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There is still some hope for the world. The new Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is preparing to deliver an official apology to the stolen generation in the parliament in Canberra on February 13th.

Saying ’sorry’ really is only a first step, but it is a significant step by an Australian government to acknowledge some of the deep injustices suffered by the koori since colonisation. It was a step that John Howard (and deputy sheriff and former Aussie PM) John Howard famously refused to take.

I hope the Rudd government offers a turning point for Australia and their relationship with the koori, who represent some of the oldest cultures and languages on the planet. Maybe the last 200 years of colonialism and shameful government policy represent just a minor blip in the 60,000 year history of human habitation in Australia.

Walking the upper Arolla Valley in January

View north from the black run

Mont Collon dominates the scenery

Graham Brazier – Friend (words by Hone Tuwhare)
From Tuwhare [Buy]

Hone Tuwhare with Prime Minister Helen Clark in 2003

It seems that everyone back home is worried about a summer shark epidemic, and meanwhile New Zealand is losing all its national treasures at once – last week it was Sir Ed, this week it’s Hone Tuwhare, (1922-2008) one of our most eminent poets.

It’s interesting to notice that Tuwhare’s life spanned the full stretch of our islands: a Ngapuhi son born in Kaikohe in the north of the North Island, he spent his final years in the remote deep south of the Catlins. Tuwhare’s poems always seem to me to place humans and their emotions at their centre, playing out stories of family and relationships in a landscape that could only be New Zealand.

In 2005 a collection of New Zealand musicians set some of Tuwhare’s poems to music, released on the album Tuwhare. Graham Brazier’s acoustic version of Friend is a good example. It’s interesting to compare Brazier’s version to the natural, unaffected way Hone Tuwhare himself reads the poem (starting at 1′27 in the video below).

Sir Edmund Hillary died today – he was the first man to climb Everest in 1953, alongside Tensing Norgay. He also led the first overland trek to the South Pole since Robert Falcon Scott, driving across the ice in Massey Ferguson tractors.

Sir Ed lived just up the road from us in Auckland, so I got to meet him in person a couple of times. More than his great achievements as an adventurer and his work for the poor of Nepal, what always impressed me about Edmund Hillary was his humility: he never came across as anything more than a human being, someone who revealed the greatness possible inside us all.

On reaching the summit of Everest, he summed up his thoughts thus:

“We didn’t feel we had conquered Everest. We felt that Everest had relented.”

A mighty kauri has fallen in the forest. Rest in Peace , Sir Ed.

One of the best Christmas presents I got this year was a DVD of some old family films shot on 8mm and Super 8. Images I hadn’t seen since I was a child, all bathed in that curious watery light that only small-gauge filmstock can create.

The family’s stockpile of 8mm films go back to 1948, (well before my time!), but the earliest parts of my childhood were recorded on Super 8, until the cost and hassle of processing the films became too great.

New Zealand had no film processing labs in those days, so the films were posted to Kodak in New York to be developed. As VHS cameras and cassettes became affordable, the idea of recording home life on filmstock seemed rather quaint.

Watching the films now, it seems we spent a LOT of time on the beach, or playing outside – but of course the low-grade film worked best in natural sunlight, so the camera was used mainly in summer and then only during daytime.

Unfortunately there isn’t too much naff 1980s stuff to laugh at except for my first bike (red chopper-style with a banana seat and trainer wheels), our short shorts and the swingball set at my aunt’s house. (Maybe this is all really 70s stuff – NZ was still under import restrictions and we tended to be about 5 years behind the rest of the world.)

Long, dark evenings in an English January are perfect for editing silly videos to put on Youtube, so I messed around with a 2.30min highlights package. A few of the cats and grandparents are no longer with us, but way back then, it seems like we were all having fun.

The music is by The Cutters, a band from northern California. You can buy their stuff and get free mp3s on their site.

Walkürenritt (Act III, Scene 1 from Die Walküre by Richard Wagner)

The music of Richard Wagner is something that many people (such as myself) swerve actively to avoid. Too rich, too overblown, too romantic, too chock-full of buxom ladies in pointy viking helmets warbling about the glories of Valhalla. It all sounds like a 19th Century Michael Bay film.

It doesn’t help that Wagner himself, while possessing a rare and remarkable musical talent, was a xenophobic egotist and an odious pillock of the highest order.

However, the Radiolab boys at WNYC (New York Public Radio) have produced a great documentary (available as a podcast), called The Ring and I. It provides a great window into Wagner’s Ring Cycle, and starts to uncover why some people go nuts over Wagner’s music.

It’s not certain that this documentary will convert you to Wagnerianism – 18 hours of Norse mythology may indeed be the “Greatest Work of Art Ever”, but it’s not going to be everyone’s idea of a good night (or four) out at the theatre. But the introduction into the concept of leitmotif, and how the music contains hidden clues to the action, is fascinating for Wagner n00bs like me.

(If you’re into podcasts like me, Radiolab is well worth discovering – it’s kind of a science show, but covers everything from astronomy to conciousness to physics, and the sound editing is very, very clever.)

Radiolab Website
RSS Feed for Radiolab Podcast
Radiolab on iTunes

Oh yeah, and in case you haven’t had enough napalm… here’s how Francis Ford Coppola used Wagner to create one of the most famous sequences in cinema history:

Happy New Year everyone… as promised last time, here is a short glossary of words and phrases I’ve learned in Oxford. They are really only useful in this particular town, but I thought it was worth compiling them for amusement.

I’ve only included terms that I’ve actually heard people use, or used myself. A few of them are arcane university-isms, and some apply generally to the life and geography of the place.

Bod (the) The Bodleian Library, which by law contains a copy of every book published in the UK. You can’t take books out of the library, but a “Bod Card” gives university members the right to sit in the reading rooms and read the books.

Bop A party, normally held at one of the colleges. Normally organised, (although bops can become disorganised as the evening progresses). The Cambridge equivalent is an ent (as in “entertainment”).

Commons Meals, eaten in college. Of varying quality, depending on the dining hall

Down Evidence of the town’s geocentrism. Anywhere that is out of Oxford, anything that is not in Oxford, or quite simply any direction away from Oxford is “down”. The train to London is called the “down-train”. When students leave at the end of term, they don’t “go home”, rather they “go down”. If you have the misfortune to be expelled, you’re “sent down”.

Fast Train Any train to Paddington that stops at Reading and Slough only. Full of commuters and overpriced. See “Stopping Service“

House The nickname for Christ Church. There are all sorts of rules for college nicknames. University College is always called “Univ”, Brasenose is “BNC”, Magdalen is pronounced “maudlin”. And while you can call Queen’s, Wadham or Merton simply by their first name, you never say just “New” for New College, but always refer to it using both words.

Isis The big river that flows through town by Folly Bridge, where rowing and psychopathic swans happen. On most maps it’s called the Thames. But as it runs through Oxford between Godstow and Iffley (or between the Trout Inn and the Isis Tavern if you navigate via pubs), the river is often called “The Isis”, probably derived from the Latin and Celtic name Tamesis.

Keeping Term As part of the requirements to fulfil their degree, students must spend a stipulated number of nights per year within 5 miles of Carfax tower, at the centre of Oxford. Whether you do any work during this period is rather irrelevant. This is called “keeping term”.

Park End As in “Let’s go down Park End”. Forget architecture, libraries and museums. Park End Street is truly the best place in Oxford to experience English culture. Notable for teetering pedestrians, and the accumulation of kebab wrappers, broken glass and partially-digested kebab contents on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Stopping Service Any train to Paddington that stops at every village, farm gate and letterbox between Oxford and London. The journey takes about 3.5 days and you are advised to take your own provisions and sleeping bag. Full of commuters and overpriced.

Sub-fusc Formal dress worn by students when sitting exams and for other special occasions including formal halls and matriculation. Lost items of sub-fusc are occasionally found in Park End Street gutters (see “Park End“, above).

Sunken Cathedral The other name for the Martyr’s Memorial in St Giles, which resembles the spire of a cathedral buried underground. The monument commemorates the protestant martyrs who were burnt at the stake in Broad Street in 1555 and 1556. Most of the waggish tour guides will tell you that Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer weren’t killed because they were protestant, but rather because all three were Cambridge graduates.

The As in street. Certain streets in the centre of town are so important that they lose their appelation of “streets”, but gain an honorific definite article. Thus “High Street” is known as “The High”, Broad Street as “The Broad”, and the alley connecting them is “The Turl“.

Up In, or towards Oxford. This is entirely logical, because Oxford is elevated above all other places, despite being built in a swamp. (See also “Down”, above). Students “go up” at the beginning of every term, and trains from Paddington to Oxford are “up-trains”.