Social Justice

There's been a bit going on in my head recently. Some of which I can't talk about because this aint the forum for stuff that, well, intimately involves other people. However, the thing that is dominating life for me is the departure from Oxford of my friends Justice and Anita.

This is us punting on the Isis last summer. Anita is the one doing the work. Good girl.



Justice and Anita have been (HAVE BEEN?! Still bloody are!) very good friends to me. It grieves me to see them leave. However, I have always known that for Justice Oxford was only a temporary stop for him. He was just waiting for something. Fourteen months later he managed to convince Anita that he was the man of her dreams (she can be a bit thick sometimes) and it was time.

Even though it grieves me, I accept that for Justice there is a need to act on his name. Quite what that will look like is unknown. That unknown is somehow assuring.

In that time honoured line, it has been better to have shared life with him and Anita. Wherever they go will be the better for having them.

And he knows that I would have kicked his arse if he had stayed. Now piss off you beautiful and good man.


One in Four

According to the New Zealand Herald, one in four tertiary (post-secondary) educated New Zealanders live outside of New Zealand. I'm one of those 25%, having spent seven years getting a BSc in Geography and a BE in Resource Engineering and now I live amongst the towers of higher learning that is Oxford. Russell Brown has written about the various responses. I wish I'd seen the questions because I don't feel represented. Not surpisingly, he rounds on many of the respondants. Many of the reasons for people leaving and not returning include:

Financial reasons
"I'm Maori so in NZ I will be expected to go to prison sooner rather than later. In Aussie it is seen as a God-given right that everyone owns their own homes/cars/playthings, and the incomes and costs support this. It's going to take a lot more than patriotism to lure expats back to NZ. I do not know anyone insane enough to work for a pittance, pay extraordinary rent, and then happily inform the family unit that in order for NZ to grow this family has to live like paupers."

Race relation reasons:
"I have a problem with the thought of living in a country where my children will be discriminated against because they are not defined by NZ law as belonging to the Maori race."

and education reasons:
"I'm no longer confident that NZ has world-class education standards, and the best schools here in New York City are very good. I want my daughter to have the best education."

Maybe I'm going against the grain, but none of these reasons have anything to do with the fact that three and a half years after leaving Aotearoa, I am still yet to return, and nor do I expect to return for at least another two. They are not remotely close. I'm not to naive to suggest that laziness might be a reason I'm still here, but it is a laziness that is rooted in a good. I'm still here because I have invested a hell of a lot into my community. This is a community of people that I love dearly (ok, some more than others ;-)), and I am not prepared to let them go. Staying here has nothing to do with money or education or race relations. It is simply because it is in Oxford that I have chosen to do life. Moreover, if I move back home, there are a whole lot of people that I am going to miss. I guess that makes me a little selfish. That aside, New Zealand made me who I am and gave me fantastic oppotunities to explore and grow and experience life. Do I feel obligated to repay that? I guess so, but I also have an affinity with paying things forward. I never left home to make my fortune, I left home to go and see some friends and to broaden my world view. That then grew into developing community. I'm pretty sure that if I had stayed at home I would be much better off financially. Instead, leaving NZ has cost me financially. the dollar has got stronger, I earn about the same as I would do in NZ and as a result, my student loan repayments have got that much harder. But then, money has never been what drives me. Which does (in an aside) present the question, what does drive me? I think Taylor Mali says it best in Silver Lined Heart:

"I’m for the courage it takes to volunteer
to say “yes, I believe in this and I will”
I’m for the bright side
the glass half full
the silver lining
and the optimists who consider darkness just another kind of shining.
I’m for what can be achieved more that for what I would want in an ideal world.
I’m for working everyday to make the world a better place
and not complaining about how it isn’t
so don’t waste my time
with your curses
on verses about what you are against, despise and abhor.
Tell me what inspires you,
what fulfils you and fires you.
Put your goddam pen to paper
and tell me what
you’re
for"

Cheesy this may be, but I don't care.

I'm also aware that due to the nature of my job, I have got myself into a rather specialised little corner. Luckily, Brown can understand if not agree with my view:
"Some are happily settled elsewhere for life, some would like to come home but despair of finding a comparable job, and some will, eventually, return. I'm sure they have their issues with their birth country, but none of them are as embittered as some of the people who wrote to the Herald."

The bugger even made me feel homesick:
"We own a decent chunk of equity in a house only five minutes' drive from the centre of town; there's a beach around the corner and plenty of room to play. The schools, contrary to what you may have heard, are excellent. And it's home. I went to Pasifika on Saturday, and you can't do that anywhere else. And I'm sorry if this sounds wanky, but I'm not only in it for me. I want to be part of the story here. The scale of things means it's possible to do that, to actually make a difference."


In response, I offer this. (BTW, Russell, it doesn't sound wanky, however the use of that adjective does sound like my father). I don't get the little bit of equity near the beach, and last weekend I didn't go to Pasifika. Instead, I live two minutes walk from the Thames and on Saturday I did deliveries for Besom. In Oxford I also get to make a difference.

If it's ok with you, I am going to carry on loving my country but, as Taylor also put it, "I'm for admiration from afar."

In the Darko

You are my people and I am your man. In that spirit of community, can someone please explain Donnie Darko to me.

I'm Rich but I think I get his point

I don't like to put private correspondence into blogs but in this case I am going to make an exception, although I won't say who sent it to me. A friend of mine has sent the following:

"i am having a ball hanging out with this girl i'm seeing. we laugh like
crazy and generally just have fun all the time. talk and get so open towards
oneanother.

this is what life's about. all the millionaire shit around me is generally
bullshit.

i would love to be rich, but not at the expense of my life."

I love this sentiment.

Everybody Stop!

I've been a bit disappointed with my blogging recently. I feel like it has dissolved into a series of badly written gig reviews, like the one I've just posted. I accept that I am my own worst critic, but I fear that if what I've read bores me, it's gonna bore everybody else. That presents a rather large question: just who am I blogging for?

I need to remind myself why it is that I started this in the first place. The point at the beginning was to explore some thoughts on community and see what developed. I've also wanted to blog about my responses to things, to develop my thinking about them and to try to understand my response. What I was trying to avoid was a blog that went along the lines of 'I did this and then I did that'. Reading through my previous entries does not fill me with much of a sense of satisfaction.

Now I question my current motivation. Do I now post because I fear that if I don't people will stop dropping by the blog? If that is the case two things are going to happen. Firstly I'm likely to stop posting because I won't enjoy it and secondly people will stop dropping by because what I am writing is rubbish. But then do I care if no one reads this? Probably. Does anybody read this?

There has to be room for light-heartedness and random crap as that reflects who I am. But there has got to be more to it than that.

Or does all this sound a bit angst-ridden and should I get over myself.

Stand by for another poetry review later on this week...

The Wedding Present

I seem to be spending an awful lot of time at the Zodiac these days. In the month of February I managed to visit it at least three times and I'm back there tomorrow night for the ladies slam. Last Friday visit saw me going to see shoe gazing band 'The Wedding Present' with Chris. Have to confess that I didn't know a great deal about them before I went. I'd heard their new singles on Radio 6 (we do adore that radio station, don't we?) and liked them. I also knew that the lead singer is David Gedge and I went to university with a Darron Gedge, which still amuses me. That was it. Now that I own a couple of studio albums, Take Fountain and Hit Parade (more a greatest hits than an album) I must observe that their live performances are a far superior beast. Without wanting to sound like a music wanker, this is a band that work really hard and they enjoy what they do. Lots of guitar and a very cute girl who replaces the guitar that Gedge has just used with a shiny new one. She then sits at the back of the stage and retunes the used one. All of this is, of course, irrelevant to this entry. What is slightly more relevant is that I stood next to a woman who was on her fifteenth visit to one of their gigs.

There was a final oddity when Gedge announced before the start of the final song that they don't do encores. He wasn't lying. I like that. There seems to be that ridiculous game we play at concerts where the band leaves, we refuse to leave, the lights don't go on and then the band comes back to 'treat' us to the couple of hit singles we were expecting and they haven't played. Then we all leave happy. I enjoyed not playing that game on Friday night.

Movies I shouldn't watch

It's been an interesting evening. I was rung up by Radio 6 for a live interview about my ultimate gig on Jane Gazzo's show. Gazzo - what a great surname. I think I managed to sound engaging. I'm looking forward to listening to myself tomorrow via the streaming of tonight's show at work. We've also had a perspective flatmate round to replace Emma. In between I watched Whale Rider, a film made and set in Aotearoa. I probably shouldn't have watched it. Now I want to go home.

New Zealand. It's a beautiful place. You should go there.

I should go there again.

I need to go there again.

The Dark Side

I believe it isn't manners to ask or advertise a woman's age. But manners and tact are not something that come easy to me.

Today, Naomi turns thirty. Naomi is the person who got me started on this blogging lark, so blame her. While you're doing that, be sure to drop by her site and wish her happy birthday. She's also a wonderful human being.

Welcome to the dark side, Naomi. It's a fine place to be. And it doesn't mean you have to act any more responsibly.

Happy Birthday.

A Slam for the Ladies

The next Hammer and Tongue slam is downstairs at the Zodiac next Tuesday. Upstairs Fightstar are playing. Don't know who they are? Think Charlie from Busted. I think it will be fair to say that in the Venn diagram of people who would go to these events, only my flatmate sits in the middle.

There are more details about the slam here. Should be another good night out in Oxford. Tickets are £6 and the second edition of the Nail will be launched. You know that will be good because I contributed to it.

Humility, Richard, Humility!

Braggart.

Tosser.

The White Stuff

It is finally snowing in Oxford today. Just a little, but.

Being a kiwi, I like this white powdery stuff as I don't get to see it often at home.

And when the sun is setting through it the world turns all peachy.

Being myself is perfect

At the four nations slam, Barbara Adler read a poem that seems to be called several things, Music, First Sundays and Meow Meow Meow. When it was sent to me the file it came in was called the last, the header it came with said the middle, and Barbara says it's called the first. I suspect it's actually called Music. I also suspect that the title doesn't actually matter.

I resonated with a line in the poem at the time and so I asked Barbara for the words. She was kind enough to send me them this morning. The line reads "as if just being yourself was enough to be perfect". It reminds me of December when Buddy Wakefield read his poem at Hammer and Tongue that contained the line 'have you ever dreamed of living for a living'.

What I didn't appreciate at the four nations slam but do now, was the context in which Barbara wrapped the line. So here is the third verse from Music. I think it gives you the idea.

And this is the kind of easy
that is simple to snicker at in your 20s
the age of irony that is so ironic it has to point itself out as being irony
but despite this disability
I somehow got to hear the story
of how back in the 14^th Century
when musical notes were first being standardized in the European monasteries
monks would be lined up in a row
and starting at the low bass they all sang
as far as they could go in their range
until they reached the highest note
each pitch matched to a monk
to make the scale so that according to this tale
C, or Do is actually Joe Monk from hundreds of years ago
singing at his limit
or rather setting it
as if just being yourself were enough to be perfect
and I guess there are some lucky souls
who spend their whole lives knowing this kind of bliss
but as my mantra has always been
please, make fun of me
I’m insecure and I like the attention
it doesn’t get much more mind blowing than this
imagining a world where the standards were based on you own limitations
so that for instance,
the definition of pants
would be that exact length of fabric
which precisely covers my leg
fantastic
being good enough
without even having to try

Dinner with some Americans

This post is horribly late, but what it is about remains a significant event, so here it is.

(This post requires a bit of background information and I am nowhere near the skilled writer I would like to be, and can't work it all seemlessly into the post)
Back in May last year there was the big slam at Hammer and Tongue. Taylor Mali won by some distance. Subsequently at Hammer and Tongue there has become a bit of a tradition where the winner on the night has dinner cooked for them by a volunteer from the audience. This volunteer volunteers before the slam, so it's a bit of a lottery as to how winner and chef match up. I did this last December for Sophia and it was fun. In January, myself and Anita met and had dinner (by accident) with Taylor before he performed at Alchemy. We talked a bit about H and T and explained the dinner for the winner thing.

End of background.
I'm a person who does a bit of travelling for my job and it can be an overrated experience, lots of eating and drinking by yourself, and the delights of Travel Lodges, Ring Roads and business parks. I imagine that to some extent performing and travelling is a bit like that. I could be wrong. In response to those thoughts Anita and I decided to invite Taylor to dinner, part of an overdue dinner for the winner, but also to give him a warmer environment. Taylor replied ok, but asked if the rest of the US team, plus Jim and Steve could come. Seeing as it wasn't my house, but at the Slug, I said yes. Thanks girls.

So, the night before the four nations slam, myself and the girls (Kate, Emily, Caroline and Anita) cooked dinner for three quarters of the American team, plus Jim Thomas. I fear that Beau Sia and Danny Solis had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they came through the door! Taylor made the introductions, and we plied them with organic beer, New Zealand wine, lasagna, and these little things that were four cheeses wrapped in eggplant (I hate eggplant, but we'll let that go for the time being, suffice to say that this was a form of eggplant I could eat). Because Taylor kept running off to answer his phone (probably strategising for the event itself, or creating an excuse to pore through the girl's bedrooms - he did make the odd comment about the relative tidyness of them...), for a large part of the evening it was just Jim, Danny, Beau, the four girls and myself. Jim, Danny and Beau seem to get more comfortable as the evening wore on. They were such good company. I think Caroline's Septagon of Unfortunate Love was a useful catalyst... Later on Justice and Sophia joined the party. I guess to some degree some of us at hOME have idolised Taylor. (A bad word to use, but like I say, I'm not a skilled writer and can't think of a better one, although having said that I do do crosswords, so that excuse is not exactly watertight. Maybe senile dementia is kicking in. There, that's a better excuse.) We were mesmerised by his big slam performance, and we loved his Silver Lined Heart poem. I think fascinated by him is a better expression of our response to him, so it was good to hang out with him and the others and see them just be, just as we were just being too. It felt good to provide that environment. I wish someone would do that for me when I'm travelling for work!

I could hang out with those guys anytime. So... thanks Danny, Beau, Taylor, Jim and Sophia for your company.

It was a beautiful evening.

Smoking Gun

I was in Dublin over the weekend. I went to a pub on Saturday and it felt quite odd. I couldn't work out why, and then I realised that it was because Dublin is now smoke-free. It made for a very different pub experience. Somehow less enjoyable. Or familiar?

Later that night I was watching music tv. There was a video that featured a half naked woman simulating sex. No problems there. The next video was Blur's Beetlebum. In the video bassist Alex James (I think) is smoking a cigarette. This, of course, has been blurred out.

An Ultimate Gig

Radio 6 and Jane Gazzo are playing my ultimate gig next week. This is where you get to email in the three bands you would have liked to see at your ultimate gig.

Me, I chose the following and for the following reasons (call me sad if you like):

The Band. Sadly I was only two and living in New Zealand when they split, which made seeing them a little tricky. And now most of them are dead... Thank goodness for the Last Waltz and The Festival Express so I can pretend to have seen them live.

Dire Straits. It might be just a little uncool, but there is something about a five minute song followed by a self indulgant five minute outro. Brothers in Arms was the first album I bought and the first gig I ever went to was to see them in Auckland.

Pulp. Just because.

Time Management

There is a very interesting article from the Seattle Times about how we are increasingly becoming victims of our own technology. (I found the article while linking from Jon's blog to some guy called Stephen and his blog...).

Essentially the gist of the article is that we are increasingly susceptible to having our life being manipulated by the amount of information we receive:

"Some are concerned that the need for speed is shrinking our attention spans, prompting our search for answers to take the mile-wide-but-inch-deep route and settling us into a rhythm of constant interruption in which deadlines are relentless and tasks are never quite finished."

There's an interesting statistic about attention spans:

"Gloria Mark, a UC-Irvine professor, has been studying attention overload and multitasking among workers in a financial-services office. So far, she's found that the average employee switches tasks every three minutes, is interrupted every two minutes and has a maximum focus stretch of 12 minutes"

My first thought when reading that last statistic was "it's that long? Wow". What I do remember is that when I was studying for my Geography degree in the early nineties, I did most of research from text books, and I could go literally hours at a time without moving. When I did my engineering degree in the late nineties, at a time when I had far greater access to computers, I spent an awful lot of time fretting about emails, surfing the web etc. I got higher marks in my engineering degree, but twelve years later I tend to remember a lot more of the first degree.

I'm finding myself increasingly becoming a victim of both the information highway and my addiction to it. I completely resonate with this:

"Some of us get obsessed, checking e-mails while on vacation or late at night. We will e-mail to avoid talking and expect prompt reply, or fire off text-messages or gab on cellphones not because we have something to say, but because we can. (What? Am I interrupting?)"

I feel naked if I leave my house house without my Blackberry, and if I leave without my phone? I'll go home to get it. Although I do take comfort in that I do spend a lot of time with friends on a one to one basis. My housemates, however, tend not to get to enjoy such time with me. That's my fault!

It's a long article, but one that is worth the read. You may even read it all in one sitting (I couldn't) and it may take longer than twelve minutes.

There is a final observation about blogging too:
"Blogs — personal Web sites where people share information, commentary and feelings — have filled part of the void, keeping their audience current on topics of specific interest. But as Brown says, if all your information is tailored to what you want to know, you may miss that which you don't know you want to know, and should."

Dublin Bound

This entry is being sent from my Blackberry. These little devices have been in the news a bit recently, mostly because Alastair Campbell didn't know how to use one and sent an abusive email from his. Apparently these things are a status symbol and only the top tier of management are supposed to get one. How I've got one is a mystery to me. Go MyCompany!

I'm being sent to Dublin to teach, and due to the course being Monday and Tuesday, I've decided to make a weekend of it. And I get to catch up with a friend I haven't seen in many years.

Last night Chris Langston and I went down to the Zodiac to see three bands; Pure Reason Revolution, Ambulance LTD and the Dears. I'm pretty sure I'd seen PRR before, I think they might have opened for the Boxer Rebellion at the same venue last year. They were loud, clearly influenced by Pink Floyd and really good. I think they've even performed at Greenbelt. Those who came late missed out.

Next on the bill were a band I've discovered on BBC Radio 6, the Beebs indie rock station, Ambulance LTD. These guys are good. Hard to say what they sound like. Indie. Rock. You can listen to a lot of their stuff on their website. The opening track is a six minute instrument, which is a bit gutsy, and they started the show with the same track. The tragically short half hour set also featured the devine Heavy Lifting and Primitive (the way I treat you).

Finally we had the Dears. These guys come from Montreal and to me sound a whole lot like Blur. Others have said the Smiths. I don't see it. Or should that be hear it. I went to the gig on the basis of having heard the single Lost the Plot on Radio 6. In that song, lead singer Murray definitely sounds like Damon Albarn. In order to be more informed, I went out on thursday and did some research. The research essentially involved wandering down to Astleys, one of Wallingfords two record shops (it also sells appliances) and buying the album, along with a few others (some Bob Marley, some Joy Division and, scarily enough, I don't remember the fourth one. Clearly it meant a lot to me.). The research then moved on to the "I've got a new album and I'm going to play it over and over again till I'm sick of it and then I'm never going to listen to it again" stage. I go through this stage a lot. I suspect that I will be repeating the exercise just before Jim and I go off to see the Wedding Present at the end of the month. And I still don't remember the names of most of the songs...

Half way through the gig we sang happy birthyday to Georgie, the Chilean drummer. They finished the set with, I believe, the Last Romantic, or something like that. We cried out for more, they duly obliged and by 10.15 my night out had come to an end. Just as well as I got up at 4.30 this morning...

Now we will get the muddled auto signature that the Blackberry adds on.

See?

Sent from my Handheld Blackberry device

An Appropriate Response

I work in the water industry. My job has a slightly academic bent, and as part of the deal I belong to something called the 'Rivers List', which is an open forum for discussing ideas, questions etc relating to water resources and coastal processes.

Part of the discussion has inevitably turned to the Asian Tsunami. A couple of days ago, a member on the list sent an email saying that he had summarised a lot of the information. Amongst his email, he wrote: "New valuable informations include : engineering surveys and reports from the devastated coastlines several Japanese teams provided rapidly interesting technical data: the highest recorded runup height was 35 m in Western Aceh!!!

Which prompted the following from another member: " Through the rivers list I received your email about the tsunami. I think your remark about the highest recorded runup height was 35m in western Aceh (with 3 '!'s.) is totally misplaced. it is almost like you are talking about a world record in sports that we should be proud of, or so. I do not suggest that we should not look into the hydrodynamic aspects of this tsunami, but realising that almost 300,000 people were killed by this tsunami (many of them in Aceh) and many more suffered severe losses, I think the tone of the message should be very different."

Over the past few days these two emails have prompted a lot of healthy discussion about how we as an engineering and academic body should be responding to this disaster. Engineers spend an awful lot of time studying, interacting and modifying our environment. Sometimes it can be useful to remember who we doing this for and why we are doing, rather than treating it as an academice exercise. One of the more astute comments came this morning: "Obviously, cutting edge research and achievements are always interesting and necessary. But, at the same time, our responsibility is to implement our scientific intuition to have an influence on the system and the people as well. We should not stand apart." In addition to that, I would add the observation that we also need to understand the real nature of the problem we are attempting to solve. At engineering school we were taught theat we should usewhat became known as 'appropriate technology' when working on any project. Essentially that means we don't build a hydroelectric dam in an Indian village when all they need is a well. An extreme example, but I'm sure you get the idea.


As an engineer, I am immensely proud of my profession. OK, so some of the time we build the occasional monstrosity (we blame the architects when this happens), and in the past we have been guilty of a 'bulldozers and wrecking ball' approach to environmental management, but we have the power to create a lot of very positive change in this world. Increasingly this has become more evident, and we have got a lot better at wielding that power.

I'm encouraged by the simple fact that we in the Rivers List are having this discussion.

The Truth

From Homer Simpson in the 'Hungry, Hungry Homer episode:

Homer: I don't mind being called a liar when I'm lying, or about to lie, or just finished lying. But not when I'm telling the truth!

Information Schminformation

I've written before about information overload, and information addiction. I'm pretty sure I've written about information being a substitute for action. Now someone at the BBC has put into words a wonderful observation about the first two. Now, read the highlights below, then turn your computer off and never visit my blog, or anybody elses, again.

(The full article is here.)

Spending an inordinate amount of time at my computer, using my broadband, I'm developing what I can only term an information habit.

Sit down to work. Ten minutes in, the new mail icon tempts me from the bottom of the screen. I'll just check. Nothing like a few juicy new e-mails. Click a few links. Scan a few websites. Oh 20 minutes has just passed. Better get back to work. Now where was I? Start work again. Feel like a reward. I'll just check news.bbc.co.uk. See if anything's happened in the three minutes since I last looked. Follow a few 'related links'...

Half an hour has passed. I feel like I've done something, but actually I haven't. All that's happened is that I've been distracted by constantly rising info urges. I spend most of my day like this, divided between what I need to do and what the internet wants me to do - which is look at it. Constantly.

A Prague Slam

Patrick Seguin of the Alchemy literary group in Prague is going to put on his first poetry slam in the spring. He's never done this before and is looking for some assistance. If anybody out there can give him some tips, drop him a line at patrick@prague-spot.com.