Island Life by David Slack

Let me tell you about a friend of mine who lives in Fiji. He’s a proud man, and because I’m not sure he would want me to use his real name, I’ll call him Sanjay.

I met him at Victoria University at the end of the '70s. He was a decade or so older then most of us in law school, because he started his working life at one of the Fijian sugar companies, became a manager, and worked and saved until he had the money and the qualifications to come to New Zealand.

He loved Wellington: loved the politics, loved the student life, loved the parties, loved the intellectual stimulation of the studies, and was clear-eyed about it all, because he knew how much more meagre life could be. He knew what privation was and he had been living and working in the real world for long enough to be able to detect bullshit at fifty paces.

He wasn’t in any hurry to go home, and he was still picking up new postgraduate courses long after the rest of us had had enough. But time ran out in the mid 1980s and he went back to Suva, where he got a senior management job with one of the banks.

Life was fine enough, in the way that it has always appeared to this Fiji tourist, both before and following the coups: there is a coexistence that is sufficiently settled to give the visitor no apprehension of clear and present danger, but all the same there is a latent tension; a vague sense of unease, or grudging accommodation.

The first coups came in 1987. The effect on Sanjay’s life was more in form than substance. They simply inverted the management structure at the bank. The titular heads were now all Fijian, but the tasks which came with those titles were still carried out by people like Sanjay.

He came to visit us in 1994, and was sanguine about it. He shrugged: “What are you going to do?” He chuckled about the foolishness and vanity of it all, but he was content enough.

When the 2000 coup came, I called to see how he was faring, and whether we could help. He was uncomfortable and wary. We didn’t speak for long.

He had a braver, thinner smile when we last saw him in Suva three years ago. The 2000 coup had done for any remaining goodwill. Members of his family had sustained beatings and intimidation. There was no longer any place for him at the bank. He was now subsisting on a few hours a week lecturing at the University. He is a proud man, and he was firmly declining offers of help.

Whatever outcome this present quasi-constitutional military adventure yields, I don't expect it will have much to offer a man with a generous nature, a great sense of humour, a BA, an LLB, an MBA and the wrong colour skin.

1.43 .....My slowest time yet.

And my time is a piece of wax fallin’ on a termite
who's chokin’ on the splinters

Soy un perdedor etc.

The Sunday Star Times Columnist of the Year always has helpful words of consolation for me in dark moments. He told me it was probably just as well I hadn’t achieved the time I coveted. It might well have made me into a conceited – (Moi?) - big-headed insufferable C-word.

That is how I conveyed it to my wife as we drove home, making due concession to our sweet-hearted little girl in the booster seat. A little while ago she confided in us that she never uses the F-word at school even though Ryan and Matthew take much pleasure in its deployment.

She also informed us that there is one word that’s even worse, and that’s the M word. “And it’s not” she said solemnly “very kind to mothers.”

In times of disappointment, we turn to the solace of the happy family. This afternoon will be family time.

But next year, oh, next year that time will be mine.

Welcome one and all to the second edition of Discouraging Friday Revelations. I must confess it’s hard work coming up with this little service week in, week out, every Friday, but because you care, well: so do I.

In a moment, fun with criminals, but first: what is this at the once bustling site of nzpundit? Are those real digital cobwebs? Has some unhappy fate befallen the House of King? Did I miss the official adieu? Or is it au revoir? Not that they’d say it in that language. I know the news is not encouraging from Washington, but Wellington has hardly being treating them unkindly in recent weeks.

Now, about those crooks. I was invited to a breakfast meeting at the beginning of the week. Dismal though those things can be, the topic was interesting. Vaguely - and I must be vague because I was there as a customer, and not a roughly-affiliated member of the fourth estate - the topic was in the area of credit card malfeasance.

You buggers who take pleasure in helping yourselves to other people’s money might want to look to your work. That’s all I’m saying, except for this: an intelligent chap from police intelligence had some very interesting information to share, and I'm sure he couldn't object to my mentioning one broad observation he made at the end of a fascinating story about one particular criminal.

In the past few months, this guy has pulled off some breathtakingly audacious stunts, but more recently he has been mostly helping police with their inquiries. The unexpected interview room discovery has been that he is actually quite stoopid. More Van West than Jethro. (Or maybe a little like this guy.)

“You may be wondering”, the man from Police HQ said, “how a dumb guy could get away with so much.” Well, the answer to that question - and here we arrive at today’s discouraging revelation - is that we, the targets of the crime, can be spectacularly clueless ourselves.

He proceeded - using anecdotes about the hapless manner in which we go about protecting our credit card data and personal identity information from the prying eyes of Van, Jethro and Al Qaeda - to demonstrate the undeniable truth of his assertion.

What he didn’t say, but which was clear from the picture he painted, is that crime evolves in much the same way as enterprise does on the other side of the tracks: through trial, error, inspiration, and thinking outside the much-derided - and irretrievably clichéd - square.

You may well be a dumbass, but if you’re willing to have a go, and you’re first in to the market, then you have the element of surprise and for that reason, no matter how low your wattage may be, you can't overstate how lucky you may get, and how abundant the low-hanging fruit may be.

Where crime is concerned, the unexpected and the novel are the very things that present the most alluring prospects. People can’t make preparations for something they’ve never heard of. They’re much less likely to deal capably with something they’ve never seen before.

The 9/11 movie, United 93, makes that plain. Everywhere - in the aircraft cabins, in the control towers, at command centres, right across the military - people were caught flatfooted. The President was too, of course, but to be fair, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of the more challenging works of the canon.

There you go, then: discouraging enough? The most enterprising of the bad guys like to do what you weren’t expecting in a million years, and they always will. Take it as a useful word of warning. As the happy hours of conviviality come crowding in later today, just be careful what you do with that credit card.

How's this for motivation? At mile 6 of the New York Marathon you round the corner and see a 'bookish but attractive woman' holding a big sign. Its message is as unambiguous as it is enticing.



MARK!


[photo of Mark, a bookish but attractive man]


4 hrs = SEX!



Watch Mike go! To translate: if he can get home in 4 hours or less, those little town blues will be melting away, no doubt about it.

In a few days my brother - who has been my training partner of the past few weeks - will pack his running shoes and singlet and make the long flight to New York to join the 37,000 other people who will be pouring through the streets of the five boroughs.

I envy him.

The official web site says you'll run through 'dozens of culturally and ethnically diverse neighborhoods', pass over bridges, dodge a few potholes, and two, three, four, or nine hours later find yourself coming across the line at Tavern on the Green in Central Park, urged on by two million spectators.

It's quite the day out.

That makes our Auckland marathon sound tame by comparison, but you couldn't keep me away from it if Annette Presley herself was in it.

Loyal readers will know that I have tackled previous half marathons with the various encumbrances of a broken rib, shin splints and strained hamstrings. Four days out from this one, I am unscathed and well exercised. The clock is taunting me. Three minutes stand between the 1 hour 30 mark and my best effort so far. I am motivated. I have incentives.

The world record of one minute short of an hour would be nice too, but it would need to be a tailwind of the sort that lifts pleasure craft out of the water.

The thing about a time of 1.30 is that, at my age, that's fast enough to get you guaranteed entry into the New York marathon. I would rather like to do it.

There are risks to consider. There may be hazards on the course. Should I win it, for instance, I might meet the same misfortune as the winner of this week's Chicago marathon. Look at this Reuters clip. He scorches through the course, comes striding powerfully home, and then in his final stride hits something slippery underfoot, and takes a mighty dive.

The fall is spectacular. He has the title, but now he also has bleeding beneath the skull.

And what brought him down? Advertising! Someone's freaking logo, set out like a welcome mat; arranged, no doubt, for optimum televisual effect.

It would take a big man to step up to the podium and "thank the sponsors" after they'd done that to him. And that's assuming he has retained the faculty of speech.

But the piper must be paid. Look again at the description that accompanies the Reuters clip. They're so busy getting the sponsor's name in, they don't have room to mention the cause of the accident.

Robert Cheruiyot, the winner of the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, struck his head after slipping as he reached the finish line.

Sponsors and marketers. Can't shoot them, can't have a marathon without them.

The real stars of the show are the people, though. Magnum Photo has the proof here in a marvellous photo exhibition.

It's a wonderful occasion, and that's not even counting the promise of sex.

40,000 outraged New Zealanders, including "Hilda Ogden", "Susan Peacock", "Pete Sinclair" and "the very reverend Jesus Mohammed MacIrishman" have already vented their online spleen at last week's light-speed legislation, and the fury is clearly not yet spent.

Where did the Government go so wrong? Could they have handled this better?

Well, yes, frankly. They just had to share the spoils around a little more evenly.

One more clause could have made all the difference; just a bit of red meat for those baying Tories and then we could have all got some sleep. Something like this, for instance:

8      Sundry historical corrections

The following is a true reflection of the historical record, and any assertion to the contrary will be prohibited, a corrupt practice, a bridge too far and - if you can’t be arsed looking up any other legislation - a seditious act,-

(a) Gerry was just tapping the guy on the shoulder.

(b) She didn't see anything. One minute they were in Waimate, the next, they were in Christchurch.

(c) Bryan Sinclair can arrange chairs like a sonofabitch.

(d) Bob's always head-butting other people's stationery.

(e) "Slosh those funds around and buy your way to the Treasury benches" is chair-arranger-speak for "those napkins don't look right with that tablecloth."

(f) It wasn't for the baubles.

(g) Everything the last Auditor General ran up on the credit-card is now valid too, except for the inappropriate hotel-room movies.

(h) Rodney was the best dancer.

(i) It was all lafo.

(j) There is one law for all New Zealanders, and this is it.