Public Address - Island Life (Home)

Citizen Key With A Vengeance | Nov 30, 2006 19:39

I can still remember my first morning at Burnside High. A smarmy thuggish type cornered me in the boy's toilets. The next minute he and two of his acne-ravaged friends were holding me upside down and giving me the time honoured ducking ritual. A few minutes later, water dripping onto my shirt collar I was sitting in the assembly hall with my mate Russell as the thug walked past.

"Who's he?" I asked.

"Oh, that's John Key", he said, "Why?"

"He's the one who ducked me," I said, quietly plotting my revenge. One day he would be Leader of the Opposition and then he would pay. I would write a blog mocking his maiden speech and undo his vaulting ambition at his moment of greatest triumph.

At some point I must have begun audibly mumbling.

"What's a blog?" asked Russell. I told him about the Internet.

"What's an Al Gore?" he asked.

At that moment there was a yelp a few rows ahead of us. A bookish-looking fifth former was clutching his Values Party manifesto to his chest as Key poked him menacingly. "Hippy!" he sneered. A cute girl farther along the seat looked across at the bully with slightly narrowed eyes. "Watch it Key", she said. "I'll be able to kneecap you once I'm writing for the Listener".

"I can't wait to get a Mac", said Russell, looking with puppy eyes at her.

Oh, if only. When John Key becomes Prime Minister, my goose will be cooked. I will probably pay quite a lot less tax and my daughter's Decile 10 school may very well get a bigger share of Vote Education, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

For what it's worth, here is my impression of the first 100 hours of his leadership, written at hour 74 because I do this to a hidden agenda and don't let the facts intrude.

Observation One:

It is churlish to speak ill of the bridegroom during the honeymoon. Yes, you should give the man a chance to get his slippers under the bed, but all I've been essentially asking is this: how much do we know about John Key, and wouldn't we like to? Some people have inferred a remarkable amount from the warm words offered about Maori, Green policy and the Welfare system, but I maintain that in the generality so far, they could be inferring rather more or rather less than he actually has in mind.

Perhaps it fair to infer this subtext: "I am not Don Brash". That certainly seems to have much positive resonance, especially amongst women I have spoken to.

Which leads me on to Observation Two:

The Press Gallery loves fresh characters for the soap opera.

Introducing young, urbane, fabulously rich John! Not like Don! Not like Helen! Best of all: new! And when you're new, you get freshly lacquered in Teflon. What is revealed in the Hager book proves fatal to fading character Don, but of no consequence to new character John. I still don't have the book and I still don't know how it reflects on the two players. All I'm sure of is that there is a discernible dichotomy in the interviewing treatment going on here.

And that takes me to the third observation.

Where, when and how do you get your labels?
Helen Clark's reading of the beltway may have failed her at points this year, but she is not wrong to maintain that such a division exists between those who absorb the minutiae of politics and those who take only occasional interest.

It is in this context that I'm interested in the way these first days take shape. For casual observers of politics, the picture they form of a leader like Key may continue to evolve and solidify, or it may simplify ossify around those first few tags: generous natured man offers olive branches to Maori and Greens, pledges concern for welfare, tacks for the centre, Is Not Don Brash. That may all prove to be correct; on the other hand, it may not, and we won't know for certain until the policy details emerge. But it's interesting to ponder whether the label could endure even if the reality doesn't ultimately square with it.

Finally, observation four: I am quite persuaded by some of the views of others. A friend whose judgment I value greatly writes:

I also suspect the Key we learn to love or hate will be a man who doesn't hold opinions about much. That's why he was good at trading - and even liked it. Now the real question is - is this a problem? English does have opinions - moderate ones - and will be the policy wonk and the intellect of the duo.

I think too that Clark has misshaped our expectations of what makes a leader. Prior to her the ones with the steel trap minds weren't the leaders - they were the deputies or the number threes (think Palmer, Birch, Rowling when he wasn't PM). Clark has turned that on its head. She's been so across everything we now expect that in a leader - but why? I think Key will redefine the role - and we may find that refreshing. Wouldn't it be nice to have a leader that wasn't in control of everything?

And why not? A life well-lived is full of unexpected turns, and perhaps it's time for another.

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I have aspirations going forward | Nov 28, 2006 16:37

If the least expectation you have of a politician is that he or she not speak about him or herself in the third person, then look away for a moment as I relate the words of John Key delivering his inaugural speech today as leader of the National Party.

On many occasions I have read in the media that John Key did a good job against Michael Cullen at the last election, that John Key knows his stuff on finance, but that no one knows what John Key really stands for.

David Slack found this a little unnerving, but David Slack kept reading, and a few minutes later, he found himself at the end of the oration thinking to himself: how would this sound if I ran it through the DuckSpeak machine?

Loyal readers may recall that I once set up a little program that would parse a piece of writing for its DuckSpeak, substituting QUACKS for portions of the sentences that were mostly or entirely meaningless. This was in homage to the genius of Mr Orwell.

My first disappointment was to discover that this was a good example of one of these projects David Slack begins but does not complete. It works, but imperfectly: it won't process the whole speech. I see a use for this machine, so I will return to it.

Nonetheless, I hold to my thesis: this was a script shot through with good intention and generality and, well, just so much Duck Speak.

My mission is to raise people's sights, to be fearless and imaginative in policies that encourage people to set their aspirations higher."

Well, you know, motherhood, apple pie, quack, quack, quack. Where are you going to find a politician to rail at the preposterous suggestion that people's sights should be raised higher? Even Prince Charles tried to cover his tracks on that on.

A little of this flannel is stylistically understandable, but very little of the speech was any less general and uncontroversial, although perhaps he was drawing on his acute trader's instinct to outflank Labour with the remarkable proposition that

The tyranny of distance is reducing, with a billion people now having access to the Internet. The growing economic powerhouses of the world - China and India - are located, if not in our backyard, then in our street. New Zealand businesses have access to the world.

The vice chairman of the party's obsequious talking points division, holidaying in the British Isles, was quickly on the laptop declaring it to be "a very good speech," but I must regretfully disagree.

Here's a little test. The following phrases are drawn from Key's speech today, and Helen Clark's conference speech last month.

See if you can identify which comes from which:

1. A government I lead will have fair policies that encourage enterprise and hard work, and trusts people to get on with their lives and make the best choices for themselves.

2. To meet the aspirations of our peoples: aspirations for a fair deal and opportunity, aspirations for security.

3. The goalposts keep shifting, and we have to keep scoring.

4. I do not intend to blindly follow an ideological path without ever challenging the concept or considering its appropriateness in our unique New Zealand setting.

5. We have to be ambitious for our country and our people in a world which is challenging, but also full of opportunity for the fast and nimble. That must be New Zealand.

6. Building our nation's confidence, instilling a real pride and a sense of what it is that binds us together as New Zealanders, striving for excellence, and ensuring we use our past successes as a bridge to even greater achievements.

7. I am ambitious for New Zealand and I want New Zealanders to be ambitious for themselves.

8. Developing a qualitatively different economy, which is producing high value goods and services the world will pay a premium for.

9. You can measure a society by how it looks after its most vulnerable.

10. It is in the interests of no one, and to the shame of us all, that an under-class has been allowed to develop in New Zealand.

11. Pushing for more effective commercialisation of the innovations coming out of our science and research sectors.

12. New Zealand has high rates of imprisonment and high rates of recidivism. I draw only one conclusion from that : the system isn't working.

13. When people think of New Zealand, I want them to think of a nation whose peoples are all respected and valued, and where we live in peace with each other.

Quack. You'll find the answers at the foot of this post.

It's all very well to say something like this:

The government, of course, has an important role to play in the modern economy. But the appropriate role for the government is in the background, not in the foreground. We need to improve the regulatory and institutional conditions under which firms operate, and then step back and let them establish, grow, export and hire staff.

But next time Liane Dalziel turns up to speak at your Rotary lunch, ask yourself if the speech sounds different in any meaningful way.

Of course, John Key's mileage may vary. Perhaps he envisions a government that spends closer to 25% of GDP than 40.

It doesn't sound as though he wants to get government so small you could drown it in a bathtub (which was always the suspicion about Don acting as the CEO of ACT's reverse takeover) so a number like 15 or 20 seems unlikely, but really: pick a number, John, any number and get specific. Then we'll know what we're talking about beyond the broad motherhood and apple pie declarations of good intentions.

As it happens, you will find considerable specificity to amplify the broad propositions in the Clark speech from which the foregoing quotes were drawn. You can't duck it. Some specificity, even just the slightest amount, is still necessary in one of these "30,000-feet" speeches as they call them in the world of PowerPoint presentations.

Significantly there is one note of this kind near the end of Key's speech, and at that point one gets the sense both of the dealing room ankle-tapper and also the political novice.

It is a mystery to me why the political Left acts as if it has a monopoly on environmental policies, when it is obvious to anyone who cares to look that all of us, across the political spectrum, with the exception perhaps of the Greens, have taken too long to put the protection of our environment at the forefront of our thinking.

Oh really? I have a box of speeches I churned out for the Minister of the Environment at the end of the 1980s that would suggest otherwise. He chose to keep that portfolio when he became Prime Minister because, he told the media, environmental policy was "so crucial". They were talking about climate change a long,long time before Key and his colleagues were bagging the Kyoto Protocol.

For the most part, though, specifics are not to be found, and this is unfortunate for an aspiring Prime Minister, because it tends to dull the lustre of his vision. In the absence of something to latch on to, you have the appearance of floundering, or, possibly, courting the job for its own sake.

If you don't have a dream of the kind that paints some clear kind of picture, that imagines for example, that little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls, you don't really have a "dream" of any great appeal.

All you have are aspirations going forward.

******************************
Phrase Owners

1 Key
2 Clark
3 Clark
4 Clark
5 Clark
6 Key
7 Key
8 Clark
9 Key
10 Key
11 Clark
12 Clark
13 Clark

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Re Joyce! | Nov 27, 2006 16:21

Mr Key and Dr Brash have both put a clean square bat to a tricky ball:

It went to my party email address, not my private one.

I received it, but I didn't open it.

Well done, those men.

But wait a minute: aren't we missing something? Look at what the email actually says. It refers to a meeting the Exclusive Brethren had with Steven Joyce the previous week.

… as backers of the recent "Wake Up NZ" campaign ($350,000) and as responsible for a very extensive election campaign ($1,000,000) with the sole goal of "Getting Party Votes for National" a meeting following on from our one last week with Steven Joyce is important.

Let's think about this for a minute.

No-one in the National party camp seems to dispute that the Brethren had all this dough and wanted to spend it. Steven Joyce has not, as far as I can ascertain, denied that he was at the meeting the email refers to.

The only dot you have to join up, then, is this: in subsequent meetings that year in which Joyce was in the same room as Brash and/or Key, how much are you willing to bet that Joyce would not have referred to the friendly million-dollar campaign running in parallel with theirs?

If you're about to say: "I'll bet you anything you like it didn't come up", consider these factors:

-It's an election year.
-Elections cost money.
-In an election, you try to maintain as good a picture of the field of engagement as possible: you want to know who else is on the field, what armies they're wheeling out, and what their tactics will be.

Whether Brash, Key and Joyce saw them as friend or embarrassing acquaintance, the Exclusive Brethren and their election activity were undeniably an element of the campaign you would need to be watching.

I think we could do with hearing a little more from Steven Joyce, and if Brash and Key want to stick to their story that they had scarcely any idea what the Exclusive Brethren were up to, they really need to tell us how often last year they watched Joyce's campaign briefings with their ears plugged and Neil Diamond at full tilt on the iPod.

QUIZ UPDATE

People have been telling me they enjoyed taking the short John Key quiz, but have been a little abashed at getting only five or six answers right. I have been reassuring them that they are firmly in the majority, as the statistics show.

You can click here to do the quiz and here to see the statistics.

BUG UPDATE
Ahem. I owe an apology to the people at Sir Humphrey's. I posted earlier that two of their number had claimed a score of 11 when that was not possible. The error was mine. I left a piece of four by two leaning against a switch on the database, so to speak, which I have now removed. Correct numbers are now on display.

Meanwhile, a further Update. A reader notes:

There is also the matter of the famous email from the Brethren being forwarded from Brash's address to Joyce. And the fact that on the same day, Brash emailed Diane Foreman and mentioned the Brethren campaign being an example of third party funding that he was describing to her ... so all of that also has to have an innocent explanation, along with what you point out as being simply implausible.

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Citizen Key | Nov 23, 2006 21:48

I was watching the TV news tonight as they took a camera to the streets and asked the good people of New Zealand what they thought of the putative 11th leader of the National Party.

One citizen was disarmingly candid: "I hardly know a thing about him, but I like the look of him."

Talk about your blind date. Talk about a heartbeat away from the Prime Minister's desk.

Look, he may well be a splendid chap and just the leader we're looking for, and no, I'm not being sarcastic.

I've written before that someone who once worked with Key described him as possessing superb antennae but no compass. So what drives him? Perhaps we should find out.

By way of an opening initiative, I've made a little quiz, because they seem to be quite a nice way to shine a little light on the subject.

It will let us test how well acquainted we feel with some of John Key's policy positions. Quoting now from the quiz: Conscience votes can give an interesting insight into the personal philosophy of an MP, so the quiz reviews his voting in that area. We then move into questions of tax policy, to help compare his perspective in that area with that of Don Brash.

It's just an opener, I'll freely concede, and there's scope for much more. Contributions and suggestions happily received.

Meanwhile click on over to the quiz and make your acquaintance.

UPDATE

This morning's Stuff carries the expression "Christchurch state house boy made good" in a story about Key.

They're not the only ones running this line, and I can't say I care for what it seems to imply; namely that those who grow up in such homes might be expected to be of diminished worth and capability, and also that those who lead a successful life after such a beginning are some sort of aberration.

I'm well aware of the dismal stories about multiple generations of state dependancy,but that's not the whole picture. I'm not often given to quoting George W Bush with approval, but this does smack of the "soft bigotry of low expectations."

Just off the top of my head I can think of a few of our readers who grew up in a Christchurch state house and who are leading lives of impressive accomplishment. Anyone who fits this description would be very welcome to offer their thoughts by hitting the Discuss button.

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Publishers in crisis! | Nov 21, 2006 19:37

If you thought the news about Nicky Hager was disturbing, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Dozens of titles were being readied for the Christmas market, but thanks to Don's injunction, you can whistle for them now.

Look at everything you're missing.

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All stadium, all the time | Nov 20, 2006 22:58

A few interesting items, with more to come tomorrow, from a public meeting tonight in Devonport about everyone's favourite stadium.

According to Joel Cayford of the ARC, they were told at their briefing last week that Warren and Mahoney hadn't been given design specifications for the stadium. What they were asked to produce was a concept for a "Stadium Aoteaora." They thought the name suggested a cloud, so they came up with a shape that connoted such a thing. Mallard's people liked the shape but not the name, so it became Stadium New Zealand, but the cloud remained. I repeat: No Design Specification.

Another interesting item from local resident and long-time developer, Laurie Spindley:

He maintains there's a builder's rule of thumb that if you build something over water it will have roughly seven times the maintenance cost of the same building on land. He also claims the Hilton on Princes wharf is experiencing costly maintenance bills already.

Wynn Hoadley of the ARC says she pressed Mallard on the funding overrun. She says he proposed it would be split three ways: 50% by Government, 25% by ARC and 25% by ACC.

Architect Julian Mitchell not only painted a bleak winter tableau of the empty husk you might walk by in the rain, but also pointed out that the stadium would be fully three quarters the height of the unlovely new apartment buildings on the far side of the street. That's very, very, tall.

More tomorrow, but I'll leave you with a prediction: the ACC vote will only establish whether they will be willingly giving up their ratepayers' wallets. The whole thing will turn on how the ARC decide to lay their bets, looking at the Ports on one side and the Government on the other. I predict they will try to push the Government into making the IRB or NZRFU dig deep to come up with an 80 million dollar resolution of the 12,000-odd seat shortage for the final. They'll propose that we do something splendid on the Tank Farm in due course, without suspending the RMA and democratic process and call it a National Stadium. This stadium would be funded by the government rather then the people of Auckland. That's the way they do it with 'National' buildings in Wellington.

UPDATE

A few more interesting items from last night's meeting:

The Al Qaeda card.
Councillor Ivan Dunn asked the not-unreasonable question: what happens in an emergency, and they all have to spill out one side? Say there is a bomb scare of the kind they had in Manchester? Less controversially, say you have a kitchen fire. In either case, could the need to empty in a hurry see people being caught underfoot?

Loyalty troth.
A remarkable number of speakers began their remarks with the declaration "I'm a dedicated rugby fan, but…." In a truly reasoned debate, should that be a consideration?

The origin of the specious.
Joel Cayford also offered his understanding of the origin of the problem: Going into the pitch, the NZRFU thought they were being expected to provide 55,000 seats. When they discovered the number was in fact 60,000, they did a back of the envelope calculation, costing the extra 5000 seats at the same per seat rate as the extra ones they were already expecting to be providing. Only later did they discover that this could not be done, and the costs began to blow out, at which point the government got leery and started asking what else they could get for their money.

When the slow clapping starts, you've cooked your goose.
Maryan Street had the unenviable task of talking up the Government position. She made a solid enough start, but the moment she came to the weasel words of the glossy brochure, she was done for. "Elevate our vision", 'Open up our beautiful waterfront" and "Democratisation of this piece of land" drew jeers, hooting and slow clapping.

That's not a vision, this is a vision.
Councillor Andrew Eaglen drew enthusiastic applause for his observation that some people seem to take the view that spending a billion dollars automatically makes something a "big vision."

One of the people at the meeting felt a little coy about sharing his own concept, but if you like the Waka Stadium then you'll love this. How about a Volcadium? You build a stadium right now, on a platform in the water to meet the 2011 deadline. Then you go on afterwards and wrap around an actual, honest-to-God simulation of a volcanic cone, properly grassed and planted with native trees and bird life. The whole thing becomes a hub for a massive network of underground trains and so forth. It's absolutely bigger than Ben Hur, but if iconic is your thing, then this guy's your man.

He's given me a mock news report that gives you a flavour of the thing, which I've posted here.

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Supply-sider moves into deficit | Nov 17, 2006 09:17

So farewell
Then
Milton Friedman

Taken from us by
The invisible
Hand.

Now that you and
Ronnie are
Gone,

Maggie is the
Only one from the old gang
Left

Unless you count
Pinochet.

As you arrive in
The luxury wing of
Heaven

I wonder if
Ron will
Remember you

And if you will have to pay for
Lunch.

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The One Minute Stadium | Nov 14, 2006 11:26

Yesterday on Nine to Noon Kathryn Ryan asked me which of the stadium options I preferred. I gave in to glibness by making a throwaway comment about the North Harbour one. What I should have said is that I don't really favour any of them. I feel railroaded.

I couldn't be more enthusiastic about the idea of an 'iconic" development, and for as long as I have lived in Auckland I have hoped that we would manage to make more of our waterfront.

But this is a very dubious way of going about it.

This whole exercise has come about because they are 12,500 seats short at Eden Park for a rugby game, the promoters are up against the clock, and they have their hand out for taxpayer money.

For this, we are asked to suspend all the usual considerations: sustained, informed debate; the RMA; fiscal prudence, and all, quite possibly, at the cost of the very aesthetic delight upon which the whole notion is purported to pivot.

There hasn't yet been an Olympics story that hasn't begun with horror stories about construction delays and ended with a gleaming stadium completed on time. I daresay this one could be completed in similar hasty glory. But the reason those stories have a happy ending is because as the deadline looms, the big chequebook comes out and the hapless mug who meets the cost of the thing is called upon to stump up with the shortfall.

I have no reason to believe this would not be our sorry lot.

I also foresee a peculiar New Zealand phenomenon that would also come into play: even as we pay more to see the project completed we will also see every single adornment, embellishment and flourish that might make the complex truly impressive thrown overboard like so much surplus weight, the better to contain the burgeoning cost and keep the foundering ship afloat.

Thanks to Dick Hubbard, the air of public discourse has become purple with the meaningless prose of the management paperbacks – all the way from "failure is not an option" to" "we'll be eating, breathing and sleeping stadium for the next ten days". His over-excited choice of the expression: Ready, Fire, Aim tells the sorry story.

These management texts and their preternatural optimism have their place, and that is: propping up a wobbly office desk. But they have no place holding up a scheme as precariously unstable as this one.

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One word | Nov 09, 2006 19:20

How in God's name do you come up with a discouraging revelation to top the one the Government had to offer us this week? Well of course it's impossible.

Impossible, that is, unless you draft in the wit of The Onion's Scott Dikkers (otherwise known as Dr. Oswald T. Pratt).

In his charming little publication You Are Worthless: Depressing Nuggets of Wisdom Sure to Ruin Your Day, he offers page upon page of reasons not to bother getting out of bed in the morning.

-You hate your job. And it's safe to say that no one at your job is particularly fond of you either.

-When you pray, no one is listening. Furthermore, you look ridiculous.

-That special bond you think you have with your pet is imaginary. As long as it has food and water, you could get hit by a train tomorrow, and your pet wouldn't think anything of it.

-Next time you have sex, fixate on just how horribly unattractive your body is.

-Killing yourself would be a good idea. The only problem is that you don't have the guts

He's joking, surely, you will say, and yes, he's doing it for laughs. But it's a rare joke that does not have at least a kernel of truth to it.

Faith Hill declares she was just having a joke at the Country Music Awards this week, but take a look at the clip, and judge for yourself as the camera captures her apparent disgust at being passed over for the coveted title of Female Vocalist of the Year. Is this what she claims it to be: an act for the cameras, or just an unguarded moment of petulance?

I like the unvarnished truth of the thing. I don't know how many rictus grins I've seen on the faces of the vanquished at these awards ceremonies.

In that respect, the President of the United States of America offers a shining example. I watched him eating his plate of humble pie on CNN this morning. His was a mightily strained effort at good grace, with hints of petulance.

If he's still feeling disgruntled, he should probably forgo the fun of firing up The Google and checking the entries for "miserable failure" for a while; it might turn up this Slate piece, cataloguing - in painful detail - the epic scope of Rumsfeld's errors.

Indeed, Rumsfeld's dominance of the cabinet and the Bush administration may have guaranteed that America chose the entirely wrong paradigm for the past five years. Notwithstanding the spectacular violence of the Sept. 11 attacks, America might have done better had it not chosen a war paradigm to fight terrorism and instead chosen to employ a comprehensive array of diplomatic, intelligence, military, and law enforcement approaches. Doing so might have encouraged more of our allies to stand by our side. It might also have put America on a better footing to sustain its efforts for what promises to be a generational struggle against terrorism.

The President might grouch that hindsight is a wonderful thing, but to do that, he must overlook the fact that had he been willing to take a few ladles from the punchbowl of bipartisanship a little sooner in the evening, he would have found himself in conversation with any number of people willing to offer that revelation to him; even, in fact, before the fighting started.

Still, we live in an age where you must eat your own dogfood and keep smiling. With a big tip of the hat to SpareRoom, consider this truly wretched instance of life in the modern salt mines.

Bank of America merged with MBNA at the start of this year which strengthened their position, apparently, as the largest issuer of credit cards in the U.S. Well, you know what a merger means - plenty of meetings and conferences and cheerleading sessions and getting-to-know-you presentations. Inevitably, someone decides to sing a song. A U2 song. Adapted.

Watch the clip and see if you can get through the whole thing without covering your eyes. I could not. Dear God.

One commenter at Gawker captured the essence of the thing nicely:

These corporate brainwashing festivals were the worst part of my corporate career. And there was always someone really talented at singing, video production, comedy or poetry who did something like this with their talent. It always made me sick and this video is no exception. I have never been more proud to be out of the corporate world.

The one thing I'm waiting to find out is precisely who arranged what. Are these authentic employees who happen to be pretty good at putting on a song and remembering every line of their ghastly, but technically well-crafted, lyrics? Or could they be...hired guns in costume?

I smell something fishy here, and if it hadn't already been coined and given another meaning I'd say a good word to describe the whole disturbing business might be: starkish.

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Mother, We've Been Goosed | Nov 07, 2006 09:25

This is the farce that Dick built.





This is the mug
That paid for the farce that Dick built.





This is the builder,
That laughed at the mug
That paid for the farce that Dick built.





This is the expert,
That hustled the builder,
That laughed at the mug
That paid for the farce that Dick built.





This is the official,
That hired the expert,
That hustled the builder,
That laughed at the mug
That paid for the farce that Dick built.





This is the MP with trousers all warm,
That bossed the official,
That hired the expert,
That hustled the builder,
That laughed at the mug
That paid for the farce that Dick built.





This is the journalist all forlorn,
That called up the MP with trousers all warm,
That bossed the official,
That hired the expert,
That hustled the builder,
That laughed at the mug
That paid for the farce that Dick built.





This is the spin doctor tattered and torn,
That blandished the journalist all forlorn,
That called up the MP with trousers all warm,
That bossed the official,
That hired the expert,
That hustled the builder,
That laughed at the mug
That paid for the farce that Dick built.





This is the Chief of Staff hours before dawn,
That reamed out the spin doctor tattered and torn,
That blandished the journalist all forlorn,
That called up the MP with trousers all warm,
That bossed the official,
That hired the expert,
That hustled the builder,
That laughed at the mug
That paid for the farce that Dick built.





This is the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the Chief of Staff hours before dawn,
That reamed out the spin doctor tattered and torn,
That blandished the journalist all forlorn,
That called up the MP with trousers all warm,
That bossed the official,
That hired the expert,
That hustled the builder,
That laughed at the mug
That paid for the farce that Dick built.





This is the chook farmer sowing her corn,
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the Chief of Staff hours before dawn,
That reamed out the spin doctor tattered and torn,
That blandished the journalist all forlorn,
That called up the MP with trousers all warm,
That bossed the official,
That hired the expert,
That hustled the builder,
That laughed at the mug
That paid for the farce that Dick built.

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Twenty for Scarlett | Nov 03, 2006 07:53

I have already filled my weekly quota for discouraging revelations with that shabby marathon result, so there will not be a Friday one.

Besides, how could you top the artist's impression on the front page
of this morning's Herald? Wellington gets an intelligently-designed Cake Tin, Auckland gets a hastily-devised and monumentally ill-conceived Haemorrhoid Cushion dumped on our harbour front by a fanatical Rugby-head minister, aided and abetted by his boss. I am thus in the mood to devote a few moments to railing at the Prime Minister.

Her incapacity to see things from someone else's point of view is her great liability, I submit, and although the stadium would be another such instance, I refer in fact to this business of the Food Miles.

It's all very well for her to cite actual data, hard statistics and compelling logic, but really, Prime Minister, don't try to kid a kidder.

The Earth-in-crisis debate has reached its present position not only because thoughtful analysis, earnest debate - and, of course, Al Gore and his PowerPoint slides - have moved concerned citizens. The debate has also reached this political tipping point because canny operators like Greenpeace didn't come down in the last acid rain shower. They have long apprehended that certain hearts and minds can only be won with cute devices, artful spin and cunning games with the ever-fickle human emotions.

Buy this magazine or the dog gets it is one of the oldest propaganda tricks in the book. Take the Halloween racket. I was limbering up this week to have another curmudgeonly shot at it when New Zealand's warmest-hearted mother unleashed a preposterous piece of heart-melting extortion upon the nation's blog readers. There is no way on God's earth you can hope to rebut a photo of loveable costumed preschoolers, honest innocent faces gazing up in expectation at a knocked door. Cute and cuddly will trump you every time.

Food Miles are not cuddly, to be sure, but as a concept they are most emphatically clever, and in their own slightly desiccated way, cute. The concept that underpins them is snappy, it's readily grasped, and it has the air of the irrefutable about it.

Challenge me, it sneers, I just dare you. Come on, pussy, whatcha got?

I say do not be cowed by these Eurocrats with their Food Miles, Prime Minister! Outflank them. Don't try to convince them that they're wrong; they're not listening. Your only realistic option is to scare them out of taking their Food Miles seriously.

How? By proposing that we apply their cute little concept to every damn consumable thing on the planet: Music Miles, Fashion Miles, TV Miles. If it comes from more than a few miles away, count the cost and ban it! Our children and their children and their children's children will thank us etc.

Most crucially of all, I suggest we embrace a regime of Sex Miles. Set up some stiff - and I use the word advisedly – environmentally-friendly rules about getting your end away.

If the object of your lurid desires is fully hot, you will be entitled to travel as far as three miles to get busy with them. If it's a friends-with-benefits hook-up, you can go two. Skanky ho, deadbeat or loser: end of the street.

Who can deny the logic? You might be burning all your own energy when you get there; but you'll be using up the planet's resources to get yourself from your door to theirs.

Three miles seems more than far enough for any responsible citizen. We must remember, after all: we didn't inherit the bedroom - or shower, or sofa, or backseat of the Toyota - from our parents, we borrowed it from our great-grandchildren.

We owe it to them to do the right thing, and put the cushions back afterwards.

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Phoning Fiji | Nov 02, 2006 09:49

Let me tell you about a friend of mine who lives in Fiji. He's a proud man, and because I'm not sure he would want me to use his real name, I'll call him Sanjay.

I met him at Victoria University at the end of the '70s. He was a decade or so older then most of us in law school, because he started his working life at one of the Fijian sugar companies, became a manager, and worked and saved until he had the money and the qualifications to come to New Zealand.

He loved Wellington: loved the politics, loved the student life, loved the parties, loved the intellectual stimulation of the studies, and was clear-eyed about it all, because he knew how much more meagre life could be. He knew what privation was and he had been living and working in the real world for long enough to be able to detect bullshit at fifty paces.

He wasn't in any hurry to go home, and he was still picking up new postgraduate courses long after the rest of us had had enough. But time ran out in the mid 1980s and he went back to Suva, where he got a senior management job with one of the banks.

Life was fine enough, in the way that it has always appeared to this Fiji tourist, both before and following the coups: there is a coexistence that is sufficiently settled to give the visitor no apprehension of clear and present danger, but all the same there is a latent tension; a vague sense of unease, or grudging accommodation.

The first coups came in 1987. The effect on Sanjay's life was more in form than substance. They simply inverted the management structure at the bank. The titular heads were now all Fijian, but the tasks which came with those titles were still carried out by people like Sanjay.

He came to visit us in 1994, and was sanguine about it. He shrugged: "What are you going to do?" He chuckled about the foolishness and vanity of it all, but he was content enough.

When the 2000 coup came, I called to see how he was faring, and whether we could help. He was uncomfortable and wary. We didn't speak for long.

He had a braver, thinner smile when we last saw him in Suva three years ago. The 2000 coup had done for any remaining goodwill. Members of his family had sustained beatings and intimidation. There was no longer any place for him at the bank. He was now subsisting on a few hours a week lecturing at the University. He is a proud man, and he was firmly declining offers of help.

Whatever outcome this present quasi-constitutional military adventure yields, I don't expect it will have much to offer a man with a generous nature, a great sense of humour, a BA, an LLB, an MBA and the wrong colour skin.

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