Club Politique by Che Tibby

With at least one person thinking my last blog was a suicide note I thought I’d best clear the air and say all is well in Wellingtown. Apologies for any scares. I admit that winter melancholy had settled, and this freaking heart medication means my sleep patterns are a little weird. But I’m not eyeing up the rohypnol just yet.

What I did decide to do was to tap that melancholy for a literary punt. While the elements of the blog were real (self-doubt, desire to be a better person etc.), I thought that I’d try to wring some emotion out of it. It seems I succeeded, and perhaps a little too well.

Also, I am finding that news-columnist stuff isn’t working for me any more. Other people are far better informed about things that I. But, I do have a little project in the pipeline that I’d like to pour this type of writing into. If I can actually turn this bright idea into reality, then maybe you all can come watch it sometime.

So, next week I promise to do ‘joy’.

After spending so many years trying to become ever more closely engaged with politics and decision-making, and working so hard to understand the nature of power, it's all suddenly a little bland. Maybe it's the amount of news resources dedicated to such mind-numbingly boring topics as dog registration, the miracle of cold weather in winter, or soldiers who are, surprise surprise, tragically killed by a war, but I'm well and truly switching off.

I dunno, maybe it's just that cynicism is settling in in my old[ish] age, but whatever happened to all my dreams? It may have been the realisation that there is no way to change 'da system'. Or the marked lack of surprise I felt when I saw that the seat of power was on different days either a series of petty squabbles or a bunch of lemmings . Thing is though, I saw this a long time ago, so why the disenchantment now?

You know, I think the childish optimist in me has finally been broken?

Long ago I thought that people were basically good. I thought that if you tapped into the right kind of feel within people you could release that good. I thought that if you were the person you wanted people to be, they would echo your truth. I thought that being true, being conscious, was enough, despite all my foolish failings. I thought my failings would fall away in time, I thought my foolishness would fail in time. I saw all the ways in which badness perched within me, and I smashed them one by one. I starved my greed. I held my vanity apart till it withered. I ridiculed my envy. I suffocated my laziness. I tried to bathe in humility.

And in all these things I failed, because for each and every darkness I let light fall upon, for every moment of freedom it granted me, still there remained more. Always more. But I tried.

But is that ever enough? Can you ever truly be what you hold up as your own ideal? Ideals are beyond we mere mortals, leaving us only to ever aspire. Is enough to only sing what they call songs of love and healing unto things we can never be?

And that's the vacuum. I think that trying to aspire to some kind of excellent goodness is a little naïve, a little flakey. Some people are good, and it's right for them to maintain their positive, giving outlook on the world. People like that have carried me time and time again through the years, and I still hear every one of the messages they left me with. Sometimes it's just good to lean on someone, you know? But what I seem to remember about these kinds of people is that they just are. Perhaps they too battle with the desire to be a better person, but the ones I remember the most are those who just were.

The desire to make a difference the way these people do has left me though. Once I thought that I could be as true, but you can only be disenchanted so many times. God, the world is just so full of the unconcious, petty, venal, greedy and insane. The kinds of people who bring back to me all those things I thought I'd left behind. So again I ask you if it's enough? Is it enough to be the best man you can be in spite of the failings?

Perhaps it is. Perhaps all a good man can do is listen to all the white noise put out in the guise of information and truth. Keep learning to understand ever-widening circles of others. Keep trying to be true to the ideals you choose to represent. Discard self-abasement and just get on with the getting on. Finally shake out the last of the fledgling feathers.

Who knows, perhaps in time the circle will turn, the melancholy will fade, and the ideals will come back. Perhaps losing a little faith in goodness and seeing human darkness is part of the learning. After all, imposing an ideal on others, when I know I can never achieve it myself, is sometimes called arrogance. Interesting Catch-22 that one.

Things have been a bit quiet here at Politique Towers lately. Which is likely to be the reason for my latest peeve. 'As to'. Have you heard people using that? Normally it's something someone says when they're trying to sound a little brainier. I once had a workmate who used to say 'hence why' for example. It was almost always when he was trying to impress someone, and you can guarantee that he had no idea it meant nothing.

It's a strange thing the old trying to sound smarter. And so, so stupid. If you talk at you natural level you're more likely to actually be making sense, and as long as you don't automatically patronise anyone who does not share your abilities with English then you'll never be the one they whisper about at the watercooler. But 'hence why'....

It would go like this, 'I was feeling a little cold, hence why I put the heater on'. Hence? Hence is one of those really fancy English words you should leave for lawyers and other professions based on pedantry. Oh. Sorry to all the lawyers. I've noticed that lately Club Politique has degraded to taking the mickey out of people, such as fatties. I'll try and reign that one in. Law is basically pedantry masquerading as professionalism though. Go on, admit it. Over-paid pedants.

Anyhow, I digress. Again. Hence why you'll be stopping reading me and getting on with your work, or something. As for my other question, the use of 'as to', it's one of those little phrases I heard in a seminar once, and suddenly it's everywhere. Like the first time you hear 'obfuscate'. Pretty soon your grandma is saying it, guys on building sites are yelling at your missus, 'don't obfusycate your [insert crude term] love!'.

As I say, when I first heard it I assumed that the speaker was just trying to sound a little sharper. I thought this because I would have said 'why' instead of 'as to'. As in, 'I was explaining as to why this happened', or 'the police are investigating as to why the burglar was able to steal a small portion of proper grammar'. In both those sentences you could have just said 'why'.

Not long after noticing it in that seminar I was woken up by the same usage on NATIONAL RADIO. There I was, gently awaking in the morning, trying not to be disturbed by the news, when there it was, dropped into a sentence like there was nothing wrong. Bolt upright I was, and ready to write an angry email. But then I realised that it was only 6.30am, and it would wait happily till a bit later. And then I ran out of things to talk about, so blogged about it instead. Yay.

Of course, since that time I've heard half a dozen people say it, including 3 News.

So while it I'm unhappy about it, I guess I'll just have to live with it. I guess it's becoming an idiom, something uniquely Kiwi if you please. As to the origins of this particular idiom, I cannot say. Likely it's just something bred out of a corporate culture built on people needing to sound edumacated to be taken seriously. Whatever happened to actual expertise being the better measure, with things like life experience taking precedence over certification, I do not know.

Pedantically Yours,
Che

Well, I've been in the public service for a little over a year now, and I'm happy to say they haven't crushed my spirit yet. Actually, let me emphasise yet. But there's still time. I won't be completely out of debt for a few more months (the student loan doesn't count), and so until then I can't retire and take up full-time writing. And it shits me.

Ah well. There really is a marked difference between this and other types of vocation I've enjoyed. Working in the out of doors wasn't too bad, except for the time a tantric masseuse tried to offer me payment in kind for two days of removing bamboo from her garden. BAMBOO. If you've never tried to dig over a dozen square metres of that crap by hand, you'll not know the effort required. She looked both shocked and insulted when I told her to pony up with the cash. On the other hand, I did the gardens for an artist in Grey Lynn who was one of the most genuinely lovely women I've ever met.

Phone rooms? Not so bad. Except for the whole nothing-but-artificial-light trip. And the punters yelling down the phone. And the highly caffeinated instant coffee. And the huge arses. So, so many huge arses. Those places are like BMI accrual enforcement sites. Oh, and the smokers. “Why do you smoke?”, “Because it stops me munching at work”, “Love, it ain't working”.

I think what I used to enjoy most about the kitchen was that you got to combine what was essentially an outdoor mindset with hard work and a no-nonsense attitude. This means that the fights were generally stand-up and honest. The chain of command was clear, and your obligations and responsibilities at work were obvious. I've been contracting in three separate government departments, and permanent in one. The application of these things is patchy at best.

Take for example a chef I worked with in Melbourne. He used to burn me, and I think it was inadvertent. Generally in a kitchen you know that anything metal has to be treated as if it was red hot. Even if you've just taken it out of the freezer, at least pretend to think it's hot. But sometimes when you're in a hell of a hurry you just grab things to keep the flow going.

What this chef would do is drop white-hot pans into my sink (which usually contained no water) when I was out of the room (I used to have to dash to the coolroom to collect things for them). I'd get back to my sink, grab the pan without thinking, and burn myself. When this happens at the start of a shift and you're having to work for another 6 hours, it can be a real problem.

The correct response in this situation is not to write a letter, a report, or speak to a manager. You speak to the person involved, and directly. “[Chef]” you say, “can you be careful about where you leave these?” If the problem escalates because the other person doesn't reciprocate, the urgency of your request escalates. It eventually got to the point where I was forced to yell, very loudly, and in strong language, for him to not leave effing pans in my effing sink, and asked if he was effing stupid. That he paid attention to.

There are days when you just kind of want to totally lose it like that. It's good for the soul, given that the intention is to resolve issues.

Maybe my next office job can be in Italy or something.

On the better news front, I'm looking forward to the day when someone finally gets a decent chat forum running. The content at Farrar's site just makes me feel stupider even clicking on the comment function, and the crows who nest over at Just Left need either personality transplants or a social life, whichever comes first. Things are good and civil at No Right Turn mind you, maybe I should read him more often.

One site I do read that's been recently upgraded is the Wellingtonista. Go check it out. Go on, get in there.

And in the send-a-blogger-an-email file, make sure you check out THIS out if you're in Wellingtown this weekend. I used to go to a monthly reggae/dancehall gig in Melbourne. If these guys are even half as good as that, it is a fine, fine night out, and far, far from Babylon-in-a-suit.

I've been trying to think of something rather poetic to say about the new-look HMNZS Wellington, sitting there all by itself on the seabed, and kind of minding its own business. When I originally dived the wreck it was 'nice'. They'd sunk it a spot not too far from shore. It was accessible by a relative beginner like myself, and wasn't one of those wrecks you'll have to make a substantial investment in time and money to get to. But, all that said, it was actually a little dull.

Having only seen two different wrecks, the Wellington and the Eliza Ramsden, I haven't exactly got a whole lot to compare. But the Wellington just kind of seemed a little too artificial, 'contrived' if you will. Which is hardly surprising, considering that it was contrived. You get my meaning though. It was just a little too ready.

Now however? It's something else.

The ocean has kind of taken it, picked it up, smashed the bastard with something like a huge sledgehammer, and left it strewn across a big section of sand.

Very, very impressive.

When I dived it the first time we started at the bow and swam around and over it. Then we did a second dive on the bow and swam around a through it. Because it was prepared for divers the access points were large, and there were a lot of holes cut for light. We got to swim into the huge space of the engine room for example, which was lit from a number of different angles. The water was remarkably clear for Wellington, and the wreck gave up some pretty memorable diving.

I still had this kind of nagging doubt about how many times I'd want to dive it though. There are only so many times you can see the same freaking boat. Personally I'd rather spend the money to try and catch crayfish. Which I've yet to do, by the way. Pesky blimmin' heart trouble.

That said, after the recent storm that originally destroyed the frigate I had intended to visit the site at least once more, but was held back for the same reasons as the crayfish dives. What forced the dive was the rather thoughtful gift of a voucher to dive with Splash Gordons.

As you may or may not be aware, Splashies has had a few problem lately. Their boat broke down and a couple of divers were stuck in the water, for example. Tell you what, trying to swim even the 15-20m back to the boat in full dive gear is incredibly hard work sometimes. Dive suits are designed for underwater swimming, and at the surface all the gear just kind of gets in the way, the flippers simply don't give out very much power, your dive jacket is inflated to keep you at the surface and acts as a form of drag, etc. These two divers were stuck out in the channel half because of these reasons, and half because of currents. But hey, no fatalities, right?

I figure that not long after a 'mishap' is probably the safest time to go anywhere with an adventure company, so grabbed the gift and headed out as soon as the weather permitted (and of course water visibility was up). While I'm on the subject of danger, I was asked the other day about my contingency plan for sharks. Not that they're a danger in our waters. But just in case, you know? Well, I don't have a big dive knife, so there's only one alternative. Make a beautiful corpse.

So, the frigate. Where we dived onto the stern last time, we did so again, and it was pretty much intact. We swam down the back and there was the 'F69' in those big yellow letters. The real difference was when we swam around the side of the tub. The first noticeable difference that the starboard side had collapsed, with large sheets of steel lying on the seabed. Pretty soon it became apparent that the entire contents of the engine room, and we're talking about chunks of iron bigger, and far heavier, than your average car strewn across the sand. I saw the gears from the engine, big, solid steel gears you'd need a crane to lift. They were maybe 15 or 20m from where they used to be?

The remainder of the wreck has been moved metres away and in another direction, with huge girders twisted around on themselves like corkscrews. Big sections of the middle section of the ships (midships) have been picked up and carried away, so that that they form this trail of destruction leading towards the bow, some 50m away.

Hugely impressive. As I say, I've been trying to think of something poetic to say about the majesty of the ocean, and the devastation it has wrought. But let's just say, “that frigate is well and truly fucked.” And far more interesting because of it. I'd recommend the dive to anyone.

PS. I'm trying to sell an old 1.8gig PC. Not too bad, just needed to be upgraded. Tana, if you're reading this, could you come over and kick it or something? Might make it worth more than $100. Go you halves!