Detour 180 - Live In Aotea Square

This evening Life fm - the radio station I keep talking to more than any other about getting some work from - were running a toga race for presenters'n'others down and then back up Queen Street, concluding in Aotea Square, where there was then free food. As dusk fell Luke picked up the mike and protested on air how cold it was, the Christian rock band Detour 180 came on to belt out a few numbers live, and people of all ages danced while the rest of us ate (I had 4 sausages in buns!) and simply relaxed. It was a curious feeling walking freely among possible future friends, but not yet knowing who anyone was.

Hungry For Nothing

The youth hostel that I'm staying at is very well organized, and very big!


It occupies most of a multi-storey office-block, 10 stories high! As well as rooms for 1, 2, 4 or 8 people to sleep in, there's a laundry room, 2 TV rooms, a large kitchen (that closes at midnight), a job centre, a travel agency… and even an internet café!


The view from my room.

The rooms all have lockers under the beds, although I initially seemed to be the only one in my (8-person) room really using it. The lockers require a padlock to secure. I brought two padlocks with me, plus several others which I got free with my new rucksack! This is handy, as so much of my time has been spent out and about.

The hostel's “free barbeques” (for which you have to buy a $2 drink) happen quite often, although they are really only good for sausage sandwiches. Wednesday evening is Free Pizza Night at the nightclub downstairs, due to some sponsorship deal with Pizza Hut.

There is also a Free Food shelf in the kitchen where people leave food that they are not taking with them. Otherwise I have to get something from McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Subway or the New World supermarket up in Ponsonby.

The food is variable, depending upon where I get it.

Thanks to new friend Steve on reception, after three weeks I moved out of 8-person room 610 overlooking Queen Street, and into the 4-person windowless room 704.

This is because I am now voluntarily helping the hostel out for 15 hours a week, so they've kindly stopped charging me for staying here, so long as I take one of their worst rooms.

Really, it's a cupboard. Big enough for 2 bunks, but an absolute squeeze with 4, and nigh on impossible when you also factor in 4 travellers' luggage and a fridge.

Anyway, the upside is that this has absolutely slashed my living costs, helped along by the fact that I seem to be living almost entirely off of free food as well lately! People keep leaving what they don't eat behind when they move on - you know, half a loaf of perfectly good bread, three quarters of a packet of breakfast cereal, entire sealed 3 litre bottles of orange juice, that sort of thing. When you're the one cleaning out their rooms after they've gone, you find all sorts of stuff. (of course, you also find discarded condoms, plastic genitalia and books like Buddhism For Dummies, but that's not worth going into here)

Anyway, the housekeeping gig has not turned out to be that taxing so far – on my first day all I had to do was keep feeding the single washing machine and single tumble-dryer linen from 500 beds for 3 hours, and make two new friends – Leanne in the office, and a Korean guy called Tiger.

That was two weeks ago, and as I've found myself increasingly hanging-out with a group of Chileans, Koreans and others, I've had to wonder how my life has turned around so much in the past year that I'm now roughing it with a bunch of foreign immigrants. Oh yeah, because despite my legal visa, I sort of am one too now...

There are a lot of people here at the hostel who don't speak very good English. As a result, a lot of my day now seems to be getting spent teaching them. One of them wants to start paying me. I pointed out that I couldn't because on my visitors visa this would technically be illegal, but I reckon I could cheekily ask him to do my laundry or something instead... :)

Million-To-One-Dance

This afternoon, I was going out to buy a phone-card, however as I left the youth hostel, a truly amazing thing happened.

The exact second that I stepped through the doorway and onto the pavement, my friends Bill, Karen and Melanie were exiting the doors of their parked car onto the same pavement.

This was a lovely surprise – my friends from Matamata, with whom I had stayed for over a fortnight recently, had driven three whole hours up the motorway to come and pay me a surprise visit! That was really lovely of them.

And rather than having to get reception to page me, (there are ten floors in this building) what were the chances of us bumping into each other at the exact same second on my doorstep like that? I guess it happens.

Except, and here's the thing, they hadn't come to see me at all.

It transpired that they genuinely hadn't even been told that I was back in the country again. Bill and Karen had come up to the smoke to watch Melanie's dance exam over in New Lynn. Now they were here in the city shopping for shoes. In a parking bay that was, absolutely literally, right on my doorstep. And out of the entire day, they had exited their car at - again literally - the same second that I had been stepping out of the building.

And all by what the non-Christian world rationalises as "coincidence".

Really, there was just no way we could possibly have missed each other without hiding our faces. I asked Bill, "So what made you park here exactly?" and he could only manage "I don't know."

So it was big smiles all round, news of Anna-Lisa, Glen and James, and I recounted how I'd recently returned to Matt's old flat, looking for my electric razor that I had lost there in March! (it's still lost)

Finally we went our separate ways, agreeing that I should of course drop-in next time I'm in Matamata again.

In the euphoria of the moment, there's always something that you forget to say on these occasions. So after I'd left them I realised that I was actually wearing the socks they had given me as a gift, (the most comfortable socks I have) and I should have gone inside to fetch the chockies that I'd brought for them from the UK.

But I can't blame myself for only thinking of those things afterwards. Seeing those three again was the absolute highlight of my week.

God is good.

Flex, Eyes and Audiotape

I want a job in radio.

One of the first things I did here was to go for a long walk up to Ponsonby, listening to my walkman to get a feel for Auckland's many different stations.

Some of them have quite bizarre names, such as Easy-Listening Eye, or i, eye don't know which from just listening. Another seemed even harder to pronounce, as twice the presenter sounded as though he was tripping-over saying his own station's name. That, I later discovered, was the unexpectedly short BFM.

In order to make job applications though, I really need to wow their programme-directors with a good demo-tape.

I brought a bunch of cassettes of my old UK radio shows with me, but what I've really needed since getting here is a cassette-to-cassette copier to run some copies off on regularly.

There is one in the hostel's kitchen, but it doesn't work properly, although it did amuse me to hear myself on West London Radio blaring out of it for a moment! (it made a surreal change from Classic Hits Auckland)

So I prayed for God to get me a tape-to-tape machine.

And, within minutes, I actually found a second-hand one on sale at the market in Aotea Square! Whoa!

It was almost perfect, because as I examined it at the stall, I could see that it was missing a mains lead. I opened-up the battery-compartment on the rear to check the contacts were okay to use instead, and hiding inside I found the mains lead!

Clearly this was God's perfect provision, in answer to my prayer. Wowzers. Prayer works!

And then the woman behind the stall saw me with it and took it off me, saying that it wasn't for sale.

Whu...?

I wanted to stand there and protest that it was. I wanted to stammer "N-no... y-you're wrong... this is my answer from God..." but obviously I didn't. I just went away thoroughly disappointed.

At the Christian college I visited recently, they were kind enough to let me borrow the tape-to-tape of a guy who wasn't even around at the time. I spent much of the second half of the afternoon going into his bedroom, setting my tapes running, and then returning 25 minutes later to reset another one going. When the owner himself eventually showed-up, he was completely cool with finding a complete stranger in his bedroom using his stuff.

Recently, at the back of church, (which I'm regularly arriving at 45-minutes late to avoid the worship) I made a new friend. He's an ice-cream salesman called Trev, and like me he's into a bit of low-budget film-making from time-to-time. Trev gave me a lift back to the hostel, after which we sat for an hour in his car just chatting about stuff.

Last week I told him of my need for a tape-to-tape copier, and he immediately produced one. From inside his car.

That's it – he simply had one on him. God bless Trev. No wait, it was God's doing. Trev bless God.

This morning the hostel's tannoy announced that there was a call for me to take at reception. I leapt out of bed, dressed very quickly, and raced down in the lift.

After a telephone interview, I found I was through to the last 8 for a job as Breakfast Presenter on community radio in Greymouth! (I'm guessing the town was named after a local talking corpse or something) There are 2 positions going, so that means I actually have a 1 in 4 chance.

Meanwhile a Christian TV/radio network within walking-distance up the road is interested in my HR experience too. In the never-in-a-million-years event that I actually get offered both, I think I'd have to take the HR job, as although I wouldn't get on air, I would be working for a Christian company.

Round Ireland With A Fridge by Tony Hawks

I'm reading Tony Hawks' autobiographical book Round Ireland With A Fridge on my days off at the moment. It's very good.

It's the true story of how Tony took on a bet to hitchhike around the circumference of said country, with a fridge in tow, within one calendar month.

There is much that appeals to me about this.

1. It's silly, and Tony 'gets' the value in that.

2. Tony Hawks knows how to find all the other the silliness in his adventures, and turn it into polished comedy. I've just read the part in which he disembarks a guest-house to take the fridge scuba-diving, which is just marvellous.

3. It's very encouraging. Tony's on a quest to achieve something impossible, and I feel just like that, building a new life against the odds here down under.

And I need all the encouragement I can get.

Super Size Us

Tiger and I had as much free pizza as we could eat today, just for answering a survey. I was absolutely stuffed.

Super Size Me

I heard Morgan Spurlock being interviewed by Luke Weston on life fm, so I determined to go and see his film.


Spurlock's doco is all about the world's obesity problem, but its hook is his determination to frame it by eating only McDonald's food for an entire month.

It's all a bit jokey at the outset, and Spurlock seems such a jovial character, that it's easy to buy-into his journey and get on his side. The shortcomings in the film's production values actually enhance this, and give the whole thing a raw authenticity and credibility that shooting with a more clinical production team might have sterilised.

And you have to wonder just what his game-plan actually was. With all the medical observations of his state-of-health, just what would he have done if he'd completed the month showing no ill effects at all? At the outset, even his doctor reckons there'll be barely any measurable change before the month is up.

It's a bit of a shock, then, when half-way through the same doctor takes it all back and realises that his patient is on the brink of a complete medical disaster.

In other words, death.

So, does Spurlock continue with the hook his film needs?

We see him talking to camera in the middle of the night, having got up feeling awful, and now he's clearly pretty freaked at his stupid reckless behaviour.

Super Size Me is that precious mixture of fun and education in equal measures, that leaves you vowing to eat a bit more carefully in future, even if you don't completely rule the clown's burgers out.

Prophecy

Some bits of Christianity can feel a bit awkward.

You want to believe in them, but you can't help also feeling a bit guarded and cynical.

Yesterday, as we pulled away from the Christian college in the car, I felt great about my New Zealand odyssey. That day God had provided me with free food, a chance to dub-off my much-needed radio demo-tapes, and now here I was getting a free lift all the way back to Auckland Central, thanks to a prophesy conference there that several of the students were going to. It seemed like my NZ adventure had been preplanned-out by God, and all I had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride.

In the car, the discussion was about how the Bible says that the Israelites' clothes didn't wear-out during their 40-year odyssey in the desert. One lady was supposing that, as they all grew older and got bigger, particularly the kids, then their clothes must have also miraculously stretched.

I contributed that they might have just swapped their clothes with each other. I found that this idea wasn't initially popular though, robbing the miracle as it did of some of its potential miraculousness. However one guy did concede that "sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one."

As we arrived in Auckland, I was invited to attend the prophesy conference with them. As I got out of the car, I was ambivalent. I wouldn't mind attending – it was something to do – but I was running a very tight budget. But then the guy declared that God had just told him that I should attend.

Boy, now I felt really bad. Was I going to spend the rest of my life letting others decide how I should spend my money? Letting others dictate my faith? Seriously – what was the right thing to do? I guess I wanted to believe in God, but I sure didn't want to believe in him, nice guy as he was.

I met one prophet last year, and with respect, I couldn't ignore how her statements would consistently agree with however her friend felt on the subject, even when her friend would later change her mind. I don't wish to belittle or misrepresent her – that's just what I observed on the occasions when I was present. Despite this paradox, she really seemed to believe in predestination.

Anyway, a moment later the guy returned to me and apologised. I think he could see how unhappy I was with the financial responsibility he'd just placed on my shoulders, and he emphasized that he sometimes thought things were from God, but they might not be.

Using my ANZ card for the first time, I decided to go in.

There was a fairly funny and motivational speaker at the front, who was joined by another guy who committed the unforgivable sin of implying that he was in Australia. Then he tried to dig himself out by drawing attention to it. Snigger.

After all the singing etc. was over, they would invite people to the front to be prophesied over by small groups of 3 prophets.

At some point in the weekend, I went forward and met a 20-ish boy, a 20-ish girl, and a friendly-looking retired woman who resembled my mum. I told them how I'd come over from the UK, and they told me that I wasn't actually supposed to tell them anything, they were supposed to prophesy over me anonymously.

And they said a ton of things, nearly all of which were positive, non-specific, and generic. With respect, they could have said all of those things to everyone they saw that night. I don't mean to belittle them at all, I believe they believed what they were saying, and have no wish to subtract from them, but the few things I can remember are as follows:

"I see you and God building a wall together."

"You are going to hold your head up high."

The retired lady told me that everything would work out for me so unexpectedly naturally. She said I'd go "Oh! That's so natural."

Anyway, that was all yesterday.

Today I was back at day two of the conference, lounging about in the foyer, when something completely unexpected happened – a complete stranger came up and greeted me by name.

But this was not divine knowledge speaking, it transpired that I had met her briefly yesterday back at the college. She was there to be one of the prophets in the latter half of the conference.

And this was the highlight of the weekend for me – that I got to sit down and just chat with someone who I 'knew.' I realised that such an ordinary chance-meeting just doesn't happen when your home is on the opposite side of the globe.

I said to her "I wish I could just get an email from God every day, that I could print-out and carry about with me as I did everything on the list."

She was full of encouragement, and said that she wasn't allowed to prophesy over anyone outside of the designated times in the meetings, yet towards the end of our conversation, it was very clear that she was.

Like the three people I'd met earlier, she was slipping into telling me several bite-sized statements, that could really apply to many people. One thing she said was "You've got to stop striving." Well, I could certainly buy-into that. Then she said,

"You are going to hold your head up high."

And two other things that were the same as what the three others had said to me.

As I headed back into real life again afterwards, I decided to take the encouraging words that had been spoken to me and dwell on them, whether they were from God or not.

After all, I needed the encouragement.

Revelation

Today I had a great day hanging-out at a remote Christian college, where they discipline young Christians in becoming effective for God.

They seem to see themselves as something of an army camp, as the students do all the physical fitness as well, and sometimes get sent off on manoeuvres.

For example, they drop groups of them off in the middle of another nowhere, with only a paperclip and their faith to sustain them. The idea is that they then swap the paperclip for something of greater value, then swap that etc. until they return with something big like a microwave, or a car, or Africa or something.

Chatting to some of them in the canteen inevitably led them to asking me what I was doing in New Zealand. So I told them that I had reckoned that God wanted me here, but didn't really know what exactly to do once here. I'm not really used to talking about myself, being more of a listener, so I had to break eye-contact to concentrate. When I looked back I realised that they had all lost interest and were now looking at someone behind me who had stolen their attention.

I thought that was rude, but normal for me. Somehow I have that effect on people, of suddenly becoming invisible mid-sentence as soon as anyone else comes into peripheral vision.

So I sighed inwardly, and turned to politely listen to the newcomer behind me who had so snappily seduced my audience.

And here's the thing – there was no-one there.

I swear I did a double-take. Who were they talking to? One guy was gazing in awestruck wonder, and enunciating "Whoa. Dude. What faith!"

At this point I realised with shock that they were actually still talking to me, but I was so un-used to the attention, that I had just assumed that they were looking with such interest at someone else.

I started to protest, "No, no, really, I haven't got much faith..." Didn't they realise that I hadn't even been properly attending a church in the UK for years? Then I genuinely let slip that I had never left home before, and, well, that was that.

So anyway, from that moment on, they were full of encouragement and determined to look after me, swapping phone numbers by the end of the day, and promising to meet up back in Auckland to hear my testimony. Quite an inspiring day, not least because I was kindly given two free meals, three free pieces of cake, three free sachets of Milo and a free lift home, saving me $17 on the coach. Oh, and they made me tea, too. I even got to run off some radio demo tapes for job applications while I was there.

I accept their faith in God, but am bewildered at their faith in me.

Today I had cereal for breakfast, sweet and sour pork from the supermarket at lunchtime (with a banana), chicken and vegetable soup (from the supermarket) with 4 slices of bread (from the hostel's free food shelf) this evening, and a white-chocolate Twix (from the Kwikimart). And a few glasses of fruit juice. Shortly I should have a hot chocolate.

I have a driving lesson booked tomorrow for 1:30.

Driving Me Crazy

Driving in New Zealand is a bit uphill.

Last week the AA refused to recognise my provisional driving licence, on the basis that I hadn't passed any tests to get it. (it's from 1993, before the UK required a theory test for it) They said they'd backdate a new Learner's Licence to a month ago, when I'd passed the UK's new theory test, after which I can't take a test for a Restricted (half) Licence in NZ until 6 months (now 5) have passed (i.e. until January 2005).

So I rang a number, and they told me that as I'm over 25, it'd actually be only 3 (now 2) months before I could take the Restricted (half) Licence. (i.e.October)

So I went back in this week, and they said they'd backdate my new Learners Licence to 1993 after all, but that I'd have to re-take the Theory Test all over again today.

All this and I had to postpone a trip around a TV station today in order to take it.

If you actually followed all that, thankyou for sharing my pain. I'm afraid there's more to come.

So, fully expecting them to change the rules yet again, today I went in and successfully passed the NZ driving theory test anyway, but it was still nail-biting stuff.

They gave me a scratch card of 35 multi-choice questions, of which I had to score 32. Having got two that I was certain of wrong, I left the two most difficult questions until the end, and realised, on 31, that I therefore had to get at least one of them right. It was a bit like being on The Weakest Millionaire.

One question was about the legal number of millimetres in a tyre's tread, and the other was how often a vehicle over six years old needs a Warrant Of Fitness here.

Anyway I prayed and scraped through with 32 (again), so they gave me the Learner's Licence, but they didn't backdate it, promising that it would be okay. I don't believe a word of it.

I've taken several lessons in the UK, but want to have another one before taking the practical test here anyway.

Fahrenheit 9/11

Tuesday nights at the cinema are cheap, so I've decided to make Tuesday night movie night.

I think there are two types of conspiracy theory:

1. Ones driven by the evidence.

2. Ones driven by holes in the evidence.

Although there are some thought-provoking theories out there about the awful September 11th attacks, I'm afraid that Fahrenheit 9/11 falls more into the latter camp.

And, fairly, I guess the film is less of a conspiracy theory, and more of a flat outright character assassination.


Documentary-maker Michael Moore has some circumstantial evidence against Bush, but he has to work so hard to mould it into a case that you get the impression he might have been better off abandoning this angle and finding a new one.

It's certainly a quite entertaining piece of propaganda. The editors take quotes out of context and mock Bush with such cunning accuracy, that it's hardly journalism, more satire.

For example, at one point we're shown a clip of Bush making a serious statement about terrorism, at the end of which he declares "now watch this drive," and we discover he's actually enjoying a round of golf.

That's funny – showing him talking about such a serious topic, before revealing such a comparatively trivial context.

But what if the context had come first? What if we'd first been shown that he was on a golf course, and then seen him breaking off to address such a serious matter?

Not really funny. Dare I say it, he might even have come across as responsible. Perhaps the press should have really let him play golf for an hour.

At another point Moore declares "I couldn't believe that virtually no member of Congress had read the Patriot Act before voting on it. So I decided that the only patriotic thing to do, was for me to read it to them."

I can see his argument, (regardless of whether I agree with it) but he then decides to read the Act to the congresspeople... via the loudspeaker of an ice-cream van.

One has to wonder whether he actually did read out the entire Act that way. Personally, I doubt it. I suspect that, like John Conyers had implied a moment earlier, he just didn't have the time to.

For all that, there's stark, unpleasant footage in here too, that has an almost Zapruder-like voyeurism about it. The footage of George W Bush during the opening minutes of the 9/11 attack, sitting silently in a classroom, trying to act normally. The harrowing street confrontation at the end between a protestor and a woman whose son had died.

Ultimately though, these sequences sit a little awkwardly in a film that succeeds more at comedy than commentary.