Speaker by Various Artists

Right.

Enough rose-tinted spectacle stuff. I mean, it’s nice but you eventually want something with an edge to it to keep you sharp. And, of course, there’s an abundance of it about:

What is it with lazy dog owners who can’t be arsed picking up their dog’s poo like the rest of us?

What’s with the attitude of jaywalkers staring you down when you almost run them over while they saunter across the road (Hell-o. Roads are for motorised vehicles and 2 tonne of steel vs 70kgs of flesh is a one-sided duel.)

Bastard drivers who run red lights. Not orange-going-on-red. RED, as in STOP. If one of those pricks hits me as I take off, I’m dead. I rather resent the possibility.

Stagecoach drivers parking their buses so the backside takes up half a lane and blocks all the traffic at peak hour. Very considerate.

Stagecoach drivers with buses discharging toxic waste into the atmosphere... and my face. In fact, any driver that discharges toxic waste because they’re too lazy/cheap/ignorant to get their car/truck/van tuned up.

People who lack the simple courtesy of “Thank You” and “Please”.

Rude drivers who refuse to let you cross into their lane so you can escape the mania of our motorways.

People who drop rubbish. The other day I say three middle-class late teens carefully place coke bottles and empty fast food bags on the steps of a CBD office building, 50 metres from a rubbish bin. That they were walking towards.

People who don’t pick rubbish up.

John Banks.

Bill English, who suggests penalising beneficiaries who don’t ensure their kids go to school but doesn’t know how many there actually are who have this problem (but it’s not really beneficiary bashing).

The National Party generally, who seem to think that the only way to beat Labour is by taking over the redneck vote from ACT and NZ First.

New Zealanders, who seem to be buying it (National support up 8% to 28% at the expense of the smaller parties).

The US Government. Did anybody else see 24 the other night? How’s this for a far-fetched scenario: A group of shadowy American oil tycoons allow a terrorist group to explode a nuke in LA so they can lay the blame on some dodgy (but in this instance, blameless) Arab states so the US invades and they take over the oil. Never happen.

And it’s my birthday today and I’m still at work.

But here’s the thing. The irritation and the laziness and the lack of responsibility and the greed and the ignorance (bliss perhaps, but no excuse) are part of the human condition. Raging against it is as futile as, well, cutting off your nose...

But I hate it. And I will fight it. And fight it and fight it. Because we can be so much better. And I will get older.

There, rant over for the day.

Deadline looms on the mag, so my day consists of chasing up ads booked, chasing up ads yet to be booked, chasing along editorial in the studio being laid up, chasing up editorial yet to be written, cleaning up the mailing list, co-ordinating with the printer, terrorising the sales team, conducting PC skills seminars with techno-illiterate staff, avoiding the database as much as possible and trying to find time to get some exercise in, walk my dog and spend time with my wife loving her.

In short -- like most people’s day. Things disappear into banal routine while I try to sort out outstanding events from the past couple of days -- without whingeing. I’ve discovered it’s incredibly difficult to remember specifics that have a positive feel to them.

There’s my ‘treat from Trinity’ Monday afternoon (Trinity is the Parnell café I frequent) -- lemon tart: unexpected, free and delightful (thanks Kimberly!). There’s the night I spent with Shelley Monday night. Zipping home with a 10kg bag of pine offcuts balanced precariously and dangerously on my lap on the Vespa, groceries and vino hanging off the carry hook on the front of the seat, cursing at meandering drivers along Jervois Rd (all the while pretending to be Italian), early for a change, and in time to cook dinner -- baked snapper fillet with oven roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic and onions liberally splashed with olive oil -- first fire of the season roaring, glass of wine ready, foot rubs and canoodling on the couch watching TV and the latest episode of 24. Perfect.

We bumped into Sue, our elderly next door neighbour, as we walked up to the dairy to get milk for coffee the next morning. Her husband of 40-odd years died recently of cancer. She’s selling up, moving on. Going to the Gold Coast to live her last days in the warmth amongst fat, bad-taste Australians (isn’t it all Sylvania Waters up there?). As we continued on, both Shelley and I had a flash into a future where one of us was left lingering after the other had gone. We stopped and held each other, our eyes welling with tears, and resolved to die within minutes of each other, holding hands. It was an intensely and pleasurably melancholic moment.

There’s Scooter, my dog, my second-best girl, though number one won’t chase sticks like Scoot (so-named before the Vespa arrived). There’s such unadulterated joy in being welcomed home by your dog, watching her skipping in unrestrained happiness. She chases sticks with enthusiasm -- literally bouncing like Tigger as she reaches them, pounds over the mudflats at Garnet Rd with abandon -- tide in or out.

The conversation on favourite movies this afternoon was another dose of pleasure. Finding another soul who enjoys film and can compare notes on Peter Greenaway, the Coen Brothers, et al. This, I believe, goes to the heart of the human condition. Not talking about movies but finding common ground with another being -- taking us out of our solipsistic perspective.

I must admit, ironically after the previous paragraph, to being thoroughly pleased with getting the Star Trek joke thrown out into the meeting and riffing off it while almost everyone else looked lost and bemused. Nothing like being in on the joke (boosts my natural feeling of superiority -- at least until I become the butt of something I’m NOT a part of... Hubris always swings into an ego-slam), but of course, is completely at odds with the shared experience thing. Go figure.

There’s the smell of fresh coffee wafting into the bathroom as I step out of the shower in the morning. The brief thrill of pretending with Shelley that we could call in sick and play in the city all day, visiting art galleries, going to the movies, shopping and drinking... coffee, wines, beers... whatever’s going.

But, no. We look at each other and laugh and kiss and say our goodbyes. Till the fire, the sofa, Scooter and home tonight.

This wasn’t going to be about John Banks. But it is, so sorry if he doesn’t hit your radar screen. He looms rather large in mine - mostly as a result of my passion for living in Auckland and the negative impact he has had on the city.

I often plunge into a pool of bracing autumn air that appears at the bottom of West End Rd in the middle of Cox’s Bay, while riding to work early in the morning on my Vespa. My Citroen blew up last year and while the scooter fits my politics, it helps me deal to Auckland’s traffic in a very efficient manner. It always surprises me and focuses my attention on the immediate, rather than the many issues I happen to be grappling with at the time.

However, I’ve usually forgotten it by the time I hit Jervois Rd where I have to deal with fume-belching 4-wheel drives and half asleep people in questionable control of semi-guided vehicular missiles (everyone is an enemy on the road when you ride a scooter). There, issues resurface to compete for attention with Stagecoach buses that will squash a slow-moving impudent Vespa rider, given half a chance (not that I’m slow-moving). The bigger questions always get forced to the rear by buses and crises I’m in the middle of solving.

In my personal life, work is booming but there’s the constant fear that I’ll fail to master the challenge I’ve recently undertaken - to turn around an underperforming magazine - yet I’m relishing the task which presents issues to solve on a daily (sometimes half-hourly) basis and I’m feeling at the top of my game.

There’s an inevitable house extension in the planning if children are to eventuate (a 60m² ex-State duplex is not a viable option - and I don’t care if they do it in other countries), which will stretch budgets but also brings excitement and creative expression at an intensely personal level - into my nest, my retreat, my HOME!

The prospect of producing offspring, apart from the immediate and (we’re anticipating) shattering change in lifestyle, is full of the expectation of joy, but I experience anxiety attacks about losing my dog - how the hell am I going to live with the possibility of losing my child?

Age is bringing a noticeable decline in physical robustness and resilience, yet I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own skin (flabbier as it is) and more in control of my life.

And, something I never thought I’d ever admit, I almost agreed with a reported comment made by John Banks yesterday morning.

The Mayor told the National Party conference that if they fix Auckland’s problems, they’d fix the nation’s (and their own).

But what are those problems? Everyone is bemoaning the traffic and its cost to the economy (get a scooter). However, I have yet to visit any city of a size comparable to Auckland that doesn’t suffer from this problem. Of the two cities I know who are tackling the issue with creative solutions - London and Portland - London’s approach has only just been introduced and Christine Fletcher was pushing for Portland’s, which inevitably means the current council won’t. And while taxes are always an easy option, more motorways for poorly maintained Stagecoach buses remains the focus of Banks et al.

Auckland has suffered from years of insufficient investment in infrastructure. So has the rest of the country. But is that a central government role or a result of poor governance at a local government level? In Auckland’s case, at least, I would suggest the latter. I know a consultant to the City Council who now refuses to let his children swim in the harbour. Bollocks to the old ‘No Poo in Piha’ campaign - how about ‘No heavy metals at Mission Bay’?

Pollution, then? Sorry - can’t see the party of free enterprise worrying about poorly tuned Japanese imports and SUVs (American for 4-wheel drives) spewing diesel and petrol fumes into the atmosphere. There’s bound to be a market solution there somewhere (and the Segway won’t be it as no-one will be able to afford it here and who wants to ride one when it rains in Auckland, anyway?).

The only other real issue I can think of is Poverty (other than too much poor coffee being served). Here, at least, is an issue that can be addressed by central government (Poverty not coffee, tho they may have a better chance of success with the java issue).

However, the National party’s response (seemingly, along with ACT’s, and perhaps this is part of the problem) - reduce taxes and get businesses working better and everyone will be better off, begs the question - why didn’t it work last time, fellas?

It just doesn’t seem likely that addressing poor education, poor health and crime effectively - each one the progeny of poverty - is to be sourced from the party that has exacerbated the problem so much over the past 20 years.

So, as with most comments made by the Mayor, it’s pretty much a load of bollocks under close examination. He may be keeping a lower profile these days - no-one has been jailed for speaking at a Council meeting lately - but there are those of us who have not forgotten.

Dammit - a guy just shambled in and puked on the floor of the bar, rudely interrupting yet another blog about taxis and how crap they are (let alone their drivers - sheesh!).

I dunno where he came from, because there aren't any other bars within cooee; it's possible he's just been spat out of the 80s, dropped off at the kerb by a Back To The Future-type De Lorean time machine, dressed like that, all salmon shorts and Keith Haring-print short-sleeved rayon shirt and Huey Lewis hair - and, after all, the 80s was famous for drinking till you spew. I should know, I was there.

Anyway. He's tottered in to our unassuming after-work watering hole like the self-soiling octogenarian he'll become in a few years if he keeps drinking like this, looked sadly at the bar staff like a toddler who's just cut teddy's head off with mum's best scissors, and eructated liquidly all down his best tropical gear. And you know what? He's not old and doddery and Asian. He's young, he's a whitey, and he's way outta line. It's only 8.30. People in Singapore don't start vomiting in bars until well after 11 (it's called 'doing a Merlion'), and then at least they do it into the plastic bags supplied by the staff. Oh, wait, yes, instead of throwing things at him and kicking him out the door, they're bringing him a plastic bag. And yes, he's filled it... and yes, he's offering it back to them. How polite.

And how odd. Funny thing is, Pete and Huw and I were sitting here just moments ago comparing fight-in-bar-in-Singapore stories. Pete's got one, Huw's got none, and mine isn't set in a bar, but at a kind of Opera in the Park thing. Now, we've been here three years each, and we drink a lot. And being the tropics, where people get hot and bothered and, well, go 'troppo', you might expect more in the way of shit hitting the innumerable fans that dot our wee Lion City's bars and pubs, especially considering the drink-all-you-can't promos ("Ladies Free All Night!"). But no.

Apart from the aforementioned erstwhile altercation one balmy evening in Fort Canning Park between a drunk fat American and his giant imaginary adversary, I did once see three guys sprinting down the road to see who sideswiped their car, on an alley behind Boat Quay that reminds me of somewhere near Fort Street; I was all excited by the energy for a minute, until the sideswiper came back around the block and turned himself in.

Another blog I've written (but am still mulling over) discusses the same thing, couched in terms of music and censorship, rebellion and creativity. Fact of the matter is, there's not a lot of passion in this place. My ranty blogs are always interrupted by me thinking "jeez, Greg, you're working hard to make this sound interesting - you might even be making some of this up". I wonder what it is: the heat, the simplistic lifestyle (shop, talk about mobile phone, shop), or the stories about how the Gurkhas deal with urban unrest. Whatever it is, sometimes I feel like I live in Disneyland, and writing a blog a week about a place like that would be pretty damn tough: "Goofy accidentally bumped into Mickey in Fantasyland the other day. The papers went off their nuts!" William Gibson summed it up pretty damn well - but only once (and Wired was banned for years as a result). Come and have another go, you Sci Fi wuss; I'm sure you can sneak a reference to how groovy and weird Singapore is into your next book about media manipulation...

Perhaps I'm being a little unfair. Although I am genially confused that the poor old incompetent, epileptic taxi drivers aren't removed from the gene pool at a higher rate - lord only knows how many times I've made that throttling-lunge motion from the back seat, only to be thrown off balance by my oblivious chauffeur having yet another improbably brutal stab at the gas pedal - I must admit there are some genuine horror stories, many of which can be ogled here. This morning's newspaper had two stories about parang attacks and one murder at the delightful Four Floors of Whores. An Australian was knifed for being a drunken bastard at Newton Circus, a genuine microcosm and popular late-night venue for fringe dwellers (hence the sobriquet Mutant Circus). And then there was the very vicious and altogether urban myth-worthy Michael MacRae double homicide last year. Ick. But apart from the ones that were always going to happen, no matter where the protagonists protagonised, I'd come to believe that around here if you don't go looking for it, you'd never ever ever find it.

Until tonight. 80s Neon Vomit Guy has left, but Angry Fighty Pool Table Guy is still here. The discussion about bar fights was kicked off by an encounter with this sad old wanker and his empty life a bit earlier: he accused me and Pete of indulging in girly conversation instead of banging balls with sticks - at 8.15pm, no less. We'd been out of the office for ten minutes after a fairly intense day and I wanted nothing more than to pull out my effector beam gun and erase him for annoying me into rolling my eyes until I sprained one of them, but Pete stepped in and informed him graciously that we were, clearly, humans and that he, Mr Angry, could talk to us about the situation if he felt there was a situation developing in the first place. Mr Angry really wanted to discuss something with somebody; it was a tense little moment (although the tension was on Mr Angry's side; we were just politely confused) and as I stood there, beer in hand, seconds from a bar fight for the first time in years, I thought to myself that at moments like these, perhaps I don't miss silly old Auckland at all. Now that's fighting talk...

Sorry I'm late. I got most of the way through a long, involved and actually very funny blog about Singapore taxis and how they suck, before I realised it sounded really rather spoilt and vacuous. I'm sure it'll be fine for next week, but for now, here I am, six hours from dawn parade, wondering how the world works.

I've just returned from Boys' Night, the weekly sanatorium of like-minded antipodean and not-so-antipodean blokes gathering round a couple of beers and a stick of satay. And while we were sitting there bemoaning the social skills of Singaporeans, US foreign policy, the boy-racer wheels on Graeme's new BMW, Wayne's lack of dog-avoidance skills while riding on Batam last weekend and whether the pope still has his goolies fondled by a cardinal before taking the pontifical throne, I had a vaguely epiphanic feeling that I really really liked these guys.

I put it down to my overly emotional nature (I'm one of those creative types), the proximity to Anzac Day, and the fact that one of the topics of conversation was how the Cricket Club was handling the dispensation of money raised following the bomb in Bali, which killed eight of 17 SCC rugby players. (Apparently it's being handled badly; a sad fact of life for much post-anguish fundraising).

So there I was, sitting with this crew of adventurers, all of us far from what used to be home, all of us having become friends while in a country other than our own, talking about how to handle proceedings following the death of a friend, and I came over all very Band of Brothers. I felt protective of and protected by this motley bunch of kiwis and poms. And I wondered, if it really came down to it, just how far I'd go (and how far I'd have to go) to protect a way of life that involves this much laughter and consideration and discovery and intelligent debate, and self-deprecating humour of such high quality.

I'm wondering, because tomorrow is Anzac Day. Apart from the people killed during the abortive battle for Singapore, nearly 20,000 Allied men died in captivity here during WWII. And yet here I am, free as I want to be, sweating under a jackfruit tree, drinking San Miguel, and as I look around the table and wonder, as someone who feels bad and sad even just killing a fish, what level of sacrifice would be required should the shit ever really hit the fan, I feel very confused.

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Anzac Day. I go to Dawn Parade with Chuck and Simon. We follow the Australian High Commissioner up the Bukit Timah expressway past the site of the fight that killed the founder of the Hash House Harriers. He's late so we're flying and when we get there it's warm and still and the Malay pipers sound much further away than they are. I'm wearing a suit for the first time in six months, and Simon hasn't been to bed yet. Small sacrifices compared to those of the guys who are buried under our feet.

There's a small gathering of Australasians and representatives. Someone's invited the Turks, but not the Japanese. Perhaps the Turks are good old blokes who were just doing a job, like our guys, while the Japanese are mad. My Nana used to think so; Mum says she kept an axe behind the door in case the buggers ever turned up while Pa was knee-deep in leeches in the Solomons. Still, she seemed to accept our whole bunch of grandkids studying Japanese and even moving to Tokyo for a while. (While there, Vanessa and I stayed with an elderly couple who were unimpressed when I came home one day and announced I'd eaten a fried cricket for lunch; old Mitsuo remembered the war and how poor Japan was – they had to eat bugs to survive, and I was just thinking it was wacky. Later that evening he broke down in tears while talking about Pearl Harbor, asserting that Japan would "never, never, never" attack unannounced: "We are honourable warriors! We expect to die!").

The light slowly arrives, as do my senses. I take in the white-suited sailors laying wreaths, and plain-suited others do too. And here's where the confusion really gets me: there's a Defence Secretary, a couple of Defence Advisors, even a Minister for Defence. Where are the Offence people? The ones who start all this shit that kills all these brothers and friends and lovers and sons and cousins and husbands and neighbours and workmates? I'd like to talk to them. Perhaps they could help me understand.