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What level of organisation does the black militant movement of Australia have among the ordinary black people. What sort of contact do you have with these people?
Well yes when we have a demonstration in Canberra we bus people in from Melbourne and Wollongong. This takes a lot of organisation but we don't have any formal organisation, it is a collection of individuals. If you want to work you work. Shoot off thats cool, no dues no membership-just got to be black.
The Embassy is a bringing together of people over the land rights issue.
What sort of support do these groups have among the people?The panthers for instance do they have much contact with the people?
Some of the groups have very little. The Panthers have a good deal of contact with the people. Their support comes mainly from the young who have come off the mission. This is not financial support because people who come off Sherbery Mission dont have any money.
Where then does the money come from?
They don't have any. They are very often starving have nowhere to live. They have been evicted from their H.Q's for not paying their rent. Dennis Walker who leads the Panthers previously ran National Tribal Council and this ran on Govt. funds. When Federal Govt. finds out they are financing a fight against State Govt, the money stops. So now the don't support the National Tribal Council nor the Black Panthers.
Is there any way of overcoming a Govt, blockade on these channels of communication with tribal leaders?
Only personal representation, and this is very difficult especially on reserves. It is only possible to overcome these difficulties by going to the people which costs a lot of money. Money that we do not have.
Apart from the issue of land rights which has come to the fore with the Embassy, What other issues are of particular concern to you?
Combatting Police brutality. Combatting malnutrition. Trying to give the people something to work for, some hope for the future. Setting up food and housing co-operatives for instance.
What then, is your plan of campaign in this area?
In Sydney a legal advisary service, where we take cases for free, and file charges of assault against the police where this occurs.
Do you get support from the legal profession — the law societies for this service?
We get concentrated, sincere support from individuals. They are so dedicated we practically heve to make them work for themselves occasionally. They spend nights down at the watch house waiting for blacks to come in, when the cops bring a black through the door they leap up and say I want to defend this man.
What of the possibility of armed struggle? Would this be to defend Aboriginal land rather than all out urban warfare.
Yes.
What is the overding philosophy of groups working in this area- are they socialists?
Yes but not the sort of socialists socialists are. The tribal structure of the interior is socialist even though the people dont know it. They practise socialism.
But does the movement have any view of the Australia they want for all Australians?
They surely don't have time to keep voicing their opinions in this area in the movement. They question whether marxism relates to them.
Do these Unions bring pressure by way of direct action?
No. Though on the Brockman issue they were just about ready to ban boats from Western Australia. But their support generally comes by way of money, or representations.
Just what was the Brockman case about?
Due to Rural recession Lionel Brockman became unemployed. He has 11 children. He went across the country trying to find help and employment. He broke into a shop and stole food for his family and they caught him and put him in jail. Four days before his sentence ran out his wife came and told him that they were going to put the kids in orphanages so he broke out and went bush with his wife and his kids. He was out for 6 months. He stole food, stole a gun from a farmhouse so he could shoot kangaroos. Despite the fact that the Govt. had 4 wheel drive vehicles, light aircraft and armed vigilantes they were unable to catch him for 6 months. They put 55 charges on him to justify the tremendous expense of catching him. They now have him in jail for 3½ years.
This was then an issue that raised public opinion?
No, Public awareness. This was more a campaign to gather black support for an issue not pertaining to their own lives.
You mobilised a lot of public support over the Brockman issue.
Amongst blacks yes. There is often a great deal of divergence amongst groups. They will oppose and have just because it came from such and such a group, we overcame this by approaching organisations as individuals. We activated people up and down the whole coast.
Aiming at what. Disruption of the reserve administrations?
No, just establishing communication at this point The reserves are in the hands of managers and Govt. appointed Uncle Toms.
What rule of law applies on reserves? Is the same that applies to all Australians, or does the manager invent as he goes along?
He doesn't need to invent it. He has a book of rules that tell him what he can and can't do, he then interprets them any way he wants.
Assuming a black commits some petty crime will he be sentenced by the manager to prison in the reserve?
It depends on whether he is a good nigger.
If he is a bad nigger?
He could be imprisioned for 6 weeks on the managers say so.
On the issue of land rights, just what did the Blackburn decision meant to these landrights?
The Blackburn decision quite simply states that the Australian Govt. recognises no previously organised society. Effectively this means that we are a non-existent people descendents of non-existent people therefore entirely without land rights.
What then of the Gurinjes claim against Vetseys? This is probably the most prominent issue of aboriginal land rights over the last couple of years.
Their claim shows we can rely on support from the tribes people. They only know know they are staying where they want to stay. They know nothing of the structure of Govt. in Australia but their state has been a shining example to the milttants in all the urban areas. The supposedly ignorant uneducated blacks can go ahead and do what we have been talking about for a long time.
This question appears to have been a rallying point for white liberals, was there any value in their support?
Yes. Because at that time we didn't have the organisational ability to muster our own people around this issue. They were able to find out for instance the subsiduarys of Vestey's so we could call an effective boycott. We had no access to information like that. You can be darn sure that in the administration only whites could have access to this sort of information.
Vesteys have now said that they are willing to let the Gurinjes stay at Wattle creek and it is only the Govt. that is proving difficult. What line of of action is intended to protect them?
Well the Gurinjes have put up their fences. They are not willing to go to the expense of going to court for another land rights decision after Blackburn decision last year. They see the futility of working along these lines.
Have any steps been taken to remove the Gurinjes from this land?
No the Govt, thinks it can sit there and starve them out.
Are they succeeding?
Thanks to the White Liberals no, we dont have the money to spend on food or trucks or anything white liberals have.
What will it mean if they win this battle - will it force the government to reconsider the issue?
Well I don't think they're going to win the battle - the Govt. may allow them to put their fence up.
The Northern Territory would be a special problem for aboriginals in that being federally administered, I guess it would almost be one big reserve?
No. On a reserve you get handouts.
Are there any glaring differences between the legal rights of whites and non whites?
Not in theory. But they have no access to political education and no knowledge of the political structure of the country, they have no knowledge of the existence of Canberra.
Australia has compulsory voting Joes the Govt, take steps to ensure the registration of black people?
No.
Queensland is renowned for its bad treatment of the blacks. In that state are there differences in legal rights?
Yes in Queensland we have different legislation. Recent changes in that legislation make it applicable only to those who live in reserves. There even officially there is a different law. Off the reserves this occurs in practise by for instance selective prosecution by the police.
Are the blacks affected by compulsory education?
Yes, where there are schools they are compelled to attend school. They are all educated in the Western oriented education system. It goes so far The Tribal naming system gives every body one name. On the first day you turn up at school you are given two European names. These become your legal names. They dont teach you to write down your tribal name and it becomes ignored. This leads to a lot of confusion. The children go home and they don't know who the hell they are. The tribes have accused the teachers of stealing their children. They know whats going on. The children are taught to look on the own language with shame, their own family with shame.
Do the tribes attempt to keep their children away from school?
Yes, some tribesmen went to a school threatening the guy, telling him that if he didn't stop stealing their children they'd put a spear through him. The guy wet his pants on the way to Canberra to tell them.
Do you regard education as one of your main concerns?
If you want a bunch of militants then educate them. But they see the whole education system as a soul destroying process and want to avoid putting people through the same type of racist education system.
Do you have any difficulty talking with the ordinary black - for instance the fringe dweller?
I don't have any trouble, but some of the guys are viewed with suspicion. Its all a matter of how you do it. We each have to evolve a particular met hod by which we win their confidence. But some guy could undo the good work I've already done in the Northern Territory. They could do this very easily, if I got arrested they could distort it. They could say I was arrested for working against the people and that I am an enemy of the people.
How serious a threat does the Australian Govt. regard you and people like you?
They regard me as a threat but they won't arrest us on political charges like sedition. They like to arrest us for assault-things like that. But most of our people have been arrested for something. I must be one of the few blacks in Australia who has never been arrested. For those who have it leads to difficulites. They can never run for Parliament even if we wanted to elevate them to that position.
Do you have any thoughts of running people for Parliament?
No, but individuals have thoughts of running themselves.
You for instance?
No, there is too much buggerising round that distracts you the people. You must play footsies with too many white people when I'd rather be talking to black people.
Are there any answers to your problems in the Parliamentary system?
Well we will try out a different Govt. at the end of the year. If they don't perform we will know that both Govt. parties are up the shit. Those are already our thoughts but we will try them. But we must activate people on an individual basis—and many of our people know no other system.
They are not Uncle Toms they just know no other alternative.
During the course of the recent anti-apartheid conference at VUW I was dismayed and disgusted by the actions of the so-called President of NZUSA, David Cuthbert. I was appalled by the curt and often rude manner in which he conducted his chairmanship in his sessions in the chair, particularly his last - his disgusting lack of courtesy and his manner in dealing with would-be-speakers was a disgrace to the name of NZUSA.
It seems to me that at such a conference when students are trying to constructively, fight a major problem to have a yelling and arrogant leader officially representing the student body is far from the best way to convince the public of our sincerity. That this man did harm to the student image cannot be denied for I heard several complaints and also several disenchanted members of the public who thought, and knew, that we could produce better. Is It possible to get rid of him?
As an amused observer of the moronic masses it has been my good fortune lately to end up at a number of 'rock' concerts. What pathetic spectacles! Are real students among the gormless gatherers who stand or loaf around for hours, 'rocked' motionless, speechless, thoughtless? Just staring, while the noisemakers, pretentious conmen who even describe themselves as musicians, churn out their cacophony. Noise deliberately amplified, to compel the audience into passive acceptence, rendering criticism impossible. The audience reaction at these concerts is just as uncreative as the noise is uncreated, rather the reaction is 'duped' and the noise 'arranged'. How long will it be before somebody puts on tape a mixture of the ravings from a Nuremburg Nazi rally and the clatterings of dustman, speed them up a few tones, end propagates the noise as 'rock music'?
With parking space for student vehicles already reaching desperation point, you would think that the tower echelons of the University bureaucracy would have the guts to consider it. No. What do we find. The bastard who stops student vehicles entering an exclusive parked area above the university now decides not to allow our vehicles to be parked outside the Lecture block on Kelburn Parade (a space which can take up to 17 cars) If the government really wants to give us less money we could use what little we have by reducing the number of irrelevant, ignorant and unsympathetic clods in peaked hats and a fuzz like uniform.
Following the SRC debate on March 15.—It is clear that there is a serious shortage of accommodation for student activities of many kinds and
Nevertheless the debate clearly challenged the Christian community to take another look at the space at present at its disposal (The Chaplains Room, the SCM Cabin and Ramsey House) in the light of its own needs and the general need of the university. That the Christian community is sensitive to these needs is demonstrated by their willingness not so long ago to give up the Quiet Room in order that it might be converted into offices for the Student President and the Accommodation Officer. Also the Chaplaincy Board, at the suggestion of the Anglican Diocesan University Committee, is considering proposals for a co-operative Chaplaincy Centre which, if it eventuates, would further add to the space available for student use.
But the Chaplains and the Christian community must not dodge the challenge of that debate by citing their past record; they must keep the situation continually under review and make a positive contribution in the future.
I do not know how one is supposed to learn properly in this institution. Having no accommodation and therefore living two miles and twenty minutes by bus, I arrive exhausted after battling the eternal wind as I climb the 130 vertical steps from town. Climbing up to find a classroom so overcrowded that it is virtually impossible to take notes without jabbing my elbow into the person next to me. Trying to hear the Professor read his notes, the same of which he has obviously read for the past ten years, is almost impossible over the rattling of the windows and creaking of the seats, both of which are on the verge of collapse.
Unable to buy my needed books as they are on order from America, which will take twelve weeks, I wait my way up to the Closed Reserve desk to find the books are either in use not in the library or unable to be found! As I am not so fast runner, I make the third floor of the library too late and find the only books left on my subjects are now obsolete. It is perhaps just as well as my name has been next on the temporary library card list for one week and I'm tired of being told perhaps it is ready 'now'. Feeling depressed I try to find cheer by reading all the Jesus advertisements and wonder if I should laugh or cry.
Unable to find a seat in the cafeteria for lunch I start off in search of a toilet. After wandering the Hunter building, I am told the Student Union is well equipped with those sort of facilities. Finally after finding what I need in the Rankine Brown, I struggle my way through the crowds and find indeed if I wait long enough I can have my privacy. After being burned by the hot water tap, as the cold does not work, I find my next class is about to begin. Unfortunately no one knows where the tutorial is to be held. After walking in a group for fifteen minutes we finally are led to an old empty house with lots of uncomfortable floor upon which to sit. We sit through a supposed discussion, in which the tutorial Head explains for twenty-five minutes what our Professor in that subject has been trying to say in lectures, to again battle the wind back to the University Buildings.
The noise of drills and hammers does keep me awake during my next class, but willing to show good sense of humour, I decide to be friendly to a fellow sheep sitting beside me. My mouth soon shuts self-conciously, though, as I am mistaken for a "Yank" and stored at with a mixture of distrust and dislike.
I again walk down the 130 steps to my overcrowded bus which costs me 30c a day and back to home sweet home - no wiser academically, but perhaps gaining somewhat in the realization that life must get better.
I have two things to say about Peter Simpson's letter in your last issue. One is reasonable but the other may not be.
Firstly, Peter Simpson has based his whole rave on the premise that the demonstrators will be agitating out of hatred. This is not so. I will be demonstrating against the tour because of my unemotional love for the blacks and whites. I may be provoked to violence indeed. But my violence towards a white player or police
Peter Simpson's emerging intelligence re love has not come far enough, it seems. Which brings me to my second point - perhaps these are but pseudo-philosophical reflections of his because the weak headed ending of his letter negates any claim he may have to reasoning ability. In fact I suspect that such literally airy fairy hippie drivel is more truly typical of his thinking. The dubious and arbitrary but quasi-philosophical musings are but a blind, and we may accurately infer from the flower power sing-song towards the end of his fetter that he has presented but another gutless rationalisation, another political patsy's excuse for political inaction.
Peter Boshier's letter provokes interesting thoughts. The Vice-Chancellor's conditions of appointment are public property, some were published in the papers at the time the vacancy was advertised. Increases in allowance have been referred to by the student reps on Council from time to time. The following are the important details:
Ninety-nine point nine percent of New Zealenders spend the whole of their lives trying to acheive b and c and we all know the struggle especially to own a house.
It is well known that the university Is amidst a period of financial difficulty. A recent instance according to an earlier issue of Salient is the library while science departments are desperate for funds to purchase equipment. Yet money was available to buy a new Mercedes. We should not lose sight of the fact that the fees we pay are part of the general funds of the university and are available for these purposes. Bearing in mind such events as the Arts' Festival of a year ago, students would do well to reflect upon the matter and also ourselves whether we can afford the luxury of being represented at the Here-taunga golf course mid week and at other social gatherings. The savings would be in the thousands of dollars and the money would be like University.
You, Mr Petersen, have obviously forgotten the purpose for which you were given the editorship of Salient for this year. Perhaps you did get pretty bitter and twisted first having to put up with Harcourt when you just knew you were better and then having the chance to prove it last year letting Logan get the better of you and push through Cruickshank to your editorship. After all Dave had some sense of journalistic integrity and everyone knows that's not nearly as good or satisfying as being a mealy-mouthed little prick and letting it all hang out.
Sure students suffer pain from individual intellectual activity so don't give a stuff about our homegrown womens' liberationists but your own appeal simply demonstrates your own fellowship with the illiterati since anyone knows the 'homegrowns' are all motivated primarily by Fyson's ratbag lefty Mormons. That your diatribr Germaine Who? in last Salient got no response so far is probably evidence (or is it a reflection of how far who reads your rag). Don't think I want your job - no - that's up to the Richard Norman's who don't know better than to envy the condemned man his personal treatment. I do think It's fucking awful form though to be lured into worrying about the proletariat - just Imagine being answerable to SCM. However Salient is financed by the student populace and is the assn's attempt to remedy or (ameliorate the situation instead of giving elitist pricks like you a chance to insult their tender pride. Antagonising your readers won't wake them up and God help you if you do succeed going about it by mean-mouthing them. Anyway you're a fool to think one trite article on generalities could do it. The function of the student In this outfit is not to be blackmailed or blackjacked into thinking for himself/herself for starters - its to receive the easiest means to the easiest life and thinking is a drag to most - at best seen as an extracurricular activity on the same level as drug taking is taboo Good students don't have inflamed consciences over womens' rights, race problems, wars and the' rest and to change that would just make them upset. After all it's the exclusivism of being a really bad student that makes it interesting so don't knock the library crew since I'm sure you'd be out on your arse if students just read your paper properly - and knew how bad the editor is Bitter righteousness probably stands alone as opportunity par excellence for witty, interesting journalistic invective and in 'Germaine Who' you lacked the slightest subtlety and interest for that matter. However that was more in Cruickshanks line and you coudn't possibly copy his simple love of the absurd (call it contrary) even at the expense of turning out a readable newspaper. Neither do I support Salient 71 since you both fell too easily to hating your benevolent bosses for their lack of perception in knowing a bad publication when they had it thrown at them each week. Cruickshank was at least possessing of some sense of subtlety and feel for the language which quality you have not yet shown yourself to possess.
Running a newspaper virtually on your own is pretty hard work I know Petersen, especially unfulfilling when your readership are pig ignorant and unconcerned about the shit in their own bed but I just can't help thinking were you even to raise a sound the likes of you would be first against the wall.
But I'm a liberal at heart myself and am ready and willing to give marks for impersonations of Dave Harcourt perhaps some day God will feel sorry for you and give you some credit on a few of the brains Harcourt had that you haven't. The character deficiencies are just about spot-on though Gill - keep trying.
Don't think I'm standing judgement on your attitudes to students it's your conceptions that are all wrong. The concept of a questioning, intelligent, aware university apart from being impossible is an ideal based on the utilization of a raw material intelligent individualists. If you think it's the other way round, that the university makes miracles of the native of granting sight those born blind than a little more realism could go a long way. Students don't want to cars and allowing yourself to get bitter over congenital mediocrity bodes ill for you once you get to see what it's like beyond Salient office and your University.
Why waste time belabouring the impossible losing reputation and credibility. Because you can see between one set of lines is not to guarantee against yourself being one upped, and you've obviously been unable to realize the beneficial results to be enjoyed of an ignorant people or alternatively the dangers of a tittle vision in the hands of children. Count your blessings—ulcers can be useful. No-one's changed the world by bitching and only the fool enjoys the fellowship of other fools. Salient has the tools to mould student opinion so why not try using them for this purpose instead of wasting your opportunities to come out on top by indulging your personal antisocial tendencies in puerile and unrealistic invective.
Please dont print this and justify my suspicions that you are, in fact afraid of public criticism.
[If this magic christian would identify himself as openly as his sour gripe letter is published (there are too many christians here now but most of them are no longer ashamed of their identities), then perhaps we could re-arrange our differences. If he will not, then he is advised to address his future mail to the counselling service. Salient is not a psycho-analyst's office, not for individuals anyway.
"T.M. Christian's" remarks about my personality deserve no place here. His comments about this year's Salient imitating the
I was fascinated by George Rosenberg's ball by ball commentary on the front page of Salient March 15. But surely the title 'Unjustifiable Violence at Mt. John' could have been popped up a little.
Why not "Sadistic Circumcision of Suggate" - or How He Became One of Us by George Rosen-burg would have read better! Or if too near the bone, as it were, perhaps Suggate Circumscribed? (Blame the proof-readers).
Cut out the crap! I agree.
But let's be fair. There are no detergents in New Zealand that are not bio-degradabje, but it is true that ordinary soap like 'Sun-fight' will do a perfectly adequate job for you.
The minimum percentage of free alkali in laundry soaps permitted in New Zealand is 0.015% and the maximum is 0.036%. Samples of sunlight soap which I have analysed have contained as much as 0.048% free alkali, being up to three times the permitted level.
For the benefit of readers who value their curly locks might I suggest that they treat with some caution the advice to use sunlight rather than shampoos on their" hair, because it may start falling out.
Every year you've read the editorials ex-horting you to contribute to your newspaper. Saying that this newspaper will be what You make it. Maybe even daring to imply that you'll get what you deserve. Well, it's true enough, and so as not to to disappoint you, here's another such editorial!
Actually, that you'll get what you deserve is not quite true. This cliche is true when applied to politicians. And when applied to the editorial staff of your average daily newspaper, especially the evening paper. Such papers are no more than a drug, a secular opiate of the people. The content is the same every night, the style never changes. If you have ever lived in a country area where the paper comes a day late, you will have noticed that the date makes no difference - it's only the habit, the drug, of getting the newspaper and settling back to read it that is important.
This, however, is a university paper. And whether or not you deserve it you may not get it. It is not a drug, rather it is or should be "the focus of all the intelligent academic, political and cultural thinking" that should be going on. Or, if you don't like 'focus' how about' medium for catharsis Or how abour 'bursting pimple'. Anyway, the fact is, if there Is no mental or cultural activity going on, there may be no Salient. There will be no better thing than a newsheet. So in that sense, it is up to you!
But, as it happens, you have got better than you deserve. If there is no contribution nor reaction from you, we will go on putting out a paper. But it will be Our paper, and you will have neither right nor space to criticise. You have got better than you deserve because we've got ideas to push, maybe even esoteric ideas, but yearning to see themselves in print. When we cease to publish of you and for you, we cease to be a newspaper or even a journal and we become a propaganda machine, which, come to think of it, while its not what you deserve, may be what you need.
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
Advertising - Brian Pratt (758-684)
Roger Green(793-319)
Printed by the Wanganui Chronicle. Box 433, Wanganui end published by the Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association, BOX 196, Wellington.
The campus will be open to the public on Tuesday the eleventh of April from 9am to 5pm. This is an annual arrangement whereby ordinary people and senior school pupils get a glimpse of your actual student at work and play.
So the public can go away satisfied that may now know why, the administra allows them to attend lectures and to poke around as they wish, and the Student Association arranges tours, displays and occurences for their edification.—A full day's spectacle is guaranteed.
In truth, past open days have not been much different from any other days, only with more people. This year we are attempting to achieve a similar result. This will involve much delicate planning and split second coordination, and to this end the Students Association have been fortunate to gain services of two experienced planners and coordinators, namely Bernard Avery and Allan Bradley.
However, even such men as these cannot be in more than a modest number of places at once, so they wish to enlist the services of a body of intrepid persons to act as guides. This exacting role will require courage, fortitude diplomacy and fluency in not less than seven languages (males too, will be welcome). Also good strong sandals, It means leading parties to salient points and browbeating them about the structure and function of the outfit. Just think there may be tips from the grateful.
The campus tours will coordinate with library tours and (hopefully) such events as a Jenny McLeod music Festival outside Hunter, dance theatre, karate, fencing outside Rankine-Brown, and displays in the University Union. (If Jenny McLeod, dancers, karate and fencing types don't know about this yet, will they please get in touch with their nearest Stud. Ass, office)—Also all those who want use of display boards and haven't been contacted.
The gym and select hostels too, have been chosen to participate as hosts to the throngs.
Make this your day at university. Choice spots in which to lounge and picnic will be available, and neither will hot water. Please do not give the public any inkling of what makes the average student tick or they will go away disappointed.
Applicants for plum jobs on the day will be screened and selected after they've signed the begging notices carefully hidden at key points. If you haven't read this you probably won't know that open day. April the eleventh this year is about one week away.
V.U.W. has been moving toward consistent assigning of part of course marks to work done before the final exams. This move seems to have been made for a variety of reasons. One argument for the system, advanced in a faculty meeting, was that it would keep the customers working all year instead of just before finals. The customers seem to like the idea partly because it reduces the threatening nature of finals.
In an ideal University no grades or degrees would be given and people would attend only if they wanted to find out or create something. Those who wanted status, promotion chances, or a ticket to carry for the rest of their lives would have no cause to appear there. There are plenty of reasons why this sort of institution might not exist. However, there are also excellent reasons why it should remain an ideal. The finest intellectual achievements are made by people who are committed to their work, often pursuing it without social support or recognition or, if necessary, in the face of considerable obstacles. In some cases, success and recognition actually seem to destroy the ability to produce.. The University needs people who want to find out, to produce, to make a contribution to knowledge. It does not need people who want to be constantly assured they are getting nearer and nearer a final stamp of approval.
The 'older' system of assigning marks only at the end of year certainly has disadvantages, though these are often the result of poor examining practices. At least it does leave students a large portion of the year in which they might become involved in their subjects without preoccupation with external rewards, or punishments. Assignments not carrying finals marks can be approached in a more self-motivated way. Side issues can be explored and unconventional interpretations tried without preoccupation with external rewards, or punishments. Assignments not carrying finals marks can be approached in a more self-motivated way. Side issues can be explored and unconventional interpretations tried without prejudicing finals marks. Of course many students do little work during the year and often scramble through with a great last minute effort. But, we are fools if we modify our system to accomodate students who prefer, or will not work without reward in the form of marks. In doing this we would make the University inhospitable to the people it needs most.
On completing his exams, Einstein found the coercion of cramming made the consideration of any scientific problem distasteful for a full year. If present trends at Victoria continue, any future Einstein and any lesser versions of him, might not get as far as a final exam let alone drag themselves through a degree. If a change is needed it is a change to less frequent, not more frequent grading.
If the threat of finals causes students to become unhinged by fear, then why not reduce some of the fearinducing properties of exams? Why not, for a start, reduce the anxiety-provoking effect of uncertainty by making exam questions, or at least more details about them public? Why not discuss questions in advance? Why not have students suggest questions? Why not let them set their own question? My argument against reducing the importance of finals by spreading marks over the whole year could be supported, at some points, by research evidence. However, rather than appeal to the authority of research studies which readers are unlikely to check, I hope that the truth will at last be self evident and the new and supposedly liberal system will be seen for what it is: a system suited to children at an intermediate stage of motivational development where external rewards are all-important.
I am for joining the revolution, but please let it go up not down.
Strangely, it looks as if the Anti-Apartheid Conference may succeed in spite of the stupidity of certain individuals.
This was a Conference which displayed an encouraging amount of common sense and tolerence. One document distributed, Care's Operation Prism form, demonstrated what we consider to be an ideal approach to a left wing issue. The principle of offering a varied range of activity, so that all those wishing to express their revulsion against a Springbok team of racist Apartheid ambassadors may participate, is excellent. Under the one organisation there is room for activity to suit any conscience; from a mere donation ranging to passive or really vigorous protest. This gives Prism a solid basis for successful action, and the operation will probably be more effective than Hart in the coming battles.
In our manifesto we referred to demands made by Parties on their members. Sure enough, at the Conference we were treated to a display of this in the form of Selwyn Devereaux from the Communist Party.
Despite the general atmosphere of common sense and common purpose, Devereaux attempted to ignore reality in favour of the Party line. We though that after being rubbished twice he may have shut up and entered into the spirit of the Conference. But he persisted in pushing the line that South African racism and fascism is really only a manifestation of class struggle - in spite of the ample evidence of Conference speakers who had experienced the brutality of Apartheid, that this is not the case. Devereaux made a prick of himself - in sharp contrast to some other Communists present.
We hear that Devereaux was highly pissed off with the rapport between Bill Richards, the old Communist battler from Dunedin, and George Goddard, one of the so-called Manson/Bailey group of Wellington ex-Communists. We couldn't help getting the impression that these Wellington ex-Communists were trying to use Richards in practising some political imperialism on South Island comrades.
The Fyson Elitskyist Sal'ers took another drubbing when they tried a takeover in one of the working parties. True to Trotskyist tradition, after their defeat they left the Conference dragging their tales behind them.
Another minor feature of the Conference which we found irritating and unnecessary was the fondness of some speakers for the sound of their own voice. Jim Hoy, from the Wharfies Union, raved on and on and on - and said nothing which had not already been said.
All in all, the Conference was an encouraging one, marred only by the odd dogmatist. With continuing direction and good political organisation the aims of the Conference could just end up being acceptable to the Labour Party - remember people, it's bullshit year again!
In the first edition of Salient this year those that had the time and patience may have actually read past the first couple of sentences of Richard Norman's article on the housing shortage.
Reading this article I could not help but feel that after trying to get the "Freak Brothers" full page funnies removed from Salients' layout Norman had been hard put to fill in the vacant space. Quite frankly I find the Freak Brothers more interesting and intelligent.
In Norman's article he never really offered any concrete solutions. Any mug can list the problems. What is wanted is a couple of thoughts as to how the problems can be overcome.
It would be impossible for me to go through the whole of Norman's article and show just how many crude mistakes he made factually and logically what I would like to do however, is to take up the point he made about boarding hostels.
Norman is quite prepared to rubbish hostel systems and then to continue to bewail lack of boarding space. Surely the solution is to build more hostels. This provides high density housing close to the campus and is especially good for first year students. As Norman pointed out in his" 'feature' there has been a move against the hostel system in the last 6 years, especially among the older members of the Varsity. This I believe is based on two incorrect but commonly held beliefs that hostels are firstly more expensive, secondly, that they are run like boarding schools. It is true that some of the hostels appear very expensive (eg. Weir House, Victoria House) but others (Helen Lowry, and various church run hostels) are cheaper. Also people forget when they are comparing flat rents to hostel rents that it is pointless to compare the basic rates. The $12.50 a week in a hostel includes food, meals etc whereas in a flat one is required to furnish sometimes, usually pay for some maintenance and always pay for food, electricity, gas, and telephone. Flats have often to be rented throughout the Christmas Vacation by those that want to retain a home.
Now to the second point that hostels are run like boarding schools. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are usually very few rules and regulations in the varsity run hostels and I personally know of many flats where there are more restrictions giving the residents probably far more bargaining powers than most flat renters. There are also other fringe benefits of the hostel system:-proximity to the campus being one. This means that you have less travel time to and from lectures and that often means that you can take a more active part in Varsity functions, or get a parttime job, without occupying half your spare time.
The collecting together of students creates a cornunity atmosphere near the campus, perhaps not a community of the type J.K. Baxter would envisage, but nevertheless in a similar kind of grouping. Norman's other hang-up and I have it from the Horse's mouth is
Professor CD. Darlington F.R.S. "History of Society: The Evolution of Race, Class and Culture from Australopithecus to the Present Day". 8.15 pm
When is a non profit-making milkshake more expensive than a profit-making milkshake? Answer, when you buy it from the University cafeteria. For 18 cents you get a blob of ice-cream, milk and flavouring, downtown you get this and better for 15 cents or 16 cents. And student catering is supposedly organised to show neither profit nor loss.
One segment of cheese costs you 7 cents, the packet of six costs 38 cents from your local grocer. So that on top of the normal mark-up. Nationwide makes another 4 cents by selling the segments individually. Admittedly, a fraction is involved, of six and one third cents per segment, but surely with a captive patronage of 6,000 there is enough turnover to absorb this one third cent loss. Large rolls filled with meat at 15 cents, are hardly a bargain when the meat is predominately luncheon sausage. You can buy better hamrolls downtown for the same price.
By selling milk at three cents a glass or cup, Nationwide are perhaps working on the psychological principle, that people will buy a nine cent cup of coffee, as it seems, relatively a better buy. After all, the coffee is supposedly the cheapest around. The post office cafeteria, however, which manages to show a small profit, sells coffee for four cents, and tea for two cents a cup. It also sells large sandwiches for seven cents com pared to Nationwide's eight cents a sandwich.
Moreover, a two cent ladle of Nationwide gravy for your pie, and a three cent slice of bread and butter smacks of outright profiteering. Stocking does not appear to be a Nationwide strongpoint either, as roll-your-own tobacco no longer appears to be sold, and at one o'clock last Friday the cafeteria was entirely out of matches. Something stinks in the cafeteria and its not just the food.
It has been said that "Progress depends upon change, and change is a rearrangement of the Thinker, the Thought and the Thing. Change is sight from another angle - that is all. "Humanity is experiencing what may be termed an unfoldment in human understanding - there is an emerging new consciousness and culture which is based upon the underlying unity that binds all men.
Until quite recently the basic oneness of the major religions and philosophies of the world was recognised by only few. But today millions share the conviction that there is an inner spiritual unity transending all outer differences of faith and belief. It is as an expression of this recognition that people throughout the world have been joining together in a group meditation on the occasion of three spiritual Festivals: the Christian festival of Easter, the widely celebrated Buddhist festival of Wesak, and a universal festival of Goodwill. Their work is based upon the fact that in the incoming Aquarian age humanity's use of prayer is undergoing fundamental changes. There is a general tendency amongst new age thinkers to ignore prayers for personal salvation. Increasingly the emphasis is coming to be placed on the welfare of humanity and the invocation of divinity as an active force in world affairs. The way of aspiration and the heart and the way of mental prayer or meditation are being combined in a new science of group invocation. Group invocation involves the united use of group thought to focus and give clarity of direction to massed aspiration and desire. "The truth lying behind all invocation is based upon the power of thought, particularly in its telepathic nature, rapport and aspect." Religion is coming to be the name given to the invocative appeal of humanity and the evocative response of the greater Life to that cry. As more and more men of spiritual inclination and intention join together in a unity of selfless motive there will occur a pooling of spiritual resources and a united spiritual effort.
There is an acceptance by those who share a conviction in this underlying unity of religions that humanity is not following an unchartered course; that there is a Plan (an evolutionary pattern) i in the cosmos of which we are a part. At the end of an age human resources and established institutions seem inadequate to meet world needs and problems. It is at just such a time that the advent of a Teacher, a spiritual leader or Avatar, is anticipated or invoked by the masses of humanity in all parts of the world. The reappearance of the world Teacher the Christ - is anticipated or invoked by the masses of humanity in all parts of the world. The reappearance of the world Teacher - the Christ I is today expected by millions, not only by those of Christian faith but by those of every faith who expect the Avatar under other names. - the Lord Maitreya, Krishna, Messiah, Iman Mahdi and the Bodhisattva.
Easter: The great western festival and spiritual high point of the Christian year has the keynote of love and is always fixed by the date of the full moon of Aries, the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
Wesak: The great eastern festival of the Buddha, expresses the keynotes of wisdom and divine purpose, and follows one month after Easter at the time of the Taurus full moon.
Goodwill: This festival follows one month after Wesak, at the time of the full moon of Gemini. It has the Keynote of "humanity, aspiring to God" and blending many different spiritual approaches in one united act of invocation. It has been observed since World Invocation Day.
Each festival covers a period of five days with the climax on the third day, the day of the full moon itself. The dates of the festivals this year are:
Easter 29th March Wesak 27th April Goodwill 27th May.
You can join in observing these Festivals
Wellington
Auckland.
Copy is required for the above anthology to be published later this year by Collins. Poets wishing to be considered for inclusion should submit up to fifteen poems (preferably published) with a stamped self-addressed envelope to the editor :
Arthur Baysting c.o. Collins Bros.
P O Box 1 Auckland
Copy closes Wednesday May 3
Some kings ones lost their heads over their rights. The diviner the right, the finer the constitutional points made all round. Until today; today when we have current rights which seem so ethereally divine, that at times our constitutional Implications seem weft to the ecosystem's warp.
But the aren't. We have no constitution. The ecosystem continues to ignore us as imperiously as it ignores our constitutional implications. But we still have constitutional points being made all around, we still have a faintly foreign Queen, and of course we all have our heads.
History aside, we, all of us, have today at least 1 common right - our right to pollute. And our right extends throughout our environment, and beside the ecosystem. (Historically, while our term ecosystem is a neologism, our notions behind it are as old as death). But though this right of ours to pollute is ubiquitous, you will never meet a soul who can distinguish pollutants in our environment, from pollutants beside the ecosystem. No-one can. Perhaps this, our inability, is a similar such right as well.
No matter, we all see ourselves, and see our right to pollute. Undoubtedly, pollutants, polluters and polluting are all catch-cries. And how our reactionaries and our radicals yell. Our radicals out-rave our reactionaries, for once. Yet our reactionaries are almost as dumb as our most teutonic ultra conservatives. While our conservatives ply our helm ever on beside the ecosystem.
But amidst our Sargasso Sea of pollutant watching and pollutant counting, no-one need flounder if some facts are kept frontally in mind. Here are three.
Because we pollute inevitably, we could term our polluting a divine right of ours And whether we pollute and produce industrial, municipal or agricultural residue that is our divine right.
Secondly: our technology of observing and measuring pollutants is refined and refining these days. This sophistication could be, so to speak, the chopping block for the heads of both our reaction aries and our radicals. Whatever, this area of technological innovation, does progress at pace.
And a third worthwhile point to bear in mind is that our technology of control has yet to be refined to a comparable degree with our technology of observing and measuring pollutants. This log, so to speak, could be the honed axe of our conservatives. No matter, our technology of control has yet to catch up.
And so head-high, we, foreigners and all, pollute and ignore as ever, the ecosystem: possibly even joyfully so, but certainly polluting divinely.
VUWSA A.G.M. will be held at 7.30pm on Thursday 6th April in the Union Hall.
The Annual Report should be available in The Association Office before Easter. In this you can see in detail what The Association did during the
A reminder to slothful Clubs. S.R.C. has twice passed a motion to restrict the allocation of finance to those clubs which fail to advertise themselves and their activities to the student population as a whole. The three obvious sources of publicising are Salient, Orientation handbook and Noticeboards.
Those clubs that have in the past regarded the Club Grant as a perk for those in the "in group" have had their dash. They must attract new blood pronto!
"These lands will not be given by us into the governor's and your hands, lest we resemble the sea-birds which perch upon a rock; when the tide flows the rock is covered by the sea, and the birds take flight, for they have no resting place."
Taranaki Maori Chief Wiremu King! to Donald McLean and Governor Gore Brown,
The Tide of Pakeha Land Grabbing and Liberalism is Ebbing Away.
The ill named Maori Wars (they should be called land wars or exploitation wars or Pakeha wars) officially ended in the
Ruakenana (Rua the Prophet) founded the Maori community at Maungepohatu in
They cleared some 2000 acres of dense bush to make a thriving farm. They built a large, efficient and pleasant community, in its buildings and its ideals a mixture of ancient Maori custorh and contemporary ideas.
Part of Rua's communal ideal, the providing of alternative life style to that of the pakeha, was effected without hindrance. But the maori grievances over lost land and the desire to be equal citizens led inevitably to conflict. At the time, it was illegal for the Maori to set) liquor. Though Rua was abstemious, he believed that there should be one law for both, people. Therefore on principle he sold liquor and he was imprisoned for it.
Rua's desire to build a nation within a nation led him to exhort his followers to resist concription. This was a more serious conflict with the pakeha laws, and in
But the mana of Rua is by no means dead, and the memory of the community at Maungapohatu is cherished. And young maori and pakeha have not only independently rediscovered the sickness of urban into national society, but they have discovered that there is a viable alternative the commune.
And today, the young maori is remembering the grievances of his people, and he is realising that he can do something about them....
Reference - Peter Webster's article on Rua printed in Whakatane Historical Review.
John A. William's Politics of the New Zealand Maori OUP
New Zealand Encyclopaedia, on Rua, Te Whiti, etc.
The Mana of our Tipuna, the Mana of Te Whiti o Rongomai, of Rua Kenana, is not dead. It will rise with new strength in the youth of this country at the marae we are setting up in Te Urewera.
We will build a marae by our own efforts with our own muscles and our sweat and laughter, we will develop our own farmlands, our own arts and home industries, we will meet our community needs.
We have the support of various organisations and individuals, many who cannot at present leave their jobs for life on our marae but want to support us with finance and and other minor necessities.
Haere Mai! Haere Mai!
Welcome, Maori and Pakeha those who are prepared to work for the new marae to create a new community with true values, with Aroha and respect for human rights.
Nau Mai! Piki Mai! Kakei Mai!
Kia Kaha! Kia to a! Kia Manawa Nui!
Kia Mahu te Mana o Nga Tipuna!
For further details (including starting date, how to support etc.) write to Tame Te Purewa Iti, c/o Box 7245, Ponsonby, Auckland.
Te marae i roto i te Urewera — the meeting place in the Urewera — is soon to be set up. It will make a start at satisfying e major need for the Maori people and therefore for all people.
It will be both a home for the homeless to return to from cities, and it will be a point of departure for those whose aim it is to improve our society by improving race relations, ie. people relations.
We are all familiar with the problems arising out of the prevalent drift of youth, eg Maori youth, to the cities. And with the emergence of gangs providing a crisis, something is at last being done. In Akarana (Auckland)it is largely groups like Nga Tamatoa, Students, Polynesian Panthers etc, who are acting constructively to make city life more humane and bearable. But many people are realising that the only solution is for youth to not go to the cities in the first place, or to leave. The country life and the old style marae though have had insufficient allure to hold youth there or make them want to return. The sort of marae visualised for Ruatokh, however, is the sort that will lure people out of the cities. On this new marae young Maori will be able to live as their' tipuna (ancestors) lived, live a self sufficient, self rewarding life. It will be no dream commune, though. It is visualised that each member will be expected to contribute to the maintenance and development of the community. And it will not be an escape from the world, it will be a common base for all politically aware people and groups to work from in the effort to improve our society.
Gordon Campbell and Midge Marsden spoke to John Mayall at the Clyde Quay Tavern last Friday afternoon.
How does it feel just being you? You're playing what was originally black music. You are in the position of so many white peoples in the past who are making a lot of money out of playing this kind of music associated with black people who aren't making as much money out of it. Do you find it difficult to make a difference to the relationships you have with the black musicians you play with?
First of all I must say; there isn't much money in it, I mean there's enough, so that I can afford to approach guys white or black who I think are great musicians. And if you work with 'black' musicians I mean with people. People are people they are not black anything or white anything, they are musicians and they have a certain individual quality. So I can have enough of a market now to make a loose, purely musical "thing with anyone I want, and we can create something together, under my leadership. Music in it's purest form; without anyone telling anyone how to play or what to play.
Have you had any resentment?
No you can forget about the racial differences which are purely nothing. It's all down to the fact that in music there are certain people who will only reach a certain number of people. They perhaps have reached their level of communication with a mass diverse audience. If the musician is great, I don't think it's possible that he can, be surpassed. If I dug something, I want them on the stage, I want to play with that guy whether there is an audience or not.
Did you ever see that Dylan movie Don't Look Back? How do you cope with the position that he was trying to handle?
At the time I never knew about it, because I just happened to be around when he was visiting England and just happened to be in the same car 'cos the guy Pennebaker was filming everything of the whole tour. At that time he was doing the thing of private enterprise, and I guess that later when they finished the movie, he was the guy responsible for the whole thing. He just tried to take his camera down and just photograph and record everything. No body who was involved in it had any preparation for it, they was just following Dylan and anyone who happened to come along was in it. The whole movie seemed to ideally trying to say: I'm a person, I'm not someone who's got the answers. I can't do it for you.
It seems that you are in that position to a lot of Blues fanatics. Do they look to you?
This is the thing, if people put you up on a pedestal or think of you as some kind of a leader, that's the only way they can think of you. They forget that you are a human being. I won't say like everybody else, because there's no equality in the world in that direction. Some people are going to get out in front and some are going to follow. So anyone who is going to lead is going to get this treatment. So I don't think Dylan was trying to say anything, because he wasn't really asked. He was watched by the camera for the daily things of what it's like to be on the road, following a guy in his profession a'nd his thoughts: that's what the film was trying to do.
I was wondering if you feel any responsibility to be something to the people who read so much into you, and your lyrics?
There's no way you can get away from this, because you can't talk to people, meet them. You don't know who the people are individually. I only feel a responsibility that they are there so they must like something that I do, so the the safest thing I can do is to just be me, and present myself as I feel, rather than somekind of an image I must live up to.
What about your music now - I was told it was very much off your head, it just happens.
Well it's just that over the years one gets sick of playing the same things) not that I subscribe the same way, or numbers that were on albums it may have been that the different periods I had with different bands we did use the repertoire of stuff from current albums or one about to be released. But usually, by the time the album was released we'd done all we could with those playing live and we'd be playing stuff from the next album. Everything gets stale if you play it so many times, so I just try and abolish that completely nowadays and make it an improvised thing. You just name a key and a tempo and just behave like a bunch of musicians exchanging ideas in your own front room or something, without any audience demands or responsibilities. I guess it offends people -coming, expecting something else, who expect to hear tracks off records, and to sound like any other group they ever heard. But, if they can accept the spirit of what the music is about and the looseness of it and the gaps between numbers, and the chat with the audience and all this stuff it's all part of it. Today it takes a conscious effort to get the audience involved with what's happening onstage, and you relate all the way.
Have you seen a big social change as well as a musical change in the states? At the time you were playing with Eric Burden.
Eric didn't represent a mass exodus. He is one of the few Englismen who lives in Los Angeles. It's just that the papers print it up like everybody is leaving England for America. They magnify the situation up. There are very few English musicians that I know. Every band will go where it is appreciated.
The Turning Point album especially seems to be using your music much more lyrically as an expression of political experience.
Might I shoot that down in flames because that album had only one song that dealt with something outside of personal private life type things. But people do pick that one out as the first. But then you have to define what is political. There were things before that people didn't regard as subjects to be called politics, or laws. It's only when laws come into it that people say 'O that's political.' Then everything is a message or an idea about something, or a way ot looking at something. So they picked that one out, and the following album was '...revolution', so they go for that one. The next one was U.S.A. Union, where there was the pollution thing. That was one song. I think people pick these things out and say: He is on a political platform, let him say more about it or something. They crucified Dylan for the same reasons. They kind of missed the point really, because through the certain things that he did which criticise the system, they now say he perhaps
Looking at ro rock and roll t see s a lot of the feeling of IB statement years icalfy tactful.
I think it's
To play the
and they'd be dishonest to cash in on the black thing and say 'I'm down here on the farm' when they've never been on this farm. They live in cities and ghettos. When they sing about the ghettos, they sing about their lives. You can get in this room people who are sensitive to life and their situations and they can be realty emotional. That's the essence of things. If you are ultra sensitive to things it's just like someone who is beaten up and tied to a lamp post. It's the emotion that we are talking about.
Since the so called Blues Revival started, the record companies in New Zealand have been good in that they have released a lot of albums. In fact they over-saturated the market, and as a music form it has actually died.
It is a small thing. It never has or will have a mass following. It's a minority audience, really and I guess when the label 'blues' started to be put on every kind of music, and a lot of people talked of the 'blues revival', it died. Perhaps because it didn't have as many blues artists as it thought it had, being advertised as such.
We've never seen any blues artists in New Zealand whatsoever and we've been trying for the last three years to get something from someone.
The J.B. Lenoir album was very welcome in New Zealand we're very pleased to see that. We have a tramping campaign. We travelled to Auckland, walked some of the way back and came back down the other side of the North Island promoting the album, and I think it created a tot of interest.
You do these things independently, off your own back, these are the things you believe in, see. If you felt good doing that, then I feel as good about putting the album out in the first place. You just do it and hope others can be turned on to it.
I want to talk about the Crusade label you have out, particularly the album you did with J.B. Lenoir.
It had better be particular, 'cause that was the only one in that label. I have done one since, but it's not released yet. The one yet to come out, the second on the Crusade label, is Shaky Jake the Harmonica Player and there's some good music on that one. Shaky Jake is a guy from Chicago who is in L.A. now. He's quite a primitive type player, you know. Doesn't know how to keep to the chord sequence, like John Lee Hooker, very erratic. His records, previously have never quite done it for me. I've always felt there was some missing ingredient in the recording of it. He's done this one for me, and I've put Freddie Robinson among that, and a drummer called Ron Jellicoe, Larry Taylor on base, and one or two other people. So that'll be the next one and I think it's come out quite nicely.
What do you think about C.B.S. album? J.B.'s with the white dove on the cover?
Oh, that's a beautiful one, fantastic, I guess that's not been released here.
No.
It hasn't been released in America either. I guess that was one of the reasons I got the Crusade stuff, because the way of recording, the acoustic thing is the same kind of thing as that Alabama Blues. It would be hard to say which is the better of the two, but they both show a side of him which hasn't been heard before, on record, so Alabama Blues and Crusade, are both essential records to get, at any price really, if you like what he does. It was German in origin because he recorded it during the tour. But, in America it wasn't out and even in England it was hard to get. In German it's been re-issued, with a different cover. Germany's where it comes from, and if anyone's got friends there it's probably the best way to get hold of it.
Do you think that a hell of a lot of people's releases are just vanity, that people are really presumptuous to believe that their music is worthwhile.
No, everybody must hear a musician who to everybody else's ears is terrible, and say "That's music? You got to be kidding." But really everybody who picks up an instrument does it because they want to make music, yet they may sound amateur or directly offensive to your ears. The most popular things today are offensive to my ears. Meanwhile that thing that is offensive to me is doing four times the business I could ever hope to do. Therefore its not a con. People actually do enjoy it. But these same people will remove their support once they get bored with it.
What do you think of the attitudes of some of the so called 'Blues Purists'?
Absolute arseholes. They're good if you read those things, and ignore their point of view. You can actually get a lot of information about records and history and things like that, but if you go into their philosophy it's" pure bullshit strictly to be avoided. But any person can get what he likes out of it and reject the point of view. They are archaic creatures who can't see that blues has got nothing to do with race - blues is feeling, blues is an outlet for someone, and it's only the format which runs through them all. But it's not the format that counts, it's what's put into it of that particular person's life.
Do you think that you are a hard person to work with?
Don't ask me that, ask the others. There are a lot of horror stories, yes. The biggest publicised story was the Keef Hartley sacking. Keef and I made it into an exaggerated joke. It's just the way people wanted to see it. I mean why have we been working together again, why are we still friends?
This is an interesting exhibition of but a fraction of the work of one of NZ's best and most diversified artists. The four different subjects exhibited - portraits religious, nude and rocks - are no more than an introduction to the wide range of subjects Smither has painted, with varying success, but unvarying intensity. He has also painted watercolour landscapes, 'sensuous' landscapes of bills or snow, schmaltzy landscapes of rivers and mountains, far away land with magical ominous bills or near land with concrete (,) rocks or abstract rock pools. Landscapes from pretty parks to sublime, even religious hills. Landscapes, almost always meticuously and effectively painted, but in the end they are no more than landscapes.
At their most dramatic there is really no more in them than the intrinsic, drama of the paint. In this respect Smither is similar to Brent Wong, Alvin Pankhurst, and others, who exploit paint, especially grey paint, creating an imaginary tension, creating a superficially exciting picture which sooner or later must be found to be shallow.
Smither has a genuine direction to concentrate in, but he's not committed to it yet. His strongest paintings and those which will last are his people pointings, especially those in which he paints people religiously. Just as the best painting in the exhibition is undoubtedly the 'Christ', so are the paintings of his children, his family, and of specific biblical subjects the most powerful of his oeuvre. Portraits are a recent departure for Michael Smither and they may prove fruitful. But in a painting like the 'Christ' he has learned from the acheivement of expressionists such as Beckmann and Dix. His painting does not solve the problem of expressionist theme and composition painted in hard-edge style. In this respect the stained glass pictured is more successful. But there is all the humour, drama, and life-love of a Stanly Spencer which means there may be a great futrue in this style if Smither wants to commit himself to it.
When I was a boy the most satisfying sensation of my young life was to get down into the bush with an air rifle and an axe and create a bit of mayhem, shoot a few fantails. Mow their guts all over the place and put them in a little feathery pile, and when I got tired of that cut down a few saplings to make a hut or to hell with it just cut down a few saplings.
. . Me and my buddies we all did it; we competed how many trees we could fell, birds we could kill. We enjoyed the deathly still of the bush only echoing to the chop chop of the axe. Then maybe the farmer whose orchard we'd raided told the police and we ran for our lives tripping over logs and vines tearing our clothes on bush lawyer, scrambled wet and muddy through the bush streams across the paddocks and away down the side streets our hearts thumping fit to bust and lay low in our bedrooms waiting for doomsday.
..When we got more sophisticated we left the bush for more exciting pastimes, breaking roadside beer bottles from our speeding bicycles, we got pretty good at it, 90 was my best tally for one day. Then there were lovers to stalk and experiments with blasting powder in the sand dunes, the gang clay fights until Pete took a stone in the eye and want home Moody near Mind. Then we all felt rotten. We read where some kid had bled near to death from a broken bottle and some bastard put rater blades in kids' slide, my stomach heaves still to think of it.
..we knew what we'd been doing was mad and i guess that was mostly the reason for doing it. By now we were all teenagers and had a few pimples, our interests began to turn from the observation of lovers to a little experimenting ourselves. The bush took on a new light. Mind you it was damn hard to lure any female full of the notion of sax maniacs info it. So mostly it was just a good place to get away from parents and rotten bloody society with its lawns to cut, garages to clean out and concrete fences to help build. When you sat quiet in the bush all those birds and trees seemed pretty good and you wondered why you ever wanted to kill them, you even got to taking a cork and bottle down to call up the fantails for a closer look. The light coming through the leaves, God it was beautiful watching the eels and trout In the streams and even some fish you didn't know existed before.
..One day I took my paintbox down to the bush and made a few sketches and I felt good. I didn't want to come out It was like cool and green. The trickle of the clear water over the rocks was so soothing I would lie for hours just looking as the sun moved around and caught clumps of grass and leaves and turned them into green fire, how it moved over moss and stones, explored their surfaces and shapes and moved on. All this only five minutes walk from my parents' house, real luck and they didn't seem to mind my being away so long and so often. My mother was a keen gardener, I think she understood and my Dad was always in the basement. Anyway I guess they liked it better me bringing home paintings than dirt and guilt.
.. Well now I've grown up. If I root out any trees these days it's to put them on my own section. I'm trying to grow a bit of native bush for my kids, of course it won't be like the bush I knew and the birds will be a long time coming, if ever. There'll be no stream with grassy banks that's all underground now and dirty anyway. Maybe it I make enough dough I can make a pond at least for a few frogs. Although living near this damn big chimney and the Weed-killer factory it's pretty hard to grow anything, I think I'll buy Thomas a tree instead of an air gun. Or maybe I'll make a pool big enough to swim in, the beach stinks, what's left of it and the public baths play hell with my sinuses and always seem to give me athlete's foot. There's nowhere in town you can sit, only about 3 seats for 30,000 people and no trees for shade in the summer. You can't even see what time it is now they've pulled, down the old clock tower to make room for a car park. I sometimes sneak off over the footbridge by the railway and sit by the sea on a rock there. It's quite pleasant now the steam engines are gone. The park's a washout. Trees all sprayed with luminous paint and slot-machine fountains, notices all over the place telling you where to go and how much, full of people oohing and aahing at the coloured lights and paper-mache swans. Even a train running through the park I believe.
. . I like looking, at the sky a lot these days. Clouds are really beautiful and the sunsets with all this dust and smoke in the air are really something out of this world.
In
Yahya Khan and the West Pakistani leadership, however, were unwilling to permit a power shift to the east, so they reacted by simply postponing the convention of the National Assembly indefinitely. Then, in
Once in India the refugees faced starvation, lack of sanitation and housing, and cholera. Even less than basic care for them took roughly three million dollars a day from India's creaking economy. The suggestion that George Harrison do a benefit concert for these people came from an Indian whose father was born in East Pakistan — Ravi Shankar.
George agreed at once. That was six weeks before the concert, then George started things moving, gathering musicians, getting commitments and setting up the show. He had immediately called his manager, Alan Klein, who acted as producer, and got Madison Square Garden booked. And he called Bob Dylan who said he was interested.
Badfinger flew into New York from London on the Monday before the concert, followed by the horn players. Ringo arrived Thursday — he'd agreed to play immediately when George explained. Eric Clapton was sick and wasn't sure he could perform, but Jesse Davis (formerly of Taj Mahal and now on his own) joined up to make sure they'd have a second lead guitarist if Eric couldn't make it. Leon Russell arrived Friday night, having talked to Dylan without getting a definite answer. Finally, Dylan showed up at George's hotel room on Saturday, played a few things, and said he'd do it.
On the afternoon and evening of Sunday, August 1, there were two great concerts, each a sellout crowd of 20,000. Nearly $US250,000 was donated to the United Nations Children's Fund for Relief of Refugee Children of Bangla Desh. For the first time in its history, rock music was a political force.
Just released in New Zealand is the triple album produced, by Phil Spector and George Harrison from 16 track tapes made at the concert and rehearsals. All proceeds from the album are to go to Bangla Desh, as are those from George's single 'Bangla Desh' and the film that has been made of the concert.
The album is an extremely good record of what was simply one of the great rock concerts. George had insisted' that he wanted to do a solid, professional show rather than some kind of superjam. It worked. The audience responded with exceptional warmth and respect, listening intently and exploding with applause after the music.
"They were so happy, the joy of their being there was felt by each of us, " Ravi Shankar said. "This hasn't happened for so long now. Since Woodstock I have been to about five or six rock festivals and I have seen it go down gradually and I promised myself never again, because there is no more flower child and love, but only violence and drugs."
There were, as always, some bad things. George had phoned Paul McCartney and asked him to play, but Paul said no. John Lennon stopped in New York a couple of days before the concert but went home to indulge in more legal battles over the custody of Yoke's child. Worst of all, the mixing of the recordings had to be hurried so that the album could be released before the bootleggers ripped off too much.
So much, though, was good. At the end of the show when George and the band had finished 'Something', the applause went on for minutes and minutes after the stage was empty, but the band was called back on by the scream of 20,000 people. For his encore, George chose his new single 'Bangla Desh:'
Jethro Tull - Thick as a brick
Jimi Hendrix - Hendrix in the West, Rainbow Bridge
Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, Charlie
Watts, Nicky Hopkins -Jamming with Edward.
Procol Harum - Procol Harum
Isaac Hayes - Black Moses double
Richie Havens - Great blind degree
Kristoffersen - Me and Bobby McGee
'Osibisa- Woyaya
Paul Simon - Paul Simon
Southern Comfort - Southern Comfort
Sly and the Family Stone -Riot going on,
Dave Brubeck- Summit Session
Byrds - Farther Along
Emerson, Lake & Palmer Pictures from an Exhibition
Buffy Sainte-Marie -Fine and Fleet and Candlelight Illuminations
Tho Who - Meaty, Beefy, Big and Bouncy
Doors - Other Voices
Grand Funk Railroad -E Pluribus Funk
Little Richard - King of Rock and Roll
Faces - A nod is as good as a Wink
Melanie - Gather Me
Julie Driscoll - Julie Driscoll
Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa - Freak Out
Its hard to give a stuff about records like this. Beck's a very curious guitarist, often either too studied or too haphazard- he doesn't appear to have any idea of when or what to play, I feel. And for a band named after the guitarist, there's little guitar in it; Beck plays rhythm most of the time, and once in a while rips off a couple of soggy riffs, a few effects or double-tracked solos. His solos are pretty much the same as the solos on his last album, 3 years ago, or the one before that - once lie's conquered the first five actual notes, Jeff gets a bit tired, and winds up a few effects to help his imagination out.
However, his guitar has a nice richness it's never had before, and he does have his moments; and for a change, the feel of the group as a whole tends to be soully, Latin ...even if it reminds me of the Shadows playing Latin hits, its bound to remind others of Rare Earth or Santana. The songs, all written by Beck, are pretty good, with some nice rhythms and unusual chord changes. I mean, when there are groups like Family or Yes doing so many well-structured songs, you get pissed off listening to whats obviously the Lead Break, chucked in to spin it out.
Beck's band is pretty good on this album: drummer Cozy Powell used to play with Georgi Fame, and he and bassist Clive Chairman are good and tight; pianist Max Middle-ton is jazz-orientated, and holds the whole thing together. The singer is a West Indian, Bob Tench, with an extremely agile voice- he manages some awkward intervals and changes very nicely, but relies a bit too much on his own favourite little milismas.
Oh well, its a record that has its moments; together, but not convincing; most of the time, I think the group takes the easy way out (the statutory swopping of undistinguished solos, for instance) without being aware of what directions they're moving in. As noted, the singing is good, and Beck plays a couple of really nice chops, but it aint gonna raise any cripples.
One goes to a rock concert, of course, primarily to listen to the music, which means not only that the musicianship must be of a high standard and the equipment in good working order, but also that the material played must be varied, creative (original, if possible), and rhythmically and melodically interesting. A band can get away with pretty well anything 'at a dance, so long as the beat is kept going, but nowadays when the concert format seems to be the most popular with the entrepreneurs, the groups must realise that they are performing to a reasonably discerning audience of people who have stacks of L.P.s at home from Hendrix to Highway, that they regularly listen to. The problem with the bands playing at the recent series of Orientation rock concerts was that each failed to meet one or more of these basic demands. The group most exempt from these complaints is probably Tamburlaine, who had no equipment hassles, or none that were their responsibility, and whose music complies with the above criteria, but they have also, as they know, played better than they did at this concert. They were, however, certainly the best of the accoustically-biased groups to play over the series, with the highlight of their performance for me being Mark Hansen's rendering of 'Ruby Ruby'.
One does expect, however, more excitement to be generated by an electric group but it was was in this field that the concerts were, on the whole, disappointing. The Wellington band Taylor, who shared the bill with Tamburlaine, had attracted some attention as a result of the publicity for this concert and the NZUAC campus tour. The group however failed to come up to expectations. They are all technically competent, experienced musicians and form a very tight group, but their material Was just not varied nor interesting enough.
Ticket, the other big attraction of the concert series, were more exciting and extracted some response from a portion of the audience who began dancing. Their equipment was of the highest quality, their approach professional and each individual's technical understanding of his instrument the best, but they seemed to be very orientated towards the Hendrix style (or as one listener put it, towards the Underdogs Hendrix style) without fully realising that Hendrix's music, is on the whole highly melodically structured. Too often Eddie Hansen's breaks seemed to be but a concatenation of notes, some clever timing but little else.
On to the more University-based groups. Chum played first at the second concert organfeted by Gil Peterson, (the others were both promoted by NZUAC). They were a bit out of practice and were disappointed with their performance, but will be a very good group when they have gained more confidence.
Harper and Brown were up to their usual good standard; they are technically good musicians on several instruments, and they improvise well but their music is not varied enough, pretty well all of it being in the same flamenco-rock style. To do them justice however, it is very much their own sound.
Triangle were on next (also supporting Ticket at the third concert) and are fortunate in having one of the best vocalists in the country, if not the best, in Dennis O'Brien, who has a very good range, a rich tone and marvellous phrasing. He's pretty good on piano too, though he does many fast runs down the keyboard with his thumb, a la Jerry Lee Lewis, in places where it is not appropriate. The rest of the band, apart from, the lead guitarist, are merely competent, but they have improved out of recognition after their gig on board ship. Their material, however, is perhaps too commercially orientated at times. I for one no longer exactly feel like dancing around in a fairy-ring to the accompaniment of 'The Teddy Bears Picnic', (this at the M.S.S.A. concert). Still some did and their rock n' roll numbers especially were well received.
Back at the second concert again, and by late in the evening the P.A. had taken a bashing, and it crapped out during Mammal's set, which was unfortunate to say the least because there was a lot of very impressive three and four-part singing going on in there that we could only just hear much of the time. Those who went to the M.S.S.A. run concert three weeks later (not many did thinking it was for Malaysian students only) got a better deal. At that concert, this group, a recent amalgam of members from the old Mammal, Gutbucket and Rick and the Rockets, showed that they are very soon going to be one of the best groups around, with original material, a lot of very good harmony singing (six parts on one song) and a variety of instruments including an electric mandolin, 'cello, recorders and soon, hopefully, a Moog. Among their best numbers over the two concerts were Heard it on the Grapevine, Southern Man, Tony Backhouse's Whisper and some excellent jams.
The group was also subject to sudden lapses of taste, for instance in launching into Hava Nagila in the middle of another number, and in including in their rendition of that hackneyed favourite, Gershwin's Summertime (which we were forced to listen to ad nauseam last Arts Festival) the line 'One morning you gonna wake up....' (pause for effect) 'tripping 'tripping!' Well it may have appealed to two very obvious young trippers in the front row but all it really did, along with other drug references 'We are going to have a Smoke now' was to serve as self-concious promotion. 'We are turned-on, we know where its at.'
Ticket may look down somewhat on a small, student audience, when they are off to America and bigger things (lead guitarist Eddie Hansen is described by his manager as one of the top-ten guitarists in the world [?]) but this sort of rather patronising arrogance may well lessen the respect of audiences everywhere (cf Paul McCartney)
Despite the complaints above, all is a lot better on campus than it has ever been before. Its just not often as good as what we can listen to on our stereos. Still, I won't stop going to concerts. The next one is on April 1 starring Olibet, Electric Circus, Triangle, Mammal and Tamburlaine.
I still was 'hot' on Lawrence so I took the opportunity to review the latest Downstage offering. "Most appropriate, truly Lawrentian" I thought, as the very pregnant lass in the box office displayed her proud round bun and told me where to go with my ticket.
Hello all round to a bevy of theatre matrons, sipped my coffee and glanced about at the 'peanut' munching hob-nobs. This was opening night. No fart of fanfares though, just the magnified discordance of mass- mastication, punctuated with a few decibels of sipping, wind-letting and conversation.
Grey hair, swarthy complexion, aquiline nose, cruel eyes flicking malevolence at the entourage...Camera catches slightly-tipsy's ample tit about to fall into the pudding bowl. Take 3—one of the gaily-liberated slides...Camera closes on a mouth engaged in a bray, nostrils flexing and snorting....Interval - big scene, — "hello darlings" — delicate twinkling of the fingers. Nobody but nobody notices anybody before interval. A fat-arsed Falstaff-out-of-costume clowns for the table next to mine. Upstager. Somehow all vaguely familiar. The resurrected of Satyricon?
A Collier's Friday Night is an early dramatisation of a number of confrontations Lawrence was to enact again in Sons and Lovers. The incidents are factual; the conflicts biographical. Lawrence's early relationship with Jessie Chambers, for instance, is acted out by their two fictional counterparts, Ernest Lambert and Maggie Pearson.
The play concentrates on revealing inter-personal relationships. What we see crystallised in a moment of stage-time is much of the flow of the young Lawrence's emotional life — his attitude to his father, his attachment to his mother and his intellectual alliance with Jessie Chambers for whom his mother did not care.
The first act introduces us to the failed relationship existing between Mrs Lambert (read Mrs Lawrence) and Lambert senior (read Mr Lawrence) Incapable of building anything together in the face of England's colliery-devastated land, they bequeath to their children a bitter legacy - involvement in a crippling, emotional tug-of-war. Young Ernest (read D.H.L. with a bit of his elder brother, William, for good measure) although attending college, has supplanted his father as his mothers champion and wooer. His endearments, often couched in a foreign tongue, create around them both a private world of caress and response. Mr Lambert is a typical uncouth drunkard of a miner, at once envious and proud of his son's learning. His attempt to incur status and respect echoed poignantly throughout the play. "I ain't daft ya know. I'm not a fool". But each time he found himself slashed with a laugh a sneer or silence into a mere caricature of authority.
At this early stage, Lawrenc's sympathies lay with his mother. Later in life he was to change his mind. After his mother died, when he understood more clearly the difference between mother-love and the (enjoyment) stratagem of self-sacrifice, when he realised that his mother failed to give his father what Lawrence himself was to demand from a woman — strength. Strength for Lambert to get out and grub in the underworld gloom of the pit, because he could come back and take peace from the holy land built between him and his wife. Strength for Lawrence to come to terms with men and the affairs of men. Strength for the women, for it was Lawrence's observation that a woman tears a man to pieces only in a furious reaction to her knowledge that the man has no core, no true purpose, no real strength however fine his facade may be (re Gerald in Women in Love). By keeping each other up each allows the other to be, and becomes his or her own self as well. One theory for the Liberated man and woman completed (Who want's Lawrence's heat passed through Germaine Greer?)
Except that a play isn't a theory. It's a movement. What we see revealed in A Collier's Friday Night is the rhythm of life in the Lambert household. We go out where we came in and what happened in the meantime was so much flux.
I did like Mr Tilly as Lambert Senior. Not that Mr Tilly could give a stuff whether I liked him or not. I liked the way, during the pauses between the dialogue he became, by a series of glances, raised eyebrows, breathings and mannerisms — humiliated, pathetic, blustering, self-pitying, cringing and stubbornly recalcitrant. I thought it was a consummate piece of acting well worth seeing for itself alone. I also liked Ross Jolly's portrayal of Barker (one of the miners) His clumsy embarrassment conveyed itself well.
The first Club trip got underway last Sunday when a good turnout of new members travelled over to Tora on the eastcoast. A good swell was running and although a Nor Wester gave a small chop to the waves for the first few hours the wind soon dropped and ideal conditions were present for the selection of a Surfriders team to compete at this years Easter tournament. New members Adrian Taylor and Jonathan Neal proved themselves well with Taylor riding as well and as tight as anyone else in the water,
The contest was run on radically different lines to those held in the past with all the members going into the water at anytime and then late in the afternoon discussion on whom was to represent Vic at Easter. The team is to be Adrian Taylor Murray Lines, Jonathan Neal, Murray Carey, James Wills and reserve, David Banks (knee-machine exponent).
With a good start to the years activities it is hoped similar trips away will be held. Better transport is available this year with more suitable cars and a weekend trip to Taranaki is planned for sometime before the May vacation. The New Zealand champs are to be held in Taranaki over Easter and with the present weather patterns providing some good swells it may prove to be successful.
Orientation Rally on 5th March started off the club's events for the year. About 120 people took part and the final results are still not to hand. The route passed around town, through a few suburbs, then out to the Hutt Valley to finish at Clouston Park in the Akatarawes. Afternoon tea was enjoyed during the rally and a barbeque was eaten at Clouston Park. No one got lost (for good) but there were some puzzling moments. Even the organisers found it difficult, (deciding places). For the technically minded it lasted 70 miles and 3 hours. It had a MANZ regs.
Following this rally there was held a Film Evening and de-briefing session on 8th March. It provided a chance for everyone there to have a general rave on.
The next event to be held is the Easter Tournament. Various bods from other N.Z. Uni's will be visiting with their bombs to compete in the day trial, night trial and gymkhana. It is up to us to piss over this fiery competition.
There will be a Tournament Car Rally Meeting on Thursday night 23rd March 7.30pm Listening Room. Anyone interested in Tournament Car Rally (crews, mechanics, tea ladies, advisers, and hangers on, etc) should be there. C.H. Tear. Car Club Tournament Controller, Paul McGuiness Tel. 837502 (6-7pm) is looking after this show.
Car Club's A.G.M. will be held on Wednesday, 5th April at 7.30pm. Of course only Members of Car Club can:
We went on a successful trip for new members at Island Bay on Sunday. Some members were without wet suits so the two club suits were shared around and all got a dive. Visibility was not at its best, but this is one of the windiest months of the year.
Club scuba divers carried out a second stage in the laying of an artificial reef in the harbour on Friday last week. If you are interested, and would like to help please ring the Secretary John McCoy 838284 during working hours. The reef is showing an accumulation in marine plants and animals, and is producing a shelter for a fish population.
Those who could not attend the A.G.M. will find any important notices will be posted on the club notice board on the first floor of the Student Association Building, or you will be informed through the next newsletter.
The prospects of diving during this winter look good. Cook Strait temperatures change only a few degrees, and the wind will tend to calm down. We are planning fortnightly dives for both scuba and snorkel but this will depend upon the weather, examinations, etc.
You may have seen last weeks Gallery programme on the Poor Knights issue, if so then you can understand our dismay over the prospects of possible damage to the environment through pollution
Cricket at Easter Tournament will consist of six days of the recently introduced 1-day 40-over matches which have proved themselves very popular, both with players and spectators alike. If you enjoy witnessing bright, entertaining cricket Karori Park is the scene for you during Easter.
A 1-day 40-over match has also been arranged between a Wellington representative XI and the NZU. XI selected at tournament to be played on the day following the end of tournament.
Cricket was the sole Vic triumph, sporting-wise anyway, at last year's summer tournament in Dunedin. In order to emulate that feat, the cricket club is inviting, cajoling, imploring any student cricketer to press his claims for inclusion in this year's tournament team at a trial match arranged for 12.30pm. Saturday 25th March at Kelburn Park. If you are interested but cannot make the trial, try ringing Rick Priest. Ph. 759417.
Here we are - where are you? Yacht Club has its base at Port Nicholson Yacht Club. We have one yacht which people keep fucking up and this is why not every bastard can sail as of right. You may be interested to know that we did have a good idle-along but some goon sailed it into the breakwater and pissed off without telling anyone.
Keys to the Varsity shed can be obtained by ringing and collecting from the following
At the moment the Cherub is under repair preparatory to competing at Easter Tournament so it will not be available till after tourney.
This year the Bike Club got off to a tremendous start with a very successful display and film evening of which was attended by over 100 bikies and others - much to the surprise of the committee.
The A.G.M. was recently held in which the majority of the committee was returned to power (along with a token number of newcomers) amid cries of "fix! fix!"'
For the record those elected were: John Scollay (President) Gerard Dobson (Club Captain), Judi Burnley (Secretary), Don Mcllroy (Treasurer), Ross Manley, Dave Munro, Graham Ridding, Tony Kellaway, and Phillip Burgess (committee members).
Membership has now risen to an alltime high of 96 (already better than last year's total).
On Sunday March 19, Gracefield happened!!! This was the first taste of racing for four of our club members. They performed with outstanding success with only 50% of our riders dropping off (not bad huh?) Tony (hang 10) Haines.- (250 Suzuki-Bultaco) was the first to part company with his bike. He came out of a corner too wide and came off second best in a tangle with a lamp post-one down. The next to go was Mr Mortimer - Graham Ridding who did a quick spot of grasstracking after discovering an oil patch that wasn't supposed to be there - two down.
Lawrence Bailey remained unscathed and performed as consistently as ever finishing both races in the middle of his class, after having an almighty scrap with a bonneville in the first.
Peter Craven put up the best performance of the group, coming first in his class (250cc production) in all his races except the first, in which he shot up an escape route due to lack of brakes.
After Gracefield we had a successful run and barbeque just off the Paekakariki Hill road. About 30 bikes and 2 cars went and the cooking fire was easily started by rubbing two kawasakis together. - Everybody had a lot of fun. The club has many more activities like this planned so if you want to be part of it ring Don (767-102) or watch the club noticeboard and come along.