Best day of my life

I have a piece in the Otago Daily Times' The Mix weekend magazine, today. It's part of their Best Day of My Life series. I was asked about three weeks ago if I'd contribute something to it.

Initially I was a bit flummoxed: there are so many 'best' days in anyone's life, how do you choose? Fortunately I have a wise wife who came up with the 'best' idea immediately I discussed it with her. Write about the premiere performance of Grimhilda! she told me. So I did. Even had photographs to supply to the paper if they wanted them...and they did, using the delightful one of Bernie Crayston (as the Sergeant Major) and Emily Hill (as Polly, the doll who's alive). The Sergeant Major is giving Polly some magic dust to help the main character, Toby, see that his parents haven't always been as unpleasant as they are now. You can see them below.

I was reading Michael Simkins' book, The Rules of Acting, the other day, and he remembers one of the best days of his life being when he saw his name in neon lights outside the West End theatre he was currently appearing in. (The fact that the play only lasted three weeks didn't matter!)

Unfortunately, Dunedin's Mayfair Theatre, where Grimhilda! was performed, doesn't go in for neon lights. But if it had, I'm sure having my name up there would have been exciting, but probably not so exciting as actually having my show put on in the first place!

Photo: Ian Thomson

For those who missed seeing Grimhilda! in its musical version, you can read the e-book version. It's available from Amazon, on Kindle, or from iTunes, Kobo , Smashwords, and a variety of other e-book outlets.

Burbling on about snow

Well, the weather people predicted there'd be snow yesterday.  There wasn't.  A bit of foul weather, but hardly worse than some other winter days we've had.  Snow is so often predicted for this part of the world that you get blasé about it.  I was glad there wasn't any snow, as I was meeting my son for lunch yesterday as well as playing for four young people who did singing exams.

When we were in Auckland last week, we had to reassure our host, who's only been to the South Island briefly, that it doesn't snow here every other day, as the forecasters tend to indicate. I'm not sure if he believed me.

Back in June this year, the weather people got it right, though here in Dunedin, as is so often the case, it was mostly the upper hills that got the heavy snow.  At the time, the ODT reported that a 'special weather advisory had been slapped on the whole country'.  I like the idea of a weather advisory being slapped on the whole country, though I have no actual idea of what it means.

We were also told that 'emergency refuge centres are being set up, motorists warned off the roads, and shoppers urged to stock up, but to refrain from panic buying.'  Of course, people didn't refrain, and supermarkets actually ran out of some items. But it was a bit of a mixed message: stock up, but don't panic buy. Of course, the supermarkets only have to announce they're going to be closed for one day (like at Christmas, or Easter) and people go crazy.  How did they survive before supermarkets opened on Sundays?  Did they all starve because they couldn't shop?

There was a time when it people just got on with life when it snowed; kids went to school, people went to work. These days it's become a major crisis, in spite of the fact that Dunedin is mostly negotiable in the snow - though you might have to walk rather than drive.  I can remember, as a child, walking to school in the snow, a trip of about three kilometres.  I was quite small, and was frozen by the time I got there, and somewhat later than most of the other boys. I was allowed to warm up in front of a small radiant heater - it might have had two bars rather than one - for a few minutes before getting on with the school work.  We might have had another similar heater down the back of the room. But in general we just froze.

Obviously they made kids a lot tougher in those days!

Just in case you didn't get the message

In today's Otago Daily Times, on page 31, there's a photo of the new clock in Mosgiel, with an accompanying article which tells us that the temperature part of the clock is overstating the actual temperature.  So the article starts like this:
A new $23,000 Mosgiel clock is 'overstaing' temperatures by up to 10degC, says Mosgiel Taieri Community Board chairman Bill Feather. 
Now that pretty much tells you the main point of the story.  But the reporter either has space to fill, or wants to make sure we (rather thick) readers get the point.  He continues:
Mr Feather said the new clock installed in Anzac Park in Mosgiel about a fortnight ago was displaying inaccurate temperatures. 
All right, I suppose that clarifies the 'overstating' in the first paragraph.  Somewhat.  Except that we have a repeat of the 'new clock', and of Mosgiel. The third paragraph says:
The new clock from Germany was 'overstating' temperatures, Mr Feather said. 
Ah, it's new clock.  And it's 'overstating temperatures'.  And it was Mr Feather who told us this.  Check back to the first paragraph.  Isn't this virtually the same information?   After this, things improve a little with some information as to why the clock is being inaccurate, but then in the third last paragraph we have this sentence.
Mosgiel Rotary Club president John Seddon said the German clock cost about $23,000.  
Wait a minute!  It's a German clock, and it cost about $23,000.  Didn't we already know this?  Yup, we did.
I understand that reporters are often under pressure to get stories in on time, and that subeditors are also under pressure.  But this story is basically a 'filler' in the back of the paper amongst one or two important pieces and some stuff that no one would miss; it could have waited another day or two and have been tidied up considerably.  In fact, we could possibly have had some more information about it. Its only saving grace at present is that it has a large photo in the middle of the page, so that there's some visual interest.
As it stands it doesn't give much credibility to the reporter's writing skills, or to the subeditor's editing. 

Get a life!

Once again the American Civil Liberties Union has stomped all over a host of people's rights in favour of a complaint from one person.  Seemingly in the States, 'father-daughter' dances have been popular for decades, along with 'mother-son' baseball games.   But a single mother came up with the idea that this was somehow discriminatory (to her and her child) and as a result, in one school district these popular events have been banned.  No discussion, no thought as to creative ways to make a single parent feel included, but banned.  Yup, that's the way to go.  It's Political Correctness as its intolerant best.

Got lots of people enjoying something?  Ban it: it must be upsetting someone.

In the Otago Daily Times this morning we had a tongue-in-cheek opinion piece on a similar piece of PC-ness that occurred last week, when a couple of city councillors (themselves not young people, by any means) called themselves (and fellow councillors) slightly derogatory names.  One male councillor referred to himself and others as 'us old fellas', while a female councillor referred to herself and them as 'old farts.'  World-shattering.

In spite of neither of them causing any offence to other councillors, someone at Age Concern Otago got herself into a knot and complained about the 'deprecating comments' - they were insulting old people (sorry, chronologically challenged people) she claimed.  Unbelievably, the female councillor apologised (that's the way these PC folk get you on the downward slide: making you apologise for something that wasn't offensive in the first place), while the male councillor wisely told the ACO person to get a life.

The ACO person said the phrases were ageist.  Yup, that's right: anything with the word 'old' in it is likely to appear on the ageist indicator.  But curiously enough, old people are old.  I call myself old all the time - because I am. That doesn't stop me from behaving like a twenty-year-old when I want.  So what?

We're so concerned about upsetting someone these days that we've lost our sense of humour (and all those great jokes that include three people of different nationalities, or mothers-in-law, or Irishmen, or Australians).  These things aren't insulting: they're part of life.  The ACLU is a group that's widely known for its total inability to see anything as funny; seems like the lady from ACO is leaning in the same direction.

Code-Cracker

One of the ways I get my brain up and running in the morning, now that I'm retired, is to do the Code-Cracker.   My mother, when she was alive, and was living upstairs in our house, used to have the Code-Cracker done before I got out of my heated blanket in the morning (and I've always been an early riser).   Suffice to say, her brain was pretty sharp too.

I got started on the Code-Cracker in my last job - one of the female staff always used to do it in the morning tea break, and so we'd make a copy of it and both of us would get on and do it.  I never managed to finish it before she did!  I doubt that I would have beaten my mother either, if she and I had had a race.  (She could do cryptic crosswords without having the puzzle in front of her, just by having someone tell her how many spaces there were and what ones were filled in.)

The Code-Cracker that appears in the Otago Daily Times is produced by Simon Shuker, who lives in Wellington, NZ.  It's reproduced throughout the country in various papers, and is one of the most popular daily puzzles available.   And it's popular not just in this country, but in a wide variety of places around the world - it appears under the name Codeword in the Daily Mail in London, for instance, where it's been appearing for two decades.

Unlike some versions of Code-Cracker, Shuker's one always uses all the letters of the alphabet.  Furthermore, it's laid out in such a way that you can quickly see whether you've already used a particular letter or not, and what number it relates to.  And the numbering starts from the first box on the page and works consistently through the puzzle: before number 26 appears all 25 other numbers will have turned up in sequence.

Some versions of the puzzle don't use all the letters of the alphabet, which is frustrating, and some of them jumble the numbers all over the place, so it's not easy to know where you're starting from.  Personally, I think Shuker's 'hand-crafted' puzzle is the best version available - and if doing one a day isn't enough for you, you can always buy a book of his pre-published puzzles and do them again...

You can find a couple of interactive samples on the Code-Cracker site.  However, I notice that if you click on one of the letters at the bottom all the places that letter appears will show up.  That reduces the puzzle element considerably.  Think I'll stick to the paper version!

UnOccupied

Dunedin's Octagon has finally been vacated by the remaining members of the local Occupy movement.

According to the Otago Daily Times, one of the members, Kieran Trass, said it was unclear whether they would return, or what the next phase would entail.  And he added, This is not a battle to be won in the media. 


I'm not actually sure what he means by that...if it wasn't for the media, the movement wouldn't have had a fraction of the publicity they've had.   In fact, the media have been their protector on a number of occasions, particularly overseas, where it has highlighted injustices done to the members of the movement.

But it was Mr Trass' last statement that puzzles me.  He is reported to have said, I don't know why people seem to think we want to camp here, and why we want to be here for a long time. 

That calls for a 'Huh?' - a very loud one, in fact.

We know why they wanted to camp in the Octagon, surely.  They were 'occupying,' and were most aggrieved when the City Council threatened them with a trespass order.   If it hadn't been that the police somehow aligned freedom of assembly with some alleged right to take over a public place, to the detriment not only of the place but also to the inconvenience of the local users of it, they would have been long gone.

As to why they wanted to be there for a long time, it has surely come from their own statements to this effect.   It's been part of the Occupy movement's approach around the world: to occupy and stay. 


Come on, Mr Trass - many of us agree with what you're protesting about.  Don't treat us like idiots because you've finally decided, apparently of your own accord, to suddenly go home for Christmas.

Blog and Sudoku

I just discovered this morning that comments on my Daily Writer blog haven't been getting through to me by email, so possibly a number of commenters have given up on me, thinking I'm too rude to respond.  For some reason this particular blog, even though it's part of the Blogger family, doesn't act the same, and there are certain differences I can't quite get to grips with.  It shouldn't be the fact that it's an older blog (dating from 2005), because the one I'm writing on now is even older (by a few months).   Yet this blog has kept up with the various Blogger changes while the other one seems to be stuck in an earlier age.

On a less messy note, I wrote to the Otago Daily Times the other day because it has puzzled me for some time that the medium Sudoku puzzles published in their paper were often harder than the hard ones.   They passed the email onto Doug Hendry from The Puzzle Company.  He replied: 

The series you [the Otago Daily Times newspaper] run is one where we actually tried to create more difference between the medium and hard puzzles.

We can make puzzles on quite a few different settings. The actual level of difficulty in each varies widely, and the biggest range seems to lie within the medium setting. As Mr Crowl pointed out, they can be as challenging – or actually harder – than a puzzle made on the hard setting.

One solution we came up with was to make more difference between the levels. We took the Easy and Medium settings down half a notch, and left the hard unchanged.

I’d be interested in getting Mr Crowl’s opinion on the attached puzzles.

I’ve put three medium and three hard from your current series on a layout, but not identified which is which. If he has the time and the inclination, I’d really appreciate it if he printed the sheet out and tried them, then emailed to say which ones he thinks are medium and which are hard.

This isn’t a test of his Sudoku ability, it’s a test of our puzzle making.


Well, firstly it was nice to get such an immediate response to a query, and one that was offering a solution as to why the puzzles varied.  I tired all six of the puzzles and this was my reply to Doug:

1. fairly hard
2. hard (didn't finish it in fact, which is sometimes the case with Sudoku in the paper)
3. definitely the easiest. 
4. fairly hard
5 hard
6 hard (again I didn't finish this one because I got stuck and couldn't move forward on it - might need more perseverance)


Doug replied:

I printed out the puzzles I sent you and gave them a go. Usually I can only solve Easy puzzles, and occasionally rise to the heights of Medium. Hard, never.  [He says he's the company's crossword expert, while his wife is the Sudoku master.]

I managed to solve No1 (which was a Medium), but it took me 25 minutes. I got seven numbers in No2 (Hard), then gave up. I think I could have solved No3 (Medium) but went wrong somewhere after having filled in more than half.

It took me 10 minutes to get four boxes in No4 (Hard), then I gave up.

No5 (Medium) – I got stuck after taking 15 minutes to get half of it filled in.

I didn’t bother trying No6.

So, I was able to solve – with a real effort – one of the mediums, and might have got another. The three hard puzzles were totally beyond me.

You solved all three Mediums and one Hard.

This was only a test on three of each type, but you and I both found the Hard puzzles more difficult than the Medium, and you found the Mediums simpler than I did.

There will be occasions when a Medium puzzle at the upper end of its difficulty scale will be as hard – or maybe even harder – than a Hard puzzle which is at the bottom end of its range of difficulty.

So there you have it.  An interesting exercise, and a gracious response on both occasions.   How to do business, in other words!

The Sudoku in the picture is a finished example from this Dan Rice's site. 

The ODT Big Night In

The Otago Daily Times' Big Night In concert took place last night in the Forsyth Barr Stadium here in Dunedin.   It must have cost the ODT an arm and a leg - several legs, in fact - and they certainly didn't stint on the costs.  In fact they're talking of having one every year.

It had a great cast of NZ national and local singers: big names, and up-and-coming names.   And a huge crowd turned out, with many seats filled, and the playing area in the centre packed with families.   Kids had a ball: they were free to come and go in safety, and danced and ran and jumped and did all sorts of other normal kid things.

We had seats in the West stand, directly opposite the stage, which meant that any performers on the stage looked like ants, some in white suits (the ensemble of singers) and some in black suits (the male singers) and some in various coloured clothes (the female singers and dancers).   I can't believe how far away the stage seemed to be.  Pity those up in the very top of either the West stand or the South stand.  They would have felt miles away from anything. 

Fortunately there was a large screen above the stage area which showed things in relative close-up.   We got a reasonable idea of what was going on on stage from this.

However, we had a much worse idea of what was being sung - or even spoken.   For some reason the amplication in the stadium just didn't cut it.  It was loud certainly, but it was blurred, somehow.   Unless you knew the song being sung, it was hard to figure out any words, and regrettably, all the marvellous orchestrations (we knew they were marvellous because we could see that aspect on the screen) went by the board because there was so little detail coming across in the sound system.   It was a bit like being partially deaf: everything kind of rolled into one blodge.   I know there were lots of high notes, because obviously all the singers felt this was the only they'd really get across to the audience in a place of this size, but other notes just dribbled away. 

It didn't help, of course, that people in the audience treated the whole concert side of things as an occasion to talk happily to their neighbours, or to point out people they knew, or a host of other things.  The buzz from the audience was continual, and none of the performers got complete quiet from the crowd.   I guess this isn't surprising in this kind of a setting, and perhaps the performers didn't expect anything else, but for me they eventually became a kind of wallpaper to the whole affair. 

Two young singers came on early in the programme: Sequoia Cunningham and Kawiti Watford.   I've heard the latter in the Town Hall and he filled the place easily.   Here he sang Figaro's aria from The Marriage of Figaro.   It sounded as though he knew what he was doing, but there was little clarity because of the sound system.  Terence Dennis, who was obviously playing his heart out on the piano - because we could see his fingers zipping around the keys - could only be heard when Watford wasn't singing.

Sequoia Cunningham sounded great, but her accompanist on the piano was almost inaudible too.  However, she has a big future ahead of her - that I could tell from her singing of Schubert's Ave Maria.

There were all sorts of other artists: a friend of mine on trombone in the orchestra (and some other familiar Dunedin faces there too); a bunch of dancers who did a lot of rolling around on the floor, but seldom got completely in to the picture on the screen; an ensemble of singers (with another friend of mine in it); bagpipers, Highland dancers, the Glee group (with the daughter of friends in it), the children's choir (with two kids I know in it) the Mayor and the Publishers of the ODT and Malcolm Farry, who worked hard to get the Stadium off the ground.  Lots of talent.  What a pity it just all seemed so far away and blurry....

The Truth Game

Went to Simon Cunliffe's play, The Truth Game, last night.   House wasn't very full, which was a bit of a surprise, since the play has had very good reviews, and it's new, and it's locally-written (Cunliffe works for the Otago Daily Times, which has sponsored the play, and also provided, no doubt, the mountains of newspapers that litter the stage and the foyer, and which the Fortune is going to have to recycle at the end of the season on Saturday).

The play has an excellent cast: Greg Johnson, Peter Hayden, Phil Vaughan, Michele Amas, Anna Henare and Kathleen Burns - more on them later - and a striking set designed by Matt Best.   At first it looked as though the giant screen that dominates the stage (and is used by Belinda as a PowerPoint) is going to clutter up things.  In fact, its screen is made up of modern-style Venetian blinds (I'm sure they have their own proper name) and these open up completely to reveal an office within the larger office that takes up the rest of the stage.  


The play is basically about the conflict that's going on in the newspaper world between old hacks like the rough-edged Frank Stone (note the name) and his even older confederate Ralph (pronounced Rafe, as he carefully explains to the newbie journalist), and the New Media people who think running a newspaper is all about making money (which of course it is, but news comes into it too - real news, as Frank insists again and again), and the up-and-coming generation who can find reports and articles and tweets and blogs at the drop of a hat.   No one wins - not in this play - and probably the competition is going to go on for a long time yet.   


Frank may be rough-edged, but he's a very good editor and organiser - when the big story comes at the end of the first act, he's onto it in a flash.  Frank is played by Greg Johnson - he was the irascible hostel manager in the movie, The Insatiable Moon.   This is a somewhat similar character: a man who's hard-nosed, but has considerable integrity.  A man who shouts at this clientele, but loves them dearly.   A man with mistakes in his past (as the sub-plot brings to light - a sub-plot that's interesting, but not quite in line with the play as a whole; still, it provides variety.  By the way, that use of a semi-colon there is much denigrated at one point in the play, along with a number of other woolly-liberal kinds of punctuation - the end-dash, for one.)


Peter Hayden plays Ralph.  Hayden has had a long and successful career both as an actor and also as one of the men at the forefront of the Natural History documentary unit here in Dunedin.   In this play, Ralph is a little fragile, past retirement age, but still living in a world where he is safe and snug doing what he's always done.   Hayden provides a quiet foil to the noise that goes around him (he writes with large earphones on), and provides some of the more amusing moments with his didactic approach to grammar.  Ralph spends his days puttering around doing the editorial (I always thought the leader was done by the Editor, says Jo, the newbie), pulling together stuff from his forty plus years of experience of writing, and also writing the wine column (a somewhat less-than-journalistic occupation in the eyes of some of the others). 


Phil Vaughan is the fussy little manager; he still has a bit of journalism in his blood, but mostly its been diluted by the need to make money, please the Head Office and so on.  The arm-wrestling he and Frank do at one point may be a bit odd, but it's significant in terms of their relationship.   Anna Henare (a Fortune Theatre regular) is the up-and-coming editor, an able journalist, still with integrity, and still soft, but heading - it seems - towards being as hard-nosed as Frank has become.   She's Frank's current lover, but journalism and truth keep getting in the road.  


Michelle Amas (who's a poet as well as an actor) is the brittle Belinda.  She opens the play with an almost-too-long seminar 'talk' to an Australian conference (Frank is there, and walks out in disgust).   The least likeable character in the play, Amas still manages to give her some warmth - though never too much.  Kathleen Burns is the youngest character in the play (meant to be a late teenager, I'd think, while Burns is around 25), and the one with all the Internet skills.   Burns has a bit of a difficult role: her character, Jo, brings humour to the play, is meant to be a little gauche but also better-read than her years would indicate, and struggles with the interplay between the other characters.    At times I felt Burns was acting the part rather than giving it to us direct; some of her moves had the air of being there to add character, rather than coming out of the character itself.   This may be intentional on the director's part (Lara McGregor, who's done a superb job overall - she's also the Fortune's new artistic director) but at times it just didn't seem quite on a par with the other actors' work.   Nevertheless, Burns is well-integrated into the cast, and my quibble is minor.  

All in all, not only has this play been well worth putting on - and I'd hope there are other companies around the country who'll pick it up - but it's perhaps the best thing I've seen at the Fortune in a long time.  Though that may not mean much as my attendance at the Fortune is pretty irregular!

Sport overwhelms the Arts

Okay, can anyone tell me why the Otago Daily Times - and no doubt they're not the only paper like this in the country - allows room for three or four pages of sport news every day, and now puts out a new supplement on Fridays, which consists entirely of sport, and takes up another 16 pages!

Can anyone tell me why a quarter of the television 'news' each night consists of sport - and why there are often other sport-focused items in the rest of the news as well? Does sport get no other time/space on television? Nope, it takes over Saturdays to a great extent, and, if there's a really important game on, or the Olympics, or the Commonwealth Games, or the Rugby World Cup, it will get full time on these occasions as well. And all this without mentioning Sky Sport, which goes on day and night into eternity.

This would be fine if sport was the only recreation human beings indulged in, but it ain't!

My rant (which isn't by any means a new one) was boosted again by the fact that the play I'm currently in [Shadowlands] received no review in the ODT. The photo of the cast that the ODT's own photographer came out to take was bundled off into a little corner in the once-weekly Arts section (all two pages of it compared to the more than thirty or so pages sports gets each week) - and was so small no one could be distinguished in it. And the 'report' in the Star midweek paper was nothing but text. Again the photo that had been taken specially failed to appear.

It's enough to make me go out and punch someone, but then I'd probably wind up requiring a Medical Injury Lawyer and I can't afford that at the moment, not now that I'm a retired person (have I mentioned that previously? I have?)

And if you think I'm being aggressive, check out this video of the writer Harlen Ellison going full bore complaining about the way writers are regarded as not needing to be paid for their work...in fact, what he's saying applies to all artists.



All we ask for is a little acknowledgement...

Justice seen to be done? Not

A Dunedin man, at an under-10-year-old rugby match, swore at the ref, abused him, walked on the field, continued to swear and abuse the ref even after he'd been told to get off the field.

Another spectator asked him to stop swearing, and was abused himself. The spectator, who just happens to have a Maori or Pacific Island name, finally decided enough was enough and punched the abusing man in the jaw.

The abusing man called him a 'coward'! Yeah, right. The Maori/Pacific Island man punched him again.

The result: the striker gets fined $500 and the abuser walks away Scot free. And the judge's comments? I quote from the Otago Daily Times:

The judge: said [the Maori/PI]'s reaction to [the swearer's] "poor behaviour" was unjustified and wrong - particularly in front of children - and the conviction would remind him such actions were unacceptable.

Uh, it's acceptable to swear continually, abuse the ref, walk on the field, continue to swear after you've been asked to stop. Oh, right. That'll be why such 'victims' (as the judge called him) get away with such garbage.

And note this paragraph: In court yesterday, defence lawyer Sarah Saunderson-Warner said a restorative justice meeting had not been possible because of the attitude of the victim, who indicated he would only take part if [the Maori/PI] brought $5000.

In reply....

About a week ago I copied a letter that appeared in the Otago Daily Times relating to an article on inducing cows.   Someone smarter than me has now replied to that letter in the following way: 

Cows moo and people choose.  Mooing is characteristic and an attribute of cows.  Choosing is an attribute of people.   Cows don't have the right to moo.  They just do.   People don't have the right to choose.   They just do.


The woman who wrote about being appalled that the cow did not have the right to choose to abort her calf is saying it is good as long as you choose.   People choose very bad things at times and society chooses to lock them up because they made the wrong choice.  'A woman's right to choose?'  We have been terminating our children based on a  meaningless slogan.

The cow has no choice

A woman who shall be nameless wrote a letter to the Editor of the Otago Daily Times - it appeared today, the 10.8.10.   Her letter misses the point of Simon Cunliffe's article, I think, and gives an odd response to his argument. 

In speaking of the outcry about the practice of farmers inducing premature calving so as to synchronise births and therefore increase milk production, [Simon Cunliffe] states that a discreet veil of silence is drawn over the 17,000-18,000 abortions carried out each year in this country. It seems an analogy is being drawn between the two situations, with an accusation of hypocrisy implicit, perhaps.

I was quite appalled to be informed of this common practice of inducing the premature birth of healthy calves. I am also a strong supporter of a woman’s right to choose, including abortion, when faced with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. These two situations are not analogous. The key difference is choice. Clearly, the cow has no choice in the matter whatsoever.

More on the circus - more than the ODT has reported, in fact!

Just one other thought about the post I wrote on the Zirka Circus yesterday. It's a curious thing that there is no programme available for the circus, where you might find out who the artists are, nor is there any information on them on the website. Only the photos in the gallery section. Nothing more.

This seems fairly typical of circuses - at least the ones that travel throughout NZ. The artists are anonymous to the nth degree. And our local paper doesn't even seemed to have reported that the Zirka circus is in town. Very strange.

So I'm doing my little best here to promote it. Go to the Zirka Circus. It's worth your money!

The value of keeping a journal

Today, being Labour Day, meant we had some spare time. It also meant that I’d start a job and get sidetracked, as I did at one point when I came across one of my old journals – pages 476- 662 to be precise, dating from October 1994 to early February, 1997.
I sat down in the sun – brilliantly sunny day today – and read the entries for the period through from October to Christmas that year. Seems to have been an extraordinarily eventful time – in my terms, anyway.
I started off playing for some singing exam, and then got roped in to play for some auditions; amongst the auditionees was Ana James, who was still only in her late teens at that stage, I think. Wrote a very long review of the local production of Les Miserables (an excellent production of a much overrated musical); talked about finding tenants for a rental property we’d not long bought; wrote about the doings of my 17-year-old daughter; discussed a loan the shop was taking out; and talked at length about getting on the Internet.
I-Day was 30.10.94. In those days it was like travelling an unknown country: the modem would play up, the Internet connections came and went with great irregularity (they went via the University at this point, and their connections were just as erratic); we could call up our provider (three times one weekend) and get extra time on credit (!) – and then go in and pay them the next day at the office under one of the local bars. Even then things were moving fast enough for a newly published book of Internet addresses to be out of date. Emails might go straight away or get held up because of intermittent connections. We joined ‘lists’ and wound up getting emails galore with people already flaming other people. But it was all very exciting: getting into the University of Honolulu’s library…!
The ‘world premiere’ of four songs I’d written to poems by Ruth Dallas happened. Ruth Dallas was at the concert, and apparently couldn’t sleep that night because she was so excited. At this time she’d was a retired lady, well-established as one of New Zealand’s best poets. We never quite get over the excitement of seeing our ‘children’ come to life again.
We altered our kitchen. Originally, when we moved into the house, there’d been a small kitchen and a small dining room next to it. We’d opened up the whole thing and made it one large room – much more convenient for a family of seven. And then, in December here we are turning it into two rooms again, the dining room becoming another bedroom. (The new dining room was in the room that’s now our bedroom.)
As well, in this month, I played again for Ana James – this time at the Town Hall. It was part of the Royal Male Choir concert, and apparently went on so long that I’d been home for an hour before it finished! And then I played for the St Francis Xavier School Musical – something I’d already been doing for several years, and was still doing a couple of years ago. They only have their musical once every two years now. I haven’t heard whether there’s one on this year or not.
During this period I also began writing book reviews for the Otago Daily Times. Dunedin being the size city it is, the book editor was Ana James’ father (!) Some time after this he moved to another editorial role, and Charmian Smith became the (very excellent) book editor. She’s just given up that role in the last couple of weeks, and…Bryan James is now book editor again!
And in October that year I also saw Forrest Gump for the first time. And then took all the kids a week or so later. I haven’t seen it for a long time, so I don’t know what I’d stll think about it, but certainly it made an impression on me at the time.

Headline

There seems to me to be something just a little odd about the headline below - it appeared in the ODT this morning in conjunction with an article about the Draft Annual Plan Hearings.

SILENT MAJORITY OFFERS MUCH AT HEARING

Hone Tuwhare and Music

I note in the ODT (the Otago Daily Times, for them wot don’t know) that the recently deceased NZ poet, Hone Tuwhare, is to be honoured in a musical composition.
Anthony Ritchie is going to work with young Dunedin singer, Matt Landreth, to create a new piece, with words by Tuwhare. Three of Tuwhare’s poems will be set to music, including the ubiquitous Rain, which is apparently his most well-known and anthologised piece. (You can find a copy of it here.)
Another young Dunedin singer, Michael Grey, is going to work with Auckland composer Jeff Linn. That piece will revolve around a poem by Li Yu, the last emperor of the Southern Tang dynasty. (It has nothing to do with a Southern Man, in case you’re wondering.)
I’ve accompanied Michael in the past, and he was also a strong and very musical member of the now defunct group, Opera Alive.
Anyway, there are six of these combo jobs going on around the country: six composers working with six emerging artists.
I was interested in this piece of news, because I wrote a song using Hone Tuwhare’s words some time ago, and only had it performed last year for the first time. (By another young and emerging artist, who also happens to be very keen on sport; it’s a moot point which ‘art’ will beat the other out.)
To have the song performed publicly meant getting permission from Tuwhare himself. At that time, for some reason, he wasn’t living in Kaka Point; he was up on Waiheke Island, and I had to contact him via an intermediary. He was pleased to have his poem used, apparently, and after a negotiation about a very small fee for the use of his words, the performance went ahead.
The poem in question was Sun O (2). I’m not quite sure what the (2) signifies. I don’t know of a poem by him called Sun O (1), but maybe there is one. Anyway, you can listen to a version of the song online at the SibeliusMusic.com site.