New Zealand has reached a very strange moment in its political life.
On one hand, we've got the natural conclusion of the New Zealand politician: John Key, shrugging. That's it. That's all anyone in New Zealand ever wanted from their leaders. Forget Kirk's rousing, blood-pumping bootstraps-with-compassion speeches, forget Lange's wit and intelligence, forget Savage's implementation of policies that make pre-Labour New Zealand look like the wild west. Forget even Clark's centrist, evenhanded, cautious approach. What we've always wanted is a man so indifferent to the needs of his countrymen that he can't start a sentence without lurching it out of himself with a shrug of the shoulders.
This is what we like. Has the Auckland housing market eaten itself? Nah, it's not too bad. Does New Zealand have thousands of children going to school hungry? Nah, it's fine. Have my ministers been doing dodgy deals? I don't think New Zealanders really care about that. This is it -- New Zealand's political personality embodied in one cynical, jiggly-shouldered man. We (apparently) pride ourselves on innovation and doing things on our own, but in reality we're just cobbling stuff together and shrugging away any resulting workplace fatalities. We'd like to think we're laid back but really we chastise anyone who raises any concerns. It's less "She'll be right" than "Don't be a little bitch." John Key's shrugs and indifference tell us he doesn't care and neither should we, and we like that.
And, yet, oddly, on the other hand, he does care. He cares so much that he got Campbell Live taken off air. New Zealand's Prime Minster got a current affairs show yanked off a private broadcaster due to its politically troubling content. He cares so much he believed Campbell Live had it in for him and his government -- never mind that Campbell used to regularly wind up Helen Clark. He simply thought John Campbell was being a prick, and put the hit out on his show. One can make all sorts of comparisons to police states and communists and censorships and whatever else -- but that would only raise the blood pressure and the spectre of caring too much.
Thursday 19 November 2015
Saturday 25 April 2015
The weather is warmer, the sun is up longer, my curtains are now open -- and I'm still wandering around in my briefs
The weather is warmer, the sun is up longer, my curtains are now open -- and I'm still wandering around in my briefs.
In the age of central heating you can go from one season to another and barely register a change -- if, like me, you only leave the house to go sit in another building. The only real sign that the Earth has drifted through space is that when you get in from work there's sunlight streaming in through the curtains.
And so you open them. Leaves, flowers, birds, sunlight. Lovely. But then your whole routine is disrupted. Before, with the curtains shut, you could walk around half-dressed or even undressed and do whatever the hell you like. Being winter, you were probably dressed in some slob-configuration of Buzz Lightyear onesie with a Ninja Turtle onesie over the top, with your arse somehow peeking out. No coming in from work and throwing off your restrictive work clothing for you anymore. Now that the curtains are open, you have to be dressed at all times.
Walking around naked in your own home should be part of the unwritten rule of the Somebody Else's Problem field. Obviously, your neighbour across the street CAN see you swinging your genitals about in the living room, and your neighbour at the back CAN see you gamely trying to cook tea without heating up essential parts of your own body. But they shouldn't acknowledge it, lest they find you staring back at them, all judging eyes and nipples framed in a yellow-lit kitchen window.
I believe all neighbours should follow the time-tested rules of the invisible ignorance field, best exemplified when someone walks past your living room window. They can see you, you can see them, but, so long as neither of you acknowledge this hideous fact, the field of ignorance is intact and we can all go on with our day safe in the knowledge that we are the only human beings on the entire planet.
However, this precious field is easily broken. All it takes is a passerby to -- god forbid -- wave at you while you're sat in your own damn living room and it's gone. You're no longer in your house, you're on display, in an exhibition, in a glass casing. They might as well kick in the windows.
This field is also in effect within a single dwelling. The flatshare tends to have multiple fields working at any given time. A flatmate exiting the shower can expect to make it from the bathroom to their bedroom without their hair, body or choice of towel being commented upon, because the field says they are invisible. People in flatshares don't go to the toilet, they simply cease to exist for the duration, and then return to the living room and our plane of existence with no questions asked. This is a delicate formula and, like the rubbernecking bastard ogling in through your living room window, can be easily broken. When a flatmate is in their bedroom with the door open, another flatmate cannot talk to them, or comment on their room, or even assume that because their door is open, they're available for any immediate appointments. The invisible field of ignorance is at play, and if it's broken, a flatmate in their room with their door open is suddenly turned into a kind of life-sized advent calendar, simply waiting in a little closet for someone to walk past and strike up a conversation. They now have no choice but to move out and seek more ignorance-field-attuned flatmates elsewhere.
Since most people have had to endure the flatshare situation at some point in their lives, I don't think it's too much to expect that they can re-engage with the invisible field of ignorance during the warmer months. It is a mutually beneficial understanding that works both ways, allowing us all to enjoy imaginary privacy in our crammed together homes, as we traipse about in front of the windows, all cheery summer buttocks and breezy spring genitals.
In the age of central heating you can go from one season to another and barely register a change -- if, like me, you only leave the house to go sit in another building. The only real sign that the Earth has drifted through space is that when you get in from work there's sunlight streaming in through the curtains.
And so you open them. Leaves, flowers, birds, sunlight. Lovely. But then your whole routine is disrupted. Before, with the curtains shut, you could walk around half-dressed or even undressed and do whatever the hell you like. Being winter, you were probably dressed in some slob-configuration of Buzz Lightyear onesie with a Ninja Turtle onesie over the top, with your arse somehow peeking out. No coming in from work and throwing off your restrictive work clothing for you anymore. Now that the curtains are open, you have to be dressed at all times.
Walking around naked in your own home should be part of the unwritten rule of the Somebody Else's Problem field. Obviously, your neighbour across the street CAN see you swinging your genitals about in the living room, and your neighbour at the back CAN see you gamely trying to cook tea without heating up essential parts of your own body. But they shouldn't acknowledge it, lest they find you staring back at them, all judging eyes and nipples framed in a yellow-lit kitchen window.
I believe all neighbours should follow the time-tested rules of the invisible ignorance field, best exemplified when someone walks past your living room window. They can see you, you can see them, but, so long as neither of you acknowledge this hideous fact, the field of ignorance is intact and we can all go on with our day safe in the knowledge that we are the only human beings on the entire planet.
However, this precious field is easily broken. All it takes is a passerby to -- god forbid -- wave at you while you're sat in your own damn living room and it's gone. You're no longer in your house, you're on display, in an exhibition, in a glass casing. They might as well kick in the windows.
This field is also in effect within a single dwelling. The flatshare tends to have multiple fields working at any given time. A flatmate exiting the shower can expect to make it from the bathroom to their bedroom without their hair, body or choice of towel being commented upon, because the field says they are invisible. People in flatshares don't go to the toilet, they simply cease to exist for the duration, and then return to the living room and our plane of existence with no questions asked. This is a delicate formula and, like the rubbernecking bastard ogling in through your living room window, can be easily broken. When a flatmate is in their bedroom with the door open, another flatmate cannot talk to them, or comment on their room, or even assume that because their door is open, they're available for any immediate appointments. The invisible field of ignorance is at play, and if it's broken, a flatmate in their room with their door open is suddenly turned into a kind of life-sized advent calendar, simply waiting in a little closet for someone to walk past and strike up a conversation. They now have no choice but to move out and seek more ignorance-field-attuned flatmates elsewhere.
Since most people have had to endure the flatshare situation at some point in their lives, I don't think it's too much to expect that they can re-engage with the invisible field of ignorance during the warmer months. It is a mutually beneficial understanding that works both ways, allowing us all to enjoy imaginary privacy in our crammed together homes, as we traipse about in front of the windows, all cheery summer buttocks and breezy spring genitals.
Thursday 26 March 2015
One Fine Day in the Waitrose Free Coffee Queue
INT. WAITROSE - MORNING
Customers queue at the free coffee machine. Quite a lengthy queue, 7 people deep.
A man stands waiting at the machine as it whips up a cappuccino.
Someone enters the shop. Attempts to pass through the queue on their way somewhere else. THE QUEUE growls, fidgets, begrudgingly lets him through. It's tense.
The cappuccino customer finishes, and the queue jolts forward. The FIRST IN LINE CUSTOMER stabs at the buttons.
They stare ahead at the coffee machine. "Milk Low" blinks back at them.
Beat.
Customers queue at the free coffee machine. Quite a lengthy queue, 7 people deep.
A man stands waiting at the machine as it whips up a cappuccino.
Someone enters the shop. Attempts to pass through the queue on their way somewhere else. THE QUEUE growls, fidgets, begrudgingly lets him through. It's tense.
The cappuccino customer finishes, and the queue jolts forward. The FIRST IN LINE CUSTOMER stabs at the buttons.
FIRST
"Milk... low?"The queue jostles and rhubarbs, mild panic.
STAFF MEMBER
Don't worry, Pete's just gone down to get some. Won't be a minute.The queue nods and mutters to itself.
THE QUEUE
Oh, ok, he's just gone down to get some, yes, yes, alright, all is fine, all is good...Someone enters the shop, attempts to pass through the queue on their way somewhere else. THE QUEUE growls, fidgets, begrudgingly lets her through.
They stare ahead at the coffee machine. "Milk Low" blinks back at them.
Beat.
FIRST
What's taking him so long?
THIRD
What could he possibly be doing down there?
SECOND
Why don't we just go grab it ourselves?
FIRST
What? We can't do that.
SECOND
Why not? It's free out the machine. We could just go grab it!
FOURTH
All the milk in the shop is free, then?
FIFTH
And the coffee?
SIXTH
And the water?
SEVENTH
Let's just fucking grab it!
SECOND
Grab it all! Grab it all!Someone enters the shop, attempting to pass through the queue on their way somewhere else.
THE QUEUE
Yaaarrrrgh!!The Queue splits apart, grabbing bottled water, hefting 3-litre bottles of milk out of the shelves, sweeping bags of coffee into handbags, booting over stacks of baskets--
THE QUEUE
Grab it all! Grab it all! Milk low! MILK LOW!They barrel out of the shop, milk and water and coffee and pastries and ready-meals scattering around them, as the SEVENTH in line rips the machine out of the wall and dashes outside, wires trailing along the ground after him.
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