“The way I see it is it’s going to be on my bum and it is something I can look back on in the future and remember this point in my life.” Tina Beznec*

To see this new pointille ink work she certainly will be looking back for anatomical reasons, but she’s obviously looking forward to the money.   Kiwi Tina Beznec, 23, the bees knees in her own estimation-and if we haven’t got self-esteem what have we got?-has taken the TradeMe site rather literally to create the online auction “YOUR Tattoo on my Bum!!”.

Tastefully the auctioned tattoo will be no bigger than 9cm by 9cm and the winner can watch it being done on January 21, the day after the auction closes. Tina may not know that this is appropriately the anniversary of both the end of the Battle of the Bulge in 1945 and of the release of Hitchcock’s movie “Rear Window” in 1954, which featured that other star Grace Kelly.

If not quite as long lasting as Warhol’s predicted fifteen minutes of fame for each and every one of us, Tina’s tat is good for a good five minutes-with at least five more to come as the auction countdown proceeds.

A Class Act?
As all entrepreneurs know there are always nay sayers. Tina’s  scheme seems to some a cheeky-even tatty-way of making some money. “Class. Some people just don’t have it,” one jealous dompost.co.nz reader harrumphed; but there are no signs yet of the market bottoming out. Bidding reached the reserve price of $10,000 some days ago.

The Tattooed Lady* is already sporting five tiny Tina tattoos from her amateur days, but if  the auction really pays off, and signs are obviously promising,  with respect to her skinflint critics and with true Christian forbearance, she can simply turn the other cheek.

Many thought  pioneers proceed from a priori  principles; Tina’s approach is definitely a posteriori. It has already triggered copy cat tat on-line auctions. Other bodily parts and appendages will feature in the emerging epidermal epidemic.

 With only finite amounts of cute cutical real estate available it is obvious that the plumper the skin donor the better, if you get the point. This meshes in nicely with the country’s obesity trend. We don’t want any skinny dipping in our 100% pure and pristine waterways, thank you. 

If we can’t bridge the wages gulf vis a vis Australia let’s have a good shot at filling the gap domestically. We’ve had an overdose of trickle down economics: here’s to a bottom up approach. Bottoms up!

Possible Tats?
The serious bidders all appear to be businesses or advertising agencies. I can now reveal that the following logos and slogans are in hot contention:

Behind with your payments?  See us first.    (Picture of red bank statement) Joe’s Loans

Óur cars don’t cost an arm and a leg. (Picture of black old dunger)  Gerry’s Cars

Diamonds and tattoos are forever . (Picture of tatooed diamond). De Beer Consolidated Mines Ltd

It will be very tasteful. Yeah right!  (Picture of two tuis) Tui (De Other Beer)

You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine. (Picture of dumbbelle)  Charles Atlas

Toilers in Agriculture! Strengthen the fodder basis of animal husbandry! Raise the production and sale to the state of meat milk eggs wool and other products! (Picture of  hammer and sickle)    Communist Party Soviet Union (in temporary recess).

My bottoms are tops (Picture of 9cm by 9cm label)  Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans

The next big thing. (Picture of device)  iPod mini

Just do it up.   (Picture of crosstrainer lace) Nike

*BLINKS
http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/6246024/Bidders-vie-to-tattoo-womans-bottom
The Kingston Trio – The Tattooed Lady – YouTube     Stringing people along-a great old song! Vid

#Lyall Lukey 18 January 2012
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
http://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/ My other (bit more serious) blog 

“The revolution is carried out by means of one’s thought, not through one’s family background.”  Kim Jong-il

It’s all in the mind? That’s all right then. No fear of a family dynasty in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, unlike in the United States with those neocolonial Bushes.

When Kim Jong-il, the dearly departed Dear Leader of North Korea, was rattling his nuclear sabre Jon Stewart said “now the security of the world is threatened by Kim Jong-il, a nerdy, pompadoured, platform shoe-wearer who looks like something you’d put on the end of your child’s pencil.”

If Stewart had made his graphic graphite comment in North Korea he would have been quickly rubbed out.  Now, for those far enough away, there’s an inviting new Juche target for ridicule. ( “Juche” as in”independent stand” or “spirit of self-reliance” or “always putting Korean things first”, though it could also be rendered as “homegrown propaganda”). Of course it’s not just Juche which keeps the Republic frozen in time. Fear of the State and the State’s suspicion of anything new are the parallel paralysing emotions.

Making even quicker promotion than David Shearer , the young ‘un Kim Jong-un is now supreme leader of the ruling party, military and people-the top table trifecta. The new and inexperienced leader had less than two years apprenticeship; his father had been groomed for two decades and led his 24 million people with absolute rule for 17 years after taking power following the 1994 death of his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung*. 

Good grief?
As Kim Jong-il’s funeral wound its way interminably behind a jumbo size photo of the latest late president the frozen citizenry of Pyongyang were outdoing each other in grief expression, but sorely in need of method acting lessons. Ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam  told a sea of people in the main plaza in Pyongyang that Kim Jong-un inherits his father’s “ideology, character and revolutionary cause’ but this was cold comfort.*

2012 was supposed to mark North Korea’s self-proclaimed transformation into a “strong and prosperous” nation, but it faces a tricky transition to a young, untested leader at a time when dictatorships across the world have shaken and fallen.

From Here to Eternity
While his grandfather is the only and Eternal President-no two terms and you’re out in his case-Kim Jong-un is first on the Party List of 232 names.

The DPRK List makes a New Zealand political party list like the batting order for a Boxing Day family cricket match.  Political news video watchers and terrain spotters could spot the hierarchical ducks lined up in a choreographed row at the funeral, which went into extra time.

Close by on the funeral march and one of the  real powers behind the throne was his uncle former harmonica player Chang Sung Taek.  Can he play “Bring Me Sunshine”? He may need to. Chang has got a tricky job orchestrating the harmonics of the Army Band but there a lot of people invested in the status quo who won’t want to see even an Arab Autumn in their part of the globe. Behind his uncle was his aunt Kim Kyong Hui and behind her Vice-Marshall Ri Yong Ho.

With Kim Il Sung, the country’s first and only president Kim Jong Il held three main positions: chairman of the National Defence Commission, general secretary of the Workers’ Party and supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army. According to the constitution, his position as chairman of the National Defence Commission made him Supreme Leader of North Korea.

Kim Jong Un was made a four-star general  out of the blue last year. Since his father’s death his meteoric rise has accelerated. He has picked up major titles from officials, state media and today the army: Great Successor, Supreme Leader, Great Leader and now Supreme Commander. The power transition has been smooth and fast.

Bouffant Buffer State
North Korea is a classic buffer state, formed in 1948 after the division of the former country of Korea at 38° N as part of the unfinished business of World War II. It is bounded on the north by China, on the northeast by Russian Siberia, on the east by the Sea of Japan and on the south by South Korea. Big powers will be big powers and the state is a prisoner of its geography.

The new ruler looks like a young but plumper Mao about to begin a long lunch not a long march.* His eldest brother lost brownie points years ago after a visit to Disneyland in Japan, rather a sane land in comparison to his homeland, but Kim Jong-un has the hereditary haircut required to rule the bouffant buffer state. 

The oxymoronic hereditary Communist despot was photographed at Wednesday’s funeral with a mystery woman looking over shoulder.  Apparently she may be his wife and may be the mother of his child, possibly via a virgin birth-a recently published poster of a younger new Korean Messiah with his youthful and taller parents had post nativity overtones*.

Dynastic despots catch their myths where they can. North Korean children are taught that, when Kim was born in February 1941, spring suddenly broke out and a shower of rainbows instantly appeared in the sky. The pot of gold has been close at his hand for most of the last two decades. He was indeed Dear Leader-at times a very Dear Leader. In the nineties he didn’t bother to to scotch the rumour that he was the world’s biggest buyer of Hennessy. He was reputed to also import German cars, Czech beer, Uzbekistani caviar and Swedish models (not Volvos) while millions of North Koreans died from starvation under his rule.

Fishy
But he was also a very generous leader and should take a final bow, according to his Chief Mythologiser, who reported that the late Kim’s last gift to North Korea was extra loads of fish which he organized personally just before the final curtain.*  They don’t leave it to the market in North Korea. The Chinese Proverb attributed to Lao Tzu, 6th century BC and appropriated by Chairman Mao Zedong: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. The Late Leader could have gone a little further: “Give the populace some extra fish when the chips are down and feed them some more propaganda and you’ve got them for life.”

Ace Golfer
Kim was not only a great philanthropist, he was a pretty good rooky golfer. According to official North Korean sources, but strangely absent from the Guinness BoR, the diminutive driver shot a 34 first time up on a championship, par-72 course. He drilled home 11 holes-in-one in his not bad 38-under round, witnessed by 17 of his bodyguards. Was there a translation malfunction? Was it actually one hole in eleven?  Apparently not. The ace golfer is to golf what Mao was to swimming. If he hadn’t hung up his golf bag soon after his debut he would have soon had Tiger by the tail.

Unwired
One of his real quotes was revealing:“I’m an Internet expert too. It’s all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired.” No Arab Spring or even an Arab Autumn here. North Korea has plenty of cells but not too many cellphones. Cyberspace exploration hasn’t got off the ground outside the military/industrial space. China’s clamp down on digital dissent among its half a billion users on line is an object lesson to its neighbor.  People in the DPRK are kept in the DARK- in line not on line . 

North Korea is a warfare state-the welfare of its people comes second to military survival. There is no question that it possesses the WMD so elusive in Iraq but its saving grace may be that it is not an oil oligarchy  As Jay Leno said under the previous presidency: “President Bush said today we should be patient with North Korea and use diplomacy and not rush into any kind of military actions. You know what that means? No oil over there.”

Kiwi Connection
I recall as a child in the early fifties that film newsreels were dominated by ominous black and white images of the Korean War. The Korean War began in 1950, when North Korean forces invaded South Korea. Supplied by the Soviets, and eventually joined by the Chinese, North Korea fought forces of South Korea and the United Nations, including New Zealand. It was a real test of the fledgling world body of which New Zealand’s Prime Minister Fraser had been a prime mover and a spokesman for smaller nations.

End of the Fairy Tale?
At the fag end of 2011, is time also running out for one of the most closed and repressive regimes on Earth, with endemic food shortages and a deteriorating economy? Despite his Swiss education the “pudgy princeling”is not likely to do a Snow White and awaken the population in the hermetically sealed hermit state to the new world which surrounds them, despite the fact that, if they dare, North Koreans can look over the borders North and South to more prosperous-and taller-people practicing different forms of capitalism.

Grim realities remain for Kim Jong-un. He’s inherited the magic mirror of his narcissistic father Kim Jong-il  (jon•quil- Narcissus jonquilla) and been given a poisoned apple.  He’ll quickly be measured up for a glass coffin if he doesn’t measure up. 

But so far so good, at least from his point of view. He and those around him have quickly built a new power platform without either platform shoes or dark glases. He will have to do something about that hair though.

 *Blinks
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/6195855/N-Korea-to-farewell-Dear-Leader
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/6188282/Kims-last-gift-to-North-Korea-loads-of-fish
 Are you the Kim Jong Il of your company?

#Lyall Lukey 31 December 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
http://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/ My other (bit more serious) blog 

“…There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TG: Aye.
MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank….” Four Yorkshiremen Sketch  Monty Python*

The broken Christ Church Cathedral is not so High Church after its spire toppled in the February 22 quake. At least the proposed temporary substitute won’t be under wraps in a brown paper bag; it will be the full Monty Python if proponents have their way. The proposal for a 10 year-“cardboard cathedral”, designed by world-renowned Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, was unveiled in August*.

His Big Ban Theory has set the cat among the pigeons in The Square.  A cathedral is the principal church of a diocese, containing the bishop’s throne, cathedra  Latin for “chair.” Cathedrals are usually large and imposing-think of Chartres; Notre Dame de Paris; and St. Paul’s Cathedral. The building of a cathedral, especially in the Middle Ages, was a project in which the entire town took part. The citizenry of Christchurch is pretty keen to have a say about “their” Cathedral, temporary or permanent.

Cathedral Aspirations
Cathedrals are divinely aspirational, but is a spire rational in the 21^st century?  Some see Cathedrals as remnants of an earlier ecclesiastical hierarchy, though in recent times the activities in Christ Church Cathedral have been accessible to a wide range of people and sometimes even daringly secular, witness the invitation for Helen Clark to speak.

This week the cathedral was placed on the new CERA list of buildings identified due for total or partial demolition. What to do? To partially demolish, repair and reinstate if that is possible?  To rebuild a hybrid stone structure with a wooden spire, as advocated by one enthusiast. Or to start again from ground zero and build a new building with strong, lightweight materials, employing new green technologies and a more functional approach to meeting modern meeting needs in a re-greened Cathedral Square as the centerpiece of the Central City Plan signed off yesterday by the Christchurch City Council?

Schist Schism?
There are all the ingredients of a typical parochial Christchurch stoush diocese wide. Cathedral Dean Peter Beck, who resigned last week to seek a city council seat in a by-election, had hoped to find a site for the Cardboard Cathedral and complete the project in time for the first anniversary of the February quake for a tab of $4 million.

As The Press points out, from the moment the Dean emerged dazed and dusty from the ruins of the cathedral on February 22, he has worked assiduously to provide spiritual and material sustenance and substance for the bloodied city. His forte was building links between the church and the community.

However, C.C.C. staff, while not quite banning the Ban, have recommended to the Council that a cardboard cathedral not be funded publicly nor sited on public land-and certainly not on the proposed venue in sacrosanct Hagley Park*. Otherwise what next? A cardboard motorway through the park to speed up motorized pilgrimages?

The Ban design looks stunning but what else is on the cards? Cardinals to speed up C. of E. and  Roman Catholic rapprochement? Priests in paper cassocks dispensing Chateau Cardboard at communion?  Cardboard congregation cutouts to paper over the cracks in the church, real and metaphorical?

What are the really long term questions and answers to do with the demolition and rebuild of the Cathedral? It’s time for some clear  ex cathedra utterances from the Bishop about the state of Christ Church Cathedral. We accept they will not be infallible.

Overseas letters to the Editor writers are leading the charge to save it, if, indeed, that’s possible: Bruce Whiteside-Gold Coast  “…the Cathedral imposed the image that said ‘this is the city of Christchurch.”  But is it the image we now want to project to ourselves and the world as we complete the first year of the second decade of the third millennium?

Natural break from colonial past? 
University of Canterbury Historian Dr Katie Pickles caused a neo gothic seismic shudder of horror last April when she argued that the lethal February 22 quake offered the opportunity of a natural break from our colonial past.

She argued that the damaged statues of early Canterbury leaders are symbolic of the end of a colonial era in Christchurch. “In getting back up, regrouping and rebuilding after the earthquakes, it is important to recognise that the city has literally broken free from the past once and for all. February 22 is our postcolonial moment. There is much to be proud of in Christchurch’s history, but it is now time to carefully and clearly move on from a colonial history that was already well on its way out before the earth moved.”*

Metropolitan Miasma
As Pickles points out, pioneer surveyors were aware that the swampy nature of coastal Canterbury was unsuited to urban development. The site chosen was the first reasonably dry and slightly elevated area handy to the limits of boat navigation on the Heathcote and Avon rivers. Geology had only just been invented as a discipline and understandably Canterbury’s colonists were unaware of the pitfalls of seismically induced liquefaction. They optimistically believed that nature could be tamed into a garden.

And so Christchurch became “the city on the swamp”, with all its attendant problems of ill health, smog, and difficulties with drainage. The current Council’s vision of “a city in a garden” sounds a little better but doesn’t alter the swampy subterranean realities.

Rev. John Raven, Canon of (the then yet to be built) Christ Church Cathedral-arrived at Port Cooper on Feb 2, 1853. Finding the cathedral’s foundations had not yet been laid he quit the church and, as a loose canon,  tried his hand at sheepfarming, a flock of a different hue, and returned to England 23 years later, having penned these words about waterlogged Christchurch in a longer poem:

“Land where men with brains of fog  Built a city on a bog!…”

Outside the Square
Here’s a literally lateral thinking suggestion I received some time ago from a sometime Anglican with an eclectic perspective. She suggests the following:  ”The Anglican Cathedral moves out to a spare sports stadium where it can expand to hold Anglican congregations from all the damaged churches. In the Square, a sports field grassed over, with maybe a roof like the new one in Dunedin.This field would host games where the players ran with round balls under their arms, except female players who would bounce the ball as they ran. There would be scrums, then shooters would kick the balls into   football nets or put it through  hoops  just as the spirit moved them.(Perhaps using the Square’s controversial Chalice).
The hoops would be guarded by tall females and the nets by short males who can use hockey sticks if they want. This game would be commented on loudly by sports commentators using incomprehensible terms and the proceedings could be shown on large screens so that all the congregation could feel involved….”

She may have something. There is, as we all know, a close link between religion and rugby. For many Kiwis the two are indistinguishable, especially in the not quite expired 2011 AD, the year of our sponsor, ADIDAS, with the recently completed quest for the gold RWC Chalice, or at least one of its replicas.

This hand to hand team combat dates back to time immemorial, to 1987 in the year of Our Roger. It occurs on a triennial cycle- a bit more frequently than the decadal Passion Play performed since 1634 as a tradition by the inhabitants of the village of Oberammergau in Germany. 

The RWC Uberammagau has basically the same theme, with All Black rugby coaches being crucified because they haven’t won the RWC. There was a surprising exception in 2007 which caused a schism in our national Holy Rugby Union and led to Deans being exiled to minister to the heathen Ockers, but this was just a prelude to the recent glorification of the coaching grandfather, son and the holy host of players, in the wake of a second finals victory finally.

Big Bang Theory
This all goes to show that God does indeed move in mysterious ways. Here’s what could be earth shaking-indeed cosmic shaping-evidence. Only this week scientists say they have found signs of the “God Particle”. This is Higgs boson, an elementary sub-atomic particle believed to have played a vital role in the creation of the universe after the Big Bang.  Scientists at the CERN physics research centre near Geneva where they have tried to find traces of the elusive boson by smashing particles together at near light-speed in the Large Hadron Collider*.

It’s all a bit like civic debates in Christchurch but more civil, but spot the physics affinity between cardboard and particle board. Maybe the cardboard cathedral champions do have God on their side, on the inside. Which I suppose is pretty much the story of Christ Emmanuel at this time of the year.

Perhaps they could have a quiet word about all this seismic business while they’re in touch.

Merry Christmas and a less shaky New Year!

 *Blinks
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/4863323/A-natural-break-from-our-colonial-past 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/6121027/Division-over-Christchurchs-cathedral
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/6105345/4m-cardboard-cathedral-opposed
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/5367285/Design-of-cardboard-cathedral-unveiled 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/6135913/Excited-scientists-find-signs-of-elusive-God-particle 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo 
http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/jokes/monty-python-four-yorkshiremen.html  Cardboard box sketch-script
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo  Monty Python – Four Yorkshiremen Vid
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/5367285/Design-of-cardboard-cathedral-unveiled

#Lyall Lukey 17 Dec 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
http://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/ My other (bit more serious) blog 

 “In between posing for photos [PM John] Key tried on some free aftershave, swapped capital gains tax jokes…and told a crowd his wife, Bronagh, was better than him at Trivial Pursuit…” Press 23/11/11

He’s still not a bad second-but he won’t be second come tomorrow night.  Luckily elections are about credibility-not what is said, but who said it and how they said it.  Even though Labour Leader Phil Goff finished strongly in the last two TV main leaders debates and boosted his credibility both inside the Party and outside it, there was not too much serious debate on policy issues. The two most controversial National policies-partial asset sales of a few state owned enterprises and education were released either very early in the piece or very late.

But tomorrow we’re not just voting for the government-or at least for the jigsaw pieces that may comprise it-but also for the way we vote. The important MMP referendum has been overshadowed by urgent election politicking.

If there were a Polls Tax it would be a great revenue earner. A recent Herald poll shows that more than half want to keep MMP but only an eighth claim to “fully understand” how each of the alternative systems work.

Has the Election Worm turned? Will the election, like the Rugby World Cup Final, be a closer run affair than anyone predicted three weeks out in terms of coalition options if National doesn’t have the numbers to govern alone, which is, of course, a very First Past the Post position.

Not since the Boston Tea Party, the Mad Hatters Tea Party or the American Republican Tea Party has there been such an extreme weather event in a coffee cup (as the permissible soundless video footage at the Urban Café indicated) as the tea for two chacha involving the two Johns. They may have been jowl to jowl rather than cheek to cheek, but we won’t know what they were discussing until the Hotwatergate Tape is eventually made public one way or another post election. Perhaps they were talking about forming a new G&T Party to fill a post ACT III void. That’s what National needs by 2014 as a genuine coalition partner long term.

The media event was all a bit strained and had the unintended consequence of infusing rather more life into Winston Peter’s resurrection crusade than John Bank’s, but the transfusion still may be just enough to get him over the line in Epsom. The apparently defunct Peter’s Principle was kick started back into life by the CPR publicity jolt that came not a moment too soon if New Zealand First was going to last the distance this time around. It appears to be on a fast sprint to the line.

 Epsom National voters planning to vote tactically on the day probably wouldn’t self-disclose to pollsters.  Enough  National  supporters will still stoop to conquer by voting not for National’s Goldsmith but for ACT’s ring-in and lifeline Banks.  John Key may well need the former National Cabinet Minister as well as the perennial Peter Dunne to form a Coalition government.

The demise of perky Rodney Hide at the hands of then non ACT member and “old friend”-who needs enemies-Don Brash didn’t go down well in some ACT circles, which is what the party has been going in ever since.  Don dropped Rodney Hide like Rodney dropped dance partner Krystal Stuart live on national television, except the latter was an accident, the former coldly calculated.  Even Hitler joined the German Workers Party first and paid his sub before taking it over.

MMP does trigger some strange political behavior, which is why some critics maintain that the initials really stand for Mickey Mouse Politics. Under First Past the Post, the brilliance of the English Constitutional tradition was demonstrated.  Members of “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition”,  an inprobably workable oxymoron which always provided a  government in waiting, were paid by the state to oppose the government of the day and keep them honest. Elsewhere they would have been hanged or shot.

Proportionality is all very fine in proportion, but the complexities of the extreme version, MMP, elude the false statistical precision of poll decimal point percentages. This election will be more interesting than looked only a few short weeks ago. Like the Rugby World Cup Final it will be closer in a number of ways than many may have thought in terms not of party vote ratios but of possible coalition permutations.

Despite their virtual invisibilty in the polls, will a  late run by the fledging Conservative Party, bolstered by their last week targetted letters and fliers, mop up some erstwhile ACT voters and others and act as a spoiler as well as a foundation for the future on the centre right?.  If so they should fly next election.

The major long term  outcome of this election-whether National can govern alone or whether it needs a ragtag bunch of coalition “partners”  to form a second National-led Government -could be that the Greens emerge as a big playmaker next election. In 2014 the Greens may be able  to stitch together a rainbow coalition, with Labour’s rump and New Zealand First, to prevent John Key making it three in a row.

This would raise even more concerns about the MMP process, too late to have any effect on tomorrow’s under the radar MMP referendum.

However,  by then Colin Craig’s Conservative Party may turn out to be no mere trivial pursuit and crucial to National’s longevity.

*Blinks
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5991548/Tea-tape-frenzy-goes-global  http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/campaign-trail/5994134/Voters-want-policy-back-in-election-talk 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/campaign-trail/6000203/Surprise-poll-results-no-shock-for-a-defiant-Winston

#Lyall Lukey 25 Nov 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
https://lukeyslearnings.wordpress.com My other more serious blog

“You know they can shock us, they have done it in past World Cups and the boys just have to really understand that.”

Can you imagine the disbelief on the faces of the winning All Blacks if, as the final whistle blew at the 1987 Rugby World Cup final, a defeated French rugby player had fired one last shot: “24 more years mes enfants!”

 To remind us how long ago that was, other 1987 markers include PM David Lange’s famous cup of tea, the October Share market crash and, with life imitating art, Michael Douglas winning Best Actor at the ’87 Academy Awards for Wall Street.

A generation later the pursuit of Rugby’s Holy Chalice, manifest in a veritable Holy Trinity of trophies, has returned to Eden Park, a venue bulked up these days like the All Blacks ready to run out to do battle in the Rugby World Cup Final.

And a stoush it could well be, with talk of key ABs being targeted so they are less than able bodied. Former French rugby skipper and coach Pierre Berbizier once said “If you can’t take a punch, you should play table tennis.” The punches have been verbal all week in the lead up to, with few being pulled, but they’ll be for real tonight and there is still time for the tables to be turned.

The TAB bills the game The Consistent v the Unpredicable and this is what will make it a great occasion. There is nothing like the frisson of a big game involving France and New Zealand.

If you really want a French lesson from last RWC to raise your anxiety levels look at the video highlights below of the French comeback against New Zealand in the RWC 2007 quarter final after being 13 points in deficit.*

Every RWC the All Blacks must be sick of well meaning advice from a stadium of 4 million coaches. The classic was the purported fax to the All Blacks before the 1995 World Cup semi-final:“Remember that rugby is a team game; all 14 of you make sure you pass the ball to Jonah.” That didn’t work-and the wailing was terrible.

Now T-shirts reassure us that “Piri’s On, Keep Calm”. If Richie’s foot is stomped on tonight by a perfidious French boot Twitter will no doubt do a Dad’s Army  Corporal Jack Jones: “Richie’s Off, Don’t Panic!, Don’t Panic!”.

In 1987 I was at the RWC Final at Eden Park. In the amateur era you didn’t have to mortgage the house to get to the final. France met New Zealand in that big game only two years after the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior by French intelligence operatives (DGSE) in 1985. In 1987 it was French pride that was sunk. But don’t discount a giant evolutionary leap tonight by Le Coqs, through fair means and fowl, to revenge that defeat.

With exquisite timing  good sport French Sport Minister David Douillet this week has presented the people of Canterbury with L’Enjeu (At Stake) a 2.3-metre high, 360-kilogram resin statue, gifted by French association Les Amoureux du Rugby.* It will be placed temporarily at Rugby Park before being moved to a permanent site-maybe, if it is able to be rehabilitated after the earthquakes, the appropriately named AMI Stadium. If the ABs lose the final, in the combustible tradition of Joan of Arc the statue could be renamed Burnt at the Stake.

When it comes to key foes the Kiwi public takes fewer prisoners than Libyan rebels. Quade Cooper has been treated like he belonged to al Qaeda. But now the Wallabies have departed (and deported themselves sportingly in defeat) it’s a whole new ballgame for Kiwi pride and prejudice.

There is no doubt that the French rugby team has a certain je ne sais quoi. Insulted by its own coach* and French media to good effect and underrated by amnesiac Kiwis, Gallic guile and gall could make this a close final.

France has even piped up naval reinforcements for the final. The New Caledonian-based French frigate Vendemiaire arrived at Auckland’s Devonport Navy Base on Friday and will leave next Tuesday.* The ship was named in honour of the month of the grape harvest (22 September to 21 October in the 18th century French revolutionary calendar, so its arrival on the 21^st was grape timing.

It’s not just RWC naval gazing either.  A well placed source in the driver’s seat of a Newmarket taxi suggests the frigate has been leased to whisk away three AB Coaches, disguised in frogmen’s gear, in the event of a rugby debacle. Le coq et le bulle? NZRU officials have refused to confirm or deny.

Meanwhile Rainbow Warrior (2011), a purpose-designed Greenpeace vessel, was christened this month.  It is obviously waiting for the French to leave before it sets forth.

Amid all the hype it’s hard to be humble.*  But with Kiwis  dusting off the Chicken Fricassee Recipes and at least three victory parades  already being planned, we can’t say that we haven’t been warned not to  count our chickens before they’re hatched. The French might have the last crow-see Techno Chickens  Dominoes Falling*-and then we’ll all have to eat it.

But hark-is that a faint but distinct clucking noise? John Key will be pleased. So will some long suffering spouses-see photo above.

PS If you’re reading this, good news, the world has probably not ended, unless the ABs do lose tonight. The postponed Judgement Day re-prophetised by now nonagenarian Harold Camping was supposed to happen on 21 October.* Another calendar malfunction so it’s game still on.

*Blinks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anodA3EzNJA  Vid  RWC Archive: France v New Zealand RWC 2007 http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/5822937/Insults-criticism-light-a-fire-under-France 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/5811814/All-Blacks-must-be-humble-to-beat-France  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn1Qolv4ntQ  Vid   Mac Davis and Muppet  It’s Hard To Be Humble
http://wesclark.com/rrr/rugby_positions.html  For rugby novices
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_2_EJogf2A    Vid    Dominoes Techno Chickens
http://bluggerme.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/halo-halo-rapturous-applause-or-a-deathly-hush/  Apocalypse Not Again

#Lyall Lukey 23 Oct 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
http://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/ My other (bit more serious) blog 

“It won’t be easy
You’ll think it strange…”
Evita*

Psychic sheep Sonny Wool, in a predictive league of his own, has picked the All Blacks to beat Argentina in tonight’s Rugby World Cup quarter final.

Following in the tentacle steps of Paul the Occult Football World Cup Octopus*, Sonny Wool has again rather predictably flagged his pick after being presented with two containers of hay from which to choose. One, possibly somewhat better endowed, is marked with a New Zealand ensign. As professional rugby players know, you’ve got to make hay while the sun shines.

The prognosticating All Black sheep of the family is in mint condition, unlike some of the other All Blacks. What is it with all their farmyard foibles like calf strains and pulled hamstrings, anyway? 

But, as a somewhat more svelte sheep than the late Shrek, is Sonny Wool really putting his money where his mouth is? I don’t want to add insult to injury, but I didn’t hear that he forecast Israel Dagg’s selection and for a sheep that should have been a doddle. However, with the second round of Rugby World Cup quarterfinals about to kick off he does have a chance to  regain his chops.

Quadruped quandaries to one side, this past week the nation has been over intently focused on Dan Carter’s nether regions. Is the Shakespearian codspiece-like Jockey undergarment he models the hidden cause of his grievous groin strain?  Meanwhile Steve “Shagger” (short for Shaggy Story?) Hansen is still suffering from grin strain. The wooden Hansen also appears to have a bad case of pinocchioitis in his encounters with the media.

For those running a TAB tab, will it be six correct picks for the sheep with two to go? If so Sonny Wool might be retained to pick the results of the November election, though John Key’s sheepish grin would be a dead giveaway.

If the ABs win tonight what might be a tighter game than many suppose and the Aussies lose the early quarter final,  is Suzie the Springbok undercover agent waiting in the wings ready to strike again with her dastardly dining deeds?

But if there is some real Argie bargie and the ABs are drawn or quartered it won’t only be the nation’s rugby fans that are gutted. I hope Sonny Wool knows a friendly veterinarian or, at the very least, a sympathetic vegetarian.

 *Blinks
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/fan-central/5736825/Sonny-Wools-a-black-sheep-in-the-playoffs 
http://bluggerme.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/the-football-wc-octopus-v-the-rugby-wc-kea/
 Watch “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Evita)” video 

#Lyall Lukey 9 Oct 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
http://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/ My other (bit more serious) blog 

“I’m not intending to watch tonight’s episode. I’ve got more to do,” Australian PM Julia Gillard

John Reith would not have been amused but there will be more than a few Aussie faces wreathed in smiles at tonight’s screening of the ABC TV political satire At Home With Julia, a short series making the most of it before its chief protagonist is herself consigned to history’s page.

My Fair First Lady (actor Amanda Bishop) is not flying the flag but lying patriotically flagellated  in a coy clinch on an official Canberra carpet with her partner Tim Mathieson (Phil Lloyd).*  The ersatz premier is sort of an Antipodean horseless and horizontal Lady Godiva.

Federal MPs have condemned the show as appalling, particularly the offensive use of the flag, though that phrase may be better applied to certain post World War II military adventures.

But even in a satirical TV  series, can you barely imagine Gough Whitlam or John Howard,  in a similar pose with their respective spouses? Or Bob Hawke, by himself?

For everyone except politicians  satirical shows showing the nation’s political chief up to a bit  of mischief are a welcome change from an interminable diet of TV chef programmes.

It’s not as simple as ABC but is this one of the reasons why New Zealand is getting rid of the last vestiges of public service TV?  I would have thought that after the Letterman show* our PM would have jumped at the opportunity to star in his own publicly funded series and cut out the middle man. Though if he can line up on field with the All Blacks before a RWC game he probably doesn’t need to. 

We have yet to see if his Cup truly runneth over.

*Blinks

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv/5662151/Political-footsie-over-PM-sex-scene 
http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/video/-/watch/26690901/abc-show-airs-julias-satire-sex-scene/   Vid excerpt and chatshow
https://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/?s=David+Letterman 

#Lyall Lukey 21 Sept. 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
http://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/ My other (bit more serious) blog

“No doubt some elements of the media will wish to focus on redundant capacity on the waterfront this weekend. That is intentional. We need to rebuild public confidence starting this weekend.”  RWC Minister Murray McCully 17/9/11*

For having the Auckland wharf ready for the Rugby World Cup’s Opening Ceremony a mere week after the opening closed RWC Minister Murray McCully must be in line for a splendid gong from the Antediluvian Royal Society of Esteemed Stable Door Bolters. (To avoid a heavy penalty for RWC sponsor ambushing, we are not permitted to use the venerable awarding organisation’s mnemonic within 500 metres of this blog.)

A better never than late decision has literally cleared the way for the Government’s NZ2011 office to operate an expanded fan zone including Captain Cook Wharf and associated waterfront areas.

With the ABs playing in Hamilton last night there may have been more security guards, civic clipboarders and unemployed food stall holders than live fans on the potentially doubled Party Central site in Auckland.  Things will no doubt warm up later in the tournament, but to nowhere near the level reached last week when there was a lock out on the Auckland wharf which made the 1951 waterfront dispute look like a teetotallers tea party.

60 years later another National led government can finish the job that Sid Holland started and the minister is not going to let the opportunity go begging to complete what might now need to be more of a lock in than a lock out. Taking a leaf from Bill Massey’s book, McCully’s Cossacks might need to be called up not to disperse the waterfront crowd but to round up some conscripts to fill up a largely unpopulated Party Central. There are some unemployed Canterbury Crusader Equestrians who could be pressed into service.

With a Harbour-wide opening ceremony why were people encouraged to leave their cars behind, eschew the streets and travel by train and boats to a central location last week? Lacking a civic muscle man like Mussolini, the trains were not only not running on time, they weren’t running at all.

After all, Len Brown’s tunnel vision of a downtown underground train project linking Britomart station to Mt Eden* hadn’t quite come to pass yet, though perhaps one of John Key’s new cycleways might have just done the trick, especially if it had incorporated the Auckland Harbour Bridge and also encouraged pedestrians.

What has been behind the Government’s continuing close interest, indeed obsession, in creating a city centre fan zone* and injecting some life into it by tackling Party Central Poopers head on and funelling people to Auckland’s wharf in a reverse Dunkirk operation?

Was it to get them within cooee of where a harbourside stadium might have been without all the wrangling, so they can see what they’ve missed out on? Or was it the power of H, the rugby goalposted beer brand, which understandably wants to grab RWC fans by the throat whether they are inside or outside “clean stadia”?

Heineken must have negotiated a pretty good sponsorship deal, including lucrative outside outlets,  for A Beer with no Pub!

Blinks

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5640192/McCully-puts-job-on-the-line 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/fan-central/5635371/Party-Central-backup-may-be-ghost-town
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/fan-central/5635371/New-Rugby-World-Cup-fan-plan-approved 
http://bluggerme.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/before-it-hit-the-fan-zone-the-hootenanny-state-of-play/ https://bluggerme.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/jafa-just-another-fabulous-absurdity/

#Lyall Lukey 17 Sept 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
http://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/ My other (bit more serious) blog 

“You may have heard that I am asking New Zealanders, on behalf of BackingBlack, to do their duty [or not?] for the All Blacks and Abstain For The Game. …”  Sean Fitzpatrick BackingBlack Facebook site

We all know that abstinence makes the heart grow fonder, but was the reformed old hooker putting the boot in or just taking the mickey in the AB Abstinence Ad?

The Abstain for the All Blacks campaign produced by Saatchi & Saatchi for client Telecom on behalf of BackingBlack, the NZRU-endorsed official fan club website for the All Blacks, was due to start next week-but kicked off-more of a dribble really- in the last few days via KiwiLeaks.

Abstain urged AB supporters to lose the urge and abstain from sex during the World Cup as a sign of support for the team.

As a sponsor Telecom was certainly flexing its ABs, past and present. The devout Father Sean Fitzpatrick was in the former category. He didn’t come down in the last cold shower but he did come off the bench. * If Graham Henry did pull out of the abstinence campaign at the last moment he would have been ipso facto perfect for the job.

BackingBlack has been described as a ”tongue in cheek” campaign by one of many Telecom spokespeople Mark Watts who obviously knows what’s what. It was certainly cheeky having Fitzpatrick front the video sitting on what looks like a very dodgy pink dodgem.*

Over the centuries abstinence has been applied to the whole pack of fleshly sins, with a heavy emphasis on eschewing sex and alcohol by those striving to get in the pink.

Some legendary abstinence campaigns were very successful, unlike the present one. Abstain is a new angle on an old theme. Aristophanes’s Lysistrata, literally the  “Army-disbander”, is a rather more comic account of one woman’s mission to end The Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata persuaded the women of Greece to withhold sexual gratification from their husbands as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace. Hostilities ended  in a scoreless nil all draw. No extra time was played.

A modern army disbander might have stopped the other silly Kiwi RWC army ads* from getting screen time and prevented the Abstain Campaign from getting off the ground. All that was needed was a bit of self-control and a spot of adstinence* on the part of the ad agency.

Of course abstinence has lots of famous supporters:
“My experience through life has convinced me that, while moderation and temperance in all things are commendable and beneficial, abstinence from spirituous liquors is the best safeguard of morals and health.”  – Robert E. Lee

“Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.” W.C. Fields

Kurt Angle: “Join me in Olympic Heroes for Abstinence. The best sex is no sex.”

 Dennis Wolfberg: “I didn’t practice abstinence, I perfected it.”

(The same can’t be said of Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol. When Governor of Alaska  Palin apparently insisted on abstinence-only sex education for her daughter, who despite this soon became shipshape and Bristol fashion and was duly delivered of a baby boy).

Voltaire probably said it best: “Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.”

Christian Finnegan’s lesson on Tantric Abstinence* may help if anyone reallly wants to pursue, even temporarily, a life of sobriety and abstinence rather than one of sorority and absinthe.

 Meanwhile, yesterday’s Telecom take on the campaign was that ”It is a tongue in cheek movement that shows our intense support for the All Blacks at the World Cup. It is all about humour, a bit of irreverence, about showing support for the All Blacks in a quirky way.”

Quirky certainly. But is what we’ve seen so far really funny? Or is it a lame joke of two halves featuring old and new media, more  puerile than viral?

The fans aren’t taking the abstinence campaign lying down. Some are incensed that at a time of national crisis-the looming Rugby WC, not the earthquakes, the snow, or global economic cooling- the campaign is taking life too lightly. Nothing Trivial in the pursuit of rugby supremacy:  it’s not a bloody game.

But old Rugby players know that the only way to have safe sex is to abstain – from drinking.  What is really unsafe is the black ring to be worn like a un-wedding ring by campaign followers. The same item looks suspiciously like that affixed to lambs to cause their tails to fall off. Really serious male abstainers should wear it elsewhere and make a real commitment. You can put a ring around that!

There were some novel other suggestions, including: “Instead of black rubber finger rings that promote abstinence, produce some black male and female condoms for fans. They will get much more use,” says Sarah Davies of YWCA, which shows how young Christian women have evolved since the organisation was set up.

Before the blackout announced earlier today the BackingBlack blackout was to have been launched nationwide this Sunday with simultaneous TV commercials. But buckets of cold water have been heaped on the whole ad campaign instead of having been conserved for the  abstinence advancement.

Backing Back: Touch, pause, disengage

“Full credit to the opposition. We listened to your views, and we have acted quickly to change our game plan….. “No excuses. We caused offence to some people, and for that we apologise.” Alan Gourdie Telecom’s retail boss 18 August

I don’t know about retail but in the last 24 hours since TV1 and TV3 gave sneaky previews there has been wholesale media mayhem. Fitzy has been red-carded and sent off before the game even started properly. Telecom is red faced and apologetic to the apoplectic.

But the issue is not about causing real offence-it was just that the whole thing seemed to have gone a little lame, without a zambuck in sight,  and that’s not funny.

20 years after his last show I wonder what Billy T James* would have thought about the limp humour?
Bloody Te Pits. Te he he.

Breaking News
After a  very close vote the French national rugby team has decided not to support the campaign either. Oh well, back to the drawing board Saatchi & Saatchi.

*Blinks

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/sport/rugby/5458668/ABs-fans-urged-to-avoid-sex  First (and last?) Fitzy video
https://www.facebook.com/BackingBlack?sk=wall  Backing Black 
http://www.stoppress.co.nz/news/2011/08/thou-shall-abstain-from-a-sense-of-humour-telecom-and-saatchi-saatchi%E2%80%99s-all-blacks-campaign-of-adstinence/  Adstinence urged!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/fan-central/5463929/All-Blacks-abstinence-campaign-apology  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu_Y0cDJhOE  Silly RWC Army Ad
http://comedians.jokes.com/christian-finnegan/videos/christian-finnegan—tantric-abstinence  Christian Finnegan  Vid
http://www.funnyjokesgalore.com/abstinence.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzXjphDYSn8  AC/DC Back In Black Cover 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i20tK8pYeXM      Billy T. James – Taxi Driver – The South African

 #Lyall Lukey 18 Aug 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
http://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/ My other (bit more serious) blog 

From the Black Death through to Blackbeard*, who could still teach them a thing or two, onto the disgraced media import Conrad Black who was without a peer until Rupert Murdoch came along,  and who is now without a peerage, the blackguard English know a thing or two about the dark arts.

As we now know the England team is to wear an all-black strip at the Rugby World Cup in their opening game against Argentina on 10 September.

”Of all the colours in the rainbow, why would they choose the colour of the host nation?” plainted commentator Keith Quinn, ignoring the fact that black didn’t get selected for the rainbow spectrum. The mighty Quinn is also ignoring the fact that we haven’t  had 100% Pure all black All Blacks for years.

At the 2007 RWC the All Blacks wore the doomed silver strip as France knocked us out in the quarter final. The tossers won a coin toss which allowed them to wear what is reputed to have been an especially darkened blue jersey.  Whatever happened to sacre bleu?

In the wake of this defeat the silver strip was then stripped and replaced, by, yes, a white away uniform. Did the Poms protest then? Kiwi fans certainly did. Now outraged New Zealand fans insist that the English team should stick to a lilly white strip to match their legs.

But the Get Our Gear Off–ers* have missed a whole fleet of buses.  It’s ironic that in an age of branding there are so many colour mutations in all sports regalia. Consumerism means flogging off to the punters this season’s differentiated strip so that last year’s is out of date. It has meant that that the hitherto fiercely protected colours of provincial and national teams have been put through the colour blender and covered in logos. To the Greeks logos meant meaning but today logos are meaningless.

The English Rugby team has already revealed its untrue colours and demonstrated that their word is not as good as their Bond. To further stir up already shaken Cantabrians the Pommie rugby team played in a black and red strip against Australia at Twickenham last November. The members of Twickers must also have got their knickers in a lemon twist and choked on their G&Ts. At least we still have Todd Blackadder. They only have Rowan Atkinson.

The fact is that the people who wear all black uniforms in New Zealand are the depressingly increasing number of Kiwi civilians who think black is the new black for all occasions.

(This is not the time to mention that, courtesy of my daughter who does their PR, I’m now wearing snappy PureblackRacing* cycle gear on my crappy 20 year old road bike for my Sunday spins. I do keep my face covered on cold mornings but with the number of letters to the editor protesting the wearing of burquas I may have to desist).

All Black skipper Richie McCaw is philisophically colour blind: “If it comes down to what colour you wear…we’ve got trouble I reckon.” After last week’s Super15 final we just might have.

However, on 30 July a new high-tech All Blacks jersey will be paraded when the national team plays Not South Africa at Westpac Stadium. Apart from some fabulous fibre for playing footy we expect, nay demand, the new jerseys to incorporate i-Phones for better on-field communication, GPS socks for more accurate goal-kicking, a digital surveying tool to ensure the lineout throws are straight and a laser pointer to show the forwards where to stand.

If teamwork won’t win the Webb Ellis Cup technology just might.

Bring back Buck Rogers!

*Blinks
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/5289989/England-go-all-black-for-Rugby-World-Cup
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Get-Our-Gear-Off/244644958896327
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard
 http://www.pureblackracing.com/   First win
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6XYD8Trk0Y  Vid The Jersey Boys Big Boys Don’t Cry Either
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB6HSnv4UwU  Vid   Blackguard – “Firefight”