Cracker by Damian Christie

Okay, so I got a few stories from you eventually, and the results are interesting. Out of 10 contributions, two are about masturbation, a few involve illegal activities and one has a papier-mache volcano. Pretty much what I expected.

I'll print five today, and the rest early next week. One has been withdrawn for legal reasons, namely an outstanding Federal Warrant in the US.

If you think you can do better, it's not too late. Book prizes include the critically acclaimed Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories, a great little book called The Meaning of Tingo and for the more edu-ma-cated amongst you, Noam Chomsky's Imperial Ambitions – conversations with Noam on the post 9-11 world.

So here are the stories, largely unmolested by me, save for the odd glaring spelling mistake.

Vote for your winner from each bunch. (The crap headings are mine by the way. It's late and that part of the brain that comes up with bad puns has shut down.)

ALL ABOOOOARD
by Vanessa

I was boarding a train in Amsterdam going to the airport, on a Friday afternoon. These trains are beautiful, clean and on time - often to the second. Some of them are also double deckers, so I made for the top empty carriage and spread out..

Then I remembered I had bought two intricate little woollen scarves that day - one blue, one white... they were a steal at 4 euros but way too small to wear - even to to flip once round the neck.. It was a rare purchase that was deemed useless even at the till - and I was thinking this as I pulled them from their bag and examined them again. I barely noticed the dude who sat to my right, across the aisle by the other window... and I kept battling with my irrelevant scarves... stretching them out and thinking - who would make them this small ? are they really scarves ? could i put them on a cat ? and force the cat to sit in a pram?

As I do this I hear a sound coming from the dude. It's not a typical travelling sound. It takes a few seconds to realise that this sound can only be one thing.

So I look over to see I have indeed apparently stumbled into his bedroom and he's busy - cock completely out, giving it a fairly rigorous wanking, as if that's what most people do, get on the train, send a few texts, jerk one off, and read the paper.

I didn't stay for the finale... just moved downstairs and tried not to touch any doorhandles.

That was last month, and I still haven't done anything with those stupid scarves.

Y2K?
by Jen

Back in 1999, I decided to order a special "Year 2000" LCD light-up T-shirt from hideous London trance-den Cyberdog for the Millennium Gathering on Takaka Hill. Come New Year's Eve, I spent a good 15 minutes wiring it up in my tent, ensuring all the wires at the back were connected in the right order and the timer was set to the right time for liftoff, so that the display would impress and astound all around with its awesome LCD countdown.

Fast forward to witching hour, and I was jigging my arse off (being filmed dancing extremely badly by TV3 as I recall), with my T-shirt revving up for the countdown with a rather excellent "59 down to 0" sequence - waiting for the midnight hour when my cybertastic T-shirt would go mental and flash '2000' in glorious technicolor to the wonder of all surrounding me.

At two minutes to 12 I noticed a young raver looking forlornly on. He was wearing the exact same shirt - except he'd omitted to take the time to connect the wires correctly. All his flashed was "76... 76... 76...".

(Buying an LCD-display Millennium T-shirt: £50. Seeing the look on that young man's face: priceless.)

CLAWS
by Rohani

So when I was five we had this cat, Cadbury – we called him that cos he was black but with brown bits and we wanted to be a bit more inventive than blackie, sooty, milo, other chocolate references, etc. I suspect these days we’d have intellectual property lawyers on our case.

Anyway Cadbury would’ve been about a year old at this time, little did we all know he only had three more years of life before becoming a smush on the road up the hill. But I can say with certainty had I known he’d be smushed on the road three years later I wouldn’t have acted any differently for this story.

My older sister and I were playing with Cadbury in the lounge one day and in the lounge we had these big cushions, about a metre square, that we used to lie on in front of the TV. Dad was sitting in his chair and as we frolicked he said from behind his newspaper, ‘Did you know cats always land on their feet?’ and we said ooh, really and he said ‘yes, you can drop a cat from anywhere and it’ll always land on its feet’. So we tested the theory by dumping Cadbury from a small height onto a pile of our big cushions and it was really true.

A few days later, returning from my gymnastics class, I was out of the car before my mum and sister. I saw Cadbury as I got out of the car and chased him up our back steps to pick him up for a cuddle. Nobody was around. I peered over the rail of the steps to our back door – two storeys up. I patted Cadbury and said his name soothingly as I tipped him over the rail to see if he would land on his feet. Cadbury held on. For dear life. To my arm. In cartoon fashion, as I screamed the neighbourhood down, Cadbury’s claws made trails down my arm as he slid down it before finally dropping to the ground. His teeth made little punctures near my hand. As he fell Dad made it to the back door and opened it to find me standing there in my leotard in hysterics.

Now I don’t recall actually telling anyone then and there or even after any version of what happened. Cadbury scarpered, hid under the car with all the noise and was the recipient of a smack for his actions. A sign went up above my nine year old sister’s bed, ‘Cats are people too’. I was shipped off to the doctor and had to endure several days of band aid changes all along my arm and hand. The official version somehow became that I had seen Cadbury fighting and stuck my arm between the two cats to break them up.

More than 10 years later, in fact closer to 15 years later, the family sat round the dinner table and for some reason was discussing the Cadbury incident. Mum mentioned something about trying to break up a fight. It was the first time I’d heard this explanation in a long while. ‘That’s not what happened!’ I said. ‘I dropped him off the deck!’ Horror ensued. More family members were told. I was laughed at. I still get laughed at.

And yes, he landed on his feet.

ALEX WASN’T A BREAST MAN
by Emma

So, once upon a time... there was this friend of mine I'm going to, for a number of reasons, refer to as Alex. None of the reasons is "because that's his name". Alex had this homicidally jealous girlfriend, whom I shall call Kristen. Because that was her name.

At this point, I shall mention that I'll be talking about things that I wasn't actually there for, in which case the events were related to me by Alex. For instance, Alex's mother didn't much like Kristen, and used to tell her interesting things like how I was pretty and nice and had very large breasts. Alex told me this.

Aaaanywho... there was this night that Alex and I and another friend decided to settle at my place for drinkies for the evening. We drove out to Alex's to pick up some stuff, including a change of clothes so he could drive back home in the morning when he was sober. We invented a bloody nice cocktail and after a few drinks, we decided that Alex would collect the massage I owed him. This was pretty normal behaviour in our little 'group' at the time, a lot of non-sexual touching that probably wasn't sublimating for anything. No, really, given the amount of sexual touching going on as well.

While we were doing that, our other friend disappeared. (Okay, yeah, we didn't notice for a good ten minutes.) We decided, in that drunken way you do, to go look for him. We couldn't, however, find Alex's shirt, so he wore one of mine. It had red roses embroidered down the front.

We searched my flat thoroughly, including the places where we'd lost people in the past, like the ceiling and the large kitchen cupboard. Then we went to this guy's house, but he wasn't there either. We ended up at another friend's flat up the road.

Meanwhile.

Kristen rang Alex's place. Alex's mum cheerily told her where he was and what he was doing. The vengeful fury descended. Walking straight into my flat, she found Alex's bag in the lounge, with clothes in it. She grabbed all his stuff and threw it off the balcony of my flat into the driveway. Then she stormed down the hall and burst into my bedroom.
Which was empty. Except for that shirt of Alex's we couldn't find, all tangled up in the sheets on my bed. Devastated, she fled to a friend's flat to cry on her shoulder.

As the great god Co-incidence would have it, Kristen's friend's flat was downstairs from the one Alex and I were in. On the way in, Kristen happened to hear what she described as "that woman's inane cackle". She went straight up, and found Alex, drunk, wearing my shirt, smoking my cigarettes. He'd made her give up smoking. I think at that stage we'd found a wire coathanger and we were doing Joan Crawford impressions.

Well. He went home with her. I'm buggered if I know how he talked her down, but he did. He even dragged her back to the flat the next day to 'socialise'. She used to check his clothes for my hairs. Alex and I have the same colour hair. Once he drove me home and we were sitting in the driveway talking when she drove up behind us and shone her headlights into the car until I got out.

Finally, he dumped her. And went out with someone else, which pissed me off no end.

WHEN CHRISTMAS PARADES GO BAD
by Anthea

My granddad, being a WWII veteran, was heavily involved in the local RSA. Being in the engineering corps during the war, and also being a very talented artist, he was the ideal choice to build the RSA's float in the annual Henderson Christmas parade. Or so you would think.

The theme was an Auckland Christmas. So my Granddad came up with the idea to build huge volcano, reminiscent of Rangitoto complete with papier-mâché pohutakawas, yachts sweeping past in the ocean, seagulls etc. It took a month or so of hard work each weekend, but eventually the chicken wire, newspaper, glue and wood creation was complete. Being somewhat on the dramatic side, granddad decided that the volcano could be improved by adding a realistic eruptions and lava. Pyroclastic flows were ruled out as being too technically difficult to simulate. So in the end he was persuaded to a more traditional molten magma effect.

Various feverish experiments were conducted with blow torches and paint etc, but it was decided in the end that the easiest way to proceed was with fireworks. Someone would be crouched in the bowels of the volcano, and would push them up through the crater top to simulate an eruption. Periodically, small cans of red paint would be surreptitiously poured down the side to suggest red hot magma. Must be due to his experiences during the war, but Granddad didn’t feel at all uneasy about this volatile mix and was rather dismissive of the potential dangers.

I was a wee girl at the time, but even I remember being just a little scared of Granddad’s backyard volcano. Turns out I had great instincts.

On the day of the Christmas parade, it was warm, sunny and windy. Granddad, funnily enough, couldn’t find any volunteers, so he crawled through the little hatch in the side of the volcano and dragged his box of special effect tricks through after him. At the last minute he succumbed to pressure from my Grandma and Dad, and agreed to wear a welding glove and goggles to hold the fireworks up with.

At first, everything went spectacularly well. The fireworks provided just the right amount of wow factor, and the magma was, well, painty but had a pleasing effect. Many people exclaimed afterwards how it was the best float of the entire parade until the unfortunate accident.

Just on half way through the parade, the volcano suddenly seemed to give off a very realistic smouldering smoke, which everyone ooed and aahed over. Then came a small lick or two of fire, which apparently was only seen for a few short seconds before the volcano was engulfed in flames and fireworks starting shooting out in all directions, punching through the side of the papier-mâché mountain, in a scene eerily reminiscent of Mt St Helens. The crowds of families scattered, causing a mild stampede, which added a realistic touch as if they were witnessing an actual volcanic eruption. For those who didn’t have their back to the volcano, fleeing for their lives, they would’ve seen my Granddad, crashing through the side of the mountain, goggles akimbo, beating off the flames before the entire float was engulfed. Not so much towering inferno, but definitely a low level minor 70’s disaster flick all the same.

The crowds were then treated to a display of the local fire truck, complete with Santa on board, charging up through the parade from the rear, scattering other floats, marching girls, and boy scout troops, to put out the fire and my Granddad.

My Granddad was a little charred in places, but otherwise fine. He was never again asked to do the Christmas parade float.

What's up with the deification of Van Nguyen?

As the United States nears its 1000th execution, why are there candlelit vigils and calls to have a minute's silence for a convicted heroin smuggler?

400 grams of heroin. 27,000 hits, apparently. That's a lot of lives fucked up.

Should he be hanged? Probably not, but why is he such a cause celebre? 'Person gets killed in Asian country for drug smuggling'. Stop the presses.

Back in the nineties, some dodgy guys I knew of tried to smuggle a few thousand Es from England to New Zealand. They booked their flights with a stop-off in Kuala Lumpur.

Now I'm no drug smuggler, but surely when you're in the illegal narcotic exportation game, your first priority is not getting killed. Not getting caught is second. Cheap flights are third, Airpoints fourth, and choice of in-flight movie is a distant fifth. "Discount getaways flying Malaysian Airlines?" No thanks.

Luckily for these guys, one of them got stopped at Heathrow. He spent six years in Wormwood Scrubs. His nose was regularly broken by people who probably looked a lot like Vinnie Jones.

An hour out of KL, the others realised their mate wasn't with them (they'd at least had the foresight not to sit together). One went to the airline toilet and tried to flush his cargo. The toilet choked and backed up, spraying little coloured treats all over the small cubicle.

"I just felt like giving up", he later told me. Reason prevailed, and even though the plane was descending, he picked every incriminating piece of evidence off the walls, floor and roof of the toilet, flushing them away. Probably the smartest thing he did in an otherwise startlingly stupid series of events.

He moved into real estate.

So Van Nguyen. Who cares? People die every day. Most of them have done a lot less to destroy others' lives than a heroin smuggler. I'm more concerned about the crema on Russell's coffee.

Time wasters on a Friday - for those of you who enjoyed hearing Ashley Highfield at the Great Blend, the lovely Noelle has made my bFM interview with him available as a bCast.

Also, I've been a bit underwhelmed with the response to my "tell me a story" post. Come on people, you know you wanna. Did I mention there would be free stuff?

There's an aphorism, "most people have a book in them; and that's where it should probably stay".

Six months ago I wrote of my fledgling novel – Pirates! (possible subtitle, "A Metaphor"). Well surprise of surprises, it hasn't progressed much past the initial flurry of six pages. Although I did decide a while later that those six pages were probably enough to comprise the first chapter. So I have made progress in theory, if not in practice. And I still consider my novel to be embryonic, rather than abortive.

Increasingly though, I've become interested in stories. Everyone's novel might be best left internalised, but I'm sure everyone has at least one story worth telling. One really cracker story that stands on its own merit and appeals to everyone – you don't have to know Uncle John to see the humour, it's not 'a guy thing', and you didn't have to be there.

My mate Ben and I have been friends for years. We've heard each other's tales - the good, the bad and the boring - far too many times, so much so we can recite them verbatim. One night at a party, surrounded by strangers, Ben just started telling my stories as though they were his own. "Yeah, I used to live in Upper Hutt," he'd begin, and before I could protest he'd be recounting the lowlights of my school years. I'd counter with how *I* used to get beaten up each day getting off the bus in Mt Roskill.

It was amusing, frustrating and probably completely boring to the strangers. But who cares, surely that's why God makes Strangers? That'll learn 'em for always trying to offer kids sweets and rides home.

Anyhoo. Even knowing all Ben's stories, I'm still hungry for more. I want a story from everyone. Eventually I might try and do something with the idea, a doco, a short film, a book – who knows. But knowing me, probably not. The least I can do for now is post my favourites, and probably give them a prize or something, a book or computer game or whatever. Christmas is coming after all.

So would you mind? Telling me a story? Short or long; funny, sad, heartbreaking, romantic, dirty, poignant, coincidental. The more colour, flavour and relevant detail the better.

I only ask two things:

1. It's true.

2. It happened to you. Not your wife, sister, grandfather or my mate Ben.

Change the names if you need to, or just tell me not to post your name if you want to be completely anonymous. If I do ever decide to use these for anything bigger, I will seek express permission.

I'll get you started with my favourite story.

When I was growing up, my father was in the army. We moved around quite a bit, but for two and a half incredible years, we lived in Singapore. Always having a bit of a knot fetish, I joined Scouts. My friend Joshua called it Hitler Youth, but I think that was just because his dad, a liberal English teacher, wouldn't let him join.

As the Scout leaders were generally military men, we always went on the coolest trips. On one occasion we paddled two-person kayaks, leaving from the NZ Navy wharf, which was often full of huge foreign naval vessels, and paddled a few kilometres out to an island in the Johore Strait.

We camped on the island at night and went crab hunting, while those kids old enough to use deodorant set fire to things by spraying it onto a flame. During the day we practiced tying knots, learnt how to right capsized kayaks and other pursuits bound to prove useful in later life.

After a couple of days on the island we paddled back. My kayak companion was my Scout leader, whose name escapes me. As we approached the navy yard an enormous US battleship, many storeys high, was docked at the wharf. Steps on the side of the wharf led down to concrete jetty at sea level. We slid our kayak between the towering battleship and the jetty.

We got out of the kayak and started to unload our gear. A slight change in the wind, or maybe a small swell caused the huge battleship to list ever-so-slightly. It became noticeable down at sea-level though, as the little kayak wedged itself between the jetty and the battleship. As the ship listed further, the fibreglass of the kayak splintered with a loud crack.

The funniest thing I have ever seen in my life – the most preposterous, ridiculous illustration of the word "optimism" – was my Scout leader standing on the jetty, with every ounce of effort in his body, pushing at the huge grey wall of iron, trying to displace tens of thousands of tonnes in order to save the little kayak. He looked at me, face red, veins bulging and gasped "push".

And that was the day a Battleship destroyed our Kayak.

Everything is moving very quickly indeed.

Last time I wrote I'd just found out I'd be going to Oxford at some point in the next year or so. Last week the call came in: I'm there in seven weeks. It's a bit sooner and, er, colder than I was expecting, but it's all good.

So there are flights to book, stopovers to arrange, laptops to purchase and warm winter clothing to invest in. The first two are taken care of, but if anyone out there has a good notebook for sale, or happens to be a major investor in say, Icebreaker, feel free to send me feedback.

Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire: A review of sorts

My mate Ben and I went to see HP&tGOF last week.

The fourth of the Harry Potter films is apparently Not For Kids, receiving a PG13 rating in some jurisdictions and generally getting the thumbs down for anyone under 10. This is a shame, because it's by far the best (and darkest) of the films to date, and if you've got to drag your kids along to anything these coming holidays it'd be better if the film wasn't drowning in treacle.

At 157 minutes some say it's a bit long, but it was a breeze compared with the 730-odd page novel. Being a billionaire has done nothing for JK Rowling's ability to self-edit, I can tell you that.

Despite the age warning, my friend Lisa took an eight year old along, and by all accounts he loved it. Sure, he'll never set foot in water having been shown what lurks beneath (the underwater scene is fantastically thrilling), but I’m told for the most part, guardian was more nervous than the child. I suspect most eight year olds will cope.

I should add here, this recommendation is based on the natural assumption you don't mind your little ones turning into Satanists. That's right, it's the whole Dungeon & Dragons debacle all over again.

I played D&D when I was growing up, and while it did nothing for my adolescent love life ("But baby, I'm a Cleric with +17 Charisma, what's not to like?"), nor did it see me worshipping the Dark Lord. Sure, I've ritually sacrificed a goat or two, but who can honestly say they never did anything like that in their wild University days?

Look at the spooky list of similarities between Harry Potter and D&D. Spells… wizards… dragons. Wow, it's like they're both, um, fantasy or something! But wait. The scariest similarity of all: Unicorns. Creatures straight from Satan's workshop, surely…

I'm interested to hear from any young women out there who played with My Little Pony unicorns growing up, and now find themselves projectile vomiting green matter, speaking in tongues, or able to twist their head 360 degrees.

If you're able to twist any other body parts significantly, feel free to drop me a line too. I won't call you a freak, baby.

Did I mention I have +17 Charisma?

_____________________________

Two small coincidences since writing this post:

Update: Great Christian comic dealing with the darkside of D&D addiction (thanks NZBC for the link) - wow, that was exaclty what happened when I played D&D too!

Update 2: I just went to an art exhibition on at the Whitehouse (yes, the strip club on Queen St) featuring inter alia My Little Ponies with vibrating devices inside them, and little speed control remotes coming out their arses. As far as I can tell, not part of the official Hasbro series but - somewhat disturbingly - not the first person to think of MLP's in a sexual way.

I've never been to England before. It makes me a constant source of mirth and bewilderment among my more windswept and interesting friends. "Hey England virgin" they taunt, or at least they would if they had the same lack of imagination as me.

Despite this, I'm a committed Anglophile. I've had a string of imaginary English girlfriends, starting with Sam from Me & My Girl (my adolescent phase), Emma Thompson (my romantic phase), Joanna Lumley circa Sapphire & Steel (my cult TV nostalgia phase) and then Patsy Kensit (my dirty phase).

Rather than visions of dirty old London town, my dream UK getaway was always the hallowed halls of Oxford. Unfortunately a fairly lackadaisical approach to my early university years saw that dream slowly disappear like urinal cakes in a student pub toilet.

Funny how these things work out.

Despite my last (self) published work being about the relative employment merits of monkeys and elephants, I've been selected to spend three months next year at Oxford University. Yeah I know, that’s what I thought too. It's called the Chevening Reuters Fellowship. It's a journalism thing.

If I know me, and I do, it won't be the last you'll be hearing about this. I'll try and keep the crowing to a tasteful minimum. And also work on lowering my expectations. I was speaking to an English friend today, describing what I hoped to experience. "You're aware you're going to Oxford, and not Hogwarts?" he inquired, probably with some justification.

So um yeah. Huge can't-put-it-into-words-you've-changed-my-life-forever-and-you-probably-don't-even-know-it thanks to the British Council, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and everyone further up the line responsible for sending me, and to my fantastic referees - you know who you are.

If I was some cheesy Oscar actress I'd be crying right now, and mentioning the fact that I was born in South Auckland and managed to overcome huge adversity. But that's not true. The great thing about living in a small pond is that this sort of shit happens to people all the time.

Speaking of awards ceremonies, if you're around (by which I mean home) this Saturday night, the inaugural Qantas TV awards are on Saturday evening, 9.30 on One. I mention this not out of a sense of corporate loyalty, but because me and my amigo Garth are finalists in the Best Current Affairs Report category. So you might just see my teary "born in Papakura/overcame adversity" speech yet.

So it's been a good week at Cracker HQ, and to top it off, the sun has been shining wherever I've been (take a bow Wellington). Next post I'll write about something other than myself, promise. Yeah I know, why change the habit of a lifetime?

It's Friday though, so I'll leave you with a joke doing the rounds. Use it to win friends and influence people over the weekend.

A man goes to a zoo. But when he gets there, all he sees is one dog.

It was a shitzu.