. I am, of course, with my new posting and heading to New York. Some things remain the same: I still stride the world stage; I still tell people what to do and what is best for them, without actually achieving anything (there is not much difference there between the NZ Government and the United Nations Ha! Ha!) and I am comfortable in my cervix, as you put it.
But what of him? Why is he going? Yes, it has a certain inevitability—the job is tailor-made for him and he has long harboured a desire for it. But that is the point—I thought it was his ONLY desire. I didn’t think he had any other. But now…
Is it me?
Does he desire me or the World Bank? Is it me or the bank that takes him to New York? And close to me? Nobody yet knows he is going of course. That’s our secret. And, even there, there is the certain sensuality in shared intimacies. At the moment it is between me and my doctor. Ha! Ha! But people will know soon, when his posting is announced. Will they talk? Will they speculate? Will they know?
Do I?
These things will no doubt tax me in the future—as he taxed me in the past (Ha! Ha!). But, for the moment, please be assured that there will always be more Michelles in my life than…Michaels.
Find room for me on your couch next week.

Yours forever,
H.


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Now playing: The Chapin Family - Sunday Morning Sunshine
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The Bain of my life

Being the target of not infrequent attacks in the media, most recently this week, I am well aware of the danger of uninformed comment. In my case, as in most cases, those making such comments believe they are dealing with facts and certainties. Fact is they are not. Certainties exist, of course: we know, for example and for certain, that anybody who says they are acting in your best interests are not, that rugby league is a better game than rugby, that Hamilton is New Zealand’s placenta. But much else is speculation, opinion and perception. Such is the case with the David Bain case. I could voice an opinion as to guilt and innocence, many do, but it would be just that—opinion. Uninformed opinion. I wasn’t there on the day of the murders, nor have I spent a day at any of the trials. So, I am sitting on the sidelines and, despite some very good media coverage, I am nowhere near in a position to enter a verdict on this one. Ultimately, though, there will have to be one, and that will come from a jury. I don’t envy them, or anyone directly involved in this case. It will be okay if they find David Bain innocent, but a guilty verdict? What will happen then? The ramifications of that don’t bear thinking of and I can’t but help wonder whether that very “fact” won’t have some bearing on how this trial is conducted and its eventual verdict. But that is only speculation, opinion and perception. Right now, ahead of a leisurely weekend, I prefer the comfort of certainties like a Bulldogs win and one for the Warriors. Have a good one.


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Now playing: Neil Young - Far From Home
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Coming out in the Walsh

So, Tauranga has lost Winston Peters and the 2011 Rugby World Cup? What is it doing right to deserve that? Hamilton wants to know. Rugby has also been in the news this week with the expulsion from the game of erstwhile leading referee Steve Walsh. Apparently there is a drinking issue. Strange, I thought there was always a drinking issue with those in charge of rugby. Maybe it is just because Steve is from the Southern Hemisphere that he stands out and is being penalised. He probably doesn’t like gin either. But Walsh’s troubles are insignificant to another facing rugby this week; that’s the commencement of the NRL season. Now, as everybody knows, and none will dispute, rugby league is the superior game. Indeed followers of all sporting codes will welcome tonight’s first game of the 2009/10 NRL season. Those who are particularly starved of good sport—i.e. Super 14 followers and golfers everywhere—will be salivating at the prospect. Unless they are of course masochists and living in Hamilton and therefore self-delusional and luxuriating in lives of misery. For the rest of us, with actual lives, rugby league is 26 weeks’ of sheer panacea akin, but not exceeding, our enjoyment and relief last year at the departure in one year of both Helen Clark and George W. Bush. It is the best of times…the worst of times can now be forgotten.

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