Downstage Down

It's a sad to note the demise of Wellington's Downstage Theatre. I've seen some good plots there, Ian Mune's King Lear topping the list.

It is some small consolation that one of Downstage's board treaders (Untold Tales of Maui's Taika Cohen) has managed to monetise his art into a memorable skit adored by dope fiends and Soccer Mums alike:



It's a sort of sequel to Two Cars One Night, which was set outside a pub, the most common childcare centre for Generations X and older.

Presumably there's a third part, involving Mums monged on prescription meds. As the Law Commission pointed out in their drugs review (Part One, pg. 43), between 1958 and 1971, 11.6 percent of married women were on prescribed hypnotics, tranqs (or both). If recent research is anything to go by, little has changed in this area.

Journal of Record

I'm really digging the Weekender Edition of Bryce Edwards' Politics Daily. Friday's edition was a 869 page digest of what happened this week, including many items of interest that flew over my head earlier in the week like a Vogon Constructor fleet.

# When whistleblowers get lost in government IT. Not content with losing my emails, or stuffing up EQC, ACC, etc., Internal Affairs loses evidence of massive pokie fraud before finding it again, after considerable prodding by the guy with his neck sticking out. The Great Rugby Racing Beer Swindle continues.

# The Whingeing Pom in Pram has evidently won his kind of justice, by having local council correspondence to him omit the macron above the a in Kapiti. It's mad stuff like this that makes me lean towards Option A for Wellington amalgamation. Like latter day juries, local councils and community boards are refuges for control freaks and moralistic wowsers, not a true reflection of the community at large.

# It could be worse. It could be Palmy. The city council there is looking at banning smoking in public places. That is, when it is not trying to gag one of its councillors for making stupid racist comments. As always, I advise people not to tell me to stop smoking, as Tuckering may offend.

# The lost continent of Zealandia always seemed more myth than history to me (Landmarks seemed so authoritative on the subject). Not any more, after the latest conflagration of earth scientists in Dunedin presented their papers. Contrary to one old scientific opinion, NZ's flora and fauna was not shat out of a seagull.

You can subscribe to the NZ Political Digest by emailing Bryce Edwards here.

Taming the Sevens with Hospitality

It's a slow news day domestically, and I'm far too sober to write about the Brennan hearings or drones yet. This one is about rugby. I don't personally enjoy the game, but some of my best friends are rugbyheads. Also Neil Miller, who once lent me his beers at the Old Malthouse on Willis St. Cheers.

Neil Miller was griping on NatRad's Panel today about how the Wellington's Sevens weekend has jumped the shark. More precisely, he despaired at the empty seats during the game, as punters went out on the concourse, or mulled around like pissed mullets around the Wellington CBD.

The Sevens should take a leaf out of the hospitality sector with the airline, restaurant or theatre solutions.

The airline solution is to overbook the seating. Try a 25 percent overbook for the first day next time and see how it works. The same principle is used by political parties in public meetings. Better to squeeze a big crowd into a small hall than have a small gathering in a cavern.

The restaurant solution is to sell the seat to a casual if the punter's not there on time. This only works if you don't allow punters off the premises.

The theatre solution is similar to a mash of the airline and restaurant gambits. Pre-sales ticket holders must enter by a certain time with an exit only policy (no pass outs). The tally of vacant seats is filled by 'standby' hopefuls at the gate. A sales gate could top numbers up if and when punters leave.

King Hit

I'm still in a dazed and confused state after hearing of the passing of yet another colourful Wellingtonian. Greg King follows Lloyd Morrison and Ben Hana into the sunless lands and we are poorer for it.

I never met Greg King in person. He was the articulate host of The Court Report on TVNZ7. He was the artful advocate in the criminal courts. I wrote to him not a year ago inviting him to speak at the NORML AGM. He politely declined, explaining that he was trying to talk some sense into the Sensible Sentencing Trust that weekend.

I was unaware that Greg King had visited the US drug courts until his blistering interview with Linda Clark in the final Court Report. It would be a great epitaph to the man if that video could be made available online, just to remind everyone of the passionate reformer at his prime (Looking at you Gibson Group, TVNZ, NZ on Screen).

.......

The new captain of the Bounty editor of Truth TP, Whale Oil, has been given the Brian Edwards seal of approval, having appeared on The Nation with him and not bitten the head off anything. Cam Slater has shown his own angry brand of respect for Greg King by featuring him on the front page with his autopsy with a topless chick in the first edition of Truth with Whale at the wheel.

Here's my reply:

Sixed by a bus, not an elbow of flyover

Although I no longer live in Wellington, I keep a keen interest in the evolution of its character. Urban design is one of these aspects. Having walked the streets of Wellington for decades, I have studied its contours, flavours and wind funnels with care.

The recent spate of pedestrian maimings and deaths in the Wellington CBD has been a tragedy. I supported the council's decision to rearrange the bus routes, as long as lower Cuba Street was completely pedestrianised, and most of Mercer St was too. Doing so would help move the foot traffic safely into another stream, away from the old Manners Mall, now Manners Street.

At my verbal submission, this idea was bumped back by Councillors, smirking it off as a bad idea. Lower Cuba Street was a wind-swept area unfit for boulevards or outdoor dining, I was informed. The precinct was best served by a shared space. i.e. road. My written submission also favoured general traffic through Manners Street, not just buses. This point came up in the discussion on the matter on Nine to Noon last Friday.

It's a lot more complex than that, of course. Wellington is full of absent-minded professors, students, joggers, cyclists, rugbyheads and artists in varying states of reverie and/or revelry. They are all creatures of rhythm and habit. It takes years to change that conditioning, their innate trust in the footpath.

It was bad enough that the bypass has turned Upper Cuba and Upper Willis Streets into a game of Frogger for impatient pedestrians. I've lost count of the times I've almost been street-pizzaed when they re-arranged the Ghuznee Street flow. Now the Manners Street/Willis Street nexus has become a new kill zone.

Sean Plunket spoke truth to power on the matter last weekend, pointing out that most of the Council's alleged solutions to the black spot are stupid. I gather temporary fences are currently in vogue, which might stop soccer Mums with prams or mobility scooters, but it's just a small leap for this freedom walker.

The only advice I can offer is what it has always been; keep the traffic types separate as much as possible. When the fleshy bodies have to intersect with the screaming metal boxes, ensure they have weight of numbers and regular crossing times on the fleshy ones' side.

That principle was behind my entry for the aBc urban design competition back in 2007. I'm glad to see that the Basin flyover is going ahead, as well as the cut and cover tunnel under the War Memorial Park. Get that traffic away from cyclists and pedestrians. The only thing they aren't doing which was in my entry was to put the airport bypass through Government House.

Tommy Honey did have a point about the new park on NatRad earlier this week, in that it will be a disjointed open space with no links to the waterfront. Car yards litter the main lateral thoroughfares on either side, in Taranaki St and Cambridge Terrace.  Hopefully, once the tunnel and park are finished and the traffic flows settle down again, Tory Street might become viable as a more pedestrianised link to Courtenay Place and the waterfront.

Backburners

It's a sad day for political animals, cartoonists and bon vivants, as the Backbenchers Pub was ravaged by fire this morning. Jeez, I haven't felt this bummed out since they closed the fish and chip shop opposite Parliament to build the Kate Sheppard apartments.

Thankfully no-one was injured or killed in the fire, however National coalition MP puppets for Peter Dunne and Pita Sharples were among the casualties, as well as an unknown number of original political cartoons.

The makers of the world's only live political TV show hosted in a pub, Back Benches, had only three more shows to go before death by National party firing squad. Maybe they'll take over the Sports Bar or find an alternative room at the labyrinthine Backbenchers building. Maybe they'll wind up at another venue entirely. The scouts are out for the final three.

Things will never be the same again. But at least Wellington's secular cathedral is fixable, and the wine cellar intact. And so it goes.

At war with the non-laws

About the only way you'd get my interest during the Olympics is if they made swearing a competitive sport. Alas, it will only be non-professional level curses on Wellington's sports fields and in its parks if anyone tries to tell me that Wellington City Council has banned smoking there.

In truth, this do-gooding bylaw has no power. One can't be fined or punished in any way for breaching it. No court in the land would uphold its constitutionality if it was ever tested. It is just one of those vacuous "sending a message" laws from the Department of Something Must Be Done.

However, if some safety nazi wants to help me limber up my offensive lingo by tut-tutting the next time I fug past them while smelling the roses, be warned. The air will not be blue because of the smoke.

Growing Up

The goNZo tricolour is at half mast today for Lloyd Morrison. It's the least I could do for the guy who tried to get this country to grow up a little and get away from Britain's apron springs.

In truth, there would be no goNZo flag without Lloyd Morrison. The idea only became reality after I got involved with the Change the Flag campaign, which in turn was largely brought into being by the imaginative Lloyd Morrison. During the Flag Referendum campaign, Lloyd would be on the streets of Wellington, same as any other activist, egging strangers and friends alike to sign up for the Citizens Initiated Referendum.

Although the referendum failed, the idea behind it lives on stronger than it ever was. Flag change and Head of State debates have entered and remain in the MSM.

Thank you, Lloyd Morrison, for believing in Wellington and New Zealand.

Walking in Light

You can tell a lot about a place by the way it treats its outcasts. It speaks volumes that Wellington has borne witness to some of NZ's most colourful homeless. Robert Jones, aka The Man with the Bucket, passed on some time ago. His images still adorn Chris Parkin's Museum Hotel, a testament to a particular age.

Blanket Man, aka Ben Hana, was a tragedy with a completely different spin. Today he stopped spinning. Every Wellington person worth their salt has a tale to tell about him, and I hope a statue of him is placed inconveniently as a traffic island in his memory; legs akimbo, some booze, and his can-pipe his faithful companions.

Rest easy, Ra-loving Diogenes of Poneke.

Kissing Hands and Shaking Babies

I've got a bastard behind the eyes this morning. I suspect it may be due to overdosing on attending election Meet the Candidates meetings. This ordeal by fire might be necessary to test the stamina of the prospective MPs, but it has done my head in after only a handful of gigs.

The best of the best gigs was last night at the Aro Valley Community Hall. It is how all election meetings should be held, with wit and audience participation. The Dim and the Dom tell it like it was. The $2 sausages were also damned fine.

The next most fun one thus far was the Otaki bash, where that Guy got grilled. The Hot Fuzz Award for vanilla gothic community hall meeting so far is Maungaraki, where the first open question to the candidates started "This might seem like a self-interested question.."

The most surprising candidates gig has been the genteel and tolerant meeting in Whitby, where not only cannabis activists were welcomed, the 20 year old Act boy-candidate who had a panic attack on stage was treated with kid gloves. The last days of the Third Reich came to mind, where the powers that remained threw untrained boys onto the front line, and here was the "enemy" giving comfort.

Pretty Vacant

Dim Post points to Russell Brown's photo from last night's Auckland fan zone. This was shot this evening in Wellington's fan zone on the waterfront before the Russia US game:

By the start of the game, a dozen or so people had turned up, but you get the idea.

Fierce Invalids Home from Lukewarm Climates

We were driving through Te Horo a handful of years ago, me and a couple of hitch-hikers I had picked up around Porirua, heading north to Auckland. Both were European backpackers, and as we cruised up State Highway One, the bloke would ask what the history of the place was. "Nothing of consequence," said I.

Strictly speaking, this was true. This wasn't Poland, doormat to a dozen conquering dynasties. But by the dozenth time this guy asking "What happened here?" as we zoomed through Te Horo, I plain admitted I had not a clue.

I had a flashback of 2001 in Oz (the We Went on Holiday by Mistake Tour as I now call it), when I was quizzed on the picaresque qualities of the Bay of Islands/ West Coast/ Ninety Mile Beach and illuminated my ignorance by saying I had never been to these places.

The hitch-hikers had gone their own way by that evening, but their curiosity gnawed at me for years. So I read. I read Edward Jerningham Wakefield and his Adventure in New Zealand. Rauparaha, a vague mash of childhood tales, came alive. I read on pre-colonial Maori. I read The Coming of the Maori by Te Rangi Hiroa. I read Michael King. And then I read some more.

The next foreign hitch-hiker who asks gets the full lecture. More importantly, the tardy education gave me a greater appreciation of the western coastline north of Wellington. Mana and Kapiti Islands now have deeper meaning. And it is into this land of Rauparaha that I now reside.

Auckland and I do not get on. This is the fourth attempt at living in Auckland that has failed miserably. Here's a sprinkling of lessons learned this time around:

• There are too many Glens and too much godiness in Auckland. Glenfield, Glen Innes, Glen Eden, Glen, Glen bloody Glen! Is Glen Scottish for mall? The quantity of big box churches is a bit of worry, the fundamentalist vandals more so.
• The Heineken Mastercard Rugby World Cup had better pour a truckload of business into Auckland, because Wednesday night down at the Viaduct right now looks grim.
• West Auckland politics seems even more incestuous and crony broken than the rest of the city. The rich and wealthy thumb their noses at the laws, making fithy lucre at public expense. The liquor licensing boards pick winners and protect losers. The middle classes get hassled by the Council for minor pruning or attempting to plant a veggie garden. Want to do up the family home? Prepare your wallet for a conga line of Council inspections: "Da-da-da-da-da, PAY! Da-da-da-da-da, PAY!" The masses get to fight over the scraps left over.
• Outrageous Fortune was a documentary. I scoffed at the last season. Judd and Pascalle getting together? That was a step over the line of suspending disbelief, eh. But no. After witnessing West Auckland, it's the sort of place where screwing the step-daughter while the Mum's in prison seems sane.

So, fuck Auckland. Titirangi might be the Wellington of the north but give me the real thing.

Wellywood; Cringe Harder

FYI, the Skull & Bones Wellywood sign generator is back up and running:

There's also another generator with greater sign length here:

The Facebook group Wellingtonians Against the Wellywood Sign continues to grow, but short of buying the hill off the airport, it looks as if the Airport Board are going ahead with the sign. It seems they are deaf to criticism as well as taste blind.

Flowery Twats

In the past, NZ culture has celebrated kitsch and hokum as part its cultural cringe identity. For example:

Some have dared challenge this "over-sized objects as tourist destination" schtick and focused on activities that visitors might actually enjoy, such as bungee jumping, white water rafting, tramping. I support these endeavours as they help bury the rancid corpse of cultural cringe in the past where it belongs.

But there's always some flowery twats who wants to bring it all back in bold like a bad acid flashback in flares and tie-dyed jokes once more. It looks like the Miramar escarpment is going to have a Wellywood sign after all.

If anyone's running a sweepstake on how long it'll take between installation and defacement, I'll buy into that for a dollar.

BONY reading

My picks for Best of New Year's reading:

# Part eulogy, part allegory, Crampton points to a piece by Robin Maconie on Christchurch, NZ university politics and the passing of Denis Dutton.

# John Drinnan rounds up the media year with a scathing look at John Key's corporate welfare. Apart from the Hobbit swindle, there was the Fay dynasty picking up NZ on Air funding:

Taxpayers gave Annabel Fay's record company a $50,000 subsidy while her dad, Sir Michael, put up thousands of dollars to helicopter in commercial radio DJs and a public servant funding executive to their Great Mercury Island hideaway for a promotional gig.

Something is surely wrong when the Government attacks financially strapped public radio as wasteful, but gives subsidies for pop pap to people who can afford to pay their own way.

 # Pablo at KiwiPolitico expands on Idiot Savant's discovery that many of the Urewera 18 will no longer be eligible for a jury trial. Justice delayed is bad enough, but changing the rules in between arrest and trial on this matter is contemptable.

# The DPB and beneficiaries might get Lindsay Mitchell annoyed, but behold her wrath of freedoms curtailed.

# Karl du Fresne takes a break from propping up the monarchy to write about the passing of Wellingtonian Duncan Barry McFarlane:

In any event, a big service was arranged in Newson’s honour and the Wellington underworld, having declared a temporary cessation of hostilities, turned out en masse. I covered the ceremony for the Evening Post , and what was very apparent that day was that a life of crime hadn’t been kind to most of those present. They looked prematurely old, were shabbily dressed and drove old dungers. But that couldn’t be said of McFarlane, who by all accounts lived very well. At the time, his address was a luxury yacht in the Chaffers Marina. No one seemed to know how he made his money but it’s fair to assume it wasn’t from designing Hallmark greeting cards. 

 # The Proceeds of Crimes Act, which allows the state to confiscate property willy-nilly, has taken a knock back in the courts. Fair go too. No need to punish the missus for the crimes of the husband when it comes to matrimonial property.

Free Zealandia

Zealandia, formerly known as the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, is offering free entry to locals this Saturday and Sunday. In other news, the Kakariki has been crowned NZF&B's Bird of the Year.

The winner of last year's title, the Kiwi, was not returning calls from the media.

This town needs an enema

Absolutely Positively Wellington is dead. Stuff Wellywood. Here's our next anthem:

That one's on the house.

Rain

I'm surprised to find that Seattle, Washington State isn't a sister city to Wellington. We have so much in common, namely rain. Here are some songs involving rain.

For the kiwis:



For the cougars:



For the dyslexic mods:



For the alcoholics:



70's Roxy Music channeling 60's Dylan. Completely sucks as car ad musak:



80's refugees. Pity Prince has gone fundamental these days, eh:



90's Alt-Rockers:

Cats on buses

American Gardner is having a laugh at public transport users over at Roar Prawn with some carpark porn in Auckland. As a non-car owning prole, it is one of the reasons I actively dislike Auckland. You can't go anywhere there without a car. Alternatives are all but active discouraged. Not at all like Wellington.

However, I have my own gripe on public transport here in Wellington. Apart from working animals such as guide dogs, animals are not allowed on the buses. This makes it very difficult for non-car owning proles to get their pets to the vet. Which is a shame considering all the vets in Wellington are on or near main bus routes. The SPCA in Newtown is on Routes 10 and 23. The Central Vet Hospital is on Routes 7, 8 and 9. Wadestown Vet is on Route 14. Kelburn Vet is on Routes 17, 18, 20, 22, and 23.

A return taxi fare to the SPCA is prohibitive at a cost of around 200 percent of their basic vet charges. The nearest vet is a cheaper taxi fare, but costs double or triple the SPCA prices. Besides, every time I go there they try to sell me on getting the cat's teeth cleaned. It might be alright for the lawyers and suits who take their pampered alter-egos in regularly to get their canine cholesterol levels checked or pooch nails manicured, but for this underdog, it's all too pricey.

Letting sick dogs on buses might also be a bit of a problem. In most cases, there's the option of walking the dog to the vets anyway. Have you ever tried to walk a cat anywhere? It doesn't work. Surely it can't be too much of a health and safety issue to let smaller pets on buses in suitable boxes or cages, especially during off-peak hours. In the meantime, I might start checking around for vets that do house calls.

Thanks for the warning

A press release from the Wellington City Council today explains some of last night's rattle & hum:

The public of the greater Wellington area are advised that the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) will be conducting a military exercise based in the Wellington region on the evenings of the 23, 24 and 27 June 2010. 

Iroquois helicopters from No. 3 Squadron RNZAF will be practising tactical low flying operations at night, utilising night vision equipment, between sunset and midnight.

On 27 June there will be extensive operations in the Central Business District during these hours.

No. 3 Squadron is required to conduct exercises in order to provide capable and timely response options in support of the New Zealand Government's needs.