Getting down to the basics on a Sunday lunchtime

Press, 23 June 1981, Page 15

Getting down to the basics on a Sunday lunchtime

[Review h Ken Strongman J

In these troubled times it is all too easy to forget some o f the basic values. As society changed and consciousness is filled with such trivia as money, oil. unemployment and inequality, the ineluctable, not to say, incorrigible. essence of New Zealand tends to be thrust into the background. One hour at Sunday lunchtime is all that is necessary to put things back into per- . spective. This week, "Farming Today” was all about sex and genetic, engineering. It involved the genetic importance to New Zealand of a particular group of rams. If they are as vigorous as they wete made to appear, there could be some unforeseen results. In anv case, it is worth keeping an eye open for any woolly ducks for a year or two. When the programme was not concentrating on balloted rams grinning their waythrough a new breeding system, it was full of graphs, pointers and an impenetrable

analysis of the measures used in this intense field of endeavour.

"Lambing percentage” is understandable, but what on is “Percentage draft”? Where would it be blowing? And "ewes assisted”? At what? Given their wide-rang-ing performance, one would think that "rams assisted” would be the appropriate measure.

Still, those check-shirted, arms-folded, squinty-eyed figures standing about in fields must know what thev are doing. "Dig this” was all about sex as well. In his inimitable, quiet way-, Eion Scarrow guided us through the stamens, styles and stigmas as those evil-minded flowers were up to their usual tricks. In their understated way, they are at it all the time, bent entirely on reproducing themselves.

There were lessons to be learned for us all, from Scarrow's simple and straightforward presentation. "Do your pruning right and you’ll have a terrific bunch of laterals.”

.Worth bearing in mind if your laterals are a trifle world wearv.

The real problem, though, with Sunday’s “Dig This” was not sex. it was the confounded tour again. Scarrowshowed us 12,000 Proteas in Wanganui. In a way. they are perfect plants, having manyinteresting varieties and growing best in dry, scrubby, windy conditions. But where do they come from? South Africa. Should we allow such plants into the country?

If the Commonwealth Society of Horticulturalists comes' to hear of it, we could be in trouble. "Of Course You Can Do It” was neither sexy nor germane to the tour — possibly the first programme for a week which hasn't been; But it was sexist. There were tw-o men making a butcher's chopping block, and then, with one of them changed, demonstrating how to chop meat on it. Elsewhere, there were two women demonstrating how to make a sheepskin jacket.

The impression was strong that at the end of the programme they would be at opposite ends of the studio talking respectively of rugby and knitting patterns. Is this good enough in times of equality and job-sharing? Still, traditional values and all that. As far as content was concerned, there is no problem in making a chopping block if you happen to have eight enormous clamps hanging about. If you want to chop meat it is even easier, if you happen to have a house full of lethal instruments.

The sheepskin jacket? Again, simple enough if you have a $350 sewing machine and are at home with terms such as a “modified welt seam” and understand the necessity to “zig-zag” on occasion. '

These three programmes are enormously enjoyable and one can raise one’s head as they end with the basic values of our heritage once again firmly established. But with all this sex, sexism and racism, perhaps they would be better late at night when the children are dreaming of democracy and "The Dukes of Hazzard.”