I am more convinced now than ever, that as a country we are a bunch of apologists trying to appease anyone – at anytime – who may take offence to anything we may say or do - even if it is done in jest.
The latest case of our self-induced, grief-stricken, collective offence comes following news that a group of Auckland Grammar School schoolboys who recently posted photos of themselves on Facebook being foolish in front of Nazi regalia. The images showed the boys, in school uniform, kissing a swastika, making a Nazi salute, and kneeling in homage before a Nazi flag at the Auckland War Memorial Museum’s exhibition.
The boys have now made a tearful apology and will lecture museum visitors about the horrors of the Nazi regime. After the five students and three school staff went back to the museum, where each student apologised to war veterans and museum staff for their childish actions.
This latest schoolboy mea culpa, follows on from a similar one made earlier by Lincoln University students. The 15 students were fined $200 each, made to write an essay on the Holocaust and visit the Holocaust Centre and the German embassy, both in Wellington, at their own expense. And what was their sin? They had attended a student party dressed as Nazis and concentration camp victims.
Now while the actions of both the Lincoln students and the Auckland schoolboys were stupid, in bad taste and juvenile – are people not just being a little precious about their antics? Have we not blown things out of proportion a little here? Have we forgotten how to put things in perspective anymore?
Now, before I am accused of being a holocaust denier or a neo Nazi sympathiser, let me clarify that I think the antics of both lots of students were stupid and silly – but hardly the crime of the century. I suggest a kick up the arse and behind the scenes bollocking would suffice. But do we really need to have the public flagellations to make us all feel better?
In the Auckland Grammar case, if you put five 16 year boys together on a school trip, unsupervised and give them a camera – you are asking for trouble. I think the general public of New Zealand can be grateful we were only subjected to photos the boys goose stepping and clowning around in front of swastikas and not confronted with numerous shots of teenage genitalia!
As for the Lincoln students antics – as a former attendee of that illustrious educational institution – I can honestly say if that is the most bad taste, politically incorrect behaviour they get up to at Lincoln piss ups nowadays, then the place is a kindergarten compared to 20 years ago! I would suggest both the University Council and do-gooders who complained about the students drunken behaviour – take a quick flick through a copy of Lincoln’s capping magazine over the past decade – and they will need to take a wee lie down. If they want to see sexism, racism, anti-Semitism or any other kind of ‘ism’ these serial whingers seem to worry incessantly about – then it will be all in front of them in black and white!
Meanwhile, speaking of do-gooders and serial whingers; race relations Commissioner [now there is a job that screams: ‘I am a professional apologist’] Joris de Bres is quoted that he was ashamed to be an old boy of Auckland Grammar after the actions of the schoolboys. What a tosser! If I had anything to do with the Auckland Grammar Old Boys Association; I would be encouraging the entire student roll to change the school outfit to a Gestapo uniform just to piss off do-gooding Joris!
I would say to Joris – just as John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty (another infamous Nazi impersonator, but I don’t see calls for bans of Fawlty Towers re-runs) famously said; “Go away, you are a waste of space!”
Not so long ago, the University of Otago were running a national advertising campaign extolling the virtues of both the university and people’s reluctance to moved to the city of Dunedin with the tag line – ‘get over it’!
I think that is excellent advice in these two cases. Surely there are more serious and important things we as a country should be worrying about, than what a bunch of silly schoolboys or drunken uni students do for entertainment – silly as it may be!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
One ring to beat them all
Well, I have gone and done it!
After 42 some-odd years trucking happily (and, at times, not so happily) along in life on my own account – I have finally got myself hitched.
To tell the truth, I am really happy about it – as I know I have found the person whom I want to share the rest of my life with.
Quite frankly, I had got to a stage in life where – being over 40 and still single – I thought that the good ship marriage had passed me by. But fortunately for me, about 18 months ago I met Jo and some18 months later, when I popped the question to her she said - yes.
Now being a bloke – and admittedly rather unobservant and non-plussed about all the rituals surrounding weddings and the associated palaver – I stupidly thought that since I had asked the question, the major hassle was over and the rest of this marriage nonsense would look after itself.
However, just as talk-show host David Letterman has recently and rather inadvertently discovered that porking all the female interns on his show is not conducive to a long and happy marriage. I too have found that popping the question is just the first step in a long and harrowing journey to one’s wedding day!
Firstly there is setting the actual date. Now any reasonable person would think an educated, intelligent, independent couple could just look up a calendar, pick a date and bob’s your uncle – wedding day sorted! Yeah, right! They could make a Tui billboard about that one!
Apparently, the date of one’s nuptials is not that easy. I am learning this is because you also need to consider some, part and/or all of the following:
When you will get married; what time of year you will get married; where you want to get married; if it will be a church wedding or not; if so, is the church you want available; who you will invite, who you will not invite; who you are going to marry (no – that one is sorted)? What kind of catering do you want; where you will have the reception; what kind of reception will you have; which priest will marry you; when is he available? Yada, yada, yada! It is a bit like the Japs during WW2 – questions like these just keep on coming!
But to tell the truth, that is the simple stuff. If you really want to make your head spin – then try sorting out the rings.
And I say rings – plural – because not only is there to be an engagement ring. Some big, bedazzled, diamond encrusted masterpiece – that is worth the equivalent of the GDP of a small, African nation. But there is also the wedding band for the woman – which must of course match the aforementioned engagement ring ensemble. But then there is the vexed question of the bloke’s wedding band.
Now I must to confess that yours truly is no fan of male jewellry. In fact, it makes me uncomfortable. I come from a rather conservative, rural background where men who wore rings were either considered camp as a row of girl-guide tents or a wannabe used car salesmen. Neither proposition is all that appealing.
There is also another problem and this one, I am afraid, is genetic! Males in my family are blessed – or more correctly, cursed – with fat, sausage-type fingers. I come from generations of farming stock, where working the land (and perhaps a dash of in-breeding) has somehow mutated the male members of my family fingers’ into short, fat stumps stuck on the end of our hands.
As you can imagine, this does not make them ideal vessels for the wearing of rings. In fact, a ring on my finger is about as elegant to the sight of an All Black prop in a mini skirt – it is just not pretty.
So, I am in a bit of a quandary as Jo is keen on me wearing a wedding band, but on the other hand (no pun intended) I have the issue with wearing rings as outlined above. Who knows what the outcome will be, but all I know is that ring or no ring I am happy to be getting married.
Now, is there anyone out there who knows a good place to hold a wedding reception around the greater Auckland area?
After 42 some-odd years trucking happily (and, at times, not so happily) along in life on my own account – I have finally got myself hitched.
To tell the truth, I am really happy about it – as I know I have found the person whom I want to share the rest of my life with.
Quite frankly, I had got to a stage in life where – being over 40 and still single – I thought that the good ship marriage had passed me by. But fortunately for me, about 18 months ago I met Jo and some18 months later, when I popped the question to her she said - yes.
Now being a bloke – and admittedly rather unobservant and non-plussed about all the rituals surrounding weddings and the associated palaver – I stupidly thought that since I had asked the question, the major hassle was over and the rest of this marriage nonsense would look after itself.
However, just as talk-show host David Letterman has recently and rather inadvertently discovered that porking all the female interns on his show is not conducive to a long and happy marriage. I too have found that popping the question is just the first step in a long and harrowing journey to one’s wedding day!
Firstly there is setting the actual date. Now any reasonable person would think an educated, intelligent, independent couple could just look up a calendar, pick a date and bob’s your uncle – wedding day sorted! Yeah, right! They could make a Tui billboard about that one!
Apparently, the date of one’s nuptials is not that easy. I am learning this is because you also need to consider some, part and/or all of the following:
When you will get married; what time of year you will get married; where you want to get married; if it will be a church wedding or not; if so, is the church you want available; who you will invite, who you will not invite; who you are going to marry (no – that one is sorted)? What kind of catering do you want; where you will have the reception; what kind of reception will you have; which priest will marry you; when is he available? Yada, yada, yada! It is a bit like the Japs during WW2 – questions like these just keep on coming!
But to tell the truth, that is the simple stuff. If you really want to make your head spin – then try sorting out the rings.
And I say rings – plural – because not only is there to be an engagement ring. Some big, bedazzled, diamond encrusted masterpiece – that is worth the equivalent of the GDP of a small, African nation. But there is also the wedding band for the woman – which must of course match the aforementioned engagement ring ensemble. But then there is the vexed question of the bloke’s wedding band.
Now I must to confess that yours truly is no fan of male jewellry. In fact, it makes me uncomfortable. I come from a rather conservative, rural background where men who wore rings were either considered camp as a row of girl-guide tents or a wannabe used car salesmen. Neither proposition is all that appealing.
There is also another problem and this one, I am afraid, is genetic! Males in my family are blessed – or more correctly, cursed – with fat, sausage-type fingers. I come from generations of farming stock, where working the land (and perhaps a dash of in-breeding) has somehow mutated the male members of my family fingers’ into short, fat stumps stuck on the end of our hands.
As you can imagine, this does not make them ideal vessels for the wearing of rings. In fact, a ring on my finger is about as elegant to the sight of an All Black prop in a mini skirt – it is just not pretty.
So, I am in a bit of a quandary as Jo is keen on me wearing a wedding band, but on the other hand (no pun intended) I have the issue with wearing rings as outlined above. Who knows what the outcome will be, but all I know is that ring or no ring I am happy to be getting married.
Now, is there anyone out there who knows a good place to hold a wedding reception around the greater Auckland area?
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Goodbye and God bless
Today, I lost a very important person in my life.
Bert was 88 years old. While I had only known him for a little under three years – and only really well in the past year or so, I will miss him a great deal.
Bert died in hospital overnight after a short and sudden illness. I am glad about that – not that he has gone – but that he did not suffer a long and painful death. I am also glad that I was able to visit him in hospital and say goodbye to him before he went.
So how come this old man was so important to me? It is hard to put into words, but I will try and explain why.
I first met Bert almost three years ago, when I joined Alcoholics Anonymous. Bert was what they call in AA an ‘old timer’. Now that is not a slight on his advancing years or in any way a derogatory term. In fact, it is very much a mark of respect in a fellowship that looks up to those who have managed to clock up a number of years of sobriety and willingly pass on their experience and wisdom to those of us new to living life without alcohol – known as the ‘new-comers’.
And Bert passed on his wisdom and experience with kindness and generosity. He taught me that just because one no longer chose to drink alcohol – you could still have a full and wonderful life. Bert was truly a living in example of what he talked about as he did live a full and wonderful life.
My old friend also passed on to me – not just in his words, but also in his deeds – that to aspire to such a life; one has to freely give to those who want the same. He never lectured or was sanctimonious. He did not sugar coat things or make himself out to be an AA guru, old Bert just told his story.
He explained how he was not sure exactly how or why AA worked, but that it did. He told me not to try an over analyse it and to just believe. He also pointed out that just because I no longer drank, this didn’t mean that bad stuff would now no longer happen in life – but with AA I had been given the tools to better deal with life’s ups and downs.
I was also privileged to enjoy Bert’s company outside of the rooms of AA. For the past year, most Sunday mornings I would join my old mate for the 7.30 am Mass at St Joseph’s, Takapuna. He would always save me a seat right beside him and would great me with a cherry smile and witty quip like: “I wondered when you were going to turn up” – as I invariably snuck in beside him just as the proceedings were about to begin.
Afterwards, we would meet outside church and have a friendly chat. We would then wish each other the best for the week ahead and promise to see each other again at the Thursday night meeting in Takapuna.
Without him there beside me in Mass this morning there was a huge space alongside me in my pew. While Bert may have not been a big man in a physical sense – he was a huge and gentle man in every other respect.
Bert was also a World War Two veteran, a desert rat who had experienced all the reality and horrors of war in North Africa. However, he did not boast or play up his war efforts, yet I suspect he had seen and endured things that would have given him the right to.
I am grateful for the short time I had Bert in my life. His impact on me has been greater than he could have ever known. I will forever remember the glint in his eye and the kind and wise words he shared with me.
I can honestly say that I loved Bert and will miss him terribly. However, I feel the best way I can honour his memory is to try and live my life like he did and pass on my experiences to others who struggle with booze.
Goodbye and God bless my old mate.
Bert was 88 years old. While I had only known him for a little under three years – and only really well in the past year or so, I will miss him a great deal.
Bert died in hospital overnight after a short and sudden illness. I am glad about that – not that he has gone – but that he did not suffer a long and painful death. I am also glad that I was able to visit him in hospital and say goodbye to him before he went.
So how come this old man was so important to me? It is hard to put into words, but I will try and explain why.
I first met Bert almost three years ago, when I joined Alcoholics Anonymous. Bert was what they call in AA an ‘old timer’. Now that is not a slight on his advancing years or in any way a derogatory term. In fact, it is very much a mark of respect in a fellowship that looks up to those who have managed to clock up a number of years of sobriety and willingly pass on their experience and wisdom to those of us new to living life without alcohol – known as the ‘new-comers’.
And Bert passed on his wisdom and experience with kindness and generosity. He taught me that just because one no longer chose to drink alcohol – you could still have a full and wonderful life. Bert was truly a living in example of what he talked about as he did live a full and wonderful life.
My old friend also passed on to me – not just in his words, but also in his deeds – that to aspire to such a life; one has to freely give to those who want the same. He never lectured or was sanctimonious. He did not sugar coat things or make himself out to be an AA guru, old Bert just told his story.
He explained how he was not sure exactly how or why AA worked, but that it did. He told me not to try an over analyse it and to just believe. He also pointed out that just because I no longer drank, this didn’t mean that bad stuff would now no longer happen in life – but with AA I had been given the tools to better deal with life’s ups and downs.
I was also privileged to enjoy Bert’s company outside of the rooms of AA. For the past year, most Sunday mornings I would join my old mate for the 7.30 am Mass at St Joseph’s, Takapuna. He would always save me a seat right beside him and would great me with a cherry smile and witty quip like: “I wondered when you were going to turn up” – as I invariably snuck in beside him just as the proceedings were about to begin.
Afterwards, we would meet outside church and have a friendly chat. We would then wish each other the best for the week ahead and promise to see each other again at the Thursday night meeting in Takapuna.
Without him there beside me in Mass this morning there was a huge space alongside me in my pew. While Bert may have not been a big man in a physical sense – he was a huge and gentle man in every other respect.
Bert was also a World War Two veteran, a desert rat who had experienced all the reality and horrors of war in North Africa. However, he did not boast or play up his war efforts, yet I suspect he had seen and endured things that would have given him the right to.
I am grateful for the short time I had Bert in my life. His impact on me has been greater than he could have ever known. I will forever remember the glint in his eye and the kind and wise words he shared with me.
I can honestly say that I loved Bert and will miss him terribly. However, I feel the best way I can honour his memory is to try and live my life like he did and pass on my experiences to others who struggle with booze.
Goodbye and God bless my old mate.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Going down without a tweet…
I admit it – it was nothing but a silly gimmick and a complete waste of time.
What the hell was I thinking doing it? Who was I trying to kid? And why has it taken me so long to realise all of this?
All good questions and hopefully I can give some useful answers to these.
But first, let me confess my sins. Forgive me father for it has been two whole months since I last sent a tweet and I have now come to the conclusion what an utter waste of time and effort it is in a sad old fart like me having a Twitter account.
For those of you who are either not young and cool enough – or like yours truly foolish enough – to get caught up in the over-hyped, social media phenomena that is Twitter; let me explain exactly what it is.
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed. The basic premise of Twitter is to let people know ‘what you are up to right now’.
That’s right, the whole raison d’etre of Twitter is to let your ‘followers’ (code for your on-line stalkers) know exactly what you are up to at that very second – in 140 characters or less!
So just what kind of self-absorbed, attention seeking, lazy, full of their own self importance type of wanker wants the whole world to know what they are up every minute of the day? Well, funny you should ask. It appears the main users of Twitter are either teenagers, twenty-somethings, politicians, celebrities or actors. I guess the earlier description catches all those groups rather nicely!
As far as I can ascertain, Twitter is Facebook with a bad case of ADD.
Now don’t get me started on Facebook. I so over the constant hassling you get from all those social retards, geeks and tossers you never associated with at school or university wanting you to be their ‘friend’.
Here’s a newsflash for all those delusional dead beats who are so desperate to be my friend: “If I didn’t like you back then – I’m hardly likely to want to have anything to do with you now. Got that Poindexter!”
However, if things do change and I have a sudden urge to add you to my social circle – I will do something crazy like ring you up or go around and pay you a visit. Not send you some random email out of the blue after 20 years and invite myself into your life.
So just to recap – I have sent my last tweet. There will be more tittle-tattle on Twitter for me – it’s for twits, twats, tweens and tragics.
What the hell was I thinking doing it? Who was I trying to kid? And why has it taken me so long to realise all of this?
All good questions and hopefully I can give some useful answers to these.
But first, let me confess my sins. Forgive me father for it has been two whole months since I last sent a tweet and I have now come to the conclusion what an utter waste of time and effort it is in a sad old fart like me having a Twitter account.
For those of you who are either not young and cool enough – or like yours truly foolish enough – to get caught up in the over-hyped, social media phenomena that is Twitter; let me explain exactly what it is.
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed. The basic premise of Twitter is to let people know ‘what you are up to right now’.
That’s right, the whole raison d’etre of Twitter is to let your ‘followers’ (code for your on-line stalkers) know exactly what you are up to at that very second – in 140 characters or less!
So just what kind of self-absorbed, attention seeking, lazy, full of their own self importance type of wanker wants the whole world to know what they are up every minute of the day? Well, funny you should ask. It appears the main users of Twitter are either teenagers, twenty-somethings, politicians, celebrities or actors. I guess the earlier description catches all those groups rather nicely!
As far as I can ascertain, Twitter is Facebook with a bad case of ADD.
Now don’t get me started on Facebook. I so over the constant hassling you get from all those social retards, geeks and tossers you never associated with at school or university wanting you to be their ‘friend’.
Here’s a newsflash for all those delusional dead beats who are so desperate to be my friend: “If I didn’t like you back then – I’m hardly likely to want to have anything to do with you now. Got that Poindexter!”
However, if things do change and I have a sudden urge to add you to my social circle – I will do something crazy like ring you up or go around and pay you a visit. Not send you some random email out of the blue after 20 years and invite myself into your life.
So just to recap – I have sent my last tweet. There will be more tittle-tattle on Twitter for me – it’s for twits, twats, tweens and tragics.
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