Documentary/Drama

Now that I’m settled into my new room (emphasis on 'my' – did you see that? I’ve got a key and everything), I’m settling once more into a day-to-day routine and as a result, my own news is thinning somewhat given that having ceased leaping from one horrible dormitory to the next, I have – for the moment at least - run out of sensationalist anecdotes involving abhorrent room-mates performing the sort of activities which are usually reserved for private rooms or pay-per-view television.
On an unrelated note, earlier this week I pulled a muscle in my back while throwing file-boxes around a basement at work, and – at a loss of anything else of note to write about - I actually started writing a blog entry about this so-called ‘event’. I’ve just dug up the draft version and in amongst the usual teeth-gnashing, self-pity and casual misanthropy, I found this rather over-elaborate paragraph which is rather embarrassing with hindsight:
“The pain was sharp like a broken bottle is sharp, and felt as though all of my back muscles had been wrapped tight in a tourniquet made of barbed wire.”
Oh dear.
Yes, it did hurt quite a bit, but it was only an every-day pulled muscle and really not worth such gory hyperbole. But then I half suspect that the sudden ill-advised detour into high melodrama might be something to do with being here in New Zealand rather than anything else. It’s a location which seems to inspire unnecessary excitement over rather prosaic and dull events.
Let me try to explain. Although the news here features plenty of major and important stories dealing with national and international issues and soberly reported, it is nevertheless probably the only country I can think off which devotes important column inches and front-page headlines to the news that the new edition of the Lonely Planet guide “really likes New Zealand”. Furthermore, the papers then go on to painstakingly inspect every entry in the volume and catalogue a list of towns which the guide book is somewhat less enamoured with.
Although there are only a fairly small number of these, the amount of comment and vitriol which has since been spouted against the publication in the papers and on the radio is astonishing. The description of one town as ‘shabby’ set one commentator off on a spittle-laced rant which condemned all British backpackers (something which my experiences in hostels might actually back up) and concluded that Lonely Planet should “look in the mirror to see what shabby really means”.
So there’s clearly something in the water here which accentuates the melodramatic, and perhaps the fact that Lonely Planet is an Australian publication might prompt a closer inspection by New Zealanders even if much of the content is complimentary to an almost gushing degree. Still, it amused me. Do all New Zealand guide books get this sort of publicity? No wonder there are so many of them.

Elsewhere, in international news, we’ve had ample coverage of Steve Irwin’s death-by-stingray, which in Australia seems to have provoked an ‘outpouring of grief’ not seen since Diana pulled her ultimate publicity stunt in Paris. Words such as ‘tragedy’ and ‘untimely’ are being used, which strikes me as curious given that Irwin was famous for going toe-to-toe with man-eating animals while going ‘crikey’ and almost dying gorily on a weekly basis. I had always assumed that most of his viewers only watched his programme on the off-chance they might see him sustain a fatal injury while wrestling with crocodiles, snakes or something else dangerous, but this hasn’t stopped Germaine Greer being vilified by the Australian media (again), this time for writing a column in The Guardian in which she expressed apathy for the whole incident. As a result, one of the national papers published her email address and encouraged its readers to spam her with hate mail, which I believe is the same treatment that The Sun reserves for paedophiles so strikes me as a little extreme. I admit that the apathy stance is a position which I sympathise with in this case, although Gary is taking the news of the death very badly – he’s a big fan and missed the chance to see the great man doing his thing at his zoo in Brisbane. Although I’m sure that Irwin was a really pleasant guy, and will be very much missed by his family and friends, as far as I’m concerned, in the odd-looking-bloke-wielding-animals-on-kid’s-TV front, he didn’t come close to the glittering highs set by Terry Nutkin. Did Nutkin wrestle with crocodiles, tango with tarantulas and surf with sharks? No, of course not, but he did have two fingers bitten off by a ferret. Take that, Irwin.
Clearly others in Australia disagree though, in fact the news today mentions that some people have actually gone so far as to take their revenge on stingrays as though the species hatched up a conspiracy to off the unfortunate naturalist, presumably having been subcontracted to do so by the crocodiles whose dastardly plans he continually foiled. Unbelievably, bodies of ten of the creatures have been found washed up on beaches in Queensland, and their offending barbed tails have been hacked off by rabid Steve Irwin fans who seem to have completely missed the point of his rather benevolent philosophy which could be boiled down to “Nature is your friend, even when it’s trying to kill you. Horribly.”
As I said, melodrama.

Best headline of all though is less melodramatic and more admirably to the point if – admittedly - slightly superfluous. The award goes to the prime-time television news, which concluded a feature about upcoming live music events in Auckland with the breathless revelation that “The Scissor Sisters are really, really gay.”
First with the news on that one, then.