On Vicars

 On Vicars

 First published in Column 8, some time in 1994

65 English clerics criticized the Bishop of Chichester recently when, while doing his job, he sacked a vicar who said he doesn't believe in God. And why did they criticize the Bishop? Because the clerics claimed the Church of England has a long-standing tradition of tolerating and valuing a wide range of views.

Somehow I believe the clerics are a little confused, though I know they're not alone in their thinking.

If I joined a Harley Davidson club, full of enthusiasts for that particular brand of bike, and insisted on my belief that Honda motor scooters were still the best thing on two wheels, I suspect they'd wrap the nearest spanner round my ear.

If I went to a Photography group and claimed that the taking of photos was an outmoded occupation, I doubt that they'd tolerate my liberal views. If I said to a gang of phonecard collectors that I wanted to have their fellowship but I believed phonecards should be cut in half and given to the dustmen, I think they'd use the scissors on some aspect of my physiognomy.

If you're going to be part of any group it stands to reason you must take up their basic tenets, even though outsiders may consider their views to be mere opinions. I can't see how belief in God is not basic to being a Christian. And last time I heard, Anglicans were still included in the Christian scene.

I can understand if the vicar in question, Anthony Freeman, (an interesting surname in the circumstances), is having a crisis of faith. Many believers do, in all sorts of religions. They may go into a state of total unbelief regarding things in which they formerly believed. It's not unusual, and not unreasonable, but it is personal.

Such a crisis time is hardly reconcilable, however, with continuing to lead a congregation which may not be having the same crisis of faith. A minister can't lead a group of people if he doesn't believe in the things he's telling them. That defiles his integrity not a little. Of course he can proclaim to the congregation that he doesn't believe in God. But any sane group of believers should then seriously question his ability to lead them. As the Bishop of Chichester also did.

Recently I've been reading a book called Coping with Controversy .  Its author, Gareth Jones, makes the point that some things are central to a Christian's belief: God's existence seems to be an obvious central aspect. Other aspects of our belief are more peripheral. They're areas we can disagree about without ceasing to be a believer.

To me the clerics in England have mistaken a central belief for a peripheral one. I don't see how a segment of Christian society can deny the very thing that's at the base of the religion and still call themselves Christians. At the very least, Anthony Freeman and his supporters should consider retiring from their ministry until they discover whether they are believers or not.

I don't think that means they need to withdraw from the church, which is full of people who are on different parts of their spiritual journey: some unshakeable in their beliefs, some at the opposite end of the spectrum like broken straws.

But just as we wouldn't want teachers in schools who thought it was a waste of time to teach kids facts as we know them, or policemen who thought that law and order was a thing of the past, or doctors who thought that health was irrelevant, I don't think the church can use people in leadership who can't accept what the church has always regarded as the truth.

Clothes

 Clothes

 First published in Column 8, date unknown, but some time in the 1990s

 Stress is a fact of my life: opening the lid of the rubbish bucket and being greeted by something alive. Hearing a piece of music in one ear that's a semitone different to, and out of kilter with, the music forced into the other ear. Putting milk into coffee and finding I'm drinking liquid Parmesan.

Finding that in spite of all my careful calculations, the cheque book still manages to sink into overdraft while I'm not looking. Wondering whether the cat will make it outside before it chokes on a furball, and trying to hasten its fat departure through the narrow cat door. Discovering that the first page of my article is printing on the last piece of paper in the box, that it's Sunday, and the deadline is 9am Monday.

These small inconveniences of life apart, one other matter I have to face every so often is more stressful than them all. Which is why I put off doing anything about it for as long as possible.

No, it isn't a visit to the dentist. I've only been fazed by a visit to the dentist twice in the last 18 years.

On one occasion the dentist plugged up a hole after draining it. By the time I'd walked from Frederick St to the Octagon, however, the fact that someone appeared to be driving a nail up through the roof of my mouth towards my sinus proved there was still plenty of gunk in it.

On the other occasion, a tooth had to go. What was left was barely visible below the gum. Somehow the dentist pried it loose, but I came home wondering if it was my tooth or my head he'd been trying to remove.

No, more stressful than any of these is shopping for clothes. When I was a youth, with money to spend, and no one to please but myself, purchasing clothes was a breeze. But nowadays another person has to have a say in the choice of clothes - apart from the Bank Manager. (Of course I also have to fend off the suggestions of my children, who, until they see what you've bought think that the only clothes I should wear are jeans, jeans and jeans - and the baggier the better.)

I girded up my loins recently and, along with the person mentioned above, sallied forth to deal with racks of clothes, all of which look to me to be quite unsuited to my flamboyant personality.

Why do men's trousers only come in three shades of black, and two shades of grey? (The other possibility is khaki.) And why do so many puff out in such a way as to look as though you're carrying six dirty handkerchieves and a pair of rolled-up socks in each pocket?*

Courtesy of Newtown Grafitti

Furthermore, the larger sizes, which I now have to wear, assume that the wider your girth, the longer your leg. The rationale is beyond me. In order to get trousers that are the right leg length I would have 
to lose a couple of stone. Those that fit my waist slop round my feet like Peter Pan's shadow.

To please the person accompanying me, (who wishes not to be named), I did try on a pair of jeans. I'm sure I heard one of the mirrors in the fitting room snigger, and that was before it thumped the back of my head while I was trying to remove a shirt two sizes too small for me.

Talking of the shirts: by the time I'd tried on half a dozen colours and designs, I was sweating to such a degree that if the shop assistant had noticed, I would have been forced to purchase them all.

Buying clothes invariably makes me come over all sweaty and foot-smelly. No wonder shop assistants keep their distance. (As did my accompanying person, who wafted off looking at other garments as soon as I got something on, and had to be hissed back to her place of inspection.)

And further stress is caused by never knowing who'll suddenly tear open the fitting room curtains and reveal me half in and out of some item of clothing, or struggling to hang a garment back on its coathanger the perfect way it was, or maybe even telling myself how good I look in something everyone else says is ghastly.

Do you see why I'd sooner go to the dentist?

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*I used to have a fairly regular customer in my bookshop who appeared to carry several half-used toilet rolls in his pockets. 

Tinā - mother

 Tinā may follow a lot of the tropes of the underdog makes good story, especially the one where a teacher takes on a bunch of kids and turns them into something spectacular (think one of Whoopi Goldberg's stints from the Sister Act series), but it's made considerably more effective by having a wonderful Samoan actress at its heart: Anapela Polataivao as Patricia. 

After her daughter is killed in the larger of the two Christchurch earthquakes, Patricia is hit hard by depression, goes solitary and fails to find work over the next three years. Partly because of her bolshie attitude (which happens to be very endearing to the film's audience even if it's not to some of the film's characters) she gets a job at an uppity Christchurch School, a Catholic one. Of course things are never easy, particularly in terms of the rather over-the-top headmaster, but she hangs on and eventually produces a top quality upper school choir which, at the end of the film, sings at the Big Sing regional competition.

To the film's credit we don't find out whether they get through the regionals (although based on their performance they probably should). It's more important that one of the students, played by Antonia Robinson, who has some unexplained trauma affecting her life, should rise to the challenge and lead the choir. 

The story isn't always coherent, and there seems to be something slightly awry in the last sequence as shown, but there are nevertheless two things that make the film eminently worth watching. Polataivao is the powerful and funny force at its centre, and even in her darkest moments we want to keep watching her. In her upbeat moments she's wonderfully alive: giving her choir members demerits whether it's school policy or not, or leading them in complex rehearsal warm-ups, or joyfully accompanying on the piano as they sing. 

The other great aspect of the movie is the music. There's no attempt to make the music suitable for young modern listeners - in fact after one of the pupils scoffs at the choice of an Eagles' classic she's seen not long after as part of the choir giving a vital performance of it. One of the best songs is a beautifully harmonized version of the 19th century hymn, It is Well With My Soul. The familiar Samoan song at the end is sung by a choir with no Samoans in it. 

Igelese Ete is the man behind the choir music and the singing is terrific throughout; even on two occasions when the choir members miss the boat trying to sing without getting the pitch right. 

Graphophobia

 Graphophobia

First published in Column 8, date unknown, but some time in the 1990s

As we grow older it's easy to develop irrational phobias, or fears of things that the majority of people have no fear of at all.

Fear, courtesy of Robbie Grubbs

Up until recently I had little fear that the subject matter of my column, if written up before the deadline, would turn up in someone else's column. However, now thatMiles Singe* has on at least two occasions unwittingly snaffled my ideas, I could easily become phobic about it.

I haven't come across the correct classification for this kind of phobia, but if it doesn't exist, no doubt some American University will soon make sure it does and give it a proper name. 

My newfound interest in phobias comes from a discovery I made in a reference book I have on my shelf which lists 150,000 facts.  Page 166 lists three closely printed columns of some 100 phobias, most of which I never guessed people would consider naming, let alone having. I suppose our modern world, with its constant "progress," is bound to bring out new fears.

For example, the fear of someone discovering one's hiding place must be something that the writer, Salman Rushdie, has to contend with. Until some Greek wordsmith finds a better choice for this situation we could adopt thanatophobia, the fear of death.

The fear of actually finding Elvis Presley alive and wondering what to do with yourself in such an event, must be something certain Elvis freaks suffer. Or when they finally realise he is dead, the fear of having nothing to live for, must be worse. Perhaps we could temporarily adopt phasmophobia, the fear of ghosts, for the first, and hormephobia, the fear of shock, for the second.

The fear of Bill Birch or Jenny Shipley returning to power could be classified under poinephobia, or the fear of punishment. In fact, the fear of the National party getting back in might be classed as homichlophobia, or fear of fog, or even worse, atephobia, the fear of ruin.

I'm amazed at some of the fears listed: the fear of sitting, (thaasophobia), the fear of standing, (stasiphobia), the fear of trembling (tremophobia) and the fear of blushing, (ereuthrophobia). Politicians, for the most part, plainly do not suffer from any of these phobias.

A religious person has the choice of a fear of hell, (stygiophobia), or the fear of heaven, (ouranophobia).  A person with a dislike of animals can take their choice of ailurophobia or cynophobia - cats and dogs. And talking of cats and dogs, while I can't find anything for the person who's afraid of heavy rain falling on the iron roof, such people might like to extend themselves into being brontophobic or astraphobic. The former has nothing to do with the fear of being endlessly assailed by Jurassic Park spinoffs, nor the latter by out-of-body experiences, but with being afraid of thunder and lightning.

I note that boys can be parthenophobic, (afraid of girls), but girls who can do anything can't be afraid of boys. A musician can be specific and afraid of flutes, (aulophobic), or go wholeheartedly either into musicophobia, or akousticophobia, both of which should self-explanatory.

Most writers, even when someone doesn't pinch their ideas, have periods of logophobia, but it takes some imagination to wonder who would be afraid of feathers, furs, snow, string and skin. And you'd have to be either fairly metaphysically inclined - or a spaceman - to get into the fear of duration, voids, stars or infinity. Enough frivolity - akin to hedonophobia, (the fear of pleasure). Any person worth their fearful self in these days of inclusiveness must subscribe to being pantophobic: having a fear of everything.

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*Miles Singe was a long-standing columnist in both the Star Midweek and the Star Weekender.   He was there before I began writing a column, and continues to this day (3rd July, 97!)  An old soldier, he often wrote about the military; he also enjoyed pretending to be an old soak, as well as someone who maltreated his wife and (grown-up) children. He was likely to be neither.

Questions

 Questions

 First published in Column 8, date unknown at present, but some time in the 1990s

 Two things make a trip to the University Bookshop's* upstairs permanent sale worthwhile. Firstly, the array of books that appear to have no market. A book of dedications? A book of bits left out of other books?

Secondly, the way in which customers can discover minor gems, books in the Trivial Pursuit mode.

I came across just such a one in the holidays: volume 2 of Notes and Queries, a collection of questions 
and answers from the Guardian's column in which "readers seek enlightenment from each other on an astonishingly broad range of subjects."

In this book the questions are as intriguing as the answers. And quite contradictory answers arise, as mathematicians and scientists and philosophers each take up their own (unproven) point of view.

A newspaper column probably isn't the place to ask, "what is the meaning of life?" This question perhaps deserves some of the answers it got, including the one that says that asking such a question is about as meaningful as asking what is the meaning of lumbago.

The question "IS THIS a question?" initiates various obscure answers, including "All these cunning answers are actually irrelevant because Shakespeare told us that `that is the question.'" Or, "This sentence no verb. Who cares. This reader bored. Time to bring subject to a."

The answers to such questions as why there are so many Coldharbour lanes, or when was the first semi-detached house built, are rather more straightforward, even though the answers vary enormously.

Two answers to one question are in Latin, and three to a question on simplified spelling are in various versions of that spelling, including one that gets increasingly unreadable as the paragraph evolves.

Two novels which avoid using the letter "e", (one each in English and French) are discussed, and an unexpected dispute arises over the translation.

And there are answers that are just fun: "Is it true that goldfish have a memory span of only five seconds?" - The first answer is utterly complex; the second says, "For a fish with a good memory try a piranha. They have a megabyte."

The inventors of items, or their descendants, answer questions - only to be contradicted by someone else's descendent. One poet, (Julius Lipton), after living in obscurity for 55 years, pops up to explain what has happened to him since his one and only book was published.

The joy of such a column isn't the fact that you get real answers to real questions - although occasionally you do - but the way in which people's minds take up the challenge of answering an intriguing question in an entertaining way. How to measure the weight of your hand, for example. This may have been a genuine question, but it produces some very suspect answers.

Finally, what do you notice about the following poem:

I know a little man both ept and ert,
An intro? extro? No, he's just a vert.
Shevelled and couth and kempt, pecunious, ane.
His image trudes upon the ceptive brain.
When life turns sipid and the mind is traught,
The spirit soars as I would sist it ought.
Chalantly then, like any gainly goof, 
My digent self is sertive, choate, loof.

Or the following sentences? "Jump, dogs! Why vex Fritz Blank, Q.C.?" or "Mr Jock, TV quiz PhD, bags few lynx."

(After all this, here's my question. Has anybody seen volume one of "Notes and Queries?")

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*The University Bookshop, in Dunedin, is the largest bookshop left in the city. Though by no means large compared to bookshops elsewhere, it sstill has an enormous range, and is aimed not merely at the Academic market, but at a huge variety of readers. Its permanent sale in the upstairs part of the shop used to be a treat for anyone with a few dollars and an hour to spare.

(Artists and) Responsibility

 [Artists and] Responsibility

 First published in Column 8, date unknown at present, but some time in the 1990s.

When I spoke about censorship in another column, I said I was puzzled at some of the comments made by New Zealand's chief film and television censor.

The problems with censorship in our generation, however, go further along the line than the people dealing with the end product; the problems go back to the creators of films, books and plays themselves. The responsibility of the artist is a factor with which censors deal only by default.

Much of our problem in the entertainment, literary and artistic world is the way in which artists appear to set no limits upon their own creativity. Worse, there always seems to be a producer or publisher or gallery owner willing to present material to the public that the artist has not self-censored. The theory is they're only giving the public what it wants. Like the spectators at the Roman gladiator displays. Like people who flocked to public hangings. Or perhaps even to public executions on television.

We humans do have a taste for the nasty - as long as we're not personally involved. There's no doubt, given half the chance, we run towards evil. Civilised and all as we are, I don't doubt that everyone of us is capable of evil if we allow ourselves to go that way. Often it's merely a case of "there but for the grace of God, go I."

But evil begets more evil: in the end, like the Nothing in The Never-Ending Story, it sucks up everything. Some artists appear to forget this. So sure are they of their own view of the world, they forget that not every reader or viewer sees things as "clearly" as they do, or with an equal understanding of their worldview. What may be a serious attempt to portray evil, on their part, can turn into the destruction of someone else's soul.

Furthermore, there are many artists who have no morality at all when it comes to portraying evil. Enjoying evil themselves, they delight in taking others down with them.

Our chief censor was quoted as saying, last week, that there was no right or wrong classification when it came to movies. It was simply a "judgement call." For many artists it's not even a matter of classification: there's no right or wrong when it comes to art, full stop. Tolerance of any sort of behaviour or action or writing or artistic work is taken to the extreme, until finally the artists can rightly say: you let another one away with "murder," how can you judge what I'm doing?

When Muslims around the world rose up in anger at Salman Rushdie's written blasphemies, his Western publishers, self-appointed critics, and artists of all kinds cried out that artists should be allowed to write as they please. Such tolerance isn't everyone's view. Several people have died in connection with The Satanic Verses, and Rushdie is in ongoing exile. What has he gained by writing as he pleased?

Complete toleration of the artist's viewpoint has opened up such a can of worms that censors in the West don't really know how to classify films anymore, television breaks through any restraining barriers as it sees fit, and magazines and newspapers compete with each other in the gossip of garbage.

In other societies and periods of history, artists have been condemned for speaking out, or going beyond the bounds. Today artists portray almost every conceivable blasphemy, immorality and evil in books, movies and on television while we puzzle over how to deal with it. Our tolerance level is so high society can no longer deal with its effects.

I don't believe we want Western society to be subject to the kind of thinking that puts Salman Rushdie's life at permanent risk. On the other hand, if artists will not take responsibility for the effect they themselves are having on society, we may finally have no other choice.

Profane but PC

 Profane but PC

 First published in Column 8 on the 17^th May 1995

 At one point in Shakespeare’s King Lear the King (with a bit of huff and puff) asks his Fool: ‘Dost they call me fool, boy?’ The fool answers: ‘All thy other titles thou has given away; that thou wast born with.’

Court jesters spoke the truth others couldn’t speak, through humour. When, like politicians, courtiers suffered under a form of political correctness, fools could deflate the pompous behaviour of kings, as well as that of the asses who sucked up to them.

It was an enviable, but sometimes dangerous job, with the occasional possibility of head-loss.

Increasingly, PC is depriving us of the jesters we need in our society. Newspaper cartoonists are among the few left who can still exercise their wit; comedians on television and radio are likely to be sued for saying the wrong thing.

Reading the brief report of the Wizard’s capping week lecture made me wonder if he doesn’t consider himself a modern-day jester. His suggestions that life skills should consist of teaching how to control women and women how to control men, and that the only education we need is to learn to read, write and count change, might pass for wit.

But adding that wizards and prophets were at the pinnacles of the world, creating cultures which became reality when people believed in them, slides away from wit and off into fantasy land. 

The Wizard receives the Queen's Service Medal
for services to the community. 

The egotistical Wizard has none of the undercutting humility the court jester role requires. Furthermore, too many people take him seriously. When he’s asked to perform a rain dance it’s little more than a measure of his self-promotional success.

Rather than performing a lampoon role, the Wizard is in dire need of being lampooned himself.

And talking of lampooning, I was perturbed by two things relating to the recent capping revue. Firstly, Rob McCann, the producer, said: ‘Comedy is about lampooning things. We’ve had many discussions about what we’re allowed to lampoon because we’re in quite a politically correct age.’

How curious that the students, of all people (including the capping review, of all shows), should be self-censored by the PC brigade. How effective this censorship has become that humour, part of the life-blood of society, has to be careful about what it says. These guys don’t need any royal personage to cut off their heads; they’ve already done it for themselves.

But that’s only point number one.

The other point has to do with this show’s curious title. The producers of the Jesus Christ Not Again Capping Show may have meant to signify, ‘oh, no, not another musical,’ but their intent didn’t come across. The real effect was of casual profanity, made blatant by being strung on a banner across the street.

Not only was this an example of a poorly executed message, the inability to appreciate the effect of their words shows the producers have little understanding of who the words refer to, and what many people believe about Him.

The pathetic excuses of the council subcommittee that allowed this banner to be displayed are something else again. Saying the banner was not offensive to most people ignores the fact that it was offensive to some.

Would the subcommittee, or the producers, have allowed the show’s title to offend ‘some people’ who are gay, or lesbian, or Muslim, or Jewish, or disabled, or feminist, or Maori? I could sit down and write a dozen titles that would offend any one of these groups, but I doubt they’d be displayed across Stuart St.

How curious that political correctness protects all manner of groups but one.

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The piece, read just on thirty years later, shows how forceful PC was, and how it easily evolved into the appalling Woke world we live in today. Christianity can be blasphemed without blinking an eye; Islam, of course, cannot, nor most of the groups I mention above (except perhaps Jews who are currently regarded almost with the same distaste at present as they were during World War II).

See also Confession, on a similar theme.

Confession

 Confession

 First published in Column 8 on the 11^th February 1994

 I confess! I’m conservative, dogmatic and opinionated. I’m middle-aged, illiberal (un-liberal?, non-liberal?), and semi-quasi-fundamentalist. I’m a closet reactionary redneck and almost an elderly old guard. I’m pig-and-bull-headed, cocksure, mulish and hard-nosed.

Worse, I don’t even know if I’m culturally safe – I don’t even know whether that means I’m supposed to be safe from some culture or keep it safe from me.

PC propaganda is finally raising my consciousness, and what it says must be true. However, I’m having more trouble learning the nuances of How To Be Correctly Political than I am learning the peculiarities of the Russian alphabet.

I mean, how would I ever have guessed that I should be upset by a belch at the end of a Kentucky Fried Chicken advertisement? Yet supposedly a ‘significant section of the community’ were, according to the decision of the Advertising Standards Complaints Board. This belch was in extremely poor taste, we’re told, and the ad is banned.

Perhaps the belch affected the ozone layer, and repeated screenings were making the hole larger. Did the belch offend the greenies? How difficult these things are to understand when one is used to being imperious, obdurate and peremptory.

Phew! I think I’ve got hold of that – now let’s consider this: a naughty American lad in Singapore scrawled graffiti over cars in a vandalistic spree, and was caned for it.  

But everyone knows we don’t cane anyone anymore. Caning causes us to become child abusers and to take it out on the next generation. If we stop caning the next generation, instead of damaging people, they’ll only go out and damage property. And this will have the useful effect of teaching the rich to ‘practise modesty in their show of wealth.’

So we must avoid any form of discipline, otherwise hidden addictions may appear in the younger generation.

And talking of addictions, I was dismayed to learn that a man in Maine who suffered a permanent mental disability of sexual addiction (I kid you not) lost his job as a teacher because he insisted on kissing his students (the female ones, anyway).

He says the school is illegally discriminating against his mental disability. Perhaps they’ve confused it with a disorder I seem to recall from my pre-PC days; I think it was called Lust, but I’m a bit confused myself.

However, in cases of confusion, there’s always plenty of PC material to learn from. Polytechnics, for example, are wonderful places to find out about how to live in a PC worlds.

Waikato Poly is having a little trouble with a couple of tutors who, I’m told, have been paid exceptionally well to keep their mouths closed about the way the nursing course is run. But are they satisfied with all that money? Not likely. One of the naughty fellows has begun to blow whistles – no wonder they don’t want him on the course. Loud, noisy whistles are the last thing most patients want to hear when they’re sick.

And in Nelson Polytechnic there’s a very PC dispute over which colour one should be to go on a fishing course. That’s easy: I don’t have any colour, so I won’t be eligible. What a relief! I’d hate to pay for a course others get for free. It would make them feel so embarrassed, wouldn’t it, when I started flashing all my colourless money around.

How difficult it is to keep up with all the legal niceties of Correctness that is Political. I’m now beginning to appreciate how the Chinese felt when Mao-Tse Tung present them with the Little Red Book.

 

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7.2.25 This could have been written yesterday, with the PC replaced by Woke. See also Profane but PC on a similar note.

A short course in Maori

 A short course in Maori

First published in Column 8 probably in 1996, as 1995 was Maori Language Year. This was written before macrons came into general use in newspapers, and also at a time when what was said wouldn't have caused any controversy. 

I managed to miss Maori Language Year almost completely - along with many other NZers, I suspect. However, better late than never is still a useful motto, and so when I came across an article about the new Dictionary of Contemporary Maori, Te Matatiki, my ever-buzzing brain gave an Aha!

We learn other languages best when they become part of our everyday speech. Think how many Maori words we know now because they crop up all the time, words like iwi and whakapapa and whanau.* We've absorbed the meaning because we learn them in the right context.

It's the way we learn our own language, as children.

So, on that basis, I'm offering my own course in new Maori words. It's a short course, so don't be put off!  All you have to do is read the Maori word in the context of these sentences and take a shot at the meaning. I'm sure you'll figure it out.

(1) I once played the piano for Kiri Te Kanawa, who, although she sings popular songs and jazz, is best known for her work as a whakaari puoru singer. In whakaari puoru, we often see large middle-aged singers pretending to be young lovers. Madame Butterfly is an Italian whakaari puoru.

(2)  I had no idea that Edmund Hillary, the climber of mountains, was also a kairaupi. A kairaupi should wear gloves, a helmet and protective clothing, or else he is likely to get stung by his little buzzing friends. He is not a bikie or a fireman.

(3) It's a sad indictment on our society that many women have to flee with their children to a whare punanga when their husbands abuse and attack them. Usually the address of a whare punanga is not known to the general public.

(4) When you go on a picnic in the midsummer sun, you'd be advised to put your salads, milk and beverages (including the tinnies) in a tokanga matao - this will keep them cool. Don't leave the tokanga matao out in the sun, (with or without the sunscreen on top). Put it under a tree.

(5) I believe basketball players use the expression, kura horahora, but I'm not familiar with it. It has something to do with a fool who's caught in a press, apparently.

(6) On the other hand I do know something about the next two Maori words. When I can afford one, I'll buy a rorohiko ponaho and sit it on my lap, where I can type out my column and watch my words appear on the LCD screen. If I connect the rorohiko ponaho to a modem, I'll be able to communicate with my rellies on the ipurangi. The ipurangi is a world-wide interconnection of computers used by private and public citizens alike.

(7) Some people have been fooled into believing that kihi paraoa is grown, but of course kihi paraoa is made out of flour and water, like any other pasta. Kihi paraoa bolognaise is a very tasty dish.

(8) I believe that anyone learning the pungawi should practise this instrument away from civilised society. People who play the pungawi wear kilts and sporrens - and knives in their sox.

(9) Football players and athletes of the male gender are advised to wear a tatua raho, if they want to live a full and fruitful life. The tatua raho is an essential protective device. It will not prevent AIDS.

(10) And talking of protection in sport, a kaipatu now wears a helmet with a cage across his face, and padding in practically every area possible. This is to avoid being injured by balls bowled at the speed of light. Nevertheless, all the protection in the world won't stop the ball sailing past his bat and into the hands of the tautopenga.

And I can't resist adding that someone on a nohopuku - or worse, on a whakapuango - won't help themselves by eating poikere. (A person on a diet - or a crash diet - shouldn't eat play dough!)

Maori rafter pattern - courtesy Augustus Hamilton

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*Iwi - a meeting of a group of people for a particular purpose
Whakapapa - genealogy or lineage; a very important aspect of Maori life
Whanau - the extended family, including non-related tribal members

The Taxman Cometh Monthly

 The Taxman Cometh Monthly

First published in Column 8, date unknown, but some time in the 1990s

It is in the nature of things that columnists must write one out of four columns for the taxman. Every four weeks this leaves the columnist with the agonizing choice: which column belongs to the taxman, the good, the bad, or the ugly? (I mean the good, bad and ugly columns, of course.)

 It also means that the columnist has an obvious problem: if he writes a column intended merely to sate the surfeited coffers of the Infernal Revenue, will the readers be able to detect such writing? Will the readers come to each column wondering: Is This The One? Worse, will the taxman begin to insist that the columns written for him be better than usual, (if such were possible), and that he must have a dedication at the top?

 I suppose one way round this problem would be to cast a web of mystery around the persona of the columnist. Columns have often been used as places where fairly insignificant individuals fulfil their literary aspirations. Dear Abby is one example, or The Weasel - sorry, I mean the Ferret.*

 Does/did Dear Abby exist? More importantly, for our purpose, does Mike Crowl exist? Or is he merely a figment of the editor's imagination?

 Is Column 8 thrown together at the last minute by the reporter with the least to do that week? Is the photograph at the top merely a morphing of the faces of several different reporters?

 Will you ever see Crowl in public, or will you only see a character portrayed by an otherwise out-of-work actor? Would he always be played by the same actor in fact? (The beard is a clue: it would help to disguise the possibility that several different people could portray Crowl.)

 Is Crowl merely an urban myth, like the phantom hitchhiker - a character always spoken about at second hand who turns up to haunt gullible people for the next twenty or thirty years? And if Crowl is only a myth, why should one fourth of his earnings be deducted for the taxman?

 If I harp on this point, it is because I suspect that Crowl is not alone in his mythical status. I have long wondered, in fact, if there is even such a person as Miles Singe.** In my opinion, Miles Singe is actually the combined pseudonym of several anonymous writers.

There are various clues to the writers' personalities in the title the column, "Singe Marks."

Marks is plainly a pun on Marx, which means that one writer has communist leanings, though we must say that he keeps these fairly close to himself. This may also indicate his age - I guess he's a victim of the 1950s reds-under-the-bed neurosis.

 "Singe" is even more revealing. "Sin," the first part of this cryptic word, indicates a writer from a Catholic background, and may even tell us that he is a relative of the famous Phillipino Cardinal, (who invited someone into his home by saying, "Welcome to the house of Sin.")

 "Sing" shows that somewhere in one writer's past he (or she) has had a musical career, while "Inge" gives us a clue as to the extent of another's writing ambitions - compare Dean Inge.

The "ng" may indicate ing-digenous origins, although perhaps this is a little far-fetched.

 With both these personalities thus being of mythical status, they cannot possibly be subject to tax. Would we attempt to tax Zeus or Pan?

 Let me suggest to all readers who have friends in the tax dept, (and I don't mean if you owe them money), that you encourage such friends to read this column and consider whether the Infernal Revenue should really be subjecting Crowl or Singe to tax.

 I'll be interested to hear their thoughts on the matter.

The Tax Collector/Paying the Tax - Pieter Breugel the Younger

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*The Ferret was the pseudonym of a columnist in the Auckland magazine, Metro

** Miles Singe was a long-standing columnist in both the Star Midweek and the Star Weekender. He was there before I began writing my column, and continues to this day (3rd July, 97!)  An old soldier, he often wrote about the military; enjoyed pretending to be an old soak as well as someone who maltreated his wife and (grown-up) children.  He was likely to be neither.

 

Snow and So

 Snow and So

 First published in Column 8 on the 20^th June 1995 - this is a typical example of a hobby horse of mine. I’ve written about it on a number of occasions in a variety of places, public and private. For some info on references in the column, see below the article.

 By the time you read this we may have snow on the ground, or may have had it on the ground, or may still be expecting it…on the ground. Then again, none of the above may apply.

I’ve always held the theory that we only have snow in Dunedin – in the city area, at least – once every two years. And usually that consists of one good snowfall and it’s over and done with. We slush on for a day or two, then get back to normal.

Courtesy City of Literature site

Last year, I must admit, was a bit different: we had snow until it seemed as though it came every two
days rather than every two years. It even fell, without due consideration, during the 24 hour book sale.

Talking of which – and this is a tangent, in case you don’t guess – may I ask what constitutes a ‘special’ book at the Regent Book Sale? (The ‘special’ books are those that sell in the upstairs gallery area.)

I saw at least one book that was selling for 50c downstairs and $3 up. Both copies were in the same condition. A load of nonsense by Dame Edna Everage was included in the ‘special literature’ section. Car manuals seemed to be ‘special’ whatever state they were in, as was any book whose cover was disintegrating. The contents were irrelevant, but the state of the cover apparently gave it an archival air.

I don’t object to the organisers of the sale making a bit of extra cash by pricing books up, but at least let them be books that have some obvious value. The way it is now, it looks like someone’s gone round gathering up a book from here and a book from there, and dumped them upstairs.

‘Special’ books these ain’t.

Back to the snow. A workmate of mine once told me of a method by which her family had always gleaned when snow was due to arrive. This method was something I’d never heard of in all my 45 years (up until then) but I hear it so often now it seems current coinage. This is the idea that it will snow in the winter when the temperature goes up.

Not being a meteorologist, I can’t see the connection – and anyway, the method didn’t work this winter because we had endless warm days. However, I’m always interested in rule of thumb methods to work out what the weather’s going to do. We certainly can’t rely on the met office to tell us anything factual.

When you read that the spokesman for Blue Skies in Christchurch says that ‘if there’s a chance of severe weather it’s better to forecast it than not,’ then you wonder if they earned their degrees from varsity or off a barometer.

‘The incorrect forecasting is not due to a lack of funding or staff,’ said the met office spokesman, ‘but southern New Zealand’s mountainous nature.’ Between 80% and 85% of the forecasts were accurate, he claimed. (Blame the South Island again!)

I must only listen to the forecasts on the days they get it 15% to 20% wrong. But it isn’t just the forecasts. When I’m driving along the road on a bright and sunny Dunedin morning and listening to what the weather is suppose to be doing round the country, I more often than not hear: ‘Take your brolly – it’s raining in Dunedin.’

I long ago gave up listening seriously to weather forecasts, in spite of the fact that they’re heralded as an essential part of the news. I believe they’re only there to fill up air space or television time.

The weather forecasts are about as real as Shortland St or Neighbours, but apparently we have to have our daily fix of them, all the same.

My suspicion is that the met office people have something in common with those who pick the books for the ‘specials’ in the Regent Book Sale.

Both take something that’s not – and make it into something that is.

 

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Dunedin – largest city in Otago, but of the provinces of New Zealand, and situated in the South Island. As opposed to the equally prosaically-named North Island. There’s an ongoing rivalry between the two Islands, and the North not infrequently claims that the South has the worst weather.

The Regent Book Sale has been a longstanding secondhand book sale of considerable size that takes place annually. Up until recently it was held in the largest theatre in Dunedin, the Regent, a former cinema and now a live theatre. These days the sale takes place in the larger but far less interesting Edgar Centre.

‘Shortland St or Neighbours’ – the first the longest-running soap in New Zealand, the other an equally long-running Australian soap.

Pettifogging Fisticuffs

Pettifogging Fisticuffs

First published in Column 8 on the 26^th Oct, 1994

Remember the saying ‘real men don’t eat quiche?’ It inferred that real men were too tough to get into food that melted in your mouth. In other words, no males eating fluffy-food needed to apply for the ‘real man’ brigade.

I think the saying should now be amended to ‘real men don’t play rugby.’ Perhaps that broad statement needs a little qualification. A few real men play rugby, but they’re getting harder and harder to see amongst the pack of scruffs who’ve been performing on the fields the last few seasons.

I don’t suppose rugby ever qualified as a gentle man’s game – there’s always been a rough edge to it.  But these days there’s no way you’d think of it as a game for gents: the rugby field’s become a place where galoots with weight to throw around think their weight’s the main reason they’re in the team.

If someone else gets in your way, poke him in the snout, or pull his arm off, or throttle him. What do you mean, tackle him? That’s for quiche-eating sissies.

My biggest concern with all these lumps whose brains reside in their fist is the effect they’re having on the up-and-coming generation of footballers.

Kids are learning a mindset regarding this game: the opposing team’s only there to walk over. In fact, if you don’t get in first, they’ll demolish you. Hang the game: this is warfare.

I’m appalled by kids who think that rucking someone’s face or head or torso or let is the way to play 
rugby. I cringe when kids consider that injuring the opposition is part of the game. I even hear about kids who go into the scrum determined to punch someone’s lights out so as to put them out of the action.

Where do they learn all this? Do their coaches teach them? I don’t think so.

Courtesy Jwgfoto

It’s not long since we used to see an advert on television where an aggressive young player in the changing rooms was told he wasn’t going to play because he had the wrong attitude.

The philosophy behind that advert no longer impacts on the minds of the kids out on the fields. Aggression and ugly play are getting to be the norm.

And why? The answer’s obvious. Refs spend countless minutes in games these days sorting out adults who can’t control their tempers or fists. They’re forced to waste the time of paying spectators because so-called top players get steamed up over nothing and don’t have the self-control to behave on the field. And half the time it’s fully televised for all the nation to see.

The skills of good rugby players are going down the tubes because they’ve forgotten their purpose is to play a game, not have a fight. If these players are so much into fighting, send them into a boxing ring.  At least there people expect you to knock your brains into sludge.

Let’s leave fisticuffs off the football field.

I struggle to persuade the rugby enthusiasts in my family (with the exception of the Aged Parent) that doing serious damage to other players is not the norm. They see it all the time now and see the best-known players getting into it. If those heroes do it, it must be okay.

Does the pressure of playing rugby, or the hype of a championship final, or the state of the ground really cause grown men to fling their fists about? I don’t think so.

And will hitting the pockets of the players with a fine really tackle the problem? Coughing up cash is the easy way out.

I think these guys need to be hit where it hurts: ban them from the game, not just for a few weeks, but for a full season. Put them on the back burner and see if some sense of shame starts to seep into their system.

So what if they’re big-time rugby stars? In the future, are most fans going to remember Richard’s Loe’s playing, or the way he eye-gouged Greg Cooper?

And while these guys are out of it, let them do a bit of community work with people who find being battered isn’t so macho. And perhaps they could write a few essays for general publication on why they think a lack of self-control is so vital to their game, or how they reckon young players can avoid being influenced by their petulant behaviour.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the NZRFU has the guts to turn these players into real men.

Gallery

 Gallery

 First published in Column 8 on the 24^th May 1995

A friend brought up the old argument recently that we should be spending money on improving Dunedin’s water, or the sewage system, rather than on building an art gallery in the middle of the city.

I’ve always been citified, and my bent in life is not a practical one, so perhaps I expect sewage and water to be there. To me they’re things we find in a city, come what may.

They should never be used, however, as an argument against not funding art galleries, or museums.

When the present city library was being built I recall similar dismay being aired at spending large sums of money on something ‘so impractical.’ But our library is one of Dunedin’s great treasures. (As someone who always takes a look at other libraries round the country when I have a chance, I’m prepared to stand up and say our library is one of the finest, if not THE finest.)

To get back to the art gallery. Now that it’s going to be right in the centre of town, I believe thousands of Dunedinites will discover its treasures for the first time.

For the first time they’ll catch such marvellous exhibitions as the two that are on just now: Treasures of the Underworld, and Takitahi. I originally saw Treasures in Wellington over a year ago and raved about it then.

The Underworld may refer to New Zealand’s alleged position on the globe, or to where the materials to make the exhibits have come from: under the earth.

Whatever, none of the amazing pieces here pale with a second viewing. In fact, it’s like meeting old friends – particularly the two enormous buxom lady pots by Barry Brickell called Bosomorphs! Brickell’s human-sized figures have such a sensuous feel to them, you want to wrap yourself around them – if it wasn’t an uncouth thing to do in a public place. (Oh, dear, I’ve opened a can of worms now.)

I only realised, in this second viewing (courtesy of one of my children) that the stone-like rock-pool with its tinkling water has at least one face hidden in it – perhaps more.

There are startling red and blue bowls, some with a texture more like glass than clay. There’s a whole array of pieces delineating the voyage of Christopher Columbus – and three other large oil-can shaped pieces called Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina. (All these pieces were first produced for Spain.)

Some items are so fragile they look as though they’d barely exist beyond a few viewings; some tough and gritty, such as the bowl like a bursting volcano. Some slightly damaged pieces show the difficulties of moving these works around the world.

All these marvellous works can be seen for FREE! Not only that, in the other half of the gallery where several weavers from Dunedin’s Multicultural Weavers group are at work, you can see art of a totally different kind being created before your eyes.

A huge range of traditional items is displayed: hats, cloaks, mats, garments, shoes, in all manner of materials and colours. Usually designated ‘craft,’ this display shows how much these pieces have a right to be called ‘art.’

More than that, because the work has traditionally been done by women, it has been undervalued. No more! Go and have a look and have your eyes opened twice in a day.

The women don’t have it all to themselves in this exhibition. There are several items made by men (and pakehas). And not everything is in traditional materials. Some things are made from film, plastic wrapping, string (this one feels as soft as cashmere), and even a barrage of supermarket bags.

Do I sound enthusiastic? I am.

I can’t wait for the day the art gallery opens in the Octagon, just five minutes from where I work. What better way to spend your lunch hour (apart from relaxing among the cool towering columns of the Cathedral), than to browse among the quiet and calm of what is going to be the country’s newest and bestest, and finest, place to view art?

 

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The Art Gallery was built in a former department store, and is a magnificent piece of redesign. A vast entrance area – in which I’ve sung several times with the acapella choir, Sunny Side Up – leads to roomy spaces at the back of the building, a first floor with several galleries, and another floor that can be used for meetings and celebrations and the like.

The two exhibitions mentioned were on at the old Art Gallery, in a building that was formerly part of the Great Exhibition, and which was situated in an area that was only easily accessible by car.

The Cathedral mentioned is the Anglican Cathedral, St Paul's, right in the centre of town in the Octagon. At one point I worked in the building right next door.

Music Teachers

Music Teachers

 First published in Column 8 on the 6^th November 1991

 A group of heroes work in our city whose conditions would make most wharfies pale. I’m talking about music teachers.

 (And I speak from experience – for a few years I taught piano from three till whenever, after spending a frenetic morning as a postie. I must have been mad.)

 Utter dedication is required of anyone who decides to take on this job as a permanent career. (I didn’t.) The frustrations from pupils who don’t work combined with the frustrations from those who do work but will never play anything with the slightest hint of musicality, have to be experienced to be believed.

 One in a hundred pupils may have the spark of musical life in them; the sort of spark that makes you think they may achieve something. The other 99, however earnest they may be, will fall by the wayside, and during their mid-life crises will gloomily say, ‘I wish I’d carried on playing the piano.’

 (Or worse, ‘Why didn’t Mummy and Daddy make me practise?’ Have you ever tried to MAKE a child practise? They attention manages to be focused on everything but the keyboard.

 I recommend the 1953 fantasy movie, The 500 Fingers of Dr T, to anyone who doesn’t know what I mean.)

 Music teachers sit for hours in the same room, often seeing only an endless stream of children. It’s like being a solo parent. The occasional adult pupil may or may not be a bonus, depending on their reason for learning.

 When everybody else is out socialising in the evening, music teachers are teaching. When other people are having a leisurely meal at home with their family (something we still haven’t achieved – the leisurely part, I mean), music teachers are teaching.

 When other teachers are enjoying up to eight weeks’ paid holiday per annum, music teachers are forced to spend those same weeks unemployed, eking out the income they’ve earned during the rest of the year.

 And in spite of using new material as it appears, the basic details of what they teach hasn’t changed in decades; there is no New Music to go alongside New Maths. Scales are scales are scales. They have to be learned. However much most pupils may dislike them, (I used to enjoy them actually, but then I’m a bit unusual), no musician worth his salt can afford NOT to learn them.

 I write with a sense of awe to think that one of my former music teachers has been teaching for nearly 60 years.

 Originally she lived and taught in Sawyers Bay. She commuted to Port to teach as well, but being without a car, (of course) she had to walk. Usually it only took half an hour. It took somewhat longer in the Big Snow.

 Later she rented rooms in town, and still later, during the war, had a room in the Glenpark Presbyterian Hall. When she calls it the ‘dug-out’ or ‘dungeon,’ you have a pretty good idea of what it was like.

 Mice were frequent visitors. Boy pupils had to empty the mousetraps, to their disgust. (I’m pleased to say I was still a twinkle in my father’s eye when the war was on.)

 By the time I was her pupil, she lived in a pleasant house in Mornington. The comfortable music room was built over the garage; moving the two pianos - both grands, as I recall - up there must have been a nightmare.

 Sounds like music teaching pays after all, I hear you say. Well, maybe it does, if you’re prepared to put in endless hours of dedicated and concentrated work, your only contact with the outside world being your pupils.

 So all hail to music teachers – they never go on strike. Many workers who do hardly know they’re born.

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 Many music teachers enjoyed their work: Eli Grey-Smithwas still teaching in his nineties, and had trips to Asia regularly because he was much admired there as a teacher. Olive Perry, the teacher I mentioned in this column who lived in Sawyers Bay, never married, and looked after her mother for many years while teaching.
Unmentioned in this column was Sister St Anne, a Mercy nun, and my very first teacher. Her enthusiasm could never be quenched, even in her nineties.

 An anonymous letter following the publication of the column said:

 In his column today Mike Crowl has some nice things to say about music teachers and some less kind things to say about the job itself. Perhaps it’s not really so bad. The one thing I’ve noticed over the years is how many music teachers keep on going to a ripe old age, many well into their 80s. Is it a ‘soft’ lifestyle that allows this, or is it the daily challenge of taking each of their pupils just one stage further that keeps them alert and active?