The Black Page
Highway to hell
by Joanne Black
Why are we parading New Zealand’s cultural shortcomings for all to see?
News reports of Auckland’s Boobs on Bikes parade and the aftermath of Canterbury students’ Undie 500 were a dismal reminder that voyeurism and drunkenness remain popular leisure activities for many New Zealanders.
Unlike porn merchant and Auckland mayoral aspirant Steve Crow, I do not consider a parade of porn stars, drag queens and male models a bold demonstration of free speech. Rather, it’s a tragic exhibition for public titillation and financial gain – and about as entertaining as dwarf-throwing.
The Undie 500 at least has the premise of entertainment – acquiring and decorating a vehicle that cost less than $500 and cajoling it to travel from Christchurch to Dunedin. It is possible to see the challenge and fun in that.
In fact, it was probably a similar experience to one we had recently in our increasingly dilapidated Toyota Corolla. We had managed to ignore the irritating whine somewhere on the left-hand side until our five-year-old daughter started chanting “The wheel is loose, the wheel is loose” – like something out of Sparky and the Talking Train – which so unnerved us that we have booked the car in for a mechanical check.
Scenes of the Undie 500’s aftermath in Dunedin resembled 1980s news clips from Belfast. Here was yet another example of the inability or unwillingness of so many New Zealanders, especially young men, to drink in moderation, and another opportunity for them to associate gross intoxication with a good time.
The students, meanwhile, have been plying websites with complaints that police and the media have over-reacted to their “harmless fun”.
Doubtless, some of those who end up with court convictions as a result of their behaviour will pay their fines through their student loans, made interest-free thanks to taxpayers’ generosity. Those taxpayers include the police who had to be called away from their homes and families in order to be pelted by bottles, presumably hurled by some of the best and brightest of a generation.
A DOOR KNOCKER FOR the local body elections arrived at the weekend. I liked Wellington City Council Green candidate Iona Pannett because she was rational and personable. Over the years, in my capacity as a journalist, I have met a few candidates and councillors and I would not say that about all of them. Pannett also bothered to come down our little street, which is usually ignored by collectors and campaigners. In fact, she is the first candidate for any local body or general election who’s ever knocked on my door. For that reason – as well as the rational and personable bit – she will get my vote.
I am also going to vote for sitting councillor Ian McKinnon, because he is also rational and personable – and because he is my friend’s brother-in-law. That’s another of my voting criteria. Are they rational and personable, I ask myself, and are they my friends’ in-laws? They are good criteria – and better than most.
You could, of course, sit through a council meeting to see which, if any, of the incumbents you want re-elected, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I’ve done it as a reporter and it does not swell your heart with pride in our great democratic institutions – although in some places they have peppermints on the press table, which might be a compensation of sorts, but only if you like peppermints. Which I don’t. Anyway, the whole point in electing councillors and buying news‑papers is that councillors and reporters get paid to attend meetings so that the rest of us don’t have to.
Fortunately, in the run-up to this year’s elections, friends have again organised a get-together in which we can fill out our postal ballot papers while swapping intelligence on the candidates. It is usually extremely raucous and defamatory and without it voting would be extremely desultory.
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DIESEL, MY BUILDER’S DOG, has had a haircut and looks so much younger that as soon as I saw him I rang my hairdresser, hoping that he will be able to do the same for me. My appointment is in two days’ time but I’m not sure how to explain that I have no special engagement to attend, I just want to look like a dog.
