6.35am
Wake to the news the just-in-time economy has delivered us 150,000 vaccine doses.
Somehow, once more, things are looking right, and not at all cooked.
But surely, after a year and a half of this, surely, after a year and a half of not falling deep into the shambles and tragedy of a UK or a USA or an India or a Brazil, our dumb luck has to run out.
Surely, after a year and a half of steadily correcting and improving as we go along, the day will come where we find ourselves with egg all over our face from being cautious and methodical.
We must surely be getting nearer to the moment where Bishop and Mike and Kate and Heather get to crow in triumph I KNEW IT, TOLD YA SO, WHAT A BUNCH OF CLOWNS.
Surely.
6.38am
Also listening to what the Government of Fiji has been saying to the media and it is not good.
I'll paraphrase:
we are not going to lock down like they did in NZ or Australia because in order to make that work, they handed out money to everybody. We don't have the money to do that.
That, there. That's your portrait of how the pandemic plays depending on where you live and what you have. It is not a good picture.
7.35am
We cross live to the mail room where Uncle Dave is looking wide-eyed at some highly energetic correspondence.
Hi Dave
Lately I’ve been sitting in front of my laptop for 16 or 18 hours at a stretch just doom-scrolling doom-scrolling because OMG the state of things, amirite?
And eventually I will find I’ve got so embiggened I’ll whip out my typing hand and start pounding away on the keyboard - you know? - harder and harder and harder and angrier and angrier until I can’t hold it any more and it all comes splooshing out on the screen, like this:
My fellow comrades have seized upon the Hate Speech powers with all the zeal of a cult on laundry day they want to hand the criminalization of speech over to the State so that they can Woke nark to the cops over their latest social media lynching and report a misuse of pronouns as a hate crime and woke woke woke grim Identity Politics utopia woke woke woke vegan supper woke woke woke splooosh.
Martyn
Hi Martyn
Thanks for sharing. Yes, internet addiction and derangement can get the better of the best of us, sadly. Are you looking for some kind of counselling or are you wanting to borrow a bike so that you can ride back out into the real world and feel good again?
Uncle Dave
Sweet baby Jesus save me Dave. You militant cyclists will never let go and never get a clue. I was making the point that the Woke have a low threshold for hate in a triggered outrage culture, you complete pinhead.
Martyn
Thanks Martyn
Fair enough. I guess what you're trying to ask in this prolix cry for help is what's the story with the hate speech legislation Dave?
Well, as it stands it is a law that is being toughened in terms of sanctions but narrowed in terms of scope. It might seem worrisome to be leaving it up to a court to decide what a term like hate might mean, but this is what they are asked to do about quite a few terms already, as it happens. You wouldn't believe how much law we leave up to judges by asking them to decide what vague terms like reasonable might mean. It’s entirely business as usual.
Scary, eh. But if you feel that so far we have not found ourselves tyrannised by swivel-eyed woke judges, then there is no particular reason to imagine this new law will change things much at all.
BTW, all that stuff about deplatforming and cancel culture and whatnot? Cheer up! Let's just open this copy of the Waikato Invader. Let’s turn the radio on. Boy! Get a load of all the reactionary voices warning us about wokeness and appalling socialists plotting to make the world better. That's where the money is, and always will be. No need to fret at all.
Uncle Dave
Hi Dave,
I turn to your newsletter for a calm soothing look at the world but today's edition seems to be full of barking. What's the story?
Cat Lover
Hi Cat Lover, sorry about that, was just trying to make some sense of this. All done now. You can take your hands off your ears.
Uncle Dave
8.05am
The working week has barely begun and already a deserving contender steps forward for Friday’s Weekly Dismal Awards.
A group of Wellington flatmates finds themselves marooned in their lease because their landlord wants to bide her time before she gets the property up to healthy home standards. She doesn’t want anyone to leave the tenancy and find replacements because that would trigger the new obligations and that doesn’t suit her rn tbh.
Hello longtime reader John B who has long resided in Germany! Please feel free to report in on the current state of things there regarding the idea that being a landlord is a longterm arrangement that you treat like any other business, and not some handy enhancement of the whole money-for-nothing concept of property investment so entrenched around here.
Let us pause for a moment, as the nation will, from time to time, to feel sad for every renter who is handing over more in rent each week than they might well do for a mortgage, but remains forever locked out of that sweet deal by the impossibility of scaling Deposit Mountain.
Let me just refrain from the column the other week:
We could make housing affordable through massive state investment and a proper capital gains tax on every damn property. But everyone who is still in love with the idea of money for nothing says fuck off with your socialism I worked hard for that tax free capital gain.
9.37am
On the Twitter, someone is saying he finds the new Diana statue awful and artless.
I feel he makes a strong point. You know those quick sketch artists - the ones in markets who will do your portrait in ten minutes? It looks to me like what you'd get if you asked them to whip up a quick statue of you.
Poor Diana.
10.35am
An editorial notes our tech sector is already one of the country’s biggest earners, contributing $12.7 billion to the economy in 2019, including $9.4b in exports and could be worth $16b by 2030. I feel proud to say I was once a digital foot soldier in that noble battle and when I read something like this I think: I really should have another go.
Hello readers of this newsletter doing cool things in the tech sector - anyone want to write something setting out some thoughts on a bigger brighter tech future for our plucky little nation, no fertiliser required?
11.15am
Basically the Northern Hemisphere is either melting or whole sides of hills are being washed away with the poor people inside them.
Do we get it yet?
Hello readers of the free editions! Yesterday and also the week before I made some suggestions about fixing the climate crisis. Would you like to read on? This is a warm invitation to think about getting the rest of the week’s newsletters.
https://subslack.substack.com/p/listening-to-the-wrong-people
https://subslack.substack.com/p/a-proposal-of-preposterous-audacity
12.15 pm
While I’m busy plugging the newsletter, there’s also this! Greg Fleming asked for my thoughts about moving from Old Media to Substack. Naturally I recommend it as a good read.
4.20pm
MTAF reader Becs - Hi Becs! - was on Twitter this morning enthusing about the Paris, Texas soundtrack. Now there’s an album, goddam.
Let's have a couple of minutes of Harry Dean Stanton in the desert, and Ry Cooder. Maybe tomorrow we’ll do the same with Repo Man.
I'm a new-ish subscriber and here to comment that every newsletter so far has provided me with a laugh, a cry, and a "hell yes"! I have racked my brain if there's another publication I can say that about and come up empty. The NZ Listener makes me want to weep - in frustration - but I can't be bothered going into battle for a refund of current sub. Slightly worried that I might miss their puzzle pages, but have found out your Friday Quiz tops those too. And the music vids are genius!
Yes, the statue of Diana is awful. And what idiot designed the clothes she's portrayed in? The best part was the planting that the Kensington Palace gardeners prepared for the event. Should have got them to design the statue.