There goes the New Year

Thanks to his new daily intake of Fortisip, everything went very well for my husband over Christmas and New Year - well, New Year's Day, anyway. He felt so much better that he got a bit over-confident, and on 2 January he decided to bend over and pick up something from the floor. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it - but he is not supposed to do any such thing, he's supposed to use his grabber instead. Sure enough, he started to topple forwards, managed to right himself, but overdid it and fell backwards instead, crashing full-length onto the floor. In the process he strained his sacroiliac (?) ligament. It will heal, but slowly, and in the meantime it hurts, a lot. So instead of building his strength up a bit with walks during these nice fine days, he's been too sore to move much at all, poor man. "I was only trying to help" he said. "Please don't" I replied, through gritted teeth.

Oh well, at least he has the Christmas books to read - Kate Grenville's The Lieutenant (see Book of the Week) and Marilynne Robinson's Home; Jenny Bornholdt's The Rocky Shore (it's usually Harvey who reads poetry, not me, but this is brilliant); Obama's Dreams of My Father; and David Veart's First Catch Your Weka (charming and beautifully designed social history of New Zealand cooking, seen through recipe books). Plus we got lent the DVDs of Lost in Austen, which half my friends loved and the other half loathed. Just as well, as the summer flush of TV movies seems to be over. The one we liked most (apart from Ballet Shoes) was - gulp - Wallis and Grommit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit. Where was Grommit when Harvey needed him?

The magic fridge

Over Christmas something very strange has happened to our fridge, and our biscuit tins. Well, not exactly tins. I used to have real biscuit tins, with quirky retro pictures on them, but they didn't really keep biscuits very well - especially after the boys left home and it took us days, if not weeks, to get through one packet. So I gave in and bought those nice plastic boxes from Woolworth's with blue click-on seals for the lids. Now the cheese crackers and malt biscuits finally stay crisp.

Normally crackers and malt biscuits are the only biscuity things you'll find in my pantry. As for cake, forget it. I'm a cook, not a baker. Besides, cakes aren't Harvey's thing, so if I do make one for visitors I end up eating most of it, slice by decadent slice.

But before Christmas I do try to Make an Effort. It doesn't run to actual Christmas cake, which neither of us is hugely keen on. But a few home made mince pies are likely to appear (thanks to the wonderful mincemeat Alison gives me), along with some kind of cookies or truffles or macaroons (handily gluten free for people who need that).

And after Christmas the fridge fills up with interesting leftovers - various kinds of meat, exotic bits of cheese, potato salad made from the unused Jersey Bennes (this year with real mayonnaise, made to go with the remains of a side of smoked salmon brought by our Boxing Day guests). Maybe some lemon mousse or berries, and always whipped cream.

Friends come round in a steady and welcome stream to help us eat it all up. But they also bring their own contributions, for the tins and the fridge.

So this is where the magic fridge comes in. We eat and eat (well, I certainly do), but while the total quantity of food available changes in interesting ways, it never seems to get much smaller.

Our macaroons make way for Dale's shortbread. Our smoked salmon turns into Kathrine's chicken. Apricot truffles appear in place of the last few meringues. The German Advent chocolates vanish, but Diane's French ones step in.

It'll all settle down eventually, I know, and our fridge and tins will return to their modest everyday state. But in the meantime it's wonderful - as long as I don't make the mistake of trying on trousers in the sales. Then everything suddenly turns to custard.

Ho ho ho to you too

Not a lot of genuine Christmas cheer around, is there. Huge ads yelling about price cuts, as retailers make increasingly frantic efforts to lure us into spending money we haven't got on things we don't need. The new bunch in the Beehive backing them up and telling us it's our duty to spend our way out of the looming recession.

And all over the country, women starting to panic about all the extra work involved in producing a proper Christmas. I don't think I've ever heard a man say, "Oh dear, I haven't done a thing about Christmas yet" - but every year I hear scores of women saying it.

I admit I'm feeling less Christmassy than usual. It hasn't been a good year for us - in fact it's been a real bugger - and it's been much worse for some of our friends. I'm not looking forward to writing the annual round robin letter. We always seem to get quite a few that go like this:

"As you know, Justin retired last December from his post as managing director. (His timing couldn't have been better, because in January the receivers moved in. Thank goodness he'd sold all his shares!) In March we celebrated our 40th anniversary at a magical hideaway in the Cooks.

May brought the pleasure of seeing both the twins graduate with first class honours, Logan in law and Megan in marketing. Then in September we finally took our long-delayed holiday in Europe. For me the highlight was probably dining by moonlight in the Colisseum with Andrea Bocelli singing some of his gorgeous Italian songs.

Now you may recall that last year I did that wonderful Creative Writing course at Victoria? Well, in November I was amazed when my little collection of short prose pieces won the 2008 New Voices Prize!! It's coming out next week, just in time for Christmas. Speaking of which, we're off to the Far North again for our annual family gathering at the beach house. Hope you have a great one!!!"

I feel strangely ashamed that I can't provide my own glittering catalogue of good news. Last year I could at least report that we'd moved house. This year the best I can do is resort to wry humour.

My husband has dramatically reduced his petrol consumption! (Because of his illness, he's just had to give up driving.) My son was appointed to a prestigious Chinese university post! (He's teaching part-time at a weekend business English course, on top of his regular job, so he can save enough money to come home.) And as for me - well, I started a blog!

People or machines?

I have an apology to make. It's to the long-suffering woman who was staffing the Air New Zealand counter I went to at Wellington Airport last Wednesday. I was really rude to her, and I'm sorry.

The problem was that I'd just done battle with one of our national carrier's much-heralded new check-in machines. The computer-created pictures advertising the new regime - and regime it is - show smooth, young, fit, bland-faced men and women moving calmly around the concourse where the shining new macines cluster. As far as we can tell, none of them are disabled in any way, let alone elderly or infirm.

These perfect creatures seem to be the only kind of people the machines were designed for. They all have perfect eyesight, for a start. So the fact that some genius decided to use Air New Zealand corporate colours for the screen, resulting in hard-to-read teal blue script on a pale blue-grey background, instead of easy-to-read black on white, doesn't worry them at all.

Nor does it worry them that some people don't have credit cards, making the automated check-in process a lot more complicated. And contrary to the upbeat advance advertising, there was no one in sight to offer any help. What's more, there were great big signs forbidding you to approach the real person at the counter unless you already have your printed-out boarding pass.

I have impaired eyesight, but I do have a credit card. I peered crossly at the screen and obediently went through all the required steps, once I'd figured out where, and which way, the card was meant to be slotted in.

But although I did everything I was told, the bloody machine then told me it was unable to print out my bag tags. (Yes, you now have to put those on yourself too.)

So after all that I had to go to the counter anyway. But although the counter sign says "bag drop", the staff member standing there did not actually take my bag. I had to heave it onto the weighing thing, heave it off again, and take it way down the end to the actual baggage man.

So I got more and more ill-tempered and more and more ill-mannered. But I know none of this was the nice woman at the counter's fault, and she is quite possibly as annoyed about it as I was. So she certainly did not deserve my rudeness. I don't suppose she's reading this, but I do apologise. It was just as silly to berate her as it is to berate the hapless real person you finally reach on the phone, after endlessly wandering through the numerical wilds of Contact or Telecom.

My annoyance was compounded by the fact that right beside me, those passengers who could afford (or whose companies could afford) to belong to the Koru Club were still being dealt with by a real person, who not only checked them in but also took their bags.

Air New Zealand knows that a real person is exactly the kind of luxury the rich want and deserve. It doesn't matter what the rest want, let alone need - machines are good enough for the likes of us.

Found poem of the week

Armistice Day 2008: Lest we forget

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month
John Key was tucked away in meetings.

At 11 am he was being welcomed
into his caucus to applause
and whoops of celebration
frm his victorious MPs.

Mr Key said he did not go to the service
because he was not told till late
that Miss Clark was going
after being led to believe
that she was not.

yes they could - and they did

I never thought they would do it, but they did. Despite all the slurs and half-truths and just plain lies, the American electorate voted for hope and change in the shape of a tall thin man of 47 with an African father and a strange-sounding name. An email from our NZ friend in the States caught the international mood perfectly - its subject line was "world saved".

But the choice facing New Zealand voters is very different. Except for his age and gender, John Key could not be more different from Barack Obama. Last week I put together a shameless cover version of a far-famed US piece, and called it "What I heard John Key say". You can read it on Scoop at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0810/S00433.htm

See you at the polling booth on Saturday.

Better than the real thing

Found Poem of the Week

Better than the real thing

The ultimate seduction has never been easier.
Better than the real thing
this romantic setting above its own olive grove
captures an intoxicating atmosphere
of luxurious calm.
Leave the rest of the world behind.
Built with exquisite detailing
to replicate the authentic look and feel
of a rustic Tuscan farmhouse.
Deep walls
flagstone floors, aged beamed ceilings
oak joinery and hand-forged latches
create enticing character.
A fire burning above the hearth
coaxes you to curl up with a book.
With helipad, ample parking and
numerous options.
Would suit a syndicate.

Found Poem of the Week

This is meant to be a new regular feature but I can't quite work out how to add it, so I'm putting it in as a separate post instead. (Thanks for the source, Donna!)

Found Poem of the Week

waiting

it's really not so much a timeline
but when the markets are more favourable
obviously markets picked up yesterday and who knows
that may continue over the next number
of weeks or months or may not
so it's really not so much a timeline
as we say we're in a strong position
to move forwards with our current development
which is quite substantial where it puts us
so we can fully develop what we've got
really
which is the largest corporate dairy farmer
globally
so we've got a major development piece of work
progressing now
it may be months
but it will wait till it's a favourable environment

(Group manager of financial services at PGG Wrightson, Michael Thomas, talking about their failure to find cash to expand into Uruguay)

Who wants to elect a (multi)millionaire?

I've just retreated upstairs to my computer because I couldn't bear to watch another minute of Mike Hosking on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"

When we turned it on, a nice-looking woman in blue was in the chair. Here's how Hosking introduced her: "A former beauty queen and 61-year-old grandmother!" Well, that put her in her place. Never mind everything she'd done in between, let alone what her job was (and she did have one, she said she did). It's as if Hosking had introduced John Key as "a former state house kid and father of two".

Come to think of it, that seems to be exactly how Key and his spin-doctors are trying to present him. By the time he came back to New Zealand in 2002 to be installed as National's candidate for Helensville, he was worth more than $50 million.

In his 2002 maiden speech, he spoke of his widowed mother, his humble start, and his desire to give every citizen the opportunity to reach greater heights. But the Sunday Star Times outed him as championing a tougher line on welfare inside the party itself. If he made it, so could everyone else.

Then in 2004, he put down Kiwibank customers as "the poorest, most unprofitable, worst accounts". That was exactly the line Fay Richwhite had used to argue for privatising Postbank and selling off Housing Corp mortgages.

Not worth bothering with, those people. Paying in their pathetic little benefits and wages and then spending almost all of it by the time the next payday came around. Wanting cheap housing loans. Complaining about high bank fees. Whining when branches are closed and they're told to just go and use the internet instead. No profit there.

The fact that these days everyone HAS to have a bank account in order to function was of no interest whatsoever to those guys. As the repulsive wedding venue manager says in Second Hand Wedding, "YP, not MP - your problem, not my problem."


But by 2006, when Key made his first speech as National leader, he'd had a makeover. Once again he played up his upbringing and said there would always be a social welfare system to help the vulnerable.

Exactly how does Kay define who is vulnerable, and what level of support they're entitled to, under what conditions? Despite his much-vaunted sojourn in a state house, he must have enormous difficulty imagining what life is like for ordinary people who don't have even one million to rub together and struggle to afford the most basic home, let alone three multi-million dollar mansions.

For an excellent account of low-wage life, see Metro's story of the incredibly well-organised, hard-working parents Losena ($515 in the hand after 17 years) and Kilifi ($461 in the hand after 13 years). So far they've managed, and Working for Families was a big help. But one slip - job loss, accident, extended illness - and it would all fall apart.

Judging by what's happening at the foodbanks, it's already pretty dire out there now, and getting direr by the day. Welfare benefits increased by 3.2 percent in April, because that's what overall consumer prices rose by in the year to last December. But these delayed increases completely fail to keep up with the actual costs of basic necessities. Food went up by 7 percent in the year to June, and petrol went up by 34 percent. Power prices are jumping again - Contact has just raised them by 10-12 percent.

Key's solution is always the same mantra: economic growth and higher wages for all, plus of course lower taxes and stricter welfare rules. Exactly how this will help the Losenas and Kilifis of the real world out there behind the money markets where Key made his millions is never made clear.