Weather delayed monster...
Well after one coffee too many, although it was an excellent one, and a Moroccan-style toasted lamb sandwich, I have progressd through the customs and security to wait in the departure lounge with hundreds of other patient, accustomed, travellers. Most of them resort to the time-honoured way of waiting lounges, that is, drinking (no smoking of course which must be tough for some) and just bitching about the weather and hoping it's better in Sydney, which it surely will be. Still I won't inform my bro of the delay till I find out when we are really leaving.
Observations at airport lounges can be fascinating, especially for international flights as this one to Sydney is quaintly called. There are many even here who regard Australia as a part of NZ, or more realistically the other way around, as there are so many Kiwis resident and making big successes in OZ. Just yesterday on Wellington radio I heard interviewed a young Kiwi restaurateur who had made a great success with a New Age style restaurant in South Yarra, a hard nut to crack in that area as it is wholly subsidised by the wealthy Jewish population and the Melbourne establishment. Anyway this young Kiwi, let's call him Kev, had made a big success and had become famous by donating all his restaurant's tips to a third world country, in this case one in South America. He then decided to live there, call it Argentina, and help feed the large percentage of poor and homeless. This he did calling the restaurant by a catchy moniker which I have immediately forgotten, but it was his generosity and wanting to pass on his success to help others which has marked him apart. It does seem to be a Kiwi syndrome, helping the underdog, but unfortunately it was away from NZ that he did this philanthropic gesture, not in his homeland where such things are also needed.
There are many disenchanted native, I mean Maori, Kiwis, who are unhappy and feel cheated by the very Liberal National Parliament led by John Key, who is as far away from Maori rights as you could get. I'm afraid it is a pervading feeling in the general mass of white Pakehas that the Maori don't matter, similar to in Australia, but perhaps more hidden, and thus insidious, as it isn't acknowledged. The Waitangi Treaty then is a virtual sham to make the invaders feel pulchritudinous and the recipients, the native Maori, feel patronised, which I am afraid they are, in spite of people like Sir Winston Peters.
Waiting, El Thirsty..
The women's magazines LOVE Royalty
No comments:
Post a Comment