by Paul Henry
Road-work signs: Who polices these? I can’t count the number of times I am forced to slow to a crawl only to find that the work hasn’t started, or that they have packed up for summer or are working 10 kilometres up the road. Basically, there is no need to slow down. This is time-wasting and dangerous in itself. It is crying wolf and training me and others to believe it is not necessary to slow down. The works companies should be fined for distracting motorists unnecessarily. Shit, it is so frustrating to lose momentum.
Roundabouts: The only way you can legally drive around a roundabout in New Zealand is to the right. So why do we have to indicate right? It is just another thing to get wrong. At roundabouts you should only have to indicate left to exit. Simple. If you are not indicating to the left, you are staying on. Don’t make things hard for these morons. If it is compulsory to turn right, surely to indicate right is redundant?
safer speed zones: So that’s it, is it? You have given up on policing the road and have decided to take us back to the horse-and-cart days of driving slowly. What’s next? A man holding a red flag walking in front of our cars? That, to be fair, would cut the accident rate down. I totally oppose turning the 100km speed limit into a 90km limit as has happened on much of State Highway 27, just because morons can’t drive safely. Just another example of me being criminalised for the incompetence of others.
PERSONAL ANECDOTE:
I am driving the Mustang between Las Vegas and Barstow. The traffic is very heavy in all four lanes. Speed limit is 75 miles an hour, but like the rest of the traffic in the fast lane I am hovering around the 85 mile an hour mark. The trucks know their place. It is wherever they want to be, and they keep up with the rest of the traffic or lead it. If not, they pull over, just like the Winnebagos. (Like that would ever happen in New Zealand!) I see a huge cloud of black smoke on the horizon that gets closer quickly at 85 miles an hour. When alongside, I see it is almost the eighth wonder of the world. A ferocious desert scrub fire fanned by baking-hot winds. Massive and fascinating. But all viewed at 85 miles an hour. (God bless America!) Yes, they are not unheard of, but also not commonly seen at close proximity. Yes, sometimes American drivers do rubberneck, but only for multiple shootings. For the most part, drivers in many other countries manage not to allow a paper bag at the side of the motorway to slow them to a crawl and force a multi-lane traffic jam. Whereas in New Zealand a touch of rain creates gridlock.
CONCLUSION:
Let’s just say this. Driving is a considerable responsibility. Maybe you don’t understand the passion and drama of motoring. And maybe you never will. Maybe you will spend your motoring days locked in a hideous Nissan something or Toyota another. Maybe you will be boxed into a fuck’n Daihatsu your whole driving life or silently simpering along in a bloody hybrid. Whatever. Stay out of my way and stay away from those who, like me, love to drive and drive well. In short: know your place.
NINE GREAT COMMON CAR NAMES:
Jeep Patriot
Ford Raptor
Dodge Ram
Ford Explorer
Ford Mustang
Aston Martin Vanquish
Chevrolet Silverado
Holden Volt
Isuzu Mysterious Utility
NINE FRIGHTFUL COMMON CAR NAMES:
Mazda Bongo Wagon
Nissan Liberty
Porsche Cayenne
Nissan Sylphy
Suzuki Super Carry
Toyota Vitz
Kia Sephia
Hyundai Grandeur
Nissan Cedric
Ford in general have selected names successfully. There are so many like the Ranger, Bronco and Territory. Nissan do spectacularly well in the terrible name stakes. BMW, Mercedes and some others have been classy and safe, just using serial numbers and letters.
My suggestions to Nissan and
Ford for some new car names:
Nissan Macramé
Nissan Cystitis
Nissan Buffet
Nissan à la Carte
Nissan Pancreas
Ford Survivor
Ford Eradicator
Ford Enterprise
FEMINISM
The concepts of feminism, sexual equality and women’s rights are now (thank Christ) so out of date that it would be foolish for me to include a mention of them in this book. I do it here just to reinforce the fact that I did not overlook the topic!
Just as any department for women’s affairs should be closed down and any reference to glass ceilings scratched from the record, so the whole topic should be consigned to history. It was a diabolical uprising that almost completely destroyed the ability most pretty little ladies had to craft the perfect pavlova.
LIST:
I am so tempted to list here the names of offensive man-like women I have been forced to engage with in the past on the basis that it is only fair to give them a leg-up. But I am still in the lengthy process of forgiveness, so I will instead leave a blank form for male readers to insert the names associated with their horrific memories, and for female readers to list the names of those who tried to recruit them to the dark side.
Note: Pretty Scale: 1 = your butcher; 10 = Lorraine Downes.
GAY MARRIAGE
As I write this, I am watching live on television two lesbians getting married in the Rotorua Museum. Surprisingly, they are both quite pretty and both in wedding gowns. (Shouldn’t one be in a suit?) Incidentally, the building is much less magnificent on the inside than it is outside.
Before I continue, I need to stress that, although I am not myself a lesbian, I do have a very good understanding of lesbianism. In fact, I completely understand the attraction — to the point that I think some of the same things they do every 20 seconds or so.
If you have become aroused, just take a moment to calm down, or alternatively just take a moment.
Pause for arousal to subside.
Right. The reason this wedding is live on TV is that it is day one of same-sex marriage in New Zealand, and men and men, and women and women, are getting married like there is no tomorrow. That doesn’t bother me at all. In fact I find it entertaining as a novelty, but, just like marriage itself, the novelty will wear off, and no doubt in some cases lead to same-sex divorce. Poetic justice for those who want this weird sort of fairness. Call the same-sex lawyers now!
It is weird because marriage is a tradition. It is for a man and a lady to partake in. Although I don’t care, I do have sympathy for those who do, as it is their beliefs that the gays are trampling on. I am fully supportive of the same legal protection being afforded homosexual couples as it is married heterosexuals, but an apple is an apple, and marriage is for apples, you bloody oranges.
Anyway, it is time for another couple of oranges to tie the knot in Rotorua. Oh fuck — they’re both men! That can’t be right!
INVINCIBLE CYCLISTS AND GYM-GOERS
It is poncey Lycra not manly Kevlar, you arrogant fools! When you spill euphorically out of the gym and launch yourselves into the path of oncoming cars, what, if anything, is going on in your minds? You are not closer to God because you exercise, you know. But you can be closer to God if you get in my way! I have so far managed to avoid the extraordinarily attractive temptation to bowl you over outside Les Mills on Victoria Street. It is dark and you just blunder over the road between cars because you presumably think you own the place, you’re so holy. Oh, you exercise! Pardon me! One day I am going to go apeshit. Ape-fuck’n-shit!
I expect you are heading over to some bike rack to unlock your fancy cycle so that you can continue to pollute the roads with your arrogant disregard for the motorists who are paying their way. Go on: ride three abreast. Shake your fist at the poor bugger who can only just fit between you and oncoming traffic in his Hummer. Be the arse you are, and then click-clack your way into a café with your stupid bike shoes and stink up the place with your whiffy Lycra shorts, displaying the outline of your half-crushed uncircumcised man’s penis.
POSSIBLE FACT:
Circumcised men do not
ride bikes.
PERSONAL:
I used to have a bike. Then I grew up.
LAS VEGAS / NEW YORK
I take an instant dislike to prissy, pious people who rubbish Las Vegas offhand. Most have never been there. Well, news for you: Las Vegas doesn’t give a shit about you and is better for your non-attendance. I have lost count of the number of times people have condemned Las Vegas when I have talked about it being one of my favourite places. ‘It’s so wasteful, so garish, so fake …’ God, just listen to yourselves. Without exception the people who hold these views are pains in the arse!
The fact is, Las Vegas could teach the world how to recycle if it could be bothered, but I love that it can’t. It’s brash because it knows it has nothing to be ashamed of, and, so far as being fake, it is about as original as anything comes. The brilliance of creating a slice of Egypt that isn’t full of bloody Egyptians is only surpassed by the stunning genius of creating a replica of Paris without the ghastly French.
It is impossible to count the true wonders of the world that have been created in Vegas, but that’s the thing: Vegas is the wonder. It’s under threat, though. The threat comes from the pious wowsers who don’t understand, as Vegas does, that we humans run the planet and have every right to put a great deal of effort into our own entertainment. Every time I go there — and it’s often — yet another energy-efficient-bloody-bulb has replaced a beautiful incandescent bulb. And now the dopey fools at MGM Grand have given in to the animal-activist Nazis and ditched the lions in the glass cage. Damn you all. Those lions were treated like kings.
Most of Las Vegas’s detractors, I have found, are also inclined to praise New York and condemn Los Angeles. I love Los Angeles, but it doesn’t need my endorsement, so enough about that. It’s the poncey twats who sing the praises of New York whom I can’t stand. ‘Oh, the art galleries, the theatre!’ Not only does LA have that and more, Las Vegas is an art gallery and theatre. Obviously the social snobs who hail New York overlook the fact that it is quite literally a shit-hole. Too many people in too small a space. Too cold in winter, and far too hot in summer. The people are oppressed by the very architecture, let alone each other. The underground is like a soup made from human excrement, and over-ground can at times be worse. New York is no more than a great long weekend and a great sandwich. I won’t be going back until they get a huge glass bowl full of lions and install them in the lobby of the Empire State Building.
SUPPLEMENTARY FACT:
If you are one of those who condemn the entire United States out-of-hand, as many do, it’s possible you have no idea how stupid you are. Let me tell you. ‘Very’ is the answer!
LIST:
I love the USA in spite of its many faults — and because of others. I have enough anecdotes to fill a book, but rather than recount them, I gift you a short list of some stunning US mini adventures you can easily have.
1. One-day road trip: Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Carmel. Make sure you stay on the PCH all the way. Take it slowly and stop often. It could just challenge your view that New Zealand has the best vistas in the world. Take a long look at the sea lions.
2. Two-to three-day road trip: Las Vegas to San Fran, staying at Mammoth. On day two, fill up with cheaper petrol just over the Nevada border. You’ll see where!
3. Have your photo taken between the enormous legs of the Marilyn Monroe statue in Palm Springs. (Sadly, she is wearing knickers.) Walk in the footsteps of the true Legends of the Silver Screen.
4. Visit Salvation Mountain just out of Niland, next to the Salton Sea. It is a monument to the significance of the individual. A loud voice from those who could so easily have no voice: the ordinary man. While you are there, look down on Slab City, where the ordinary come to rest.
5. Drive over London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. It’s a monument to all that is the American Dream.
6. Visit the town of Chloride in Arizona and have a bowl of chilli in the old stage-coach inn. Can’t remember the name of the place, but it’s just off the main shopping road. The town has fewer than 400 residents, so it isn’t hard to find. On the way out, visit the cemetery. Don’t stay after dark.
7. Just do a whole day on Route 66. Try Kingman to Flagstaff. Take it slow. Drive an American car and listen to American sixties and seventies music. Stop at a diner and have a pickle and coffee.
8. Drive another 45 minutes up the freeway from Flagstaff and visit Meteor Crater. It could blow your mind. We really are just a speck on the backside of insignificance. The crater doesn’t need America to sing its size. It’s just quite big. If there is time, go stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. You might see a fine sight.
9. Go to Las Vegas. See either ‘O’ or ‘KÀ’ — get good seats. And do a helicopter trip into the Grand Canyon. Natural wonders mixing with the man-made. Fantastic!
What I have cleverly done (and pretty much everything I do is clever) is suggest a pile of things you could do on a two-week trip if you wanted. There are more ‘amazing places’ in the States by a country mile, but after you have done the above your appetite for more will get you to them.
My biggest tip is this: rent a car, and go your own way.
Salvation Mountain.
Meteor Crater.
Political bunker, Canberra.
Paul Henry stands alongside the bastion of our great land. She’s taller than you might think.
POLITICS
In politics, like some other endeavours, your achievements are singular, your failures cumulative. It is a matter of achieving as much as you can while you can. Once you have accumulated enough failures, real or imagined, it is time to go. Recognising that and acting on it depends on what type of person you are and what motivates you. It is somewhat easier to recognise the almost total rejection that comes with failure if you have made it to prime minister, which is why ex-PMs almost always move on faster.
The Jonathan Hunt brigade is there for the long haul, though. Although I don’t want to speak ill of the dead — what? God, he’s alive! Anyway, these are the people motivated by the challenge to avoid ever being thrown out. They want ‘in’ for all their working lives if they can. Murray McCully has become one. A sort of partly-reliable mild wind under the wings of whoever looks to be Murray’s best bet. Peter Dunne is a better example. He carries his loyalties with his principles in a bag he’s prepared to set down on any desk. It has been a long political career with only a very few magnificent moments. He is well past his use-by date, and has well missed the chance to leave with dignity intact. However, he is a success in the longevity stakes, and has repeatedly made something of a small mark.
Some politicians you look at and think, ‘Has time stood still?’ Annette King — shit, is she still there? How old is she now? Doesn’t she have some life waiting for her somewhere … anywhere?
Phil Goff. Great contribution, Phil. But isn’t there a university somewhere that wants to employ you?
There is actually a long list of politicians who fit into the ‘been there too long’ category. Some, sadly, you will never have heard of, and have names you wouldn’t even recognise. Not because they have had their heads down working, but because they are nonentities and entirely worthless components of parliament. To expose them now would be to give them more credit than they deserve. They are like bad wall-coverings: you pass them often, but no longer see them, if ever you did.
There is a category of politicians who burn brightly and then move on. This is the category I think I would have been in if I had succeeded in my endeavour to enter politics in 1999. Brendan Horan is one of those — no, I am shitting you. He is a complete waste of space. But Don Brash was one. Ultimately, spectacularly unsuccessful. Nonetheless, huge achievement for very brief endeavour. Sadly, like so many, he found walking away from politics too hard and had to have one last magnificent humiliation.
John Key fits into this ‘burn brightly’ category. As they say, ‘Many a slip ’twixt cup and lip’, but, given that, I don’t see J
ohn waiting around for any humiliation. When his time is up, he will be one of the first to see it and disembark. Job well done!
David Shearer has the opportunity to fit into this category now. Spectacular achievement for time invested. We all now know it’s not for you, David. You failed, but failed quickly. Almost everyone has said you are a decent bloke. Must be time to re-enter the frontline of life. Go — now!
God, I could go on forever. Christ knows, there are enough politicians …
The thing about politics I don’t quite understand (and let’s be frank, I understand most things very well) is the fascination we have with the most insignificant aspects of it. It is spectacular entertainment, which is lucky, as it is the most expensive entertainment most of us will ever be forced to pay for. All day and every fuck’n night we are fed a diet of minor details packaged as vitally important developments. There is no other business we scrutinise anywhere near as closely. If it weren’t for politics, weather and holiday road tolls, we could reduce our news programming by 80 per cent. Only rarely does something truly momentous happen. Finding out I was paying for Shane’s diet of porn was one such occasion. I feel sorry for those who have no interest in politics. They still have to pay full price for the entertainment and reap no fun from it.