Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Holidays III: Blow-off valves in paradise | Jan 21, 2003 11:35

They have blow-off valves in paradise. "OOOOsssshhh!" The sound of boy-racer Queen Street now penetrates not only the rich, golden sands of Kaiteriteri, but creeps over the hill to Golden Bay. The South Island doesn't need Aucklanders: it already has too many Cantabrians.

There is another surprise: we pull up to our motel in Pohara Beach and it turns out to be the same place I stayed as a kid, nearly 30 years ago. We're even in the same unit. It's called Windjammers now, it has a good little café-bar and the décor has been done once in the interim, but it's otherwise much the same.

The key attractions - Pupu Springs, the big, old, tame eels - are still here, but much more of the Bay has been lit up by tourism since I was last here. The main street of Takaka is thick with traffic, and commercially-minded hippies have cafes and shops.

New Zealand is a land of cafes now. Steve Braunias might fulminate at the passing of stiff lamingtons and thin coffee, but this consistent culture of pretty decent espresso and fresh, Mediterranean-influenced food serves the rest of us - and our paying guests - quite well.

At the edge of the sand, on Tata Beach - a few miles past Pohara - there is a tiny tramcar, towed into place by a Kombi. It contains a full-fledged espresso kit and half a dozen shaded seats. There's no shop, no toilets, but there is a long black all day.

I'm told that past Collingwood, 30km inland along a gravel road towards the impassable top end of the West Coast, there is also espresso on offer. Why did the owners open a cafe there? Because they could.

Everywhere, apart from coffee there is good bacon for breakfast. I think, for some reason of New York. I once stayed in a Howard Johnson hotel near Times Square. Breakfast went on the room account, which I wasn't paying, so that's where I ate breakfast. And I hated it.

There are worse foods in the world than American streaky bacon, but probably not in OECD countries. It has the ill whiff of death and manufacture. Sitting here in Golden Bay, with its self-declared artists and organic gardens, I can understand why they'd want to reject all that, and declare themselves "GE Free". I still don't buy the absolutist anti-GM line, but perhaps these people, with their geographical separation, their beguiling, unspoilt brand, should be allowed to be that way - if for no other reason than marketing.

Oh yes, New Zealand is popular with the world right now. The Press has a story about unprecedented tourist traffic to the West Coast - nary a bed available from Hokitika to Haast. The locals have apparently noted the arrival this summer of Israeli tourists, who are allegedly travelling in three-car convoys, intimidating everyone else. One Israeli group supposedly staged a stand-off on a one-lane bridge, forcing opposing traffic to back off, even though the other traffic had right of way. How bizarre.

Out on the motel balcony, other media creeps in. I listen to an episode of Liisa McMillan's prodigious Flying Nun documentary, which has missed the anniversary celebrations but deserves to be much more widely heard. It is simply the best account of the story, and it ought to be posted on the Internet. Perhaps I should have a word to Sharon …

Politics also intrudes: Gerry Brownlee has launched his campaign to be leader of the National Party, blindsiding Bill English with an opinion piece in The Press, where he proposes the repeal of New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy.

Like far too many people on the political right, Brownlee is prepared to hoodwink himself - to whore his intellect - by conflating the War on Terror, Iraq and regional defence policy. Why, he asks, is the government agin nuclear weapons in our harbours when it won't support unilateral US action to destroy the nuclear threat of Iraq?

This is just silly. No one seriously believes Iraq has nuclear weapons capability, or is even within years of attaining it. And why aren't we invading North Korea, then? If Brownlee knows something we don't, he should tell the UN inspection team. Otherwise he ought to confine himself to statements that bear some relationship to the truth.

But perhaps this will work out for the best. It might be nice to have a leader of the National Party you can really despise. I don't think anyone could manage that with Bill English, could they?

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We're the music, they're just the bands | Jan 20, 2003 12:07

There is an implicit contract in the purchase of a ticket to the Big Day Out: that from the moment you hand it over and walk in the gate, you become part of everybody else's entertainment. We're there every year not just to see the bands, but to see how the rest of us are living.

Not that I actually paid for a ticket: Vodafone, in their infinite grooviness, stumped up for an extra corporate box, on top of their regular box and the one that a lucky bunch of bFM listeners won as a b-Card prize. They wanted to fill it with star DJs and "edgy media" apparently. Madam, for a comfy seat, clean toilets and a thoughtfully-stocked fridge, I'll be as edgy as you like …

And so my 100 per cent BDO attendance record is safe for another year. It's better these days; safer, anyway. No one actually believes all those "the Big Day Out is the wrong place to take drugs" messages - not the promoters, not the police and certainly not the punters. A great many people appeared to have taken ecstasy, or at least some of the legal "dance pills" on sale outside the gates. Oldies included: social sanctions against the occasional use of E appear to have considerably eroded. (I talked to someone who worked on a major law firm's Christmas party in December: pretty much everyone was trollied, he said.)

Alcohol, on the other hand, is fenced off more than ever. Some people choose to bake in an uncovered stand for the privilege of drinking buckets of flat DB Export, but most don't. This is good. I suppose there must have been a fight somewhere, but I didn't see anything that even looked like one. They're aren't many all-day events hosting 30,000 people where you can say that.

The bogans who, back in the early 90s, might have been getting drunk and nasty by 8pm are now mostly wandering round, goggle-eyed and daft with their friends. One of my favourite images of the day was two police officers, standing in the midst of the human traffic, just laughing to each other. (The other was three young Goths: white face, lank hair and full-length black robes in the blazing afternoon sun. Such dedication!)

My first encounter of the afternoon was a bit daunting: I was trying to get down the steps to the corporate box as the Blindspott audience was coming up the steps en masse. I was enveloped in a damp, smelly, red-faced adolescent tide and it was pretty gross, frankly. But you get that.

The music? The D4 were pretty good. Concord Dawn, playing the tent in the heat of the day (warm drizzle was drifting down from the ceiling) were a revelation - they've developed a somewhat limited D&B palette into a full-on rave show. The kids love them, and rightly so. Otherwise, it was mostly the stuff outside the mainstream that appealed: PJ Harvey showing the really-quite-dull Queens of the Stone Age how to rock, Wilco laying back in the sun while everyone else busted a gut, and Underworld giving it large at the end of the evening.

And, most of all, Kraftwerk. It seemed a rare and slightly odd privilege to be able to take in something so arty and oblique amid all the literal-minded tub-thumping of modern industry rock. Those angry-bands are so mechanical; Kraftwerk's machine schtick seems positively warm and cuddly. Their traverse though the hits served to emphasise their prodigious influence: a little electro hip-hop here, some acid house there. And, at one point, a big, fat, funky house bassline - just to show they could, presumably.

Kids who had probably barely even heard of Kraftwerk before the day stuck around and cheered wildly between songs. Does that happen everywhere? Maybe in Australia they're more interested in those ghastly hard-house DJs who always seem to get stuck high up on the bill in Auckland, even though they don't really work with a New Zealand crowd. How much cooler would it have been if Soane had followed Kraftwerk? Lots cooler.

Meanwhile, Jane's Addiction were on in the stadium and people who were there said they were the best band in the world. I guess so. Rather them than the tragically humdrum Foo Fighters, anyway.

The Datsuns suffered, like almost everyone else on the alternative stages, from crappy sound. The production has always been a little on the cheap side at the BDO, but it seemed worse than ever this year. Wish for next year: better PAs and more shade.

Will I be there anyway? It seems highly likely. It is, after all, a shared reality; a mission to be debriefed some time later; a bunch of tales to tell - on which counts Mikey Havoc's Trailer With a Cage show on Saturday morning was pretty much perfect..

When there's nothing much on and Mikey falls to arguing with his callers, his show can be hard to listen to. But as Big Morning-After radio it was great. And I'm damn sure I couldn't be that lucid and witty if I'd been awake for three days. Actually, I've never been awake for three days. I mean, what do you do with all that time? Catch up on your email?

Note: Some readers have noted that the conclusion of the summer travelogue has yet to appear here. The return to paid work was a little traumatic last week, but I'll post some notes from the road soon.

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A Country Wedding | Jan 06, 2003 15:09

It must have been 17 years since a carload of us decided to take the less-travelled route north from Wellington, through the Wairarapa. I remember lovely rivers and a string of dull, depressed and apparently dying towns. To remark on the region's revival in more recent years is to note the obvious, but it is, well, remarkable.

Those towns – Featherston, Greytown, Carterton, Masterton – were bustling and sunny when we went back in the first few days of the new year. A combination of flourishing farm incomes, tourism and the Wairarapa's growing popularity as a bolt-hole for better-heeled Wellingtonians (Peter Jackson's new ranch is there) has seen the region reborn. No more so than in Martinborough, an incidental village in the middle of nowhere transformed by the emergence from its vineyards of some of the world's best pinot noir. You can buy Trelise Cooper clothes on its tiny main street, and spend $70 on a bottle of red wine. A little shop up the road makes and sells frozen gourmet meals, with local organic produce.

Masterton, the regional hub, seems to have blossomed as a retail destination, its shops occupying the solid, attractive buildings of its prosperous post-colonial years. The Wairarapa Times-Age still occupies a magnificent, white deco ocean liner of a building in a corner site in town.

We stayed in a house in Featherston - a wonderful old white holiday villa nestled in nine acres of garden, with shade everywhere it ought to be, lemons and apples on the trees and a cool, crystalline river for swimming nearby – at the gracious invitation of friends. People have been so kind to us on this holiday.

We were there so as to be near Masterton for a wedding: that of my cousin Hannah Saulbrey, to David Ross (Dross, as everybody calls him), an intelligent and witty native of Katikati, via King's College. It was a big do: not just a meeting of the two families but a reunion for their far-flung friends. So the old aunties and uncles gathered with Auckland professionals, people holidaying from jobs in Serbia and Hannah's netball friends (Julie Seymour, along with Dallas).

The bride arrived in the bright, sweltering afternoon looking startlingly beautiful: tall, bronzed and statuesque in a trailing, almost backless, gown. I like Hannah a lot – I like all my Saulbrey cousins: Carmel, Gretchen and Luke. They are kind and confident people. Their father, John, is my mother's roustabout brother, a strong, booming man with huge hands, like my grandfather, Jack.

As the wedding wound on, I decided that it was not just a matter of staying in touch with the Saulbrey side of the family, but with my own inner Saulbrey. It is a rollicking clan, given to singing and speechifying and displays of affection, and I regard it as part of me.

I loved Jack; I was shattered when he died on the eve of my first Christmas in London. His brother Dave is still with us at 89 years, still living on the corner of Saulbrey Grove in the Hutt Valley. I was pleased to see Uncle Dave: he could clear up a hazy part of the whakapapa – the name.

Saulbrey, as I discovered relatively recently, is an anglicisation; a coinage unique to the family. The family was Danish, probably, and the original name was, well, my mother didn't quite know. It is less a family secret than information that has fallen into disuse. Uncle Dave was happy to be asked. The name had been Saulberg, but the new name was adopted when his grandfather ran a bakery in London, before one of his seven sons ventured to the colonies in 1916. I guess there were reasons for immigrants to cover their tracks even then. I'll find out a little more when I get back to my fast Internet connection.

[NB: Uncle Dave didn't have it quite right - the pre-anglicisation name was actually Saurbrey, and the family hails from South Germany via Denmark. More details here.]

Family culture dictated that festivities, which began with a glass of bubbly to wash away the happy tears of the ceremony at 4pm, would go on well into the night. I felt like I was letting the side down when I took the first bus back from the venue at 11pm, but I've been up late laughing and yarning and drinking wine every night for a week. That little rest from the turps in December has turned out to be a good idea.

But before we got on the bus, Fiona and I walked over to the far side of the lawn and stood there in the dark, looking across at the great, luminous marquee. Through its windows we could see colourful figures dancing, embracing and having another glass or two

It looked perfect in the night: a country wedding in full cry.

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Where Hobbits surfed | Dec 31, 2002 12:52

You can see why the Hobbits get so misty-eyed about having learned to surf at Lyall Bay in Wellington. It's a public institution with the feel of a personal discovery.

Strange, funky houses gamely face the southerly seawind, and seem to be losing the battle by increment. Rusty tears trail down their external walls from nails and spouting.

Two long-established surf lifesaving clubs gaze out at an essentially benign surf beach - by Auckland standards anyway. Small but tidy sets roll in every few minutes and, at the airport end of the beach, modestly-sized aircraft taxi two thirds of the runway, then jerk upwards into thin air.

Coming from Auckland, it's almost a shock to see city coastline undeveloped like this. It might not last. A giant retail development is coming to a parking silo by the airport. The local surfers are trying to get consent to put in an artificial reef in the middle of the bay, to beef up that tidy little surf. But they're struggling even for their share of the compliance costs.

Surely Elijah Wood would be a good touch here? They could offer him naming rights. "This break brought to you by the Shire Surf Endowment … "

Yes, THAT movie trilogy continues to overlook the city. A giant Gollum peers down from the roof of The Embassy, and the Lord of the Rings exhibition has opened at Te Papa. It's popular - about a 45-minute wait all up - and deservedly so. The extraordinary depth of craft in the movies is evident everywhere. Galadriel's dress, the models and matte paintings, the CGI and the creatures. All of them, dense and believable. It's like a case study for the way New Zealanders operate at the interface of the creative and the practical.

The exhibition is to tour the world, not including Auckland. If you're near your friendly taxpayer-funded national museum in the next couple of months you really should go and see it.

We dropped into Moore Wilson this morning to stock up for the New Year's Eve banquet. It's an urban foodie focus point. They tried to do something similar with the Cuisine Market at the Viaduct, but it didn't really work. Still, we've always got Seamart.

What on earth is happening with the summer entertainments at the Viaduct anyway? The Little River Band cancelled their New Year's Eve show - a city reeled in shock - and the organisers appear to have forgotten to tell anyone. I wonder who'll win the dance party wars in Midtown this year? Three parties and the council's free do at The Edge: Queen Street ought to be quite entertaining tonight.

We seem to be heading into the New Year in notable economic fettle. The Herald ran an editorial this week headed Clouds on economic horizon, but it seemed even more like an obligatory set piece than these things usually do. Christmas retail spending was through the roof; the dollar is stronger against the Aussie than it's been for a long time.

There was a pattern this year that when the various quarterly economic numbers came out, the usual suspects would weigh in with a welcome - and a warning that this was the end of the run, the the golden weather was over, etc. And then the next set of numbers would, largely exceed expectations. It's not like we're pulling seven per cent GDP growth (or even five) but domestic confidence is stubbornly strong. I can't remember it being like this.

So has Michael Cullen made his point, or is it still dumb luck, after three and a bit years? Either way, he was able to revise up this year's Budget surplus by a cool billion dollars. He declined to scatter any lollies right now, but pointed to the 2004 Budget, by which time the surplus will be locked in (assuming a messy war in Iraq hasn't plunged the world into recession).

There have been hints of Gordon Brown-style tax cuts at the low end of the scale, and there will doubtless be very considerable expectations for social spending. The pressure there grows by the day - you could chuck an extra billion into Health and it might not touch the sides. It is possible that what this Labour government chooses to do in 2004 will be regarded as its legacy.

But this is the time of year when we only want the trains to run on time and the sun to shine. I'm done with work for a week or two. So, 2003? I don't make New Year resolutions; although I do always have goals. For now, I'd just like to shuck the burden that develops every year - the vague and growing sense of background guilt about all the people who emailed me and never got a reply.

It's not that I don't care for you, people. But work with me here: I'm stepping away from those implicit, unfulfilled contracts to communicate.

I can't promise to do better, but I can say sorry. Sorry. There. I am free now …

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A Summer Without Butterflies | Dec 23, 2002 10:01

The planes came over again last Friday. Low and repeated passes, starting from 5.45am. Outside, the cars and the clothes we left on the line were coated with a sticky soup of soy and bacteria. It's pretty gross.

I cleaned one car on Sunday, and confirmed my mild allergy to Foray 48B - a little sting in the back of the throat. But I don't doubt the need to eradicate the painted apple moth with aerial spraying. It is simply too dangerous a pest, our biosecurity too precious. I have read the research and I am extremely confident that MAF is not giving my family cancer.

But if it works - and even if it doesn't - this will be a summer without butterflies. The Monarch caterpillars clinging to out overstressed swan plant have done, because the BT bacterium does not discriminate between lepidoptera. The Monarchs will come back in time, from outside the spray area, but it's a little sad to think we won't be seeing any this summer.

So it looks like I'll be up against the wall after the revolution, when the Water Pressure Group is running things, on account of my posting from last week, about the council's plans to enforce a longstanding bylaw that is infringed by the forest of signs in Ike Finau's front yard in Warnock Street, Grey Lynn.

I don't really relish the thought of anyone losing a means of political expression. But the WPG is like a dog that specialises in chasing parked cars, then complains about constantly having a sore head. It's not any council putsch against freedom of speech that threatens the signs in Ike Finau's front yard, but an environmental bylaw.

Campaign to change the bylaw by all means, but please stop insisting that it ought not apply to one person. Alas, even in the event of a law change, to allow anyone to stick political billboards in their front yard - and I grant that that would have to wait for a different council to the current one - there would be some standards as to what could go on. And some of Finau's signs would not meet any standard likely to be in a new bylaw.

Penny Bright from the Water Pressure Group has posted a vigorous rebuttal of last week's Hard News posting. She accuses me, among other things, of failing to consult the Water Pressure Group before writing. True. I gave up trying to engage the WPG more than two years ago, when it became clear that any attempt to differ with them on the issues would simply result in yet more email abuse from Jim Gladwin.

Ironically, Bright didn't bother emailing me with her angry response. She sent it to two closed mailing lists, whose moderators declined my reply. That seems a little unfair, but, then, no one gets a right of reply in Ike's front yard either.

So anyway, I was wrong in saying that the police investigated a claim of assault against the terminally ill Phil Raffills after the WPG harassed him at his family home. It would have been intentional damage had he been charged, which he quite rightly wasn't.

I wish the WPG would just apologise for that sorry episode, but Bright insisted that "we did not know he was seriously ill." Presumably they don't read the front pages of newspapers. Anyway, I thought this bit was a bit rich.

"Brown is thus far, the only media person to write a view so
obviously attacking Ike's stance. One would expect a member of the Fourth Estate to be at the forefront of defending freedom of expression, 'of any kind, in any form' (Bill of Rights)."

Actually the Herald's Brian Rudman has several times criticised the signs, describing their attacks on Hucker and Sefuiva as "liars" as "wrong" and "defamatory". (In a nutshell, the WPG believes the two councillors should have persisted with a vote on Metrowater that they couldn't win - ie, run into a parked car - rather than seek the best outcome by voting strategically.)

For daring to express such an opinion, Rudman was taken to the Press Council by Bright, the great defender of freedom of expression.

It was, of course, yet another running-into-a-parked-car episode. To quote from the Press Council decision:

"It does not matter that some of that opinion was firm and disapproving of the water group's stance. The group clearly disagrees with what Mr Rudman says. But that is not a ground for stopping him – or the Herald – from publishing the opinion. The complaint is not upheld."

I should note that Nandor Tanczos, who copped a bit of stick in last week's posting, did contact me, with an email headed 'A Gentle Criticism':

"The issue is not about how many signs he had, or whether you like the WPG. Clearly limitations on the number of signs, and to ensure that contents are not offensive, are acceptable. But I fail to see how you, as a media spokesperson with the ability to make critical comments about politicians, or express your personal viewpoint on any issue you choose, on a regular basis, can support a by-law which denies ordinary residents the same right, although in a less effective way. The by-law is not about the number of signs, or offensiveness. It is about the purpose of the sign. It would be like saying a radio station can play music and ads, but not have political comment."

I got back to him, explaining my point of view, which was along the lines I've written above. He replied - with a promptness I have never witnessed from an MP on a Parliamentary email address - to thank me for my reply and agree that "Ike's signs were unnecessarily aggressive. I also think it is strategically counterproductive to spend more energy vilifying the people closest to you, while leaving your real enemies alone."

Quite. Anyway, this is not the season for vilification. I'm more into celebration. So I do genuinely hope that Bright, Gladwin, Finau and their families have a happy Christmas and catch a little sun wherever they happen to be. I wish the same, of course, to the readers of Hard News.

This has been a momentous year for the bulletin. After 11 years of Friday morning rants, I changed the format to something more sustainable. The response from readers and listeners was unexpected and moving.

I am delighted with the way Public Address has gone, and I'm grateful to the other bloggers - Chad, Debra, Damian and Jolisa - and particularly to Matt Buchanan and Karl von Randow of CactusLab, who have created such a wonderful environment. Next year looks promising for all of us.

I can't vouch for the others, but I'll be blogging from the road - Wellington, Masterton, Nelson - this summer, so keep checking in. In the meantime, be sure to show some love.

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