Excuses published July 8
There comes a time in everyone’s life when certain behaviours we are not proud of insist on taking themselves for a walk on a repetitive basis. Eventually it becomes evident that you need to come up with an explanation for these stray puppies of abnormal conduct.
For celebrities this is not a problem. Paris? ADD. Lindsay? Addiction to painkillers. Britney? Addiction to painkillers and buying wigs.
It could be reasonably argued that celebrities actually need a bit of a disorder to do what they do so abnormal is the desire to be famous, to give up any pretence of privacy and find God.
But when it comes to being just a normal person with an annoying tendency towards bad behaviour then we have to work harder. Which is when the disorder de jour becomes very useful.
A few years ago Autism was all the go. Don’t feel like mixing and mingling? Keep laughing at the wrong place in the joke? Can’t look anyone in the eye? You’re not rude you’re Autistic. Feel free.
Then along came Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD. Can’t be bothered listening? Keep walking out of the room at the wrong time? Always on the go? This one can cover a lot of ground on any given day.
And lately Aspergers is all the rage. Bit clumsy? Not good in a social situations? Can’t read body language? Go for it.
The wonderful thing about having a disorder de jour in your back pocket is that no one questions it. You can be in the middle of the most disgraceful behaviour in a busy restaurant such as pulling a woman’s hair while screaming abuse at your boyfriend about supposed indiscretions and simply ask that people respect your behaviour due to a diagnosis of ADD combined with a touch of Dyslexia. You can guarantee they will back off in an instant in an effort to be seen to be a caring politically correct member of society. And no one will ask you to sign the bill thinking Dyslexia means you can’t write your own name and go around the place marking “X” on legal documents.
You can also use it for explaining away work issues such as boring everyone rigid with extensive logic arguments about the storage of paper clips (Asperger's) or repetitive behaviours such as insisting on stacking the toilet paper rolls neatly in the toilet (Asperger's, Autism) or just losing it on any given day (Autism).
Which takes care of the behavioural side of your demeanour. But there are still certain behaviours that require excuses such as not turning up at work. What you need then is the disease de jour.
For many years the two words “women’s” and “problems” were sufficient to buy you anything from a day off work to a full scale six weeks if “surgery” was required. Although it can also be categorised as a disorder de jour to explain away general moodiness and hypersensitivity.
But then male bosses stopped turning pale and shaky at the slightest mention of “down there” because they were cool and modern and with it. Suddenly they started actually asking how heavy your flow was and had you considered the possibility of fibroids? Apparently his wife has them. Now you’re pale and shaky.
These days we’ve had to be a bit more creative and call in Irritable Bowel Syndrome but even then they insist on suggesting that your farting was actually getting a little out of control in the office.
The key is to find something no one knows about. Can I suggest Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome which according to Paula Abdul is why her behaviour on Idol was so loopy. Not the drugs after all. Hard to diagnose, this disease causes the nervous system to begin behaving erratically. Brilliant.
Or how about Simmering Kidney Disease or one of the many illnesses caused by mosquito bites? Allergies are also ensured a long life span due to pollution of our environment. All you need to do is sneeze a lot and remember not to eat dairy when the nibbles tray goes around at staff drinks.
At the moment I’m working on a suitable disease to explain why I went to the Kathmandu sale 10 days ago, bought six thermal tops and haven’t stopped wearing them since, even to bed. Ah yes, SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder. Apparently I can also gain weight and refuse to get out of bed. Loving it.

"Trouble with Teens" published July 1

When did teenagers become the new hated minority? In a unique sociological twist we’ve stopped turning on people because of their race, religion or sexuality and decided to turn on our own. Our kids.
They are not to be trusted and certainly shouldn't have the right to vote at 16 as proposed by Sue Bradford. Being a teenager is possibly the worst thing you can be because you are certain to become a hoodie wearing P addicted crime machine. Just read the papers.
Society insists that your children have two stages when you will want to hand them over to CYFS. When they are toddlers and when they are teenagers. God forbid you should get through either stage without incident, that’s just not normal. Whoever heard of a toddler who doesn’t have tantrums or a teenager who doesn’t turn sullen, uncommunicative and overindulge in alcohol and drugs? People insist on telling you that parenting teenagers is a minefield. A thankless task which will always end with a visit from the cops in the middle of the night.
And if they’re not destined for a life of crime they’re just so weird and whacky and self obsessed and off this planet. Really? Last time I looked this generation of teenagers is possibly the most well educated, well researched, most likely to have a debate and win type of people. And don’t even start talking about the environment, from the age of 12 these kids have a PhD on the subject.
Because what people over 40 fail to realise is that these kids have the internet. They Google, they You Tube, they My Space, they bebo, they Wikipedia, they chat online, they learn things at a rate only the speed of light could envy. They are little powerhouses of knowledge, even the poor ones. Don’t look now, but the internet is everywhere.
Readers of the NZ Herald need look no further than the College Herald, the outstanding newspaper written by high school kids to realise that on any given edition you will be confronted with opinion, knowledge and facts on everything from nuclear power and world poverty to globalisation. I doubt I even knew what globalisation meant at that age and I was on the debating team and everything.
I was apparently a terrible teenager. Before taking any new man to meet my mother I would have to warn him of two things: She will talk about my teenage years as if I was Carrie reincarnated and she will get out a poem I wrote at 14 and read it out loud in an attempt to mortify me. The last man I took to meet her smiled politely at these revelations, even though he was 38 and had two kids of his own. And I’m pretty sure that poem is still lurking somewhere at the bottom of her handbag to be used at a moment’s notice if I don’t watch my 44-year-old self.
But despite being a little naïve and idealistic teenagers of my generation were generally expected to be good kids and grow up to be valid human beings.
Then somewhere along the line society started saying teenagers were wrong. And so started the self fulfilling prophecy. If you tell any minority they suck, then that’s exactly what they’ll do.
And then we send them out with their self esteem around their ankles into a world where they are being offered more than the dope we smoked. They’re dealing with pharmaceuticals and while parenting guru Ian Grant tells parents to have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to drugs, that advice may have worked in the 18th century when it was still legal to lock your kids up, but surely giving them information and advice is a better course of action.
Even without Ian Grant to guide me on the path of righteousness, and despite my mother’s memory, I wasn’t a terrible teenager. My only crimes were that I left home at 17 to live with my boyfriend and put myself through a journalism course while I worked waitressing at the Hungry Horse Restaurant. And I was a bit lippy. Which I still am.
Today we need to stick up for our teenagers. To tell them that being a teenager is about experimentation, moderation, having the knowledge to make good decisions for themselves and others, that we trust them to make those good decisions and most importantly that we really like having them around. And never, ever leave poems lying around where your mother can find them.

"Money" published June 24

Bill Gates has been listening to me. Finally someone with heaps of money has decided to make a full-time career out of philanthropy rather than build enormous houses, buy up chunks of beach and drive fast cars. The richest man in the world aims to take his money and his mind and do something about the worldwide crises we have in areas of sickness, death, ignorance and illiteracy. And as hard as I tried I couldn’t find funding for the War on Terror or a Microsoft yacht in the next America’s Cup challenge anywhere on his list.
Unlike that other rich guy Larry Ellison, who reportedly spent a quarter of a billion on his syndicate for the America’s Cup challenge and all those other rich people ( including the New Zealand Government) who by my calculation will have thrown into the America’s Cup pot close on $3 billion. Just so that a few of the world’s elite can get a short term thrill of some yachts going really, really fast. Isn’t Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on where they live?
It’s not hard to find out what $3 billion could have done for the world. It could have given food to some of the world’s 2.2 billion children who live in poverty. Or how about doing something for the 815 million people in developing countries who are suffering from acute hunger and the 10 million who will die of hunger each year? *
If you’re still reading then it’s safe to assume you are a realist or you are one of those boring Aucklanders who shout at me: “The America’s Cup created the Viaduct you moron!” as if that is something we can be proud of. A strip of bars where 17-year-old Westies practise being Paris Hilton watched by men in property development who have far too many white striped shirts in their wardrobe. Thank you America’s Cup for your cultural input, and next time you come let me take you on a day trip to South Auckland where people die because they can’t pay the power bill.
Now back to the realists. We’re the kind of crazy cats who talk about creating a future rather than killing it. About preservation, conservation, renewing, reducing … that sort of thing. Admittedly we tend to be middle class wankers who think that taking our own bags to Foodtown and donating to charity will save the world while we pay off our mortgages and plan our next world trip. But at least we are aware and prepeared to do more if needed which has to be better than living for the momentary thrill of piling material possessions one on top of the other in our own personal financial wasteland.
But the best bit about Bill is that someone who basically rules the world has stood up and said there’s nothing wrong with capitalism but there is something very wrong with greed. How many possessions does it take for a wealthy man to be satisfied? Can you not live with one of everything? Of course you can. And suddenly eccentric people like me who live in Grey Lynn, grow our own organic veges, sign petitions and buy books called Beyond Terror, The Truth About the Real Threats to Our World look a bit more normal.. No longer are we marginalised as greenie, hippy nutters who should have a bath and drive a real car. No longer is it just mad old Bono jumping up and down about the state of the world. Bill is leading the charge, and Bill may not be cool but he’s clever. Perhaps in mansions, super yachts and boardrooms around the world people might start to feel a little embarrassed about their wealth and set some aside for the planet.
Meanwhile back in New Zealand we still have children growing up in poverty. One in five say some, a quarter of all households say others. Either way you cut it we have food banks, breakfasts provided in some schools, overcrowded living conditions and the emergence of third world diseases. Not to mention our appalling domestic violence and child abuse record and the emergence of a phrase called “corporate manslaughter.” All point to poverty. But you can’t see all that from the Viaduct, so it mustn’t be happening. Tell that to Bill next time you see him. You could save him a fortune.

*Statistics from Beyond Terror, The Truth About the Real Threats to Our World, by Chris Abbott, Paul Rogers and John Sloboda. Published by Random House.

"Money

Bill Gates has been listening to me. Finally someone with heaps of money has decided to make a full-time career out of philanthropy rather than build enormous houses, buy up chunks of beach and drive fast cars. The richest man in the world aims to take his money and his mind and do something about the worldwide crises we have in areas of sickness, death, ignorance and illiteracy. And as hard as I tried I couldn’t find funding for the War on Terror or a Microsoft yacht in the next America’s Cup challenge anywhere on his list.
Unlike that other rich guy Larry Ellison, who reportedly spent a quarter of a billion on his syndicate for the America’s Cup challenge and all those other rich people ( including the New Zealand Government) who by my calculation will have thrown into the America’s Cup pot close on $3 billion. Just so that a few of the world’s elite can get a short term thrill of some yachts going really, really fast. Isn’t Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on where they live?
It’s not hard to find out what $3 billion could have done for the world. It could have given food to some of the world’s 2.2 billion children who live in poverty. Or how about doing something for the 815 million people in developing countries who are suffering from acute hunger and the 10 million who will die of hunger each year? *
If you’re still reading then it’s safe to assume you are a realist or you are one of those boring Aucklanders who shout at me: “The America’s Cup created the Viaduct you moron!” as if that is something we can be proud of. A strip of bars where 17-year-old Westies practise being Paris Hilton watched by men in property development who have far too many white striped shirts in their wardrobe. Thank you America’s Cup for your cultural input, and next time you come let me take you on a day trip to South Auckland where people die because they can’t pay the power bill.
Now back to the realists. We’re the kind of crazy cats who talk about creating a future rather than killing it. About preservation, conservation, renewing, reducing … that sort of thing. Admittedly we tend to be middle class wankers who think that taking our own bags to Foodtown and donating to charity will save the world while we pay off our mortgages and plan our next world trip. But at least we are aware and prepeared to do more if needed which has to be better than living for the momentary thrill of piling material possessions one on top of the other in our own personal financial wasteland.
But the best bit about Bill is that someone who basically rules the world has stood up and said there’s nothing wrong with capitalism but there is something very wrong with greed. How many possessions does it take for a wealthy man to be satisfied? Can you not live with one of everything? Of course you can. And suddenly eccentric people like me who live in Grey Lynn, grow our own organic veges, sign petitions and buy books called Beyond Terror, The Truth About the Real Threats to Our World look a bit more normal.. No longer are we marginalised as greenie, hippy nutters who should have a bath and drive a real car. No longer is it just mad old Bono jumping up and down about the state of the world. Bill is leading the charge, and Bill may not be cool but he’s clever. Perhaps in mansions, super yachts and boardrooms around the world people might start to feel a little embarrassed about their wealth and set some aside for the planet.
Meanwhile back in New Zealand we still have children growing up in poverty. One in five say some, a quarter of all households say others. Either way you cut it we have food banks, breakfasts provided in some schools, overcrowded living conditions and the emergence of third world diseases. Not to mention our appalling domestic violence and child abuse record and the emergence of a phrase called “corporate manslaughter.” All point to poverty. But you can’t see all that from the Viaduct, so it mustn’t be happening. Tell that to Bill next time you see him. You could save him a fortune.

*Statistics from Beyond Terror, The Truth About the Real Threats to Our World, by Chris Abbott, Paul Rogers and John Sloboda. Published by Random House.