One of my all time favourite songs and ranks at number 8 in New Zealand’s Top 100 songs of all time. The song tells of a real life person known as vicky who used heavy makeup to hide the bruises inflicted by her then boyfriend and pimp. Often she used makeup and unusual clothing to hide the bruises on her body, arms and legs as well. It tells of the life of many caught in the sex trade before it was decriminalised in Aotearoa in 2003.
Victoria was the debut song of the Dance Exponents when they first appeared live at the Hillsborough Tavern on 15th October 1982, making this song 40 years old at time of writing. It was written by band member Jordan Luck, who as a naive eighteen year old didn’t at first realise why Vicky wore such heavy makeup. The song is just as valid today for many people (mostly, but not always women) who find themselves in an abusive relationship but unable (or unwilling) to escape from it.
Victoria – Dance Exponents. Song writer: Jordan William Hunter Luck
Victoria
She gets glances since they first greeted
Sent salutations that can't be repeated
She's become a social institution
Prepares her prey like an execution
Victoria
What do you want from him, want from him?
Victoria
What do see in him, see in him?
She's up in time to watch the soap opera
Reads cosmopolitan and Alvin Toffler
Meeting in the places that she's never been to
She's got a mind but it's the clothes they see through
Victoria
What do you want from him, want from him?
Victoria
What do see in him, see in him?
She lives with a man who sees her as money
Laughs at his lines that aren't even funny
She's in bed but she's not sleeping
is he a customer that's really worth keeping?
Victoria
What do you want from him, want from him?
Victoria
What do see in him, see in him?
There's no such thing as romance blooming
Sundays are for washing and doing the hoovering
Talking to her friends on the telephone
Another jerk rings up who won't leave her alone
Victoria
What do you want from him, want from him?
Victoria
What do see in him, see in him?
Victoria
What do you want from him, want from him?
Victoria
What do see in him, see in him?
Victoria
What do you want from him, want from him?
Victoria
What do see in him, see in him?
For the first time in our history, women Members of Parliament outnumber men. With one vacancy in Parliament (a by-election is due soon) the swearing in of Soraya Peke-Mason yesterday means that there are currently 60 women MPs (Members of Parliament) and 59 men MPs.
Grant Robertson (an openly gay MP) who is Acting Prime Minister while Jacinda Ardern is in Antarctica, stated that It is a significant moment in the democratic representation of New Zealand. “At a time when we have a female prime minister, Governor General and Chief Justice, it is further evidence of the strides that we’re making in gender equality.” Notice that he said strides we are making – in other words there’s still progress to be made.
Aotearoa New Zealand made history in 1893 by becoming the nation to grant universal suffrage regardless of ethnicity, gender or property ownership. Then we progressed at a snail’s pace, with women not being able to be elected to parliament until 1919, and the first woman being successfully elected fourteen years later in 1933. As Ms Peke-Mason said, “Good things take time. No doubt it’s a special day for me but it’s also a historic occasion for Aotearoa New Zealand.”
What is significant is that it’s the left of centre parties where women are better represented. Of the 64 Labour MPs, 37 are women, while 7 of the 10 Green MPs are women. In contrast, the right of centre National party has only 10 women amongst its 33 MPs, and the ACT party does slightly better with 4 of its 10 MPs being women. It’s interesting to note that in the first 23 years of this century, we’ve had a woman Prime Minister for 14 of those years.
As a footnote Aotearoa New Zealand became the first nation to elect an openly trans woman to Parliament in 2005. Following the 2020 general elections, our Parliament became the “queerest” in the world with 12 openly LGBTQI representatives elected – 10% of all MPs sitting in Parliament.
Today, being the fourth Monday of October, is for most Kiwis these days little more than a public holiday known a Labour day. For most its history is unknown, and the reason why it’s commemorated at all is forgotten.
Labour Day commemorates the struggle for an eight-hour working day in Aotearoa New Zealand. It seems that no matter what date Labour Day or its equivalent is commemorated in numerous other nations, there seems to be an individual who is acknowledged as being the catalyst for the occasion. In Aotearoa it is an individual by the name of Samuel Parnell.
Samuel Parnell. Wright, Henry Charles Clarke, 1844-1936 :Negatives. Ref: 1/1-020462-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23133932
Parnell, a carpenter from London, emigrated to New Zealand in 1840, and amongst his fellow passengers was George Hunter, a shipping agent, and on arrival in Wellington, Hunter asked Parnell to build him a store. According to Kiwi folklore, Parnell responded “I will do my best, but I must make this condition, Mr. Hunter, that on the job the hours shall only be eight for the day … There are twenty-four hours per day given us; eight of these should be for work, eight for sleep, and the remaining eight for recreation and in which for men to do what little things they want for themselves. I am ready to start tomorrow morning at eight o’clock, but it must be on these terms or none at all.”
Hunter had little option but to concede to Parnell’s demands as skilled labour was critically short in supply. Parnell with the help of other Wellington workers set about making the eight hour working day the standard, informing all new immigrants that the eight hour day was the “custom” of the new settlement. In October 1840, Wellington workmen made a ruling that the working day was between 8am and 5pm, and according to legend, anyone found guilty of breaking this “commandment” was tossed into the harbour for their efforts.
The first Labour Day was celebrated on 28 October 1890 when thousands of workers participated in parades across the country. Government workers and many others were granted a day off work to attend. By this time the majority of workers enjoyed an eight hour day, but it was not a legal requirement. The fledgeling union movement wanted the Liberal Government of the day to legislate an eight hour working day, The Liberal Party was reluctant to upset the business community, and Kiwis had to wait for the arrival of the first Labour government which introduced the 40 hour week.
However, the Liberal government did introduce an industrial conciliation and arbitration system in 1894 – a world innovation at the time, and in 1899 made labour day a statutory holiday, with the date set as the second Wednesday of October. Ten years later it was “Mondayised” to the fourth Monday of October.
Over the following decades, the celebratory nature of Labour Day declined and certainly from my earliest memory of the 1950s Labour day parades were all but forgotten and the day had become “just another holiday”. It’s now late evening and as the day draws to a close, I wonder how many of my fellow Kiwis realise how much our way of life, has been influenced by the those early unionists who understood better than many of us today the importance of a proper life balance.
My hearing is not the best, so when I first heard this song, I assumed it was “just another love lost” song, although one with a hauntingly beautiful melody. However once I learnt the background to the song and saw the lyrics, it became a powerful and moving narrative and it has became a favourite of mine. It’s the theme song from the film The Stolen. It is still a love song, but not one involving lovers but one of a parent towards their child – in this case a mother searching for her kidnapped baby. The film was relatively low budget ($4 million) and is set in the era of the New Zealand gold rush in the 1860s.
In an interview in 2016, the film’s producer Emily Corcoran, is reported as saying “New Zealand was the first place to give women the vote and when you look at this period you can see why. They were really very liberated.” She then went on to add “The prostitutes were kind of running the show. They were so sought after and could pretty much do what they liked.” I’ll leave it up to you as to whether to think that was a good or bad thing.
The song was written for the film by Stan walker and Inoke Paletua Finau. Stan walker’s voice perfectly conveys the loss (and hope) expressed in the lyrics. There are a number of versions of this song on YouTube, and for me it was a toss up between the clip included below and one with Stan Walker featuring Maisey Rika singing in te reo Māori. The latter includes the haunting melody of the Kōauau (Māori flute), but simply displays the album cover. So instead, I decided to use this version with scenes clipped from the film. Enjoy!
Find You – Stan Walker (The Stolen)
Find You (The Stolen)
Can't see you in the dark
I'm trying to find your light
I can't move through the dust
Getting lost in the night
The storm may come and the rain will fall
Fire and pain go hand in hand, what more
The sun will rise and I may fall
The earth will shake, but I will not be moved
Don't you worry, I'm running, I'm searching
I'm trying to find you, to hold you, I need you
Won't give up 'til I can't breathe no longer
I believe and I can't stop, won't stop
'Cause I'm gonna find you
I'll find you
I'm gonna find you
No, I can't give up
'Cause I'm gonna find you
I can't feel you anymore
Can't hear through all the noise
I'm waiting for your call
I'm searching for your voice
The storm may come and the rain will fall
Fire and pain go hand in hand, what more
The sun will rise and I may fall
The earth will shake, but I will not be moved
Don't you worry, I'm running, I'm searching
I'm trying to find you, to hold you, I need you
Won't give up 'til I can't breathe no longer
I believe and I can't stop, won't stop
'Cause I'm gonna find you
I'll find you
I'm gonna find you
No, I can't give up
'Cause I'm gonna find you
I'm closer (Come closer)
I'm nearer (You're nearer)
Feels stronger (I'm stronger)
It's better (I'm better)
Not falling (I'm coming)
Just moving (I'm running)
Can breathe now (I'm trying)
I feel now (I'm here now)
'Cause I'm gonna find you
I'll find you
I'm gonna find you
No, I can't give up
'Cause I'm gonna find you
'Cause I'm gonna find you
I'll find you
I'm gonna find you
No, I can't give up
'Cause I'm gonna find you
Blogging has almost become a way of life. While I don’t spend all that much time creating posts of my own, I do spend considerably more time reading and commenting on other blogs. Over the past month or so I have spent much less blogging time than has become the norm. The most significant factor for this is a semi-persistent low level migraine.
But if you prefer I not go into details. stop reading any further and simply enjoy a few of the flowers on display in our front garden at the end of September and beginning of October. This year the spring equinox weather has been more varied and extreme compared to the typically variable and fickle weather and strong winds usually experienced at this time of the year, ranging from the extremes of winter to typical summer weather with the space of a few days and then back again! Our garden has suffered as a consequence, but still there is much to enjoy:
Spring flowers in our front garden
Migraines are funny things. One can look up textbook definitions of the various types of migraines, but in reality few migraineurs fit tidily into such definitions. In this regard, I’m no different. My migraines have been described at various times as migraine with aura, hemiplegic migraine, chronic migraine, acute migraine, vestibular migraine, complex migraine, migraine with brainstem aura, acephalgic migraine, and atypical migraine. But from personal perspective, it’s what I experience rather than what others observe that really matters, and in this regard, they are are all much the same, varying only in the intensity of various aspects of the disease.
The one thing I am grateful for is that as I have aged, the extremely painful throbbing headache that is often associated with migraine has become infrequent as have bouts of nausea. I appreciate that many people assume a migraine is just a painful throbbing headache with some nausea thrown in for good measure, and for some people that is what a migraine is, but for a significant minority of migraineurs these are the least significant aspects of their many symptoms. It is for me.
So what have I been experiencing over recent weeks that have kept me out of the blogosphere?
Brain fog
While not a particularly “scientific” term, brain fog does describe what I experience with most migraines. It affects cognition. It’s hard to describe precisely as it affects the very skills one needs to be able to accurately recall one’s experience. Perhaps it can be described as feeling distracted continuously, being unusually forgetful, and finding it difficult to complete even simple tasks. I may find it difficult to recall what a word means or being unable to locate the correct word to use. Sometimes I might be able to understand individual words but not be able to comprehend a sentence made up of those words, and at times I may not be able to string a sentence together that is understandable to others.
Brain fog often results in short term memory loss. I can start reading or writing a paragraph, but by the time I reach the end of it, I have forgotten how it started, and have to read it again. In a worse case scenario, I simply give up as I’m unable to get the gist of a single paragraph, let alone several in sequence.
Not being entirely in the here and now means that some tasks such as driving are particularly dangerous. Being unable to concentrate may mean I do not detect potentially dangerous circumstances until too late., and even then, may not be able to choose the most appropriate (or indeed any) action to take. At least these days I am aware that I have brain fog – something that didn’t always register only two decades ago. Mindfulness training has helped in this regard. So I do know when I shouldn’t drive, much to the Wife’s frustration as she prefers being a front seat passenger even though she can drive.
Visual disturbances
Every migraine I experience affects some aspects of my vision. One of the most frustrating aspects is the inability to see clearly. It’s rather difficult to describe, and while sometimes what I see can be blurry, as in being out of focus, sometimes it’s not a focusing issue, but the inability to process what I see. One way for you to grasp what I mean is to fix your gaze on one word in this paragraph and while doing so try to read the words above, below, to the left and right of it. Difficult, right? And words even further away get progressively more difficult to read, and outside a very small window become impossible to read even though you know they are there. Well, for me during a migraine the best I can see is that word one or two away away from the one you have fixed your gaze onto.
Other common visual disturbances I experience can be seen in this next video clip where, through a virtual reality headset, others experience realistic simulations of what a migraine with aura looks like to the sufferer:
What Does a Migraine Feel Like?
Other visual disturbances include blind spots. By this I don’t mean small areas that are blank, but a functioning area of the brain “fills in the details” for another area that isn’t functioning as it should. For example I may check the time by looking at a wall clock, but the clock appears to have vanished. All I see is the wall and there doesn’t appear to be any blanks spot at all. However if I move my eyes away from there I expect the clock to be, it suddenly appears, as if by magic. What has actually happened is that I do in fact have a temporary blind spot, but another part of the brain recognises the pattern on the wall and reconstructs it to fill in the blind spot. We all have a small blind spot where the optic nerve leaves the eye, and we all have the neurology where a part of the brain fills in the missing details by “filling in the gap”, but usually we’re unaware of it occurring at all.
Motor disturbances
These are many and varied. They go from the simple such as finding it difficult to write legibly or tie shoelaces (hence most of my shoes having velcro fasteners) through difficulty with speech and balance (giving the appearance of being drunk) to hemiplegia where the right side of my body, especially the face and arm, but to a lesser extent my leg, lose strength and fail to respond unless I make a conscious and determined mental effort to control them, and then only clumsily.
Over the past month none of the aforementioned symptoms have been at their worst. In fact each symptom has by itself has been barely noticeable to others, but when so many conspire to be present at once, even in “mild” forms, the net result is a person who is unproductive, however that term is understood, and unmotivated, and when pushed to do something, performs it badly. Such is life.
Another Spectrum 
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