Fish of the Week

by Steve Braunias

  I travelled back to the West End—‘We apologise for the delays due to a person under the train’—to the Gielgud Theatre for a matinee performance of a bad new play called Some Girls starring David Schwimmer from Friends. You may or may not be shocked to learn that David Schwimmer cannot act. The real theatre was elsewhere, under all that London light; it was the everyday English, pale as fish, walking on the right, pashing up on endless underground escalators, feeding bread to the coot and the smew in the pond at St James’s Park, standing outside pubs (The Heart and Hand, The Bell and Hare) with four-litre pitchers of Pimm’s, standing inside pubs (The Fountain, The Cock) and smoking up a superb storm, saying ‘Oh, well done!’, and ‘Very nice. Very comfortable indeed.’ And, also, from the yobs and the slappers, dim and up the duff: ‘Out the farking way.’

  I took their advice. I went to Brighton. Only an hour away, and another kind of world—a world beside the seaside, the bleak Atlantic. How curious, and how English. They came out of crumbling beachfront hotels, they nibbled at tubs of crayfish tails for two quid, they paced the pier, they sat stunned and blinking in deckchairs on the orange shore; it was summertime, it was the end of Empire, the sky was full of light but there was a feeling it had nowhere to go.

  [July 3]

  A Visit to Oxford

  They were very probably the same cows wandering across Port Meadow to bathe of an early evening in the Thames, and they were almost definitely the same homeless rising out of graveyards in the morning to ask passersby: ‘Spare a few coppers?’ The best tea room in town was still the St Giles’ Café—bacon, toast and one fried egg, with mug of tea, for three quid and 85 pence. The best pub in town was still anyone’s guess, but may I recommend The Perch, The Goose, and The Trout. And the most important thing in Oxford remained unchanged, was still exactly and magnificently the same: the soft light on the soft ancient stone of the colleges, a watercolour in orange and yellow, very gentle, quite mesmerising, feminine.

  I had the good fortune to study at Oxford in 2001. I adored the place. Life there was vivid. When I returned recently for a week, the first thing I did was follow my nose to all the familiar places, partly from habit, but also being drawn to a memory of pain—my marriage fell apart that year. And so I inspected Butler Close, and Plantation Road, and Port Meadow, happy at the sight of them, and happy at the names, but these were the scenes of an end.

  Every country has its disease. England’s is sadness. You can catch it walking down the street. In short, I moped. But it was impossible not to be also swept up by the beauty and appeal of Oxford. There were so many attractions. The shrunken Amazonian heads inside glass cases at the Pitt Rivers Museum, the Egyptian mummy of poor old Djeddjehutefankh at the Ashmolean Museum; the black pudding, homemade faggots (35 pence) and ‘well-hung British sirloin’ at the butcher shop, the haddocks, herrings, Scottish kippers and whole entire blue shark at the fishmonger.

  I was there on assignment—to report on the PR disaster that Oxford University’s vice-chancellor, New Zealand’s John Hood, had brought upon himself since taking up his appointment. There was a feeling that Hood was managerial, destructive and, worst of all sins at Oxford, not especially bright. He had issued two documents outlining reform; they were described as second-rate undergraduate essays. I interviewed Hood on my last day. It went badly. I thought: I’d hate to work for you, pal.

  But it was fascinating to interview the academic staff. It felt a privilege to spend time with some of the smartest people on the British Isles, even when they included a fabulously patronising professor of Oriental Studies. The real pleasure was wandering the grounds of their colleges—Balliol, Merton, New College— after each interview, and admiring the lovely oval lawns, the beautiful chapels, the soft light in the silence. It was exam time and notices called for quiet, please; codes of conduct for post-exam celebrations listed the do not’s: ‘do not throw eggs, do not spray champagne, do not bring or use water pistols … It is, as the code indicates, a grave offence to be silly in public.’

  The students were dressed in subfusc—‘devoid of brightness or appeal’, a term special to Oxford and meaning white shirts, black gowns and red carnations. They marched in great processions at the end of the day, throwing eggs and spraying champagne and using water pistols, scrutinised by university proctors. That was in public; in private, students were required to attend ‘handshaking’ rituals with the masters of college: ‘Handshaking takes precedence over all other commitments.’

  Meanwhile, there was the gentle pok of croquet balls on college lawns, the crass caw of black crows, and the beautiful drawl of the young and the rich in junior common rooms: the government expects Oxford to recruit seventy-seven percent of its students from state schools, but the university takes just over fifty-five percent. Already, though, Oxford is joining in with the great democratic movement of modern England. A report had just been released listing the town as one of thirteen British town centres teetering on the brink of losing their distinct local character, of turning into a ‘clone town’.

  The best thing to do in those circumstances is hide your head in a bookstore. Thus, I spent a happy half-hour reading R.E. Moreau’s 1968 classic, The Departed Village: Berrick Salome at the Turn of the Century (published by Oxford University Press), which contains superb scholarship on the popular crimes of ‘bastardry, poaching, and drunkenness’, and one instance of ‘sodomy with a mare’.

  I also came across a collection of books owned by Vivien Greene. They were for sale at Waterfield’s. I bought a history of Oxford’s Mapledurham House—not from any particular interest in the subject, but just to have some kind of attachment to the book’s owner, who died in Oxford in 2003, just after her ninety-ninth birthday, and twelve years after the death of her husband, Graham Greene. One of the publications for sale (asking price: 500 pounds) was a copy of Greene’s requiem mass at Westminster Cathedral. His former wife had inscribed it: ‘I have the strange impression of a number of people walking round a mansion … I am the only person who has lived in this house and knows its blazing fires, its icy draughts … All the pain and disappointment is mine.’

  Charity begins at home, which is why I gave very clear postal and email details when I recently wrote a column gently alerting readers to what presents I wanted for my birthday. My home, my presents: that seemed fair, although I am willing to concede that the timing was unfortunate—the column appeared a week before the Live 8 concerts. Quite a few people were probably more concerned with making poverty history than giving me a steak.

  My magazine editor said: ‘Shameless.’ My newspaper editor said: ‘Shameless.’ Women! How strange and how consistent they are.

  I didn’t ask for much. I received more than I thought—and less, too. I asked for Warwick 3B1 notebooks and Staedtler 110 HB pencils. Deb of Dunedin sent in a pad of flowery writing paper. Happily, Kat of an unspecified address posted exactly what I wanted. I had advised that they would be specifically used for covering this year’s election. Kat wrote, ‘One notebook is for Winston Peters and the other one for the rest of them. Two of the pencils are for Winston and one for the rest. I am pretty sure I do not have to explain myself, and equally sure you will be able to work out the math.’ Actually, I’ve no idea what she’s on about, though I suspect her address is in Tauranga.

  I asked for black socks. Deborah of Auckland came through with bells on, although I have since removed the bells. Her PR company represents Gold Top socks. ‘It would be our pleasure to dress your hooves,’ she wrote, and enclosed twenty pairs of Gold Top socks. My heartfelt thanks to Gold Top socks. My feetfelt thanks to Gold Top socks. Their generosity is what is known as good PR. We shall get to bad PR in a few moments.

  I asked for a meatpack. I got a meatpack from the thoroughly kind and decent people with whom I am working on a televised history of New Zealand. I had also asked if anyone could help us out by tracking down a copy of a 1980s TV commercial for a product called Frying Saucers. An accurate, perceptive history of New Ze
aland was at stake; several readers sent in helpful suggestions, but the closest we came to locating the commercial was this exciting email from Wellington actor Ross Jolly: ‘I am the man you are looking for.’ He had voiced the commercial. But he did not—why not?—keep a copy. Our search for this unholy grail continues.

  Norma sent in a packet of Kitchen King cooking powder. I did not ask for Kitchen King cooking powder. I am sure Norma meant well but it looked repulsive. A reader who did not identify herself—it’s just as well—sent in a packet of onion chips ‘to go with your meatpack’. I did not ask for onion chips. They made a loud clunk when I threw them in a terrible sulk into the rubbish bin.

  I did not ask for a babywool vest, but Joyce emailed offering to knit me such an item. That was thoughtful. But I am in two minds whether to commission Joyce, who wrote, ‘My children regard them as icons. One of my daughters wears hers in bed. Her partner tells me she looks like a fisherwoman. I don’t really know what he means, but he is standing for parliament and is therefore possibly unstable.’ I have made a note of that.

  I asked for an axe. The closest I came was this infuriating email from Wynel: ‘Hope you didn’t receive too many axes!’ I asked for the full range of Nivea products for men. Nothing arrived. Their meanness is what is known as bad PR. But I’m very relieved: new research shows that Nivea products for men cause dwarfism, and possibly cancer. I have since switched from Nivea to Pond’s, which is a far superior brand.

  I didn’t ask for much—apart from the last item on my wish list, a full-length wool coat from quality outfitters Keith Matheson. An email duly arrived from Keith’s daughter: ‘Dad and I loved your column … We’ll sort you out.’ I allowed a couple of days to pass before I casually replied by phone. An appointment was made. Cool as any number of cucumbers, I waltzed in on a Monday morning with my personal stylist and met Leigh Matheson, who, I later read, was ranked by The Sunday Star-Times as the fifth ‘hottest’ girl in Auckland—‘suddenly single and turning heads all over town’. She was slender, vivacious, smart, but my head was not for turning. My head was swimming, thrashing, gasping for breath at the prospect of being given a full-length wool coat by quality outfitters Keith Matheson. But was this a hoax, a jape, a prank, a gag, a wheeze, a cruel and heartless trick?

  No. I specified the coat I so very desired. A few days went by before the correct size was found. And then I waltzed back in, and then waltzed back out wearing a coat as warm as toast, three-button, single-breast, beautiful and elegant to behold, and no doubt I turned heads all over town. Happy birthday? Yes, thanks. Shameless? Yes, thanks. And all for a good cause. The coat has made my wardrobe’s poverty history.

  [July 17]

  A Better Class of Popcorn

  God bless the international film festival. This annual event has long been the cultural highlight of my calendar. I can’t get enough of it; in the past month, I’ve attended thirty-nine films, which isn’t bad considering I had to shake off a bout of mental illness, but that figure is nowhere near my record of seventy-three films in 1997, when I couldn’t be budged from my seat. Literally. But even though the Auckland festival has finished and the one in Wellington closes this weekend, Christchurch and Dunedin are in full swing, so I could still beat my personal best if I travel south, now.

  In the meantime, the following is a list of my favourite films from the 2005 festival season. By all means discuss, argue, dialogue.

  Room Service. This was always going to be one of the year’s most hotly debated films. Personally, I loved this taut, slender, moist and shrieking drama about Françoise, a chambermaid who makes the bed for Jacques, a hotel guest, and then offers to lie down with him and take off her skimpy outfit if that’s what he’d like. He seems happy with this arrangement, and so does Françoise —until an hour later, when she refuses to change the sheets for a second time. A fascinating examination of the class struggle.

  A Blog on the Landscape. One of the festival’s most harrowing documentaries followed the life of Fizzer, the web name of a man who wrote a daily blog for eight years on international relations, hillbilly music, comparative religions, feminist theory and Pacific Rim cooking until he was taken out and shot.

  China Today. Tough, provocative and utterly gripping, this two-minute meditation on the surface of a dinner plate was the standout from the festival’s mini-season of New Zealand short films made on digicam—and worth every cent of its $17,000 funding from the Film Commission and its Creative New Zealand grant of $36,000.

  Oh Dear. An unpaid governess falls in love with her employer, who lightheartedly takes advantage of it one rainy day and forgets about it by the time the weather clears. Based on a sentence by Vladimir Nabokov, this was always going to be one of the year’s most coldly debated films.

  Yo! Wassup? Etc. With their fine ear for urban patois and their beautiful taste in hoodies, Remuera hip-hop group Three Angry Negroes had audiences getting jiggy with it in this fresh and funky musical documentary about street crime.

  A Chinaman in Tiananmen. Deadpan study of an alienated soul riding his bicycle through eighty years of Chinese history. Talk about laugh! It had me in stitches. I’m not sure why.

  Youth. An ageing roué remembers when he was a sweet little boy whose first crush was on a clever little girl called Ruth, or maybe it was foxy little Karen, or possibly ruby-lipped little Joanne. Talk about tears before bedtime! The critics savaged it, but I thought it tender and I cried for what felt like forty-five years. Mind you, as I mentioned earlier I wasn’t feeling very well.

  When Wang Met Ming. This was always going to be one of the year’s most controversial films. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, and live happily ever after. Personally, I didn’t understand a second of it, but the Chinese countryside looked nice.

  A Goose on a See-Saw. An eye peeping through a keyhole sees six dwarves standing in a bathtub. The lights go out. When they come back on, the room is empty, apart from a sullen horse. The eye blinks. The horse bolts the door. A terrible scream is heard, and we see that the eye belongs to a gentleman stroking a light bulb. His wife calls out, ‘Your dinner’s ready.’ The horse, now naked, backs down the stairs. Five dwarves play seventy-six trom bones. It rains. The bathtub overflows. A pot of noodles dances a jig, and the horse says, ‘Has anyone seen my toothbrush?’ This simple tale of village life in a Chinese province played continuously for nine days; I missed days four and seven, and didn’t see any goose on any see-saws.

  Food in a Minute. I’m not sure why this TV show played at the film festival. But I’m sure that’s where I saw it. Anyway, Allyson Gofton gave a warm heartfelt performance in this sixty-second classic, which had the precision and brevity of a haiku, as she whipped up a delicious treat from a tin of tuna, a can of worms and a bucket of slop.

  Along Came Humbert. The mahogany landscape, the blue-eyed cowboy, the prim pretty schoolteacher arriving in Roaring Gulch, the rearing horse, the spectacular stampede, the pistol thrust though the windowpane, the stupendous fist fight, the table used as a weapon, the sweet crash of fist against chin, the warmed-up hero embracing his gorgeous frontier bride—they don’t make movies like that anymore! I adored this classic 1956 Western, based on a sentence by Vladimir Nabokov.

  Hey, Idiot! The final film of the 2005 season was a real show-stopper! Filmed on digicam during the festival, it showed the kinds of people who attended the festival. I saw myself thirty-nine times, and thought I was tough, provocative, and utterly gripping.

  [July 31]

  Don for a Day

  As we head towards the election on September 17, the candidate I will be watching most closely and with a special kind of tenderness is National Party leader Don Brash. I feel as though I know him. I feel with him, in spirit, on the campaign trial. I feel we have a bond. It was forged on a recent Monday morning in a television studio in downtown Auckland, where in rather unlikely circumstances I was called upon to play the role of Dr Brash.

  Many years have passed since I graced the stage (C
irca Theatre in Wellington) and screen (a short film viewed by an audience of seventeen lost souls). Acting places such intense demands; I prefer the quiet civility of writing. And yet I have always been tempted to make a triumphant return to my former calling. My phone rang on a Friday afternoon with an offer too good to refuse.

  A television programme wanted to create a training exercise for its presenter. She will host a political debate during the campaign; to test her mediation and interviewing skills, producers needed a cast of four to play the roles of political leaders. As quick as a flash, I said I had to be Brash. The deal was sealed with cash.

  I spent the weekend preparing for this challenging role. I read Paul Goldsmith’s magnificent book Brash: A Biography. I read interviews, I read speeches, I read the National Party’s website. I went inside the mansion of Brash’s mind; I walked the narrow corridors of his beliefs, I stumbled around the dimly lit rooms of his policies. I noted so many numerals scratched on the walls—Labour’s $22 million increase in school funding is offset by a $24 million increase to the education ministry; the gap in average after-tax incomes between New Zealand and Australia has almost doubled in the past five years; New Zealand produces just one-quarter of one percent of the global emission of greenhouse gases.

  I had my motivation. The role called for high seriousness, decency, a firm grasp of statistics. And so I strode into the studios determined to share my vision of New Zealand’s future. I was introduced to Tariana Turia; interestingly, she was Shortland Street actress Vanessa Rare. I was introduced to Winston Peters; strangely, he was young and white, and I didn’t catch his name. I was introduced to Helen Clark; bizarrely, she was former Alliance MP Laila Harré. And then we went at it in three taped segments, each lasting about ten to fifteen minutes, and I think I am only being modest when I declare that I wiped the floor with them, that I won the debate, that I led the National Party to the gates of power.