Good news for the addicted

The prime time TV show Location, Location, Location features an on-screen husband and wife team who scour urban Great Britain for a house to suit clients who all seem to have one thing in common. They want their new dwelling to be within walking distance of a café. The café culture is one of the great paradoxes of the modern world.

Walk down any main street in New Zealand today - and I may be exaggerating here – and every second shop is a café. I’m probably not exaggerating though if the main street is Greytown’s.

Coffee is the new wonder drug and hordes of people on social media will tell you that if they don’t have their morning fix and regular top-ups during the day they simply can’t function.

In recent times the Epiphany church carpark has become host to a silver-sheathed caravan offering the esoteric elixir and to my great surprise another similar mobile trailer has popped up in Ngaumutawa Road, just half-a-cup away from the Solway Primary School. Cleverly positioned, it will attract those addicts who dare to take the bypass and miss out on the delights offered in Wairarapa’s biggest urban centre.

I suspect both coffee dispensaries are doing a roaring trade.

I sort of understand the café preference where peremptory barista’s will offer up a variety of options and will occasionally throw in a chocolate fish or a marshmallow which for me is the real attraction, but to pick up a lidded paper cup of coffee while in transit seems a strange and expensive distraction.

I suspect if you’re happy with the instant variety you can probably make a cup before you leave home for less than twenty cents. You can pretty much match the barista’s masterpiece with a Nespresso capsule at 97 cents though first you need to invest in a rather expensive machine into which you insert the capsules.

One solar panel supplier is suggesting you can install his product, generating your own electricity, for less than the price of a cup of coffee a day. He’s obviously not referring to instant or Nespresso.

Last week the World Health Organisation came out with the results of a long-awaited study and announced that that there is no substantiation that drinking coffee causes cancer. But it said all “very hot drinks” are probably carcinogenic. WHO commissioned the International Agency for Research on Cancer which had previously rated coffee as “possibly carcinogenic” but has now changed its mind. It now says its latest review found “no conclusive evidence for a carcinogenic affect and some studies showed that coffee may actually reduce the risk of developing certain kinds of cancer.”

Imagine if the results had shown just the opposite. New Zealand’s retail sector would be full of empty shops and third world countries would be reneging on their World Bank loans.

If I bow to the coffee culture I’ll usually opt for the appropriately named “Long” black or else ask for a mochaccino with enough foam to be aesthetically pleasing, but not so much that it would leave a moustache.

Though to be honest, most of the time I stick to drinking water. I mix it myself. Two parts H one part O. I don’t trust anybody.

“The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot expect to reproduce.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes Snr.

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Actions worsen and time softens

My earliest recollection of life is visiting my father in hospital when I was nearly three years old. I vividly remember this for two reasons. First we weren’t allowed to go into the hospital proper because he had diphtheria and was therefore isolated. I recall my mother holding me up to the window so I could talk to my father from the wide concrete window-ledge above the solid brick wall.

The main reason the memory endures however, was that my father told us of a disturbance during the night when a large contingent of Japanese prisoners-of-war had been admitted who were seriously wounded. The word ‘Japanese’ struck terror into the heart of an impressionable two-and-a-half year old.

The Japanese had come from the POW camp at Featherston. The Japanese never did invade New Zealand despite widespread fears that they would, but 800 prisoners who had been captured at Guadalcanal were brought to Featherston in 1942.

They were mostly civilians who had been drafted into the Japanese navy, but later captured military personnel were also interned at Featherston. These military prisoners regarded capture as the ultimate disgrace. In February 1943 there was a sit-down strike and a subsequent riot that saw the guards open fire, although there had apparently been no order to shoot.

Although the one-sided altercation only lasted about thirty seconds 31 Japanese were killed instantly, 17 died later and about 74 were wounded. If 91 wounded and dying Japanese had been admitted to the Masterton hospital the night before I was went to visit my father then perhaps I had good reason to be alarmed.

Of historical accounts I have been able to read on the subject there is no disclosure about where the wounded prisoners were taken. The whole incident was hushed up at the time in case there was retaliation on Kiwi POW’s in the Japanese camps.

It’s entirely possible therefore that I was the only infant in the country to have been briefed about the episode.

The hatred for the Japanese was manifest at the time and took a long time to subside. Strangely our distaste of the Germans was relatively short-lived. We happily drove Volkswagens long before we accepted Datsuns and Toyotas.

There was probably an element of racism in this attitude.

We ended the war with Japan by dropping two atomic bombs; on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki and last month President Obama visited the sites where the devastation was wrought, but purposely did not apologise for the carnage.

I suppose we should be pleased with ourselves that today we are not so barbaric. Despite what ISIS is doing to its prisoners-of-war no one is calling for the western alliances to drop a nuclear bomb on any of the terrorists’ strongholds, reasoning that many innocent citizens would be killed in the process.

And yet in 1945 that’s exactly what we did and were able to justify our actions by calculating how many of the allied forces would have perished had the war lingered.

I guess no one is estimating the number of civilians ISIS is killing. Like the road toll, a few here and a few there and it doesn’t have quite the same impact on our consciousness.

“Nature has left this tincture in the blood, that all men would be tyrants if they could.” - Daniell Defoe

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Building a wall against progress

Surveys suggest the presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has a 50-50 chance of being elected leader of the free world later this year. Should he succeed I fear he will take America back from the future. His slogan, Make America Great Again seems to have caught the imagination of a large number of constituents, but I wonder if the country has really lost its way in the world to the extent Mr Trump and his followers consider it has.

Many of his policies make some sort of sense and will certainly resonate with those who feel that they are losing traction in their personal lives, but his intention to abolish the free trade agreements like NAFTA and the TPPA would surely be a giant step backwards.

With few exceptions global trading has certainly brought benefits to this country. For instance our cars used to be built up in England, knocked down, and then rebuilt in New Zealand. Far better to purchase them intact from their country of origin and then sell to that country some product that we make well, whether it be whey, wine or even Wilson’s Whisky.

We can then enjoy the masterfully made models from those people whose craftsmanship is eugenic.

Old-fashioned values are fine in theory, but author and Past-President of Rotary International Frank Devlyn reckons we’re on the verge of ushering in the 4th industrial revolution. The world is likely to become more connected which will be an anathema to Mr Trump’s isolationist rhetoric.

Devlyn believes software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5 to 10 years. Uber is just a software tool; they don’t own any cars and are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is the biggest hotel company on the planet although they don’t own any properties.

Because of ‘IBM Watson’ (look it up on Google) you can get legal advice within seconds with 90 percent accuracy compared with 70 per cent accuracy when done by humans. So Devlyn advises if you are studying law: “stop immediately.” There will be 90 percent less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.

Same with the medical profession. The Tricorder X price will be announced later this year. There will be companies who will build this medical device that works from your phone, and takes your retina scan. It will analyse 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on earth will have access to world class medicine, almost for free.

Devlyn talks of 3d printers, agricultural robots and autonomous electric cars that will pick you up and drive you to your destination. Built by Tesla, Google and Apple; the traditional car companies will disappear and road deaths will reduce dramatically.

He believes electricity will become incredibly cheap as the price of solar power improves and there will access for all to world class education through cheaper smartphones.

Much of this technology will have been initiated in the US which seems to indicate that it is still a great country.

Devlyn is the CEO of The Devlyn Group. He is domiciled in Mexico. Mr. Trump’s wall could well mean that never the twain shall meet.

“The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it” - Elbert Hubbard

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Paradise lost?

The trouble with having a roof over your head, food on the table and a nice warm bed is that you are constantly reminded that others are not so fortunate and your conscience is perpetually pricked.

Television news nightly show us disturbing images of people living on the street or in cars and then widens the scope with heart-rending advertisements requesting assistance for some African region where skeletal infants are dying for aid.

You start to think about your own creature comforts due in part at least to the accident of birth and although Paul Henry tells us each morning that we are living in paradise, that’s not how many would see it.

National MP Chester Borrows however is sceptical of some of the stories coming out of Auckland and wants the news media to dig more deeply. He reckons the mother of ten children living in a carport would be entitled to $1500 a week from WINZ and with an accommodation supplement on top of that, her income would be closer to $2000 a week. Other questions he wants asked, bearing in mind she had been renting previously, why did she move? Has she got a poor rent record? Did she always pay her rent on time? Was the accommodation ever damaged?

But Auckland’s problems are becoming everybody’s problem - or good fortune - whichever way you look at it. Local real estate people are cock-a-hoop over the number of Aucklander’s who have cashed up and come south to uncongested roads and cheaper housing.

Immigration and Asian investment is blamed for the Auckland housing crisis and the high costs have driven rents up to such a degree that despite the generous WINZ supplements, maybe a family with ten children can’t really afford to live in the Queen city.

Perhaps there are other reasons for Auckland’s property boom.

For instance for years we have been bombarded by entrepreneurs advising us to use the equity in our existing homes to buy other homes as an investment for our old age.

Ollie Newlands had a TV show called Property Climbers, Robert Kiyosaki wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad and stomped the country preaching to packed auditoriums and more recently Nikki Connors from Propellor Property Investments has hit the airwaves. These three, and countless others, have urged us to buy houses to rent out.

Many will have followed their advice. If they started early they would be reaping the benefit today, and if they chose to invest in Auckland then perhaps they have created the situation where there are fewer houses for first home buyers to buy.

No one wants to see people living in cardboard boxes under bridges, or begging on the street and we shouldn’t forget that charity begins at home. Locally our Food-Bank people have disclosed that their shelves are bare and they are giving away more food parcels than they ever have. Food-Bank co-ordinator Lyn Tankersley says there is huge poverty out there and it is starting to effect middle income earners, many who have two or three jobs, but simply can’t make ends meet.

But if Chester Borrow’s figures regarding mother of ten’s entitlements are accurate, then I suspect there is little more the guv’ment can do.

“Clothes make the poor invisible. America has the best dressed poverty the world has ever known.” - Michael Harrington

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Contrasting generations and cultures

Knowing how young men’s minds work - after all I used to be one once - I wasn’t particularly surprised when St Dominic’s Girls College in Henderson suggested their ball-going pupils wear attire that refrained from exposing cleavage, kept any split in their skirts below the knees and covered their backs. I would imagine that’s the sort of advice you’d expect from a catholic girl’s school.

However St. Dominic’s liberal-minded parents were not happy and distributed a well-supported petition which declared: “The rules stated are extreme. Since when has a girl’s back caused such outrage for being ‘too exposed?’ This is sexualising a girl’s body and sending the message that they must be covered up and feel ashamed of showing skin. Girls at this age (16-18) do have breasts and the fact that they must be completely covered is outdated and shameful on the colleges behalf. Girls have backs and legs and breasts. All of which can be shown to an extent that is classy and elegant.”

The petition had the desired outcome. The college principal, Mrs Carol Coddington, withdrew the edict after claiming it didn’t exist in the first place! Surprising, given that 200 girls who attended the assembly where the ruling was announced confirmed its existence, adding that they were also told there were to be “no exceptions.”

The school’s motto is “Veritas,” Latin for truth, which may now be deemed inappropriate.

The change of attitude over a lifetime as to the modesty or otherwise of women’s clothing has been perplexing for the mere male, though we have understandably stood aside without protest. I can even remember back when women’s bathing costumes were invariably black, had straps that held the top section well above the cleavage (though I’m not entirely certain that word was even in existence at the time) and had a skirt across the bottom to stop male minds wandering where they ought not to.

Bikini was a Pacific atoll where the Americans tested their hydrogen bombs.

The Muslim community has made no such progress. Relating to the Hijab, their law states: “Islam holds women in very high esteem and the Islamic rules of covering are intended to protect and guard her dignity and honour.”

This is said to be more the outcome of a male-dominated society rather than the desire of those being dignified and honoured, though why men would adopt this particular consecution is curious.

And wearing seductive garments has not meant women are less chaste. American comedian Dave Barry complains that women might go out for an evening wearing revealing clothing, “gown-less evening straps” he calls them, but are likely to go home and slip into a long pair of Chinese pyjamas, buttoned right up to the neck, “Visibility zero” he says.

“If you start to undo the vestment by the time you get to the bottom button it’s time to get up and go to work,” he postulates.

“It’s alright for Chinese,” he concludes, “They’re more patient than we are; that’s why there’s so many of them.”

But if perchance you think women are the weaker sex, just try pulling the blankets back to your side 

of the bed.

“You’d be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap.” - Dolly Parton

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