Public Address - Cracker (Home)

Sitting Duck | May 13, 2003 15:23

I've been quietly fuming for the past few days, muttering, swearing, enacting voodoo curses, mumbling in tongues and occasionally bursting into a fully-fledged rant to whoever's in my immediate vicinity at the time. If you've been in that vicinity, apologies. Part of this uncharacteristically irrational behaviour can be attributed to the fact that I've given up smoking. I'm not sure why I've given up, it just sort of happened, which means I'm destined to fail sometime soon. Paradoxically, knowing that I'm going to start again soon makes it easier to stop myself lighting up.

So this might explain where all this anger has come from, but it doesn't quite explain why I'm getting so damn wound up over the fact that the Government is planning to give thirty-four million dollars to fund Team NZ's 2007 America's Cup challenge. $34,000,000.00. That's a lot of zeros.

While to me this is an issue of principle, like most people I'm also a pragmatist, and my ire is raised in direct proportion to how much money is thrown at something I consider ill-advised. The initial four million or so I could forgive; it's still a waste of money, but the Government wastes four mil so often that I'm immune to it. Four mil is the Government saying; "look here's a bone, now go off to Switzerland, lose, and don't bother us again."

Looking closer though, this money was ostensibly given to secure the team so we don't face the same sort of nautical brain drain that led to our defeat last time. But isn't this missing the point? This is the team that lost five-zip, there's hardly going to be a queue of people outside the syndicate door with lucrative offers, is there? If anything we should have beaten them down, financially speaking: "Okay Dean, I'm prepared to go up to twenty-five dollars, but you'll have to wash your own uniforms."

But this latest thirty-odd million is a significant figure, not as easily dismissed. Importantly, it's more than a lot of other non-yachting things costs, which means that for the next however-long we're going to be hearing: "Perhaps the Government should take some of the money they gave to the yachting and spend it on dialysis machines/Transmission Gully/Embassy Theatre/wind farms…"

The biggest question that needs answering is WHY? It certainly doesn't appear to be a populist move, because nearly everyone I've heard, read or spoken to seems to be against it. It's hard to justify as "the Government getting in behind sports", when the entire SPARC funding for the year ended June 2002 was only $13 million. No, the Government's line seems based on two extraordinarily flimsy lines of reasoning; first, that having the black boat sailing in some European waters represents a great marketing opportunity for Brand New Zealand; second, that when we bring the Cup back home, the economic returns are enormous.

Okay sports fans, name the nine competitors in the Louis Vuitton and their country of origin. Now cross out those whose country you DIDN'T visit as a direct result of seeing them in the LVC. Alternately, circle those countries that you DID visit. Ex-actly. Thirty million buys a lot of advertising. Thirty million buys a fair bit of property too. In fact, for only $12.5m you can buy a huge building in San Francisco (for example), paint it with the letters "NZ" as big as you please and project pictures of our scenic paradise all over it. It'll be more of a talking point than a black boat sailing somewhere in Europe, and will say a lot more about Godzone than the letters "NZL" stenciled on a sail.

If we're just talking about sports, why the America's Cup? NZ driver Scott Dixon has just qualified fourth fastest for the upcoming Indianapolis 500, why not give him $30m to paint his car black with a silver fern? At least he's got a chance of winning. An estimated four billion people will watch the Rugby World Cup this year, why not give the All Blacks some money to wear black with a silver fern… oh hang on. Well why not give them some money anyway?

As for all this talk of the returns that will be generated by bringing the Auld Mug back home, it ain't going to happen. I'd love to say it will, or it might, but it ain't. We're lacking the money and the talent. It was obvious before we lost 5-0, and it's certainly obvious now. If anything, the Government should be asking what return they got on the money they contributed to the last campaign? We could have turned up in a dragon boat full of kindergarten teachers, a waka of amputees, and we wouldn't have lost any worse than 5-0. At least last time we were guaranteed a place in the final. This time around, the Government might as well take their $34m up to Sky City and place it all on 19 red. The odds are about the same.

New Zealanders know this too, which is why the move is so unpopular. That and the fact that we are an extraordinarily fickle bunch, and don't really like backing a losing team. We're also pretty embarrassed on the whole that we drove around for a few weeks with 'Loyal' flags flying from the aerials of our 4x4s.

So what does the Government know that we don't? Why is Trevor Mallard setting himself up over this issue? And why do you never see Donna Awatere and Donna Hall in the same room at the same time? Could it be? Tune in next week…

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Get your http://freak.on | Apr 30, 2003 17:13

I've been spending a bit of time on the Internet lately. This mightn't seem strange to most of you, but for me it's something of a change. Much like Russell, I got introduced to the Internet in the early '90s, when I was working for Victoria University student rag Salient. We had a couple of Macs hooked up to the web and despite, or perhaps because of the sloooooow nature of the exercise, the sun rose many a time to find me still sitting in that office in the bowels of the student union building, jumping from link to link to link…

Everything seemed to link to each other a lot more those days, and part of the thrill was just clicking and seeing where you'd end up. It wasn't so much what I was reading that was important, but where it was coming from. Sports results from Israel, recipes from South Africa, something in French from France; it was all the fun of having free international toll calls, but only to a specified list of fairly uninteresting people.

The prevalence of bigger, better and faster search engines has, for me at least, removed the "follow the links" approach to surfing. Most of my Internet sessions have, for the past couple of years, started with a Google search, and ended with a site derived directly from aforementioned search.

It was only recently when my employer – God bless – gave all us proles Internet access, that I realised the folly of my ways. Or perhaps lack of folly: By treating the Internet as a mere reference tool, I'd been missing the myriad of random shit out there. Ok, productivity at work is at an all time low, but personally, I'm entering a renaissance. I'm following any and every link, staying after work to surf, learning about archery clubs in Guatemala…

I'm probably preaching to the converted here, but I'm sure there are a few out there like me. I hate to admit it, but until Russell asked me to take part in www.publicaddress.net I didn't even know what a blog was. After a few weeks as a reborn cyberphile (I hope that means what I think it does) I now realise I was the only person in the world who didn't.

What's the thrust of this post then? Nothing really, which is the whole point. If you've read down to here, congratulations, you've successfully spent a few minutes rolling luxuriously in the mud of wasted time. Let this be a reminder to you, while you're rushing about from URL to URL, remember to take time to stop, drop a (metaphorical?) trip, and imagine how totally freaky it would be if you actually were the smell of roses.

Once you're on that level, check out this site… it's like whoaah! man. I'm sure the secret to life is hidden somewhere inside.

If like me, you're having problems rediscovering your surfin' mojo, here's a random site generator by my mate Nik which is a bit of fun and guaranteed to send you somewhere, well… random.

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