New Zealand Listener Issue 51-52 2020

She won’t quite do it live on television, but the Queen’s decision to tell the public she’s having the new Covid-19 vaccine is just the Happy Coronamas we need after this annus horribilis. With her husband, Philip, nearing 100, and herself aged 94, this public acceptance of the jab is an understated but powerful piece of global leadership, given the recent rise in vaccine hesitancy. There are many reasons we don’t need a royal family, even the largely ornamental one we have now. But as an influential touchstone for good manners, self-restraint and thoughtful leadership, it’s hard to beat the royals as a force for good. Expensively sequestered, they’ve no need to join the anxious ranks of early adopters. But the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh’s willingness to participate, as well as their resolute…

The Listener’s Christmas cover story this year, on the resurgence in repairing objects rather than simply dumping them, could for us hardly be more apt. It is a little hard to find manuals on the repair and maintenance of 80-year-old magazines, but restoring the Listener after its six-month shutdown was our own sudden challenge in what has been a tumultuous year for the world. We want to thank you, dear readers, for the huge role you have played in making that relaunch mission so successful. Your stimulating feedback and ideas have helped immensely, as has your extraordinary loyalty as subscribers and buyers. The Listener is finishing the year with just as many subscribers as in January, and on top of that, the magazine is attracting new readers every week, with sales…

“Christmas is a together sort of holiday,” said Pooh. “That’s my favourite kind,” said Piglet.” – Winnie-the-Pooh “The two most joyous times of the year are Christmas morning and the end of school.” – Alice Cooper “E iti noa ana nā te aroha – Although it is small, it is given with love.” – from Mauri Ora, Wisdom from the Māori World “Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults tell the Government what they want and their kids pay for it.” – US politician Richard Lamm “Hope is itself a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness that this world affords.” – Samuel Johnson “Waiho i te toipoto, kaua i te toiroa – Let us keep close together.” – Māori New Year proverb “Attention is the rarest and purest…

Depression is often associated with worrying (“High anxiety”, December 12) and I realised a few years ago that never worrying is a beneficial genetic condition that I have. When I’m concerned about things, I tend to focus on finding solutions. If none is obvious, I move on to the next problem and get satisfaction from solving that one. For example, I am amazed at all the things I can do with just my left hand since I had a stroke. If it is possible to teach people this positive approach to life, we should start straight away and add it to both the school curriculum and the way students are managed. It was pleasing to note that one GP doesn’t use the word depression, but offers “wellness support” and uses focused acceptance and…

“Why is pop music not as good as it used to be?” Music is becoming more generic. A 2012 study analysed 464,411 songs recorded between 1955 and 2010 and found that the most recent ones had less variation in pitch and volume. It also looked at “timbral variety” (the difference between two notes of the same pitch and volume – because they’re made by different instruments, for instance), observing that this peaked in the 1960s and has been declining ever since. Moreover, many of the world’s most popular pop songs are written by a select group of people. For example, since 1999, songwriter Max Martin has been credited on 23 US No 1 singles, for nine different artists, including Britney Spears, Taylor Swift and Maroon 5. But there’s also the matter of perception.…

The phrase “American exceptionalism” is chanted so often by US pundits and politicians, you’d think it sprang from a Founding Father, or maybe Lincoln, or Indiana Jones. But no, it was Soviet leader Joseph Stalin who, in 1929, described the assertion that the US’ social and economic strength would forever resist communist revolution as “the heresy of American exceptionalism”. Ronald Reagan, who ushered in the era of narcissism and windbaggery of which President Donald Trump was a logical extension, also found time to turbocharge the notion of exceptionalism. After the malaise of the Jimmy Carter era, Americans were only too happy to lap up Reagan’s milk-and-honey rhetoric. Since then, it’s been the go-to narcotic politicians use to convince voters not to believe what they see in plain sight, namely a nation…