Cracker by Damian Christie

It’s pouring down outside and it really feels like winter. Over the past week or so we’ve had wind so strong it knocked out my internet connection; hail so hard it sounded like thousands of little balls of ice hitting the roof; and lightning striking the Sky Tower, causing my computer screen to tremble in terror.

All of which causes me to reminisce about that summery day only a few weeks ago when I was happily splashing about, 70 feet under the water...

So today I really just wanted to show off my pictures from the Poor Knights...

Although I do urge you to read the most macabre concept for an article I’ve found in a while...

And also relate a conversation I had the other night. We were at home, watching some doco on Prime about animals becoming extinct. As the narrator theorised over the reasons for the disappearance of the woolly mammoth, sabre tooth tiger et al, the flatmate piped up:

“Yeah, some species might become extinct, but there are new animals too...”

“There are?”

“Well, a hundred years ago we never had labradoodles.”

And you know, I just couldn’t argue. Somewhere a Quagga is rolling in its grave.

Finally, since it’s a Friday, this little thing seems like a perfect time waster.

Despite a reasonable amount of media attention, you could forgiven if you missed one of the major achievements in the history of space travel. Earlier this week, Monday to be precise, saw the first manned, privately funded flight into space. Probably the genesis of space tourism as we know it. Or just a really expensive experiment – time will tell.

I often pause and wonder why, in this year Two Thousand and Four of Our Lord, we don’t have robot dogs doing our laundry. Why we can’t survive on pills alone (although some weekends, let me tell you…); and why we don’t wear more tinfoil than we do. But most often, I wonder why we aren’t doing a lot more stuff in space.

So on this day, I’d like to say God Bless Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, for throwing some of the money he’s made from requiring millions of PC users to upgrade from one shoddily made product to the next, towards realising my childhood dream.

Despite the US$20 million sunk into the project, the send-off and welcome-home all looked remarkably low key. Allen and designer Burt Rutan stood around wearing a snazzy polo shirt and jeans ensemble, while some of the assembled crowd flourished giant foam pointing hands. Even the history-making craft was fairly unassuming; it’s name was SpaceShipOne.

Correction: It’s not unassuming, it’s actually an ugly name. Spaceship 1 would’ve been okay, but SpaceShipOne? I hate this relatively recent fad for putting capitals in the middle of words. It’s not big (okay, the capitals themselves are), and it certainly isn’t clever. Don’t even get me started on PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Nominal aesthetics aside, it was still a beautiful thing to behold. SpaceShipOne reached the edge of space, which surprisingly – to me at least – is only 100 kilometres away. That’s roughly Auckland to Huntly. Just between you and me, I’d rather drive into outer space. Stupid lack of vertical roads.

So what did pilot Mike Melvill, 62 years old and suddenly an astronaut, do when he got into zero gravity? Why he opened a packet of M&Ms of course. Dubious product placement opportunity aside, it raises a few questions. Like did they specifically make the ship M&M-proof beforehand? You wouldn’t want to try and land, only to find an M&M was stuck under the brakes. And what happened to a good PR person to write Melvill a few good lines? Instead we get:

"And they just spun around, like little sparkling things. And I was so blown away, I couldn't even fly the airplane.”

Not exactly Wordsworth. Although, Melvill’s description and subsequent inability to operate heavy machinery suggests he wasn’t just experimenting with Zero Gravity. But who can blame him? If there’s a list of good times to have fun with psychedelics, seeing earth from space for the first time would have to be in the top 10.

A few people wrote to ask how the 48 Hour Film competition went, and my answer would have to be “bloody well, thanks”. We drew musical/soap as our genre, which initially seemed like the worst of all possible outcomes. I’d made a few notes in advance about possible scenarios for each genre. Next to Soap I’d written an inspired “Ideas???”

As it turned out, it was a blessing in disguise. No cliched dialogue was too cheesy for the soft-focus American daytime soap style we embraced. No acting was too hammy. Mmm ham and cheese, good adjectives Damian. I think it must be getting near Time for a Little Something.

Long story short, our team had a fantastic time, it was a great bonding experience and I’m really pleased with our film. We got it in with 20 minutes to spare, and while improvements could have been made, we were definitely up there with the front-runners. We won audience favourite for our heat, but despite one of the judges telling me we were on his top 10 list, we didn’t make the finals. Kay Sarah, Sarah.

While opinions naturally differed about who should and shouldn’t have made the finals, it’s fair to say the winning film, by Team Classic (of the Classic Comedy Club) was clearly ahead of the pack.

But you can judge for yourself. Our short, called Flights of Destiny is up on nzshortfilm.com. The bigger versions take a while to load, but if your boss is paying for your bandwith, they're worth waiting a few minutes for.

Thanks sooo much to Ant Timpson – mate, you (and your tireless team) did yourselves proud, and thousands of people around Auckland and Wellington were smiling and laughing as a result of your hard work. Ngā mihi nui me te aroha nui.

I’ve been a bit preoccupied this week. The 48 hour short film-making competition starts on Friday, and like just about every other Scorsese wannabe in Auckland, I’m involved.

Specifically, I’ve been asked to be a writer for a bunch of very talented people. This is causing me no small amount of stress. As the Bible says, “Thou can’t polish a turd”, so if my script has certain faecal qualities, the end product isn’t going to be much better.

On the positive side, none of our core team has entered the competition before, so we have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into. Our schedule allows for eight and a half hours sleep each night, lunch breaks, morning and afternoon tea, with the final product being handed in around 3pm – four hours ahead of the deadline.

Not only that, but drawing from the part of me that thinks its fun to make life more difficult if at all possible – also known as the Let’s Try These Mushrooms Before the Exam, It’s Only Bursary Calculus Syndrome – I’ve decided I’ll be doing my Sunday morning radio show as per usual. Should make for an interesting weekend. Still, at the end of it I’ll have made my first short film. I've stayed up 48 hours in a row for a lot less.

The D-Day commemorations were great. A mate and I sat up until the wee small hours knocking back beers and laughing at the behaviour of the world leaders. Why were Her Majesty and Jacques Chirac giving each other the cold shoulder? Why was George W so late to arrive, and why did everyone stand when he did? Is Putin still pissed that Bush calls him “Pooty poot” behind his back? And how boring would Chirac’s speech have been for everyone who doesn’t speak French?

Interestingly, or perhaps not – I have so much trouble distinguishing these days – both Tony Blair and the Queen speak fluent French. Putin speaks German, English (and Russian, obviously), Schroeder speaks English and German. George W allegedly speaks Spanish, although given his tenuous grasp on English, I have my doubts it’d be up to much.

A few random bits and pieces before I embark on my first cinematographic journey:

I don’t want to flog a dead horse, but it has to be said the Sunday Star Times sunk even further in my estimation last weekend. It pays a paparazzo to stand across from Lana’s house and get shots (or at least, it bought the photo off some random slime) of Lana looking less than her best. Then it turns that photo into its cover story, with which presumably it hopes to sell lots of papers.

None of this surprises me, given my by now fairly well-documented opinion of the over-sized tabloid. What really made me choke on my Lego was this one line, in a paragraph all on its own, presumably to illustrate the lofty heights from which this guardian of morality was explaining its failure to enter the alleged bidding war.

The Star-Times does not pay for stories.

No, it’s much cheaper to pay a photographer to stake out some ill celeb. Well done, SST, Newspaper of the Year strikes again.

With midwinter approaching, I’ve been looking for someone to MC a wee gathering at Cracker HQ. There are no shortage of talented speakers in this country, that’s for damn sure, although this entertainer’s reference resonates with me more than most:

I just wanted to let you know how much our group enjoyed Jeremy Elwood... All our staff thought he was excellent and they were also impressed with how quick he was when he made up an impromptu love song about our CEO and his wife. Very Witty!! - Lynn Burke, New Zealand Pork Industry Board

You may have heard the rumours about Jennifer Lopez getting pregnant, hence the shotgun wedding to Marc Anthony. You may not care. But if you do, can I just say, be Very Careful if you enter the words “Jennifer Lopez” and “pregnant” into Google. There are some very odd fetishists out there.

What’s even scarier is the search result I got when looking for some images of Eminem mooning at the MTV awards (it was work-related, believe me). Don’t worry it’s nothing as offensive as you’d believe, and if you watch Eating Media Lunch, probably not the grossest thing you’ve seen this week.

That’s me. Forgive me if you hear me sounding a bit odd on the wireless this weekend, I won’t have had much sleep. If by chance you’re watching Tonight on Friday, some of my team-mates and I are being interviewed about the Furious Film-making project.

And, if you do see anyone running around with a camera this weekend (particularly on Sunday), it might pay to keep your distance, they’re likely to snap.

A couple of weeks back I said I’d expand on my sweeping generalisation, “the Sunday Star Times has gone to the dogs”. A few of you out there will say to yourselves, “A-ha! Look how wrong you are Damian, the SST just picked up the Qantas Award for Best Newspaper, didn’t it, eh?”

Sure. And if you needed any more evidence decline of the SST’s standards, read this self-congratulatory piece of Fairfax propaganda, which was not only fit to appear on page A3, but occupied a full 300 square centimetres therein.

Not taking anything away from those who won Qantas Awards (Deborah, Matt) on Friday, but isn’t it apparent these things are just a network's/publisher’s marketing tool vaguely disguised as an awards ceremony? Look at the Qantas Awards for television. Two competitors, dozens of awards to be divvied up between them, no-one’s going home empty-handed, but most importantly: You can guarantee there will be plenty of gongs to boast about on the billboard you’ve booked for tomorrow.

It’s the same with the newspaper awards. Both the Herald and the SST were able to fill many a column inch with how well they’d done on Friday night. I think it’d be more relevant to see the fate of most of those bits of cardboard. How many actually get framed by the journos who win them? How many end up propping up the wonky kitchen table to stop it from rocking? And how can any ceremony where Jim Hopkins wins an award for Best Humour Column have any credibility?

Speaking of No Credibility, why does the Sunday Star Times find it necessary to refer to the Qantas Awards as “the print industry’s equivalent of the Oscars”? I’m sure we know what an award ceremony is, perhaps we could make our own comparisons in future. For what it’s worth, I prefer “the print industry’s equivalent of the Victoria State Government Community Safety and Crime Prevention Awards (and while we’re on the topic, a big congratulations to Sgt Cath Wilkins, winner of the award for “Responding to and Investigating Fabricated and/or Induced Illness/Injury in Children.”)

Russell’s already taken a bit of a swipe at the SST for their shoddy sensationalist journalism relating to the underage sex issue, and he’s quite right to do so. To my mind, the Government also needs to take some responsibility for being quite so willing to flip-flop on this issue. It must have seen the media moral highground coming a mile away, and it should have been thankful it wasn’t seized on earlier. It’s just a shame Labour’s so on the back foot at the moment as to care about such trifling matters as “public opposition”. It wasn’t so concerned last year when it came to the axing of the Privy Council and the lifting of the GM moratorium, back when Helen was a “victim of [her] own success as a popular and competent Prime Minister”. Troubling times, indeed.

Other stand-outs from the “Newspaper of the Year” this Sunday? The front page has a great article ‘They can’t take that away’. The harrowing tale of little Shaun Thomas, who had patterns shaved into his hair like Idol winner Ben Lummis and got sent home from school as a result. Fool.

I will concede, Mike Hosking’s second effort as star columnist in the About Town section was a lot better than his first. I don’t know whether he saw the irony in writing his maiden column on the very topic he’s just spent many thousands of dollars trying to keep out of the limelight – his children – but hopefully they won't become his fallback topic of choice. In any event, someone needs to do something about his ludicrous by-line pics. I’m as much a fan of reinvention as the next ex-Goth, but it looks as if he stepped outside one day, straight into a gale of hair-gel and stubble. Mike, the people are laughing.

I got an odd email today. “Come down to Aotea Square, the ARC are giving away a thousand native plants at midday.” Well you don’t have to offer me free stuff twice, so by ten past twelve I was down there, and now am the proud owner of a wee Kohuhu sapling. I don’t know who’s paying for it, but if it’s coming out of the exorbitant rates increase, at least I can say I got something tangible back for my buck. If you missed out, why not just say I got your share too? In fact – please – come round to Cracker HQ for a beer in ten years or so, admire Our Tree, marvel at its little purple flowers and go “awww” as piwakawaka flutter about. It’ll be nice.

I see the new SFX extravaganza The Day After Tomorrow opens tomorrow. What a wasted marketing opportunity. Surely by delaying it just one more day there would’ve been a whole lot more synchronicity, and a great marketing angle: “The Day after Tomorrow… in cinemas, well, the day after tomorrow.”

Also, before I move on to anything more substantial, what sort of name for a movie is “The Day After Tomorrow” anyway? Why not just call it Friday? A lot less confusing for everyone involved, I suspect.

The diving was great. Despite the weather forecast, which to me proves not only the existence of God, but that he’s having a laff – Friday: Fine... Saturday and Sunday: Thunder, lightning, rain, swells... Monday: Fine – the weather was great. I woke up at 5am, packed my gear and was on the road by half five, destination Poor Knights Island. Well, the Tutukaka marina at least.

A few small equipment failures notwithstanding, everything went smoothly enough. Equipment failures while diving seem to be relatively commonplace, something to do with the powerful combination of saltwater, sand and saliva. Unfortunately, much like on a space shuttle, the equipment is pretty much what’s keeping you alive. In a car, equipment failure means your little handbrake light won’t turn off, or at worst, your car stops. It’s rarely fatal. At 60 odd feet under the ocean, a buoyancy compensation device (BCD) that won’t stop inflating itself can present a real problem. Still, that’s what training’s all about, and I’ve always appreciated the fine job my instructor did in that regard (Cheers Glenn).

The first dive was a little bit of a waste unfortunately. I’m not sure quite why (is there an ENT specialist in the audience?) but I have a bit of trouble equalising. If you don’t know what I mean by that, it’s all about balancing the pressure in your ears with the pressure around you (which increases the deeper you go). Much like going up in a plane, but a hundred times more intense. If you have a cold, or blocked sinuses, or as I suspect I have, small ear canals, then you run into problems. Worst case scenario you can’t equalise, meaining you can't dive, unless you’re prepared to destroy your ear drums. Or like me on Saturday, you have to descend very slowly and patiently, using half your air supply in the process.

Anyway, enough about my constricted passages. Long story short, I got down eventually, even exceeding my maximum allowable depth (very naughty in theory, good in practice, much like drinking at work) of 18 metres by ‘accidentally’ going down to a new personal record of 22.5 metres. That’s 74 feet ladies and gentlemen.

The visibility was brilliant, helped by the cloudless blue sky above and cooler winter temperatures. Describing the wildlife doesn’t really do it justice, particularly with my limited vocab, but it was really, really nice, and really good. And umm, really cool.

Five minutes into my first dive I almost grabbed on to a Stonefish, which was completely disguised as a Greyish Stone with Green Mossy Stuff growing on it. Hence the name, I figure. I was right on it when I suddenly realised that for a Greyish Stone with Green Mossy Stuff growing on it, it sure did look particularly fish-shaped.

The Stonefish is rather poisonous; its dorsal fin consists of a series of venom filled spines. Its poison is described as “severe to fatal”. As one cheery description notes:

“The pain is agonizing and can last for months, with horrendous swelling and dissolution of tissues. Amputation is sometimes required so get treatment early. If not treated, stings can be deadly.”

It’s not aggressive though, and poisoning primarily comes from people accidentally touching it. You’d think there’d be a whole lot less accidental touching going on if it wasn’t so bloody well-camouflaged. It’s kind of an evolutionary Catch-22 really, isn’t it? Surely the venomous spines would be a more effective deterrent if they were fluorescent yellow or something. Someone should really have a word.

On our second dive we went to Blue Maomao Arch, the place Jacques Cousteau famously declared to be among the top ten spots in the world. We jumped off the boat and into a school of hundreds of little jellyfish (celphs, I believe). For those of you who’ve never done this, just imagine jumping into a swimming pool full of ripped condoms, but more pleasant.

Other submarine fauna highlights include my first sighting of a moray eel outside of Kelly Tarlton’s. It was a yellow one, although my dive buddy/cousin Ken also spotted and photographed a mosaic moray, of which he was most proud (all photos will be posted in due course). There was a fairly sizeable short tailed stingray, and a colourful Sandager’s Wrasse, which followed me around like a puppy for about ten minutes, as I’m told they are wont to do.

As my air dwindled, marking the end of the second dive, we began surfacing and paused for our safety stop (five metres depth for three minutes). As we hovered there, mid-water, a seemingly endless stream of blue maomao and demoiselles swam underneath. It was pretty spesh. And cool. Yeah, really really cool.

Special thanks to Ken for being patient with his bumbling oaf of an incompetent diver cousin. Cher cher.