Jelly Game

The Jelly Game

by Colin Rock

copyright 2021 Colin Rock

All rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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...your eyeballs ache. God forbid you have a cold because snot freezes. Mountainous seas, plunging valleys of green slush, and the wind, always the bloody wind ripping and tearing. We had these ice spicules they’re called, like mini-icicles whipping horizontally into exposed flesh...but this is the convergence, the Antarctic convergence where the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans boil against the Southern seas and it’s thick, surging, choked with fish and sea life and the birds, the hundred million birds feeding on the most desolate ocean on earth. It must be where the world began.

Oral transcript: Ed Buchanan, Operation Pelagius, BCB Radio

1

Sarah poured herself liquid dioxin from the coffee dispenser and tried to catch my eye. I sidled over and she leaned weightily close. Who’s the Jap? One of yours?

I looked around. We were a bit light on the ground today. Usually, Piggott insisted that all and only PrimeLine production and research crew be on hand for the dreaded weekly assessment. Fenola and her technician, Rachael, were sitting primly on the goody goody’s leather sofa, but Mathews and his offsider were absent. In fact, the Japanese gentleman was occupying Mathew’s favoured chair.

Nothing to do with me. Where’s Wonderboy?

Piggott turned to face us, coughed meaningfully, then smoothed the hair back from his large, polished face. Anyone not catch the show last week? No? You all saw it? Good. He looked up to see if God was watching. Good. I can at least inform our sponsors that they are not totally wasting their money, oh no... not everyone is watching UpFront on the flannel channel. He smote his heart like an evangelist. Is UpFront better than us? Do they work harder? He gave us his toothy boyish grin, which we knew meant that a maelstrom of fury was churning in his gut. Perhaps I’m not pulling my weight?

He paused to give us time to mutter our insincere denials.

Look at the stories...look at the ratings. A clear pattern emerges, and it is not coincident with Amphibious Aliens or Sex-crazed-voodoo-gurus.

Hold on, I said, we’ve had great ratings from some of those. What about the Fitzroy Flasher? We actually caught that bastard.

That was two years ago, Mike.

Sid jumped to his feet. He’ll be out by now; we’ll catch him again!

Piggott shook his head. It’s stale, boys. It’s like your Black Witches coven; not a bad story the first couple of times, but there are limits. He spread his sincere arms and did a Popey sort of thing with his hands. We’re lacking substance, Mike.

Heh?

"This is not the ABC. We don’t have the luxury to sit around on our arses in ga ga land…we have to work for a living…and that means blood, sweat and tears. I want stories with gravitas!

We nodded solemnly.

UpFront up five points, PrimeLine down three. Well?

We shifted uncomfortably. The Japanese man turned around and scrutinized us carefully.

Fenola’s drawn up a chart and I want you all to look closely...that especially means you, Mike.

The chart showed blips and lines and shaded columns and other esoteric symbols, all sadly suggesting that some of us were doing much better than other of us. A little sigh escaped me, but at least Mathews wasn’t here to gloat. Was he away on a big story? He always seemed to get the good stuff. I’d once rashly accused Sarah of slipping him the story list. She was the senior Production Co-Ordinator for PrimeLine, and my diffident suggestion that the smooth bugger was bribing or blackmailing her to get advance notice had not gone down well. She’d driven her great meaty fist into my belly and told me to think again, ratbag, examine your own pathetic inadequacies before you accuse others.

The facts speak for themselves, continued Piggott. We have to look to the Greater Arena. And what is the Greater Arena I hear Mike ask? The Greater Arena, Michael, is the story Mathews did on Paedophilia; it’s Fenola’s incisive expose of the Health System; it’s last year’s award-winning analysis of police corruption: ‘Tarnished Copper.’

With Sarah’s support Sid and I had pretty well sewn-up Amazing Phenomena and True-Life Tales of Human Interest; the so-called jelly game. It’s dead easy to follow-up a corruption scandal or a tale of political intrigue, the awards should go to the dedicated crew that goes out and creates a story from virtually nothing.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s shake-up time. Piggott somehow managed to look in everyone’s eye at once, which was, of course, the secret of his screen success, then smiled tightly and paused the professional three beats. You may have noticed that Mr. Mathews is not with us today. Three more beats and a sneer. He will not be returning.

I suppressed a squeak and Sid whooped. Piggott nodded soberly. Let’s say we reached the parting of our ways. PrimeLine has always been a team effort...no one person is more important than another, isn’t that right? Fenola said it certainly was, Brian.

In fact, our Mister Mathews has decided to join the opposition. His loveable features will soon be appearing on UpFront. I for one will look forward to it.

Sid and I exchanged vibrant grins of spite. No more Mathews. No more snotty grammar school arrogance. I couldn’t help a proletarian smirk as Piggott came over with the Japanese bloke in tow.

Mike, I’d like to see you in my office. And you, Sid. Sarah, will you join us?

A royal summons. God, I hoped Fenola was spewing.

On the wall behind Piggott’s desk were numerous photographs of himself with Presidents, Prime Ministers and Royal-type personages. With one accord we underlings swung to check out the opposite wall: the Plebian display. Sid and I with the (submerged) Amphibious Alien; Fenola lubricating next to Prince William; Sarah carrying a soggy refugee. And a newly-blank frame which had once shown Mathews getting his dubious award.

Piggott sat on the edge of his desk and gave his chair to the Japanese man. Who knows, perhaps Mathews has done us all a great favour.

He’s done me a great favour, said Sid.

Piggott smiled tightly. Fortunately, his absence will not affect recent negotiations with our Japanese friends. Mathews has learned that we do not succumb to extortionate demands here at PrimeLine.

I looked at Sarah, but she was already looking at me. Negotiations? No-one had negotiated with us. The blue-eyed boy and Piggy had been dancing to a private tune. Sid sniggered, but that could have been for any of a dozen reasons. Piggott glared at him then turned to the Japanese man. May I introduce a professional colleague, Mister Konu.

Konu stood up and bowed. My name is Mister Konu and I am pleased to meet you. We all shook hands then sat back down. Konu extracted a piece of paper from his open briefcase. PrimeLine is very popular show. We see some items and we think this is very good show. Australia is a very interesting country and many many Japanese are coming here. He turned the paper over.

Australian people are very interested in my country. We see your story on the Tokyo Fish Market and we think Australians are very interested in Japan. We think why do we not share some stories for your program and for our program, and both programs will be stronger. He abruptly sat down.

We looked at each other. Sarah was biting her fingernails again, naughty girl. I coughed meaningfully. Does this mean we have to accept regular footage from Japan? Piggott waved his arms and tut tutted loudly. Positivity, Mike; seek the positive.

Sarah spat out another finger nail. None of us speak Japanese.

It won’t be necessary, said Piggott. Mister Konu will be working with us, and he will provide his own camera operator and interpreter.

A thought struck me. Is Mister K going to replace Mathews?

It’s not a question of replacement, Mike. Our team will be all the stronger. Some people are too inflexible to embrace a new concept without making extortionate demands...but that doesn’t apply to any of us here, does it?

Obviously Mathews had known before us and taken a dive.

So what’s the bottom line? I asked. The suspicion was growing that our fate had been in Mathews hands; if he had stayed, Sid and I would have been out the door. Maybe Sarah, too. She was looking shell-shocked.

The bottom line, Mike? Let’s ask ourselves what the top line is. One, we now have a bigger market. Two, we now have better resources. Three, he looked at Konu and smiled triumphantly. We now have a new major sponsor!

We all said yippee, how great, Kawa Communications, wow, what a triumph. Of course, we’d never heard of them, but Konu was preening like a pussy cat and two and two wasn’t a terrible difficult equation.

Four? I queried.

Piggott nodded sagely. Yes, four. Four is that you now get your shot at the Greater Arena. Award-winning territory, team! He passed me the new story-list. Take a look, Mike, it’ll stick out like a sore thumb.

Sid was peering over my shoulder and Sarah was breathing down my neck. Ah, I said. I began to feel better about the situation. We were taking over the high-profile stuff at last. Meaty stories; media awards; job satisfaction. I would ring my mother tonight. I see it.

And...? Piggott prompted.

It’s Terrorism, isn’t it? The Middle East connection. Dodgy Arab finance for disaffected Aboriginal radicals.

Hey, yeah, said Sid, Aboriginallah!

Piggott slapped his desk. No! Further down. He turned to Konu and smiled thinly.

The American satellite station? Yeah, in the koala reserve.

The coca koala boys! cried Sid.

Keep going!

Antarctic and Southern Ocean Fishery Conservation Summit in New Zealand...bor-ing! No, can’t see anything that sticks out like a sore whatsit.

That’s it! The Antarctic thing. Green! Green is big. Drift nets, spawning grounds, dolphins, whales. Cut-throat trade politics! The Kyoto protocol. Mineral reserves; the American Deep Freeze base! You can bet your last shekel that UpFront will be there...and just about every other news team in the civilized world.

News teams? I queried. We’re not a news team.

But that’s what we’ve been talking about! The Greater Arena! The whole world will be covering this. We’re talking award winning stuff here, Mike!

And he pointed to the vacant frame on the wall.

2

One of the many things I couldn’t forgive Piggott for was that he employed the meanest production secretary in the business. I’d been given a little travelguide of New Zealand, which would no doubt be charged to my salary, and I was to remember that all receipts would be scrutinized by a forensics expert.

Sarah would be detouring via Canberra, in Australia, to research acronyms. The only one of Mathew’s contacts who would talk to her was adamant that there was still life in CRAMRA despite CCAMLR and the MERT statement. ASOC and NGO should not be ignored, of course. And remember, SCAR was very ambivalent about ATR.

I’m bloody glad I’m babysitting the Japs, Sid had told her, patting her muscular back. I just want to say GLS.

Don’t be a smart-arse, Sid.

Heh heh. It means ‘good luck, Sarah’.

New Zealand had always been ‘Green’. Nuclear-free; anti-driftnet; pro-whale. It was fairly close to Antarctica, I remembered, in fact the Americans had their Operation Deep Freeze base in Christchurch. Poor old Christchurch: a beautiful city of magnificent old buildings with the cathedral as its heart, but all destroyed by earthquakes. I wish I’d seen it in its prime, and nearly did in fact, because I’d wanted to investigate the drug scandal connected with their Antarctic crews. Mathews ended up with that, of course. Sid and I spent a miserable week failing to find the Tasmanian Tiger.

I’d even done a bit of my own research, I recalled, by listening to some bloke on the radio telling how he’d sailed into the ice and been spiculed with frozen snot.

I dug out my thin file and drank a free beer. Antarctica. Summits; Conferences; Commissions; Protocols; Treaties. More or less biennial events since the first one in 1959. They’d been held everywhere; Holland, France, Chile; Madrid; Bonn; and now Wellington. There was a long list of Antarctic Treaty Consultative members, 26 of whom had established research stations on the continent at enormous cost and for, of course, the purest scientific reasons.

How can a thin file have so much useless information in it? Some countries had wanted to mine the place and some didn’t. Some wanted a World Wildlife Park and... I was missing a page. There’s no reason to take a taxi everywhere...USE THE BUS!

Wrong page, what a skinflint outfit. I flicked over. The latter countries had won, it seemed. There was now a fifty-year moratorium on commercial mining. Underline ‘Commercial’. How very cynical. ‘Fisheries: background to, and current state of.’ Ten pages of waffle about something called the Antarctic Convergence and the foodchain. An attached sheet bore sketches of hideous fishy creatures with names like ascidians, hydroids, and something called euphasia superba.

Representatives were converging on the New Zealand capital to establish an accord, to facilitate an agreement, and to reach a consensus. On what? What were we supposed to be looking for here? This wasn’t one of your big Earth Summit conferences, so where was the story? Surely Piggott and Konu weren’t expecting one of those boring documentary type pieces where the conclusion is always summed up by a deep, sonorous voice: ‘The choice for mankind is simple: preserve, exploit, or compromise.’ Then the credits roll as a baby penguin toddles up to the camera and tugs at our heartstrings.

No, that was more Mathew’s pedestrian style. Piggott would expect more from his top team. I riffled back through and found Sarah’s handwritten summary.

The Antarctic Convergence was the bit where cold waters flowing from Antarctica met up with warm waters flowing from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. Nutrient rich water encouraged plankton and krill and a whole food chain to develop. Some said the future of our whole planet depended on preserving that unique marine eco-system. Think of the birds alone, she’d written, forty different species were said to breed in the area, a hundred million of them each year.

I had a little giggle to myself because Sarah keeps budgies. For some reason she loves the horrible little things and I was sure that her mind’s eye had seen huge flocks of brightly coloured birds flying over the ice fields. We all have our weaknesses.

I fought against my low boredom threshold and read on. An unusual feature of the Southern Ocean was that its open waters were rich in life blah blah blah, while its intertidal and sub-littoral zones were almost barren. Rich sponge fauna; weird ice fish; anenomes; pelagic fishes; something called gorgonion growths...rare, ugly, unique, and therefore under great conservation pressure. So, who were the baddies in the scenario?

Foreign fishing boats? I turned the page. Yep, foreign fishing boats of driftnet fame. Trawlers, krill-processors, factory ships, squid boats. High tech operators who took everything in their path. Dolphins, I remembered. They were always getting tangled in nets. Whales. A few countries were still slaughtering them despite the recently established Southern Ocean whale sanctuary. Representatives were converging on New Zealand to...I’d read that bit. They’d be the political mouthpieces, nimble of brain and slick of lip. There’d also be observers from Greenpeace, the Antarctic and Southern Coalition, Concerned Scientists for Peace and many others. And the Media. That was us.

They were miserly with the beer. Next page: Miko Nakumura onboard the Nihon International. Arrange accreditation; photos attached. Sid, Sarah, me, Nakamura, Konu, Hanada. Ah so. I had to meet a Jap bloke on a Jap boat in Auckland and get last-minute media passes. I flicked through the photos and saw that Miko was a woman. Maybe she was Konu’s geisha girl.

I wiggled my empty can at a blind stewardess. Would I please help Miko with her research in Auckland and escort her to Wellington. See flight details. Two nights in Auckland. All crew to arrive Wellington Thursday morning to cover the historic signing of SOFT, the Southern Ocean Fisheries Treaty. How could we get a story from a bunch of boring foreigners signing a piece of paper?

You can’t smoke on airplanes anymore, but it’s always fun to shove an unlighted one in your mouth and wait for the stewardesses to converge. I never believe those stories about stewardesses picking up lone male passengers and taking them back to their hot love nests to show them how a flight simulator works...but oh God, wouldn’t it be nice. If I was a famous face...well for a start I wouldn’t be stuck in economy with the plebs; nope, I’d be luxuriating up front fighting off flying groupies. Someone else would have to face the unknown foe and jack up a story so that I could swan in and take all the credit.

Pamela, my ex-wife, had sent me a paperback written by a whizzkid investigative reporter who was always in the right spot at the right time. The title page had been inscribed ‘Happy birthday, Mike, why don’t you take a leaf out of this book?’ And I had. Torn the page out and hurled it into the rubbish bin. But I’d kept the book for just such an occasion. The hero and I were now colleagues. He might even be at the Conference.

Whizzkid Investigative Reporter reckoned he obtained his best inside info from local taxi drivers. I leapt into the first cab on the rank, deftly sidestepping a determined party of Chinese businessmen, and asked the driver to take me to a decent though inexpensive hotel in the city and what was the inside buzz on the Conference? Any scandal? You can tell me, I won’t pass it on. He didn’t know anything about it, bro. What about Greenpeace, then? Are they for it or agin it?

Aw yeah. Rainbow Warrior. Bloody French, eh?

I already knew about that. Back in the ‘80’s French secret agents had planted a bomb on the Greenpeace boat and sunk it at its moorings. Some bloke had been killed and the local cops had nabbed a few of the culprits. It was a bit ancient history for my liking but what if, say, our Gallic friends returned to assuage their humiliation? ‘Rogue Agent Swears Vengeance!’ I jotted it down in my book of potential headlines.

We pulled up outside a large and ugly hotel. The driver was still boring me with rugby stories so I tipped him with the Fijian coin I’d found in the airport urinal.

Jetlag hit me in the elevator and I barely had the strength to find my room, collapse on the bed and almost light up a duty-free cigarette. Non-smoking room, of course. Sarah had given me a list of people to ring, prominently Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. The plan was that I’d background a few of these and maybe buy some stock footage from the Television New Zealand Archives Library. She’d be doing much the same in Canberra and Wellington. Get a hold of Roy Fitzsimmons; he’s organising the conference. His secretary’s a bitch, but be sweet, lover boy, she’ll give us late accreditation.

The delegates were due to assemble in Wellington on the coming Friday. The organisers had faxed us an itinerary which was basically indecipherable because of air turbulence and spilled beer. The Americans were offering to fly delegates on a sight-seeing cruise to the white continent, from Christchurch, but why should they get the glory? Air France could do the same, sacre bleu. And me and me and me. Not a good idea, said New Zealand Government spokesperson. Air New Zealand had lost a DC10 on Mt Erebus many years before with terrible loss of life. Let’s just forget it, shall we?

The local paper had devoted the front page to that argument. National dignity versus commonsense. Roy Fitzsimmons featured with a wimpy comment saying yes and no to both factions. Some guy had crossed the harbour in a huge pair of inflatable shoes. Dignity’s a funny thing; who’d be seen dead in a pair of inflatable shoes?

I woke up a couple of hours later with a full bladder. I was hungry,