I learnt French at high school, but that was 35 years ago and I’ve forgotten most of it. I’ve had the urge to re-learn it. I told my daughter and she sent me this… (Make sure you have annotations turned on.)
Yes, Eddie is wearing a dress. He always wears a dress.
I did a double take at the headline “‘I was waiting for a signal,’ says skydiver who forgot to pull the cord – and lived” in the Herald a couple of days ago, and checked out the original story in The Independent. It wasn’t as bad as the headline suggested, but the guy was extremely lucky to escape with a broken back, a punctured lung and several broken ribs after landing on snow covered rocks.
Then today I was staggered to see this headline, “Shoaib ruled out of Twenty20 with genital warts“. Pakistani bowler Shoaib Akhtar will miss next month’s World Twenty20 due to viral genital warts, according to the Pakistan Cricket Board. Imagine if your boss announced to the world that you were taking time off work, and gave that as the reason! Just imaging the barracking the guy’s going to get the next time he’s in Australia. They don’t take any prisoners over there!
But the story that takes the cake today is “Toddler buys $20,000 digger on TradeMe“. Three-yead-old Pipi Quinlan got up early one morning lately, turned on the computer, opened Mum’s TradeMe account (auction website, NZ equivalent of eBay), clicked “Buy Now” on the top auction on the page and bought a $20,000 Kobelco digger. Mum sorted it out, but the lesson is simple — log out when you leave a website, particularly one you can spend money on. :doh: This story’s going to go around the world, along with the one about the couple who have made off with the NZ$3.8 million accidentally deposited into their bank account. It now seems they have the woman’s seven year-old daughter with them and are somewhere in Asia — the trail has gone cold in Hong Kong.
One of my reading pleasures is the London Review of Books, courtesy of the subscription my brother gives me every year as my Christmas present. It’s my short-cut, cheat’s way of learning something interesting about things I wouldn’t normally read about, without having to actually read any of the books. The reviews are not like the normal book reviews you find in newspapers or magazines. They are often very long essays on the topic, written by experts in that field. The book is often a relatively small part of the review.
Anyway, despite all the erudite writing and fascinating ideas that are discussed in it, the page I always turn to first is the inside back cover, to read the personal ads. They are the best personal adverts I have ever read. They aren’t all trying to be witty and clever; some of them are very straight forward:
Friendly, lonely at times, divorcée, loves books, music, films, art and culture. Needs TLC from a man in similar situation. 60ish.
Or
Occasional lover sought by smart sexy attractive woman.
Some of them are kind of sad:
A sensible advert for a change. Kindly working-class intellectual, M, 60, slightly shy and badly hurt. WLTM a fine woman for companionship, sweetness, food, book, smiles and peace.
Or sad in a slightly disturbing way:
M, 48, reaching the end of a marriage of convenience, clings to the belief that there still may be one beautiful woman left who values kindness above all else. Few demands other than intimacy in the beginning, in exchange for a generous monthly allowance and the opportunity to travel.
Some adopt a clever counter-cultural, liberal political style, with a hint of self-deprecation:
The last day of the miners’ strike, my socialism gave way to socialising. Hip, stylish, ever-educated Hitchcock heroine (I wish. In reality, a thirtysomething London academic. But still hip etc) who confusingly mixes up her cultural metaphors, seeks seriously clever, socially-confident, left-leaning, genuinely unattached M, 35–50, with whom to disagree about art, architecture, music, books, film.
Others have more than a hint of self-deprecation:
I’m everything you ever want in a woman. Assuming you’re into fat 47-year-old moody bitches who really don’t enjoy the morning. Stop talking and pour the Bloody Marys.
Some are drily witty:
The finest mind in the academic world conceived this ad, but it was his secretary who took two and a half hours out of her day to collate his angst-ridden ramblings, phone the LRB and pay for it with her own credit card. He’s basically looking for an affair with a twentysomething idiot tart who needs good grades. I’m looking for a better job, decent pension package and a man to 50 who’s great in bed and doesn’t make condescending comments about every damn book I read. Man, 57. Or his secretary, 43.
But the best are completely off the wall:
‘Don’t worry about overeating, you’ve got plenty enough on your plate as it is.’ Excruciating knuckle biter of a gaffe-prone dinner guest (M, 31), seeks not easily offended lady for patient exchanges about anything other than weight, age, height, dress or popular culture. Mature correspondents welcome, age before…never mind.
Or
I am Mr Right! You are Miss Distinct Possibility. Your parents are Mr and Mrs Obscenely Rich. Your Uncle is Mr Expert Tax Lawyer. Your cousin is Ms Spare Apartment on a Caribbean Hideaway that She Rarely Uses. Your brother is Mr Can Fix You Up A Fake Passport for a Small Fee. Man, 51.
You can see why I read them first, before the serious stuff.
It was ANZAC Day in New Zealand and Australia over the weekend — April 25th — the anniversary of the landing at Anzac Cove on Gallipoli (i.e. an attempted invasion of Turkey) by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in 1915. They were part of a force that included tens of thousands of British and French troops. The plan was to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula and open up a supply route to Russia. It failed and more than 300,000 soldiers were killed or wounded on both sides.
In this part of the world, ANZAC Day is observed publicly in preference to Armistice Day.
On Saturday, people turned out in their thousands to attend the ceremonies as part of a recent resurgence of interest in it. We went along to the service in the village hall run by the local Returned Services Association (RSA). Traditionally, the services are held outside at a war memorial, but we don’t have one here, so the local hall is the venue. The minister who took the service has a quiet voice — it’s OK in his church, but lost in a hall with 300 people in it. And the old chap who read Laurence Binyon’s famous lines was wearing either the wrong glasses or the wrong teeth and made a real hash of it. A rehearsal wouldn’t have been a waste of time, either. What is normally an emotional moment was a shuffling embarrassment.
But, overall, it was still a moving and meaningful event. However, that’s not my issue with ANZAC Day.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. My father was a prisoner of war for three and a half years in the 1939–46 War and devoted much of his later life to the welfare of ex-POWs. (He even got a gong from the Queen for it.) He would always attend both the dawn service and the later morning service. I sometimes went with him. When I was at high school, I was in the Air Training Corps and we were the guard of honour at the cenotaph on several occassions. I always found it moving, particularly Binyon’s poem and the bugle calls. It meant so much to Dad, that it came to mean something to me. And I have no problem with the military aspects — after all, that’s integral to the whole ceremony.
The commemoration fell out of favour in the early 1970s as a result of the opposition to the Vietnam War, with many young people rejecting it as a symbol of war mongering militarism. Then something odd happened a few years ago — people started coming back. Not only in New Zealand, but also at Gallipoli itself. New Zealand and Australia started to send official delegations to ceremonies there. The Turks welcomed the children of their old enemies with open arms, and to spend ANZAC Day at Gallipoli has become part of the overseas experience of many young New Zealanders and Australians. They seem to feel that it is part of being Kiwi or Aussie to commemorate the events there, and will make a special trip to be there.
There has long been a thread of thought among historians that the experience of the ANZACs was the beginning of Australians and New Zealanders developing an independent view of themselves — one that was not so closely tied to mother Britain. But I don’t buy that, at least not in our case. New Zealand was still very closely tied to Britain in 1939 — as our Prime Minister at the time said, “Where Britain goes, we go.” And go we did, my father included. No, I think our coming of age came much later, starting sometime in the 1960s.
My issue with ANZAC Day is the way that a growing nationalism has begun to accompany it. My memory of it from when I was young is that it was a day of sombre remembrance, with the nationalism and patriotism a discrete part of events. But it isn’t that hidden any more.
I’ve always been deeply suspicious of nationalism and patriotism. After all, that’s what got New Zealand into the 1914–18 war in the first place (and the 1939–46 war). I dispise the way advertisers and the media play on nationalism and patriotism, and I think that is partly what is happening here. Twenty years ago the event was largely ignored by the media, apart from general news stories about the weather and attendances. This year, there was a live TV broadcast from my old home town, which is just a small seaside resort. I wonder what the point of all of this is. I know some will say that it is an expression of our national identity, and that’s true to an extent. But I think it is also partly manufactured through the media, particularly the TV networks, which have powerful commercial incentives for encouraging those emotions. Nationalism and patriotism make money for the media — a lot of money. Look at the amount of money they can make from the TV rights to major sports events involving our national teams.
Perhaps I’m being too precious about this. Perhaps ANZAC Day is joining Waitangi Day as a time where we reflect on what it means to be New Zealanders, and acknowledge our history in all its ugliness and honour. And as the old veterans die off, the style and focus will inevitably change. It means something significant to many people, and who am I to quibble with that?
But still, I can’t help thinking that the new meaning that is entering the event is in danger of taking over from the emotion we can find in the traditional ritual observance.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
From For The Fallen, Laurence Binyon, 1916
The New Zealand under-17 men’s (‘boys’, really) team has qualified for the under-17 soccer World Cup in Nigeria in October with a 2–0 win over Tahiti at the Oceania age group championship in Auckland today.
According to the NZ Herald…
Needing a win to progress, the Young All Whites scored two first-half goals through Zane Sole and Andrew Milne while recording their third consecutive clean-sheet for the tournament.
Sole climbed high in the 28th minute to head home a Jack Hobson-McVeigh corner, while Milne toed home an Andrew Bevan cross from close range three minutes later.
New Zealand were reduced to 10 men right on the first half whistle when Hobson-McVeigh received a second yellow card after an off-the-ball incident with Kaurani Voirin, who was also booked.
But a composed second-half effort saw the New Zealanders hold off Tahiti for the win.
New Zealand finish top of the table with Tahiti three points behind. Earlier today New Caledonia beat Vanuatu 1-0 to clinch third place in the round-robin tournament.
Well done, boys.
I first heard about these guys when I downloaded a version of a Goldfrappe song (Human) that Calexico had provided Spanish vocals for. I thought they were a Spanish group – understandably enough – and was a little disappointed to discover they were actually a couple of Anglos from California. But, the music won out, and I recently got a copy of their Hot Rail album, and it’s great stuff. This song is from it.
I’ve always loved western movies, so I’m a sucker for this sort of music. It reminds me of those great ‘spaghetti’ westerns from the 1970s featuring Clint Eastwood as ‘The Man With No Name’.
We had one of those unexpected pleasures today, when Kate and I got to meet a really interesting person as the result of a mistaken identity. Kate had a phone call a couple of days ago from a well-known artist who lives in the Bay, who maintained she had spoken to Kate at the school gala a few weeks ago about promoting her work. Problem was, Kate could not remember talking to her, but assumed she had forgotten because it was a really busy day.
So when Pauline turned up, she was expecting someone else and realised that she had the wrong Kate! Once the embarrassed laughter died down, we could have sent her on her way but, being hospitable types, we decided to offer her a cup of tea. An hour and a half later — once we’d discussed the state of the local art scene, how difficult it was for artists to get into ‘good’ galleries, the importance of protecting the local landscape, and compared war stories about village politics — we parted with a warm feeling.
Proof that you should avoid anything mechanical for exercise (except a bike). Walking or running is much safer.
Poor Bernard
This one’s being doing the rounds here in NZ, since Jim Mora talked about on his radio programme yesterday. More than 200 dancers performing to “Do Re Mi” in the Central Station of Antwerp. It was a promotional stunt for a Belgian television program, which was looking for someone to play the leading role in the musical of “The Sound of Music”.
Just delightful.
No, not me! It’s very quiet in the house today — it’s the first day of school for our two sons. They have gone back to high school (college) after their six week summer holidays. They were not very keen. Even our daughter has gone out — to the gym. Yes, this is the girl who complains about having to walk five minutes to the local store to buy a bottle of milk, willingly doing exercise (other than dancing, which she loves).
Hopefully, we will have a better year than last year with our older son — he is not interested in school and did not pass all his subjects last year. So, he is having to repeat one subject, and is on probation for another two. Unfortunately, he does not think he is very intelligent, but we know that he is smart enough to do well at school — but he doesn’t believe us when we tell him that. :irked: Like a lot of boys (and men), he prefers to leave things to the last minute before finishing his homework and assignments. He prefers having a job and earning money to spend on games, but if he doesn’t do well, he will stay working as a waiter at the local restaurant and won’t be able to become the computer engineer he wants to be. Maybe he will grow up a bit and realise that this year. Here’s hoping.
Our younger son is quite different. He is very interested in lots of things and is easily bored if his school work is too easy, so he has made it into the top class in his year. Fortunately, so are most of his friends, so he doesn’t feel like a geeky loser. He and his friends are surprisingly competitive about their school work, but it’s all in good fun.
As I said the other day... 