Dec 15, 2015 etc
Nobody’s perfect, but some imperfections deserve recognition for truly lowering the bar. Our annual celebration of Dubious Achievements salutes only the crème de la crème of stupidity, ineptitude and gobsmacking dubiosity.
By the Metro society writers. This article was first published in the December 2015 issue of Metro.
The Ceremonial Red Card celebrating rank amateurism in a professional sport goes to New Zealand Football.
Ooh, “the beautiful game”. The skills. The excitement. The grown men rolling around on the ground, clutching their legs and howling like babies. We’re well into it. Got our favourite English team to follow, plus one from the German third division for obscurity value. Got a special eye-roll to use when people say “soccer” instead of football. Even got a mildly sarf London accent to use for football chat, innit?
So we know that football is the sleeping giant of New Zealand sport, that generations of Kiwi kids have become scarily good at rolling around on the ground, clutching their legs and howling like babies. Next step, world domination? Probably not when the game’s local bosses don’t even know who actually qualifies to play for New Zealand, a failing that led to our under-23 team being kicked out of an Olympic qualifying tournament. A biggie? It only derailed the Olympic dreams of our best young players.
The Ice-T Commemorative Microphone for woeful rapping while putting a bright future behind him goes to former All Black Israel Dagg.
Come on, peeps, time to get busy
Try our very hardest to rap as bad as Izzy
He was the playa (playa!) who got left out by Shag
But who’s on the in-flight video? Israel friggin Dagg!
Sample of roaring crowd; Winston McCarthy: “It’s a goal!” etc.
That was quite a bummer but what of this suggestion
Izzy’s gonna always be a brilliant pub-quiz question
“Who was the playa (playa!) who couldn’t get a game?
In that famous World Cup team, but still got on the plane?”
(That’s enough bad rapping — Ed.)
Men In Black Safety Defenders #AirNZSafetyVideo
The Management Material Certificate for getting someone else to do the heavy lifting goes to MP Clare Curran.
Why write something original for the Labour Party’s big “Future of Work” paper when you can just cut and paste a few paragraphs from the Economist? Because the internet will catch you out, silly.
The Allan Duff Medal for heroic wrongheadedness in the face of literary fame’s poppy-choppers is awarded to Eleanor Catton.
At 832 pages, Catton’s The Luminaries obviously took a bit of organising. Those of us who have actually read it (okay, its Wikipedia entry) know that, to use the technical term, it has formal structure up the wazoo. Which was why we were so surprised when its author let fly with the most muddled stream-of-consciousness rants about her homeland. The literary formalist suddenly erupted into full gonzo, detecting “a lot of discrediting” in regard to New Zealand writers. That The Luminaries missed out on last year’s New Zealand Post Book Awards top prize apparently showed how hard we can be on those who
succeed overseas.
We’re sorry that being made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit didn’t float Catton’s boat, but can we just say that we’re okay with New Zealand awards judges making their own decisions. And that as regular RNZ listeners and readers’n’writers fest-goers, we think there is so much high-carb adulation heaped upon this country’s writers, it should probably come with a health warning.
“I don’t see you as an ambassador for our country, I see you as a traitor” – Sean Plunket. Video: One News.
The Winston Peters Silver Dog Whistle for services to racial harmony goes to the Labour Party for its dodgy use of research based on Chinese-sounding names.
Better put on the Benny Hill music to fully appreciate this blast of 70s-style funny-names offensiveness. No matter how many generations of your family have lived in New Zealand, if your name sounded a bit, er, Chinese-ey, hapless Labour was ready to drag your house purchase into the debate about foreigners splurging on Auckland property.
Happily, the party didn’t get the kind of poll boost such odiousness has been known to provide. The party of the great, probably-Chinese MP John A. Lee succeeded only in exposing its own woeful judgment. A suitable foreigny-sounding name for leader Andrew Little and housing spokesperson Phil Twyford? Nongs.
More from the series:
Dubious Achievement Awards 2015 – Part 1
Dubious Achievement Awards 2015 – Part 3
Dubious Achievement Awards 2015 – Part 4
