Island Life by David Slack

If you got your car through that stretch of highway near Maramarua over the last couple of weeks without getting hurt, congratulations. Talk about a black spot. Talk about a recurring tragedy. Talk about blunting the impact with euphemisms.

What does it mean when the news story tells us that "a vehicle crossed the centre line"? Sometimes it means they just don't know what happened. Sometimes it means they're not going to apportion any blame until the inquest. Fair enough: innocent until proven guilty; respect for the dead; foolish to rush to judgment and so on. But what it also means is that we miss something crucial. We're not spared the gruesome spectacle, but - and this is what makes the news coverage so regrettable - we're generally spared any exploration of the cause. You'll get the grim pictures at six, but your odds of hearing anything from the coroner's report a few months later are going to be slim.

Last week there was yet another crash, and for once we got a bit of plain speaking from one of the long-suffering people sorting out the wreckage. "There's nothing wrong with the road," he argued. "It's the drivers who are doing this."

Glad to hear him say so. It's a perfectly well-built stretch of highway; and each time I drive along it, I'm ready for the worst. I'm sick of tailgaters in a stream of forty cars pointlessly working their way up the queue and chancing the passing distance to do it. I'm sick of idiots who overtake on blind corners. And I'm sick of idiots who think they're armour-plated and don't know jack about driving.

I'm sure, in the strictest sense, that the guy was right: the road doesn't kill people, people kill people. But I also suspect that big, wide, well-built stretches of road near a motorway may be having a counterproductive effect. The motorway runs out, but the drivers leave the motorway still behaving as though they're on it. Meanwhile, coming from the opposite direction, as the road approaches the motorway and begins to resemble one, the drivers get the idea that they've already reached it.

I'm guessing that if you worked your way through the coroner's reports of the last five years, you'd find a range of circumstances from the unlucky to the breathtakingly foolish. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people. A moment's inattention can kill you if everything happens to go wrong. And sometimes idiots get precisely what you'd expect.

Put that together with a road that resembles the motorway it neighbours, but is demarcated solely by strips of paint (in contrast to the one at Meremere where they had the same problem until they removed all the motorway-like features, and reduced traffic to a one-lane go-slow), intersperse a few single-lane sections to impede the flow, and you have the potential for much misery.

A fair bit of this is based on supposition, I must admit. I'd like to know for sure. What do the coroners' reports of the last five years have to say? What exactly happened when vehicles "crossed the centre line"? Who was at fault, and how? Some time soon when I have a bit of spare time (and by that I mean probably April) I'm going to go looking for the reports and find out what happened. If you should happen to have some expert knowledge about this, I'd be interested to hear all about it.

Anyway, happy New Year, and all that. Went away for a holiday, came back. The book I have been writing did not magically complete itself in my absence, so it's back to the keyboard. The working title of the book is The Worried Person's Guide to New Zealand's Future, about which you can read a little here. The blogging might be a bit light for a while, but we'll see what happens.

But right now it's time for an iPod contest update. You have about three weeks left, if you want to get in on the action. To recap: just click here and nominate a memorable date in New Zealand history - and bear in mind: a quirky and obscure entry may well get you extra points. Winner gets an iPod, and the ten most prolific contributors get a Real Groovy CD voucher. I'll post a list of the ten leading contributors in the next blog.

You might be interested to know that the most frequently nominated event so far is not the Springbok tour, nor the Napier earthquake, nor the Erebus disaster, nor even Hillary's ascent of Everest. It's Neil Robert's unfortunate demise at the doors of the Wanganui computer centre. Because life is full of poignant endings, you are - naturally - reading about this courtesy of a vast computer network that probably carries more information about poor Neil and his fellow citizens than the Police computer ever did.

If you haven't had a go yet at winning an iPod, you still have a shot. I've carefully considered the requests for more time, looked at the size of the database so far, and decided that keeping the contest open until the end of January would be a good idea.

To recap: you just have to click here, nominate a memorable moment from New Zealand's history, and you're in the draw. The full details are in the post immediately below this one.

The response has been excellent, thanks, but if it's going to grow into a groaning database, we'll need a lot more yet. I'd also like to maintain the momentum, so here's what I'm going to do to keep it interesting. Everyone's in the draw to win the iPod at the end of January, but you can also go on winning after that. From February on, until people get sick of it, or the judge decides it's all got to be too much of a hassle, there'll be a prize for the best contribution of the week.

In the meantime, let's have a look at some of the good ones so far.

Blair Mulholland has boldly, but nevertheless correctly, assumed that the judge is a good sort who harbours no ill feelings, and offers the breaking of enemy lines by New Zealand troops in Operation Supercharge at El Alamein.

Chris Hobbs nominates Hillary conquering Everest because

It's a first. It can't be topped. And he also fu*ked over the Brits to do it, which is definately worth brownie points in my book

Henry Hollis suggests the visit by Mary Leavitt in 1885

She was a delegate from the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the USA, to New Zealand influencing Kate Sheppard to became a founding member of the New Zealand Women's Christian Temperance Union. Ultimately this led to Women receiving the vote decades before the US or Britain.

Stephen Walker likes Split Enz' last gig in Auckland at the Logan Campbell Centre because it was the

End of an era, really. It was great, we got stoned. What more can I say?

Anton Allen nominates, perhaps with a slight absence of respect, Two students killed drunkenly riding down Baldwin St in a wheelie bin, and speaking of absence of respect, Richie Dyer thinks we should record the day Paul Holmes called Kofi Annan a "cheeky darkie."

Matt McPhail (no relation?) points out that on Thursday, July 07, 1977 the first episode of A Week of it was broadcast on South Pacific Television.

Peter Johnston and Mike Stead clearly expect the judge to suspend his prejudice and seething contempt for a swaggering monopoly and, well, fair enough too, by nominating, respectively:
Telecom launches its Internet service, Xtra and Telecom's Launch of Mobile Broadband

All good stuff, and just a hint of the rich variety to the contributions. Well-known or obscure, they're equally welcome, and I thank you for them all.

But there's one aspect of our history that hasn't yet been mentioned in the contributions, and I'd like to make an express invitation to a lonely soul who is a regular visitor to our pages.

Web statistics can tell you only so much, but here's what we know. Each day somewhere in New Zealand - Otago perhaps - someone fires up his PC and surfs over to Google.

Who knows what's been happening in his day. He - if indeed it is a he - may be looking for a little light relief after a hard day of work at, I don't know: his abalone farm perhaps? I can't tell you for certain. It's all surmise.

What I can tell you is that with hands perhaps a little trembling and palms perhaps a little sweaty he taps the same phrase each day into Google and waits for the answer. 250 times this month alone, he has selected one particular search result, and surfed on in to Public Address. 250 times he has probably been disappointed.

I don't think we really have what he's looking for. The words he enters again and again, and the words which sit perpetually near the top of our log of search terms for Public Address, alongside "Russell" and "Brown" and "Hard" and "News", are: "Rachel" and "Hunter".

How disappointing it must be to come up, if I might put it that way, empty handed.

Well, perhaps at last we can offer some return on the investment. What's a database of memorable New Zealand moments without mention of Glenfield's most celebrated citizen? Where were you when you first saw her in that Trumpet ad? Were you at Swenson's the day she scooped her first ice cream? What was the first time - and stand by for a blatant Google pitch here - a magazine was published offering pictures of a nude Rachel Hunter?

Well mystery surfer, welcome back, and yes, it's true, you could win an iPod. Just click here, fill out a memorable moment in New Zealand history - featuring, or not - as you prefer, Rachel Hunter, and stand by. We hate to see anyone leaving here unsatisfied. Let's hope we can share the love a little wider this Christmas.

In my experience, if you have a promotion, the last thing you should be is subtle. So let me see how blunt I can get. In this blog you will find out how you can win an iPod for Christmas from your pals at Public Address. There are also CDs involved. Really. There's even a photo of the iPod to prove it, just in case you're still waiting for the punchline.

Why? Because it's Christmas, and it would be nice to offer a present to our readers because, well, I love you, man. Secondly, there's a database needs filling up.

You can thank Linda Clark's producer Amber for this. She emailed earlier this week with a question: was there a New Zealand website that listed noteworthy anniversaries and the like? Not that I could see. There's been a book or two - Max Cryer did one, apparently - and there was that TV One carry-on just before the millennium with little potted 60-second memories of simpler days when we didn't have to fret about the fridge and the microwave strangling on their chips and pegging out for the lack of two zeroes.

That brings an anniversary to mind: 2am January 1st 2000. I'm at home with our six month old baby, Karren's at work at Ports of Auckland with most of the other executive officers, all strapped to satellite mobile phones, waiting to see what the canary will do. Scenic Auckland has turned on a lovely morning for the momentous occasion. It's pouring.

So many memories. And that's the point of this exercise. I think the collective memory of our Public Address readers, and - assuming we get around to discussing this on Nine to Noon next week - Linda Clark's audience should be rich with suggestions for a list of noteworthy anniversaries.

For example: New Zealand's best day.

New Zealand's worst.

The day that saw one of us doing the smartest thing a New Zealander ever did. And the day someone (else - presumably, but not necessarily) did the dumbest.

The day the greatest outrage took place.

Most inspirational moment. Most hilarious. Most instructive. Most exciting.

Most discouraging, most moving, most staggering.

You get the idea. I think it would be good to make on online resource that pulls this together in a calendar. It's full of possibilities, but it will be nothing without a database groaning with dates and comments and recollections and insights.

I have a name for it, and I've made a little web page to enable this database to be compiled. It's called The Anniversary Project, with the subtitle, How many memorable New Zealand moments can you fit in database?

So what's in it for you? Firstly, the fun of sharing your thoughts. Secondly, and this is where I make good on the advertisement at the top of this blog, there's an iPod up for grabs. Also CDs.

I'll ask our glamorous assistant Mary-Margaret to bring it out for us.

It's mint-fresh from Dick Smith's today, and it's yours if you come up with the best suggestion. Just fill out the simple form with the memorable moment, the date it took place, and your reasons for nominating it.

And yes, there's more. If you're a student type with a bit of time on your hands right now, you could turn those research skills into hours of CD pleasure. There are ten CD vouchers from Real Groovy on offer as well, and they'll go to the ten people who contribute the most entries.

So how can you get in on this action? Click the link at the bottom of the page.

We're rewarding quantity as well as quality, so there's an opportunity for everyone here. Got to put that lefty perspective into practice whenever you can. Ulterior motives aside, this is a nice chance to say thank you. We don't have a comments thread on these pages because, as Russell has explained elsewhere, it's just too big a job to monitor. But we encourage feedback and I know we all enjoy getting it.

One of the nice things about this off-stage form of inviting blog feedback is that we get some very thoughtful email, typically with less of the glibness and sneering you get on some of the blog comments threads.

It takes me back to the earlier, more civil, days on the .nz newsgroups. People like John Shears and Andrew Llewellyn and Bart Janssen and Chris McKay regularly send me really interesting mail, and I don't imagine we'd have met up any other way than through this forum.

They'll no doubt have suggestions on useful ways to make something interesting of the the database. Some anniversaries would never be overlooked - the 25th Erebus Anniversary would have been significant, I'd say, with or without the - at times over-wrought - encouragement of the media.

We might very well pay attention to some lesser anniversaries only because someone in the media has, on occasion, found it useful to create a topic out of one, but even if it's a pretext, I still think it can be worthwhile. Perspective helps us to make sense of things. We don't seem to be especially familiar with our history, and we could do with looking back a little more.

So pull out the books, cast your mind back, and click here to get in on the action.

I don't know how ready we are to become a republic when we're still prepared to rate a King as our most successful Prime Minister of the last century. These exercises are a bit daft, really. Every Prime Minister is a creature of their time. Still, you read the list, and raise your eyebrow at the odd ranking. Number 4 seems perhaps a little bullish for the incumbent, or at the least a little early. On the other hand I'm much less inclined than David Farrar to dispute the ranking of Muldoon.

Red rag, bull. I try to avoid being reflexive about the man, but I thought he was bad at the job when he had it, and I still think so today. I remember watching the election night coverage in 1975. He told us he hoped to leave New Zealand no worse off than he found it. Bet you don't, I thought.

Nine years followed of a style of leadership that was, by turns, belligerent, divisive, cynical and vaguely desperate. In my opinion.

Boy, did he ever polarise opinion. Around our area, where I grew up, he had plenty of admirers. I don't know how many times I heard a grown-up - a farmer type typically - declare that they would only be happy to be a politician if they could be a dictator. I'd tell the buggers what to do. Unions, students, commies, bludgers - stroppy academics, nit-picking journalists. They just loved the way Muldoon put everyone in their place.

I had a fair idea that some of the teachers at our high school thought he was alright too. A couple of them threatened to resign if I were to go ahead with the speech I'd prepared for the 1977 Anzac day service that took issue with the anti-democratic direction the Prime Minister was taking. There may have been one or two personal issues involved, to be fair.

I wasn't wrong about the anti-democratic spirit though. It was a command economy, and he had both hands on the levers - PM and Finance Minister. It seems odd today that any one person could loom so large in the nation's life. For one thing, the market economy diminishes the influence; for another we have recoiled from the concentration of power in one place.

And we have less reverence for the office. I daresay you were always going to get that as the mass media brought politicians into our living rooms. Muldoon lead the charge. Even as he used the medium to dominate, he was laying the foundation for a degree of contempt that would flourish in the familiarity.

Rob's mob cheered him on as he demonised individuals, hounded others, intimidated the media and generally imposed an air that chilled dissent. Others of us were appalled. Here's just one example.

The sheer dominance of the man was reflected in the culture of the times. Brian Easton has an interesting exploration of this in a paper MULDOON IN FICTION: Politicians and Intellectuals. He writes:

This image of Muldoon as dictator is one of the icons of literature in the 1970s and early 1980s. Arguably there are at least ten contemporary novels and four plays in which a Muldoon-like character appears.

....

The burst of the political oriented writing which appears in the early eighties, tells us that something was happening about that time. The precipitating factor was surely Muldoon, perhaps magnified by the events surrounding The Tour.

In a more fundamental way the rise of the political novel in the 1970s reflects a changing national perception of politics.

With the passing of Muldoon, he asks, will there be a passing of the political despot?

Already there are politicians who have been marked as Muldoon's successor - no doubt there are more to come. One might argue that they are much less likely to become prime minister in the future. The Germans adopted MMP to prevent the rise of another Hitler. Moreover there are now examples of other styles of successful New Zealand premiers: Holyoake and Jim Bolger, since he deposed Ruth Richardson, have both been consensus, rather than populist, driven. But even if the despot cannot practice so easily, the image is unlikely to easily disappear, especially as long as "Rob's Mob" continues in some form, seeking a populist leader.

The country he left was in poor shape, and not only in an economic sense. The politics of division he practiced were bad for us all. The contempt for dissent was ugly. Rob's Mob might rank the man as a successful Prime Minister, but I like the look of the list better the way it is.

If you put your mind to it, you could find so much to fret about in this big old dangerous world you'd never poke your nose out the front door. Never mind Al Qaeda or the coming Armageddon in debt-laden America, what about the natural world around you? Take your pick: meteors, earthquakes, pandemics - they could all drop in before Christmas.

I'm an incurable optimist, but even so I've come to accept that at any moment you could look up to see a blazing ball of space real estate plummeting towards your roof. It would be entirely my luck for that to happen soon, given that we are at long last getting a new one next week.

But what can you do about it? Not a damn thing. No point in dwelling on it. Far better to fixate on the more immediate dangers. You can't, as Russell points out, even go out for a bit of live music these days without running the risk of immolation.

So let's answer the important question about the summer holidays that are (and sorry to bring up this stress-inducing fact) just 25 odd days away for many of us. The question is - and I must admit, it's probably one that only vexes a killjoy - what should a safety-minded holidaymaker be watching out for?

Your answer will no doubt be, if you're in your early twenties, and waxing your board at this very minute: "nothing".

But bear with me. I was once young like you, and I have a few war stories to prove my argument. Just the other night I was reminiscing about a skiing holiday we had at Mt Hutt in 1984. It was just after Labour had won the snap election. Great trip. Excellent skiing by day and, of an evening, the unfolding news of Muldoon getting his fingers un-prised from the PM's desk.

What you want to be watching out for on this particular type of holiday is ice on the access road. I managed three 360s before I could pound the car into the bank. This was by far the better of the two available options. The other was to take the drop off the other side of the road.

We got out to look. It had to be a couple of thousand metres of clear air before we'd have come to, shall we say, rest. I lit a smoke, got back in the car with the others and we drove on down to the Blue Pub. Laugh? We pissed ourselves.

I'm accident-prone. Various other holidays involved coming off my bike, thanks to the oversight of leaving the side-stand down. It happens. That's all I'm saying.

So assuming the worst, where might things get risky on your holidays? Well, how about your friendly bar? If you think that there won't be a stoush or two in a bar after the 10th of December over the smokefree carry-on, you're more optimistic than me.

How about this: guy lights up. Barista comes over and politely points out ban. Guy tells barista to rack off. Barista brings manager over. Manager repeats instructions. Guy repeats instructions. Manager fetches bouncer. Bouncer goes to remove guy. Guy's mates all pile in. She is all, as they say, on for young and old.

Bars are good at handling difficult situations, but the difference here is that there will surely be a few people feeling good and ready to object on principle.

I'm not saying the law will be unenforceable, and I expect you'll get acquiescence over time, but I can see a glass or two flying in the bedding down period. You might want to keep your head down.

Meanwhile outdoors, you've got another potential politically-created hazard, and that's the possibility that somebody decides to take a symbolic stand against the foreshore and seabed legislation and put up a barrier to beach access somewhere. People turn up and demand to cross the line. Push comes to shove. More glasses go flying. Again, you might have to duck.

The thing about having either or both of these sorts of things happening over summer is that it potentially keeps two pieces of contentious legislation in the media spotlight for the duration of the news-starved summer break.

Perhaps the Government takes the view that the smokefree business can serve as a kind of cats-in the-dairies diversion from the bigger, more problematic issue. Perhaps they like the idea of a fairly straightforward policy - which everyone will have an opinion on - monopolising the Christmas holiday political conversations. Better to have people debating whether the government is waving its nanny state finger at grownups than have people spending another summer talking about the foreshore and seabed and everything else that segued so nicely into the Orewa speech.

Maybe they're just working the numbers here: perhaps they expect a majority to support a hard line on the foreshore and perhaps they judge that the majority who don't smoke will have only a certain sympathy for the plight of the aggrieved minority who do.

Our family will be going to the Far North for the holidays, so we might see a bit of foreshore protest action. I don't expect we'll be dragging Mary-Margaret into many bars though, so she's unlikely to get to see many people expressing their indignation at being denied the right to - as she puts it - "blow smoke".

Other than those two, I except the summer hazards will just be the usual ones. Morons who overtake on blind corners. Morons on jetskis. Morons.

Just on the off-chance that you're planning to spend your holidays on the Amazon, or nearer to home you're considering taking kids of an impressionable age to see the new Anaconda movie and you think they might benefit from some reassurance afterwards, here's some very useful advice for cautious holiday makers.

This is absolutely the definitive word on the subject because it's, like, everywhere on the Internet and it comes from the US government peace corps manual for volunteers in the Amazon Jungle

1) If you are attacked by an anaconda, do not run. The snake is faster than you are. Don't panic. 2) Lie flat on the ground. Put your arms tight against the sides, your legs tight against one another. Don't panic. 3) Tuck your chin in. Don't panic. 4) The snake will come and begin to nudge and climb over your body. Don't panic. 5) After the snake has examined you, it will begin to swallow you from the feet and -always from the end. Permit the snake to swallow your feet and ankles. Don't panic. 6) The snake will now begin to suck your legs into its body. You must lie perfectly still. This will take a long time. Don't panic 7) When the shake has reached your knees, slowly and with as little movement as possible, take your knife and very gently slide it into the side of the snake's mouth between the edge of its mouth and your let, then suddenly rip upwards, severing the snake's head. 8) Be sure you have your knife with you at all times. Be sure your knife is sharp.

Yes, it is too good to be true. Snopes doesn't even bother telling you why, just flat out that it's false. I like it though, because it's just loaded with symbolism.

This government must surely have been feeling like the foreshore and seabed business was swallowing them whole. Perhaps by the end of summer they'll know whether their knife was sharp enough.