On Anzac Day today (ignore the stupid Google US date system) I had hoped to watch some of the excellent documentaries being screened on Maori TV. But I've been away in Auckland, and by the time I'd caught up with the washing and other odd jobs like cleaning the heat pump filter and the cat's tray, it was 3 pm. That was okay, because I had time to watch the one I most wanted to catch - Sisters Reunited. It made me very teary.
During the second world war, Bill, described only as Maori and from the South Island (it was made by the BBC, so they weren't good on his whakapapa) was stationed in Britain as a wireless operator on Lancaster bombers. He was already married, but he met and fell in love with a Scottish nurse, Jeannie. He survived the war and returned to New Zealand, where he had six children. But Jeannie had become pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, whom she called Jeannette. With no other option, she gave her up for adoption, and the girl's name was changed to Jennifer. She had lovely parents, but was badly bullied at school because of her dark skin, and always longed to know where she came from.
The documentary tells the story of how, after her own efforts had come to nothing, her New Zealand family was able to trace her, thanks to the help of a Scottish woman who met them by chance when she was visiting this country.
Because I'm adopted myself, I find programmes like this intensely moving. But I think anyone seeing it would have really responded to the story it told so well. It was the very best kind of "reality TV".
What I can't understand is why on earth we haven't already had the chance to see it on TVNZ. It was, of course, particularly suitable for Anzac Day, but it would have gone down so well on any night in prime time. But I don't think programmes like this even appear on the radar of the blinkered blokes in charge of TVNZ programming.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Where the jobs aren't
This week we got the unemployment rate confirmed for December 2008 as 4.7 percent. But this overall figure doesn't give the full picture. Pakeha women have the lowest unemployment rate of any ethnic/gender group, at 3 percent. But Maori women have the highest rate, with 9.7 percent, closely followed by Pacific women, with 9.5 percent. So where are the urgent moves targeting job retention in these two most vulnerable groups?
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Twinkle toes
Okay, so like everyone else I've just watched the final of Dancing with the Stars. I have just one question. Why, oh why, did Barbara Kendall have to wear not one, not two, but three incredibly tacky, hideous costumes, from faux cavewoman to black vinyl to Christmas tinsel? Do they do it on purpose?
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Oh, those wonderful males
“The challenge is not just to understand how we develop as women or men, but to also comprehend why the male population encompasses the warrior, the poet, the scientist and wonderful blends of these extremes.”
Oh, okay - so no need, then, to comprehend more about the female population, since (setting aside Helen Clark, I guess) all it encompasses is the housewife, the callgirl, the nurse/teacher/secretary, and distinctly unwonderful blends of these dull norms?
(Quote from Associate Professor Ian McLennan of Otago University, co-author with Dr Kyoko Koishi of a study which found that male mice lacking a hormone called Müllerian Inhibiting Substance (MIS) show subtle changes in their brain anatomy, and behave in ways more akin to female mouse behaviour. I wonder if they get food and water for the other less defective male mice...)
Oh, okay - so no need, then, to comprehend more about the female population, since (setting aside Helen Clark, I guess) all it encompasses is the housewife, the callgirl, the nurse/teacher/secretary, and distinctly unwonderful blends of these dull norms?
(Quote from Associate Professor Ian McLennan of Otago University, co-author with Dr Kyoko Koishi of a study which found that male mice lacking a hormone called Müllerian Inhibiting Substance (MIS) show subtle changes in their brain anatomy, and behave in ways more akin to female mouse behaviour. I wonder if they get food and water for the other less defective male mice...)
Shutting up shop on Good Friday
I see the annual chorus of protest about (most) shops having to close on Good Friday has started up again. I'm in some trouble here. I think it's a really good idea to have a few days a year when the shops are shut. In Europe they make no bones about shutting regularly - for two half days a week and all day Sunday, as well as a solid clutch of holidays, sacred and profane.
So what do people do when they can't shop? They visit their families and friends. They go for walks and visit museums and art galleries. Some of them go to church. On Sundays they go out to lunch (it's a big day for restaurants, but they close Sunday evenings and often one other weekday too). New Zealanders used to do all these things too, until shopping took over.
On the other hand, I am so profoundly off the Catholic Church right now that I'd rather the shops stayed closed on secular holidays - Anzac Day, Waitangi Day - instead of religious ones.
Any institution that can proclaim that the man who raped a nine year old girl and got her pregnant with twins was committing a lesser sin than she and her mother did when they obtained an abortion - even though carrying the foetuses to term would have killed her - is unworthy of any sane person's support. To ram its point home, the church excommunicated the mother and girl and their doctor - but not the rapist.
Visiting the USA one Easter, I was amazed to find that Good Friday and Easter Sunday are not officially observed there. On the other hand, they have an impressive line-up of thoroughly civic holidays (though being America, they probably don't close up shop).
In Massey University's latest survey, 40 per cent of respondents say they have no religious affiliation, up from 29 per cent 17 years ago. Just over a third of New Zealanders describe themselves as religious, and although 53 percent say they believe in God, half of those have doubts. So clinging to Christian religious observances as almost our only form of time out from commerce doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. But the time out itself is invaluable, and the clamour of a few self-interested shopkeepers should not be allowed to drive it to extinction.
So what do people do when they can't shop? They visit their families and friends. They go for walks and visit museums and art galleries. Some of them go to church. On Sundays they go out to lunch (it's a big day for restaurants, but they close Sunday evenings and often one other weekday too). New Zealanders used to do all these things too, until shopping took over.
On the other hand, I am so profoundly off the Catholic Church right now that I'd rather the shops stayed closed on secular holidays - Anzac Day, Waitangi Day - instead of religious ones.
Any institution that can proclaim that the man who raped a nine year old girl and got her pregnant with twins was committing a lesser sin than she and her mother did when they obtained an abortion - even though carrying the foetuses to term would have killed her - is unworthy of any sane person's support. To ram its point home, the church excommunicated the mother and girl and their doctor - but not the rapist.
Visiting the USA one Easter, I was amazed to find that Good Friday and Easter Sunday are not officially observed there. On the other hand, they have an impressive line-up of thoroughly civic holidays (though being America, they probably don't close up shop).
In Massey University's latest survey, 40 per cent of respondents say they have no religious affiliation, up from 29 per cent 17 years ago. Just over a third of New Zealanders describe themselves as religious, and although 53 percent say they believe in God, half of those have doubts. So clinging to Christian religious observances as almost our only form of time out from commerce doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. But the time out itself is invaluable, and the clamour of a few self-interested shopkeepers should not be allowed to drive it to extinction.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
A Weekend at the Metropole
I thought you might enjoy this piece - it's a slightly edited version of one I've just done for my writing course.
We’ve been staying with relatives in Christchurch, but this morning we’re going to Akaroa. On our own. We drive guiltily off straight after breakfast under a vast blue Canterbury sky. We can spend all day negotiating the hairpin bends of steep gravel roads leading down to gloriously deserted bays, because, as always, we’ve sensibly booked ahead. And this time, instead of a perfectly functional but entirely predictable motel, I’ve managed to talk Harvey into staying at the Metropole, one of those wonderful old country pubs I’ve been longing to try for years.
It’s nearly five when we pull into the carpark, looking out over the silky waters of Akaroa Harbour. “It’ll be even better from upstairs”, I say confidently. Murmuring about Scarlett O’Hara, I climb the stunning kauri staircase sweeping up to the centre of the first floor, and turn the key to our room.
Two sagging wirewove single beds, spread with limp pink candlewick. One narrow window, too high to see the harbour unless you’re standing right in front of it. A rickety oak wardrobe and a chest of drawers. One dim plastic shaded light-bulb hanging plumb in the middle of the ceiling.
In the corner beside the window, one cold tap drips slowly into the washbasin. A neatly typed notice on the wall informs us the toilet is next to the bathroom at the end of the landing.
Harvey’s face has an odd expression, but all he says is, “It’s only one night – and these places always do a great breakfast.” We go out and spend much more than we meant to on a consoling crayfish dinner and enough wine to send us both straight into snoring oblivion, blotting out the noise from the bar below.
The sun wakes us too early, flashing in through the gaps between the unpullable brocade curtains and the brown holland blind. Neither of us feels up to trekking along the landing and clambering in and out of the bath for a shower. So we make do with a few swipes of cold flannel at the basin, go for a walk to clear our heads, and turn back to ask about breakfast. The landlord’s behind the bar counting up the night’s takings. “Just through there,” he says, pointing to a carved archway.
Starched white tablecloths cover four tables, but only one is set for two, with thick white hotel china, napkins in silver rings, and neat ranks of heavy old silver knives, forks and spoons. Any minute now, he’ll arrive to take our order. Fruit, definitely bacon and eggs, maybe toast with home-made jam? “This is more like it,” I say.
Ten minutes later, I notice the narrow table against the back wall. Lined up on it are three boxes – weetbix, cornflakes, puffed wheat. In front stand a bowl of tinned peaches, a jug of milk and another of what looks like well-diluted Raro. They’re flanked by a toaster, a loaf of white sliced bread, and a saucer with four little foil-topped packets of butter, two of Vegemite and two of honey. “I think this is it,” says Harvey.
The landlord comes in with a kettle and a small wicker basket full of teabags and sachets of instant coffee and sugar. “Sorry, forgot these,” he says. “Got everything you want?”
We’ve been staying with relatives in Christchurch, but this morning we’re going to Akaroa. On our own. We drive guiltily off straight after breakfast under a vast blue Canterbury sky. We can spend all day negotiating the hairpin bends of steep gravel roads leading down to gloriously deserted bays, because, as always, we’ve sensibly booked ahead. And this time, instead of a perfectly functional but entirely predictable motel, I’ve managed to talk Harvey into staying at the Metropole, one of those wonderful old country pubs I’ve been longing to try for years.
It’s nearly five when we pull into the carpark, looking out over the silky waters of Akaroa Harbour. “It’ll be even better from upstairs”, I say confidently. Murmuring about Scarlett O’Hara, I climb the stunning kauri staircase sweeping up to the centre of the first floor, and turn the key to our room.
Two sagging wirewove single beds, spread with limp pink candlewick. One narrow window, too high to see the harbour unless you’re standing right in front of it. A rickety oak wardrobe and a chest of drawers. One dim plastic shaded light-bulb hanging plumb in the middle of the ceiling.
In the corner beside the window, one cold tap drips slowly into the washbasin. A neatly typed notice on the wall informs us the toilet is next to the bathroom at the end of the landing.
Harvey’s face has an odd expression, but all he says is, “It’s only one night – and these places always do a great breakfast.” We go out and spend much more than we meant to on a consoling crayfish dinner and enough wine to send us both straight into snoring oblivion, blotting out the noise from the bar below.
The sun wakes us too early, flashing in through the gaps between the unpullable brocade curtains and the brown holland blind. Neither of us feels up to trekking along the landing and clambering in and out of the bath for a shower. So we make do with a few swipes of cold flannel at the basin, go for a walk to clear our heads, and turn back to ask about breakfast. The landlord’s behind the bar counting up the night’s takings. “Just through there,” he says, pointing to a carved archway.
Starched white tablecloths cover four tables, but only one is set for two, with thick white hotel china, napkins in silver rings, and neat ranks of heavy old silver knives, forks and spoons. Any minute now, he’ll arrive to take our order. Fruit, definitely bacon and eggs, maybe toast with home-made jam? “This is more like it,” I say.
Ten minutes later, I notice the narrow table against the back wall. Lined up on it are three boxes – weetbix, cornflakes, puffed wheat. In front stand a bowl of tinned peaches, a jug of milk and another of what looks like well-diluted Raro. They’re flanked by a toaster, a loaf of white sliced bread, and a saucer with four little foil-topped packets of butter, two of Vegemite and two of honey. “I think this is it,” says Harvey.
The landlord comes in with a kettle and a small wicker basket full of teabags and sachets of instant coffee and sugar. “Sorry, forgot these,” he says. “Got everything you want?”
Monday, March 2, 2009
Back to school
I'm going back to school - well, university. I've enrolled for a course in writing Creative Non-Fiction, and it starts this coming Friday. So I might post the pieces I need to write for it - we'll see.
I've been asked for details of the course - it's CREW 257 at Victoria University of Wellington. It will be run again next year, so look at Victoria's website for details - applications for the 12 places available usually close in early December.
In the meantime, here's a marvellous column by Michele A'Court which appeared in Your Weekend a few weeks ago on 24 January (she gave me permission to reproduce it here). I agree with every word of it, and it's superbly expressed.
When I’m angry, I tend to express myself in similes. Right now, I am as cross as two sticks. The delightful, intelligent, charming men in my close circle of friends just held a stag party for our groom-to-be. Cricket, poker, pizza... and strippers.
You could call the stripper-at-the-stag-do “a tradition”. Or take the new view that you can watch strippers “in an ironic way”. Or maybe you think it’s just “a bit lame.” Whichever chorus my friends joined, I was certainly the lone voice growling, “sexist and offensive”.
I thought the smart people worked out in the 70s that paying women to take their clothes off objectified them, reducing them to less than the sum of their rude parts; that financial desperation led to sexual exploitation. I’m pretty sure I still have the memo.
And we’re still doing this? Here come the similes. I feel like an African-American discovering that all my white friends are off to see a black-and-white-minstrel show. Or a pacifist finding out my buddies spent Friday night knitting jumpers at a hanging.
My view of strip clubs is a bit like my attitude towards haggis – heard it described, thought it sounded awful, tried it and discovered I was right. Years ago, an actor friend was researching her role as a stripper and I trotted along to a lunchtime show to keep her company. I hated it – bad decor, ghastly music, furtive behaviour and the absolute lack of fun or joy in any of it. Isabelle Allende says, “Erotica is using a feather, pornography is using the whole chicken.” That felt like being thumped with a frozen chook.
Maybe I went to the wrong gig. Because I like a bit of Burlesque – spoil me with great skill, saucy costumes and a bit of narrative. I’ll look out for some at the Buskers Festival in Christchurch this week. If my daughter told me she wanted to take up Burlesque, I’d learn how to sew on sequins. If she told me she wanted to be a stripper, I’d lock her in a cupboard till she was 45.
This new wave of lad-ism is equal opportunity – there’s a whisper the hens want a stripper too, for the irony of it. I worry that your ironically-booked stripper isn’t even being objectified properly anymore with good, old-fashioned, honest leering. Surely that’s like a Society of Skeptics hiring a psychic for their Christmas function, just so they can laugh behind their hands and feel smug. And say the psychic should have seen it coming.
Once, after an awful corporate gig, I found out I’d been hired by someone specifically because she knew her audience would hate my comedy. She was leaving the firm and wanted me to be her parting shot. I never knew how to describe how dreadful that night felt. Now I do. I felt like an ironic stripper at a post-modern stag do.
I've been asked for details of the course - it's CREW 257 at Victoria University of Wellington. It will be run again next year, so look at Victoria's website for details - applications for the 12 places available usually close in early December.
In the meantime, here's a marvellous column by Michele A'Court which appeared in Your Weekend a few weeks ago on 24 January (she gave me permission to reproduce it here). I agree with every word of it, and it's superbly expressed.
When I’m angry, I tend to express myself in similes. Right now, I am as cross as two sticks. The delightful, intelligent, charming men in my close circle of friends just held a stag party for our groom-to-be. Cricket, poker, pizza... and strippers.
You could call the stripper-at-the-stag-do “a tradition”. Or take the new view that you can watch strippers “in an ironic way”. Or maybe you think it’s just “a bit lame.” Whichever chorus my friends joined, I was certainly the lone voice growling, “sexist and offensive”.
I thought the smart people worked out in the 70s that paying women to take their clothes off objectified them, reducing them to less than the sum of their rude parts; that financial desperation led to sexual exploitation. I’m pretty sure I still have the memo.
And we’re still doing this? Here come the similes. I feel like an African-American discovering that all my white friends are off to see a black-and-white-minstrel show. Or a pacifist finding out my buddies spent Friday night knitting jumpers at a hanging.
My view of strip clubs is a bit like my attitude towards haggis – heard it described, thought it sounded awful, tried it and discovered I was right. Years ago, an actor friend was researching her role as a stripper and I trotted along to a lunchtime show to keep her company. I hated it – bad decor, ghastly music, furtive behaviour and the absolute lack of fun or joy in any of it. Isabelle Allende says, “Erotica is using a feather, pornography is using the whole chicken.” That felt like being thumped with a frozen chook.
Maybe I went to the wrong gig. Because I like a bit of Burlesque – spoil me with great skill, saucy costumes and a bit of narrative. I’ll look out for some at the Buskers Festival in Christchurch this week. If my daughter told me she wanted to take up Burlesque, I’d learn how to sew on sequins. If she told me she wanted to be a stripper, I’d lock her in a cupboard till she was 45.
This new wave of lad-ism is equal opportunity – there’s a whisper the hens want a stripper too, for the irony of it. I worry that your ironically-booked stripper isn’t even being objectified properly anymore with good, old-fashioned, honest leering. Surely that’s like a Society of Skeptics hiring a psychic for their Christmas function, just so they can laugh behind their hands and feel smug. And say the psychic should have seen it coming.
Once, after an awful corporate gig, I found out I’d been hired by someone specifically because she knew her audience would hate my comedy. She was leaving the firm and wanted me to be her parting shot. I never knew how to describe how dreadful that night felt. Now I do. I felt like an ironic stripper at a post-modern stag do.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Apricot summer
Every year when the apricots are really ripe - not straight after they arrive, but a little later - I make a dessert I found in a Penguin book I've had for years: Cordon Bleu Desserts and Puddings, by Rosemary Hume and Muriel Downes (1976).
It takes a while to put it together but none of it is difficult. However, all the measurements are the old imperial ones so I have to be approximate here.
Apricot Suedoise
just over 3/4 cup sugar (it's 6 ounces in the original)
1 1/2 cups water
a few strips of lemon zest
Boil together in a large saucepan for a few minutes to make syrup.
just under 1 kilogram of fresh ripe apricots
12 or more skinned almonds
Halve apricots and remove stones and any bits of stalk at the top. Poach gently in the syrup, cut side up (but put them in cut side down first and then turn them over), until cooked through. (I find it easier to do this in two batches. The idea is to end up with 10-12 halves that have kept their shape well. The rest can be a bit mushy.) Leave it all to cool down.
juice of 1/2 large or 1 whole small lemon, made up to 5 tablespoons with water
25 grams gelatine
Mix juice/water and gelatine in a bowl that you can then sit over a small saucepan of boiling water. Stir the gelatine mixture over the simmering water until it is well dissolved.
Arrange the firmer apricot halves, cut side down, into a round flat-bottomed glass or china dish of some kind, not too shallow - a souffle dish, for example. If you're feeling clever you can fit an almond or two under each one so it sits in the space where the stone was. If not, just scatter the almonds among the halves.
Put the rest of the apricots and the sieved syrup into a food processor and turn it into puree. Add the gelatine mixture and whizz it all together.
Gently pour the puree over the apricot halves so they stay in place. Cover and leave to set in the fridge for at least half a day.
To turn out the suedoise, dip the outside of the dish briefly into hot water. Hold a serving plate over the top (preferably one with a bit of a curve around the edge) and turn the dish upside down. With any luck, the suedoise will turn out neatly onto the plate with its apricot halves looking pretty on the top.
(Or you can just whizz up all the apricots and set and serve the suedoise in its original dish, or set it in individual glass dishes.)
Whipped cream is good with this, and little almond biscuits are very good too.
It takes a while to put it together but none of it is difficult. However, all the measurements are the old imperial ones so I have to be approximate here.
Apricot Suedoise
just over 3/4 cup sugar (it's 6 ounces in the original)
1 1/2 cups water
a few strips of lemon zest
Boil together in a large saucepan for a few minutes to make syrup.
just under 1 kilogram of fresh ripe apricots
12 or more skinned almonds
Halve apricots and remove stones and any bits of stalk at the top. Poach gently in the syrup, cut side up (but put them in cut side down first and then turn them over), until cooked through. (I find it easier to do this in two batches. The idea is to end up with 10-12 halves that have kept their shape well. The rest can be a bit mushy.) Leave it all to cool down.
juice of 1/2 large or 1 whole small lemon, made up to 5 tablespoons with water
25 grams gelatine
Mix juice/water and gelatine in a bowl that you can then sit over a small saucepan of boiling water. Stir the gelatine mixture over the simmering water until it is well dissolved.
Arrange the firmer apricot halves, cut side down, into a round flat-bottomed glass or china dish of some kind, not too shallow - a souffle dish, for example. If you're feeling clever you can fit an almond or two under each one so it sits in the space where the stone was. If not, just scatter the almonds among the halves.
Put the rest of the apricots and the sieved syrup into a food processor and turn it into puree. Add the gelatine mixture and whizz it all together.
Gently pour the puree over the apricot halves so they stay in place. Cover and leave to set in the fridge for at least half a day.
To turn out the suedoise, dip the outside of the dish briefly into hot water. Hold a serving plate over the top (preferably one with a bit of a curve around the edge) and turn the dish upside down. With any luck, the suedoise will turn out neatly onto the plate with its apricot halves looking pretty on the top.
(Or you can just whizz up all the apricots and set and serve the suedoise in its original dish, or set it in individual glass dishes.)
Whipped cream is good with this, and little almond biscuits are very good too.
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