Random Play by Graham Reid

Members of Parliament on all sides of the House were dismayed and concerned last night at the unprompted resignations of two sitting MPs, Mr. David Turoa Field (Labour, Lake Taihape) and Ms Satchya Anderson-Hussein (National, List).

Both have resigned over matters of honesty and integrity, and members of both Labour and National expressed concern that such actions could set an unfortunate precedent for parliamentarians.

Late yesterday Mr Field said that after a constituency meeting in his electorate he had been offered a cake by an elderly woman whom he had assisted in a legal matter, and which he had accepted.

“This woman had come to me previously in good faith as a Member of Parliament and asked for my advice over a tenancy matter. I gave her some advice and referred her to the local Citizens Advice Bureau, and then unexpectedly after the meeting last weekend she presented me with a cake she had baked herself.

“In my culture it is not uncommon for this to happen and we accept such things in good grace so as not to cause offence to the giver. But in this case she also asked if I could help her daughter in a separate matter and, without thinking, I agreed to meet her at my office next weekend.

“However on reflection and searching my conscience, and after consulting my electorate secretary and my family, I have realised that this behaviour goes beyond the standards of ethics of an MP and so I have tendered my resignation. Accepting gifts for services rendered is unconscionable.”

Ms Satchya-Hussein would not be drawn on the details of the incident behind her sudden resignation but it is believed to have involved a flight to hospital for her son Roger on a WestPac helicopter when the 13-year old had fallen while on a Scout hike in the Waitakere Ranges.

“It is enough to say that I felt afterwards that Roger’s injuries had not been serious enough to warrant this call-out. I unreservedly apologise to those people inconvenienced and for the cost involved and fully intend to repay any expenses incurred.”

Roger Satchya-Hussein is believed to be resting at home with a broken leg and mild concussion.

Political observers say that these two incidents may prompt questions about codes of conduct for MPs, some of whom have been less than forthcoming about gifts, gratuities and backhanders from constituents.

The prime minister last night said the door was now open for a number of MPs to consult their own consciences and take appropriate action.

This has been widely interpreted to mean that sleazy bastards who have slipped through the net by hanging tough -- despite public derision and calls for their resignation from within their electorate and in editorials -- might now have to think again about their positions.

One of those MPs who preferred not be named -- but the joker who is in deep shit, and you know who we mean -- said last night that there was no need for any precipitous action on his part.

“Not only do I have the support of the people who I’ve done favours for, but I also didn’t do anything wrong, and if I did I choose not to recall it.

“I think it would be a sad day if MPs were expected to resign just because they have behaved irresponsibly, accepted money, or taken advantage of their position.

“If Ms high’n’mighty Satchya-Hussein wants to pay back some money because it makes her feel good then that’s fine. In my culture the giving money is considered a good thing too, which is why I have always accepted it when it is offered. No coins though.

“And to people like that weasel David Turoa Field I say, ‘Mate, you can have your cake -- and eat it too’.”

Well, the builders arrived at 7am again and within minutes they were banging on the outside wall right beside our headboard. It’s now 8am as I write and the saw has just started on the other side of my office wall.

Every now and again I see the end of it pierce the Gib-board just above my (now empty) bookcase. On the weekend we cleaned the house top to bottom of accumulated dust -- and then on Monday I came home to find one of the guys grinding the cement on our doorstep. We opened the front door and there were clouds of fine dust billowing up the stairs. It was so thick we couldn’t see the top.

This is life in a leaky building. And it’s been a nightmare since December 17.

It looks like it is going to cost each of us in the block about $60,000 -- but that doesn’t include those little extras like interest paid on the loan (another $5000), storage bills for stuff that had to be moved out ($1200), and repairs to various household appliances like dishwashers, stereos etc which get screwed by power surges and spikes ($500).

For the past few weeks we have had no cladding on the outside wall so it has been freezing. There is just a fine wall of Gib-board between our couch and the cold world outside. Last night we went out and it was warmer in the courtyard. Our power bills are going to be horrendous -- and there’s no compensation for any of these additional/unseen costs of course.

I have this idea for a really powerful reality TV show: you arm responsible citizens like me with a handgun and a Taser and we go in search of the builders who put up these shitty apartments. We get to run them to earth in California (where my guy is apparently, still putting up cheap buildings), stun the shit out of ‘em then bring them back to put them under house arrest in one of their buildings while the works are going on. Every day they have to flush a few hundred dollars they’ve borrowed from a bank down the toilet.

Oh, and we don’t give them the earplugs and industrial strength ear protection headphones that I’ve been having to wear this past week -- on the days I haven’t simply fled.

You do the sums on what these repairs will have cost us (and how do you compensate for lose of a garden, light and having to listen to the builders’ classic hits radio choice?) and tell me that ain’t a great programme.

So what with all that going on, logical and coherent thought has sort of flown through the dust-covered window.

Here then are some random things.

The other night -- last night? -- one of our very serious and responsible news bulletins at 6pm reported on that teacher who has been heroically over the limit to the tune of about 28 glasses of wine before she got behind the wheel. The woman acted with great dignity I thought as she ‘fessed up to her problem and counselled all with a similar addiction to get help.

Pity the scriptwriter for the voice-over hadn’t been as responsible: as they flashed up that notorious photo of the woman getting of her car carrying two bottle of wine the voice-over said she was “brandishing” them.

Okay, I know we need our news to be a little excitable (“He was a hero to his friends but now he’s in jail for defrauding them of their investments …” etc) but really: “brandishing“?

Hey! Bulletin! Update! They are now taking the front door off.

In other news: Eden Park and its redevelopment?

This is what will happen: it will go ahead -- Trevor Mallard as Minister for the Rugby World Cup (?) has said as much, that it don’t matter how much you object it will be built. (So who put the mock in democracy, sir?)

So those couple of hundred residents who are now going to lose the sun an hour earlier as it goes down behind the huge new roof will just have to lump it.

But here’s what will also happen: after the Cup is over they will not be able to find big enough events to keep repaying the loans on this massive white elephant, they will suggest rock concerts (family concerts is how they are describing them already) but local people will strenuously object (change of use for the venue) and will win. They will default on the loan and the government/Auckland City Council will have to bail them out. This is just kind of obvious.

In effect some people, like my neighbours who are ratepayers stung to pony up the original funding, will be hit twice. (And they/me/we are already paying for the leaky building saga because council officers were remiss in their inspections of these cowboys who put the damn things up and did a runner or folded Fly-By-Night Apartments Co Ltd).

Think about it: just what events could fill that new stadium on a regular basis. The Blues?

In other more important matters: consensus on e-mails to me is that whitebait fritters are just fishy omelettes despite what my friend the venerable David Slack had to say. We felt he was somewhat over-egging the praise for a food that looks back at you.

And penultimately : I may be going to Gujurat and/or Vancouver soon. (Anything to get away from Classic Hits all day). If you know of anything offbeat/unusual/odd/interesting in either of those places let me know. I’ll factor it in to my plans.

Righto, we’re off to the bank to see how we are going to further fund these on-going repairs. If you haven’t checked out Music From Elsewhere this week and the sounds posted there have a look and remember, only if you are a subscriber will you get the special deal on the new Bob Dylan album CD/DVD.
It’s here

Okay, you sign up and I’ll sign off.

Hey, they’re playing the Eagles!

It’s been a while since I last posted here because for the past few weeks I’ve been in other countries. The first was the West Coast of the South Island, a place I had only ever had a passing skirmish with. (Two days in Greymouth under sodden skies from which I fled, leaving from the railway station where -- eerily -- the clock had no hands).

I have rarely had occasion to go to the South Island -- I have never had work there, have only few people I know down that way and so on -- and yet on those few trips I have made I’ve come way with one impression: it really is another country.

This time we had two leisurely weeks (for some of it sort of “on assignment” as it were) and so after Nelson -- we caught the great outdoor Saturday market where we bought homemade pickles, a tasty liqueur called Nymphs Kiss, and so on (Hey good burgers of Auckland, why don’t we have an interesting market like this in Aotea Square rather than some of the junk stuff being sold?) -- we pointed the rental to the West Coast.

And for about 10 days we stayed in small towns (Ross! Brilliant old pub), in some luxury accommodation (sigh, the “assignment”) and generally poked around in museums and the like, just drifting to wherever took our fancy.

It was wonderful and the people were, without exception, friendly, helpful and even seemed glad to see us -- this despite me being a] from Auckland and b] a journalist.

One guy in the Blackball Workingmen’s Club sort of snorted when I mention the “A” word, but I got the impression that was out of sympathy rather than derisory.

We flew in a chopper to the top of the Fox Glacier, ate whitebait fritters (nope, I still don’t get it. It’s a just a slightly fishy omelette. Right?), went to beautiful Okarito where Keri Hulme and a million sandflies live, took more photos of stunning landscapes than I could begin to count, drove up to Denniston and tried to taste some of the history of that coal-dust despair, and stayed with Mary at her lovely olde worlde English b’n’b in Greymouth.

We breathed fresh air and walked in silent native forests, had picnics by deserted lakes and took even more photos.

Sorry to bore you with this if the Coast is your home or familiar territory, but for me it was like being a tourist in my own country. An eye-opener.

Of course we came back to rain in Auckland, a traffic jam on the way back from the airport ($65 rather than the usual $45 taxi fare), our leaky building being still wrapped in tarps and crawled over by builders with saws and sledgehammers, and a literal leak which exploded and destroyed the ceiling of the garage on the Saturday night.

We just wanted to be southbound again.

But then I went to another country.

For a project I am working on I went to Auckland Uni to look through old copies of Craccum from the late 60s and early 70s. By coincidence I’d also picked up a $9.99 three-CD compilation of rare and oddball 60s songs from a dump-bin at the local Warehouse and so seemed to spending a large part of last week living in the past, which as we all know is another country.

While at the Uni to thumb through yellowed newsprint pages I also picked up the current Craccum, a glossy affair which seemed to have an almost unnatural amount of satirical and humorous writing among the usual student pre-occupations (booze reviews, in this case cocktails which seemed very suave), elections for various offices, and some record reviews. (Why would anyone want to review Queen II and Radiohead’s The Bends however? And was Freddie Mercury really an “HIV/Aids martyr“?)

What was strikingly different between these mags was the paucity of political comment in the comparison with the Craccums of 1968-72. Those were volatile years to be sure and there was the emergent opposition to the war in Vietnam, the women’s movement, the abortion debate, apartheid discussions, and New Zealand’s relationship with the United States.

But it’s not like nothing is happening right now either.

This piqued my interest because one of the pieces I have turned up in this research is an editorial in the Auckland Star from 1968 in which the writer noted that internationally students were protesting about all kinds of things, but in New Zealand they were mostly silent. The student of today would be the Jaycee of tomorrow, was the comment.

Of course this was very early in 68 -- and the student movement would soon enough explode off Auckland’s campus (and elsewhere around the country) in ways the editorial writer might not have approved of. In fact, when the shit really started flying later that year students were loudly condemned by editorial writers.

I wondered who had written that editorial which ended “there might be less complacency in New Zealand if students were encouraged to rock the boat a little more often”?

And I wondered also the whereabouts of Stephen Chan, an activist at the time who not only wanted to rock the boat but change the crew and put new captains at the helm?

Any answers to the two questions anyone? I’d like to know.

Yes, the past is another country -- I even had friends there who are strangers to me now.

I look forward to an editorial in a newspaper anywhere these days encouraging more students to rock the boat. Don’t you? And would they? Or are they the Jaycees of tomorrow?

Finally, an update on Music From Elsewhere which is here

Next week subscribers are being made a special offer, but you have to be a subscriber. So check out the music (new tracks posted every week) and the website, and sign on up.

It’s free, and there aren’t too many things you can say that about these days -- except perhaps astonishing scenery, fresh air and friendliness on the magnificent West Coast perhaps.

Thanks to readers who, in the spirit of engagement with the television-making process, have come up with some ideas for programmes to get us through the months without Orange Roughies.

My one first, then we’ll hear from our panel of experts. This timely one perhaps that I thought up in cocktail hour?

Miss Deeds Goes to Washington: A docu-drama farce in which a vain, grey-haired, self-aggrandising and condescending matron from a seaside suburb in New Zealand -- parallels here with Dame Edna -- goes to Washington in the mistaken belief she has been invited on a diplomatic mission of international importance. In a spin on Peter Sellers’ character in Being There, little is said between Miss Deeds and the American president’s advisor Condo Minium -- and nothing of any consequence is discussed. Miss Deeds returns home under the impression that life has improved for those in her quiet neighbourhood.

Or this from Brian, possibly called Your Number’s Up.
“A game show where contestants are fined huge amounts for every five numbers they are off the correct answer. Contestants drive through various residential and rural scenes. There are signs advising the maximum speed allowable but the number is blacked out -- replicating the situation when a driver momentarily stops concentrating on the signs to look for small children or stock or other hazards -- and misses seeing the number. Contestants have to estimate what the number said. Points are deducted for each number the contestant is out by. An example would be the sign that says 70kph along the front of houses in Chapel Rd, and the one that says 50kph driving past corn fields by Te Teko.”

Brett offers this gem:
“Charlottes Web: a reality-based format whereby the lucky selectees will be allowed to work alongside Charlotte Dawson to create her very own website. This will go live and allow the lucky interactive viewer to share in Charlotte’s holiday junkets around the globe, bathe in the warm glow of her natural celebrity, share recipes, take note of hair grooming tips, and enjoy amusing anecdotes provided by Charlotte herself. The inter-activators can also post questions to Charlotte via her web which she may -- or may not -- respond to the following week.”

Sarah still sees thrilling possibilities in reality television. Let‘s call it Wimps and Winners.
“A new reality show hosted by John Tamihere where contestants are made up of failed Olympians and beneficiaries. The Olympians (who qualify for the show by having come fourth or lower in their field) get to chase the beneficiaries through some native bush, with the title music from Deliverance playing, and catch or maim them. If the Olympian wins they score more funding for their training. If the beneficiary succeeds they get an afternoon shopping spree at the Pak and Save of their choice. If they get caught they also have to sit opposite John Tamihere on his talkback show, or watch him eat a Wendy's meal in West Auckland (pretending to be one of the people).”

And my particular favourite from David, which I think has real possibilities:
“Special Forces Eye for the Soft Guy: A crack team of Special Air Service personnel, who -- having already appeared in every documentary made about what must be the least-secret special forces unit ever -- are now virtually unemployable. So they must take a team of armchair experts and instruct them in the ways of looking like hard men for the camera. Five overweight, loud-mouthed, beer-swilling know-it-alls are plucked from the cosy surroundings of their local pub and taken through a crash-course in what is required to survive on a film set.”

With ideas like these from real-life readers it seems like the summer season of charter-friendly television is going to be chocker. The beaches will be crowded too.

Further to the previous post about local television programmes in the works, here is another:

Field of Dreams: A reality show in which poor workers are employed as labourers on a tropical island in the hope of winning favours and the right to settle in another country. A cross between Changing Rooms, The Simple Life and Celebrity Treasure Island (without the celebrities). In the first episode our workers go to sunny Samoa.

Readers should feel free to send me their own ideas for local programmes.

Meantime I'm off to spend a day at a mediation meeting about our leaky building (Hey, lawyers, frayed tempers, angry residents . . . It's gonna be fun.)

If you haven’t checked out the great sounds at Music From Elsewhere this week it's here

And I may see you Sunday at 3pm at the Art Gallery where I am speaking (at their invitation) about travel writing and art? Hope so. That'll be much more fun than being in a room full of lawyers.

Righto, look forward to your tele-programnme suggestions: remember the "Right People" at TVNZ and TV3 are probably reading this so . . .