Capital 22

CAPITAL TA L E S O F T H E C I T Y

GARAGE PROJECT WINTER 2015

ISSUE 22

BOOTED UP BATA

$4.90 SEAS THE DAY

YELLOW STICKER BICKER

FREE CARDS INSIDE B I R T H D AY BUMPER ISSUE

We are Wellington’s only co-educational Independent primary school

We educate boys and girls from Preschool through to Year 8

Call now to view our school phone 385 9489

We are St Mark’s

St Mark’s Church School

An Anglican Independent School for girls and boys, Preschool to Year 8 13 Dufferin Street, Basin Reserve, Wellington. Ph 385 9489 www.st-marks.school.nz

Programme Partners

I N K I N E N F E S T I VA L

I N K I N E N F E S T I VA L

NEW ZEAL AND SY M P H O N Y O R C H E ST R A presents

N EW Z E A L A N D SY M P H O N Y O R C H E ST R A p r e s e n ts

KAREN GOMYO PLAYS BEETHOVEN

In this dazzling concert series, we feature our treasured Music Director Pietari Inkinen. Alongside some of the world’s most brilliant soloists, experience Inkinen’s insightful conducting of some of the most atmospheric and intensely beautiful music in the repertoire.

In this dazzling concert series, we feature our treasured Music Director Pietari Inkinen. Alongside some of the world’s most brilliant soloists, experience Inkinen’s insightful conducting of some of the most atmospheric and intensely beautiful music in the repertoire.

Pietari Inkinen Simon O’Neill

COND UCTOR T ENOR

Christine Goerke

Pietari Inkinen CO NDU CTOR

Karen Gomyo VI OLIN

BEETH OV E N

Violin Concerto in D major

SOPRANO

SCENES FROM

Wagner’s Ring Cycle I NCLUD I NG HI GHL I GHTS FROM

Act 3 of Siegfried AND SCENES FROM

Götterdämmerung

SI BELI U S

Lemminkäinen Suite

Saturday 13 June 7.30PM

Friday 12 June 6.30PM

MICHAEL FOWLER CENTRE WELLINGTON

MICHAEL FOWLER CENTRE WELLINGTON

nzso.co.nz FOR TICKET DETAILS VISIT

nzso.co.nz FOR TICKET DETAILS VISIT

SELECTIONS FROM

THE RUTHERFORD TRUST COLLECTION

22 May-16 August 2015

AT ARATOI WAIRARAPA MUSEUM OF ART AND HISTORY

Gretchen Albrecht, Small Winter Sunset, 1972, acrylic on canvas, 1442 x 838mm. Courtesy of The Wallace Arts Trust.

Masterworks from 40 leading New Zealand artists including Gretchen Albrecht, Rita Angus, Philippa Blair, Neil Dawson, Robert Ellis, Frances Hodgkins, Colin McCahon, Buck Nin, Anne Noble, Kura Te Waru Rewiri, Gordon Walters The Rutherford Trust Collection is on Permanent Loan to The Wallace Arts Trust.

CAPITAL MADE IN WELLINGTON

THE COVER: Rain dance Art Direction: Shalee Fitzsimmons Props: Rhett Goodley-Hornblow Photography: Ashley Church Model: Laura Pitcher MUA: Maia Renner Assistant: Josh Wotton All paper provided by paper specialists BJ Ball Papers.

SUBSCRIPTION Subscription rates $77 (inc postage and packaging) 11 issues

New Zealand only To subscribe, please email accounts@capitalmag.co.nz

C O N TA C T U S Phone +64 4 385 1426 Email editor@capitalmag.co.nz Website www.capitalmag.co.nz Facebook facebook.com/CapitalMagazineWellington Twitter @CapitalMagWelly Post Box 9202, Marion Square, Wellington 6141 Deliveries 31–41 Pirie St, Mt Victoria, Wellington, 6011 ISSN 2324-4836 Produced by Capital Publishing Ltd

PRINTED IN WELLINGTON

T

his is our biggest issue ever. We are delighted to present it to you. If our magazine keeps getting bigger and better at this rate we'll all need a bigger office or a cup of tea and a lie-down.

This, our second birthday has rolled around very fast. It’s not as significant as a first birthday but nonetheless we are pleased to bring you our 22nd bumper issue.

Birthdays are good fun and we wanted to give you something. We commissioned two local illustrators to provide cards for you. Look for them inside.

On the Buses replaces our popular dog signoff (at the back) and we are pleased to be working with NZ Bus on this. Do not mourn, the dogs of the capital are not forgotten, every dog will have its day again.

A good number of you have told us for some time that Capital was underpriced, so we hope you will agree that we still provide great value for money. And it is still about the same price as a cup of fine coffee, one of our start-out yardsticks.

As an additional birthday treat to our readers the current subscription rate ($77.00 for 11 issues) will not change until after our next issue on 1 August. Don’t hesitate, be in quick.

In this issue Mark Sainsbury looks at the Honda CRV, Stephen Franks returns to examine current risk analysis, Unna Burch lifts the in-fashion-again rhubarb plant to celebratory heights, and there is much much more.

The final form of each magazine is arrived at with the suggestions, ideas and work from a wide range of people, from photographers , writers, artists, printers, proofreaders, distributors and readers. I thank you all.

Alison Franks Editor editor@capitalmag.co.nz

This publication uses vegetable based inks, and FSC® certified papers produced from responsible sources, manufactured under ISO14001 Environmental Management Systems

The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher. Although all material is checked for accuracy, no liability is assumed by the publisher for any losses due to the use of material in this magazine.

Copyright ©. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of Capital Publishing Ltd.

THE NEW DISCOVERY SPORT

FOR THE ADVENTURE OBSESSED

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The Discovery Sport is the first in a new generation of Land Rover SUV Design. Starting from just $78,500, you could be one of the first to take it out for an adventure. Hurry in to your nearest Land Rover dealer to arrange a test drive today.

Armstrong Prestige Wellington

66 Cambridge Terrace, Wellington 04 384 8779 www.armstrongprestige.com

THE PIPES ARE CALLING! WESTPAC STADIUM WELLINGTON Book now at festival.co.nz

A cast of 1200 performers led

by Scotland’s famous Regiments

CONTENTS

GAR AGE PROJECT Man caves are turning into business caves

34

YELLOW STICKER BICKER

BOOTED UP

Are we quake obsessed?

If it weren't for their gumboots

43

78

12 LETTERS

64

14 CHATTER

68 CHEERS

16

NEWS SHORTS

70

PERIODICALLY SPEAKING

18

BY THE NUMBERS

72

BY THE BOOK

20

NEW PRODUCTS

74

A SMALL VICTORY

22

TALES OF THE CITY

85

SO MUCH TO DO...

26 CULTURE

88

SNUG AS A BUG

30

LEILA'S REIGN

92

SEAS THE DAY

32

BEDWOMB BEATS

98

UNRAVELLING

47

WHAT THE FLOCK

102 TALK TORQUE

48

A DARK STORMY NIGHT

104 WELLY ANGEL

54

STREET STYLE

107 BABY BABY

56

FASHION BRIEFS

108 DIRECTORY

LIQUID THOUGHTS

58 EDIBLES

110 CALENDAR

60

112 ON THE BUSES

EPIC WINTER PIE

S TA F F Alison Franks Managing editor editor@capitalmag.co.nz Campaign coordinators Lyndsey O’Reilly lyndsey@capitalmag.co.nz Haleigh Trower haleigh@capitalmag.co.nz Kate Ellis kate@capitalmag.co.nz

John Bristed General factotum john@capitalmag.co.nz Shalee Fitzsimmons Art direction shalee.f@live.com Rhett Goodley- Hornblow

Design design@capitalmag.co.nz

Craig Beardsworth

Factotum

Anna Jackson-Scott Journalist Gus Bristed

Distribution

CONTRIBUTORS Emma Steer | Melody Thomas | Kieran Haslett-Moore | Kelly Henderson | Janet Hughes | Daniel Rose | Sharon Greally | John Bishop | Tamara Jones | Ashley Church | Mark Sainsbury | Benjamin & Elise | Jess Hill | Beth Rose | Evangeline Davis | Bex McGill | Unna Burch | Aidan Rasmussen | Jeremiah Boniface | John Kerr | Joelle Thomson | Frances Samuel

E VA N G E L I N E D A V I S Ph oto g r aph er

STEPHEN FRANKS Columnist

Evangeline, currently in her third year at Massey, majoring in photography, is entranced with humanity and the natural world. Her work explores the beauty in the mundane, the ordinary and the overlooked.

Stephen Franks is a Wellington commercial and constitutional lawyer, and former MP. His firm, Franks & Ogilvie, specialises at the intersection of government and business, where private and public bodies have to deal with similar basic issues — controlling power, and replacing the powerful peacefully.

STOCKISTS Pick up your Capital in New World and Pak’n’ Save supermarkets, Moore Wilson's, Unity Books, Magnetix, City Cards & Mags, Take Note, Airport, Interislander and other discerning region wide outlets.

Ask for Capital magazine by name.

SUBMISSIONS We welcome freelance art, photo and story submissions. However we cannot reply personally to unsuccessful pitches.

THANKS Bex McGill | Jess Hill | Evangeline Davis | David Hamilton | Josh Wotton | Laura Pitcher | Pat Church | Tessa and Jeff for the rhubarb

MELODY THOMAS Journ a li st

A N NA B R IG G S Ph oto g r aph er

Melody Thomas is a writer, columnist and producer for radio who uses her work to offset terrible FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out. Writing for Capital provides just the excuse she needs to pry, consider and explore the world vicariously, all from her little window desk in Island Bay. Catch up with Melody between Issues on Twitter @ WriteByMelody.

Anna is a young freelance photographer and soon to graduate from Massey University Wellington. She has a love for photographing her surroundings showcasing their natural beauty in a stylish and tasteful way. You can check out her work at annabriggsphoto.com

10

LETTERS

GREEN IS THE COLOUR

IN TOP GEAR

I just wanted to tell you how interesting I found your May, Green issue. My family would not think of me as “greenie” but I was very pleased to read about the growth in eco funerals and their availability here.

I have long thought that the whole process of burial has been turned into an expensive charade. Mind you so have weddings.

Your green focus was very interesting.

S Lamb, Kapiti

I really liked that photo of the Porsche Cayman GTS in your March issue,(#19).

I am a longtime car nut, and thought that was such a neat picture of car and city.

And the story was an interesting one.

Jeremy, Masterton

LOTSA PIE TALK

MILD MANNERED Wow! Who would have thought that mild looking chap you featured on page 63, (Author, John Mcleod, Walk the Line, #21) would have had such an exciting life and pulled the chicks in such numbers.

There’s clearly hope for all us middleaged tired looking guys out there. I love Capital, it gives me hope.

Name supplied, (abridged) Wilton

Tapestry will totally inspire you. Set in a historic building in the heart of Greytown, colour features strongly with collections of old and new French and NZ home-wares and passionately up-cycled items are on display in every corner.

Make time to visit us soon.

Open: Thursday - Sunday 11 - 4 101 Main Street, Greytown.

Ph : 06 304 9375

I just wanted to say that we met with Olivia and Ryan in Shanghai (Making a Crust by Beth Rose, Dec, #17) on our recent trip and the girls loved it. They spoke about their business and the opportunities that they have had in China. It was so great to meet some Kiwis who have gone out on a limb and done so well for themselves.

Thanks for putting us in touch.

Anna Wilson, Wellington East Girls College, Te Kura Kōhine o te Rāwhiti o Te Upoko o Te Ika

Goldsmith artist Dorthe Kristensen of Vilders makes contemporary jewellery with individuality and flair.

Bring in your old gold jewellery and gems and Dorthe will work with you to give them new life.

SUCCESS Just wanted to say thank you for including our product and story in the May Issue.

We have been contacted by Moore Wilsons wanting to stock our product, so we are very appreciative of being included.

Steven Korner, Method Recycling

GREEN SCENE As a part-timer in the hospitality industry, I was very interested to read about local businesses doing their part for the environment in your previous ‘Green Issue’.

Thank-you for focussing on such an important topic and showing us it is possible to mix business and the enviroment.

Name supplied, Te Aro Letters to editor@capitalmag.co.nz with subject line Letters to Ed or scan our QR code to email the editor directly.

Treating your investment with the care it deserves With our 24 hour emergency call out service and local expertise, we are your natural choice.

We’ll care for your property, while you get on with the important things in life.

Open: Fri 12 – 5 Sat 11 – 3 or by appointment.

Relax and breathe easy with Oxygen

104 Aro Street, Wellington Phone (04) 384 7989 / 021 615 971 www.vildersgallery.co.nz

163 The Terrace, Wellington Phone (04) 472 5746 Oxygen.co.nz

12

C HAT T E R

INK INC.

M E N LY M E N MEN MEN Men are notoriously lax at looking after their health.

“She’ll be right” doesn’t quite cut it in the face of testicular cancer, diabetes, heart disease and all the other stuff. Men's Health Week 2015 aims to rectify that. Last year’s campaign encouraged 20,000 men to go online and fill out a quick survey to ascertain how healthy they were. This year organisers hope to reach 30,000. Life, Unichem and Amcal Pharmacies are on board too, with Pit Stop check-ups in-store. Frogmarch the men in your life down there if necessary.

Men’s Health Week June 8–14 menshealthweek.co.

JOSH WOT TON Art or rebellion?

Definitely art. I was inspired from a picture I saw on the Internet and ended up taking it into the tattoo parlour where both the tattooist and I re-designed it. It was an artistic process for me design and ideas.

IT'S COOL TO KORERO

Family – for it or against?

My family are always supportive and pushing me to express my art, so this is just another form of expression.

Keep your tootsies warm with this Winter-inspired lingo:

Where is the tattoo?

The tattoo is on my right upper shoulder. I got it there because it's a good place to add onto in the future.

Kei hea toku hiripa?

Where are my slippers?

14

C HAT T E R

WELLY WORDS NO JOKE BLOKE The Comedy Festival was largely a barrel o’laughs, but one Wellyworder experienced a downer. Kitty O’Shea’s hosted a gig where three people turned up (two were comps). Turns out the other audience member was a former flatmate of the comedian about to perform. When it was announced the gig was cancelled he turned around and told the other two a joke. The only one of the evening.

COFFEE CRUSH Barista banter is something many of us look forward to when we are loitering at the counter waiting for takeout.

In one local cafe a couple of baristas managed to get our Wellyworder chortling. Apparently they have “Crushtomers” i.e. customers who they have “crushes”on. No one was willing to divulge if there were any “lustomers”.

TIMING IS EVERY THING In the competitive world of apartment development everyone is trying to stand out. On the corner of Pirie and Brougham streets, a clutch of apartments has sprung up with an unusual selling point. There is a digital clock tower atop the third story showing temperature and time. Why? No one is sure.

WHEN IN ITALY Ever tried to impress your friends with your superior language skills and er... failed? A Wellyworder eating at Nicolini’s sat at a table next to a group of young women where one was attempting to dazzle everyone with her Italian pronunciation. “I’ll have the Envelopii of pasta thanks”. Bless.

NOW WE A R E T WO Capital is two. Forgive us for crowing loudly about this achievement but we’re feeling pretty stoked. We could bang on about print media and how spiffing it is but you probably know that already ‘cos you’ve picked us up. Instead here are some facts about the number two – go on, we dare you to impress your friends.

T WO • • • • •

the smallest prime number (it’s also the only even one) the atomic number for helium Noah had a thing for it in recycling it’s the identification number for high-density polyethylene in Finland, two candles are lit on Independence Day.

NEW IN TOWN Newtown Library is to be closed for maintenance and upgrades until 23 July.

Wellington City Libraries will provide extra services to Newtown Library customers during this time.

15

NEWS SHORTS

INTERSTELLAR COMMUNICATIONS Are you ready for warp speed? Six state of the art meeting rooms of differing sizes (the largest able to seat up to 250 people) have opened at the Intercontinental hotel.

They were the final stage of the hotel’s redevelopment.

The technology available breaks new ground in Wellington. Interactive whiteboards (USB and email compatible), an app so anyone can contribute, and disappearing projector screens (to assist in the transition from board meeting to cocktail party) are just part of it. There is also a ‘business centre’ with an onsite professional in case someone has technological difficulties or needs to print out some last minute handouts, said Geoff Naumann, Director of Sales and Marketing. Beam me up Scotty.

MOVING UP

HIGH QUALIT Y H 2 O

Aro Street’s Ron Barber gallery has closed after 35 years as a gallery and woodworking shop. He’ll continue to make small items upstairs, but will stop doing big items like tables.

“Most of my customers are local and people I know so I won’t lose them.”

He exhibited works by Gordon Crook, a long-time friend, to mark the closure.

Among several others Otaki river and Breaker Bay led Wellington in water quality over the 2014/15 summer. These were given overall ‘A’ grades, which mean their bacteria levels were extremely low, and that swimming (at least in terms of illness) was very safe. Conversely on at least one occasion, Titahi Bay, the Hutt river, Island and Owhiro bays and one or two others all failed the test due to high bacteria levels and were given an overall water quality grade of ‘D’.

SOUND AIRLINE

CHAMBER MUSIC NEW ZEALAND presents

Sounds Air will begin flying to Taupo in their new aircraft, the Pilatus PC12, a single turboprop machine from 2 June. Recently they also began flying to Westport, as they filled the hole left by Air New Zealand. Sounds Air have six year contracts for both of these destinations. They have also begun flying between winegrowing regions Blenheim and Napier. These are additions to their usual operations over the Cook Strait.

John Chen (Piano) | Natalie Lin (Violin) | Edward King (Cello)

CLiK the ensemble Featuring a showcase of solos, duos and trios by Enescu, Britten, Gareth Farr and Schubert

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington | Sat 22 Aug, 7.30pm Buy tickets: ticketek.co.nz | 0800 842 538 Adult tickets from $35 (Booking fees apply)

Youthful, spirited musicians will enchant you1 6with virtuosity

/ChamberMusicNZ 0800 266 2378

chambermusic.co.nz/clik

S ENCETW IO S NS H HOE R A TDSE R

DRAIN BRAIN It’s important to ensure only storm water goes down the city drains, says Naomi Middleton, Environmental Protection Officer at Greater Wellington Regional Council. She investigated a report by Karori Normal School students last month, who were anxious after seeing oily and soapy substances in their eels’ stream.

“Roadside gutters drain into the sea – they're not connected to the sewage network. If you’re working with petrol and diesel, doing earthworks or DIY projects, it’s important to contain discharges to your site.”

If a waterway looks contaminated, call the pollution hotline 0800 496 734. They receive about 20 pollution calls each week.

COMMUNIT Y STARS

REGIONAL WINNERS

A new award has been added to the 2015 Wellington Airport Community Awards.

The Rising Star award recognises smaller and emerging groups. The events celebrate the work of not-for-profit community groups in Upper Hutt.

Nominations are open and the awards will be announced on 26 August at Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre.

Groups can self-nominate.

Michala Rei and Wiki Mackey from Porirua College have won the Wellington regional final of the National Secondary Schools Culinary Challenge. The duo beat three other teams to win gold.

The judges commented that Michala and Wiki showed, “great knife skills, good seasoning and team work.”

They’ll represent Wellington at the national finals, Auckland, in August.

JOIN THE CLUB Local artist Joe McMenamin launched Makers Art & Craft Club last month to provide a creative space for the Naenae community. They bring their own materials and projects along to the St David's Anglican Church hall studio.

“People work on all sorts of projects, from skateboard illustration to etching batman images into discarded floor tiles,” Joe says.

Joe teaches art at Naenae College, and is currently busy making new work for the NZ Art Show, 19 – 21 June, where he will have a solo exhibition.

BY THE NUMBERS

KIWI RAIL

70+

freight train arrivals per week into Wellington rail yards

42

wagons on longest train

40

length in feet of the longest container (12 metres)

10,000

maximum fine in $$ under the 2005 Railways Act for trespassing or train surfing

COLOUR ME IMPRESSED

32

years art supply store Gordon Harris has been in Wellington (in July they move to Vivian Street)

3

generations of Harrises involved with the business

400 14,386

Schmincke pastel colours available products listed on their web-store

TERRIBLE T WOS

KEEPING COSY

19

average temperature the rooms you live in should be kept during winter

20

% of heat you can lose if you don’t plug up draughts

156

cost in dollars per year to run a dehumidifier (a dry room is a warm room)

55

degrees celsius safe temperature for your hot water cylinder

GRAPE EXPECTATIONS

2

number of years Capital has been around

7

2

number of months this issue covers (yes, that’s why it’s so packed full of Capitally goodness)

years since Yealands Winery in Marlborough was established (opened on the 08/08/08)

874

number of awards their wines have won since opening

22

number of issues we’ve produced

1000+

112

pages in this bumper issue – we’re gonna need a wee lie down after this

hectares of privately-owned vineyard (NZ’s largest)

2

yaks kept on their Seaview Vineyard (yes, yaks....what do you mean why?)

Compiled by Craig Beardsworth

18

ONE FIT T Y WELLY

150

number of years Wellington has been the Capital

1854

year New Zealand’s premier, James Fitzgerald, suggested that “the General Assembly should be held in a more central position in the colony”

1865

year the capital moved from Auckland to Wellington

12

world ranking in the Mercer Quality of Living Survey for 2014 (feeling good?)

A remarkable collection of digitally remastered and life size paintings from one of the world’s greatest painters of all time.

Direct from Amsterdam.

For the first time outside of Europe.

WELLINGTON : New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, 1 Queens Wharf (next to Queens Wharf Gates) OPENS : Friday June 5 till Sunday July 5 DAILY : 10 am - 5 pm ADMISSION : $10. Under 13 $5

Major Sponsors

Proudly supported by

NEW PRODUCTS

IT'S RAINING, IT'S POURING Blabla pillow, apple grey, $95, Small Acorns. Kitchen canister, matte pink, $14, Let Liv. Mini mae stickers, summer rain, $25, Small Acorns. Arington Milne Isabelle, coin purse, natural, $135, WORLD. Good & co leafy greens, $289, WORLD. Age eyewear mirage cream, $269, Service Depot. Banana Hipster, $33, Thunderpants. Mantis table lamp, $1,107, Backhouse. Citta Percy hot water bottle cover, $44, Iko Iko. Lonely Hearts, Hirschy, Sabel cut out bra, $99, Service Depot. Tile Italian cotton socks, $39, Mandatory.

20

CARLY HARRIS KEEPING IT FEMININE A mainstay of Wellington fashion for thirteen years, Carly Harris is known for feminine designs, draped with colour and print – flattering to every form.

A destination shop on the creative Cuba Street, Carly Harris displays the bias cuts, cowl necks and classic wrap dresses that have been a feature of her expansive range from the start.

New styles have evolved from early prototypes and the range has expanded to include larger sizes, (12 -24). All available in Wellington, the Auckland store and online.

The current range of dresses, pants, tops and jackets is a celebration of Carly’s signature style. The featured Hayworth dress of a bygone starlet era and the silk shift of Mad Men chic are certain head-turners, Scallop pants are teamed with draping tops or printed tees. Looks are finished off with ruffle, drop-sleeve, kimono and swing jackets.

Carly is now offering customised alterations on selected designs to suit individual needs or for bridesmaids. Also new in store is the introduction of one off, hand-painted lengths of silk. The colour ways of these pieces may be personalised to suit. They may be either bought as fabric lengths, or to be made into one of Carly’s designs.

Visit the store now at 154 Cuba Street and see online: www.carlyharris.com CARLY HARRIS, T: 04 384 1863 Become a fan on facebook and follow us on instagram! www.carlyharris.com

Create Your Future Massey University College of Creative Arts Wellington creative.massey.ac.nz

Programmes include fashion design, textile design, fine arts, photography, spatial design, industrial design, Māori visual arts, visual communication design, creative media production and commercial music.

Jessica Fuimaono, VCD graduate, 2015

Apply now for study in 2016

TA L E S O F T H E C I T Y

WRITTEN I N T H E S TA R S

HOBBY

FAMILY TIME

TRAVEL

AC T I V I T Y

FAV E SP O T

Cinema

Wellington Zoo

Wales

Pub quizzes

Makara Beach

WRITTEN BY ANNA JACKSON SCOTT & JOHN BRISTED | PHOTOGRAPH BY ANNA BRIGGS

T

he Carter Observatory and Matariki is a match made in heaven. The observatory’s focus is the southern skies and it’s the obvious place to learn about Matariki, the distinctive seven-star cluster (The Pleiades to the English and Subaru to the Japanese), that appears above the northern horizon in late May or early June just before dawn.

The first new moon after that signals Matariki, the Māori New Year. Traditionally, Matariki was a time to remember those who had died in the past year. It was also a happy event – crops had been harvested and seafood and birds had been collected. With plenty of food in the storehouses, Matariki was a time for singing, dancing and feasting.

It’s also an exciting time for Claire Bretheren, a Welshwoman who came here five years ago from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich with a PhD in extragalactic astronomy. A year ago she became Carter Observatory’s head astronomer and science curator.

Claire says it took her a while to get her bearings in the southern hemisphere. “We are very lucky to have some of the most spectacular sights in our skies.

“I’ve attended a number of dawn viewings at Mount Victoria....it’s a moving experience, watching the stars of Matariki rising slowly above the horizon just before the sun.”

She adds that one of the best things about Wellington is the relative lack of light pollution compared to the northern hemisphere. But she’d still like less. “I’d love us to turn off the street lights and get rid of flood lights so that

we can all get a clear, unpolluted view of our wonderful night-time skies.”

Claire and husband Derek, who also has a PhD in astrophysics (which is how the two met) can often be found with their two-year-old Rhys at child-friendly spots such as the Museum of Wellington City and Sea, Capital E, Te Papa, Karori Park, or Wellington Zoo – “preferably somewhere with good coffee!”

Wellington has become a great second home. “I do love working in the middle of the Botanic Gardens. And Wright's Hill Reserve or Makara are great for a clear, dark view of our skies. It’s the view of the harbour that really makes Wellington feel like home. “Nowhere beats Wellington on a good day!”

Even her recreational reading has an astral tinge, and she has just finished Mike Brown’s memoir, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. It’s about the astronomer who discovered the dwarf planet Eris, which led to the reclassification of Pluto from planet to dwarf planet.

Claire’s also a keen movie goer and pub quizzer. “I used to go every week before my son was born. I don’t go as often these days.” She has become a big fan of New Zealand wine, although is restricted to soft drinks at the moment as she’s expecting a baby girl in August.

And when possible she visits South Wales. “My family are Welsh, so that’s where I think of as home.

Matariki Wellington Festival, 13 June – 12 July 2015.

23

FREE DA N C I N G WRITTEN BY ANNA JACKSON-SCOTT | PHOTOGRAPH BY ASHLEY CHURCH Alexandra Smith has been dancing with Wellington Integrated Dance since it opened five years ago. The researcher and writer completed an MA in education at Victoria University, and has always had an interest in performing arts, beginning jazz classes as a child at school. She performs with WIDance, a school that specifically includes people with disabilities, for their five-year celebratory showcase this July.

Alex’s interest in how young disabled people participate in physical activity to enhance their wellbeing and health is based on experience. She has lived with disability. Born with cerebral palsy, she can walk somewhat, and uses a mobility scooter or a wheelchair the rest of the time. She finds dance very freeing.

“Dance is a good forum to explore movement in the way that it happens for each individual. There are not many rules, so the body can move in the way it wants to move. Some really interesting stuff comes out of the way individual bodies are restricted, maybe by disability.”

Alexandra Smith 24

She dances using crutches or a wheelchair, doing floor work, or supported by others. “We try to work with and without the equipment. In the type of dance we do – contact improvisation – you also work with other people and use them as support in a ‘dancey’ way.”

The biggest hurdle was to get over what she thought bodies “should” look like when they dance. “It’s about divorcing from that and just going with the flow.”

It also challenges the public’s perception of disability, she says. “People’s initial assumption is that dance is very physical, and if you have a disability then you’re not very physical, which is not necessarily the case. It just might mean your physicality is not the same as what other people think of as physical activity.

“The challenge is being able to participate and that’s why the WIDance opportunity is so good.”

WIDance Anniversary Showcase Performance, 18 July, 7:30pm, Te Whaea: National Dance and Drama Centre.

twigandarrow@gmail.com 021 0284 0947

“Winter Warming Comfort...

Book now.

citygallery.org.nz

JASMINA CIBIC • HENRY COOMBES • OLAFUR ELIASSON

Open 7 days Brunch, Lunch, Dinner and Dessert, 25 Kent Terrace, Wellington (04) 385 2551

ZBIGNIEW LIBERA • KIRSTY LILLICO Henry Coombes I Am the Architect, This is not Happening, This is Unacceptable 2012

27 JUNE – 08 NOVEMBER 2015

CULTURE

LOST F OR WOR D S A new City Gallery exhibition pairs a nonverbal artist and a video artist exploring aspects of the Māori language.

Susan Te Kahurangi King stopped speaking at seven due to autism.

Instead, she draws incessantly. Now 64, she has produced thousands of works in graphite, coloured pencils, pastels and inks on anything she can find, including surfaces like letters and invoices.

Shannon Te Ao (Ngati Tuwharetoa) does work that is quite different. The lecturer at Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University, produces videos that incorporate spoken language drawn from Maori cultural forms such as whakatauki (proverb) and waiata (song). In part of his work “two shoots that stretch far out,” Te Ao reads to animals, “because it’s so absurd.”

Susan Te Kahurangi King | Shannon Te Ao: from the one I call my own, 27 June, City Gallery

NEW YEAR , NEW FESTIVAL Hone Kouka’s is celebrating Matariki with a new festival. Ahi Kaa, or the AK Festival, celebrates Maori theatre and dance at four Wellington theatres.

“Hone saw there was a great groundswell of Maori theatre and dance being created this year – largely in Wellington, but in Auckland as well. He devised a partnership with four theatres and six companies. Everyone’s really risen to the challenge,” says co-director of Tawata Production Miria George.

9 June – 11 July at Bats, Circa, Hannah Playhouse & Te Papa

BRAND NEW

INDIAN INK TOUR

The rebranded Govett-Brewster/Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth will open to the public on 25 July. The redevelopment added an entirely new building – the Len Lye centre – to the establishment. It’s the only New Zealand institution dedicated to a single artist.

“Over a night we photographed the movement of Len Lye’s Wind Wand sculpture on the New Plymouth foreshore, with the images captured becoming the graphic marks that feature in the identity. These marks represent the energy and vibrancy of the New Plymouth district and its people,” says Derek Lockwood, Director of Design.

The Water Whirler sculpture on the Wellington waterfront, adjacent Frank Kitts Park is by Len Lye.

Wellington hosts two love stories in July: Kiss the Fish and Krishnan’s Dairy. The first features a life-size puppet and the second, “the two most clichéd things people know about Indians”: corner stores and the Taj Mahal, company director and actor Jacob Rajan laughs.

Krishnan’s Dairy was originally written in 1997 as part of Rajan’s drama school work, and is now taught in schools and tertiary institutions. “If you were pregnant in 1997, your child could now conceivably drive you to see the show!”

Kiss the Fish 22–26 July & Krishnan’s Dairy 29 July – 2 August, Hannah Playhouse

Leila Adu Vocals Michael Houstoun Piano Marc Taddei Conductor

DIRTY BEASTS

Family Concert: Roald Dahl’s ‘Dirty Beasts’ and Other Stories Orchestra Wellington teams up with a narrator to present wellknown stories and poems. Join in with the orchestra to help pull the North Island up from the bottom of the ocean in a performance of Thomas Goss’ “Maui’s Fishhook”.

Then the musical storybook turns the page as unsuspecting animals get the Roald Dahl treatment, with music by Benjamin Wallfisch.

Sunday 12 July, 3pm The Opera House Wellington

Mussorgsky Night on Bald Mountain Scriabin Piano Concerto Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 3 Michael Houstoun Piano Marc Taddei Conductor Saturday 8 August 2015, 7:30pm Michael Fowler Centre Wellington

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POLISH

Saturday 20 June 2015, 7:30pm Michael Fowler Centre Wellington

LITTLE RUSSIAN

Adu Blessings as Rain Fall Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 2

ARTIST PARTNER

CULTURE

EXHIBITION O F A C E N T U RY Sixty New Zealand masterpieces from the Rutherford Trust collection are being exhibited at Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History. “It’s one of the highlights and the biggest opening of the year,” an excited gallery director Alice Hutchison says. “All decades from the 1930s to the 2000s are represented.”

Hutchinson made the selection – which includes works by Gretchen Albrecht (right), Frances Hodgkins, and Colin McCahon – with collections manager Bronwyn Reid. “She has such familiarity with the collection and how the works have dialogue with each other on aesthetic and conceptual levels.”

The exhibition makes connections that show the evolution of New Zealand style. For example, “Rita Angus landscapes have a rapport with the earlier figurative work,” Hutchinson explains.

Aratoi Museum, Masterton

THE PHILANTHROPIST'S STONE

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

After difficulties with the original proposed location, Scott Eady’s sculpture will be installed on lower Cuba Street in late July. The sculpture commemorates Wellington businessman and philanthropist Thomas George Macarthy.

He moved to Wellington 1877 and bought two breweries, donating generously to charities throughout his lifetime.

The sculpture is a joint project between the T G Macarthy Trust and the Wellington Sculpture Trust.

The public wants more women included in the New Zealand Portrait Gallery.

Over the month of May, the gallery ran a Who’s Missing? campaign to commission a new portrait by popular vote.

Frontrunners included suffragette Kate Sheppard, former Prime Minister Helen Clark, prison researcher Celia Lashlie, rape victim Louise Nicholas, and writers Janet Frame and Eleanor Catton.

CONDUCTING A FESTIVAL The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra have appointed Music Director Pietari Inkinen Honorary Conductor from 2016. They’re celebrating with a festival namesake, the Inkinen Festival: two nights to celebrate Inkinen’s signature repertoire and memorable performances conducting the NZSO. Japanese-born Canadian violinist Karen Gomyo plays Beethoven and Inkinen conducts Simon O’Neill and Christine Goerke for Wagner’s operas Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.

12 & 13 June, 6:30pm & 7:30pm, Michael Fowler Centre

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July 29 – August 2

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CULTURE

JA Z Z HA N D S Nick Tipping began playing jazz in 1998 and has played it “most of the time” since. He’s currently doing his PhD on the Wellington jazz scene, exploring its characteristics compared with other parts of the world. “I’m studying the music I love and the people I love in my favourite city in the world. It’s hugely good fun.”

Tipping hasn’t found a distinct Wellington sound, but says the city’s jazz scene is unique in the versatility of the musicians. “It’s a big deal to be able to play more than one thing. Many play different styles like metal or symphony as well as jazz. In a place like New York or London or even Melbourne there’s enough opportunity to do one thing really well. Here, the more adaptable you are, the more you can make it as a musician.”

Tipping plays as part of the Wellington Jazz Festival, 3–7 June.

NEW LENS

50 YEARS YOUNG

CINDERELLA SOLD

Rebecca Elvy has been appointed Chief Executive of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, the New Zealand archive of film. She’s been acting chief executive since March and has been appointed for a five-year term.

She’ll be pursuing their goals to transform the archives, three foundation collections, into a single, effective and respected organisation, says Jane Kominik, Chair of the Board.

Porirua celebrates 50 years of being a city with an exhibition at Pataka. We Built This City – Porirua: 50 Years Young explores the history of the city through photographs of its buildings, videos, and maps.

“The gallery is going to be loosely laid out in the shape of Porirua. In the middle will be a built-up area and the outside parts of the gallery follows the two arms of the harbour,” says social history curator Alice Masters.

7 June – 20 September, Pataka

The New Zealand Opera’s production of Cinderella has sold its sets, costumes and creative team services to the Leipzig Opera in Germany.

The sale of opera productions really boosts the success of New Zealand Opera, says general director Stuart Maunder. “New Zealand’s small population offers limited scope for repeat seasons or revivals, so selling productions after their run makes a difference for the company. This will let us do more next year than we were able to do last year.”

The Marriage of Figaro was sold to Seattle Opera earlier in the year.

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L E I L A’ S REIGN WRITTEN BY CRAIG BEARDSWORTH | PHOTOGRAPH BY LEON DALE Ethnic, avante-garde, electro-accoustic, jazzy and classical have all been used to describe the music of performer/ composer Leila Adu. Whatever it is, it crosses boundaries and attracted the management of Orchestra Wellington who accepted her as their 2014 Composer in Residence. Now based in New York finishing a PhD in composition at Princeton, she returns to Wellington in June to premiere Rain as Blessings Fall with the orchestra.

Adu is weary of labels – with five albums under her belt reviewers have never managed to confine her style to one phrase. Her latest work she describes thus: “it has elements of minimalist classical music, gamelan, Tibetan Buddhist music, jazz, and even a bit of James Bond-style film music”. It is based on a seven-stanza Buddhist prayer and is chant-like.

Adu as soloist will sing in a style that is “more often natural voice than classical”.

Born in London to a Kiwi mother and Ghanian father, Adu grew up in Christchurch before moving to Wellington

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to study. She recently travelled to Ghana and Japan. “No matter where I am nearly everyone I speak to believes the world is in serious crisis due to climate change ... and there is nothing to do about it”. That fatalistic attitude paired with the violence she sees in America – “gun violence and it is way out of control” – motivated her to write her composition.

“I thought that we needed blessings for the world for us to collectively and logically work with the problems at hand. We need to keep ourselves sane amongst so much turmoil”.

Adu returns to Wellington, but briefly – New York offers so much in the way of food and culture but she thinks people are obsessed with technology to the detriment of “community”. “It's scary here in NYC how many people are at cafes staring at screens and not talking to each other, scared to try a restaurant or a show without a review. I will be interested to be in New Zealand and see if it has become similarly afflicted!”

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MUSIC

BEDWOMB BEATS WRITTEN BY MELODY THOMAS | PHOTOGRAPHY BY ASHLEY CHURCH

Once you’ve heard it, there’s really no need to ask Wellington musician Charlotte Forrester why her music goes under the name Womb. Ethereal, feminine vocals sit atop comfortingly reverbrich guitar, roomy drums and a solo cello, the pace never quickening beyond a float. Her selftitled debut EP feels like a warm, deep embrace.

F

orrester has always loved to sing, and has been writing songs all her short life. She spent her first five years in a magical and isolated forest called Narnia, in Australia, and says she remains connected to nature. It’s easy to imagine her singing in the forest as a child, or indeed, now. From Narnia she was transplanted to the US midwest – think sticky car seats in summer, eery stillness and snow in winter – and eventually came to New Zealand aged 12.

“I sometimes think about all the different ways my life so far could have gone… Here is pretty good. I am blown away by the wealth of musicians around me; I pretty much only listen to music my friends make these days.”

Those friends include Wellington acts Glass Vaults, Seth Frightening, I.Ryoko and Paperghost, all associated with independent label Sonorous Circle, around which exists a young, tight-knit, supportive community.

When listening to friends play gigs, she often thinks about the “ritual around performing music. All of us in this room gathering and listening to each other share our stories and experiences and emotions through the art form of sound. It is such a simple thing. But also pretty profound I think,” she says.

Forrester first began sharing her songs when she was 16, and casual jamming with her wombmate, twin brother Haz, turned into “woodland dream folk” duo Athuzela Brown. The pair released three EPs before Forrester decided to try her own thing with Womb. The solo project has a similar earthy magic to Athuzela, but the instrumentation is electrified and the themes altogether more personal – the result

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of, “becoming stronger in my beliefs and ethics and making my songs more real to my own experiences,” says Forrester.

“Some are about love or crushes… while others are about empowerment, rising, challenging our thoughts on gendered society… Being empowered doesn't mean you can't be in love, or have moments or phases of incredible weakness,” she says.

On the subject of equality, I ask Forrester if she struggles with the same push-and-pull that many female musicians seem to – a weariness over being defined by her gender, coupled with an understanding that increased exposure of such musicians is an important part of encouraging more girls and women into music.

“At so many shows or festivals I’ve played I look around at all the other acts, and have this crazy realisation that I'm one of two female performers playing. I feel empowered when I see talented girls moving me, or just freaking out on stage. It just sucks that this – the meaning or representation of 'female' musicians – is even a thing to consider,” she says.

But if experience is anything to go by, this frustration will be channelled into something beautiful.

“I always think of the Animal Collective lyric “turn into something". Turn one experience into something else. I want to turn sadness, or times of vulnerability, into something that makes myself, my friends, anyone... feel empowered.”

ECO DIRECTORY

F E AT U R E

GARAGE PROJECT WRITTEN BY MELODY THOMAS PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNA BRIGGS AND MELL LENDERS

The face of modern business is digital. Once upon a time a business was a physical place where workers worked and clients dropped by, but more and more this physical space is being replaced by a website, a phone number and a person at the other end of the line. That person could be anywhere, but if you’re lucky enough to live in a house with a garage attached you might find you’ve the perfect base right on your doorstep. Melody Thomas visits three savvy locals in their practical, often profitable, man-caves.

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F E AT U R E

WAT E R S H E D MOMENT

W

hen I call Shane Parata to organise our interview, the only time we’re both available is the morning after his graduation from Victoria University of Wellington (VUW). The solo father of one has just received a Bachelor of Science for his studies in Marine Biology, and when I turn up I’m greeted with exactly what you’d expect to find the morning after a big celebration. Parata’s uncle sleeps on the couch and his cousin smokes a cigarette outside in the rain, ducking inside to make me a coffee while Parata shows me his garage, and we sit down to talk about his life.

Parata is of Ngāti Toa descent and grew up in The Bay (as did I, so I know The Bay means Titahi Bay). He now lives in a small flat in Mount Victoria with his son Balin who is 15, the same age Parata was when he left high school.

After school Parata went into shearing, where he stayed for 14 years, competing and working nationally and abroad. But he knew he couldn’t keep up such physically demanding work forever, so in 2010 he got himself enrolled in a bridging course at VUW, heading for a degree in science. He should have received his degree last year, but his studies were interrupted when his mother died from cancer. His degree is dedicated to her.

Parata chose Marine Biology because of his love for the ocean, nurtured by a life spent diving for kaimoana.

“The water is like a sanctuary to me, a place where I can relax. But it’s not often I get in for a nice, relaxing dive with Wellington’s extreme conditions. And most of the time it’s gathering for a hui or a tangi,” he says. Parata

himself doesn’t even eat seafood that much - he’s been “spoiled”, he says, and prefers to see his family and iwi enjoy his catch.

Surrounded by his dive equipment - a wall of wetsuits, a boat, a fish smoker - Parata tells me that at the time he enrolled at university, he couldn’t use a computer except to write an email.

“I’m a person who likes lots of challenges in life. I went to university because I wanted to see how smart these people were,” he says.

He’s joking but there is something telling in that statement - for all our belief in equal opportunity there are still many young Māori and Pacific Islanders in New Zealand who see higher education as out of their reach. Parata points out that at his graduation yesterday, he was one of only three Māori collecting science degrees.

“It’s like as soon as they hear the word ‘science’ they shut down. It sounds too hard,” he says.

Before I go, Parata wants to make sure I mention on-campus whānau Te Rōpū Āwhina, who were instrumental in helping him along the way and whose kaupapa he intends to honour.

He says his degree is a “long term investment, and the pathway I’ve created will give my son and others a bit of guidance. If they see me doing it they might think, ‘Maybe I can do it too’,” he says, adding thoughtfully, “There were a lot of critics when I entered university. But I think I silenced them yesterday.”

His cousin pipes up from the couch: “You did, bro."

Shane Parata

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F E AT U R E

GOOD SHOT

A

couple of formative experiences seem to have propelled Scott Trail into his career dealing in firearms. One is his childhood in rural Wairarapa, where the outdoors were just an everyday part of his life, including the bush where his dad taught him to hunt. The other is six years in the New Zealand Army, training as an armourer.

Since 2009,Trail has run his high-end weapon design and manufacturing business Shooting Systems Research NZ Ltd (SSRNZ) from his two-and-a-halfcar garage in Featherston. It started off small. After leaving the army, Trail picked up work contracting back to them, and in his spare time taught himself how to design and manufacture firearms. Trail didn’t set out to start a small business, but over time the things he was tinkering round with in his garage began to attract some attention.

“It’s not like I saw a demand or a need, people just seemed to like my products. So I bit the bullet and I just did it,” he says.

Trail designs and builds his own range of singleshot long-range rifles in calibres up to .50BMG. Calibre refers to the diameter of the bullet, and .50BMG is big: half an inch, powerful enough to take out “thin skinned vehicles and aircraft”. “There’s no practical use for them in New Zealand,” admits Trail, but these kinds of specialised weapons are coveted by collectors.

I’m amazed to learn that a .50BMG rifle can shoot a target (be it paper or deer) from more than one kilometre away. (In fact the longest-range confirmed .50 BMG sniper rifle kill in history was made from a distance of 2,430 metres). They are incredibly powerful.

But interestingly, Trail himself isn't in love with guns - he only owns two himself and they’re his hunting rifles.

“I’ve never been fanatical…. To me the rifle’s always just been a tool,” he says.

As SSRNZ continues to grow, Trail sees his role in it changing. He’d like to move from manufacturing the weapons to focusing solely on the research and development side of things. This year he released his own line of modular lightweight supressors (silencers), and he’s working on a prototype for a lightweight hunting carbine which will have a wider appeal than the more specialised weapons. The business has also outgrown the garage. The place is on the market, and Trail’s hunting for land where he can upgrade to a 200m2 workshop. But he appreciates the start the space gave him, when the business was brand new.

“Working from home, there’s no travel, there’s no rent, it’s convenient. I love working for myself. I love having no boss, doing my own thing. I love the freedom,” he says.

Scott Trail - Shooting Systems Research NZ Ltd

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SECTION HEADER

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F E AT U R E

HOT OFF THE PRESS

W

hen I arrive at Milan Lazarevic’s office in Mount Victoria I find his son Alex and dog Toby, but not the man himself. A minute later he appears, coffee and specialty baked goods in hand, back from a stroll into town. “I forgot about you!” he says, smiling and ushering me into his garage.

If you didn’t already know there’d be no clues as to what goes on in this garage, but from the office desks and walls lined with rolls of vinyl it’s obvious it goes beyond mere pottering.

“Actually after the magazine comes out I’m going to frame the story and hang it up, so when people pop in to ask what we do I can just point,” Lazarevic tells me.

I’m at the dispatch room and home-based HQ for Heat Press Media, from which the Lazarevic family wholesale heat presses for pressing lettering onto garments, and the vinyl such letters are cut from. The garage isn’t huge, at 40m2, but there’s also a warehouse near the airport which is ten times the size. Pretty impressive for a business that began out of a suitcase.

“When I was at university I had a job selling transfers in a trade show. In 1980 I went to the US and realised there was an opportunity to develop it here, so I came back with a suitcase full of these iron-on transfers. And I started like that,” he says.

These days the business employs almost the entire family, as well as a few local extras that Lazarevic has a habit of collecting. While I’m visiting, a student who has moved in next door and was noticed coming and going at

“odd hours” pops in for a quick job interview, leaving with some part-time work (nice touch asking about his granddaughter, student, I would have given you the job too). It’s nice to see someone actively seeking out young people to work with while the rest of the world bemoans their lack of work ethic.

Lazarevic says students are “fun, plus they’re all heading for what you’d call ‘high calibre’ jobs and that reflects in their work even if they’re 19 or 20 when you employ them.” says Lazarevic. Plus they understand technology which he relies on heavily to run the business from home.

“It’s the changing pattern of wholesaling… this move away from the conventional place downtown where everyone comes to work and then you all go home, business is on the web and cellphones, so it doesn’t really matter where you are,” he says.

And while it is especially convenient having the city right on your back doorstep, Lazarevic says it isn’t essential. In fact the family’s contemplating a move to a lifestyle block outside of Dunedin. But memories of this place will always be fond.

“When my kids were young they’d go to school down the road and I’d see them head off in the morning and come back. You’re connected with the street so you see people coming and going, or if the rain hits you suddenly see the rain storm. We met the criteria to move into a conventional situation many years ago but it’s much better being here.”

Milan Lazarevic - Heat Press Media

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OPINION

YELLOW STICKER BICKER WRITTEN BY STEPHEN FRANKS | PHOTOGRAPH BY EVANGELINE DAVIS

Are we spending scarce resources in the best way to save the most lives? We’ve been persuaded we are dicing with fate living in Wellington. Some of us had pre-dawn calls from our children in Christchurch in 2010, desperate to know whether we were alright after their earthquake. They expected Wellington to have been demolished.

M

ost New Zealanders believe that awful casualties in Wellington are just a matter of time. That belief affects investment here. It justifies huge increases in insurance costs. It legitimises forcing apartment owners to spend their savings on buildings that have become almost unsaleable.

But what is the real risk? Clearly a killer earthquake is a matter of time. No one argues that new buildings should be built without up-to-date protection.

Nor is there an issue over removing the threatening masonry frontages likely to kill street users.

But what about general strengthening? The risk of

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OPINION

being killed in a car accident may be around one in 400 years driving (assuming 500 hours per year). Internationally experienced risk analyst Ian Harrison calculates the risk of being killed occupying an ‘earthquake prone’ Wellington apartment to be at least 20 times less, perhaps below one in 10,000 years of occupancy.

Apartment owners questioned Mr Harrison at a well attended meeting of the Inner City Association in May. He says it is irrational to strengthen most low occupancy buildings.

So what is the moral justification for forcing our neighbours (and our community) into that spending, when we voluntarily choose much more risky activities? We eat and drink ourselves to early deaths. We use motor-cycles and scooters, hundreds of times riskier than living in a masonry apartment. We choose myriad risky activities we could readily avoid.

We might be squandering money on strengthening that would save hundreds of times more lives if spent instead on cycle lanes, better roads, more public transport, or better medicines through Pharmac.

Christchurch’s experience should have been reassuring about the strength of masonry buildings. Though many were killed in the street by falling ‘heritage’ features, according to the evidence before the Royal Commission only four occupants died in collapsing Christchurch buildings that would have been caught by the strengthening regime. Modern buildings killed most people. But according to Ian Harrison, instead of using that information in reputable risk assessment methodologies, Christchurch data was ignored, or misused to ramp up our anxiety.

Have we been misled by hysteria? Ian Harrison says no. We have been misled by bad risk analysis.

When given accurate information on risk, people choose sensibly. Papers on his website (http://ebss. org.nz/papers/) highlight the absence of official risk comparison.

Risk is all to do with time. The likely frequency of disaster matters more than its severity.

It is not clear how often Wellington’s biggest risk matures. GNS Science used to suggest every 300–400 years. But as long as it is not imminent, money spent on strengthening buildings likely to have been replaced by the time of the big one is money not spent on stronger new buildings, roads, facilities and greater resilience.

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Humans can avoid most risk if we think it important enough. But only ‘phobes waste energy on remote risk, especially where reducing the risk would distort our lives. We work out a sensible level of precaution, then get on with life. But we are fascinated by catastrophe.

Nearly all of us wildly overestimate the risks and costs of unlikely but spectacular mass loss, until given the facts.

None of us have heard the real odds of being killed in an evening beneath Cuba Street’s brick parapets, or breakfast at a yellow stickered café. We should know.

How much earlier could you go to heaven or hell by attending mass in St Gerard’s Monastery? What is the risk of going to Vance Vivians’ suit sale in the Harcourts Building, or walking along the Town Hall side of Wakefield Street?

We can’t know from current official advice. Millions of dollars are spent trying to increase our ‘awareness’ of other risks, but nothing to help us work out whether we are being sensible ignoring our local risks?

Ian Harrison speculates on the reasons. Those in power may just not know how to measure the odds.

They may fear that we would disagree with their priorities. But he thinks it is because it would cause embarrassing questions about the quality, even the honesty, of official advice over the past 10 years. He believes they have allowed engineers to capture the process. And engineers are not hired to determine priorities. It is not their business to worry whether spending a billion with Pharmac could save literally hundreds of times the number of lives that might be saved by forced work on old churches and apartment buildings.

EXCESSIVE INSURANCE We may also be meekly squandering millions on insurance when if we had the choice, based on a real knowledge of the odds, between strengthening to save lives and keeping insurance for a big payout, we might only do the first.

We’re buying lottery tickets from overseas reinsurers. The tickets might win if the big one hits. But it does nothing to reduce life risk. We could instead spend that ‘security’ money on work that would save lives and reduce the losses to be claimed.

On world comparisons New Zealand householders seem over insured against earthquake losses. Our EQC forces us to act as if we want to carry no financial

exposure to fate. Japanese householders typically insure only for enough to get a fresh start, on average less than 20% of replacement value. They don’t expect to be put back into their previous financial position. Californians want a bit more, but only 30% are covered for earthquake losses. One upside is that instead of years waiting for insurers to give the go-ahead for rebuilding, in those countries they just get on with it.

OUR COUNCIL COULD LEAD We do not have to wait passively for central government.

Wellington City Council can address irrational fear. Having helped create it, albeit for the best of reasons, WCC could now lead by: a

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS Ian Harrison’s whistle blowing on these issues was justified in May by the Hon Nick Smith’s announcements that only 30,000 buildings out of 500,000 previously targeted now need early assessment and attention. The Minister’s statement says the changes could save or avoid nearly half of the [wasteful] earthquake strengthening required before the announcement. The changes benefit most of New Zealand but not Wellington.

Ian Harrison says officials have misled the Minister of Building and Housing. So opposition MPs should have ensured they were closely questioned in Select Committee. The Opposition instead dropped the ball.

A US congressional committee would have hired someone like Mr Harrison and watched and learned from his questioning of officials. But our Select Committee rarely draw in experts to challenge the insiders’ consensus.

MPs, officials and councillors may be excused for a primitive grasp of relative risk, and a much greater fear of looking as if they don’t care enough about safety. But there should be little political risk in requiring engineers who could profit from irrational risk aversion to obtain and publish expert analysis that would show whether more engineering is wasteful.

Listening to the discussion at the Inner City Association meeting I was reminded of the tens of millions spent across New Zealand, 15 years ago, at the direction of government, to avoid the imaginary Y2K bug. Officials and politicians were too scared of the downside to call out the IT alarmists, even though many within the IT industry were saying the risk was low.

Ian Harrison does not say there is no earthquake risk.

There is much to be done to increase the resilience of our city. But the spending should be based on disciplined risk analysis.

b

c d

e

f

Providing a measure of our life safety risk in using buildings. That is not whether or not the building is less than 34% as strong as the new building code would make it.

Stipulating life safety risk measurements to accompany engineers’ reports. They could use a universal mechanism such as the micro-mort.

It would allow comparison with common risks, such as smoking, eating too much salt or sugar, aircraft travel, cycling or failing to exercise; Work with Wellington property owners to reevaluate insurance usefulness.

Supporting reform of apartment body corporate obligations to insure. Mandatory replacement insurance might give a financial payout. But Wellington may not be rebuilt. Insurance premiums instead spent on new buildings or strengthening could reduce property and life losses.

Refusing to designate buildings using the current methodology. Mr Harrison makes a case for challenging the methodology in court if the law is not changed.

Developing a decision template to help Wellington property owners apply rational informed preferences on the levels of risk they want to live with.

Spending on strengthening doesn’t always deliver a return. It doesn’t increase capacity and it does not make buildings more suitable for a digital world.

Without more rationality Wellington may get the worst of all possible outcomes. Buildings which are not economic to strengthen may become orphans, still used but not maintained, effectively abandoned by their owners. They’ll blight their neighbourhoods.

If the city overall puts resources into wasteful strengthening instead of new capacity, we are all poorer.

Sites that would be development opportunities in a vibrant city don’t get the capital that is squandered on spending to stand still.

45

CAPITAL MADE

IN

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COMING SOON

W HAT T H E F L O C K

MISS BELLBIR D Name: Bellbird. Māori name: Korimako.

Status: Endemic, not threatened.

Habitat: Forest, farm shelter belts, urban parks and gardens.

Look for them: Until 2001 bellbirds were regarded as functionally extinct in the Wellington region, but successful release and breeding efforts by the folks at Zealandia have upped numbers significantly. Bellbirds still struggle outside of the protected area – especially the female population – and will likely not flourish until cat numbers wane.

Visitors to Zealandia are highly likely to stumble across them, and chance encounters are not uncommon for those who live in or explore the areas nearby. Listen out for a bird call like a Tui’s but less guttural, then look for a bird that’s a bit smaller and olive green, with a blue-black tail and wings, a short but strongly curved beak and bluish grey legs.

Call: The bellbird’s call is an important part of the New Zealand dawn chorus, its ringing notes loud, clear and bell-like. Winter is a great time to listen out for the bellbird call as courting begins, the male singing for the female and the pair often singing a duet after mating.

Feeds on: As one of only two members of the Honeyeater family in New Zealand (Tui being the other), Bellbirds feed mainly on nectar, though they also eat insects and spiders. In late summer and autumn they also eat fruit.

Did you know? In Te Ao Māori, great singers and speakers are praised by being compared to the korimako.

Learn this whakatauki and try it out for yourself: “He rite ki te kōpara e kō nei i te ata,” which means, “Just like a korimako singing at dawn.”

If it were human it would be: The bellbird couple would be one you so wish you could hate but can’t help but love. Smugly enamoured even after years together, so much so that lovemaking compels them to harmonise.

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FASH ION

A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

While the wind is howling and the rain pelts the windows, stay warm inside with music, friends, and wine. Gather at home, strip off the layers and add some much needed glam with luxurious fabrics to combat the grey outside.

Art Direction by Evangeline Davis Photography by Evangeline Davis Styling by Bex McGill Make-Up by Elise MacMillan Modeled by Ella Murphy, Georgia van den Eykel and Rachel Needham @ KBM Assisted by Laura Pitcher

FASH ION

Rita dress, $265, Carly Harris Madrid black shoes, $379, Minnie Cooper Deadly Ponies Mr Cub Chain, black, $295, The Service Depot Stolen Girlfriends Club band ring, silver, $229, Superette Meadowlark Metropolis cocktail ring, $615, The Service Depot Stolen Girlfriends Club double bow ring, silver, $349, Superette

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Rita dress, $265, Carly Harris

Lonely Hearts Sharona dress, floral, $375, The Service Depot Meadowlark mini protea onyx, $315, The Service Depot Metropolis cocktail ring, $615, The Service Depot Mohair scarf,Meadowlark $200.00, World Meadowlark bow tie, onyx, $460, The Service Depot

Epistemology gown, $999, WORLD Meadowlark hexagon cocktail ring, amethyst, $459, The Service Depot

TOP: Miss Crabb summertime candy, $390, The Service Depot Chloe Rose Taylor pink ring, $210, The Service Depot

BOTTOM: Rhombille cape coat, floral, $999, WORLD Stolen Girlfriends Club band ring, silver, $229, Superette Meadowlark Metropolis cocktail ring, $615, The Service Depot

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Lemon squeezer, $399, WORLD Penny shift, $225, Carly Harris Salon d’automne coat, black, $899, WORLD Deadly Ponies Mr Pom Pom Cheetah., $330, The Service Depot Madrid black, $379, Minnie Cooper Stolen Girlfriends Club claw ring, silver/smokey quartz, $349, Superette Meadowlark mini protea onyx, $315, The Service Depot Meadowlark Metropolis cocktail ring, $615, The Service Depot Stolen Girlfriends Club double bow ring, silver, $349, Superette

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STREET STYLE

SAM JULIAN

HENRY TUCK

OLIVIA COURTNEY

Where’s your jacket from?

Where’s your jacket from?

Where’s your jacket from?

I inherited it from my grandma. She made it!

She was a great sewer.

It’s a vintage swanndri I bought at The Department Store about three years ago.

Kathmandu.

The one thing missing from your wardrobe:

What features make a good jacket?

Some really nice merino turtlenecks.

It has to be warm, have pockets and preferably a collar I can flick up because my neck gets cold.

Something that’s practical, warm but still fashionable.

Favourite thing about the Wellington winter: Snuggling up and watching movies while drinking hot chocolate.

The one thing missing from your wardrobe: A nice fitting fisherman-style beanie.

What features make a good jacket?

Your essential winter fashion accessory: A classic knit that you can wear with everything.

Favourite thing about the Wellington winter: Scopa hot chocolate.

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STREET STYLE

VERONIKA PALTEN Where’s your coat from?

My mum’s wardrobe. It’s a Berlin designer called Gabi Lauton.

What features make a good coat?

It has to be comfortable, warm and timeless.

Your essential winter fashion accessory: A scarf and some boots.

The one thing missing from your wardrobe: Good boots.

RICE IS NICE Wellington sustainable textile company The Formary exhibits a new fabric Mibu at the World Exposition in Milan until 14 July. Mibu is a blend of wool and rice straw, that reuses an unwanted food by-product (over 200 million tonnes of rice straw is burned in China each year).

There’s already interest from architects, designers and furniture makers and retailers in Europe, the US and Asia.

“We need to move away from the consume and dispose model,” Formary’s creative director Bernadette Casey says.

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FASH ION B R I E F S

FA S H I O N F O R WA R D Steve Hall has only just come back down to earth after the iD fashion awards in Dunedin, where he won first place overall by unanimous vote.

He was the only Kiwi to win an award. The other winners were Australian; Australians made up about half the contestants.

The $6,000 award came as a surprise. “Backstage was filled with suspense. It was nice to be acknowledged for my collection – I obviously did something right!”

Steve, who graduated in fashion from Massey University two years ago, is finishing up the kiwifruit season at his home in Te Puke before making his next move.

He’d like to intern with some New Zealand fashion houses before trying his luck in London, and he has “a cheeky trip to China planned” in November.

His next body of work will follow the same style as his minimalist Japanese inspired winning collection. “With the reaction from iD I will continue with a development or continuation of Abandon Man.” Starting his own label is another serious consideration. “I will have my own label one day, this I am sure of.”

A WALKING JACKSON POLLO CK London-based rainwear company Squid has brought its rainwear, which changes colour in the rain, to New Zealand. Their umbrellas, rain jackets, raincapes, wellies and bags only get brighter the wetter it gets, so Wellington will be one bright city this winter.

“We thought it would be so cool to walk down the street, it starts to rain and your clothes to turn into a walking Jackson Pollock,” said co-founder and former Wellingtonian Emma-Jayne Parkes.

Parkes attended Sacred Heart Cathedral School in Thorndon and Queen Margaret College until the age of 15, when she moved with her family to London. www.squidlondon.com

www.lot8.co.nz 56

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EDIBLES

R&R Berhampore will host a new addition to Wellington’s vibrant coffee scene. Rich Coffee Roasters are hoping to begin toasting beans in early July.

Partners Richard (hence the name) and Cam have had extensive experience with the coffee industry in London and are excited to bring their passion back home to the discerning Wellington palate. They are looking to provide people with a special educational experience, emphasising seasonal blends and coffee to make at home with your plunger or filter.

COMIDA CALIENTE A couple of awards for La Boca Loca’s new cookbook at the Pride in Print competition have gone down like hot fish tacos for Marianne Elliott and Lucas Putnam, owners of the restaurant. Gold in the environmental section was a particular highlight for them.

A rich and colourful volume, the book contains everything from a history of Mexican food to a chilli chart with burn rating, and Spanish translations of each heading. You’ll learn Los Fundamentos of Mexican cooking.

GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER

LESS SALT Y PANS New Otago University research shows that New Zealand could reduce premature death and save millions of dollars annually by reducing our salt intake. A reduction in overall dietary sodium (salt) would have a greater impact on disease rates in Māori populations than Pākehā, thereby helping to close the health gap which currently exists.

Ministry of Food (Bowen State Building) have opened a new outlet. The former Atlanta bar has been taken over. Re opened in January for brekky, lunch and dinner, the Terrace MoF has a new menu. Gin cured salmon proved extremely popular in the summer months. Now more toasty treats such as the squid and chorizo or pork belly are being scoffed. Capital has heard there is a mulled wine in the pipeline.

We are pleased to announce the opening of our brand new sister venue at 105 The Terrace.

Modern brasserie menu and bar grazing, all day and into the evening.

Bar & Kitchen

fine wines / craft beers / sherries / ports and cocktails.

Open Monday to Friday.

Join our mailing list for a chance to WIN a free meal for two. www.ministryoffood.co.nz / Ph. 04 4995209

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EDIBLES

FA R E O F THE YEAR Three Wellington eateries have been nominated for New Zealand cafe of the year 2015: Elements of Lyall Bay, Sweet Vanilla Kitchen in Lower Hutt and Karori Park Cafe. Over the next few weeks, these three will be trying to spot the undercover judges who will be sampling the offerings from their esteemed establishments.

Perhaps a good time to pay them a visit?

Winners are announced in December.

PHOTO BY PATINA PHOTOGRAPHY

FARMERS UNITE

INTELLIGENT VEGETABLES

Free-range Manakau pig farmer Daniel Todd says the rebranded Thorndon Farmers’ Market is the only “true” farmers’ market in Wellington. The market sells meats and cheeses, jams and honey, vegetables, and oils.

The market rebranded after stallholders took over on the board of trustees. Being on the board is important if you care about supporting local suppliers, Todd says.

Cannons Creek Primary, Pukeatua Primary School and Maoribank School in Upper Hutt have all benefitted from the Medibank Community Fund, which has gifted nearly $29,000 to the Garden to Table trust, giving 10 new schools nationwide the opportunity to join the program, improving children’s food literacy. Of the 30 schools three are from Wellington. Kids aged from 7 – 10 get their hands dirty and learn how to grow, harvest, prepare and share fresh, seasonal food.

It’s the ingredients that make it taste so good.

Find it all at labocaloca.co.nz

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GOLDEN GROVE Over half the 671 olive oils presented to judges at the International Olive Oil Competition in New York were discarded. Not the Lot Eight Extra Virgin blend. The Martinborough olive grove was awarded gold.

Oilmaker Nalini Baruch commented that the gold reinforces why Lot Eight is chosen

by Michelin star restaurants such as New York’s Musket Room.

THE FOREST CANTINA

EPIC WI NTER PIE

BY UNNA BURCH

L

et me give you a breakdown as to why this pie is epic.

Let’s begin with the crust, because the foundation is key. It’s a mix between puff and short-crust pastry, kinda like the base of a really good custard square. It’s not sweet, and it doesn’t need to be cos here comes the filling! The rhubarb is tart and it’s set inside a creamy perfectly set custard, THEN it’s topped off with a sweet meringue that is fluffy and melts in the mouth. Honestly, if you need more convincing, you should probably move along, right now.

But if I were you, I’d go ahead and make this pie and see exactly what I’m talking about.

The perfect pie crust is debated. Butter, shortening or even coconut oil? If you like a puffy pie crust and aren’t too

fussed on the look, use butter. If you like a “short” pie crust, that has a little more texture, use vegetable shortening. The difference, apparently, is water. Butter has a higher water content, so when it bakes it steams, making it puffy. But using both butter AND shortening you get a mix of crumbly and flaky. I’ve even read of some people using vodka in their pie crust to make it more pliable. Who doesn’t want the best of both worlds? Now that the hard part is done, your rhubarb selection will determine the colour of your pie filling. If you want a pretty pink filling, use a pink rhubarb. The rhubarb I used was mostly green, but I wanted to take full advantage of my friends Tessa and Jeff ’s offer to raid their rhubarb patch.

RHUBARB MERINGUE PIE METHOD Time: Takes time Serves: Approx 8–9 Makes: 1x 9” pie Ingredients For the pie crust 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 55g vegetable shortening (I used Kremelta) 140g cold butter, cut into very small cubes 6–10 tablespoons ice water For the filling 4 cups rhubarb chopped into 1cm slices (the leaves are poisonous, so please discard) 4 free-range egg yolks 1 cup Fair Trade sugar 2 tablespoons flour ½ cup cream ½ cup milk For the meringue 4 free-range egg whites Pinch salt ¼ cup caster sugar (or Fair Trade sugar ground fine) ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

For the pie crust

Sift the flour and salt together in a bowl. Add the vegetable shortening and rub between your fingers until it is incorporated and the mixture looks crumbly. Add the butter to the flour mixture, and work it in roughly with your fingers.

Don’t be too thorough; the mixture should be very uneven, with big chunks of butter in among the smaller ones. Add 5 tablespoons of water and toss gently, then add more water, gently mixing until the dough comes together. You can test it see if it’s ready by pressing the dough together; if it holds its shape it’s ready. Don’t add more water than you need otherwise the pastry won’t be light and flaky. Over-mixing makes a tough pasty, so handle lightly. Once it’s ready, divide into two portions, wrap it in plastic wrap and press into a ball as you do it. Gently flatten it slightly (this will help when rolling it out later) Chill for 30 minutes, or up to overnight, in the fridge to let the butter and shortening harden and the gluten in the flour relax.

While that is chilling pre-heat your oven to 175°C. Then prepare your pie dish. I used a 9” glass pie dish (available from Briscoes). Glass is good because you can lift the dish to see if the base is cooked. Ain’t nothing worse than a soggy bottom! Grease the pie dish with a little butter and dust with flour, banging out excess flour, and set aside.

Once the pastry dough has chilled, bring it out and allow it to sit at room temperature for about 15 mins, until it’s 60

THE FOREST CANTINA

still cold to touch but soft enough to roll out. Dust a clean surface with a little flour and roll out one half of the pastry large enough to cover the pie dish. I roll it over and around a rolling pin and then roll over the pie dish. Ease it into the dish and press gently into the sides. Trim excess off the edges with a sharp knife. (You can use the other half to top the pie if you didn’t want to make the meringue. Just roll it out the same way and put on top of the pie after you have filled it – or you could do a lattice pattern cutting it into strips first) For the filling

Put the chopped rhubarb into the prepared pie dish, spreading it out evenly. Whisk the remaining ingredients together (the egg yolks, sugar, flour, cream and milk) and pour over the rhubarb. Put the pie dish on a tray with sides, just in case you spill any in the oven, and pop the pie in the oven and cook until the filling is set and it’s no longer runny in the centre. About 1 hour. Once set, remove from the oven while you make the meringue.

For the meringue

Beat the egg whites in a stand mixer with a pinch of salt until thick.

Slowly add the sugar and the cream of tartar and mix until the meringue is thick and glossy. Spread over the pie, taking it right to the edges, then make a swirly pattern on top. I do this with a palette knife. Bake for a further 10 minutes until the top is brown. Let it cool for about 10 minutes before slicing. Best served warm (but slices perfectly when cold).

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LIQUID THOUGHTS

MULLING IT OVER

BY JOELLE THOMSON

When it comes to mulled wine, most winemakers have three words of advice: don’t do it. But with Wellington’s long dry summer having disappeared, the mulled wine question has raised its spicy head and I have three more words on the subject: fast and hot.

O

n page 256 of her re-released recipe book At Elizabeth David’s Table, the late English food revolutionary wrote that nobody could fathom why the English regard a glass of wine added to a soup or stew as a reckless foreign extravagance but spend up large on bottled sauces, gravy powders and artificial stocks. She suggested that if every kitchen contained just a bottle of red wine, a bottle of white and some inexpensive port for cooking, thousands of commercial “sauces” could be done away with. She went on to say that when wine is cooked, the alcohol is evaporated, so there is no need to worry about its effects.

She was right. Up to a point. Adding alcohol to cooking can do many things to the food; tenderise meat, add flavour complexity and lighten heavy dishes, but when it is cooked long and slow, nearly all of the alcohol evaporates; in other words, it disappears. But what happens if you want to drink wine with a little warmth, complexity of flavour and ... its alcohol intact?

Because alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, the process of mulling wine needs to be swift. Pure ethanol (the alcohol that we consume) boils at 78.3 degrees Centigrade while water boils closer to 100 degrees.

Researchers in the United States discovered in 1992 that

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if they boiled alcohol for 15 minutes on a stovetop, just 40% of its alcohol content remained. This fell to 25% after an hour and to 5% after two and a half hours. The smaller the vessel that the alcohol was cooked in, the higher the alcoholic content remained because of the smaller surface area for evaporation.

Most winemakers advise against boiling the life out of the liquid they have lovingly created, but many of them have small stills at their disposal, in which they have been known to make grape spirit from their left over ‘marc’: the pips, skins and seeds after wine is pressed. And the mulled red stuff remains popular with many wine drinkers who are looking for a hearty big winter red.

New Zealand Master of Wine Stephen Bennett is regularly asked for his tips on mulled wine. (See next page for tips on retaining alcohol, flavour and quality when making mulled wine). Ultimately, it all boils down, if you’ll excuse the pun, to the quality of the raw ingredients.

PS: While alcohol becomes volatile swiftly when heated, it eventually binds with water, so that there will always be some retained alcohol.

R58 – Italiano per un bellissimo espresso

find out more 65

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therocket.co.nz

LIQUID NEWS

GLOVES OFF FOR PINOT 2017

ON A MISSION

HOW TO MAKE MULLED W I N E TA S T E G O O D

Watch this space for pinot noir plans that Wellingtonians can enjoy. Ben Glover puts the capital ‘b’ in busy in his role as chief winemaker of Mud House and Waipara Hills wine brands, but he has just gained an extra 18 months to organise the country’s big pinot gig, Pinot Noir 2017. The three-yearly pinot gig takes a breather for the country’s first sauvignon blanc conference in Marlborough next year, but even this early, Glover says there are already more wineries interested in attending than the last event in the capital attracted. “We want to make the conference more of a capital city event for Wellingtonians to enjoy; not just while the conference is on, but before and afterwards too. We have support from the council and we want to embrace the city more during this big wine event.”

Hawke’s Bay’s Mission Estate is the oldest continuously working winery in the country, and this year winemaker Paul Mooney celebrates 30 years of chardonnay with a limited edition bottle of 2013 Mission Huchet Chardonnay, $89 and 13.8% ABV. “We rely heavily on hand harvesting and whole bunch pressing for our barrelfermented Chardonnays.

We believe these traditional French techniques produce wines that over-deliver in all the key sensory attributes,” says Mooney. The 2013 Mission Huchet Chardonnay is available from the Mission Estate Cellar Door and online at www.missionestate.co.nz

Cook wine on a high heat for a short time rather than slowly for hours, unless you wish to lose all of the alcohol content.

Use soft rich reds, such as tempranillo and grenache; Master of Wine Stephen Bennett imports and recommends Rojo Garnacha from Spain, which is widely available in New Zealand, $10 to $12 from Moore Wilson. Rojo is soft, fruity and a far better mulled wine candidate than an astringent young Cabernet or Merlot.

Add honey and orange peel or lemon juice rather than castor sugar to balance sweetness and acidity.

If using herbs, strip them off branches and woody stalks; rosemary should be finely chopped rather than thrown in attached to its stem, to avoid harsh wood flavours.

Fresh vanilla pods, cinnamon sticks, grated fresh nutmeg, cloves, ginger (crystallised will add a purer flavour) and star anise can all add another flavour dimension, perhaps not all together.

A dash of Grand Marnier, Stone’s Green Ginger Wine, ruby port or muscat can add richness and is best added late in the mulling.

As always, the quality of the finished product will reflect the raw ingredients, so cutting corners with cheap oxidised wine and stale spices from the pantry will give you just what you paid for.

14 June – 6 September 2015

Ngataiharuru Taepa Tinakori 2006 (detail) Photo by Norm Heke

Supported by the College of Creative Arts, Massey University

Cnr Norrie and Parumoana Streets, Porirua City, www.pataka.org.nz

CHEERS

THE BL AC K B O OKS OF BEER

BY KIERAN HASLETT-MOORE

Wellington home brewers sometimes feel like they have stepped into an episode of the cult British comedy Black Books when they step into Tory St’s Brewtopia All Grain Brewing Supplies.

S

et up by owner Karl Hayes in 2012, Brewtopia is an Aladdin’s cave of commercial brewery equipment made to home brewery size. All manner of stainless tanks, fittings, and pipes sit alongside miniature pumps, brewery hoses, sacks of malt, vials of yeast and vacuum-packed hops. Karl originally hails from Cork in Ireland, where he didn’t really like beer although he used to drink the odd pint of Beamish Stout as it was the local product. In 1999 Karl found himself in Auckland and hated it. He set off for Wellington and somehow managed to drive via Whangarei. 14 hours later Karl reached Wellington; it was dark and bitingly cold in the teeth of a southerly, but he fell immediately in love with the city. Soon he also developed a love for craft beer, and after years of home brewing he decided he needed to increase the range of equipment on offer to home brewers. Brewtopia was born.

While Karl doesn’t physically resemble Dylan Moran, the Irish star of Black Books, he does dispense to customers a very familiar flavour of dry irreverent humour in a strong Irish accent. If Karl is playing Moran then his assistant Kerry Grey is definitely playing Bill Bailey’s part.

When the two get going the banter between them alone is worth a visit to the shop. Kerry has launched one of the Capital’s newest brewing ventures under the Choice Bros brand and has quickly become known for both his

68

adventurous beers, like Dry Porked Bacon beer and Rum and Cacao Aged Imperial Stout, and his tie-dyed/hippy brewing overalls and general appearance. The Bill Bailey of beer if ever there was one.

The pair’s plans extend further than just selling home brewery supplies and dispensing banter. They are currently building a 1000L brewery in the back of the shop, which will eventually produce beers for both brands, Choice Bros and Karl’s Te Aro Brewing Company. They will concentrate on producing unfermented wort for home brewers and a range of beers to be sold in flagons from the shop.

The wet floor has been laid, tanks are on their way from China, and local brewing engineer Chris Banks is converting old dairy tanks into a brewhouse.

The Te Aro Brewing Co range will include a sessionable Czech Pils, a now obligatory pale ale, characteristically called Obligatory Pale Ale, and a number of more experimental barrel-aged beers. Choice Bros will continue to walk the line between the outrageously experimental and old world drinkability. The commissioning of the brewery at Brewtopia will be another feather in the craft beer capital’s cap.

And one thing is sure, the pair will still be trading good natured chat with the customers.

-32a Wigan Streetw w w. h a v a n a b a r. c o . n z

P E R I O D I C A L LY S P E A K I N G

POP-ULAR SCIENCE WRITTEN BY JOHN KERR

Trying to create something both “fun” and “educational” can fall flat, but Wellington initiative Pop Up Science have got the mixture right.

O

obleck. Its hard, it’s soft and, in a roundabout way, it could be the key to a more scientifically aware society.

Jokingly named after fictional substance in a Dr Seuss book, oobleck is a mixture of cornflour and water that exhibits some surprising properties. When handled gently, it’s a gloopy goo, but give it a good whack and it is as hard as brick. It’s a great tool for explaining some basic concepts in physics such as states of matter, and how atoms interact to make solids and liquids.

More importantly, it is really, really fun to play with.

Mucking around with oobleck is one of the activities that Wellington organisation Pop Up Science uses to share the excitement of science with children and adults alike. The roving science exhibit sets up fun hands-on experiments at fairs and market days (and the occasional birthday party) to entertain kids and spark their interest in science.

Wellington science communicator Kimberley Collins started Pop Up Science last year, inspired by the success of “pop up” food stalls in New Zealand and overseas.

“I saw a poster for a pop-up food stall and thought, ‘that would be so cool for science’,” explains Kimberley.

“Pop up a science exhibition to engage kids walking past – and show them how much fun it can be. From there it all started to click into place.”

After discovering there was nothing like it in New Zealand, Kimberley teamed up with like-minded science enthusiast Elf Eldridge, a physics PhD student from Victoria University, and set about creating mobile experiments that combined the ‘wow factor’ and scientific insight.

Backed by a successful PledgeMe campaign to raise some initial funding, Kimberley and Elf launched the first ever Pop Up Science event at Frank Kitts Park on a sunny summer Sunday last December. More than 500 passing children and their families were drawn in by the enthralling – if a little messy – oobleck and other hands-on science activities.

Kimberley was stoked to see all kinds of kids expressing interest. “We wanted harder-to-reach people, not just the ones who usually turn up to more formal events – the ‘museum crowd.’”

Since then Pop Up Science has appeared at Family Fun Days in Newtown and Whitby, drawing in crowds of children and parents with quirky experiments. Future ‘pop ups’ are in the works, 70

with events planned for the Hutt City STEMM Festival in June, and at the Home Educators Science Fair in Whitby in late June.

Kimberley is keen to get scientists involved in these events, and thinks it is important that kids can see a range of scientific role models, “not just old white men in lab coats.”

Kimberley cites her mother, a medical scientist, as sparking her own passion for science, recalling helping her count white blood cells in urine samples under a microscope. “Probably not conventional science engagement,” she laughs, “but it worked!”

This fascination with science led Kimberley to study biological sciences at Waikato University and go on to undertake a master’s degree in science communication at Otago. During and after her studies, she worked on conservation projects in Antarctica and on numerous islands around New Zealand.

Now firmly based in Wellington, Kimberley fits her Pop Up Science planning around her day job as a communications coordinator at Forest and Bird.

For Kimberley the aim isn’t just creating future scientists; she wants to see more scientifically literate citizens, people who, regardless of their occupation, can understand scientific problems facing society and think critically about them.

Many of the big issues New Zealand struggles with have a strong scientific component; climate change, genetic modification, fresh water quality and the use of 1080 poison are all examples of public debates where scientific research, and our interpretation of it, plays a key role in the decisions we have to make as country.

“I want people to think critically,” says Kimberley. “You so often see people who dictate their opinions by their emotions or what they ‘heard’ from a friend. If they understand how science works, they might not look just for facts that suit their opinions.”

Kimberley believes that if we can build a generation equipped with the ability to really grapple with and understand tough scientific issues, New Zealand, as a whole, will be better off.

And if you are wondering how to make your own oobleck for a bit of scientific inspiration, it’s simple: two parts cornflour and one part water, with a bit of food colouring if you’re feeling creative.

Find out where Pop Up Science is popping up next on www.popupscience.co.nz or follow @popup_science on twitter.

Ted Ward (left) and branch manager Sam Baba lead the team.

BY THE BOOK

R E-VE R SE INTRODUCED BY FRANCES SAMUEL

G o o d Lu ck, Nature All the best to a tī kōuka sprouting from the rocky groin of the fickle creek And to the kererū whose nest looks like a wrecked raft Kia kaha! to an orchid clinging to the wrong side of this appalling weather And commiserations to the damp rampant children and their distraught mothers who shouted at me This pond used to be full of goldfish!

What happened to them?

We’ve come all the way from Petone!

By Louise Wrightson, from Otari: Poems & Prose, Otari Press (2014)

BREAKDOWN Bio Louise Wrightson has lived near Otari-Wilton’s Bush reserve for many years. The works in her first book, are almost all located in either the reserve or her back garden.

In brief "I try to stay grounded when I’m writing," says poet Louise Wrightson, "I aim to connect with my readers simply and directly." You may not have to chew the end of your pencil to understand this poem, but there’s still plenty going on. Good Luck, Nature seemed a good poem for June in the capital city. The speaker moseys along in a three-line rhythm through wintry Otari-Wilton’s Bush. Wellington’s "appalling weather" is tough for us people, sure, but the poem shows how it’s a struggle for native plants and birds, too. In the last stanza, some "damp" humans arrive noisily on the scene, and are disgruntled at the AWOL goldfish. There’s no strong disapproval here though – Wrightson volunteered at Otari and says that visitors "use the reserve for many reasons and notice different things". And besides, the poem’s too focused on the moving moment for the reader to feel like it completely ends with an empty pond. Next minute, a bird might call and everyone might look up and see the wonder of what’s been there all along.

on the new 57 Willis St, Wellington 6011 (04) 499 4245 • www.unitybooks.co.nz wellington@unitybooks.co.nz

Note: One of the poems in Otari finds its way off the nature trail and through the doors of Ellmers Mowers on Cuba St. I’m thinking there must be other poems out there about Ellmers – anyone?

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BY THE BOOK

ON THE S A M E PA G E World best-selling author James Patterson is offering $5,000 grants to independent bookshops in New Zealand to encourage children to read. The writer began the scheme in the US and the UK with great success and he’s now brought it to Australasia.

Bookstores must submit a proposal by 30 June for a program to get kids reading to be considered for the grant.

The Wellington Children’s bookshop hopes to use the grant to expand their existing reading program at He Huarahi Tamariki, which helps teen mothers to read so that they can pass the skills on to their kids, to other teen parent units in Wellington.

Unity Books has also appointed a team to come up with a proposal for the grant.

INSIGHTFUL FICTION Adrienne Jansen’s fourth novel A Line of Sight (Escalator Press) launches 11 June.

The story centres around two boys who accidentally shoot a suspected cannabis grower while rabbit shooting. The “whodunnit” is woven through a story of community, family and Swan – a blind eight-year-old boy with surprising clarity.

Andrienne is a Wellington writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She lives in Titahi Bay and teaches on the Creative Writing Programme at Whitireia Polytechnic.

FELLOWSHIP FUNDING

SONGB O OK

Fundraising efforts to save the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship are 65% complete, says Stephanie Alderson of the Arts Foundation.

The Foundation is working with the existing trust to set up a fund of $800,000, which will enable the foundation to continue to send a writer every two years to the historic Mansfield residence in Menton, France. The deadline for securing the rest of the funding is 30 June.

The fellowship has been awarded annually since 1970.

A new publication celebrates local composer Jack Body’s contribution to contemporary New Zealand music.

It was published just in time for him to see it before he died last month.

Jack! Celebrating Jack Body, Composer (Steele Roberts), is a glossy, colourful volume. It encompasses his work in Indonesia, China and Cambodia as well as closer to home.

Friends and family members contributed memories and stories to the book.

BY THE BOOK

A SMALL VICTORY AND A LARGE BOOK WRITTEN BY HARRIET PALMER | PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNA BRIGGS

There have been thousands of words written about Maurice Gee, a man many regard as New Zealand’s preeminent writer. That’s not surprising: since his first short story went to print in 1955, Gee has published 33 books, won a slew of impressive awards and been at the centre of our literary world. But read all the coverage and you’ll see there’s a pattern. For the half-century that Gee, 83, has been working, writers, reporters and critics have been running over the same old ground.

Y

ou’ll hear about his childhood growing up alongside Auckland’s Henderson Creek, where the water is alluring and ominous. His grandfather, a socialist minister with an ear trumpet who inspired Plumb, Gee’s most famous series. And then there will be Gee’s nature: reportedly he’s surprisingly ordinary, down-to-earth, calm and kind for a man with an infamous amount of darkness in his work.

But who is Maurice Gee, aside from a boy who spent an extraordinary amount of time paddling about in a creek? For someone so big in New Zealand writing, and whose novels hint at so much, a lot is missing.

That’s about to change. Wellington biographer and historian Rachel Barrowman, an award-winning writer herself, has spent the past decade uncovering Maurice Gee. The result, her 600-page biography Maurice Gee: Life and Work, will be published in July. Publisher Victoria University Press says it will be definitive.

Barrowman says it was Gee himself who rang up to ask if she would record a series of interviews with him.

“He felt it was time, he was ready to get some stuff down on record that he hadn’t really talked about before.”

“Maurice had turned down the idea in the past. But a couple of people close to him were gently nudging him toward the idea that there should be one done at some stage – and if he didn’t get on-side with it, someone would do it anyway.”

So in 2006, Barrowman began visiting Gee at his home in

74

Ngaio, which he shared with his wife Margareta of almost 50 years. (The pair have since moved to Nelson). Over ten long conversations, Barrowman says, Gee told her the story of his life: “I didn’t really ask him any questions”.

Gee was candid, letting Barrowman in on details he had been withholding from other interviewers for decades. She says he had decided from the outset to be as open and honest as possible.

“He said there is no point in doing it if it isn’t going to be a warts-and-all story. He wasn’t going to hide anything.”

Once the pair agreed to turn the interviews into a biography, Barrowman was awarded the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer’s Fellowship worth $100,000. That let her dedicate herself to the project full time. She had complete access to Gee’s archive, half of which he had gifted to the Alexander Turnbull library in the 1990s. The rest, from about 1992 on, was in boxes at the family home. She worked through as much of that as possible before Gee packed up and shifted to Nelson. A large archive, it included the exercise books Gee filled with scrawling ballpoint for his drafts, letters and correspondence with agents, publishers and family.

Gee’s terms were straightforward, she says. As well as the complete access to his archive, he also told her “he didn’t want to interfere, it wasn't his book, it’s my book … he was very hands-off, which was great, it’s perfect really.”

It’s widely known that much of Gee’s life has made its way

75

BY THE BOOK

into his writing – particularly his childhood, which he paints so vividly as a happy period of exploration and freedom.

However there are hints of tragedy and trauma. Critics have suggested there must be something enabling this down-toearth fellow to access such deep and murky layers of human brutality. One describes this as a “deep reservoir of personal pain”. It is central to the riddle of Gee. “There are things that have happened in his novels that he hasn’t really talked about, or written about or if he has, very briefly,” Barrowman says.

“He told me some of those things that were the most difficult, that he found very hard to talk about. He said he was having trouble telling me some of that stuff, but he knew it was important when it came to understanding him and understanding the way he wrote.”

“I felt quite privileged that he was able to do that.”

Barrowman refuses to give up any of those secrets now.

“It’s all there in the book, it’s part of the narrative, part of the story.”

As for the dark streak that runs through Gee’s stories, Barrowman dispenses the same sort of sigh he has been described as giving on the topic.

“There is a lot of dark stuff and violence in his novels, but he has always been resentful of people saying there is too much violence in your novels, which is a criticism that’s been made all along. He would say, ‘Well, I’m not making this stuff up – it’s out there’. But there is also humour in them, they are not completely bleak. No one is completely bad. He would say everyone has a small victory.”

But then, “darkness is out of his nature, out of his head and his experiences, which mean he is then able to recognise it…

It’s a difficult thing to sum up in an interview because it is one of the big things about Maurice Gee.” She would know. Ten years is a long time to spend researching one subject. Michael King had suggested to her a biography would take five. Barrowman had a few personal

hiccups along the way, but she says the scope of the project was huge. She’s also been extraordinarily thorough, reading each of Gee’s books more than once, and giving minute descriptions of the places and homes Gee has inhabited.

“It is quite odd getting to the point where, it’s not as if I know more about him than he knows about himself, but it’s just that I have got more grasp of the details he might have forgotten because I have just been reading all his correspondence from the 1950s or 1970s. And everyone’s memory is fallible so that is a curious and interesting place to be in.”

She describes Gee’s favourite home as a two-room converted shed that sat at the top of Ghuznee St. He lived there in the 1950s while at library school. It was bowled to make room for the motorway. Wellington is very dear to Gee, she says. He lived in the city over three different periods in his life.

“He first came to Wellington in 1956 from Auckland. It was a very important time for him. The Wellington he remembers and is really key to him is that period of Wellington. It gets into some of his novels – for example Blindsight, which is a very Wellington novel.”

Gee isn’t a recluse, she’s careful to point out. He’s just a fairly quiet and private person. He’s always enjoyed talking about his own work and his own novels, but he’s not keen on publicity. “It’s not that he’s standoffish, he would just rather get on and write basically”.

She sent him the biography only after she had finished it.

To her great relief, he liked it.

“I had been working on the thing for X number of years and then I sent it to him and thought ‘What if he doesn’t like it?’ Which in some ways is not a problem but I wouldn’t have wanted to do that to him.”

The public reaction is still to come. But there is one great advantage to breaking all this new ground: there’s nothing to compare it to, Barrowman says, except of course what Gee has written about himself.

DO YOU HAVE A WILL? Say

I will

the will to live is not enough and make an appointment with RASCH LEONG LAWYERS

PARTNERS Ramona Rasch LLB David Leong LLB 1st Floor Kilbirnie Plaza 30 Bay Road | PO Box714 6 304, Kilbirnie, Wellington 6241, New Zealand Tel 04 387 7831 | Email lawyers@raschleong.co.nz | www.raschleong.co.nz

BUSINESS

BOOTED UP WRITTEN BY JOHN BISHOP | PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNA BRIGGS

Head down the end of Happy Valley Road, past the rubbish dump and up on the right before you get to the sea is a little street called Bata Place where a factory has been producing gumboots and other footwear for 63 years.

I

t’s the Bata factory, and now it produces only gumboots, but in its heyday, many of the pupils in New Zealand schools wore Bata school shoes, black lace-ups for girls and boys.

Then there were Bata Bullets, the ordinary person’s version of expensive sneakers, but definitely a cut above the old white sandshoes which had been compulsory for gym and sports training back in the 1960s.

There are not many people in the factory now, just four out of a total staff of 21, a far cry from the 150 staff the company had in the 1960s. It’s now a much smaller business than it was behind the protectionist tariff wall which sheltered many New Zealand industries from competition.

The Bata story is one of expansion, decline, recovery, and now expansion again as a leaner and vastly different organisation.

Bata began as a family shoe business in 1894 in Zlin, Czechoslovakia when Tomas, Anna & Antonin Bata set up the T & A Bata Shoe Company employing 10 cobblers. Today Bata employs over 30,000 people with 5,000 international retail stores and a presence in over 70 countries.

The company set up in New Zealand in 1948 and the first factory opened in Owhiro Bay in 1951 producing slippers.

A second factory opened in Wainuiomata, and by the end of the 1970s Bata New Zealand had warehouses in Auckland, Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch, with factories and workshops in Carterton, Masterton, Wanganui and Nelson.

During the 1980s all over the developed world industrial production of all kinds was sent to Asia, and with the phasing out of tariffs in New Zealand, producing leather locally had become unprofitable. By 1987 fifteen shoe manufacturers had gone out of business and all the others, including Bata, downsized in a desperate scramble to stay in business.

78

Tony Harmer is the head of Bata’s New Zealand operation and has worked for Bata for 36 years. He recalls the difficult choices the company faced.

“In the 1980s we did downsize, we tried to keep going as we were, but it didn’t work. The company steadily reduced its size and focus on non-labour-intensive areas to try and keep going.

“In those days we were doing sneakers, thongs (Jandals is actually a trademark owned by Skellerup), industrial leather, rubber products….the range just couldn’t be sustained. We had to continually restrategise. The Bata family was committed to staying in New Zealand so we just had to find ways of doing that.”

In 1992 the Wainuiomata factory was closed and all production (by then it was only PVC gumboots) returned to Owhiro Bay. In 2015 the result is a 21-person operation in the same 1940s building where the company began.

Now Bata has some bold plans to expand its business, and to increase production at the factory. Tony Harmer’s boss, Michael Wyatt, is in town from Melbourne, to help plan the sales drive.

Mr Wyatt acknowledges the vast power of Chinese manufacturing, but notes that costs in China have been rising steadily over recent years, eroding some of the competitive advantage that country used to enjoy.

Scale is a big plus because it brings economies, but it can also slow a business down.

“In Australia retailers like Bunnings like us because we can react quickly and adjust the size of their order and deliver in a matter of days. China needs four months to supply larger quantities than ordered. We can respond within days, “Mr Wyatt says.

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BUSINESS

The quicker turnaround is vital when the order is the result of some weather-related incident like a flood (of which there have been plenty recently in Australia.)

Bata plans to manufacture a wider range of gumboots at the Owhiro Bay factory, and to be competitive on price and quality with China.

The key element of the strategy is the new $4-million injection moulding machine unveiled by Prime Minister John Key in 2013.

“We had two old machines with 11 staff working 24/7.

They were replaced by a single machine which produces more and quicker.”

About 750,000 pairs of gumboots are imported into New Zealand each year; 110, 000 pairs are made by Bata and 30,000 by another company, Tony says.

Bata claims 80% of the industrial market, where their gumboots are worn by people working in places like meat processing plants and dairy factories.

In all countries Bata likes to portray itself as offering a sustainable product and as having a commitment to the country. “Locally made” and “committed to the local community” are common and successful themes in branding and marketing in Australia, and Bata will be shouting that message loud and strong in New Zealand too.

In New Zealand Bata’s main competitor is Skellerup, a well respected name which started as a family business in Christchurch in 1910, but is now a listed public company. It’s diversified over the years but is still strong in rubber goods.

It imports all its gumboots from China while Bata makes all theirs locally.

Bata wants to develop an entry-level gumboot, for the “weekend warrior”; that’s industry jargon for gardeners and home handy types.

“If we can run the factory at full capacity, we can enter

new markets, increase sales, price more competitively and build up trade,” Tony Harmer says confidently.

The plan is to put some prototypes into the market and see how the market responds. This will use existing moulds, but if the prototype sells well, then Bata will invest in new moulds and crank up production.

Currently the factory is running a normal eight-hour day, five-day week. It has plenty of capacity to increase this to 12 hours a day, six and half days a week.

Tony Harmer talks about Bata as a family company with family values.

Every year they are audited for their contribution to the community. Bata has helped the local school and is open to doing more. They strive to source everything they can locally.

Every year staff can get a pay increase, and almost all do, says Tony. People stay a long time, he says, standing on the factory floor and reeling off the years of service of the staff around him, “ten years, nineteen years, thirteen years” for the three people working the moulding machine and bagging up the pairs of gumboots.

The auditors from the parent company check the social side, and ask the staff about life in the factory, whether they are enjoying their work and are happy.

Gumboots are now about a third of the company’s total sales but the only product Bata makes in New Zealand. There is also a factory outlet shop, which stocks fashion footwear from Bata’s retail brands like Marie Claire, Weinbrenner, and Bubblegummer, and they are agents for Reiker (comfort shoes) Via Nova & Ferracini.

“We are a wholesaler and we’d love to change that. We’ve got a machine with ample capacity. Go out and get the business, that’s what we have been told to do,” Tony says, “and we will.”

KATIE UNDERWOOD “Local Agent, Local Knowledge” 04 894 3717

Call me to sell your home 027 248 2061

kunderwood@leaders.co.nz

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SECTION HEADER

F LY M E TO THE MO ON WRITTEN BY BETH ROSE | PHOTOGRAPH BY ASHLEY CHURCH

The cosmos above Crofton Downs Primary School will be unveiled on 20 June during Space Night, an event of galactic proportion dreamt up by a star-struck Wellingtonian and father of two, Lee Mauger.

Last year Lee organised a ‘pilot’ version of Space Night where three powerful telescopes were assembled in the school playground, their sights set on the night sky, for people to see the craters of the Moon, Jupiter’s spot and the rings of Saturn. It attracted over 300 children and adults.

A stellar lineup of activities and talks from astronomers and Prime Minister’s Science Prize winners looks set to eclipse last year’s event. Chris Hadfield, ex-commander of the International Space Station and YouTube sensation (with his rendition of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”, filmed on location at zero gravity) has agreed to introduce Space Night in a recorded personal message. UNESCO have also added

it as an affiliated New Zealand event in their lineup for the International Year of Light.

“This time we have four zones split up across the school,” explains Lee. “Up to seven telescopes will be set up in the Observatory, children and parents can make their own water-powered rockets in the Rocket Lab, there’s an Alien Forest and science talks will happen in a space tent called Science After Dark”.

Around 30 parents are volunteering and Lee will again be lending his own robotic telescope to the event. “It is a ‘GoTo’ telescope that uses GPS and a compass. It takes into account the turning of the Earth and can be set to ‘go to’ the moon”.

An astronomical evening of stargazing and alien encounters awaits.

Tickets are available at spacenight.info, activities begin at 5pm. All proceeds go to the PTA.

Josh, Annabelle, Cole, Torridon, Freya (behind the rocket), Tom, Toby Stokes (Principal), Scarlett.

83

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M O N E Y, M O N E Y

SO MUCH TO DO, SO LITTLE TIME WRITTEN BY JOHN BRISTED | PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNA BRIGGS

Boyd Klap, who was born in Holland, has been described as the grand old man of the life insurance business in New Zealand. Now 88 and definitely not retired (he still skis and travels the world), he is the driving force behind the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum’s Rembrandt exhibition which now is at the Academy of Fine Arts on the Wellington waterfront.

John Bristed set out to chat to him about his attitude to money. Boyd talked about being a wartime teenager, marriage by proxy and many of the other significant parts of his life.

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M O N E Y, M O N E Y

What decision had the biggest financial impact on your life?

I was working as a farmhand in Whiteman’s Valley and had a young pregnant wife. Security seemed important and when a man in a car sold me a T & G Life insurance policy I saw an opportunity, so I joined the company.

At the beginning of the war you were in Holland?

I was 13 when the Germans invaded our city; we were about 60k from the German border so by midday they were in Deventer, our city!

During the war, what did you do?

I was still at college and didn’t need much, we couldn’t do much, you couldn’t travel, there were air raids, the city got bombed. We loved jazz ... Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington, but you weren’t allowed to play those because it was black man’s music. You couldn’t have more than five people standing on a corner or play music loudly, but inside as teenagers we had great parties...listening to all this jazz...Glen Miller – In the Mood.

Were you involved in the Resistance?

We called it the Underground. It really started in 1942 when they started rounding up the Jews. The preferred the people in the Underground to be older, because if you were young like me, you might start bragging. But then in 1944, we who were north of the rivers all thought that the war was finished. The paratroops had landed in Arnhem, people started to put their national flag out... red white and blue, and people in the Underground appeared on the streets. But General Montgomery failed in Arnhem’s market garden – you know the movie A bridge too far – and couldn’t cross the river, and so the Germans knew who was who. Those Underground people were rounded up and a lot of them were shot or taken away to Germany. Suddenly younger people were needed.

In England they still needed information … on troop movements, how many trucks were going past. They wanted to know about the V1 and V2 rockets – some were fired from near our home; a couple fell in the streets.

Someone would come to me, whose name I didn’t know, and give me papers, which I then put in the tube underneath the saddle on my bike, and I would cycle to the next point. And I had another name that I was given, and then I would give it to these people and it would finish up at a point where there was radio contact with London.

The Canadians liberated us in May 1945. My friend and I had crossed the lines outside the city and met the Canadians who were coming in. There were three tanks. I climbed on one and directed these guys into the city.

Years later I was building a bach in Queenstown, and I was having a beer with a Scotsman who was doing the plumbing.

He asked me if I was Dutch ... I said “Well yes originally but I’m

86

a New Zealander now” ... he asked where I came from, I replied “From Deventer” “Ahh!” he said “I was in the Canadian army and I liberated it.” I said “There was one tank that burst into flames and one that came down the street towards the viaducts.”

“Yes I was in it!” he said.

I asked him “do you remember a bloke in blue overalls with an orange band standing on the top, guiding the tank.”

“Yes!, he said.” So we had another beer on that!

One of the reasons I’ve been so committed to Anne Frank goes back to those times. I used to visit my girlfriend Ria (my future wife) during the war. I was 17 and she was 16, and I sensed there was something wrong in the home. And of course they didn’t know if they could trust me, they didn’t know which side I was on. They were hiding a German Jew. Later Ria’s mother offered to look after one of her neighbour’s children. The parents had to report to the authorities (to be transported to the concentration camps in East Germany and Poland). The neighbour said “No, but I want you to have this ring”. My mother in-law wore it all her life, then my wife and now our daughter wears it. The whole family were killed.

It’s terrible... but I don’t live in the past. That ring is a very significant part of my life.

What did you do after the war in Europe?

I joined the Canadian army, but when Japan capitulated I went back to an agriculture course, in Deventer. I wanted to be a tea planter in Java, a beautiful job up in the mountains...cool at night. I completed in 1947 and I got into the Nederlands army, did officer’s training and then as a young lieutenant I went to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), which wanted independence, and did another couple of years war fighting against Soekarno (eventually the President). I finished up as Acting Captain. I was 22.

I had not seen my girlfriend Ria for a couple of years. We had decided to get married. My commander who had married a New Zealand girl in Java was going to move to Wellington, and talked of plans for us all to work for her father. My girlfriend was in Holland and I in Indonesia, and we hadn’t seen each other for two years. I wanted to go to New Zealand but they wouldn’t give Ria a visa.

Under the old colonial rules you could marry by proxy. So we did the legalities and I ended up a married officer. In the end I couldn’t get Ria to Indonesia so I had to go back to Holland and pay the fares to come to New Zealand, six weeks on a boat and a year’s salary to get here. Early 1951 we arrived.

The farm job in Whiteman’s Valley didn’t work out, but after that guy sold me insurance I thought ‘there’s a market here’. So many Dutch migrants were coming, so I was in a position to help them...and not only sell them insurance but take them to the Public Trust, make sure they had a will. All of them had motorbikes so I got them all insurance for their motorbikes.

M O N E Y, M O N E Y

Does money make you happy?

I did well and then the Hungarians came and the Poles, so I did very well.

No, but there is a balance in that having less than what you need makes you unhappy. You need a certain level for happiness But once you have reached that level, more money doesn’t make you happier.

All the work I do is totally voluntary.... You can only do so many trips, and eat and drink so much. But I still claim all my expenses and I like to stay at the Hilton.

So your business worked on the strength of your selling. You didn’t borrow money from anyone?

I bought my first house in Alicetown in Lower Hutt, it was £310, I got a first and second mortgage and then I had to sell enough insurance to raise the deposit. That was my first big investment, my first home. We did it up, sold it, and bought another to do up. I hadn’t planned to be a finance and insurance man.

Boyd Klap stayed with the T&G (Temperance and General) Life Insurance Company in the South Island, Australia, and eventually became the New Zealand manager, and for five more years until 1988 after the company merged with Prudential Life Insurance. He’s been CEO of the Life Officers’ Association, a consultant to accountants Pricewaterhouse, advisor to the Government on superannuation policy and a representative at related OECD conferences, and chairman of Sentinel and Partners Life.

You’ve been involved with voluntary projects for a long time?

Twenty five years, but only with those that interest me. The Anne Frank exhibition was in 17 museums in NZ. It ran for three years here, and was hugely successful in the War Memorial Museum in Auckland. The World Press Photo Exhibition was the first one I did 12 years ago. I have handed it over now, it’s still continuing.

Before that I brought out jazz bands like the Dutch Swing College band. The 350th anniversary of the discovery of New Zealand

by Abel Tasman was in 1992. Bill Rowling, the former Prime Minister, who was from Nelson, wanted to have the Dutch Queen in Tasman Bay. So I worked with Bill on that for a couple of years and was involved in raising money for it, and for getting Queen Beatrice out here for the celebrations in Golden Bay.

Did you ever think of returning to Holland?

We took our three young children back to Holland. I had offers from Shell, from KLM to stay in Holland. Ria and I looked at the idea. However we preferred to bring our children up here. In Holland there was the threat of Russia, and the possibility of a third world war was very relevant.

And now the Rembrandt exhibition has come from Amsterdam?

Rembrandt’s The Night Watch from the Rijksmuseum is one of the most significant paintings in the world and the exhibition is fantastic. It is 4 x 5 metres. They managed to get all the paintings from private collections and digitally re master them. I saw that exhibition in Amsterdam and I said you need to come to New Zealand first. It's on in Wellington for a month before it goes to Auckland.

You were quite early onto reverse mortgages?

A small business called Invincible was the first to do it. I was on the board of the Victoria University research unit into ageing. There was a national conference around ageing.

Chris Coon, a brilliant guy, the managing director of Sovereign Insurance, was there. He was my competitor but we were good friends. He asked “what do I think about reverse mortgages?

I was in my 70s then and he told me “We are going to start a company and I want you to be on the board,” I said, Chris...you know how old I am, and he said what’s wrong with you? You need your ears cleaning! So I became a board member and within two months they asked if I would mind chairing it.

It was a huge success, with a very sellable product and a big market share. That was Sentinel. We were working in Australia, and dealing with a reverse mortgage company in Scandinavia. We started in Ireland, we were talking about India … and then the global financial crisis hit. We didn’t go down but had little future. I lost interest and Jenny Shipley came in and took over from me.

After that Chris and his brother Richard suggested we start another life insurance company. I became the chairman of Partners Life. In 2009 there were four of us, and when I left two years later we had a staff of 120 and were the second biggest life insurance company for new business in the country.

What are you going to do when your body gives out or...or when you retire?

I’ve tried to get New Zealand to realise that we need longer term savings to provide more security and it will create capital within the country so we don’t need to go to China all the time. I will just continue with that I think.

It was the German Chancellor Bismark – about 1880 – who started this business of retiring at 65. He put in a pension scheme – hardly anyone ever got there in those days. But it helped to stop low-paid Germans emigrating to the United States.

Years ago I said that the Government can’t afford to pay this pension at age 65 when the baby boomers retire. People were shocked.

One thing I note though is that people in their 50s and 60s who’ve had responsible jobs are finding it practically impossible to get back into the workforce and that is because we have that funny thing that youth is important rather than looking at the competence of people. A competent older person is better than a competent younger person because he/she has experience.

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INTERIOR

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HOUSE

SEAS T H E D AY WRITTEN BY KAREN SHEAD | PHOTOGRAPHY BY ASHLEY CHURCH

For Gillian Anderson the decision to buy a yacht and live on it in Wellington's harbour was a “no brainer.”

“I

t was a dream of mine to live on a boat,” she says, “and it was so much cheaper than renting.”

Gillian moved to Wellington from Dunedin – where she lived for 25 years – just over two years ago for work. The plan was for her husband and two children to join her and, in the meantime, she sent money home to finish work on the family house so it could be sold.

“I got offered a fantastic job in food standards and I came up here to get things going.” A microbiologist, she works for the Ministry for Primary Industries where she writes food regulations and helps write policy for food handling and dealing with outbreaks of illness.

Gillian initially looked for a place to rent, but soon realised it was going to be more expensive than she thought. It was at this point she looked into buying a boat to live on, something she had always dreamed of doing.

“I grew up in Lowry Bay and learned to sail with my dad. He had a yacht and when one day I had a go at the tiller, I loved it. I loved being out there on the water.”

She bought her 46-foot sailing cruiser, Delta Tango, which now sits in the marina at Seaview, just between Petone and Eastbourne, in the sheltered north-east end of Wellington harbour. Gillian has lived there on her own for 18 months.

“My family didn't come up, my marriage didn't survive, and I ended up on my own here in Wellington,” she says.

Her 19-year-old daughter Rebecca is now in her second year at Victoria University and she joined Gillian on the boat for her first year of studies. Son Nicholas, 17, is finishing school down south.

“There are a lot of women like me living aboard boats,” she says, “it's quite common.”

She met a group of women in Chaffers Dock, where she lived for six months before moving to Seaview, who regularly got together for dinner and a glass of wine. When chatting one night they all realised they didn't know anything about the engines on their boats and so set up an engine maintenance course.

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“We got the ferry to Picton and went to Waikawa Bay for the day and spent all day learning what an engine was,” Gillian says, “It was great.”

As she explains, when you live on a boat it is important to know its ins and outs. “If you are on your own, or even if you are with a partner, you need to know everything about your boat. If you were out in the ocean and your partner was sick, you would have to bring the boat back to shore,” she says.

“I did my Boatmaster's Licence 15 years ago and it taught me that you need to have three back-up plans as a minimum. You have got to look after yourself and you have to be a problem solver.”

At the front of Delta Tango is Gillian's workshop where she carries out maintenance work. The blades of a small wind turbine sit on the side waiting to be repaired. “I've learned a lot in the past two years,” she smiles.

She has also managed to save money. “It doesn't cost a lot to live aboard. You don't have power costs because you generate your own, there are no rates, and you run your own sewage treatment. Money basically goes on boat maintenance and food, and you can live on fish and scallops and crayfish”.

She pays just under $5,600 a year for the berth and $82 a month to live aboard. “It is a little less than some marinas but then we pay for showers so it balances out,” she explains. “And all marinas seem to charge for washing machines and driers and have a policy about not hanging washing out.”

So does she ever miss living on dry land? “I love living on my boat. It is very sociable and a great

way to live,” she enthuses. “ Space can be an issue – you don't have much of it!”

An example of this is her fridge, which is accessed by a sealed hole in the top of a kitchen unit.

If you want something from the bottom, you have to get everything out to get to it. “I didn't think I would get used to it, but I have,” she says.

Despite the lack of space, the inside of the boat is deceptively roomier than on first appearance.

When you walk down the entrance steps into the kitchen there is a small seating area which you assume is the dining area. But then down another set of steps is a dining/living area with a table which can seat six or seven people. There are also three cabins, a main bathroom as well as a separate toilet, and her workshop area. There are homely touches like family photos of her children and pictures of the boat taken by her previous owner. The rear of the boat, where the main cabin is, feels cosy, and books line the shelf alongside the edge of the bed.

“We've had six people on here, which was a bit of a squeeze, but it worked,” she says.

Even Wellington's notorious wind does not dampen her enthusiasm for living aboard, nor does the forthcoming winter weather. “I can run heaters and have a hot air system which runs on diesel so it's warm in winter,” she says. “And I don't mind the rocking, I like it. I know the boat is safe and secure.”

And if anything was going to put her off, it would have been the bad storm which hit the city two years ago, just as she was moving into her boat in Chaffers Dock.

“I was sitting at the table with my dinner next to

95

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the laptop, the boat was pitching and then my dinner went up in the air, over the laptop and landed on the side,” she recalls.

She put extra ropes everywhere to secure her boat, and by 10pm was so exhausted she went to bed. “The damage to some of the boats was phenomenal.”

Seaview is less windy than Chaffers, she says.

“This marina has the best shelter and calmest waters. It can be blowing out there, but be at least ten knots less here. It was the opposite at Chaffers – the wind funnels through the buildings.”

But in both docks, she has found the life of a live-aboard to be a sociable one.

“It's a really nice, friendly marina and having the yacht club is great. It is open on a Friday night

96

for dinner so you finish the week and then go there and catch up with everyone.” It's also open late afternoon on a Saturday and so people work on their boats and then go to have a drink and a chat.

Now that Gillian has achieved her dream of living aboard a sailing boat, her next mission is to go sailing.

“There are a lot of people like me who live aboard their boat and either rent or sell their home to save money, and then they go cruising,” she says. “I told myself that by the time I was 55 I wanted to do some serious cruising trips, and I am almost there.

“Next year I am going to semi-retire and go on some sailing adventures. I want to be able to do it while I still can.”

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UNRAVELLING WRITTEN BY MARY LONGMORE

My arrival at Live Well’s cleansing retreat is inauspiciously late and stressful. I drop children at husband’s workplace, taxi to train station, meet my friend Gina in Porirua and we drive off, gabbing excitedly. But wait, where is it exactly? Can’t remember – somewhere in Otaki. It will be signposted, surely? No, it’s not. We rely on Gina’s cellphone but reception is episodic.

I

t is nearly an hour after the scheduled “arrive and settle” time that we blitz into the pretty Waihoanga Retreat Centre, two strung out working playcentre mums, clanging spanners, in a hum of female serenity and vegetarian feasting. Well, not quite all female – there are two youngish blokes here out of 24.

Kathleen Filo, who created LiveWell Retreats, calms us and feeds us carrot and lentil soup and buckwheat flatbread before we gather for the opener class: Yoga Nidra, a pre-sleep meditation “where your body relaxes and your mind stays alert”, as Kathleen explains. Unrolling onto our mats in the huge main room between two crackling woodburners, she guides us through some gentle chest openers and deep breathing, before we float out for a cuppa non-caffeinated Chai and early night.

I feel wonderful – like I am actually filling my lungs properly for the first time in weeks. Her iPod offers tunes both soothing and elevating, combining Sanskrit chants and contemporary stuff like Be Still by The Fray.

Piece of cake, I think. No worries at all.

Around me are corporate consultants, public servants, musicians, police officers, physios, engineers and a mum spending time with her teenage daughter. Some are yoga diehards, others novices like myself. The age ranges from 14 to 57 and some of the older ones, I find, can wipe the floor with the rest of us when it comes to holding tricky poses and endurance.

After a spell of anxiety over communal sleeping, I get over it and end up in a room for three, forgetting my worries about excessive pulse-induced flatuence as I drift happily to sleep.

Come morning, we kick off around 6.30am, with a hot “cleansing” drink of water, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, honey and cayenne - surprisingly pleasant and a practice I have continued – before an “inner fire” power yoga session at 7am. After a few minutes I am throwing off serious heat and sweat. Nearly two intense hours later – yes, two – I am shakily attempting a headstand.

My token effort is truly pathetic and I really just want to stop now and eat.

Breakfast is millet and date porridge and steamed apple with fennel and mint tea. It tastes exquisite. Gluten-free breads, muesli, yoghurt and rice milk are also on offer. Coffee is available but in the spirit of slowing down, I decide to forgo it this weekend.

Instead, we are encouraged to sip diuretic dandelion tea and fermented fungi drink Kombuchu (addictively pleasant but a powerful laxative) throughout the day to aid detox. Shortly after breakfast, it all proves a bit much for one poor fellow who retires with a migraine for the rest of the day.

98

I opt out entirely from the workshops on massage or wholefoods in favour of the fire and books, joyfully tucking up by the fire with seventies psychotherapy bestseller “The Road Less Travelled” on love and fulfilment, but lazily abandon it in favour of Caitlin Moran’s refreshingly filthy treatise on “How to be a Woman”. I sample the cooking class' raw cacao and chia seed slice. It’s chocolate, not as we know it.

A couple of hours later and I am lying on the floor again, crying.

I’m trying not to let it escalate into actual, noisy sobs, which would really kill the chilled-out chi in the room, after two and a half hours of “Yin” Yoga – a slow but at times excruciating type where poses are held for several minutes to loosen the gristly bits of fascial tissue that bind the muscles.

Wellington yoga teacher Gabrielle Harris has just led us through a “still and mindful cleansing” routine, talking about steps to changing bad habits (slow down, be fearless, decide) as we push through the pain: Hold, hold, take it deeper, hold. Two more minutes, one more. Release.

This is my third extended yoga class in 24 hours. Without its normal inflow of sugar, caffeine or alcohol, my neophyte yogi’s body is in shock. I am gratefully outstretched in the Shivassanna (corpse) pose at the end.

My tears are unexpected and embarrassingly public – but not surprising. It has only been a short time since my mother died after a long illness and there has not been much time for reflection – until now.

Kathleen tells me it is not uncommon for emotions to be triggered by Yin’s still, slow “confronting” approach, and says the hips carry our buried emotions.

“Hips are like a junk drawer, we store a lot of stuff we don’t know what to do with, there… so when we release them, we can have a release of emotions.

After six intense hours of yoga practice since arriving 24 hours ago – more than a month’s worth for me – I am feeling, strangely physically exuberant, limber. If slightly more emotional than usual.

After dinner (chickpea saag curry, apple crumble), we light up the campfire, and burn those things we want to let go – fears of being judged, worry over things we cannot change. Some people share aloud, others just toss their bit of paper on the fire privately. Then Gina busts out her ukulele and the rumpus begins – albeit a serene one.

After a final chillax to crystal sound vibrations (giant bowls, weirdly transporting) we take our cleaner, calmer selves home to stupidly busy, wheat, coffee and alcohol-filled lives.

But oh, Waihoanga, I will be back. www.livewellretreats.co.nz

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SPORTS BRIEFS

S K AT I N G C RU S A DE R S Public focus upon skateboarders has intensified, mainly negatively, with a barrage of complaints featured on local websites. The emphasis has been on skateboarders using the area around the refurbished Cenotaph and the new Pukeahu War Memorial Park. Wellington’s skaters are organising a fight back against the accusations of wilful damage and the stereotypes of school wagging rat-bags.

Jesse Abolins-Reid, New Zealand Skater of the year 2013 (featured in #9) is behind the crusade.

He is filming a documentary set to drop in early July on social media. His view is that “skate-

boarding is a legitimate sport, with role models, creativity and pay cheques inspiring Wellington’s youth” says Abolins-Reid. Even though Wellington is producing skateboarders competitive on a world stage there are almost no dedicated skateboarding areas in town, he said. “Skaters venture out into the streets and on the whole are very respectful, attempting to find empty car parks or stairs, often cheerfully entertaining passersby with their athletic feats.” He does however accept that there are “some who ruin it for everyone” and says look past this and draws a comparison to troubled former All Black Zac Guildford.

SPORTING PROWESS SPOTLIGHTED

SWEET LIFESAVER

YOUTHFUL EXUBERANCE

Interestingly Steven Adams, the Kiwi basket baller making it big in the NBA who won the Wellington Sportsperson of the year award in 2014, is not even nominated this year after another outstanding season. The awards are being held on 4 June at the TSB Bank Arena. Grant Elliot (featured in #19) is up to possibly take over Steven’s mantle after an outstanding cricket world cup earlier this year.

Lyall Bay lifeguard Charles Swart won the Wellington Surf Lifesaving the Central Region BP Rescue of the month award in March after a young surfer found himself out of his depth at Lyall Bay. In the midst of an on the water patrol Charles saw a young man who had been knocked off his surfboard and was looking distressed. Charles pulled the man onto his rescue board and returned him to shore. After he recovered he was given a lesson on surf safety and the importance of remaining calm in the water.

The final of the 52 match FIFA U20 World Cup takes place on 20 June in Auckland. Before that nine matches will be played in Wellington including a couple of the games to watch; Austria v Argentina and Myanmar v New Zealand on 5 June. A quarterfinal played on 14 June will be the last match played in the capital. There are five Phoenix players in the NZ U20 squad.

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START ME UP WRITTEN BY MARK SAINSBURY | PHOTOGRAPHY BY RHETT GOODLEY-HORNBLOW

Y

ou can feel the DNA in Honda’s CRV. It feels like it’s been around forever. And it nearly has in car terms.

Released as a concept in 1995, it hit the American market the following year and has since then regularly topped the worldwide SUV sales figures. In fact I spent some time trying to figure out exactly how many CRV’s have been produced. You would think it would be a simple task in this Google age but even Honda’s own websites had me flummoxed. I could get US sales and various other national sales, but one worldwide figure for the how many they’ve made altogether? NO! So we’re dealing with a veteran here, and an extremely popular one, although how popular we can’t really be exactly sure. But even now, remodelled and re-tweaked to a high standard it’s like the Rolling Stones of the medium SUV market, still fit for purpose and still knocking out great experiences. That gearshift almost coming out of the dash is very CRV, which is why those styling cues remind us of a vehicle we may have had nearly two decades ago. But as the Stones may have shown us, just because you’ve been around for a long time doesn’t mean you can’t be relevant.

Car makers know they can’t rest on their laurels. Quite apart from the recent phenomenon of car prices getting cheaper each year (many of the latest CRV lineup are thousands below last year’s models) they need to constantly improve – otherwise why would anyone switch?

So with the 2015 CRV there are changes, beginning on the outside. Daytime running lights, new “styling cues” as they say, and lanewatch cameras are standard. To get the rest of the safety trick gear like adaptive cruise, lane keep assist, collision mitigation, lane departure, you need to go for the top of the line NT and the thick end of $55,000.

You can still get into a CRV for under $40,000 with the

Japan-sourced (rather than Thailand) 2WDS, which has the two-litre motor, and, unlike the Stones, no facelift.

The one I tested was the 2.4 litre 4WD Sport, which like the others, had keyless entry, and it worked! Sometimes these systems get too complicated or only work part-time or are confusing, but the CRV was very happy for me to get in and out. Throw in sunroof, upgraded interior, touch-screen satnav, and a reversing camera! Strange I know, it sounded like one of those “Why would I ever need that” gizmos but it was actually really useful. Every time you signal left or right the screen shows you what’s coming up on that hindquarter of the car. Also for reversing and needing to know exactly what was right behind you or off to the left or right; perfect for hitching up the boat. You change the angle with a simple switch.

As with the facelift, they’ve spent time revising and improving the brakes, the suspension and steering ratios to make the feel match up to the cosmetic improvements.

Honda buyers tend to be a loyal bunch and the CRV carries enough of what went before to keep the aficionados happy, and enough improvement to lure new customers. What I will be interested to see is what the take-up is for the allwheel-drive versions. Honda, like all other manufacturers, offers these more compact SUVs in the cheaper 2WD variant and that’s an extremely popular segment. Why spend the money if you’re never going to actually use the off-road or towing capacity the 4x4 gives you. Although if I had the choice between $46,900 for the 2WD Sport and $49,800 for the AWD I’d definitely pay the extra. The only issue I have is that many “sports utility vehicles” these days seem too pretty to ever consider using them in any sporty sort of way.

Now! Could I envisage Mick behind the wheel?

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W E L LY A NG E L

WHAT WOULD DEIRDRE D O? Got a problem? Maybe we can help.

Welly Angel Deirdre Tarrant, mother of three boys, founder of Footnote Dance Company and teacher of dance to generations of Wellingtonians, will sort out your troubles.

TERROR ON THE ROADS My mother of 91 is still driving. She should lose her licence. It will be a big blow to her confidence.

Should I warn her it is likely or just let the Dr tell her?

Anxious, Waikanae Well done her! I know of a 100 year old woman who was still driving so your mother has a few years to go. If she can't drive let the doctor tell her or the licence renewal office in the meantime celebrate the independence.

INFANTICIPATION I want another baby, we have four children in our combined family, my husband says not now. I am 38 so don’t have much time left.

Would it be wrong of me to just go ahead?

Eggs, Karori This is really between you and your husband but four children need to be loved, cared for

and supported – forever. If this is not a problem then discuss the 'time left' situation and good luck. I do feel this is a decision you both should make together.

FLAG IT My workmates all hold very strong opinions about this new flag business. I couldn’t care less and I don’t want to listen to them bicker for the rest of the year. How should I get them to drop it?

Don’t care, Churton Park

morning readdressing what I should have said and didn't. Time gone is gone and we are constantly moving forward so there is no logic or point to this and what is said is said.

Hopefully not too often are there really regrets, just ' it could have been better if ' and 'if only.' Mend bridges if required but otherwise onward and apply the three second rule next time. (i.e. count to three before you say or do anything.) and spare yourself the guilts.

POISONOUS BEAUT Y

Go out for coffee. This is probably not going to go away any time soon. If you have a strong opinion join in and argue your position. Try banishing the flag as a topic at mealtimes?

Time will sort this out so you may just have to wait it out.

What’s your view on injecting poison i.e. botox into your body to look more beautiful? My girlfriend has come back from Sydney convinced it’s a great idea. She does look good?

CRINGE BEHAVIOUR

Don't even think about it! Your friend may look great now but time does tell and everyone seems to have a Botox horror story to relate. It is your face and your choice to make but my guess is that you are already conscious of your looks and you are probably pretty gorgeous already so go for a walk, donate to Nepal and enjoy being you.

I always feel as though I have committed some sort of social faux pas when I go out to and spend the next 24 hours or so replaying all the things I might have said or done, in my head. How do I change this?

Valley girl, Stokes Valley I can really relate to this. I play out situations and conversations after the actual occasion quite a lot — usually in the early hours of the

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B A B Y, B A B Y

SHARE THE PROBLEM

BY MELODY THOMAS

A

s I sent yet another downhearted column to the editor last month I added an assurance that next month I would write about something more chipper. And then I miscarried.

It’s actually my second miscarriage. My first was also my first pregnancy, a couple of years before Sadie was born. As soon as I joined the club my eyes were opened to just how huge the membership numbers are. I thought I had one friend who’d gone through it, but soon discovered it was closer to half a dozen, plus a few immediate family members.

In fact one in three New Zealand women have suffered a miscarriage, not that you’d ever know it.

I’ve been trying to figure out what it is that keeps women from talking about their loss, and there are a few things that jump out. First of all, losing a baby results in a huge feeling of shame. That must seem ridiculous from the outside, but it’s something to do with failing to do this thing that is so “natural” that women all around the world do it even when they’re trying not to. What this logic neglects is that miscarriage is just as natural as childbirth. The majority of first-trimester miscarriages are a result of chromosomal abnormalities – it’s just the body’s way of terminating a pregnancy that was never meant to go ahead. But if we never talk about it then all a woman ever hears is her internal narrative telling her she’s a failure and I don’t want to perpetuate that.

So this is what it was like to miscarry, in my experience.

It was so, so scary. It had been nearly three months since I’d bled, and so the sight of that angry colour sent my heart racing and tears pouring down my face before I could even begin to consciously think about what might be happening.

In this pregnancy I spotted a few weeks earlier, so after the initial shock I managed to tell myself this was just more of the same, and everything would probably be fine. But the whole process is this horrible cycle of feeling fine one moment and then complete collapse the next, and hope doesn’t 107

last very long. The first time this happened I waited for five hours at the ED in agony before they sent me home to let the process happen ‘naturally’. And it did. By the next morning, after a lot of blood loss and passing out on the bathroom floor, I wasn’t pregnant anymore. This time the process dragged on, which was worse. If there’s one thing a pregnant woman should never have to go through it is knowing that your baby’s heart has stopped and having to wait and wait for the horrible moment where it falls out of you. I am “lucky” enough that my miscarriages both happened naturally. I can’t imagine having to go through with a surgery or any other medical intervention after all that trauma.

The physical process passes but the emotional repercussions echo on for much longer. Having to tell the people you love what has happened, feeling suddenly empty and alone, watching everyone else forget and expecting you to do the same. Now, a couple of weeks after the fact, I have officially gone half a day without crying. While I would kill to still be pregnant, I’m beginning to enjoy the lack of nausea and breathlessness, and the ability to eat sushi and drink wine.

And to think positively about the idea of trying again – although when my mind starts to wander to the possibility of losing a baby again I shut it down. I’m not ready to go there again. I hope I never have to.

I don’t really want to talk about it. It makes this slowlymending heart feel like it’s pulling apart at the seams again.

But I’m sick of putting on a brave face for fear of facing pity, and I need to hear my friends tell me none of this was my fault, and that it isn’t fair, and that they’d like to buy me a piece of cake and a coffee. And if you’ve been nodding your head all the way through this and like me are back to crying again, then I need you to know that you’re not alone. That I understand. And that while we may never forget how our bodies broke our heart we will eventually forgive.

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253Wakefield St Wellington 6011 50 Bridge St Nelson 7010 www.vintageheaven.co.nz t : 03 546 6177 e: admin@vintageheaven.co.nz

raw — cold pressed — fresh — juice — delivered

He Toi Reikorangi, Te Atiawa Artists Celebrate Matariki

Shimmer moon

Opening weekend 13 - 14 June

Legacy Whakareretanga

See matarikiwellington.org for all events Runs until 12 July

G E T I N T O U C H AT www.rawkus.co.nz

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Prakash Patel &

JoAnna Mere 19 July - 23 August

DIRECTORY

B O O K YO U R FUNCTION NOW

Timeless Hand-loomed Natural Fabrics

“Original, affordable catering solutions, we come to you with paella and more�

11 Walter Street

801 5974 Wellington

cottonstore.co.nz

www.panman.co.nz - 027 240 9564 - info@panman.co.nz

winter love collection

party plan

gift registry

Books, gifts, stylish lifestyle, textile and homestyle magazines, gorgeous cards and stationery

facebook.com/theshowroomltd www.showroom.org.nz

237 Cuba Street, Wellington | 934 3424 www.minerva.co.nz

63 Cambridge Terrace, Wellington 6011 ph: 04 385 1743 / www.thirstyliquor.co.nz 109

CALENDAR

F R E E W E L LY

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Feeling the pinch? Check out the following ideas...

BLOWING ALONG 07 14 21 28

Winter is coming so make the most of the wind (cos we don’t have it in summer of course...pffft) and go down to Cobham Drive.

The main road to the Eastern suburbs has been enhanced with five wind sculptures. At the Hataitai end sits the recently replaced Zephyrometer (it had a run-in with a lightning bolt last year). You can appreciate their movement in a car but walking means you can hear some of them too.

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MUSIC TO YOUR EARS The New Zealand School of Music has a free concert series on Fridays 12 – 1pm.

Performers are a mix of visiting and local professional musicians. The venue alternates between the Massey and Victoria campuses so visit www.nzsm.ac.nz to find out where

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KEEP CALM investmen

AND t property

headache

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CALL QUINOVIC

QUINOVIC PROPERTY MANAGEMENT VIVIAN STREET Level 1, 193 Vivian Street info@quinovic-vivianst.co.nz www.quinovic-vs.co.nz

04 382 8300

J U N E - J U LY FIFA U-20 WORLD CUP 4pm 2 June: Austria v Panama 7pm 2 June: Argentina v Ghana 4pm 5 June: Austria v Argentina 7pm 5 June: New Zealand v Myanmar 4pm 10 June: Round 16 Clash 7:30pm 10 June: Round 16 Clash Wellington Regional Stadium

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WELLINGTON JAZZ FESTIVAL The annual Jazz festival brings 100 national and international acts to Wellington over five days.

3–7 June, Wellington venues

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DOCUMENTARY EDGE FESTIVAL 57 documentaries will screen for the 10th anniversary of the Documentary Edge International Film Festival.

3–14 June, Roxy Cinema, Miramar

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NEW ZEALAND ECO FASHION WEEK This year’s showcase of sustainable, ethical and cutting edge fashion from New Zealand and abroad 13 June, Sacred Heart College, Lower Hutt

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MATARIKI WELLINGTON FESTIVAL A series of events celebrating Matariki, the Maori New Year. The theme this year is He rau tangata, he kōingo aroha / people gather and affirm love in a myriad of ways.

13 June – 12 July

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PATAKA EDUCATION MATARIKI PROGRAMME Porirua Harbour ‘Te Awarua o Porirua’ is the focus of this year’s programme.

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PRE-DAWN VIEWING FROM TANGI TE KEO, MATAIRANGI (MOUNT VICTORIA) Using portable telescopes, astronomers from Carter Observatory will give participants the opportunity to get a real-time experience of the small, distinctive star cluster rising.

BROOKE FRASER Brooke Fraser returns from LA to tour her fourth LP Brutal Romantic.

27 June, 5am, Mount Victoria

WELLINGTON CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Chris van der Zee conducts the orchestra lead

by Mariko Hemmingsen with piano soloist Diedre Irons.

09 NOT IN OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD A one-person play that follows the lives of three individuals living together at the Women’s Refuge safe house.

9 June – 13 June, BATS Theatre

09 AHI KAA FESTIVAL Maori theatre and dance festival with performances at BATS, Circa, Hannah Playhouse and Te Papa.

9 Jun – 11 July

13 MĀORI AND PACIFIC ARTISTS WIKIPEDIA EDIT-A-THON Help to increase the coverage of our Māori and Pacific Artists by editing and uploading entries on Wikipedia throughout Matariki.

13 June, The Dowse Art Museum

19 GLOW IN THE DARK GLOW-WORM TOUR A one-hour tour into the secret world of glow worms. Wear warm clothing, good shoes, and bring a torch. Phone the Treehouse on 499 1400.

19 June, 7 & 8 pm, Wellington Botanic Gardens, Glenmore Street

20 ORCHESTRA WELLINGTON: THE LITTLE RUSSIAN Tchaikovsky uses the folk music of his native land and Michael Houstoun performs Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

20 June, 7:30pm Michael Fowler Centre,

26 June, The Opera House

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29 June, 2:30pm, St Andrews on the Terrace

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SLEEPING BEAUTY ON ICE Eighteen Imperial Ice Stars present a new interpretation of Sleeping Beauty on Ice as part of their 10th Anniversary World Tour.

1–5 July, St James Theatre

17 ARMEGEDDON 2015 Three days of fun and fantasy, featuring gaming, comics, music, anime, and stars from the exhibiting shows.

17 July, 12 – 5pm, 18–19 July 10am – 5pm, Westpac Stadium

23 OFFAL DINNER St John's Bar & Restaurant is hosting their annual offal dinner. This nose to tail, six-course menu will take you through a selection of unfashionable cuts.

23 July, 6pm, St Johns Bar & Restaurant

24 NZIFF The NZ International Film Festival brings world cinema from the international circuit to the screens of New Zealand.

24 July – 9 August, Embassy Theatre

29 DISNEY ON ICE: DARE TO DREAM Disney on Ice takes audiences on a journey featuring Disney characters.

29 July – 2 August TSB Bank Arena, Queens Wharf, Wellington

1 June – 31 July, Pataka, Porirua

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ON THE BUSES

Angeline Quick with son Levi (3.5 yrs) and daughter Jasmine (1.5 yrs) Bus route: No1 Island Bay, Go Wellington

Frequency: once or twice per week

Work: stay-at-home Mum

If I'm having one-on-one time, the bus is fun and relaxing with the kids – particularly when they're babies and enjoy interacting and flirting with fellow passengers. After one bus trip, where the kids had a blast but were too noisy, I generally don't take both kids on the bus. But sometimes we go and have lunch with Dad or cousin Jasper. We have a small pushchair that folds up easily.

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Mastered by Craft.

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Feast your eyes on the all new MINI 5 Door Hatch (on the right if you didn’t spot it). We’ve added 2 more doors, but kept the go-kart handling, iconic style and attitude that sets a MINI apart from the rest. The 5 Door is everything you love about the classic MINI 3 Door Hatch. It is loaded with new safety features, new engines, MINI visual boost, and options like head up display and parking assist. The new MINI 5 Door Hatch is (dare we say it), for those who need a little bit of practical with their fun.

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