unarticulatory

The campaign continues:

Last night on 3News reporting on the premiere of The Lovely Bones:
"it is the ommitance of those details that has unimpressed some fans".
It's true. That's pretty much what the reporter said. I might give up now.
Or not.

Books for Blokes

I attended the launch of this year's Book for Blokes on Sunday. It is always a moving and enjoyable experience.

I was lucky enough to be brought up in a house full of books and was always encouraged to read. Now it's just part of my life, not something I even think much about.

Adult Learning Support works with people who didn't necessarily have that luck or the advantage of a good education or who for other reasons (such as our education system's appalling response to dyslexia) haven't had a chance to learn to read or write or work with numbers.

Tutors at the service noticed a lack of easy to access books that are of interest to men. So they held a competition for short stories and published their own book. The first was a roaring success. At the launch of the second yesterday we heard tales of men taking it to work in their truck so they could read it at lunch time. The first book they had ever read. One of the winners of the competition was a student of the service. Students were also part of the judging process. You can see what I mean about moving.

I was motivated to write a story for the competition myself. It is the first story I've ever completed and so - even though it didn't make the cut - I was pretty proud to be shortlisted. Having read the book I see now that my pitch was a bit off. But I thought I'd share it. Proud father and all that.

The Ukes of Hazard played the launch. We both read a lot. Terry is always finding classics at the second hand bookshop many of which I have never read. Playing the launch was a way of contributing a bit to a great organisation and supporting a fantastic, creative idea.

Snow White

Snow White was an unlucky bugger. He really was. Not that he had a bad life. He lived out at Appleby in his little cottage. He worked on the orchards and farms. His work place would change as the seasons changed. He’d been around so long that he didn’t need to ask for the work. Each season he would just turn up at his next job. He drove tractors, milked cows, pruned trees. The thing is he’d do it all with half an eye.

“I’ll keep half an eye on it” he’d say. Snow was born with one good eye and one eye that wasn’t very good. Then, when he was a kid, he took a tumble head first into a barbed wire fence and poked out his good eye. So he was down to the bad eye. He used to wear glasses with one lens covered in bits of tape and a really thick lens in the other. Kids used to have dares about who could catch him without his glasses and see the hole where the eye used to be. If their parents went around to Snow’s place the kids would tag along and rudely rush into his house hoping to see his face before he put his glasses on.

Snow was unlucky in other ways. He’d lost his family in the war and to sickness over the years. He missed them. But he quietly got on with things. As he got older and the sight in his one eye faded, his life became more limited. He couldn’t do much or go far. He got by at work by knowing where everything was and putting things really close to his face to see them. But getting from place to place was a problem. Well, it was a problem until Snow got Socks.

Now, this all happened a while ago. There would have been half a dozen cars around Appleby back then. Most people got around in their farm truck or walked or rode a horse. Socks was one of those horses. Socks had been owned by all sorts of people over the years. Once old McGregor had owned him. Old McGregor would go to the pub and get so drunk he couldn’t find his way home. The pub owner would just put McGregor on Socks and the horse would see that he got home. People still remember seeing Socks slowly making his way across the Appleby River, his drunken owner snoozing on his back.

Socks was loyal and strong. When he worked the dairy farm he used to pull the hay cart and baler. Once, one of the big tractors got stuck in a ditch. They hitched Socks up to the tractor.

“He’ll never pull that out” said the neighbour.

“Just you watch him” said the farmer and he gave Socks a little pat and clucked his tongue. Socks took half a step forward and felt the weight of his task. He leaned into his traces and dropped his body so low that he looked like he was kneeling on the road. He planted his hooves on the gravel and without any yelling from the farmer, without any whip, he slowly, silently pulled the three tonne tractor out of the ditch.

“That’s a good horse” said the neighbour.

“Yup” said the farmer, “That’s a good horse.”

Eventually Socks ended up with Snow White. Socks was a godsend for Snow. Until then Snow was stuck at home and had to rely on his mates to get around. Snow taught Socks the way to the places he had to go. After the first year Socks knew where he had to take Snow each day and would just take his owner there. Snow got a cart and he’d just sit in it and let Socks decide the best way to get where they were going.

This was all very well around Appleby. Nothing was very far from anywhere and Snow didn’t go many places anyway. But Snow had to rely on his mates to get him to places further away. So when Snow said he was taking Socks to the Takaka A&P Show his mates laughed. Takaka was over the hill. It’s a big hill with a tricky road. In those days it took over three hours to drive over the hill. People thought Snow was crazy.

“You’re a bloody idiot, Snow” they said at the pub. “You’ll end up down one of those banks.”

“She’ll be right” said Snow. “Socks is a bloody good horse.”

“Not that good” they said.

But they couldn’t talk him out of it. Snow wanted to take Socks over the Takaka hill to the A&P show and no one was going to tell him he couldn’t..

“Fergus O’Connor takes his whole team of horses over” he said.

“”Fergus O’Connor can see!” they cried.

Snow got his mate to help him fill out the entry form for the horse drawn cart section of the A&P Show. He knocked off early on the Saturday and stopped at the store for some bread and stopped at the pub for a rigger. He made some mutton sandwiches and filled an old leather bag with his lunch, his drink and a couple of spare bits and pieces. He went to bed early.

The next morning, bright and early, his mate, Roddy, turned up with a horse trailer and a truck for the cart. He was going to give Snow a lift whether he liked it or not but Snow was gone. So was Socks. They had already hit the road.

In the dark, long before dawn, Snow turned Socks on to the road to Takaka and said “Just pop us over the hill will you, mate?” Even though he had never been on this road Socks seemed to know what Snow wanted and quietly made his way up the twisting road. Every time a truck or car came groaning and moaning up behind them Socks just stopped and waited for them to pass. Roddy drove past at about six o’clock. He couldn’t stop because he would never have got the truck going again on the hill. He just yelled out his window as he crawled by, “You’ll get yourself killed, you silly bugger!”

Snow could tell by the sounds and the light that they were at the top of the hill. “Whoa” he said. Socks pulled over and stopped by some grass and started to eat. Snow reached into his bag and took out a mutton sandwich and his rigger. He took a bite and a swig and felt the breeze on his face. He sat and listened to the birds. He smiled. “I don’t know about you, mate, but this will do me” he said.

He finished his sandwich and washed it down with another swig. “Come on, son let’s take a gander at this show. We might even get there in time to take a ribbon off old Fergus O’Connor.”

Socks moved back on to the road and they headed for Takaka. Snow didn’t win any ribbons but after that Socks took him over the hill every year to the show. Every year Snow and Socks would stop at the top for a breather and a feed. And every year Snow would say “I don’t know about you, mate, but this will do me.”

Betrayal

Who the heck do I vote for now?

I was so proud to be a New Zealander when the Maori Party entered parliament. I had enormous respect for Pita because he’d done the yards and although I wasn’t a Turia fan I had to respect the fact that a: she walked and b: she came back on her own terms. I saw a country come of age when they took their seats.

The moment they went with the Tories they lost my vote but now the Maori Party have supported National in their disgusting rip off of an ETS. Not only supported them but done a dodgy deal for their mates at the same time.

So basically the Maori Party is now a Tory party. That leaves us with the Greens (sort of ) and Alliance if we want to vote for social justice and sensible economics in New Zealand.

There has been a lot of hot air expelled over Phil Goff's speech today - many claiming it is his "Orewa". I think not. I've just listened to it and I think Goff was expressing the disappointment and anger that many of us feel at the Maori Party betrayal of their fellow New Zealanders - white, brown, purple and puce.

The Maori Party are now clearly a brown Tory party and therefore fair game to opposition politicians. Their agenda MUST be called into question if they are to continue to sleep with the enemy.

Goff’s speech was completely different from the Orewa speech. Brash’s was a clear call to arms to NZ racist voters. In Goff’s speech he’s asking legitimate questions about the Tories’ (and that now includes the MP) agenda.

There's talk about Labour burning it's bridges too soon. That they might need the MP after the next election. Putting aside the very real possibility that the MP will eat itself before then - if I was Goff I'd be saying clearly "We wouldn't do a deal with John key's Tories. Why would we do a deal with Pita's?"

How can you see the light at the end of the tunnel from the bottom of the hole you're in?

I sometimes fluctuate between being a social democrat and a socialist. I guess it's because on a good day I can live with and even see the value of a capitalist system. On a bad day, however, all I can see is the damage and injustice and hypocrisy of our international monetary system. All I can see some days is the brutal effects on the many by the pursuit of profit by the few.
Today is one of those days.

The link is to a New York Times story about the tent cities cropping up in every U.S. state as the depression (for that is what these people are experiencing) bites in the American heartland. This is one of just many stories you'll find if you search the interweb. The stories tell of the struggles of ordinary Americans dispossessed by an economic system (and a society for that matter) that is premised on the idea of the pursuit of happiness through profit and faux meritocracy in lieu of any sense of collective responsibility for the well being of our fellow citizens.

It makes my blood boil to see these people abandoned by their country. Just as it makes my blood boil when I hear that the NZ government caved in when it decided against including pay cuts for executives in the 9 day fortnight policy. Just as it makes my blood boil when I see the same government giving billions of dollars to polluters while denying young New Zealanders the sort of support they really need right now. Just as my blood hits 100 degrees when I see the number of (unreported) lockouts going on in this country as business sees the opportunities offered by a Tory government.

The young unemployed in New Zealand, the locked out workers and the people forced to live in tents in the USA do not see an end to the recession. If and when the world pulls itself out of this self inflicted malaise these people will still be struggling. If they ever "recover" at all it will take years to get back some sort of balance and security. The backward step they have been forced to take will limit their options for the rest of their lives. It is all very well for executives earning half a million dollars a year to talk of an end to this recession - they don't have to start from scratch again. They don't have to drag themselves out of the hole in which this disaster has left them. The highly paid executive isn't in the hole because their workers have taken the hit for them. While the guy they laid off is living in a tent the executive can still afford to run his boat on the weekend.

One of the most galling things for me is to see the almost complete lack of analyses in the New Zealand media. We don't see these stories on New Zealand TV. Why not? Because they ran out of time after the story about Paris Hilton's fallout with her new "friend". We don't see this article in our Sunday paper because they ran out of space after the two page puff piece on the cigarette industry. We don't see this in our daily or hear it on our local radio station because they can't be seen by their advertisers being "negative". You won't see this on TVNZ's morning programme because Paul Henry is too busy interviewing psychics or the guy who thinks he's found and alien skull.

We don't see these stories in New Zealand's media because the deregulated media is the mouth piece for the capitalist system.

That's why today I am a socialist.

Agent of their own demise

I've finally worked it out. I was always pretty good at maths but it seems putting two and two together on this occassion has challenged me.

I couldn't work out why if Nick Smith is so hell bent on taking ACC apart at the seams he would install his own man at the top. Why not just run the NACT campaign of lies about the financial state of ACC and blame it on incompetent management. The New Zealand public, always ready to blame bureaucrats for the ills of the world, would have applauded from the sidelines as Smith unpicked ACC and sold off the bits even as this cornerstone of our civil society was hocked off to the highest bidders.

But now I get it. Smith has installed his man as a dummy runner. Instead of going for a patsy to blame for the failure of ACC the NACT party have set up ACC as the TARGET. As ACC start to limit access to entitlements and raise levies the public is going to start throwing their bricks at the organisation while Smith and his cronies stand back, wring there hands and softly sigh "Well, there's nothing to be done about. If you hate ACC so much we'll offer you an alternative. It seems to be what you want". The New Zealand public, also ready to believe a headline or a sound bite rather than looking for actual information, will meekly walk into the offices of multi-national corporations and part with their hard earned pennies for an inferior service - a service with no investment in the people of New Zealand.

In other words NACT are going to get the victims to do their work for them.

I came to this conclusion after watching this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Znsx_wEi4c&feature=player_embedded

As much as I support their campaign, I believe the people who made this vid have got the wrong target. While they ride their Harleys(ies?), Suzukis and Trumpies to the local ACC office the real culprit for this situation slapping his Tory mates on the back and sniggering "It's working! They've taken the bait!"

I don't know if that SmileySmurf John Key's teeth have blinded voters or whether New Zealanders are just gullible but it seems there is a resistance to seeing what is actually going on here. This government will get keep getting away with this blue murder so long as we keep shooting at the decoys.

The Trav

I was at our local last night. The Travellers' Rest. The name sounds like one of those appalling, '70s, faux-Spanish jobs with a stuck-on brick facade and a "family restaurant". It's not, though. The Trav is the real deal. The building is at least 80 years old, wooden, two stories and was once actually a travellers' rest being positioned, as it is, in the middle of the Waimea Plains.
It would have been a stopping off point for coaches and carts headed for Mapua and Motueka from Richmond. The Waimea River mouth at Rabbit and Best Islands is not far away and Pearl Creek on the old Rabbit Island road was once the site of landings for boats moving between Nelson, the plains, Motueka and Golden Bay.

These days the Trav is a locals' pub. Farmers and farm workers gather there for an after-work confab of an afternoon and the local community tends to congregate on a Friday evening. Local news and gossip is shared, people catch up with neighbours and business is conducted over a beer and a basket of chips or a plate of nachos. Families and couples come in for a meal. There is always a traveller or three there - usually staying in the camping ground or the motel next door. It's a friendly, convivial scene with an interesting mix of people. The local market gardeners mix with young builders, the potter and the green stone carver. Farmers chat with accountants and the guy that owns the biggest local horticultural business talks nets with the fisherman in on his four week lay over. The same scene is replicated in pubs all over the country.

I really like the way the local community gets together at The Trav. There are locals, of course, who don't show up very often - some not at all. Some don't drink, some don't enjoy the friendship of the regulars, others are just in a different circle - but going to our local was the best thing we ever did on arriving in Appleby. We made friends there, got support for our business and found all the trades people we'd ever need (except a sparky. If you're an electrician and want to live the good life - the Trav needs a sparky). By visiting the local pub we became part of the local community with all of the emotional and practical support that entails.

The Trav(or the Office as many call it) is the focal point of a number of community activities including regular community pot-luck dinners, an all-ages, all comers cricket team, fundraisers for the local fire brigade and quiz night teams who head off to support various local kids raising money for sports trips and the like. Locals gather at The Trav dressed in their finery before heading to town for birthday and anniversary dinners and it's often the departure point for van loads and convoys heading into the city for concerts and other events. Just as many birthdays, anniversaries and wakes are held at the pub itself.

Last night was a regular Friday. We'd been around the corner celebrating the return to the district of a couple friends and then popped in on our way home. Kylie, one of the owners, was - as usual - beating the boys at pool. One of the locals was fretting because his fifteen year old daughter was off to town with her friends for a big event. He was being "supported" by a bevy of local women regaling him with stories of their antics when they were his daughter's age. A bloke who lives nearby was trying to interest tour groups to pop back to his place to try some lambs' tails he was roasting on an open fire. I engaged in a conversation about our local team, the Makos, and the injustice of their pending relegation while I kept half an eye on the Manwatu/Bay of Plenty game. We discussed the poor whitebait season, the prospects for the scallop season and the pros and cons of our district council amalgamating with the city. Parents put out the word - looking for summer jobs for their kids. We introduced ourselves and included in our conversations a couple who were looking after the business of local growers who are taking a well earned holiday. It was the chatter and stuff of local community and as I paused to take it in I felt optimistic.

There is huge diversity at my local. The Trav hosts people with a range of policical and religious beliefs. But there's a certain acceptance at The Trav that allows all sorts of difference while knitting together a community that can be and has been very cohesive when it needs to be. We manage to discuss politics and religion without anyone getting too wound up. We laugh at each others' foibles without anyone getting upset. Not all of us are close friends but we are all to some extent involved in each others' lives. New comers are welcomed and accepted because they too are now "locals". And if push comes to shove we can and do band together to support those in need. That need might be something as simple as building a deck or picking up some hay. It might be planning a wedding or dealing with a family crisis. Whatever the galvanising issue there is a willingness in the community to not only offer but also request help.

It seems to me that none of this is hard. We don't struggle in Appleby to be a cohesive community and if we find it this easy then I'm sure others do too. If the communities that seem to manage this cohesiveness can do it then so can the communities that currently don't and that makes me feel optimistic.

Fit? I don't fink so.

Since the new Tory government took power there has been a lot of talk about whether or not some of its Ministers are fit to do their job.

The likes of Kate Wilkinson, have clearly shown they're out of their depth.

Paula Bennett and Judith Collins have so far toed the party line and really only initiated the sort of populist agenda on which their party was elected - boot camps and container prisons. Neither has shown they have the vision needed to be truly effective ministers.

Bill English, while probably a very good Minister of Finance (depending on your economic views, of course), has exposed the self righteous, born-to-rule mentality that is the underbelly of modern Tory outfits.

There are several National ministers who are simply doing what all Tory Ministers will do and probably doing it competently (again depending on your political views) and there are those such as Phil Heatley and his Hoki quota - a stupid, ideologically driven move that reeks of the old boys' club and gins with the Talleys (Open Country, anyone?).

And then there is Anne Tolley. It seemed she'd been in the chair for seconds before she poured millions into private schools while gutting long standing and valuable community education courses nationwide. Now, we know that Tories hate any kind of adult, community or further education that isn't focused on producing factory fodder. Some of us are old enough to remember the attacks on the WEA. A conspiracy theorist might suggest that this attitude has to do with keeping the prols in their place but I couldn't possibly comment. I am, however, gobsmacked by Tolley's latest cock up. The link at the top of this post refers to Tolley backing out of plan to cut 770 teachers from our educational workforce. Many will view this as a good decision but let's look at the process. Tolley is quoted as saying she backed out of the plan at the last minute when she realised that it referred "actual" - well - people. I'm not sure what she thought cutting staff must have meant but you've got question her competency - and her motives.
She has clearly said that she has promised to carry through on a commitment to cut $50 million from the education budget. I'm not sure where she intends to make these savings but an amount like that has to affect staffing levels at some point. So we can start to come to some sort of conclusion about her fitness to do her job:

Either Anne Tolley is willing to gut education to reach her budgetary goal, in which case she’s leaving an appalling legacy behind her;

or she’s not competent enough to read the difference between actual cuts and cuts to recruitment.

I am sadly afraid it is probably the former but if not it has to be the latter.

Either way - like too many of her colleagues her fitness for office has to be questioned.

Now it's a Campaign

I'm just going to keep pointing them out and maybe someone will take notice. They probably won't.

Samantha Hayes last night in Nightline: "[Kanye West] should of..."
It's not local usage. It's not a debatable grammatical point. It's not some arcane aspect of English grammar that nobody cares about. She just wasn't speaking English.
It might not be her fault. She would have been reading an auto-cue. I don't know which reporter wrote the story.

Dominic Bowden on TV1 this evening: apparently someone sent Patrick Swayze's family "Well wishes".
No such expression, Dominic, so it's meaningless.
When you've been communicating as long and as well as Clive James or Margaret Mahy you can start inventing aspects of our language. Until then stick to speaking it......properly.

I like telly. I like Dominic and Samantha. But they are professional communicators so I reckon the ability to speak English is a job requirement.

Talking Good English

I'll keep this short, I promise.
I am no pedant when it comes to language. I acknowledge and even celebrate changes in the way we use and speak English. I don't buy the argument that the way New Zealanders speak English is somehow inferior to the way our British cousins speak our language. I've accepted that we don't pronounce L any more and that in New Zealand women and woman are pronounced the same way.

I have to draw the line somewhere, however, and the I've decided the line will be drawn on the ground where professional language users meet their public. Malapropisms from reporters on the TV and radio news - people who ought to know better (or at least have superiors who ought to know better).

Tonight it wasn't even a Malapropism because the word the reporter used didn't actually exist. I've linked the story. Notice how she twice says "a fluent". She means effluent, of course. It's not a mispronunciation so much as a reinvention. The way she says the word suggests she would spell it with an A. She has no idea what she is saying.

Last week it was reporter who (once again) misconstrued the meaning of the expression "lucked out" so that she said the opposite of what she meant to say. I heard "overtly" used instead of "overly" this week. John Key makes that mistake, as well.
Other recent examples: the oft misused "hypo" when she probably meant "hyper";
"illusion" used instead of "allusion" (although that might have been
pronunciation); "less" when she wanted to say "fewer"; a news reader, a reporter and a radio presenter all misusing "literally"-one actually said, "he was literally expiring from fatigue".
That is not only about as clumsy as a sentence can get but - unless the subject was dying - also patently untrue. I heard all of these instances in the last ten days.

Am I being pedantic? Overly sensitive? Doesn't it behove a professional communicator to use the language properly? I know that "properly" is always going to be subjective but aren't there some standards worth preserving? Too many rhetorical questions?

I think there are some standards worth preserving. I believe that some words change their meaning over time and that's the nature of language. I don't believe that "illusion" will ever mean "allusion". You can tell from the elements of my style that I'm no Strunk or White but I don't believe "a fluent" will ever be commonly used as a term meaning "that which flows out".

Messy Connections

I wasn't surprised at the result of the referendum. New Zealand is a conservative country and the issues in this debate were well and truly obscured by a concerted effort by the No Vote campaign.

However, I was frustrated at the media's slack back-grounding of the participants in the debate.
The Yes Vote was publicly backed by any number of public, non-profit organisations with clear agendas and open processes. The No vote campaign on the other hand was quite dishonest in its agenda and connections. And New Zealand's media made almost no attempt to clarify that for the voting public.

It isn't hard to articulate the organisational agenda behind the No campaign but journalists seemed to ignore it completely.

First, Focus on the Family. Sounds fairly benign if a little conservative, yes? Well, benign if you think that an anti-gay agenda, campaigns for the teaching of creationism in schools, a concerted anti-liberal agenda and support for the reintroduction of corporal punishment in schools is benign.

A leading campaigner for the No vote is Sheryl Savill, who is 2IC for the Focus on the Family New Zealand operation. Despite their denials, it is plain that the New Zealand office have close connections with their American parent group which has supported their Kiwi colleagues with over $1 million in the past six years. FoF in NZ is a branch of an ultra-right-wing, christian, fundamentalist lobby group intent on de-liberalising society.

The other leading player was Family First. Prominent No Vote campaigner,Bob McCroskie, is a member of this christian group. Like FoF, Family First sells itself as just a pro-family group but it is plainly in the fundamentalist camp with all the attendant anti-gay, anti-liberal agenda. They also have quite a strong pro-censorship agenda (despite an ironic support of the campaign against the Electoral Reform Bill on the grounds it suppressed free speech!). McCroskie is a broadcaster on fundamentalist radio station, Radio Rhema (as was his close friend and FoF's boss, Tim Sisarich).

Larry Baldock was a principle organiser of the petition to force a referendum on the Section 59 Amendment. He and Savill were a double act in the last stages of the campaign. Baldock has led the mis-information campaign claiming to have a list of parents who had been arrested or harassed by the Police but which he never revealed.

Both of the groups above speak out against 'liberal values' and 'liberal culture'. Both actively lobby for policies that reflect "christian" values. Both can easily be read as anti-abortion and anti-gay, anti-welfare state and pro-censorship.

So the No Vote campaign was led by a ultra-right, fundamentalist christian cabal and the media said absolutely nothing except for a small piece buried in the middle of the paper at the end of the campaign. I believe New Zealand voters would have reacted differently to the campaign if they were fully aware of the roots of the campaign.

I suspect that part of the reason for this pathetic showing by our journalists is the strong connection between FoF and FF, media and our government.

Former All Black Michael Jones, TV1 weather presenter Jim Hickey and former What Now? presenter Anthony Samuels are Family First board members. Families Commissioner, Christine Rankin, is a Family First supporter and her For the Sake of Our Children trust is pretty much a fundamentalist organisation - she is a confidant of Social Welfare Minister, Paula Bennett (Jones is also a very public National supporter). More FM radio announcer, Simon Barnett, was a vocal No vote campaigner with strong fundamentalist connections.

I just know that if the Yes Vote campaign had had this sort of underlying agenda or even a "dodgy" connection we would have heard about it.. ."Yes vote campaigner once a member of radical lesbian student group" etc etc.. In fact we did hear about it from the loony, talk back media within their constant refrain of "political correctness gone mad". They painted the Yes campaign and Bradford's original bill as part of a liberal agenda.

Unfortunately, I think that the main reason we didn't hear about the No vote agenda is because too many of the media are too close to the protagonists. I also think that they're skittish about "criticising" fundamentalist christian groups who will then claim discrimination.

I don't really care what an individual believes or in which building they choose to spend their religious days. I do care when these individuals are involved in campaigns against the secular, liberal society that has taken so much blood and sweat to build. For, heaven's sake (intended) it is this liberal society that provides their freedom of worship and belief in the first place.

And I think that when that agenda is so clear it's time journalists and editors manned up and took them on - or at the very least did their job.

Titles

Just a quick one as I watch the Sirs and Dames getting Sired and Damed.
The context for non-New Zealanders is this: at some years ago our government of the time replaced our British honours system with one of our own. Part of the process of building a national identity I suppose. The current government which won last years election decided to reinstate the royal titular system of knighting Sirs and Dames. They offered the individuals who had received the equivalent New Zealand honours since the change the right to be knighted. Around 60 took the opportunity. Another dozen or so decided they would rather keep their New Zealand honour.

So, today the 60 lined up and knelt before the Governor General, received the sword to their shoulders and arose Sir or Dame Someone.

I can't help feeling a little insulted. I mean, aren't these people disrespecting us a bit?
Their country has awarded them the highest honour. Well, not the Order of NZ because that's only 20 people at any given time, but the next highest. We've said (and rightly so for they are a marvelous bunch) "we honour you with our highest accolade".
And they have essentially said "No, thanks, I'll take the royal one".

I don't want to disrespect them. We hold most of these people in high esteem. They have achieved more than I ever will. They deserve to be honoured. I just can't help feeling a bit....annoyed. I want to say "What? We're not good enough for you?"

I'm probably being irrational but there you are.

Ruck 'em!

I can't help but think there is huge missed opportunity in the debate surrounding the way Paula Bennett is bullying two women who have gone public with their criticisms of the government’s cuts to the Training Incentive Allowance.

If you're out of NZ or under a rock - our Minister of Social Development released details of the two women's benefit incomes (although it seems she got the numbers wrong) in response to their criticism. She is now unrepentant and her PM is backing her.

There's an issue around the appropriateness of a Minister of the Crown releasing personal details relating to the benefits paid to clients of her department without first seeking their permission or informing them of her intention. There's also a question about whether her actions amounted to a breach of the Privacy Act. She may also have misled Parliament (or the public) with her explanantions about whether or not she got advice before acting.

Predictably the blogs and news reports have veered from "she's a bully" to "bloody beneficiaries". I will be very interested to see if Labour's complaint to the Privacy Commissioner bears any fruit. I find the beneficiary bashing side of it all so reminiscent of a by gone era (Muldoonism, anyone?) but I am much more interested in the continued lack of informed debate.

I say lack of informed debate because not one media type has made an effort find out and explain exactly how our benefit system works or to find out how successful such support of education and training for beneficiaries can be.

I posted Elsewoman's comments about the DPB earlier. Such information would really help people understand that there simplyaren't the imagined hoards of solo mums out there trying to rip off hard working tax payers.

I'd also like to see some discussion of studies from Europe and Scandinavia that indicate the more support we provide to recipients of a range of benefits the less time they continue to draw that benefit.

But none of this will see the light of day in the New Zealand media. I don't know why. I suspect it's because the system is now simply not up to the research and investigation required to write such an article. News rooms are getting smaller and younger. There's neither the resources nor the expertise. Nor, I uspect, is there a will. Most journalists are just as prejudiced and uninformed as the rest of us and to begin the process of writing such an article one would need an open and enquiring mind and some knowlege of the issue to start with.

That's a shame. The vitriol about beneficiaries in comments to news stories and blogs is so 1970's. With a bit of help from media outlets we could at least progress the discussion.

I don't think Bennett intended to progress anything. She's now feigning horror at the level of abuse these two women have received but she'd have to be a moron not to have foreseen it. No, it was just old fashioned bullying from her. She didn't like being put on the spot and being accused of pulling up the ladder (she sold herself as a success story solo Mum in the election) and she went ad hominem on their arses. As she said on the telly - it was “a bit of a lesson for what happens if you go out there and put your story”.

And since no one in the news industry is interested in getting their eye back on the ball, the only option we're left with is to watch the other team play the woman. I have to admit I'm kinda enjoying watching a Tory sweat at the bottom of the ruck but I would really have been interested in seeing more of the broader game plan.

Teen Pregnancy. Elsewoman says it all.

Elsewoman is a great blog from one of those people who actually know stuff. Unlike, it seems, Lindsay Mitchell.

Take me to the Moon

I've really enjoyed all the coverage of the anniversary of the Moon Landings.

I know that the kazillions they spend on space travel could be used to solve world hunger. I know that it's a huge industrial/military/government complex of a conspiracy to keep American millionaires.......millionaires. I know that scientists could be using their extraordinary minds to solve the Earth's problems. But I think flying to the moon is cool and I love the idea that humans are going to go further.

And I want to know what's out there just as much as I want to know what's under our oceans or what creatures and plants once inhabited our planet or what happens when two sub-atomic particles collide or how my body knows the difference between pineapple juice and petrol.

I'm not religious. I do not believe in a god or gods. I do, however, share something in my response to the universe with those of a religious persuasion. I think it's awe. I am in awe of how this whole thing works. This seems to manifest itself in me as a sort of geeky interest in things scientific.

I honestly look up at the the Milky Way and - like a kid - try to imagine what it must be like to be closer to one of those stars than to our Sun. I read all the articles about the Large Hadron Collider. I'll buy any magazine which advertises itself with pictures of dinosaurs or planets. I search shuttle launch on Youtube every time there is one. I am endlessly fascinated by the human body - from gross muscle movements to biochemical processes.

I want to know more about how it all works. I think we should all be fascinated by how it all works. I think every teacher and parent should instill in every kid a wonder and thirst for knowledge about this extraordinary thing - our ability to know and want to know the world around us. I believe that if this sort of excitement about how interesting it all is was instilled in people then people would do less bad stuff. Kids with a fascination and wonder about life would be less inclined to damage it or themselves. People whose minds are opened to the marvel of it all are more inclined to want to listen to others in order to learn more.

That's why I want someone to go out, take a look and report back on what they find. I want to say - I want to hear others say - with wonder in our voices - "Wow, that's cool".

Throw away the Key

I was fascinated by how defensive Simon Power appeared when responding Dame Sian Elias' comments on our prison system yesterday. Garth McVicar's comments were predictable but I thought John Key's McVicar-like "we are not going to just open the gates and let them walk out" comment was very telling. Today it was "three strikes" ACT MP David Garrett being very aggressive in his attempts to shut her down.

What interests me is the defensiveness of their responses. Neither of the Nats outlined the government's approach nor did they try to justify policy. Power just tried to bully Elias into shutting-up and Key trivialised the discussion with a ridiculous dog whistle to McVicar's cronies. Both demonstrated a fair amount of insecurity about their position.

I think this insecurity about their position stems from the fact that their position is so insecure. In other words there actually isn't any analytical, reasoned approach to their policies.

What we have seen from many of the new Government ministers have been policy announcements based on nothing more than the minister's opinion. An opinion which might go down well over G&T's with their mates but simply doesn't hold up to any sort of analysis or scrutiny.

Their current justice and prisons policy is a classic. There is ample evidence from all around the world that no matter how harsh or punitive we make prisons they simply don't actually work. Greg Newbold points out in his "The Problem of Prisons" that it makes no difference whether our system is harsh or liberal (and NZ has had a range of responses. We currently have - historically - very long sentences) there is always pretty much a 50% recidivism rate. Half the people who go to prison will re-offend no matter what you do to them while they're in there. As an aside, he points out that almost every prisoner gets out of prison eventually and he'd rather live next to someone who was treated moderately humanely than an ex-prisoner who was brutalised while inside. He also refers to his own history as an example of what happens for at least some prisoners if they are offered a chance at redemption.

Dame Sian Elias knows all this. She knows the research from around the world and the models of justice that do- in some countries - seem to work better than just building more and more prisons. Simon Power, David Garrett and John Key of course don't care for this research and knowledge because it conflicts with their populist stance - the public want 'em locked up so we'll just lock 'em up. Neither of them have a reasoned leg to stand on so they don't bother with reasoned discussion about the issue.

Watch them - they will repeat their "not opening the gates" and "Government makes the policy, judges action it" lines over and over. They won't try to address the real issues or listen to the arguments. Neither, of course, will the telly interviewers or the talk-back hosts.

And as long as we have these guys in power that will be the intellectual level at which these debates take place.

Hazardous

It started years ago in Wellington. Which is sort of significant in the light of the current scene. In the early eighties, in what is now the home of the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, I picked up a uke. We had a theatre group called "Bricks". Bricks mostly performed kids' theatre in schools and summer festivals but we also developed a couple of adult shows. We called it "cabaret - with a "k"" and one of the shows featured (as well as a short play by The Spines', Jon McCleary) two songs by "The Lunchtime Intellectuals". One of the LT's two songs was Shirley Bassey's "I who have Nothing". For the life of me I can not recall the other song and after a recent drunken, nostalgic night with Jon I am none the wiser. Anyway, I played uke. I never played much again and the instrument I had disappeared in one of my moves.

Fast forward to Christchurch a couple of years ago. Uke fever had hit and all the cool parties had a resident uke player. My flatmate, Dan Randow, was just starting to get a few songs down. I picked up his ukulele and I was hooked again.

You could be forgiven for being a bit cynical if you google ukes and read the endless blogs and comments about how much fun it is to be in a ukulele group. There's this daft, childlike enthusiasm that people have about this funny little, four stringed instrument. But the ukulele really is like that. I guess you have to have the gene but pick it up, strum a couple of chords, listen to someone who can actually play and the ukulele really does get under your skin. It's an instrument that makes you smile. It seems to generate big groups of amateurs who play for fun. It's a little bit ridiculous, a bit comical. Like any instrument in the hands of a great player the uke can be magical but it's also relatively easy to master enough chords to have some fun and satisfaction.

Back in Nelson - the uke bug embedded in my epidermis - I got a cash bonus one day in my sales job, walked into a shop and spent $90.00 on my very own Makala pineapple ukulele. I brought it home and asked Spike what song she wanted to hear. My Girl was her choice so that was the first song I learned.

I've never been too shy about singing so my challenge is to try and make the instrument sound good enough to match a reasonable voice. And a challenge it is. I've got a three chord grasp of the guitar but the trick with all the strummed instruments is in the right hand. Mastering the chords on the four stringed uke isn't that hard but so much of what we hear when we listen to guitar and ukulele is in the rhythm - and that's the other hand. I spend way too much time practicing and I'm sure I drive Spike crazy but I want to do more that chinkachink on every song. But then again, on the uke, chinkachink still makes you smile.

Recently I inveigled my friend Terry to try the uke. Terry and I have known each other for a few years. Most of our relationship has been watching rugby at our local and talking rubbish about music and politics. So, I already knew we had a similar taste in music and I liked spending time with him so I invited him around, handed him a uke and suggested we knock out a couple of songs.

Terry is a very good guitar player. No, I mean very good. He can sit down with almost any stringed instrument and just wow you. I've watched a pub full of drunken orchard workers stand transfixed as Terry essentially mucked around in the corner on the pub guitar. I was a bit nervous about inviting him out to play but of course like most musicians, he's incredibly generous and just enjoys making music. We shared songs, he showed me the ropes and we started to enjoy playing together.

Occasional sessions turned into regular sessions which turned into rehearsals which moved on to the endless activity of all groups of musicians - finding a name. Terry is a funny guy who likes puns and that's a good thing for ukulele players because there are three types of ukulele band names: ironic formal names such as The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra; "club names" (the Durham Ukulele Group, the Brisbane Ukulele Musicians Society, The Adelaide Ukulele Appreciation Society) and puns. My sister's band is the Ukunesians. I've come across : The dUKES, Uke 'til you Puke, The Plinkers, The Uke Lamers, Sonic Uke. We started as The Ukrainians. Now we're The Ukes of Hazard.

I think the Ukes of Hazard are a country swing group. We both have a love of country so we tend to choose country songs. We also tend to countrify anything we play. So I think we're country. Which makes us a bit different. A lot of uke groups seem to be cover bands like us but go for ironic covers of pop music. I guess we've got a niche although it's hard to say because with the current craze there are thousands of uke groups out there.

Terry and I have no intention of trying to do more than enjoy ourselves so aren't looking for gigs. We haven't played publicly. But our first gig has come to us. Spike's birthday. At our local. I've been a performer for 30 years but it has been a long time since I've been this nervous about gig. Partly that's because I'm playing music instead of acting, partly it's because I'm trying to keep up with a genius musician and partly because a lot of the audience will be friends and I'll see them the next day. But we've said "yes" so we got on with organising a set list. A set list I might add, that will contain every song I know on the ukulele.
Sloop John B - because we both like it's old fashioned rollicking folky nature and it's something familiar for the audience to latch on to as they confront two middle aged blokes with funny little instruments. I think the Weavers did it before the Beach Boys popped it up but it's actually an old West Indies working song.
Bring it on Home. I first heard Sam Cook's classic on John Lennon's Rock and Roll album. I've always liked that Motown sound but never really been a fan. Terry suggested this, though, and he's right. Bring it on Home to Me is made for the Maori strum and a sing along.
Slipping Away. I heard an old muso say once that playing music is a just a job but a hit song - now that is a career. Slipping Away was Max Merritt's career. The Christchurch musician had a great job interpreting R&B down under but there won't be a New Zealander or Australian of a certain age who doesn't know this simple song. It's basically two verses and a bridge. You sing it twice through in one key and then again one note higher. Simple magic.
Mercury Blues. Lot's of people have covered it but David Lyndley made it his own. Crazy as a loon and a genius. If you haven't heard of him you've heard him - Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, James Taylor. Dave's the guy playing whatever stringed instrument they need - often a lap steel. MB is an ode to cars. Very American.
Don't Think Twice. Terry and I are both Bob Dylan fans. Terry does a great BD impression. I think we could be a Dylan tribute band if we let it happen but we've got more sense. We have a couple down, though, and I love the dark humour in this song of a fella saying goodbye to a gal who has pissed him off.
Evangeline. I am fast coming to the conclusion that The Band were the ultimate purveyors of Americana. Robbie Robertson wrote it, the gorgeous Emmylou Harris sang the quintessential version and it's fun to play. I also get to try the high notes.
Bar Room Girls. I love Emmylou Harris and Emmylou loves Gillian Welch so I love Gillian Welch. There's a sort of movement of young musos writing and playing old-style country and Gillian has it down. This is a beautiful waltz that's gorgeous to sing and let's face it - we all love the barroom girls.
I'm on Fire. The closest we come to the ironic pop thing. It sounds really good on ukes.
Long Gone Lonesome Blues. Hank Williams. If you're a country fan I need to say no more. If you're not - listen to Hank. As you listen remember that for every overindulged, rebellious, system fighting, artistically tortured, depressed, lovelorn, drug addicted stereotypical rock or pop star, Hank did it first. With one guitar, talent and a great voice.
Everybody's Talking. A lovely song that Terry suggested. I put Harry Nilsen in a category with Warren Zevon and Randy Newman. Proper American poet/song writers capturing imges of their place reflected in rain soaked streets, dirty windows and gas station bathroom mirrors. Think Ratso and Joe Buck.
I hope I don't fall in Love. I wish I could do Tom Waits' dirty, sodden, smoke stained, piss taking voice. I can't so we soften this a bit. I sing it low so the bottom C at the end of each verse is a challenge. Funny, self effacing, modern poetry.
I'm so Lonesome I could Cry. Did I say I like Hank Williams? I like Hank Williams. There's a great clip of Bob Dylan and and Johnny Cash singing this classic informally around a piano. They linger over every note, savouring the beauty of a simple, simple song so well written.
Red Clay Halo. More Gillian Welch. An Okie song in which the singer bemoans a tough life but uses the metaphor of an after-life to remind him/herself that they wouldn't have it any other way. Or maybe it's just a great country dance song.
Ophelia. The Band again. Impenetrable lyrics. Ophelia has left and no one knows why. God, it's fun to play, though, and has the best ever chord progression. My sis (who knows her stuff) reckons sevenths chords sound great on a uke and she's right. This one is full of them. The verse goes C E7 A7 D7 F G7 C then bowls through a lovely A7, D7, G7 C trill at end of each verse. If that all sounds like muso-wank just get a copy of Northern Lights-Southern Cross and have a listen. See if you can stop yourself singing along as though you're in front of the crowd at The Last Waltz.
Serve Somebody. I'm not a big enough Bob Dylan geek to know if he really did have a Christian phase but this is certainly a gospel song. It's a cracker too. Bob has written lots of songs with lists and this one lists all the things you can be in the world while you're trying to ignore the big question. Even though I don't subscribe to any religious doctrine I like to think of it as a metaphor. What ever it is that we're doing has an impact on our world and we have to decide which side we're on. Fence sitting isn't actually an option.
Wagon Wheel. More nouveau trad. country this time from Old Crow Medicine Show. I really like these kids and this song is a cracker. They've presumptiously taken an unfinished bootleg Bob Dylan chorus and written verses for it. It's a clever song because the tune for each verse and the chorus is exactly the same but it feels like it changes and develops through the song. This is partly because of the the slightly odd scanning of the lyrics in the verses which were hard to nail when we first started playing it. We kept going back to the CD and listening intently to work out where the stress was on each word so we could fit them all in to each line. But the chorus is a real sing along number and enormous fun to play.
My Girl. Well we gotta. It's Spike's birthday after all. A chance to be a bit silly doing the bomm bom bompbompbomp bits vocally.

Now I'm Depressed

So the top entrepeneurial minds of New Zealand got together yesterday to generate 5 ideas to get our economy pumping. Bright minds, thinking outside the box get together at a summit to tell poor old, dumb, lazy New Zealanders how to make a buck.
They came up with this:
-Kiwicard Travel: Tourists buy a $10,000 special debit card which can be spent only on goods and services in New Zealand. Their airfare is paid by the Government and included with the card.
Not bad. New Zealand's tourist industry is a big part of our economy. $10,000 would contribute. 20 nights in some pretty good hotels or 50 pretty good meals or 10-15 of the more expensive touristy activities. And that's not the cost of a top end holiday in which tourists pay thousands of dollars to stay in our luxury lodges. In other words $10,000 is a bit less than the expenditure of a holiday in New Zealand by someone who can easily afford the fare anyway.

-Flying Kiwi Fund: A capital fund to attract investors to help fund the growth phase of small to medium-sized businesses.
Good idea. I think we call that sort of fund a "bank".

-Possum Economics: Transfer the funds being used to poison the country's 70 million possums (about $200 million a year) into trapping possums for economic benefit.
Various New Zealanders have been trying to get a decent possum industry off the ground for years. This ain't a new idea. There are certainly a few arguments from coservationists as to why it can't work to control possums. If the government listened to that one I'd understand if the hard working people in the possum industry felt a little miffed that they'd been struggling all these years and it took a bunch of yuppies to get official recognition.

-Research and Development: Reform and collation of intellectual property rights to help bring them more quickly to the market, where they can generate revenue.
Again a good idea. But hardly original.

-Attitude Campaign: Dubbed "Give it a go, bro!", this idea is about encouraging a national positive attitude. It includes a advertising campaign and youth education.
That's it? That's all you've got? These people need to get out more. I think they think that anyone earning less than $100,000 p.a. is sitting around in public bars bitching. That's not the kiwi way, actually. Pop into my local and you'll find the atmosphere lively, jovial and poistive. Most of the people in the Trav on a Friday night have spent the week - and intend to spend the weekend giving it a go. Bro'.

A full day with 100 of our top enterpeneurial minds and that's what they come up with.
We're screwed. Oh - sorry. Give it a go, Bro!

Meeting of the Waters

When I was a kid we had two playgrounds. The river and the hill. More of the hill later. The river was mostly the Waipa which wended it's very circuitous route through peaty, muddy landscapes from the the rangitoto Range and Waipa Valley to meet the Waikato at The Point. The Waikato, of course is the river everybody knows at Ngaruawahia because it's the one you cross on the way to Auckland. It's the one in all the old photos of the Ngaruawahia Regatta. The one in the background of the competitions at Turangawaewae Marae when the waka majestically appear around the bend and your heart stirs in the same way it does when your team performs the haka or you hear the bagpipes.

It's also big. More dangerous. We were raised on stories of kids who'd strayed too far out when swimming at The Point or jumping from the railway bridge. They'd have tried to swim to shore but the sheer power, the deceptive lugubriousness and the sheer weight of current and water would take them too far, too fast. They'd be found (in various states of decomposition depending on the teller of the tale) tangled in branches of fallen riverside willows or even on the bar at Port Waikato - a hundred and fifty miles to the north. I'd never known one of these poor kids, never noticed any of my gang missing. But we knew it had happened. Everybody said so.

The Waipa didn't have this reputation. Near our place on Waipa Ave it was narrow enough to swim across and not so swift that you'd be taken too far. It was wide enough to be a challenge, though and as we kicked and pounded the water and looked into the tannin green, part of the excitement was the thought of not making it, not touching the tangled mat of roots on the other side and being swept down to the junction, past the Point and swallowed by our river's bigger, meaner sister.

So our playground was the bank of the Waipa with its swimming hole and giant willow branches. We built huts, dug tunnels in the muddy dirt, tortured the eels and the occasional unfortunate frog. Gangs of us spent entire summers muddy and wet and happy in the water just a hundred metres from our home.

I remember the water being brown but not muddy. After all it passed through flat, peaty dairy country on its way to us but it wasn't an unpleasant colour. I'd even call it fresh. Although visibility was poor the water was in fact clear for a few feet until the tannin lowered the curtain shielding eels, floating bodies and Marie Thompson's tanned, bikini clad body from view. Clean dirt my mother would have called it. We didn't mind swallowing a mouthful as we fought in the shallows and never felt dirty even when we were covered in the mud that started to surround the swimming hole as the summer progressed and a thousand bare foot steps had broken down the soil of the bank.

We even had a boat a couple of years. Dad's twelve foot tinny. He used it during his brief career as an eel fisherman and we were sometimes allowed to fire up the ancient Seagull motor, take a bunch of inflated inner tubes and pootle up and down by the swimming hole. Well, that was the agreement we had with Mum. In fact we'd head miles up river until home and safety and rules were out of sight. Then we'd shut off the motor , chuck the tubes into the water and float back, yelling insults to each other, telling our latest filthy jokes, slipping in and out of the water and basking on the hot, black tubes like so many hairless, raucous otters. Within sight of home we'd fire up the motor, head upstream and repeat. Grouse fun.

I've been back to that hole many times. It's just down the road from where my mother now lives overlooking The Point. It's not the same, of course. The bank is overgrown, the hole silted up and the water looks dirty. Actually dirty - although I notice people still swim down at The Point. I guess industrial dairy farming and an increased population have degraded the water quality somewhat. But there doesn't seem to be as many kids around either. The grassed area down there and the river bank used to swarm with them. Me and my mates. We would have cleared away the undergrowth, dug some steps down to the water, nailed some bits of wood to the willow - a ladder for the climb to the jumping branch. We would have reattached the old rope swing. Maybe it's just older people living around there now. Maybe these days kids aren't allowed to disappear all day and risk their lives in the river. Maybe the giant eels got them. Maybe my memory of sun soaked, endless, carefree summers is actually a fantasy. I hope not. I hope not because it's part of what makes me a New Zealander - that opportunity to hoon about, safely(?) in the semi wild. That openness and freedom and connection to place. It's part of what makes me Pakeha - having the opportunity to call that paradise my stamping ground, my turangawaewae. I'd hate to think I made it up.

Up the Spine of the Fish

My feet sink into the sand. That last wave gently tugs at my heels.
I haven't caught anything - again - but I don't care. I look up at the horizon sweeping west to the out-of-focus ridges of the Abel T National Park and east along the beach to Tahuna and the Boulder Bank, Nelson and the hint in the haze beyond - D'Urville Island and the Sounds. Paradise, really.

I wonder what the view from Ninety Mile Beach must be like. I've looked at the map. There'll be no speech marks framing the view -the beach is too long. All we'll see is that endless strip of blue on blue. A panorama, my Mum would say. You'd be able to see the curve. See where it drops off to the place where monsters be. I can't wait.

I'll be fishing there in about 15 days. After Wellington, New Plymouth, Whangamomona, Piopio, Hamilton, Ngaruawhia, Auckland, Kaiwaka, Kaitaia and Rawene. We'll go to Cape Reinga after. Or maybe Reinga then fishing. I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's a holiday. The only thing we've booked is the ferry and two nights in New Plymouth. The rest is road trip. Well, that's not entirely true. Our mothers are expecting us and you can't go messing around your 70 and 80 year old Mums. They won't stand for it. But other than that we'll make our way up the island as we please. Stopping where we want and just enjoying the time and togetherness. The trip.

We're both North Islanders so planning has been a combination of family obligations, explorations and nostalgic side trips. We've driven State Highway 1 a hundred times and many of the side roads at one time or another. But other explorations are brand new for both of us.

The Forgotten Highway is one. SH43 links Taranaki and the King Country but instead of skirting the coast and easing inland to Te Kuiti it attaches itself to the foot of the mountain and- safety line secured - plunges into the steep bush covered hill country that skirts the top of the Whanganui National Park. You wind through the creases and wrinkles in the belly of the fish until you emerge in Taumarunui.

This is the land where the last of the Maori generals took their people and were basically never defeated. Also the area where the Tainui Maori King, Tukaroto Potatau Matutaera Tawhiao , maintained his land and full control until 1883. Maori call the King Country "Te Rohe Potae" - the Place of the Hat- because the area was opened to settlers only after Tawhiao used Governor George Grey's hat as an analogy for his land.

Grey had offered a deal - a line on the map - whereby the King Country and Taranaki was equally divided between the settlers and Tawhiao's people. Tawhiao took Grey's hat and threatened to cut it in half. When Grey protested Tawhiao said "You were afraid that if we cut your hat in half it would be damaged. But would the land not be damaged if we cut it in half?"

Grey acknowledged his point but reminded him of the continuing bloodshed and said something had to be done. They had to come to some agreement. So Tawhiao took his own hat - a bowler - and placed it on the map. "Huri, huri, huri. Around and around and around the brim of the hat, you can have all that. This is mine'. Grey agreed and the area under the hat became known by the Maori as Te Rohe Potae and to Pakeha as the Maori King Country.

The bi cultural nature of our country is nicely reflected here too. They celebrate Whangaroa Republic Day every January. A little piece of modern history steeped in the dry, laconic humour of our Pakeha heritiage.

The remote ruggedness that made this neck of the woods such a stronghold also makes for fantastic scenery and I'm looking forward to the drive and a beer at Whangamomona.

I'll enjoy lots of other beers at the little independent breweries that dot the route through the island. We don't get to drink these beers down our way because many of the small breweries in New Zealand don't produce enough to export to the Mainland.

Later we'll join the backpackers and English tourists in their camper vans at the tip of the tail but before that Spike will have a moment when we skirt back into the farm country around Te Kuiti - her mother recently moved off the family farm. Although for most it's just boring dairy country, my heart will put in an extra beat as we crest the rise and glimpse the mighty Waikato.

We'll spend a couple of nights in the big smoke. We'll visit our mothers, my sisters and my sister and brother in law. I'll try to distinguish between the tribe of nieces and nephews who are all brown skinned with big brown eyes and all seem to have names that begin with T. We'll see a few old mates. We'll take gravel side roads. We'll eat egg sandwiches in funny little tea rooms. We'll read tourist information signs. Spike will navigate as I drive. We'll take a Thermos. We'll often just stop and look - even at places we've viewed a dozen times before.

I can't wait. My feet are embedded in the sand of a beach in Aotearoa.