Tag Archives: Writing

Some Day I’ll Fly Away

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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!

“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!

Less Money, More Mana!

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HOW MUCH??!!

HOW MUCH??!!

Hawke’s Bay Today has really been pushing support for the All Blacks versus Argentina game to be held at McLean Park on 6 September and who can blame them – There are still around two thousand tickets to sell and this will be only the second ever time the All Blacks have played in Napier. The other time was against Samoa in 1996.

The last time the All Blacks played in Napier all those years ago I went along to watch them practice (I watched the game at home on television). I asked a rather ragged-looking Andrew Merthens how he was going. His reply burned itself into my memory: “I feel like my guts are about to come flying out my arsehole!” Charming! He’s still one of my favourite All Blacks of all time, although some of that may just have to do with the fact his name is “Andrew” (for the record, I never cared much for similarly named All Blacks Dalton or Hayden).

The only rugby game I have seen in person involving the silver fern was the New Zealand Maori vs England at McLean Park in 2010.

I remember it was a freezing-cold June night on the way to the park, but the several thousand fans inside, the atmosphere was superbly warm and friendly.
What attracted my wife and I to attend wasn’t actually the game itself. We went along because there was going to be a 200-strong Ngāti Kahungunu haka performed before the game. It. Was. AWESOME!

Not content to just watch, a number of the fans on the embankment where we were joined in. The sound was amazing. You could feel the Mana in the air – It was very moving. Then the NZ Maori team performed their traditional pre-game haka. It was the first time I had ever been present for such a spectacle. Once again it was very moving, shiver up the spine experience – a true war cry.

I can’t remember much about the actual game, other than the New Zealand side ran rings around the English (as we knew they would), after both teams wasted a quarter of the game kicking and chasing. But the two haka at the start of the game alone were worth far in excess of the $30 ticket price.

I would love to go to next month’s match. But the main thing stopping me, and I dare say many others, is the ticket price: $70 for an uncovered stand ticket and upwards of $110 for a semi-covered seat. That price is for both adults and children.

Yup, your three year old son or daughter experiencing their first All Blacks game in person will cost the same as your ticket. That’s pretty rough.
There had been children’s tickets available for around $50, but it appears they have sold out. Meaning a Mum, Dad and two kids, who would have paid around $240 (that’s a week’s rent or groceries, give or take), could now have to fork out between $280 and $440.

To invert the lyrics of the Jessie J song, “It’s all about the money, money, money….”

And that sucks.

Now, the hefty price-tag isn’t the fault of McLean Park, or the Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union, or even the local paper. It’s the NZRFU who set the prices.

It feels like a very long time ago that pulling on the black jersey with the silver fern used to be a mainly amateur endeavour. You played for pride and for country. But somewhere along the way money got involved. Lots and lots of money.

Gone are the days where you could watch the All Blacks play England or Australia at Athletic Park in Wellington (I’m showing my age there) on free-to-air TVNZ on a Sunday afternoon before tea time and the six o’clock news. Television rights were the first to go – sold off to Sky TV at a minimum cost to you, the viewer, of $50 per month. Next the New Zealand-made “Canterbury” All Blacks jersey lost its contract as German clothing giant Adidas got clothing rights. It was all down-hill and mark-up from there as more and more sponsorship deals were signed.

These days the (AIG, Adidas, Powerade, Ford, Steinlager, Air New Zealand, Sky TV, Rexona, Sanitarium, etc., etc., etc.) All Blacks are far more a business and brand than a sporting team.

And it’s not just us – professionalism has overtaken the wide world of sport – astonishingly high ticket prices and a new replica uniform plastered with sponsors to buy (you’d think you’d get a discount for all the free advertising you’re doing for them by wearing it) every season to show you are a “true supporter” is sadly the way things are all over the globe. It just goes on and on and on, as prices go up and up and up.

But what makes it worse in New Zealand is how we appear to have sold out so big, so relatively cheaply, so easily, so often.

Just look at the All Blacks’ and NZ Cricket’s (“Black Caps” was a 90s branding idea and I still honestly cringe thinking of the term) playing kits.

What has pride of place? The silver fern – New Zealand’s sporting symbol?

NO!

Some giant international corporation’s logo has taken bigger, bolder pride of place on the AB’s playing strip than New Zealand’s silver fern.

AIG, American International Group, an international insurance company are far more central, larger and clearer on the All Blacks’ uniforms, and ANZ, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (sure, we are in the title, but recent financial events have proven the company is well and truly driven from Australia) on New Zealand Cricket’s men’s international playing strips.

By comparison look at the American NBA/NFL/MLB/NHL leagues – The most “professional”, most monied sports in the world.

Millions and MILLIONS on dollars are spent on individual players, never mind entire teams, with individual sponsorships and endorsements paying HUGE money – LeBron James has a deal with Nike worth $1Billion – that’s insane!

Yet for each of those leagues and their (b/)millionaire players: The playing strip is a scared bit of advertising-free space!

The team logo takes pride of place, and the clothes’ manufacturer’s logo is small and modest in the same place it is on regular clothes.

That’s it.

You won’t see Coke, or Fox News in the middle of the playing jersey for the LA Lakers, the New York Yankees, New England Patriots, or the Detroit Red Wings. and these teams, like the All Blacks and New Zealand Cricket team, are some of the most admired and watched teams in the world.

Wouldn’t it be magnificent if the maximum number of Hawke’s Bay people possible could attend their first All Blacks game and get that chill down their spine and feeling of pride when the All Blacks launch into “Ka Mate” or “Kapa O Pango”?

After all, the All Blacks are supposed to be more about Mana than money, right?

Managing Accountability at MTG

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The question is often asked “What planet do politicians live on?” In the case of Hawke’s Bay’s local body politicians the answer must be “Planet Teflon” – as nothing ever seems to stick, especially accountability.

From storage space shortages, to wildly inaccurate consultants’ reports on projected visitor motions (pun intended); things did not get off to a good start for Napier’s revamped cultural and historical hub – “MTG”, or “Museum, Theatre, Gallery”.

Now, after another council-commissioned consultant’s report – The “McDermott Miller Report” has been released into just what went wrong, where, how badly and how it could be fixed.

I have read the report and it makes pretty good, common sense. Perhaps its only down-fall is that it cost Napier rate-payers the equivalent of New Zealand’s average annual wage to tell them what a Napier ratepayer on the average wage could have told them after a visit or two to MTG.

After a flurry of publicity and changes in the last couple weeks, I now understand that Napier City Council announced they will not be blaming, firing, or holding anyone accountable for MTG’s much-publicised failings.

REALLY??

NO-ONE???

In fact, the council appears to have taken a “move along – nothing to see here!” (Inferences like that will NOT help visitor numbers, by the way) approach. Napier City Council’s new CEO Wayne Jack even said he was “tiring of the barrage of criticism” being levelled at MTG.
My advice to Wayne in helping avoid such situations is simple:

HOLD SOMEONE ACCOUNTABLE!

Not to be outdone, former Napier mayor, Hawke’s Bay Museum Trust chairwoman, acting trust general manager and MTG project champion, Barbara Arnott has already identified who is to blame – saying she “believed the whole MTG issue had been blown out of proportion by some people who had expressed their feelings and opinions without “thinking it through”.” in the local newspaper.

Of course, how silly of us – it’s all the rate-paying public and fact-quoting media’s fault! What an absolute load of imperious rubbish!

I was saddened not to hear or see any rebuttal from Hawke’s Bay Today Editor, Andrew Austin, supporting his reporters or readers / online commenters on such a ludicrous statement to what is a very public issue.

In the real world, when things this big go this wrong, people lose their jobs. MTG is currently going through a round of staff redundancies as a result of their current review. If MTG’s marketing department had indeed ignored a large portion of the community as potential visitors because of their socio-economic status, as McDermott Miller claims then, yes, heads certainly need to roll – A region’s culture and history is made up from everyone’s input, so no-one should be exempted from being able to view and appreciate it. But you can’t help but feel that deeper problems, well out of the control of staff, have not been accurately accounted for.

How are Mrs Arnott and former NCC CEO and MTG project manager Neil Taylor, despite their deep involvement in MTG’s development, apparently completely free from criticism or accountability?

Current Mayor, Bill Dalton says he “did his apprenticeship” under Arnott and the majority of the current council is unchanged from the one led by Arnott for so many years, so there is doubtlessly still a sense (or burden) of loyalty there.

But there appears to be far less love between current council CEO Wayne Jack and his predecessor – Jack having to tidy up a number of messes left over from the previous regime in his first months in office. In fact the way in which Jack does a number of things is a complete reversal to Taylor’s modus operandi, so it would not have been too surprising to have seen Taylor being “Thrown under the Art Deco Bus (another of his projects)”, But no – no accountability there either

Come to think of it, any and all past and current Napier city councillors involved in committees for and voting on MTG’s errant planning and enactment have somehow escaped any and all responsibility or accountability for some very expensive mistakes that are very embarrassing to Napier.

How is that fair?

All this MTG publicity couldn’t come at a worse time for the “Friends of MTG” programme, as they are in the middle or their annual membership renewal programme.

My wife and I are “Friends of MTG” and have been for a number of years – so any “conflicts of interest” claims that those mentioned above have completely avoided will doubtlessly now be levelled at me…. 🙁

I and a number of my fellow “MTG Friends” think for all its faults MTG does indeed have a lot of unfulfilled potential – it’s still a bit of a “blank canvas” if you will. But we also want to see those responsible for some major errors held accountable for their actions.

What do other “MTG Friends” think?

I would expect this year’s membership numbers depend on it.

Napier, its history, present, and future, its art and culture deserves better.

There Goes My Hero

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Double Grandad

My Dad with his new granddaughter, his “Little Angel”.

My Dad died last month.

It wasn’t expected but it was peaceful at least. He’d had a cold for a week or two beforehand and it appears to have quietly and suddenly developed into pneumonia. He died in his sleep early on a Sunday morning aged 78.

My dad had a secret identity – he was Superman!

Well, to me at least.

He couldn’t fly (as far as I was aware) and he didn’t wear a cape or his undies on the outside of his clothes – that would be far too flashy or attention-seeking for this typical, humble, kiwi bloke.

But he was my hero.

He was a loving, caring, loyal and attentive father and husband and I already miss him more than I could ever describe.

While 78 may be relatively early age to die (the average age of a New Zealand male is 77), he packed a whole lot of life into those 78 years.

He grew up around Lake Waikaremoana in northern Hawke’s Bay in the 1930’s and 40’s where his father was the Government Ranger. You couldn’t make fun of Dad when he said the old line of “Walking a mile, barefooted, through snow to school”, because he really had!

He lived the ultimate “Good Keen Man” lifestyle – hunting, fishing and tramping through some of Hawke’s Bay’s wildest and most beautiful areas.

Dad’s mum and dad divorced (he never talked much about this, but it must have been highly unusual for the time and I think he held this against his mum for some time) and when Granddad retired as a ranger, he and Dad moved down to Napier.

One house they lived in was on Carlyle Street (now part of the Countdown carpark) and another was where York Avenue and Wharerangi Road now meet in Tamatea. The council enacted the Public Works Act to buy their property. Dad was always a little disappointed that the grass ‘park’ area that remains (originally part of his home’s back yard) was big enough for another home to be built on the site but was not returned to our family.

Dad had many talents – He once made it into Napier’s Daily Telegraph when he built a scale model of the city’s new St John’s Cathedral

Dad lived in that (now mythical) age where jobs were plentiful. You walked out of one, down the road and straight into another. One of Dad’s many jobs was mowing the runway at Napier / Hawke’s Bay Airport – Air-FIELD would have been a more appropriate title, as this was in the years before the tarmac runway. Earlier this year a friend of mine who works at the airport now happened upon some old invoices and letters of Dad’s from his time there (50-60 odd years ago!) that were unearthed when an old hangar was demolished. Dad was stoked.

Dad owned numerous cars and loved all things mechanical. Despite never being a qualified mechanic, he worked in a number of garages and was head-hunted a number of times by other workshops.

A Firman’s advertisement featuring Dad from Hawke’s Bay Photo News 1963

He met Mum and they ‘dated’ for 14 years. Dad’s marriage proposal was allegedly “Well, I suppose we had better do something about it.”
I (an only child – Mum and Dad had me when they were quite old) came along 11 months later. Dad gave up his outdoors lifestyle to look after his family, but he was still involved with running the local Mountain Safety and Deerstalkers’ Associations for a number of years.

As a father and husband he was outstanding. He was caring and considerate, always helpful and encouraging. He must have been at least a little disappointed that I never took a major interest in his loves of hunting and fishing, or cars, but he never showed it. He was very proud in later years of my writing and activity in Napier. He kept clippings of anything I’d written or appeared in the newspaper for.

He supported me in whatever I wanted to do. He helped coach my school and junior club soccer and cricket teams. If I tried and failed at something he encouraged me to figure out what I had done wrong and try again the right way. He was very patient.

My Dad had a fantastic but – you could hear it coming a mile away – and I mean that literally and without auto-correct.

He was always very fair and when making a big decision, like buying my first car (or even small decisions for that matter) he would list all the positive points…… (here it comes)… BUT… then list all the negative points. It was infuriating, BUT (damn it!) ingrained in me that there are always two sides to every decision, story or argument that have to be considered and taken into account.

He made it into the paper again near the end of his working days. Here he is with what remained of Napier’s iconic light arches that used to straddle Emerson St at its Hastings and Dalton St intersections.

Dad LOVED learning stuff – he was always open to information and ideas – something I’m very glad I inherited from him. Even in retirement, Dad was always busy with little projects – fixing this, making that, finding a better way to do things.

Dad never once insulted or belittled me – something that can’t be said for a lot of other people.

As I said, my Dad was Superman. But even Superman has his Kryptonite. Dad’s was his health.

Like many of his generation, he was a smoker, but gave that up when I was young. He had a heart attack that eventually forced him into early retirement in the late 90’s. He had successful prostate and bowel cancer surgery, but contracted pneumonia last year and ended up on a respirator in ICU for a couple of days.

I told Dad emphatically on a number of these health scares that he was not allowed to die until he had grandchildren. With the early passing of my grandparents I never got to interact with or remember mine and I wanted my children to have that experience.

Dad and Mum were always supportive when my wife and I were having trouble starting a family and as a result Dad was super-proud when his granddaughter arrived last year. She was his “Little Princess” and “Little Angel”. One of the last times we talked he was going to solder up some angel wings for her.

Dad had complained of feeling tired and sluggish in the weeks before he died. But, as the typical Kiwi bloke, he took the stance of “if it hasn’t fallen off, don’t worry about it”. I spoke to him on the phone the day before he died and he said he was fine.

But he wasn’t.

While his mind and spirit were perfectly capable, his body was not and he leaves an immeasurably huge hole in my life.

Goodbye, Dad. I will always love you. If I can live my life half as well as you lived yours and be half as good a father and husband as you were, I’ll be a very happy man.

You will always be My Hero.

 

Another Firman’s advertisement featuring Dad in Hawke’s Bay Photo News, this time from March 1960.
Hawke’s Bay Photo News available to view via HB Knowledge Bank

Horsepower Needed in Hoofing Berties Buses

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I see Napier City Council have decided to divorce their trouble-plagued, ill-conceived Art Deco Buses and sell them after barely a year in service.

They plan to stop the service in May and sell the buses to try and recover some ratepayer money.

I think NCC may have already missed a great opportunity to get the people of Napier a good price for “Bertie and Barb’s Busted Buses” by not hocking them off even earlier than May.

With Hastings’ annual equine event attracting so much publicity, attention and so much money from a very affluent sector of society, surely the last couple of weeks would have been the best time and place to sell vehicles with massive price-tags that are so used to having only a few occupants:

"Where are we going, Wilbur?"

“Where are we going, Wilbur?”

I don’t like cricket (Oh, no!) I love it (Yeah!)

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AFrame_Special_and_Pinkie[1]

2014 has been quite a year for cricketing feats in New Zealand. From the ridiculous, to the sublime.

At the very least it shows that cricket is an enduring facet of New Zealand sport.

I’ve loved the game for as long as I can remember. I started playing cricket in the schoolyard at Tamatea Primary with a tennis ball and plywood bat, which then evolved into Kiwi Cricket out on the school field when the initiative was released soon after. When I wasn’t at school long summer holidays were spent playing the boy next door in epic one-on-one test matches on an empty neighbouring section.

Each spring the latest cricket catalogue would arrive in the mail and I would pore over it hungrily. Admiring all the new seasons’ bats that my heroes used – John Wright’s Gray Nicolls ‘Power Scoop’, Martin Crowe’s Duncan Fernley ‘Colt’, Richard Hadlee’s Gunn & Moore ‘Maestro’ and Mark Greatbach’s Symonds ‘Rhino’.

One year I saved up enough to buy myself a Gunn & Moore ‘Skipper’ and matching gloves. I can still smell the oiled willow and leather as I opened the package when it arrived – Bliss!

I carried on playing cricket through to Intermediate, then my career then took a hiatus in favour of study, with a brief reprisal as permanent 12th man for the Tamatea High School 1st XI in my last year of high school.

It wasn’t until just before I got married that I took up the sport again after years of supporting from the stands and in front of the television and radio. I’ve been playing for my club, Napier Old Boys’ Marist, ever since – which would be almost ten years now.

There’s only one slight problem: I suck at the game.

I don’t play cricket because I’m good at it, I play for the love of the game. I play it because I have fun doing it.
When all the “Findlay-gate” hoopla was going on I was surprised at how many people voicing their opinions on the matter had a very hard-nosed “play to win” approach.

I’ve played cricket at all levels in Hawke’s Bay except for Premiere (because: A/ I’m not good enough & B/ I don’t want to get killed) and the Women’s League (due to unspecified biological reasons) and have found that the higher the grade, the less fun it is. To me no fun = no point.

Anyone who approaches cricket with the intention of winning every game they play will be an emotional wreck within about three games. It just doesn’t work out that way – cricket has so many uncontrollable variables.

In cricket you can literally stand in the field all game without the ball coming towards you once. That’s happened to me on several occasions – it’s bloody boring!

Unlike other sports one little lapse of concentration in cricket can end your game. If you miss a kick, tackle or try in rugby, you can have another go within minutes. When batting in cricket if you miss the ball completely and get bowled, or hit it straight to a fielder on the full and get caught, that’s it, you’re out, thanks for coming.

It can be very easy to get into a bad run of form and that can be very hard to get over or out of. As a result, depression affects more cricketers than any other form of sportspeople.

I find cricket, like all things, to be all about attitude.

When I played at Intermediate the teacher coaching our team told me I was “a chucker” (I threw the ball, as opposed to using the proper, straight-armed technique). But rather that showing me how to cure the problem and bowl correctly, he just stopped me from bowling. Because that was going to really help me develop my game, eh?

By comparison, shortly after I’d started playing cricket for NOBM I was in a team that ended up with twelve players on game day. Rather than sit someone out throughout the whole game the captain said he’d split roles with me – he’d field and then I’d bat. It was going fine until I was the last batsman waiting to go in. We needed about 20 runs and I, having not scored a single run for years, was having second thoughts. I told the captain that I really didn’t mind if he batted instead of me, but instead of taking up my offer he just said “no, I believe you can do it!” As it turns out I didn’t need to bat in the end and we made it with two wickets to spare, but it meant a lot to me that there was support like that in a team and a club.

Just last weekend I eclipsed my previous highest batting score of 10 – a total I’ve reached only twice in ten years), with a well-crafted 15 in 35 degree heat. My teammates and even our opposition (playing the same teams over the years you learn everyone else’s strengths, weaknesses and achievements as well as growing strong friendships) were happy for me. I was stoked too, but I was even happier for my batting partner who made his highest score to date (24) too.

It was all about attitude and that made it fun.

It’s Just Not Cricket!

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For those who don’t get the Hawke’s Bay Today, here’s my letter to the editor that was printed in Wednesday’s edition in relation to “FindlayGate” – the CEO of HB Cricket scoring 307 against a team of schoolboys in a match last Saturday.

It has been very interesting listening to peoples opinions, which seem split pretty much 50/50 on whether his actions were correct. Here’s my opinion for what it’s worth:

(Note: while the grade they play in does have a “split-cricket” component, I discovered after writing this that that part of the competition actually finished at Christmas. This round is straight 45 overs each, but they still break at 20 overs and my opinion still stands that Tech should have declared at that stage when they were 300/1)

Grown man scores 307 against a team of young schoolboys. Nothing to be proud of there, really.

I was playing on the neighbouring pitch on Saturday, nearly got hit by a couple of the “towering sixes” and was getting quite thoroughly depressed for St Johns’ up and coming young cricketers watching the ever-increasing score line.

Tech and St Johns were playing in a grade that has a “split level” game – The team batting first bats for 20 overs, the two teams have a break and the batting side decide whether they will declare, or bat on. At 20 overs Tech were at around 305 for 1 – a massive score in any grade or competition and, in hindsight, around 125 more runs than their opposition would ultimately get.

We were watching their game between overs on our pitch and thinking Tech would rightfully and more importantly, SPORTINGLY, declare. But they didn’t and as reported went on to make a rather farcical 578 – a score which not even the Black Caps could make.

But then for man who made this publicity-worthy score and is also the same person who oversees the competition to say:
“St Johns bowling probably wasn’t up to senior grade standard and said the boys from the Hastings college will probably struggle in the association’s senior men’s club competition” just adds insult to injury.

Throughout New Zealand clubs and schools have a hard time attracting and keeping players, both young and old. The ultimate goal is to get them playing a sport, inspire them at a young age and help them develop into successful, young sportspeople. I didn’t see much for any Hawke’s Bay cricketer, young or old, to be inspired by in Tech’s tactics in that game.

The credit in this game really goes to the St Johns’ boys, who never gave up. They played on despite rather massive odds and took some stunning catches later in their fielding innings. From where we were playing, they looked like a very young, but commendably committed future stars of the game.

Andrew Frame
Secretary and Player
Napier Old Boys’ Marist Cricket Club

Welcome to #GigatownNapier!

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GIANT

Welcome to #GigatownNapier!

For those who are unaware, “Gigatown” is a competition being run by Chorus over the next year or so.

The winning city / town of will receive:

“The fastest internet in the Southern hemisphere – Chorus will make a special one gigabit per second (1Gbps) wholesale service available in the winning Gigatown at a special price and a Gigatown development fund – a $200,000 fund provided by Chorus and Alcatel Lucent’s Connect will support entrepreneurs and innovators taking new services over Gigabit fibre to market for Gigatown.”

I’m all for Napier becoming the first city in the southern hemisphere to have gigabit internet speeds. I can see just how much of a benefit our city and region could gain from such a digital asset. At the very least it is a way to engage, employ and empower Hawke’s Bay’s technologically-savvy youth and maybe even keep some of them from leaving the region in droves as they currently do.
At the most, it can put us at the forefront of the digital world and create massive financial, employment and social gains for our region. That’s why I’ve become a “#GigatownNapier ambassador.”

HOW the competition is currently structured leaves me more than a little cold, though.

The first stage of the competition is all about getting as many people to “hashtag” (“#Gigatown(insert location here)”) your town’s Gigatown handle on as many forms of media as inhumanely possible.

This can, of course, backfire with lots of people getting tired of seeing or using the Gigatown hashtag very quickly – social media is, after all, a very fast moving, trend setting (and following), constantly changing and fickle.

It all seems a little “Spam-like” to me (although there are rules and guidelines to help avoid this).

Currently leading the “#Hashtag Section” is Wanaka – where a simple ham sandwich from a lake-front cafe can set you back a whopping $10 (this was what sticks in my mind from the last time I was there), with almost 70,000 points. Oamaru, the “Steampunk” capital of New Zealand second (I’m pretty sure Steampunk technology isn’t internet compatible, though) is second, 37,000 points behind.

Napier is 14th

There are, apparently, conversion factors to be taken into consideration here – towns with smaller populations (like Wanaka and Oamaru, for example) appear to get more points per capita / hashtag, than bigger population centres. But this will start to even out as the competition proceeds, so we’re told.

Under this basis, let’s all just hope the likes of Otira don’t get too involved, or they’ll smoke the lot of us!

All the hashtag noise has also been a bit of a distraction from recent problems Chorus has been having with the government and the Commerce Commission over “unbundling” and the rolling out of New Zealand’s Ultra-Fast Broadband (“UFB”) network.

It has been interesting to note, too, that while the promise of gigabit internet speeds has been raising a lot of interest, the usage and uptake of “the next big tech thing” – Ultra-Fast Broadband in New Zealand has been a pretty slow. Despite the government and providers strongly promoting the use of UFB and installing the infrastructure for it around large portions of metropolitan New Zealand over the past few years, it has been gaining momentum only recently.

Rather than making the most noise, I’m all for the winning town being the one with the most substance.

Napier deserves an opportunity like this.

We have the port, airport and roads facilitating the transit of goods – export being our biggest earner and the servile tourism industry being a big portion of the region’s economy, but a poor earner for those involved.

Inject gigabit internet technology into Hawke’s Bay and I think we could foreseeably overtake at least one of those sectors. In doing so we would also massively increase the number of skilled workers, increase the wages, in doing so local boost consumer spending and launch the region’s economy into the stratosphere.

Regardless of what happens in the competition, whether Napier becomes #GigatownNapier or not, I still think this is a great opportunity for Napier and Hawke’s Bay.

I went along to the first that Napier “Gigatown Education Seminar” hosted by Ryan Jennings and I was impressed by the passion and drive I saw and heard from everyone at the event to see this sort of thing happen for Napier.

For too long Napier has been chained to the past. Over recent years I have felt we are just out of reach of that one thing that will get Hawke’s Bay out of its current economic doldrums. This is a great opportunity to thrust ourselves through the present and into the future.

Be it with Gigabit internet speeds, or with Ultra-Fast Broadband, this is a great step in the right direction and an opportunity that cannot be wasted!

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