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Guardian
Ashburton
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
FIRST PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 27, 1879
Methven rolls out red carpet for Oscars The red carpet was out and the bubbles flowing, in Methven as in Hollywood yesterday. A decade ago a group of movie loving Methvenites established a tradition of celebrating the Oscars at Denise Dixey’s residence – and this year was no different. Dressed for the occasion, about 50 women - some delivered to the venue by chauffeur, walked the red carpet to watch a live screening of the real deal, taking place simultaneously at the biggest event on the Hollywood calendar. In keeping with the spirit, the Methven brigade had “Oscars” of their own to hand out to lucky revellers. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world Ben Affleck’s Iran hostage drama Argo won the coveted best film Oscar, as other key prizes were shared among several films at the 85th Academy Awards. Taiwan-born Ang Lee won best director for spectacular 3D fantasy Life of Pi, while Daniel Day-Lewis won a record third best actor trophy for Lincoln and Jennifer Lawrence was crowned best actress for Silver Linings Playbook. But veteran filmmaker Steven Spielberg, whose presidential drama had the most nominations with 12 nods, went home from Hollywood’s biggest awards show with only two awards, best actor and a technical prize for production design. Overall, Life of Pi won the most Oscars with four, against three for Argo and Les Miserables, two each for Django Unchained and Lincoln, and one for Zero Dark Thirty. In a heavily musical show, Adele sang Oscar-winning 007 theme Skyfall as part of a segment feting 50 years of Bond films, while Shirley Bassey belted out Goldfinger. Legendary diva Barbra Streisand also gave her first Oscars performance for 36 years, singing The Way We Were as part of a tribute to late composer Marvin Hamlisch. Affleck, whose movie had taken virtually all of the top prizes during Hollywood’s awards season during the past two months, paid tribute to Spielberg in his acceptance speech. “Steven Spielberg, I want to acknowledge, I feel is a genius and a towering talent among us,” said Affleck, who was not nominated for best director or
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Warnings issued to road-side car sellers By Sue Newman
Photo Tetsuro Mitomo 250213-tm-046
Kayla Dynes, Renee Johnson and Glenda Ryan at Methven’s Oscars party.
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To see more or purchase photos best actor at the Oscars, in a perceived snub. In an unexpected move, the best picture winner was announced by US first lady Michelle Obama, addressing the Oscars show - and final presenter, legend Jack Nicholson - by videolink from the White House. “I was hallucinating when that was happening. I was just asking... ‘Was that Michelle Obama?’ The whole thing overwhelmed me. It was an enormous honour. It was very cool,” Affleck said backstage afterwards. Hunger Games star Lawrence got a standing ovation as her
award was announced, over fellow nominees Jessica Chastain, French star Emmanuelle Riva, Naomi Watts and nine-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis, the youngest ever nominee. Day-Lewis, who had been widely expected to win best actor, appeared to fight back tears as he took the stage - and then joked as he was handed the golden statuette by Meryl Streep. “Three years ago, before we decided to do a straight swap, I had been committed to play Margaret Thatcher,” he said, referring to Streep’s Oscarwinning performance as the for-
Daniel Day-Lewis, best actor.
Jennifer Lawrence, best actress.
mer British premier in The Iron Lady. “Meryl was Steven (Spielberg)’s first choice for Lincoln,” he said, to laughs from the assembled A-listers at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. “And I’d like to see that version.” Austrian director Michael Haneke’s Cannes-winning Amour won the best foreign language film prize at the Oscars, widely seen as the most unpredictable for years.
Best supporting actor went to Austrian Christoph Waltz, who played a dentist turned bounty hunter in Quentin Tarantino’s blood-spattered spaghetti western tribute Django Unchained. Tarantino won for best original screenplay. The star-studded show was preceded by a two-hour A-list fashion parade on the red carpet, with a healthy serving of old-school Hollywood glamour on display. - AFP
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Dodging the cost of selling your vehicle through the official channels could land you with a hefty bill in fines and impounding fees. The Ashburton District Council is partnering with the New Zealand Transport Agency to clamp down on the growing number of road-side vehicle sales on state highways and it won’t hesitate to infringe people flouting the law, council regulatory manager Richard Wade says. “Technically this is illegal. This weekend we’ve had boats, off-road motorbikes and even tractors as well as cars and trucks. Particularly near the bridge it’s starting to look like a sales yard.” Over the weekend the council had started putting warning signs on vehicles with sale signs parked on the highway and would continue to do this for a short period, but repeat offenders would pay the price in a $500 fine, he said. “NZTA has the power to tow a vehicle away and ultimately, that’s what will happen. This is not about rules for rules’ sake, it’s about public safety.” With a number of vehicles parked on the south side of the Ashburton River Bridge, Mr Wade said it became difficult for motorists to access the highway with a clear view of traffic. Add increased pedestrian traffic into the mix and there was a high potential for people to be injured, he said. “We’re not jumping straight to
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enforcement because we’re aware a lot of people may not know this is illegal, but we’ll be keeping note of the registration plates where warnings have been issued and if you continue to do it you’ll be infringed and towed.” Vehicles parked for sale along state highways would also be checked for current registration and warrant of fitness stickers. If these were out of date, additional fines would be imposed, he said. For vehicle owners who ended up being infringed, what had started out as a cheap way of selling a vehicle would quickly become an expensive exercise, he said. The council did not have the same issue with vehicles parked on side roads, Mr Wade said. “A little sign in the window of your car parked on your street doesn’t create the same problem, there’s not the same safety issues involved. It’s the state highways that are a real concern. It’s becoming like an auction yard and it has to stop.”
New shops ready to be built on Tancred St By Sue Newman Hers was the last row of buildings on the block to be demolished, but property owner June Mui will be the first person to complete a rebuild in Cass and Tancred streets. Her properties, once home to Knights Framing and Simply Wardrobes have been vacant for more than a year and were demolished about three weeks ago. Plans have been prepared for their replacement and construction
Photo Tetsuro Mitomo 280113-TM-079
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LEFT: Demolition crews made short work last month of knocking down a block of shops owned by Ashburton woman June Mui, but the site that’s empty today will soon be home to two new retail outlets.
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is about to start, Mrs Mui said. “I’ll be building commercial retail shops there. It’s one shop on the plan but it can be subdivided into two. And there will be two storage rooms. In the old building there was a lot of wasted space and you had no access to upstairs. This will be the same size the building was originally.” While she has received some inquiries from potential tenants, Mrs Mui said she didn’t anticipate the buildings would be let until construction was completed. “We won’t know what rentals will be until they’re up,” she said. During the design phase of the new buildings, Mrs Mui said she was conscious of the design of its neighbour DNA Hairdressing and wanted to ensure what she
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built was compatible with this. She said she had been approached by another landowner in that area wanting her to sell her site, but she preferred to retain the land and undertake her own development. “We wouldn’t have got much for an empty section, it wouldn’t have covered the cost of our plans and we want to have this for a bit of extra income in the future. We have tried to work in with everybody by knowing who is doing what and when.” Mrs Mui said the wait for demolition had been long, largely because of insurance issues; unfortunately it took a lot longer to get a new building up than it did for the old one to come down, she said. “I hope to get work under way by Easter. We’ve got our consent, we’re
just waiting on the piece of paper. It’s all done and we’re ready to go.” In the same area, Brian Davidson owns a strip of land fronting Cass Street from the rear of Braided Rivers to the corner of Cass and Tancred streets. He is still working through ideas for its redevelopment. There are also two large, two storey buildings that are still standing between Mr Davidson and Mrs Mui’s land, but their future is unclear. While the Ashburton District Council cannot dictate the shape and form of the inner town redevelopment, group manager environmental services Jane Donaldson said it was keen to see developers working together. Most of the developers the council had spoken to were keen to work
collaboratively but there was no obligation to involve the council in their plans. Some developers were keeping their plans close to their chests, she said. “We’ve had discussions in the past with architect Bill Skews who’s doing some design work for a couple of owners who’re working together and we’ve had forums in the past with owners where Christchurch architects have talked about lessons to be learned from Christchurch.” It was clear that developers and the town generally would get better win-win outcomes if there was some form of integrated design, but it was inevitable you could never have everyone on board because of their differing priorities, Ms Donaldson said.
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