Max Cryer - a geeky pedant, never a nerd

By MICHELE HEWITSON

The publicist said Max Cryer wouldn't answer questions about his personal life and I thought, "Oh well, he's not Rachel Hunter, and I'm not going to ask him about his love life." And surely he won't mind if I ask him things like where he grew up. She said she was sure he wouldn't.

The reason for going to see Cryer is that he has a book coming out in six weeks, which is a wee way away. But it is about the national anthem and, apparently, we are all very excited that we might be hearing the anthem tonight if our rowers row right.

Cryer is. Because in 1972 New Zealand's rowing eight won gold and the band played God Defend New Zealand. "A blatant flouting of Olympic rules," writes Cryer, "since in 1972 the song was not New Zealand's national anthem." So tonight, "I would love to see the rowers come full circle and stand up there again with that band playing."

The book is called Hear Our Voices We Entreat and there is quite a lot about how the national anthem came to be played at the Olympics when New Zealanders win a medal.

I read all of this before I went to see Cryer but he had printed it out and left me sitting at his kitchen table, while he went off to have his picture taken, with the instruction: "If you would read that."

I wasn't going to let on that, actually, I had already read it because I figured, within minutes of meeting him, that he would likely test me on it.

Within minutes he had told me exactly what we were going to talk about. He used to be a school teacher and has never really given up.

From the table I could hear him instructing the photographer."One rule: eye-level only." He didn't want any pictures taken from underneath his chin.

God knows why. He looks pretty good for whatever age he is. I did ask and he said, "I was born in 1900". I'm inclined to believe him.

He lives in a beautiful big villa in a confidential location and although he claims not to remember precisely how long he's lived here ("about 20 years"), I think he's lived here for over a hundred. It is charming and cluttered and he has chandeliers and big mirrors, lovely old carpets and a stuffed kiwi in a glass cage. He keeps the screen door to the porch locked at all times: "Security is all." He calls his house "a citadel against the world".

He will be shrieking by now, because none of this is about the book. Or more precisely about the Olympics. Because we were hardly allowed to talk about the book in general. He had decided that we (read he) were going to talk about the section which deals with the Olympic Games.

This is how it went.

"Let's talk about the book, Max."

"No. No. No. Let's talk about the Olympic Games."

"We'll talk about the book first."

"We might not. No."

"Oh we're not even talking about the book now? This'll be a quick interview."

"Off you go."

"When did you first have the idea for the book?"

"You're talking about the book. I want to talk about the Olympics."

Honestly. They were easy questions, gifts, really, and he could have easily turned them around without being cantankerous. He can be charming. He certainly was to Kenny Rodger, the photographer. He said: "Go to the fridge and get yourself a Coke." There was an uncomfortable silence, finally filled by Rodger, who said: "Can I get anyone else anything?"

"Not for me," said Cryer.

Don't mind me. No, really, I'm not here at all.

I think that what he would really like is for me to turn my tape recorder on and record him talking for an hour about the role of the anthem at the Games. He says he likes a "discussion atmosphere" but then he won't engage in one about, well, anything. Certainly not about whether he likes or dislikes the anthem. "I'm not discussing it."

He starts talking about the possible alternatives to God Defend New Zealand. He asks whether I could imagine Now Is the Hour or Ten Guitars being played at the Olympics. Then he says, "Well, read the book."

He has obviously had a jolly good time researching it and he gets quite chatty when he's flicking through the proof pages showing off the pictures of things he's uncovered and identifying dates other esteemed publications have got wrong.

He is perhaps most proud of the fact that he found John Joseph Woods' piano. Woods wrote the tune. He is the important one in Cryer's story because, says the author, he's the one who has been neglected by history. "But when they stand up on Saturday night, hopefully, it is Woods you'll hear. He wrote it and hardly anyone ever mentions the poor man."

Cryer won't say where the piano is. "I'm not telling you. Because the people who own it have never had anything to do with journalists or publicity ... They're not going to take any risks about nutcases knocking on the door."

I'm not sure that there would be a stampede. He does laugh then and says no, neither is he, "But I'm nevertheless adhering to their wish."

He says: "Now, have we covered the rowing and the Olympics and the anthem and the Olympic Games?"

I say: "Have we covered the author?"

"The author?" he says, "Oh, well, he knows quite a lot about the Olympic Games."

The author is very strong-willed and I tell the author so. "The author has been around quite a long time."

He has been around long enough to know better. He'll probably complain that I've written about him and not the book (or the damn Olympics). But if he hadn't wasted so much time engaging in a battle of wills, and if he hadn't been so silly about not answering the most innocuous questions, I might have been more interested in the book.

I told him that I wasn't reprinting the book here. That I was here to talk to the author. He said, "Off you go".

But a question about his Saturday morning slot on Kim Hill's show on National Radio elicited a rolling of eyes and a "This is well outside the brief".

I ask whether he has a good relationship with Kim Hill. He says, "I don't know her. We've met once".

He'd decided on the brief and, as anyone who listens to his slot will already know, he is a pedant. He doesn't take the description as either a compliment or an insult. "It's simply a statement of fact."

Then he's off on an examination of the difference between "nerd and geek, because some people confuse them. A nerd is something we do not want to be, but geek is a compliment".

So, if "somebody called 'Mr Max Cryer, the language nerd' I would think, 'Oh well, piss on you'. But if you called me 'Max Cryer, the language geek', I would think, 'Oh well, that's quite nice, you know: it's raised above the common herd'."

I'll settle for calling him strong-willed.