Richard Moore's Straight Talk Columns

Dune shenanigans an unsavoury sight

24/5/2011

WHEN I was a youngster my biggest fear at the beach was getting water up my nose.

Never thought about sunburn, never thought about sharks - until Jaws - and never cared about crabs, until one of the blighters actually grabbed hold of a pipi-seeking hand.

Despite the slight dangers, the ocean has a seasonless appeal with its waters cooling in summer and spectacular after a winter storm.

If rugged up against the elements a winter walk down Papamoa Beach is an invigorating, cleansing thing to do.

You also get to see a gentler side of life, with people having fun on the sands. They play all forms of footy, cricket, build sandcastles, leave messages for fancied ones, walk hand-in-hand with their partners, sit and think about life or just stroll along breathing in the fresh air.

Sometimes, some people also get up to funny stuff on beaches. Usually it is at night and - as long as it is discreet and not within ear shot of an easily frightened fisherman - then I reckon it's okay.

However in the middle of the day is another matter, as one poor jogger found at Papamoa the other day. There he was, building up a sweat running along the sand dunes - hope he didn't ruin any conservation work - when, all of a sudden he got the shock of his life.

Before his eyes were a pair of unclad chaps doing things that shouldn't be happening near a public beach in daylight.

Shocked, he called the coppers but they arrived too late to catch the miscreants.

Now in that area of Papamoa, there is a nudist area where those sunlovers who want to have their nether regions sunburnt can do so. They don't want to come across unsavoury sights while walking to the beach.

Keep it at home, Lurkers of the Dunes, or else we may have to start taking the numbers of cars parked in that area of Papamoa Beach Rd.

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MY favourite food when eating out is steak tartare.

Very finely chopped raw beef, with capers, anchovies, dijon mustard, raw egg ... OMG I'm drooling at the thought of it. To go with it I love a drop or three of shiraz.

Did I tell you what my favourite whine is?

It's listening to farmers moaning about how hard done by they are.

Fair dinkum, check out the bleating will you. ``It's too hot, it's not hot enough, it's too wet, it's not wet enough, there's too many cows, there are not enough cows ... bleat, bleat, baa, baa, blah.''

It is eye-rolling stuff and to those who say ``farmers are the backbone of this country'' I say this, they are not. They are the bleatbone of this country.

Now loath as I am to agree with anything a Labour MP says, I reckon Napier-list MP Stuart Nash has a bit of a point when he reckons farmers get off easy when it comes to tax. He reckons the average dairy farmer pays just $1500 in tax, less than a couple on the pension.

I don't know about you, but that sucks.

Nash got his info from the taxman himself and the figures show that despite a $500,000 payout from Fonterra, the average tax paid by the 17,000 plus dairy farms in these isles, was $1506.

Pensioners forked out $3136, while Mr and Mrs and Ms Joe, Jo, Joh Average paid $8000 in tax.

As you would expect, Federated Farmers said farmers were paying less tax because the average farmer made a cash loss.

Or had very creative accountants, I say.

FF went on to say that most farmers were in debt, with some forced to borrow from the bank to buy groceries. Now I've heard it all ... our farmers are poor.

Crikey, they'll be elbowing people out of the way at the foodbank next.

Someone hand me a tissue please.

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FROM the land that brought us toxic paint on toys, Tiananmen Square and melamine-flavoured milk, we have a new sensation - exploding watermelons.

In Jiangsu province, somewhere in the middle of 1.2 billion people, is a 50-hectare war zone where farmers run the risk of being hit by flying melon pips.

The melons are bursting because of the farmers' inability to read instructions for their growth accelerator forchlorfenuron. Forchlorfenuron is a legal drug - allowed in the US on kiwifruit and grapes - but only when used in correct doses.

It seems the Jiangsu farmers have been over indulging their plants in the stuff, creating melons with thin rind and a new game called Chinese Roulette - the aim of which is to see who can be hit by the most rocketing melon seeds without suffering a fatal wound.

richard@richardmoore.com