Ask a Kiwi sports fan who he supports in international competition and a likely answer is "New Zealand and any team playing against Australia."
It’s rather like the Scottish football supporter faced with great difficulty in deciding what means more to him, Scotland winning or England losing (regardless of their opponents).
It is hardly surprising therefore that there was little sympathy for Australia on this side of the Tasman in their cricketing conflict with India, resulting from incidents during the second Test match between the two sides. Antagonism between the two threatened to go well beyond the sporting sphere, involving charges of racism (by an Indian player), blackmail (by the Indian cricket authorities, who threatened to call off the tour if the charges weren’t dismissed and an umpire - who admittedly made two bad decisions that went against them, removed for the remaining games), and about deplorable behaviour by the Australians.
An Indian player may or may not have called the only coloured member of the Australian team ‘a monkey’, but comments such as those of the Australian coming on to bowl that, "I can’t wait to run through you bastards," are not primarily intended to promote cordial relations.
In New Zealand, the Australian cricket team are commonly described as ‘hunting like a pack of wolves’ who will stop at nothing to secure victory. ‘Sporting spirit’ is not considered a term that exists in their vocabulary. Interestingly, the clash with India also brought a lot of criticism about their behaviour from within Australia.
On the other hand, there has been little sympathy here for the Indians either. If the Aussies throw their weight around on the pitch, the Indians, who have the greatest financial clout in the game, have been throwing their weight around off it. For a time, the New Zealand media were full of it, and not just the sports pages and programmes, but news headlines, leader columns and letters to the editor.
At the moment, a truce has been called and the third Test begun with damage limitation exercises all round. But most of that was swept aside in this country by the death of (Sir) Edmund Hillary, for many years affectionately known here as ‘the greatest living Kiwi’.
Noone has anything but kind words to say about him. A humble beekeeper, his achievements in the Himalayas and the Antarctic brought him great fame, but he remained the archetypal, modest, unassuming outdoor-type New Zealander. He also did much to aid Nepal, helping to found schools, clinics and community projects. The fund he supported is continuing its work.
What bothers me is that he is constantly referred to as the first man to climb Mount Everest (occasionally with the addition of ‘and return’, for George Mallory may perhaps have reached the summit 27 years before him in 1926 — he was last seen a few hundred metres away, but never heard of again). It is almost as though Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who was with Hillary, and without whom the feat would not have been possible, didn’t exist.
Hillary himself always enjoyed very good relations with the Sherpas, by whom he is held in the highest regard. As the Auckland-based Herald On Sunday put it. He ‘clicked’ with them right from the start. ‘He thought they were like New Zealanders.’
Footnote: A letter to the editor of Wellington’s Dominion Post asks how long it will be before the Australians claim Hillary as their own?
Wednesday 16 January 2008
Wednesday 9 January 2008
New Year's news
Charlie, Nathan and George are out. Lucas, Hunter and Lachlan are in. But Jack is still alright — keeping his position as number one among the top thirty names given to New Zealand’s boy babies in 2007.
This is an election year, but in the summer holiday period there is little sign of it, except perhaps for some wrangling over who should or should not have been in the New Year’s Honours List. Instead, domestic news has been dominated by what is happening at the beaches, resorts and holiday camps, and by totting up what happened last year.
Among the boy babies, Jack is followed by a couple of other Js: James and Joshua, while Ella, Sophie and Olivia head the girls’ list, in that order. Helen doesn’t figure, so the PM (Helen Clark) clearly hasn’t served as inspiration for parents with ambitions for their new-born baby girls. But where are the Maori, Polynesian and Asian names? Substantial communities they may be, but their names are not in sight.
As for the beaches, which abound along the country’s coasts, not all the stories are of happy holiday-makers splashing in the sea. There have been some shark sightings, although the danger is not considered so great. More serious was the accident on New Year’s Eve when a 15-year-old boy, racing his motor bike on a beach without lights in the dark, ploughed into two young girls, killing one and seriously injuring the other.
In the eyes of New Zealand law, beaches are no different to roads! Unless there is an official local sign to the contrary, motorised vehicles can not only be driven on them, but are subject only to the open road speed limit of 100 kph! There have been other fatalities and serious incidents and now there is talk of introducing ‘restrictions’.
This is a country where 15-year-olds can be licensed to drive. Two or three years ago I met a man in the lower North Island who had learnt to fly a Tiger Moth at the age of 12. He was brought up on a large farm and flying on your own property was not covered by the regulations, which anyway seemed to be extremely lax. He later became a helicopter pilot, hunting deer in dangerous country, flying low in deep ravines. He called it ‘the wild west’. Farmers could fire shotguns at them and shatter the windscreen. They would shoot deer from the ‘chopper’, then lower a winch-man, who would gut the carcasses before getting them winched up. Neil said they lost two pilots and I think four other men during his time in this precarious occupation before he came a cropper himself. He survived, but years afterwards was still in pain.
But back to the New Year. It is a time when many Kiwis evidently resolve to find romance for there is a sudden surge in on-line dating, with the typical person looking for a partner in cyberspace said to be 39 years-old and with some higher education.
An older romance that resulted in marriage twelve years ago was between a New Zealand woman and a retired English dentist. Having lived in England since their wedding, they are now on their way here by sea to start a new life. What is remarkable about that? Only that he is 102, his wife a mere 87. About to become the country’s oldest ever immigrant he says, “When I’m 105, I don’t want to be thinking: I wish I had moved to the other side of the world when I was 102.”
All those who think they are past it at forty or fifty, or even sixty or seventy, please note.
This is an election year, but in the summer holiday period there is little sign of it, except perhaps for some wrangling over who should or should not have been in the New Year’s Honours List. Instead, domestic news has been dominated by what is happening at the beaches, resorts and holiday camps, and by totting up what happened last year.
Among the boy babies, Jack is followed by a couple of other Js: James and Joshua, while Ella, Sophie and Olivia head the girls’ list, in that order. Helen doesn’t figure, so the PM (Helen Clark) clearly hasn’t served as inspiration for parents with ambitions for their new-born baby girls. But where are the Maori, Polynesian and Asian names? Substantial communities they may be, but their names are not in sight.
As for the beaches, which abound along the country’s coasts, not all the stories are of happy holiday-makers splashing in the sea. There have been some shark sightings, although the danger is not considered so great. More serious was the accident on New Year’s Eve when a 15-year-old boy, racing his motor bike on a beach without lights in the dark, ploughed into two young girls, killing one and seriously injuring the other.
In the eyes of New Zealand law, beaches are no different to roads! Unless there is an official local sign to the contrary, motorised vehicles can not only be driven on them, but are subject only to the open road speed limit of 100 kph! There have been other fatalities and serious incidents and now there is talk of introducing ‘restrictions’.
This is a country where 15-year-olds can be licensed to drive. Two or three years ago I met a man in the lower North Island who had learnt to fly a Tiger Moth at the age of 12. He was brought up on a large farm and flying on your own property was not covered by the regulations, which anyway seemed to be extremely lax. He later became a helicopter pilot, hunting deer in dangerous country, flying low in deep ravines. He called it ‘the wild west’. Farmers could fire shotguns at them and shatter the windscreen. They would shoot deer from the ‘chopper’, then lower a winch-man, who would gut the carcasses before getting them winched up. Neil said they lost two pilots and I think four other men during his time in this precarious occupation before he came a cropper himself. He survived, but years afterwards was still in pain.
But back to the New Year. It is a time when many Kiwis evidently resolve to find romance for there is a sudden surge in on-line dating, with the typical person looking for a partner in cyberspace said to be 39 years-old and with some higher education.
An older romance that resulted in marriage twelve years ago was between a New Zealand woman and a retired English dentist. Having lived in England since their wedding, they are now on their way here by sea to start a new life. What is remarkable about that? Only that he is 102, his wife a mere 87. About to become the country’s oldest ever immigrant he says, “When I’m 105, I don’t want to be thinking: I wish I had moved to the other side of the world when I was 102.”
All those who think they are past it at forty or fifty, or even sixty or seventy, please note.
Friday 4 January 2008
Now in New Zealand
Brief encounter
A large Polynesian lady with silvery hair sits next to me on the not-quite-full free bus at the start of its Auckland inner-city circuit. There are two empty seats opposite. Still jet-lagged and travel weary, I stare dully ahead.
“And how are you today?” she asks suddenly, turning towards me.
“Fine,” I manage to reply, trying to sound almost awake. “And how are you?”
“Good.”
Have I had a good Christmas? she asks, then whether I’ve ever been to ‘The Mission’. To judge from her gesture it is not far away along Queen Street, the city’s main commercial artery. At once I assume she has singled me out as being in need of religion. But then she tells me she hasn’t been there either, although she has seen it on TV — whether an ad, news item, or programme I don’t ask.
She tells me about Son Number One and Son Number Two, one of whom has done something she cannot forgive; exactly what, I’m not alert enough to catch. She has four sons, a daughter and three grandchildren, one of whom, a boy of eight, she and her husband are not allowed to see. I miss the bit about why. She says it is ‘hard’. But I do get the part about her husband working on the buses, which prevented them from going to one of the children, I’m not sure which, for Christmas.
All this and much else I learn between Lower Queen Street and the University, where I have to trouble her to let me out. We part with hearty goodbyes and mutual wishes for spending a very good day.
We have been travelling for perhaps five or six minutes.
A large Polynesian lady with silvery hair sits next to me on the not-quite-full free bus at the start of its Auckland inner-city circuit. There are two empty seats opposite. Still jet-lagged and travel weary, I stare dully ahead.
“And how are you today?” she asks suddenly, turning towards me.
“Fine,” I manage to reply, trying to sound almost awake. “And how are you?”
“Good.”
Have I had a good Christmas? she asks, then whether I’ve ever been to ‘The Mission’. To judge from her gesture it is not far away along Queen Street, the city’s main commercial artery. At once I assume she has singled me out as being in need of religion. But then she tells me she hasn’t been there either, although she has seen it on TV — whether an ad, news item, or programme I don’t ask.
She tells me about Son Number One and Son Number Two, one of whom has done something she cannot forgive; exactly what, I’m not alert enough to catch. She has four sons, a daughter and three grandchildren, one of whom, a boy of eight, she and her husband are not allowed to see. I miss the bit about why. She says it is ‘hard’. But I do get the part about her husband working on the buses, which prevented them from going to one of the children, I’m not sure which, for Christmas.
All this and much else I learn between Lower Queen Street and the University, where I have to trouble her to let me out. We part with hearty goodbyes and mutual wishes for spending a very good day.
We have been travelling for perhaps five or six minutes.
Thursday 3 January 2008
The delights of long-haul travel
Murphy has a field day.
Much can go wrong on long-haul travel: flight delays, over-booking, missed connections, luggage lost, sent to the wrong destination, items stolen, etc, etc. On my travels again, something new has been added to the list. The SAS check-in computer at Arlanda refused to recognize my e-ticket and for a very long time it seemed I would never start my journey, let alone suffer the stress of other mishaps.
They were to come. The initial problem was solved when as a last resort the person checking me in crossed out the words ‘Paper ticket required’ and wrote ‘e-ticket OK’ on my boarding card for the flight to Chicago. A card for the connecting flight to San Francisco, couldn’t be issued — which was just as well as there was never any chance of catching it once the departure board showed the first plane would be four hours late leaving.
An urgent visit to the SAS information desk produced regrets and the information that onward flights could be re-booked only in Chicago. There was nothing they could do. I was given a food voucher for SEK 100, however, usable in any food outlet at the airport.
But Murphy was having none of that. Having planned when I would eat and retreated to an area well away from check-in counters and departure boards, by sheer chance I discovered departure had now been brought forward an hour, then another hour, leaving time only to get through security and go to the gate. Food? Forget it.
But would I make my connection? I might perhaps arrive a little before take-off time, but in the wrong terminal, with immigration, including finger-printing and being photographed, and baggage collection, customs etc. to negotiate it would be hyper-stressful even to try.
On the plane it was announced that passengers with connecting flights leaving up to three-quarters of an hour later than mine would be re-booked. All we had to do was report to the SAS desk at O’Hare. It was almost a relief. I could at least take it easy on the ground.
What a hope! At the SAS desk there was a seemingly endless, seldom-moving queue. Later, it also became clear that if anyone had been re-booked it certainly wasn’t me. I was finally put on a later plane and even given a phone card to make known the change and prevent anyone from meeting the wrong plane at SF.
But first I had to check in again, this time with United. I should have realised. I now had to join another queue, with a good chance of missing even the later flight. When I finally got to the gate, not having had time to make a phone call, there wasn’t a passenger there. A minute or two later and it would doubtless have been closed. As it was, I rushed up to the one official in sight, thrust my new boarding card into her hand and hurried on board.
At long, long last I could sit back and relax during the lengthy wing-dowsing de-icing or anti-freezing process — it was real winter in Chicago — until the captain announced that the temperature had fallen below the minimum allowed by safety regulations for take-off and we were returning to the terminal!
We eventually got away, but such can be the delights of long-haul travel. No wonder some people prefer to stay at home, expense and carbon footprint apart.
Much can go wrong on long-haul travel: flight delays, over-booking, missed connections, luggage lost, sent to the wrong destination, items stolen, etc, etc. On my travels again, something new has been added to the list. The SAS check-in computer at Arlanda refused to recognize my e-ticket and for a very long time it seemed I would never start my journey, let alone suffer the stress of other mishaps.
They were to come. The initial problem was solved when as a last resort the person checking me in crossed out the words ‘Paper ticket required’ and wrote ‘e-ticket OK’ on my boarding card for the flight to Chicago. A card for the connecting flight to San Francisco, couldn’t be issued — which was just as well as there was never any chance of catching it once the departure board showed the first plane would be four hours late leaving.
An urgent visit to the SAS information desk produced regrets and the information that onward flights could be re-booked only in Chicago. There was nothing they could do. I was given a food voucher for SEK 100, however, usable in any food outlet at the airport.
But Murphy was having none of that. Having planned when I would eat and retreated to an area well away from check-in counters and departure boards, by sheer chance I discovered departure had now been brought forward an hour, then another hour, leaving time only to get through security and go to the gate. Food? Forget it.
But would I make my connection? I might perhaps arrive a little before take-off time, but in the wrong terminal, with immigration, including finger-printing and being photographed, and baggage collection, customs etc. to negotiate it would be hyper-stressful even to try.
On the plane it was announced that passengers with connecting flights leaving up to three-quarters of an hour later than mine would be re-booked. All we had to do was report to the SAS desk at O’Hare. It was almost a relief. I could at least take it easy on the ground.
What a hope! At the SAS desk there was a seemingly endless, seldom-moving queue. Later, it also became clear that if anyone had been re-booked it certainly wasn’t me. I was finally put on a later plane and even given a phone card to make known the change and prevent anyone from meeting the wrong plane at SF.
But first I had to check in again, this time with United. I should have realised. I now had to join another queue, with a good chance of missing even the later flight. When I finally got to the gate, not having had time to make a phone call, there wasn’t a passenger there. A minute or two later and it would doubtless have been closed. As it was, I rushed up to the one official in sight, thrust my new boarding card into her hand and hurried on board.
At long, long last I could sit back and relax during the lengthy wing-dowsing de-icing or anti-freezing process — it was real winter in Chicago — until the captain announced that the temperature had fallen below the minimum allowed by safety regulations for take-off and we were returning to the terminal!
We eventually got away, but such can be the delights of long-haul travel. No wonder some people prefer to stay at home, expense and carbon footprint apart.
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