The meaning of life

The previous two posts have led me to ponder the meaning of life. The fact that every night on TV we’re being shown the trailer to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, to be released here shortly, probably has something to do with it as well. As we all know, according to Douglas Adam’s book on which the movie is based, 42 is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. Many Adams fans have spent untold hours discovering all of the places where the number "42" pops up. My favourite is the one that tells us that the angle at which light reflects off of water to create a rainbow is 42 degrees. Yes, rainbows again!

To put all these odd bods out of their misery and, to dispel any myths about 42, I’m told (by an unreliable source) that Douglas Adams wrote on USENET, “The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do' I typed it out. End of story.” Mmmmm!

My own view is that ‘in the greater scheme of things’ our individual lives have no meaning. But, to each one of us individually our own life is of the utmost importance for without it we don’t exit. Life, for me, is what I make of it, nothing more and nothing less. Of course, I am acutely aware of being in the privileged position of having choices.

Maybe we should heed Albert Camus who warns, You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life, but in the absence of a better suggestion, I’ll go with 42.

Magic

According to the New Zealand Herald, Fernando Alonso, has worked as a test pilot and engineer at Airbus in Toulouse for 22 years, rising to director of flight testing and development. His comment, "it's still magic that they fly" in today's report of the maiden flight of their biggest, fattest creation, Airbus A380, was the topic of our lunchtime discussion. It's not magic, it's science, says Jones. Zac expands, How would you feel if you were sitting in a plane and the pilot comes in dressed in a silly hat, wearing a shiny jacket and waving a wand announces, 'For my next trick, I'll make this thing take off '!

But it is magic, in aromantic kind of way. Wasn't it Arthur C. Clarke who said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"?

It doesn't have to be about technology. When I was a little kid, a round shiny plague hung on the bedroom wall.It was a child's drawing (or a pretend child's drawing) of a rainbow. It had the words 'I believe in god because of rainbows' on it. As it turns out, I don't believe in god but if I did it would be because of rainbows. Yes,I have studied all the diagrams that explain about prisms, raindrops and the refraction of light ... but no one can convince me that rainbows aren't magical. I just don't want to know.

The unfamiliarly familiar

It was a strange feeling. I went down to the village where I've been many times to buy sandwiches for lunch but this time I went in the afternoon. It felt different. The old familiar shops were frequented, not by the office crowd, but by little old ladies and young women with children moving leisurely about - people who don't do the 9 to 5 office thingy!

I've felt the same way on the few occassions I've gone back, years later, to a place where I used to work or live. There is a kind of eerie sensation of knowing but not knowing, of everything having moved on, of not belonging. I've never felt that way when, say, I've gone to visit a friend after many years. I suppose, with friends, there is always the element of having stayed in touch .. phone, letter, email, whatever.

Sometimes, I imagine how the places that I am now so familair with will be when I'm no longer around. We spend so much time looking after the garden and cleaning the house but we only have to neglect the chores for a few months and chaos reigns. I like the feeling of impermanence these thoughts give me .. my very own footsteps in the sand.

Upside down and out of sync

We have a holiday on Monday for ANZAC Day to mark the landings of the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) at Gallipoli eight months into the First World War. Being the day New Zealand remembers its war dead, it’s also Poppy Day. As a relative newcomer to the Southern Hemisphere I am fascinated by the upsidedownness of it all. Not only are winter and summer months oddly juxtaposed … giving us daffodils in September! … but public celebrations are too. Poppy Day in April, Mother’s Day in May, Father’s Day in September, Labour Day in October …. one event that couldn’t be meddled with is the Queen’s "official" birthday, a New Zealander public holiday in June. How weird is that?

Even Coronation Street is not exempt! Episodes of Coro (referred to in the North as The Street) are 6 months behind. This makes it all very credible as it is summer in Coronation Street when it is summer here and winter on the Street coincides nicely with our winter. There is a bit of a problem when the Street celebrates Christmas… in June! But we are very forgiving people we antipodes!

Trafficators

Schools out! For some reason schools have their Easter break this week. I know its not Easter but what can I say? This is New Zealand! Anyway, the upside of this for me is that there is, at least, 50% less traffic on the roads in the mornings. A trip that would usually take me close to half an hour took me just under 15 minutes this morning! No, I wasn't speeding. It did make me wonder. How many people get up and about with the sole purpose of driving their kids to school? What happened to kids walking to school? Is the world really so unsafe that a morning walk is no longer an option? I truly hope not! I would like to think it's more to do with life style. Buy house in best area you can afford, find good school sort of approach. Doesn't matter if the kids can't go anywhere on their own, there's always the car! Not only does this kind of thinking result in parents having the responsibility of driving their kids to school, it also means that the kids' friends are often not their neighbours. Result? A lot of ferrying of kids activity on the roads! Sigh!

I did have time, even on my much faster journey, to notice a sticker on the back window of a car. The driver had decided that, possibly since there was less traffic, it would be a waste of energy, battery life, whatever, to trafficate (use the trafficator, otherwise known as indicator, to let other road users know where you are going). Giving the customary quick glare of indignation, it was the word prayer on the sticker that jumped out at me. Not surprising I suppose, since I had been listening to the BBC World Service that was full of news about the new pope. Oh ho, thought I, I wonder who this guy wants for pope. It turns out the sticker was not indicating any papal preferences, it read, Answer my prayers, Steal this car.

Queue etiquette

An item in the Herald yesterday called It's just one giant queue for all of mankind and a visit to Echoes in a Nomad's Head via Michele got me thinking about queues. A little woman is quoted in the Herald’s article as saying, “We put a man on the moon but we can’t get rid of queues.” I’m not sure about the connection between moon-landings and queues but I do hate queues especially those at the shop where I occasionally go to buy a sandwich for my lunch. I mean, come on! We only have a few moments of free time during the day.. why do we have to spend part of it standing in a queue? Not that queues can’t be entertaining. I’ve had a few interesting, almost philosophical, discussions standing in queues. Sometimes the queue is so long that to quote that terrible Australian soap, ‘our neighbours become good friends’.

Different countries have different queuing philosophies. In India you join the line .. not the queue and the idea is never to leave even the tiniest of spaces between you and the person in front ... this can be quite a warm experience in temperatures that can hit the 40s! The only rule .. just hold your ground as best you can. It’s also a reason to have Ladies lines ….. it wouldn’t do to stand too close a lady! A mixed sex line would leave gaps that could be filled by an unscrupulous queue jumper leading to much shouting, pushing and even an occassional riot! Those who are fortunate enough to afford it avoid all this hassle by hiring someone to queue for them. What’s your profession? I’m a line- standee.

In school we were trained to line up. Every playtime was followed by the instruction, 'get in line' before being marched back in to the classroom. That was in the days when we sat in rows and not in little groups around tables as they do nowadays. Unlike the Indians, the Brits make a very clear distinction between lines and queues. Queues are somehow more purposeful. What, even computers jobs are queued! Lines are somehow passive. You form a queue but you wait in line! And if you are in a line in India to buy a train ticket, waiting is most definitely what you are doing. It would certainly be your lucky day if you were able to complete the transaction in less than 2 hours!

I read one of those Interesting Facts this morning. It was on the paper backing of my panty liner (the bit you peal off before use) and called Odd Spot # 149, a bit of a worry really! Anyway, the Odd Spot stated that 0.7% of the world’s population is drunk at any one time. I wonder how many of the rest of us are standing in queues!

In the pink

Driving home last night I was stuck behind a pink truck that belonged to the Pink Bin Co Est. 1996. Put me in a pink mood. The Bin Company that Stands Out From the Rest! declares the web site. Sure does! Am I the only one who finds men in pink T-shirts a little pinkuliar? It certainly gives a whole new meaning to the term pink-collar worker!

Then there are Pink Batts, New Zealand’s favourite insulation made from glass wool. The web site informs us that much of the glass used to manufacture Pink Batts is recycled using damaged window glass that would otherwise have to be dumped in a landfill. Recycled glass content sits at around 35% for product made in the South Island and 80% for product made in the North Island. Obviously a lot more windows get damaged in the North!

To continue with the pink theme: An item in the New Zealand Herald this morning entitled Frolics in pink … shows pupils and teachers at Kaurilands School frolicking in pink tutus. Don’t worry! We don’t have to run out and hire Micheal Jackson’s lawyers. It’s all for a good cause. They were raising money for the Child Cancer Foundation.

What is it about pink? Pink pyjamas, pink champagne, tickled pink, pink panther, pink flyod, there must be lots more pink around but I have to get back to work ……

Sticky problem won’t go away

There are three more fruit sticker items today in Opinion column of the Herald. This discussion is taking New Zealand by storm!

Two items are of a serious nature. In the first “Checkout operator Katie explains that the stickers on individual pieces of fruit and veges distinguish varieties and may have an embedded code for easy pricing.” Scroll down to the last item and you’ll find that “A family of gluten intolerants claim the tiny stickers on fruit are like poison to them.”

But the piece de resistance has to be the photograph that heads the column .. a chest of drawers decorated with fruit stickers and captioned “David Wishart and his workmates have found a creative use for fruit stickers.” As we New Zealanders are wont to remark: good on you mate!”

Sticky problem solved

The NZ Herald today reports that Cliff Barnett is so incensed by stickers on fruit that he just had to take a stand, "This is a silly practice, especially when the skin is edible and you can accidentally eat the sticky label. If you take the labeled fruit home, then every time you decide to eat a separate piece of fruit you have to make a trip to the rubbish bag and try to unstick the tiny label from the end of your finger. As a means of protest, I take the label off every piece of fruit as I select it in the shop. I put all the labels back on to one single piece of fruit and leave it for other shoppers and the shop staff to see." I suspect that this item is a follow-up to a Letter to the Editor that carried a similar complaint. The writer had gone on to speculate that they may even start labelling individual grapes! The label issue is obviously a worry ..... to at least two New Zealanders.

A few of us expat Brits got together today around the coffee machine (now full of beans and functioning normally again) to try to find a solution to this very sticky problem. Me: They could use edible labels … or ones that dissolve in water when the fruit is washed, suggests Zac. This guy doesn’t want to waste time washing fruit, contributes Jones. After discussing whether or not we should patent the edible/soluble label idea, the conversation deteriorated somewhat. It was probably my fault. I said, I always wash fruit before eating it. Haven’t you seen all these people in the supermarket who handle all the fruit before selecting the one or two they are actually going to buy? Well, you never know where their hands have been, do you? That’s when Zac recalled a study he had read that found that bowls of peanuts in pubs are often contaminated by customers who haven’t washed their hands after going to the loo. That’s OK, people have been known to drink their own urine. It’s therapeutic, offers Jones. Morarji Desai, Prime Minister of India in the late 1970s was a well known urine-drinker, I volunteer.

I still think there could be a market for edible/soluble labels on fruit. Or edible labels could also be soluble …. any takers?

And I thought my day was bad!

What about our PM? According to the NZ Herald, a bruised and shaken Helen Clark survived an aircraft malfunction when the door flew open over the sea near Wellington yesterday! The two policemen on board clung heroically to the door, against the strength of the wind and turbulence, until the plane landed safely. WOW!

I heard part of her interview last night on the news. Yes, I was in the gym at the time. A reporter asks, And PM, I know you are not a religious person but, tell us, what were you thinking at that moment? Without even blinking an eye Helen responds, I was just hoping the plane was going to land. It’s no wonder that people have commented, she has more balls than all of her Cabinet put together.

Friday the thirteenth

I know it's not Friday but it is the thirteenth and I'm having one of those days. I should have stayed in bed like my grandmother used to do. Somehow she was never worried about bad luck befalling my granddad, who had to trek up and down the stairs attending to her every need while she stayed upstairs and mostly in bed on those days. Maybe this was her way of extracting a bit of TLC just once every 213 days. She was a superstitious lady. As children we were warned by my mother never to open an umbrella inside the house .. not, at least, when grandma was around. Opening an umbrella in the house was a common occurrence in Scotland. How else did we get the damn thing dry so that it could be stored away with stinking and growing mould?

But I digress. My day started with a coffee machine malfunction! I had to opt for the disgusting instant coffee alternative. That wasn't the end of it! Oh no! Back at my desk there was a computer malfunction. I just hate it when machines don't work. IT support came to the rescue and order was restored. That's when I made my biggest error of judgment. I should have read the signs .. but no. Skipping morning coffee (the coffee machine was still out of beans) I set out for the post office. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and all in all it was turning out to be a very nice day ... until, on my way back to the office, I tripped over some kind of bump on the pavement and fell flat on my face. Well not really on my face .. but I did graze a knee and damage a few finger nails. Is it normal that the first thought after hitting the ground is not how much damage you've inflicted on yourself but how many people are watching?

Is anyone totally immune to superstition? My mother always said that bad things come in threes. I'm ready to believe that and I'm kind of hoping that my quota of three bad things is complete for the day. Fingers crossed anyway.

Dead true

They don't have funeral directors in India. Why did I think this thought? My niece whose father is a funeral director in Scotland asked me what a funeral director in India is called. Why did she want to know this? Because, according to her email, they keep getting phone calls from a company who's telesales is in Delhi and they don't understand what dad's job is. Why anyone would want to talk to a telesales person, I don't know. Inscrutable Scots!

Telesales people don't bother me at all. The people who actually make the calls are only doing their jobs. At least, they're trying to make an honést living for themselves. How many of us have complained about those lazy so-and-sos on benefit? I find that telling the caller politely that I'm not interested and asking them to remove my number from their call list usually works. Many of us have spent a lot of creative time dreaming up "How to annoy a telesales person" techniques. Some of these can be quite amusing but most are just plain rude. I can't help feeling that, hiding behind technology, we have lost our sense of tolerance and reasonable behaviour.

There are people who behave abominably when they get behind the wheel of a car. We rant and rave, loose our cool and use our horn when all that's needed is a little patience? The same person when walking along the road might be held up behind an old lady or a group of students who are enjoying life but blocking the path. Does (s)he rant, rave and swear then? Not usually! A polite excuse me does the job.

Oh, and in case you're wondering .... when a Hindu dies the body is prepared by the family themseves. The eldest son, or eldest male relative, will take the lead in the funeral arrangements and deal with all the paperwork. I don't know but I'm prettty sure that Muslims and Christians in India will have a similar system.

Too weird; too wrong

I was in the gym. The evening News had just finished on TV. TV3’s weeknight current affairs show, Campbell Live was getting underway. I had finished my stint on the treadmill and was lying on the exercise mat working myself up for a few crunches when I hear this; there are more obese people in the world than there are starving. Campbell is a little taken aback. He repeats questioningly, there are more obese people in the world than there are starving? I look up at the TV screen to find that the statement has been uttered by someone called Jenni (one of those sanctimonious, 30-something, blond ladies with flat tummies) in an item on fighting the flab.

What kind of statistic is that? Was Jenni actually suggesting that we should just forget about the starving and concentrate on helping the obese because there’s more of them? What kind of comparison is that anyway? Have we all gone completely off our trolleys? Obese people are fat mostly because of their own actions. Fat parents breed fat children. Starving people in general don’t have a choice. Starving parents breed starving children, it’s true. But it’s not their fault. Starving people are busy struggling just to stay alive. They don’t have any energy left to do much about it.

Isn’t it madness when nearly four decades after free school milk ended, the Government spends money to give an apple a day to about 20,000 schoolchildren to protect their health and primary schools are to be ordered to provide at least an hour a week of physical activity? Is an apple a day going to make a difference? I don’t think so. Not when kids are sent to school with a pie in their hands and go back home to a McDonald! What’s wrong when kids have to be taught to be active? Have you ever seen a young child in an open space sitting around doing nothing? Of course not! Kids are naturally active … they run around, kick balls, climb over walls …. And if they don’t have the opportunity to do what comes naturally, isn’t that the parent’s fault?

Not so with the starving! According to The Hunger Site, about 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five. Whose fault is that if not ours?

I don’t remember where I first saw this but it seems appropriate still. In the 60s people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

UPDATE: After posting this I noticed the title of my previous post was Too much food. Too weird; too right!

Too much food!

It had to happen just after I had finished my lunch! The Managers emerged from their Very Important Meeting and our sweet little office receptionist wheeled out a trolley laden with the ‘leftovers’. There were plenty of little fried thingies amongst the not-very-inspiring sandwiches. I had just one tiny cheese pastry .. and some of the cut fruit. The rather farmy girl amongst us homed in on the meat balls. Anyone wants some balls? she asks with a twinkle in her eye. Spotting one of the younger suits passing by on his way to the loo, she continues, J--- your balls are quite tasty. How rude!

Quickly, to change the subject, Zac reads a back-pager from the newspaper that discusses how New Zealanders just love their marmite. This leads to a marmite versus vegemite discussion (almost argument); the upshot, marmite is sweeter than vegemite or perhaps vegemite is saltier than marmite. Expat, Zac, halts the debate by reminding everyone of the Marmite advert that was banned in the UK for scaring kids. Fists are unclenched and peace is restored … all agree ….. bloody british!

I return to my desk to discover that one of my colleagues has just admitted (office email) to being a birthday boy. Chocolate cake is produced for afternoon tea to mark the event!

Some days you just have to give up ….. chocolate cake, mmmmmmmmmm!

Of spiders and me

They’re back. I don’t believe it! I was meandering pleasantly through my morning routine .. you know the usual kind of thing … wake up to some Classic FM, a cup of tea, feed the cat, feed the fish …. wander into the bathroom for a shower. BAM! That’s when I saw them! The skeletons of some unidentifiable insects were hanging in the corner as if suspended in space. The dreaded spiders and their horrible webs were back!

After coming to live in Auckland I thought I had found a way of dealing with these little monsters. I use the vacuum cleaner to suck up the spiders and their webs. I’m merciless!

This unsympathetic approach to spiders goes against everything my mother taught me. She insisted that spiders brought good luck and as such had to be treated with respect. Now looking back, I believe this romantic view of spiders arises from the fact that in Scotland, before the days of central heating, insects of any kind were rarely seen. This could easily lead to the conclusion that spiders brought good luck. Obvious really! The odd spider that we found in the bath tub was gently scooped up and released into the great outdoors through the bathroom window which had been opened for the purpose. There was one variety of spider that we called daddy longlegs. With a name like that, how could we ever consider squashing it?

You grow up, you move on and you only have to live in a warm country for a few years to take quite a different approach to members of the creepy crawly community. It’s in the warmer climes that the significance of the oft stated mantra insects are the most abundant group of creatures on earth takes on its full meaning. In India there are insects and insects and even more insects. During the years that I lived there I learned to co-habit with most of them … cockroaches were a bit of a challenge but they always succumbed to my deadly boric acid balls (made from a mixture of flour, sugar, milk and boric acid). These nice little round balls of dough were distributed in kitchen and bathroom cupboards. Of a morning, the satisfying sight of the floor littered with the carcasses of cockroaches on their backs, legs in the air was just the kind of reward I needed. And ants … all kinds of them … big, small … black, red .. tiny smelly ones. Yuck! They would get into food left unattended for more than a few moments. Even the teaspoon that you had used to stir the sugar into your tea with, if carelessly left by the side of the sink, would attract their almost immediate attention. I used to stand the legs of the table in bowls of water to stop the ants from climbing on to the table and into our dinner. The little red ants, the ones that bite, had a way of getting into the bed leading to a night of torture that was inevitably followed by a day of toil for everything had to removed from the bed to make sure that every last one of the little torturers had been hunted down. And I haven’t even mentioned the mosquitoes, the flies, the scorpions. Is it any wonder that with so many more aggravating creatures around I don’t even remember seeing anything as benign as a spider?

However, spiders in Auckland are quite a different matter … they just love our house and leave their webs in every corner. Persistent little beggars …… there's nothing for it but death-by-vacuum-cleaner again this weekend.

Wicked laugh!