I KILLED THE ALL BLACK

He deserved to die, and people suggested some really grizzly endings for him. But oh boy! It was fun. He went to the rugby match and watched his wife become the darling of the crowd, but he did not fall off the grandstand. If you want to know what happened, I shall only tell you that alcohol was involved.

Now I can add the final chapter which I wrote in Dublin last August, Will the heroine marry the hero now she is free? Well, if I was thirty three and beautiful, and had just escaped from a terrible marriage I would think twice, several times before taking on another relationship. But my heroine might not see things that way. After all she is a blonde, and they are supposed to be a bit dim.

My next reading project is "How to Format Your eBook for Kindle" by Paul Salvette

OICHE NOLLAIG NA mBAN

The Irish Writers Centre newsletter told me about 'Little Christmas'.
Shakespeare called it Twelfth Night, we mark it on the calendar as January 6th, heave a sigh of relief and say, 'Thank Goodness it's as far away as ever it will be.'

Not the Irish. On January 6th, in recognition of all their work over the previous year,Irish women are allowed to stay in bed and be waited on by their menfolk.

I can just imagine it, Irish women toiling for days to make sure the cake tins are full, the meals cooked and the house clean enough for them to take a day off. And their menfolk?
"Don't you worry, Pet. You have a good lie in and I'll see to everything."
"Sorry to wake you pet, but I can't find any clean towels. No, don't get up. We'll be right now. Go back to sleep."
"Just tell me Darlin', where do you stow the tea bags? Right. Go back to sleep."
Imagine the bairns, peering round the bedroom door.
"Mam, do we have to eat Da's porridge? It's all lumpy."
"Mam, I told you I needed my best blue blouse to-day and you haven't ironed it. No I can't wear my green."
"Mam, Da's hidden the remote.He says we ca't watch the cartoons."
"Sorry love, but the new puppy's peed on the livin' room carpet. How do I fix it?"
A day off for women? In their dreams.
But the Irish Writers' Centre is having a women's literature day on June 6th with readings and workshops by and about noted Irish women writers. Their hearts are in the right place.
If I was rich I would charter a plane and fly there, just for that day.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL

NEW YEAR REVOLUTIONS

2012 I resolve to make no New Year resolutions.

But I want to acknowledge a few things like
MY PARENTS' GENERATION
who had to leave school at twelve, but never stopped learning.

THE EDUCATIONAL REFORMS OF DR. CLARENCE BEEBY
which abolished the Proficiency exam so all children could go to High School.

MAGNIFICENT, GIFTED TEACHERS
who taught ignorant young kiwis to love Maths.Science,Latin,Literature. and above all LEARNING.

THE NEW ZEALAND HEALTH SYSTEM
which delivered my eight babies free of charge,even though three of them involved lengthy hospital stays.
PLUNKET NURSES
who gave mothers guidance and assurance.
PUBLIC HOSPITALS
who set broken bones, removed ruptured appendixes, healed burns and twice saved a son's life by knowing how to treat emergencies. All without charge.

THE WELFARE STATE SET UP
for all its faults it paid all mothers a benefit towards raising their children; delivered milk to letter boxes at 4 pence a pint; and supplied milk in schools for free; provided cheap (if not comfortable) rail travel throughout the country; allowed kids to stay at school longer, paid students and apprentices living allowances while training to provide world class housing, education, health care and social infrastructure and finally provided a modest retirement pension at sixty.

I have much to be grateful for and I am.
Now go away and have a great New Year, I want to practice on my Kindle Reader.

HOW TO GET A KINDLE FOR CHRISTMAS

It takes a long time..

Start in your youth, search for, find and marry a quy who is kind, reliable and generous.


Marry him and have lots of sons.

Bring them up the best way you can.

Make sure they marry lovely girls.

Let them mature for fifty years or more.

On Christmas Day visit at least one of them, Having mentioned on your blog that you wan a Kindle for Christmas.

And remember to thank them when you open the package.

Simple!

Merry Christmas Everybody.

TIPTOE THROUGH THE LUPINS

The best way to spend yet another birthday, one's 86th when one cannot drink alcohol or eat sweet foods? Solution, have a neighbour like my friend Don who took his two springer spaniels and me into the high country. Perhaps I should explain,Don fits somewhere between by eldest son Frank and my second son Richard He looks after my garden and I let him use my broadband. Being kind to the elderly is only one of his virtues.

On my birthday we drove through miles of lupins growing wild, explored small towns, finding settings for they current novel, lunched under pine trees by the lake at Tekapo and Don cast for trout in the rivers and canals we crossed during the day. It was idyllic.

A MOST UNUSUAL OPERA

SATYAGRAHA by Philip Glass is a three act opera, sung in Sanskrit with no relevant subtitles. What subtitles we do read are translations of meditations.Its hero is Mohandas Ghandhi. Not an easy experience to understand and of the opera lovers in Oamaru, some twenty of us, only five people attended the screening yesterday afternoon. Of course they will all be attending 'The Magic Flute'next week, where they will be seen and recognised as culture vultures, but four hours of incomprehensible singing one week before Xmas No thanks. Well they missed a treat.

Richard Croft,sings Ghandi with his beautiful tenor voice. He begins as a young lawyer in South Africa and over three acts develops into the stick figure man in a loin cloth I remember seeing in newreels as I was growing up

The whole opers is highly symbolic, Shiva of the blue face, and Mohammed in a red fez sing a tenor baritone duet in the first act. I think they were arguing the merits of their holy books, but cannot be sure, I had to infer that from the acting.

A lot of use is made of newspaper. In the second act a choruus of South African men sing 'Ho,Ho.Ho'on one note for just about the entire act while boys in rags polish their shoes. Behind them giant puppets that look as though they were constructed of newspaper, stir the ridicule until the chorus atacks Ghandi physically, and he lies bleeding on the stage. Enter a mezzo soprano who berates the men and rescues Ghandi. All based on historical events.

In the third act, which begins with the burning of identity passes, a brilliant scene, Ghandhi and his followers prepare to march. One by one his friends are dragged away by police,leaving him alone as he sings a final meditation,

There are excerpts from SANTYAGRAHA on Google.

In the Metropolitan Opera's production there is a balcony at the rear of that stage, throughout this final song it shows a the back of a young, black man in a blue suit miming his presidential address. At the end it all morphs into the Lincoln memorial..

The whole opera is incredibly clever,visually beautiful,intellectually demanding, and musically satisfying.

A KIWI's KRISSMAS

Driving North on Christmas Morning


Soon after sunrise I shall drive
north on the empty highway
around bends and over bridges

through silent towns
past shuttered shops
abandoned petrol pumps

parking meters will stand
at attention along deserted streets
where I shall surf green waves

perhaps I shall see
some ecstatic six year old
wobbling on a brand new bike
across a daisied lawn

but otherwise the world
will dream in sabbath serenity
and sunlit silence until

I reach that familiar gate
turn in and stop
alone for a moment

until a medley of grandchildren
sons with beaming wives
a cacophony of dogs
will gather round the car

together we will surge
like the receding tide
back into the house

the tree the tinsel the turkey
the silly gifts all wrapped
with so much love

and Christmas will begin at last.



This poem is destined for 'Eightyfive @Fortyfive' which I did not get finished in time for publication before Christmas. I read it at the Bristol Poetry Festival in August and at Poetry Kit's World Poetry Night in Liverpool in September. And Ruth Arnison kindly included it in this summer's POEMS IN THE WAITING ROOM pamphlet.

If you would like to share it at your Christmas party please feel free to do so. Last year Waitaki Hogmannay, ('Over and Out From Down Under') was shared at New Year gatherings in New Zealand, Australia, Greece, France, Britain, and several U.S. states. The readers kndly e-mailed me (waiata.davies@xtra.co.nz)to tell me how it was received. I had to buy a bigger hat.