The Fundy Post

Discussion document

2012-01-19T15:47:00.000+13:00

Dept of Internal Affairs, Historical Branch.
Introduction to New Zealand.
Wellington: Dept. of Internal Affairs, 1945.

Foreword

p3 Here is a book about New Zealand. It is not, we hope a superfluous book, or a vainglorious books, or a flowery book, or a contentious book. It aims at plain and modest statement. Nowhere in these pages will you find New Zealand confused with Paradise. We don’t make absurd claims for our country. It is a little country. It is a young country; in terms of Western culture, it is no older than the states of Iowa or Wisconsin. But it is, we think, an interesting country - interesting in its history, interesting in its geography, interesting in the ways of life that have been built up within its island boundaries and in its approach to social problems, interesting in its economy. New Zealand is a democracy, with all the question-marks of democracy. It is British - it is part of the British Commonwealth of Nations. It is New Zealand - it is independent. It is like America. It is unlike America. It grows things. It makes things. It conserves and it wastes things. It has party conflicts. It assails itself. It admires itself. It tries to learn through experience. It is noisy. It is subdued. It is the usual bundle of contradictions that makes up a democratic society. It has a certain unity. We think it is a beautiful country. We don’t say that it is more interesting or more beautiful than the United States. We don’t want to seem conceited; but we don’t want to be too absurdly humble either. And as we think our country is beautiful and interesting, and as we have written this book in answer to suggestions from our American friends, we think Americans will probably be interested in it.

Housing

p136 Speaking of an average New Zealander is really about as superficial as speaking of an ‘average’ American. But to some extent there is an average New Zealand house, the product, as in other countries, of land speculators and builders, the home of a large percentage of the population in town and country. It is usually built of wood, with a low-pitched corrugated iron roof. Its main features are its restless roof-line and fussy windows, with a high glass line and fan-lights. The plan is neat, generally with four or five rooms plus a large area of passage space, and is carefully orientated to the street frontage, irrespective of sunlight, wind or privacy. it is often well provided with modern conveniences and labour saving devices. it is comfortable and popular. It has generally a neat little garden, where the New Zealander works cheerfully and assiduously in the week-end. These houses are not designed by architects, nor are they mass-produced; they are made by independent builders. Where there is architect’s work it frequently shows the influence of English domestic styles, now chiefly neo-Georgian, or of the American revival of Colonial or Spanish Mission styles. The New Zealand architect is respectably eclectic.

Despite this ‘average’ house, New Zealand architecture during one hundred years has appeared in an amazing number of styles, copies of overseas developments. Some of the older houses preserve the simplicity and good proportions which were current when the first settlers left England - a simplicity which was endorsed by the limited money and materials of that time, and which was denied to later, more prosperous periods. There are still extant quite charming wood and adobe houses, the oldest built over a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, the stage of New Zealand’s most rapid development coincided with the collapse of architectural good taste in England, and Victorian ideas had full play with masses of office buildings and hundreds of thousands of houses. Soon there were wooden imitations of stone buildings, imperfectly Greek banks, half-timbered English cottages; steep-pitched French roofs appeared and the verandahs of Indian bungalows (admirably fitted for some parts of the country), while dominant numerically were American styles imported direct or from Australia. From 1900 to World War I and after, with the primacy in economic and social life passing to the rapidly increasing business class, the influence of America became more pronounced, and New Zealand’s suburbs and country towns reproduced all too faithfully some of the less attractive architectural aspects of the United States. The influence of twentieth century architecture, with its emphasis on sunlight, air and space, and new methods of construction in steel, glass and concrete, reached New Zealand only very recently. Town-planning has been much talked of, but suburbs still tend to sprawl widely, and speculative flats are rapidly appearing in face of the housing shortage, only merely adapted from the more lavishly built wooden houses of an earlier day

p 138 During the past few years a small but growing number of New Zealanders have become aware of new developments in architecture and are beginning to influence building. The amount of modern work is still very small, and there is need for much more education and propaganda on the aims and objects of modern ideas; but the public mind is beginning to recover from its habit of uncritically accepting mediocre designs. The modern house has arrived, though sometimes not at its best. As everywhere else, the first superficial approach toward modern housing seems satisfied with a flat roof instead of a tilted roof and windows a bit larger than previously. But with deepening understanding of modern planning, really modern houses are already being erected. There is proof that modern ideas are specially favoured by New Zealand conditions, and good reason to hope that with the increased building after the war which the acute shortage must occasion there will develop a really good style, indigenous and contemporary, growing out of the special conditions of climate and lightness of timber construction - for while reinforced concrete is now favoured for large buildings, wood will continue as the chief domestic material; while even the hills can be very stimulating for freer planning with terraces and open living spaces.

Altogether, while we frankly admit that judged by the highest existing standards, New Zealand housing is capable of much improvement, our people are to some extent getting that awareness of shortcomings which is the first step toward their elimination; it may not therefore be unduly optimistic to call the distant prospect hopeful and to envisage a future when our homes generally will be not merely functional, but pleasant, gay and humane places to live in, in surroundings which we have made the best of, as part of a communal effort.

The writing of history

p177 For that occasion the Government entered the sphere of publishing, and in the two large volumes of its pictorial Making New Zealand, the eleven volumes of its Centennial Surveys, and Sholefield’s Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, gave the country a celebration such as no other British dominion has had. But nothing written then, nothing else probably written in New Zealand so far, is the equal of one book which may be classed as history, if it can be assigned to any class at all. This is H Guthrie-Smith’s Tutira (1921) - ‘The Story of a New Zealand Sheep Station.’

Scenes from the class struggle in Grey Lynn

2012-01-18T16:08:00.000+13:00

Get excited: Kokako has arrived in Grey Lynn, settling gracefully into the old Post Office building. There are potted flowers in the doorway, the staff are smiling like they have a secret they want to share, and it's officially opening tomorrow morning. We were lucky enough to be given the chance to check it out today. Here's what we thought...Courteney: It's the kind of light, breezy, local cafe that I'd be quite comfortable sitting in all day. It just feels as if it's meant to be there, and kind of like it always has been. I wanted to try everything on the menu (and I'm sure I will as this place is dangerously close to my house). There isn't a dull option in sight. Even the toast is special; served with strawberry jam from the Waitakeres, honey from Grey Lynn and fresh fluffy brioche and soda bread that made me think of my Grandma.

Stop right there, Courteney; your fresh fluffy PR bollocks is making me sick. You see, Courteney, Kokako wasn't meant to be there and is not kind of like it always has been. Until quite recently the old post office building accommodated - you'll never believe this, Courteney - a post office. Lots of grandmothers went there and mothers, lots of people who are not that well off, poor even, people who could not afford fluffy brioche and who wouldn't be welcome in a light, breezy local cafe - because such cafes are not for the locals, who live in the state houses across the road who buy what they can afford from the local shops, who get by - just. Those people relied on that post office but now it is gone. The people who worked there are gone as well.

Other, more fortunate people also used that post office - it was part of the community. You wouldn't realise this, Courteney, because you are light and breezy and probably don't give a stuff about your neighbourhood, but places like post offices are what hold communities together. And now they are going, replaced by cafes for selfish, fatuous people like you and Dominique ("the concept of this cafe aligns with Kokako’s brand); and let us not forget Alan who doesn't drink coffee but plans to make himself at home there over the rest of his life. I don't know Kokako but with the three of you living on the premises then they will soon become famous for their waffle.

.

Dr Dupree is standing on the quay

2012-01-17T14:24:00.001+13:00

The attack occured in front of about 20 people, none of whom stepped in to stop the assault.
Photo / Stephen Parker

It should be noted that photographer Stephen Parker was one of those who did not stop in to stop the assault; instead he took photographs of it. So, while clinical psychologist Barry Kirker might attribute the crowd's passivity to "bystander apathy'' - a phenomena [sic] which [sic] has been studied since the 1950s - the photographer might be accused of callous opportunism.On the other hand, every one enjoys a good fight.

Org*sm addict

2012-01-10T16:51:00.002+13:00

During this, the season of tragedy on our open roads and in our seas, there is little cheer. Our trusted media outlets are filled with stories of death, disaster, abuse and bigamy. So we can take what little comfort we can find, such as the simple pleasures of media releases from representatives of the muttering classes. The Sensible Sentencing Trust may be resting on its laurels but Family First has stepped forward to take up the baton of righteousness. This time, they have a survey.

In one example, a mixed class of boys and girls were asked by the AIDS Foundation if they had masturbated lately and were given condoms and strawberry-flavoured lubricant. They were also given a leaflet featuring graphic pictures, terms including “c*ck” and “w*nk”, and advice on the best condoms. Reports last year highlighted that children as young as 12 are being taught about oral sex and told it’s acceptable to play with a girl’s private parts as long as “she’s okay with it”. In other cases, 14-year-old girls are being taught how to put condoms on plastic penises, and one female teacher imitated the noises she made during org*sm to her class of 15-year-olds. One concerned father took his 12-year-old son out of a sex education class at his all-boy school after he came home upset about what had happened during one of the lessons. It included a question-and-answer session that focused on, “I have learned that my girlfriend has a thing called a clit*ris. I really want to play with it. Is that okay?” The answer was: “Yes, if you ask her and she’s okay with it.”

The survey was conducted by Curia, the polling firm run by Mr David Farrar, the firm which believes:

polling is an art, as well as a science. The most essential aspect to any poll is taking the time to understand the key drivers for clients, and ensuring the questions asked will be of maximum value.

Clearly, maximum value was achieved in this case but what are the key drivers for Mr Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ? An unhealthy obsession with what goes on in other people's knickers, it would seem, as well as an extraordinary squeamishness about the terminology: it is not just rude works like c*ck, w*nk or S*ntorum that offend B*b, but accepted medical terms like org*sm, clit*ris or possibly kn*e. For Mr Farrar, taking the time to understand Mr McC*skrie must have been challenging.

Here are some otters chasing a butterfly, courtesy of Ever So Strange:

Fundy Post Word of the Year: mediable

2012-01-02T00:55:00.000+13:00

Gentle readers,not long ago the estimable Mr Steve Braunias reminded me that last Christmas I gave you my heart and, moreover, promised to tell you thrilling stories of my time in the Art History Department. You will have noticed that I did not fulfill that promise. Sorry.

You see, I had escaped Art History and the Faculty of Arts, finding refuge in the School of Architecture. There, I have thrived. I found myself among staff who are friendly, helpful and interested in my research. I have been given positions of responsibility, helping students by assessing their work - crits. My contribution to the intellectual life of the School is valued. Unlike the academic staff of the Art History Department, those of the School are emotionally well-adjusted professionals. For the first time in three years I had a supervisor who was interested in doing some supervising: I calculate that in the first semester I received more supervisory meetings - one a week - than I had endured in three miserable years in Art History. This is all the more remarkable given that my Supervisor, Sarah Treadwell, is Head of School and has quite enough to keep herself busy. What's more, every meeting has been a gem: Sarah is on top of her subject, interested in her students' welfare and encouraging of their work.

As you can imagine, I have been busy, writing a thesis, learning stuff. So my story about life in Art History was neglected.Besides, I was hoping to resolve matters with the University amicably. At the suggestion of the Dean of Graduate Studies, Caroline Daley, I approached the Unversity Mediator; she advised me to make a statement of claim, a description of my grievances. This she would present to the University. So, I wrote my claim, a lengthy one. I was expecting the University to engage in some discussion of the torments I suffered. I had hoped that the University might be interested in the well-being of its PhD candidates. How wrong I was. My statement of claim was returned to me, marked "not mediable."

You can imagine my surprise. What does this word, mediable, mean? It is not in any English dictionary of which I am aware. But then, Auckland University does pride itself on being a centre of innovation. Perhaps the meaning of mediable is yet to be determined. Perhaps it is an imported word: It looks French, so the likes of Jacques Rançiere might use it in sentences such as "La plume de ma tante est mediable." However, in the context framed by the University, the phrase "not mediable" seems to mean "sod off."

Moreover, "not mediable" was all that was said. The University did not attempt to counter any of my claims, to disprove them, to put me right, to assuage my fears; they simply refused to discuss the matter. They wanted me to sod off. However, I don't do that kind of thing. I am not a sodding-off type of chap.

So, what I did next was to follow another suggestion made to me by the Dean of Graduate Studies, to discuss my issues informally those involved. So, I asked her some questions. And, would you believe it, she did not reply. I also asked some questions of Caroline Vercoe, the Head of the Art History Department. Again, I received no answers; instead Dr Vercoe sent me an email telling me not to oppress her, or something like that.

I also received a letter - a PDF letter, on headed paper, which I could download and frame, from Mr Grant Wills, BSc (Hons) Cant., the University's Executive Officer. Mr Wills hold a special role in the University. To put it in filmic terms, if the Vice Chancellor is Sydney Greenstreet (a comparison often made) then Mr Wills is Peter Lorre. He is the fixit man. This, in part, is what he wrote:

A number of your recent emails to staff and others associated with the University have not been appropriately worded and, by addressing multiple questions (some of which are later supplemented with further questions) to several staff, valuable staff time is being wasted. Further, staff are finding the tone of your messages is becoming harassing and abusive. This is why I am instructing you that further correspondence about these topics must be addressed to this office.In addition, the University finds some of your claims are not accurate. For example, your claim that your attempts to resolve certain matters by mediation have been "rebuffed" is not correct. The University attended a mediation arranged by the Human Rights Commission at your request and the outcome of that mediation was signed off by both parties. Then, in August 2011, youapproached the University Mediator with a statement of claim, which you requested be dealt with by way of mediation. That request was carefully considered by the University, then the Mediator explained to you that the University declined to enter into mediation with you on that occasion because, none of the issues you had raised were mediable.

Harassing, abusive; oh dear. On the bright side, we at least know to whom we can attribute the invention of the word mediable. But after all this huffing and puffing, Mr Wills did at least offer a glimmer of light:

While the University remains willing to address matters which have not been superseded and thus resolved, a proper process must be followed. This requires you to set out in a single document, separate from any complaints about staff, the full details of issues that have not been resolved, explain why they remain current issues, then provide the detailed evidence to support your allegations and any other relevant materials. If such a document is received and contains evidence of significant unresolved current issues then an investigation of those issues may be justified.

It is not much, I know; it is caged in conditions and written in the cod-legalese that Mr Wills prefers to intelligible speech. But I made use of it. I sent Mr Wills the same statement of claim that I had sent to the Mediator, with only minor modifications. I made the not-mediable into a proper process. That was on 20th November.

So, you may be asking, "why is he telling us all this?" Here's why. On 31st December, I received another email from Mr Wills, on a related matter. In this email, he writes: "I am looking into matters you have raised and must advise that the information I have become aware of does not support the information in your emails below."

So, it seems that Mr Wills has fixed it again. Despite my providing mountains of evidence and despite the bare fact of my receiving no supervision for an entire academic year, Mr Wills can see nothing wrong.

And I have had enough. I entered that vile little department to write a thesis. Instead, I found myself being deceived and harassed. The University has rules and guidelines, proper processes which were cheerfully ignored by Dr Caroline Vercoe - with the support of her superiors. Her abuse of her duty cost me an entire year, in which I received no supervision and much bullying. What's more, I had to pay for the privilege. That much is evident, yet nobody in the University administration has the courage or decency to admit it. So I am going to put on the show right here in the barn. I am making my complaints public.

Until now the burden of proof has been entirely on me; when I have provided that proof, it has been ignored. By making my claim public, I am inviting the University to prove my claims wrong, in public. Below is my complaint to Mr Wills. Make of it what you will.

A complaint about unresolved issues

1. Admission

I applied to the University of Auckland for admission as a Doctoral candidate in late 2007, with the intention of studying in the Art History Department. It was my first application to the University. More than twenty years earlier, I had achieved a Class 2.1 BA (Hons) from Nottingham University and an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art at London University. I had also been accepted as a PhD candidate at Cambridge University to study under David Watkin, one of the world's leading architectural historians - an offer I did not accept. I had been awarded a three-year British Academy Scholarship. Added to these qualifications, I had seven years experience as the founder and Registrar of the Ministry of Defence Art Collection in London, among other career achievements. I had also established a growing reputation as a writer in New Zealand. In short, I was a high-calibre applicant.

I was treated like dirt by the admissions office. Admissions had not heard of the Courtauld Institute and was not prepared to find out about it. Art History had to obtain a letter from my former supervisor at the Courtauld, who had since retired. I was humiliated. My application took from late November 2007 to the beginning of March 2008. I lost money because of the University's stupidity: I could not take a job during that time because I did not know if or when I would be admitted to the University.

One of the issues by which Admissions delayed my enrollment was its staff's inability to understand the Courtauld MA grades. These were only two - Pass and Distinction; Professor Rankin instructed the Admissions Office of this difference from most universities. I had obtained a Pass: no bad thing when it comes from the best school of its kind in the world. Yet Admissions was incapable of understanding that and so decided to invent a Grade Point Equivalent for me. They decided on a GPE of 6 points. At the request of Art History, a single point was added to that score to acknowledge the quality of the school where I had obtained my MA. Since the University website said that a GPA of 7 was the minimum requirement for a scholarship, I did not complain.

2. Scholarships

I had thought I was eligible for a scholarship, but then my Supervisor, Dr Don Bassett, told me that only graduates of New Zealand universities - those with a Grade Point Average were eligible. I believed him. So I did not apply for any scholarship during most of my first year: I missed out on several opportunities for University or Faculty of Arts scholarships. Then I discussed the matter with Professor Elizabeth Rankin, my co-Supervisor and HOD. She spoke to Dr Jennifer Curtin, Associate Dean (Postgraduate), who revealed that my Grade Point Equivalent was the same as a GPA, so I could apply. I was encouraged to apply for scholarships by Elizabeth Rankin and Dr Curtin. Since the University website said that the minimum GPA was less than my GPE, I applied for scholarships. I was unsuccessful each time.

I was never told why I was unsuccessful. In 2010, I asked this question of Associate Dean Postgraduate Lee Wallace, Dr Curtin's successor. She gave me a reply that was curt to the point of rudeness and did not answer my question; she also refused to tell me the criteria by which applications were judged and closed the correspondence. Later, I asked the same question of Caroline Daley, the Dean of Graduate Studies. She told me, on 27th September 2010, that my scholarship applications would be judged on the two most recent full-time equivalent years of study prior to commencing the PhD; she also told me that my GPE was unlikely to be enough. So, after almost three years at the University, I was finally told what everyone else knew all along: that the scholarship was rigged in such a way that I could not obtain one. Not once did anyone say that my GPE would not be enough. Had I known that, I would have gone elsewhere - to the Courtauld, to Cambridge or one of many universities worldwide that could have provided proper funding and much better treatment than I received at Auckland.

The fact of the matter is that I was deceived. I had a high-enough GPE and other qualities to meet the requirements mentioned on the University website. I was not told that a higher standard was applied, which would be the main criterion for selection. Elizabeth Rankin, Jennifer Curtin and Lee Wallace all deceived me, as did the University website.

3. Supervision

My Supervisor, Don Bassett, turned out to be lazy, incompetent and bullying. I made several complaints about him to Professor Elizabeth Rankin, HOD and my co-Supervisor, who did nothing. I described my experiences in my Annual Report for 2009, which consequently was rejected by various parties, none of whom had the right to be involved. I suffered a year without any supervision because of those people interfering in the reporting process.

I had been granted about ten supervision meetings in three years in the Art History Department. Meetings were infrequent and always prompted by me. I had no supervision during University vacations. In the second semester of 2009, when Dr Bassett was on sabbatical and Dr Rankin was my main supervisor, I had one meeting. I have described my experiences in my 2009 report, which I shall include with this statement.

I had a lengthy meeting with Professor Rankin about Dr Bassett's shortcomings. She promised to speak to the School of Architecture about the possibility of having a co-supervisor from the School to make up for Dr Bassett. Nothing came of this. Later A/P Len Bell made a similar promise: again nothing came of it. I could have had suitable supervision during 2010, but clearly the Art History Department did not want me to have it. Of course, they would have lost money if my supervision had changed, so they had every incentive to do nothing.

4. Supervisor's retirement

I learned that Dr Bassett was to retire from one of my peers, at a gathering for graduate students in December 2009. Subsequently, an undergraduate told me that in - March 2009 - Dr Bassett had told students of his plans to retire. Dr Bassett did not bother to tell me. It seems also that his retirement plans were known to other members of the Department, including Professor Rankin. She told me, eventually, in late December 2009. Had I known that he was retiring earlier I would have gone elsewhere. The information, it seems, was deliberately withheld from me. I suffered a further year in that awful Department, with little supervision because Dr Bassett, Professor Rankin and others chose not to tell me.

5. Application for GTA position

I applied for a GTA position for two courses Dr Bassett was teaching in 2010. Dr Bassett made his hostility to my application quite clear. However, I needed the money and the teaching experience. I was clearly the best-qualified candidate for the job and had already marked papers for one of the courses. I faced a hostile interview panel. Dr Bassett said very little throughout the interview, which ended with the three members of the panel - Drs Bassett, Vercoe and Woodward - laughing at me for having asked a question that was quite reasonable.

I didn't get the job. Caroline Vercoe's letter said that I was turned down because I lacked tutoring experience - although I had such and had said so during the interview. Another candidate for another GTA position had no tutoring experience and an overseas academic history like mine, yet she was given a GTA job in a course that was quite unrelated to her PhD research. But then, she was Dr Vercoe's student. She told me she had approached Dr Vercoe before the interviews about tutoring Dr Vercoe's course but Dr Vercoe had already decided on a GTA. So the other post was probably her consolation prize. The GTA process is rigged.

Later, Dr Bassett told me that I was not selected because I am a middle-aged man and the panel wanted young women to do the jobs. Elizabeth Rankin had said much the same when I spoke to her about my rejection. The Art History Department is riddled with cronyism and outright discrimination. I complained to the Dean of Arts. She and the staff she appointed to investigate my case chose to ignore the evidence I presented about the other GTA candidate. They also gave Drs Vercoe and Bassett the opportunity to make some new and abusive comments about me, my imaginary lack of tutoring experience having been forgotten.

I took my case to the Human Rights Commission but I could not prove it - Dr Bassett had lied about his original statement - so I was obliged to drop my complaint. I asked the Dean of Arts to help me obtain another supervisor - I had gone months without any supervision - but she did nothing.The GTA post was not just a part-time job (as the Dean of Arts so condescendingly claimed at the meeting with the Human Rights Commission). It was an opportunity for teaching experience. By discriminating against me the Department has damaged, if not ruined, my future academic career prospects.

6. Annual Report

After Dr Bassett told me why I had failed in my GTA application, I dropped him as my supervisor. So he used the Annual Report as an opportunity for revenge. His report is a pack of lies. I could have proved he was lying but was prevented from doing so by Dr Vercoe and Associate Professor Lee Wallace. They did not wait for me to complete my part of the report but demanded I write a 10,000-word chapter for them. I refused, since they had no authority to make such a demand, they had no right to interfere in my research and doing such a task would amount to admitting that Dr Bassett was right.

So Vercoe and Wallace denied me supervision. Dr Vercoe appointed Associate Professor Len Bell to deal with the matter, as she was then under investigation for my GTA complaint. Associate Professor Bell pretended to be an impartial mediator. I later discovered from Associate Professor Caroline Daley that he chaired the Art History Department's Post Graduate Studies Committee, and that other members were Dr Robin Woodward, Dr Erin Griffey, Dr Gregory Minissale and Dr Caroline Vercoe. This committee, of which Associate Professor Bell had said nothing, was preventing my report going to the Board of Graduate Studies. It is notable that Dr Vercoe was a member of the committee.

The Art History committee had no authority to be involved in my report. Further, my privacy was violated by the members seeing the report. Almost every member of the Department had seen my report, most without any entitlement to do so. None of those involved had any right to interfere with my report, yet nobody prevented them. I believe they wanted to conceal Dr Bassett's shortcomings. I have still not received a report: Associate Professor Caroline Daley prevented it from being approved.

I had thought that the annual report was to be used supervisor and candidate to discuss differences. Yet Dr Bassett used it to make demonstrably untruthful allegations against me. It is also noteworthy that, on separate occasions, both Dr Vercoe and Associate Professor Bell asked to see the work I had been doing - the compilation of the most comprehensive annotated bibliography on New Zealand architecture; yet when I asked each in what format I should supply the material - as a database or a document - neither replied. I think both Dr Vercoe and Associate Professor Bell were trying to catch me out, to find grounds for failing me.

I also believe they were trying to delay taking any action to provide me with supervision because that would deprive the Department of income. I endured four pointless meetings over an extended period with Associate Professor Bell, in which he made promises - such as speaking to the School of Architecture - he did not keep. At the last meeting, which Professor Rankin also attended, he told me the Department had decided that Dr Rankin - who knows nothing of my subject and has never troubled herself to learn anything of it - should be my sole supervisor.

I went without supervision for the entire 2010 academic year. It was only when the new Acting Head of Graduate Studies - Associate ProfessorCaroline Daley - became involved that I was able to get out of Art History and go to the School of Architecture. She promised to investigate the matter but then, seemingly having found out what was going on, refused to tell me the result of her investigation. She also put the blame on me, for "resisting" the demands of Dr Vercoe and Associate Professor Wallace. Further, Associate Professor Daley insulted my intelligence by claiming that the vetting of my Annual Report by the Art History Postgraduate Studies Committee was in line with international best practice.

7. Environment

The Art History Department is a thoroughly unpleasant place. Most PhD candidates stay away; most have nothing good to say of their supervisors. Cronyism is rife. So is malice: certain members of the academic staff never miss an opportunity to say something nasty about their colleagues or, far worse, their students.

Here are some examples. At one of the rare social events in the Department, a rather dismal party to celebrate Professor Rankin's departure from the post of HOD and Dr Vercoe's accession to that post, another member of the academic staff told me that Dr Vercoe would be just as bad in the job as Professor Rankin had been. At the Department's postgraduate conference in 2010, one academic staff member told me that one of the PhD students, my colleague and friend, was "strange." After a departmental seminar presented by a student, one academic staff member took the opportunity to mock that student once she was out of earshot. I too have been the subject of gossip by members of academic staff, who have spoken to students about me.

This sort of vicious and juvenile behaviour is astonishing. Not surprisingly, the Art History Department has a very poor reputation within the Arts Faculty and in the art world. Often I have met former graduate students who have had unpleasant experiences in Art History. Often I meet academic staff who express their contempt for the Art History Department and their pity for its students: one senior Faculty member described Art History to me as a "basket case." In three years I have never met anyone with anything good to say about Art History. The Department is toxic. I was subjected to three years of abuse there.

Paul Litterick

This office life

2011-12-29T23:36:00.000+13:00

A funny time of year, this post-Christmas season; funny in so many ways, not all of them ha-ha funny. For a start, it is very difficult to get a pie. Most bakeries close on Christmas Eve, and do not open again until mid-January - the beaches of the Coromandel must be heaving with bakers, basking in the sun. The committed pie enthusiast must scour the city in search of sustenance, learning to accept continual disappointment as once-welcoming bakeries are found to be locked and barred. The only hope is Hollywood - the oddly-named chain with branches everywhere that keep right on throughout the dry season. Hollywood also serves the best vegetarian pie in town, possibly the only vegetarian pie in town. In this pie desert, greengrocers thrive, providing healthy foodstuffs at affordable prices. The nutritionists must be delighted - for once it is more difficult to poison yourself than to eat something good.

Oh well, at least you are not in an office. This instructional video shows you that office life is dreadful. It also shows that Sleater-Kinney were superb, but you knew that already. Please do not try to make hang-gliders from window envelopes: the technology is as yet unproven.

You really lost me

2011-12-28T00:45:00.000+13:00

Gentle readers,after years of searching, I believe I may have found the Eldorado, or possibly the Pinto, of music television: the worst television recording ever made of a band playing a song. It comes, not surprisingly, from Germany, a country where people are very keen on both the Rock and the Roll but, because of cultural and economic circumstances, have never quite managed to be hip.

This televisual experience comes from the television programme "Beat Club," which in Germany was having great success in the Sixties. This recording was made in 1972; perhaps not coincidentally Beat Club was [ahem] canned in the same year. It features England's finest, the Kinks. For some reason they are playing a song they made eight years earlier and for some other reason they are mostly wearing red - against a blue background. It is all quite startling.

Consider how this clip progresses. One camera operator seems quite fixated upon Dave Davies, perhaps because of that regrettable beard. While his brother Ray sings, the camera remains firmly upon Dave. Then, Ray suddenly appears, perhaps from another studio: the brothers' difficulties are well-known. Ray's appearance is brief, just filling in before the cross back to Dave and the bass player, John Dalton. But then, just as Dave's solo comes up, attention is directed to the hands of the keyboard player, John Gosling, and remains there for the duration of Dave's solo. Next we see Drummer Mick Avory - who either did not get the memo about wearing red or chose the wrong wash cycle; then a brief glimpse of Ray (nice bowtie) and more of the over-dressed Gosling, or is it John Peel? We see Ray again, almost out of camera and still with no indication that he is with the rest of the band. Then it is back to Dave.

Still, it was nice that they went to all the trouble of wrapping the microphones in red plastic.

Hitch, by Cock

2011-12-24T21:57:00.000+13:00

I can’t count the times, down the years, that after some new outrage friends would call me and ask, “What happened to Christopher Hitchens?” – the inquiry premised on some supposed change in Hitchens, often presumed to have started in the period he tried to put his close friend Blumenthal behind bars for imputed perjury. My answer was that Christopher had been pretty much the same package since the beginning — always allowing for the ravages of entropy as the years passed.

There is nothing like a death in the family to bring out the nastiest in people, and so it is with the passing of Christopher Hitchens. Whilst others mourn, Alexander Cockburn seethes. Hitchens was a traitor, the man who changed his mind, the man who broke the circle. He also was a much better writer than Cockburn, which probably lies behind the resentment of the survivor. "As a writer his prose was limited in range," mutters Cockburn. Perhaps he is dimly aware that Hitchens would never write a sentence so deadened as that one, a sentence reminiscent of school reports or annotated bibliographies, typed and spiral-bound. Note also the clumsy and sub-claused sentences with which Cockburn began his dirge. By contrast, here is how Hitchens began his last essay:

When it came to it, and old Kingsley suffered from a demoralizing and disorienting fall, he did take to his bed and eventually turned his face to the wall. It wasn’t all reclining and waiting for hospital room service after that—“Kill me, you fucking fool!” he once alarmingly exclaimed to his son Philip—but essentially he waited passively for the end. It duly came, without much fuss and with no charge.

Spot the difference. Yes, you see it: Hitchens wrote; Cockburn lectures.

Here is an instructional video:

A life on the ocean wave

2011-12-24T21:37:00.000+13:00

The oil prints featured in this exhibition were made with birds killed by the Rena oil spill. They are just two of an estimated 20,000 birds killed after the shipwrecked Rena spilled 350 tonnes of oil into the Bay of Plenty.The images are a stark reminder of the devastation an oil spill can cause.

No they are not. These Rorschach penguins are a stark reminder that Greenpeace is creepy and weird. People in that organization took dead birds and made prints with them, the way you made prints with half a potato in primary school. Greenpeace posts a video to show how it was done. Making a print with a penguin and the oil that killed it is very peculiar indeed, and oddly reminiscent of the bizarre blood cult that is Roman Catholicism, with its relics and vials of blood and images of its demigod impressed on handkerchiefs and shrouds; as I said earlier, it is (a) creepy and (b) weird.

Scroll towards the bottom of the page. It deepens like a coastal shelf. At the end is a special offer:

Win A Ghost Bird Print! The prints made for the Oil On Canvas exhibition are all original prints made with the body of a little blue penguin and the oil that killed it  following the Rena shipwreck in the Bay of Plenty. The prints are not numbered because each is an original. No more will be made.  Some will be Contributed to galleries and some will be auctioned but we’re giving one away right here...

Each print is an original, you see. It is a monoprint. Most artists make monoprints with a woodblock or with lino. Greenpeace use penguins.

Like everything other thing Greenpeace does, this was a group activity. As the photographs show, many people were involved and they all had a special uniform. Whenever Greenpeace does anything, there is always dressing-up to do. They wear special clothes, fit for the purpose and identical with each other; just like the... no, let's not go there.

These people made art with with their penguins. Art is a collective activity - there is no artist, only the art - which serves the purposes of Greenpeace. Everything Greenpeace does serves its sole purpose, which is to promote itself.

There are many environmental organisations which go about their work of protecting the environment. Greenpeace is much better known than these organisations because it is not one of them. It is a media corporation. It produces media events, situations if you like, about the environment. These encourage people to support Greenpeace, so that it can promote itself further. It spends a lot of the money it raises on ships and inflatables, so it can make more situations.

Of course, to criticise Greenpeace is to invite complaint from the glassy-eyed trustafarians who make up its volunteer membership. These are the people who wear the uniforms on the ships and inflatables, the people who press the penguins on to the paper. These are the people who will pounce on you on the street, brandishing clipboards and photographs of dead animals. These people are very committed. There are other chuggers in Greenpeace who are paid commission, but they have lesser status because the are thought to be less committed. If they do not make targets for their chugging, they are sacked. The volunteers, the gilded youth of Greenpeace, go everywhere their masters demand and do everything asked of them, whether it be manning an inflatable or pressing a penguin.

Anyway, Merry Christmas and here is a Canadian woman with a ukulele and a dead bird:

2011-12-15T18:35:00.001+13:00

Managing above our weight on a world stage

2011-12-03T19:06:00.001+13:00

My Waikato Management School degree is on the world stage. While studying they had the triple crown accreditation - achieved by only the top 2% of the worlds institutions, since they have improved to the top 1% - bundled in with Cambridge and Oxford - infact the only ones in a thousand years who were invited into the Cambridge debating chamber.If people think that the real debate occurs in the the debating chanbers of various parliaments they are wrong. What do you think has occurred for that thousands years in the Cambridge debating chamber - and are yo more interested in the results on GE crops from this chamber or the debating chamber of the a bunch of newbies in parliament?

Quite. Deborah Hill Cone writes a considered piece about the commercialisation and degradation of our universities, so JD leaps in to correct her, with news of the hitherto-unknown Cambridge debating chamber, almost as old as the Althing and closed to all outsiders but the Waikato Management School. Cambridge celebrated its 800th anniversary in 2009. Do the maths. Correct the grammar.

Barely literate, under-informed and over-opinionated, JD is a shining example of the modern managerial class. Armed with a degree in Doing Things, trained but not educated, JD doubtless will go far - probably in a BMW. Whether JD will make any sense is another matter.

Here is a long piece full of difficult words by Keith Thomas in the London Review of Books, a magazine read by bookish people:

We are all deeply anxious about the future of British universities. Our list of concerns is a long one. It includes the discontinuance of free university education; the withdrawal of direct public funding for the teaching of the humanities and the social sciences; the subjection of universities to an intrusive regime of government regulation and inquisitorial audit; the crude attempt to measure and increase scholarly ‘output’; the requirement that all academic research have an ‘impact’ on the economy; the transformation of self-governing communities of scholars into mega-businesses, staffed by a highly-paid executive class, who oversee the professors, or middle managers, who in turn rule over an ill-paid and often temporary or part-time proletariat of junior lecturers and research assistants, coping with an ever-worsening staff-student ratio; the notion that universities, rather than collaborating in their common task, should compete with each other, and with private providers, to sell their services in a market, where students are seen, not as partners in a joint enterprise of learning and understanding, but as ‘consumers’, seeking the cheapest deals which will enable them to emerge with the highest earning prospects; the indiscriminate application of the label ‘university’ to institutions whose primary task is to provide vocational training and whose staff do not carry out research; and the rejection of the idea that higher education might have a non-monetary value, or that science, scholarship and intellectual inquiry are important for reasons unconnected with economic growth.

Now read on.

When we were young

2011-11-30T21:12:00.001+13:00

Every day is a holiday

2011-11-30T14:08:00.000+13:00

The morning after National's resounding victory she sent a strong message to Auckland mayor Len Brown, saying there would be a CBD rail link before a second harbour crossing "over our dead bodies".And the former broadcaster also affirmed her support for the Puhoi-Wellsford motorway extension.She attacked those who have labelled it the "holiday highway."I refuse to use the `H' word. It will be an umbilical cord for the far north and its economy."It is an arrogance for the critics to take money already set aside for this purpose and use it for something else.

Maggie Barry, the gift that keeps on giving; if she keeps up the pace she has set in her first week as MP for the Shore, we can expect a monumental sculpture of the Member on Takapuna beach before the next election. The sculpture will be designed by Weta Workshop, of course.

Barry might make the next three years bearable for us liberals. She will be our umbilical cord. She could be our healthy obsession, the Briscoes Lady of Parliament. Or would that be an arrogance?

In other news, the secret of Pere Ubu is that they are, in fact, a pop group. Other avant-garde bands try to be all weird and stuff, but Pere Ubu just make really good songs, really good but slightly odd songs. Other avant-garde bands could learn from this, but they won't. Here, Pere Ubu are introduced by David Sanborn on Night Music, 15th October 1989.

This office life

2011-11-29T19:13:00.001+13:00

I saw a McDonalds advertisement on the television. It was for some sort of chocolate drink and it went like this: a young woman who clearly worked in some sort of administrative role bought a container of this drink and then waited for a lift, presumably to take her to the office where she worked. However, when the lift doors opened, a tsunami of brown liquid spilled out and upon her. She clearly found this experience to be immensely satsifying.

I don't know about you chaps and chapesses, but it was nightmares of this kind that persuaded me to abandon office-work for good.

Here's a film by Ken Russell about Shelagh Delaney and Salford. The moment when she answers the voiceover is marvellous.

Maggie's farm

2011-11-29T11:33:00.000+13:00

Maybe the answer is a candibot, what you might call a robot candidate from the future. Labour could deploy the candibot to represent the party in electorates where it wants Labour supporters to vote for another candidate, such as Epsom. The candibot would do all the work of a real candidate - campaigning, speaking, performing stunts and so on - but would expire on the night before election day. Its final words would be "Party Vote Labour." The next morning, voting papers would need to be amended and the supporters would be forced to vote for another candidate. The Greens could do likewise, although their candibot would be made of hemp.

We would at least be saved the mutterings of party activists who are now complaining that their supporters voted for their candidates. All those Labour votes in Epsom, we are told, could have gone to Goldsmith and kept ACT out of Parliament. All those Greens on Waiheke Island should have voted for Jacinda Ardern and thus dethroned Nikki K. So, Labour, riddle me this: why did you put up candidates in those electorates? If you didn't want Labour voters to vote for Labour candidates, why did you provide one?

No, don't tell me, I know this one: because you wanted more party votes, that's why. You know that people won't give their party votes to Labour if the Party has no presence in the electorate, so you put up a dummy candidate and then hint (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more squire) that the faithful should betray him. This time, you exceeded all known standards of idiocy by giving the dummy job to David Parker, the man who might be King, the potential future leader, the man many of you want to be Prime Minister next time. And then you tell the supporters in Epsom to vote for someone else, a Tory. And when that doesn't work, you call the party faithful stupid.

The candibot would lighten the progressive load, providing expendable candidates to bring in party votes, before becoming unserviceable and thus unelectable. Of course, this plan would only work if there is nothing in the Electoral Act which says that candidates must be human beings. Surely [obvious joke ahead] there can be no such clause, given the state of some of the candidates elected [it's all in the timing].

Take, for example, Maggie Barry. She was the obvious choice to represent the National Party on the North Shore. since she is famous and most people there have gardens. Since Mr Key's purpose in becoming Prime Minister seems to have been to know as many famous people as he can, Barry, who presented a gardening programme on the telly, was a shoe-in. The Shore being the Shore, there was no chance that she would not win the seat. Nevertheless, despite these advantages Barry managed to get in some self-pity and whining about people being mean to her. Nek minuit, she is sneering at former North Shore mayor Andrew Williams, for some reason or other. Why do they all have this thing about Williams?

Just for the record, although the Herald's headline for this article at 5pm was:

He 'only got 828 votes' - Maggie Barry takes swipe at ex-mayor

However, all day it had been

Garden supremo-cum-MP takes sly dig at Williams with lemon tree jibe

which surely must be one of the clumsiest headlines in the history of subbing. "Garden supremo-cum-MP" sounds like an unlikely porn movie, while "lemon tree jibe" sounds like a misheard Suzy Quattro song. And what was so sly about the dig? It was a bad joke and a sour one. But such bitterness [boom boom - bitterness, lemons, geddit?] in the bloom of victory is what we can expect from this lot. Entitlement heaped upon arrogance on a bed of stupidity makes for an astringent meal, one we shall be served often in the next three years.

Eventually, we can only hop e, the electorate will tire of these ghastlies and realise what horrible people they chose as their elected leaders. On the other hand, even more of the electorate might drift off into ennui and vapidity, preferring indifference to engagement - an option adopted by nearly thirty percent of the electors this time round.

The reduction, over the last three years, of political debate into a series of media opportunities for the Prime Minister can only continue, given Mr Key's attention deficit disorder and the inability of the media even to question his actions. That, and the culture of stupidity which dominates our age - one in which men are proud to be slightly thick and women to be terribly ditzy - can only produce less interest and thus less participation.

After all, doing something like voting requires an ability to take life seriously for at least some of the time, as well as the knack of thinking ahead, of considering actions and their consequences. Seen much of that lately? No, nor me.

Still, at least we have the girl in the photograph, the true unsung heroine of this election.

The Fundy Post election night special

2011-11-26T18:25:00.001+13:00

What a strange day it has been on Internet; the one day in three years in which one cannot talk about the most important thing that happening on that day, the thing for which we have been waiting and about which we have been talking for a month; you know, that thing. No, not Paul Henry's shirt, the election thing.

Still, Paul Henry's shirt will be worth watching. On TV3, after the screening of King Key vs Goffzilla, viewers were amazed, astonished and astounded to see that the panel of expert commentators included Mr Henry, a man whom most of the politically-aware class had considered to be a bit of a dork; quite a lot of a dork, in fact. Besides, we all thought he was going to Ausfuckenstralia, a move which seemed like taking coals to Newcastle (ooh, look there's a Coles in Newcastle).

Anyway, there they were, the commentators: Therese Arseneau in shocking green, Duncan Garner in all-over grey and Paul Henry in a pin-stripe suit and a purple shirt. Sadly, he had left his gold medallion in his dressing room but he managed to enliven the debate by flashing his Rolex constantly. He looked like a spiv. This is one more occasion we can add to our growing collection of things that we wonder why John Campbell puts up with. The estimable Mr Campbell of course was dressed impeccably.

In other news, TVNZ reporter Charlotte Bellis beat up a real estate agent, for charity. That must have felt good.

Here's Haunted Love:

The premier is the message

2011-11-25T18:45:00.001+13:00

1) Is this the real life?
2) Is this just fantasy?
3) Caught in a landslide.
4) No escape from reality

Tomorrow, you decide. People of New Zealand, tomorrow you have the unique opportunity to go to the polling station to choose between fantasy and reality. Use your vote wisely.

All the polls indicate that fantasy will win this one. Is it any wonder? After all, that nice Mr Key has been campaigning for this election ever since the day after the last one. Remember back then? Remember when the Sunday Star Times asked Who is John Key? Andy did you hear about this one?

I can't remember whether Andy Krieger was buying or selling, it might have been selling with me, but at the time it would have reflected the economic fundamentals at play in New Zealand.

Ah yes, we remember it well: one of the first episodes of Mr Key’s memory problem. Was Andy selling with John, against the interests of our economy? Who knows? Mr Key cannot remember and in any case he didn’t really see it as a judgemental business. He was simply executing orders for people. Where have we heard that before?It is difficult to remember.

Phil Goff remembered that Mr Key had said, before the election, that he would not raise GST but then he raised GST. Gordon Campbell remembered, the TV3 archive remembered but the journalists forgot. Instead they reported that Mr Goff was standing by his allegation and they reported that Mr Key said he respected the office of the Leader of the Opposition.

The journalists did not report that Mr Key had said he would not raise GST, that he said “if we do a half decent job growing the economy then that won't be happening," but the Government didn't do a half-decent job and it did happen. Perhaps the journalists had forgotten.

Much more important for the journalists was that Mr Key said to Mr Goff, “show me the money.” The journalists liked that. It was funny. They like it when Mr Key has a good time. They don't like it when Mr Goff is all grouchy and difficult. When Mr Goff came up with a list, all Mr Key had to do was say it was rubbish and the list was forgotten.

It's like that time when Dame Kiri said that Haley Westenra couldn't sing; or that time when David Sell said that Haley is bland. It might be true (it is) but you just don't say that sort of thing.You see, this isn't about remembering or singing.

This is about being. Mr Key is there; you can see him, on every poster, on the bus, on the telly. He is everywhere. It is not about the National Party; it is nowhere. Mr Brownlee, Mr McCully and the Doctors Smith are nowhere to be found. The election is about Mr Key, just as the last government was about Mr Key (except when something went wrong).

It's not about politics. On the website of the New Zealand Herald, politics is about a third of the way down. Politics doesn't really matter any more. There are more important stories, about crime and tragedy and Nickleback. And there are photographs of Mr Key: five of them in the first six pages of the print edition of today's Herald (which is covering the election). There were two photos of Mr Goff and one each of some other people who do not really matter. Mr Key makes a good photograph. Some might say he is one.

Mr Key is the perfect premier for our times. He is everywhere and nothing. He does not do politics or government. They are details. They are real. He doesn't do things like that. He just is. He is the photograph on the bus, he is the footage of the man on the bus. He smiles, he waves, he gets angry with the journalists when they don't ask the questions he wants to be asked. He is the Prime Minister because he wanted to be the Prime Minister. He is the Prime Minister because the media like him being Prime Minister.

After all, he is one of their own. He is media.

Some call him Maurice

2011-11-22T17:08:00.001+13:00

My apologies, gentle readers for not having posted much in recent weeks. I will try to be better. My only excuse is that I have been writing my latest detective novel, Merleau-Ponty of the Yard, in which the phenomenological detective, visiting foggy London Town on an exchange trip - solves the murder that has baffled the top men at the Met, while sharing his Gallic wisdom with the boys in blue:

“Bodily experience forces us to acknowledge an imposition of meaning, which is not the work of a universal-constituting consciousness, a meaning which clings to certain contents. My body is the meaningful core which behaves like a general function, and which, nevertheless, exists and is susceptible to disease.”

Gripping stuff, I am sure you will agree. In other news, there is no other news. Here's theaudience back in 1998 with young Sophie Ellis-Bextor pretending to be gritty and authentic:

I was unimportant when I travelled SouthThey said "your home town's sunkAnd when you're drunk You've got a filthy mouth"

Sophie, sweetheart, your home town is Ealing; your mother presented Blue Peter and once appeared in Doctor Who. Still, nice shoes.

Don't bore us, get to the discourse

2011-11-13T17:52:00.000+13:00

On Thursday morning while having a chat with Kelvin Soh at Alleluya, the fire alarm goes off and we're all ushered outside. Kelvin mentions that he has always wanted to be involved in a fire evacuation. Earlier on, when I first meet up with Kelvin he is holding a triangular postage box. I find this box incredibly nice to look at. We have a conversation about the box, about how I've never see such a box in Australia. Later on that day I send an email to Kelvin:

Now read on. Apropos my previous post, Mr Charlie Sofo has published the text of his exhibit at Artspace, a text that includes a chat with Kelvin who never has been involved in a fire evacuation - a remarkably sheltered life.

Mr Sofo likes chats. As you will see from the comments on my previous post, Mr Sofo wanted to have a chat with me, with the hope that it might correct the bad information. I declined. I do not like chats, not of that sort. It would have been the sort of chat you might have with your headmaster, rather than the sort you might have with Kelvin. What happens in this sort of chat is that someone like Mr Sofo tells someone like me that he is wrong, that he has the bad information. I would resist such a line of chat because in this particular case there is no information, only opinion.

A lot of contemporary artists and curators seem to have difficulty with the idea of opinion, perhaps because their work is never criticised. Contemporary art journals no longer contain criticism of the kind that says this is good, that is bad and that is throwing a pot of paint in the public's face (a comment which cost Ruskin a farthing). What you get instead is interpretation, in which a critic will tell you what it is all about, at least by the critic's lights. In other words, you get artwank.

The domination of artwank (or, as it is known among the artwankers, critical discourse) has brought us to this pretty pass:

This, gentle readers, is the world's most expensive photograph. Yes, I know. Four point three million dollars US, that's what it cost; and it is not even unique: it is one of an edition of six. You might think it the sort of photograph your mum would take. But nobody is asking you. Nobody is asking me either but, for the record, I think it is not that bad but not that good and certainly not worth that kind of coin.

So what's it all about then? Christie's says it is "a dramatic and profound reflection on human existence and our relationship to nature on the cusp of the 21st century." But they would say that, wouldn't they? They might also say it is a nice little earner. And, by the way, it has been shooped:

Gursky digitally erased buildings on the far side of the river from his picture. This manipulation enhances the image visually, giving it more formal coherence. Rather than the sense of a specific place, the picture conveys an almost Platonic ideal of a body of water traversing as landscape. Gursky talks about this image in terms of its contemporaneity, saying, ‘I wasn’t interested in an unusual, possibly picturesque view of the Rhine, but in the most contemporary possible view of it. Paradoxically, this view of the Rhine cannot be obtained in situ; a fictitious construction was required to provide an accurate image of a modern river’

Bet your mum couldn't do that. Or say that - the art of art is talking the talk. Gursky is good at that. Behind him is a legion of artwankers who will promote him in similar or more abstruse terms. But there is nobody who says this sort of work is not very interesting, not that good, not worth the money. And that absence distorts art, it allows the artwankers to do what they want without any reference to the rest of us. It leads to aimless exhibits like Mr Sofo's and to obscenely expensive photos like Herr Gursky's.

What we need are a few more Ruskins (a few Whistlers wouldn't go amiss, either). We need to hear a little less of that guff about art being challenging to the viewer (anybody who has been to an opening will know that the professionals are not challenged by art, especially when they have had a few glasses of Merlot) and a bit more challenge to the artist. We need a whole lot of discourse going on.

Meanwhile Hennessy Youngman explains Relational Aesthetics:

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Duck

2011-11-12T20:42:00.001+13:00

People say I spend too much time reading architectural theory, so much time that I find images like the above funny. If you too find this funny, there are more of the same to be found here.

In other news, this was what Punk was like:

A short post about the absurdity of architecture

2011-11-10T12:18:00.000+13:00

It’s been said before, but Architecture is a narrative ofinteresting buildings, the ones we remember and debate,the ones we build stories around, the ones we dissect andrecycle. Architecture is not a discipline, it’s a book club. It’sa book club where the illustrations are usually more importantthan the texts. Architecture is a sequestered jury. It’s acultural bracket under intense pressure trying to producediamonds out of dirt. And if it could have any autonomy itwouldn’t be formal or technical, it would be social; but it’sall temporary, I suppose. I know we’ll both forget this, butin the meantime, it’s comforting that we oddballs have eachother for a little while to discuss and project possibilities, totry to convince each other (and the others) to see the worldas it could be.

This is quite absurd and very true. It is from an essay by Michael Meredith of MOS; you can find it in Log 22, which he edited, or you can download it here.

Look Blue Go Purple:

The cakes of wrath

2011-11-06T19:23:00.001+13:00

But frugality is called for. So when the bank says you're stretched, and you own a house, an apartment and a bach, what to do? You don't want to sell because the apartment and bach are rented and bring in a moderate income. But you need more money to do them up, so the rentals could be higher.So you do what National's intending. You hold on to a majority shareholding of the properties.Then you tell your family they can buy shares in the remaining 49 per cent of the house, bach and apartment. With their investment money, you improve the properties, increase the rentals and the dividends go skywards.

Does this happen? Is this the sort of family financial transaction that goes on among the Coddingtons and their friends? I know, I know, you are going to say "oh Alice, come back, it's just an analogy," but I think it is reasonable to measure people by the quality of their metaphors. Most of us do not own three prop erties and most of us do not make deals with members of our family.

But then most of us are not like La Coddington. We do not buy these family analogies because we bought them once before, in the eighties. We were told that managing an economy is just like managing a household budget. We were told that Margaret Thatcher was a household superstar, that she and her followers throughout the world would put everything back in balance. Thirty years on, we are in recession again and we are looking forward to twenty more lost years, to add to those already lost. For many people, all of those last thirty years were lost; for others, the going has been good but the next thirty years are dreaded.

Of course, none of the above applies to people of money. They can live in a silly fantasy world of ruched curtains framing trompe l'oeil landscapes, where the righteous are rewarded with riches while poverty is the wages of indolence. The people of money may well sell shares in their properties to their children, but that is because their hearts have been hardened by a thousand deals, because they are incapable of seeing life beyond profit and loss, because even their children are rivals. Despite the best efforts of the neo-liberals to turn us all into little businesses, most of us have not lost our humanity.

In any case, La Coddington's ridiculous analogy falls apart as it takes flight: "With their investment money, you improve the properties, increase the rentals and the dividends go skywards." Does she really think that this investment money will be used to improve our state-owned enterprises? No, it will be used to provide further financial incentives to people like her; because the wealthy need constant incentives to become even wealthier while the poor need constant beatings, not to encourage them to become less poor but to satisfy the blood-lust of the rich.

Meanwhile, in another part of the woods, the Bridgester recalls an adventure:

Suddenly I realised my oversized Burberry handbag could have been interpreted as a symbol of rampant materialism but no one seemed bothered - not the friendly young woman collecting litter, the two men chatting quietly about how to change the system or the guy slumbering in the shade of a marquee.

Pausing only to ponder whether an oversized Burberry handbag could be interpreted as a symbol of a rampant chavette, we can at least award Bridgeman a merit badge for effort. At least she tried, she made the long journey from Rem to Town, she tried to find out what was going on.

And what is going on? More to the point, what's eating Ghastly Glucina? Here's the start of the piece what she wrote last week in her new role as a political pundit:

Jacinda Ardern may be nicknamed "The Teef" due to her giant gnashers, and her Labour colleague David Shearer of Mt Albert may despise his counterpart in New Lynn, David Cunliffe, but it's nothing on the Act scale of conflict zones. In Epsom, John Banks is fighting for survival. His hoardings have gone up with his name plastered across them, but the Act logo is barely visible. His leader, Don Brash, has spent the past week gallivanting in London

It goes on, and on; it doesn't get any sweeter. All well and ugly, you might conclude, but then you see the start of this week's dispatch from the bottom line:

Spare a thought for Jacinda Ardern. Her boss Phil Goff is so desperate to get her into bed, so to speak, he's prepared to splurge $1.2 billion. He says Labour would fork out that much for the Auckland rail loop. But this is just a clever way of getting around the funding rules and pumping money into the Battle of the Babes in Auckland Central. Meanwhile, there was a flurry of speculation this week about the whereabouts of Don Brash's mojo - just returned from a gallivanting trip abroad, it then went berserk in front of a TV camera.

Already we can see some issues with the appointment of Glucina as a pundit. For a start, she is at best semi-literate, not a disqualification for gossip creatu res but normally considered something of a drawback in political journalism, at least on any other paper but the Herald. Then there is the unique quality of her punditry. Alone among the pundits, she opines that the proposed Auckland rail loop is nought but a cunning ruse to get round the funding rules. Alone among the pundits, Glucina detects a flurry of speculation about Don Brash.

The question many media commentators will be asking is one posed in different circumstances by Aretha Franklin: who's zooming who? What motivates Glucina's schoolgirlish attempts to slime all over Ardern and Brash? Did she suffer some slight from either or both from which she has never quite recovered? Or has someone with more than half a brain (but not much more) put her up to this? I think we should be told.

Oh, one more thing: As an added bonus, one can see Glucina in Metro this month, in the special Rich White Celebrity Trash section. Call me a ferret if you like but she does not look like her Herald byline photograph any more.

Let's curate again (like we did last summer)

2011-10-31T12:47:00.000+13:00

Sudden gestures or noises brings together the work of three artists in an investigation of the 'gestural' possibilities of contemporary art.

New Zealand-born, LA-based video artist Sean Grattan's Carmen San Diego: Out Of Work And On The Run (2011) subverts filmic conventions and the notion of goal-based behaviour, creating an essentially gestural production that is activated by its imperfection. Questions of success and failure, and of subjectivity and objectivity, lie at the heart of the work, which engages with its viewers' expectations whilst simultaneously resisting them.

UK artist Ed Atkins' Death Mask III, too, toys with the semiotic structure of cinema. Seemingly disparate audiovisual elements are enmeshed in a way that is both familiar yet highly unstable. Sudden shifts in tone and subject deny the possibility of a narrative interpretation; Atkins ensures that the gestural movements of the film remain the focus.

In addition to these works, Australian artist Charlie Sofo will produce a new body of work that responds both to the physical space of the Artspace gallery and to the strategic possibilities of the gestural in terms of the production of art.

Bollocks. What Australian artist Australian artist Charlie Sofo did was come here, talk artwank with art people, buy some stuff and pin it to the walls. He took some photos as well. He recalls his adventures in Auckland on two sheets of A4 which lie on a table in the room at Artspace where his works are displayed. These works include a triangular box from the post office downstairs, some shiny material and a ladder. This last is tied to the wall in what is probably an ironic statement on curatorial praxis; either that or some way to fill up the space. This ladder was bought for the artist so he could paint the wall beside it, in a rather ugly colour somewhere between Puce and Prosthetic Limb. In other news, Mr Sofo was treated to coffee by his hosts.

So, in short and not employing any artwank, what we got was what he did on his holidays. I hope he kept the receipts. He could probably make another body of work out of them and get some more funding.

Not surprisingly, Mr Sofo has a blog:

I am asking people to come to my Masters studio at the vca for CHATS. With me. That's it. There is an empty space waiting there, and I think you can help me fill it.

I'm going to send some emails around now, but if you don't recieve one and would like to have a lunch time chat please get in contact: charliesofo at gmail . com

I think not. I think I would find it a very boring experience. I think I would have to use artwank words like liminal and intertextuality just to keep myself amused and awake. When I went to the opening I found myself looking at the clerestory windows of Artspace, which are lovely, just to avoid looking at the art, which was not. I left after two drinks. I was bored.

Of late, I have often found myself in a state of boredom when visiting Artspace. A couple of weeks ago, I attended this:

Jennifer Teets will be presenting "The alter self of Lady Lux", a lecture and reading on scripted choreography in the work of General Idea.

Jennifer Teets (Houston, Texas, 1978) is a curator interested in conceptual potlatch, future renaissance, and hybrid systems. She currently lives and works in Paris.

I suffered for my art. I found myself sitting on the floor of Artspace choosing between death and cake. If I stayed and listened further to Jennifer Teets I risked slipping into a coma; if I left, I could buy cake. I chose cake.

It was a wise decision. By this stage in proceedings, I could feel my hair growing. Ms Teets' lecture and reading was neither; it was more of a wreck and a rambling. Ms Teets did that thing that first year Art History students do: neglect preparation. Then she did that other thing they do, which is to think they can improvise. They can't. A J P Taylor could talk without notes for an hour and grip his audience throughout; Ms Teets had this member of the audience looking for an excuse to leave, such as a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. Unfortunately, the audience was too small to leave without being noticed leaving. Moreover, it contained people I like, respect and fancy. In the Church of England, this is know as the Evensong Dilemma; in the art world it is known as the Performative Paradox; I am making up these terms as I go along but I am doing a better job than Ms Teets, believe me.

She seemed nice, she had beautiful blue eyes, but she had not done any work. She talked about W B Yeats and was not sure whether his name was pronounced Yates or Yeets. She talked about situationism and architecture, not for one moment betraying any knowledge of either. She had a page of notes that she should have left on the plane. She said she found things about the work of General Idea "interesting," just like the first-years do. "Interesting" means "I have no idea about what I am talking and please save me from this cold and lonely place into which I have stumbled," a cry for help that never is answered.

It wasn't really her fault. No, probably it was, but I am trying to be nice. The trouble with talking about the work of General Idea is that there really is not much to talk about. They were Canadian. They made videos. They questioned the values of the art world while trying their hardest to make as much money as possible from it. They were really Eighties. Two of them died of AIDS.

All the while Ms Teets was stumbling, a loud video made by General Idea was turning. Nobody thought to turn it down and give Teets a chance. To someone who spoke artwank that might seem an ironical gesture on the boundaries of performative injunction and ludic aphrasia. I found it annoying. In truth, I had only come for the conceptual potlatch; I hoped it might be cake. It was not.

How did it come to this? How is it that Artspace displays work that is neither provocative nor challenging but instead is rather dull? How does it lure a curator all the way from Paris to conceptual murder on the gallery floor? Perhaps it is something to do with the Director:

Caterina Riva (b. 1980, Varese, Italy) is a curator who has been based in London since 2006. She studied in Italy and the UK where she received her MFA in Curating at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Over the past three years at FormContent, her artistic programme has focused on exploring curatorial and artistic strategies, combining exhibition making, independent publishing and the production of events and performances, to critical acclaim.

You see what she did there? She got an MFA in Curating. Her artistic programme has focused on exploring curatorial and artistic strategies. In the past, curators had jobs or careers; in the now, they are artists. And look how she has travelled: the curators are everywhere and nowhere (baby).

And there's the rub. Yer international curatorial practice favours artists like Charlie Sofo. He is just an MFA student but clearly he is walking the walk and (more importantly) talking the talk. There is at least a score of MFAs and PhDs doing far more interesting work than Charlie and far more original (in the sense of not having been done forty years ago) work to boot. What's more, most of them live on K Road. But visiting curators are expected to bring artists from overseas and they are expected to find stuff which is "challenging." They don't. They find stuff which fits the same old paradigm of international curatorial practice. This is why our contemporary art spaces are like airport lounges: everything is sort of the same, wherever you go. It is never quite the same, but neither is it very different. It features videos and concepts and performances, all stuff which was done by the end of the '60s. The people who come to see this stuff are the MFAs and PhDs who live on K Road. Nobody else cares.

Still, she will be gone at the end of the year, on to another gallery in some other country. She will be replaced by someone else, who will do much the same. And so it goes, and so it goes.

In other news, do you remember that time when the Style Council invaded the Soviet Union and tried to convince the mulleted workers that class war is real and that there is something wrong with wanting a colour TV? Patronising gits:

Free all the monsters

2011-10-22T18:13:00.003+13:00

Trouble started this year when theatre attendance took a triple hammering because of the Christchurch earthquake, the global financial crisis, and the Rugby World Cup, Ms Beaton said.

Four production staff were axed and the theatre programme was cancelled from the beginning of this month.

The only show now listed at Downstage is a three-day run of a dance work called Carnival Hound in November.

But the theatre was also being used for other activities such as rehearsals, workshops and dance classes, Ms Beaton said. "We need the [council] funding because we don't have audiences. Audiences are our major generator of income at the moment."

No, obviously they are not. If you do not have any audiences because you cancelled the programme, then audiences are not likely to be your major generator of income. I do not know what is going down at Downstage, but it does not seem to include thinking. Which is a pity, because not only does Downstage have a notable history but the Hannah Playhouse in which it serves is one of the best buildings in New Zealand.

But what really bothers me about this story is the scene where Ms Beaton says it is disrespectful to describe the funding request as a bailout. Of course it is a bailout. Contrary to Ms Beaton's financial analysis, Downstage's problems are not the result of the crash, the quake and the rugby. They have been going on for years, as this post from the estimable Grant Robertson's blog - dated 4th November, 2008 - indicates. At this time in the Theatre's history, a little less bluster and a little more humility on the the part of the CEO might be appropriate. Perhaps not having a CEO might be a good idea. Perhaps theatres and other arts organisations should be put back into the hands of the people who make art rather than being controlled by pretend executives. Just a thought.

Oh dear, this post is beginning to sound like an editorial. Here's The Bats, with a new song from their new album, a song which has the same name as the album:

Read about it here.

Death and the Mehrtens

2011-10-16T20:40:00.003+13:00

Diners in the Eden Park Pavilion were stunned when the man collapsed.

They were unsure about the man's condition and continued eating as St John staff arrived to help. The dinner was accompanied by a speech from former All Black Andrew Mehrtens.

Those in the Egmont Room at the pavilion included millionaire entrepreneur Seeby Woodhouse.

His business manager Karen Morfett said those enjoying the hospitality focused on their meals and Mehrten's delivery on stage in an attempt to preserve the dignity of the man being helped.

This has to be the creepiest story of the Cup. What better way to preserve the dignity of a dying man than by scoffing down dinner and listening to Mehrts? How many diners thought "I paid three thousand bucks for this; I am not missing it because some sod has corked it;" how many thought "will anyone notice if I take his main? What kind of people are these? Who pays $3000 for a meal and a speech? Who dines while someone dies? And what kind of newspaper runs the story with a request for diners to email its reporter?

In other news, my dinner included a packet of Copper Kettle BBQ Chips. They tasted like kettles. Really, they were horrible. Then in the morning I remembered this piece by the estimable Mr Judd. At least his tasted nice.

On a brighter note, there was that time when Can played disco on Top of the Pops:

Theme from a summer Place

2011-10-04T12:28:00.000+13:00

For longer than anyone can remember, Khartoum Place has been a sordid blot on Auckland's urban landscape. Its rebuild in 1993 did nothing to change that. Rather than make it an attractive transition between Lorne St and Albert Park, it achieved little more than putting colourful ribbons on a pig.

Welcome to Auckland, where a sordid blot looks like this. Yes, even our eyesores have running water.

I find myself at variance with the estimable Hamish Keith, a man who has done much to tell Auckland about itself and stop it from doing itself more harm. Still, this time he sees an eyesore, I see a fountain. But then he thinks the new and improved Auckland Art Gallery is brilliant while I think it looks like an office furniture showroom in a business park on the edge of Whangarei; à chacun son goût.

What is it with the Auckland art community and the Suffrage Memorial? "A recent poll, admittedly at the Auckland Art Fair, showed that 85% favoured a reconfiguration of the Place while only 15% wanted it left as it is." Yes, but this was the Auckland Art Fair, full of ghastlies who buy art for investment purposes, the sort of people who have a Terry Stringer in the gazebo. How many of these people would give a stuff about suffrage? How many of them would use Khartoum Place, or Mr Keith's Suffrage Square? And why is it that the great and the good seem so determined to take away this public space and replace it with a staircase?

You see, while Mr Keith paints a lurid picture of Khartoum Place which makes it seem like Bedford-Stuyvesant, it is in fact a nice place. People go there to eat lunch. It is one of the few places in central Auckland which provides shade in the summer, natural shade produced by trees. The waterfall is cooling. Occasionally, on high days and holidays, oicks add dish-washing liquid, but this is not the end of the world. Best of all, there are no cars there. While crossing Kitchener Street to get to the spiffing new Art Gallery is taking one's life in one's hands, in Khartoum Place one is safe. There should be more places in the city like this.

Besides, not many years ago a large amount of money was spent improving the Place, putting in new seats and so on. It didn't really need improving, but that was better than Plan A, which was to let Urban Designers ruin it, just like they always do. And there was Chris Saines, trying to get rid of the steps and the memorial because they spoilt the view to his Art Gallery. Fortunately, he and the art establishment did not win that time. But now they want to do it again. Of course, every stakeholder will be consulted, from the lowest civic nuisance to the wealthiest philanthropist, but nobody will talk to the people who use the Place, just like they never do. Anyone for Tilted Arc?

Besides again, why do we have to spend our money replacing things that don't need replacing? The steps do what they are supposed to do. There is nothing wrong with them. It is just that a bunch of powerful people want rid of them. Whilst such people simply adore street art produced by Elam graduates pretending to be oicks because it is so gritty and authentic, they cannot abide a work which is genuinely political and which seems to be very popular.

And look what they want put in its place: a fooking great staircase. So, instead of a simple set of steps and a fountain which work, they want something that could have been designed by Albert Speer. All it lacks is an equestrian statue of Chris Saines at the top, and maybe a few banners. Whilst the steps and fountain offer shade and water, the staircase will be accessible only to the fleet of foot (the people of money don't think about this, because they arrive by car, but infirm people appreciate having resting places on a staircase) and will bake its users in summer.

But then, the users don't matter. The purpose of the staircase is to add lustre to the Art Gallery. Of course, as you can see in the artist's impression, the staircase blocks access to the buildings facing the Place; but again their occupants do not matter. Nobody matters except the great and the good.

And what of Suffrage Square? Well, apart from being an ugly name which will challenge wearers of false teeth, what is the point? The Place is not a Square. We could condescend to women by getting a lady sculptress to make a statue symbolising the spirit of womanhood, just like they did in the Thirties, but we don't need another sculpture - Auckland has quite enough ugly realist sculptures. Besides, Mr Keith should know that public commemorative sculpture is not exactly the cutting edge of the avant garde these days. We would not get anything that would not make us cringe. In any case, while we are thinking of names, how about the Potemkin Staircase? The City could employ a woman with a pram in a performance piece to celebrate suffrage.

So how about we tell the great and the good to sod off and leave our public spaces alone? They got their Art Gallery. They have their atrium. The Gallery is quite bossy enough to keep the oicks away. So perhaps the great and the good could now ease off on the arrogance and leave alone something that belongs to the rest of Auckland.

Meanwhile, Mr Rudman also is on the side of the steps. Here is Haunted Love, who have an album, which is very good:

Night of the living documents

2011-10-02T18:04:00.004+13:00

This was unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street last night, around 8pm, Sept 29. It is our first official document for release. We have three more underway, that will likely be released in the upcoming days: 1) A declaration of demands. 2) Principles of Solidarity 3) Documentation on how to form your own Direct Democracy Occupation Group. This is a living document. you can receive an official press copy of the latest version by emailing c2anycga@gmail.com.

It is over before it started. The Occupy Wall Street movement has turned out to be boring, bureaucratic and bourgeois, just like ever revolutionary group before it. It has manifesti: a declaration, some principles and a how-to-do-it guide. Soon, it will be like IKEA: branches everywhere, instruction leaflets, flat-pack activism.

Anyway, what do they want? They want revenge. Of course they do, we all do. Corporations are awful, Wall Street is dreadful, Madison Avenue is worse. But this list, which is not dissimilar to Luther's 95 theses, omits the greatest wrongs committed by corporations:

They have made shiny things that we really like.
They have made yummy things that we really, really like.
They have commodified sex, thus making it fun.

We could go on, adding to the list, dredging further grievances from the backs of our super-egos. Why don't we all go to your place and make muffins while we add to the list? Come on, it'll be fun:

They have made DVD boxed sets of all our favourite albums.
They have made yet another movie of Jane Eyre
They have filled our houses with junk.
They have made everything retro.
They have made documentaries about Late Capitalism.
They are Late Capitalism.
They have made Late Capitalism fun.

That's the problem with Wall Street. It keeps providing stuff that we never knew we really wanted until a branch opened near us. Future archaeologists will clamber over the remains of our civilisation (and what remains, Pip! Best middens ever) and wonder why we needed a Sunglasses Hut in every mall, why we went to such expensive lengths to make coffee just right, why we needed so many pictures framed. We could tell them now: we were buying souvenirs of our own lives. Or we could just not think about it; probably best.

Let us take a quick and lazy look at the people involved. Yes, you thought the same as did I: LATFH. These are the very same people who created a micro-economy where bikes without brakes or gears are worth more than bikes which work properly, the people who made deep shallow so they could sell it to each other, the people who spent a fortune on tattoos which already look silly. No wonder they are angry. And look at this firkin LATFH. It has a book already. Who would buy a book of a blog? Who would prefer to pay for a commodity that will be out of date before it arrives to getting something for nothing? Us, that's who. We're like that.

Painting: The White Slave by Jean Lecomte du Nouy; look, she's smoking! Next up, Andy Warhol makes a music video, with hilarious results:

Buttock-toning for pleasure and profit

2011-09-30T20:40:00.003+13:00

The Federal Trade Commission said yesterday that Reebok, a unit of the German group Adidas, agreed to pay US$25 million (NZ$32.2m) in customer refunds to purchasers of its EasyTone walking shoes and RunTone running shoes.

The funds will be made available for consumer refunds either directly from the FTC or through a court-approved class action lawsuit.

Reebok falsely claimed that walking in EasyTone footwear had been proven to lead to 28 per cent more strength and tone in the buttock muscles, and 11 per cent more strength and tone in the hamstring muscles and calf muscles than regular walking shoes, the FTC's complaint says.

Gosh. They lied. How good of the NZ Herald to tell us so. But then, right next to this story is a link to this one from June last year:

They may look like a throwback from the 80s, but new toning sneakers can do much more than put the spring back into your step.

Two versions of the specially designed shoes have just gone on sale in New Zealand, with the makers promising they will improve muscle tone in the thighs, calves and buttocks.

Reebok's EasyTone and Shape-ups by Skechers, can also straighten posture, and help weight-loss.

Well, no. What happened was this: the Herald received some PR flannel from the usual sources and printed it, complete with minor-celebrity endorsement:

Gillespie, a breakfast DJ for ZM, said she noticed the difference as soon as she first started walking in EasyTones.

She said: "It would be like you've been to the gym and had a hammering on your hammies and glutes.

"The next day I felt like I had a huge long workout."

With the release of the FTC's findings, purchasers of these shoes might feel like they have had something huge and long. Herald correspondent Anna Rushworth - "I felt good bouncing along Queen St after work in my bright, white Reebok EasyTones" - might be wishing she had spent more time talking to Bruce Baxter, president of Podiatry New Zealand. The Herald might be wishing it sent its journalists out to do real stories, in sensible shoes; but then, probably not.

With thanks to André for noticing the contradiction.

Painting by Paul Paede.

Meanwhile, Richard Ashcroft feels really crepe barging along a street:

Cat scratch fever

2011-09-25T15:38:00.002+13:00

A man who crashed his trail bike, striking his groin on the handlebars, is lucky he wasn't injured somewhere more private.

Where? Home, the little boys' room, the corporate box? Why this coyness, why this story? Why the headline, Groin smash horror, when no such horror took place?

"He lost control at a low speed and the handlebar went into his groin area. It was actually just off to the side of the groin area, the upper thigh area - it wasn't quite in the private parts," he told APNZ.

Meanwhile, the Herald on Sunday pursues the stories that matter with investigative reporting:

When the Herald on Sunday asked Dixon for comment, he offered an opportunity to say one word. The reporter said: "Jonathan..." then he cut in and said, "Chloe Johnson, that was your word". And hung up.

Meanwhile in 1978, Ted Nugent risks trouser groin horror:

I'm on a wharf

2011-09-24T20:39:00.005+12:00

No, I am not. I was on a wharf but I did not stay. I went to Captain Cook Wharf, the Official Overflow Wharf for the Official Fanzone Wharf, which is not to be called Party Central, no sir. It works like this: when everybody wants to get on to Queen's Wharf because everything is happening there but cannot because the wharf is not big enough for everybody, the authorities open Captain Cook Wharf. This solves crowd problems immediately.

No, you're right; it doesn't. What happens is this: everybody wants to get on to Queen's Wharf, so the authorities open Captain Cook Wharf. Everybody still wants to get on to Queen's Wharf, so they stand in a huge queue. Meanwhile, a few people go to Captain Cook Wharf. In the interests of actualité, tonight I was one of them.

I can report to you that Captain Cook Wharf is a very big wharf. In its present configuration as an overflow partyzone it contains four sorts of thing. These are a big screen, some piecarts, many portaloos and an infinite number of barriers. And that is it. There is nowhere to sit, nowhere to buy the Official Piss of Rugby World Cup 2011, nowhere to run baby, nowhere to hide.

You arrive. You pass through corridors of barriers. Your bags are checked by people in flouro to ensure you are not carrying any unauthorised item such as a gun or a Steinlager. A woman hands you a leaflet. It is too dark to read the leaflet. You buy cholesterol products from the pie carts and you stand in front of the big screen. If you are feeling adventurous you sit on the concrete. It is dark, apart from the security lights, which give a gulag archipelago tone to the evening. It is cold.

After a short while, you realise that all sense of purpose to your life is ebbing away. Besides, you no longer have any sensation in your genitals. You turn to leave. You pass the pie-carts. You reach the entrance. A man in flouro says that the way to the exit is back where you came from and round in a loop. You can see that this journey will take you to a point beside you and the man in flouro, a point you could reach in less than ten seconds by walking forward. But you have lost all will to resist. You go back. You go round; in a loop.

Back on the street, you find more portaloos. Thousands of these things are standing in lines all over the Queen's Wharf Demarcation Zone, or whatever it is called. It is like Checkpoint Charlie for the incontinent. Barriers, security people, women with leaftlets, portaloos: that is all there is to be seen. And yet nobody uses the portaloos. From my own experience, I can tell you that in my life I have never wanted to pee less. The feeling that one will be watched, prohibited or handed a leaflet removes any desire to do anything. The comforting realisation that one is still alive is balanced perfectly by the dreadful sense that everything around is entirely devoid of life. This place is Limbo, with lavatories.

The people around you, the teeming hoards of people trying to get into the other wharf, make many noises, none of which sound like speech. They seem to be shouting in a language that is beyond words, an esperanto for the young, witless and pissed.

So you run, back to the safety and calm of Queen Street. You run past the worst covers band you have ever heard, one of the nouveaux pasticheurs, those musicians who do not bother to learn the tunes of Hotel California, Sweet Home Alabama and the other songs they slaughter but just play the same chords in differing tempi. You run past numerous gangs of marauding evangelicals, refusing their tracts and their prayers. You run past the somnolent masses of members of the glue-sniffing community. You run past fifty kebab shops and then you wake up and it was all a dream.

That last bit wasn't true. It is all horribly real. If it rains, it will be even worse.

Shirtlifters of the world unite

2011-09-18T20:25:00.003+12:00

“David and I were sunbathing on a very busy beach, when, out of the blue, two men, one middle-aged and the other much younger, approached us. One spoke perfect English, the other perfect French.

“They seemed nice and invited us out for a very generous lunch and poured us vodka. David and I had consumed quite a bit of alcohol and may have been a little intoxicated when they began hitting us with questions. It all seemed rather strange.”

Golly. Two young chaps, on a beach far away from School in an exotic foreign land are approached by friendly foreign gentlemen. Fortunately, young Cameron was not going to be taken in:

“They were clearly trying to sound out our political views. David’s weren’t particularly socialist at the time. They quickly grasped that he wasn’t a Lenin sympathiser or anything like that. We were not going to make disobliging remarks about Britain or our prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.”

No, that would be treachery and, as we all know about the Soviets, their trade is treachery. Fortunately, the young chaps were not Lenin sympathisers or, as we know them, Bolsheviks.

Young Cameron showed something of the mettle that has made him Britain's most decisive Prime Minister since Sir Alex Douglas-Home:

He said Cameron’s relaxed demeanour swiftly changed as he became suspicious about how the men could afford to pay for an extravagant lunch, when they claimed to work in a hotel.

Together, the two chums decided to be discreet and not to turn up for dinner

We decided it was probably best to be discreet and careful during our two-week wander around Russia, so we failed to turn up for dinner. David’s words were: 'Let’s definitely not go.’

Many years later, Griffith and Cameron - long-retired from public service - would often recall their adventures in the Caucasus over a glass of whiskey after dinner. On one such occasion, as the sun went down and the shadows crept across the lawn, they talked again of those two men whom they had met on that beach. As their laughter subsided, Griffith turned to Cameron and - looking him in they eye - said to his old friend, "you know, it's never occurred to me before but, come to think of it, maybe those Russian chaps just wanted a shag."

Shoplifters of the world shut up

2011-09-18T18:53:00.003+12:00

"I have taken responsibility for my actions and am being accountable for the fact that what I did was wrong. I do regret everything that happened," she said.

That's nice. In this day and age it is a rare thing to hear someone accepting responsibility for her actions.

However, she said the justice system treated her unfairly.

No, no, there's no however.

"I did apply for name suppression to protect my son but the judge said 'no, because the public had a right to know'."

She said she gave a false name and address to the clinic because she did not want anyone to know she was having the treatment.

"I gave the correct phone number and I never ran out of the clinic. I was parked nearby and had left my wallet in the car. I went to get cash out and saw an ex.

"We have bad history and I thought he was going to stop and talk to me so I bolted. I didn't want to deal with him," she said.

No, stop now. Please. Ask yourself, what have you gained? Everybody now knows you did the crime and that you are rubbish at making excuses.

"I am too young to have Botox all the time but I had it once before.

"I did think I needed it because I have a strong frown line but it didn't change the way I look," she said

Stop , stop, stop. Not only are you dishonest and vain, you are also quite boring. Go away, please.

Strange things happen everyday

2011-09-17T15:07:00.004+12:00

The fathers of two US Eagles rugby players were among the occupants of a van who had a lucky escape yesterday when their New Plymouth-bound vehicle veered into the path of oncoming traffic

This is a news story. In New Zealand news rooms, potential news stories are judged by a triage journalist who looks for vital signs of tragedy, celebrity and property. The ideal news story would be something like that of an All Black and his weathergirl wife being killed by a falling housing market. These things rarely happen, so newspapers have to look for carnage on the roads, much as do magpies. Usually they find some dead teens, at least by Sunday morning.

However, this is Rugby World Cup time, when normal rules do not apply. Thus the fathers of unnamed Americans can be substitute celebrities, simply by the inclusion of the word rugby. And, as can be seen in this instance, one does not need tragedy; the avoidance of such is enough.

Other strange things are happening every day. Readers may have noticed the recent adventures in social commentary enjoyed by Rachel Glucina, while today an equal but opposite event occurred when Fran O'Sullivan drivelled:

Watching the former Cold War warriors toughing it out in New Plymouth the other night was great sport on several levels.

Particularly, the arrival of Miss Russia, Natalia Gantimurova, on a private turboprop with billionaire Russian Standard Vodka founder Roustam Tariko.

Good also to see our Prime Minister cosying up to Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov, making one of those special connections that will assist New Zealand as we move to cement a trade agreement with that country.

A simple but terrifying explanation is behind these two phenomena. In the New Zealand Herald's secret laboratories, scientists have managed to fuse these two columnists into one supercolumnist, a being so powerful that no event, whether important or trivial, will remain uncommented upon. This being is known by the name Fran O'Glucina. Where is your god now?

On Later with Jools Holland, as it turns out. Here, Mr Holland and Mr Tom Jones sing Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Note also the woman at 1:35 clapping enthusiastically but out of time.

Were you there when they crucified Len Brown?

2011-09-12T17:26:00.003+12:00

Everything you need to know about the political management of the Rugby World Cup in Auckland can be found in this Rudman and in this photograph. Murray McCully, the Cabinet's Kenneth Widmerpool, is quick to take the credit and quicker still to avoid the responsibility, just like his Prime Minister. When it was all going swimmingly, Murray was in charge. When the going got tough, Murray was gone as soon as he could point a pudgy finger of blame at Mayor Brown and shout "you're it!"

The Dear Administrator also made sure the buck would stop nowhere near him, not this close to an election:

Asked if Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully was wrong not to apologise he said no. "Party central worked perfectly".The Government had responsibility for The Cloud the police and the opening ceremony. Most got to the game but a small group did not. Key said he was more than happy to apologise, but responsibility was with the delivery agents in Auckland.

Party Central did indeed work perfectly, for the simple reason that most people who wanted to enter it were kept out. Those people, tens of thousands of them, blocked the entire waterfront. Since Auckland's waterfront is also its transport hub, Auckland found itself hosting a very large party on its train, bus and ferry stations.

So, party out of bounds, who's to blame, who's to blame? Perhaps the blame lies with the person who thought it would be a smashing idea to create Party Central on the waterfront. That person would be Mr Key. Or perhaps blame lies with his creature, Mr McCully, who had the job of managing the event. But no, they blame the Mayor.

Pausing only to reflect that these are quite contemptible people, we might then look at what was happening in the middle of the city while chaos reigned at the waterfront. Not a great deal, as it turned out: Aotea Square, the public space recently refurbished at great public expense, was largely unused. It contained a covers band of the not-terribly-good kind, a face-painting facility and two Land Rovers. These last occupied most of the Square, which had been fenced-off to provide a space in which they could drive round and round, showing off their extraordinary ability to go over ramps. This could be done by a 1983 Corolla but then Toyota is not a Global Partner of the Rugby World Cup. And that was it. The centre of our city, recently landscaped to within an inch of its life, looked like the remnants of a third-rate A&P show. And it does to this day: as I write, those bloody Land Rovers most likely are still going round and round.

Pausing only to reflect that this shows how public space can so easily be corporatised - this is our public square, not Land Rover's car park - we might consider what went wrong. Here's a working hypothesis. Mr Key had a vision. He knew what had to be done. Mr Key has a can-do attitude. Unfortunately, he can't.

Mr Key's vision was rubbish from the start. Queen's Wharf, his envisioned site for Party Central, is - as its name suggests - a wharf. As such, it has characteristically wharfine features. It has four sides, three of which are bordered by water and only one that is attached to land. This means, as I am sure you have realised, that is has only one entrance from the land. It is also much longer than it is wide. So this happens: people go on to the wharf from the landward end. Of course, they cannot leave it other than at that end; in any case, they may not want to leave, since the wharf has a pub, huge television screens and Dave Dobbyn. However, lots of other people also want to experience these attractions but they cannot do so, because the wharf is full. So, they go elsewhere, but there is nowhere else to go, because this is Auckland. They fill up the adjoining bus and train stations as well as the small parts of the waterfront available for public use, including the ferry terminal. They walk up Queen Street, filling the pavements and then the road. Soon, nothing is moving - except the Land Rovers.

Then, some hours later, everybody with a ticket wants to go to the game. Despite official encouragement to walk, they all pile on the train, which cannot take the strain.

In retrospect, it may occur to Mr Key that the best place for public events is a public space. Aotea Square could not have held everybody but at least it would have kept them away from the transport system. The Domain would have been a better idea still.

But Mr Key had a vision. The wharf would be Party Central, as well as a cruise-ship terminal, which would be built in record time. What's more, the local authorities would pay for it. The local authorities were understandably reluctant to do so. There was no time to build the cruise-ship terminal. Instead, we wound up with a tent and a shed. The shed was there already; the tent cost $9.8. Unfortunately, both were on the wharf.

Build it and they will come. That they did. And they had drunk quite a bit before they got their drinking together, shortly before they really got into it. Having no idea what to do with a large mass of understandably drunk people, the event organisers - Messrs Key and McCully - had made no provision for them. Some could get on the wharf but most would have to go somewhere else. That they did. Chaos ensued.

Of course, there is no retrospect about this, not for Messrs Key and McCully. They have shifted blame and moved on, just like they always do. We, the citizens of Auckland, are left with the chaos and the bill.

In Scotland again

2011-09-12T11:08:00.003+12:00

So, I am walking across K Road where it meets Queen Street and a sound carries across the ether, the sound of bitterness and of rancour. A man in a white van is leaning out of his van shouting at the driver of a car, presumably because of some slight that the man in the van believed said driver had committed. And the van is decorated with a thistle motif and bears the company name Celtic Solutions. Ah yes, of course, this would be a Celtic solution. Fortunately, it did not lead to a Gorbals kiss.

Funny old world, isn't it?

2011-09-04T19:05:00.003+12:00

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According to Idiot/Savant, we now live in a world without secrets, thanks to Julian Assange and his chums.

The identity of Idiot/Savant remains a secret.

Could have been a contender

2011-09-02T12:10:00.002+12:00

THE CLOUD AND SHED 10

The Queens Wharf fanzone and function centre was completed this week and will host the Pacific Islands Forum from September 6. The last touches are being applied to Shed 10, which is expected to be ready early next week.

WAKA

Construction of the waka-shaped pavilion is complete and it is ready to be assembled on-site at Te Wero Island in the week of September 26.

The three marquees that are also part of Waka Maori and will showcase carving, ta moko, weaving and fashion will be built after the waka is in place. Event planners say Waka Maori will be ready to open on October 13. It runs until October 23

Are we ready? No. The Great Manager's vision of Paaarty Central, now reduced to an inelegant shed and a giant tubigrip, will just scrape through, all things being equal (which they are not). The waka-shaped pavilion, cruelly named by this blogeur as the "tupperwaka," might be ready in time for the closing ceremony, with any luck (of which there is little).

And that is it, just about; three structures in search of a purpose, two of them also searching for new homes once the rugger buggers have gone. What will happen in these structures is still something of a mystery. The shed was repurposed without any real purpose. The waka-shaped pavilion will promote Maori enterprises, useful for any visitors who prefer trade fairs to football. The tubigrip (officially known as the Cloud, since it is long and white) has some giant screens for the watching of games and perhaps some other attractions beyond getting pissed; no, hold the front page: it will be a trade fair.

Of course, we have the Events Centre, which is nice if you have an event to hold, such as a trade fair. Then there is the Wynyard Quarter, in which it sits: a curiously distracted work of urban design, where various family-orientated amusements are scattered. These include a basketball hoop, some seats and a sculpture which had been in storage for several years after being ousted during the last project of urban design, the repurposing of Queen Elizabeth Square as a transport hub (in common parlance, bus stops). And there is a piano.

Families will find nowhere to buy family necessities, since there is no dairy or superette, while the lavatories are far and few. Instead there is an artless row of restaurants and bars, the urban designers presumably having decided that Auckland's waterfront has not quite enough places for eating and drinking at a substantial price. And there is a tram, which travels around the Quarter. For ten dollars you can sit on it all day; five dollars if you can prove you are not a tourist. If you have an interest in old industrial buildings, you will enjoy the sightseeing.

What you will not see is anybody in charge. The Wynyard Quarter seems to have been purposefully designed to minimise staffing costs. The Council is now asking for people who are passionate about the waterfront to step forward. However, only those who are so passionate that they are prepared to work for nothing need apply. The women who used to be passionate about the waterfront, the ship girls, are nowhere to be seen. In their stead, the latest up-and-coming musical talent will be there during the summer, presumably playing for nothing.

Of course, we architectural theorists love this sort of thing. It is full of absence, of loss, of memory and the possiblity of memory loss. It is peculiarly inanimate, as this animation shows. For ordinary kiwi mums and dads, it might prove to be something of a disappointment, a place to go where there is nowhere to go. It is not really for us.You are really only wanted round these parts if you have money to spend, if you are part of the business class. Perhaps we should call it the Empty Quarter.

The river under the Amazon and other stories

2011-08-27T15:37:00.002+12:00

That was the week that was and what a strange one it has been at the New Zealand Herald. There, a decision seems to have been made - after years of favouring photos of jumping sharks over news stories - to abandon news almost entirely, in favour of human interest stories and dumb commentary. So, while Tripoli burned, Herald readers were told, as front page leading stories about the dangers of sunbeds, about a family killed in a house fire and about a sports commentator who was killed in a surfing accident. Some might call me a heartless brute for saying what follows, but these things do not really matter; they may be interesting, they may be moving, but they are not important. They do not deserve to fill the front page of New Zealand's biggest daily paper. House fires are terrible things but this one happened in a far away country of which we no nothing - Australia. Surfing accidents are terrible things and no doubt the sports commentator was much-loved by his legions of fans; but again, it doesn't matter. And of course sunbeds should be banned, if only because there are people who are sufficiently vain and stupid to use them.

But what of the columnists? Well, it is like this: Brian takes the bus; Eric parks in the bus lane. There is variety at least in the columns of the New Zealand Herald. Brian Rudman knows everything worth knowing about Auckland and takes the bus, which is a good way of learning a lot more. Eric Thompson, on the other hand is a prick. To expand upon this argument, here's Eric:

I don't often venture south across the bridge and, as such, am quite unaware of bus lanes, clearways and tow-away areas and other such revenue-gathering streams.

I parked in the city. When I went back to my car I found it had disappeared. I thought it had been stolen.

Then I noticed a couple of guys in official-looking jackets. I wandered over and asked had they seen a silver Toyota parked at the front of the bay.

Without so much as a blink, one of them turned to me and said he'd just had it towed away. My jaw dropped. "Why on earth did you do that?" I said. "I paid the money to park there and put a ticket on the dash."

He agreed I had done just that but the clearway towing time was 4pm and it was after 4pm. He pointed to a sign I had not bothered to read.

I think we can all see what happened here. Eric was too vain and stupid to read a sign. But it is all somebody else's fault. Bus lanes and clearways are revenue-gathering streams; towies are brutes. But then, so is everybody who gets in the way of Eric, especially pedestrians and cyclists; and binmen; and children. Next week: Eric goes to the supermarket and takes on the shopping trolleys.

Meanwhile, what is happening to Shelley? She read something about bad bosses; so she tells us about how awful it was for her being a manager:

My previous career entailed working in the marketing and advertising departments for retail companies such as L.V. Martin & Son, The Warehouse and Progressive Enterprises. For twelve years I held such job titles as advertising manager, brand manager and communications planning manager.

The maximum number of people I had reporting to me, from memory, was about eight.

Once the novelty of being able to say "Get your people to call my people" wore off, I discovered that being responsible for staff is overrated.

The combination bragging and whining is what we have come to expect from Shel, but this time I think we should hear from HR. What was it like working with Shel? Come on, 'fess up: secret Santa prize for anyone with a story to tell. And perhaps the Herald can explain what it is like to employ a columnist who condescends to her readers thus:

My first boss, the late Alan Martin - best known for the television slogan: "It's the putting right that counts" - used to talk about the Peter Principle which, as defined by Wikipedia, states that: "[I]n a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."

Basically, it means that people continue to get promoted until they're elevated to a position that's essentially beyond them.

They're no longer doing a good job so they aren't promoted further and ironically remain in the very position in which they perform poorly.

I think we understood the first time, Shel. It is not that difficult.

But now Shel has competition from the Herald's newest columnist: the little old lady on the bus.

My son's so close to it that he'll have his road blocked off. He lives on Planet Rugby,but can't afford the tickets to step across the road.

And my daughter's flat is a bit further the other way. She's not that fussed about it all, but a couple of Saturdays back, while just mooning around home, she was taken by a sound coming through the window in waves - the rise and fall of a distant roar ... Eden Park ... the All Blacks and the Wallabies ... So she turned on her radio to hear how it was going.

I had my radio on too, wondering about the score. I've got Sky but not Sky Sports (checked with the remote). Got a good screen to hunker down for the big matches, free on Maori TV, I know that much. Love the haka.

No doubt about it, there's that rivalry with the Aussies - because we know them only too well. They pinch our players and coaches and anything else going loose.

Yes, very interesting; I think this is my stop.

But one more thing: in all this excitement the Herald forgot to mention the river under the Amazon.

In case you were wondering.

2011-08-27T15:02:00.003+12:00

Subject: C5c) Why don't we try to destroy tropical cyclones by nuking them ?
Contributed by Chris Landsea

During each hurricane season, there always appear suggestions that one should simply use nuclear weapons to try and destroy the storms. Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems. Needless to say, this is not a good idea.

That this question is frequently asked of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory is quite worrying. With public service cuts coming there soon might not be anyone around to answer it.

Except for viewers in Scotland

2011-08-21T19:46:00.000+12:00

"The big cause is the group of alienated, disaffected youth who are outside the social mainstream and who live in a culture at odds with any canons of proper behaviour. And here's where I simply don't agree with much of the commentary. In my experience they are an absolutely specific problem that requires a deeply specific solution."

After successfully prosecuting an overwhelmingly popular war in the Middle East against an enemy - or maybe several enemies - that threatened the peace and stability of too many places to name and which, since its or their vanquishing, has been unable to extend its or their octopus-like tentacles of terror, thus making the world a much safer place than it was back in the days of Fine Fare and Goblin Teasmades, Tony Blair has now turned his attention to the enemy lurking within the fabric of British society as bed-bugs lurk within the high thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets of successful men. Guarded and coded though his words may be, Tony Blair - a man who never will use one adjective when two are available, a man who always has a binary pair to hand and in the bush, a man who is tough on language and tough on the causes of language - speaks of a deeply specific solution to an absolutely specific problem: the Chavs.

Except for viewers in Scotland, of course; Scotland has its own problem: Neds. Perhaps this is the deeply specific solution: set the Chavs and the Neds at odds with each other. Have another war, this time between the Burberry-wearing Chavs and the Bucky-drinking Neds.

But the Neds did not riot, perhaps because they were too full of deep-fried Mars Bars to move, perhaps because already they had stolen all the home theatre they needed; or perhaps there was something on the telly. How do we explain this phenomenon of inactivity?

Do the Marxist theorists have anything to say? Well, a lot, an awful lot as always; but then again, nothing. Particularly noteworthy in this respect is the contribution of Socialism and/or Barbarism, an open letter addressed to anyone who did not much like people stealing stuff (a broad readership, I am sure you will agree), an open letter which not only presumed to know what its intended readers think but also was of such insufferable length that it had to be delivered in two parts: one and two; then came the coda. No, me neither. Perhaps the author has something to say about Scottish Exceptionalism, but I cannot be bothered wading through all that wank to find it.

Nina Power, on the other hand, had this to say. Oh well, at least she didn't waste too much of her time or ours. China Miéville, on the other other hand, posted somebody's really bad poem and has said nothing since. Presumably, his Theory is so powerful that it predicted the riots and History so inevitable that he need say nothing more on the topic. Or perhaps he is busy trying to sell Socialist Worker to the proletariat (question: does the Socialist Workers Party have any working class members, or any socialists for that matter?).

Meanwhile, closer to home, one D H Curtis of Glenfield had this to say in the New Zealand Herald of 16th August:

I am surprised that people are so surprised about the riots in Britain. Friends there bemoan the drastic and detrimental effect of the hordes of refugees who have been allowed to pass into the country.

Most are a burden on the welfare system. The economy is straining to contain and provide for these, mostly Muslim, refugees.

Oh dear. Why does the Herald print this sort of thing? But then, Curtis has much in common with all the above. They all know. They can all see the causes, the conditions, the meaning and purpose of the riots. Yet none dare mention that it was not a British phenomenon but an English one, and mostly one of the South. Look, here is a map. In the light of this, can we blame loft conversions, as does Mr Hatherley? Could gentrification and regeneration be the cause of unrest? I hope so, for two reasons: 1) it could put an end to some really bad architecture; 2) it might put an end to patronising the proles, to assuming that the only solutions are those that benefit middle-class incomers and reflect middle-class values.

On another hand, a more drastic solution is available:

A fist full of dollars

2011-08-20T20:11:00.003+12:00

This waste of money is criminal said Mr. McVicar.

“With the recent media scrum over the Telecom campaign it seems there is more coverage and public outcry over this than say when someone gets murdered or a repeat offender gets paroled before his sentence is served.

We know that 60% of criminals will reoffend and cause incalculable long lasting damage to innocent people, while rape and unspeakable mayhem runs riot all-round us the best Telecom can do is fund a disastrous ‘abstain’ campaign.

Oh Garth, you must be feeling so neglected, so ignored. The media are not talking about your Trust and your Trust's survey, the one that the MPs declined to answer. The media are avoiding you. Instead, they have got all excited about a rather tacky ad campaign, one with a tangential relationship to the rugby world cup, a campaign which many Kiwi mums and dads find more interesting than the rugby world cup or the Sensible Sentencing Trust.

So, what's an ordinary cow-cocky from the Hawke's Bay and dedicated family man to do? A quintessential Kiwi battler can do but one thing: he's going to sit right down and write himself a media release, one which tries to shame Telecom into giving money to his Trust (and don't forget the survey).

Meanwhile, back in commentary land, Mr Paul Holmes - a man with an uncanny ability to imitate his speech patterns in his writing - wants to tell us how bad the Telecom ad is:

Let me tell you how bad it was. It was vile. It was disgusting. It was dumb. It was filthy. It was seedy. It was grossly offensive. It was ghastly and rude.

Worse still, it brought back memories:

And what was Sean driving? A fist? That was unfortunate too. We learned about fisting from anti-gay nutters during the homosexual law reform debate 30 years ago. The ad wasn't a nice reminder.

Up to a point, Lord Copper. Given that almost every television advertisement for the rugby world cup has featured men in tight shirts and tighter shorts, shorts barely concealing their buns of steel, buns in slow motion, somehow the big pink fist with the black rubber ring seems all too natural a progression. The next advertisement in the series was to have featured a Trojan horse, so perhaps we narrowly avoided further exploration of the connexions between Rugby Union and Greek Love.

Meanwhile, in Geyserland, overweight, raucous, hyperactive, pie-munching Hori meets a visitor from Hawkes Bay:

She said Hori attacked her without warning, treating it as if it were a joke.

"Hori grabbed hold of my beak," she said.

He told her: "I don't care, the cameras are on us, carry on."

Stafford said Hori was cutting off her air supply and a stern response was needed to bring him back to his senses.

"I just lifted my knee and went into his balls." Hori then grabbed his testicles in pain, stood vacantly for a second, then "wobbled off."

"For the rest of the game he just stood underneath the goalposts."

Here's Placebo. Garth, you won't like this.

This Mac kills fascists

2011-08-14T13:34:00.003+12:00

We are a global network of culture jammers and creatives working to change the way information flows, the way corporations wield power, and the way meaning is produced in our society.

So says the mission statement of Adbusters, the magazine most likely to be casually left on the Philippe Starck Vicieuse coffee-tables of ABC1 professionals who self-identify as members of the creative class. Members of other demographic groups are more likely to say that Adbusters and its readers are a bunch of tossers (ACNielsen data).

Evidence to support the latter viewpoint is emerging in the embers of the Chavs' Revolt. The considered response by Adbusters was to find a photograph of an oick in the edgelands and paste it above an opinion piece written by one Maria Hampton of Cambridge, "currently trying to hatch an escape plan to opt out of a frenetic modern life, but still eat." At least, she was so trying when she wrote the piece, back in 2007.

Look, it's just copy; it doesn't matter when it was written. You just drop it into InDesign, find a photo from a stock agency, make a copy for the website and you're done. You can get back to billables now. The readers' won't mind. They just need enough for the daily Two Minutes Outrage. They are busy people; they have clients too.

If they want more, they can have some Theory:

What Foucault and the Maoists were debating goes to the heart of how we imagine revolutionary change will take place. Will the revolution be an uncontrolled insurrection – whose symptoms include looting in the streets of London, for example – where the people's rage against consumerism is fully released and their judgements implicitly trusted? Or, will we fear the mob and act, more or less explicitly on the side of power and the status quo, to quell and control the released flows – grabbing a broom to keep the streets clean for the next day's ecocidal shopping?

Foucault, d'accord; as interpreted by someone called Micah, someone for whom even the act of grabbing a broom is one of collaboration. I think we can safely assume that Micah has never had to push a broom in his life. Micah is also a Guardian contributor and an award-winning activist. Micah's contribution to the revolution is to coin its catchphrases: clictivism, Infoparasite, Eco-fascism, Altermodern. Micah has attended seminars with internationally renowned philosophers Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Judith Butler, Michael Hardt, Jacques Rancière, Avital Ronell, and Slavoj Žižek. Micah is critical of their Theory: they are hiding behind words. Micah is a bit of a prat.

He is in good company. After several years of promising the revolution in every glossy issue, Adbusters reached climax in January of this year with issue #93. Under the misleading title of Capitalism's Terminal Crisis (nothing to do with airports or railways, sadly) this issue developed a theme of revolutionary self-help and self-criticism. One Lawrence Morely asked "what would it take for you to take the plunge and get out into the streets?" Possibly less than Lawrence, who has achieved a state of inactivism:

I, as a Progressive Anarchist, want the complete overthrow of present societies, but not now, not immediately, not violently, but gradually and peacefully as ideas gradually seep through one’s mind. The intention of this revolutionary is to assault your mind and destroy your beliefs.

Stick it up yer bum, Lawrence. It's not about you; it's about the Weariness of the Self: melancholia illustrated with some creepy models from Versace. Or it's about Lauren Alnwick-Pfund's dirty weekend:

Earlier today while he was showering I had similar thoughts and quickly got off through my clothes, taking cover behind a duffel bag and not bothering to close the curtains or stop when a maid walked past and glanced in the window. I finished as he did, just in time before the door opened.

Note that, if you are too post-literate to read Lauren's adventure, you can listen to George Atherton reading it; the experience is quite unsettling. But what about the intellectuals?

The first two steps on that path are clearly laid out and are within the reach of every conscientious person. These are that people ruthlessly criticize the capitalist system “from top to bottom,” and that they include in this a consistent attack on the widespread belief that there can be no alternative to it. If one believes that capital is not only basically unjust but radically unsustainable as well, the prime obligation is to spread the news.

Yes; tell the maid.

So, let us radically critique Adbusters. Is it a load of wank? Yes, of course, but it is very successful wank. Lauren Alnwick-Pfund is perfect for Adbusters. She doesn't care if the maid sees her getting off. The maid is not a person. The maid and her proletarian peers are not real; they exist only as part of the analysis. They are not creative; therefore they do not mattter.

What matters is producing a magazine, one which provokes in every issue the feeling that something is about to happen. Nothing does happen, of course, but in the next issue that simmer feeling will be back again. And again. It is exquisite marketing: there is always a promise - revolution - which always is about to be fulfilled. There is always an enemy - Capitalism - which always is about to fall. So the readers keep coming back for more, for more secrets, more signs of the coming anarchy.

If you are a permatemp Mac Operator in an agency, the promise of revolution is bliss. But that it could be achieved with the Adobe Creative Suite is very heaven. You might become one of the revolutionary vanguard, using your skill set to bring down Capitalism and replace it with something else, something that never is specified but probably involves Pantone swatches and a knowledge of type. And thus you might be a leader at last. And you will have your revenge on all those account executives and art directors who made you do all that degrading Illustrator work, when all along you knew that, deep down, you are an artist.

The duty to consume

2011-08-13T18:39:00.005+12:00

If the World Cup works as intended we might never spend another week carping about the prices of national products such as milk and our prime sporting emblem.

We might no longer hear it suggested that it is somehow wrong for farmers to charge more than the makers of flavoured fizz-water, or that a premium should not be paid for something that is priceless here.

We could look back in embarrassment that everyone from the Prime Minister down took cheap shots at a global sportswear brand for perfectly normal marketing practice.

If the World Cup works as well as it might, we'll not worry about the price of an icon, we'll sing.

Works as intended by whom, Mr Roughan? By that nice Mr Key, perchance? I only ask because the price of milk does not seem to me to be a matter of carping, but of people struggling to keep heads above water - Kiwi battlers, if you will. Yet somehow their concerns are to be wished away by the magical power of Rugby World Cup. Those ordinary Kiwi mums and dads will understand they must pay a premium for the privilege of wearing their own country's rugby shirt, a premium paid to a German sportswear company. They will realise they must buy overpriced milk and overpriced clothing. Meanwhile other nations' rugby shirts are made by Canterbury, the New Zealand company that used to clothe the All Blacks before the NZRFU got greedy. Its a funny old world, innit?

Mr Roughan, you are wrong. We shall keep carping on, about the price-gouging of farmers and multinationals, about the selling of our national icons to the highest bidders, about the perfectly normal marketing practices of companies that exploit sweated labour to make shirts and exploit the loyalties of the fans to sell them at obscene prices. Perhaps one day you will look back in embarrassment, Mr Roughan, at your contempt for the ordinary people of New Zealand and your support for those who abuse them.

But then again, perhaps you won't.

This sporting life

2011-08-09T15:20:00.004+12:00

News comes from the capital that the Rugby World Cup Special Edition Sculpture, commissioned by Wellington City Council from model-makers Weta Workshop, has now been unveiled in its temporary location.

This is it and these are the people responsible:

This sculpture is, I think you will agree, the most extraordinarily unpleasant three dimensional thing created in New Zealand since the last work of populist statuary to be inflicted on a neighbourhood with low-self-esteem, the Canterbury Heroes. I think you will also agree that this sort of thing is not seen much these days, at least outside the 'stans. Perhaps it is a retro thing.

The value placed on this thing by its owners is shown by the fact of it having a temporary home for the duration of the RWC (am I allowed to say RWC? Probably not. Oh well) and then an uncertain future. Besides, nobody in the photograph above looks overjoyed at the collective achievement. We can only hope that this monstrosity is made in a sustainable medium, so that it can be made into traffic cones or bouncy castles.

On the other hand, the sculptural group could be re-purposed to serve some other symbolic function. Perhaps it might later serve to commemorate the Lower Hutt Easter Egg Hunt of 1926 or to symbolise Man's Discovery of the Clitoris. On a third hand, it might be left in some obscure public park to remind future generations that every aesthetic effort made during the Rugby World Cup turned out to be utterly tacky. Truly, this was a game in which tawdry rubbish was the winner on the day.

Gritty realism for pleasure and profit

2011-07-27T22:04:00.002+12:00

No other photographic approach has proven itself time and time again to be as powerful a form of communication as reportage photography. Whether recording the day to day exploits of our own society, bringing other cultures and locations vividly to life or else reporting back from the front line of a far-off war, the skilled reportage photographer has the power to move hearts, change minds and even influence politics with a click of the shutter. In a career spanning almost 50 years, Colin Jones has trained his camera on subjects as diverse as West Indians in London and South Pacific islanders to create images that have done all these things and more.

Guardian Masterclasses are offering a unique opportunity to learn from Colin in a relaxed workshop environment at the Guardian and Observer's King's Cross headquarters. The sessions will explore the technical, theoretical and even moral ramifications of working as a reportage photographer, and students should be prepared to participate in discussions and practical exercises.

In Black and White. Having abandoned Manchester years ago, the Guardian now offers courses in capturing the harsh reality of life in black and white, on a digital SLR. Expect the attendees to pronounce reportage in schoolboy French.

It's grim up north:

The Butler did it

2011-07-25T19:02:00.003+12:00

Knowing history can sometimes be more important than you might think. Kim Hill was talking to someone on her Saturday national radio programme, and as an aside, the discussion veering onto the reason why Ernest Shackleton's South Pole venture resulted in everyone dying. The speaker put it quite bluntly, with words to this effect: "Everyone died, because Shackleton took five people, and enough food for four."

Something most of us who have studied history, already know.

Hilary Butler knows nothing about history. It was Scott and his men who died. Shackleton saved his men. Hilary Butler thinks she knows stuff about vaccines, which she thinks are a Bad Thing. Hilary Butler is a public nuisance.

For what it's worth

2011-07-19T14:49:00.003+12:00

The business-backed New Zealand Institute, which has focused until now on economic policy, says the education system has lost sight of the need to keep young people engaged in school and transition successfully into work.

It recommends radical reforms including widespread use of computer-based e-learning, putting students on to pathways to work from the first year of intermediate school (Year 7), giving employers more input into what schools teach and giving all students career advice through school years and support after leaving school.

Stop children, what's that sound? It's the business elite, trying once again to take over the education system. So the business elite takes any opportunity to denigrate education and demand the involvement of businesses (which exist to make profit, not to teach) in your education.

It works like this: you go to school thinking you will learn to enrich your life, as well as getting a career. The business elite does not want you to learn. It wants you to be trained. That way, you will be useful to businesses. You won't be much else. If you do really well, you can go to business school and be trained to become one of the elite. But otherwise, you at least will have been trained to do a useful job.

The liftman was a small simian creature, dressed in the black tunic of an Epsilon-Minus Semi-Moron.

"Roof!"

He flung open the gates. The warm glory of afternoon sunlight made him start and blink his eyes. "Oh, roof!" he repeated in a voice of rapture. He was as though suddenly and joyfully awakened from a dark annihilating stupor. "Roof!"

He smiled up with a kind of doggily expectant adoration into the faces of his passengers. Talking and laughing together, they stepped out into the light. The liftman looked after them.

"Roof?" he said once more, questioningly.

Then a bell rang, and from the ceiling of the lift a loud speaker began, very softly and yet very imperiously, to issue its commands.

"Go down," it said, "go down. Floor Eighteen. Go down, go down. Floor Eighteen. Go down, go …"

Another week, another rewrite

2011-07-18T14:09:00.002+12:00

It is also worth noting the irony of so much moral outrage devoted to a single media company, when British tabloids have been known for decades for buying scoops and digging up dirt on the famous. Fleet Street in general has long had a well-earned global reputation for the blind-quote, single-sourced story that may or may not be true. The understandable outrage in this case stems from the hacking of a noncelebrity, the murder victim Milly Dowler.

No, the understandable outrage in this case stems from the hacking of a murder victim, the noncelebrity Milly Dowler. See, it's not that difficult: you just change the word order, again. The fact of Milly Dowler's non-celebrity status, as noted previously, is as nothing to the fact that she was a murder victim, who was still missing at the time of the hacking.

But wait, there's more:

We also trust that readers can see through the commercial and ideological motives of our competitor-critics. The Schadenfreude is so thick you can't cut it with a chainsaw. Especially redolent are lectures about journalistic standards from publications that give Julian Assange and WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur. They want their readers to believe, based on no evidence, that the tabloid excesses of one publication somehow tarnish thousands of other News Corp. journalists across the world.

Let's rewrite that last sentence:

They want their readers to believe, based on steaming piles of incriminating evidence, that the criminal acts of at least one publication reflect the values of the most senior News Corp executives across the world.

See, that wasn't difficult, was it?

Making news

2011-07-17T18:01:00.003+12:00

Alasdair Thompson has been dumped from his role at the head of the Employers and Manufacturers' Association - but he cannot escape the media scrutiny.

As he dashed through the rain outside the Newmarket railway station this week, he kept his head down under his umbrella, avoiding people's gaze. When recognised and asked what he was doing now, he refused to comment.

Thus writes Kieran Nash in the Herald on Sunday. Another way that Nash might have written this story would be:

Alasdair Thompson has been dumped from his role at the head of the Employers and Manufacturers' Association - but he cannot escape me.

As he dashed through the rain outside the Newmarket railway station this week, he kept his head down under his umbrella, avoiding the rain. When I recognised him and asked what he was doing now, he refused to comment.

But that would not be so much fun. Of course, I may be wrong about this; Nash might have heard this story from one of a horde of journalists who pursued Thompson through the rain outside Newmarket railway station but who decided not to write this story and instead told Nash. But I think not. I think Nash was the media on this occasion and his intrusive question was the media scrutiny.

We have become accustomed to the media making the news but here is another first for New Zealand : one member of the media writes about his failed attempt to get a story but represents himself as the media and that failure as the story.

In the future, all news stories will be like this.

In other news:

Architecture students
Are like virgins with an itch they cannot scratch
Never build a building 'til you're fifty
What kind of life is that?

We were no match for their untamed wit

2011-07-14T13:32:00.006+12:00

Newspapers, after all, are very sensitive to the moods and prejudices of their readers. It was because such papers as the News of the World knew that their readers were much more interested in eavesdropping on Prince Charles's pillow talk than bothered about how the snooping was carried out, that they felt able to get away with publishing such stories in the first place.

On one analysis, it is easy to see why all this was judged fair game, while the hacking of Milly Dowler's voicemail was considered so heinous that the News of the World was immediately deserted by its advertisers and wound- up by its owners. The paper was widely seen as read by the working man and woman, people who would never empathise with the sufferings of hacked princesses or pop stars (how can the rich really suffer, with all that money?); but when the phone of an "ordinary" girl – one of their own– is hacked into, at a time when she was actually dead, the readers' empathy with the victim is overwhelming.

Ah yes, that would be it. Poor Milly Dowler was a working class heroine and thus the labouring class revolted on her behalf, whilst enjoying lurid tales of the sexual adventures of their betters. It was nothing to do with the perversion of the police investigation into her disappearance and the suffering of her family by the hacker's act of deleting messages to make more space for incoming. It was nothing to do with the facts of Milly Dowler's family being unknown and of their agony being exposed to public glare. It was nothing to do with the fact that she was actually dead. No, no, it was all about class solidarity, envy and the hypocrisy of the groundlings.

Dominic Lawson, son of Nigel and brother of Nigella, is an Old Etonian. As this old Daily Mail article explains, Eton is an absolutely splendid place whose old boys have achieved so much because of the character-building education they received:

Try being 13 years old and walking through Windsor, the nearest town, wearing a tailcoat and stiff collar, while all the locals stare at you and the tourists frantically take photographs. After that, any other form of public appearance is a doddle.

See, it is not about money and privilege at all, which will be a relief to the lower-middles and upper-workings of the Daily Mail's readership. Turned out nice again, missus!

John Oliver and John Stewart, next exit:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Have No Fear, England's Here

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

The Last Man in Europe

2011-07-09T20:14:00.005+12:00

"In the real world of the 21st century there will be some pick and mix of policy. Sometimes it will be less left v right than right v wrong. Above all today, efficacy – effective delivery, motivated of course by values – matters as much if not more than ideology. Don't fear it. Embrace it. It liberates us to get the correct policy."

New Labour; young people often ask me "what was New Labour like?" I smile in a condescending way, light my pipe and tell them about New Labour.

You see, New Labour never was; nor will it be. New Labour is, it always is. Always, there will be New Labour and New Labour always will be. New Labour is never past; nor is it future. New Labour is, always.

Often as not, the young people will look at me in a puzzled sort of way. We who remember when New Labour first was realised can understand their bewilderment: they have never known anything but New Labour, such that they do not appreciate that New Labour is everywhere around them, above and below them, in and through them. New Labour is everywhere. New Labour cannot be seen, touched, felt, tasted or smelled: New Labour is every where and every thing. New Labour is.

Of course, it is not that there was a time before New Labour; nor will there be one after New Labour. We men and women of the 90s can remember a time before Blair, before New Labour was realised, but there was no real time before New Labour. Always New Labour has been with us, in us, for us, of us. But there was a time before Blair, a time when we knew not of New Labour. Blair showed us New Labour. He made us see what cannot be seen. He made us New Labour.

Blair showed us New Labour by pointing his hands outwards and in parallel, as if he were holding an invisible rectangular object (say, a Battenburg cake) by its ends. He then spoke in staccato sentences, apparently moving the invisible cake around as he spoke: showing it, offering it to everyone and no-one.

To think of New Labour is, in a very real sense, like thinking of that cake. It is not there, but it is there. Blair shows that it is there. The cake was always there. But we could not see it. We still cannot see the cake, but now we know it is there. Blair has shown us that the cake is.

New Labour is like that cake. That cake is New Labour. Blair shows us the cake, offers us the cake; but we cannot see the cake; we cannot accept it. We cannot eat the cake, but we can know it, because Blair has shown us it.

But even to think of a time before the cake and before Blair is to be in Error. Because Blair is New Labour and New Labour is Blair. There is not a time between Blair and New Labour, just as there cannot be a space between New Labour and Blair. One cannot think of Blair without thinking, simultaneously, of New Labour. And the reverse is true. For Blair and New Labour are not divisible. There is only Blair and there is only New Labour. Blair is New Labour and New Labour is everything. Blair is everything.

And that is all.

Amnesia in Timaru (and other stories)

2011-07-09T18:34:00.004+12:00

A Timaru gynaecologist wants a campaign against promiscuity after encountering a shocking number of pregnant patients who cannot remember whom they had sex with.

Dr Albert Makary, who has been in Timaru for 20 years, called on national leaders, sports stars, schools and the media at a Forum on the Family in Auckland yesterday to "stigmatise" both promiscuity and the binge drinking that usually preceded it.

The Timaru Branch of the Anti-Sex League will meet on Thursday nights in the Christadelphian Bible Hall on Browne Street. Meetings begin promptly at 7.30pm. Ladies, bring a plate. And don't cross your legs.

Matters arising: the campaign to persuade national leaders, sports stars and the media to stigmatise promiscuity and binge drinking has not, so far, been a success. Tentative research has found that such people are often drunk and almost constantly "at it."

Meanwhile:

"I was starting to have more luck with getting chicks than in my early 20s [at 28]. I wasn't striking out. But I wasn't ruling either. I didn't know that when I was 32 or 33 that I was going to be able to get even more chicks."

The Memoirs and Confessions of Stephen Malkmus may well be published by Beck (H/T to Emily Perkins)

M'he passat molt temps somiant amb l'Eleanor Bron

2011-07-06T22:29:00.001+12:00

Subtitles, translations; contingent poetry; Tom Courtenay

Me with nothing to say and you in your autumn sweater

2011-07-06T22:03:00.002+12:00

I feel I have been mean. Emma at Booksellers NZ responded to the previous post and she is right: you should go to a National Poetry Day event. I know I shall. In the meantime, go to the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre. You know you want to.

Poetry is a destructive force

2011-07-05T13:20:00.000+12:00

The following September, when the first issue of Poetry Nation appeared, Pablo Neruda and W.H. Auden died.

Such is the power of Poetry Nation; but why, oh why, do they they think it cool to call themselves PN Review?

Meanwhile, as Oxford Comma Madness runs rife National Poetry Day will be celebrated with a grocers' apostrophe:

National Poetry Day 2011 gives all New Zealander’s the opportunity to channel their inner poet and share their poems with each other in new and old ways. Chalk a poem on the street; txt your poem to a dedicated 021 number; read your poem aloud at an open mic event; or simply relax in a café, bar, gallery, cinema, library or school and let poems wash over you.

Really. This was not written by a poet. How about that syntax? How clumsy is the phrase "channel their inner poet and share their poems with each other in new and old ways?" Shall we count the ways? No let us not bother. And what about the imagery? One does not channel something within. The channeller goes into a trance and becomes the instrument through which a 10,000 year-old Hopi Indian chief (they are always Hopi; somehow they cornered the chanelling market in the spirit world) speaks to us all about nature conservation. As for the case management, how many New Zealanders can you find in this picture?

The worstest of all is left to the end: "simply relax in a café, bar, gallery, cinema, library or school and let poems wash over you." Wut? Is this Easy Listening Poetry Day? Is the purpose of poetry to wash away the aches and strains of the day ? You were wrong, Mr Stevens: poetry is not a destructive force; it is a soothing balm. As for you, Mr Eliot:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

No, let us not. Let us kick back and relax with a trim latté and let the poems wash over us, like the saxophone magic of Kenny G.

Here's a poem about death by Philip Larkin:

Oh Alice, come back, it's just a practice

2011-06-29T06:17:00.001+12:00

My friend Amelia and I had a conversation about villas and the absurdities of epistemology, which can be found Yes, Here. Further commentary can be found on Mr Pound's Facebook.

Meanwhile,

"Finding this connection between the Duchess of Cambridge and Jane Austen is very exciting since, in many ways, Catherine is the modern Jane Austen heroine: a middle class girl marrying the future King of England," said Anastasia Harman, lead family historian for Ancestry.com.

who needs to read Jane Austen?

Meanwhile

A PHD is the only difference between Dr Monroe and a psychopath

Someone needs to meet more PhDs; besides physicians do not normally have PhDs (note the lower-case h) and surgeons are known as Mister; am I being pedantic? Let's hear what the Cocteau Twins have to say:

Calling all penguins

2011-06-28T17:53:00.003+12:00

Multimillionaire philanthropist Gareth Morgan is coming to the rescue of Happy Feet, the stranded and desperately ill penguin.

Morgan said that if Happy Feet survives, he would take it back to Antarctica on a Russian icebreaker.

The Kiwisaver provider is leading an expedition to the Ross Sea on the Spirit of Enderby in February and said Happy Feet and a Conservation Department minder could come along for the ride.

Post revised: thanks to the good offices of the estimable David Ritchie, I am now able to show you the quite peculiar graphic which accompanied this story on the front page of last week's Sunday Star Times. The image has a Mighty Boosh quality, which I am sure the SST Photoshop people did not intend.

Anyway, here is some timely advice for visiting penguins from Zappa fils:

Cake

2011-06-26T18:45:00.001+12:00

Dear Arts PhD students,

It has brought to our attention that there is an error in our programme. The two full-day writing session from 29 to 30 August in the 274 Computer Lab is supposed to begin at 8pm and end at 6pm, not 6-8pm. Considering that 8am is too early for many students, we’ve decided to change the beginning time to 9am. So the two full-day writing session will run from 9am to 6pm. Lunch will be provided.

Apologies for the error.

Which one? This email was written by one of Auckland University's many Associate Deans. I should not have been on the mailing list, having fled the Faculty of Arts about seven months back. Still, it reminds me why I left.

Here in the National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, we have superior writing programmes. Tomorrow, I am going on a three-day writing retreat, in Parnell. The daily schedule is something like this:

Intro

Write

Tea

Write

Lunch

Write

Tea

Wrap up

You will notice that tea has been arranged. Tea entails cake. So I shall write, take tea and cake, write some more, eat lunch, write some more, take some more tea and cake, write again.

I shall write in a notebook, one with hard covers and ruled pages. I shall have no Internet. There will be no interruptions by emails, Facebook or Twitter. But there will be lunch and cake. Victorian writers lived like this.

Whilst I am away, enjoy some of the coolest people ever:

Cake by Not Martha

Turned out nice again

2011-06-24T19:52:00.002+12:00

New Zealand has come of age. Every aspect of this multicultural society has something to offer and it all equates to style. This book is a showcase of the lifestyle that New Zealanders enjoy. New Zealand's recent desire for an increasingly informal lifestyle continues to inspire homes that blur the boundaries between indoors and outdoors. To achieve this, a series of warm, comfortable living spaces are featured throughout the book maintaining a strong connection to the outdoors. The influence of our natural surroundings can be seen in our love for organic furniture and natural building materials such as stone and wood. Even the most contemporary homes often incorporate natural elements. New Zealand Style is a collection of stylish elements including food, wine, interior design, lifestyle, relaxation, the home and garden - everything that makes up our society. Enjoy!

Murray, Peter A., and Jenna Tartt.

New Zealand Style :

Outdoor Living, Food, Wine,

Relaxation and Home Ideas.

Australia: Murray Books, 2004

Since we have all had a very trying week, with all that fussing and fighting about Christchurch and Alasdair Thompson and the Slut Walk and everything else, I thought I would share this comforting blurb from the back cover of an Australian book about our famed sense of style. I feel better already; I am sure you do as well. Enjoy!

Live from the Forest of Arden

2011-06-24T09:59:00.002+12:00

Friday read: Edgelands, Journeys into England's True Wilderness by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts;

A short post about women

2011-06-23T20:08:00.004+12:00

New Zealand has no class struggle, no poor, no intellectual tradition, no overt group conflict, little self-awareness as a social entity and has sought for similarity rather than diversity in a restricted immigration programme; it is for these reasons that New Zealand has no sociology.

Jackson, William Keith, and John Harré.

New Zealand.

London: Thames & Hudson, 1969.

In the years following the publication of Jackson and Harré's book, much work was done by National and Labour governments to reverse these conditions, so that now New Zealand has an abundance of sociology. One might almost think that our governments were manipulated by the sociologists. I think we should be told.

But what, you demand to hear, about the architecture? And what about the pottery? Well, how about this?

The development of architecture and pottery demonstrates clearly that New Zealanders are capable of appreciating an aesthetic life more sensitive and more lasting than the ephemeral movements on a football field. Perhaps what these two art forms have in common with rugby is the recognition of physical vigour. If this is the case, and if therein lies something of the secret of the quality of all three, it is perhaps not surprising that poetry and the other visual arts have not succeeded to the same degree Nor is it surprising that the poet who has made the most impact is James K Baxter, projecting as he does an essentially masculine and physical image through the delicacy of his sentiments.

So, there you have it: architecture and pottery are like rugby, physical and essentially masculine. However, half the students in the School of Architecture and Planning at Auckland University today are female, as is the Head of School. As it turns out, women are good at pottery as well, and all those other arts.

Of course, women in the broader workforce are not paid as well as men, but apparently that is because they still have ovaries.

Despite this obvious disadvantage, one woman - Robyn Gallagher - has managed to keep a weblog running for fifteen years, while other women have learned to play musical instruments:

Look advanced to far added agreeable from you!

2011-06-20T18:56:00.003+12:00

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Hotels in Paris

10:38 AM
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Hotels in Munich

Every so often, I receive a notice about a new comment made on Mr Hatherley's excellent Dialectic of High-Tech post, from the beginning of last year. These comments usually make little sense.

The two most recent were written by hotels in Europe. This pleases me. Buildings should have a voice about architecture. Hotels are among the most neglected and marginalised of public buildings, rarely featuring in professional architectural magazines or awarded prizes. It is good that they can talk, even if what they are saying remains elusive. Still, we should listen. As the Hotels in Munich remind us, how can we communicate?

Architecture in Helsinki is a modernist pop group from Australia. The hipsters heard about them long before you did.

Bonus architecture for Frances: here is a waste-to-energy power plant in Denmark that blows smoke rings and has a ski slope.

On the shoulders of giants

2011-06-18T19:29:00.004+12:00

Gove said there had been previous attempts to make science relevant, by linking it to contemporary concerns such as climate change or food scares. But he said: "What [students] need is a rooting in the basic scientific principles, Newton's laws of thermodynamics and Boyle's law

So says Michael Gove, the Education Secretary in HM Government. So then, Newton's laws of thermodynamics: anybody care to list them? Perhaps someone could give an example of these laws. Yes, you at the back, you from the BBC:

Daily weather forecasts rely on human interpretation of computer analysis of Newton's laws of thermodynamics and are very reliable over the short term.

How about the French student:

John Theophilus Desagulier is often credited as inventing the planetarium, based on some plans that he had written. However, it was his popularization of Newton's laws of thermodynamics that truly advanced science.

That would be Desaguliers with an S; anybody else? Stevenson?

From these early inquiries, Newton was able to develop the laws of thermodynamics in the late seventeenth century

No, no, no; you are all wrong. Newton made a law of cooling - "the rate of heat loss of a body is proportional to the difference in temperatures between the body and its surroundings" - but the Laws of Thermodynamics are the work of later scientists. Newton's laws are about Mechanics. Had you known that, you would have been able to point and laugh at Michael Gove. So you have missed a valuable opportunity. Let that be a lesson to you all.

White punks on dope

2011-06-17T19:03:00.004+12:00

Although Mamet admits to owing a great educational debt to English literature, he accuses classic novelists such as Anthony Trollope and George Eliot of using "stock Jew" characterisations. "And the authors of today," Mamet adds, "I'm not going to mention names because of your horrendous libel laws, but there are famous dramatists and novelists over there whose works are full of antisemitic filth."

Oi yoi yoi. More filth, more phobia. David Mamet, author of some of the best plays and screenplays of the last thirty years or so, has gone totally hatstand. Those English liberal literary types are anti-semites, you see, yet they cannot be named for fear of torts. So who are they, these writers? I think we should be told. Am I one of them? I think I should be told.

But that was the week, that was. Closer to home, this blogeur was declared an academic white dude, a racist and a transphobe by Queen of Thorns; meanwhile her running mate Octavia Spitfire employed her / and burn tactics on the English language to provide us with a few things that are cissexist/trans*phobic.

Assuming that criticism of an event/movement/etc by trans* people is merely wanting to cause trouble/ruin everything/is like saying that the entire thing is worthless. And that defending themselves against cissexism is trying to "inflame" things/is unimportant/etc. This is based on the (conscious or subconsciously absorbed) idea that the natural place for trans* people is on the outer; their concerns are 'fringe issues' and deserve to be treated as such, they are strange/dangerous/irrationally angry and therefore can be dismissed as trouble-making, they should be grateful for crumbs because it's not like cis people 'have' to make an 'effort' anyway, etc.

And so/on. Rumours that Queen of Thorns/Octavia Spitfire are the same per/son* have not been substantiated. Fortunately for us all, the battle for the Hand Mirror has ended, the only reported casualty being a frightened epistemologist.

Meanwhile, it turns out that, according to the director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, everybody in Britain is anti-semitic, apart from George Eliot. Oh dear.

Next exit: a fight brought to you by the genius of Imperator Fish.

Oh Alice, come back; he's just a metaphor

2011-06-11T18:42:00.003+12:00

Taniwha are scary, not in themselves but in the damage they do to the credibility of Maori consultation.

No doubt to leaders such as Auckland Mayor Len Brown, a taniwha is interpreted as a concept, a symbol of something, perhaps the Maori reverence for the life force they see in all things.

But he would not relish the task of explaining that to his citizens.

He knows that many would think he is trying too hard to rationalise something they are inclined to regard as simply primitive, something no modern society should have to deal with.

Cripes, watch out for the thin ice. You don't want to be using words like primitive round these parts. Talk like that brings out the trolls, and they be worse than the taniwha. Someone's going to get offended tonight, mark my words.

You don't believe me? Well then, take a look at what happened over at the Hand Mirror. You know the Hand Mirror - nice people; feminists; fond of cupcakes. But look what happened when Julie posted an advertisement for an event called Queer the Night, a text written by the organisers. Here's what happened: the advertisement included the fateful words:

there are still dangers to those who are, or are perceived as being, outside heterosexual norms

Well, you can guess what happened next; well, no you probably can't; because you, gentle reader, probably could not find any thing wrong with such a statement. But someone called Scar could:

That should be heterosexual and CISSEXIST norms.
I'll be contacting them about bringing their language up to date; especially since I'm a heterosexual trans woman.

And then went the neigbourhood. The estimable Psycho Milt made a droll observation, for which he was called a privileged cis-man (yes, people really talk like this) by Hugh and then Scar condemned Milt and George as privileged cis guys and then George pointed out that he is a she and then they were joined by Acid Queen who made everything worser still and then others joined and then it went on and on until George said to Acid Queen:

No doubt you are probably some upper middle class woofter with a BA (hons)

Hey some people can't afford to go to Uni and do gender studies....

I like George.

Of course, if that wasn't enough for you, there is still time to pop over to Ideologically Impure for the afterparty. You can't stop the music; it never ends. I feel George's pain when she says

I just get really frustrated in activist circles when people are suddenly ostracised for not saying things in exactly the "right" way, being told they are racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/fatphobic/whatever, when they blatantly are not;

Why, only last week I was accused of "inherent racism" by Queen of Thorns on the Twitter for suggesting that perhaps pre-contact Maori society was not similar to Arcadia, that violence was not brought to these islands by the missionaries. But those are the breaks. George deserves better than I because she was one of the organisers of this event which apparently was very successful, and so should be applauded rather than abused by people who seem to be offended morning, noon and night.

But then, taking offence is the motive force of leftish trolls. If one were to attempt a taxonomy of trollery, one might observe that rightish trolls are angered: events in the modern world makes those veins on their foreheads throb. Leftish trolls are offended: things people say cause them harm. The political is the personal. It is not just that your opinions are wrong; you must be stopped from voicing them because the troll is deeply hurt by them. You will find that you are privileged; the troll is victimised by your very privilege, let alone by what you say. In fact, what you say is triggering. You must be preceded by a warning, if you are allowed to speak at all.

You might think you have a valid argument but you would be wrong. Your opinion reflects your ideology, which is informed by your privilege. Voicing your opinion in a public forum merely exposes your inherent racism, your bourgeois colonialism, your cissitude or whatever. The trigger troll comes brandishing papers in gender studies, post colonial theory, structuralism and post-structuralism, even in epistemology. You will find that there is evidence against your view, research has been done to prove your very point wrong, studies have been undertaken which show you to be in error. The details of this academic work will not be revealed to you; you will not be offered so much as a reference. But you must take it on trust; otherwise you will cause further offence. You probably would not understand it anyway.

Anyway, as things turned out, everyone but the trolls had a good time at Queer the Night, while the iwi rushed in to assure everyone that the taniwha was a metaphor, thus saving the trolls the discomfort and contortions of attacking pakeha media for mocking indigenous beliefs which the trolls themselves could not possibly hold, whilst at the same time trying to remember where the macrons go. But tomorrow is another day, with new opportunities to be offended on Internet.

Such is the life of the trigger troll, going from one outrage to the next, putting the I into every argument, never ceasing in the search for personal injustice.

Of course, the Cocteau Twins had something to say. Here they are, on The White Room from 1995, introduced by the estimable Mark Radcliffe:

Silver machine

2011-06-10T20:14:00.003+12:00

The planned building, at 5 Broadgate, would boast four trading floors each capable of holding 750 traders and has been described by Shuttleworth as an "engine of finance" with a design resembling an immense machine-tooled block of aluminium.

Ooh, an engine of finance; dontchajustloveit when the men in suits who work in unproductive areas of the global false economy are associated with things industrial? It's an engine; it's like they are part of a machine. It's like the suits are an industry.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The reason we don't have factories any more is that the men in suits got all post-industrial. All the real engines are made in China, along with everything else.

But anyway, enough of my liberal whingeing. I expect you want to see what Ken Shuttleworth (a very industrial sort of name, I think you'll agree) has in mind for Broadgate. Well, um - ta-ra. Yes, I know. It looks like the sort of thing they build in China.

And here is a message from the Cocteau Twins:

What I Wouldn't Give

2011-06-09T21:37:00.003+12:00

p193 Auckland City Library. Computer: The library has a coin-operated Apple II computer with printer, on which you may play both games and educational programmes; alternatively you may bring your own floppy disc or buy one in the library and write your own programme. An instruction manual accompanies the computer but library staff are not available to help if you do not compute.

Pike, Brigid. A Guide to Auckland.
Hodder and Stoughton, 1987, p193.

On the other hand, there were fifteen cinemas in Queen Street.

Like a girl Jesus

2011-05-31T21:40:00.004+12:00

You might start with an fish course – a Bluff oyster with ponzu, a Hiroshima oyster, mackerel. Then there’s American lobster or New Zealand crayfish, cooked to perfection and served with a beautifully silky sauce americaine, reduced for three days. You might have a lamb cutlet served with a foie gras sauce and an egg poached in red wine that spills over the plate. There is some of the best sashimi we’ve eaten anywhere. In short, if you care about food, you must go.

No. If you care about food, you should consider that a lot of people do not get enough of it. You might start by donating $80 to $100 to a charity which fights poverty here or overseas. You might want to ask the woman who cleans your office what she would do with $80 or $100; not that you are going to go without your degustation, but just to see how the other half lives. Then there's McDonalds:

The company denies the mascot is a bad influence on children. In fact, it says, he is quite the opposite, since he now extols the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. "Ronald is an ambassador for good and delivers important messages to kids on safety, literacy and balanced, active lifestyles," it said in a statement.

Yes, that's prime, organic, free range tosh. Ronald McDonald's job is to pull in the children, to start them on a life-time habit of eating bad food. It is cheap food, compared with your degustation, but cheap is all most people can afford.

Then there is the prejudice against poor people which many of us middle-class people have:

Aspiration and social mobility are the useful mirage, laying blame squarely with individuals who should try harder to escape their families and friends, instead of seeking great fairness for all. It suits life's winners to pretend this is a meritocracy: we well-off deserve our luck, anyone can join us if they try.

Polly Toynbee is talking about the Old Country here, but the attitude is much the same here; even amongst the left, who have abandoned the working class and who call Chris Trotter a racist patriarch for reminding them of their betrayal.

Oh well, enjoy your meal.

Next in our series of Inappropriate Songs for Boganette's wedding, here is Game Theory, accompanied by a home-made video featuring every effect in the box.

Starting from the ZERO

2011-05-29T20:34:00.002+12:00

InkLnk is giving the opportunity of owning 2% from the company by completing two years service, and it is going to enter the Internet social world soon. The company been established in Dubai, Your job is doing some marketing through the internet and inviting more people to increase our data base so we can get into the challenge with facebook and twitter, and remember Facebook revenue is 1.9 billion Dollar in 2010 while it’s just 7 years and 3 months old, and twitter worth 10billion Dollar while it’s less than five years old and they both started from the ZERO, so the 2% does really worth working with us.

About the job:
1- You will be responsible about inviting and doing marketing for InkLnk social website.
2- Just one hour a day and it’s all through the Internet.
3- Owning 2% from the company by completing two years service.
4- A laptop and $200 NZD will be given every six-months to the top employee.
5- Meeting dinar at the Stamford Hotel every two weeks.
6- You can work from any where in the world, and any time during the day.
7- You will get InkLnk Shirt as soon as you sign up with us.
8- Providing you with a communication and marketing course in Europe during the summer Holiday when it’s needed.
9- Visiting Google Company in the USA to increase your Experience in the future.

This could be your opportunity to get a free shirt.

Wings, the band the Beatles could have been

Exit, pursued by a bore

2011-05-28T13:07:00.003+12:00

I'm done with satire, commentary, opinion. The world is too absurd to let it pass by. I'm going into Drama.

For next year's Wellington International Arts Festival I shall be writing a verse play, based on the works of Paul Holmes. If I were to pitch it Hollywood-style, I would describe it as like a mixture of Murder in the Cathedral, Waiting for Godot and Under Milk Wood.

It will be set in a the day room of bleak old people's home (a home for bleak old people [boom boom] some might say) in which four retired newspaper columnists, two male and two female, sit in faded arm-chairs. They each speak in turn, in what becomes a droning rhythm, much like the columns they used to write. Their names are not disclosed. Here is the first draft, based on a recent work by Mr Holmes.

Wellywood is cute.

It's hokey.

It's small town.

To Wellywood or not to Wellywood.

Wellywood.

Wellywon't.

Wellycould.

Jacksonville.

Wellywood is just dumb.

It's provincial.

It's just too derivative.

Who wants a capital city called Wellywood?

Maybe that would be a good thing.

Since when are fires confidential?

But that's Treasury.

London looked green and warm and beautiful.

They are such young, fresh men.

I loved seeing them play table tennis.

Obama plays a good bit of table tennis.

Cameron was no goose either.

Sitting behind him are two young members.

Chris Tremain.

That attractive woman next to him whose name I've no idea of.

Goff.

Behind him.

Looking sour.

Faces of the past.

That seating arrangement has to change.

{curtain}

Holly and the Italians

We don't need to talk about Kevin

2011-05-26T13:46:00.002+12:00

From memory she'd put a US stamp on it for local posting. My suspicious mind started ticking over more. Perhaps some drug was concealed behind the stamp. I told him that if he wanted to take this letter then I wouldn't be travelling with him. Eventually Kevin acquiesced. "Fine, we'll throw it away then," he said. "No, we'll buy some English stamps and post it in England so at least the letter arrives," I suggested.

By now Kevin was well and truly over this letter he'd so innocently accepted and I'm sorry to say it ended up in many pieces inside the rubbish bin of our London hotel. For the record, it didn't seem to have contained drugs.

Welcome to Shelley Bridgeman's Drug Hell. One wonders what the message the letter contained: "yes, yes, of course I will marry you," perhaps, or "please accept my deepest condolences." Not that Shelley was concerned that the letter should contain drugs, only that she might be caught with them. Not that Kevin cared for her idea that they post it in England; he ripped it up.

But then, that is the sort of response one could expect from Shelley and Kevin. Every week, several times every week, Shelley has a new story to tell of her vapid, selfish, view of the world. She burst on to the commentary scene with her now famous thesis that poor people are ugly and stupid. Since then she has granted us numerous insights into her life and mind, such as her Disneyphobia:

We were lazing in our room when one of us realised the innocuous-looking table lamps amid otherwise non-Disney-esque interior decoration featured prominent Mickey Mouse ears. It had taken us days to recognise this but then it was impossible to not see it. And trudging back to our room after a busy day we discovered the same iconic design woven into the intricately patterned, faux-Victorian carpet in the corridor.

Were these symbols merely commitment to the theme and subtle little in-jokes for observant guests? Or were they subliminal messages intended to infiltrate our subconscious and sway us to commit to the brand for life?

What a short stange trip it's been. Along the way, Bridgeman has brought us such gems as "I think I prefer contemplating the holocaust in solitude" (a favourite of Boganette) and the classic "My husband's job is more important (read: more highly paid) than mine; it would be churlish of me to not support him in his efforts to provide for his family. "

For readers curious to see how Shelley and Kevin live, assistance is provided by NZ Homes and Gardens:

In 2002, while on assignment for a lifestyle magazine, Shelley experienced a design epiphany.

She came away from a well-appointed home impressed by the vast amount of art on display and resolved to begin her own collection and commission more pieces of furniture.

“Over the years I’ve found a piece of furniture and art for every spot,” she says now. The house has become a veritable art gallery, with room for work ranging from Michel Tuffery’s pressed corned beef tin bull to a Martin Poppelwell white earthenware bunny sculpture (“most people don’t realise it’s ironic,” says Shelley) and the Ralph Hotere El Toro lithograph that was bought to celebrate the couple’s tenth wedding anniversary.

Most people don't realise it's ironic; indeed, many of us are wondering whether Shelley's articles are subtle works of satire. But then one sees the photographs and understands that, if Shelley is a satirist, then she is suffering for her art. One might also notice the absence of bookshelves:

Once I've read a novel it goes straight to the Caring Shed too. I know I'll never re-read it and I've never understood the penchant for displaying novels in bookcases. Whatever the message - I can read? I have great taste in novels? I have a large budget for books? - it's not one that resonates with me.

But what is the secret of their success? What is it that keeps Shelley and Kevin and that peculiar little daughter in Hoteres, ironic bunnies and off-white bed linen? The answer is to be found in Shelley's most recent article:

But I guess I was surprised that other people aren't as mistrustful as I am. My radar is perpetually tuned to look for the catch, to be vigilant for people who might be furthering their self-interest at my expense. My days are spent fending off both real and imagined dangers. 'What ifs' and worst-case-scenarios have taken up permanent residence in my head - and, quite frankly, it's exhausting.

In short, they are awful, suspicious, selfish people who fear that everybody else might be as ghastly as are they. The price of designer furniture is eternal paranoia.

Dirty back road

2011-05-22T17:27:00.004+12:00

My current fascination is Globe Genie, an MIT joint from one Joe McMichael, which came to my attention via @ballardian. It takes you to places with Google StreetView, places such as Wattle Road, West Bromwich, England; somewhere near Wichita, with not a lineman in sight; Germantown, New Brunswick, with not a German in sight; Wellington (Kansas); the plain in Spain; Riverdale, twinned with Nowhere; un cul-de-sac near Metz; Eureka Springs, Arkansas - seven miles away from McGriddles; somewhere in England; a road in Somerset where strange things happen to cars; the Netherlands, supposedly the most densely populated country on earth; a tunnel in Norway; Antarctica.

Is anybody else reminded of the Boyle Family?

M

2011-05-21T12:56:00.001+12:00

This is the one thousandth Fundy Post. Thank you, gentle readers, for reading.

Somewhat appropriately for a blog which is supposed to be about religious politics, this post is published on the predicted day of the Rapture, which begins at 6pm for readers in New Zealand; times will vary for international readers: check with your local prophet. Equally appropriately, the Rapture turns out to have been invented, in 1830, by a fifteen year-old girl in Scotland, and prompted by the founder of the Plymouth Brethren. However, in the event of my being entirely wrong about all this, I leave behind the picture above, which shows that hot girls do go to heaven. It is taken from Hal Lindsey's There's a New World Coming (PDF) a curiously psychedelic and erotic rendition of the Endtimes: just wait until you see the Whore of Babylon.

So, there you have it; this has been the 1000th post, appropriately millenarian. Assuming that we are all left behind, normal posting will resume tomorrow. By then, you may have obtained a lot of clothing abandoned by the godly; but ask yourself, do you really need nylon slacks and Fair Isle sweaters?

A pool full of strangers

2011-05-20T18:04:00.004+12:00

It has been a strange day. In the morning, I was alerted to someone blurting out passive-agressive Tweets about me; they were tragically counter-productive. Protip: if someone says something bad about you, do not repeat it to everyone who follows you on Twitter.

Later, it rained in the postgraduate studio at School. It rained boiling water, normally a sign of the Endtimes or similar. It began with the sound of trickling water. Then came a downpour, through the ceiling tiles and on to some drawings. The rain spread across the ceiling, finally settling on a light fitting from which to pour electric rain. I looked for the source. Upstairs in Dance Studies was a lavatory. It had become a sauna with boiling waterfall feature. The dancers were like, OMG. The architectural historian rushed in where architects fear to tread, and rushed out again. I did what I could; had I been an architect, I probably would have earned CPD points.

Later still, I went to the library and, to my horror, found the Old House Journal, surely the most awful magazine in circulation. I could not resist. About mid-way through, I found 9 Strategies for Period Kitchens.

Strategy #1: Add vintage appliances to realize a Depression-era vision.

Margaret Keilty had been searching for a house with then-husband Raymond Shove for some time, but the ones they toured never seemed quite right. “What is it that you want?” Raymond would ask her. “I’ll know when I see it,” was always her response.

Clearly, he had to go. And he did. Two paragraphs later, Raymond has been shoved and Mark has replaced him:

Margaret and her partner, Mark LaMonica, immediately began looking for a vintage stove to accompany the refrigerator, and found a 1923 Bengal gas-and-coal combination. “It’s a cream and green porcelain and cast iron number that sits on little legs, with a shelf on top and nickel plating everywhere,” Margaret gushes. The couple found it in a nearby town, where someone had been using it as a plant stand. Margaret and Mark took the Bengal apart and gently cleaned it (taking care not to lose the patina), hooked it to gas, and now use it every day. They also worked to undo some of the cosmetic changes (like room partitions) that Margaret’s ex-husband had installed in the kitchen, and restored the plaster and refinished the floors.

So Margaret and Mark undo Raymond's cosmetic changes, and live happily ever after in Sharon Connecticut. Raymond Shove now lives in Buckeye, Arizona. Details are available on Mylife (note that Margaret and Raymond are both 63, while Mark is 48; do the math).

Anyway, what is a Depression-era vision - food, a job, FDR? Moving right along, the current edition of Old House Journal also features, surprisingly, Kate Pierson's kitchen, one she shares with Monica Coleman.

Gross moral turpitude, and other pleasures

2011-05-15T21:16:00.004+12:00

So where are all the feminists demanding that a woman's body is her own? Where are the civil libertarians protesting the infringement of this woman's freedom of expression? Where are the liberals upset that private proclivities are being judged as public menaces?
They are nowhere. They have allowed this wanton attack upon individual freedom because it suits their peculiar morality. Worse, this woman did nothing criminal nor even morally wrong. No one was hurt or harmed. She did what she did in her own time – titillated straight men in a magazine format.

I find myself in agreement with Michael Laws. There, I said it. I'll say it again. Michael Laws is right, in the matter of Rachel Whitwell. She has been barred from teaching, for life, because she posed naked for Penthouse, a magazine that is quite legal and widely available, and because the makers of Penthouse chose to make something of her being a teacher. And where are the liberals? Well, there is the estimable Matthew Taylor; there may be many others but they haven't been discovered, not by me.

At the other end of the moral universe is the SPCS (remember them?) and Family First:

“To pose for a porn magazine simply lets the side down.”

But what of the New Zealand Teachers' Disciplinary Tribunal? How did it come to this decision, to prohibit Ms Whitwell from teaching, for the rest of her life? Well, let's take a peek at decision 011/07, the Whitwell case:

The connection with the teaching profession was made even more explicit with the Respondent obviously draped over a school desk, leaving no doubt that there was a premeditated connection between the Respondent as a pornographic model, and her role as part of the teaching profession. Clearly the Respondent’s participation in a pornographic photographic feature has become a focal point of repeated publicity. It has become high profile, heightening the potential damage to the teaching profession. It was also noted that the majority of the teaching profession are women, who may find the Respondent’s activity and close connection to the teaching profession particularly distasteful.
Finally, in the context of the impact on the wider profession the majority of the Tribunal reflected again on the Respondent’s warning not to impose Victorian standards on today’s modern society which had different values. The majority of the Tribunal considered this issue very carefully and debated it at length. Without a doubt, it was agreed that teachers are expected to set and inculcate the values and standards of the communities they serve. It is true that these values and standards change and evolve over time. The majority of the Tribunal was also guided by the evidence presented by the school, and the reactions of the community served by the school. It was also noted that Rule 9(1)(o), was a broad test that covered actions that brought or were likely to bring discredit to the profession. This signalled a clear intention by Parliament to capture a wide range of activity with the aim of preserving and protecting the integrity of the profession. Accordingly, the majority of the Tribunal concluded after extensive deliberations, that the Respondent on this occasion had over stepped the mark and engaged in serious misconduct that was likely to bring the profession into disrepute.
On the above bases our conclusion is that the Complainant has made out its allegation that the Respondent has behaved in a way which constitutes serious misconduct.

A grave matter, I am sure you will agree. The complainant should be thanked for bringing this matter to the attention of the New Zealand Teachers' Disciplinary Tribunal. That person should step forward and receive proper acknowledgment for this public service. Now, who is that person?

It is one Dr Peter Lind, who happens to be Director of the New Zealand Teachers Council. Yes, you have it right: the sole complainant against Ms Whitwell was the head of the body which deals with complaints against teachers. Rum, you might think, that nobody in the profession complained, that no concerned members of the public complained, that not even the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards complained. Perhaps they were all busy. Fortunately for public decency, Dr Lind made the complaint on everyone's behalf.

And what of the witnesses to this matter? They were:

Neil Kevin Mallon who is one of the New Zealand Teachers Council’s Case Co-ordinators, Aaron James Montgomery who is employed by the Council as a Systems Administrator and the Chair of the Board of the school which employed the Respondent for a time (and to whom we will refer as “Ms F”).

A Council staffer, the Council's IT guy and the Chair of the Board of a school for which Ms Whitwell worked, for a while. Not that Ms Whitwell was working for the school at the time of her posing, or for any school for that matter; she was busy undressing and had no time for teaching.

But wait, there's more. It was not just that Ms Whitwell had posed for Penthouse that prompted Dr Lind's ire; it was also that, once he had made his complaint, she had spoken to the New Zealand Truth about the matter, and done some more posing:

Very broadly speaking, there are three aspects of this. There was an editorial piece in which the magazine focused on the fact that the Respondent was a New Zealand teacher and that her featuring in the magazine was the subject of an investigation by the New Zealand Teachers Council. It sought to portray this as a contest between outmoded values on the one hand and personal freedom on the other. There was a narrative feature concerning the Respondent which emphasised much the same points. Neither of these pieces could be described as high water marks of journalism. Finally, there was a series of photographs of the Respondent. One area of controversy between the parties during the course of the hearing was the extent to which the Respondent was in any sense responsible for the emphasis placed in all of this on her being a teacher. In relation to this, the Complainant pointed both to the references in the editorial and the narrative to the fact that the Respondent was a teacher and to aspects of the photographs. The Respondent’s position, as it emerged, both on the papers and at the hearing, was that ~~XXXXXXXXX~~ was responsible for making the link and that she herself had no control over their editorial or narrative pieces and should not be held accountable for them. Frankly, the Tribunal regards that contention as an attempt to stretch its credibility beyond endurance. By the time of the ~~XXXXXXXXX~~ shoot, the Respondent was well aware that the fact that she was a teacher was an integral part of the magazine’s interest in her, and, by agreeing to pose for the magazine, must be taken to have consented to and been complicit in the presentation of her as a teacher. No doubt the magazine’s staff determined the way in which she was described, but it is in the Tribunal’s view nothing short of disingenuous for the Respondent to say that she cannot be held responsible for this description. Quite apart from anything else, the photographs include one of the Respondent draped over an old fashioned school desk. In the Tribunal’s view, the Respondent must assume responsibility for her being presented as a teacher and the emphasis placed on the New Zealand Teachers Council’s investigation. As to the photographs themselves, they depict the Respondent in various states of undress including totally naked.

Good grief, surely not; and in the Truth of all places. She's gone and done it again. The Director made a complaint agin her and did she realise the gravity of her actions, did she seek to reform her behaviour? No she did not. She flagrantly took off her clothes, again. Hussy. And what's more she made fun of the Director.

And that, gentle readers, is what this is all about. The prudery, self-regard and pomposity of the Director and his Council have been brought into the public realm; so the brazen hussy who did this act ( in various states of undress including totally naked) must be punished.

The charge against her, quite fittingly was one of "bringing the teaching profession into disrepute." Whenever a professional body talks of someone bringing its profession into disrepute, you can be guaranteed that floods of self-justifying cant will follow.

And where, as Michael Laws asks, are the feminists, the liberals? Looking the other way, it seems. This feminist liberal cannot help but think that if Ms Whitwell had done something pervy - some BDSM erotica or whatever - then there would have been hordes of other liberals complaining about vanilla privilege, the latest opportunity for overprivileged people to claim they are oppressed. But because she posed in an old-fashioned way in an old-fashioned dirty mag, the liberals won't touch her. If she had done erotica (the name for middle-class porn), she would have been defended as someone who was celebrating her sexuality; but appearing in a magazine like Penthouse is simply participating in the kyriarchy, allowing oneself to be objectified into male stereotypes of female heterosexuality.

No, no no: too much male gaze going on there; Penthouse is the sort of magazine that builders read, after all.

Schools kill

2011-05-15T14:07:00.004+12:00

100 years ago we had a good education system, based on the three R's Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic. The world hasn't changed you still need these skills in the modern world.

100 years ago they did not have calculators and computers, everything had to be done using the human brain hence I believe childrens minds were stronger and more disciplined.

What we have had is trendy liberals tinkering with the education and we have lost control, in our day a whack around the behind with a cane or a leather strap was used as a corrective measure to get children back on the straight and narrow. Today children are physcoanalysed for bad behaviour and prescribed pills to recorrect this bad behaviour.

Lets get back to the basics and the KISS principle Keep It Simple Stupid.
And lets not change things which are already working.

100 years ago we had a good education system, with good discipline and good behaviour. Most young men did military training at school and did their compulsory military service, hence New Zealand were one of the best equipped armies to enter WW1, notably the Egypt and Gallipolli Campaigns where NZ lost alot of their youngest and brightest young men.

Words of wisdom from Higher School of Thought (New Zealand) in response to the lastest ramble from La Coddington. Education leads to violent death, says Higher School, a stranger to syntax. Blame everything on the schools, says La Coddington, an omnivore:

Middle New Zealand is comprised largely of fashion victims buying stuff they don't need with money they don't have to impress people who don't care. And our grandchildren will pay for it.

Meanwhile, grinding slowly through the courts, the lowlife, the greedy and the ignorant - who take advantage of the vulnerable, the greedy and the ignorant - are being held to account.

It's partly because of these debacles, and fools who believed you could buy property with zero-deposits, that we're all paying the price.

It all comes back to education, and therein lies the rub.

Aye, that would be it. We need to put the yoof on low wages so they won't become crims or fashion victims. And train them to be killed.

Maybe the most searing indictment of our education system is that we are prepared to tolerate the mutterings of people who cannot string together a coherent set of thoughts.

She's a rebel

2011-05-15T13:54:00.001+12:00

In the lead-up to the Double Down's invasion of these shores, nutritionists were on the warpath, calling for the burger to be banned or at least have restrictions applied so as to protect the vulnerable.

Being told that food was "dangerous" was anathema to those who regard themselves as having an ounce of common sense, hence the queuing outside KFC's door.

Sille Kerre sticks it to the nutritionists, because they are, like, telling people what food is bad for them. One wonders what part of the word nutrition Kerre does not understand. Kerre thinks she is a rebel because she takes sides with a corporation which is motivated by profit against a group which wants to improve people's health. Kerre speaks power to truth.

Kerre is a kolumnist, which means she can say what she likes without having to bother with facts or evidence or research or girly-swot stuff like that. No, she is free to say what she feels, regardless of what harm it might do. Last week she blamed child abuse on slappers. You see, Kerre is over child abuse. You see, it's all about her. Kerre eats a burger; she doesn't have to worry about public health. Kerre victimises single mothers; she doesn't have to think about the consequences of her words.

Next week, Kerre will have something else to say, someone else to attack. Her targets are easy; those without a voice; those who are trying to do good. Kerre is a bully. Kerre is an idiot. Kerre is a Herald on Sunday columnist.

Middle class blood lust for pleasure and profit

2011-05-11T12:41:00.003+12:00

It seems I am Mr Smug the Defamer, a middle class sanctimonious clown, a member of the aesthetic left. I am rather flattered by the last, but I curious to know what is wrong with being middle class. It always seemed to me to be quite a useful quality (I tried to find some answer to this problem, and many others, in the comments to Mr Brown's post: I may have this wrong, but it seems that the answer to a political question is to put a macron on it).

I am also somewhat surprised that Mr Bomber should think I worship Professor Chomsky. It's Rorty, Berlin, Gray and chaps like that on my bookshelves, Mr Bomber; not forgetting Sellar and Yeatman, Osbert Lancaster and Stephen Potter.

I read some Chomsky a while back; he seems a very insistent chap. I am really not at all sure about this anarcho-syndicalism thing of his: it seems his utopia would require endless meetings and committees, a bit like the RSA. Besides, these chaps who talk about giving the Workers the full product of their labour never tell us how they would know how much that would be. They seem to think that things have fixed values, as if there were an essential quality to a product which could be determined and given a price. How would one know what the value of something - say, a sleeveless jumper - would be? If the weather is too hot, a jumper would be of little value; if the weather were cold, it would be a very useful thing for a chap to possess. That value has little to do with the labours of the workers and much to do with snugness.

Anyway, that's enough dismal science from me. I suppose I should be more concerned about being called, along with Mr Brown, a sniveling apologist for Western foreign policy. I am concerned, because I was not aware of there being such a thing as Western foreign policy. I thought the various Western nations had their own foreign policies. Unless, of course, by "Western" Mr Bomber means the films of Mr John Ford and his like; in which case I am still further perplexed. Perhaps Western foreign policy is something like The Man who Shot Liberty Valance. Perhaps it will turn out that President Obama wasn't responsible for the killing of Osama Bin Laden, that it was the work of President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson.

Talk about the passion

2011-05-10T10:25:00.003+12:00

Ms Morse last night told the Weekend Herald her action was a "significant message of dissent".

She said she had gone to court only to ensure no precedent was set.

"When young men and women go off to war, they go off under the flag of the nation. So when you burn the flag, you are sending a strong message."

Yes, you are sending a strong message that you are a dick. Remembrance services are attended by returned servicemen and servicewomen who want to remember those who did not return, their friends who died. Whatever the rights and wrongs of war, those people and their loss should be respected. Ordinary people go as well, to show that respect. These ordinary people were themselves once respected by the Left, but they have been forgotten by the likes of Ms Morse.

Instead, the Left shouts and screams, makes gestures, gets indignant, then offended, then self-pitying. The Left has become child-like. Self-important poseurs like Ms Morse talk of dissent and resistance, as if they were in danger, as if they were courageous, as if they were principled, when all they are doing is showing off.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Government is finding new ways to redistribute wealth. The Government can do this because the Left has abandoned ordinary people, preferring identity politics, Post-Colonial Theory and other parlour games.

Blook about your life

2011-05-07T22:30:00.001+12:00

Did you read that thing in the Guardian a while back about novelists failing to come to terms with Internet? No, me neither. Well, I started reading it, but it is quite long and there are lots of other stories on the Guardian site, like the one where Greer mutters about Gehry (she is qualified to do this on the strength of being Australian; architecture is a public art and you don't need to know anything about it to make a critique) or the interview with Eric Hobsbawm.

You see, my point is... are you still there? Yes, that is precisely my point. Internet is distracting, the webby part of it especially so. In fact, I was just distracted by Twitter, just now. What was I saying? Oh yes; Internet causes the mind to wander.

Internet is not very accurate, either, especially the webby part of it. Take, for example, the excellent Novel About My Wife, by the estimable Emily Perkins, novelist of this parish; or, as the New Zealand Woman's Weekly has it, Novel About My Life. And it is not just there that Ms Perkins has been msrepresented: Britannica also has renamed her book.

So, a book which really got to grips with Internet would have to be inaccurate, unfocused, distracted, repetitive, badly edited, repetitive, endless....

Here are four gentlemen from Athens, Georgia making their first national TV appearance:

Collapse into now

2011-05-07T21:00:00.000+12:00

[Jeff] Hayward is fascinated to see the virtual holus bolus transfer of the Princes St branch of the Labour Party and the University Labour Club to Parliament and, moreover, to Cabinet. “They wield a great deal of power now, and their ideas are really starting to gel. Even though they used to sing The Red Flag once a year, they’re worlds apart from the old Labour Party. They’re well educated, young, radical, but not left-wing radical. They’re proving better capitalists than National ever was.

“Helen Clark went through the same branch, but she’s the old ideological voice of the party.

“Phil [Goff] is one of the inner group, of Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble and Mike Moore. Even though he’s only 32, he’s highly regarded. They’re always popping in to consult him.

One Wet Saturday in the Life of Hon. Phil

Metro, Number 53 November 1985; p150

REM promo directed by Sam Taylor-Wood and featuring Aaron Johnson; giant squirrel at 2:27

Ordinary people

2011-05-07T13:50:00.003+12:00

No one will be able to read the harrowing transcripts of the inquest without feeling a jolt of human sympathy, and often surprise that people, even in these extreme circumstances, turn out to be modest, generous and thoughtful.

From the testimony of Dr Wynne-Evans: "Yes, as I went in to each new carriage, I said something along the lines of, 'I'm a doctor, does anyone require my help?' At which point, I was told more than once that my help was required in the train next to the train I was on, that there were people there that needed my help more."

These people have not been honoured by Hone Harawira or by Ranginui Walker. Nor do they trouble themselves with the people left behind.

Meanwhile, over at Tumeke, Mr Angry has something to say.

Let's remind ourselves. This week the West killed an unarmed elderly man in front of his daughter using information to locate him taken under torture at a cost of $1.2Trillion while killing anywhere between 100 000 and a million and you want a rousing round of USA?

Ah yes, it was the West what done it, at a cost of $1.2 Trillion. The West killed an elderly man. Mr Angry has nothing to say about people like David Gardner. Well he wouldn't, would he?

The Left, for all for all its professions of solidarity and concern, has little time for ordinary people. The victims of Bin Laden are of no interest to the likes of Dr Walker. The people who were forced to throw themselves to their deaths from the Twin Towers are not Hone Harawira's problem. People on tube trains who lose their limbs to bombs do not matter to Bomber Bradbury. What matters is blaming the West, blaming Whitey, blaming Late Capitalism, blaming Amerika.

What matters is posturing and provoking. What matters is showing what a strong man you are, how fearless, how staunch you are. Who cares about people on trains and in offices? Who cares about ordinary people, little people, those who go to work and have families and ordinary lives?

What matters are the Freedom Fighters, the men who killed and maimed those ordinary people so that their own people could live in fear. Lenin, Uncle Joe, Mao, Che; the RAF, the PLO, the IRA; and now Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

This land is their land.

Full fathom five Osama lies

2011-05-03T11:51:00.003+12:00

Am I outraged, jubilant, disgusted, triumphant about the killing of Osama Bin Laden? None of the above; I am relieved he is gone but uncomfortable with the circumstances of his passing. I want it to lead to something better and hope it does not lead to something worse. My concerns are with the rule of law; my feelings of solidarity are with his victims and their kith and kin.

Liberals: can't live with us; can't live without us.

Moving right along, here's a story from Auckland University:

Staff and students were shocked yesterday at the Law and Arts Graduation ceremony when university officials barred entry to the ceremony to one of the University’s top-achieving students.

Vernon Tava, who graduated with first class honours, Masters in Law, was told to remove the small yellow rosette pinned to his regalia which called for staff and students to unite to defend the university.

The rosette was part of a staff and student campaign to prevent the vice-chancellor removing important academic conditions of work from their collective employment agreement.

Tava was told that unless he removed his rosette his degree would be withheld and he would be prevented from crossing the stage. When he refused to surrender the rosette he was threatened with disciplinary action.

Now read on. Two points seem to be worth making here: 1) it is really nasty to prevent a student receiving his degree; 2) it is really stupid to pick an argument with someone who has a first-class Masters degree in law.

Pic unrelated. Here is REM: Discoverer was made by Michael Stipe's sister, Lynda, with AutoCAD.

The empty page

2011-05-01T20:27:00.002+12:00

"The council once asked us for an assessment of outcomes, not output," says Ian Stringer. "Output was how many books we'd stamped out, and outcome was something that had actually resulted from someone borrowing a book. So say someone took out a book on mending cars and then drove the car back, that's an outcome; or made a batch of scones from a recipe book they had borrowed. It lasted until one of the librarians told the council they'd had someone in borrowing a book on suicide, but that they'd never brought it back. The council stopped asking after that."

Between the society that gave us libraries and and the bureaucracy that demands outcomes of us there is an unmeasurable distance. Regrettably, the people who want the outcomes are in charge.

Gone for a soldier

2011-04-30T18:20:00.004+12:00

2006

Like all Officer Cadets at Sandhurst, Prince William considered a number of regiments before applying to join The Household Cavalry. He based his decision on the variety of roles which the regiment undertakes, from reconnaissance support to airborne forces, right through to ceremonial duties. The Prince was also attracted by the Regiment’s outstanding record in recent decades, most notably during the Falklands Conflict, the 1991 Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo, in Iraq and in Northern Ireland.

2008

Sub-Lieutenant Wales, as he is known in the service, will spend the next three weeks undergoing basic naval training, to learn core skills such as navigation and sea safety. The remaining five weeks will be spent aboard the frigate HMS Iron Duke on duty in the North Atlantic where he will join patrols searching for drug runners in Caribbean waters.

2010

Prince William has successfully completed the final phase of his RAF helicopter flying training and is now a fully-qualified Search and Rescue pilot. Flight Lieutenant Wales recently passed the last stage of the Operational Conversion Unit (OCU) course at Royal Air Force Valley, Wales and will join Number 22 Squadron, C Flight as a fully-operational pilot flying the Sea King Mk3 helicopter after his graduation in mid-September.

2011

Prince William, though a serving search-and-rescue helicopter pilot with the Royal Air Force in Wales, wore the dress uniform of the Irish Guards regiment for his wedding yesterday to Kate Middleton.

The decision apparently caused some surprise within the RAF, but the prince’s role as colonel of the Guards is the highest position that he holds in the British armed forces.

So, let's get this right. Prince William (Eton, St Andrews) goes to RMA Sandhurst and chooses the Household Cavalry; but then he goes to BRNC Dartmouth and trains for the RN; but then he goes to RAF College Cranwell and trains for the RAF. Finally finding a Service that can rely on him, he trains as an SAR pilot. But then, when it comes to marrying his long-term on-and-off girlfriend, he turns up in the uniform of the Irish Guards, a regiment with which he has never served but of which he is a Colonel. One would have thought he would have worn his RAF dress uniform but clearly, this man has commitment issues.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan:

As Prince William gets ready for his wedding, members of his former squadron in the Household Cavalry Regiment have been out on patrol in Afghanistan.

D Squadron has been based in Helmand province since last September, maintaining security in and around the town of Gereshk alongside soldiers from the Afghan National Army (ANA).

James Blount (Harrow, Bristol), on the other hand, served as a Captain in the Life Guards, prevented the outbreak of World War III and went on to lose his O and to sing about being in a club in 1973, the year before he was born.

Billy Bragg (Barking Abbey Secondary School) completed basic training for the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars, there being no Queen's Republican Irish Guards.

Eats peas, roots and leaves

2011-04-28T21:32:00.004+12:00

The process now is for Don to join the party. His membership will be accepted by the Board on Saturday. I have asked our whip John Boscawen to organise a caucus for Saturday where Don will have my full support to be leader, and the Board will reconvene that afternoon to ratify his leadership.

Paging Dr Kübler-Ross... I cannot help but feel sorry for Rodney Hide. Not only is he replaced by a carpet-bagger, he feels obliged to write this rambling farewell Had I been him, I would have just said "arse" to the lot of them.

But then, that is the nature of ACT: not so much a political party, more a cult. Convinced of their own rectitude and charged with the duty of saving New Zealand from itself, ACT members are an odd bunch. Most of them don't seem particularly well off, yet they are in thrall to the mysterious plutocrats who finance the party. Mr Hide may have erred but Dr Brash really has nothing to offer, nothing but huge amounts of dosh:

In the afternoon, Ms Calvert and Sir Roger meet Dr Brash in his Auckland apartment. Among the issues discussed are Dr Brash's position on the Treaty of Waitangi and Maori issues in general. This strikes a chord with Ms Calvert, who has been a fierce opponent of the Government's position on the foreshore and seabed legislation.

Dr Brash also talks about the considerable funding he is likely to bring to the party.

What indignity for Mr Hide: wrong-footed by the ghastly Sir Roger and the imbecilic Calvert, replaced by a man who has never won a popular vote in his life, who could not even unseat Bill English, who wouldn't recognise loyalty if it was printed on the banknotes, a man without a reflection.

And what this awful bunch seem to have forgotten is that Mr Hide won an electorate, took it from the Tories and held on to it. He also has a sense of humour and some humility.

No wonder they got rid of him. Rodney Hide is a human being.

Image shows Dr Brash among the pods containing others of his kind. From deep space the seed is planted. Here's the Charlatans:

Porta Maris Portus Salutis

2011-04-28T15:49:00.004+12:00

During a Facebook discussion in which he said he wanted to "settle down with someone decent", Mr Tamiz claimed it was "impossible to find someone with morals and a bit of self-respect".

He continued: "It's the ones that look respectable and decent but underneath it all are complete sluts that you got to watch out for."

Payam Tamiz made the comments before he was a Conservative Party member.

The University of Westminster law graduate also said women in the area were "completely shameless".

Mr Tamiz may have done more for Margate than he could imagine. Not only does the town have a new Turner Contemporary Gallery designed by David Chipperfield, it also has, if Mr Tamiz is right, completely shameless women: the perfect weekend getaway-and-have-it -away. Margate also has the highest number of closed shops in the country, so there will be no vulgar commercial activity to distract one from the pursuit of beauty. As Mr Tamiz says, It's the ones that look respectable and decent but underneath it all are complete sluts that you have to watch out for; oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.

Speaking of which, the surprisingly and sadly short-lived Stroppery managed to tell us of the forthcoming Slutwalk Aotearoa before it closed down.

In other smut news, The picture of Dorian Gray is now available with even more mephitic odours:

"it is a tale spawned from the leprous literature of the French Decadents – a poisonous book, the atmosphere of which is heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction,"

Cultural anxiety for pleasure and profit

2011-04-27T00:03:00.002+12:00

This mass cultural shift towards the desire for "educated taste" has led to historic levels of cultural insecurity. Who can doubt that many of the people who drag themselves through a Booker winner are doing it out of a sense of "self-improvement" rather than a real hunger for literature? Similarly, a significant portion of the audience sitting through any production of Krapp's Last Tape are there because it makes them feel a cut above.
Are things different abroad? It's difficult to know, but I suspect that the French and Italians, say, are far less worried about what people think of their tastes. This is partly cultural arrogance (they know they are classy while the English live in dread of their own crudity), but also blissful ignorance. Many Europeans, steeped in a superior history of painting and music, are still clear about what they mean by "art", in a way that we are not. But then, those same cultures are not necessarily up to speed where the cultural lines are more confused. Could Tracey Emin's My Bed have been created, and received such a response, by an Italian artist working in Florence? It's doubtful.

Is Tim Lott talking rubbish? It's difficult to know, because this is perhaps the most hesitant and confused piece of writing on matters of taste to have appeared in years; but it probably is rubbish as well. In fact, I am being too kind: it is rubbish. It is nothing more than sneering at stereotypes: aspiring middle class people, the cultural elite and sophisticated Continentals. And how are the record levels of cultural insecurity among the middle class measured? Does the Arts Council have devices; is there a recognised scale?

There is a simple reason why Jack Vettriano's paintings are not held by any public art gallery in Scotland, or anywhere else for that matter: Jack Vettriano's paintings are crap. They are crudely-painted illustrations of forced quirkyness; so, so surreal, so empty, so what?

Teenage Fanclub on the other hand; now there's a real work of art:

Last year in Maidenhead

2011-04-26T21:50:00.000+12:00

In Madonna's recent videoclip, "Open Your Heart," she performs as a stripper inside a room surrounded by spectator booths. The spectators presumably pay to view for a certain period of time; the blind on their window raises. When the pay period is over, the blind descends. I hear there really are such facilities somewhere, one of the more bizarre variants of the commodification of desire predicted by Lenin as symptomatic of late capitalism.

My Essay on Postmodernity

Eric Michaels

Art and Text 25

June-August 1987

pp86-91

In a spirit of admiration for Robyn , who has studied all Madonna's videos, I thought I would share with you this passage. Being critical thinkers and theorists, you will notice the characteristics of late 1980s academic discourse: the subject, the distance from it assumed by the critic and the use of the term late capitalism. Bonus marks will be given to gentle readers who noticed that the author failed to notice the reference to Paris, Texas in the Madonna promo.

The author, Eric Michaels had been an editor of Screw magazine, so his innocence of peepshows is surprising. Sadly, he was lost to us by that other discovery of the 1980s - AIDS. The field of Madonna Studies has passed into legend, occasionally appearing in rants about the decline of educational standards.

A little bit Rorty, a little bit Rock 'n' Roll

2011-04-26T13:45:00.000+12:00

What, then of the place of the philosophical profession in the culture as a whole? For philosophers who think of themselves as quasi-scientists, this is not an important question. Analytic philosophy has little influence on other academic disciplines, and little interest either for practitioners of those disciplines or for the intellectuals. But analytic philosophers are not distressed by this fact. It is natural, given their scientific metaphilosophy, that analytic philosophers are content to solve philosophical problems without worrying about the source of those problems or the consequences of their solution.

By contrast, non-analytic philosophers typically dislike the thought that philosophy is (or is only) an academic discipline, merely one more Wissenschaft. They would like their work to be continuous either with literature on the one hand or with politics on the other, or both. Insofar as they succeed in making their work continuous with literature, they cease to belong to a separate institution: they are simply writers who happen to be familiar with a certain literary tradition (a tradition that starts with Plato and runs up through Hegel to the present). Thus there is little point in drawing institutional lines between the study of Sartre's treatises, of his critical essays, and of his stories. There is equally little point in worrying whether Nietzsche counts as a figure in the history of German literature (as he used to, before Heidegger helped him to a place in the philosophical canon) or in the history of philosophy. Anyone who is interested in Derrida's treatment of Socrates in La Carte Postale is likely to be interested in Valéry’s treatment of him in Eupalinos and Nietzsche's in The Birth of Tragedy, and is unlikely to know or care that only one among these three great writers earned his bread as a philosophy professor.

When it comes to attempts to make non-analytic philosophy continuous with politics, however, things become more complex and problematic. For non-analytic philosophy is, with some exceptions, dominated by a Heideggerian condition of the world rather than by social hope. Because the typical member of this tradition is obsessed with the idea of ‘radical criticism’. when he or she turns to politics it is rarely in a reformist, pragmatic spirit, but rather in a mood either of deep pessimism or of revolutionary fury. Except for a few writers such as Habermas, ‘continental’ philosophers see no relation between social democratic politics and philosophizing. So the only sort of politics with which this tradition is continuous is not the actual political discourse of the surviving democratic nations, but a kind of pseudo-politics reminiscent of Marxist study-groups or of the thirties - a sort of continual self-correction of theory, with no conceivable relation to practice.

Rorty, Richard
Essays on Heidegger and Others.
Cambridge University Press, 1991;
pp23-24

This is why we can't have nice thoughts; this is why some Analytic philosophers take pride in not having read Nietzsche and why Continentals prate on about Late Capitalism. It also shows that Rorty was smarter than the lot of them.

Without thinking or knowing

2011-04-25T16:11:00.004+12:00

It is unfortunate that some people, without thinking or knowing, labelled this the plastic waka or the Tupperwaka when in fact the materials being used are all technologically sound. Rather than be disrespectful to Maori culture I would suggest the waka building is a pointer to the place Maori will take in our society in the coming decades.

In which Sir Ron Carter, the Patron of something called The Committee for Auckland, misses the point. It is not the technological soundness that is at issue; it is the cultural naffness.

Without thinking or knowing, I would suggest the waka building is a pointer towards self-pastiche. New Zealand is littered with buildings that look like things that are not buildings. They are neither clever nor funny. The waka is worse still: it is neither clever nor intended to be funny. It is deadly serious, a rather sad attempt to represent Maori culture with what might be an oversized copy of a toy floating in Pita Sharples' bathtub.

The powers that be might have chosen an architect, perhaps a distinguished Maori architect (PDF), to design a building that would represent Maori culture as progressive, innovative, those sorts of things. Instead, they chose a big, dumb literal thing. It's like Britain representing itself with images of the Household Cavalry. You don't really find it anywhere else but here and in the Old Country: other cultures have enough wit, courage and trust in architecture to choose new ideas.

Here, we hand the opportunities to make public sculpture to movie model makers and engineers and we fill our landscape with giant vegetables, so what hope for architecture?

Dog: Tirau

Lest we ask

2011-04-25T13:46:00.002+12:00

Just five days before Anzac Day it was revealed that SAS troops were part of an operation in Afghanistan last August in which nine Taleban fighters were killed. Critics of New Zealand's deployment there have sought to portray the operation as some sort of "revenge killing" following the death in action of Lieutenant Tim O'Donnell. This suggestion was not only incorrect but was also an affront to the SAS.

Undoubtedly SAS troops would have been angry at O'Donnell's death but these soldiers are also part of one of the most professional and disciplined military forces in the world, which does not undertake unauthorised revenge or rogue operations.

In which the Press not only claims to know the purpose of the SAS mission but the motives of its members, and tells its readers that to question either is an insult to the SAS. This "don't ask, don't tell" policy would seem to be at odds with the notion of an independent media which asks and tells but, clearly, even to think that Our Brave Lads of the SAS would do something bad is tantamount to treason. So unthink that thought and hang your head in shame.

But wait, there's more:

Less edifying over the past week has been the renewed controversy over where the Anzac poppies are to be made in coming years. The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association have opted to buy poppies manufactured in Australia from Chinese components.

This will undoubtedly be hard on locally based Kilmarnock Enterprises, which has employed intellectually handicapped people to make the poppies, the more so as the Christchurch quakes have already impacted on its operations.

But today is April 25. On Anzac Day the priority must be to remember the sacrifices made by heroic New Zealanders in past wars and those serving overseas today, not to wrangle over where the poppies that symbolise our day of remembrance are made.

Today is not a day to think of solidarity with intellectually disabled people, those who have made poppies for years, doing work that gives them an income, a sense of purpose and a sense of pride. Today is not a day to think of solidarity with workers in China, many of whom are virtual slaves and many of whom are actual prisoners. Today is not a day to consider that many returned servicemen suffered head injuries that left them in similar intellectual states to the people who work at Kilmarnock. Today is not a day to consider that the freedom for which heroic New Zealanders fought many years ago is still denied to people in China. Today is a day for quiet reflection, but only of the right timbre and on appropriate topics.

The motto of the Press is “nihil utile quod non honestum” or "nothing is useful that is not honest."

Bohuslav Martinů - Thunderbolt P-47:

The fag end of life

2011-04-24T21:33:00.002+12:00

"Retail tobacco displays impact on vulnerable consumers, such as people still experiencing nicotine withdrawal, and can prompt impulse purchases."

Apa wrote that the "key aspect" of her paper was to minimise costs to retailers and "allow for flexibility" over compliance methods.

One would have thought that the key aspect of her paper would be the vulnerable consumers, otherwise known as addicts, what with Ms Apa being the Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of Health and not DG of the Corner Dairy Preservation Society.

And what's with this "tobacco companies are looking at Facebook and YouTube to promote their products if New Zealand introduces new anti-smoking legislation?" Where is the evidence for this claim? It cannot be found here:

"There is also a risk tobacco companies will divert their marketing efforts into unregulated channels, such as internet social networks and product placement in entertainment media, such as Facebook, YouTube, films and video games," the paper said.

There is a difference between saying something might happen and saying that it will. The fag companies are drug pushers and have the morality to match; they probably will push their products on social media, given the chance; but they haven't done it yet and Mr Reid (him again) cannot say that they will do it, yet.

Speaking of smoking, Christopher Hitchens can no longer speak, as this letter reveals (H/T Russell). Here is Martin Amis writing about Hitchens; and here is Amis talking about Hitchens, and causing difficulties with his own smoking habit:

And since this is Easter, here is Hitchens talking about God in Virginia (where the tobacco comes from).

Discipline and punish

2011-04-24T20:26:00.002+12:00

Calling all gays, calling all gays. Does this image look straight to you? I only ask because it is the cover of a new book published by Mr Ian Wishart's Howling at the Moon Publishing. I suppose the image is designed to make readers fearful of the menace of criminals stalking our streets but, at the same time, that dangerous criminal does have a white singlet and lot of muscle tone.

Anyway, the book received an extensive puff job, sorry in-depth analysis, on the cover of the Sunday Star Times. Gentle readers might notice the absence of any opposing viewpoint. We can only suppose that Neil Read, the author of this story, was too busy to contact anyone from the Howard League for Penal Reform or any other organisation which might have a view about the imaginative idea of throwing criminals into jail. Gentle readers might also notice that Mr Read describes Mr Fraser, the author of the book, as an international law and order expert in the first line of his story, only later revealing that, by this, he means Mr Fraser worked as a probation officer and then as an analyst for the NCIS in Britain. Probation officers are hard-working and decent people but their expertise is in probation, not in the efficacy of locking up the crims and throwing away the key.

Gentle readers might further note that this book has two forwards [insert rugger joke here], one by the ubiquitous Garth McVicar, the other by the equally ubiquitous Theodore "not his real name" Dalrymple. So, this is a book written by a retired probation officer and forwarded by a farmer and a retired prison doctor. I guess they couldn't get anyone with expertise in crime and punishment.

That last comment wasn't ironic. They couldn't get anyone with expertise; nobody who knows about this subject, who works in the field, believes that prison is a solution to crime. That pretty boy on the cover is a model and his gun is a toy, just as crimes, for the most part, are not committed by dangerous professional criminals who swagger round the photoshopped streets of an imagined metropolis with guns. Prisons are full of people who should have received help with their various life problems a long time ago, before things got really bad for them and for the rest of us.

Perhaps if Mr Reid were to talk to someone who knows about this issue, rather than assisting Mr Fraser et al to frighten us, we might start making some progress. But that wouldn't happen because fear sells more papers than thinking.

Here's a really rough video of the original lineup of The Heartbreakers, with Richard Hell on bass, vocals and coolness.