Random Play by Graham Reid

The admission this week by Australian prime minister John Howard that he attended an opera performance has sent shock waves across this side of the Tasman.

On Monday PM Howard acknowledged that in late 2002 he attended an opera performance in Sydney, and the public outcry which followed has seen him drop an average of 8 percent in recent polls.

Among those surveyed comments included accusations that opera was “elitist”, “un-Australian” and “not for the ordinary bloke”. Commentators have said Howard’s admission showed how out of touch he is with ordinary people.

“The Sydney Opera House is alright as an icon and that,” said Glebe pensioner Clarry McPherson, “but decent sort of blokes don’t go inside the bloody place. That’s more for your womenfolk and Perrier-poofters.”

Australian political commentators have said Howard has misjudged the mood of the electorate and that while people had become increasingly liberal in their views on matters relating to the private lives of elected officials, those going to an opera performance had perhaps pushed public tolerance too far.

“There’s a line that people will not cross and I think Johnny has just tripped on it,” said Queensland rugby league pundit Dave Harkness. “He’s probably a decent enough bloke but this raises the spectre of he and the missus probably playing baccarat or reading books by bloody French women -- and that’s just not on as far as most people are concerned.”

In New Zealand the Australian public’s reaction to Howard’s admission has seen politicians quick to distance themselves from opera for fear of a similar backlash.

National Party leader John Key said yesterday he couldn’t remember whether he had ever been to an opera, then corrected himself when told he was photographed at a performance of Turandot in Wellington five years ago.

“Yes, I remember it now but I have to say it was my wife’s idea we go -- and I didn’t actually enjoy it. Not like going to see a good rugby game,” he said giving a manly thumbs up.

He did however say he fully supported The New Zealand Opera Company.

Of 42 MPs surveyed in a recent poll, only two admitted having been to an opera performance, all others strenuously denied having any interest in opera.

“That’s not the kind of place I would be seen at,“ said Labour backbencher Kyle Chadwick. ”Light opera is fine and I see nothing wrong with a little Gilbert and Sullivan, in moderation of course. But serious opera isn’t for decent, hard-working ordinary Kiwis. Nor are string quartets come to think of it.”

Other MPs considered opera attendance a matter of personal taste and best left to the individual conscience, but many indicated they considered it “un-Kiwi”.

“And it’s not family-friendly” said Peter Dunne of that party whose name most people can‘t remember.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said he regarded opera as “largely imported into New Zealand by those attempting to impose their social and cultural values on New Zealand citizens.”

He said he had attended opera on occasions but that he had quite deliberately not enjoyed it, or had fallen asleep.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said however, “whether I go to see Ivan the Terrible, the opening of a film festival, or enjoy that new Brunettes album I am told I should mention, is a matter of personal taste and has no bearing on how I intend to continue to run this country in the foreseeable future”.

Media commentators have said the controversy over opera is a frivolous, manufactured one and of no great importance.

According to the head of Media Studies at Auckland University, Professor Michael Earle, “it simply allows newspapers and television to run gratuitous images of large breasted opera singers in low cut dresses”.

Japanese opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa was unavailable for comment, but singer Hayley Westenra -- whose style has been dubbed "popera" -- said she enjoyed some opera but, “ I much prefer OpShop”.

Only one MP came out in favour of opera, New Zealand First’s Brian Donnelly who is tipped to get the role of New Zealand ambassador to Italy early next year.

“I enjoy opera and always have, and I would hasten to assure the Italian people who also love opera that I see nothing wrong with a grown man going to hear some fat people singing.

“I enjoy many of the opera classics such as Jesus Christ Superstar and that one about the boy with coat of many colours.

"In fact I enjoy all kinds of things Italian and look forward to exchanging my views on those matters with the Italian people I will be wining and dining while living in Rome.

“For example I have always loved pizza -- especially with ham and pineapple topping -- and The Sopranos is my favourite television show.”

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PS: There is no opera here either.

When I saw all the stories being written about the impending 10th anniversary of the death of Diana Princess of Wales I vowed I would not trouble people with anecdotes about when she imposed herself on my meagre life. So here goes . . .

I shall start at the end because it makes better sense that way: the night of her funeral.
Like many I was curious because I had seen what had happened in the previous days in Britain, so sat in front of the telly to watch the pomp and pageantry unfold.

Suddenly there was the most godawful noise outside, the sound of metal on tarmac, the whine of brakes, and then silence.
My then-partner and I ran out into our quiet suburban street and there, 100 metres away on Pt Chev Road was a mangle of motorcycle. We sprinted down and found an old fellow -- maybe in his late 60s/early 70s -- staggering around bewildered.

We settled him down, arranged for a neighbour to call an ambulance, and when it arrived we reassured him we’d look after his bike and call his family.

Another neighbour and I manfully grappled with the old boy’s monster machine and alternately pushed, dragged and wheezed our way up the road with it. The damn brakes had locked and thing seemed to weigh a literal ton.

We put it on the front lawn (good luck to anyone who tried to nick it) and called his family. By that time Elton had sung Candle in the Wind.

But I remember thinking as we watched the rest of that whole bizarre ceremony roll on an old saying, the converse of which was also true: Even in the midst of death, there is life.

And on that night when people were so preoccupied with death it was salutary to remember that life not only went on, but it sometimes needed to be taken care of.

The first time I fully registered the social impact of this woman was when I was in London in November 95 at the launch of the Beatles’ Anthology series. I was there also to hear for the first time their “new single” Free As A Bird with John Lennon phoned in from beyond the grave . . . talk about even in the midst of life/death!

It was an interesting event in the Savoy Hotel -- the 350-strong media ushered into a ballroom through a back door -- and conducted with all the security of Middle East peace talks. I was the only Kiwi journalist -- I had been invited and scarfed up a free return airfare through the good offices of Air New Zealand -- and it was kinda fun being in the same room as a bunch of cynical hacks from Fleet Street, Wapping Wall or where ever they had come from.

No actual living Beatles -- of which there were three to choose from -- turned up but it was nice to shake hands with Beatles’ producer Sir George Martin, and to eyeball the reclusive press officer Neil Aspinall before he typically did a flit and walked off into busy London streets, an anonymous figure with his flat cap pulled down and scarf wound around his neck.

Jeff Lynne who had produced this “new single” was there too, but that’s enough of him.

Anyway I went back to my hotel afterwards, wrote the feature up and faxed it back to the Herald, and then decided a hardworking journalist such as myself deserved dinner and a drink.

So I ambled into the streets of London town -- and there was no one there. Oxford St was all but deserted and there were only a couple of cabs in sight. It was as if someone had demanded all citizens stay indoors -- and in a way someone had.

I found an Irish pub -- equally bereft of life -- and the answer to my puzzlement was on the small screen: it was the night that the Princess did her big Martin Bashir interview and became, overnight, the “queen of hearts” -- or whatever the phrase was.

I had the bangers and mash incidentally, and they were very good.

The next morning, and in the few following days I was in London, the papers were full of Diana's show: from complete transcripts to interpretation to serious analysis to political viewpoints to satire (not much of that to be honest) and so on.

I traipsed around for a day or two and went to a couple of gigs, then flew home with a pile of these newspapers to read on the flight.

The Beatles’ event -- which EMI and Apple had planned with military precision for probably a year -- was relegated and the Princess was everywhere.
I remember reading the complete transcript and thinking what a sly and calculating person she was, and how she manipulated the medium of television to great advantage.

She was one smart cookie I decided -- all those downcast looks, tears welling up, heavy sighs and so on.

The final time she impacted on my life I will not forget.

People always ask where were you heard that JFK had died (in my case I was in bed), RFK (in bed), John Lennon (watching television), Bob Marley (umm . . .watching television) and so on.
I remember where I was when the Princess died.
I was at work.

It had been decided in the Herald that feature writers such as myself should be rostered on to work Sundays, just in case some big story broke I suppose.

There was some grumbling about this but my editor Jane reassured me that not a lot ever happened: you could just turn up around 10 or 11 and carry on working on whatever story you already had on the go, and probably pop off early.

The first -- and only -- time I worked a Sunday at the Herald was Sunday August 31, 1997.

I turned up and embarked on a leisurely stroll around the office, shuffled some papers, knocked off a story I had been tinkering with, and sat back waiting to get the nod that it was okay to go.

Jane came to me around 2pm -- this was looking good -- and asked what I knew of the Princess of Wales. I shrugged and admitted not much but said -- wag that I am -- that I was sure there was a pretty thick clipping file if a story needed to be done.

She told me the Princess had been involved in a car accident in Paris and it seemed she had been pursued by paparazzi: Could I get about 600-800 words together for tomorrow’s papers?

I went to the fat clipping file and found that famous photo of Diana sitting all alone before the Taj Mahal, and that is what I wrote about: about how that photo captured the complexity of the woman because here she was posed alone with her emotional isolation apparent -- but that she knew it was an image which would become a symbol of her estrangement from Charles.

Remembering her canny telly appearance all those years before, I said that this showed just how media savvy she was, but also how over the years she had learned, to her cost, that while she could court the media she couldn’t control it. And so on.

I mentioned the embarrassing “Suidgy tapes”, how she became the architect of her own misfortune with all those phone calls to that millionaire art dealer, how she suffered the indignity of her lover spilling the beans, how she fought back with that calculated Andrew Morton book, her affairs, bulimia, odd behaviour, the landmine campaign and so on.

I said pretty much what I thought about a woman I rarely thought about.

Jane then came back and said I might need to change the piece, that the Princess had just died.

I looked at what I had written and considered it: but the story seemed to stand much as it was so -- with one alteration -- I filed it and, to the Herald’s great credit I thought, it was published unchanged the next day.

They didn’t use my suggested heading however: Dead As A Dido.

Oh, and the change I made?

I just put it into the past tense where necessary. And that is where Diana Princess of Wales --with the exception of that night of the terrible motorcycle accident -- has remained for me.

And for you . . .?

Robert Smith stood there, pallid, haggard and moody - and, hell, that was in 1980.
Last night at Vector Arena in Auckland he churned out a massive overkill of songs, said the occasional “thang-kew” and by 10.20pm the fortysomething audience were thinking about finding taxis home in time to get back to the baby sitter.
Smith should stop singing such long sets, although why the audience stuck it out was because he hadn’t sung his early hits. He and his exceptionally talented band of a bassist who prowled like an anorexic Stray Cat with dowager’s hump, a guitarist dressed like an architect in designer-fashionable black, and the obligatory brilliant drummer with a bouffant hairdo deserve a shorter, more intimate show.
And they'll deliver that when they doubtless release a live album.
A declaration early on: I adore Robert Smith and the Cure’s songs and think he should get the Nobel Prize. All the best songs he ever wrote I still listen to, cherish and think are brilliant. He didn't sing any tonight.
Smith just stood there, with panda make-up and pigeon toed he looked like Ricky Gervais in a fright wig.
The fourth song, or maybe the fifth -- they all sounded the same as he declaimed loudly and with help from the echo-heavy sound system -- was something which wailed “I love you“. Oh, please, no. Goths should keep their sex lives to themselves.
The crowd wanted to join in the chorus but the concrete bunker that is Vector killed any kind of audience support.
Smith played guitar and the crowd cheered. Once he used to bite off short and sharp lines. Now it is all power chords, for effect.
He had a strange stand and an odd, lost look. He reminds you of somebody. Then, recognition: he’s that

fat kid you ridiculed in school. He even has the kind of little weepy look that fatboy suffered after you’d dunked him in the dunny.
To my misfortune I was sitting behind of a group who were obviously on a night out from West Auckland. "Mike" had a spliff in his mouth unlit -- until Boys Don’t Cry. His Westie mate kept texting and using his phone camera through all the songs.
The eighth song was another one about “I love you” delivered in a plaintive loud wail. No! It wasn't any good back then, and hardly deserves revival now.
The odd "Killing An Arab” was called out: its like the benediction phase in a Mass. You have to say something, anything.
Fortysomething shaven head guys around me, all with the look of Grey Lynn internet businesses, played Goths and made devil horn signs, or rocked gently in their seats. Somebody yelled out "Killing An Arab" again. Some people stood up for a song or two, then sat down again and rocked quietly.
Three Imaginary Boys was trotted out. Of all his efforts during the evening that was the best. It sounded liked he cared for the song, and had redeveloped it.
He had a manic grin singing Jumping Someone Else’s Train and off to the wing no incident occurred. No former Goths or girls from their fashion outlets tried to break security and kiss Smith. No one went anywhere near him.
The low point came with some piece of churning art rock from the master. People were talking loudly: even the Westie with the cellphone started to get bored, although I am sure he could have been usefully employed at Henderson Mall. It was like watching the second half of the test with the All Blacks up 60 points.

By 10.30pm the Cure were off the stage for the ritual pleading encore. The house lights were not on, of course, and it was just to let the Old Bugger go to his own men's room and then return to sing all the hits people had actually been waiting for. By 11pm and a numbing 27 songs later, it was over. Almost mercifully.
The audience was an embarrassment to be with. They were so settled into middle-age as fortysomethings they long ago gave up on the Goth revolution; they're comparing phone cameras and worrying about the sitter and how they could get a cab home.
They were not into endless youth: St John's were on hand not for drug overdoes, but in case the odd prostate gland gave out. At Vector tonight there was a real prospect of multiple death - from middle age complacency.
Somehow I missed the Goth revolution when I went off somewhere; now that I am back and looking at the folks around me. Well, pleased I missed it.
The t-shirts were expensive. Only the badges were cheap -- but who wears badges anymore?
At the enormous, well illuminated Vector -- which is remarkably hard to find from Britomart (go through the service lane beside Foodtown, and at Frozen goods turn up the next lane past the third checkout) - they warned the audience they could be searched for weapons.
Right. The Cure has to watch out for the fans with MP3 phones to record their shows and download to the Net. Lots of them.

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Disclaimer: I actually loved the Cure -- although they banged on half an hour too long. But if you want to make better sense of this “review” you need to read this. I think it is serious. Mine ain’t.

When you do wrong you might as well just ‘fess up. So I admit it: this week I have increased, rather than decreased, my carbon footprint. And I am stricken with all the appropriately guilty feelings.

Today -- after three years as a stay-a-bed freelancer; watching Martha and Dr Phil; and shifting cocktail hour to the rather more sensible time of noon, then to 10am -- I have rejoined the workforce. Only part-time mind you, I’m not entirely stupid.

Anyway, what this means is that three days a week I will be leaving the safety and comfort of my own home (ie. records, books, CDs and DVDs) and take a bus into the city. And of course my carbon footprint will increase accordingly.

Next time you see footage of a slice of ice falling off Antarctica you’ll know who to blame, right?

Okay, it is only one stage on public transport from my place to where I need to go -- but at a time when we are being bashed and battered by carbon footprint guilt -- and God forbid having our “awareness” raised by the likes of Madonna -- I’m feeling something of a traitor to whole cause.

But I’m starting to think that's the idea of the whole media maelstrom around this issue. Everyone is a fair target when it comes to the carbon footprint, everyone has to justify themselves.

I’m not convinced that asking the likes of Jaquie Brown or some politico what they are doing to “make a difference” is much use at all. No slight intended towards these good people -- but don’t you just lie when you are asked about what worthy things you do? Especially if it is for public consumption.

“Oh, I recycle paper, have cut down on plastic bags, and we are growing our own veggies this year. Or at least will be when we can wade through the slush that constitutes our backyard right now.”

And as to the whole “what more could you do”? Well, there is always more anyone can do. The question is will you? “And may we come by the house unexpectedly and just check?”

My feeling right now is that the “carbon footprint” issue is becoming a construct by which we are starting to measure others -- be they individuals or businesses -- without taking what I like to call "the “holistic view".

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a naysayer about global warming and so on -- in fact I am almost prepared, as Jaquie so marvellously put it in today’s Herald, to “believe what I am told by Al Gore”.

But there seems to me a culture of blackmail and holier-than-thou coercion gaining momentum at the moment.

We’re a pretty accusatory culture at the best of times (solo mothers and immigrants might enlighten you on this point), so I am starting to enjoy seeing letters to the editor pointing out that some big building had its lights on at 10pm the other night, or that there was a bus standing on K Rd with its engine running.

Dob in your neighbour, folks.

I don’t doubt that the people who build aircraft and automobiles -- just as those who manufacture certain food products -- just add the word “green” or “eco” to their brand as a feel-good selling point. So such things should be scrutinised (as indeed they are).

But the fact is people still gotta fly and drive.

Not everyone getting on an aircraft is making a frivolous flight (you know, going on a well-earned holiday with the kids to somewhere warm and away from this god-awful weather), just as not every politician who flies to some conference could have done it just as well by having a chat on the phone. Not every driver with no passenger is wilfully wasting fossil fuels, they might just have somewhere distant to go and no other feasible method of getting there.

My guess is soon we will be seeing the resurrection of those Second World War posters, “Is your journey really necessary?“

It’s a fair question to ask but, just as some would have us believe we could all walk or take bikes to work, the issues are more complex. Much as we might like it because such immediacy makes life simpler, not every issue can be reduced to slogans, posters and quick quizzes in a newspaper.

All these things help, but they also create a climate in which discussion becomes reductive. Four wheels bad, two wheels good.

Anyway, before I have to endure the opprobrium of eco-bullies for sounding like a dissenting voice in the current climate (which of course might just prove my point), I hasten to ensure you I am not entirely a lost cause on my own home front.

My wife started a new job today. To offset my increased carbon footprint I’m making her walk to work.

Just doin’ my bit, folks.

PS: There’s interesting and different music at Elsewhere -- and also a new section entitled Absolute Elsewhere for your amusement and enlightenment. Enjoy.

To be honest, yachting isn’t my thing. I did a bit when I was about 13 -- which actually means I sat in Brett Bensky’s Flying Ant (do they still have those?) pulling wet ropes while he sat at the rudder and told me what to do.

I didn’t like yachting: it always seemed you squatted in the shadow of the sail and got splashed with cold water while a bitter wind whipped around your ears. I preferred lying on the warm beach and getting wet at times of my own choosing.

For one year I was the treasurer of the Stanmore Bay Yacht Club -- a marvellous title, but as I was only a third former and not given charge of the chequebook I think that was more a titular role, and probably my Dad’s idea. I certainly never handled money and never attended a committee meeting.

Yachting to me doesn’t mean money and committees, and isn’t that a strange preconception in the 21st century?

But this is not me going to dismiss the rich folks’ sport of choice by being churlish. I didn’t get caught up in any of the recent hype simply because I am largely uninterested in yachting. But I’m disappointed we didn’t win.

And we “didn’t win“, as opposed to “lost”.

I always think we lose when we have something and it is taken away from us. We didn’t have that Cup, so in a way we are simply back to where we always were. Maybe?

My disappointing is largely empathetic: On a personal level it doesn’t matter a jot to me if we win or lose. (Although my guess is if we had won our rates in Auckland might have gone up again in the next few years. Any bloody excuse.)

My disappointment is for all those people (not so much for the shoreside supporters) who worked hard and put time in to this lengthy project.

Although, as I say, yachting isn‘t my thing I did interview both Sir Peter Blake and his mentor Sir Tom Clark in 2000 when there was another of these water-borne chess games mediated by lawyers.

I liked Sir Tom very much: he was in his 80s and couldn’t give a bugger about niceties, or unions. He was plain spoken, loved yachting -- and had some interesting things to say about Blake’s character.

Blake I found imperious, patrician and a man who literally and metaphorically looked down his nose at me. I was “a journalist” and probably of no use to him, but he was courteous enough to speak to me and we got on well enough.

I pointed out to me what seemed the obvious: “Sir Peter Blake is the hometown hero whose home is Britain, the dinner guest who says doesn't have a suit ('but I do black tie well enough') and the sailor who now charts a course through the seas of sponsorship.”

Butterworth was an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in wind-cheater. He was on “our” side then.

Interestingly the reason I was sent to interview all of these people is because I knew so little about sailing that I could ask the dumb questions -- about the Zen of sailing as it were -- and these people were forced to find answers that weren’t predetermined or pap.

And the “sports guys” told me later they really enjoyed the articles -- even the Butterworth which was subbed so badly that a couple of key sentences were rendered incomprehensible and some facts changed. I was enormously embarrassed, but was reliably told that Brad wouldn’t have the read the bloody piece anyway. Thinking about it then, I realised that was probably true.

Ironically, I was also asked to write introductory essay to a Herald supplement for the America’s Cup that year. (Defending Our Cup the lift-out was heroically entitled).

In the blurb for it I noted that my sailing experiences had rarely involved anything smaller than an ocean liner.

I looked at that article this morning. I stand by it. In a further irony the All Blacks at the time had just been routed: by whom I cannot recall, but that’s the great thing about sports writing, it is always deja-vu all over again. But I wrote of how some commentators would have us believe the nation went into an overwhelming grief at that loss.

Well, I haven’t been much out of the house today to engage my fellow citizens, other than to walk to the supermarket -- but on the way there I was thinking about this America’s Cup thing. And about going to the supermarket.

I well remember the day (but not the year) that I came back from China and had to go to the supermarket in Birkenhead. I pottered around the shelves but my attention kept being drawn to some massive tickertape parade being played out on the overhead televisions. I thought it was some astronaut thing in New York (which shows my age) but it was the day that Team New Zealand -- as I think they were called back then -- was being feted on Queen St.

Having been in China meant I had missed the preamble to this great day -- yachting is not big in China, you know -- and it didn’t seem to have affected my fellow shoppers either. We bought our sachets of cheap noodles, Coke discounted, bread and so on, and lined up at the checkout. Life was going on as usual.

Just as it was at the supermarket today.

But I do genuinely feel for the people who have spent years working towards this Cup thing. And I feel for us too.

What our winning of the rights to host the Rugby World Cup has proven is that we have a date now for the completion of major public works. Noticed that? Everything that has been dragging on for years, if not decades, stymied by councils or special interest groups, now needs to be resolved and in place by 2011. Hurry!

Maybe winning the America’s Cup would have had that effect on us too. We might have got on and resolved things: like the waterfront, like the traffic.

Anyway, roll on this year’s Rugby World Cup. Everyone is saying the All Blacks will win that.

Even those who have just beaten us.

PS: If you are feeling low about this Cup thing -- or just want to hear some interesting music -- among other goodies at Elsewhere right now is a country singer doing Cher’s Believe. Check it out at Music From Elsewhere.

“Ola!” as those tele-news people on Valencia-junkets have taken to saying.