I have written before on here about my identity crisis, and also about life in old age. Now, they come together….
This outcome does not however mean that any politician, in any mental condition, is taking my name in vain – assuming I’m in a significant political position, or am a major player on the world stage. I’m not being cast in a movie, either, even one about Mark Mitchell. But I am available to appear in a film involving George Clooney in any way. Unfortunately, in a biopic about him, I’d be senior enough to be cast as his aunt, Rosemary Clooney (although the singing voice would have to be dubbed).
Not that gorgeous George himself isn’t getting on in years. In fact, were he in New Zealand, he’d pretty soon be eligible for one of Mr Peters’s Gold Cards. But I’m not recommending he come here, as the Deputy PM would probably be hinting at some dark involvement in a ferry grounding. After all, Clooney starred in those movies with ‘Ocean’ in the title…..
But about being Joanne Wilkes. My UK bank is closing my accounts while making the funds reimbursement as difficult as possible. They have finally agreed that I am who I said I am, and I received evidence of this in the mail! Two pale blue rectangles, one for each account. Yes, the bank, which generally shows little awareness of where New Zealand is, figured that they owed money to this Joanne Wilkes domiciled there, but hadn’t got the memo that New Zealand banks don’t accept cheques any longer. Cue another letter into the lousy international postal service, supplying (again) my NZ bank account number. And a little girl waits….
There are different sides to being Joanne Wilkes. As outlined in an earlier piece, there were once two Joanne Wilkeses in the same block of five rental units, and for a while, only the one not me was getting mail. Thirty-seven years on, and this one gets an unexpected approach on Messenger, asking if I could be the Joanne Wilkes the sender had turned up in her genealogical research. I explained that I hailed from Oz, but that I knew there was another Joanne Wilkes in Taranaki. This was indeed the One, as my correspondent gratefully told me. Was this also the one I once lived near in Auckland? Who knows?
Or possibly it was the Joanne Wilkes sought by a smitten young man who once, in the days before mobile phones (yes! I can remember back then), had met a young woman at a party whose name was Joanne Wilkes and who lived with her parents. He was therefore ringing all the Wilkeses in the Auckland phone book (remember those…), and had got to the Js by about midnight. As I recall, I even back then considered myself sufficiently senior to suggest that late-night phone calls might not endear him to the young woman’s parents. He rang me again the next day at a more civilised hour, in his second run-through of the 40 or so Wilkeses in the book. But perhaps romance eventually bloomed, and thus the woman no longer has the surname Wilkes – yet the pair have a daughter who is pursued on social media by guys checking out, say, all the Jessica Smiths….
Thinking of being senior brings me back to my mind-exercising activity in my retirement, and also to politics. Have found recently that some people think that right-wing French leader Marine Le Pen wuz robbed in the recent round of elections. The problem, of course, was immigrants. Amazingly, the same people believed that Trump had really won back in 2020, the problem, again, being immigrants. Didn’t pursue the topic about New Zealand, being an immigrant.
But this was a French conversation gathering, and I find it hard to argue about politics in my second language. I did however ruminate further about politics privately, having just heard that Sitiveni Rabuka had been elected back into power in Fiji. He had engineered a coup in the late ‘80s, not long after I arrived in New Zealand; some years later, Frank Bainimarama had engineered a second one. The system has become more democratic, fortunately, but for a long time, power seemed to oscillate between these two coup leaders, as they moved towards old age. (Bainimarama is now finally out of parliament, facing jail for interfering in a financial investigation of the University of the South Pacific.)
Recent elections in India and Pakistan, meanwhile, reminded me of how often particular families remain prominent in politics for generations – notably the Gandhis in India and the Bhuttos in Pakistan. In those countries, most people have to focus so much on making a living that engaging in politics is likely impossible for them. But in the US too, politics is so costly, that they end up with dynasties (Kennedys, Bushes), or geriatrics. So the pool of possible talent is hardly being touched.
Enough elderly rambling (says anyone still reading this)! Some things do change, while others abide. The venerable Winston Peters has after all moved on from immigrants, if only because those disaffected by Labour’s Covid response are currently a bigger constituency than the anti-immigrant voters.
Joanne Wilkes has recently published a book on the (one and only) Jane Austen.
