Cracker by Damian Christie

As Russell has mentioned, TVNZ 7 has a live two-hour debate (first hour on telly, both hours on the interweb) all about the Internet tonight from 9pm - 11pm.

What Russell didn't mention, mainly because it wasn't the case when he blogged about it on Friday, was that I'll be presenting it. I only learned that myself on Saturday. Which is quite exciting, for me at least. So I hope you'll watch it, and bear in mind it's my first go at such a thing, and I only learned what an autocue looked like yesterday :) Turns out it's just moving words on a screen – phew.

I have lots of other stuff to say, about Fashion Week, Air New Zealand still not finding my bags (and not actually responding at all to my open letter about its appalling customer service, despite it being passed on to a number of people up the chain) and so on and so on. But I hope you'll forgive me if I leave it until I've got past this whole two-hours of live TV thing.

Instead, I will leave you with a few photos I took of Dunedin and the Otago peninsula the other week. Enjoy.

Seals at the Otago Peninsula. (Alive)

Stencil Graf, Dunedin

Student Flat, Dunedin

Cool scary house, Otago Peninsula

Larnach's Castle

Bird Statue thing, Larnach's Castle

“Yes, well it’s my job to educate the customer.”

Damn, and here’s me thinking it was the job of people who work at Air New Zealand baggage services to um, find my bag?

It all started innocently enough. A flight down to Palmerston North, a spot of business, then back on the plane later that afternoon down to Wellington for a bit more work and some overdue R&R. And no, despite previous protestations about the windy city, I’m not being ironic – I had actually decided to spend a few days in the capital of my own free will.

A brief summary of facts:

1. Check-in lady at Auckland airport tells me and my colleague we’ll need to collect our bags at Palmy and re-check them in before heading to Wellington, owing to the fact we’re stopping over for half a day or so.

2. At Palmerston North, our bags weren’t on the carousel.

3. A staff member took our bag claim receipts, went out the back, and confirmed our bags were there and would go down to Wellington with us.

4. We finished work early, and decided to drive to Wellington rather than wait. We went back to the Palmerston North Airport to collect our bags.

5. Our bags weren’t there. They haven’t been seen since, and that was a fortnight ago.

That’s all you really need to know. Fairly simple, although after having to explain and re-explain the situation to any number of Air New Zealand staff, you might think it was difficult. For the most part, they were fairly helpful, well as helpful as one can be when one has no freakin’ clue where my bags are. And then I encountered Ms “It is my job to educate the customer”. (The following conversation has been recounted to the best of my ability, and may differ slightly from any conversations recorded for much-needed training purposes).

This staff member – I’ll call her Milly – was about the fourth person I’d spoken to the day after our bags went missing. My colleague and I had made at least a dozen calls between us, trying to find out what was being done.

When I ran Milly through the facts, above, she stopped me at point one: “You shouldn’t need to collect your bags at Palmerston”, she pointed out, not entirely helpfully.

“Well that’s what we were told by the check-in person in Auckland,” I explained, “but anyway, they weren’t there.”

“Well that’s wrong,” said Milly, “you should know for next time that your bags will go straight down to Wellington with you.”

“With respect,” I objected, in the time-honoured code used by lawyers to indicate they have anything but, “I’m not too concerned about next time, I’d really like to know where my bag is.”

Not unreasonable, I thought. I’d already explained that my bag contained around thousands of dollars worth of clothes, jewellery, camera equipment and personal effects, the lack of which not only seriously impacted on my next few days’ holiday, but also some major issues down the line. I was, after half a dozen conversations, stranded in the same clothes I’d been wearing for two days, getting a little testy.

“Yes, well it’s my job to educate the customer. So just be aware that next time…”

The conversation didn’t go too well after that. I pointed out that whether we’d gone unnecessarily to collect our bags from the carousel or not, it didn’t change the fact they were no longer there. Or anywhere.

Milly suggested that maybe our bags were somewhere like Timaru. Why Timaru I asked? Well because they’re not on the communication network with the other airports, and wouldn’t have got the APB about our bags.

But we had tags on them? Yes, but they might have come off.

And my Koru ID tag might have come off too? Yes, it happens.

So what you’re saying is every tag and piece of ID might have spontaneously come off not one, but two people’s bags, and then they were shipped off to one of the only airports in the country (via a connecting flight, because flights from Palmy only go to main centres) and someone there doesn’t know what to do with them?

Well, I supppppppppose that’s possible.
__________________________________

An Open Letter to Air New Zealand.

To Whom It May Concern:

Yup, you lost my bag.

Okay. Shit happens. I would have thought shit might have happened when I was in Kabul, or Karachi, rather than on a flight to Palmerston North, but I can still see how it could happen. Either one of the airport staff nicked it when it was lying around at Palmerston North, or you accidentally shipped it off somewhere random, where someone else, a member of staff or member of public, decided to walk off with it.

Whoever it was, they did well. Somewhere in Palmerston North, (or Timaru, if Milly is right), some hillbilly is walking around in a brand new Christian Dior Cashmere Coat (it was on sale) waving my prized Nikon camera and saying “Look Ma, I’m a photogratician!”

It’s not all bad. Some of your employees have been really helpful. Not so helpful that they found my bag, but understanding. Take for instance the nice man at Auckland Airport. I went to claim the $100 cash you get when Air New Zealand lose your bags. Only he had no cash, and the cashiers had cashed up already. Unperturbed, he went off for a few minutes and came back with two shiny $50 notes. I’m not sure how he got them, he just gave me a wink and said “you don’t work here for a few years without learning some tricks.” He was great, even if it was just $100.

But by Christ, if anyone ever insists on ‘educating’ me again about a completely irrelevant matter when I’m facing a meltdown because a large number of my valued possessions have just gone AWOL on one of your flights, I will not be liable for what is said or done.

(If anyone from Air New Zealand is reading this by the way, feel free to get in touch. Feel free to make good on what has been something of a PR disaster so far. I might take a few days to get back to you, because I’m about to start collecting receipts and quotes for everything that was in that bag. That’s going to take a while, and I’m pretty sure no-one is going to compensate me for that.

Yours etc,

DC

Every so often, someone comes along who becomes an integral, constant part of your life. And even though you know they won't be around forever, when they're taken from you before even their shortened time, it still comes as a terrible shock. I'll hope you'll indulge me while I pay tribute to that someone, and if not, there's plenty else to read – why not check out Hadyn and Emma, our newest additions?

For the past six years, my life and home has been shared by Tonka, a giant white pile of Birman fluff. As mentioned in the "About Damian Christie" section to your right, I've been optimistically describing him as "big-boned", although it's not entirely incorrect. He's a long cat, a big cat, made bigger still by fluff, but according to a recent visit to the vet, in pretty good shape.

Or so I thought. A couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, he had a turn. The following week was an emotional rollercoaster of vets visits, inconclusive tests, exploratory surgery, thousands of dollars and uncertain diagnoses.

More than once I left him with the vet, not expecting to see him again. In the end it was determined his heart was weak. It was affecting his liver, which was causing fluid build-up.

On Saturday morning the vet said Tonka was stable enough for me to bring home. He was weak, little more than fluff and bones, and sad. He had medicine for his heart – pills he'd have to take for the rest of his life – but was supposed to be on the road to recovery.

Tonka had other ideas. After sitting unhappily underneath my wardrobe most of the day, I pulled him out so he could sleep on my bed. At 3am on Sunday morning I was woken by his plaintive calls. He died in my arms a couple of minutes later. It was quick, if not entirely peaceful.

I buried Tonka later that day at my parents' place up North, and planted a cabbage tree on top of him.

It's said you don't know what you had until it's taken away from you. In the case of Tonka, I always knew what I had. I had a friend and companion, one who'd leave white fluff on everything I owned, and plonk himself on my chest and lick my nose when I was feeling down. He'd eat precious items of woollen clothing, and poo on my flatmate's couch when I'd move into a new flat. He'd lie on his back on the floor and let almost anyone rub his furry fat belly, his arms stretching out over his head, like a fluffy flying Superman. He might not have enjoyed it, but he never complained when I spun him around on the wooden floors.

Unlike some pets, who exist in the back of our lives, Tonka was there in the forefront. All of my friends knew him, and many had their own nicknames – Ponks, Sir Tonkleton, More Than a Kitty. He's probably seen enough scandal to make Bridget Saunders blush. He even made it on the telly a few times. The calls, messages and tears I've seen over the past week shows me that I wasn't alone in thinking he was pretty spesh.

My little house is empty now. I still see him through the front door when I come home, talk to him when I'm making dinner, and feel him sitting on the end of my bed at night. I wish he'd been around for longer, but I'm really grateful for the time we had together.

I miss you buddy.

I don't know what I find more ironic: National's big push to the future essentially being Think Big 2.0, or Helen Clark referring to someone else as 'Muldoonist'?

By appointing a Minister of Infrastructure, and spending (and borrowing) billions to spend on such projects, is there really any other way to look at Key's announcements from the weekend's party conference? And is it possible anyone other than a New Zealand First supporter would fall for the ridiculous semantics found within National's "we're not borrowing for tax cuts, we're borrowing for other stuff" line?

Speaking of Winston Peters, the attacks continue, within the House at least, and with the privileges committee (does anyone else get sick of the media always requiring the subtitle the most powerful committee in Parliament?) deciding to 'probe' Peters.

They say Winston only wakes up every three years and I'm wondering if at the moment he wishes he was still in hibernation? Sure, he's continuing to deflect the attacks, using his "best defence is a good offence" adage, but I wonder whether it's starting to sound even more hollow than it always has? Last week in the House he tried to deflect Rodney Hide's attacks by claiming Hide had been telling people he had a girlfriend, when really that wasn't true.

Even if this were the case, then Rodney's guilty of something most 15 year old boys have done at some stage in their life ("Yes I've got a girlfriend, dick, it's just that um, you haven't met her because she, um, lives in Hamilton. Yes, we've had it off and everything. What's that? Nah she doesn't have a phone eh…") What Winston is being accused of seems a lot more serious. Maybe not against the law either, but for someone who's been campaigning on a platform of transparency, Winston's denials are looking increasingly see-through.

On the other hand, for the old and/or afflicted, simply seeing Winston on the television every night these days, grinning and accusing the media of their usual tricks could be exactly what he wants. These people don’t listen to substance.

I remember years ago, proudly showing my grandmother (old, not necessarily afflicted) the cover of a magazine for whom I was writing. We'd slammed Winston on the front cover, a bold headline accusing him of selling his soul to Satan, or perhaps being Satan, or something. She looked at it longingly and said "there's my Winston."

And it's not just the OAP's either. Both a close relative and a former girlfriend (these are two separate people, you understand) told me they voted for Winston last election, "because someone needs to keep them honest." My response remains, "what, by comparison?"

Winston's dishonesty might not be the big kind, the kind that will get him in trouble with the law, or turfed out of Parliament. It might not be the kind that will see him censured, made to repay money he shouldn't have taken. But, in my honest opinion, he's dishonest every day. Every day he opens his mouth to deny saying something previously. To deny having done something. To fail to take responsibility for years of casting incendiary statements into a crowd, and walking away.

I'm sure most of you agree. I just wish my Nan would.

On a related note, I went around polling people on the street for work today, asking whether if, as the Nats have suggested, there's a binding referendum on MMP, we should dump it. I'm not claiming statistical accuracy here – it was the first dozen or so people who agreed to speak to me on camera outside the West Lynn shops (that's Harvest Wholefoods and so on, so I'd have thought a liberal bias), but 70% said yeah, let's kick it to the curb.

"It was better the way it was before", said one man who didn't seem old enough to have ever voted under FPP, and I wonder what it is people are yearning for, according to my shite science at least? A move away from the farce of having people like Peters and Dunne being Ministers outside of the Government. A move back to the good old days of unbridled power, supposedly benevolent dictatorships and one party running the country, unchallenged, with only thirty-odd percent of the vote?

There's obviously some mood for change, otherwise I can't see why the Nats would offer a binding referendum, but has MMP failed us? We've had stable minority governments, cross-party support on a wide range of issues, parties outside of Government being able to negotiate their policies onto the table. Isn't that sort of what we want in a democracy? Or is it just a bit too hard? Or, is it more a case of –as one middle-aged, seemingly-educated woman put it– "what's MMP?"

In other news, a big Metro piece (the longest I've ever written for non academic purposes, some 4700 words) on nzherald.co.nz and its trials, tribulations and developments over the years has just gone off sale and onto the archive site if you've got some time on your hands.

The current on-sale issue of Metro ("Auckland's Best Lawyers") also has a piece of mine, an interview with, ahem, Labour's next leader, Phil Goff. Go and buy it and keep me in the manner to which I'm accustomed.

Has anyone else started to worry about what we're going to call the next decade? I know it's a couple of years away yet but can we get in early with the suggestions please? I don't want another 'noughties' debacle. 'Teens' works for me, although it's not entirely accurate until 2013. 'Tweens' until then?

Unlike David’s daughter, during the school holidays I didn’t quite feel my niece Morgan was up for experiencing the joys of an allegedly methamphetamine-addled psycho allegedly cutting up two of his victims and allegedly killing another. (I do need to put in all those allegedly’s, right?)

Yes, despite having a sharp mind, and an inquisitive nature, Morgan has only recently turned two, so I figured a trip to the zoo might be more appropriate. I have to admit selfish reasons for the trip – I really wanted to see the look of delight on Morgan’s face as she saw these animals for the first time.

“It’s lucky you get in for free” I muttered, as she continually failed to be impressed, or in many cases even acknowledge the great lumbering beasts with which she was presented. “Dirt” she noted, pointing at the ground between her and the enormous rhinocerous. “Water!” she exclaimed, staring at the moat separating her from the elephants.

But there were moments that made it all worthwhile. Even though it stubbornly refused to speak (I’ve heard it do so before), for a few minutes there was nothing funnier in her world than repeatedly yelling “Hello!” at the Macaw. She squealed and clapped with delight each time the sealion glided past the underwater viewing window. The great apes and big cats might not have had any impact, but her constant repetition of the word ‘tortoise’ suggested that it might have.

My previous trip I had taken my girlfriend, Lisa, and it was her first time too (no, not because she’s criminally young or anything). That day was sunny; the lions wandered right up to the glass and posed for photos. The hippos were out and about, rather than just two sets of nostrils floating in the water. The elephants were going for a walk, the orangutan was wandering around looking cute with a blanket on her head, the tigers were being fed. Even the kiwi and tuatara, normally invisible, were practically flinging themselves at the glass.

Lisa is now ruined – she now has a completely unrealistic idea of what zoos are about. My visit before that one (I'm not a zooholic, but I tend to get along every so often) the zoo had been like the Marie Celeste – faux savannahs, miniature rainforests, cages, enclosures, but barely an animal in sight. Not even a giraffe, and those fuckers must be hard to hide.

Something to note. The News Wrap, which I do each week for BackBenches (on TVNZ7, before Russell's show, you know the one) is now available online each week. Check it out.