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Source: Thinkstock
Large tracts of the media are typically occupied at this time by noxious sentimentality and lists of events that - in the larger scheme of things - are ingrown hairs in the armpit of history.
This missive will be different. I don't come to praise an aspect of New Zealand life, I come to bury it.
The theme came to me in an epiphany. I was driving to work, and
happened to pass a cafe. Even in sallow-faced, self-regarding
Auckland, most cafes are closed during the holidays, but this one
was open, and within its leering decor the usual collection of
zombies sat peering into their lattes and wondering what to say to
the wretches opposite them.
One face rose from the throng. Middle-aged, flushed, male, and
miserable in the glib sociable sunlight, the expression - like a
rictus of death - begged, "Save me!"
Sir, I will.
Earlier that week I'd taken my annual ascent of Mount Maunganui with my sister Pip. We panted and nattered our way up the outcrop.
It was quiet at the summit. The Bay of Plenty stretched out like a giant aquatic Ponderosa.
All too soon we found ourselves on a footpath outside a row of crowded cafés. The din was immense, oceanic and stupid.
It threatened to destroy the beauty and solitude of our walk. We took our coffees and fled to the beach, sitting down where a chap had been trying - just before - to stand on his head.
Sparrows gathered around to beg for crumbs with polite, intelligent entreaties.
I'm not against certain kinds of cafes, I'm against them all. This cancer has reached so deeply into our society, it must be pulled out, root and branch.
Recently the Lonely Planet's 2011 Best In Travel Book declared, "Wellington... might just be the best little capital in the world, and it is crammed with more bars, cafes and restaurants per capita than New York."
This anointing was greeted with the to-be-expected slathering of the hospo industry.
See! We're great! Cafe society triumphs in New Zealand!
Or consumerism does. I suspect we're just bored. And I suspect that misery loves company, which is what the cafe owners and proprietors have recognised.
'Cafe society', whatever that is, hasn't magically appeared in New Zealand. We simply go to cafes en masse. Ponsonby Road in the early 21st century isn't Red Vienna of the 1920s. And why would we want to it be?
Let's be who we are. Proud. Free. Alone. Not whacking down eight bucks for a sandwich in some caffeine-mill.
And brave enough to ask why the activity, if it can be called that (it is more of a reflex for most), of lounging around in cafes has insinuated itself into some kind of patriotic proof?
Yes, New Zealand makes good coffee, but so what? The Swiss make excellent cuckoo clocks. Unless I've missed something, you don't hear them dribbling on about it as an aspect of national virtue.
The time has come to rise up!
Get a teabag.
Stay at home and keep your mouth shut.
Sharpen your pitchfork.
2011 is the year when we will drive the cafes and the chuntering, clattering herds who inhabit them into the sea.
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