Debate 09, 2013

Issue 09 | MAY 2013 www.ausm.org.nz

Issue 09 | MAY 2013 Directory

reception City Campus Level 2, WC Building 921 9805 Mon-Thurs: 9am-5pm Fri: 9am-4pm North Shore Campus Level 2, AS Building 921 9949 Mon-Fri: 11am-1pm

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Cover

Illustration by Jun Arita p22

EDITOR

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Matthew Cattin matthew.cattin@aut.ac.nz

sub editor

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Nigel Moffiet

designer/PHOTOGRAPHER Ramina Rai

Manukau Campus MB107 921 9999 ext 6672 Mon-Thurs: 9am-3.30pm

contributors

Abigail Johnson | Alice Markie | Antoine Fuqua | Antonia Anderson | Carl Ewen | Erica Donald | Erica McQueen | Gabriel Hughes | India Hendrikse | Kieran Bennett | Louis Houlbrook | Laura Owejan| Mike Ross | Nigel Moffiet | Paul Stevens | Sebastian May | Scott Yeoman | Shilo Kino |

governance & leadership Kizito Essuman AuSM Student President 921 9999 ext 8571 kizito.essuman@aut.ac.nz management Sue Higgins General Manager 921 9999 ext 5111 sue.higgins@aut.ac.nz advocacy Nick Buckby Liaison Manager 921 9999 ext 8379 nick.buckby@aut.ac.nz marketing Kate Lin Sales and Marketing Co-ordinator 921 9999 ext 8909 kate.lin@aut.ac.nz events Carl Ewen Student Life Manager 921 9999 ext 8931 carl.ewen@aut.ac.nz media Matthew Cattin Publications Co-ordinator 921 9999 ext 8774 matthew.cattin@aut.ac.nz vesbar Zane Chase Vesbar Manager 921 9999 ext 8378 zane.chase@aut.ac.nz volunteers & clubs Nathan Bromberg Volunteers Coordinator 921 9999 ext 8911 nathan.bromberg@aut.ac.nz

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Illustration & Photography

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Matthew Cattin | Jennifer Choat | Ramina Rai

advertising contact Kate Lin kate.lin@aut.ac.nz

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PMP Print Ltd.

publisher 5 Editorial 6 Artist of the week: Jun Arita

18 COLUMNS 20 ARTICLE: Starting-Out Wage

8 Article:

21 ARTICLE: Cliches In Writing

9 Article: Don't Worry, Be Hippy

22 Fatpads & Tittoos

10 INTERVIEW: Puppetry Of The Penis 12 Nifty News 14 A Memorandum Auckland's Got It Going On 15 Prez Sez AuSM Updates 16 ARTICLE: Digital Domination

AuSM all rights reserved

23 Kieran's Kitchen #2 24 Comedians & Politics 26 INTERVIEW: James Acaster 27 MUSIC: Joseph & Maia 28 Playlist 31 EATS: Little & Friday 32 REVIEWS

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PRIZE DRAW!

AGENDA ITEMS INCLUDE: President’s report Audited 2012 Accounts Appointment of Auditor

12 NOON MONDAY 13 MAY 2013

image source: distar97 flickr

Editorial

by Matthew Cattin Hello, Two weeks ago I read an article that made my jaw drop. It’s a story we’ve heard time and time again from the great US of A but with an appalling twist. A 5-year-old south Kentucky boy shot and killed his 2-year-old sister with a rifle – his own rifle. This wasn’t his Dad’s gun, mistakenly left loaded in the cabinet – a crime no less tragic but perhaps more excusable – this was the boy’s own weapon. In a country that has banned the Kinder Surprises, I found it immeasurably ironic to discover that the weapon used was of the brand ‘My First Rifle’. You’ve heard of ‘My First Telephone’ and ‘My First Cash Register’ I’m sure but what the hell kind of society sees ‘My First Rifle’ as a logical follow on? The firearms are painted beautifully to appeal to youngsters with a ‘My First Rifle’ logo displayed on the side. Are they dangerous? Ask the 5-year-old shooter from south Kentucky.

The United States has a private gun ownership of 101.05 firearms per 100 people (gunpolicy.org) – a completely, and often literally, mind-blowing statistic. Naturally, when reviewing a statistic such as this, I assume the very young would never contribute to the majority but turns out youngsters get

their guns out pretty young in the great States where learning to shoot seems as blasé as learning to ride a bike. I checked out a few testimonials from the ‘My First Gun’ website and was pretty disturbed by the amount of people buying “hot pink” rifles for their young daughters. Here are a few exerts.

“My 4 1/2 year old daughter thought the "pink one" was far superior to a black synthetic stock,who am i to argue?”

“For Christmas 05' My oldest kid,6,wanted Santa to bring her, her first real gun. When her teacher at school told the class to write a letter to Santa about what they really wanted for Christmans, she wrote "I want a rel gun my size".

The teacher said she couldn't write that at school and had to write something else...”

I think back to a time when I was a wee lad, boisterous and rough. I recall quite a few occasions where I completely lost control at my brothers, pounding at them with clenched fists or tackling them with all my might. I’m sure most of you will have felt that heat rising to your head and a tremble in your hand at some stage in life – that anger-fuelled adrenalin rush. Thankfully, and quite probably because I am the youngest of three boys, my vents never escalated to more than a

grazed knee or a bloody nose. And heck, I was a pretty nice kid. I had nice manners and kept to myself, I had a wonderful upbringing with loving, supportive parents. Even so, when that childhood rage came over me, I turned into something feral. Now, I’m not saying that my childhood tantrums would have been lethal had I a gun, but for kids who were violently dragged up from birth, abused, bullied and tormented, surely they would be wired fairly differently. Perhaps their fuse would be a little shorter and their anger more severe but realistically, that’s all it could take.

With firearms, it can only take a second of panic, confusion, rage, or even an accident for lives to be destroyed. So to realise that there are rifles out there specifically targeted at kids who aren’t even in primary school, well… It’s just sickening. How many more unnecessary deaths will it take to change the system?

But shit, don’t even get me started on Kinder Surprises… Those things will kill ya…

Matthew PS: Welcome back Georgie Pie. I’ve missed you more than I care to disclose.

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Artist of the week:

JUN ARITA

Jun Arita is a Japanese pop artist, graphic designer and illustrator from Osaka, Japan. Currently residing on Auckland’s North Shore, Jun’s style is colourful, bright and always representative of his motto, “never give up”.

“My work draws its influences from pop art, traditional Japanese art, Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese writing) and graffiti. I hope my art will inspire others to fulfil their hopes and aspirations. Sharing my work with others gives me a sense of purpose and the drive to create more work,” says Jun. Along with digital creations, Jun uses coloured pencils, acrylic paints and pens and coloured pens on his collages. Jun has exhibited his work in New Zealand, the Netherlands and Japan and often dabbles in street art and live painting events.

Jun’s website is currently under construction but make sure you get on Facebook and check out more of Jun’s work @ Japanese Pop Artist : Jun Arita.

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Penguins Are Soooooo Gay

by Matthew Cattin When I was a wee lad growing up, somebody told me that one in 10 penguins were gay. I never fully believed the fact – it seemed too queer. I had only just learnt what being gay was and to hear the bomb shell that penguins would be down for some same-sex loving well…

Too much, too fast! I was still at the age to laugh when somebody said “diddle” – certainly no place to digest the information I was receiving.

So anyway, a few years down the line, I found myself riding the Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctica snow buggy on a school trip and the fact jumped into mind. “Are one in 10 penguins gay?” I blurted out to the guide.

“Not sure,” he says. “I don’t think the percentage is that high, but there are definitely a lot of gay penguins,” he says to my disbelief. “In fact we have a couple here, I’ll point them out to you.” To my young and naïve surprise, I found I couldn’t tell the gay penguins from the straight and I had a hard time even figuring out which birds the guide was pointing at. As it turned out, they were just like the straight penguins, diving in the pool, waddling on the ice and playing it cool.

It was quite a moment - to realise that penguins could have sexual preferences just like humans. The only difference was that none of the straight penguins gave a shit.

I’ve recently taken a fresh interest in penguin’s sex lives (as you do) and done a bit of research. What I came across is both hilarious, shocking and so typical of god-fearing old-school society. In 1911, Antarctic explorer George Murray Levick made a fabulous discovery – penguins regularly took part in homosexual behaviour.

Levick carefully documented his findings, labelling the behaviour as “depraved”. Furthermore, he considered the report to be too scandalous for the era and supressed it from public knowledge. He did however translate it to Greek to safeguard it from prying eyes and sent it to private researchers. Amazingly the reports vanished, resurfacing a century later to finally be published in 2012.

Animals and sex go together like cheese and crackers – it is simply what they do. As soon as they come of age, it’s time to find a mate, flutter some feathers, get laid and squeeze out some eggs. There is

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no such thing as religion, abstinence or saving it for the wedding night when you’re an animal. They also don’t seem to be too fussed about body hair, inexperience or making too much noise. And as it turns out, homosexual relations are happening willy nilly all over the animal kingdom. Birds, whales, dolphins, big cats, monkeys, just about anything goes. As same-sex love does nothing to further an animal’s genes, it’s definitely an interesting branch of research that is beginning to demand a lot more attention than it has in the past.

In fact of late, researchers have even accused David Attenborough’s documentaries of disregarding the evidence of homosexual behaviour. Watch this space.

So back to the penguins… After the taboo faded and zoologists started doing their jobs properly, zoos the world over began reporting samesex pairs living together, having sexy time and even raising adopted eggs. In Japan and Germany, homosexual male pairs have reportedly built nests together and used a stone as a substitute egg – I’m bursting at the seams at how cute that is. In a German zoo, the gay males were separated in an attempt to get the birds to breed but no such luck – once you get sack, you never go back. A New York couple, Roy and Silo adopted and hatched an egg together in 2004. This is just a few cases but I suggest you Google some more – it’s rather heart-warming stuff.

Further reading on the subject suggests homosexual penguins do not always stay together for life and often drift apart or move to heterosexual relationships. Therefore it is probably impossible to say whether penguins are born gay or change preferences depending on circumstance. So while it does little to settle the tiring nature vs nurture debate, no matter your stance on the subject I think it certainly does well to dispel the argument that being gay is unnatural as many ignorant religious knobs will try to flog at you. After all what could be more natural than a couple of gay penguins getting into some global warming?

Don't Worry, Be Hippy India Hendrikse talks about the world of being a happy hippy in Kiwi Land.

After being assigned to write an article based on an advertisement for my Journalism paper, I began my exploring on classifieds website Gumtree.

After searching for a while on the numbingly dull website, I stumbled upon something that brought out the inner quirkiness in me; a young German girl, named Hannah Behnson, was advertising for a horse… to travel around New Zealand on horseback.

I quickly contacted the girl, and received a reply from her almost immediately. I organised to travel out to the backpacking community that she was staying at, to interview her for my piece.

Now I’m not an Auckland local, so when I have to embark on a train (which is a transport method quite foreign to me), and travel all the way out to the outskirts of West Auckland, I count it as quite the adventure. Upon arrival, I walked 20 minutes from the train until coming across the address. Thankful that I had bought an iPhone quite literally the week before, I trusted its geography and began to walk down the driveway. While my map told me the address was right, there was no sign for quite some time. I walked past old abandoned vans, scarecrows, and overgrown bushes. It had the air of a hippy community, but its lacking in any form of life gave me the spooks. After what felt like a lifetime, I reached the end of the drive, and saw a group of people sitting in a circle on a patch of grass, sharing a meal. I spoke to one of them, and she called out to Hannah. My free-spirited experience commenced.

Hannah and I soon got distracted, and started to talk about her travels and the hostel in which we sat at, Fat Cat Community.

While the sun pounded down on our un-sunblocked skin, we sat on old mismatched car seats that had been placed in a circle surrounding the remnants of a bonfire. Our conversation led us to talk about the way of life at the community. The secrecy of the place adds to its charm, and Hannah says she only came across it whilst googling alternative, cheaper forms of accommodation before travelling to New Zealand.

Hannah paid $10 per night to tent on the back lawn of the main house. While Hannah lives in a tent, her neighbour, an English backpacker, instead decided to build himself a tree house for his stay in New Zealand. With internet connected up within the walls of his house upon stilts, ingenuity seems commonplace at Fat Cat. Hannah got me trying the homemade honey from their beehives, and I swigged it down with some fresh milk from their community cow, Geraldine.

Hannah took me to meet Geraldine, who she milks twice a day, morning and evening. Hannah says everyone that lives at the community helps to keep the place running smoothly, and says it’s just part of the deal. In her time at the community, she has spent many hours gardening, tending to the animals, collecting honey, and has even painted the outside of a recent room addition to the main house. Hannah expressed to me the love of her travel home, listing its many unique benefits.

“We have fresh milk from the cow, tea and coffee, a solar shower and fire bath, a tree house, showers inside, electricity if I want it.

Someone is making fresh bread or cake every day,” she said.

It’s places like this that the New Zealand public simply don’t seem to know about. We spend so much time thinking about how great New Zealand is for tourists, but not actually realising the truly fantastic experiences out there. Let’s face it, New Zealand is an expensive place; food is expensive, travel is expensive, clothes are expensive… the list goes on. So I think it’s great that New Zealand does have these little communities that few people know about.

Fat Cat purposely doesn’t advertise, so it is only those who seek it that find it. As Fat Cat’s secret has been left in the safety of your hands, I highly recommend a stay there for a trial weekend living the hippy way of life- I certainly know I will be there for my solar bath and last lick of the honey jar.

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The ancient art of genital origami

Nigel Moffiet talks “dick tricks� with the lads from Puppetry of the Penis

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David “Friendy" Friend, co-creator of Puppetry of the Penis, admits his mother still wishes he was a computer programmer. His father, on the other hand, is more resigned: He’s like “oh well, he’s 30 years old, he can do whatever he likes,” says Friendy, recalling the time it all began.

But it’s quite possible mum and dad are quietly proud of their son. Friendy, along with fellow creator and puppeteer Simon Morley, created one of the biggest comedy acts in the world. Both from Melbourne, they have taken the show from the pubs, unis and backblocks of Australia to New York, Edinburgh and London’s West End. Friendy says he and Morley weren’t sure how the audience would react during their 1998 debut at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival but they did well and moved up the ranks from punters on the side to part of the comedy circuit – it kicked off a 20,000 kilometre, eight month tour of Australia.

Speaking to Friendy over the phone, he describes how his penis puppeteering career kicked off in remarkable, coincidental fashion.

Before the days Puppetry of the Penis was conceived of as a stage show, he was just another average uni student “more interested in drinking beer and partying”. He was also the guy who liked to drop his trousers and do a nuddy run whenever he could. At this stage, he and Morley hadn’t met but they shared a common interest.

“Simon and I were both doing the dick tricks independently of each other,” says Friendy, reflecting.

They first met in Byron Bay more than a decade ago when Morley was a comedy promoter working with Australian stand-up comedian Jimeoin. Late one night they were in a nightclub and Morley was showing off some tricks – Friendy’s flatmate happened to be there and rang him straight away.

“He said ‘there’s a guy here doing dick tricks and you wouldn’t believe it, he’s doing all the same ones as you,’” recalls Friendy.

“I quickly wrote down a list of all my tricks and I went to meet them. I met them while they were having dinner and I showed them all my tricks while they were having steaks.”

A few years later they hit the road together with very little idea of what they were doing and nothing to fall back on other than their repertoire.

“We had a list of dick tricks and off we went,” Friendy recalls fondly.

That was in 1997. Sixteen years later, Puppetry of the Penis is still touring with a number of recruited puppeteers. This week, the show’s coming to Auckland as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival. Nacho Regal and Sammy Longfellow are taking the stage dressed in capes, shades and lifelong experience.

“I’ve been doing this since I was lying in the bathtub as a kid, so I’ve always been

practicing,” says Longfellow, speaking to debate from Brisbane.

He is looking forward to the New Zealand show he says.

Longfellow (his stage name of course) has been performing Puppetry of the Penis for over five years. He first got involved after his girlfriend heard Friendy and Morley on the radio seeking new recruits.

“She told me I should do it and the rest is history,” says Longfellow.

The New Zealand appearance will be his last show.

I asked him to recall the early days of his recruitment. What was it like learning all the tricks and becoming a part of the show?

“First off it was about two weeks learning the show and the tricks and workshops with about three or four of us standing around with our pants down working out the best way to do it.

“When you’re watching someone do something, you just want to grab it and say ‘no, do it like this’ but it’s pretty different with this,” says Longfellow.

I asked Friendy about the practice schedules.

It must be awkward, I thought. As it turned out, once most of the tricks are mastered, there is very little rehearsal. Maybe a bit before the show but that’s all.

“Auditioning is what’s a bit odd,” admits Friendy. “A whole lot of blokes standing butt naked trying to do the hamburger.”

The Hamburger is the name of one of the tricks, of course. There’s also The Wristwatch, The Eiffel Tower, and The Windsurfer to name a few.

The Loch Ness Monster too – a “very dynamic, full package” trick. “It’s a belter,” says Longfellow.

I ask Friendy about the show’s West End experience. The venue, along with New York's Broadway theatre, is the epicentre of theatre in the English speaking world. A West End producer enjoyed Friendy and Morley’s 2000 Edinburgh International Fringe Festival performance so much he booked them right away for a five week run at London's Whitehall Theatre. Why did the producer think they’d be a hit? Because a woman sitting next to him at the Edinburgh Festival literally wet her pants laughing, the story is told.

The show was a hit.

“We got a massive reaction, we were sold out for quite some time. We did six or seven months on the West End which was pretty good as it was originally just a five week season,” says Friendy.

The show attracted quite a following. Even celebrities such as Hugh Grant, Naomi Campbell, Elton John, Bono and The Beckhams were fans.

I ask Friendy about this celebrity connection and he shares the story of one A-list fan.

“Hugh Grant actually told us he did dick tricks as well. He told us his scrotum was scarlet and wrinkly and he called his dick trick the onion bhaji.”

Then there was New York and the Jay Leno appearance in 2002. Friendy and Morley sat next to Jamie Lee Curtis and they were questioned about their tricks.

There were a few scandals which followed: Jay Leno’s affiliate refused to air the interview in Salt Lake City (despite the lack of nudity).

There was also one big cock-up (if this article is allowed to use just one pun) on a separate TV appearance in San Francisco. A TV tech on work experience accidently showed Friendy’s penis on air during breakfast time. This landed the guys in trouble.

Ahead of Longfellow’s last show I ask him about the creative process of being a puppeteer. Where do the tricks come from?

Where does one find the inspiration?

“You’re always on the lookout for new tricks every time you have a shower, but to be honest, there’s only so much you can do with a penis and your testicles. After years of working with it I think we’ve sort of dug to the bottom of what we can do,” he says.

As somebody who’s never seen the show before, I was curious as to how they describe their art form. What are people to expect from such a show? It’s been elegantly described as the art of “genital origami” by some.

Longfellow agrees that it is an art form. It’s also “good clean family fun, educational, and an amusing hour ride,” he adds.

Really? Well, it seems Longfellow’s parents were more readily accepting of their son’s creative endeavours than most families might be.

“They love it! Mum’s been along a few times and dad’s been along plenty of times. The whole family’s been along to see it.”

I asked Friendy what his favourite trick was and I should have guessed: “That’s like asking if you’ve got a favourite child!”

I also asked him what advice he would give to potential puppeteers: “Warm up first. You don’t want to pull a muscle,” he said with expert authority.

Longfellow reveals he has dislocated a finger and once tore ligaments in ankle jumping off stage but as far as the star of the show goes there have been no incidents.

It was and interesting interview, I thanked them both.

Friendy replied: “no worries, keep practising!”

I blushed.

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Nifty NEWS

In Need Of A Laugh

by Alice Markie

laugh 300-400 times a day, but adults laugh just 10 to 15 times a day, says Harvey.

“Children are less concerned about looking ‘correct’ to those around them, more relaxed about expressing their feelings of the moment, less inhibited in their reactions to events, than is usual amongst adults,” he says.

Laughter-yoga attracts diverse audiences, and Harvey says it will benefit almost everyone to “become better able to deal with the problems confronting you”.

Forget green tea and jogging, the answer to study burnout and exam fatigue could be as easy as having a good giggle.

Popularised by the Oprah Winfrey Show, laughter-yoga is a health fad for those wanting to cure their low-confidence, depression, stress, and even heart disease, says Bob Harvey, a laughter-yoga teacher.

The essence of laughter-yoga is to learn to “laugh for no reason” using laughing exercises which Harvey says must be experienced first-hand to appreciate their enjoyment.

“Laughter is nature’s antidote to stress.

Stress kills, laughter heals. Stress switches off our digestive, sexual and immune systems. Laughter switches them on and boosts them,” the New Zealand Laughter

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Yoga website reads.

Research has found that our bodies can’t tell the difference between forced and genuine laughter, and releases “feel good hormones” regardless of if we’re faking it, says Harvey.

“Our youngest [member] has been about 6 years old, our eldest in her nineties. Teens may find it difficult — many things are at that time of life,” he says.

Students had mixed reactions on the benefits of laughter-yoga.

He says the important thing is to laugh for at least half an hour; the muscle movement and air inhalation is the key to getting rid of stress hormones.

“It probably would be helpful to students. I know a few people who could use a good half hour laughing at the end of semester,” says arts student, Troy Shipman.

Luckily for us, despite upcoming exams, with the Comedy Festival kicking off this month, it seems that there are still plenty of reasons for a good laugh without having to fake it.

Some students take a more sceptical approach to the benefits of laughter-yoga.

Connecting to your inner-child probably wouldn’t hurt too much either. Children

“I don’t really buy into it. But at least now it’s easier to justify going to the [Comedy] Festival. In the name of mental health, obviously,” says film student, Summer Withers.

AUT Student Cracks Open Design Opportunity.

by Antonia Anderson An AUT student’s career has taken a boost as his art design will be displayed on beer bottles nationwide after winning an art competition.

Kelsen Findlay won a competition through Beck’s beer that will have his design on thousands of bottles. The competition required art design entries that were “inspired by music”. The winner also received $2000 cash and $2000 worth of art supplies.

Out of over 200 entries, Kelsen’s winning image comprised of two parallel mountains which he describes as “two worlds coming together”.

The design will feature as a sticker on around fifty thousand Beck’s beer bottles out of the 1.6 million bottles in the Beck’s campaign.

The 20-year-old from Freemans Bay says the idea of having his image displayed over thousands of Beck’s bottles “feels pretty surreal to be honest.”

“It’s encouraging and humbling,” he says.

Although the competition entries were supposed to be “inspired by music”, Kelsen says his inspiration comes from thoughts and feelings.

“It’s more of the feelings behind the music, rather than the music itself,” he says.

Kelsen went to Europe last year on an exchange for six months and clearly has the travel bug; he wants to use his winnings to go to London, which he says could give his career a massive kick start.

“It feels like what I’m doing has some value. It’s real now, rather than being an assignment”, he says.

Beck’s brand manager Pete Dick says that they want to support young New Zealanders art work and help them with exposure.

“We want to give students an opportunity to create, with the potential for great exposure of their work well beyond anything they may have had to date.”

Now in his final year at AUT studying Graphic Design and Illustration, Kelsen is most excited about the connections the competition has allowed him to make in the design industry.

Kelsen also hopes his art will inspire people’s creativity.

“I would hope the stuff I make gets people’s imaginations going,” he says.

“The imagination and the journey is the beauty of art and music” The limited edition of Beck’s beer bottles with Kelsen’s image on it is expected to be released in May. www.ausm.org.nz

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A Memorandum

By Scott Yeoman

A memorandum

Memorandum [mem-uh-ran-duh m] -noun, pl. –dums, -da 1. A short note designating something to be remembered, especially something to be done or acted upon in the future; reminder.

Do or don’t forget the horrific actions of our latest public enemy - it’s up to you - but have some consistancy and balance about it.

As I write this, everyone is calling for Minister Aaron Gilmore’s resignation. By the time you read this, those calls could have very well been answered. Fair enough I say. Or is it?

Now I completely agree his drunken behaviour as one of our country’s leaders was shocking. The way he acted and the arrogant threats he made was nothing but childish, pig headed, and in his own simple words, he was a “dickhead”. Period.

And so the media go on a witch hunt - as they do for every politician that makes a mistake.

Talk-back radio is clogged with angry callers, online newspapers are running with headlines like “PM: Aaron Gilmore should resign” and current events shows are battering him with questions about being a bully. The scrutiny is relentless. But so it should be, he is a very influential man. So why isn’t there this scrutiny when it comes to others that are just as influential?

Rugby star Julian Savea was briefly in the media a few weeks ago for a domestic assault on his partner. After being formally charged with the assault he played for the Hurricanes four days later. He made himself unavailable for the next game but returned to the team the following week.

With that in mind, this one game self-imposed ban doesn’t seem to fit to our level of social punishment for what can only be thought of as an extremely serious crime. If the Gilmore incident is anything to go by, Savea should lose his job shouldn’t he? Or is drunkenly threatening to tell the Prime Minister on someone worse than beating up your partner?

For a country that broadly and vividly advertises its hate of domestic violence, we sure do seem to forget about those that commit it.

This attitude is summed up by a comment by New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew, following the abuse: “We need to find out whether we are doing enough to help these young men cope with the pressures of the professional game.”

This is always the excuse – “they need help”. They get given this ‘help’ and before long they are back out on the field earning truck-loads of money, the abuse or whatever the incident long forgotten.

The media and we the public and have a lot of power when it comes to holding people to account, but how we decide who to hold to account is never consistent or balanced – it needs to be.

I have no doubt Savea will play for the All Blacks again soon. As for Gilmore’s job, I’m not so confident.

Now he may not influence national policy, but some would say Savea is more of a public figure and role model than a little known MP from Christchurch.

By Mike Ross

AUCKLAND'S GOT IT GOING ON This last week's been a shitter. Absolute shitter. Six days of torrential rain, six days of me having to leap a flooded gutter into my car. Vans are not all-weather footwear.

3.30-6.30pm, Every day of the week

Metrolanes Bowling, Aotea Square For the last two and a quarter years of my tertiary life, myself and a few of my fellow academics adopted the Playhouse bar as our local 'study' spot. But yesterday upon visiting for an afternoon of hard 'work', I noticed an advertisement for the establishment above. $5 tap beer and $6 house spirits at a bowling alley?! The god's had surely smiled upon us. The ad did not lie, and Metrolanes proved to be a worthy spot for a few drops. A beautiful view from the balcony, $8 games of bowling after 5, and toilet facilities to be proud of. I'll be back.

Saturday

#Vogue, Goldfinch #Vogue returns for its second coming at Goldfinch this Saturday.

The first #Vogue party packed the place out with a line that 14

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stretched down the block all night. With a huge DJ lineup of Karn Hall, Sam Hill. The Beat Mafia and more, #Vogue's a place for 'sophisticated' clubbing (that's what the Facebook event says anyway).

Saturday

DPTR CLB ft. High Hoops, 1885 Saturday's fairly busy out and about this week, and one dope act that you shouldn't miss seeing is High Hoops. It's his first ever live show, so if you're not there for the tunes, be there for the blunders. You might've heard this dude getting some love on George FM over the last few weeks, and for good reason: his experimental-yet-still-danceable-music is dope and apparently has "a penchant for escapism". Indie.

For more info about this week's events and a quality selection of Goslings’s abs: www.google.com

PREZ SEZ

PREZ SEZ

the AUT Akoranga campus. AUT students and staff had the opportunity to engage with the Mayor on what they think about the Auckland region, their Council and its plans for the future. This informal lunchtime session allowed AUT students to get face to face with the Mayor to share their thoughts and concerns about the community on a brief one-on-one chat with the Auckland Mayor, Len Brown. “Auckland Council and our local boards are working hard to make sure young people have clear pathways from school to training, further education and jobs. The wellbeing of young people is a key principle of the Auckland Plan – I want to create a city in which every young person can reach his or her full potential,” says Len Brown UniGames 2013 was held in Otago University, Dunedin from 22 – 24 April 2013. I would like to commend the AUT UniGames team (Titans) the spirit of involvement and enthusiasm during the competition in Otago. We had an awesome team with a lot of talented sportsmen and women who won a couple of medals although that was not enough to bring the ‘Shield’ home. I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation on behalf of the UniGames participants, fans and the student body to Bruce Meyer and his staff for a great work done. Congratulations to all the mighty AUT Titans!

Hi debate readers, I am sure most of you are very busy with your assignments, projects and preparations for tests/exams. I wish you all the best with your endeavours. The 98th ANZAC holiday was a good break from work and I hope you all had the chance to take a break from studies and other stuff. It was also a great day for us all to pay tribute to the brave servicemen and women who have served with dedication, courage and sacrifice. We honour their selfless sacrifice and celebrate the freedom and privileges they secured for us all – lest we forget!

It was also a great opportunity to have a meet and greet session with the Mayor last month during the ‘Mayor in the Chair’ session held at

Updates

Lastly, do not forget that Monday 13 May, 12noon in WC202 is our annual AGM. There will be free food, drinks and spot prizes so why not come along and have your say. We need a quorum of 30 people to officially kick off the meeting, so come along with your AUT friends and don’t forget to bring your student IDs as well to confirm your attendance of the meeting.

Till next time, have a lovely week!

Your prez Kizito

CAPTION CONTEST

Like Free Pizza and Prize draws?

That got your attention! It’s the AuSM AGM today (Monday 13th May) and we invite all AUT Students to join us.

It will be in WC202 from 12-1pm and there will be free pizza and drinks for all those who attend. Please bring AUT student ID along with you.

Perfect gift for your loved ones AuSM now sells Entertainment books at $65. It has more than 100 wonderful offers at local restaurants, hotels and activities. Entertainment books are available at all AuSM offices!

Battle of the Bands Are you ready for an awesome battle of AUT’s best bands!? Join us at Vesbar this Thursday night at 7pm.

Spectators welcome!

Pool Competition Heat two of the AuSM pool competition is going off at Vesbar, this Wednesday 12pm-1pm. Free entry – email kyle.richmond@aut.ac.nz to enter or turn up on the day (limited spaces). Great prizes up for grabs.

Hit the slopes The AuSM Ski Lodge at National Park still has winter vacancies! You can hire the AuSM lodge from $130 per night and it sleeps 12 – that’s less than $11 per person!

Find out more or book now at www.ausm.org.nz Top-up your phone with AuSM and get discount!

AuSM City and North Shore offices sell Vodafone, Telecom and 2degrees top-ups. Save $0.50 when you buy a $20 top-up from us!

Caption:

image source: renaldbouchard flickr

Name: Email: Campus:

Drop your entry into your nearest AuSM office, or the box on the side of the red debate stands, or email debate before 12pm Thursday. What’s up for grabs?

Two “squawk burgers” vouchers for Velvet Burger on Fort St, Auckland CBD. Issue 5 Congratulations to...

Kimberly Mandy Sheehan City Campus who scored two Squawk Burger vouchers!

"I haz my answer for the caption contest!" www.ausm.org.nz

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By Laura Ouwejan

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ARTICLE: The Digital Domination

The digital age is upon us people, that much is obvious. And although it pains me to say so, it's here to stay. The internet has most certainly changed the way we live, think, and communicate. We can shop without moving, see people who are worlds away, we can even exist in parallel universes, as fictional characters! All through the use of some wires and a little glass box. We can do things that would have been thought laughably impossible a century ago. To think that the telephone was a revelation!

Yet here we are. If it's true that humans never stop evolving, does that mean our children are destined to be square-eyed, arthritis-ridden and anti-social? I hope not. When I was young, my vision of the future was of flying cars and robots and jetpacks, I'm sure that's a pretty generic perception. Sadly though, my rationality now overpowers my imagination, and the apparent future is nothing but an endless network of computers and virtual amusement. It's quite a haunting thought.

Negative too, I know. I should be ranting about the endless opportunities and the societal improvements the internet creates, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

I face an endless internal struggle. I want to hate the internet; this dominating, identitystealing, laziness-creating presence, yet still I embrace it. I keep a blog, using the very means that I am criticising, and last night I purchased a new jacket online, rather than going to the shops. And yesterday I checked my Facebook a multitude of times, out of boredom and curiosity. My hypocrisy is conspicuous and embarrassing. I, along with the rest of the planet, have succumbed to the merciless claws of the World Wide Web. It is entirely understandable that the internet has become an asset and a way of life. Humans will always embrace the quickest, most convenient way of doing things, busy creatures that we are. And that's exactly what the internet provides, an alternative, a practically instant way of achieving the things we want to.

As I'm sure you’re aware, you can find ANYTHING on the web. You search the most obscure word or concept, and you'll get results. Need instructions on the best nose-picking technique? Want to locate your nearest fellow stamp collector? It's a guarantee that someone out there has taken the time to post it online. The amount of information available at our fingertips is nothing less than overwhelming. Search the name of a popular celebrity, and Google will provide you with an average of 500 million results. 500 million! It borders on ridiculousness. That's more than a lifetime's worth of reading.

The fact that anybody can contribute information is I suppose what makes the internet so vast. Anyone can be a publisher or a critic or a superstar. If you have an

opinion about anything, it's easy to make it known. You can even scope out people that share this opinion, be they down the road or across the ocean. It really is quite incredible. You can even do all this while remaining anonymous. The thing about that is, people get all brave when nobody can see their face. Things that they wouldn't dream of saying in a normal context get plastered on public forums or in comment boxes everywhere. People hide behind their keyboard, thinking they're bad-ass with their witty judgement and their derogatory messages. All you have to do is scroll down through the commentary on a YouTube video, and you'll find millions of these ball-busting cyberpunks at work. But on the other end of the spectrum, there's the incentive that if you post something, you'll receive an overwhelming amount of positive comments, riddled with exclamation marks, from complete strangers. That's bound to be an ego boost. It's no wonder everyone's jumping on the bandwagon.

We've been given the opportunity to broadcast ourselves, and we've reached out and grabbed it with both hands. It's almost as if nothing is private anymore.

It works the same way for things like blogs for example. I'm currently making my thoughts publicly accessible. I'll pretend that I'm not phased by people's reactions sure, but in reality, I'll be disappointed if nobody reads it. The net fuels our primal need for constant approval, but provides justifications if those needs aren't met. It offers us an escape route per se, a delete button. However, even if our opinions are sent to live eternally and invisibly in cyberspace, they're not erased from our minds. We are undeniably human after all. It's sad to think that some words appearing on a screen can alter our sense of acceptance though.

We've been given the opportunity to broadcast ourselves, and we've reached out and grabbed it with both hands. It's almost as if nothing is private anymore.

We publicise photos and locations, God, we even publicise what we're eating for dinner. As if people are interested. But it would seem that they are. 64% of all New Zealanders belong to some type of

social networking site, Facebook being the obvious majority. This mass participation means that people are constantly in contact.

People's lives have lost any element of mystery whatsoever. There's no such thing as a "catch up", if you've been avidly following your friends' Facebook updates.

You could argue that this is a positive development, it's nice to know what's going on right?! Except when it comes to the obsessive "stalking" of people we barely know, just to satisfy our nosy needs. Or having to endure that one friend who posts unnecessary statuses 6 times daily.

I guess like any debate, there are good sides and bad sides. I'm not about to get on my high horse and say that the internet should be discontinued (as if I have that power).

Despite making us lazy and altering our natural lifestyles, I agree that the internet is highly beneficial. For a lot of us, our entire being revolves around internet-based activities. And as much as I love to resent it, I sure as hell couldn't live without it. I often fantasise about how life would be, had I been born in the 1800s, when the word "internet" existed in nobody's vocabulary.

Or if I went to Hogwarts, where magic and owls compensate for technology. But this is nothing more than fruitless escapism, because I am obviously a 21st century human being, and a life without showers and computers is unfathomable. Perhaps my apparent dislike for web technology stems from the fact that I don't embrace change very well. I still prefer to meet people face to face, I'd rather play a board game than play Angry Birds and the extinction of books (and I mean paperbacks NOT eBooks obviously), is something that genuinely frightens me.

Having said all this, I'm learning to recognise that boycotting the internet is not going to do me any favours. All it will do is make me feel isolated and inferior.

Its existence was obviously born out of the human need to communicate, something that existed long before computers and satellites and electricity. We've just gotten wiser over time, and learned that there are more advanced ways to make contact.

So although the internet can be used as a weapon and a shield, it's also a priceless tool and a noticeable advancement of human achievement. Admittedly, it's nice be able to stay in touch with far away friends, to be able to access things instantly and share things far and wide. It seems that my negative attitude is again likely to be thwarted by majority and logic. I’m sure there's other people like me who fear the dominance of this cyber companionship, but evolution is inevitable, and even if it's daunting, we minions can't prevent it. So the only option is for us to just go with it, which I will endeavour to achieve without complaint.

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The Disappointments in Life

By Erica “Disappointment” Donald

Sometimes in life, you are let down. And not let down as in the way an elephant may wrap you gently in his trunk before placing you delicately on the ground as if you were made of fragile glass. I mean let down as in hurtling back to the ground at a million miles per hour, with your parachute jammed and the emergency parachute failing to open, before your heart shatters into a million tiny pieces upon impact.

These let downs are facts of life. In the same way that the sun will rise in the morning, the Warriors will lose another game and One Direction will fade into oblivion; you will face another disappointment.

For me, it began when my two front teeth began to grow. I was looking forward to having that gap in my mouth filled. I had the song “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth” on repeat for weeks and I made little cards to announce the arrival of my two new additions. But alas, it backfired.

I was an adorable kid with big round eyes, bangs, a cheeky smile and the most adorable rabbit teeth you have ever seen. That overbite stayed with me until I was 12 and finally got braces. Even still that overbite still brings back a pang of heartache when I look at old photos. It was disappointment number one of many.

The next came on Christmas Eve. Yes, I can hear your collective sighs because you know what is coming. I snuck out of my bedroom, very quietly so that Santa would not hear me, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Let me set out the crime scene for you: LOCATION: My parents’ bedroom.

SUSPECTS: Mum and Dad WEAPON: My Christmas stocking.

Yes, this is the moment when I found my parents with the stocking, which Santa fills with presents then places at the end of my bed.

Obviously they were checking through the things Santa gave me and picking out the things that they liked most for themselves. I went to bed very upset that night.

From then on, it was wave after wave of disappointments and I had to learn to surf otherwise I would surely drown. From the disappointment that I didn’t look that good with a short pixie haircut and blonde streaks, to the disappointment that university actually does require me to do some work. There’s the disappointment of being friends with the gorgeous girl that everyone chases, and then there’s the disappointment of the not-quite-so-gorgeous girl who managed to get a boyfriend when you don’t have one.

Disappointment is everywhere. You can’t avoid it but you can learn to live with it. Remember that there is always a bright side, a silver lining and that things will eventually get better. You may even get a good surprise, rather than a disappointment one day. In the words of David Gerrold: “Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.”

So, my friends, slip on your floaties, grab your surfboard and paddle into life. Just be warned, you may be disappointed when your floaties are not as cool as mine.

Although perhaps for you, the biggest disappointment you have faced was the terrible imagery I have used throughout this story.

NB: I would like to thank Matthew Cattin for not only inspiring this story but for also persuading me to write it. Direct quote: “I would pay to read that.”

Can I expect a cheque in the mail?

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Aquatic Ape Theory The Aquatic Ape theory is a fringe scientific theory that attempts to explain the evolution of various human features as a result of having a primate ancestor that was fully or partly aquatic. While initially it may seem to hold a superficial plausibility the theory does not stand up to basic scrutiny, and proponents often resort to pseudoscientific tactics to explain away inconsistencies and insulate the theory from criticism.

One of the main lines of argument put forward is that humans are hairless and this is a characteristic trait observed only in aquatic and burrowing mammals.

However this is demonstrably untrue, hairlessness is not a characteristic trait of aquatic mammals (pigs, elephants, and rhinos all show hairlessness for example.) Of the 31 groups of semi/fully aquatic mammals only 3 are hairless, while the majority (otters, beavers, polar bears etc.) retain their fur.

Proponents of the theory will constantly stretch and reshape the definition of aquatic so it will always satisfy the hairlessness requirement: for example pigs are redefined as “wallowers” who are considered aquatic due to their interaction with mud and rhinos it is argued, are aquatic as they spend time near water.

While human traits put forward by the theory as characteristically aquatic turn out to be shared by terrestrial mammals, characters that are diagnostically aquatic are absent in humans. Unlike aquatic mammals our skin becomes waterlogged easily and we store most of our oxygen in the lungs rather than in blood and tissues.

The theory is sometimes given favourable treatment by the popular press and endorsement from various celebrities, however has little support in the scientific community. Simplistic single-cause hypotheses like this are often more appealing to the layperson, but rarely have as much explanatory power as claimed – especially when dealing with natural systems. While there is a possibility that some human traits might be explained by interaction with water it is highly doubtful that it was the dominant driving force of human evolution.

COLUMMS

The University Group Project -

Time To Go?

Seeds of Greed And Why Consumerism Grips Humanity.

By Paul Stevens

By Gabriel Hughes How often these days do we find ourselves doing what we least want to do, namely talking about university outside of university? As students travel this great educational highway, the frustrations of university life build up. One of those frustrations is the ingenious idea that group projects are a wonderful addition to our assessment schedules. They’re not. There are many conspiracy theories which arrive at the belief that the university group project is slipped into the curriculum to relieve the lecturers of marking hundreds of assignments. That’s probably true. Now that a quarter of another year at university has passed and the dust has settled on the orientation parties, it’s time to have a rant.

Before I get started, I’d like to share some statistics from my experience of four years at AUT. I have taken 24 papers at university so far, 11 of those having included group projects. Of those group projects, the highest weighting was 45% of my grade and the lowest was 10%.

I found that the average weighting of those 11 papers was 23%. That means that 23% of my mark is, to a greater extent, out of my control.

In first year at university, the thought of sharing your workload with class mates and meeting new people in the process seems like a good idea. It’s not. When you find yourself texting people whom you fear might still be in the gutter outside ‘Code’ from the previous Wednesday night, you know there’s a problem. It becomes disheartening wondering why you too didn’t join the rest of your group attending the University of Auckland Law Stein, who you’ve now just noticed are tagged in a Facebook Album entitled “Project X”. Lecturers seem to have this pre-planned and seemingly unbeatable argument that you’re being trained for the ‘real world’ and you need to be able to work with a variety of people. I’m sorry but I’m on work experience at the moment and none of the people in the office need me to be their personal assistant. Chasing people all over greater Auckland was not part of the deal. I liken it to a form of Darwinism where the interview process and life itself have ensured that people with that attitude to their education are the ones serving me at McDonalds on a Saturday morning after a big night celebrating my discovery of life on Mars.

For those students striving hard for success at university, the last thing they want to see when they open up their paper booklet is a group project. The simple fact for many individuals at university is that they’re there to get an education and move on to a job surrounded by people who did the same. Whilst the “C’s get degrees” brigade is welcome to their witty line, a lot of people at university are there with the opinion that “A’s get the pays”. Many students are on scholarship or conjoint where maintaining a grade is the difference between getting their degree subsidised or continuing to take two degrees. Group projects are putting pressure on students to perform in the other 70-75% of their grade that they can control. A poor group assignment grade results in huge pressure to meet that all-important grade average which they desperately need or want.

It is time university lecturers reviewed their assessment schedules.

Working with others is a crucial part of life in the real world but whilst we are at university the most important thing is getting the grades that enable us to access the real world. Group projects are carrying too much importance and it is time we let the individual student carry the responsibility for their own grade. Reduce or remove group work. It’s not fair on the students who work hard at university for their grades and then do not do as well as they could because of the adverse outcome of group work. No form of peer review form will change that.

I struggle sometimes to remember why we can’t have nice things; despite being deeply cynical sometimes, I believe that people are inherently good. I think we would rather help one another than see other people suffer, but how often is this really the case? Why, instead of pulling other people down like crabs in a bucket would we help them out? Why would I help others to achieve things I want for myself? It’s a dog eat dog world out there man, and if they get it then I can’t have it…

Why is that the case? Is it because we live in a liberalist, capitalist society where every man has the opportunity to do great things?

Because, despite the fact that we live in New Zealand, we’re all still chasing the American dream? The hegemonic grasp they have on the world is definitely to blame, right? Capitalism. Freedom. Liberty.

Free Markets. We need that new shiny car and the new shiny house, a new shiny wife with some shiny new kids, and fuck the Jones’s, my TV’s bigger? I don’t think it is; I think it’s because people have some seriously fucked up self-esteem issues. It sounds like a broad generalisation but hear me out.

In our modern age the development of the world around is far faster and accelerated than ever before. For thousands of years before the car, humans rode animals yet within the 100 years or so of using the internal combustion engine we have cars that travel at 300 km/h + and trucks the size of large houses that carry mountains of earth.

Since the invention of the bow and arrow we have developed GPS missiles which can blow up a precise target from thousands of miles away. Why? Because, if we don’t have it someone else will. If we don’t have nukes, how will I fight back when they use them? If I don’t have a marble bench top how can I compete when the sonofabitch next door invites me over to see his newly renovated kitchen? In essence it’s not about what we’ve got; it’s about what the next guy has. We can’t be satisfied with what we’ve got because someone’s got something better. This goes up and down the scale, the richest men on the planet are still competing with each other on some level.

Everybody feels the need to bolster their character with the addition of material objects, capitalism has ensured that.

Why has the idea of working together, instead of competing with each other, not caught on? Everyone occasionally needs a helping hand, is everyone really so interested in their own lives that we forget that the person sitting next to us could really be struggling and you have exactly what they need, whether it’s a kind word, a few bucks to feed himself, even a nod to show some acknowledgement. Is it too ridiculous to see that this could be you? It starts with the little things; nobody’s asking you to jump out on a ledge and throw yourself at the idea of helping people and sacrificing your ambitions, but how often does helping someone really hurt you? Are you too concerned with making sure everyone else thinks you’re doing well to make sure they’re not falling behind? There’s not going to be anyone to appreciate your come up if it involves climbing over people.

Time to fly solo?

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THE STARTING-OUT WAGE

(WHY (WHY I'M I'M WELCOMING WELCOMING THE THE NEW NEW LAW) LAW)

by Louis Houlbrooke On the first of this month, a new minimum wage law came into effect. 16 and 17 yearolds can now work for as low as 80% of the adult minimum wage - in many ways a reversal of Labour’s 2008 abolition of youth rates. Unsurprisingly, it’s a controversial policy, with unions staging protests around the country, using the slogan ‘equal work, equal pay’ to accuse the government of discrimination against young people. Yet such assertions can only be believed if we are to accept over-simplifications of what is in reality a fairly complex economic issue.

So let’s take a look at the true nature of minimum wage laws in New Zealand.

While opponents of youth rates protest the notion of paying 16 year-olds $11 per hour, they ignore what should be a much more shocking idea – currently people under the age of 16 are entitled no minimum wage at all. When I was 10 or 11 I obtained a job delivering pamphlets around my neighbourhood. Anyone who’s ever done this will know that the pay is pretty shit by adult standards – in my experience it worked out as less than $5 an hour. But looking back on things, that was okay for the time. I wasn’t paying for rent, food, or anything, really. The pamphlet run simply gave me a small lump of pocket money each week combined with a sense of pride and independence as well as my first real work experience. Was I a victim of cruel, profitdriven discrimination? Surely not. My limited skills meant that the labour I provided was simply not worth the same as an adult’s, which relegated me to a low-paying job. If some politician managed to pass a universal minimum wage forcing employers to pay me the same as an adult, it would have harmed, not helped me. In all likelihood the company organising the pamphlet runs would have ceased to be profitable – it would have cut my job and likely shut down entirely, harming hundreds of children and print operators across the country.

At the age of 13 I got my first wage-paid position, earning $8 an hour at a fish

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and chip store. I remember being bloody excited. Sure enough, I ended up hating the job, but I kept the position for more than two years, and it meant that compared to my mates, I was practically rolling in cash.

Again, the wage wouldn’t have been enough to support a family, but it suited my needs at the time, and more importantly gave me valuable customer service skills and positive references which eventually managed to land me higher-paying jobs as a student.

I was too young to be affected by minimum wage laws, which was a good thing – if my employers, struggling to make a profit as it was, were forced to pay me $13 an hour they would likely have cut my job, or at the very least truncated my hours.

Unionists wilfully ignore the current laws surrounding child labour because they know that offering an equal minimum wage to people younger than 16 would be rightly seen as economic insanity, and would reveal the inconsistency of the antiyouth rate argument. The truth is, it’s a bad idea for the government to set a high minimum wage for 16-17 year-olds largely for the same reasons that apply to younger people. In general terms, the less experience someone has, the less valuable they will be to an employer. If the minimum wage exceeds the value that someone can offer to an employer, then that person will not be employed. Full stop. Expecting young people to work for the same price as more experienced people is a denial of basic economics.

Because most young people receive parental and/or governmental assistance, it is not a ‘living wage’ that they need so much as experience to add to their CV and increase their opportunities in the future. Enforcing higher wages will only serve to deny such opportunities to inexperienced workers, leading to long-term unemployment.

Australian politicians seem to have a greater understanding of these ideas than their New Zealand counterparts. While

Australians are famed for their high wages and low unemployment rate, proponents of equal wage laws choose to forget that their youth wage is actually significantly lower than New Zealand’s – in Australia, 16 yearolds earn a minimum of $7.55 per hour, and 17 year-olds $9.22, with the rate continuing to scale up all the way to $15.59 for 20 year-olds. In acknowledging the natural difference in value between inexperienced and experienced workers, Australia has historically achieved a markedly low rate of youth unemployment - currently around 20% compared to New Zealand’s 30%.

The link between youth rates and youth employment has been made clear by studies such as University of Canterbury economist Eric Crampton’s analyses of employment rates, which indicate a major spike in youth unemployment directly following Labour’s abolition of separate youth rates in 2008, a policy which directly resulted in the loss of an estimated 12,350 youth jobs.

Meanwhile young people across the country, desperate for employment, are forced to seek ‘cash-in-hand’ jobs, in which they are forced to work illegally simply because they are willing to accept $10 or $11 per hour. Even the protests of workers’ unions are in their own way a confirmation of the need for lower youth rates – union leaders may claim to care for young workers facing discrimination, but the reality is the opposite – union leaders fear that young people, if given more bargaining power through a separate wage, will take hours off older workers (who make up union membership).

I that say it is time us young people got more bargaining power, more opportunities, and more rights to work for whatever price we agree to. Let’s take the chance to compete with the rest of the workforce and learn the skills that will secure us high-paying careers in the future. I’m a supporter of the new Starting-out Wage law. I hope that those who look past unionist hysteria and economic over-simplification will join me.

Cliches In Writing (Orwell saved us all)

by Sebastian MacKay Politics and the English Language written in 1946 was one of the many books penned by George Orwell. In Politics he wrote the six elementary rules of writing; there is however only one (at least for the purpose of this essay) that has taken my interest. It is as follows; “Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.”

Since I read this, I’ve worked tirelessly at developing manuscripts that avoid doing exactly that. As someone that is relatively well-read, this has proven to be far more difficult than I had anticipated. In some stories, I have succeeded, in most I have failed (and thankfully some have been relegated to the depths of locked drawers while others remain buried beneath cyber-dust and coated rather majestically in cyber-spider-webs).

The suggestion and application of the rule has led me to consider clichés as a whole in the world of writing. To write a short story without a single cliché (and to extend the rule) without over using your invented equivalent, is certainly an understated feat. Suddenly usage of all clichés is impossible. At first thought, this wasn’t as daunting as I was led to expect, but when it’s considered there are clichés for everything and here lies the challenge.

To write about love and money and luck and beauty and freedom is to speak the language of cliché. My examples are; ‘You only hurt the one you love,’ ‘Love is blind,’ ‘Time is money,’ ‘Money makes the world go round,’ ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ ‘Beauty is only skin deep.’ The gut wrenching all-time favourites of anybody who has ever spoken or written of love, money, and beauty. And perhaps most writers wouldn’t use such obvious ones, but there certainly is a degree of security in clinging to what we know – as there is in life and in writing.

They have become integrated into our speech patterns and detecting them is becoming difficult, considering the level to which we have all been desensitized. It sounds doomsday-ish and perhaps to the zealots, it may be. But spoken language has lost a sense of originality as using a cliché term is perhaps the simplest way to illustrate how you feel about a subject. Ambiguity noted in ‘subject’ and it’s more or less the point, because clichés literally cover every aspect of frustration, sadness and happiness. I’m surprised there aren’t more about self-publishing; it covers all of those, all the time.

Aside from the requirement of a lot of extra brain work in establishing a substitute for a well-known cliché, we run the risk of using a language feature in too much of an obscure way, which, while it may add flair to a piece, can confuse a reader. Or, to move outside the bounds of the craft of writing, there is certainly the risk

of confusing somebody you’re having a conversation with. While this could encourage intellectual elitism (which may or may not be a bad thing), the risk is run of the user having to explain what is meant by the revamped language feature. And as I’m sure has been said to most ‘why don’t you just speak ‘English’.’ The brilliant response of the ignorant and under-thought.

And yes there are risks but (to steal a cliché) there is no risk without reward. The use of a language feature in an unexpected style has the ability to lift one’s writing or speech into another level and (for the sake of vanity) allows a certain amount of intellectual flaunting. That said, I am not entirely sure where the trick of enhancing a language feature begins and ends. As I’ve said, I don’t consider myself a particular success at it.

There are also different things that need to be taken into account. The theory that writers only work on the basis of the human condition (sadness, happiness, fear) which has been written about extensively, would mean that each time a story of the human condition is written, the writer is simply rehashing one of the three basic emotions and every other emotion extends from this core.

With that in mind, it is arguable that the essence of creative writing is in the writing itself and not in the authors imagination (world construction and characters). The use of language features, the ability to reconstruct an overused cliché into something that fits the tone and style of the piece as well as making near logical sense to the reader. I am going to avoid the conclusive statement and say that this is all the creative process is, simply because I don’t believe it myself. Though it is easy to see where the thought comes from, Harry Potter and Twilight are simply updated, if you will, versions of wizard & vampire stories (to be blasphemous a modern day Lord of The Rings or Dracula), this is their essence, their beginning. They stand apart from the pack by the way the writer handles the language, the emotion and construction of the story.

Using that logic, there is nearly no way to escape the theory and therefore, Orwell (as to be expected) was right. He was right to come up with the rule and even more so to publish it. In order to separate themselves, based on their creative flair and thought process, writers need to consider all of Orwell’s rules, but perhaps this one above all else as it adds to one of the most important parts about writing, not being wooden and not being boring. No one likes a bore and of course there (thankfully) will most likely be room for only one tragically horrendous bestseller in recent memory in the form of Fifty Shades of Grey. Orwell also said however, in regards to all six of his rules; “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous”.

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Fat Pads and Tittoos

by Matthew Cattin The quest for beauty is something I’ve never had a lot of time for. I suppose being born gorgeous was part of it… But mostly because I’ve always figured there are so many better endeavours I could spend time and money on. I cut my own hair, I shave when it gets to the itchy stage and I have just two pairs of shoes – one for work, one for play. The way I look is the way I look, you know what I mean?

stomach bubble and churn; some ladies are getting their pinky toes surgically removed in order to fit their high heels better. I kid you not. We’re talking amputation – permanently scarring your body to fit shoes better. I may not be fashion capable, but god, surely there are other options? Like oh here’s one – buy some sneakers? Some chucks? Some shoes wide enough for all five piggies perhaps?

Don’t get me wrong, I got nothing against the folks who want to look good. When a girl dresses up real handsome I’ll be the first to say “damn girl, you be fine.” I think it’s important to recognise somebody who has made an effort and is working their outfit. The same applies for blokes – when I see them rocking a suit I’ll let them know all about it or to quote Jemaine, “not in a gay way, just in a ‘hey mate, I wanted to say that you’re looking okay mate’”.

But the buck doesn’t stop there. Oh no. Women are also getting their toe bones shortened, lengthened, straightened and also, get this, having fat injected into the bottoms of their feet. Apparently it feels like you’re walking on a cloud made of fat men. “Unless you’ve been there, and you can’t find shoes, and you’re in pain, don’t judge,” Susan Deming told Fox news after getting toe shortening surgery.

What does bug me though is fashion sacrifices; blistered heels, frozen goosebumps and wobbling ankles. The “shit these heels are unbearable but hot damn they make my calves look good,” attitude. The masochistic message promoted by the fashion industry that beauty is pain and pain is beauty. I just don’t buy into it. I get nervous walking behind a girl in heels. With each step, there’s that brief, subtle wobble side to side where the ankle corrects itself. I can’t take my eyes away. And it’s not just the heels that are affected. Have you ever seen an x-ray of a woman wearing heels? They throw the entire body out of whack, screwing with the natural positioning of the legs, shortening the calf muscle fibres and throwing out the hips and spine.

Just as I was starting to get over the toe amputation, I discovered another bodily procedure that made me queasy – tittooing. Yes. It’s exactly as it sounds. Women getting their nipples tattooed darker to make their lady lumps look more exotic or symmetrical.

The procedure costs over two grand and needs to be touched up every year to prevent fading. And also, wouldn’t it straight up look ridiculous? “It’s going to look like you got punched in the tit,” says debate designer Ramina poetically, and I have to agree with her.

I suppose it’s not so different from a regular boob job… But good god! Talk about first world problems, am I right?! So what if your nips aren’t as dark as you want them to be – at least you got ‘em.

Not every woman can count herself as lucky. Let’s just be thankful for what we’ve got, change shoes before resorting to amputations, leave our nipples alone and just harden the truck up.

And if just wearing heels wasn’t damaging enough to the body, some ladies have gone to extreme and grisly lengths to fit into the damn things. Recently I discovered an article that made my

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Kieran's Kitchen #2 : Essential Ingredients Now that your kitchen in fully stocked with all manner of hunger slaying implements, we can turn our attention to sharpening those weapons - so to speak. There are a few (edible) things that every kitchen should have in case of emergencies or unexpected bouts of laziness. The following ingredients are not meals in themselves however so much as things that can be combined with say, a packet of mince, to make something in a pinch.

1- Garlic Salt

Garlic salt is a mix of common salt and powdered garlic. Both are strong flavours that leave lasting impressions on both your taste buds and, in the case of garlic, your breath. The beauty of garlic salt is two-fold. One, it tastes nice. This is of course assuming that you like both salt and garlic, otherwise no amount of pouring this into food will make it taste good. The second wonderful property of the seasoning of the gods is it goes with almost anything and makes it a little more interesting. Frying up aforementioned packet of mince with some garlic salt is somewhat dull I’ll grant you, but far tastier than plain mince. However it is important to only use this in small amounts. Garlic salt should be a delicate kiss of flavour on the tongue, not a full blown tongue down your throat let’s-getmarried-tomorrow type of flavour.

#4- Onions

Yes. Onions. Onions are quite possibly the ugliest yet most majestic vegetable to ever grace your table and let me tell you they don’t get the respect they deserve.

Onions have a very sharp flavour by themselves and certainly eating them like that is a-okay; if perhaps a little tart and likely to result in tears before bedtime.

To truly unlock the power of the humble onion, peel the dry, hard layers of the outside; cut it in half; then into slices one way and then other way and fry them in oil. The smell alone is worth it. However onions are ‘essential’ not because they’re delicious and nice smelling (watch out for Eau de Onion from Dior next season, I guarantee) but because they add a subtle but essential flavour to many meats and dishes. Onions are like bridges, they support things, provide connections (of flavour) and if cars run over them too much, they break.

#2- Italian Herbs

3- Chilli

#5- Frozen Veges

#6- Pasta or rice

Italian herbs fall under the same category as garlic salt. They’re not as simple, being a mix of marjoram, basil, red bell peppers, rosemary, oregano, parsley and thyme; but their application is just as easy. Shaking a small amount over meat or into tomato based sauces will enhance the average deliciousness factor by at least 12.

And that’s on a scale up to 5 so you know it’s a lot. Italian herbs add a strong flavour to food, which is (as the name implies) quite Italian. As such, it would be unwise to try and throw it in with Asian flavours like lemongrass. Italian herbs are also versatile; sprinkle them on top of pies, pizzas or chicken while cooking to add both aroma and a slight flavour.

Ah the staple of many an evening meal I have created. Not to cast aspersions upon my culinary abilities of course, but rather to reflect my utter laziness at not being bothered enough to just cut my own damn vegetables. Frozen vegetables are not here because of their flavour, complex aromas or even usefulness. They’re here because they can become part of your 5+ a day in about 10 minutes, they’re cheap and they bulk meals up. That said however, throwing in a few handfuls of frozen vegetables to a sauce or stew of some kind is an easy and fairly stress free way to add some vegetably goodness to your life without having to actually buy or touch fresh vegetables.

Perhaps an unusual choice, considering the previous two ingredients; I feel chilli is simply too useful and strong a flavour to not mention. The most noticeable thing about chilli, however you have it, is its spice. It's spicy. Really spicy. As such, it can add a clear flavour and bite to any meal, while clearing your nose, ears and basically every other orifice depending how much you use. I would recommend using a chilli paste or flakes as I find these blend the best with sauces and can be used on meat before or during cooking. As with garlic salt it is important to remember to use sparingly. Chilli should be a brief, flaming, passionate brush with flavour and danger; rather than a throat closing collision with fire and death. The flavour of chilli (and its spice) is of course delicious; but too much can result in burned tongues and broken hearts.

The last item here is perhaps the simplest.

While pasta of all kinds and rice of all kinds can be used in recipes of all kinds to create flavours of all kinds, that’s not why I’m including them in here. Pasta and rice is cheap and it fills you up, plain as that.

In those days just before your next pay check or student allowance comes through the cupboard may be a tad bare, and your stomach will likely be vocal in protesting against this. An easy solution is to boil up some pasta, stir in a tin of tomatoes and throw in some meat of some kind (or some of the packet of frozen vegetables you have); instant, filling meal.

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The Funny World of Politics :

When Comedy Meets

The Dark Side

By Nigel Moffiet

There has been a quirky trend in world politics lately – that of the comedian turned politician.

The leader of Italy's anti-establishment Five Star Movement is comedian Beppe Grillo.

Grillo’s party is the third strongest in Italian politics and in recent weeks refused to form a coalition government with any of Italy’s two main parties. He made reference to Berlusconi, private parties and orgies and likened such a coalition in this manner. Berlusconi, says Grillo, is "the psycho dwarf".

On the American front, Al Franken was a writer and performer for Saturday Night Live before becoming a United States Senator in 2009. Before his political role, Franken was winning awards and receiving Emmy nominations for television writing and producing and played minor roles alongside Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd.

Then we also have the comedians who aren’t quite politicians but could be: Jon Stewart and Bill Maher among the most popular.

Jon Stewart is hailed by fans for making fun of American neo-conservative politics as epitomised by Fox News and unwavering hosts such as Bill O’Reilly. Stewart, as host of his satirical news show sits behind his fake news desk and picks apart American politics and current affairs, unafraid of the post 9/11 accusation that, as a citizen, to criticise America is to be unpatriotic.

Recently, Stewart has been the subject of Fox News controversy after he criticised hosts for saying Muslim students should be denied US study visas in the light of the Boston bombings. These comments were made on the show The Five by hosts Eric Bolling and Bob Beckel. In familiar fashion the hosts took to their show and lambasted Stewart

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for having little credentials. “Hey Jonny boy, pull up a chair right here between Bob and me and let’s debate this thing…You got the cajones?” said Bolling. I can’t speak for Stewart’s “cajones” but he is an award winning satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian with sixteen Emmy Awards. I wouldn’t have the cajones to question his credentials.

Here was Bolling’s logic which Stewart claimed had been pulled from his “ass”: “How many Muslims in the world? Anybody? 1.57 billion. Let’s just say that 10 per cent dislike us… 157 million Muslims hate us. If 10 per cent? Five per cent? One per cent? Are radicalized and would kill us… that’s one and a half million people are radicalized to the point where they would want to kill… Americans.”

Bill Maher, a satirist of similar nature to Stewart, also had something to say of the recent Boston bombings by criticising the manhunt for the suspects. “This country is becoming a police state, and it is very troubling to me,” Maher was quoted in The Washington Times. Quite serious stuff for a man who ranks 38 on Comedy Central’s 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time and has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

There is also the famous Sarah Palin parody performed to perfection by Tina Fey. This would draw some to the popular belief that politicians are, quite often, unwitting comedians themselves. For example, you might say Fey was spoilt for content with Sarah’s ‘Palinisms’ such as: "Polls are for strippers and cross-country skiers" (Sarah Palin, speaking at a Tea Party rally in Iowa, Sept. 3, 2011).

And…

"But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies." --Sarah Palin, after being asked how she would handle the current hostilities between the two Koreas, interview on Glenn Beck's radio show, Nov. 24, 2010 And… "I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree." --Sarah Palin, Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, Nov. 22, 2010 And wait, there’s more…

"As we work and sightsee on America's largest island, we'll get to view more majestic bears, so now is a good time to draw attention to the political equivalent of the species." --Sarah Palin, referring to Kodiak Island in Alaska, even though Hawaii is America's biggest island, July 19, 2010.

Yet, in light of the accusation that you can’t differentiate between the Palin-like politicians and the comedians themselves I like an exchange I came across on an article written by Michael Wolff for The Guardian titled ‘No laughing matter: comedians from Italy to the US are reforming politics.” One reader stated that “Some would say that all of our politicians are comedians anyway.” Which drew this response from another reader: “Now, now, you're confusing comedians with clowns. We laugh at comedians because they make us think. We laugh at clowns because of their foolish behaviour. We can always use more comedians, but we already have way, way too many clowns.”

So you be the judge – are our politicians comedians or clowns? And conversely, what are we to make of our comedians?

Comedic moments in New Zealand politics:

New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange was one of the country’s greatest orators and as a result he is remembered for some distinctive comedic moments. In a 1985 Oxford Union debate on nuclear weapons he made this memorable statement directed at a young conservative he was debating: “hold your breath just for a moment. I can smell the uranium on it as you lean toward me!”

-Sir Robert Muldoon, Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1975-1984, famously said that New Zealanders moving to Australia “raised the IQ of both countries”.

-Labour MP Trevor Mallard congratulated Tertiary Minister Steven Joyce in Parliament for completing a degree in zoology: “A bachelor of science in zoology is a very good qualification for working in the National party cabinet because it’s fair to say there are a range of animals there,” said Mallard.

-In 1999 then Green MP Nándor Tánczos came into the NZ political sphere.

Really he was just a youthful Rasta with his penchant for colourful hats, sweet dreads, and skateboarding to parliament.

However, the older folks couldn’t get a grip on this guy. I remember a teacher at school telling a class he thought the guy was “a clown”.

-On 14th June 1984, Muldoon took to the cameras, pissed as a parrot, and managed to slur some words announcing he was calling an election. He lost.

-On 31 August 1988 then NZ Minister of State Owned Enterprises Richard Prebble got owned himself after getting walloped in the face with an egg. A reporter asked him what he thought of the Christchurch unionists who were protesting his policies.

He said they were a “random mob” and sniggered. Not a second later he wore egg on his face in what has become an iconic caught on TV -moment.

New Zealand’s debating chamber often looks embarrassing as MPs clown around and behave like brats while discussing important social matters – Winston Peters is one of NZ’s biggest political brats and has been kicked out of the debating chamber 32 times in his career. His latest kick up the backside came after he said Gerry Brownlee was an "illiterate woodwork teacher".

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REVIEWS

by Matthew Cattin

A Chat With James Acaster.

When his two-piece band The Wow Scenario split up, James Acaster wasn’t quite ready to give up on living the life he wanted to live. With a bucket list of risky business to accomplish in life, trying stand-up comedy was right next to sky-diving and as it turns out, he was quite good at it. The stand-up that is. “The love of my life, the band, had stopped, [and I thought] I don’t want to try another wife, but I will shag about for a bit – which is what stand-up was. I was like ‘I’ll do something that I don’t wholly care about but is exciting and fun for me.’ And you just get addicted to it,” says James.

As a youngster, James says he was never a funny guy but nevertheless he always tried to get a laugh out of his parents and their adult friends. “It took all the way through primary school trying to be funny to adults and just coming across as weird. If you ever meet a little kid who is trying to be funny, they’re gonna be funny when they’re older but they’re going to wind you up all day with weird little jokes that don’t even make sense and trying to do impressions,” he says. Being a professional comedian nowadays, James says, the art of stand-up is a lot different to sharing jokes amongst your mates. “There’s always the thing socially that people are obliged to laugh at you if you make a joke to a group of people at a party – it has to be really awful for nobody to laugh because they want to save you from the awkwardness. When you get on stage it’s – you know – prison rules.”

On top of his regular gigs, James also does the odd comedy gig for kids – an audience he enjoys performing to because of their friendly response. “Kids aren’t malicious. They won’t try to take you down when you talk to them. If you say to an adult in the front row ‘hey is it your first time in comedy?’ they’ll look at you and go ‘yeah, and I still haven’t seen any stand-up cause this isn’t funny, it’s not making me laugh and you’re shit’, whereas if you say it to a kid, they’ll say ‘YEAAH!’ and they’ll tell you what they’ve done in their day. They have no fear that you’ll take the piss out of them,” he says. With adults on the other hand, James says they sometimes go out of their way to drag you down. “There’s no other job where when you’re doing it, people try

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and make it harder for you so that you can prove how good you are,” he says. “If they [theatre actors] are doing a pantomime and they get everyone to join in and someone says ‘where is he?’, nobody goes ‘well turn around you fucking wanker!’, no one does that. If it is a play and they’re getting people involved everyone is like okay fine.” Not so with comedy.

A particularly memorable gig moment for James played out at a Yorkshire music festival and involved a flaccid penis, a dog woman and too many mushrooms. The day of music was to be closed by a comedy set but the audience weren’t keen, booing before the comedians got on stage. Amongst the hecklers “there’s a guy in the front row, a long haired hippy guy who just kept on telling me to suck his dick. But he was speaking it, not shouting it so nobody could hear him but me,” says James. After their set, the same guy approached him and asked if he can take the stage. With nothing to lose, James agreed. “He tried to tell a story about two people in the tent next door to him who were having sex the night before and it didn’t go down well at all. It went really quiet in the audience and it got really awkward. So to win them back, he dropped his trousers and started trying to arouse himself.

They’d done so many mushrooms over the weekend that he couldn’t get it up at all so he was there just playing with his flaccid disfigured penis. Disgusting,” says James.

“And then this woman who was dressed as a dog ran on to stage and jumped and rugby tackled him and started slapping him on the face over and over again while he continued to masturbate. And then they turned the lights off and that was the end of the festival. The last thing that happened at that festival was a man masturbating while getting beaten up by a dog woman. I often say it was the worst gig I’ve ever had but it was the most memorable. It was unplayable. But I’ve never seen a finale like it.”

You can catch James Acaster’s gig this week at The Classic in Auckland. Be there.

J o s e p h

&

M a i a

by Erica McQueen

Match made in Maunganui.

Joseph and Maia (formerly The Mile) are an acoustic musical duo from The Mount that recently signed to Sony (pretty big deal). They’re pop and country-folkish but I reckon genres are a thing of the past - there’s so much fusion music around these days anyway. Music is either good, or it isn’t. Except for Joseph and Maia, their music is great.

Joseph and Maia got together when a previous project of Josephs’ ended. They tell me it started pretty casually but they both became passionate about the project and set to recording. The two are influenced by a lot of classical pop music and whatever the two are listening to at the time. I hear Joseph is quite the Hip-Hop fan, but I haven’t heard that yet. I bet he’d be a rad rapper.

Their tunes would make the perfect accompaniment to a road trip out in the country or a voyage to the coast. I generally prefer male vocalists but I could listen to Maia forever. She has one of the sweetest voices I’ve ever heard. Her voice blends so effortlessly with Joseph’s, it’s a magical match. Joseph’s guitar skills are pretty super too.

The twosome also do a mint cover of Bobby Darin’s Dream Lover.

They tell me they’re a bit obsessed with him and I reckon their cover is better than the original.. which is risky to say I know. But just listen to it and you’ll know what I mean. Magic, wrapped up in two minutes of musical genius, it’s truly delightful.

Recently I was stoked to be able to see them open for Streets of Laredo (also worth checking out) at Golden Dawn (think Ponsonby, outdoor stage, disco ball and dream catchers) with their band The Quitters. It’s just the sweetest thing when they look at each other while performing.

You can tell they love making music together and enjoy sharing it.

Joseph’s banter between songs is quite brilliant too!

As I write, today is the day their EP comes out. I don’t remember ever being this excited about an album release. Thanks to being signed to

Sony you can get your hands on it (which I recommend you do) at JB Hi-Fi, The Warehouse or on iTunes. And for only six of seven of those one dollar gold things! I can barely recall the last time my music didn’t come for bandcamp! Getting fancy.

I should also tell you about some sweet little videos that were made about Joseph & Maia as part of FOUR Live’s decent exposure. You can hunt them down on vimeo if you can handle cuteness overload. They chat about their love of music and the video for their first official single Nothing I Can Do. As always, I had a chat with Joseph and Maia about their musical endeavours and a whole bunch of other random stuff. I always like to ask artists what advice they have for those starting out, mostly because I hope that one day someone will share a gem that will turn me into a musical superhero. Joseph had this quote to offer: "95% of what you write will be no good”, Maia adds that you should keep at it though!

In terms of the future of this duo they hope to play all over the place (they’re pretty much in Auckland most weeks) and will be starting work on a new record soon as. They love playing music and will be doing it as much as possible. Definitely worth catching them live.

Facebook will hook you up with the deets.

I said there was some random stuff in there so a quick sum up of the goodies. Maia’s favourite word is Europe, to which Joseph rolls his eyes. Rumour has it they are from New York, and Paul Simon is Maia’s grandfather. If Joseph wasn’t playing music he would be a suit, Maia hopes a Mike Ross Suit. As for clocks, it was unanimously analogue, to which I’d have to agree.

Joseph and Maia have won my musical heart and you’d be silly not them let them woo yours too. They’re around online everywhere so hunt them down (spotify too). www.ausm.org.nz 27

REVIEWS

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AuSMConnect_A3.pdf

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GOT A GREAT BUSINESS IDEA? Tell us about it and together with the AUT Venture Fund it could become a reality.

This year, as part of AUT Venture Fund umbrella, the new AUT Kickstart Competition has been established to give you a kickstart in the establishment, or operation, of your own business, and to enhance your learning experience. Winning business ideas are eligible for funding.

Individuals and teams can enter. The AUT Kickstart Competition is open to current AUT students and AUT graduates* *terms and conditions apply

TO FIND OUT MORE ON ENTRY DETAILS, VISIT: http://www.aut.ac.nz/study-at-aut/study-areas/business/student-opportunities/get-involved/aut-venture-fund 30

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29/04/13 10:52 AM

Lazy Saturday at Little & Friday

by India Hendrikse The holidays brought about a very lovely Saturday for a couple of my friends and me. While the weather couldn’t made up its mind, we decided to venture inside a cosy little space in Newmarket, quaintly named Little and Friday.

Little and Friday’s name originally came from just opening its doors on Fridays, but luckily for us, and you (yes, you), they now open their doors seven days a week.

I’m sure anyone that is obsessed with café culture like me would have heard of it, but I’ve decided that not enough reviews could be done for a place that encompasses all kinds of beauty.

I felt like I was in my happy safe haven inside Little and Friday.

While the rain sprinkled and the sun shined outside, we were warm and comfortable in the small corner of the fabric shop, Martha’s Fabrics, in which my new favourite café is nestled into.

When we entered this paradise, I think we all internally let out a girlish scream. The reason we did this internally is that we now feel like we have reached the age where unfortunately, we are not little girls anymore. The array of sweet and savoury goodies that met our eyes was overwhelming. While one of my friends opted for

a fancy chorizo, blue cheese, and kumara galette, my other friend and I decided to share some sweet treats. After eating a heavy, yet delicious, banana cake filled with cream cheese and topped with walnuts and caramel, we cleansed our palates with a lighter, orange and rose scented cake.

My favourite part of the whole experience was that instead of being given table numbers, we were given a small yellow rhinoceros. Each grouping of people got a different bright yellow animal; I snapped a picture of the panda nibbling on a bamboo stick, because he was just too cute to ignore.

After wishing our rhino goodbye, we had a quick browse through the Little and Friday cookbook before leaving. On sale in the store, it is a perfect way to get your weekly dose of Little and Friday from home.

Also, the coffee was outstanding; any place with a fabulous barista has a 10/10 from me.

Visit Little and Friday at 12 Melrose Street, Newmarket, or if you’re a North Shore native, then at 43c Eversleigh Road, Belmont. Your taste buds will thank you :)

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Olympus Has Fallen

Tom Green

With a name like Gerald Butler attached to the film and the rest of the stellar cast which includes Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman and Melissa Leo, I had high expectations of Antoine Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen. That is without knowing anything about the storyline or watching the trailer beforehand.

You all know Tom Green as the funniest, most random personality to ever grace the screens of MTV, the standout star of the American comedy classic Road Trip and also the star, writer and director of one the most outrageous and ridiculous films ever made Freddy Got Fingered. In his stand up show, all of the anger and hilarity that you would expect from Tom Green is present. He is a Rock Star of stand-up comedy.

Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman Director: Antoine Fuqua Rating: Reviewed by Shilo Kino

Butler plays Mike Banning, a former Secret Service bodyguard who now works in an office job because the president (Aaron Eckhart) blames him for letting his wife (Ashley Judd) die. Fastforward 18 months and terrorists have taken over the White House with the President held hostage. Of course, Banning our hero must find a way to save the President and regain his trust back, while saving the rest of the world in the process.

The storyline might sound common and predictable, but director Antoine Fuqua delivers an action packed film that completely engages the audience from the get go. Butler certainly doesn’t disappoint, as he thrives in his role as a one-man powerhouse on a mission to save the President. Essentially, if it wasn’t for Butler’s portrayal as the likeable Banning, Olympus Has Fallen may not have been as convincing. In fact, the entire cast plays their characters with great execution.

Some bad points. The film is a giant blood bath. People are being killed all over the place like it is a ridiculous and brutal R18 video game. The destruction of a famous American landmark and the crowds of terrified people screaming with fear reminded me of the 9/11 attacks way too much. While this is all realistically what would happen if the story were true, I can’t help but think that the director took it too far. The torture scenes were just as bad. I felt uncomfortable watching a woman getting tormented by a group of laughing men.

The one-man crusade against a well-trained army of men loaded with heavy machinery is dubious, as with all the other plot holes and questions that are left hanging throughout the film. Despite its many faults, I really enjoyed Olympus Has Fallen. Yes, the comparisons to the films Die Hard, and Taken are uncanny but who really cares? Take it for what it is. An action packed film that will thoroughly entertain you- but only if you’re okay with the over the top violence.

Sky City Theatre Rating: Reviewed by Carl Ewen

Much of his show is focused around the frustrations of Facebook, social media and camera phones, although he does ask for the crowd to ‘follow’ him on twitter at the end of the hour long performance. Stating that married people should never be on Facebook, where ex’s could approach and say they will ‘be there for you, if it all turns sour’. He refers to Facebook as “the conspiracy of our time” and camera phones as being “dangerous and manipulative”. He encourages the audience to ‘deactivate your profiles’ and berates several attendees when they start taking photos with their camera phones, calling them “fucking pricks”.

It does seem like Green had enjoyed his first voyage to Aotearoa, commenting on his visit to Piha, having a surf and being told, while appearing on George FM’s morning show that he was allowed to swear live on air - this being the complete opposite to the USA, where the Ontario native now resides. He goes on about the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction in 2004 and comments how this is still the most shocking and outrageous moment in US media history and how he’s amazed he can say the C-word on the radio!

There are many puerile elements of his show that directly target his long term fans, who crave this kind of comedy from Tom, but there is still something for everyone in his show. Pondering many of life’s problems, and wondering why there is no cheese in Chinese food. Tom Green stating “you eat tiger penis, but no cheese?” Just bizarre.

The highlight of the show was when Green spoke about filming and critical response to his film Freddy Got Fingered. Talking about how it was a box office flop, and criticised for being one of the worst films in history. But, aside from that, that no matter where he visits in the world, everyone seems to know every line from the film. After this he encourages the audience to shout and lines, and proceeds to act them out on stage. By acting I mean more yelling them back at the audience in pure Tom Green style.

My favourite moments had to be “Backwards Man” and “Daddy would you like some Sausage?”. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch the movie.

Overall Tom Green does not disappoint. While his style of comedy is definitely not for everyone, he still delivers well and provides continuous hilarity throughout the duration of the show.

Hopefully he returns for future NZ Comedy Festivals, and if he does, I will be securing my tickets well in advance.

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The Long Flight to Freedom

Adapt or Dai

Urzila Carlson is a star who continues to rise on the NZ comedy scene, and this is some of her best work yet.

Dai Henwood likes to talk about his penis. A lot.

Urzila Carlson Rating: Reviewed by Abigail Johnson

She stumbled onto the stage and apologised for her appearance, but it wasn’t the been-there-done-that fat lady shtick. Rather she had been up for two days in hospital with her very pregnant partner. She even brings her cell phone on the stage, checking it regularly to see if the thing has popped out, in which case she would have to run. Which launches us straight into the laugh out loud jokes. Marriage equality, pregnant partners, (‘she swears it’s mine!’), mothers-in-law. Some of it is stuff we’ve heard before, but it never seems to matter. The way she performs, with a heap of arrogance, mixed with sarcasm, self-deprecation and a large dose of general excitement, make old jokes simply bloody brilliant.

And a lot of it is new. She recounts her journey from South Africa to New Zealand, taking time to wax lyrical about shit family holidays, shared with aggressive giraffes and lazy lions.

She has a knack for storytelling, and while some bits seem to drag, most of it sparks, and when it sparks my cheeks ache from laughter.

She explores classic territory, lamenting New Zealand’s lack of news, this time attacking the light-proof milk debacle, but juxtapositions it with stories about Nelson Mandela, and being stripped to her underwear at work during a robbery. You never know where she is going to take you, but, no matter how serious, or done-before, or totally random it is there will be huge laughs along the way.

No big news arrived during my viewing, and so she left us with “I would have remembered this audience forever if I was performing for you the night my first child was born,” quickly checking her cell phone again. “But it hasn’t. So I will forget you instantly.”

Despite that, it was the greatest thing I’ve seen in a while, and if you go, and it is that special night, I will be insanely jealous.

Dai Henwood Rating: Reviewed by Shilo Kino

That’s what struck me the most after watching his Tuesday night show Adapt Or Dai, playing this week as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival.

For those who aren’t familiar with Dai Henwood, he is the funny little man mostly known for his role on 7Days. He has also floated around other comedy driven shows on TV, and is the winner of both the Billy T and Fred Awards.

With that in mind, I expected some great laughs as I sat in the Q Theatre, waiting eagerly for his arrival. If you haven’t been to Queen Street’s Q Theatre before you should check it out; it is a great venue and perfect for a comedy show. While his show wasn’t sold out, there were only few seats left in the room. This only speaks volumes about his popularity.

Finally, out Dai Henwood came, commanding the stage as he jumped around with excitement to bright lights and the crowd’s cheers and applause. It was immediately clear that he had great stage presence as he engaged with audience and had them in fits of laughter within seconds.

The show tag line is “Adapt or Dai: Humans are Awesome, Let's celebrate.” Henwood spoke about how being a father is similar to being on P, chores that he does, living in Avondale “Heights”, drink-driving, and of course his penis.

Perhaps being a girl means that I can’t relate to his humping a bath plughole and penis enlargement jokes. I felt they were borderline obnoxious but it was obvious the crowd disagreed with me. As I looked around, almost every male in the audience was in tears of laughter when he talked about his penis.

Nevertheless, I can’t fault Henwood too much. He is no doubt a funny man, but what makes him more impressive is his ability to produce a narrative through his ability to act everything out.

Without giving much away, the uni cycle and ping-pong playing display is a highlight.

You can also tell Henwood is a pro. His best jokes came from the improvisation and audience interaction that he thrives on. His jokes about a guy’s torso and choice of chocolate were nothing short of hilarious. In fact, Henwood’s ability to tell jokes on the spot is actually incredible.

Dai Henwood’s hour long show will make you laugh- especially if you are a testosterone filled male who loves penis jokes. He is charming, with wit to match and he is definitely at his prime when he is on a stage. It is also a guarantee that every show will be different based on his wonderful audience interaction.

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