Capital 26 by Capital

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

AROHA NUI NOVEMBER 2015

SEQUINS & FEMINISM ISSUE 26

$4.90 QUESTION OF TRUST

BEER NECESSITIES

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These cola nuts are the karma and the cola in Karma Cola. They’re from a village called Boma in the Gola Rainforest of Sierra Leone. Over there cola is used to give you a lift, like coffee, and its as popular as it is here. In fact they have a saying, ‘He who brings cola brings life.’ And when you’re offered cola it’s a sign of friendship. If they don’t – watch out! The communities around Boma benefit from the sale of every bottle of Karma Cola. It’s what makes Karma Cola taste good and do good too. 1

COLA NUT

NUTMEG

10. LIME

CORIANDER

11. ORANGE

CINNAMON NUTMEG AND CINNAMON ARE SPICES GROWN IN TROPICAL RAINFORESTS LIKE THE VANILLA THAT WE SOURCE FROM FAIRTRADE AND ORGANIC GROWERS IN SRI LANKA.

12 13 14

ORGANIC BARLEY GRAIN FROM GERMANY WHICH IS MALTED TO MAKE THE EXTRACT THAT GIVES KARMA COLA ITS DEPTH OF COLOUR AND FLAVOUR.

ORGANIC FEMMINELLO LEMONS FROM SICILY.

FAIRTRADE ORGANIC CANE SUGAR FROM ORGANIC FAIRTRADE FARMERS IN MAHARASHTRA INDIA.

FAIRTRADE ORGANIC VANILLA GROWN IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SRI LANKA.

LEMON

ALL THE CITRUS OILS ARE SQUEEZED FROM THE RIND, SKIN AND ZEST OF THE FRUIT TO ADD A ZING TO KARMA COLA. 12. BOTTLE 100% GLASS MADE OF SAND AND COMPLETELY RECYCLABLE. 13. WATER & BUBBLES. 14. CAP TO KEEP IT ALL IN. 15. FRONT LABEL FEATURING MAMI WATA THE RIVER SPIRIT WHO PROTECTS THE PEOPLE IN BOMA WHERE OUR COLA COMES FROM. SHE’S AN ANGEL AND A RASCAL. 16. BACK LABEL WITH ALL THE IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO SHOW WE HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE.

DRINK NO EVIL.

Michael Houstoun Piano Marc Taddei Conductor Saturday 5 December 7:30pm Michael Fowler Centre Wellington

PATHÉTIQUE

Stravinsky Scherzo a la Russe Margetić Piano Concerto Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6

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CAPITAL MADE IN WELLINGTON THE COVER: Deborah Lambie, Miss World New Zealand Photograph: Ashley Church

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

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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.

ovember can be an odd month, not quite Christmas, not quite summer but still promising much, including fireworks and we hope a cracker of a summer. We always hope to under-promise and over-deliver. And your feedback is important in letting us know whether we are succeeding. In this issue we have a wide and interesting range of tales on offer. Our annual Beer Necessities tasting is summarised here to encourage the ever growing beer-drinking cohort to find their favourite brew for the summer; and we talk to young doctor Deborah Lambie, about why she is flying to Beijing for the monthlong event that is the new version of the Miss World competition. Sarah Chandler, a publicist deep in preparation for the New Zealand Festival next February, opens up her house for our readers to enjoy, while our food writer Unna Burch produces perfect beer’n’barbie food for the summer ahead. An email about a gathering of academics and researchers, which was followed up by skilful communications practitioner Celestina Sumby, led to our looking at resilience in Wellington. We quickly realised the topic is large and that we could explore only a small part of the issue; we decided to see how urban maraes in the Wellington area are responding to the challenge. I thank Dr Catherine Kenney, senior research fellow at the IRDR International Centre of Excellence in Community Resilience at Massey University, and Joe McLeod, Chair of Te Piringa o Te Awakairangi and Tamati Cairns, Chair of Te Kakano o Te Aroha, for their help in putting this together at speed. Absorbing topics like these sit alongside our regular features, including What the Flock with Melody Thomas, the environmental case for new state-of-the-art buses from John Kerr, and our recently new He He column from expatriate Australian Dean Watson, who has struggled through a winter here. Thank you to all of you who have emailed saying you approved of our new column. Onwards to Christmas.

Alison Franks Editor editor@capitalmag.co.nz

CONTENTS

BEER NECESSITIES It’s tart, it’s exotic, it’s rich and creamy – it’s our annual beer survey

A QUESTION OF TRUST

AROHA NUI KI TE TĀNGATA

Scoring big time with a new strategy Orchestra Wellington is testing its audience

Resilience in the face of adversity – urban maraes lead by example

SEQUINS, SASHAYING AND FEMINISM Doctor Deborah Lambie dresses up for a saunter down the Miss World catwalk

10 LETTERS 12 CHATTER 14 NEWS SHORTS 16 BY THE NUMBERS 18 TALES OF THE CITY 20 GIFT GUIDE 28 CULTURE 40 WHAT THE FLOCK 56 HE HE 58 EDIBLES

PERIODICALLY SPEAKING

BY THE BOOK

LITERATURE LOVERS

THE DOLL'S HOUSE

FACE TO FACE

WELLY ANGEL

BABY, BABY

DIRECTORY

86 CALENDAR

FOREST CANTINA

ON THE BUSES

CONTRIBUTORS

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 Nida Darr nida@capitalmag.co.nz Dagula Lokuge dagula@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

Tod Harfield Accounts accounts@capitalmag.co.nz Craig Beardsworth

Factotum

Gus Bristed

Distribution

CONTRIBUTORS

CHARLOT TE WILSON

R H E T T G O O D L E YHORNBLOW

Journ a li st

D e si g n er

Charlotte is a culture-vulture, naturelover and petrol-head, who combines writing with occasional radio work for Radio NZ. She is devoted to Wellington and is not above making skite-rides down Oriental Parade on her Ducati.

A born and bred Wellingtonian, Rhett is one of our two in-house designers. He is the Robin to our Batman, but insists he drives the Batmobile. Rhett is passionate about growing Wellington's creative community. He is often found spinning yarns or surfing waves in the bay.

STOCKISTS Pick up your Capital in New World, Countdown and Pak’n’ Save supermarkets, Moore Wilson's, Unity Books, Magnetix, City Cards & Mags, Take Note, Wellington Airport, Interislander and other discerning region-wide outlets. Ask for Capital magazine by name. Distribution: john@capitalmag.co.nz.

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

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

BETH ROSE Journ a li st

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

Beth loves writing about people and issues. Relocating from London in 2011, she now spends most of the year writing in Wellington and the rest of the time travelling the country in a six-metre converted bus, finding out lots of interesting stuff from the boltholes of NZ.

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LETTERS

A WOW OF DISAPPOINTMENT

A MARY POPPINS DIVA

HAPPY STUDENTS AND STAFF

I first went to WOW in Nelson. The imagination of the show and the intimacy of the venue made for an extraordinarily memorable evening. I went again in Wellington about eight years ago and although obviously quite different, I was equally impressed with the way the magnificently imaginative creations were shown and modelled. I was so excited to be coming again this year. I came away frankly disappointed. I was not disappointed in the works of art but I was horribly distracted by girls dressed in white and men dressed mainly in black performing excitable movements in the middle of the stage for no discernible reason. Girls dressed in white, rushing around with half veils flying out behind them, contrasted rather badly with the beautiful stately pace of the works of art displaying round the edge of the large stage. I enjoyed the girl trapeze artists but thought I had come to see Wearable Art rather than the Cirque du Soleil. I also enjoyed the singing but could not quite fathom the relevance of it in the World of Wearable Art. My general impression is that this has become more of a general show and as such has lost its magic for me. Of course this is a very personal opinion and obviously coloured by my previous experiences.

I found the story about Simon O’Neill in a recent issue (Capital #25 October) absorbing and I went along to hear him sing. Sing he can, and it was a great night of music. Among all the deserved praise for the production, I question the costume designer’s choices. Both leads were dressed unflatteringly, without any of the tricks of line and cut usually employed to dress big people (in current parlance, fat). I know it must be an on-going problem for opera companies; which is the more important, the voice or the appearance but more could have been done with their costumes to make both leads more believable and more appealing. Tosca appeared buttoned up and prim at the beginning and as she dived to her death looked more like Mary Poppins than a desperate diva. Surely at the prices we pay for tickets the designers should have the necessary skills.

Our students loved their experience (for the Off-Spring photoshoot September, issue#24), the photos and telling their stories. I always feel anxious that in telling their stories they may expose themselves in some way but everyone seemed happy with what had been shared. Congratulations on the wonderful quality of your magazine and please pass on our thanks to all those involved in the day's shoot.

J A Davison, Canterbury

Disappointed (name supplied) Karori (abridged)

SPRING BEAUT Y I was totally totally blown away by the beautiful pictures of the young mothers in your September issue (#24), and what good luck for them that the He Huarahi Tamariki, School for Teenage Parents is in their area. In the South Island, where I live, similar opportunities for teenage mothers to continue their education don’t exist. Name supplied, Marlborough

Helen Webber, Teacher in Charge, He Huarahi Tamariki, School for Teenage Parents, Tawa

TO O UNDERSTATED I love the way Capital magazine’s stories are so on-to-it. You seem to have a feel for what’s happening. But I don’t quite understand why you choose to be so understated. Your articles are often intelligent or important or both – like the lengthening of the airport one from Rob Morrison in the October (#25) edition – yet they get no fanfare. It is a real pleasure to be browsing away and come across really interesting stuff. Congratulations, I enjoy it. But it’s too easy to miss good things and maybe a bit more fuss about the important items would be worthwhile for you. David B (by hand) Seatoun Letters to editor@capitalmag.co.nz with subject line Letters to Ed or scan our QR code to email the editor directly.

CREATIVE

COME IN AND SEE US AT

COLOURING BOOKS FOR ADULTS HUGE RANGE IN STORE NOW!

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Summer in the Sounds with Seresin EstAte For more informAtion emAil dining@seresin.co.nz

RD E R S E C TCI H OA N THT EE A

INK INC.

NO MORE ALL BL ACKS We Wellingtonians often commit the crime of wearing too much black – even all black, all week. But with the Rugby World Cup long over, patriotic colours deserve a day off. The third annual No Black Or Grey Day wants to see rainbow colours take over town on 4 December, the first Friday of summer. “All the black makes us look like an Orwellian society,” says founder Dave Dwyer, a 55-yearold tech exec who was last spotted wearing a floral shirt.

T WYLA GILLAN Art or Rebellion? This particular tattoo is definitely art, I have over 10 tattoos at this point so the rebellion has kind-of worn off. Why you chose this design? The mythology of the Jackalope is that they were a difficult animal to hunt. Hunters would put a bowl of whisky out at night to slow them down and catch them! I walked into Saved Tattoo in New York and a guy called Anderson Luna put his hand up to do it - he's a phenomenal artist.

SCREEN DREAM Bud Florists in Upper Hutt has branched out – and it’s got nothing to do with flowers. Or branches. Husband and wife Rob and Jane Evans’s start-up The Big Screen Company is now hiring out two trucks with giant screens for outdoor events. Event organisers/promoters simply plug in a prerecorded video or plug in a live video feed to televise events.

Family – for it or against? Against at first, at this point they're not bothered.

C HAT T E R

WELLY WORDS QUITE A SPECTACLE Running into the back of a bus in your car is never fun – worse still when there you have an audience, and potentially mortifying when on the back of said bus is a ‘Should have gone to Specsavers’ advertisement. To add insult to injury a Wellyworder witnessed the whole thing and reported back to us.

FLIGHT OF FANCY

Photo by Nick Holder.

An innovation and enterprise award has to go to Burger King on Stuart Duff Drive, at the entrance to the airport. It has an arrivals screen set up with a live feed from the airport. Waiting for a loved one to fly in and you don’t want to take out a mortgage for airport parking? Grab some fries.

SPEEDY GONZ ALES Wellyword is never complete without some reference to coffee so here goes. If you’re a regular customer most good baristas know your order well and often have it under way before you get to the counter. The gentlepeople at Raglan Roast on Abel Smith Street did one better – our Wellyworder drove past, did a u-ey and pulled up outside for his normal pre-work fix. He didn’t even have to open his car door as the coffee was handed to him through the window.

IT'S COOL TO KORERO E taea e haere matou kaukau ano? Can we go swimming yet?

BRAND LAND Wellington has one more reason to call itself the fashion capital now that clothing store Caughley has opened at 57 Ghuznee St. Some of its international brands have never been stocked before in New Zealand. Think Oliberte shoes from Ethiopia and New York clothing line 6397. At just 25, the owner, marketing graduate Rachael Caughley, was inspired while selling clothes part-time in Dunedin.

T WEED NOT SPEED You might spy some strange characters cycling from Shelly Bay through Oriental Bay into town on 7 November. No, you’re not time-travelling – it’s the second annual Need for Tweed ride. Newtown cycle and coffee shop Bicycle Junction runs the event to honour an era when riders ruled the road – and to encourage Wellingtonians to cycle not drive.

NEWS SHORTS

WEBMASTERS With the country’s highest concentration of web-based companies, we can call ourselves the digital capital as well as the cultural capital. So let’s give our new tech institution, the Wellington ICT Graduate School, a warm welcome. The first courses on offer include a Master of Software Development and a Master of Information Technology, designed for ICT professionals. The school is a partnership between Victoria University, the Wellington Institute of Technology, and Whitireia Polytechnic, with involvement from Wellington ICT businesses.

BIRDMAN How do you go from being a kakamonitoring volunteer at Zealandia to become its new CEO? Well, Paul Atkins is more than just a bird man. With a career spanning more than 30 years in international relations, science and technology, he has established partnerships across the research, science and trade sector, most recently as the Chief Executive of the National Energy Research Institute.

THANKS FOR COMING

GREEN LIGHT

It’s been a year since Positively Wellington Tourism launched a campaign encouraging Kiwis from elsewhere to visit the capital for longer than a weekend. And it looks as if it’s been working. Visitors from around New Zealand spent a record 1.5 million nights here in the 10 months to August 2015, nearly 83,000 more nights than the year before.

After years of uncertainty and a redesign, the Kumutoto Precinct development on Wellington’s waterfront has got an okay from the Environment Court. Wellington City Council and Willis Bond & Co are planning a fivestorey commercial building on Waterloo Quay, with retail, cafe and exhibition spaces, a landscaped park and colonnaded walkways. But resource consents still depend on conditions being met. It is due for completion in 2018.

For all things cool for Xmas! Call to order 0800 55 55 42 www.budflorists.co.nz

NEWS SHORTS

WELL DONE, LADIES The Capital Culture web series about four Wellington friends (see Web of Laughs, issue #9) has been named a finalist for Best Web Series at the inaugural New Zealand Web Fest, held in November in Auckland. The first 18-episode season – available on YouTube – satirises the adventures of fashion blogger Lennon, bartender Imogen, drama-school dropout Frankie, and waitress/ aspiring singer-songwriter Willoughby. Think Girls meets Summer Heights High. Creators/actors Isobelle Walton, Martine Harding, and sisters Miriam and Virginia O'Connor are now seeking funding for season two.

BARING IT WELL

FAIR-LY CLEAN

MASONRY MAKEOVER

The Friends of Baring Head have given the thumbs-up to Studio Pacific’s conceptdesign plans for the redevelopment and restoration of the lighthouse cottages and precinct at Baring Head in East Harbour Regional Park. With Evzen Novak directing the project, Lianne Cox will oversee the preservation of the cottages’ heritage features, while Celia Goldsmith will look after landscape design.

Trade Aid’s new coconut soaps look and smell good enough to eat. The sustainable Coconut Project soap range comes from fair-trade producers from Uluveu Island in Vanuatu. The Coconut Project is part of the Palm Project, a partnership between the people of Uluveu Island and the New Zealand Children’s Health & Education Trust, which helps poverty-stricken communities achieve economic self-reliance and self-determination.

If you use the Masons Lane walkway between Lambton Quay and The Terrace, you’ll be glad to know it’s getting a makeover. It will get better lighting and a living green wall, plus some timber cladding, painting, paving, and drainage work. In the meantime, it may be closed temporarily, so use Farmers Lane, Lambton Square or Woodward Street.

BY THE NUMBERS

D ONATION STATION

WEATHER WORLD

months the Wellington Free Store on Willis Street has been open

280 1800

customers served each week

number of cafes, bakeries and restaurants that daily give their surplus food

61,340

wholegrain muesli bars donated by the Embassy Theatre from leftover promotional stock

items of still-edible food redistributed and saved from wastage since opening

248 30

number of NIWA vessels for conducting scientific research, of which RV Tangaroa is the flagship, based in Wellington.

number of times ice-strengthened Tangaroa has been to Antarctica

300,000

number of specimen jars in the National Invertebrate Collection on the Greta Point site

SNAP IT UP

number of buckets on Cuba Mall’s famous Bucket Fountain

1969

year it was installed - and the year the tram lines were removed from Cuba Street and the middle section was turned into a mall

number of Hollywood stars who have admitted to relieving themselves from the top of it (Elijah Wood c.2003 while here filming Lord of the Rings)

RIPE FOR THE DRINKING

350,000

number of Snapper cards issued in Wellington

10+

% of Wellington Snapper users who reload their card using the mobile app

150

number (in millions) of public transport journeys taken in NZ per year (or 3 days worth of transport transactions in Seoul, Korea)

staff at the National Institute of Weather and Atmospheric Research base at Greta Point (626 staff across New Zealand)

SPLASH IT AB OUT

major transport smart cards named after ocean themes (Octopus in Hong Kong, Oyster in London and New Zealand’s favourite fish in Wellington)

number of years Ripe have been roasting up a coffee storm in Petone

1923

year their Whitmee coffee roaster was made (it’s been refurbished and is still steaming ahead)

age of Betsy the Coffee Camper Van, who’s fully equipped to churn out great coffee and can be hired

Compiled by Craig Beardsworth

OR IEN T-NZ.COM STORE@OR IEN T-NZ.COM 23 KEN T T ERR ACE WELL INGTON

ORIENT modern asian home s tore

SEXUAL HEALING

years since the New Zealand Aids Foundation began

217

people were diagnosed with HIV in 2014

number of minutes it takes to get tested for HIV (and other STD’s) at the Awhina Centre on Willis Street

35,000

condoms distributed around the country per month by the NZ Aids Foundation

VIVA o n M O L E S WO RT H

come celebrate … 25 years we’re brand new 100 Molesworth St, by National Library, Phone + 64 4 499 3440

THE PERFECT CHIRSTMAS GIFT

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SECTION HEADER

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

BLISTER IN THE SUN

CLOTHING

E AT S

SHO P P I N G

READING

FAV E SP O T

Robyn Mathieson

Charley Noble

Moore Wilson’s

Heart to Start, by Derek Handley

Wellington waterfront

WRITTEN BY SARAH LANG | PHOTOGRAPH BY ASHLEY CHURCH

Dr SHONA DALZELL has lived in Wellington for 13 summers, and always makes the most of the warmer weather. “I love the longer days, visiting the Botanic Garden, going on early-morning runs,” she says.

he recreational runner and cyclist, who has done a few marathons, is outdoors a lot. But sun is less her friend, more her enemy. She specialises in the diagnosis and treatment of skin cancer, which kills over 500 Kiwis a year. The mother of two grown daughters slips, slops, slaps all year round. And because of New Zealand’s high levels of ultraviolet light, all our sunshine, and our outdoors lifestyle, she wants the rest of us to do the same. Shona grew up in Gisborne, where she reckons she clocked up too many sunshine hours. After becoming a GP, she saw a lot of skin cancer, and went on to specialise in the area (as well as varicose-vein treatment and cosmetic medicine). For the past three years she has worked for the multidisciplinary Skin Institute, which has 18 clinics countrywide and deals with skin cancer and vein treatment, surgery and appearance medicine. Shona, co-owns the Nelson and Wellington clinics with the institute. Established in 1994 the institute, focuses on clinical dermatology, cosmetic medicine and skin cancer. The Wellington clinic opened in July. She’s joined by two nurses and visiting specialists in the purpose-built clinic, which includes two theatres, three consulting rooms, and a high-tech laboratory suite on Customhouse Quay. The lab allows complex microscopically-

controlled surgery for skin cancer (known as Mohs surgery after its late founder, Dr Frederic Mohs). Mainly performed on the face and neck, it removes skin cancer under local anaesthetic, with tissue tested onsite while the clients are there. It’s the single most effective technique for removing the two most common skin cancers, and gives the best cosmetic results, says Shona. Shona runs or drives to work from Karori. She enjoys working in the central city, as patients can come in on their lunch breaks or after work, and Shona can pop in and out. “I love being close to great shops, food and coffee.” Her favourite boutique is Robyn Mathieson on Featherston St, and she also likes Andrea Moore Boutique and Cue on Lambton Quay. And as for food, “Having Charley Noble just across the road from work is dangerous! Dragonfly is also good. And my favourite cafe has to be Deluxe.” In her free time, she can often be found pounding the pavement around the Wellington bays and bush tracks, or riding her mountain bike to Makara. Sunday usually starts with a ride, followed by a visit to Moore Wilson’s and cooking a nice meal. “I love Wellington – it’s my place. I love the compact city, the arts and culture, the bush, the sea. We have everything here.”

GIFT GUIDE

DOING THINGS THAT REQUIRE PHYSICAL MOVEMENT AND ENERGY

HA B I T GYM VOU C H E R 5

ACTIVE

Jogging on a Sunday morning, spin-classes before work and a smoothie for lunch, 4

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

the active personality lives to create endorphins. Whether day-to-day routine or a New Years resolution, these are presents for the personality on-the-go.

Glass keep cup - $28 - Ripe Coffee Aesop protective SPF body lotion - $135 - WORLD Womens Long Tights - $78 - Thunderpants Linus Dutchi 3 bicycle - $895 - Bicycle Junction PropĂŠt shoes - $119 - Gubbs

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Trigger Point cold roller - $179.99 - Habit Clubs and Clinics Brompton game bag - $550 - Bicycle Junction Primal Kitchen - $40 - Unity Books Swimwear crop top - $68 - Thunderpants Ultra portable striped backpack - $35 - Redcurrent

GIFT GUIDE

VERY GENTLE, KIND, OR FRIENDLY: PRETTY OR CUTE

SWEET 6

This personality is someone’s dearest and cherished. Candycoated cushions, juicy-fruit jewels and peaches-and-cream pastels. It’s sugar and spice and everything nice.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Lonely Hirschy softcup bra - $99 - Service Depot Specialty Harney & Sons teas - $19.90 per tin - Bud Florists General Eclectic gold spot cushion - $54.90 - Iko Iko Strawberry jam - $15 - Dunshea's Deli Rifle Paper Co, Parisian notebook - $17.99 - Small Acorns

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Boh Runga fantail pendant - $336 - Global Culture Flower burst studs - $155 - Sarjeant Gallery Ecoya jar candle - $49.95 - Redcurrent Estate Gewurztraminer wine - Yealands Bergamot & camomile candle - $49 - Viva Masque mini - $15 - Tailor Skin Care

GIFT GUIDE

HAVING OR SHOWING THE FRESHNESS OR ENERGY OF SOMEONE WHO IS YOUNG

YOUTHFUL

Whether young at heart, or literallyâ&#x20AC;Ś young, this personality enjoys having fun. Spoil them with noise-making, house-shaking, animal-masquerading 10

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Hippo crayon set - $20 - Tea Pea The Tiger Who Came to Tea - $26.90 - Vic Books Fox mask - $29 - Tea Pea Kip & Co baby pom pom blanket - $109 - Let liv Five star slippers - $139 - Minnie Cooper

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

entertainment.

Meri Meri star necklace - $19.90 - Iko Iko Kids marching drum - $32.99 - Trade Aid OMM animal nesting dolls - $42.90 - Iko Iko Misery Guts Wall Chart - $55- Iko Iko Sack Me cushion popcorn - $35 - Tea Pea

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CULTURE

GIRL POWER Karori filmmaker Kenneth Chapman, who has six sisters and one strong mother, is sick of women playing one-dimensional romantic interests, assistants and hangers-on in movies. “When I fell in love with film, I found the gross underrepresentation of women really frustrating, since women are a huge part of my life,” he says. So the 23-year-old has written and directed his first feature Close Enough, a drama about three female friends who have drifted apart, set in Paekakariki. Most of the crew were women too. Chapman’s trying to raise $3,000 through Kickstarter to enter the movie in film festivals.

DYNAMIC DUO

D OWNTOWN MUSIC

A CHANCE TO DANCE

Turner Prize-winning British artist, writer and broadcaster Grayson Perry is known for his cross-dressing, his alter-ego Claire, and his out-there art, particularly the colourful, subversive ceramic vases. His tapestry Map of Truths and Beliefs, which catalogues present-day pilgrimage destinations including Mecca, Auschwitz, and Stonehenge, is the centre-piece of City Gallery’s new joint exhibition, Grayson Perry/ Kushana Bush, opening November 21. It’s a coup for Bush, a young Dunedin artist whose tragicomic paintings share similarities with Perry’s work.

Musician-with-a-conscience Rob Joass has rounded up quite the line-up of local musicians (including the Black Seeds’ Barnaby Weir and Eva Prowse) to join his country and folk-rock band The Hardcore Troubadours for a fundraising gig at San Fran on December 3. All proceeds go to DCM, formerly the Downtown Community Ministry, which helps Wellington’s homeless and hungry move away from drifting between the street, night shelters and jail.

Dancer-choreographer Sarah Foster has worked with Douglas Wright, Michael Parmenter, Raewyn Hill, Malia Johnston, and Footnote Dance in New Zealand, and many more big names, including Sylvain Meret, in Europe. And it all started at the New Zealand School of Dance. She and another NZSD graduate, Thomas Bradley, have been commissioned to create new contemporary dance works for the NZSD’s graduation season (November 18–25).

CULTURE

AGE CONCERN The Keys are in the Margarine, about people affected by dementia, is the first play that BUPA, New Zealand’s largest aged-care provider, has ever sponsored. It jumped at the chance to raise awareness about dementia – and is encouraging its Care Home and retirement-village residents to attend. After selling out in Dunedin, the play is stopping by Bats Theatre (November 11–14) on a double-bill national tour by not-for-profit arts trust Talking House. The other play, Be/Longing, about the experiences of immigrants in New Zealand, also plays at Bats (November 17–21).

THE F WORD

MULTI-TASKER

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What’s a male economist doing acting in a play about feminism? Geoff Simmons, general manager for Gareth Morgan’s Morgan Foundation, is part of the cast of returning play The F Word (they mean feminism, of course). But this intellectual has another life among the actor-improvisers who devised and staged the play in 2014. They’re bringing it back to Bats (November 11–14) because they wanted to expand the script.

Ewen Coleman, who doubles as a theatre reviewer, has directed a whopping 90 productions over the years for various community-theatre groups in wider Wellington. This year alone he’s already directed three. His fourth is Wellington Repertory Theatre’s production of Roger Hall’s Take a Chance on Me, about six singles suffering through a disastrous matchmaking dinner (Gryphon Theatre, November 18–25). Coleman is secretary of Wellington Repertory, Wellington’s oldest active theatre group, which turns 90 next year.

In 1913, Igor Stravinsky’s avant-garde ballet score The Rite of Spring sparked a riot in the theatre at its Paris premiere, when the provocative music and stamping dancers led the unimpressed aristocrats and the bohemian set to attack each other, then the orchestra. More than a century later, the audience should be better behaved when the NZ Symphony Orchestra performs it at the Michael Fowler Centre (November 20). The opening act is Vaughan Williams’ much-loved work The Lark Ascending.

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MUSIC

A QUESTION OF TRUST

WRITTEN BY CHARLOTTE WILSON

At it's September concert Orchestra Wellington, Music Director Marc Taddei launched the opening of subscriptions for 2016. It was a launch with a difference. If you want a good price, he said, sign up now, but I’m not going to tell you what you’re signing up for. If you want to wait, then we’ll tell you who the soloists are going to be in November, but you’re going to have to pay more. And in December you can find out the whole programme but then you’re going to have to pay more again. It’s a test of your faith...

ou have to be pretty confident to test your audience like this, and confident they are. Orchestra Wellington is having an absolutely corker year. Season subscriptions are up from 270 last year to almost 1,100: walk-ups have increased by the same amount; and they’re getting houses of 1,800, which would easily be selling out the Wellington Town Hall. Why? The easy answer: price. Adán Tijerina, the general manager, has slashed the full subscription right down to $18 a concert. Students fronting up on the day pay just $12. It’s a bold move: but it’s not rocket science, he says. “It’s supply and demand: we have a big hall that we need to fill. After the town hall closed we tried a number of different venues that didn’t work and we came to the conclusion that we just have to go in the Michael Fowler Centre. And the MFC looks dire with only 500 people in it. Rather than try and sell 500 tickets at $80 a pop, we reckoned we’d try and sell 2000 at $20.” It worked. And the blind subs offer for next year is doing even better. It was Adán’s idea. It’s the sort of thing that airlines do – secret bookings, a mystery location – but as far as we know it’s a first in the arts. He

says that he just wanted to get some data on how they were selling, and the best way to find out what was most important was to isolate each factor in the equation. It’d be a pretty complex equation, and I suggest he must be some kind of maths whizz: ‘No! I’m just a hustler!’ But there’s a statistician for the Reserve Bank on the board, and Adán says his eyes lit up when he took it to them – ‘“He said, oh, I love it. This is great.”’ But it’s not just about bums on seats. There’s another reason it’s working, and frankly, that’s great programming. This year’s “Six by One” season of the complete cycle of Tchaikovsky symphonies paired with six piano concertos from Michael Houstoun is a winner, with audiences and reviewers alike. It’s a massive gesture, this commitment to one composer and one soloist, and I suggest to Marc that it could have been a risk, putting all his eggs in one basket. “Well, yes, but then I’m a kind of throwing all my eggs in one basket kinda guy. And it’s not easy. It’s really scary putting out programmes! But if you have a concept that you think is going to be a winner, then it’s like high-stakes poker, you just have to go all in. The

MUSIC

“if you have a concept that you think is going to be a winner, then it’s like high-stakes poker, you just have to go all in.”

Tchaikovsky is a great story. It’s the greatest Russian symphonic cycle ever written, six incredible works the last three of which are just unassailable masterpieces. I love the progression that we get through the six, the sense of drama. There’s a lot to stimulate people emotionally and intellectually, by being all-in. That’s my approach to programming, and you just have to trust that people are going to come.” I get the feeling that they’d come to see him if nothing else. Marc is enormously popular with audiences. It’s his genuine enthusiasm, and his gift for telling the story behind the music. He does live Q&As on stage – the concerts are broadcast by RNZ Concert, and they wheel out a presenter to interview him – and he does pre-concert talks in the lobby as well. They’re packed out. And the orchestra’s improved in the seven years he’s been with them: impressive, considering that almost all the players have other jobs, and rehearsals are held at the end of the day. ‘There’s no secret there, it’s just time in the saddle. When I began conducting the orchestra they had been doing only two programmes a year, plus all the pit work. I immediately suggested we double that. Now it’s six. The orchestra’s together more, they see each other all the time.” “The onus is on me to ensure we are using rehearsal time efficiently”, Marc said. “That is something that the public doesn’t see, but that’s the conductor’s brief, especially the music director’s brief, to guide the orchestra to higher levels of artistic achievement. And the only way to do that is nuts and bolts in the rehearsal room.” This is the first time the complete Tchaikovsky cycle has been performed in New Zealand. “It came to me in a flash. It was just waiting to be done,” said Marc. “Michael Houstoun came up with some really good ideas, these five greatest-hits Russian (or Soviet, Khachaturian is Armenian) piano concertos that balance the Tchaikovsky perfectly.” The sixth concerto is a new commission from

Wellington composer Karlo Margetić, winner of the SOUNZ contemporary award in 2013 and one of the orchestra’s three composers in residence. Last year they had one resident, one emerging, plus the staff composer who runs the education programme, Thomas Goss. Marc is adamant about the need to support New Zealand performers and composers, just as he is about the need to be “a good corporate citizen,” supporting the wider arts community. “We really can’t be ivory towers, we can’t just be an art museum, we need to be an art gallery as well. We need to not only give the classics of the Western canon but also let people get a sense of and digest what’s really happening in our own society today. We had a big success with Leila Adu in June and then with Karlo. I gave him the hard word, saying I expect this to be the greatest piano concerto ever written in this country. You’re going to be right behind Stravinsky's Scherzo à la russe, and then right in front of the greatest sixth symphony ever written. Good luck!” Not that Karlo is one to be daunted. He's called it “Melting Furniture”, which conjures images of a piano made of chocolate but refers to a number of pitchbending effects, “like the piano is constantly changing shape, like a reflection in rippled water.” That’s in December. This month it’s the Khachaturian piano concerto, along with an overture by Balakirev and Tchaikovsky’s 5th. That’s also when Marc will be announcing the soloists for 2016, and the subscription price will go up slightly. “I can say that there is a theme, but it’s not the same kind of cycle.” He said he didn’t want to repeat himself. “I don’t want people to feel that the orchestra’s a one-trick-pony. It’s not as easy as this year, maybe, but it’s really popular, it’s got a huge draw to it, in my opinion.” Orchestra Wellington:"Providence,” 7 November, and “Pathétique,” 5 December, Michael Fowler Centre.

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F E AT U R E

AROHA NUI KI TE TĀ N G ATA Extend love and support to all

WRITTEN BY BETH ROSE PHOTOGRAPHY BY BENJAMIN + ELISE

In crisis and adversity, our resilience is put to the test. How prepared the capital is to face a natural disaster is regularly discussed. And now Wellington has been named one of the world’s 100 Resilient Cities, a designation pioneered and awarded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Just what and whom should we draw our resilience from?

Ngā Hau E Whā O Paparārangi

marae

F E AT U R E

e Papa recently hosted a workshop run by the Wellington City Council, which brought together folk from EQC, NIWA, GNS and MetService, along with the Joint Centre for Disaster Research (JCDR) at Massey University and local and national iwi members, to begin developing a Resilience Strategy for Wellington. The capital’s preparedness, however, is ticking along nicely in certain quarters of the city, not least an unassuming house on top of a hill in Newlands. Ngā Hau e Whā o Paparārangi is an urban marae, one of ten that form Te Piringa o Te Awakairangi, a marae collective in Wellington that has been steadily growing in resilience since the Christchurch earthquakes. Joe McLeod is Tūhoe, but has lived in Wellington for more than 40 years. A professional chef by trade, specialising in Māori cuisine, he is also the Deputy Chair of Ngā Hau e Whā, and Secretary and one of the Trustees for Te Kakano o Te Aroha marae in Lower Hutt. Should the need arise, it would be Joe who would take charge and bring the marae collective into operation. It works in partnership with the Lower Hutt City Council, the Wellington Regional Emergency Management Organisation (WREMO) and Wellington City Council to set up maraes as welfare centres in the event of a disaster. Joe got involved with Ngā Hau e Whā o Paparārangi through its previous Co-Chair, Bill Rawiri, and together Joe and Bill drove forward the Hutt City Marae Collective. “I met Bill at a Civil Defence meeting down at Te Kakano marae,” says Joe. “He spoke about Ngā Hau e Whā marae and talked about the programmes that were on offer there. He was hoping to run courses around rongoā (medicine), the raranga (weaving) programme was already up and running and they were just coming into the second year of their twenty-year re-planting programme. Then he mentioned it was smack bang in the middle of two native reserves. That got my attention. “The attraction, for me, was the access to the plants and there was a plot of land that had wild undergrowth – pūhā, piko piko – the native plants that I grew up with. So I thought “would you like to add another strand to the programme called māra kai?"

“Māra kai, food for resilience, is about feeding people en masse and using the resources that are in the immediate vicinity – the resources that nature provides. “For example, if we just can’t get at our shops, we can look at what is edible around us. Here, fortunately, we have a mahere. And there are enough food resources that I can rally whānau to gather to feed a big number of people. “It’s all done voluntarily at short notice. Māori funerals are a prime example. None of them are stage-managed, they just happen. We haven’t got a clue how many we’re catering for, we welcome whoever comes through the door of the marae all day long over a three-day timeline and we can have anything up to a thousand people for a big tangi. “We just have to be ready. We all come in to help. We pool resources and trigger our networks – all traditional Māori food can be flown from Taranaki, Gisborne or wherever. The same would apply to celebrations, festivals and meetings.” Joe attended the workshop at Te Papa and was delighted to see so many of the right people present. “I was shocked to see who was there. Even people at a very high level. It was nice to see everyone all working together.” Dr Christine Kenney is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre of Excellence in Community Resilience and the Joint Centre for Disaster Research, which is supported by GNS Science and based at Massey University, Wellington. Christine works closely with Joe and, as she says, “has a foot in every furrow”. She also attended the workshop. “There was a good range of stakeholders in that room,” agrees Christine, “Grass roots right up to the chairman of EQC. There’s quite a lot more work that needs to be happening in the leadership and governance space. And, there’s a lot more that needs to happen in the social space, but Wellington has made some significant strides. We are seeing the linkages start to happen – a quantum shift from a hierarchical approach to resilience. It was the Wellington Emergency Plan that went down to Christchurch – because we had one”. “What I like is it’s not just top down. Those tsunami lines that you see around Wellington – that is a classic example of sitting down and meeting with the community.

Top: Dr Christine Kenney Senior Research Fellow, Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University Middle left: A carving at Te Kakano o Te Aroha Middle right: The nursery at Jay Street community gardens Bottom left: Left to right – Mr Joe McLeod, Dr Christine Kenney, Mr Tamiti Cairns Chair: Te Kakano o Te Aroha Marae, & Mr Terei Koopu, Te Puni Kōkiri Bottom Left: Te Piringa nursery Bottom right: The nursery at Jay St community gardens

F E AT U R E

An older woman at a community engagement meeting with WREMO said; “why don’t you just paint the lines?” And that idea has been picked up and is gaining international traction.” Christine is of Ngāi Tahu descent, although her whakapapa is as complex and interwoven as raranga, so she identifies with many tribes and maraes across the country. Both the position she holds at work and her ancestry give her a unique advantage in building resilience networks. “I was working with Inuit, in the subarctic when the first Canterbury earthquake happened. My brother was living in the eastern suburbs of Christchurch, so that’s what brought me back – to try and make a difference. “What we are seeing in Wellington is a leveraging of some of the learning that has come out of Christchurch. I did a lot of work with the Māori community in the urban areas of Christchurch, but also with Ngāi Tahu.” “Maraes can act fast. The February 22 quake happened and within 24 hours, the leaders of most of the major iwi were in Christchurch and had met with the police, the Ministry for Social Development, Red Cross and Ngāi Tahu, and it took them fifteen minutes to decide how things would run, who would take point and set up distribution links across the country. “That was a national recovery network that occurred in Christchurch which meant that within 48 hours, 13 Māori doctors and 19 Māori nurses were on the ground with shipping containers of supplies. In 72 hours they were walking out through liquefaction. While a lot of the medical practices did a fantastic job, a big part of eastern Christchurch was relatively cut off. These doctors and nurses had backpacks and did what we call in World Health ‘barefoot medicine.’ This was all done through the Māori recovery network.” Christine interviewed emergency responders who had looked after Christchurch evacuees at maraes. “Takahanga Marae in Kaikoura – chaired by Sir Mark Solomon, who is also chair of Ngāi Tahu – is on the road north to Picton, and received people leaving Christchurch. The majority of those who turned up at the marae were not Māori, they were European and a

lot of them had never stepped foot on a marae before. “The feedback we got was that people were turning up looking a bit uncertain. They were invited in and offered a cup of tea, food, showers and clean clothes. Takahanga Marae has huge mahinga kai gardens and this was operationalised. “Some phenomenal things came out of the response to Christchurch, particularly the resilience in some of the Māori communities within the eastern suburbs that were most affected and within low socio-economic areas. Very quickly most of the marae that were functioning were hosting evacuees. In Canterbury – and indeed right down as far as Invercargill, Moeraki and Dunedin – all of the Ngāi Tahu maraes were operationalised. “In Wellington, evacuees came into Pipitea Marae on Thorndon Quay, but they were only there for a short period of time. Then they were taken out to Te Kakano marae and up the hill to Ngā Hau e Whā marae who, at the time, weren’t set up for overnight stays. They are now.” “It’s brought home to the Wellington community of tangata whenua that they have assets, values and practices that can support their neighbours. What’s happening at Ngā Hau e Whā o Paparārangi is a snapshot of what maraes are working on together. “They have linked in with the fire service, the police, Red Cross, and the Salvation Army. This is the Civil Defence and emergency management part of it, but it’s also about drawing on traditional knowledge and how to create a base of support to look after the whole of the local community.” Based on the experiences of Christchurch, Dr Christine Kenney and Sir Mark Solomon have co-authored an article that has gone to the UN and has been picked up as describing best practice. It is shaping the national strategy in resilience and will influence Wellington’s. “It’s not exclusive,” says Christine, “and that was a message that was very clear in Christchurch. There is a kaupapa or proverb that guided the response: ‘Aroha nui ki te tāngata’, meaning ‘extend love and support to all’. The marae in Wellington that have formed the collective have taken that very seriously”.

Top: Mr Joe McLeod, Chair: Te Piringa o Te Awakairangi Wellington Marae CDEM and Resilience Committee Middle: The view from Ngā Hau E Whā O Paparārangi Bottom: Ngā Hau E Whā O Paparārangi

W HAT T H E F L O C K

MR TUI Name: Tūī, tui, or parson bird. Status: Endemic, not threatened. Habitat: Tūī are widespread and common throughout the major New Zealand islands and offshore islands, although less common in Canterbury. A separate subspecies of tūī lives on the Chatham Islands which differs mostly in being larger. Tūī have fared better than many other natives, but still struggle due to deforestation and introduced predators. Look for them: You’re likely to hear a tūī before you see one. Follow its trademark call and look for a medium-sized bird that looks black from a distance, but shines iridescent blue, green and bronze when lit by the sun. The bird’s distinctive white throat tufts and white feather collar are a dead giveaway. At this time of year the newlyflowering harakeke (New Zealand flax) is a tūī hotspot, and any birds found foraging there are likely to be sporting a bright yellow/orange patch on their foreheads. This isn’t plumage – it’s pollen; tūī play a major role in the plant’s pollination.

Call: The Tūī’s song is synonymous with New Zealand – a boisterous and complicated mix of tuneful notes with coughs, grunts and wheezes. Feeds on: Part of the honeyeater family, tūī prefer a diet of nectar and honeydew, but it varies seasonally and in breeding season is supplemented with large invertebrates like cicadas and stick insects. Did you know? Tūī are excellent mimics – copying everything from cellphone ringtones to car alarms, and even mimicking the alarm calls of other species to scare them away from nesting and feeding sites. Tūī were once a prized pet for Māori who taught the birds to repeat sentences containing forty or fifty words, sometimes shaving or making a slight cut to the tongue to allow better pronunciation. If you want to see some great tūī mimicry in action, Google ‘Woof Woof the talking tūī’ (RIP). If it were human it would be: Let’s see… uncommonly handsome with an uncanny presence and a voice that both transcends the heavens and pillages the bassy depths – we’ll go with the former Lyttelton choirboy Marlon Williams. Check him out if you haven’t yet.

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F E AT U R E

SEQUINS S A S H AY I N G AND FEMINISM PHOTOGRAPHY BY ASHLEY CHURCH

She becomes a doctor on the same day she leaves to represent New Zealand in the Miss World pageant. So why would an intelligent young woman want to be a beauty queen? MICHELLE DUFF talks to Deborah Lambie.

acts about Miss World New Zealand: she would like to learn Cantonese. She runs her own educational charity. She tells quirky stories, like how drinking Ribena reminds her of visiting her father, an emergency doctor, at Dunedin Hospital when she was a kid. Her mum is a psychologist – having quacks as parents is part of the reason she wanted to become a doctor herself, along with the fact biology fascinates her. She is not squeamish. At the Miss World New Zealand final in April, soon-to-be-Dr Deborah Lambie beat 18 other contestants with her answer to a question about what she would do to combat Islamic State. (She can’t remember exactly what she said, but something along the lines of using education as a tool to empower the populace.) She “doesn’t know” if she’s a feminist, exactly, but she believes in female equality. Oh, and she likes riding horses. Next year Dr Lambie begins her residency as a junior doctor at Wellington Hospital, after graduating from Otago University with first-class honours. “I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing, whether medicine or surgery or psych,” the 24-year-old says, all smiles for this morning’s Skype interview from Sydney, where she is attending pre-Miss World photo shoots and organising some of her dozens

of outfits. “I’ve just done dermatology and I really loved that. Whatever I do, I’d love to end up doing some research as well.” But before that, she will spend the entire month of December in China competing in what is, frankly, one of the nuttiest-sounding competitions in the world. If you thought beauty pageants were relics of a satin-shrouded past, think again. Not only are they still around, but they’re relatively popular – more than one billion people worldwide watched last year’s televised final. That’s a lot of eyes on female flesh, though the organisers will fall over themselves to tell you this is no longer the point. (The competition’s progressiveness is illustrated by the repeated insistence that this year will be the first in which there is no swimsuit section.) Instead, in a month-long contest held in Sanya on China’s Hainan Island, young women have to prove their mettle in a series of challenges which include public speaking, athletics – including the long and high jumps – a talent competition, a dance contest, and a series of interviews. “We are focused on charity, we are not focused on bikinis but the woman and how she can make a difference for those who are vulnerable,”

Hil Cook hair and makeup artist

F E AT U R E

says Miss World NZ director Rosalina Foulger. “The critics still have the mentality of the past. In the modern beauty pageant, there is a different procedure. It’s not all about the girl’s body or beauty, it’s about her personality. The judges are asked to judge not only her external beauty, but her beautiful mind and her beautiful heart.” The women gain leadership skills, public speaking ability, and confidence, she says. “We can’t reject a girl because she is short, or whatever. Because it’s not about winning, it’s about participating.” So what compelled Lambie to enter? Born and raised in Dunedin, Lambie began modelling at 17 and had her first pageant experience in 2011, as a runner-up in Miss Otago. She has since represented New Zealand at World Miss University in South Korea, and entering Miss World was a further step. “I saw it as a challenge. For me, the Miss World organisation is about empowering individuals and community. Public speaking, having to walk in front of people on a stage, I find them quite empowering things to do.” Does she think pageants objectify women? “The only constant is change. When I look at medicine, there are things you can look back and think thank goodness we’re not doing that now, and things we have learnt a lot from. It’s the same with pageants, and the organisers have made a lot more of an effort to make it more relevant.” At the final, each contestant must share a story from their country’s history. Lambie will tell the international audience about suffragist Kate Sheppard, who pushed for New Zealand to become the first country in the world to give women the vote. Lambie says that she grew up being told women can do anything, and “It’s people like Kate Sheppard who worked really hard to achieve that for us.” Does she identify herself as a feminist, then? “I’m really for equality for everyone. I don’t know if that means I’m a feminist, but I’m definitely for equality.” Miss World New Zealand has been run here in some form or another since 1956. Eight years ago the franchise was bought by the New Zealand Asia Pacific Trust, and is now run by husband and wife team Rosalina and Desmond Foulger. Entry to the national competition costs each young woman $1,500, mostly covered by their sponsors, and it is mainly this money and the entry tickets that make the charity its money. Each year it chooses a project to support; last year it spent $25,000 flying a five-year-old Filipino girl to Starship Hospital for surgery on a

facial disfigurement. This year, it raised $30,000 for an Auckland special-needs school. Entrants to the pageant must attend three months of media and public speaking training, leadership training, catwalk training and motivational workshops. “It’s like a finishing school,” Foulger says. The trust pays for further training for Miss World New Zealand, including attendance at the grand final. The umbrella organisation Miss World is also a charity, raising millions each year for children in need. Lambie plans to make use of the profile she gains from the competition to promote her own local charity, LearnCOACH, which provides free online NCEA tutorials. Lambie is also the workforce officer for the New Zealand Medical Students Association. She took a year off from medical studies to complete a masters in entrepreneurship at Otago University, and has twice reached the national finals of Toastmasters speech competitions. She denies being an overachiever, saying she just finds time for what she’s passionate about. If she wins, she sees it as an opportunity to be a role model for young people. “I’m so lucky that I grew up in a family where education is important, so I’ve always taken it really seriously. I just want to use the skills I have to the best of my ability to help other people.” Also, she admits, the boost to her personal brand will be huge. By the end of next month, a lot more people are going to know who Dr Deborah Lambie is. If she becomes the first New Zealander to win, it’s likely she’ll wear the tag for life – just look at Lorraine Downes, the Kiwi still known for winning Miss Universe in 1983. So while the world may not see her on stage in a swimsuit, there’s no doubt it hasn’t seen the last of her.

Miss World is the world’s oldest and biggest beauty pageant, begun in the United Kingdom in 1951 by an entrepreneur by the name of Eric Morley. The very first Miss World was in essence a bikini competition, held to promote the then-risque swimsuits. Morley’s widow still runs it today. A New Zealander has never won Miss World, though Kiwi Lorraine Downes famously won the title at the competing Miss Universe pageant in 1983.

Clothing supplied by Service Depot & Trelise Cooper, Auckland

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BEER NECESSITIES PHOTOGRAPHY BY BENJAMIN + ELISE WRITTEN BY KIERAN HASLETT-MOORE

Keep up-to-date with the best craft beer on offer around the country this summer. Supping a beer is a fairly standard routine throughout New Zealand and throughout the year. But in summer supping a beer, particularly standing around a barbecue with a beer in hand, takes on a whole new level of ritual. The craft beer movement is very strong in Wellington with its many local brewers. And around the country there are many more dedicated brewers offering summer drinkers a great drop. Beer Necessities is our annual round-up of their hard work and an assessment of their products by experienced tasters. It is a blind tasting by a panel of enthusiasts. The beers mentioned here all earned three or more stars. Enjoy what the judges have said about them and find your own favourites.

Tastings conducted at Crafters & Co

46 46

F E AT U R E

KIERAN HASLETT-MOORE

MARTIN CRAIG

ANNIKA NASCHITZI

RYAN MACARTHUR

DENISE GARLAND

Capital beer writer, Regional Wines and Spirits beer seller, and North End head brewer, Kieran is a regular judge at the Brewers Guild of New Zealand Beer Awards and the National Homebrew Competition.

After a career writing about consumer and retail issues, Martin has recently launched the Beertown website devoted to New Zealand beer news.

Brewing is in Annikaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blood. She grew up a brewerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daughter in Berlin, and now has continued the family occupation by establishing the Tiamana nano-brewery in Mt Cook.

Beer Distribution manager for Beer without Borders and former beer logistics manager for Beervana, Ryan is a passionate homebrewer and beer lover.

Denise is a Radio NZ journalist and beer blogger, and an experienced judge at the National Homebrew Competition.

00 Y. TE .. AM

NO ENT N H U W RIE LY R OP S 2 R EN

Sa t urd ay, 27 Febru a r y 2016

All WomenÊs Great Vineyard Estate Race. Get the girls together, grab your walking or running shoes and take on The YealandsÊ YAK.

WHERE: Yealands Estate, Seaview Rd, Seddon, Marlborough

THE YAK: A 6-hour all women team trail event around one of New Zealand’s largest vineyards – Yealands Estate on the stunning Marlborough Coast. Teams of 2-8 women walk, jog or run in pairs around vineyard trails of 2-8km. The team that collectively covers ers the most distance in 6 hours wins! And when you’re not hittingg the trails, it’s the perfect time to take a break, catch up, enjoy the company and have a good yak.

THE TOP SIX In early October I brought together a panel of five judges representing a diverse range of Wellington beer people – beer writers, retailers, distributors and brewers. We judged our way through more than 100 beers and came up with our top six. The standard of beer available in this town continues to rise, with 53 beers earning three stars or more out of five, compared with 32 last year. For the first time this year we ran two tables, so that no brewer judged their own beer. This year we added two categories which are growing in popularity, Sour Beers and Low Strength Session Beers. Pale Ales, IPAs and flavoured/spiced beers were the three most heavily contested categories. Fittingly, the top six, our six-pack, includes three hop-forward pale ales, one sour, one flavoured, and a now-rare example of a traditional wheat beer. Cheers!

8 WIRED F E I J OA

WIGRAM HEFEWEIZEN

Warkworth’s 8 Wired Brewery runs New Zealand’s largest barrel-aging programme fermenting and maturing different beers in various kinds of oak barrels ranging from 200 to 2,000 litres in volume. Wild Feijoa is always a favourite at beer festivals, and flies off shelves whenever it is released for sale. The judges found Wild Feijoa to be packed with tart exotic fruit notes, and hints of Rose’s Lime Cordial, over a lean dry body with a well balanced complex acidic finish.

The Wigram Brewery in Christchurch consistently produces characterful examples of classic styles of beer. The Hefeweizen is a striking example of a Bavarianstyle pale wheat beer. The judges found it to be lightly hazy with a healthy white head. Aromas of fruit salad, light caramel and spice led into a lightly malty palate and a tart finish.

F E AT U R E

GOOD G E O R G E A PA

PA N H E A D VA N DA L

PA N H E A D JOHNNY O C TA N E

MIKE’S VA N I L L A COFFEE PORTER

Good George is a rising force in Hamilton. The brewery is a large brewpub housed in the old St George’s Church. The APA is a wonderfully aromatic American Pale Ale, which the judges found to be packed with zesty aromas of tangerine, peaches and nectarine, all backed up by a wonderfully clean lean malt backbone.

In the industrial backblocks of Upper Hutt, Panhead is building a craft beer empire based on big assertive hop-forward pale ales. The Vandal is an expertly brewed example of a New Zealand hopped India Pale Ale. The judges found it a gorgeous combination of tropical citrus and, over-ripe pineapple, all backed up with a sweet malt backbone.

In an unprecedented turn of events Panhead has managed to produce two beers in the top six. Johnny Octane is one of the Canhead range of beers, which Panhead released this year in 440ml cans. Johnny Octane is a red IPA in the classic American tradition. Assertive aromas of citrus and pine resin give way to an expertly balanced palate where rich caramel-laced malt carries and balances the hop flavour.

Mike’s in Taranaki are one of the nation’s oldest craft brewers. The brewery has an iconic flagship mild ale in its Organic Ale, but it also excels at stronger styles of dark beer. VCP is an imperial porter flavoured with coffee and vanilla.The judges found VCP to be redolent of coffee, chocolate, and vanilla. On the palate rich malt, roast malt, espresso and sweet vanilla culminate in a gloriously balanced finish.

F E AT U R E

Stoke Recognition DDA A complex combo of New World hop character and light esters, fruity hops and sweet malt lead into a bracing bitterness.

4.5 4 3.5 3

LOW STRENGTH / SESSION / MILD Typically: Session beers are lower-alcohol versions of existing styles of beer. Increasingly these beers are hop-forward pale ales brewed at reduced alcohol levels. Dark Milds are traditional session-strength nutty chocolatey ales. Renaissance Clipper A wonderful example of the style, complex citrus layered over husky whole-grain malt with a lean dry finish. Mike’s Organic Ale Complex nutty chocolate notes layered over a lean malt backbone with a dry finish. Renaissance Empathy A crystal clear beer with sweet citrus hop aromas, a lean body and a bitter finish. Croucher Low Rider Earthy hops, layered over a decent malt body and a sweet full finish.

WHEAT/ SAISON

GOLDEN L AGER / PILSNER

Typically: Wheats can take a range of forms from hoppy modern versions that combine tart wheat with fruity hops and sometimes spicy yeast characters to traditional banana and clove-laced German-style versions. Saisons are dry spicy farmhouse ales.

Typically: Crisp clean and pale golden hued, with clean hop aromas that sometimes take on a big fruity hop character.

Wigram Hefewiezen Lightly hazy with a healthy white head. Aromas of fruit salad, light caramel and spice led into a lightly malty palate and a tart finish.

Croucher Pils A complex aroma of wholegrain malt, candied orange oil, sweet malt and citrus hops on the palate with a lingering hoppy finish.

Panhead Whitewall A striking golden hue with aromas of lemony hops, melon fruit and pineapple, and a lean dry malt backbone.

Wigram Bavarian Pils Light wine-like esters and subtle hops lead into a sweet malt-accented palate.

Panhead Port Rd Pils Clear gold with a ripe, overt citrus aroma, a well balanced palate of hop flavour and sweet malt.

Panhead Hermann Holshot A complex combination of lemony hops and fruit salad esters resulting in a tropical cocktail.

Regent 58 Session IPA Bright citrus hop aromas layered over a whole grain malt body and a clean finish.

8 Wired Saison Sauvin An inviting combo of fruity hop character and exotic spicy yeast notes. On the palate earthy hops and sweet malt lead into a dry yeasty finish.

8 Wired Semi Conductor A lovely citrus hop aroma leads into an earthy hop flavour and a strident hop finish.

Spark Prospector Clear gold with a yeasty hit of spice, candy-sugar sweetness and a rounded finish.

GOLDEN ALE/PALE ALE/ BEST BIT TER Typically: Golden ale and pale ales combine pale malt character with sometimes overt fruity hop characters. Best bitters combine richer copper-coloured malt character with some fruity yeast character and a decent hopping. Good George APA Packed with zesty aromas of tangerine, peaches and nectarine, all backed up by a wonderfully clean lean malt backbone.

North End Super Alpha An enthusiastic head gives off citrus and stone fruit hop notes which leads into a crisp well balanced palate with a dry finish. Stoke IPA Earthy hops and marmeladey esters leads into a lean mouth feel with a mineral finish. North End Amber Copper coloured with a white head, aromas of stonefruit, caramel, jammy fruit and toasty malt leads into a rich malt palate. Fork Brewing Godzone Beat Tropical fruit, and fresh malt aromas lead into a ripe fruity palate with a well balanced finish. Panhead Quickchange Aromas of mandarin, passionfruit and a hint of grass gives way to a lean austere palate. Emerson’s Bookbinder Some earthy hops and light fruit notes lead into a lean malt body with some cereal notes. Panhead Supercharger Tropical hop aromas lead into a lean malt body and a firm dry finish. Croucher Pale Ale Sweet citrus hop notes and toasted malt character leads into a lean body and a dry finish. Emerson’s 1812 Mandarin and whole grain malt aromas lead into a lean malt body and an assertive finish.

F E AT U R E

NEW WORLD IPA/ RED IPA/BLACK IPA Typically: India Pale Ales present intense hopping over supporting malt bills to create exotic fruity aromas and flavours. Panhead The Vandal A gorgeous combination of tropical citrus and over-ripe pineapple, with a sweet malt backbone. Panhead Johnny Octane Aromas of citrus and pine resin give way to caramellaced malt which balance the hop flavour. Mata Matawhaka Pineapple hop notes and some warming alcohol lead into lean body and a clean finish. Epic Armageddon An enthusiastic head broadcasts aromas of pine resin and grapefruit; on the palate it is austere and dry with a firm bitter finish.

SOURS Typically: Brewed with wild yeasts and bacteria, sour beers exhibit varying levels of tart acidity with lean malt character and sometimes fruit notes. 8 Wired Wild Feijoa Packed with tart exotic fruit notes, hints of Roses Lime cordial over a lean dry body with a well balanced complex acidic finish. 8 Wired Hippie Berliner Fruity hop aromas of passionfruit and citrus lead into a lightly acidic dry palate with a tart refreshing finish.

Mata Volcano Toasty malt and tropical fruit lead into a savoury malt-accented palate with big toasty malt dominating the finish.

Panhead Blacktop A confected aroma of caramel and chocolate leads into a dry palate with milky notes. Emerson’s London Porter Aromas of light milk chocolate and toast give way to a lean body and a roasty finish. Stoke Recognition Rich Sweet aromas of chocolate malt and biscuits gives way to a toasty sweet palate. Yeastie Boys Pot Kettle Black Chocolate biscuit aroma leads into a sweet rich malt palate with a big roast finish.

Funk Estate Pucker Up Corn and nutty malt aromas lead into a clean palate with fruit notes and a dry finish. Fork Brewing Yoghurt and Brusili A fruity nose packed with spicy fruity notes leads into a dry finish and a tart finish.

Croucher Patriot A black beer with an assertive jaffa aroma of citrus and chocolate leading into a palate redolent with citrus light and dark malt notes. Mata Tumeki Bright ripe citrus hop aromas lead into a lean hopaccented palate.

8-Wired I-Stout A creamy rich head, aromas of dark chocolate and light espresso lead into a caramelaccented palate with a decadent finish.

FL AVOURED, SPICED, BARREL AGED Typically: beer flavoured by spices, fruit, coffee, chocolate, tea, oak barrels or smoke.

STOUT AND PORTER Typically: Aromas and flavours of dark chocolate and espresso with rich malt backbones and sometimes a decent hop hit.

Mike’s VCP Aromas of oak, chocolate and a hint of roast give way to a big sweet malt body and a tannic woody finish. Panhead Hardtail Henry Aromas of oak, chocolate and a hint of roast give way to a big sweet malt body and a tannic woody finish.

Mata Matachino Aromas reminiscent of salted caramel chocolate lead into a cocoa palate and a smooth finish 8 Wired Big Smoke Aromas of bacon and bonfire give way to a rich slightly salty palate with a long sweet finish. 8 Wired Batch 2.18 A massive viscous body with legs gives up warming aromas of sweet caramel malt with a hint of chocolate and a rich finish. Wigram Spruce A complex “carrot cake” blend of nutmeg, cinnamon and dark sugar gives way to a rich malt accented palate and a well integrated smooth finish. Funk Estate Afrogato A striking cola like aroma with cherry hints and a background roast note leads into a palate reminiscent of malted sweet cola. Unique beer. Yeastie Boys Dark Matta A complex blend of pot pourri, tea and toast, with a long herbal finish. Emerson’s Taieri George Aromas of cinnamon, with hints of liquorice and a hint of toasty malt, lead into a palate that just balances the assertive spicing with caramel malt character. Yeastie Boys Gunnamatta Big aromas of herbaceous lavender, pot pourri and citrus give way to a tart lightly malty and long dry finish. Yeastie Boys White Noise Floral herbal aromas give way to a super spritzy lean slightly tart body.

5 4.5 4 3.5 3

S C A RY S P I C E W E A R S G R AY WRITTEN BY SHARON GREALLY Lucilla Gray is used to scary things happening to her. Mel B, aka Scary Spice, wore pieces from Gray’s graduate collection in a photoshoot for Fabulous Magazine (pictured above). That’s pretty scary. After finishing a four-year Bachelor of Design degree at Massey, Gray was invited to do an eight-week internship with Kate Sylvester. She says that was pretty scary too. Gray has now completed her second Paris and London fashion weeks, where she hopes to be as successful as last time when some of her pieces were selected for window display. No mean feat – she was one of only 22 emerging designers selected. Another situation Gray found scary was sitting in the same train carriage with London fashion blogger Susie

Bubble, who is known for spotlighting young and unknown talents. Bubble was surrounded by her entourage and various sycophants, and Gray was too terrified to approach her, despite wishing above all to meet the famous blogger. However, Gray is on the right trajectory. Karl Slater, a London photographer, creator of Models of London, and fashion editor of Kaltblut magazine, recently called her “one to watch,” saying that she “promises to be a household name in the very near future.” In September this year, US Vogue featured Gray in their Must-Know Designers From New Zealand Fashion Week section, saying that with “just two seasons in, she is already as the young designer to watch.” Gray is currently working on her first commercial collection.

P QÇ 7 I

www.thunderpants.co.nz

HE-HE

THE MCD ONA L D’S MONOPOLY SY N DROME WRITTEN BY DEAN WATSON

ince moving out of home and into an apartment with my partner this year, I’ve avoided wasting money. Luckily I’m a TV comedy writer, so I don’t earn any money to waste. What’s more, I’ve never played the pokies, I’ve never bet on the greyhounds and I’ve never bought a scratchy. I am not a gambling man. Last week I made the mistake of joining my partner at McDonald’s for six nuggets. Six nuggets – the condition on which I agreed to join my partner at McDonald’s. I used to like fast food, but since my late teenage years I’ve avoided it like I avoid earning a living. These days I eat healthier food. You know, like Lewis Road Creamery chocolate milk. As I nibbled my nuggets, I noticed posters on the windows promoting the McDonald’s Monopoly competition. When I was a kid, I used to play Monopoly with my brother on a fancy wooden monopoly set. Mum gave it to dad as a 30th birthday gift. For their wedding anniversary a couple of years ago she got him a goat. My mum gets weird gifts. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is Monopoly holds a special place in my heart. Right next to the six nuggets’ worth of cholesterol. I noticed my partner’s medium fries contained a Monopoly game token. I peeled it off with care and attention. The same care and attention a Tame Impala fan uses to roll a joint. I flipped the token over: Whitechapel Road. Okay, so even the Beatles wrote some duds. On the nearby tables, I noticed a few more game tokens still attached to leftover drinks and fries. “Wait here.” I removed the tokens and returned to our table. Then I did it again. Even my partner got in on the act. We laughed ourselves silly. Then I noticed some tokens that a girl opposite us had torn off her soft drink. One of them was Whitehall. Little did I know at the time that Whitehall was one of the rare tokens you need to win one of the major prizes. At that moment, and I will take this to my grave, I got up and walked out of the restaurant. Do not pass go, do not collect a $1000 Caltex Starcash card. Now it was personal. From that moment on, I decided I was going to win. A new car, a Sony TV, a cheeseburger, hold the pickle. Wipe that smug look of Rich Uncle Pennybags’ face once and for all. At first I employed the same tactic I had

on the first day. Wait in the corner until customers leave, then swoop in like a vulture and tear the game tokens from the bleeding Fanta carcass. Soon, I found I could achieve better results going through the rubbish bins. I only touched what was on the surface, because I don’t own a HAZMAT suit. However, instead of applauding my bravery, after a couple of days the food court cleaning lady was giving me dirty looks. Nobody gives a dirty look like a food court cleaning lady. Whether it was because I was going through her bins or because she also wanted to win a free Suzuki Vitara, I deserved those glares. But I ignored them. I was raking in the game tokens. Every one of them an entry into the second chance draw – more chances to win! I told myself I wasn’t gambling, because I wasn’t spending any money. I was taking the nobler, higher ground. By stealing other peoples’ food. I wasn’t winning new cars or Sony TVs, but I was winning cheeseburgers. More cheeseburgers than a man knows what to do with. I started cashing in my Instant Wins – cheeseburgers, McChicken Burgers, smoothies – and giving them to the homeless. I’m sure Rich Uncle Pennybags would have been appalled, but I gave away every one of the Instant Wins I found. By now, I was spending way too much time at McDonald’s for someone who doesn’t own shares in the company. At the end of the day, I was hanging out at the restaurants for hours at a time. Waiting for the next game token. Like a Tame Impala fan waiting for the man. Meanwhile, my partner was at home, waiting for me. Waiting for my warm embrace or waiting for me to scoop out the cat pooh and stuff it down the side of the rubbish bin I don’t know, but waiting for me nonetheless. This year has been the toughest year of my life. I’m not a gambling man, but I moved from Australia to New Zealand to live with my partner in a tiny apartment. And I’m still here. And she’s still here. I got up, bid the food court cleaning lady good evening and went home. But make no mistake. If one of those 147 entries into the second chance draw doesn’t win me something, the food court cleaning lady will be very happy indeed.

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ART + DESIGN

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6 - 21 NOVEMBER 10:00am - 4:00pm A showcase of emerging artists and designers from the College of Creative Arts Bachelor and Masters degrees.

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AndreA Moore CloCkwork Gold exChAnGe I love UGly I love PArIs MIssy’s rooM rICoChet rUby shAllA Jewellers tAylor boUtIqUe tory & ko vIGI workshoP

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EDIBLES

RU N N I NG ON A GUT FEELING High Value Nutrition has announced funding of $10.9 million to accelerate the translation of New Zealand-led science into scientifically-validated food products for the Asian markets. Dr. Elizabeth Forbes-Blom, who is head of gut immunology at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research at Victoria University, has been allocated $3.5m in one of the priority areas: investigating how nutrition can improve immune defence against respiratory illness. “Frequent colds, flu and respiratory infections are top health issues in Asian countries. In large, densely populated cities, with low air quality and high pollution, finding foods to boost immune defence is vital,” says Dr Blom.

CHRISTMAS TUCKER

TRUCKLOADS OF CRAFTINESS

EXTREMELY HOSPITABLE

Workshops tailored for Christmas are beginning to pop up as the festive season draws closer. Capital’s food writer, Unna Burch and Mindy from Twig and Arrow florists are running a one-off full-day workshop. Unna will focus upon a seasonal menu accompanied by a mandatory boozie beverage. Mindy will share ideas for homemade decorations and floral arrangements. Of course you get to take home a goodie bag at the end of the day. See www.theforestcantina.com to book for 5 December.

Especially popular at the Crafters foodtruck market has been the flagon station, “21 taps of sheer goodness” as Crafters & Co. director Hadleigh Petherick describes it. Open every Friday and Saturday 4–9pm at the Crafters warehouse on Webb St the increasingly popular market features a variety of tasty nibbles. The Hot Waffle and Antojitos Taco trucks are regulars among the growing numbers attending. Last month the Greek food Truck and Hungry Monkey were welcomed.

Several Wellington outlets have been named as winners at the annual NZ Hospitality awards. The Portlander Bar and Grill took out the best restaurant award, Hideaway bar on Plimmer steps was named the best new or redeveloped bar, and North Delaware at Wellington airport won the award for excellence in training and staff development.

Gourmet Mexican Supplies

It’s the ingredients that make it taste so good. Find it all at labocaloca.co.nz

EDIBLES

B E WA R E ! G R I L L M E AT S B E E R AND KARMA COLA “A burger and a cola go together like Jesus and a beard and this combo is nearly spiritual,” says Simon Coley, co-founder of Karma Cola, who has teamed up with Grill Meats Beer, to create the Karmageddon, a burger to “blow your tastebuds and your mind.” The

purpose of which (aside from being delicious) is to donate $1 from every burger sold to the Karma Cola Foundation, which supports cola farmers in Sierra Leone. “Although the world drinks about two billion cola-branded drinks a day, the people who originally discovered the stuff haven’t made a cent from all that cola drinking. Karma Cola is trying to set this record straight. After ten years of civil war and more recently the outbreak of Ebola, the people who grow cola in the eight villages we work with

need a hand,” says Coley. The Karma Cola Foundation has established a fund to develop resources and support toward economic independence for these farmers and their families. The US $60,000 generated so far has helped build a bridge, put more than 50 children through school and built a rice-processing centre. “We call it Thirst Aid” says Coley. The ‘Karmageddon’ burger aid will be available at Grill Meats Beer on Cuba St from 5 November, for one month.

BUSY NEW TOWN BEES

A MATURE FLAVOUR

Millennials are those born between 1980 and 2000. An American survey has shown that they spend more on dining out than the rest of us. A whopping 80% of people in this bracket are willing to “splurge” on dining out even when money is tight. On average millennials in the USA will spend $174 per month dining out, whereas others will spend only $153. Incidentally, 40% of this younger generation are inclined to order something different every time they eat at the same place.

Late last month Wellington’s first urban farm turned new ground. WorkerBe Oasis is a local society that develops underused land to produce food and distributes the produce amongst local people. Half of the produce goes to Kaibosh, to give to needy families. Head gardener Linnea Lindstrom says the farm teaches “bio-intensive growing techniques adapted for urban spaces.” She has been designing and teaching permaculture for fifteen years and says that according to a recent UN report, “the future of our food security lies in local organic farms.”

L’affare celebrated 25 years in business last month. From its College Street base, L’affare was a front runner in the coffee business, roasting blending and selling around New Zealand and its hipster cafe led the way in the capital’s coffee culture. General Manager Dean Divehall estimated they have poured more than 4.5 million coffees and served more than 8.9 million customers in that time.

creative 7287

MILLENNIAL MUNCHIES

www.emersons.co.nz

FOREST CANTINA

RIBS WITH A MEMPHIS-STYLE BBQ GLAZE UNNA BURCH

familiar sight at my place over summer is the boys standing, arms crossed with a beer tucked in, around our humble charcoal Weber BBQ on the deck, getting smoked out, watching meat cook. We live surrounded by thick bush with lots of native trees around – so if you don’t get a mozzie bite (or ten) you know it’s not warm enough. When I was growing up we used to have a tiny portable charcoal BBQ, which my Dad would keep in the car over summer. I remember often going to the beach (usually Porangahau in Hawke’s Bay) and Dad cooking sausages on it, or pūpū (‘cat's eyes’ shellfish) we had collected from the rocks, cooked in

INGREDIENTS Serves: 2–3 (with sides) 1.3 kg free-range pork ribs (I used two ribs, each about 40cm long) 4 cups (1 litre) pineapple juice 1 cup brown sugar For the BBQ glaze 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 onion, finely chopped 3 cloves garlic, crushed 1 cup ketchup 3 teaspoons brown sugar 3 teaspoons molasses 1 teaspoon mustard powder 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar 1 tablespoon Worcester sauce A dash of your favourite hot sauce 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (more if you want it really hot!) Salt to taste

seawater in a pot for Mum. Those humble little charcoal BBQs are a nostalgic trump card for me, and they give so much more flavour to the food than gas BBQs. These free-range BBQ pork ribs have a sticky homemade BBQ-sauce glaze. They are cooked twice – first slow-cooked in the oven in pineapple juice to get them sweet, soft and falling off the bone. Then they are basted with a spicy sticky Memphis-style glaze, and then put on the hot BBQ to infuse with flavour and give them that crust we all want on meat, right? Soft on the inside, sticky and tasting charred on the outside – HECK YES!

METHOD

Preheat your oven to 160C. Take a large roasting tray and line it with baking paper. Put the pork in the lined tray, season with salt, pour the pineapple juice around, and add the sugar to the juice. Cover with foil and bake in the middle of the oven for two hours or until the meat is falling off the bone. (Make sure you pre-heat your BBQ towards the end of this step. Our charcoal BBQ takes about 20mins to heat.) While the meat is cooking, make the BBQ sauce. Heat the oil in a medium pot over a medium/high heat, then add the onions, a good pinch of salt and cook off for a few minutes until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic and cook until it just starts to colour, then add the remaining ingredients. Cook for about 10 minutes until the glaze is nice and thick and glossy. Taste. Season with salt and extra hot sauce if you want more kick. Set aside. Once the meat is cooked and falling from the bone, remove tray from oven and be really careful to not break the meat apart, as it is really delicate. Lift out, glaze generously with the sauce and put on a hot coal BBQ, turning carefully at least twice and basting as you go. The meat is already cooked, so just cook until you have the stickiness and amount of charring that you like. I cooked mine for 10 minutes, as I don't want the meat to dry out too much.

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

END OF THE LINE WRITTEN BY JOHN KERR

With Wellington’s trolley buses on the way out there is uncertainty over what kind of buses will replace them. John Kerr says to the council: Be brave.

Humming along with their yellow antennae sucking electricity from the over-head spider’s web of electrical wires, Wellington’s trolley buses are a familiar sight in the central city. But the time has come to bid them farewell. The Regional Council decided last year to overhaul the bus system and do away with the 60-odd trolley buses that operate on Wellington roads. As of 2017, the lumbering yellow buses are likely to be relics relegated to the scrap heap, antennae and all. It will be the end of an era. Trolley buses have been on the roads of the capital since 1924 and the current system, established 1949, is now the only one of its kind in Australasia. From Karori to Seatoun, trolley buses in Wellington cover 80 kilometers of road, relying on 160km of overhead wire. The fact that the buses rely solely on electricity drawn from the grid with zero carbon emissions also makes them surprisingly green given how long the system has been in place – post-war New Zealand wasn’t known for its strident environmentalism. However, as iconic and environmentally friendly as they are, the trolley buses rely on an increasingly creaky infrastructure. Most of the power substations supplying electricity to the overhead network are borderline antique, using obsolete 1950s technology. It is possible to keep trolley buses and just upgrade

the current system, but parts and service are not as cheap as they once were. Trolley buses are no longer in vogue internationally, having been superseded by more flexible modes of public transport. There are still some shining examples of trolley bus networks in the Northern Hemisphere, such as in Seattle and Vancouver. But the fact they are all left hand drives makes translating the buses and technology to the New Zealand situation more complicated and expensive. Estimates indicate the upgrade required for the overhead electricity infrastructure alone would likely cost the council more than $50 million. The trolley bus has other drawbacks. As anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time on a trolley bus – or driving behind one – knows, they can be a wee bit unreliable. The poles periodically come off the wires and at peak traffic times too many buses drawing power from the system can result in sluggish speeds. The reliance on overhead wires also means that one trolley bus cannot overtake another or easily take detours around road works. While the council has decided that the trolley buses are to be no more, they have yet to settle on what kind of buses will replace them in first instance. Admirably, the Regional Council has committed to eventually converting the entire bus fleet to electric buses

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

powered by hefty on-board batteries – not electric overhead spider-webs. However, the time frame on that is fuzzy at best. The current annual report suggests that diesel-electric hybrids might be a transitional step before an all electric fleet. This would replace trolley buses and eventually phase out diesel buses with hybrids that carry both diesel and electric engines. Other options on the table included sticking with cheaper but more polluting diesel buses or introducing the somewhat sci-fi sounding hydrogen fuel cell buses, which are very environmentally friendly but also astronomically expensive. The difficulty in making such decisions lies in the fact that technology is always moving forwards. There is a risk that investing in expensive new forms of transport too hastily could be an own-goal for the city. The current options for electric buses could be soon superseded by newer, more efficient models that require less charging and less infrastructure, such as charging stations dotted about the city. Buying the more established diesel hybrids, argue proponents, would offer some breathing space for the allelectric technology to develop and better models to come onto the market. While this seems like a good compromise, I argue that the council should back itself and go the whole electric hog. Dilly-dallying with hybrids will just slow the pace of change to a more sustainable and carbon neutral Wellington. More more immediately electric buses also mean less diesel exhaust in faces of Wellington pedestrians and cyclists.

New Zealand is blessed with swathes of renewable electricity from hydro and geothermal power. Although currently some electricity in New Zealand is generated by burning coal and natural gas, by and large our consciences can be at ease knowing that we aren’t simply passing the pollution buck wholly on to coal-fired power stations to charge electric buses. We wouldn’t be the first city in the world to jump on the electric bandwagon; Seoul, Bejing and Adelaide are just a few of the dozens of cities that have adopted electric battery buses in their public transport systems. The technology is available and ready to use. The bean counters would argue that cost is a factor which cannot be ignored. An independent report provided to the council highlights that hybrids come with a $600,000 price tag per bus, while all-electric models sit at a more luxurious $900,000 per bus – and that doesn’t include extra costs like charging stations and replacement batteries. But money isn’t the be all end all; as the council itself recognises, there are social, cultural and environmental considerations that need to be weighed up when making a decision on behalf of a city. Whatever comes next, I will miss watching the trolley buses whisper quietly by and the night-time flashes as sparks fly from wire junctions. And when catching the bus to work on a windy Wellington morning, I will even perhaps miss the occasional moments of quiet, stationary reflection as the driver gets out to realign a disconnected pole.

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BY THE BOOK

R E -V E R SE INTRODUCED BY CLAIRE ORCHARD

circ u l ator y your four-chambered heart pulses pulses fills up empties out shoots oxygen-rich nutrients to your extremities then your veins contract and send it back to be pumped pumped back out again around and around and so it goes and never stops your entire short life by Natasha Dennerstein, in 4th Floor Literary Journal (2014), edited by Lynn Jenner

BREAKDOWN Natasha Dennerstein was born in Melbourne to a family originating in Belarus. She worked as a psychiatric nurse for over twenty years, which gave her an interesting perspective on the human condition. She completed her MA at the IIML in Wellington and now lives in SanFrancisco, where she is an MFA candidate in Poetry at San Francisco State University. Her work has been published in a variety of literary journals and her first poetry collection, Anatomize, is forthcoming from Norfolk Press (San Francisco) In brief:

beatles & beetles

www.unitybooks.co.nz

I read this poem for the first time late on a chilly, overcast Saturday morning. The immediate effect of its direct address – “your fourchambered heart” – was an impulse to lift two fingers to my neck, feeling for the steady throb I knew I would find. Most of us only get one heart to work with in our lifetime. Amongst the busyness and noise of daily life it’s easy to forget about this backroom hero, toiling away on our behalf. Dennerstein’s poem, with its spare use of language and matter-of-fact tone, is no drama queen either. Its succinctness reinforces her portrayal of this most repetitive of bodily organs as your classic backroom performer. Perched at its corner desk in your thoracic cavity, medial to the lungs and posterior to the sternum, your heart goes about its job without fuss, pulsing away with reassuring regularity, shooting “oxygen-rich/nutrients to your/extremities”, for “your entire/short/life.” These are the facts. I found myself appreciating the reminder. Ditching my dull Saturday afternoon to-do-list I opted instead for a pulse-raising walk up a windy Wellington hillside. Despite the clouds the rain held off, and the view from the top was superb.

BY THE BOOK

M E M O RY L A N E You don’t need to be a baby boomer to appreciate the nostalgia of coffee-table tome Real Modern: Everyday New Zealand in the 1950s and 1960s ($75) by design lecturer Bronwyn Labrum. Words are the supporting act in a visual history that captures the essence of the post-war era with images of iconic objects, from Kaiapoi blankets to Beatty Wringer washing machines, Tampax to Three Flowers talcum powder. It follows the success of Te Papa Press’ 2014 book Holding onto Home: New Zealand Stories and Objects of the First World War.

PAPER’S BACK

LAB OUR OF LOVE

NO KIDDING

If you like the feel and smell of the page, forget those dire predictions about the death of the (physical) book. The number of printed books sold in New Zealand was up 12% in the year to June. Meanwhile, sales of printed books are up – and e-book sales are down – in the US and UK, with Britain’s biggest book chain Waterstones replacing Kindle e-books with paper books. Take that, Amazon.

Married for 60 years, Titahi Bay couple Neil and June Penman have devoted five of their golden years to writing and self-publishing a history marking Porirua’s 50th birthday as an official city. A Portrait of Porirua: The Creation of a Planned City (Penmanship Press, $75) charts the development of this diverse, multicultural centre, alongside a whopping 649 photographs. Neil’s award-winning photograph of a Maori elder graces the front cover.

Wellingtonian Dame Fiona Kidman joins fellow globe-trotters Alexander McCall Smith, Jane Smiley and Lloyd Jones in Lonely Planet’s Better Than Fiction 2: True Travel Adventures from 30 Great Fiction Writers ($29.99). It’s the sequel to Lonely Planet’s best-selling 2012 collection of the same name (minus the ‘2’). In her tale “The Road To Lost Places”, Kidman remembers a frightening turn of events as she follows Graham Greene’s footsteps in Vietnam.

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BY THE BOOK

LITERATURE LOVERS WRITTEN BY SARAH LANG PHOTOGRAPHY BY SWIFT & CLICK

Imagine a pub crawl where, instead of listening to that annoying drunk guy, you can listen to writers speak, read, perform, debate, banter, even make up stories on the spot. That was the idea behind the first Lit Crawl, held in San Francisco in 2004. It was so popular that Lit Crawl spread all over America and, in recent years, to Europe. The second LitCrawl Wellington – the only one in Australasia – hits the central city this month.

or this we can thank Claire Mabey, coordinator of the New Zealand Festival’s Writers Week, and her musician boyfriend Andrew Laking. The couple met in 2013 when Claire – then a producer for the Tauranga Arts Festival – booked The Southgate Band through Andrew, who had brought the collaboration of Irish and US musicians to New Zealand. Eventually Andrew and Claire met in Wellington, and at first were just friends. After they went separately on the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl in 2014, Claire decided to bring the event to Wellington. “There’s such a strong literary scene here, with all the independent publishers and writers, and Wellingtonians are quite up for things like this.” With Writers Week held only every two years, there was certainly scope for an annual literary event. With encouragement from people who run similar literary events elsewhere in the world, she and Andrew decided to give LitCrawl Wellington a go. “I’ve always liked the idea of thinking up something, making it happen and learning as you go,” Claire says. They didn't just import an overseas idea, she says. “We put lots of time into adapting and refining the Lit Crawl concept for Wellington.” Soon after romance bloomed, the pair pulled off the first LitCrawl Wellington in November 2014 with a tiny budget, borrowed equipment, no professional stage managers and just a few volunteers. They expected 200 people. Two thousand turned up. “We were slightly overwhelmed,” Andrew admits.

While some people were turned away from packed sessions, nothing went wrong production-wise, and positive feedback and interest in the next event poured in. “So we felt confident enough to do another one,” says Claire. On the evening of Saturday 14 November, 85 writers – mostly locals – will perform in15 core events in small local venues, including the Wellington Chocolate Factory and the premises of Six Barrel Soda. Everything is within crawling distance, with entry by donation to keep it accessible. The idea is that some people will hear about LitCrawl in advance, while others will stumble upon sessions. The challenge for attendees is to choose one event from the five held simultaneously at 6pm, the five at 7.15, and the five at 8.30. World-renowned performance poet Doc Drumheller will lead a Haiku Hike from the Mount Victoria lookout to town, encouraging walkers to create their own haiku as they go. But my picks are “RAD Talks” (subversive writers on politics, prejudice and protest) at the Paramount at 6.00pm, then “What We Write About When We Write From Prison” (arts practitioners share prisoners’ creative writing) at Hashigo Zake at 7.30pm, and finally the LitCrawl Pub Quiz at Little Beer Quarter at 8.30pm. Theres also an after-party at the Paramount at 9.30. You can also make a weekend of it, with five associated events between Friday and Sunday. Two are free, including Storytime for little LitCrawlers, and

BY THE BOOK

three are ticketed. For one of them, two Australian writers have adapted their world-toured show Women of Letters to New Zealand: seven well-known Kiwis including Jacinda Ardern and Deirdre Tarrant (Capital’s agony aunt, Dear Deirdre) will read letters to the women they once imagined they’d be. How do you arrive at a line-up that’s quirky and has something for everyone? Claire and Andrew start by brainstorming, and also ask for ideas. “We have a seemingly never-ending list of people and ideas,” says Claire. “Between planning, production, organising and wrangling, it’s a lot of work.” Applying for funding was time-consuming. The Wellington Community Trust and Wellington City Council funded LitCrawl last year, joined by Creative NZ this year. The couple has also set up Wellington Treasure Trust (a treasurer/secretary joins them on the board) to raise funds primarily for LitCrawl, and eventually other arts events. In August, the Wellington Treasure Trust was runner-up in the Rising Star category of the Wellington International Airport Community Awards. A range of other businesses have offered support, both financially and by donating their goods and services, and Andrew built litcrawl.co.nz himself. The pair also stages arts events through their joint company Pirate & Queen, with various volunteers and occasionally a few paid helpers. For instance, they developed the programme and produced the events for the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival in February. Claire takes the lead on all things literary and Andrew on all things music, such as “A Short History of Jazz”, a four-part series of jazz presentations and performances held in 2014 and 2015 at the Wellington Museum, and recorded by Radio New Zealand National. Andrew, 41, has always been mad about music. After studying at Wellington Polytechnic's jazz conservatory, he followed some musician mates to Ireland. He co-founded the band Gráda, which released five albums of traditional Irish folk music and toured the world, with Andrew on double bass and vocals. Gráda disbanded after a decade in 2011, and

Andrew moved home in 2012. He spent much of the next three years working on the book and accompanying CD The Empire City: Songs of Wellington (andrewlaking.com) to mark Wellington’s 150th year as the capital. Weaving together Andrew’s text, archival photographs and Bob Kerr’s evocative paintings, Pirate & Queen published this pearler of a history in September in association with Victoria University Press. Andrew also wrote and performed many of the songs, alongside guest artists including his friend Bret McKenzie. Andrew continues to bring (mainly Irish) musicians to tour New Zealand, sometimes playing with them. At just 30, Claire is now the Tauranga Arts Festival’s associate director. For the past nine months she's been staying with her parents in her hometown. When the biennial festival finishes in November, she’ll move back into Andrew’s Island Bay home for her second stint coordinating Writers Week (March 8–13), assisting programme manager Kathryn Carmody. Writers Week has just announced a taster of 2016 internationals including Booker-nominated novelists Andrew O’Hagan and Patrick deWitt, and funny fantasy writer Jasper Fforde. Claire, who has also worked as a publisher and editor, is looking forward to meeting them. “For me, Writers Week is the perfect combination of publishing and festivals. It gives me access to writers I’ve never heard of and ideas I didn’t know about.” Meanwhile, the couple’s own idea is creating work for an industry of perpetual freelancers. LitCrawl pays a modest fee to the writers and to theatre companies that stage events. But Claire and Andrew didn’t pay themselves last year, and are getting very little this year, in order to get the event established and keep entry by donation. The self-confessed workaholics can’t even guess how many hours they’ve put into LitCrawl. “We turn the computer off, sleep, wake up, turn the computer on,” Andrew jokes – well, half-jokes. “But we love it.” And, as they agree, it doesn’t feel like work when you’re doing what you love. LitCrawl Wellington, November 17, litcrawl.co.nz. Writers Week, March 8–13, festival.co.nz.

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Deirdre Tarrant Dance Theatre presents two magical Christmas treats. The Very VERY Hungry Caterpillar a story book ballet and Degas Deconstructed a classical trip down an imaginary artist pathway. Directed by Deirdre Tarrant with costumes by Jane Ferguson.

The all-singing, all-strumming Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain returns to Wellington celebrating 30 Plucking Years. Transforming iconic songs into ukulele masterpieces they’ll be playing old favourites and new songs including Pharrell Williams, Amy Winehouse, Patti Smith and Lady Gaga. “First rate” – New York Times Saturday 28 Nov - 7.30pm 2:12 pm Fowler Centre Michael Book at ticketek.co.nz / 0800 842 538

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HOUSE

THE D O L L’ S HOUSE WRITTEN BY SARAH LANG | PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANNA BRIGGS

About a hundred years, and lots of alterations later, a little house with a view up a steep path in Lyall Bay is still a cosy home, and its latest owner delights in the changes and the history. A few years ago, New Zealand Festival publicist Sarah Chandler looked out the window of her Lyall Bay home and saw two middle-aged men and a woman taking photos on her front doorstep. They introduced themselves as the nephews and niece of the former owner Nola Hayes, so Sarah invited them in for a drink. “They reminisced about the past and told me about the history of the house,” Sarah recalls. “It was called the doll's house, because it was little and white.” Indeed, the original cottage was tiny, with just four boxy rooms: kitchen, lounge, bedroom and bathroom. Nola’s father bought it for her in 1957. In the 1970s, she added on a tiny bedroom with its own entrance for her nephews, who lived with her while studying at Victoria University. By 2007, after half a century there, Nola could no longer manage the steep path, and had to sell. It wasn’t just about the best price for Nola, who asked to meet Sarah before signing the papers. “She was very particular about who she sold it to,” Sarah says. “No property developers.” Sarah passed Nola’s inspection – and the house passed Sarah’s. “Though I can't say I took to it immediately. Nola was a wonderful Christian woman who worked with the Salvation Army and gave a lot to charities but she wasn’t interested in aesthetics at all. I walked in, saw the kitchen was carpeted pink with peach walls, and thought ‘Can

I turn this around?’ But I fell in love with the view and the privacy.” Around the same time, Sarah had a year of successful treatment for breast cancer. “Cancer didn't really change me. I know some people say cancer often prompts an epiphany of sorts, but that wasn't the case for me." Changes were coming for the house. In 2013, Sarah's builder dad, Ronnie Chandler, managed the extensive renovations. The steep backyard was landscaped, the old kitchen became the spare room, and the focus was on creating an open-plan living space. Knocking down a wall (between Nola’s living room and the nephews’ old bedroom) combined two rooms, and this space was extended further by adding a new kitchen down just one step. While the three generations of the house now form one huge living room, they are still distinct spaces, each telling a tale about the history of the house. “I like the feeling of marking the passage of time,” Sarah says. The house has stood sentry over Lyall Bay for nearly a century. Curious about its history, Sarah looked in the National Library archives and found a 1911 photo overlooking Lyall Bay with its distinctive headlands and only a dozen or so houses visible on the flat. “That’s the exact view from my front door,” Sarah says. Whether or not the house was built by then, it was up by 1936, because, according to the January 18, 1936 edition

HOUSE

of the Evening Post a labourer living at her address fell off his bike, lacerating his scalp. Sarah found the news brief in digitised archive Papers Past – next to an ad for De Witt’s Kidney and Bladder Pills – and wondered what happened to the man. “It’s interesting to imagine other lives lived here.” Her research has uncovered some interesting goings-on, too. “The house was taken over by the Home Guard during World War Two, though there’s some dispute about whether it was their tearooms or a look-out for the Japanese.” Today visitors love to look at that view. Sarah holds an annual summer BBQ, has hosted a fair few parties, and often has friends over. “My friends’ kids pretend that’s the stage,” she says, pointing to the lounge’s raised middle section. Here, two built-in bookshelves testify to Sarah’s love of reading – and her organisational powers. One bookshelf is organised by colour, with orange covers giving way to grey. “It’s meant to be a reflection of the bookcase opposite with all its colours.” That bookcase is more of a display case: for not just coffee-table tomes but also an African drum, a plant, a bowl of green apples, a yellow bowl. When she gets the itch, she moves them around. Here and elsewhere, bright colours pop against the white background. "It's weird, because I've never been a big fan of bright colours," Sarah says. But she thinks they’re needed to offset all the white walls. On the kitchen wall, $2 blue arrows from Iko Iko are artfully arranged. Hanging on other walls are a textured beeswax painting by Wellington artist Nicki Stewart, and two colourful abstract paintings from Nood. “I don’t pretend they’re high art but they brighten up the house – and I’m into symmetry.” She’s also into wallpaper, indulged in her bedroom. “I quite like that wallpaper removes the need for decoration.” And she’s into lighting, from the industrial-chic blue lights in the kitchen and the bright fabric lampshades in the lounge through to the LED bunny lamps (“$6 from The Warehouse”) on the bookshelf. “I don't like a very

bright room. Lamps are cosier, especially when the fire’s going.” That’s the perfect time to curl up with a book. Sarah, who has an English literature MA, isn’t particularly sentimental about possessions “but if a fire destroyed the books, I’d be pretty devastated.” Recently she hasn’t had much time for reading, busy in her third stint as publicist for the New Zealand Festival opening in February. Sarah is particularly looking forward to author/filmmaker Miranda July’s one-night show “Lost Child!” and the circus/theatre show “La Verita” with its enormous Salvador Dali backdrop. “I never imagined I could combine my interests and my job so closely. I’d always thought of the arts as a luxury, but now it’s part of my daily life.” She oscillates between the biennial festival and communications contracts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: a year with one, a year with the other. “You’d be surprised by how much the two jobs actually have in common: both are about diplomacy and [managing] relationships." Sarah has mainly worked in communications since her first job as a citizenship officer at the Department of Internal Affairs. She spent five years as publications editor at the New Zealand Defence Force, for whom she co-edited the 2012 Sinai Journal, based on interviews with Kiwis who’d served with international peacekeeping force the Multinational Force and Observers over 30 years. A proud Wellingtonian who grew up in Silverstream and has lived in Brooklyn and Mount Victoria, Sarah feels at home in Lyall Bay. “You can hear the waves at night, and the planes don’t bother me. And I love the quirky, quaint places in the neighbourhood: Queen Sally’s Diamond Deli, Elements Café in the old post office, the Time Cinema [a private theatre/cinema].” But it’s also tempting to stay in. “This place has the feel of an apartment but the view, the privacy and the backyard of a normal house. I don't know if I’ll have 50 years here, but then again I might.”

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ABROAD

FA C E T O FA C E WRITTEN BY SUE UPTON

“To look at a portrait is to meet with a person. What matters is for an artist to depict a person, with whom they have stood face to face.” This is how the director of the Danish National Portrait Gallery, Mette Skougaard, Director of The Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark explained her understanding of portraiture to members of the New Zealand Portrait Gallery European tour.

e were at the National Portrait Gallery in Frederiksborg Castle, at Hillerod, north of Copenhagen. Eighteen of us, mainly Wellingtonians on a tour organised by the Friends of the New Zealand Portrait Gallery to visit the national portrait collections of Denmark, Sweden, Scotland and England. The tour was led by Joy Dunsheath and accompanied by the former director of the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Avenal McKinnon. It began in Copenhagen and would finish at the BP Portrait Award 2015 at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The portrait collections of Denmark and Sweden are both housed in historic castles with beautiful grounds. Frederiksborg is also the home of the Danish National History Museum. It was founded by the brewer J.C. Jacobsen as a department of the Carlsberg Foundation. Portraiture here encompassed more than faces. Next to a modern portrait of three generations of the royal family we saw a display of the Queen’s robes. Amongst the formal gowns was a brilliant red and yellow raincoat made from PVC tablecloths the Queen had bought in London. The portrait as primarily an image of an individual was emphasised again in Sweden, where the head curator of the Swedish National Portrait Gallery, Lena Karlsson, told us, “Whatever medium an artist chooses the human being is still paramount. The portrait is the

only face-to-face encounter we have with those whom we cannot reach across time and space.’ We visited the gallery on Midsummer Eve which is celebrated in Sweden as the start of their long summer holidays. People get up early to pick flowers to decorate the maypole and make wreaths to wear on their heads. It is all very pretty; but June 2015 was wet so the picnics and dancing were rained off. Lena Karlsson gave up her day off to accompany us on the 70km bus ride to Gripsholm Castle at Mariefred on Lake Mälaren, where their portrait gallery is housed. She and other knowledgeable guides enriched our experience everywhere we went. The Swedish Portrait Gallery claims to be the oldest in the world. It originally focused on important Swedes, mainly elderly men. Their conservative priorities gradually mellowed, and in recent decades photographs have been admitted. This year their 2015 Portrait of Honour is a photograph by Sanna Sjosward of writer and holocaust survivor Hedi Fried. The elderly woman’s hands cover her eyes so I’m uncertain if this is a face to face portrait. Whatever, I had definitely met a strong and determined woman. This for me was one of the most memorable portraits. All the portrait galleries place a strong emphasis on history. Most of us could recognise Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie, but our

Left to right: Frederiksborg Castle exterior, Copenhagen The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art,Copenhagen Frederiksborg Castle interior Stockholm, Sweden.

ABROAD

knowledge of Scandinavian history was full of holes. Guides with a gift for storytelling helped fill the gaps, as we came face to face with people who had played a significant role in the history of their countries. Power and influence did not guarantee happiness. People in most of the portraits looked decidedly miserable – dynastic marriage and political intrigue was no fun. Copenhagen and Stockholm, both built on water, are beautiful, accessible cities to visit. Five days in each gave us plenty of time to explore. The overwhelming impression is of style and good design. In Copenhagen everything from their modern opera house, opened in 2005, to the simplest spoon and fork has clean lines and graceful shapes. Design is innovative and quirky: a white rabbit mows the lawn at the Tivoli Gardens. At the Alexandra in Copenhagen we had retro-designed hotel rooms but also Wi-Fi, delicious nutritious breakfasts, and bicycles for hire. Cycling is big time in Copenhagen. Outside the railway station the stacks of bicycles look like a steel sculpture. It is claimed 45% of the population bike to work, school or university. As we got off the bus we were repeatedly warned not to step into the cycle lanes. The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art on the North Zealand coast is set in a park, with the modern sculptures arranged on the hillside looking across the sound to Sweden. In England the parkland setting of Hagley Hall in Worcestershire gave an added dimension to our visit. We were shown round Hagley Hall and its picturesque park by Christopher Lyttelton, 12th Viscount Cobham. He had spent from 1957 to 1962 in New Zealand when his father was governor-general. He enthusiastically explained his plans to recreate the 18th-century landscape. The park is also an integral feature at the Burrell Collection in Pollok Country Park near Glasgow. Here a wall of glass had the visual effect of bringing the woodland into the gallery. The flower arrangements at the Karen Blixen Museum at Rungstedlund are works of art in themselves. In 1931 Karen Blixen returned from Kenya to Denmark to live in this house, where she wrote Out of Africa and Babette’s Feast.

Blixen loved to arrange flowers for her friends, and the museum has continued this charming tradition. Of course the tour was not all about portraits. A bonus was that art galleries have great cafes. The Portrait Restaurant at the London Portrait Gallery is famous for its food and view across Trafalgar Square down Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament. In each place we had a free day to do our own thing – there was time for shopping, dining, meeting friends, and extra sightseeing. My husband’s highlight was the Vasa Maritime Museum in Stockholm. The Vasa, the most expensive and ornamented galleon ship of the 17th century, sank just minutes after it was launched in 1628. The Vasa was raised and salvaged in 1961. It was restored and now dominates the most visited museum in Scandinavia. There is even detailed analysis of some of the ill fated passengers, their face, teeth, diet and clothing, thanks to forensic science. It was interesting to compare the European portrait galleries with our own and to meet the extraordinarily welcoming people connected with them. In Edinburgh Anne Buddle, director of National Collections, had us all to dinner and took us to Hopetoun House and the National Trust village of Culross. The New Zealand Portrait Gallery is much newer than its European counterparts. It was registered as a charitable trust in 1990 and moved to its present home in Shed 11 in 2010. But its aim, to present portraits of the people who have shaped our country’s development or influenced the way we think about ourselves, is similar. All the galleries we visited hold an annual, or biennial, portrait competition. In Denmark for example the competition is open to all media and receives entries from painters, sculptors, photographers, video artists and installation artists on an equal basis. They attract entries from all over the world. In New Zealand we have the Adam Portraiture Award overseen by the Portrait Gallery here in Wellington. We are delighted that the next one, in 2016, will be judged by Mette Skougaard. Entries for the Adam Portrait Award close 9 December.

Top to bottom: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, exterior. Portrait of Honour, 2015, Photograph by Sanna SjĂśswĂ¤rd, Heidi Fried, holocaust survivor, Swedish Portrait Gallery. Image: courtesy Swedish Portrait Gallery. 79

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. CLOUDS OF SMOKE I like smoking – cigarettes, cigars, and rollies. I have smoked since long before I met my partner, I smoked when I met her, and now she wants me to stop. I don’t have any children, she has two nearly grown up. I don’t want to stop and it is becoming a bigger and bigger issue between us. Do I owe it to her to stop? Unrepentant, Nelson You sound like a selfish school boy and not a grown-up at all. Get a life and stop smoking. Otherwise your partner is watching you kill yourself slowly but surely. Be grateful that she cares, and you owe it to yourself to get a grip on your health and this habit. There is no shortage of research to support the facts, so grow up and live the rest of your life for longer.

A B O OBY My mother has offered to pay for a breast reduction operation for me as a birthday present. I am insulted and offended by her

suggestion. She was a very good looking woman and very proud of it. Please don’t tell me she means well. I am 45, not 20 and think she meant the offer nastily. Should I accept it? Annoyed, Pauatahanui You are 45! It is your decision and you don't sound as if you even want this operation, Let it go, don't accept, don't waste your time wondering if she is being nasty or nice. If she was good looking you almost certainly are gorgeous just the way you are. You have better things to do.

D O GGONE FAMILY My children want a dog. I know I would have to look after it, it’s no use saying get them to do it. They would, but I know despite my best efforts I would end up having to also take care of it. Am I being mean continuing to say no? Weary Mother, Karori You sign off as Weary Mother and this says it all! It certainly won't be fair to the children or the dog if you start with this exhausted attitude. Yes, dogs are hard work, for everyone; and yes, the work would largely fall to you – but having a pet is a wonderful experience and is like having a very best friend in the family. It will definitely be a lesson in responsibility and sharing, but there will be such magic times as part of that. You do not say how old your children are; maybe wait a little till they are older, and first get some Red Bull and kick-start yourself to a more energised and enthusiastic space!

CHRISTMAS BIFFO My partner has rose-tinted glasses about Christmas being a special family day and wants to invite my extended family. I have tried to explain that our families are very different and don’t celebrate in the same way but she is not listening. I quite like my family and we have some good times but when they all get together and party there is always some aggro and a bit of biffo as the night goes on. She says she won’t mind but I know she will be horrified and then it will take months to calm things down again. We could go overseas but it’s really expensive at Christmas time. Should l risk it? Trying to help, Otaki Christmas is a time when the rose-tinted spectacles don't always deliver. This goes right back to childhood when the wishedfor present failed to materialise BUT it is a special time and should be shared. Maybe your family will be on their best behaviour for your partner? Maybe not but I think you should 'just do it' and plan an early exit strategy to friends’.

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B A B Y, B A B Y

A LIFE OF PEACE BY MELODY THOMAS With the Little Dragon approaching her third birthday with all the passion of a sixteen-year-old, there were several things I considered writing about this month. The joys of language! The still not sleeping! The tantrums! I even got so far as writing 500 words along those lines. And then I stumbled upon a photo essay that stopped me in my tracks. In 'Where the children sleep,’ published on the website for Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, photographer Magnus Wennman takes a different approach from the fear-mongering of dehumanising headlines about a “migrant swarm,” photographing individual, displaced children in the places where they now sleep. Five year old Lamar lies on an old blanket in a cold forest, trying to sleep through her shivering. Esra, 11, Esma, 8 and Sidra, 6, drowse in a pile of limbs, but wake distraught from dreaming of their father, who disappeared after being abducted. Five year old Tamam fled her home two years ago but still struggles to sleep because nighttime air raids on her hometown have made her afraid of her pillow. Faced with just a few of the millions of children who will never return to their bedrooms, I am suddenly overcome with embarrassment at my complaints over LD’s refusal to spend all night in hers. I remember before we were parents, when those with children would confide that they couldn’t bear to see kids in pain anymore. That World Vision ads made them cry, or that they couldn’t watch the news. I remember thinking this was ridiculous – why would having children make you feel more? But I get it now. Every time I see one of these images I can’t help but cast myself in the role of the parent, and for a split second feel the gut-wrenching torment they must feel – watching their children suffer, powerless to stop it. In crises like these the temptation is to switch off – to avoid the links and the news stories. It’s much less distressing to pretend this isn’t happening, and living on an island in the

middle of the ocean means that’s not hard to do. I am sick of crying over my computer, of staring at desperate children whose eyes sting from tear gas, who ribs are protruding, who are exhausted but too scared to sleep. But I won’t let myself look away. Because in a country whose Parliament places more importance on the drinking rights of Rugby World Cup fans than cries for a long-overdue increase to the refugee quota, public opinion can make a difference. Perhaps it’s true that a large increase in our refugee quota would change the face of New Zealand. Once when I was younger I tried to picture a different, more diverse New Zealand and I remember feeling frightened. That’s what happens when you’re born with a certain amount of privilege – the idea of handing some of it over becomes terrifying. And like you, we have worked hard to provide for our family, for LD to have her own bedroom. But we were also fortunate as regards indicators like skin colour, opportunities for education and country of birth. What right do we have to the privileges awarded us in this completely random, unthinking lottery? You know what’s more terrifying than relinquishing privilege? The fact that this year the UN reported one in every 122 people in the world are displaced by war, violence and persecution. That’s a mind-blowing statistic. And it’s so many babies. As a child I was taught that being a Kiwi meant standing up for what you believed in. Taking care of each other. Fighting the good fight. When I think about the changing face of New Zealand these are the things I care about holding on to – not rugby or number 8 wire or fish and chips. One day our children will learn about this crisis, but it’s up to us whether they learn from shameful pictures in history books, or directly from children like Lamar, Esra, Esma, Sidra and Tamam – their new friends and classmates, safe and secure in a country that offered them a chance at peace.

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