You, believe me, me you. Me. Damn.

I make my living at language – primarily English; which is fortunate, because I don’t actually have any other languages hiding up my sleeve.

Early in life I found a love of writing, but fell asleep in the English classes when the teacher tried to tell me about sentence structure. Verbs, adverbs, adjectives, pronouns, proverbs(?); generally, I still have to look up the meanings.

But I love the language. I love playing with words and meanings and twisting things in strange and unusual new directions.

Now, my point – and I do have one – is that some phrases in English just do my head in. Everyone knows what they mean, so the fact they don’t make any sense never seems to be an issue. Unless you’re like me and have a brain that slams on the brakes and goes “what the bloody hell was that?”

One phrase in particular gets me every time. It is grammatically correct according to 1600s phraseology, but actually only started being used in the early 1900s. It’s this – believe you me.

What?

Now my father used this phrase often. Except he had no real education so made it fit by adding an extra word – “believe you and me”. Which kind of made sense. It works in the “we have both reached an agreement on this point and believe it, and you should too” way.

But later in life I discovered my dad had put me wrong (as he did in so many ways – “Yes, Davy Crockett was real, but Daniel Boone was just made up” being just one example).

The true phrase was: “Believe you me”. Which is technically correct on the old verb-subject-object stage, but not on the modern subject-verb-object platform. But it’s just so out of place.

It’s not even like Shakespeare wrote it and it stuck. No, apparently it didn’t even turn up in the Oxford English Dictionary until 1926. This made me think maybe it was originally a proper phrase, but it got damaged in the trenches during the First World War.

It was originally something like: “I believe you should come with me”. But it was hit by shrapnel and the field surgeons had to do some emergency editing; lopping off some words so it ended up just: “believe you me”.

It limps into the English language (first recorded use in 1919), bruised and bleeding. But it recovered well and became instilled as part of day-to-day speech. I’m not saying we should get rid of it, but just ask that you be aware of it and see if it starts doing your head in as it has mine.

So, believe you me, the point is made.

All lit up

I’m taking a moment to mourn the loss of one of the best symbols of protest.

Here in New Zealand, every November 5, we commemorate Guy Fawkes’ night. This is a throwback to our colonial past. There was a guy back in 1605 who tried to blow up the English houses of Parliament. He was caught in a tunnel below Parliament with barrels of gunpowder and a long fuse.

Militant Catholic, he was. Tortured, he was. Gave up everyone, he did. Hung, drawn and quartered, he was. That’s the Yoda summary.

(In case you didn’t know the “drawn” part of the execution involved having his intestines “drawn” from his body, while he was still conscious, and burned in front of him. Ouch.)

So, every November 5 the bonfires are built and the fireworks come out. Oddly enough the celebration of Guy Fawkes’ night was ordered by the Government of the day as a warning to all the militant Catholics not to try to blow up Parliament.

Right up until the 1970s it was common to see kids building a straw “Guy” to throw on the bonfire. In Britain kids go around seeking a “penny for the Guy” so they can dose up on sugar before the bonfire.

Which brings me to my point: Burning the Guy was a burning in effigy. And right up until the 1900s it was popular to burn unpopular people in effigy.

I used to live in Timaru, where one of the big moments in history was the wreck of the Benvenue. It was a sailing ship that was caught in heavy seas on a fine day with no wind. It ran aground against the cliffs which were to bear its name.

The Harbour Master of the day led a rescue effort which was mostly successful. Unfortunately, the rescue boat was upturned by the seas a couple of times and some people drowned. The Harbour Master saved as many as he could before he crawled from the sea, totally exhausted, and promptly dropped dead.

Consequently the Harbour Board ruled that the whole thing was the Harbour Master’s fault (in that “blame the dead hero” mentality committees are renowned for).

As a consequence the people of Timaru came out and burned in effigy the entire Harbour Board.

It must have been a sight. “Hey, Bruce! Bruce! We’re burning you in effigy! That’s right; you are so unpopular right now that we made a big straw doll of you which we’re now setting light to.”

These days you’d probably have to get a fire permit to burn someone in effigy. And you’d need fire extinguishers nearby. And even then, what if the burning effigy accidentally set light to something else? How much damage could a burning effigy do?

How would you feel if someone burned you in effigy and your effigy fell over and set light to an orphanage, and the orphanage was next to a stable? So your effigy was responsible for panicked and burned little children and horses. Wouldn’t you feel some sort of responsibility for that?

And the person who lit the effigy could blame you! “If Lindsay hadn’t been such an asshole to begin with, I never would have burnt him in effigy and this whole disaster would never have happened.”

So, that’s my tribute to effigy burning. Next up: Voodoo dolls, what would happen if you burnt them in effigy?

Yes, it's about cricket – no, I promise it's not boring

This is a public service announcement for all you sports lovers. Particularly the Americans, who love “all sports” with the definition of “all” being golf, tennis, basketball, NFL, ice hockey, volleyball and soccer.

New Zealand is primarily a rugby nation. But that’s a winter game. We don’t really watch baseball. It’s boring, we say. You stand there and watch nine innings of guys swinging bats –or not swinging bats – and seldom, if ever, making it even to first base. At the end of the game only three runs have been scored. Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull.

But, responds Mr American, what about cricket? Four days standing around watching some guy throw a ball at a guy holding a tree trunk. The batter blocks the ball, nothing happens and the crowd applauds! Four days, and often nobody wins. And we can never understand the rules anyway.

Well, I say… um, good point.

Recently, however, a new form of cricket has emerged. It’s called Twenty20. The professional Indian Premier League (IPL) has bought up top cricket players from all over the world to take part in their series, now being played in South Africa. [For some reason India was considered too dangerous… so they opted to move the whole operation to South Africa… which to me is a bit like seeking shelter from the sun by hiding in an active volcano.]

Anyway the IPL games last only about three hours and can be very exciting; but only if you understand how the game is played.

Here's a quick outline:

Basically, in the middle of the field is a strip of carefully prepared ground called a “pitch”. This ground has been meticulously prepared. If it was a pet it would be Paris Hilton’s poodle.

At each end of the pitch are three sticks of wood sticking up; these are singularly known as wickets and collectively known as "the wicket”; they have two small “bales” perched on top.

A batter is sent out to guard one end of the wicket. The other team’s bowler throws the ball down the pitch. If the ball hits the wicket the batter is out. If the batter hits the ball and it’s caught on the full, he’s out. If the ball hits his leg and the umpire decides that, if his leg hadn’t been there, it would have hit the wicket, then the batter is out.

Once the batter is out; that’s it. No return. Ten batters to a team. Each batter, ironically, is also referred to in a general sense as a wicket. Look, just don’t ask why, OK?

Now the object for the batters is not just to guard the wicket, but to run between them. Kind of a “neener neener” to the team in the field. The winning team is the one with the most runs at the end of the game. To encourage the batters to take risks, if they hit the ball to the boundary, they automatically get four runs. If they hit it out on the full (a home run in baseball) they get an automatic six runs.

But if the ball stays in play, gets thrown back to the wicket and knocks the bales off without the batter there, then the batter is out. This is called a run-out. Essentially this is decided by whether they have the bat within a small box area in front of the wicket called the "crease". Don't ask.

Now, the bowler throws the balls in sets of six. Each set of six is called an “over”. IPL games have 20 overs per side. Typically, each side sends out its heavy hitters first, but they then also meet the other team’s best bowlers.

Traditional cricket has unlimited overs. They just keep bowling the ball until it starts raining or they run out of batters or the bowler’s arm falls off. With limited overs the pressure is on from the start. Because only 120 balls are bowled by each side in Twenty20, the batter really has to make the most of each one. This means he’s more likely to take risks and try to make big hits (lots of fours and sixes).

This is entertaining. Especially for men (because when a four or six is scored, or a batsman goes out, scantily dressed dancing girls come out and shake their booty).

Don’t worry too much about the cricket terms. Hell, nobody knows what they mean. When the commentators talk about having someone at “silly mid-off” or at "fine leg” or “away to cover” they have no idea what they’re talking about; they’re just saying it so they’ll sound smart and get paid more.

Likewise they throw untold statistics up on screen, but the only one you should be interested in is the actual score. This is shown in two parts; how many runs have been scored, and how many wickets (batsmen) have gone out. So, 103/5 after 10 overs might be reasonable in Twenty20 (but a disaster in a test match). For the second half of the game, they will also show how many runs the team is chasing to win: "103/5 after 10 overs, chasing 183 – they need 81 runs off 60 balls, or 8 runs per over".

You might also wonder at the amount of padding the batters wear. They have leg pads and cups and helmets and giant gloves. This is because the cricket ball is rock hard and gets thrown at between 60 and 95 miles an hour.

Just as in baseball there are mind games going on. The bowler has a range of options about where on the pitch to bounce the ball – if at all – before it reaches the batter. If he puts enough spin on the ball then it could hit the ground and change direction completely. He can also determine how high it's going to bounce.

In a four day test it is all about the mind games. But in Twenty20 it’s flash, fast and fun. If you’ve got, I don’t know, ESPN11 then you might even be able to catch a few games of the IPL.

I sat down and pieced together how NFL was played and now enjoy it immensely. I can only ask you give Twenty20 cricket the same courtesy.

Now you’re talking my language

New Zealanders have a distinct accent. Our trans-Tasman cuzzies like to remind us of this by insisting we say “fush und chups” and “sex” instead of “six”.

That’s OK. We can take it. Just please (and I’m going to swear here, so brace yourself) for fuck’s sake stop trying to imitate it.

The worst case lately has been on Aussie TV series Underbelly, which in its second series examines the activities of the Mr Asia drug ring in the 1970s and 1980s. The key figure in the story was a Kiwi named Terry Clark, who set up a Melbourne-based import/export business – importing heroin to Australia and New Zealand, and exporting addicts into holes in the ground.

Actress Anna Hutchison plays an important role as Alison Dine, a New Zealand kindergarten teacher who ended up running Clark’s network for a bit while he was in prison. Hutchison can pull off a Kiwi accent; primarily because she’s a Kiwi.

But Katie Wall, who plays Kiwi lawyer Karen Soich, cannot do a Kiwi accent to save herself. She sounds like an Aussie trying to do a Kiwi accent. Which she is. But what’s worse is that she sounds like an Aussie trying to do what an Aussie thinks a Kiwi accent sounds like. The result is this bastardised combination of Aussie “eeee” and Kiwi “uuuh” that is just revolting to listen to.

The thing is, if she’d just done an Aussie accent, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

An embarrassing confession here: I went to Canada in 1996 and spent two weeks in Montreal. I then spent a week in LA to do touristy things. While in LA I was in the hotel elevator and heard this small group of people talking. I had been away from South Pacific accents for a while, but this was familiar. I said: “Hey, are you guys Aussies?” and they looked at me funny and said: “Nah, mate, we’re Kiwis”.

I couldn’t tell them apart.

Ever since then I’ve maintained the difference between our accents is three weeks.

But this special message goes out to Katie Wall: If you can’t do it, don’t try. You’re right up there with Dick Van Dyke’s cockney on Mary Poppins and Meryl Streep’s “Deengo ate moi baaeybe”. Which, if Katie was doing it Kiwi, would no doubt have been: “a dungo aite muh boibbie”.

Old Zealand

I live in New Zealand – for foreign readers that’s the two biggish islands just off the coast of Sydney.

Actually it’s about 1600km south-east off the coast of Sydney. And there are three main islands. The country uses its relative isolation to economic advantage in terms of keeping nasty plant diseases out; but it also affects the culture.

New Zealanders tend to be friendly and liberal. Except for those of us who are unfriendly and conservative; but we keep these people caged in an unlit basement beneath a trapdoor which is covered by a nailed-down carpet.

(Slight pause in blog writing as I notice there’s pickle on my fingernail. How did that get there?)

Anyway, New Zealand was colonised mostly after 1840, which makes it a relatively young country. Unfortunately, this also meant that when it came to nomenclature, they discovered all the good names were taken.

Hence the northern island is called North Island and the southern island is called South Island. We have a big ridge of mountains down the South Island called the Southern Alps. Various mountains of significance were named after 19th century British politicians by 19th century ship captains as they sailed past.

New Zealand itself is a pretty bland name. But we don’t mind and we don’t complain because it’s always been that way. And we don’t like change (despite this being a sentiment likely to get us locked in a cage in an unlit basement).

Anyway, the National Geographic Board has just noticed (after 170 years) that nobody officially named the north island North Island or the south island South Island.

So, now people are thinking – hmmmm… should we name them something different? Or do we reinforce our reputation for bland names by keeping these crap names?

The obvious thing is to give them Maori names. But nobody wants to do that, because the Maori names are long and difficult to remember. And honestly if it came to calling the islands Big Fish and Greenstoneland I think I’d prefer we stick with North and South islands.

What should we call them, then? Well, for any members of the Geographic Board who might be reading, here are my suggestions:

* Neil Finn and Tim Finn
* Eddie and Tenzing
* Chucken and Chups
* Rugby and Cricket
* Wine and Cheese
* Marmite and L&P

Some thoughts on Easter

Easter has come and gone, with its holiday, chocolate and its true origins and meanings lost in the mists of time.

Well, that’s not true; but what is interesting is the way in which we choose to celebrate Easter.

Traditionally it is celebrated at the same time as Judaism celebrates the Passover. The Passover itself being a dubious celebration of the night God killed a bunch of Egyptians just to prove an obscure point.

[Interesting aside: The Passover corresponds to the celebration of the ripening of the barley. Some scientists believe the culmination of the 10 plagues – which included frogs and gnats and flies – caused the top layers of the Egyptian grain barrels to begin fermenting corn which in turn produced a powerful neurotoxin. This, combined with the tradition of serving the first-born first; and a double helping, explains how the Egyptian first-borns all suddenly upped and died overnight.]

The Passover has since been superseded by the Christian celebration of Easter. Though we still have the "unlevened bread" (ie, hot cross buns). This is really the only date in the scheme of things that the Christians are sure about. Because Jesus was arrested just after the infamous Last Supper – the Passover feast.

As Christians would have it; Christ was nailed up on Friday, buried that night and rose again on Sunday. Which technically makes him a zombie.

But suggest this to Christians and they’re likely to get upset. Jesus Christ? A zombie? No, no, no. He didn’t eat brains. He wanted us to eat HIS body and drink his blood … hmmm.

So next year I’m advocating we get back to grass-roots remembrance of Easter. Dump the Easter Bunny and bring forth the Easter Zombie. He gives chocolate brains for us to munch on.

I was going to make t-shirts this year, but didn’t get to it (read: “bloody apathetic”). I had a lot of fun making up the slogans though:

* The Easter Zombie: loves you for your brains!
* Spare a thought: Every day thousands of zombies starve to death in Australia.
* Zombies – because that’s what Easter is all about.
* The Easter Zombie wants to taste what you think.

Signs You're Addicted To Twitter

I’ve become a Twitter addict.

It’s great fun. No messages over 140 characters long; which also means it doesn’t have to take up too much of your time. Well, in theory.

You follow complete strangers, who in turn follow you. The number of followers you have, I think, determines who’s winning in the popularity stakes. “And it’s @Jesus by a nose with @Mohammed coming up on the inside…”

Anyway, recently the fun and talented Wendy Lester (AKA Wendywings) of Auckland began a thread called #twitteraddict. I warmly embraced this concept; though she and I seemed to be the only two contributors.

Here’s a selection of some of our better tweets:

* You know you have a problem when all of your friends’ names start with @.

* You tweet to your psychiatrist.

* Your significant other gets an account just so they will know what is for dinner because you tweet it every night.

* You name your firstborn @babygirl1.

* Your prayers now begin "@God..."

* Your favourite t-shirt has "BRB @reallife" on it.

* You're at the McDonald's drive-thru, see "Hash browns" and think "That's a weird topic."

* When you speak you subconsciously edit your sentences to under 140 characters.

* You see people texting at the mall and wonder "are they tweeting and what is their @ name?"

If the thread continues, I’ll continue to update the blog.

Ronin, Ronin, Ronin ... rawhide!

Ronin has been showing on cable here lately. Robert de Niro and Jean Reno slithering across the screen as agents with mysterious backgrounds all hired by the IRA to steal a metal case.

What’s in the case? Hell, we don’t know. Never find out. Just that a lot of people are after it. It’s a plot device, leave it alone.

The thing I love most about the film though is Natascha McElhone’s Irish accent. Now I’m not denying its authenticity – her mother was Irish, she should have had a fair idea what an Irish accent sounded like.

But when I hear: “I need you to steal a kiss.”

I always do a double-take. Did she say she wanted these heavies to steal a “kiss”? All through the movie she’s talking about “the kiss” this and “the kiss” that. I find it hard to concentrate.

The car chases are pretty good, though; and more realistic than many American TV/film car chases. You know – where the hero in his red 2007 Ferrari F430 Spider, capable of over 300kmh, somehow cannot shake the bad guys in the black 1963 VW Beetle.

The most improbable thing about the film though is near the end. Bad guy number two, who double-crossed the good guys, has a sniper set up at an ice skating show. He warns the good guys that, unless he calls in at specific times, the sniper will shoot the ice ballerina.

Things go awry and the sniper shoots the ballerina girl. The audience panics and everyone charges – in orderly fashion – for the exits. Which is a very American reaction, I think.

After the Cold War, I reckon if a Berlin audience heard a rifle shot and the lead skater hits the ice in a pool of blood, they’d probably think it was just a very harsh review. In fact, I’d be surprised if they didn’t applaud.

We discover during the film that Ronin is a Japanese term referring to Samurai who have lost their master: Warriors without direction. And in the end we discover that Robert de Niro’s character doesn’t fit the title. He’s still with the CIA and has been all along.

He recovers the “kiss”, then goes home, retires, and spends the rest of his days being mean to Ben Stiller.