Island Life by David Slack

There's a first time for everything, and there's nothing new under the sun. It can get ugly when clichés collide.

How many times in your life have you picked up a 'Volume One' or 'Issue Number 1' of some chirpy little publication or other, blathering about, oh I don't know, your local gym or the franchise bakery in your mall? Most likely it will have come to your hands unbidden, and will have been compiled by some expensive PR or marketing house.

After you've seen a few hundred examples of these sorry productions, you can't help feeling some sympathy for the deluded souls involved: maybe not so much for the marketing manager who commissioned it, or the shareholder in the company that paid for it - frankly, they should know better; but there will be some hard-pressed writer who sweated out the deathless, vapid prose and your heart aches for them because it is a cheerless, thankless task without honour.

It needs hardly saying that there is never a volume or issue number 2. Take that as a cautionary note; there may never be an issue 2 for what I am about to inaugurate. Good intentions can be swiftly mown down on the road to Ponsonby.

Fridays in the world of the blogs are customarily an occasion for 'fry-ups', funnies, or well-informed drinking advice. It's a party day.

This brings out the contrarian in me. I propose to offer, on Fridays, before I depart for lunch, disappointing revelations.

Let us start with one of my great idols, George Orwell; a man who is rightly lauded for his authenticity, who wrote under a pseudonym.

We read in this fine New Yorker piece of 2003 by Louis Menand
of Orwell's "sort of aesthetic distaste" for Gandhi - "just the sort of sandal-wearing, vegetarian mystic Orwell had always abhorred."

Hitler, however, he could accommodate.

"I have never been able to dislike Hitler," he admitted, in 1940. Hitler, it seems, "grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life," which Orwell called the attitude of "nearly all Western thought since the last war, certainly all 'progressive' thought."

You will find insightful analysis in the piece, and I unreservedly recommend you go and read every line of it, but we are here for the Dismal Friday Revelation, so let's press on.

His first wife, Eileen, with whom he adopted a son, died in 1945. He proposed to several women thereafter, sometimes suggesting, as an inducement, that he would probably die soon and leave his widow with a valuable estate; but he struck out. Then, in 1949, when he really was on his deathbed, he married Sonia Brownell, a woman whose sex appeal was widely appreciated. Brownell had slept with Orwell once, in 1945, apparently from the mixed motives of pity and the desire to sleep with famous writers, one of her hobbies. The marriage was performed in a hospital room; Orwell died three months later. He ended up selling more books than any other serious writer of the twentieth century-"Animal Farm" and "1984" were together translated into more than sixty languages; in 1973, English-language editions of "1984" were still selling at a rate of 1,340 copies a day-and he left all his royalties to Sonia. She squandered them and died more or less in poverty, in 1980. Today, Orwell's gravesite, in a churchyard in Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, is tended by volunteers.

If this kind of verity about the fallibility of all human flesh appeals to you, then you are probably the sort of viewer that Monkey TV has in mind.

"Are you in the process of contesting a will?," they ask a worldwide Internet audience, for they are making a documentary on the subject for Britain's Channel 4.

I can think of nothing less worthy than scrapping over your rights to someone else's estate, but that doesn't deter a sizeable minority from piling in. An old man who lives nearby told me last week he's leaving everything he has to the SPCA. One or two of the more excessively venal types who have lately come to populate our neighbourhood might not be above cultivating a friendship with him on the strength of that knowledge. I am pleased to see that intelligence passing them by.

If you, or someone you know, has recently been involved in contesting a will or might be about to do so, Monkey TV would like to talk to you by November 4. I wonder if they will hear from anyone with the surname "Blair".

With talk of a coup in the air, our Prime Minister is disinclined to visit Fiji next week. If they can't vouch for her personal safety, she says, she's staying home. Fair enough, too. There's nothing funny about a bunch of heavily armed soldiers bundling you into the Toyota Hilux and carting you into the compound.

The TV news tonight somewhat archly informed us that you and I, however, are free to come and go from Nadi at will. MFAT has no words of warning for us.

That could be because the putative provocateur and duly-appointed military commander of the nation, Commodore Voreque Bainimarama, or Frank to his friends, is not in country right now, as they say in the war movies.

MFAT probably don't want to spoil your holiday, but a little preparation goes a long way. If you should happen to notice Frank walking past the airport duty free store, you might want to think about getting back on the plane.

Names and faces are never easy to remember, of course, especially when the local language is not your own, so if you're soon bound for the Fiji sun, you may want to save this cut-out-and-keep Who's Who in the Coup chart. Pop it into your suitcase with your nail clippers and hair gel, and bula!

Dangerous
Frank Bainimarama





A Little Dangerous
Frank, a Brahman, and Ana

  

  

Not Even Vaguely Dangerous
Bananarama



Barney, Brahma, Bananas

  

  





UPDATES, related and not.

Fastidious Eighties chronicler Robyn Gallagher writes to clarify:

Bananarama may not be dangerous, but they are FIERCE.
Believe it, yo.

Meanwhile, washing up elsewhere on wilder and angrier shores of the blogosphere is this interesting flotsam: a Google AdSense ad for the Labour Party on the "No Royal Assent to Electoral Act Violations" online petition site. Two questions come to mind:

1. Does the Labour Party really want to underwrite Blair's democratic endeavours?

2. Would a Google AdSense invoice meet the new definition of funding entitlements for parliamentary purposes?

This might be an appropriate time to quote a learned judge. Here is Chief Justice Sir Richard Wild in 1976.

It is a graphic illustration of our legal heritage and the strength of our constitutional law that a statute passed by the English parliament nearly three centuries ago to extirpate the abuses of the Stuart Kings should be available on the other side of the earth to a citizen of this country which was then virtually unknown in Europe and on which no Englishman was to set foot for almost another hundred years. And yet it is not disputed that the Bill of Rights is part of our law.

Chief Justice Wild proceeded to apply the full force of said Bill of Rights by declaring that the Prime Minister-elect, one R. D. Muldoon, was not permitted to rule the country by press release, no matter how convenient he might find that form of government.

Muldoon had announced that he was abolishing the compulsory superannuation scheme set up by the previous Labour government and ordered all the employee contributions to be refunded. He would be passing the necessary empowering legislation "in due course".

The Chief Justice recognised that the government had the numbers to do so, and so his judgment neatly straddled principle and pragmatism. He declared that the Prime Minister was not a rule unto himself, that the only place for this law to be changed was in Parliament, and that until Parliament had spoken, the law remained the same.

However he then tidily adjourned all other matters in the case for six months and thus avoided a giant administrative headache by not forcing the Superannuation Act briefly back into business.

So what did we get in Parliament today? Same dance, different form.

We saw the same haughty disregard for democratic niceties,
and we got the same reminder that the Parliament is paramount.

I am not so vexed by matters of administrative correctness - as Treasury sees them - as I am by the question of a pending day in court.

If you had been about to take on the Labour Party in the High Court on the question of unauthorised election expenditure, it might not have been fanciful for you to imagine that you might soon be taking your place in political and legal history alongside Fitzgerald v Muldoon.

But that would be underestimating the thermonuclear capability of the H-bomb that is created by the fusion of 1 and 2. Unlike Muldoon, they took their device to the Parliament.

Fitzgerald v Muldoon emphatically confirmed the constitutional position. Parliament trumps everyone. It trumps the Executive, it trumps the One News room, and even though our present Chief Justice has suggested some theoretical constraints to the rule, for the largest part it trumps the judges. If you can get the numbers in the house, then you can make the law.

And that includes a law that passes through all three readings without so much as a pause for a glass of water. Thus you get legislation which validates 'irregularities' in the spending of the parliamentary services vote, and as a consequence, you may see the case of Darnton v Clark blown out of the water.

Can they do it?
Yes.

Is it bad politics? Time will tell, and it will tell us when we come to the one force that trumps Parliament: the ballot box.

Notwithstanding the understandable outrage being expressed by Bernard Darnton and his supporters, I don’t believe that this unlovely spectacle demonstrates that our rights to free speech stand in peril.

I have done business with people who live in countries where speech truly is imperilled, and they would trade the bad odour of this eau-de-banana-republic for the appalling tyrannies in their nations without a second thought.

But the high-handed nature of this is not at all edifying, and the H-people will now have plenty of time to ponder whether the voters will remember this as keenly as they still do the seven–minute wonder that was the passing of the legislation for the 'gold-plated' MPs superannuation scheme all of twenty years ago now.

Have you ever dreamed of being paid for your blogging?

Dream no more; the tantalising details are just a click away. All you have to do is write what you admire about your favourite product or service, and the big corporations will pay you cash money for your time.

Johnson was right: only a fool writes but for money. Here are my first submissions.

I Love McDonalds

I still remember the first time our daughter visited McDonalds. She adores her big cousins. Her big cousins adore the Happy Meals. Imagine her excitement when one night they asked if she would like to go with them. Hamburgers! Fries! Strawberry thick shakes! Crappy plastic toys! It was almost more delight than a three year old could stand.

How she thrilled to the excitement of it all as they scarfed down the food. How she gurgled happily as the girls chatted. How she wailed as a dark cloud of nausea fell upon her. How sombre she looked as they arrived back home. With fresh tears pricking her eyes, she announced: "I throwed up, Daddy."

I Love Telecom

There is a popular saying among marketing executives that you should surprise and delight your customers. I am as surprised as I am delighted to learn that Telecom have an offer that can't be beat.

The generosity of it is remarkable. Here's how it works. If you have been so remiss as to overlook the couple of bucks per month that Telecom has been charging you for "phone rental" then you may have failed to grasp that you are paying about 25 dollars a year to rent a phone of inferior quality to the type you can buy outright from Dick Smith for 19.95.

What a loser you are! How foolish to go on paying! Well, once you get over the rueful reflection that you suck at book-keeping, the news is all good. You have but to ring Telecom and tell them that you now have your own phone.

And do you know what these remarkable people will tell you? Not only will they say: certainly sir or madam, we will cancel that rental charge right now, they will also tell you: we shall send you a courier bag to enable you to return the telephone to us.

Imagine that! They will spend as much on couriers to retrieve a crappy old telephone as it would cost to buy a new one from Dick Smith! Talk about surprised and delighted.

I'm just waiting to see how big the courier bag is. I want to reciprocate the surprise and delight by slipping in our microwave which died in a thin and acrid cloud of smoke last week. I might add a note saying:

I could get a dial tone, but when I punched in the numbers, no matter who I rang, all I got was a whirring sound. Your boffins might want to take a look at this.

I Love Labour Party Advertising

There has been a lot of nonsense talked recently about who spent what in the last election. I think it's time we all Moved On, and I am glad to see that people have finally realised that a whip-round was always going to be the thing to fix this, as I wrote online many months ago, even before David Farrar did.

One point has been overlooked, however, and I should mention it. Do you recall that weird advertising early in the campaign with a baby hanging by ribbons and things? That had to be worth at least $800,000 in billboards and photo shoots and Art Director's lunches, and one has to acknowledge that it would not have delivered a single vote to the Labour party. You do the maths as far as breaching caps is concerned etc.

Anyway, I just thought I should tell you that I have found a use for this very memorable advertising. I have had a speechwriting client for years now who is more trouble than he is worth. He holds public office in the USA. Well, last month I sent him a detailed description of this suspended-baby campaign and told him it would work a treat. He enthusiastically embraced the concept, lock stock and ribbon, and right now his mid-term congressional campaign is circling the drain. His ass is about to be totally pwned, as my leet-speaking friend Mr. Saarinen would say, and I expect to hear no more from him. I enthusiastically recommend this creative product.

I Love Death Ray Shields

I yield to no man in my respect and awe for electronic Death Rays, so I unreservedly recommend the Shield Me TM Electro-Magnetic Field 'earthing' card. It safeguards cell phone users from the electro-magnetic field of their cell phones.

You should not take any notice of anything this doubter has to say about it here, here, here or here.

A superhero in Parliament named Spider-Man? You don't know the half of it, unless you read Wikipedia or the funny pages. Read on, now, to learn about the Marvellous men and women guarding the corridors of power, and the evildoers who stand in their way.

Black Widow is a Soviet agent trained as a spy, martial artist and sniper, and outfitted with an arsenal of high-tech weaponry, including a pair of wrist-mounted energy weapons dubbed her "Widow's Bite."

Iron Man possesses powered armor that gives him superhuman strength, virtual invulnerability, flight, and an array of weapons. The armor was invented and, with occasional short-term exceptions, worn by Tony Stark, an American industrialist billionaire and military contractor known not only for his lifestyle, but also for his incredible ingenuity and inventive genius.

Kevin O'Brien found himself seized with sudden attraction for Stark's girlfriend Marianne Rogers, and became extremely jealous of Stark's power, looks and fortune. At the same time Simon Gilbert, then chairman of the board of Stark Industries' stockholders, grew alarmed that Stark was moving out of munitions production and mapped strategies with the board to seize controlling interest in the firm from its principal stockholder, Stark himself. O'Brien, clad in armor and calling himself The Guardsman, offered to aid the board in their plot against Stark.

Kro is the leader of the Deviant race, an evolutionary offshoot of the human race created by the Celestials. Besides being a shapeshifter, he is immortal. He hides this from his fellow Deviants by pretending to be a long line of fathers/sons. In the past, Kro has disguised himself as the Devil in order to try to influence or frighten humans.

The Moloids are the physically weakest of the Subterraneans, and consequently they almost always act in great numbers. Due to their physical and mental weakness, the Deviants rejected them, and attempted to exterminate them all. Today, they serve the Mole Man, and have frequently fought the Fantastic Four alongside their master and his monsters.

Maelstrom is a superhuman villain and the enemy of Quasar, the Deviants, the Inhumans, the Eternals, the Avengers, and the Great Lakes Avengers. He has vast energy manipulation powers and is extremely intelligent. He is not human, is at least 100 years old, and is mentally unstable.

The Red Skull, Johann Schmidt, was a former Nazi general officer and confidant of Adolf Hitler. He has been closely affiliated with HYDRA and is an enemy of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Avengers, and the interests of the United States of America and of the free world in general. He was physically augmented by having his mind put in the body of a clone of Captain America; giving him a body that is the pinnacle of human perfection. He has been seemingly killed in the past only to return to plague the world with schemes of world domination and genocide, time and time again.

Professor Charles Francis Xavier, also known as Professor X, is the founder of the X-Men in the Marvel Universe. Xavier is paraplegic, although his body houses one of the world's most powerful mutant minds. A high-level telepath, Xavier can read, control and influence human minds. A scientific genius, he is also a leading authority on genetics, mutation and psionic powers.

Jean Grey is a mutant born with vast telepathic and telekinetic powers. She is a caring, nurturing figure, but she also must deal with being an Omega-level mutant, as well as being the cosmic Phoenix Force and not merely its host as implied in the X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong limited series. She dies several times in the history of the series, first in the classic "Dark Phoenix Saga," but due to her connection with the Phoenix Force, she, as her namesake implies, rises from death.

A mutant, Wolverine possesses animal-keen senses and reflexes and a healing factor that allows him to recover from virtually any wound. This healing ability enables the supersoldier program Weapon X to bond the unbreakable metal alloy adamantium to his skeleton, giving him razor-sharp retractable claws. He is also a master of hand-to-hand combat.

Sinister is perhaps the greatest geneticist in the Marvel universe. He is capable of cloning, creating superhuman abilities and enhancing or controlling mutant abilities. His existence is unknown to the general public and he does his research in secret laboratories across the globe. He has employed the henchmen groups the Marauders and Nasty Boys.

The Green Goblin is considered one of Spider-Man's greatest foes and is the alter ego of industrialist Norman Osborn. A serum that granted Osborn superhuman strength also drove him insane. Osborn dresses in a garish green and purple goblin costume and uses an arsenal of high-tech weapons, notably grenade-like "pumpkin bombs" and a flying "goblin glider" to terrorize New York City. Ironically, his troubled son Harry was a close friend of Peter Parker, who is secretly Spider-Man.