Bricky's World

How quickly are we changing our ways?

2011-10-09T12:58:00.000+13:00

While gardening this morning, I dug up an old plastic supermarket bag. How do I know it's old? Certainly not by the condition of the plastic. A wipe with a damp cloth and it was as good as the day it was carried from the checkout to the car. I know it's considerably more than ten years old because it was buried in an area of my property that hasn't been disturbed in the ten years since I acquired it. In fact, when I moved to this place, it was apparent from the overgrowth that the area hadn't been disturbed for many a year before that.

Now, gardening always sets me to thinking. That's part of why I find it therapeutic. But this subterranean find gave me something to think about. Have a look at the proud claim made by the chest-beating grocery chain of the day:

On the positive side, some (former?) perpetrators of eco-vandalism have progressed from a world where credit could be claimed for saving resources and providing a use for previously used materials, to a world where some of them provide disincentives to the use of environmentally harmful materials - e.g. charging for plastic bags. But on the negative side, it's slow progress indeed. The other point worth considering is the seemingly indestructible nature of the material. If it's still in perfect condition after 10-20 years in the soil, how many generations is it going to be before it disappears - if ever?

X Factor is What's Lacking

2011-08-30T14:44:00.001+12:00

Political scientist I'm not, but I don't believe the present government is as popular as recent polling would have us believe. That's not to say the polling's wrong. Confused? You're not Robinson Crusoe. Seems to me the electorate is confused, hence the polls being as they are.

From what I'm seeing and hearing, the present National government is not particularly popular. In fact, there is significant disquiet and dissatisfaction about much of what is happening and what has and hasn't happened over the last two and three quarter years. I also think there is growing discontent with John Key as PM. So why are the polls telling us differently? Because right now, a majority of New Zealanders don't see a viable alternative. Firstly, a great many people who were not natural National voters gave their support to National and it's too soon for them to admit to themselves that they were wrong. Secondly, it's too soon for Labour to have any credibility in their criticism of things they could have - and didn't - fix while they had the opportunity. Thirdly, and most importantly, they have no X factor.

If an opposition party approaches an election when the incumbent party has been in government for two or three terms, they may not need an "X factor", because there is a natural tendency for people to become tired of the same old government and yearn for a change. So what is an X factor? Simply, something that excites, and despite having come up with a viable alternative to National's unpopular asset sales strategy, they haven't excited anyone. So it comes down to personalities (or more correctly, a personality). Personally, I see Phil Goff as intelligent, sound, pleasant, and eloquent and I would be quite happy to have him as a PM. But that isn't going to get Labour across the line, and to be honest it isn't even going to get them into the stadium. They need a strong personality who'll capture the public imagination. A Norm Kirk. A David Lange. A Robert Muldoon (God forbid!).

It seems me that Phil Goff has seen the perceived success of John Key and tried to emulate his relaxed, blokey style, instead of setting himself apart and showing a bit of mongrel. Maybe that just isn't his style, but if he can't make himself a point of difference (read X factor), then despite his qualities he should go. Probably too late to change before the election, but then I suspect that after another term of National government, an X factor may not be needed.

Rugby, Racing and Misery

2011-08-26T21:39:00.004+12:00

It's not that I'm a gambling wowser. Neither is it that I'm agin sport. In fact, I've made quite a number of funding applications to gaming machine trusts on behalf of sports organisations over the years, some successfully, some not. But I do recognise that gambling is addictive and it causes a great deal of misery for many, many more people than the addicts themselves. Thus there is a legitimate argument against poker machines in that they are instruments of gambling and as such they generate hardship to significant numbers of people. They are also a form of gambling that research indicates is more addiction-forming than others.

When poker machines were made legal in New Zealand, it was a condition that they could be owned only by trusts which, by law, had to distribute the profits to recreational and community organisations like schools, sports clubs, cultural groups and the like. At a time when changing work practices were allowing Kiwis less and less leisure time to devote to selling raffle tickets, sheep manure and cheese rolls, the distribution of pokie profits came as a godsend and in the years since, the only fundraiser in many voluntary organisations is the person who submits the applications for funding.

So we have a conundrum. Without pokie machine funding, grassroots sports, cultural and other organisations are unable to function in today's world. With pokie machines, large numbers of people (about one person in every eight of Dunedin's population, according to Chris Watkins of the Salvation Army's Oasis Centre for problem gambling) are being adversely affected. Rather than take the moral high ground and denounce the existence of pokies and those whose interests depend on them, Mr Watkins and Mr Jerry Banse, a social worker with a Maori social services provider, have invited representatives of 670 organisations which have benefited from gaming machine funding to a forum for discussing the issue and exploring alternative funding options. Seems like a reasonable move to me. But not to the leaders of the two "sports" that have benefited most, by far, from pokie profits in recent years.

Dunedin community newspaper "The Star" this week reported Otago Rugby Football Union manager Richard Reid and Otago Racing Club chief executive Andre Klein as saying they were unsure whether anyone from their organisations would attend the forum. Applying for pokie-funded grants did not present an ethical dilemma, they said.
Mr Reid: "The law is what it is. It doesn't create an ethical dilemma for me personally or for the rugby union - and I'm not sure why it should."
Mr Klein: "Help should be available for those with an addiction. The fact that what is a harmless leisure activity for most, such as playing a pokie machine, can generate so much funding for the good of the community, should be viewed as nothing but a positive."
In the past year, each of the aforementioned organisations received more than $140,000 of pokie money.

This in a week when Dunedin's food banks are crying out for donations to replenish shelves made empty, at least in part, by the needs of people disadvantaged as a result of gambling addiction. All you're being asked to do, Mr Reid and Mr Klein, is to send someone along to discuss the issue and see if their isn't a less painful alternative. Do you really need to be that insensitive?

Commonsense prevails

2010-03-21T12:26:00.000+13:00

On Friday night there was a boxing event in Melbourne, Australia, which had been heavily promoted as a "pay to view" programme by Sky Channel in New Zealand. In one corner was Shane Cameron, a New Zealand heavyweight of some note, apparently, in boxing circles. In the other corner was one John Hopoate, a former ARL rugby league player-come-boxer who is best known in Australasian sporting circles for his suspension-earning practice of inserting his finger up (rugby league) opponents' bums. Following all the promotional brouhaha, it was reasonable to assume there would have been, at the very least, a report in the sports pages of the daily newspaper on Saturday. But nope, not a mention. Googling revealed a very short report on a sports website, to the effect that Hopoate had been disqualified in the second round. No, not for digital penetration, but for "continual holding". For the benefit of those who, like the writer, are uninitiated in pugilistic matters, I take it this means hugging one's opponent in order that he cannot punch. If that's the case I don't blame him. I would do the same. My point is not the boxer's tactics or the result of the fight, but the complete failure of Sky Channel's attempts to generate public interest in what the newspapers seem to confirm, by their lack of reporting, as being a non-event. Which affirms my contention that media promotion sets out to create news, rather than report it. In this instance, Sky Channel's efforts failed miserably, which suggests that in some cases at least, the public are not as gullible as media folk think.

What do Harvey Norman and South Westland have in common?

2010-03-16T19:38:00.002+13:00

South Westland, despite being one of the world's most beautiful wilderness areas, is also one of the most remote regions of New Zealand.

So it's very unlikely that Harvey Norman will be opening a store there any time soon. Yet, today I discovered that Harvey Norman and South Westland have something in common: sandflies.

South Westland has swarms of the winged variety at certain times of the year. So much so that if you leave the safety of your vehicle without first slapping litres of insect repellent all over the exposed regions of your body, you're likely to resemble a baboon's backside the next day and be off work with an insatiable itch for the following week or two.

Today, I was a long way from South Westland, but I did visit a Harvey Norman store. A bad move on a Monday afternoon, which I suppose is just about the quietest time of the week for them. Therefore, swarms of hungry salepeople were descending on each hapless potential customer. I was there for eight minutes. I was approached by twelve different salespeople.

I prefer South Westland, where at least you can try to swat the sandflies away. In either instance, you can run for the safety of your car, which is exactly what I did at Harvey Norman.

Who would have thought.....?

2010-03-11T10:36:00.001+13:00

In the 1950s and 60s, my family owned a truck by the same maker and of the same vintage as the 1937 Chevrolet car on the left. It was our only vehicle, serving as the workhorse for a small rural business and as the family car. It was old and it wasn't worth much, but in those times it was the best that my family could afford.

The price tag on this car (photographed just a few months ago) is almost $20,000. That would have been ten thousand pounds in the fifties and early sixties, and it was a sum of money that most people could only dream about. You could retire in luxury for that much money, or buy four or five houses. Who would have thought that when an old '37 Chevy became even older, it would be worth a fortune? Or that one day you could trade it in on a sparkling modern car and get enough change to go on a world tour?

Ahead of its Time?

2010-03-05T18:09:00.001+13:00

My good friend Ed in The Land of the Free sent me this link to a video filmed 84 years ago of an invention which I should have thought would have been a real winner in its day and might even be useful today.

It is reported as being invented and demonstrated in the video by none other than Henry Ford, so one would think that its failure to kick on was due to factors other than lack of marketing know-how or financial backing. Perhaps it was ahead of its time?

Tsunami Alert

2010-03-01T09:57:00.004+13:00

New Zealand has been on tsunami-alert for the last 24 hours. There were some unusual tidal patterns during that time, but nothing to cause any damage or panic. I should think it served as a good test run for the Civil Defence organisation, which seemed to perform efficiently in monitoring the situation, disseminating information and giving appropriate warnings to the public.

New Zealand has a very long coastline, a half of it east-facing with no land barriers between it and the west coast of South America. The public here are well informed about the risk of tsunami following earthquakes in (or off) South America. Yet, incredibly, there were still those who ignored yesterday's warnings and blithely continued with their Sunday beach-walking, surfing and swimming. One fellow facing a television camera was asked why he was there. "Just having a look at what's going on. If anything happens, I'll run like hell!" he said, then laughed maniacally. Then there was the blonde bimbo in a bikini. "Well, there's so many warnings, y'know, an' nothin' ever happens, does it?" So many warnings? Well, in 60-odd years, I don't recall more than perhaps three or four tsunami warnings.

A couple of worrying things occur to me. First, how many more lame-brains are going to ignore warnings next time, knowing that no life-threatening tidal event eventuated on this occasion? Second, what sort of a message is being delivered by television crews on the beaches, themselves disregarding Civil Defence warnings for no other reason than to film non-essential interviews?

The Tiger-watchers

2010-02-21T12:30:00.002+13:00

Boy, am I getting fed up to the back teeth by the news media's fixation with Tiger Woods's private life. I cannot see one good reason for any person on this Earth, other than those individuals directly affected, to have any interest in what this person does (or has done) anywhere except between the first tee and the eighteenth hole of a golf course.

Media folk would argue that there is huge public interest and that they are simply catering to that interest. My view is that there is huge public interest only because the news media generated it in their own pecuniary interest. Unfortunately that says as much about the intellect of the media's audience as it says about the media's greed.

Big reward for little effort

2010-02-09T13:15:00.004+13:00

For years, I avoided doing anything about a difficult little dry strip on the east side of the house. It was under the eaves, a long way from a hose-tap and the very ordinary soil was littered with builders' rubble. Then in early Spring a few wildflower seeds came my way, so I lightly forked the area over and threw them in. Now I'm thinking it was well worth the twenty minutes' effort I put in.

Wildlife in the bathroom

2010-02-05T18:06:00.002+13:00

Look what greeted us in the bathroom this morning!

I think it's one of New Zealand's 70 something species of native weta which apparently made its entry overnight through a partly open window. I really would like to think its appearance is due to my "no spray" regime in the garden over the past three years and that this is evidence of my garden becoming home to an ever increasing amount of insect life. Alas, I fear that is not the truth of the matter (although I'm sure the insect population is increasing). I think this handsome visitor probably hitched a ride on a trailerload of firewood that my neighbour brought in from a forest in the country and parked in his driveway overnight. It has been released gently and lovingly amongst some rhododendrons. Perhaps it is bearing eggs and will populate the garden with its progeny!

For the record, the body is about one and a half centimetres (three quarters of an inch) long - a mere miniature compared with some of the giant species in the New Zealand bush.

What is important news and what is not?

2010-01-26T17:26:00.000+13:00

The importance placed by the news media on some news items in preference to others is, in my estimation, a disgrace.

Today, the Otago Daily Times , a major New Zealand daily newspaper, featured as its front page lead story a news item about the Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) toughening up on its checking of long term claimants' continued eligibility to receive benefits. The support stories on the front page were about a local winemaker being nominated for an international award and the possibility that some ornamental trees in the Dunedin CBD may have fallen victim to a fatal fungal disease.

Meanwhile, news of an Ethiopian airliner crashing into the Mediterranean with 90 people on board was deemed important enough to warrant only a brief mention at the foot of page 6, which is the world news page.

Is the loss of 90 human lives not more important than a possible tree disease, a nomination for a winemaking award or an insurer's claim verification practices?

Scientific illiteracy

2010-01-17T11:16:00.007+13:00

55% of Australians prefer a God-guided or biblical account of the development of human beings over Darwinian evolution, an Australian science communication researcher was reported in The Otago Daily Times as saying. Now, I lived and worked in Australia for 12 years and I didn't see any evidence that our Aussie friends are a particularly god-fearing bunch, so I can only conclude that the survey was conducted outside the Waggawagga Methodist Church at 11am on a Sunday or that the majority of respondents thought that "Darwinian" referred to residency in the Northern Territory's capital city.

As a Kiwi writing about Australians, I favour the latter explanation, but lest any Americans who might happen upon this post should be feeling smug, the same report says that only 40% of Americans believe the Darwinian account of evolution.

Okay, okay, New Zealanders are not all that rational either. According to a Massey University survey, 39% of Kiwi adults believe fortune-tellers can predict the future. There is no mention, however, of fortune-tellers setting up their tents at racetracks alongside the bookies. Apparently their entrepeneurial skills don't match their fortune-telling expertise.

If the surveys are accurate, my greatest worry is that one day I might have to face trial by a jury of New Zealanders (or Australians or Americans) with my defence depending their ability to digest scientific evidence!

...and still the bee doth toil

2010-01-06T19:45:00.003+13:00

Late evening in my garden.

The wind doth blow, the rain doth fall, and still the bee doth toil.

Public Holidays

2010-01-02T17:31:00.006+13:00

Today is officially recognised as a Public Holiday in New Zealand. In this particular year, it doesn't matter much to most folk, because it falls on a weekend anyway. But it does matter to those whose job requires them to work, because the law of the land requires their employers to pay them at one-and-a-half times the usual hourly rate and also requires that they are allowed a day off in lieu at some later date. It matters to employers for the same reason.

I wonder how many countries have a public holiday on January 2, simply because it happens to be the day after the first day of the year. It doesn't happen across the ditch in Australia and I don't imagine it happens in too many other countries.

There are other public holidays which seem superfluous as well (although I have no problem with my employer being required to pay me for staying home). The Queen's Birthday holiday is celebrated on the nearest Monday to June 4, because June 4 was the birthday of one of QE2's uncles or great uncles (I think). Does anyone really care a toss, or consider it a significant date?

I would wager that most New Zealanders have no idea that October's Labour Day commemorates the introduction, at some time in the country's obscure past, of a universal eight hour working day (which, incidentally, hasn't been recognised for God knows how many years, either in law or common practice). My understanding is that in earlier days, working folk and their families flocked to communal picnics, organised by respective trade unions, on this holiday, but not many people living today would even remember that.

The founding of each respective New Zealand province is celebrated by a day off work for those in each province on a date unique to their place of domicile and is called Anniversary Day. Never mind that provincial government was abolished in this country more than a hundred years ago and there is no longer any clear definition of geographical provincial boundaries. In my "province" (Otago), Anniversary Day falls in April, so many employers, schools, etc tack it onto Easter weekend, making the officially designated date a curious phenomenon when some institutions are closed and some are not (likewise the Tuesday following Easter Monday).

And then there's Waitangi Day, which is just too complex and controversial to even try to explain!

My solution, which, sadly, is not going to happen because the present system of public holidays is firmly entrenched in Kiwi culture, is to abolish all of the aforementioned holidays, give every employee an extra week's annual leave to be taken at a time of their choice and add a week to school, college and university holidays. Business operators would be in favour as short weeks are not conducive to good business.

The Drookit Dug

2010-01-01T22:06:00.006+13:00

A very clever post "Doug versus Dog" on Doug Green's Blog reminded me of this amusing pub sign photographed in Fife, Scotland a few years ago. I'm told the name translates to "the drunken dog".

The Movies, Then and Now

2009-12-30T23:16:00.007+13:00

Going to the movies hasn't been a big part of my life. Not in the years since I was a teenager, anyway. But one of the great things about being a grandparent is that it draws one into a host of experiences which are either new or long forgotten. So it was, today, when I took my 4 year old grandson to see "Where the Wild Things Are". I'm sure I enjoyed it at least as much as he did.

I was probably only four years old myself when I attended my first movie (we called it "the pictures" back then). That movie must have made quite an impression on me at the time, because I still remember that it was an animated film called "Dumbo". The technological advances in movie-making between Dumbo and Wild Things must be at least as great as those in telecommunications between the manual exchange party line and Skype. Not to mention the comfort of sitting in a modern cinema compared to the hard wooden forms in my hometown's community hall!

A few things I did miss today, though: God Save the King at the start (everybody must stand!), Movietone News, and dashing across the street to the shop for an ice-cream at half time!

For Literate Cats

2009-12-22T21:57:00.002+13:00

Short Memories

2009-12-21T18:30:00.002+13:00

Every year at this time, a favourite topic of conversation is the weather. Well, in this part of the world it's a favourite topic at all times of year really. But every year as Christmas approaches, southern folk bemoan the fact that summer hasn't yet arrived. "Oh, well," I say, "we never get much summer weather until January or February."
"Oh, but it's never been this bad before!" is the response, every year.

Yes, it is frustrating waiting for the warm weather to arrive, especially if one is into gardening. But we should be used to it by now.

A Question of Numbers

2009-12-20T17:10:00.004+13:00

A spokesman for a syndicate of indigenous New Zealanders attempting to purchase large amounts of farmland in the southern part of the country was quoted in the weekend press as saying that the group had a genealogical connection, dating back to biblical times, to their Middle Eastern financiers.

He may well be right. In fact, he almost certainly is right if my arithmetic is correct. Most family trees have an average of at least three generations per 100 years. The number of any person's antecedents per generational tier doubles with each generation (e.g. you have twice as many great-great-grandparents as you have great-grandparents). Any one person has eight great-grandparents and 16 great-great-grandparents. On this basis, it's reasonable to expect that a child born in 2009 might have had two living generational tiers in 1809: 32 great-great-great-grandparents and 64 great-great-great-great-grandparents - a total of 96 ancestors living on this earth at one time, just 200 years ago. If we use the same assumptions and go back a further 400 years (12 generations) to 1400AD, a person born in 2009 might have had 390,074 direct antecedents living at that time.

If this seems incredible, go back further still. In 1009AD, the child of 2009 can reasonably claim to have had almost 1.6 billion living ancestors. The problem is, the total world population in 1000AD is estimated to have been only 275 million! The only possible answer to this anomaly is that there is a great deal of intermarriage in our ancestry and that each of us has the same people appearing repeatedly in our ancestral lines. But, all that apart, it certainly puts into perspective any claim of genealogical links going back to biblical times, which were twice as long ago!

The Chocolate Fish Shop

2009-12-19T11:51:00.002+13:00

Reality Check for a Gardener

2009-12-14T20:49:00.001+13:00

I turned a cubic metre of compost today. In other words I forked it from one container to another, the purpose being to aerate it, as brown matter (carbon), green matter (nitrogen), water and air are said to be the essential ingredients in compost making. Don't ask me why - it just says so in the books, and the answer would bore me witless, anyway. The compost was but a week old. I had carefully laid down alternate tiers of dry, brown vegetation and green, sappy lawn clippings mixed with kitchen waste and weeds just seven days previously. I've done this a hundred times before and it has always seemed quite an exhausting chore. But this time, I got to thinking about the miraculous transformation that had take place in the short space of one week. No longer recognisable were the potato peelings, orange skins, paper towels or any of the other items in the kitchen waste. No longer identifiable were the lawn clippings, leaves or weeds. Where there had been no worms seven days ago there were now hundreds - possibly thousands - and yet in those few short days the heap had risen to, and cooled from a temperature at which no earthworm could survive. I've no idea how many millions of microorganisms worked every minute of every day to achieve this miracle of nature, or how many more will beaver away their entire lives in my heap before I have a bin of rich, friable compost to spread on my garden. But as I wandered off indoors to take a rest with a cool drink while watching cricket match on the 42" plasma, I somehow felt like a lazy slob.