A Name is Born

9 Feb 2006

.................... ...................HARRY....................
........................... ..
...............................

4 weeks and 5 days after junior was born and we finally have a name.
Harry Kahurangi
Harry was an early favourite and survived all of the vicious early culls and fevered negotiations. Unfortunately it emerged as my early favourite and Mrs K may have veered away from it as a result. I think she wanted to come up with an alternative she could really call her own and Harry was MY name, which meant I didn’t fancy it's chances in the long run.
My strategy was; take emphasis off Harry and let it sit in the background.
I liked Harry. I know there is a Prince Harry but mostly it seems like a simple friendly, working class name. The name of the sort of guy you would like to have round for a dinner of mince and peas.
“Good Mince.” Said Harry unassumingly.
“not too many carrots.”
The other thing time will do is see if the name stands up under scrutiny and in a variety of arenas.
Debate the name.
It’s not an original idea, In fact it’s one of the oldest, it’s the ancient greek idea. One of Aristotle’s or Plato’s or the other guy..
But it’s a goodie and basically one of the foundation ideas of our society, our parliamentary and justice systems at least.
You know, put forward an idea argue about it and see if the idea survives the scrutiny. If necessary take oppossing views. Throw s**t at it. Barrage it with other ideas see if it will last.
Harry did, Harry survived.

My end game strategy involved suggesting names to force Harry into contention, not weird names, that wouldn’t work anymore after the Pinnochio debacle, but names so ordinary that they would tip the balance in Harry’s favour.
So it was that when I said “What about Colin?”
The wife said “I like Harry.”
Harry was a goer.

We never wanted a maori name for his first name. I’m not maori enough and he looks like a little pakeha fella too much. So we decide to give him one for his second name.
A person I encountered with an attitude informed by years of listening to talkback said with a half sneer;
“Why do you want to call him a Maori name?”
I felt like saying-

“To impress my white liberal friends”
OR
“To go with his Poenamu”
OR
“So that he can get more grants when he’s older”

But because I know where some of this persons ideas may have come from (accidental rather than considered ignorance) I knew nothing bad was meant by it.
I said. “because he’s got Maori blood, SOME Maori blood at least, and he should know that, eh?”

Then he said. “oh yeah. Nice name isn’t it.”

Mrs K singled out Kahurangi from a book.
I wasn’t convinced.
Then I received information about my birth family (I am adopted). My grandfather on my mothers side (My Maori side) had the name ‘Kuhurangi’.
The information arrived THE DAY we were deciding the Maori name, it seemed to be fate and who am I to ignore the messages fate sends you?
“Kahurangi’s good eh..”
And so he is sorted..
Harry Kahurangi.
Nice.

Also H K Kumara sounds good if he wants to become an author and “Harry K” sounds like a subversive film maker or film.
“The enigma of Harry K” which can be an arty film in black and white with lots of time lapse rotting meat and corpses. . .the usual art stuff..ho hum.( it can be about a fly called harry K that doesn’t die while all around it rots, dies and decays…
I’ve already cast the fly lead).

Our Harry has been out and about lately.
This week we took him to his first restaurant. We were going to buy takeaways but when I went in I decided we could maybe get away with eating at the place.
It was a Japanese, so I knew the food would come quick and there were very few people in there.
Once we were seated we told him;
“Mate, this is called a restaurant.
Mummy and Daddy love these.
We are gastronomes. Can you say that?
(starts crying)
Or gluttons, take your pick.”

And it all worked out fine. I thought it would be ages before we could go near a restaurant, but there you go.
Last weekend we also went down to the bach in the Coromandel.
I don’t think Harry was too fussed by it all but we sure appreciated it.
I have found taking him in the car stressful though. Especially out west where half the people drive like f**k wits.
We were given a “Baby on Board” sticker with our car seat and I didn’t put it on, but maybe I need to reconsider.
My initial thoughts were along these lines;
If someone is going to crash into our car why would a sticker stop them?
It’s not as though they will have a choice – like they are careening(or careering) down the road, out of control and see a car and think;
“I wont hit that one, it’s got a baby sticker on it. I’ll hit that car with a ‘Bank Manger on Board’ sticker instead.”
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
BUT having been serially tail gated on the highway lately I may have to get the sticker out.
The most common tail gating offenders fall into two categories;
The fat middle aged man in a large Holden, Falcon or 4WD, who looks like he is a pork chop away from a heart attack AND the young guy in the lowered car.
The latter will invariably have a cap on backwards and will always be a midget. SO in a sense he is lowered too. On occasion, the lowered kid in the lowered car can follow so close it looks like no one is driving the car.
Urghh.. very disconcerting, with Harry on board.

I have had some response from last weeks blog about crappy New Zealand writers and comedians. I don’t know who these people are, but they may have been reading my blog as a residue from a Hard News link a few weeks back.
Nigel said “Raybon Kan is cool you .. “ and then used a word of German derivation that, 4th form legend suggests is in “The Canterbury Tales”.
And someone said to me;
“You cant slag other writers. Don’t writers have an unwritten rule that you don’t slag each other?”
Two points on that one.
1. Why is it unwritten? They are writers, for gods sake. Someone write it down. Then send me a copy.
2. I don’t feel like I’m a writer. I’m a blogger.
Writers are guys with those leather bits on their sleeves who smoke pipes and try to impress people with big words at parties.
If they are good writers they will get away with it. While bad writers will use try-hard words like OXYMORON.
“Isn’t that an oxymoron” (points at oxygen breathing idiot)
guffaw and chuckle...