Public Address

Capture: EQNZ Remembrance

Gudrun Gisela — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +1300

EQNZ Services 22 Feb 2012
Gudrun Gisela has kindly sent us a series of photos from her travels around Christchurch today.
Thank you for sharing this with us Gudrun, and Arohanui to everyone in Christchurch.

Up Front: One, Redux

Emma Hart — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:52:00 +1300

In polite conversation the other day, I discovered my counsellor was in the CTV building on the 22nd of February last year. Suddenly I felt like I shouldn't really be bothering her. She had, as it turns out, only just started work again.
Just after Christmas I had a nice chat with a friend I hadn't seen for a while – not since she moved to Sydney and a life featuring a lot more sleep and less medication than she was having here. She'd only come back for Christmas – and Christchurch greeted her with a massive aftershock that closed the airport...

Southerly: Village People

David Haywood — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:35:00 +1300

On Sunday we moved into the Linwood Park Temporary Earthquake Village (to give its full and rather magnificent name). This was the first stage in our return to normality and I suppose it should have been a joyous occasion -- but I confess to having felt pretty devastated as we finally left the Avon River and our happy life there. This was goodbye forever. It hurt.
However the earthquake village does have its compensations. If you don't live in Christchurch you may not be aware of the horror stories of would-be renters: a hundred applicants turning up for a single...

OnPoint: SECRET MILITARY LULZ

Keith Ng — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:38:00 +1300

So, I'm not sure about this story. If this group was really on an "international hunt for military secrets", why on earth would they tell everyone about it? More to the point, why would they send out prank emails from McCully's account in the first place?
Wouldn't it have made more sense to sit on this account which they have already compromised and continue to grab information from it? It's unlikely anyone would audit access to an Xtra account - they could have sat on it indefinitely. Hell, they could have set up a mail auto forward and I doubt...

Hard News: CELEBRITY DRUG SHOCK NEWS! AGAIN.

Russell Brown — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:32:00 +1300

Last week, Whitney Houston's funeral was broadcast live on eight American TV channels, including CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. She'd have wished for that kind of reach when she was alive, but it was the spectacle of her death that procured it.
Had she quietly succumbed to cancer, this would not have happened. But Houston unwittingly wrote the script for her blaring send-off through the decade before. Long before she admitted to a drug problem in 2009 (drug of choice: rock cocaine) she had turned up messy and confused in public appearances. Dying in her bath was just giving permission...

Hard News: MySplore

Russell Brown — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:11:00 +1300

Regular readers will know that, much as I like a night out, I like a good music festival. I've had a few: Sweetwaters (twice), Glastonbury (three times), Reading (once, it was awful), the Big Day Out (all of them), Laneway (ditto). But I'd never been to Splore.
That changed on New Year's Eve, when I got talking to Splore's marketing manager, Suzanne McNamara, at a party and she informed me that I bloody well ought to go. As it happened, I wasn't going to be at Webstock (which has clashed with Splore in the past) and I said, okay, yeah...

Cracker: This weekend I went... 'sploring

Damian Christie — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:37:00 +1300

In all the years I’ve been going to Splore I assumed it was a made-up word. Foolish me, of course it’s an obscure Scottish term from the 1700s, how could I not know that. Call myself a wordsmith.
Point being, over the years, made-up-word or not, the term Splore has become infused with such meaning of its own, that it’s now worth a thousand or so other words. Like ‘Mabo’, it’s about the vibe.

Unfortunately for some, the chilled-out vibe that Splore is supposed to ooze was somewhat hampered by massive queues to get in. I’d had my own issues...

Southerly: Deconstruction and Construction

David Haywood — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:47:00 +1300

The preparations for the relocation of our house from the Residential Red Zone to its new location in Dunsandel have been going unexpectedly well (hopefully this statement isn't tempting fate too much). The first items on my list have been several demolitions that will allow the relocation company to access the buildings that we want to move.
The first rule of 'before and after' photographs is, of course, to take the 'before' photograph. Alas I became so excited at liberating the heartwood rimu and assorted useful Edwardian fittings from beneath the earthquake wreckage of our woodshed that I inadvertently broke...

Hard News: A right old Barney

Russell Brown — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:01:00 +1300

The first time I saw New Order was in 1985 at the Logan Campbell Centre. To be honest, my clearest memory of it is Paul McKessar's clever line about most of the instruments being played by "Mr C. Quencer" in his Rip It Up review, but like Capture's Jonathan Ganley in his recollection for the Herald of the more auspicious 1982 show at Mainstreet, I seem to recall a few associated hi-jinks.
The next time wasn't until theirheadline show at Glastonbury 1987, a loose, lovely laser-spangled affair that culminated with their cover of the Velvet Underground's 'Sister Ray'. I remember...

Hard News: The New Performance Festival

Russell Brown — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:56:00 +1300

Many of you will know Jose Barbosa from such popular shows as Media7. But that's not all he does. Indeed, tomorrow night (or tonight, if you're reading this on Friday) he is presenting a two-hour live stream to mark the launch of The Edge's New Performance Festival, between 6pm and 8pm at the festival website.
Jose has taken the arts to the internet before. During last year's Auckland Festival, he presented a live video work from his CBD apartment. I was there and I drank this thing called bacon bourbon, which was like all the umami in the world ever,...