Category Archives: Opinion

More Megalomaniacal Monopolistic Media Meddling!

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If it's a choice between these two blowhards, I'll pick Sacha McNeil, Michael Wilson & Marcus Lush every time!

If it’s a choice between these two blowhards, I’ll pick Sacha McNeil, Michael Wilson & Marcus Lush every time!

It’s a sad indictment of New Zealand media that, rather than invest in new talent, we are once again dished up the same old “stars” that have been doing the rounds for years.

But now it’s even worse! Not only are they taking all the TV hosting positions, they’ll be “cross-medium” – taking up TV, radio and internet time simultaneously!!

Each year around the country hundreds of young, talented journalism, media and broadcasting students graduate and to what?

A tiny job market made even tinier by “NZME” (formerly The Radio Network and APN – we might as well lump “State Broadcaster” TVNZ in there as well, as they constantly interact / work with NZME affiliates) and Mediaworks (TV3, The Edge etc.) simulcasting their content across the nation from central studios and offices in Auckland with as small a staff as possible and evidently no great plans of expanding operations, or their talent pool.

Goodbye three years of study, over $30,000 in student loans / course costs and any hope of ever being the next Jay-Jay, Mike, Dom, Fletch, Vaughan, Megan, Hosking, Henry, Tom, Dick, or Harry!

Bring back the days of “Live and Local 24 Hours a Day” regional radio and other media, I say!

A bigger talent pool enabling graduates to get that all important, almost mythical in its rarity – EXPERIENCE and far more community interaction with their media.

After all, TV, radio and print are such intimate forms of communication – just you and the paper / screen / speakers that it seems absurd, almost insulting than some remote studio hundreds of kilometres away is the one telling you (or not, as the case has become) what is happening in your town

Death to Art Deco?

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DBC

I was told by someone a few years ago that after learning that Deco-themed weddings had become de rigeur and several had been included in weekend celebrations, an Art Deco Weekend guest speaker opined:

“Judging by the amount of grey hair of local devotees present tonight, I wouldn’t be too surprised if there weren’t a few upcoming Art Deco themed funerals!”

His comments weren’t overly well received at the time, apparently. But his idea obviously struck a chord somewhere, as at the next Art Deco Weekend, a “Death By Chocolate” event will be held at Dunstalls Funeral Parlour in Napier.

Funeral Director Paul Dunstall is an old family friend of mine. He is a great guy with a wicked sense of humour, so this comes as no real surprise.

But it does also raise two interesting points:

1/ When WILL there be an Art Deco Funeral.

2/ Having been Napier’s main tourist event for well over 20 years now, when will Art Deco Weekend start to die off?

Why haven’t we “Boldly Gone” anywhere yet?

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Why aren't we "Boldly Going Where No-one Has Gone Before" yet?

Why aren’t we “Boldly Going Where No-one Has Gone Before” yet?

A co-worker sent me a link today that I found very interesting and roused my inner Trekkie. It’s from ITWorld.com and titled “Why We Live in an Anti-Tech Age”

“Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, billionaire investor and author, is among those challenging the notion of innovation and progress. Thiel, who earned undergraduate and law degrees at Stanford University, spoke at the Gartner Symposium/IT this week about why the march of progress seems to have stalled.

“We live in a financial, capitalistic age, we do not live in a scientific or technological age,” said Thiel. “We live in a period were people generally dislike science and technology. Our culture dislikes it, our government dislikes it.”

From the 1960’s to the 1980’s we were bombarded with stories and images in books, TV and movies leading us to believe that one day in the near future, normally sometime around the almost-mythical year 2000 (so, fourteen years ago now), we would all have flying cars, have colonies living on the Moon and Mars and “Boldly go where no one has gone before!” across the universe.

And it wasn’t all just “Science Fiction” either; there was a world-wide technological race. President John F Kennedy encapsulated the “Space Race” portion of it in his “We promise to go to the moon” speech

“During the 1950s or 1960s, technology meant computers and rockets, underwater cities, new forms of energy and all sorts of supersonic airplanes. Since then, though, there “has been this narrowing” view that technology is mostly information technology”, Thiel said.

We certainly do seem to have plateaued, possibly even technologically declined since, as rather than create grand new things, we have merely altered and refined smaller items – Just look at the likes of the “iPhone” – an idea that had its inception in Star Trek’s “communicators”. But rather than moving onto teleport technology, we merely get a further refined iPhone in slightly different colours every few years.

“Economist Robert Gordon, in a paper for the American National Bureau of Economic Research in 2012 said there is an absence of the type of innovation that advances civilization in fundamental ways. True innovation is something like air conditioning, the combustion engine or the telephone.”

Rather than scrapping NASA’s manned space programme, why didn’t they focus on getting humans further into the solar system and universe? Where is our “Warp” technology?

It’s all pretty depressing, really. We go from being the species that aspired to the stars and reached the moon to, fifty years later, being seemingly even more stuck on this large round rock hurtling through space than we were back then!

If you follow Star Trek folklore, you’ll know that the humans are allegedly set to make first contact with another race (the Vulcans) on April 5, 2063 after the Vulcans pick up readings of Earth’s first “warp flight”.

That gives us just under 50 years to create and perfect the technology. Not utterly unrealistic considering, with government backing, the “Manhattan Project” created the nuclear bomb in a mere three and a half years.

But what “Why We Live in an Anti-Tech Age” highlights is the need for society, big business and governments to get behind such audacious developments and help push them along.

Until then, the closest we’ll get to boldly going where no one has gone before is this!

The Hairs on My Chinny-Chin-Chin

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Separated at birth? Two fine examples of rugged, antipodean handsomeness! 

Separated at birth? Two fine examples of rugged, antipodean handsomeness! 

What do Hollywood stud muffin, Hugh Jackman and I have in common?

Quite a lot, evidently!

We’re both:
• Fine examples of rugged, antipodean handsomeness.
• Rocking pretty kick-arse beards at the moment.
• And we’ve both been diagnosed with the same type of skin cancer.

Yes, his Wolverine-ness and I have both had “Basel Cell Carsinomas” removed.

But never fear – neither Hugh, nor I will be shuffling off this mortal coil any time soon! BCCs are the most common form of cancer. In terms of skin cancers they are one of the “better ones” (if there is such a thing – sounds like an oxymoron to me) to get and while rarely fatal, do have a nasty habit of spreading and tend to ulcerate their surrounding skin making them quite unsightly in the long-run. So they are still considered “malignant” and best removed as soon as possible.

They are most commonly a result of over exposure to ultra-violet light, making sun-loving Australians like Hugh and cricket playing New Zealanders like myself prime candidates. My surgeon tells me there might also be a fair dose of heredity in contracting them too. Both my Mum and Dad had BCCs removed, so it was only a matter of time before I was next.

Earlier this year Hugh took to social media to encourage others to wear sunscreen and get any dodgy moles checked after he had a second procedure to remove a BCC from his nose.

In a couple weeks’ time I’m going under the knife again, too, to get some more removed. This time from around my face and ear.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve been growing a beard over winter – not to hide them, but because my moles are around my hairline, so I will be undergoing a very severe buzz-cut before surgery and decided to enjoy some facial hirsuteness while I could.

My wife loves my beard, calling it “the least douchey beard I have ever seen” (That IS a compliment… I think…) – she appears to have a pathological hatred of the current “Hipster Beard” trend.

Working in the office of a forestry company, I’ve gone more for the “Full Lumberjack” look. “And I’m OK” with that!

My new cranial aerodynamic-ness will come in handy with the cricket season fast approaching and I won’t have to fuss about with my hair in the morning for about three months. It will, however, also show off the aftermath of surgery rather obviously.

But I will wear my scars with pride. They certainly aren’t my first and won’t be my last. Like the frown and smile lines around my eyes and face, they will show I’ve lived (and will continue to live) a full life. I’m sure Hugh will do exactly the same!

If YOU have any suspiscious moles or spots on you skin, PLEASE see your doctor, or somewhere like Molemap to get them checked out! It may be nothing at all, it may result in a small scar, or it could save your life!

It’s Diwali Time Again!!

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Mark it in your calendar & I'll see you there!

Mark it in your calendar & I’ll see you there!

Hawke’s Bay’s annual Diwali Festival is once again being held at Napier’s Soundshell on Saturday October 4th from 6pm.

I’ve been to virtually every one and they’re BRILLIANT! A wondrous fusion of food, fun, music and dance – the highlight of my cultural calendar.

If you are a business that would like to be part of the festival, contact Bhavna Nagar.

Otherwise, I’ll see you there on the 4th!

🙂

Here, Fishy, Fishy, Fishy!

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Fish stocks in Hawke Bay are getting so low local recreational fishers have had to resort to using some drastic measures:

As part of the tri-annual “Election Promise-fest”, New Zealand’s governing National Party said they would establish “Recreational Fishing Parks” in the inner Hauraki Gulf and the entire Marlborough Sounds – banning commercial fishing from operating in those areas.

I was in the car with talkback radio on an hour or so after the policy was announced and callers’ reactions, like a school of kingfish sensing a big pot of burly in the water, were fast and severe.

The most common bite the promised bait received was “It won’t make any difference as there isn’t really any commercial fishing in those places as it is!”

Sounds like their plan hit a bit of a snag.

The day before he announced this plan Prime Minister John Key was in Napier to attend the All Blacks vs. Argentina game at McLean Park. As part of his visit he spent some time schmoozing with party faithful at a bar in Napier’s party central-come commercial fishing port, Ahuriri.

In such an ideal location I think Mr Key missed out on a great opportunity for local votes by not announcing his “Recreational Fishing Park” plan here and including in the plan a body of water very close and dear to our hearts – Hawke Bay!

Fish stocks in Hawke Bay have been in decline for some time. Catching fish by surfcasting or kon-tiki from the shores around Napier is proving more and more fruitless. Many recreational boat fishermen I know don’t even bother going out on the bay much any more either, as the number of fish they catch has gone down almost as fast as the price of fuel for their boats has gone up, making it no longer worth the effort or cost.

Hawke’s Bay Sport Fishing Club, along with Advocacy group LegaSea, conducted a study into recreational catches in Hawke Bay over an eight year (fishing is best over the summer here, so the results covered December-February) period.

14,744 anglers recorded over 115 days of fishing competition how many fish (the survey included five species: snapper, gurnard, tarakihi, trevally and groper) they caught. The results were based on the number of fish per angler, per day and ranged from a high of 2.23 gurnard per angler, per day in 2011-12 to a low of 0.006 groper the same year. The average fish per angler, per day over that 8 year period works out as 0.654 – that’s just over half a fish per person, per trip. It’s hardly worth it!

The low fishing stocks hurt the local business as much as the anglers, as there is an estimated 2,000 recreational boats in the region at a total value of around $83 million. Add to that $28 million of fishing gear and over $10 million in fuel, maintenance, fuel etc. and recreational fishing has an estimated value of at least $121 MILLION to Hawke’s Bay’s economy!

Commercial fishing operations, by comparison, are actually expanding! While most big operators in the region fish outside of Hawke Bay – mainly out towards the Hikurangi Trench and beyond, it is not uncommon to see commercial boats operating within the limits of Mahia Peninsula and Cape Kidnappers. I have even seen commercial fishing boats regularly running a couple hundred meters offshore along by Hawke’s Bay Airport. You can guarantee they are catching more than 0.654 of a fish – That’s just not fair!

So, Mr Key. I understand you’re visiting Napier again today (Thursday 18 September). Your local MP’s have been rather ineffectual in the region despite claiming they are “Backing the Bay”, so let’s see if you can do any better. Add Hawke Bay to your list of “Recreational Fishing Parks”. Ensure the conservation of our region’s salt water fish stocks. Keep our recreational fishermen and fisherwomen happy with tight lines and bobbing rods. Make sure a pastime worth hundreds of millions of dollars to our region doesn’t end up floating belly-up in an empty Hawke Bay.

Hawke’s (and Hawke) Bay deserves better!

*In Breaking News*
There may be further reasoning to making Hawke Bay a “Recreational Fishing Park” as Ministry of Primary Industry agents swooped on a local fishing business after it appeared their in-shore catch records were substantially less than they had been recording as exporting.

Some Day I’ll Fly Away

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missed

The Dominion Post got my hopes up the other day.

I saw the words “Mayors Resigned” and though “Ooh – change is in the air at last!”

Sadly, the whole title was in fact “(Hawke’s Bay) Mayors Resigned to Losing Air New Zealand Base”.

Not only can they not work with each other, it seems Mayors Yule and Dalton can’t even convince New Zealand’s biggest (and regionally monopolistic) airline to be kinder to it’s busiest regional airport, reduce fares or keep crews (and jobs) stationed in Hawke’s Bay.

Mayor Dalton was even quoted as saying before their meeting with the airline “Air New Zealand is not price gouging in Hawke’s Bay and the region risks losing air services if the airline takes offence at the claims.” Oh, PLEASE!

Air New Zealand is in the box seat in Hawke’s Bay and virtually every other regional airport in New Zealand. They can do what they want and charge what they want when they want. If you have to fly our of one of a regional New Zealand centre at short notice, you do it at their price.

This has been a major issue for years. It’s only come up again in the last month thanks to electioneering. Will this “new” focus make any difference? It hasn’t before, so I don’t see why there should be any change now.

Which is a great shame because I would love to be able to afford to fly more often.

I can count the number of return flights I have made out of Hawke’s Bay Airport on one hand. Two of those trips were work trips paid for by my employers at the time and two were trips I won. The fifth was a connecting flight to Auckland as part of our Melbourne honeymoon. I can’t remember exactly how much this flight was, as it was just included in the package, but I do remember it being more than the cost of several nights’ accomodation (including breakfast) in Melbourne.

Every time I have flown it has felt special. Not just the physics of flight which takes a bit of getting your head around, but the experience – You’re taken further and faster than anything you’re used to and it’s all done in a style that makes me feel a bit “James Bondy”. So it’s an even bigger shame a majority of people can’t afford to experience it.

Most of the people I know who DO regularly fly in and out of Hawke’s Bay are, literally and figuratively, “High-flying business-people.” They have Koru Club memberships and regularly zip off to other New Zealand or international cities to do big deals and make lots of money. Everyone else I know, a far greater proportion, either drives or takes the bus because they simply can’t afford to fly.

The high cost of air travel isn’t just depriving us common folk of a wonderful experience, it’s also having a negative effect on our region’s current and future economy.

I have heard and read time and time again recently that one of the major factors inhibiting businesses’ intentions of moving to Hawke’s Bay is the high cost of air travel to and from the region. Our national airline is making huge profits out of ensuring regional centres lose opportunity and money.

So when our mayors don’t even appear to TRY to put up a fight when they “go in to battle” for a fair fare deal for their citizens and local businesses, while our rates pay for their frequent “council business” air travel and Koru Club memberships, it’s just rubbing salt into the wound.

Napier, Hastings and ALL OF HAWKE’S BAY deserve better!

The Bill & Yuley Show

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punch

Aw geez… Here we go again!

Last week Hastings District Council released a promotional campaign they had been working on, along with Business Hawke’s Bay, Food Hawke’s Bay and HB Winegrowers called “Hawke’s Bay – Great Things Grow Here”

The scheme is designed, we were told, as a resource to attract businesses to move to and trade with our great little region – Hawke’s Bay. There was only one slightly major flaw – Hastings apparently didn’t ask anyone else to be part of this “Hawke’s Bay Region” promotion. In fact, if you like what the scheme offers, the only “Key Contacts” on the website are Hastings District Council, Business Hawke’s Bay, Food Hawke’s Bay and HB Winegrowers. No one else. Not Napier City Council. Not Hawke’s Bay Regional Council – no one!

This concerns me. Not from the perspective of HDC going at a project like this alone, as HB councils have been doubling up on ideas and services for years, but that BHB, FHB and HBWG (all based at the EIT Campus in Napier) happily went along with it. Business Hawke’s Bay is tasked with the economic development of the WHOLE Hawke’s Bay Region. So why didn’t anyone sitting in their Napier offices say “Um, hey, shouldn’t we involve EVERYONE in this?”

Hastings Mayor, Local Government New Zealand Chairman and staunch Hawke’s Bay amalgamationalist, Lawrence Yule further stoked flames of antagonism by saying:

“Until there has been a change in approach in Napier City Council we will never do any of this type of stuff with them” (But later claimed this was meant in a “historical sense”(???))

“Our council made the decision to just get on and do it.”

He might as well have said “It’s MY amalgamated Hawke’s Bay Empire and if you don’t play by MY rules, I’m taking bat and ball and going home!”

Naturally, Napier Mayor and equally as staunch ANTI-amalgamationalist fired his own shots back on his blog and in the local paper, claiming “Great Things Grow Here” was produced in secret and all part of Yule’s amalgamation plans.

Yule refutes this – saying: “Preparing this video has absolutely nothing to do with any push for amalgamation. It was simply to help businesses in the region, to get more jobs and to help us market ourselves in getting those businesses.”

But his approach and reasoning seem quite flimsy.

If he was indeed intent on promoting ALL of Hawke’s Bay as a great location for business to relocate surely he would have involved ALL of Hawke’s Bay local bodies, promotional agencies and a few businesses, rather than focusing on how it could benefit just his own council.

By going it alone in this project Yule has merely exacerbated the problem and perceived lack of coordination and cooperation between HB councils, playing up to the concept of an amalgamated Hawke’s Bay council being the panacea for all such issues. He needs to put old ideologies, rivalries and grudges aside and work in the here, the now and for the future of the whole Hawke’s Bay region.

If Hawke’s Bay is to pull itself out of its current doldrums, successfully evolve into a regional economic success story and move into the future, it can’t be with all this one-upmanship, sniping and negativity between its leaders.

It’s tit for tat. It’s schoolyard squabbling. It’s pathetic and it’s harming Hawke’s Bay.

IF there is to be any form of Hawke’s Bay amalgamation in the future (and it’s becoming a bigger and bigger “if” and more and more distant future), surely neither Napier nor Hastings’ current mayors can be part of it, or certainly at the head of it if current attitudes and agendas continue.

Meanwhile we ratepayers just keep paying their wages…

Napier, Hastings and ALL OF HAWKE’S BAY deserve better!

“What’s in a (Toy’s) Name?”

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"Dog" and... um... "Dog"!

“Dog” and… um… “Dog”!

Like most children, Little Miss Frame has several soft toys, teddy bears etc. – each of which her mum and I have named for ease of memory and identification.

Being children of the 80’s, Mrs F and I were brought up amidst a flood of “branded” toys. “Barbie” was, and will forever be “Barbie”, no matter how many versions of her you have. My GI Joes all have their allotted code-names as per the packaging and Carebears will always be either “Carebear” (as we call the little one we got Miss F), or whatever its model name is – “Fun-shine” “Hugs-a-lot” etc.

The biggest percentage of soft toys my wife and I had, though, avoided mass commercialisation. My wife had (and still has) “Mr Ted” – a teddy bear almost as big as she is now that her father made and “Eric” the troll doll. I had the “Playschool”-influenced, hand-made “Big Ted” and “Little Ted”, as well as “Monks” the monkey and a mini Footrot Flats dog I got for my 7th birthday called, you guessed it, “Dog”!

Like us, 99% of our daughter’s toys are unbranded, hand-made etc., so we had free reign with what we called them. But WHY we named them what we did is half the fun of the exercise.

There’s “George” the pink furry hippo – named after, funnily enough, “George” the pink furry hippo from the 80’s TV series “Rainbow”.

We got a second, smaller hippo for pram travel and naturally we couldn’t have a “George”, without having a “Mildred”!

There’s “Vincent” – the bear with one ear (the other started coming loose and had to be removed for safety reasons).

And “Henrietta” is a small, googly-eyed Giraffe. I have no idea why I called her Henrietta, other than it seemed a fitting name for a giraffe at the time.

These are the names that will stick with our little Miss and her toys for years to come. Hopefully she’ll have fond memories of playing with them and when she has her own children (no pressure – you’re only 9 months old!) she’ll have fun naming their teddies and toys.

What (and why) were YOUR toys names?

A Fathers’ Day of Firsts

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The two elements of Fathers' Day that mean the most to me.

The two elements of Fathers’ Day that mean the most to me.

This Sunday will, for me, be (to quote Charles Dickens) the best of times and the worst of times.

It will be my first Fathers’ Day as an actual father – our daughter turns 9 months old this week. But it will also be the first Fathers’ Day since my Dad died, which makes the occasion bitter-sweet.

Naturally I still miss Dad immeasurably. I miss his wisdom, his presence, his adoration for his granddaughter and his unexpected visits just to see her. Most of all I miss that I’ll never be able to see him or give him a hug ever again.

Grief is a strange thing. Some days you’re fine. You live your life, think about those that aren’t with you anymore and smile at their memory. Other days some completely inconsequential thing will trigger a flood of melancholy that threatens to wash you away completely.

I’ve been fortunate enough to survive its onslaught so far mainly because I have something to live for and be positive about. She’s small, absolutely gorgeous and likes nothing more than being propped up in my lap, looking deep into my eyes, giving me a big smile and saying “MumMumMum!” then blowing raspberries at me.

Nine months is an incredibly long time in parenthood. Historians use the initials “BC” (Before Christ) & “AD” (Ano Dominae) to specify recent historical periods. Parents are more likely to use the initials “BB” (Before Baby) – a period that may as well have been over 2000 years ago for the changes that have taken place since this tiny sentient being came into their lives.

Sleeping, drinking, pooping, crying, smiling, looking, thinking, exploring, eating, sitting, rolling, chewing and crawling are all things we, as adults, take for granted and as ancient history. But to witness someone going through these things first-hand for the first time is world-altering.

I must say, our little lady is doing a stellar job of coming to grips with this big, crazy world. Like the little girl in the YouTube clip – part of me wishes she’ll never grow up and remain this small and cute forever. As a modern-day, cellphone camera-equipped father, I have taken, literally, (954 at last count) just under a thousand photos of her in these last 9 months, so part of her always will be this small and cute. But I also look forward to watching her grow and develop her own personality. We’re in no big hurry, though.

She fell asleep in my arms the other night. There is something so intimate in holding a sleeping baby. They are so cute, but also so vulnerable. You feel a mixture of utter love and devotion to your child, mixed with a stone-cold protective readiness to go Jack Reacher on the arse of anyone who so much as tries to hurt or take your baby from you.

Someday I hope to see my Dad again on some ethereal plane, whether it be in Heaven, Purgatory, Nirvana, Elysium or even the Matrix and give him that long-awaited hug. But until then I’ll focus on being the best father I can be for our daughter and giving her all the hugs and kisses I can.

Happy Fathers’ Day!