Odorous

First published in Column 8 on the 9^th September, 1992

Most people will have seen those unbelievable television ads in which a man lifts his head, sniffs the air (like some hunting dog on the scent of prey) and moments later is chasing after a woman to offer her flowers – all because of the perfume she’s wearing.

Or equally absurd, the ad in which some fellow races round darkened streets in the rain – even over the roofs of cars – shouting, ‘Why Me?’ because dozens of screaming women with nary an umbrella or raincoat between them are hysterically chasing him. All because of his body perfume.

The social consequences of being accosted by a total stranger – or in the case of us men, by innumerable total strangers – merely because we’re wearing a perfume, need some thought and consideration. Do we really want to start a relationship with someone of the opposite [word I can’t mention] because their smell is irresistible?

And on what basis would such a relationship continue? Once the effects of the smell/scent/perfume had worn off, would we be tossed in the trash heap like an empty bottle?

All this by way of introduction to a rather odd item of ‘news’ reported from Chicago this week. Supposedly the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation has discovered an odorant (I guess I always knew there was an opposite to deodorant) that will encourage gamblers in Las Vegas to waste even more of their millions while trying to win a few extra bucks.

(By the way, doesn’t that word ‘treatment’ in the title of this Foundation rather put you off – it reminds me of a certain public utility dealing with effluent. And equally by the way, I see that effluent discharged from Mosgiel into the Taieri River is now of a better quality. Ain’t life grand?)

While the gamblers were striving to force the one-armed bandits to give them a payout, the machines emitted a secret weapon. The unfortunate gamblers’ ‘normal’ addiction was no longer considered sufficient to keep them at the machines. Now they had little choice – the monsters enticed them, not to give flowers, but more of the gamblers’ hard-earned cash.

The neurologist who conducted the experiment claimed it could soon be common for odorants to play a part in Las Vegas life. Contending against that kind of unfair weaponry would make me even less likely to visit the gambling mecca. Either that or I’d be taking along something that put the slot machines and their owners in their place. One of those dog repellents might do, or the stuff that’s used to kill flies.

Worse still, this idea of aroma-ising people to spend money will have an appeal beyond the gambling trade. After all, some retailers don’t have the fragrance of a fish shop or florist to draw their customers in the door.

Think of bookshops for instance. Bookaholics already have enough problem resisting the temptation of the newly-printed page. (Though when I picked up a copy of Barbara Thiering’s new book the other day, I was repelled by the smell of the ink. How curious – maybe it’s intended to repulse unsympathetic readers.)

Imagine if a bookaholic went into a bookshop and found him or herself being driven to buy all manner of books because of some irresistible scent. The penurious state of bookaholics in this country would be worse than ever. There would be thefts of booksellers’ tokens on a grand scale.

I suggest we consider banning the use of scents in any shape or form if they’ve going to be used in such an underhand (or underarmed) way. Let’s go natural and join BIMBO! (Bring In More Body Odours.)

Alan R Hirsch was the Neurological Director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation.  He’s the author of a large number of apparently successful books, not all of which have received favourable reviews.  

Moratorium

First published in Column 8 on the 2^nd Sept, 1992

My dictionary defines moratorium as an agreed suspension of activity, and if ever we needed one on a particular subject, the time must be ripe.

I’d like to see a moratorium for at least a year (if not until the end of the century) in all areas of the media, on the subject of sex, and how much we really need to know about it.

One present theory would have it that the increase of sexual violence in New Zealand is a reaction to the women’s movement – men getting their own back on women for daring to speak up.

While that theory might have its points, and nicely puts the blame first on women for arousing men’s ire, and second on men for being beasts anyway, I don’t think it carries enough weight.

I’m more inclined to think that many of our sexual problems and general promiscuity arise not, as some would have it, from too little information, but from too much – sexual overkill, in fact (future historians may wonder if we thought about anything else.)

I know I’ve written on sex once or twice before, and perhaps you’ll be thinking if this chap wants a bloomin’ moratorium on sex, why doesn’t he start with himself? Fair enough, but before the hatches are battened down, let me have one or two last words.

Even the most sober journalists discuss sex sometimes. The least sober discuss it all the time. Without wishing to pick on any magazine in particular, I note in my local shop that one recent issue of a women’s mag had a sealed section on puberty. They claimed it was to protect other members of the family from the explicit drawings; those blind, deaf and dumb ones, that is, and those who find sealed pages finger-proof. Am I overly suspicious in thinking it’s just another gimmick for promoting their particular mag? Since then another mag has tried the same approach.

I know I’ll be shot down in flames for saying all this. The current theory is that if you tell the children everything, emphasising the biological facts, they’ll be so sure of themselves that no harm will come to them when they indulge in what is (so the pundits say) a harmless pastime.

Seems to me that telling the children everything at school, then hammering home the more salacious details in every other sphere of the media, has hardly had the responsible effect it ought.

If it’s such a good idea, why do we have the highest rate of teenage pregnancies outside the US and Canada? Why has abortion become culturally acceptable? (Morally is another story.) If the schools are doing such a marvellous job, why do magazines need to spread the sex lives of all and sundry out in full frontal detail, and then give the latest in ‘helps’ at least once a month?

A return to the so-called enlightened ages, when the facts of life were kept rather more modestly, might return the sense of mystery to one of the holiest of human activities. Barraging our kids – and not just our kids – with something as arousing as sex seems an inside-out approach.

I’d be interested to see the effect a reasonable silence on the subject would have; our minds and imaginations might get five minutes to clear in order to think of something else.

Who knows, we might open a magazine in which the sealed section was on a really interesting subject – the Meaning of Life, perhaps.

Blank Photo courtesy of H.F.J.M. Crebolder 

Refs rule, okay?

First published in Column 8 on the 18^th August, 1993

Whenever I watch a game of rugby – you’ll note that I’ve finally learnt how to spell the word – my heart goes out to one particular person on the field.

In my rugby days it used to be the hooker – me – sandwiched between two great hulking props, my ears mangled, my shoulders wrenched and my head forced – Crrrunch! – up against an opposing wall of bull terriers. However, after I retired (round the age of 10) my sympathies diverted to a person who acts in a sense always as the bridesmaid, never the bride – if I can use such an expression in this context.

That person is the referee. He’s never the star – he’s only noticed when he does something wrong. He has to be in the action at all points, yet he can’t be part of the action.

He’s like a child in a field of raging bulls, and woe betide if he’s careless enough to get in the way of a footballer making his way like a diesel engine (converted to lpg) towards touchdown. Not only would the ref’s name be mud, he might be buried face down in it.

On my walk to work I often come across a huge mastiff looking over a fence – a tall fence, thank goodness. His eyes are red and the expression on his black face is ambiguous enough for me to think twice about going close to him.

A ref often finds himself in a similar situation: he’s supposed to stand up to the equivalent of several mastiffs and state his case for claiming they’re in the wrong. If necessary he has to send one of them, like a schoolboy caught making stinkbombs behind the loos, off the field.

Refs have to have the stamina to keep up with a ball kicked from one 22m line to the other, and still somehow be in the right place at the right time – always. I don’t know how they do it.

The reason I mention rugby is that during the last week I was in a somewhat similar position to that occupied by your average ref. (Note, I said somewhat similar.) I was one of several stamina-requiring bodies who acted as accompanist to singers in a musical mini-version of the BleedUsSlow Cup: The Dunedin Performing Art Competitions.

(Singers, by the way, are not equatable with mastiffs. Singers come in all sizes: Chihuahuas, St Bernards, Pomeranians.)

Accompanists have to  have many of the qualities of the average ref. They must somehow be at all times invisible and subtle; in control but not pushing; as musical as the singer, but patently not more so.

They should never be seen to be nervous, lest they put the singer off; and they should make no mistakes…lest they put the singer off (in other words, when the singer misses a page out, so does the accompanist).

Accompanists must ignore trickling itches in inaccessible spots, as well as the ones they could reach but can’t afford to because they’re just about to turn a page over. (As refs must get on and blow the whistle when they’d prefer to blow their nose.)

They must at all times act as though they hadn’t a care in the world, and that performing in front of a crowd is an everyday occurrence to be taken in their stride. Just like refs.

Football and musical crowds are both very discerning. The ears of the latter are more acute, but the former know all the rules – better than the ref.

Accompanist can pour out their emotions through their fingernails. But what does a ref do when he’s feeling all churned up? At the end of the game, no one ever swaps his shirt with the ref.

Because my week was musical, I’ve had an idea. Next Saturday, let’s all give the ref a treat, and nominate him for Most Valuable Player.

2024 Six Nations Championship, ITALY vs ENGLAND,
3 February 2024, Stadio Olimpico, Rome
photo courtesy Stefano Delfrate

Porridge, possums, politicians and solo parenting

 First published in Column 8 on the 11^th August, 1993

 Having negotiated the twisting sands of a local newspaper last week, I decided to go on to the big time – a metropolitan daily from the CER. This distraction was necessary as my wife has gone to England for five weeks, leaving me a solo parent.

I discovered there’s a square in Sydney lumbered with a motormouth cognomen. (‘Where do you live?’ ‘Sesquicentenary Square.’) I discovered that if everybody in Australia obeyed the law, the treasury coffers would be depleted. Let’s not tell Ruth. With our parlous state of economy she’ll make it compulsory to be obedient.

Someone in Britain is encouraging us to be green even after we’re dead. The trees will grow better if we’re buried beside them and cleanly turn ourselves into mulch.

On this basis, trees in the year 2126 will do very well. In 2126  (when I’ll be shifting into my 80s) a comet named Swift-Tuttle will loosen a barrage of space debris and drop it on the Earth. The meteors will be the size of city blocks and will wipe out entire countries – if they don’t fall in the ocean.

To give us a foretaste, Swift-Tuttle will be doing a mini-version of its trip next Saturday, the 14^th. Meteorites on that day will only be the size of peas and grapefruit. (Meteors always seem to come in city block, pea and grapefruit sizes; you never hear of banana, kiwifruit or paddock.)

I know last week I said No Politicians, but since this one’s Australian we can make an exception. The Victorian Premier, who is apparently very popular, appears on the front of a magazine (without his permission) apparently very naked.

His head was in the picture all right, but the body belonged to an unidentified person. The magazine’s intention was to prove that the eye can be deceived. The Premier’s eye was not deceived, and he threatened to sue.

The editor, with dubious logic, said he had no case. The Premier, she said, wasn’t held up to ridicule (!), wasn’t defamed (!), and nothing had been done to detract from his reputation (!!!). Her eye wasn’t deceived, just her brain.

As if to keep up with us, the Australians have gone in for some cultural sensitivity. Only this time it may upset the sensitivity of 51% of the population.

In an Aboriginal art exhibition, one room has been genderly segregated: they call it the men’s room. In this area, culturally sensitive paintings are on display. I understand their point, but could male pakeha painters get away with it?

Here’s an item of interest. Up until the last century the Welsh donned clean white stockings and went up to a warm dry room (usually the bedroom above the kitchen) where they trampled and stomped upon porridge oats laid in an oak chest, aiming to compress them. (The oats, not the stockings.)

No peculiar custom here: merely an attempt to keep the mites out. Try this at home if you’re heavily into porridge.

And talking of keeping things out, I finally found out how, if I was an Aussie, I could keep the possums out of the roof – and from the eating the roses. Unfortunately the rose-protecting method seems likely to keep humans away from the roses as well.

Take a number of woollen dags, the scungy bits that don’t make good knitting, and hang them on the rose bushes. Possums object to having one of their favourite foods so spiced, and keep away.

And how do you keep possums out of the roof? You set up a light in the attic, and leave it on for two or three nights. The poor possums soon suffer from insomnia, and go away in a dozy huff. At that point you nail up the gaps.

Not forgetting to turn the light off first.

And talking about turning off the lights, you will suffer from poor sleep hygiene (disturbed nights) if you go to bed at erratic times, drink coffee beforehand, read, or watch television in bed.

Or allow your wife to go gallivanting.

 

 

[Have you heard about my fourth children's fantasy, The Counterfeit Queen? Suitable for pre-teens and upwards (three adults have told me they're reading it at present...)

CER: I think by this I meant: The Australia–New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement, commonly known as Closer Economic Relations (CER).

I was plainly confused when I wrote that I was only going to be in my 80s in 2126 – I should have said I’d be in my 180s (!) Furthermore, telling people the oddly named Swift-Tuttle was coming a week later, in 1992, seems to contradict Wikipedia’s hindsight version of the facts.

The photo of Jeff Kennett appeared just three years after Photoshop came on the market. The magazinewas the Good Weekend Magazine, July 31, 1993.

Incidentally my wife, thirty years or more since this was written, still goes to bed at erratic (usually late) hours, drinks coffee in the evenings, watches television late at night (but not in bed). Her sleep hygiene isn’t much impaired by any of this…

Troubles with roubles

First published in Column 8, on the 4^th August, 1993

Newspapers are a great source of education. I had time to read a newspaper more thoroughly last week and discovered informative facts, and fictions, on nearly every page.

That day, the Russians had troubles with roubles. The Central Russian Bank decided to dabble with the money bubble and gobble up pre-1993 roubles. This nobbled people’s savings, causing a scrabble for new money. The banks quibblingly closed for ‘technical reasons.’

Many elderly wound up with barely a nibble; they hobbled to the banks to exchange their old roubles – paid out the previous week in their pensions – for a maximum sum amounting to the equivalent of NZ$64. This reduced them to quivering blobbles.

Why the rabble didn’t reduce the banks – or better still, the government – to rubble, I don’t know.

This time the West didn’t get the blame. A couple of years ago, when a similar thing happened, the cause was a ‘Western financial plot.’ (I thought, at first, that was the part of a cemetery where you bury a paid-up corpse.)

Plainly the Russian government still has a blind spot when it comes to the people – a bit like one or two of our own parliamentarians – but I’ve vowed not to give parliamentarians any more free publicity this month.

Talking of blind spots, I discovered that a blind electric ray can give you a nasty shock if you meet each other in the sea.

I quote: ‘The ray’s ‘electric organs are composed of specialised cells called electrocytes.’ (Not electrolytes – those hang from the ceiling.) ‘These are wafer thin, hexagonal and arranged in stacks of 450 plates.’ (These fish would make good waiters.) ‘There can be several thousand of these columns, each composed of 450 electrocytes.’(Reminds me of Steve Parr’s dishwashing ad.)

In spite of its blindness the ray electro-sights its prey with ease. What I want to know is why when the ray lights up in water it doesn’t electrocute itself.

Talking of blind spots, I noted the continuing saga of the Christchurch Polytechnic nursing course, and its cultural problems. I like what one local nurse said, ‘We’ve bred a bit of a monster. It’s cultural fascism creeping in where you can’t afford to have different views. It’s almost like because of the wrong in the past we have to try and make up for it. Where has our freedom of speech gone?’

Where indeed?

The answer to her last question is that free speech has drowned in the sea of political correctness. Yes, we Caucasians have done a lot wrong, and yes, we have a lot of ground to make up. But the cultural content of this nursing course has the bad breath of indoctrination in its mouth.

Perhaps we need to park the Treaty of Waitangi back in the history books where it belongs. Then, in accordance with our current marketplace-type thinking, we could negotiate a new, contemporary contract.

A contract that doesn’t squabble over different interpretations, and one which, in raising the status of the minority, doesn’t have to put down the majority. Or cause them to doublespeak.

My son has been investigating cultures for school. We have icecream tubs perched around the house containing moulding of bread. Seeing the process of culture at home I hope, if I’m in hospital, that the nurse will treat me as a human being first, and a culture second.

Finally, I learned a new word from my newspaper reading: vexillologist (requires careful spelling – and pronouncing!). A vexillologist is a flag fan.

I’ve been indulging in some vexillology – flag waving – in the above paragraphs.

I guess you shouldn’t get vexed when vexillating.

 

Electric ray Narke capensis

Photo courtesy of Peter Southwood

 

See more about Steve Parr here. Unfortunately I can’t find the particular ad I mentioned.

For ‘political correctness’ read ‘woke,’ a word easier to remember than a phrase, and with so little real meaning that it can take hold of anything and make a problem out of.

Outrage

First published in Column 8 on the 19^th August, 1992

During the Vietnam War the public expressed outrage when a piece of newsfilm seen on television showed a member of one side of the warring factors being shot in the head, and killed.

The outrage was because the end of a human life was treated as mere newsfodder. His personhood didn’t matter – he was being used as an example of the horrors of war.

No one denies those horrors. The horrors of modern life are multitudinous. What concerns me is that these horrors are more and more being used by the media in a way that turns us all into spectators at a gladiatorial bloodbath.

I have come across two examples recently, neither of which I sought out, and both of which linger on malevolently in the recesses of my mind. And if these two came to my attention so easily, how many more have there been that have not crossed my path?

I wrote a few weeks ago about the media and the royal couple, and the way in which the lives of these two were being abused. The lack of moral concern in some parts of the media is an abuse as sickening as sexual abuse of children.

You can say that by writing about them I’m extending the abuse still further. But unless someone writes, how do we combat the immoral flow?

The first instance occurred on television in one of those news compilation programmes, and discussed the murder of a teenage girl by her father.

This Middle Eastern family had emigrated to the States. The father lived by the old rules; the 15-year-old daughter wanted to live by the new. By his culture’s standards, the father considered her rebellious, especially when she went out and got an after-school job. The father forbade such behaviour. When the daughter continued to work, the father one night took a kitchen knife and stabbed her to death. In his culture that was ‘acceptable’ punishment for her behaviour.

Of course it wasn’t acceptable in the culture of the USA, and he was imprisoned. Nothing very startling about all that, you say. Nothing, except that somehow the US authorities had suspected foul play might occur, and had bugged the house. Unfortunately for the girl, no one was listening the night she died. Only a tape-recorder picked up the terrified screams as the child was repeatedly stabbed.

And those screams were played over and over on television. Not some actress simulating horror, but a child’s dying agonies as her own father killed her. Was the broadcast necessary?

The other situation is worse, and also involved young people: the murderer was around seventeen, the victim maybe a couple of years younger. These two boys were part of an ongoing Asian war. But the news magazine article in which they became known to the world was on revenge.

Somehow a photographer was there at the moment when the murderer, in revenge, used a heavy knife to stab his victim in the chest.

And now comes the part that sickens. That observer photographed the murder. He took more photos of the murderer now satisfied at having achieved revenge. Some editor paid that photographer for those photos, and a writer for writing about them. Some publisher published them. The victim’s personhood became nothing. His death was mere newsfodder.

In the 17^th century John Donne said, ‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind.’

Isn’t there a point where the objectivity of the media goes beyond the reporting, and reporters discern that they are involved in Mankind? Isn’t there a point where getting the news becomes much less important than the life of those involved? Is there any sense of moral outrage left?

()()()()()()()()()()() 

Since I wrote this article over thirty years ago people have become numb to such violence being shown on screen or on the Internet: either it’s reality, and real people die in front of our eyes, or it appears in movies and television with the kind of grisly detail that once would have been unacceptable in so-called entertainment. Such scenes are commonplace, and the media thrives on them.

Sadly, even the best of us are becoming immune to these scenes because they are innumerable.

It’s interesting that journalists who watched the hour long compilation of video shot by people who were attacked and killed in the invasion of Israel by Hamas on the 7^th of October, 2023, has proved that even the media is not entirely immune to the human suffering that was shown. Many of those audiences found themselves still able to be shocked.

 

Heroes

 First published in Column 8 on the 12^th August, 1992

The Olympic Games have brought the idea of the hero before us constantly, with people overcoming considerable odds, and struggling against personal battles.

However, I find the way some athletes carry on when they win rather sickening, and anything but heroic – especially, I’m sad to say, the Yanks. They don’t really need the crowd to applaud them; they do more than enough of it themselves.

New Zealand competitors, for the most part, are rather more self-controlled, humble even – a facet of our national personality I  hope we can retain. With them you share in the enjoyment of the win; you’re not turned off by self-adulation.

The heroism of the athletes follows hard on the heels of Mr Bolger’s remarks about viewing successful businessmen as heroes. In spit of New Zealand being sadly in want of heroes I’m glad he didn’t suggest any politicians for the role.)

Mr Bolger’s remarks struck me as barking up the wrong tree. A businessman who makes it is a success, just as a businessman who doesn’t make it is a failure. Neither of them fit into the hero category.

Heroes are few and far between in this country at the moment. Not only that, the heroic people we do have are likely to be the most unsung. Merely surviving, for a good proportion of Kiwis, is an heroic undertaking. Those who manage in these days under a government which has lost its compassion for its people are more than heroic. To me they’re made of much tougher stuff than most businessmen, including successful ones.

The typical businessman Mr Bolger wants us to admire has some capital to work with. The large group of semi-underprivileged people which has been created by dole cuts and unemployment (and the Employment Contracts Act) have no capital. They achieve what they achieve in spite of having nothing to come and go on.

I believe New Zealand’s real heroes are found in places away from the noise and bustle, especially away from commerce. These real heroes sometimes appear in the Queen’s awards, but their achievements are more often obscured by famous people who turn up in the lists.

(Actually I’m often astounded by the people who receive recognition. Film actors for instance – are they really stuff that Knights are made of? Aren’t they only doing what comes naturally, and what’s very well paid for? I’d always thought the awards went to people who gave their lives freely for a cause. Dare I even suggest that many sportspersons receive awards for doing little more than developing a talent they were born with?)

As I said, I believe New Zealand’s real heroes are found away from the limelight, and I believe we lost a special hero last week.

This was a man who had given a good dela of his life to attempting to change the view many people hold, that abortion is okay. He spent not only his energy in this, but much of his income. The man was John O’Neill.

It takes considerable guts to go against the flow. When we go against what is right, and the majority know it’s right, that’s foolhardiness. But when we go against the flow, believing that the majority are wrong, that’s heroic.

Sometimes a martyr’s blood is shed without immediate result. During his lifetime John O’Neill seemed to achieve very little in his fight for right. However, I believe he has not fought in vain, and a time will come when we finally accord him the honour a hero deserves.

 

Anti-abortion March by SPUC members 1974

 A Tribute [Letters to the Editor – the corner of the clipping was torn off for some reason]

Thank you Mike Crowl once again for a quality item. I too, pay tribute to John O’Neill. For years I have admired his lone stance on the abortion issue, and I have often wondered where were those men of position and money who would profess to be Christian who could have stood beside this man and shown their support. We have a march once a year. There are those who wear the little feet on the lapel and subscribe to SPUC but nary a one to say in public, ‘I stand beside O’Neill.’ Equal with John is Elizabeth, his wife, whose efforts matched his. I pay tribute to this man, his wife and his family. How proud the family must be to have such a father. He dared to go against the tide – no waiting…[missing from clipping] for John O’Neill to see which way it flowed. Such sacrifice…[missing from clipping]…wasted and since our God reigns we will…[missing from clipping]…results.

Name missing from clipping.

Life in the not so old girl yet

Back in late 2023 I published my fourth children's book, The Counterfeit Queen. It had taken some five years to write it, not because it was exceedingly difficult, but because of procrastination, self-doubt, and a busy life. And then, once published, it turned out to have the least number of sales of any of my books, though a number of free copies were passed around to family and friends. That way, at least. it had some readings: certainly more readings than sales. And it made its way in due course into my local library as well. 

But...disappointing. 

In late 2024, discouraged with the way the book had gone, I decided to do something positive in relation to it, and wrote eight piano pieces relating to some of the characters and scenes. To me these seemed a successful set of pieces: complex enough, but not to the degree that they didn't appeal in some measure on first hearing. 

A friend whom I play piano duets with nearly every week (and she and I have played some of the duets in local concerts, which has been very satisfying) has heard some of the music; her comment was: 'They're so inventive.' Once my head ceased to swell, I felt that all of the work on the book and the piano pieces, was justified. Something worthwhile had been created out of the whole mix. 

I've played some of the pieces for other people, in-house, but a few weeks back, after a friend's husband - as a surprise - bought her a baby grand for her birthday, they got a bit more visibility. (Though the piano was secondhand, it was still a substantial birthday present, and required some trickery in order to get it into the house without her knowing about its arrival.) 

The birthday girl had wanted a piano for some time in order to start playing again after a gap of many years. As a result of a conversation with her I offered to 'test-run' the piano, since she herself was a bit rusty keyboard-wise. So after a Bible Study at her and her husband's house one night I played her a couple of the Counterfeit Queen pieces, along with a piece I wrote a long time ago - back in the eighties in fact. 

Of course there were some other people at the study. I explained to the group the way the pieces had come about, thus giving away the 'secret' that I was a published author of children's books, something this group hadn't known. (I guess advertising myself as an author might increase sales - perhaps - but it's not something I tend to do.)

However, one of the people at the group was interested to read the books, and over the last couple of weeks has made her way through all four of them, to my surprise and delight. She's just texted me: I wanted to check out the Grimhilderness books to see if my granddaughter might like them, and I got hooked. They are wonderfully imaginative stories, with great characters and a timeless appeal. I'm sure she'll love them.

That's made my day. I suggested she might tell other grandmothers she knew as well (!) I'm also hoping to include some of them in a concert my duet friend and I are planning to do later this year. Maybe there's life in The Counterfeit Queen yet. 

The four books:

Grimhilda! a fantasy for children and their parents
The Mumbersons and the Blood Secret
The Disenchanted Wizard
The Counterfeit Queen

The bookaholic

 First published in Column 8 on the 5^th August, 1992

Some would say the worst ‘disease’ in the nation is alcoholism. Certainly it is prevalent, and the cause of much physical and mental damage.

However, there is another disease even more widespread, whose insidious effects on the population, though seemingly mild, are ravaging the nation. I talk of bookaholism.

Before I speak of symptoms, let me give you some statistics – conveniently culled from the latest Listener. New Zealanders spend $130 million on newspapers each year. In 1991 alone, local authority libraries (that’s not including private libraries) made 38 million issues, and held 8.5 million books.

I blame the libraries, in part, for their encouragement of bookaholism. Their casual attitude towards lending is evident in the lifestyle of every bookaholic you meet.

We know there are some people in the country who resist libraries, who are temperate in their  habits. And of course few babies read, although there were some supposedly enlightened people a few years ago trying to encourage the habit in mere infants.

But even if the libraries were all closed down, we’d be struggling with the enormity of the problem – bookaholics also buy books.

What is an average bookaholic like? Age doesn’t enter into it, though of course the older the bookaholic the more ingrained the habit. I know one man who as a child couldn’t sit down to a meal without a book in front of him. You can imagine his response now when his beleaguered wife tries to converse. ‘Hmmm?’

And gender is irrelevant. There are just as many woman bookaholics reading their Mills & Boons as men reading their car manuals.

Bookaholics are always desperate for something to read. They will read an ancient newspaper when lighting the fire, or pretend to do the crossword in an out-of-date magazine. Half-finished books with turned-over corners or with bookmarks made out of any scrap of paper (as long as it has print on it) litter their  homes.

Every room in the house has evidence of this malady. The lounge, with books flung down on (good grief, Stanton!) the television. The bedroom, with books hidden under the pillow. The kitchen, where the bookaholic will even read cookery books if the craving cannot otherwise be satisfied. The bathroom, where the soggy remains of a book will lie curled up inside a sodden towel. The toilet – yes, even the toilet. Here you will find books dumped on the cistern, flat on their face – only a few of the worst bookaholics will use blank toilet paper for bookmarks.

(I have known bookaholics in the loo bereft of print on paper who take to reading toilet roll wrappings. Inconceivable.)

Nothing is sacred. The bookaholic will put on a long playing record – they won’t have caught up with cassettes or CDs because their funds are never sufficient – and fail to listen to the music. Instead you will find them reading the sleeve, and even attempting to translate the German and French.

See them at the Regent Booksale: they bring their own boxes, and fill them to overflowing with Readers’ Digest Condensed Books.

See them in their lunch hours – at the library, or ‘browsing’ (as they call it) in their local (bookshop, that is). One bookaholic I knew works in a bookshop; what does he do in his free time? Browse.

I know the bookaholic isn’t guilty of bookish driving (though some have been known to read at the steering wheel), and he doesn’t beat up his wife or kids – more often he doesn’t notice them. But the drain on resources and the damage to the youth and flower of our nation is appalling.

Surely it is time for someone to adapt the 12 Steps and set up a BI (Bookaholics Innominate). Is there no one willing to stand up and turn us from a nation of bookworms into semi-illiterates?

 

There are a lot of books published in a year, as the picture above indicates...my fourth children's fantasy, The Counterfeit Queen (suitable for pre-teens and upwards) is now available. 

My instinct on reading this piece after thirty plus years is that New Zealanders in 2026 would be reading a lot less than in 1992. But in fact they’re Bucking the Trend. The National Reading Survey shows that reading in NZ is up!

Juror #2

 Here be spoilers...

We watched Juror #2 last night on Netflix, and only discovered at the very end that it's the most recent movie directed by the extremely venerable Clint Eastwood. 

Now the expectancy over the last few years in regard to movies directed by Eastwood is that they will be more than satisfying in their presentation, and that the script will be thoughtful for the audience and generous to the actors. In other words, Eastwood's latter-day movies have usually been a must-see. 

Juror #2, however, is a surprise in the worst sense. The script has a thoroughly unfinished feeling to it, and leaves the actors with vast holes to fill that can't easily be filled. It starts (mostly) with what must be the most inadequately-founded trial we're likely to see in the movies. No one, but no one, seems to pick up on the fact that the evidence - mostly circumstantial and not at all convincing - is an insult to the audience's intelligence. The arrogant prosecutor (Toni Collette) doesn't even have to walk all over the defence (Chris Messina): he's given every opportunity to tear the case to shreds and, as scripted, fails to see any of the problems with the prosecutor's arguments. If you can call them arguments; most of what she provides are mere accusations against the accused. 

The accused himself (Night Agent's Gabriel Basso) is allowed to speak in his own defence and waffles on in a most unmannerly way about how he's now a changed man and that the man they see on a video arguing with his soon-to-be deceased girlfriend is a thing of the past. (But even their 'argument' is poorly scripted; the actors struggle to make it work.)

And things get worse: most of the stereotypical twelve jurors take what miniscule information they've been given as a watertight case and run with it. In fact their decision against the defendent would take about ten minutes if it wasn't for the fact that one of the jurors - coincidentally - was also a witness to the original argument and, as the audience quickly realises - probably committed a hit-and-run, killing the girl. The defendent's worst crime, on the other hand, was leaving his girlfriend to walk home in the pouring rain. 

Juror number 2 (Nicholas Hoult, who was Collette's son in About a Boy) had reasons not to confess to the hit-and-run, but not particularly compelling ones. As these reasons are eked out over the movie's length, we increasingly lose sympathy with him. Not only that, he had every reason not to be a juror in this case, if he'd only opened his mouth. Refusing to show his connection only sinks him into a deeper mess, and more lies, including to his wife, who of course is expecting a baby any day and really, really wants him home with her. Did I tell you that they'd lost twins a year before?

The only other juror to side with Hoult is played by J K Simmons. At one point he convinces Collette to change her mind, and do some more investigation - something she apparently hasn't in the least bothered with beforehand - she is, after all, running for some political role at the same time. (The police case is barely mentioned at any point, and appears to have been ticked off by them in a couple of minutes.) 

And then, unbelievably, in a scene we don't see, Hoult decides to go for a guilty verdict, which apparently changes the mind of the other jurors who'd started to look at a not guilty one. And suddenly the innocent man is sent to jail for life.

The whole thing ends for Hoult in a moment of ambiguity, apparently leaving his character in more of a mess than he started with. (We've long lost our sympathy with him, even though he appears to be the main character.) More likely the scriptwriter (Jonathan A. Abrams) got himself into a total tangle and couldn't find a way out. Perhaps Eastwood didn't have the time to help him. 

Kiefer Sutherland is also in the movie for a few brief scenes that really don't help the hero in any way, shifting from full support to giving up on the boy. Odd.