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The death of the English writer, John Berger, is like the death of a valued family member. In terms of Marxism as a spiritual belief he was an apostle, a teller of stories which anticipate a better world, a world not dominated by commodity relations, relations of buying and selling, but a world based on relations of mutuality. That, after all, is the guts of it all.

He served in the army, then went to art school, before becoming the art critic for The New Statesman. In that role he challenged the art establishment by situating paintings within the social and economic milieu of their time. Thus, all those famous oil portraits were portraits of the rising middle class showing off themselves and their possessions (the trend continues in those kitsch portraits of families to be seen on display in the local photographers). Art works are not some abstract, reified, truth-is-beauty sort of thing, but material  products of a society.

The BBC commissioned Berger for a series on the history of art and as well as the above framing he would take a painting into the local pub and ask the patrons to discuss it. Ways of Seeing proved very popular and horrified the art establishment with its highly educated nose entangled in a dense web of bourgeois aesthetics.

As a fiction writer, Berger was an anomaly. He wrote as someone draws, searching for sensory detail as a guide to the essence of the image. It gives his prose both simplicity and a tactile grace. He said of himself that he was not a natural writer, having to work hard at it, in the same way as a crafts person works at his or her material. He managed a novel good enough to win the Booker, but the novel is a middle class form and Berger was more comfortable as a story teller in the traditional sense.

Tired of the David Camerons of the English world, he moved, surprisingly, to live in a French peasant village. He saw social democracy, socialism, the Marxist humanist vision, communism as an ideal, call it what you will, as under threat, in the same way as peasant life was under threat. Yet the peasant has learned century-old survival techniques which for Berger, could be useful tools (they could certainly be useful for the current US left under the coming Trump regime).

He wrote a trilogy of books based on stories of peasant life: stories of the traditions (Pig Earth); stories of facing the neo-liberal threats (Once in Europa); stories of moving to the city (Lilac and Flag). Once in Europa is a wonderful book. He also wrote a study of migrants – for Berger, the 20^th century was a century of people on the move; moving to survive, experiencing loss as they did so, and at the same time, searching for mutuality.

His novel, To a Wedding, is one of the great works of working class fiction, a hymn of hope in the face of tragedy. A young woman falls in love only to find she has AIDS from a previous one night stand. Her lover insists on continuing the relationship and on them marrying. Family and friends journey through Europe to the celebration. The story is told by a blind seer who seems to connect us to ancient Greece and its myths. If you haven’t read it, please do.

In between times, Berger corresponded with the Zapatista leader, Marcos, collaborated on film projects and wrote a rather lovely book, Here is where we meet, in which he meets and talks with family members and friends who have passed. In it, we find that the adolescent Berger was influenced by a Kiwi, a Man Alone sort of bloke called Ken, who lived out of a suitcase in a series of bed sits, but pointed this English kid in the direction of some good and influential books, as well as teaching him about the world. I was going to write to Berger to try and find out more about Ken. He should be celebrated in some way. Alas, it is too late.

I recently gave my copy of Here is where we meet to a local friend who is dying. Berger is someone you’d want to read at the end of life, for everyone, surely, wants to die with hope in their heart.

In perhaps his last interview, he was asked about what kept him going? He replied, ‘The next job, the next task. Because I’m always so involved and also collaborating in many, many ways with many different people on many different levels. So what keeps me going is the next page.’

The sun is almost shining, and a very tall foxglove floats in the wind, a bee hovering.

The next page has finally turned.

The pile of packaging which Christmas Day produces is something of an issue. In the afternoon I take the three year old down to the creek and he plays for an hour throwing sticks for the dog and heaving rocks into the water. Contentment. And I wonder about all that plastic stuff that Santa has brought.

I get the book, Post Capitalism for a present and begin to read. Paul Mason makes the obvious point that we don’t need a lot of the stuff that we’re persuaded to buy, and in that sense, the market is highly inefficient, particularly when you factor in climate change. With the modern computer and its ability to collect and analyze data, the command economy is now feasible, for people’s needs could be accessed on a weekly basis. The problem for the Soviets was always a committee trying to work out how many clothes pegs were required in the coming year. So, a return to the socialist model is now called for?

He can’t quite bear to go down that path, instead joins the chorus of Utopians who see information technology providing a way out of current dilemmas, via volunteerism, open source design, the creative commons etc. Wikipedia is the model. More and more products are simply information: music, videos and so on. And information can be shared without the profit motive dominating. Giant monopolies form in response (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple…), but these, and the state, can be bypassed through algorithmic devices such as bitcoin and blockchains, crowd funding and referenda. People can really be in charge, these prophets preach, and a new world can come into being.

Housing? Food? I’m of the wrong generation to swallow this. Usernames and passwords are sufficient stress. The screen is already over demanding of time.

The three year old has lost his special pillow slip and weeps loudly. I offer him another pillow slip but that increases the volume of distress. ‘What about a potato?’ I suggest, picking one out of the bag.

‘Are you crazy?’ says his seven year sister.

‘Irony,’ I say.

‘What’s that?’ She’s genuinely interested.

‘Mmmm. If I say the cat is very energetic…’ I point to the elderly ginger who sleeps twenty three hours a day, ‘that’s irony. Or…,’ I indicate the overcast sky which is beginning to drizzle, ‘it’s a beautiful summer day.’

‘‘But he’s lost his blanky,’ she says.

‘I lost my mother at his age.’

‘Eh?’

‘She disappeared.’

‘Where?’

‘Into hospital.’

‘Why?’

‘They thought she was mad.’

‘You still had a father?’

‘He ran away.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘Another family took me.’

‘Your mother never got out?’

‘She ran off and died in the hills.’

Her face has become thinner, her eyes narrow. ‘So, what’s the irony?’

‘Your brother’s lost his blanky, but his mother’s five metres away.’

She pouts and goes back to her leggo. Love is a problem. We need to refind the skill. That’s the worst thing about fascism. It kills the possibility of love.

Little donkey, little donkey, had a heavy day… Perhaps that’s what Christianity is about. Kindling the possibility of love. Making it more possible. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound… My adopted father, once his wife was dead, had a tea towel printed with the words of Amazing Grace pinned to the wall above the dining table.

On those dutiful visits to that small unit in a Napier suburb, I used to ponder them at length. As some sort of clue to whakapapa. I came to prefer the Pai Marire chant: Wairua pai marire, Wairua pai marire, Wairua pai marire, Rire rire- hau (a peaceful spirit and the breath of life).

After decades of rain, Saturday was fine, leading to a great rush to get outside things done. As I painted the window surrounds- our house is largely held together with paint- I could hear the neighbour’s lawnmower hitting hard objects with great frequency, followed by the motor dying and some cursing, before the cycle repeated itself. When I saw him the next day he reported mowing innumerable toys which had been left outside by his children and become covered by the grass. ‘That’s it. I’m not buying them any more,’ he said. ‘Even if I felt like it, it would mean going to the Warehouse.’

I sympathised. Going to the Warehouse at this time of year is a little like experiencing a foretaste of hell, and the children’s toy section with the garish packaging and the surrealism of the objects, is particularly fearsome.

In fact, this time of year generally has a surreal quality. A handful of people celebrate the birth of Christ, that distant historical figure. The midwinter Klaus with his pine log on the fire has been dealt to by the Americans and become Father Christmas popping down chimneys with the latest Barbie. The end of the work year is celebrated by some, but as a mate in a bookstore said, ‘I work in retail. We don’t do holidays.’

People are under financial stress. Caroline reported watching a steady stream of low-income people going into DTR for a high interest loan. Most of us have got too much stuff anyway, the volatile weather is probably here to stay and Aleppo is unthinkable – no stable there.

Meanwhile, Health and Safety becomes an imperial monster, overseeing all activities. Christ and his family and Klaus would be stopped in their tracks for not having a risk assessment. A science teacher told me she’s no longer allowed to do experiments and can’t go into the corridor in her lab coat for fear of cross contamination. As well, kids don’t know how to strike a match and the boys haven’t got the strength in their thumbs to click a lighter. A ridiculously large sign has appeared on the Blackball swimming bath fence warning of the chlorine hazard contained therein. As well, an assembly point has been designated on the swathe of grass outside, in the event of a tsunami sweeping the pool or the water catching fire.

But there are still moments of hope. The school choir I had to quickly get together gelled when the girl with an expressionless face suddenly volunteered to help out the soloist; another friend’s teenage son’s father has turned up in his life with good results; someone wrote to me with some gracious comments about some short stories; the theatre group had a lovely pot luck tea in the storm; and I have a substantial history of India since independence to see me through the holiday period.

Finally, a Buddhist mate has been on a six day retreat at which the participants asked one another repeatedly, ‘Who are you?’ By the end of it he’d felt great love and compassion for his classmates. I lay in bed this morning imagining what I might have said over the six days. It’s an interesting exercise for us schiz’s.

Take care and avoid the Warehouse.

The Pike families have been picketing the road to the mine over the last couple of weeks. Solid Energy were trying to seal the entrance to the mine by plugging it with thirty cubic metres of concrete. It would have been a crude symbol of finality and some of the families reacted. The protest grew in numbers and escalated into a call for a re-entry of the drift and for Mines Rescue volunteers to take a walk up the tunnel to see what they could see. It would be a limited walk, for the breathing gear only lasts four hours maximum and they keep it down to three hours for safety reasons. The mine atmosphere is now 90% methane and the present mine seal has an entry chamber so oxygen would not get in. So, it is argued, this would be a safe venture.

The families tried to negotiate with Solid Energy to no avail and this week are approaching government. Of course, with any re-entry, health and safety concerns are present and who would be willing to shoulder the risk? Another rock fall is always possible. Some other accident? A fobbing off will not be difficult. But local feeling is running high.

Already local contractors have stopped supplying materials for the job and at the weekend the farmer whose land the initial section of the road passes through decided to lease the land to the families. They now have control of who goes to the mine. A brilliant touch, like renaming the Blackball Hilton, formerly the Blackball Hilton when the chain threatened to sue.

We got up early and went to the picket this morning. There would have been close to a hundred people there. It was an evocative scene: misty hills, rain threatening, those Coast faces, some kids playing, a barbie, the 29 portraits on the fence, crosses painted on the road, plus the camaraderie of a picket. I wandered around with a video camera and got the story in ten minutes.

There was a tv crew there from the Paul Henry Show, who seemed to be doing very little. But suddenly they moved into action, gave Bernie Monk an ear piece and a mike, orchestrated the crowd, who fell silent, waved cell phones in the air and the penny dropped: there was going to be a live interview with Paul H. It started, the connection was lost, much dithering, with everyone watching as if this were a sacred ritual. I was gob-smacked. Paul Henry on the side of the worker?

Yet all those present were going along with it. That camaraderie, that ingenuity, fell silent for the media. Where had everyone been trained to accept this hegemony? I was reminded of The Hunger Games – the regions were suddenly providing entertainment for the centre and the glitterati who live there.

Who knows what will happen? Even if they do get in, will Mines Rescue find anything of importance? No one knows. Perhaps that’s the point. Is this a situation where a more sophisticated aesthetic is required? Instead of thirty cubic metres of concrete, why not design and place at the portal a set of beautiful wrought iron gates, designed by an artist. Something spiritual that might grace a castle entrance. That would be my solution.

As we drove home, the most beautiful rainbow formed, almost within touching distance.

But of course, it soon disappeared. That’s the nature of rainbows.

I had organised to cycle to Wellington before the Kaikoura earthquake and it would have been messy to change bookings. From Murchison on, it was like entering a war zone, with massive trucks roaring past, carrying all sorts of machines, buildings, containers, or stuff from China. It would be easy to join the road kill and the degree of trust required was considerable.

Meanwhile the road itself, not designed for this amount of traffic, was quickly crumbling, with crews pouring asphalt into potholes. It was not difficult to see a volatile planet entering a macabre dance with a psychotic system trying to cope with an increasing level of crisis.

Spring Creek camping ground outside Blenheim, was full of young people on working visas tending to the vineyards – another version of the precariat – so the kitchen was a busy place. Their lifeline was their cell phone. They didn’t seem  joyous.

But the ferry ride was pleasant, better for all that stuff to be floating on the sea; or on a train for that matter.

In Wellington I attended the National Film Unit reunion. I haven’t done reunions before. Strange to sidle up to someone you haven’t seen for forty years. What is there to say? It was a return to that feeling I remember having – the young renegade in the government department, whispering asides to other renegades. On Sunday we went to Peter Jackson’s post production studios, a feudal castle with mediocre art and whispers of awe at the technology. Meanwhile the northerly gale continued to howl a truly medieval response. It was very difficult cycling around the bays. But in the evenings, there were good encounters with David McGill and Omar and Serena.

On the bus to Napier I debated for two hours with a young fundamentalist Christian woman. She works for some crusade network. When I say work, she receives no salary, but trusts that God will provide. She was devoted to God and visits schools, runs holiday programmes, door knocks and talks to people in the street. She had a level of commitment that makes the lefties a bit soft in comparison. We debated creationism and I think I got through just a little when I compared the old testament to Maori myths and legends. I explained that I find both heaven and hell problematic, but have occasionally had a pantheistic experience.

I visited my brother in his rest home in Waipukurau. It seemed a pleasant enough place and he is cared for and can still have a smoke in a bothy, along with some others. The tobacco tax seems terribly harsh on these pensioners. I borrowed his car and drove to Napier, beginning to distrust the Hawkes Bay: one of those places of heightened consumption, born again Christians and sunshine – they seem to go together.

At eighty eight, my aunt, who I love, has had enough. Everything has become painful and life lacks dignity. How to die is the issue. My cousin and her husband certainly have all the gear. I slept in one of those flash caravans which are very close to space ships, with carefully designed space management, LED lights every which way, and no connection to the earth whatsoever, except electronically. As the container ships floated past, the wind continued to bluster.

Cycling back to the Coast, I decided I had been meeting deadlines and visiting people in crisis. It was time for a couple of days of holiday. I camped in the bush on the Wairau River, and then at Lake Rotoiti, where the morning bird chorus is impressive. At night I read my history of the Spanish Civil War, one of the truly tragic historical events of the last century.

Riding down the valley from St Arnaud early Saturday morning reminded me of what I like about cycling. Alone in a pristine world, with a tent, a sleeping bag and a bicycle. Before the trucks started, joined by people hooning off to a motorbike event.

In the Buller Gorge a cop car stopped me and a middle aged police man begged me to stay to the side of the road. I’m close to retirement, he said, I don’t want to scrape another one off the road. I reassured him that I’d be alright. He had intense eyes. I pedalled on but he had made me feel unsafe and the back tyre was losing air pressure. It was good then to pick up my car in Murchison, have a cup of tea with the kind Coaster who had stored it away for me, before driving home to savour a fresh egg. And have a shower and do some washing – I was beginning to smell.

Road kill

A black beetle starts to cross the road

And I want to tell it of what I’ve seen

A possum endlessly run over and now felted

A hare, still robust of body, but dead and bloodied

A startled robin, no longer present

Hedge hogs forming discreet hair brushes

An exploded tyre like pieces of sculpture.

Of course, in Syria, the road kill would be

very different indeed, I say to the beetle,

so why not go back to your hole and

give up on this journey.

The election of Trump has already produced a tsunami of commentary and analysis. E-mail correspondence with a New York academic showed the sense of shame and embarrassment, turning to outrage, that liberals there are feeling.

There is already a consensus which focuses on disempowered, misogynist white men, on racist provincial America, on the rust belt victims of the neo-liberal project having their revenge, on the divide between urban liberal and rural deplorable, on the political, business and media elites being given the fingers – all of which have their point.  But I return to a prophetic 1979 essay by the English cultural historian, Raymond Williams, who is a guru of mine.

In the essay Williams described current Western society as dominated by a feeling of widespread loss of the future. It is a society in which danger and conflict, shock and loss prevail. ‘Managed affluence,’ he wrote, ‘has slid into an anxiously managed but perhaps unmanageable depression.’  Social consensus has broken down. The balance of terror is still there and ‘even more terrifying.’

Yet, Williams, noted, these rhythms are familiar in history and can be traced ‘to a dying social order and a dying class.’ This explains the flow of nostalgia for a happier time and the increasing violence of the forces of order (the militarisation of the US police force is truly terrifying).

Williams wrote that when a social order is dying it grieves for itself, and that while obviously dying, it nevertheless still exercises its power and influence.  We also discover that we are more incorporated than we might think into the deepest structures of this dying order. It’s a bit like being at the bedside of a  despised and terminally ill parent. As well, there will be a breaking point and we have to carefully assess the pain of ‘any central disintegration’. What will happen if the education, justice and health systems break down? So, this re-ordering that has to take place will be painful as well as liberating.

He talked of the difficult relations that already existed between a generation ‘that seems and really is tired’ and a younger generation ’that seems and really is inexperienced.’

He had already picked up on the focus of the young on ‘the destructive personal and sexual conflicts’ experienced via family, and seen as private tragedies lived under the old order.

He also foresaw the system’s ability to convert disturbance to ’private insult and perverse exposure’ and to use degradation as a means ‘to control and divert’, providing a pastime ‘for calloused nerves.’ There was, as well, a tendency by the more privileged to play ‘wry and doomed games’ with the situation (see much ‘modern’ art).

It was, and continues to be, a world which produces ‘a hurt so deep it requires new hurting’, and a sense of outrage ‘which demands people be outraged.’

For me, it describes the election and Donald Trump remarkably well. Will his reign be ‘the last cries of a dying world overwhelmed by convictions of insignificance and of guilt’?

And how to react? For Williams, the task (and only hope) is to connect and dramatise, past, present and future struggles.

To cap it all, the earth shook us around last night and a real tsunami threatened.

I’m privileged enough to be able to forget it all and go cycling for a couple of weeks, attending a National Film Unit reunion and visit a couple of aging relatives.