Kia ora koutou katoa, nga mihinui o te ra whanau o te Kaiwhakaora ki a koutou, me te tau hou, hoki. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to NZ Edge readers.

These are interesting times on the edge of the world. Intimations of global warming with icebergs off the coast of my papakainga tuturu at Timaru, constitutional trouble in Tonga, and indigenous military muscle being flexed in Fiji, all provide their own portents for the year ahead in the regional backyard of godzone. If you think radical trouble is getting close I've got to tell you that it's already here. It dwells deep in the high security cells of our prison system and percolates the hearts and minds of some very pissed off men who are serving the long sentences that were designed to make them cower. The evident policy failure that is the sad hallmark of our prison system is about to give us another unintended consequence in the form of the misapplied intellects of this imprisoned cohort. The results will be at least as complex (and as costly) as the East Coast Rasta troubles two decades ago. Moving into the tackle is the only option. We must be able to offer a pro-social option for these people just as for the poor of Tonga and the poor of Fiji. The solutions for our Pacific Islands won't be simple and they won't be binary. Get prepared for global warming, and get used to ambiguities you may once have found intolerable. In Fiji the Indian business class are said to back the unconstitutional Commander whereas the indigenous people favour the (deposed) constitutionally elected Prime Minister. In Tonga, besides the undercurrent of ill feeling towards the Chinese and some other foreign business interests, the popular thrust seems to be towards a power sharing mix of the traditional hierarchy based on whakapapa and some Tongan form of democracy.

This is a model very familiar to Maori as it reflects the current format of elected and traditional representation and governance seen in Maori corporations and tribal structures. It requires a bifocal world view. Thus, whilst the media take the piss out of Winston over his perceived lack of grasp of international diplomacy in his Foreign Affairs role at the moment I'd rather have him dealing on our behalf in the South Pacific, versus what often seems to be the neo-colonial approach of others. Winston slips easily in to Pacific role through the 'bro' factor. Watch this space intently.

Speaking of which, do you watch Maori TV? It's the TV default setting in our household. Although the summer weather with long bright days and no rugby league render watching the box less relevant, (and before that great outdoor interregnum that is the Kiwi Christmas), it's worthwhile sharing a few thoughts about Maori TV and what I see as its contribution to nation building.

The driving rationale for Maori TV has been the preservation and protection of the Maori language. It does that by infusing its programmes with a mix of bi-lingual dialogue; dialogue in Maori with sub-titles; and, in some instances, only in Maori. One of the programmes, run early in Maori TV's programming schedule was 'Korero Mai', a language class in the context of a soap opera. It managed to fuse education and entertainment. The soap opera was better than Shortland St, if you are prepared to accept the word of Taape, my resident expert in these matters. And, for someone who struggles with Maori syntax, I found the language class element really helpful and likely to reduce my frequent lingual faux pas. Whey!

A common and current 'mainstream' argument is that Maori TV is racially divisive and that we should be promoting the unitary state - we're all New Zealanders aren't we? This perspective confuses diverse with divisive and ends up being a call for a Kiwi blancmange, a sort of homogenised cultural sameness. But in fact, rather than splitting us, Maori TV is bringing us together, helping us integrate with the land and each other by engaging us in a common language - Maori- and giving us all a sense of collective identity as Kiwis, whilst allowing us to retain membership of our constituent tribes.

Maori TV is crossover TV not only in culture but in time. It is well grounded in and celebratory of the ancient traditions of Maoritanga whilst simultaneously demonstrating contemporary Maori ingenuity, a group mastery and adaptation of 21st century global technology. Maori Television exemplifies Sir Apirana Ngata's ontology 'E Tipu E Rea'.

E tipu e rea mo nga ra o tou ao 
Ko to ringa ki nga rakau a te Pakeha 
Hei ara mo to tinana 
Ko to ngakau ki nga taonga a o tipuna Maori 
Hei tikitiki mo to mahuna 
Ko to wairua ki to Atua, nana nei nga mea katoa

Grow up and thrive for the days destined to you 
Your heads to the tools of the Pakeha 
to provide physical sustenance 
Your heart to the treasures of your Maori ancestors 
as a diadem for your brow 
Your soul to God, to whom all things belong

Ta Apirana Ngata

You may recall from earlier blogs that, according to my old mentor Rob Muldoon, 'E Tipu E Rea' should provide the philosophical basis, the principles for our nation. ( Excuse me, never mind the off-the-point revisionism)

One widely popular Maori TV programme is Ask Your Auntie, a prime-time agony-aunt type show which has a Maori panel but the dialogue is mainly in English. The cackles of laughter I hear coming out of the lounge (TV Reviewer Taape again) tell me that Ask Your Auntie regularly hits the humour bone.

Another Maori TV feature is the food show Kai Time on The Road. This programme produces edible feats of Kiwi and global fusion. Witness also the fact that Anne Thorp's Kai Ora, which had its debut on Maori TV, is now on Sky's Food TV and is being marketed globally by TVF International.

A third show is Code, a sportscafe type show with Maori hosts but with a multicultural range of guests. Just as with the food shows the crossover occurs because the topic area is familiar but the Maori treatment is unique. Amongst the suite of Maori TV crossover techniques is enrolling non-Maori Kiwi icons. For instance, the Qantas media award winning Maori TV ANZAC Day programme was anchored by the Pakeha 'mother-of-the-nation' Judy Bailey, alongside Maori co-presenter Wena Tait.

Another example of icon enrolling is rugby league. Maori TV has taken this minor but Maori-intensive sports code as its own turf and it has enlisted the nation's number one rugby league fan, my brother Peter Leitch, the Mad Butcher(I call the Butcher 'brother' rather than 'bro' for the same reason I don't normally hongi him; we're both Pakeha. 'Brother' is a respectful Pakeha working class form of salute). I've got to say at this point that I consider the Butcher to be another rangatira of the emergent tribe of Ngati Pakeha. He is truly a living treasure of our nation and I love him like a brother, a tuakana. The Butcher has helped me out on a thousand occasions and we are close. Now, on the other hand, I accept that the Butcher is anything other than 'PC', and many of his views often concur with mainstream 'Auckland - whiteman - radio - talkback - land' views about Maori rights and Maori issues in general. But there he is enrolled in, supporting and promoting the Maori TV channel and in doing so facilitating more cultural breakthrough and understanding within what might be called 'redneck New Zealand' than the Treaty on Wheels Exhibition and the Office of the Race Relations Conciliator combined.

Butcher's hooks

I reckon Maori TV should get the bulk of the Government's so called 'Charter' money. Maori TV is building a distinctive character to the nation. On any front. Take Royalty. An academic friend, a PhD aspirant who lives in the southern isles, emailed me recently trying to suss out what I thought about the Kingitanga. This otherwise phenomenally informed man wondered what had happened in Maoridom since the tangi of Te Atairangikaahu.

He thought there was a vacuum of information and that the 'new king' needed better PR. Now apart from Kingi Tuheitia having been in a time of mourning his present focus is on his own constituency and is more or less inward to the Kingitanga rather than the nation. But where he is apparent at a national level, watchers of the current affairs show Te Heteri on Maori TV would have seen him visiting his father's people in the far north, and would have seen him readying to attend the hui of the whakapapa-based 'Maori body politic' called at Pukawa by Tumu Te Heuheu. This Pukawa hui was a really significant event. It was held at the site where, in 1856, Iwikau te Heuheu Tukino III called iwi leaders together to discuss turning the Te Kotahitanga (Unity) movement into the Kingitanga.

Even though King Tuheitia has refrained from public pronouncement his constituents are already widely acknowledging him. This was obvious at the recent Maori Sports Awards (filmed live by Maori TV) where virtually every speaker prefaced his or her speech with a mihi to him. Likewise a week or so ago Te Heteri had a thoughtful segment on New Zealand's constitutional arrangements and Maori desire for more autonomy. It compared the issue here to related matters in Fiji and Tonga. This is not treatment you'll see on TV1 or TV3. If you want to know about Maori issues just go watch Maori TV. In my view Maori TV is public service broadcasting at its best. Take the MVP award. Mauri Ora!

Having noted Te Atairangikaahu's ('The Lady') passing reminds me of hearing the news of her death and the profound events around her tangi. Here at Waiohiki in the Hawke's Bay the karanga went out fast and after a bit of ringing around a small group of us met at the Waiohiki Creative Arts Village to discuss how we might mark the sad occasion and to express our love for this wonderful lady.

Tamehana - 'The Kingmaker'. Courtesy of Hawke's Bay Today

We recalled that to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Te Ata's Coronation one of our carvers, Hugh Tareha, himself of chiefly whakapapa, had carved a pou of Tamehana, the 'Kingmaker' from Tainui. Tamehana visited Waiohiki in the early 1850's for a meeting to discuss the choice of the Maori king. Our rangatira, Tareha, deferred to Te Kani Takirau from the East Coast. Waiohiki is said to be the name given to the pataka carved to mark that visit. In any case Hugh Tareha had celebrated these ancestral links in the carving of Tamehana and this pou was erected at the front gate of the Waiohiki Marae to celebrate 'The Lady's' 25th.

To mark her death it was decided to immediately dress the Tamehana's pou in the green dress of mourning that is a mark of Tainui kawa. We gathered flax and bush vines from the banks of the Tutaekuri and Charmaine, a wahine toa from Ngai Tuhoe, wove the materials and fashioned a panekoti, part cloak and part skirt, and a mourning wreath for the head. Hugh Tareha placed the greenery on Tamehana and flowers were laid at the base of the pou.

Local tamariki with Tamehana. Courtesy of Hawke's Bay Today

So, in those first hours of mourning, as the nation heard the news and prepared to focus its attention on Turangawaewae, a group of us gathered at Waiohiki and said our karakia to smooth The Lady's pillow and to thank the Creator for her contribution to us all. Moe mai e te whaea. Haere atu ra e te Kuini Te Atairangikaahu, haeremai e te Kingi Tuheitia.

In Auckland, as in other places around the country, there has been an ongoing saga about youth gangs with widespread concern about increasing levels of youth gang activity and violent assaults. I use saga in the sense that this is a long, ongoing issue particularly in the southern suburbs of our one true metropolis. I can remember Duncan Mac Intyre, as the then Minister of Maori Affairs, leading a drive to tackle the Auckland youth gang issue way back in 1972 or thereabouts. Recent research commissioned by Ministry of Social Development revealed that gang involvement is a symptom of deep underlying social factors that contribute to a range of negative outcomes for young people. In the name of a 'whole of Government' approach the current effort is being led by no less than seven Departmental Chief Executives (Ministry of Social Development, New Zealand Police, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Youth Development, Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, Ministry of Health) and, as you might imagine, seven cooks in a kitchen is always going to present a diffuse menu of action. The action schedule is outlined in a publication from the Auckland Youth Support Network "Improving Outcomes for Young People in Counties Manukau - Plan of Action 2006". The focus has been placed on Counties Manukau for a number of sound demographic reasons and because it is seen to contain a "corridor of youth gang hotspots". And why is that? Well, for a start youth gangs tend to be a product of big cities with certain global characteristics; rapid population growth and ghettoized clusters, broad ethnic diversity, lumpy patterns of wealth distribution (this area has a few wealthy pockets in some of the poorest suburbs in New Zealand), high unemployment., relative poverty, overcrowding, and a youthful demographic profile. Another thing, and it is a paradox. In NZ gangs tend to rise in a time of full(er) employment. It may be that it is a feature of a low wage economy where people work at more than one job or where both parents have more than one job.

The Counties Manukau area has it all: 165 different ethnic groups; fast growing, with the highest proportion of youth in the country; 12% of all New Zealanders under the age of 24 live in Counties Manukau; 39% of the entire population of this region are is under 24 years of age.

So, the Departmental chiefs came together, in November of 2005, recognized that they already had a suite of programmes dealing with and around issues related to youth gangs, but also recognized that they knew little. The body of in-house knowledge, government's institutional memory, built and garnered since Mc Intyre's initial efforts 35 years ago, has more or less been cast aside. There have been some deep and thoughtful enquiries on the issue (Parliamentary Committee on Violence 1979; Comber report on Gangs 1981; Roper Report on Violent Offending 1987). Despite the similar recommendations of these investigations (more or less what Muldoon would call 'giving carrot and stick') late in the 1980's we seemed to reject these findings and we took another pathway based on a North American style of suppressive policing.

I don't know why we changed direction - perhaps the policies were seen as being 'Muldoonist' and, therefore, had to go regardless of their merit- or perhaps the ambiguities that inevitably accompany working in a community development approach became too much to bear and the then Government felt it necessary to retreat to a single world view. In any case we changed the suggested tack and we're now coping with the consequences.

My sense of the best way to find the optimal response is to go back to the point where we changed our pathway - at least in our thinking - and then start off again. Of course the 1980's is not now and it makes sense to reconnoiter what's up today. To that end, as I've already noted, the Ministry of Social Development commissioned some research on current youth gangs, focused on Otara and Mangere, with the aim on defining 'the problem' and, consequentially, hopefully perhaps, identify actions designed to solve the problems.

As you might imagine then, with seven stakeholder CE's the menu for action has something from and something for everyone - 26 action items in total, some of which seem facile eg "By 1 July 2006 the Police had strengthened Police youth responsiveness by linking with Maori wardens". What! Get it together with the Maori Wardens - damn that's an expected action in any case.

In his book 'Blink' Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 'adaptive unconscious' the intuitive conclusions we leap to at first sight of a situation, or in this case, a report and plan of action. And my adaptive unconscious tells me that despite the fact that I agree with much of the content and the underlying conclusions, this particular approach won't cut the mustard. There are complex matrices outlining risk factors and appropriate interventions by each and every stakeholder organisation. After something approaching 40 years in dealing with youth gangs I could spend another 40 years describing and analyzing behaviours, identifying drivers, and musing over possible solutions all with little consequence. My learning is that I can't prescribe the plan for others.

The stated aim of the 'Improving Outcomes' plan is to better support young people to succeed. However the use of language is interesting in that it reads as being very reactive. Whilst the Government's comprehensive youth strategy (Youth Development Strategy Aotearoa, 2002) promotes the developmental approach, seeing young people as being less 'at risk' and rather more 'at promise', this plan takes about 27 pages before it raises youth development.

It wants to 'contain' youth gang activities; to 'discourage children and young people from joining gangs' and to 'minimise the potential for youth crime'. Now I appreciate I'm mounting a 'glass half-full vs. glass half-empty' argument but 'contain', 'discourage' and 'minimize' are not the words of development, although I immediately concede that in context they have a double-negative effect. The challenge is to identify things to do, achievements to create, people to become, rather than not to be and not to do. Hidden within the plan are some gems that I believe do work. One is the KR-fuelled Turn Your Life Around programme 
(TYLA http://www.tyla.co.nz ) which the authorities are considering expanding to Counties Manukau and beyond. Glory be over that.

I've also got to say that I agree with what I think is the most profound initiative within the plan and that is to employ 22 youth workers. I've been arguing in these columns about the need for a developmental workforce at the cutting edge so I'll take this as a win. The threat to success in this regard is what looks to be a too low an emphasis on the recruitment and development of that workforce. Development of this workforce, these particular change agents, is where the leverage is, and where the plan for Counties Manukau could come to life.

In the meantime there has been some good work in gangland. Under new Police Commissioner Howard Broad's leadership, and, I suspect, a few cost extrapolations from Treasury, a new sense of possibility and dialogue has opened up. This has enabled quick action and collaborative pro-social action between some gang leaders and the Police to settle down actual and potential conflicts in the Hutt Valley and Tokoroa. It is really important to keep the kaupapa clear; this action is about growing family, it is not about growing gang. The flipside to the gang-suppression tactics of the last decade is that in the re-engagement process we run the risk of inexperienced operators romanticizing the gang and losing sight of the whanau development kaupapa.

It's difficult and often ambiguous work and the same players for good in some circumstances may be players for bad in other situations. In any case I figure that as the Department Corrections only have about a 15% success rate - deducted from the fact that they concede is an 85% rate of recidivism - any outcomes we achieve beyond that rate is a victory.

The work with Mongrel Mob Notorious through Roy and Edge continues to progress. My academic colleagues at Unitec, where I am in the very last legs of a Masters in Social Practice, have had the courage to come on board with a project to engage a group of MM Notorious members and leaders in undertaking training for community health service qualifications. We held a hui at Watea, June Jackson's marae in Auckland, a couple of weeks back and my academic supervisor Dr Geoff Bridgman and I were invited to present to the crew. Considering some past ugly confrontations with particular members of the audience it was an interesting experience, although I felt comfortable and sensed my point of view was at least listened to if not universally endorsed.

Likewise, with the Black Power & Darksiders in Wellington and the Black Power in Hawke's Bay, step by step, good things such as improved rates of employment, establishment of self-owned micro-businesses such as 'Lawns R Us' (to cater for the otherwise unemployable), and ongoing challenges to those using and promoting 'P' continue, despite the odd misstep and disappointment. It's no good taking these failures personally say when someone you've been working hard with on a more positive future still chooses to imbibe in P. I just do my little haka, then pick myself up and continue to move forward.

The Mokai Whanau Ora project in Wellington, being run through the Consultancy Advocacy and Research Trust (CART), has taken on a life of its own. CART's 'Mokai Whanau Ora' programme aims to improve the health and wellbeing of the 'nga mokai' population, predominantly comprised of urban Maori primarily living in central city and southern suburbs of Wellington. This population can be hard to reach and difficult to deal with. It suffers from severe social and economic disadvantage, and falls into a number of high risk groups for poor health and nutrition statistics.

The Mokai Whanau Ora challenge has been cast in several directions. In one direction it is a challenge to the community of nga mokai whanau, particularly to the mums, dads, and older siblings to define their own future and to take control of that future. Our whole strategy pivots off the idea of building whanau future narrative. This is where we look to derive the necessary traction for life-changing behaviours. Once the nga mokai whanau have implicitly indicated a desire for a better future, and then made it explicit in a whanau plan, the challenge they face becomes their own, and, instead of being nanny-state-like insisting on 'don't do this', we can work beside them and help them achieve what they themselves want. These are probably going to be the same as what the State wants for them anyway (good housing, good health, good education, good jobs, good taxpaying citizen) except these will be in the whanau's language and in the hierarchy of priorities as determined by them.

It's true that our Nga Mokai whanau can be hard to reach and difficult to deal with but equally, sometimes often, government departments and service agencies can be difficult to deal with too, bureaucratic and unforgiving. It's humbling to admit but, in Wellington virtually every organisation or service that we have tried to access has been more than willing to help. Besides the Police this includes the Wellington City Council, Housing New Zealand, Newtown Union Health, the local PHO, the Ministry of Health and the District Health Board.

The relationship with the DHB has had a transformational impact. This exemplifies one of the unseen impacts of the health reforms and that is the 'growing up' of community organisations in terms of their capabilities. The push and pull that comes with a DHB contract means that CART has had to grow systems, grow structure, grow medium term strategies. Prior to working with the DHB CART had more or less been conditioned to progress from one project to another with relatively short term gains or shore ups. The accountabilities contingent in the DHB contracts coupled with the proactive approach to audit and to capability development that has been taken by the DHB has lifted both expectation and performance.

The Mokai Whanau Ora project in Wellington has confirmed that a lack of education and employment are the two main barriers to living a healthy lifestyle for our target population. There are a number of implicit interdependencies in the relationship between good health and employment stretching from views of self worth through to enjoying a sustainable economy (as opposed to living in poverty). On the basis of meritocracy modern day New Zealand society holds individual culpability for success. Education and employment are the exemplary conduits. We acknowledge and support this but remind mainstream society that some sectors start from so far behind the 'get go' mark that social justice requires lateral thinking to achieve a 'fair go'. Some aroha is called for.

In any case, since the project started a large proportion of the previously unemployed rangatahi within the target population are now employed - or are undertaking education courses which are positioned as being a prerequisite to employment. Employment is usually gained through a virtuous circle of nga mokai networking amongst themselves. Those who have gained employment have displayed maturity and are living healthy lifestyles, through playing sport and abstaining from drugs and taking less alcohol. In terms of shifting a population's behaviour these are the opinion leaders.

On the other hand the employment gained tends to be unskilled. It is often tied to the property development market and holds uncertain futures, and little possibility for career advancements. Accordingly the project leaders have set the goal to develop a skilled workforce amongst Nga Mokai whanau. Many of the rangatahi have been keen to learn a skilled trade. Six kotiro rangatahi (young women) are enrolled in a hospitality tourism course. Seven of the tane (men) are taking daily classes through the Correspondence School, supported by a CART tutor, to get their NCEA credits in English and mathematics - prerequisites to getting an apprenticeship or even becoming a grunt in the army. Hell, New Zealanders aren't even allowed to get shot at without their NCEA Level 1's.

Often, try as we might, someone's track record to date, or their appearance may mean that they aren't going to get a traditional job. It may well be that Nga Moaki are condemned to be 'entrepreneurs of necessity' so, just as with Lawns R Us in Hawke's Bay CART has established a roofing Company, " Prolong Roofing", through which it is training rangatahi and giving employment. The roofing business is going well and we'll probably extend the activity line into insulation as well.

A large number of our target community in Wellington are now playing competitive sport, softball, touch, rugby league in the winter months and kickboxing. Through all this the rangatahi seem to have settled down. The majority are keeping themselves busy with work, sport and employment as opposed to abusing drugs and alcohol and causing mischief. For some members of the rangatahi, staying out of trouble is a big turn around. The fuss and bother - moral panic - over the Darksiders has subsided. A leader of the rangatahi approached CART for help to set up a kickboxing gym. He has been doing kickboxing with Evolve with 10 of the rangatahi. More of the rangatahi are keen to join but the classes are already full. CART has now taken out a medium term lease on an under-utilised community hall in Strathmore and is working with community leaders to set up systems in order to make a self sufficient community gym.

In addition to work, improved diet and fitness, research suggests that a big impact health improvement area would be to improve the housing of our target whanau. They tend to be highly mobile and often living in over crowded conditions in forever 'temporary' circumstances. CART has hooked up with Community Housing Aotearoa and through them began dialogue with Housing New Zealand Corporation and through them the Wellington Housing Trust with the medium term aim of entering the community housing sector and to assist whanau to develop clusters of supported housing within the general geography of south east and central Wellington.

There's a lot more I can say about the progress in Wellington, but crikey next year eh!

When I wrote the previous blog (12) I was on a bit of a low. I'd begun to recognize that in my own behaviour (feet of clay) there were the signs of burnout. I decided to get a grip on my own use of the dreaded booze.

To start me on my way I went down to a health education centre -Pujjis - a 'retreat' on the Maitai River, Nelson run by Arvind and Jane Pujji. I'd first met Arvind and Jane with one of my kaumatua Pakeha, Dr. Ian Prior, on a visit there a couple of years ago. Pujjis offer a mix of Eastern and Western traditions in healing and I like what they do. I'd asked around amongst my professional colleagues seeking a place to heal, and looked at a number of services here and in Australia, but, of them all, Pujjis seemed to be the best place to start.

It was a good choice. There are only four guest bedrooms and more or less the place ticks along much like a family home. As a bonus Pujjis is also the headquarters of the Nelson Bollywood Club, of which the visitor receives complimentary if not almost compulsory membership.

On my first day there I sorted out a programme. I was physically lethargic, emotionally stressed, overweight and overdrinking. The programme went more or less like this. One day to arrive and to sort out a plan; for me this was seven days of fasting and a couple of days of being reintroduced to food. The daily schedule started sometime after you woke. Popular choices were to start with a walk or with a spa. Breakfast followed. Everyone ate together even those following the fast.

Those fasting have vegetable juice or fruit juice and various unpalatable but essential supplements that go with the fast. Once these had digested we did yoga and then followed a period of meditation. At some point there'd be an hour long session of deep tissue massage. We'd be encouraged to take walks, drink lots of water, and use the sauna and spa as often as we liked. It wasn't all that hard and in fact it seemed to be very energizing.

I read and read. I read books I'd started on but never finished; Fik's great tome 'The War for Civilsation' and Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'. I read new books including a somewhat laboured pseudo-historical novel about Ireland called, well, 'Ireland Awakening' (Edward Rutheford). Bill Bryson's delightful autobiography 'The Thunderbolt Kid', Paul Theroux's 'Blinding Light', Gerald Hensley's 'Final Approaches' and Jon Johanson's 'Two Titans', a comparative study of the leadership styles of Lange and Muldoon.

This latter book moved me greatly. Both men had problems with alcohol. I previously never knew about Muldoon's depression and his shaking fits. I knew him as a drinker from personal experience but I suppose its not until you go through some form of distress yourself that you start to identify behaviour patterns and then recognize them in others as you do in yourself.

However, I can see that I've broken the cycle of my habit though, and now I enjoy deliberately not drinking, going to booze-intensive events and foregoing a drink even when the ale is looking particularly cool and thirst quenching and the wine seems seductive and alluring.

The same with kai. I've changed my eating habits dramatically. Along with red wine, red meat was a big part of my diet. I now find myself choosing other foods and being much more conscious of my portions. My last tastes before going on the seven day fast were within a delicious salad, and that memory has stuck with me. It's a buzz to go out into the garden and pick fresh asparagus, herbs, lettuce, celery, fresh fruit, and make a salad. I found my perceptions of taste have changed and flavours now seem to be more intense.

I've lost about 15kg but Christmas will be a challenge for sure so I've bought a bike, and use of that, alongside regular attendance in the 'gardening gym', is intended to better balance the 'food-in:power-out' ratio.

In further pursuit of self-repair, on the advice of a couple of people I respect, I also signed up for a Landmark Forum and went to Auckland for a three day programme. Landmark Education Trust offer a personal transformational process. I pulled out on the third day, resisting transformation in the terms offered.

Landmark describe themselves as an educational organisation. There are polarized views about them, the best thing since sliced bread at one end of the spectrum and accusations of being a cult at the other. You can Google the pros and cons to your heart's content. For me, I saw some people going through what I believe will turn out to be positive and life changing experiences.

I might again claim the insight of the adaptive unconscious -learning from my own experience in 'transformational change management' - but I found too much dissonance arising from too many aspects of the process: the heavy pyramid-sales-like structure; the consistent sales pressure to upsize and extend; the presence of so many adulating acolytes (called 'volunteers') as staff. I recognized techniques that are used in the psychological management of groups, and one session that absolutely applied the technique of group hypnotism. It was all quite ethical, no one was forced or unduly coerced and I'm not going to dump on Landmark nor anyone who finds the process worthwhile, but on third day I came to the conclusion that it wasn't for me and I got the fuck out of there. No regrets, moans or accusations.

A month or two back we in Napier had a visit from Theodore Dalrymple a right wing essayist and columnist from England. Dalrymple - his actual name is Anthony Daniels - was brought out by the Sensible Sentencing Trust. I'd heard him previously at the Beehive, hosted by ACT, and introduced even in those hallowed halls as his pen-name, Theodore Dalrrymple. Like his assumed name the guy is a caricature. Plum-mouthed and fruity he pumps right-wing tabloid-like views that promote the imprisonment industry. For instance on 9 November in an article in the NZ Herald, having first come to the conclusion it was too dangerous to go out in downtown Napier after dark he further opined;

"It is difficult to escape the conclusion that New Zealand is a country in which young men may with impunity attack old ladies with murderous intensity. Indeed, the Government might as well issue them with an invitation to do so."

This is mischief making. It's the old whiteman form of social vandalism, metaphorically smashing the letterboxes of a whole town. Give the man a cup of milk and Bovril, settle him down with a hottie, and tell him to use the name his mum and dad gave him. The monsters will be gone in the morning.

At home I've seen the seasons roll on. The ginko block is lush and green. The apricots have come and gone. The plum trees are full and I've had to thin the stone and pipfruit trees. In the garden the asparagus has just about done its dash but there's enough for breakfast or lunch, scalded, drizzled with lemon juice, and with a little pepper. The plantings for Christmas are doing well. We're on track for about three varieties of Maori spuds, lots of salad veges, and kamokamo for Christmas Day. My sweetcorn might even make it too.

Early next year I'm off again to the Parihaka Peace Festival (January 5,6,7). There's an awesome line up of musicians and we have gathered together a crew ready to do presentations about P and how to combat its use.

On March we're planning an Irish Maori St Patrick's Day; Hui and Huilli. Frankie Stevens is going to be the MC for an evening event at the Napier Golf Club, Waiohiki called Ceilli and Kai. During the day we will have series of events at the Waiohiki Creative Arts Village, a Mass in Maori, a Celtic Maori arts exhibition and the arts auction, and a forum where, in the tradition of Irish Storytelling people can tell their family tale(s). There'll be music and laughter to be sure.

The Governor General, Anand Satyanand, has agreed to come, as has a man with a great Irish Maori name, Sir Tipene O'Regan. I'll tell you more about this all next year, but in the meantime, by way of your Christmas card, here's a taste of the promotion featuring a 'bro'chaun', Dick Frizzell's rendition of a Maori leprechaun. God Bless. Merry Christmas. Let love be the word, let it be, let it be. Arohanui. Denis.

  
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