Wednesday 23 December 2015

II've suddenly rediscovered the essence of being Kiwi which is waking up in the morning to a blinding light,getting out of bed to a freezing room specially designed to keep sexual activity and lust down to a  minimum and facing the world from your own home. Can't be Kiwi without a house either owned or rented  and the worst part of the damage done by the two Friedmanite heros, Roger and Ruth is that there's been a big increase in rent payers (and rent)because of the rise in house prices and the failure to build state housing for rent. People have to own to become as miserable as the rest and to feel the pain of interest rate rises designed to punish them for being insufficiently Friedmanite.

The cause of this rhapsody is that after three weeks of living in motels,an essential inductioin process into Kiwism and other people's houses we have now moved into na lovely white house with a garden (to be neglected and a washing rotisserie and two dustbins. Home at last in the University house provided for the visiting fellows but maintained (because a condition of being a visiting fellow is to be DIY incompetent as all geniuses are) by the U of C Property Services Department.

Morning has broken like the first morning-or rather like my first in NZ when I was dazzled by the light and could look out from our little house then in Dunedin now in Christchurch and see ungainly lumps of school kids,the lads in short pants the girls in St Triinians school uniforms and listen to the omnipresent sound of lawnmowers-then pushed, now petrol butNo dead Kiwi can know he's reached heaven unless he can hear not an angelic chorus but the sound of lawnmowers. Now there's also the occasional mad jogger (often with a rucksack either to make it more painful or to show his nationality)No housewives or be suited men. There were then going to the bus. Now they drive past hastening to join the enormous traffic jams getting in to town It's surprising with the Centre of Ch Ch still looking like a building site,so many people want to drive there. At lest earthquakes create parking spaces
.
It's like being in paradise but now without Aunt Daisy or the succession of Australian soaps like Doctor Paul. Linda has immediately gone out and bought all sorts of things we don't need. I've lounged around and watched Master Chef Australia and read books (not provided). Linda is making plans to produce a Kiwi counterpart which I've suggested should be Master Chef Pies,or even Master Chef Stewart Island but given that the only local content on TV is endearing animals and country Calender I doubt if they'd finance it. Better to turn our lovely front room into a restaurant and work therer while I'm away lecturing.She appears not to fancy that idea. 

Induction to work has now begun and it's probably easier for a camel to pass through the eye oif a needle than it is to get a job at the University of Canterbury. An invitation to lunch with the Vice Chancellor sometime in January or February. A visit to the registry to be photographed and issued with a pile of documentation on rights and responsibilities and what socks to wear. The issue of a pass. NO fingerprinting and burly security men dressed as cops who look as though they're carrying guns though its probably  only a pepper spray for breaking up student parties. There are also posters warning the students against sex, booze and dope though those used to be the main reason for coming to Uni in the first place. 

Then a quick tour. The university is now in big concrete blocks where I taught in a tin shed in town . I never wanted to move to Ilam in the first place. A university should be urban so that anyone can get to it and there are all the supporting services like pubs rather than suburban as Canterbury now is. There its  going to epater le bourgeoisie though the staff own houses round about and its easy to surround with A ring of steel if the students revolt. But today's students aren't revolting.Just numerous-14,000 as opposed to the 2000 when I was here.

My only duty in these early days of settling in is to speak to the graduates and award winners to congratulate them and tell them how much better off they are than in my bad old daysThe meting is in the Keith Jackson Room (when we told Ben his son that there was a room named after his father he said "dad would have wanted a strip of coast") We mistook the floor and went to the sixth rather than the fifth.Finding no Keith Jackson room I opened the door of the only staff member who seemed tl be around and asked where the Keith Jackson room was.HIs face clouded "I'm sorry to have to tell you but Keith Jackson passed away ten years ago"

The students ,when we found them were a lovely group and unnerving because they listened respectfully to my retrospective ramblings-a totally new experience for a politician.Not a heckler in earshot though to be honest I'm so deaf I'd never ha ve heard them anyway. I'm going to like the transition to lecturer. They were probably shocked by my recollections of how Canterbury used to be a hot bed of the left with Wolf Rosenberg and Winston Rhodes publishing the NZ Monthly review ever issue of which was the same because it explained why the revolution hadn't come yet--with Bruce Jesson and Owen Gager (NZ's favourite-probably only- Trot)and Mike Hudson-later economic adviser to the British CP. Those days are gone. Now its the Ruth Richardson College of Friedmanite Knowledge and she even has an honorary degree here  in recognition of her achievement of wreaking more damage than the earthquake

For the rest we've explored Christchurch,explained to people how they need to build  a few hills because its too flat. and seen parts Ive never seen before because when I worked here we didn't have a car. Went out to Sumner which is lovely but marred the visit by falling flat on my face after missing a step so I'm all cut and bleeding but this being New Zealand people rushed to pick me up and brush me down (perhaps because they didn't want too much blood on their sea front)

The Sumner medical centre bandaged me up beautifully,a feet repeated next day by the University Medical centre.It cost only $25 though the bandages must have cost more 
. We got home to find that our sponsor and guardian angel Bronwyn Hayward who's looked after us so well had been concussed by being hit on the head by her husband closing the garage door. Before they treated her at the hospital she had to be interrogated to make sure it wasn't domestic violence. I've told Linda to beware or I'll grass on her.
Bloodied and wounded. But it's still great to be here.

Thursday 17 December 2015

Almost a Kiwi

II've suddenly rediscovered the essence of being Kiwi which is waking up in the morning to a blinding light,getting out of bed to a freezing room specially designed to keep sexual activity and lust down to a  minimum and facing the world from your own home. Can't be Kiwi without a house either owned or rented  and the worst part of the damage done by the two Friedmanite heros, Roger and Ruth is that there's been a big increase in rent payers (and rent)because of the rise in house prices and the failure to build state housing for rent. People have to own to become as miserable as the rest and to feel the pain of interest rate rises designed to punish them for being insufficiently Friedmanite.

The cause of this rhapsody is that after three weeks of living in motels,an essential inductioin process into Kiwism and other people's houses we have now moved into na lovely white house with a garden (to be neglected and a washing rotisserie and two dustbins. Home at last in the University house provided for the visiting fellows but maintained (because a condition of being a visiting fellow is to be DIY incompetent as all geniuses are) by the U of C Property Services Department.

Morning has broken like the first morning-or rather like my first in NZ when I was dazzled by the light and could look out from our little house then in Dunedin now in Christchurch and see ungainly lumps of school kids,the lads in short pants the girls in St Triinians school uniforms and listen to the omnipresent sound of lawnmowers-then pushed, now petrol butNo dead Kiwi can know he's reached heaven unless he can hear not an angelic chorus but the sound of lawnmowers. Now there's also the occasional mad jogger (often with a rucksack either to make it more painful or to show his nationality)No housewives or be suited men. There were then going to the bus. Now they drive past hastening to join the enormous traffic jams getting in to town It's surprising with the Centre of Ch Ch still looking like a building site,so many people want to drive there. At lest earthquakes create parking spaces
.
It's like being in paradise but now without Aunt Daisy or the succession of Australian soaps like Doctor Paul. Linda has immediately gone out and bought all sorts of things we don't need. I've lounged around and watched Master Chef Australia and read books (not provided). Linda is making plans to produce a Kiwi counterpart which I've suggested should be Master Chef Pies,or even Master Chef Stewart Island but given that the only local content on TV is endearing animals and country Calender I doubt if they'd finance it. Better to turn our lovely front room into a restaurant and work therer while I'm away lecturing.She appears not to fancy that idea. 

Induction to work has now begun and it's probably easier for a camel to pass through the eye oif a needle than it is to get a job at the University of Canterbury. An invitation to lunch with the Vice Chancellor sometime in January or February. A visit to the registry to be photographed and issued with a pile of documentation on rights and responsibilities and what socks to wear. The issue of a pass. NO fingerprinting and burly security men dressed as cops who look as though they're carrying guns though its probably  only a pepper spray for breaking up student parties. There are also posters warning the students against sex, booze and dope though those used to be the main reason for coming to Uni in the first place. 

Then a quick tour. The university is now in big concrete blocks where I taught in a tin shed in town . I never wanted to move to Ilam in the first place. A university should be urban so that anyone can get to it and there are all the supporting services like pubs rather than suburban as Canterbury now is. There its  going to epater le bourgeoisie though the staff own houses round about and its easy to surround with A ring of steel if the students revolt. But today's students aren't revolting.Just numerous-14,000 as opposed to the 2000 when I was here.

My only duty in these early days of settling in is to speak to the graduates and award winners to congratulate them and tell them how much better off they are than in my bad old daysThe meting is in the Keith Jackson Room (when we told Ben his son that there was a room named after his father he said "dad would have wanted a strip of coast") We mistook the floor and went to the sixth rather than the fifth.Finding no Keith Jackson room I opened the door of the only staff member who seemed tl be around and asked where the Keith Jackson room was.HIs face clouded "I'm sorry to have to tell you but Keith Jackson passed away ten years ago"

The students ,when we found them were a lovely group and unnerving because they listened respectfully to my retrospective ramblings-a totally new experience for a politician.Not a heckler in earshot though to be honest I'm so deaf I'd never ha ve heard them anyway. I'm going to like the transition to lecturer. They were probably shocked by my recollections of how Canterbury used to be a hot bed of the left with Wolf Rosenberg and Winston Rhodes publishing the NZ Monthly review ever issue of which was the same because it explained why the revolution hadn't come yet--with Bruce Jesson and Owen Gager (NZ's favourite-probably only- Trot)and Mike Hudson-later economic adviser to the British CP. Those days are gone. Now its the Ruth Richardson College of Friedmanite Knowledge and she even has an honorary degree here  in recognition of her achievement of wreaking more damage than the earthquake

For the rest we've explored Christchurch,explained to people how they need to build  a few hills because its too flat. and seen parts Ive never seen before because when I worked here we didn't have a car. Went out to Sumner which is lovely but marred the visit by falling flat on my face after missing a step so I'm all cut and bleeding but this being New Zealand people rushed to pick me up and brush me down (perhaps because they didn't want too much blood on their sea front)

The Sumner medical centre bandaged me up beautifully,a feet repeated next day by the University Medical centre.It cost only $25 though the bandages must have cost more 
. We got home to find that our sponsor and guardian angel Bronwyn Hayward who's looked after us so well had been concussed by being hit on the head by her husband closing the garage door. Before they treated her at the hospital she had to be interrogated to make sure it wasn't domestic violence. I've told Linda to beware or I'll grass on her.
Bloodied and wounded. But it's still great to be here.

Almost a Kiwi

II've suddenly rediscovered the essence of being Kiwi which is waking up in the morning to a blinding light,getting out of bed to a freezing room specially designed to keep sexual activity and lust down to a  minimum and facing the world from your own home. Can't be Kiwi without a house either owned or rented  and the worst part of the damage done by the two Friedmanite heros, Roger and Ruth is that there's been a big increase in rent payers (and rent)because of the rise in house prices and the failure to build state housing for rent. People have to own to become as miserable as the rest and to feel the pain of interest rate rises designed to punish them for being insufficiently Friedmanite.

The cause of this rhapsody is that after three weeks of living in motels,an essential inductioin process into Kiwism and other people's houses we have now moved into na lovely white house with a garden (to be neglected and a washing rotisserie and two dustbins. Home at last in the University house provided for the visiting fellows but maintained (because a condition of being a visiting fellow is to be DIY incompetent as all geniuses are) by the U of C Property Services Department.

Morning has broken like the first morning-or rather like my first in NZ when I was dazzled by the light and could look out from our little house then in Dunedin now in Christchurch and see ungainly lumps of school kids,the lads in short pants the girls in St Triinians school uniforms and listen to the omnipresent sound of lawnmowers-then pushed, now petrol butNo dead Kiwi can know he's reached heaven unless he can hear not an angelic chorus but the sound of lawnmowers. Now there's also the occasional mad jogger (often with a rucksack either to make it more painful or to show his nationality)No housewives or be suited men. There were then going to the bus. Now they drive past hastening to join the enormous traffic jams getting in to town It's surprising with the Centre of Ch Ch still looking like a building site,so many people want to drive there. At lest earthquakes create parking spaces
.
It's like being in paradise but now without Aunt Daisy or the succession of Australian soaps like Doctor Paul. Linda has immediately gone out and bought all sorts of things we don't need. I've lounged around and watched Master Chef Australia and read books (not provided). Linda is making plans to produce a Kiwi counterpart which I've suggested should be Master Chef Pies,or even Master Chef Stewart Island but given that the only local content on TV is endearing animals and country Calender I doubt if they'd finance it. Better to turn our lovely front room into a restaurant and work therer while I'm away lecturing.She appears not to fancy that idea. 

Induction to work has now begun and it's probably easier for a camel to pass through the eye oif a needle than it is to get a job at the University of Canterbury. An invitation to lunch with the Vice Chancellor sometime in January or February. A visit to the registry to be photographed and issued with a pile of documentation on rights and responsibilities and what socks to wear. The issue of a pass. NO fingerprinting and burly security men dressed as cops who look as though they're carrying guns though its probably  only a pepper spray for breaking up student parties. There are also posters warning the students against sex, booze and dope though those used to be the main reason for coming to Uni in the first place. 

Then a quick tour. The university is now in big concrete blocks where I taught in a tin shed in town . I never wanted to move to Ilam in the first place. A university should be urban so that anyone can get to it and there are all the supporting services like pubs rather than suburban as Canterbury now is. There its  going to epater le bourgeoisie though the staff own houses round about and its easy to surround with A ring of steel if the students revolt. But today's students aren't revolting.Just numerous-14,000 as opposed to the 2000 when I was here.

My only duty in these early days of settling in is to speak to the graduates and award winners to congratulate them and tell them how much better off they are than in my bad old daysThe meting is in the Keith Jackson Room (when we told Ben his son that there was a room named after his father he said "dad would have wanted a strip of coast") We mistook the floor and went to the sixth rather than the fifth.Finding no Keith Jackson room I opened the door of the only staff member who seemed tl be around and asked where the Keith Jackson room was.HIs face clouded "I'm sorry to have to tell you but Keith Jackson passed away ten years ago"

The students ,when we found them were a lovely group and unnerving because they listened respectfully to my retrospective ramblings-a totally new experience for a politician.Not a heckler in earshot though to be honest I'm so deaf I'd never ha ve heard them anyway. I'm going to like the transition to lecturer. They were probably shocked by my recollections of how Canterbury used to be a hot bed of the left with Wolf Rosenberg and Winston Rhodes publishing the NZ Monthly review ever issue of which was the same because it explained why the revolution hadn't come yet--with Bruce Jesson and Owen Gager (NZ's favourite-probably only- Trot)and Mike Hudson-later economic adviser to the British CP. Those days are gone. Now its the Ruth Richardson College of Friedmanite Knowledge and she even has an honorary degree here  in recognition of her achievement of wreaking more damage than the earthquake

For the rest we've explored Christchurch,explained to people how they need to build  a few hills because its too flat. and seen parts Ive never seen before because when I worked here we didn't have a car. Went out to Sumner which is lovely but marred the visit by falling flat on my face after missing a step so I'm all cut and bleeding but this being New Zealand people rushed to pick me up and brush me down (perhaps because they didn't want too much blood on their sea front)

The Sumner medical centre bandaged me up beautifully,a feet repeated next day by the University Medical centre.It cost only $25 though the bandages must have cost more 
. We got home to find that our sponsor and guardian angel Bronwyn Hayward who's looked after us so well had been concussed by being hit on the head by her husband closing the garage door. Before they treated her at the hospital she had to be interrogated to make sure it wasn't domestic violence. I've told Linda to beware or I'll grass on her.
Bloodied and wounded. But it's still great to be here.

Saturday 12 December 2015

Back to Christchurch to prepare for work

Christmas is a'coming and the Kiwis are getting fat-well they already are fatter than I remember them.The image was of a lean and rangy man eyes looking to the far distance, chin jutting but now there are more be-stomached men and waddling women and the average avoir du poids is up. So they're not getting fat so much as Christmassy which means more santa claus hats with white bobbles, decorations in the shops and adverts about presents. In Dunedin the local brothel wishes clients a happy Xmas and a satisfied new year and the travelling service provider who advertises that she'll go as far as Cromwell and Alexander (by taxi) hopes to see clients in the New Year so Xmas is definitely cumming there.Indeed I saw one table full of ladies in Christmas red and hats in a restaurant

Weather did improve and the sun actually appeared in Dunedin whereat people ran for cover, fainted, and turned red. I basked. Diane invited us to the Dunedin Club (which used to be called the squatters club) My joy. I never got invited there when I lived in Dunedin (and only once to the Christchurch club)but it's even more high status than the Koru club where the national elite meet and greet. Dark panelled, pictures of George V, old paintings  and an almost empty dining room. Very English and therefore presumably very bankrupt but it still keeps going.


Last time we went I met Dorothy Fraser wife of Bill the MP for St Kilda and in my day press officer with me as her junior, to the Dunedin Labour Representation Committee.Not today though. She's dead. I gather though that Bill's drinking mate, Brian MacDonnell who started out as my bank teller at the ANZ is still alive.He became MP for Dunedin Central but was de selected stood as Independent Labour and lost that.
While Christmas is  coming we're going. North. Time to leave Dunedin City of my Dreams with its changeable weather. We've seen everyone we know that's still living, eaten well and on the last day seen Stan the Man and Anne who's full of tales about the Lange Labour government and why it all went wrong (threatening crisis and Lange had no guts). They live out at Mosgiel four or five miles out of town where housing is cheaper (but colder) and more spacious.

Then it's hit the road Jack for the world's most boring drive . I'd call it the Great North Road except that in NZ it's always better to travel south (though you should stop before  Stewart Island unless you like rain as a way of life. It's long, straight  and every boring since there's nothing but sheep cows and hedges hiding houses to look at.Thank the Kiwi god (Hedon) we decided not to do it in one day but to break in  Timaru at a smashing motel with a very depressed owner. Linda chose it because other motels had comments like "friendly owner who chatted with us at breakfast" "wonderful warm reception" or "friendly folk".She'd rather not have that though I think it's the best way of finding out about places.

Our search in Timaru is 1) for the port where Linda's grandfather,promoted from head pilot at Port Chalmers -"a good year-only three ships ran aground" to be harbour master  who in those days must have been a real power in the land 2) for a house which once belonged to a relative -which Linda says has a light house-sorry the lighthouse, in the garden.Sounds unlikely and we don't find it 3) for a restaurant-which we do actually find  where the glamorous birds (all four of them) congregate, gloomy couples sit and stare at the room and the food is very good. I'll be turning into a blue cod at this rate.

I'm a great advocate of small towns-the backbone of NZ until  Roger decimated them,but it's difficult to see what the point of Timaru is.Lovely beach lots of motels busy port but what do they all do.Linda says she used to come every year for her holidays but there's no candy floss non ice cream stalls no game arcades or Kiss me Quick hats.Holidays in NZ must have been a serious business. Now they're just a tragedy.

Onward to Christchurch via hundreds of is of even more boring road and flat countryside  stopping at Temuka to look for Grandfather's house-the one he retired to where the McDs used to stay. Two story house called the Anchorage.No lighthouse in the garden. But no one knows anything about it there are hardly any two story houses(not worth having a second story in S Canterbury there's nothing to see out of it-that's my storey and I'm sticking to it)and when we drive down drives to look at houses hidden by hedges the owners think we've come to buy. It takes some explaining,

Now doubtless the word has gone about Temuka (there not being much else to talk about)that a strange woman millionaire is looking for a two story house to buy.Estate agents are looking through their files to see what can offer. Owners of the few two story houses in Temuka are putting for sale signs in their gardens and property values are rocketing as a result of this insane search for the long dead house of a long dead relative 

Eventually persuade her to give up. It's been pulled down,blown up by Jihadis,turned into the Temuka brothel. Anything. We resume the drive and the search for roadside toilets. Stop for a milk shake at Ashburton-same place as we had one going down-it's sad not to be going the other way-and listen to a radio programme about a women's group which provides tonnes of mince meat and cheese sauce for soup kitchens. Like all NZ journalism it goes on far too long. And makes me feel hungry.

Arrive back at the same motel we stayed at when we arrived. Next door a big can arrives with a dozen girls wearing hijabs. Is this a load of Jihadi brides for export? Better not crack that joke. It might upset people.


Wednesday 9 December 2015

from Paradise Lost to Jihardi Brides

Can't stay happy forever. Even in N Z where hedonism has replaced presbyterianism as the national religion-which is probably why they abolished Sundays. We could have stayed longer in Wanaka. We should have stayed longer in Wanaka-sun healthy walking beautiful lake but daft as brushes we decided not to because of the pull of a few days in Dunedin which I assumed would be paradise re-visited and the place where I'd been so happy when I first arrived.  Now it's Frigidaire re-vested.
So we set out assuring ourselves there was plenty of time and we could call in at "all the little places"on the way there. There wasn't and we didn't because I'd chosen what I was later told is the longest and most boring way to Dunedin with only one stop of interest in Clyde. So we arrived in heaven tired, thirsty and hungry to find that  global warming has made it part of Antartica-freezing cold, no sun and a wind cold enough to take the balls of brass monkeys which had had the sense to move North only to find that we could only get to our motel on George St by going miles North then coming back because the Santa Parade (something they never had when I came) had taken over George St.

All my happy memories froze and had to be put into cold storage. This is vest and overcoat country where the smart shoppers wear anoraks as well as the compulsory rucksack and the even smarter ones stay home and put the electric fire on. I'm sure it was never as cold as this in my time. It can't have been or I wouldn't have survived though it was the base for Operation Deepfreeze.

Apart from temperature it's not changed a great deal. No DIC any longer, Arthur Barnett's horse  (sadly in need of a coat of paint) survives but not Arthur Barnett's shop. Wardell's has gone but Radio 4XD "coming to you from the roof of the Calder McKay company"may still be here but not on the roof because Calder McKay's  gone too. The industrial area has lost all the jobs but gained a new coat of paint. The Hillside railway workshops are gone, along with the railway sold for peanuts to union busting Wisconsin railway which closed most of the track down and fired most of the workers before selling it back so the station is now an art gallery cum museum of sport thronging (like our motel and the shopping streets) with Japanese tourists taking photos of the stained glass windows and the decorative tiles. The plaque outside says opened by Sir Joseph Ward Minister of Railways in 1905 but there's none to say "Closed by Sir Roger Douglas" It's a marvellous symbol for Dunedin: "wonderful,planned with great hopes now dead but redecorated" They're now struggling to save the law courts opposite and preserve them. 

Lunch at the Best Cafe (best place for whitebait patties) with Stan Rodger and Anne. He's gloomy about the state of Labour because the old core the trade unions and the working class vote are gone and now its a question of pursuing causes like the environment, feminism and being kind to animals (except Sheep) all over the place.He's just back from a re-union week end for all the Labour MPs elected since 19935. Roger Douglas came but not Prebble and few from the 1999-2008 cabinet. Sounds like a good occasion. But like us you can't hold a party together on memories,and invocations of Michael Joseph Savage.Marvellous as they are.

Next door the  Early Settlers Museum is as good as ever. A new wing on Maori but still the room of pictures of the early settlers looking down disapprovingly and sternly at the hedonistic generation that's inherited their city with  four computers giving their names and the ships they arrived on .Bet they're wondering whether it was all worthwhile when they see their successors. Still anything was better than Scotland at that time.

In the evening we went to hear the Dunedin City Choir's Messiah. I've heard it in Huddersfield but this was as good-if not quite as exciting. But it brought together the old Dunedin : grey haired (even the women-who in Britain would have dyed grey hair blond are all white, not a dark skin in sight, all nice and all old and all quick to evacuate and go home to bed when it was over. Very few rucksacks so its not a your audience but a good many anoraks among the Harris tweed jackets.When Linda comments to Diane that it's an old white audience Diane replies (truthfully)"but that's what we are" Dunedin is the last resting place of old,good, nice New Zealand qualities which get fewer as you go further North until you reach Auckland.

Town is full if mums and dads kids and cameras for degree day when the graduates all in colourful hired gowns march up the main street to the Town Hall to get their degrees. (George St should be permanently blocked off for everything :a parade a day keeps the blues at bay)It's a great occasion which we never had in my time. Right too for the Uni to display how many kids and how much money it brings into Dunedin. The University is Dunedin now with old industries gone to Australia the only industry is educating South East Asia. And Southland

Highlight of the visit though was seeing Jim and Emily Flynn who worked with me in Canterbury but now looks like a marxist sage with a beard and grey hair.Jim as brilliant as ever though he's only written three books since I last saw him two years ago. and as acerbic on NZ politics. His view is that the Alliance should never have gone into coalition with Labour but should have retained its freedom to bring in its own bills. Jim Anderton,he argued wanted to so something before he retired so he joined the government and the party fell apart. What it should have done was hurt Labour which it did by steeling their votes. It got 18% on its first election and 14% at the second big enough to pressure Labour into moving left to bring them back rather than to the soggy centre as it did.
In his view Rogernomics triumphed because the Labour Party had no ideaology no thinkers, no schools and lacked the backbone of the unions to keep it true to the workers and Helen Clark's government wasn't able to pull it back to Labourism still less socialism because they'd ceased to be socialist in any sense. So Roger triumphed because there was nothing to oppose him and no one to point out that it was all barmy. 

Rings true except of course it isn't as easy for one of the two major parties to move left because of the fear and hostility that would be generated so Labour parties get pulled to the centre to win=unless there's a crisis and now there's no hope there either because a sufficiently high proportion are sufficiently well off to make them scared of the changes Labour needs to make. Go home in gloom and despair.

Cheer up next day when we visit an old school (Southland Girls) friend of Linda's and spend the lunchtime reading through old school magazines for the fifties including  the accounts of Southland coming third in the speaking competition for the Anthony Eden Cup in Gisborne

But Wednesday for a change is warm and sunny, Now Dunedin City of my Dreams looks lovely . Its the perfect size for a city in the perfect situation surrounded by the perfect country and kept alive by its wonderful University. How lucky I was to find myself here (largely by accident) half a century ago. Apart from the weather Dunedin's perfect and its even more so now that it's retired from the real world. You cant promote it on the slogan"Dunedin a Great City to Retire to"But it is. Reminds me of Vic Oliver's joke when he came here "What a beautifully laid out city. How long has it been dead?"
I laughed at it then. I resent it now. 

Shock Horror. The head of the security intelligence service (SIS) a woman naturally, tells a parliamentary committee that there may be up to a dozen Jihadi brides from NZ. That will surely give Jihadists better living conditions and cleaner lavatories.