I don't know that Easter really made sense to me until I lived in the northern hemisphere. Most years in London, spring really would push through over Easter Weekend, signalling that the climb out of the long English winter had begun. It clearly meant something.
Here in the colonies, we still have the Christian observance, but the underlying pagan festival is topsy-turvy, the rebirth embodied in spring turned into winter foreshadowed. Ah well. I don't subscribe to the belief system but I do like their holidays. (At the risk of sounding terribly new-agey, the old Cornish churches I visited one Christmas, built on much older religious sites, are the holiest places I've ever been.)
So goodwill to all, then. And, in the interests of being positive - something we in the blogosphere sometimes forget to do - allow me to muse on a few of the things I like …
Blogging, for one, obviously. The culture is essentially the same one that greeted me when I first got online in the early 90s. I don't do Usenet any more (it got a bit shrill and nutty after 1996) but it's fair to say it helped teach me how to think.
The bloggers - even the grumpy ones and the ones no one reads - are doing something interesting and important, and I'm pleased to be part of it.
(We had our biggest ever day at Public Address on Monday, chiefly because of the Michael King interview transcript, which has now been viewed more times than anything else we've posted since we launched.)
Being back on live radio is great. I still press the wrong button occasionally (there's a shitload of buttons these days) but my Wire interview with John Tamihere yesterday, a few minutes after the foreshore policy embargo expired, was the reason you'd want to do this thing in the first place.
I like Tamihere: passion is an over-rated quality in politicians (in that it tends to cover a multitude of sins) but it sits well on him. Bic Runga was great on the Wire too - warm, intelligent, articulate - and Chris Knox and Vicki Hyde are always good to talk to. My producers, Patrick and Damien, are clever young men who will amount to something. So, yeah, being on the radio? Lovin' it.
As a long-term Macintosh user, I am obligated to declare an affection for my computer. The 466Mhz G4 powering it is getting a bit wheezy, but I'm hangin' out for the G5 iMac.
Also, non-comprehensively: Scoop (where would we be without it?); Camillia on NZ Idol; music (still the art form that gets into my head); watching sport (even when the team's a bit shabby, Eden Park's a good outing); Pansy Wong (so happy!); pinot gris (definitely the new chardonnay); the Checks (so young!); good-quality cookware; Maori Television (those old documentaries!); visiting Wellington; South Park (so smart!); magazines (the New York Review of Books - the bluffer's guide to everything); Prego (I'm off there to be wilfully compromised by the music industry after I post this); the land, sea and sky we share here; and my family …
Clearly, it could be a lot worse than it is.