MAKING A CHOICE

I heard someone say that people spend more time choosing their new car than they do voting for their government. They probably do. But if I am to believe my neighbours there are two sure ways to cast one's vote effectively. They are

1. Vote for the best looking candidate. Last election I heard a lot of young voters (female)say they voted National because 'John Key is so nice looking.'

2. Vote against the most experienced candidates. "Oh, she was all right, but it's time for a change."

My letter box has been stuffed with cards and fliers and leaflets from minor parties, and they raised some interesting issues, not the text of the leaflets, but the meaningless generalities heavily laced with weasel words, designed to attract voters without informing them of attitudes to issues or giving any hint of who, or what interest paid for it.
In fact, any electioneering printed on expensive paper automatically loses my vote.
Doesn't leave much choice does it.Perhaps I could do a 'write in' vote for a candidate who made us proud to be New Zealanders, who lead his team with modesty and panache, and it better looking than our current P.M. who?
Richie McCaw of course!

I WISH I HAD WRITTEN THESE

George McDonald Fraser was a screenwriter and the author of THE FLASHMAN NOVELS, a series of picaresque comedies using the amoral character from Tom Brown's Schooldays as the narrator.
IVAN DUNN is a New Zealand journalist. He describes his nove
THE LEGEND OF BEAU BAXTER
as a work of 'faction' a mixture of fiction and historical trutch.
'what might have happened on the 1924 tour'.
Remember 1924 of course not, Not even I was born then, but if I say 1924, the INVINCIBLES tour, anybody who knows what an egg shaped ball is for will say,
'1924 of course THE INVINCIBLES tour of England Wales Ireland Scotland and France, they went through unbeaten.' Yeah Right!
IVAN DUNN, who knows his rugby, and its history, has invented BEAU BAXTER, eighteen years old and son of a Cherokee Indian who is snatched from a labouring job in a timberyard to play rugby, gets selected to go on tour with Waaka Nathan, the Brownlees and all that crowd, visits a stately home and learns fox hunting, dines with Royalty. The blurb on the back says, 'more sex and less etiquette than Rugby historians would have us believe.'
BEAU BAXTER is a joyful romp, in the most hilarious Flashman tradition. I can't wait for the film to come out and I do hope Ivan Dunn writes more novels.

THE LEGEND OF BEAU BAXTER by IVAN DUNN ISBN978-1-86950-823-4 pubolished 2010 by HARPER COLLINS

PELE'S CHILDREN by JAN VERNON is a chapbook by reclusive Temuka author and poet Jan Vernon. It is a poem that tells a story of Pele and Merlin, obsessed with volcanoes, and their children, not forgetting the tuatara. Jan shared it with some of us, privileged to be her friends, and we all responded in the same way, 'THIS HAS TO BE PUBLISHED'in fact another writer friend sent Jan an e mail that said 'Don't you dare die before this is published.'

Easier said than done as Jan is not young and was awaiting hip surgery.But Jan Hill did the editing, another friend painted the illustrations,and the result is
PELE'S CHILDREN by JAN VERNON ISBN 978-0430-19409-3

Now I am not going to tell you any more of the story, or comment on the strength of the poetry, but I shall reiterate what we have been telling Jam,

this is a significant piece of work, a new direction is New Zealand writing.' Some time in the future it will be a classic.

CAROL AND TONY ARE YOU OUT THERE SOMEWHERE?

I moved down here from Wairarapa in 2001. When the carrier delivered my seventeen cartons of books and carefully bubblewrapped box of pictures this was among them, obviously left in the packing of someone else's belongings. How to find the real owners and return their treasure? I scrolled through the every internet page I could think of, but got nowhere, put it carefully away and forgot about it because I was getting ready to visit Turkey and Greece.

So now I am trying to clear my house so my daughters in law will not have too much clearing up to do when I finally leave it.

so CAROL CHIN and TONY PADUJE

who were married on

APRIL 24 1993

I would like to return your beautiful stitched wedding souvenir to you.

I hope you still love and cherish each other as the panel suggests and if you will ring me at 03-431-3911

and give me an address I shall pack it and send it..

With apologies for not returning it sooner.

IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING

I have been reading


ULYSSES by James Joyce and it's a great book; that is a great book for sending me to sleep at night. Conor Kostick at the Irish Writers' Centre told me to read it for the humour, well I have not found it all that funny. But in spite of knowing the locations Joyce talks about, I find myself yawning. Oh dear, I am evidently a lowbrow in spite of all my efforts. and I shall whisper this very quietly

I ENJOY A GOOD MILLS and BOONE MORE.

The editorial snoop on this site has just tole me AMPERSANDS are not allowed. Yah Boo!
The weather is still cold and wet!

And for the three people who have read my other blog (or maybe one person three times? there is another 'editor regrets' on Waiata's Witterings. It's about small town New Zealand, written years ago after spending a weekend in Pleasant Point and thinking, 'What would this place be like if it was by the sea?'

FROGS vs ALL BLACKS BUGGEUR!

LONDON 1999
I stood all the way from Peterborough to Waterloo. Everywhere there were hoardings showing Taine Randall leading the haka. No doubt about it, the All Blacks were going to bring the Rugby World Cup home.

Four years before we had watched the unthinkable happen as they had staggered about losing to South Africa. This time would be different.

Youngest son Ivor met me at Waterloo. He hopped on and off the escalator with the ease of a seasoned Londoner. I clung to the rail, white knuckled. At Waterloo East Ivor's cell phone rang.

"Hello, Ivor Davies. What? Nah, you've got it wrong." He disconnected with the look that Australians term 'stunned mullet.' and looked at me.
"The All Blacks lost."
"No! You must have heard it wrong."
"I'm telling you. The Bloody Frogs beat us."

We stared uncomprehending at London gearing up for the twenty first century; the highest ferris wheel ever built, the OXO tower, Londoners riding the train, reading their papers, unconcerned.

Up until then English newspapers had been full of the awful things those perfidious French did. The fed their cows and pigs on unmentionable fodder made from sewage. They blocked imports of healthy British products. Overnight British perceptions changed, they became Europeans. Girls from Cockfosters to Cambridge were seen wearing French Rugby shirts.

I wasn't that concerned about Australia winning the cup. After all one of my grandfathers was born in Echuca.

A DAY FOR DUCKS AND DAIRY FARMERS

A Southerly squall has spent last night and to-day racing up from Antarctica and making a nuisance of itself here. Even the cows across the road look cold and miserable.

But one event has turned my day to sunshine. A friend sent an e mail.

SHE READ MY OTHER BLOG

SHE LIKED THE SHORT STORY I POSTED THERE

WAS I GOING TO POST ANY MORE?

My grand daughter in Canberra disapproves of shouting on blogs, but this is an occasion .

Somebody has read my other blog!!! So for you, Ruth, I have posted another 'editors regret' a short story I wrote twenty years ago. And I hope you enjoy it.

If anyone else likes outrageous tales my other blog is WAIATA'S WITTERINGS.

I am going to sit by the fire and do some knitting. That's a nice, calming occupation for a cold day.

COMING TO A CINEMA NEAR YOU

RUGBY WORLD CUP? Forget it.
If you want colour, spectacle, drama and music go to the opera. Last year I seriously thought of cancelling my trip overseas and enduring a Waitaki Winter, because if I took off to Crete I would miss the final three productions of the 2011 Metropolitan Opera Season, and one of them was Das Valkyrie, second in Wagner's Ring Cycle.

In Oamaru? Exactly! The Met films its operas so skilfully that I believe we get a better view of everything that the actual audience at the Met does.

When I returned to my crib after four months overseas I found the booklet for the 2011-2012 season on my table.(Thank you Glennys) This season will show eleven operas, most of them classics like Mozart's 'Don Giovanni';Verdi's 'La Traviata'; Wagner's final two from the Ring Cycle, Siegried and Gotterdammerung; but also new opera like Glass's Satyagraha, it's about Ghandi.

So this year, every three weeks or so, I shall be at MOVIE WORLD 3 in Oamaru. If enough people book seat I shall be watching grand opera on a huge screen and listening through a magnificent sound system. Otherwise I shall be in a comfortable arm chair in their drawing room cinema watching a smaller screen, but still worth while.

ree programme booklets are available from participating cinemas. I have already alerted sons in Petone, Paraparaumu and Sumner. The operas will be shown in small towns, like Arrowtown, Geraldine and Martinborough.

Maybe one day somebody will make a grand opera out of the Rugby World Cup, before Jonas Kaufman gets too old to sing Richie Macaw.