A boys-only story

Which is why, when I went back to Victoria University a few years ago, I openly wondered if I'd strayed into an English Lit class: it was wall-to-wall women. Although I should have noted that they were uniformly well dressed; the English Lit girls are decidedly bohemian by comparison.

No, sighed the male lecturer. This is an entry school. Good grades get you in here and the girls got the grades.

When I went to the Stock Exchange a few years ago, I openly wondered if I'd strayed into a gay club: it was wall-to-wall men. Although I should have noted that they were uniformly, but badly, dressed; the gay boys are decidedly dapper by comparison.

No, sighed the female administrator. This is a boys' club. Good connexions get you in here and the boys went to the right schools.

Over the years, I have often wondered what happened to those boys. Of course, we all know what happened to the economy: they stuffed it up. They did what boys do: they lied, they cheated, they bullied, they cajoled. They did everything they could to get more money than possibly they could need. Perhaps they did it not just because they were greedy and dishonest, but because they felt they must prove something to the other boys (and perhaps also to themselves). Whatever the reasons, they stuffed it all up. They shouted, they swore, they fought, they lost. And then it all came tumbling down.

Perhaps things might have been different if they had allowed some girls into the room.

Trouble with girls

Another day, another crisis: it turns out that too many girls are getting educated. The problem, it seems, is that the education system is too girl-friendly, since it rewards students who can think for themselves rather than those who require hand-holding. It seems that the girls are in the former category and the boys in the latter. So, despite all the best efforts of men to make manly values - like teamwork and sporting ability - central to the education system, those pesky girls have won again.

Of course, this worrying trend will have consequences: "women will reach a point where they can step into a management role, but will leave mid-career to have children, creating a hole in company structures that risks it losing vital knowledge." They might start demanding equal pay for equal work as well, and who knows where that will end?

John Morris, headmaster of Auckland Grammar - a school which traditionally has done everything it can to beat any signs of individuality and sissyness out of its boys - blames it all on the NCEA. That is the trouble with continuous assessment: it is much too fair. But the Ministry thinks it has things right and that the system is boy-friendly.

Of course we have had this sort of problem before. About the middle of the last century, the education systems of most countries in the West turned out to be far too Jew-friendly: Jews were taking all the best jobs in classical music and Quantum Mechanics. Fortunately, we now have a culture where education is scarcely valued at all, while sporting ability is regarded as the highest human achievement. So it does not really matter that Jews do a lot of the clever jobs, because they are useless at Sport, which is what really matters.

Equally, the present crisis can be averted, both by adjusting the education system to make it more boy-friendly, while devaluing all the things that girls are good at doing, like learning. It may take a while, but normalcy can be restored. Otherwise, we will have to put up with this sort of thing.

Organ of the State

In the margins of last night's filming of Media7, someone used the phrase Herald handshake, in obvious allusion to Auckland's national newspaper and to a service that can be purchased on the streets adjoining K Road. Reading Garth George's column We should all salute our wonderful PM, one can see that the phrase has great potency. Here Garth has produced an essay which is beyond parody; one can do no more than snippets from it, to save you the trouble of reading it and the consequent nausea:

He is a man of the people, as yet unspoiled by the poisonous atmosphere of power politics, and in spite of his position and spectacular wealth remains one of us.

He is amiable, engaging, good-natured, highly intelligent, humorous and, most of all, unaffected.

Multi-millionaire he might be, but the perception of the public - reflected in his high poll ratings - is of a fatherless state house kid made good, and, in typical Kiwi fashion, we say good on him for it.

As our principal face to the world, he should always travel in style, first class all the way, and should be able to take his wife, and even family, with him if he chooses - all at the Government's expense.

This last was used by the Herald's sub for what, in the art, is called a pull-quote; never has the phrase been so apposite. But last and loveliest of them all is Garth's closing thought:

Mr Key is an avid fan of the All Blacks, a frequent attendee at their games and a regular, potently encouraging presence in their dressing room.

This is a political stratagem of astounding brilliance. For if the All Blacks win the World Cup on October 20, 2011, New Zealanders will be in such a state of euphoria that National will stroll over the line in early in November.

We learn that Mr Key hangs around in dressing rooms with rugby players; someone should tell the Speaker. We also learn that this is a political strategem. We conclude that Mr Key not only is cynical but also is foolhardy: that National's electoral success depends on that of the All Blacks.

Mr Goff must be feeling better already.

Excuses, excuses

Apologies, gentle reader, for the lack of posts. I have been working on my Magnum Opus, From Lynn of Tawa to Dawn of Azazel: A History of Suburban Culture in New Zealand. I will put down my pen and write something soon, I promise.

No-brainer

Doctors from London University have revealed details of what they believe is the largest amount of ecstasy ever consumed by a single person. Consultants from the addiction centre at St George's Medical School, London, have published a case report of a British man estimated to have taken around 40,000 pills of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, over nine years.

So which member of the Happy Mondays are we talking about? One factor that is not considered in drugs policy is that Ecstasy is very popular amongst members of the Moron Community, although expert opinion is divided as to whether it is the drugs that make them stupid or their stupidity that makes them takes the drugs. One thing is certain: nobody has ever managed to enjoy House music straight.

Meanwhile, Her Majesty's Government's drugs advisor has been sacked for advising Her Majesty's Government about drugs. It seems that he made the mistake of telling the truth rather than sending a Clear Message about the dangers of drugs.

Meanwhile again, the squaddies are all over Afghanistan but cannot stop a bunch of peasants from growing most of the world supply of opium there.

Who needs drugs? The world is strange enough without them.

Architecture in the age of unreason

Mr Dentith reports that one Richard Gage AIA (no less) will be speaking at Te Papa (of all places) on the topic of how it was quite, quite impossible for the Twin Towers to be taken down by mere aircraft.

Further information is available here. Mr Gage AIA, the founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, will also be interviewed by Kim Hill. Apparently, it was all done with "nano-thermite, a highly-engineered explosive recently developed by the military."

The question is, why is he bothering us with this startling new evidence? Don't we have enough to bother about already, what with the Celts and the Spaniards and the Norsemen who discovered these islands long ago? And then there are the UFOs and the secret military installations. And then there is the question of why they chose Te Papa for a venue; answer: to give themselves academic credibility. Which leaves the question of why Te Papa is prepared to risk its reputation by hosting this nonsense.

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Almost famous

Last week I won an award, second prize in the Auckland Architecture Association Urban Eye competition, for a short essay about architecture in Auckland. Here is said essay:


One of the simple pleasures of living in Auckland, until recently, was the view from the top of Queen Street where it meets K Road. Queen Street falls away towards the harbour, running in a straight line until it turns and disappears behind the Civic Theatre. Much of the city centre is visible, but so was a glimpse of the harbour and of the peninsula on its far side.

But then Deloitte came and took away the view. The management consultants have their new headquarters on Queen Street, a green glass tower with metal trim. It is not an ugly building, but it is a tall one. And as it rose over the last few months, that glimpse of the harbour gradually disappeared. It wasn't much - other office towers built over the last thirty years had steadily eroded the view - but it was all we had. Now it is gone. The last view of the world beyond has been blocked out.

Auckland is a city that steadily is being enclosed by its buildings. Every building that is demolished is replaced by one that is much taller. Each new development takes away another piece of the sky and cuts us off from our surroundings. On Beach Road, the Scene Apartments offer their residents views across the harbour, but take away the view once enjoyed from the street. Further up, on Symonds Street, new apartment blocks have taken away what remained of the view to Rangitoto; the same has been done by the office buildings on Shortland Street. It is not just that these buildings are tall, but they stand on elevated ground, on the ridges that surround the city centre. As architecture, some are quite appealing. But whatever their merits as buildings, they seem to have been constructed with little thought for the city.

A particularly sad case is that of Myers Park. Buildings constructed in the last twenty-five years have hemmed it in and darkened it. It always had buildings on its perimeter, but the most recent are taller and more imposing than their predecessors. The latest is the redevelopment of the Chatham Building on Pitt Street. A two-storey building which had stood for a century was taken away and replaced by eight storeys of apartments, leaving only the original facade. From the park another segment of sky has been taken away. Doubtless the views of the park from the apartment balconies are part of the realtor's pitch to prospective buyers, but the park has lost for their gain.

Of course, tall office and apartment buildings are inevitable in a modern city of. Space is at a premium; businesses need places to work and people need places to live. The prestige of a tall building is also at a premium: although much of a corporation's work might be done in nondescript buildings in business parks on the edges of the city, having a headquarters building in town is important to the corporate mana. Although the corporation might occupy only a few floors of the building, it has a presence and a place to display its logo. The apartments, too, offer much for their occupants, especially the convenience of being in the heart of the city. But the cost of these benefits is in many respects felt by the city as a whole.

Auckland City Council used to produce picture books about the city to encourage tourism, at least until the 1960s. The Auckland they show is bright and cheerful. Queen Street especially seems much lighter than today. The pictures were always taken on the best days of summer and were carefully selected to show the city in its best light, but still it is obvious that the city centre is a darker place now. The tourism books also tried to show that the city as part of a larger environment . They always included photographs taken from high points to show the city set beside the harbour. Today it would be difficult to find places to take those photographs. Auckland's setting can only be seen from the gaps between the buildings.

The city always has had a difficult relationship with its surroundings. We live beside a vast natural harbour but we cut ourselves off from the sea by building a port. The landward sides of the city are bounded by motorways and surrounded by suburbs. But our recent building has isolated the city centre still further. It has closed the city in upon itself. We have built concrete barriers around us, preventing us from seeing the place in which we live.

With thanks to Mr Finnemore for telling me about the competition.

Dearth of a Spokesman, redux

But he denied he breached the policy over two contacts he had with TVNZ this year. He said he believed the policy stopped him from making statements but not from contacting media by phone.

Dr Salinger said one of those contacts, a call to One News weatherman Jim Hickey about rain he saw on the West Coast while on holiday, was a call to a friend made as an individual rather than as an official Niwa spokesman.

He said the other call to a One News reporter was followed up by him seeking approval from a staff member to have an interview.

Mr Churchman said Dr Salinger had been disingenuous about handing Mr Robinson a media release from last year which reviewed climate patterns when Niwa was unhappy about him commenting to TV3 on predictions for the following season, for which another scientist was the spokesman.

How unlike the home life of our own dear Queen, or rather, how like mine own life as Spokesman of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (Inc) - they appointed you their Spokesman, but now they don't want you doing any spoking. Of course, there the similarities end: NIWA is (or was until this juncture) a highly respected organisation, while the NZARH has always been a bit peculiar; if proof of such were needed, it is shown in the HTML: by their frames shall ye know them.

Worth noting

According to the estimable Dunedin School, John Key is the Antichrist. They are Theologians, so they should know.

You'll never see a merchant banker on a bike

Kelt, a merchant banker, was driving a 1994 Toyota Corolla in St Aubyn St East, central Hastings, about 8am on May 4.

As he entered a roundabout he failed to notice a 13-year-old cyclist on his right and collided with him.

Is this a sign of the sea of troubles in which the finance industry is sinking - A millionaire merchant banker drives an unwarranted 1994 Corolla owned by his company? Or is it merely further evidence that rich people think the law does not apply to them? And they would be right on that score, given the sentence in this case: a $500 fine against a millionaire, a sum which probably he would recoup in interest earned while walking from the bank to the magistrates' court, and the careless driving charge dropped.

Doubtless the Sensible Sentencing Trust will not be spluttering about this case, given that the perp is rich and clearly not a member of the criminal class. Besides, he gave the kid a new bike, so what's the damage?

News from Absurdistan

Gentle readers in the Old Country are forbidden to read the following:

60 Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the Court of Appeal judgment in May 2009 in the case of Michael Napier and Irwin Mitchell v Pressdram Limited in respect of press freedom to report proceedings in court.
(292409)

61 Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.
(293006)

62 Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will (a) collect and (b) publish statistics on the number of non-reportable injunctions issued by the High Court in each of the last five years.
(293012)

63 Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what mechanisms HM Court Service uses to draw up rosters of duty judges for the purpose of considering time of the essence applications for the issuing of injunctions by the High Court.
(293013)

The questions (which I have copied from the estimable Lefthandpalm) are taken from the House of Commons Order Paper. The Guardian has been prevented by injunction from printing these questions or reporting anything about them, save that the case involves Carter-Ruck Solicitors, which has sued Private Eye (Pressdram) more times than anyone can remember. No Right Turn also has irredeemably liberal comments to make on the matter.

Make of this what you will.



Thought you were smart when you took them on, But you didn't take a peep in their artillery room: