Capital 47

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

FIT FOR A KING DECEMBER 2017

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CAPITAL

MADE IN WELLINGTON

R

ecently Wellington airport announced an agreement with a Chinese company to progress the proposal to extend the airport.

They acknowledge that it is still contingent upon approvals, but unsurprisingly they want to be able to make progress efficiently should the consents and court cases be resolved.

I understand the objections to the project but think we also need to keep in mind the requirement for our region to grow and develop, to maintain the lifestyle we want all to enjoy.

I drive frequently to and from the eastern suburbs, and pass the WCC sports centre, a project which was stalled for some years while interest groups argued about the perfect location for it. And I remember then-Councillor Ian McKinnon justifying his vote for the current site, saying we’ve spent years negotiating with other locations, including the port, so it could be built near the railway station; council officers tell us we need this facility; we want people to be more active; it’s council’s job to build infrastructure; we should build this now, and future councils can build another in a better location when it’s needed.

I think of these considerations and suggest that sometimes we need more of the ‘can do’, less of the ‘it shouldn’t be allowed’.

In this Christmas issue, we talk with Marcia Page who celebrates 30 years in the art business, and Laura Pitcher looks at violence among the tinsel. Our chefs, the Shearer mother and daughter optimistically offer a summery ceviche dish, while at the opposite end of the fish scale Melody Thomas tells us about the hagfish, unlovely but fascinating.

Janet Hughes avoids airports and tells us about rail travel in the USA, and Sarah Lang collates a special spread of book choices to help sort all those difficult present decisions.

Red cabbage doesn’t quite have the same ring as gold, frankincense and myhrr, but we couldn’t leave you without another of our Christmas gifts and this year we offer the Three Kings. And a DIY Christmas cracker. Have fun.

Merry Christmas.

See you all in 2018.

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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 Instagram @capitalmag 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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Alison Franks Editor editor@capitalmag.co.nz

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.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Staff

FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS

Alison Franks Managing editor editor@capitalmag.co.nz Campaign coordinators Fale Ahchong fale@capitalmag.co.nz Griff Bristed griff@capitalmag.co.nz Haleigh Trower haleigh@capitalmag.co.nz Lyndsey O’Reilly lyndsey@capitalmag.co.nz General factotum John Briste d john@capitalmag.co.nz Art director Shalee Fitzsimmons shalee@capitalmag.co.nz Designer Luke Browne design@capitalmag.co.nz Editorial assistant Laura Pitcher laura@capitalmag.co.nz Accounts Tod Harfield accounts@capitalmag.co.nz Gus Bristed

Distribution

Contributors Melody Thomas | Janet Hughes | John Bishop Beth Rose | Tamara Jones | Joelle Thomson Anna Briggs | Charlotte Wilson | Sarah Lang Bex McGill | Billie Osborne | Deirdre Tarrant Francesca Emms | Sharon Greally | Craig Beardsworth | Sharon Stephenson Claudia Lee | Dan Poynton

ANNA BRIGGS Ph oto g r aph er

L AU R A P I T C H E R E ditori a l Assi st ant

Anna is a young freelance photographer, 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

When Laura finished her design degree at Massey last year, she realised she doesn’t just like laying out words; she likes writing them too. Luckily, her role as editorial assistant lets her do both. She’s recently polished off a Master of International Journalism and has been lurking around the Capital office for nearly three years.

Stockists Pick up your Capital in New World, Countdown and Pak’n’Save supermarkets, Moore Wilson's, Unity Books, Commonsense Organics, Magnetix, City Cards & Mags, Take Note, Whitcoulls, 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.

Thanks Jenni Filman | Lauren Anderson Claudia Lee | Calypso Hird Siobhan McIvor

TA M A R A J O N E S Ph oto g r aph er

GRIFF BRISTED C amp ai g n C o- ordi n ator

Tamara has recently returned from Australia where she spent a year honing her photography. She loves soft light, falling shadows and fashion. Check her work out at tamarajonesphotography.com

Griff grew up in Mt Vic and after flying the coop several times, somehow finds himself working there now. He is a surfboard-riding, rugby-playing, plane-flying salesperson with a love for adventures. Not to mention Harry Potter, food and dogs.

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CONTENTS

12 LETTERS 14 CHATTER 16 NEWS BRIEFS 18 BY THE NUMBERS 20 NEW PRODUCTS

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TALES OF THE CIT Y Football’s a family affair for Alex Rufer

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28 CULTURE

WE THREE KINGS They’ve travelled far and come bearing gifts

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30

VIOLENT NIGHT

THE BUSINESS OF ART Page Blackie Gallery celebrates 30 years

The season of cheer can bring seasonal fear

BAO AND BEERS WINE AND WONTONS DINE IN OR TAKEOUT

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CONTENTS

Bonu s

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54

MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE

CHRISTMAS CR ACKER

Fashion for the party season

DIY dining decor

45 FASHION COLUMN 52 LIFESTYLE BRIEFS 57 FISHY BUSINES 58 EDIBLES

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NOVEL SUGGESTIONS Bookish folk share their top picks for Christmas gifts

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SHEARERS TABLE Christmas Caribbean ceviche

62 LIQUID BRIEFS

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BUBBLES FOR ALL BUD GETS Joelle picks her five top bubbles for the silly season

72 SPORTS BRIEFS 74 ABROAD 86 WELLY ANGEL 90 TORQUE TALK 92 BABY, BABY 86 CALENDAR 88 GROUPIES

STOP STOP AT AT

MODERN MODERN ASIAN ASIAN HAWKER HAWKER FOOD FOOD

N E W Z E A L A N D S Y M P H O N Y O R C H E S T R A

EXPERIENCE THE HIGH

LETTERS

LIGHT UP THE HARB OUR I attended the Lower Hutt light show over Labour Weekend and left feeling incredibly impressed. It was like stepping into a slice of Sydney’s Vivid festival – colourful, unexpected and interesting.

This was without doubt the standout light show of the year. Come on Wellington surely it’s time to revamp Lux and show we are actually worthy of the creative capital title.

Brenda Turner, Mt Victoria PITFALLS OF DNA TESTS I read your magazine regularly and really love it.

Last Christmas you had an amazing recipe for a vegetarian main course. It was a cheese pastry base with a roasted tomato top. Sadly I think I have recycled the mag and so haven’t got the recipe. Is there any way somebody could email it to me please? Thanks in anticipation of your help.

It was interesting to read the article this month “Greek Tragedy” as I work in diagnostic genetics and know firsthand the pitfalls of DNA. K Flintoff – Recipe sent. Ed WHAT IS ABUSE?

YUKA EGUCHI

A S S I S TA N T C O N C E R T M A S T E R

MESSIAH 9 DEC

WELLINGTON MICHAEL FOWLER CENTRE 7.30PM

vwvv VI S I T

NZSO.CO.NZ FO R TI CK E T D E TA I L S

BRETT WEYMARK COND U CTOR CELESTE LAZARENKO SOP R AN O DEBORAH HUMBLE MEZZO -S OPRAN O ROBERT MACFARLANE T EN OR JARED HOLT BASS W I T H T H E ORPHEUS CHOIR OF WELLINGTON

The current Weinstein et al furore about male sexual predators is well deserved for those who predate. At the other end of the scale come interactions like the wolf whistle. Last year a local sports shoe store was reprimanded for suggesting in a guide that when a woman hears a wolf whistle she should regard it as a compliment. I too, have always understood a wolf whistle went out to a woman whose appearance seemed impressive in the moment. It may not be courteous to whistle, but it’s not necessarily rude. I’m not sure that the reprimand was deserved. Where is the line to be drawn? And is the line to be one drawn by women excluding men from the discussion?

Is a man now not allowed to tell a woman he likes her appearance? Or is it just the whistle? I have often heard women tell men they look good.

Will one/some of Capital’s readers enlighten me?

Male reader, Kapiti Coast (name and address supplied) (abridged) DYING OKAY I’ve a number of (former) friends who’ve spent time in Newtown’s Mary Potter Hospice before they died. The people who work there are so nice, and so sympathetic, and they make it into a place where even dying seems OK. I commend the man who gave them three million dollars. But I’ve been sad to see the recent arguments over the resulting new Mary Potter apartments and the suggestion that their development is trampling on local residents’ rights.

Concerned, Kilbirnie (name and address supplied)

Send letters to editor@captalmag.co.nz with the subject line Letters to Ed

HANDEL M E SSIAH 12

In celebration of F-PACE’s double win at the World Car of the Year awards, we’ve lowered the price of the F-PACE 25d R-Sport by over $10,000.

But stock is limited, so you’ll need to be quick to take advantage of this offer, which also includes Closing Vehicle Sensor, Blind Spot Monitor with Rear Traffic Detection, Privacy Glass and Etched Aluminium Veneer.

Book a test drive today at Armstrong Prestige, 66 Cambridge Terrace, Wellington 04 384 8779 armstrongprestige.com

With its bold purposeful stance and foil stamped front grille, the New Range Rover Velar may appear rather intimidating. But remember, it’s still a Land Rover with legendary go anywhere capability. Over unfriendly terrain, it will always be your best friend. Available now, with prices starting from $134,900 plus on road costs. Book your test drive at Armstrong Prestige today Armstrong Prestige 66 Cambridge Terrace, Wellington Ph. 04 384 8779 armstrongprestige.com

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

INK INC.

F LY I N G HOME When we ask Redbird Jnr. why he’s leaving Radio Active he quotes Ferris Bueller: ‘Life moves pretty fast.

If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.’ After 12 years at the station he’s giving up his breakfast show to have more time with his baby boy. ‘I want to be there in the mornings,’ he says.

He’s not going cold turkey though. Redbird Jnr. will be doing the Sunday night show once a month and will cover the odd drive-time show.

BEX M C GILL Why did you decide to get a tattoo?

I've always wanted a tattoo and thought it might make me look cooler.

FANCY FO OT WORK

Art or rebellion?

Bit of both. When I turned 21, I wanted to do something a bit rebellious. But I also appreciate it as an art form.

A new phrase has entered workplace language, and Holly Norton is the very epitome of the ‘new collar worker.’ Already an active community volunteer for a number of causes, she left her job as a government policy analyst to work with other changemakers to develop an app to enable people to collaborate more easily. ‘I wanted to create the kind of world I wanted to live in,’ she told the Work in Progress Conference held in Wellington last month. Her story was typical of many who said they wanted to use technology for social good.

Family – for or against it?

Dad was chill, Mum was dubious and Nana said she expected it from me!

What is your favorite tattoo?

It's on my left wrist. My tattoo is for me not others, so I wanted something small and somewhere I would see it all the time.

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C HAT T E R

WELLY WORDS HALLOWEEN HICCUP A Wellyworder was scoffing fish and chips at Aro Park as dusk ushered in Halloween when she noticed two teenage witches grumpily checking their phones. She couldn’t help but overhear a subsequent call: ’Aro Park, not Te Aro Park, you egg!’

Fifteen minutes later, their two sheepishlooking skeleton dates arrived, having hoofed it from Dixon Street’s Pigeon Park (its unofficial but less confusing name).

It’s happened to the best of us.

BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK Wellington’s No Black or Grey Day, now an annual event, is a popular way to celebrate the first day of summer.

However, it has put a few Wellingtonians in a tizz. ‘What??? All day!!’ asked one.

‘Too hard!’ said another.

WARNING – SPOILERS! A Wellyworder and her daughter were having a great time interacting with actors dressed as their favourite characters while waiting in line for their Harry Potter experience to begin. Until ‘Ron’ admired a child’s costume, saying ‘you look like Bellatrix when she kills Sirius Black.’ The Wellyworder’s young daughter, who was only up to book four, was devastated.

Realising he’d just ruined it for the young reader, poor “Ron” went bright red and scurried away. A typical Ron situation, it would seem.

IT'S COOL TO KORERO Ngā mihi ki a koe mō ngā tookena, e te kaihana.

Thanks for the socks cuz.

D O N ' T L E AV E M E HA NG I NG Greta Menzies is the designer of our 5th annual Capital tea towel. Greta specialises in image making, textile and surface design. You’ll find Greta’s work on walls, mugs, and canvases, and if you’re a Thunderpants fan you may well be wearing one of her designs on your derrière. This year’s eco-green tea towel features all our Welly-faves including swimming, hills, coffee, the Beehive and a good gust of wind. Available with subscriptions and at the Thorndon Fair on 3 December.

TEA TOPS Wellington’s Richard Stratton has won the 2017 Portage Ceramic Awards Premier Prize for his work Forced Turn Teapot. The prize with a value of $15,000, was presented at West Auckland’s Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery last month. Judge Emma Budgen said Stratton’s entry is ‘a teapot steeped in history, juggling an eclectic blend of craft techniques.’ She praised its ‘brutalist structure’ and the ‘delightful whimsy of the handle.’

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NEWS BRIEFS

R U N WAY M O U - V I N G F O R WA R D A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between Wellington Airport and a giant Chinese construction firm for a partnership on the proposed runway extension. Even with the MOU there are still major hurdles. Resource consent still needs to be won at the Environment Court, there needs to be a competitive tender process, the Airport needs to raise $330 million and there’s still the court case brought by the Airline Pilots Association against the extension. A ruling from the Supreme Court on this case is not expected until next year.

PRIDE OF PORIRUA

SMART PARKS

TUNNEL TROUBLE

Pātaka Museum’s new interactive children’s gallery Our Harbour – Te Awarua-o-Porirua opened last month with a special family day of hands-on activities. Pātaka director Reuben Friend says the gallery, which features colourful murals, objects from Pātaka’s history collection and lots of interactive games, captures the essence of Porirua. Visitors are invited to explore the history of Te Awarua-oPorirua Harbour and learn about the lives of people and creatures who have lived there.

Haruatai Park in Ōtaki is getting a biking facelift. A new pump track is designed to help bikers learn to control their bikes using hills and corners. We hope it will be completed

by Christmas, says Kāpiti Coast District Council Parks and Recreation Manager Alison Law. Haruatai Park, which is easily accessible from Mill Rd, opened a new play area in April and a half basketball court last year.

Residents of the Southern Ward have until 22 December to vote for their preferred replacement for Paul Eagle. The place at the Wellington City Council table became available when the sitting councillor was elected MP for Rongotai. It’s an eight-horse race between Fleur Fitzsimons, Laurie Foon, Rob Goulden, Vicki Greco, Merio Marsters, Don Newt McDonald, Mohamud Mohamed and Thomas G P Morgan.

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NEWS BRIEFS

WAT E R WOR R I E S Wellingtonians need to be storing seven days’ worth of water, 140 litres per person, in case of an emergency. Wellington Water Chief Executive Colin Crampton says, ‘It is a fact of living in our region, where active fault-lines cross our highly populated areas, that around 1,400 kilometres of our water supply pipes are at risk in a significant event.’ Local councils are joining forces with central government to develop an above-ground emergency water supply network to meet community needs from day eight onwards after such an event. It will be ready to deploy by the end of June 2018.

MURDER AT MACLEAN PARK

APP-RECIATING WELLINGTON

EASY AS 123

Six mature pōhutukawa trees were deliberately poisoned at Paraparaumu Beach’s MacLean Park last month. Staff noticed the trees were dying. Kapiti Council parks manager Alison Law said the trees couldn’t be saved and as the poison contaminated the ground the site can’t be replanted for at least a year. Police are investigating.

Breadcrumbs is a new app helping people share Wellington’s culture. The ‘positive sharing platform’ provides a personalised experience, allowing users to increase their local knowledge, connect to places that suit their interests and explore the city confidently. Since locals Cameron Brodie and Brendan Platt launched Breadcrumbs in October more than 350 users have ‘dropped’ breadcrumbs for others to use.

Our tallest building, the Majestic Centre, has been sold for more than $123 million. The tower, which stands at 116 metres high, has been bought by Investec Australia Property Fund, a subsidiary of a South African investment bank. Kiwi Property, who formerly owned the building and oversaw the seismic upgrade, has been appointed manager of the building as part of the sale arrangement. This is the first New Zealand purchase for Investec.

DOES SOMEONE YOU LOVE RIDE A SCOOTER? Scooter survival courses available in Wellington www.scootersurvival.co.nz

BN Y ETWH E P RNOUDMUBCETRSS

12 days of Christmas 'Tis the season and all that – 12 Days of Christmas – we sang the song and tried to source as many of the items as possible from Wellington then gave up and said New Zealand.

A partridge in a pear tree

Two turtle doves

Three French hens

$40 for a pear tree 120cm high from Twigland Johnsonville. You might not be eating the pears produced this year but it’s a start.

A two-pack of Dove soap is $3.30 at supermarkets in Kilbirnie.

14% of New Zealanders with French ethnicity live in Wellington, compared with 43% in Auckland.

Four calling birds

Five gold rings

Six geese a-laying

Over 40 different species of native birds have been recorded in Zealandia's sanctuary valley.

Swimming rings perhaps?

Khandallah pool opened in the 1920s.

Grey Goose Vodka is $66.95 at Moore Wilsons.

Eight maids a-milking

This year marks 70 years since the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's first performance.

Swan Lane is one of 72 lanes and arcades in central Wellington.

Nine ladies dancing The Royal New Zealand Ballet moved to its first ever permanent purposebuilt premises in 1998, the St James Theatre.

Dairy jobs contribute to 0.9% of total regional employment in Wellington-Wairarapa.

Twelve drummers drumming

Seven swans a-swimming

Eleven pipers piping

Ten lords a-leaping

Parliament received the city's first water supply, in 1868, from a spring on Tinakori Road.

A half-day Rover Rings tour takes you to five Lord of the Rings filming locations.

Compiled by Laura Pitcher & Craig Beardsworth 1 18 8

Christmas

Full range in store now

WELLINGTON - PORIRUA - MASTERTON

moorewilsons.co.nz

NEW PRODUCTS

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Picnic d aze 1. Copper thermos – $49.95 – Moore Wilsons 2. Bambury Isla beach towel – $34.95 – Moore Wilsons 3. Wooden cutlery 32 piece set – $7.90 – Mediterranean Foods 4. Lucky You yellow cap – $39.90 – Created Homewares 5. Rigon Headwear – $39.90 – Village Beads 6. Small sun plates – $9 – Ekor Bookshop 7. Antipodes kiwi seed-oil lip conditioner – $25 – Harry's 8. Hampton ruc sac mustard – $195 – Bicycle Junction 9. Linus Mixte 8speed – $1,250 – Bicycle Junction 10. Obus Namaqua socks – $16 – Mooma 11. Bird Dog IPA 500ml – $9.29 – Emersons 12. Havana coffee beans Super Deluxe 200g – $9.59 – Havana Coffee Works 13. Castle maypole taffeta cushion – $109 – Small Acorns

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TURBO-CHARGED VEGETARIAN AND VEGAN RANGE. ARRIVING IN THE CAPITAL DECEMBER 2017

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SECTION HEADER

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

Rising Phoenix WRITTEN BY FRANCESCA EMMS | PHOTOGRAPH BY ANTHONY GREEN

PET

JJ the Jack Russell

CAFE Spruce Goose

HOLIDAY

TOP SPOT

HOBBY

Waipiro Bay

Oriental Bay

Playstation

Professional footballer Alex Rufer is hard to pin down.

T

he 21-year-old is in training or playing for the Wellington Phoenix six days a week. On his day off he’s busy trying to get as much down time as possible – ‘It’s important to unwind and relax,’ he says. That’s hanging out with friends and family, playing cards with his team mates, or just playing Playstation. At the moment he’s watching Shooter on Netflix. ‘I don’t know if I’m binge watching, but I am watching it every day,’ he admits.

But you’re more likely to find Alex outdoors than sitting on the couch. When we caught up with him he was enjoying a sunny afternoon by the water. ‘My favourite part of Wellington is Oriental Bay,’ he says, ‘I like to go swimming and fishing in the summer.’ Another popular spot for Alex is Lyall Bay, home to his favourite cafe Spruce Goose, although as an athlete he has to stay healthy, and tries not to eat out too much, often cooking at home. Is he a good cook? ‘I’m learning,’ he laughs.

Alex describes Wellington as his second home. He loves living in the capital but his heart is still in the Manawatu. ‘Home for me is Palmerston North. Most of my closest friends are there.’ Whenever he can Alex gets himself home to spend time with his Mum, Dad and twin brother Lee (also a footballer). Being home also means he can hang out with JJ the Jack Russell who has

been part of the family for almost a decade. ‘I take him for runs. He loves me. I like to think so anyway.’

Alex has been a Wellingtonian since 2013. He made his debut for the Wellington Phoenix in February 2014.

A year and a half later he made his international debut for the All Whites following in his father’s footsteps.

You see, football is a family affair. Alex’s dad is former international New Zealand player Shane Rufer and his uncle is Oceania Footballer of the Century Wynton Rufer. So it’s not surprising to hear that a Christmas tradition for this family is a big game of football. This year Alex has to be in the capital for a game and training over the festive season so Mum, Dad and Lee will come down to join the extended family, many of whom already live in Wellington. They’re expecting 15 or so people for a big Christmas feast. Alex says he leaves the cooking to the aunties and uncles.

Alex will be playing right through the summer.

In the off season, usually May or June, he’s hoping to get up to Waipiro Bay. As a kid he used to spend his summer holidays there, where, one memorable summer, they caught a six-foot sand shark ‘as big as my dad. As big as I am now.’ Ngāti Porou on his Dad’s side, Alex loves the East Coast, ‘because my family is from there and it’s awesome.’

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CULTURE

MORE T HA N LU C K Made on a slim budget in 2016, Season One of Wellington web series Pot Luck – about three lesbian friends and a pact made at their pot-luck dinners – has done very well. It’s clocked up 2.2 million unique views, and nabbed screenings and awards at international web-series festivals. NZ On Air granted writer-director Ness Simons and producer Robin Murphy $100,000 for Season Two, topped up again by crowdfunding, small grants, and support (equipment, facilities, locations, etc) from local businesses. The launch screening is on 10 December, or watch at potluckwebseries.com.

RUNNING TAPZ

NO STRINGS AT TACHED

FRESH FACED

The MTV EMA award for Best New Zealand artist went to a Wellington artist, Tapz, last month. It was a surprise win for the up-and-coming artist, who was up against the likes of Lorde, Maala and David Dallas for the fan-nominated award. Born in Zimbabwe, Tapz is thankful for recognition from Europe as he sees himself as a global artist. He performed a sold-out headline show in Russia last year. His debut EP Beautiful Nightmare was released at the end of last month.

Since 2013, Liz Sneyd and Craig Utting have provided free string instruments and free tuition to hundreds of students at 11 low-decile Porirua schools, and also run the Virtuoso Strings Orchestra, which performs locally and nationally. Working almost entirely without payment, the parents-of-five run rehearsal sessions most nights and in the weekends. Virtuoso Strings won the Arts and Culture and Supreme Awards at the Wellington Airport Regional Community Awards, and will represent Wellington at the 2018 Trustpower National Community Awards.

Dr Pamela Gerrish Nunn, a Pukerua Bay art historian and curator specialising in female 19th-century artists, suggested to the NZ Portrait Gallery that she curate an exhibition on Frances Hodgkins (above). The leading modernist painter (1869– 1947) is best known for landscape and still lifes, but Frances Hodgkins: People (16 November to 14 February) includes only representations of people, many never exhibited before.

WELLINGTON ... A BETTER VIEW

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CULTURE

LIKE MINDS The decade-long collaboration between Wellington composer Ross Harris and author Vincent O’Sullivan (left) has spawned two operas, two symphonies, a musical commemoration of WWI, and numerous song cycles.

They co-wrote two song cycles (comprising 19 songs) for soprano Jenny Wollerman, who suggested she sing them – and the pair’s five-song series about New Zealand astronomer Beatrice Tinsley – for a CD. Recorded with the NZ String Quartet and pianist Jian Liu, Making Light of Time (Atoll Records, $30) was funded by Victoria University, where Wollerman lectures at the NZ School of Music.

BEAT OF HER DRUM

HER-STORIES

NICELY HANDLED

As an industrial-design (honours) graduate at Massey University, Rachael Hall designed and handcrafted a modern take on a traditional Tongan lali (drum). Unlike the lali, Patō (“to strike”) is electronic, tuneable and portable. Hall, who is half Tongan, won an international Red Dot award in Singapore in October, awarded to leading design concepts. In November, Hall won the Supreme Award at the ECC NZ Student Craft/Design Awards. Hall, now a Massey technical assistant, wants to get Patō manufactured.

New Zealand's Got Talent’s 2013 winner Renee Maurice, an Upper Hutt singing teacher and music therapist, was 15 when she stumbled on the story of 1942’s Seacliff Lunatic Asylum fire, which killed 37 women. She’s visited the site four times, and spent a decade researching and writing musical drama Seacliff: Demise of Ward 5, staged in Dunedin in 2015. Maurice directs a local cast at Te Papa’s Soundings Theatre in December to mark the fire’s 75th anniversary.

In Japan, many artisan workshops using traditional techniques have persisted into the age of mass production, and many laypeople still hand-craft utilitarian objects for everyday life. The Japan Foundation’s country-hopping exhibition Handcrafted Form: Traditions and Techniques comes to Expressions Whirinaki in Upper Hutt through December into January, showcasing everything from bamboo baskets and paper lamps to lacquer serving dishes.

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CULTURE BRIEFS

Good things take time

Treasure hunt

By Sarah Lang

By Sarah Lang

Military historian and film buff Christopher Pugsley has been ‘nibbling away’ at his latest book for 25 years. The Camera in the Crowd: Filming New Zealand in Peace and War, 1895–1920 (Oratia, $80) was published on 29 November in partnership with Nga Taonga Sound & Vision, which Waikanaebased Pugsley has visited regularly – often weekly – since his initial 1990s research project. ‘I watched every surviving film from the period: around 300, some just 40 seconds long. Lots of local photographers made short silent films, capturing events like maypole dances and street parades.’ In some cases, he managed to view degraded material or get it restored, and often played detective to work out where and when the films were taken, helped by National Library digitised archive Papers Past. Early on, he identified New Zealand’s oldest surviving film as the 2nd NZ Contingent departing for the Boer War from Newtown Park on 13 or 14 January 1900, partly by discovering that the contingent wore jumpers. With 350 photographs and illustrations, the hardback has hyperlinks you can plug into Nga Taonga’s website to view the film mentioned. Peter Jackson wrote the foreword. ‘You are holding a treasure trove in your hands,’ he says.

In 1918, the ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic killed 8,500 Samoans (nearly a quarter of Samoa’s population) after a New Zealand ship didn’t quarantine sick passengers when it docked there. Pacific dance-theatre collective Le Moana has presented its work 1918 – about the pandemic in Samoa and resultant anger against New Zealand – in Wellington, Auckland, Australia, Samoa and at the San Diego International Fringe Festival, where it won two awards. It was written and directed by Le Moana artistic director/choreographer Tupe Lualua, who also runs the Measina Festival (7–9 December). Measina, which means ‘treasures’ in Samoan, is an annual showcase of Pacific dance, music and theatre at Pataka (which sponsors the festival). ‘We set up Measina in 2014 because the Porirua community just wasn’t exposed to Pacific dance and theatre,’ Lualua says. This year, she directs genre-blurring piece Watercress Tuna and the Children of Champion Street (based on the children’s book) featuring RnB trio Le ART and dance by Cannons Creek School students. Female choreography showcase Tama'ita'i presents works by Sophia Uele, Selina Alefosio and Jasmine Leota, while male showcase Ali’i presents short plays by Charles Masina and Mila Fati. Each year, a professional company performs and shares expertise; this year it’s Auckland’s Trip The Light Dance Collective.

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THE ART OF BANKSY AUCKLAND, AOTEA CENTRE A curated exhibition of 80 works from private collections. It is a one-off never to be seen again. Once the exhibition is over, the artwork will be returned to the various international collectors.

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F E AT U R E

Violent nights ‘Tis the season of goodwill, but not for everyone. LAURA PITCHER looks beyond this season’s predicted annual surge of family violence and asks what has changed since New Zealand’s 1995 landmark legislation against domestic violence.

C

hristmas time can bring some of our worst rates of ‘intimate partner violence’. And the rates of violence don’t tumble once the tinsel comes down. Despite feminism’s gains over the past 50 years, violence between partners is on the increase, and the associated issues are getting more complex.

During the past financial year police responded to more than 118,000 call-outs. This was up 8,000 on the previous year, which was up 6,000 on the year before, said Ang Jury, Chief Executive of Women’s Refuge. Women’s Refuge also received 50,645 crisis phone calls and had 26,699 women and children using their services. There are six refuges in the greater Wellington region.

With women’s rights improving in almost every other area since they gained the right to vote, that violence against women is increasing is puzzling. Jury says it is extremely difficult to know if it’s an increase in occurrence or an increase in the willingness to report. ‘It’s also the sort of increase you can expect to see with population growth,’ she says. The terminology pertaining to these issues has also changed, the term ‘domestic violence’ being displaced by ‘intimate partner violence’ in the field.

‘The problem hasn’t grown a lot over the past 30 years, but it hasn’t decreased at all either.’ Jury talks to me with a tiredness that comes from years of dealing with the brunt of such violence, without the resources or answers to make headway on its source.

She says the increasing complexity of cases over the past four years is a worrying trend.

Formerly, when women came to the refuge, life would be okay for them in the future if they could ensure their safety, Jury says. ‘Now what we are seeing are women with really serious mental health concerns, substance abuse issues, outstanding court issues and credit histories almost beyond repair.’

Jury thinks inequality in New Zealand and our housing problems have a lot to do with it, and the causes of intimate partner violence are likely to be similar to many other current cultural ills.

And with complexity comes new challenges.

The world is no longer ‘such a forgiving place’, she says. With credit and mental health histories following them, women are finding it more and more difficult to right their lives.

New Zealand has previously had the unenviable distinction of being among the worst in the developed world for intimate partner violence. A study in 2011 by the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse found that in New Zealand around 33% of women experience some form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime.

Janet Fanslow, the co-director of the New Zealand Clearinghouse says this puts New Zealand about middle of the world wide range. Our Pacific neighbours, for example, are sitting at about around 78%. But she says our rates are quite high compared with the rest of the OECD. These numbers seem to be out of tune with New Zealand’s feminist history. Fanslow said

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that a study by Htun and Weldon, called The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change, found the presence of a strong, independent feminist movement to be a critical factor in policy change to reduce violence against women. New Zealand has had that, she says, with the passing of the Domestic Violence Act in 1995. ‘That was probably one of the most progressive pieces of legislation on the planet. It’s the follow through that I think we’re lacking.’

Jury says she also doesn’t expect numbers to go down at Women’s Refuge until we address the country’s masculine institutions and culture of inequality. ‘We need to see things like New Zealand rugby taking a stand on the gender equity and paying the Black Ferns.’ She says. ‘We need to make fundamental changes in society before the numbers go down.’ She thinks one key change for prevention strategies might be teaching children about respectful relationships before they reach high school.

‘We’ve lived in a system of gender-powered relations and inequality for more than 150 years,’ says Jury. ‘We can’t unpick that in three years, 23 years or even in my lifetime.’ She tells me she wishes she could be more optimistic but has to be realistic. She does see optimism in the eyes of the young women in my generation however, which gives her hope that the next generation could bring change.

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But what would change look like in reality?

Fanslow says it could look a lot like Victoria, Australia, which has just invested $1.9 billion dollars in a 10-year plan to eliminate intimate partner violence. Since the issue costs New Zealand around four billion dollars a year, she sees a need to invest our money differently, focusing on prevention platforms.

We need to look at evidence-based strategies, and then build our own home-grown ones to suit our culture and history, says Fanslow. She calls this her ‘greatest frustration’ but also her ‘greatest hope’. She expects our statistics to continue to increase until we move on from worrying about whether we are the worst in the world or not, and say ‘this is a problem for a substantial proportion of our population, and we want to prevent this, change our story as a nation and we are willing to invest in that’.

While the possibilities for change appear to be endless, a solution is still a long way off.

There don’t seem to be any answers. We’ve had groundbreaking legislation for more than 20 years, and the right to vote for 120 years, but have made little headway on violence. More funding into prevention and cultural change might be the answer. The only thing we can be sure we need is a willingness to find solutions. And, perhaps most importantly, a little bit of hope.

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F E AT U R E

We Three Kings CO M P I L E D BY F R A N C E S CA E M M S P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N N A B R I G G S

Rather than gold, frankincense and myrrh, we asked these three Kings to gift us their favourite recipes for the Christmas season.

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F

iona King’s inclusion in this festive feature caused much mirth for her family. It’s not that she’s a grinch, it’s just that ‘being the product of British immigrants who did not successfully acclimatise to the antipodean Christmas of sun and warmth, December 25 was always a bit tense,’ she explains. Fiona does have fond memories of Christmas with extended family in Taupō, where some traditions were loosely observed. ‘But it was the randoms that always made it interesting,’ she says, ‘random guests; hitchhikers, briefly befriended; or friends of friends of friends.’

This year Fiona’s looking forward to a simple Christmas. She plans to reconnect with family and maybe create some new festive habits. However, ‘there are antagonists in the midst,’ she says. ‘There is talk of trees, baubles, multi-coloured phased lights, tinsel and endless festive music tracks, of Christmas crackers and paper

hats – this King avoids wearing that crown. For me, just a bowl of calming bread sauce will suffice.’

Now a funeral director at Broadbent & May, Fiona once worked for French chefs in Europe so you know her sauces will be on point. She’s gifting her bread sauce recipe, something she only makes at Christmas time. ‘You could not conjure up a reason to make this at any other time – it certainly makes no sense in a summer scene, but it is the shy accompaniment to a traditional English Winter’s Christmas dinner.’ She describes the sauce as a slow food, as it needs to quietly infuse on the stove top for a few hours. ‘Visually unassuming it gently delivers delicate aromas, warmed flavours and comforting textures. It’s not a gravy, it’s not a soup, it’s just a dollop of pleasure on a traditional Christmas plate, almost defies definition.

Works well with turkey or chicken.’

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Stud onion with cloves. Place with bayleaf and peppercorns in a saucepan with the milk. Add salt – then bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, cover the pan and leave to infuse for 2 hours or more.

Remove the onion, bay leaf and peppercorns and keep to one side.

On a low heat, add the breadcrumbs and half the butter, stir occasionally, for about 15 minutes, until the crumbs have absorbed the milk and become a thick sauce.

Once again remove from the heat and return the cloved onion, bay leaf and peppercorns. Let it just sit and wait.

Just before serving, add the cream and remaining butter – taste to check the seasoning and place in a favourite bowl.

B rea d sa uce 110g of freshly made white breadcrumbs from a decrusted two-day old loaf. Easiest whizzed.

1 large onion 20 cloves 10 black peppercorns 1 bay leaf 570 mls full fat milk 2 tbsps of double cream Salt and pepper to taste

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3 Kings O

n Christmas Eve Brian King will be returning from a five-week trip though Morocco and heading straight to Whangarei for a ‘low key’ festive season. The Senior Design Tutor at Toi Whakaari is looking forward to ‘boring the family with travel adventures, swimming at Ocean Beach on the Whangarei Heads and catching up with Dad.’ Brian’s father will be celebrating his 98th Christmas this year, ‘and we are poignantly aware that these family times with him are increasingly precious.’

Brian arrived in New Zealand just before his second birthday. ‘My parents brought with them northern English Christmas traditions. Over the years these have slowly morphed,’ he says, ‘The traditions that remain relate to food.’

Fruit mince pies and Christmas puddings are always a feature. These days Brian makes 20 to 30 dozen pies to gift to colleagues, friends and neighbours. He uses his grandmother’s recipe for the pies and for his Christmas Puddings. ‘As a child it seemed an exotic recipe that called for grated carrot

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(in a pudding!) and Bramley apples. The pudding boiled for 12 hours, six in August and another six on Christmas Day, coming out rich and black, sticky and suety.’

Another family tradition was waiting until after the Christmas meal was over before opening presents. ‘As a child the presents usually included parcels from aunts and grandparents “at home” in England, which invariably contained chocolate.’ In the early 60s parcels were posted several months before Christmas and delivered by a slow steamer that passed through the equatorial heat to get to New Zealand. So the Terry’s Chocolate Oranges always arrived out of shape from having been crushed, or melted and reformed. ‘The Chocolate Oranges never broke into segments,’ he says, ‘but despite this it was what I thought of as “the taste of home in Yorkshire”.’ This King’s gift is a taste of his childhood. ‘This chocolate orange mousse is my Proustian madeleine and evokes remembrance of things past.’

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3 Kings C h oco l a te o ra n g e o l i ve oi l m ou s se 150g dark chocolate ½ cup olive oil (I use Olivio of Martinborough’s orange infused olive oil – but you could use olive oil and the fine zest of an orange) Finely grated zest of a mandarin 4 eggs 125g caster sugar 1–2 tbs (15–30ml) of orange liqueur salt – a pinch 1/8 teaspoon of a coffee/chilli blend

Melt chocolate carefully in microwave or over a pot of simmering water. Add mandarin zest and olive oil. Set aside to cool a little. Separate eggs and beat egg yolks with half the sugar until pale and fluffy, add liqueur. Mix egg and chocolate mixtures.

Beat egg whites with salt until firm peaks form and gradually add the remaining sugar. Fold egg white gently into chocolate egg mixture until well combined. I usually grind a few coffee beans and some chilli flakes in the spice mill and sift out a fine coffee/chilli powder and add 1/8 teaspoon.

This adds a subtle depth of flavour without being obvious. Spoon into serving cups, glasses or bowl and refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours prior to serving. Serve with some sort of crispy biscuit, wafer or tuile.

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Mandar i n, fennel and cardamo m shor t bread 125g butter ½ cup icing sugar Finely grated zest of 3 medium mandarins ⅛ – ¼ tsp of ground cardamom 3 teaspoons of fennel seeds ½ cup cornflour ¾ cup plain flour

Heat oven to 150C. Beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, add fennel, cardamom and zest and mix in. Fold in the flours and mix to soft dough. Roll out between two sheets of baking paper until 75mm thick. Cut into shapes and place on baking paper/ silicon mat on baking tray.

Rest in the fridge on baking tray for 20–30 min. Bake for 20–25min until golden.

Cool on tray for 5 min before transferring to cooling rack.

Store in airtight container.

F E AT U R E

F

or Sophia Kingsbury where she’s from is never a simple answer. The Massey University student says in Denmark she’s a Kiwi, and here she’s a Dane. Born in Aarhus (to Danish/Kiwi parents) Sophia grew up mostly in Africa as the family followed her mother’s work with various humanitarian aid organisations.

‘Most of our Christmases we spent in Malawi and Mozambique. We created our own Christmases based off Danish Christmas and adapting it with what we had at the time,’ she says. ‘We had a potted fig tree we brought indoors and decorated with incredibly intricate gold Danish ornaments.’ She remembers making heart-shaped paper baskets for Santa’s elves to fill with sweets and eating traditional Danish treats.

Sophia’s Christmases are now spent with either Mum in Denmark or Dad in New Zealand. ‘It's amazing to see how much the weather influences the culture around Christmas celebrations and I love experiencing the contrast between the two.’ Sophia

says Christmas is very important in Denmark. ‘Since it's too cold and wet to be outdoors, it’s a chance to create that warm environment indoors with family. I see so many articles talking about this concept, what we would call “hygge”, which loosely translates to building coziness in the home. This would be a normal Christmas for Scandinavians − food, warmth and family.’

Sophia is gifting her roast pork recipe ‘because it would almost be un-Danish to propose anything else᾿. It reminds her of her father, who brought out a roast every Christmas in Malawi, and her grandfather. ‘Every time we visited Denmark over winter, my grandfather took us to the same restaurant every year and ordered “flæskesteg med persillesovs” (roast pork with crackling, served with parsley sauce).’

The dish is so deeply rooted in the Danish psyche that the go-to recipe for any Dane is invariably Madame Jensen's recipe from her 1901 cookbook.

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Danish Roast Pork with Red Cabbage (Flæskesteg med Rødkål) Serves 4 1kg pork breast/neck (pork belly works just fine) coarse salt & 5-6 dried bay leaves Preheat oven to 220°C – avoid fan-bake so as not to dry out the meat. While the oven heats up, slice the rind of the pork width-ways completely through the fat down to the meat. Be careful not to slice through the meat. Rub the salt into the slits of the sliced rind. Place the bay leaves in between slits at intervals so they are evenly spaced across the pork.

Place in an oven-proof dish, as close to the size of the pork as possible to ensure it cooks evenly. Put the dish in the preheated oven for 30mins.

Lower the oven temperature to 180°C and cook for 60–90 minutes until the juices run clear. Poke a skewer through the meat after 60 mins to test. Once thoroughly cooked, rest meat for 20–30mins.

Red wine sauce 1 red onion, finely chopped 2 cloves of garlic, minced 2tbs olive oil & 5 sprigs fresh thyme 400ml red wine 500ml liquid beef stock 3 cubes beef stock 200ml cream & 1tsp cornflour 50ml cold water salt and pepper to taste Brown the onions and garlic in a medium saucepan in the olive oil until mostly soft. Add the thyme and wine and boil most of the alcohol off. Add the liquid beef stock and cubes. Boil until reduced by half.

Lower the temperature to medium. Add the cream.

Mix the cornflour and cold water together in a separate cup. Add 3–4 teaspoons to the sauce, whisking it to make sure no lumps form.

Simmer until the sauce has reached desired consistency, and season to taste.

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Red ca bbage 500g red cabbage 30g butter 2tbs apple cider vinegar 200-300ml sweet redcurrant juice substitute with cranberry juice) salt to taste Thinly slice the cabbage into strips.

Place in a large cooking pot with the butter and vinegar, and cook on a medium-high heat. Stir to cover the cabbage in melted butter. Add the juice to the pot until the liquid is just under the level of the cabbage.

Simmer this uncovered for approx.

1hr, or until the juice has boiled off leaving the cabbage moist but not dripping. Salt to taste.

Serve with red wine sauce and caramelized potatoes.

F E AT U R E

The business of art P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N T H O N Y G R E E N

Marcia Page has notched up three decades selling art, and been through some rough times on the way, writes SARAH CATHERALL.

S

ince she set up her gallery 30 years ago, Marcia Page has viewed and sold some of Wellington’s most expensive and impressive art collections. The art dealer has been into homes where McCahon works hang on walls like clocks, and she and Page Blackie Gallery co-owner James Blackie have sold one of the finest and most expensive Goldies to ever go on the market.

Specialising in mid-career and senior New Zealand artists and the resale of renowned works and estates, the Page Blackie co-owners have traded works for sums in six figures, in an often secretive operation designed to protect their unnamed clients.

Says Marcia, ‘Some of the collections we have put together we can’t talk about.’

‘There are some absolutely sensational collections in Wellington worth millions of dollars.’

Three decades is a long time to run a gallery, particularly considering Marcia has kept her business afloat during two recessions. Art is a luxury good, and one of the first things that collectors stop buying when an economy slips.

Out the back of Page Blackie Gallery, the store room is a treasure trove of art works. Max Gimblett art works are stored near photographs

by Heather Straka. A bright floral Karl Maughan hangs on a wall near a Dick Frizzell work.

The 68-year-old knows many of these works intimately. Some she has known since they were just an idea, or only partly completed. One of the perks of owning a gallery is being invited into studios to view art while the artist is still hard at work.

This may involve travel. Each year, either she or James visits New York to view Gimblett’s latest works. Two months ago, Marcia headed to New Plymouth, to Reuben Patterson’s studio, to view the works he has so far completed for his next Page Blackie show.

She smiles and her eyes light up.

‘For most artists, their art is very personal to them, so to go in and see what they are working on and what they have got in mind is very uplifting. It’s an amazing privilege.’

Marcia has never picked up a brush herself, but she has a creative eye and over the years has collected art, some of which she has sold to fund her business. Growing up in Eastbourne, she attended Queen Margaret College before training as a teacher and teaching in art rooms at schools around Wellington.

Like many women of her generation, she gave up her career to raise three children (now adults), never returning to the classroom.

Marcia was a full-time mother in the 1980s when Wellington was luxuriating in a booming sharemarket. As wealthy shareholders looked for ways to spend their dividends, publications devoted pages to art collecting, which fuelled the investment art market. Marcia began building up her own private art collection, and was asked by her friends to help them curate theirs.

She was good at it, and her friends liked what she pulled together, sparking a lightbulb moment. ‘Why don’t I start an art gallery?’

Other women had set up galleries before, but the former teacher was a female pioneer in the secondary art market, where art works are

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Marcia

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bought and sold, at auction and privately.

The secondary art market was relatively new back then. Until the late 1970s, art was either sold privately, passed down families, or bequeathed to public art galleries.

Marcia signed a lease on a shop on Tinakori Road. Six weeks before she opened Tinakori Gallery, the sharemarket crashed. Amid this turmoil, her husband walked out, leaving her with three children aged 8, 9 and 11.

“I look back now and think, “How did I do it?’’ she says, shaking her head, her shark earrings swinging.

As a woman launching her own business in 1987, Marcia struggled to get finance. Banks were reluctant to work with a woman selling something of uncertain value like art, particularly a divorced one; she changed branches when a bank manager was sexist and misogynistic towards her.

The gallery’s first year was very tough. Marcia specialised in historical art – works from the 1920s to the 1950s by artists like Frances Hodgkins and Helen Stewart, along with old maps and prints.

‘It was hideous. At the end of my first year, my accountant said, “Are you sure you don’t want to go back to teaching?’

It was difficult for a woman to be taken seriously in the secondary art market, where historical works such as the Hodgkins were each worth well over $100,000.

But the determined business-woman gave herself five years to make a profit. Business got tough again in the mid-nineties, however, when the secondary market began drying up, as collectors hung onto their artworks. And interior and architectural styles, changed drastically – minimalism virtually killed the taste for for Rita Angus watercolours, and colonial art generally.

Marcia had to adapt her business to suit changing tastes, and broadened into selling more contemporary works, and into representing artists’ estates, such as the Rita Angus estate.

In 30 years, turning points have heralded better

times. One was shifting to the city – first to Featherston Street, and more recently to Victoria Street.

Another was when New-York-based Gimblett chose Tinakori Gallery to represent him 12 years ago. “We were showing Karl Maughan’s work at that stage, and Max visited us when he was over from New York and he liked what he saw. More artists want to show in a gallery where Max is.’’

And at this point Marcia considered her succession plan.

Fifteen years ago, James was studying art history at university and looking for a job. Keen to know more about contemporary New Zealand art, he googled, and Tinakori Gallery popped up.

James knocked on Marcia’s gallery door, and the art dealer gave the lanky, youthful student a job ‘stuffing envelopes’. Four months later, she hired James, and a few years later, she offered him a partnership.

Says James: ‘That was really unusual at the time, as galleries were usually taken over by a family member or started as new operations.’

‘In the early days, everyone thought she was my mother. People would say things like, “I was talking to your mother about that painting’’’, he laughs.

He is enthusiastic about what his business partner brings to the art market in Wellington and New Zealand. ‘There aren’t many dealers who can boast 30 years, and Marcia brings a wealth of knowledge and experience and I’m constantly learning from her.’

They represent 20 artists, and hold about 12 shows a year. The relationship between a dealer and an artist is a symbiotic one. For the markup the gallery puts on each painting (Marcia says the percentage varies depending on the artist), the artist gets gallery space and access to a list of potential buyers.

Asked about the difference between running a gallery and any other business, Marcia says one must have an open mind. ‘You have to be really, really flexible and prepared to change. You have to have an open mind about everything.’

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A Christmas costume

BY M EGA N B L E N K A R N E

I

t’s Christmastime! Bring on the champagne in buckets. You might have been thinking that your most important outfit this month is the one you’ll wear on Christmas Day in order to maximise your capacity for eating puddings, but ho ho ho – you are incorrect. Your most important outfit this month is your Christmas season costume.

Christmas is a time of huge social interaction, which means it’s a good time to remember the power of dressing up. Science tells us that how we dress doesn’t just influence how others see us, but how we see ourselves. So as you gird your loins for lunch with Aunty Mavis, the world’s nosiest woman, remember that the right outfit will not only convey your true awesomeness to Mavis before you’ve even opened your mouth; it will also send you a gentle subconscious reminder that you, my friend, have got this.

Picking the right costume is also about rising to the occasion that is the 10th party in two weeks, off the back of a hangover and a decided lack of vitamins. I know you want to lie on the couch with a bag of chips until the last possible minute, then blindly chuck on a

vaguely suitable outfit, but resist. Take the time to get in a fancy mood.

The best way to perk yourself up for a party is to festoon yourself in bright colours. We associate dark colours with gloomy things such as bad weather and corporate drudgery. We associate bright colours with wonderful things like holidays, sunshine and play.

Christmas is meant to be all about fun, generosity of spirit, and time with loved ones. I think we can agree that a mood of sunshine and play is going to get you a lot further in the social stakes than an outfit that reminds everyone they have work tomorrow.

Whatever its colour or style, your Christmas costume should be a bit special to you. Perhaps it’s the dress you wore the first time you met your nowhusband, or it’s the top that your best friend gave you before she moved away. Maybe it’s just a rainbowstriped, vintage silk number that makes you feel like a walking fiesta. Wrap yourself up in something colourful that makes you feel great, and that lifts the hearts of all that behold you. That’s the true (stylish) spirit of Christmas, right there.

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FASH ION

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FASH ION

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Dahlia pump navy suede – $189.99 – Wittner Hope Stockholm Bring Bag – $369 – Caughley Kiss pleated mini dress – $319 – Goodness Juni bra – $155 – Harry's Juni knickers – $125 – Harry's

Time for the Ladies Big Beauty Day Out?

Come on Ladies, indulge yourselves, get beautiful for summer.

Facial + Massage + Manicure + Pedicure + Teeth whitening

Your special group price $399each (usually $600) Call us on 04 8943880 to be emailed our complete list of beauty treatments.

Or call into see us at our place to have a cup of coffee and choose your package. Ground Floor, Asteron Centre, 61 Featherston St, Pipitea, Wellington 6011 We will give you a special discount Ladies Big Beauty Day Out price. www.Beyondskin.co www.Lovelysmiles.co

LIFESTYLE BRIEFS

UNDER THE SEA Each layer of bamboo plywood on Aran Pudney’s maps represents a depth contour under the sea. The hand crafted and fully customisable 3D maps are made by Aran at his Lyall Bay studio The Furnace. He starts by converting contour information from LINZ and marine navigation charts, revealing the concealed topography under the seas around New Zealand.

Each layer is laser cut, hand sanded and stained before being assembled in a specially designed frame. Any waste is used to make smaller pieces. Available from www.thefurnace.co.nz

SWEET DREAMS

FASHION TO WATCH

SHO OT. PRINT. SEND. STEAL.

Tessa Meadow always said her dream job was to work in children’s clothing. She began work at children’s store Kid Republic straight out of school and went on to become store manager before leaving on her OE. Tessa returned to Wellington this year to find an offer from her old boss to buy the store. She jumped at it, and Bambini was born. Bambini boasts toys and clothing for newborns right through to 14-yr-olds and is the only Wellington stockist of eco-brands Wilson & Frenchy and Paper Wings.

Wellington fashion students have taken out a number of awards in the national secondary school student fashion awards. Queen Margaret College Year 13 student Isabella Moon came second in the senior wearable arts category for her entry, ‘Double Denim’, a garment made of 50 pairs of used jeans which was displayed at Te Papa National Museum. Chenade Mead, of Kapiti College, came first in the fashion junior creative section, Leila Smith was first in the senior creative, and Pippa Gould, of Onslow College, won the senior technical section.

Paper Pirates is a guerrilla photography exhibition started by the Shutter Pirates, a couple of Auckland photographers who prefer to be known only as Tim and Joe, in 2012. Photographers print their favourite photographs and mail them to the pirates who exhibit them for one night only. At the end of the night, usually when the booze runs out, everyone steals the photographs off the wall to keep, for free, forever.

Submissions close 8 December and the exhibition is 15 December at the Potocki Paterson Gallery. Details at paperpirates.org

t s e t s a f e h t N i O J Z N n i r o t c e s g n i w o gr Developing skills and talent for the tech sector through postgraduate study.

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The Wellington ICT Graduate School is a partnership between Victoria University of Wellington, Whitireia & WelTec.

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WEEKENDS ONLY

SPECIAL

Bon us

Christmas cracker

W

hy not make your own crackers this Christmas?

Pick your own paper and use our handy dandy template to make as many crackers as you need. Not only is it WAY better for the environment but what goes in is totally up to you. So the trinkets could be actual treats rather than plastic horses or faulty whistles and you could colour co-ordinate the paper crowns. We think terrible jokes are an essential part of the cracker experience but we’ll let you make up your own mind on that.

How to: 1.

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Carefully cut around the outline of the cracker.

Cut out the small diamonds neatly (using a craft knife might help or folding the diamond in half).

Fold along the dotted lines.

Optional: Apply tape at both ends of the cracker snap and stick each end at A and B. Apply glue on the glue tabs and stick them on the corrosponding stick spaces, ensuring the bright pattern is on the outside.

Cut out one of our jokes or make up your own, place it inside the cracker and fill with goodies of your choosing. Some of our favourite fillers include seeds, lollies, homemade vouchers or the classic paper crown.

Tie around each end of the cracker with string or ribbon.

Have a cracker of a Christmas!

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You’ll need: • • • •

Scissors Glue/tape String/ribbon 17cm cracker snaps (optional, you can buy these from craft stores)

Stick Glue

Stick

FOLD

Cut out

Cut out

Cut out

Cut out

Cut out Cut out

Glue

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B

Crack Up jokes

What do you call a rainy windy day?

Summer in Wellington.

What do you call a sick food deliveryman?

Deliver sneezy.

What did the big bucket say to the little bucket on the bucket fountain?

You’re a little pail.

What did the Brooklyn windmill say to the Mayor?

I’m a big fan.

What did the Northerly wind say to the Southerly?

You blow me away.

How much does a Cuba Street hipster weigh?

An instagram.

What did the Reading cinema car park say to the earthquake?

You crack me up.

How does Lyall Bay say hello?

It waves.

What did Mount Kau Kau say to Mount Victoria?

You’re hill-arious.

Why don’t you ask a hobbit for money?

Because they are always a little short.

What’s the bus driver’s favourite dinner?

Snapper.

Stick Glue

FISHY BUSINESS

Hagfish Name: Hagfish or Broadgilled Hagfish. Also sometimes called ‘blind eel’ or ‘snot eel’.

Māori names: Tuere Scientific name: Eptatretus cirrhatus.

and dying creatures on the sea floor, burying themselves in the creature face-first, boring a tunnel through to the animal’s organs and eating them from the inside out.

Looks like: An eel, and is sometimes referred to as one, when really it is a fish with a long, naked body and skin that has been described as fitting like a ‘loosely fitting sock’. The only known hagfish fossil is 330 million years old, and the animals seem to have changed very little since. Hagfish are the only living animal (we know of) that have a skull but no vertebral column – rather a skeleton made of cartilage. Though some call them ‘blind eels’ they actually have eyes, but they are underdeveloped and sit underneath several layers of skin. Hagfish mouths are truly horrifying to behold, surrounded by six fleshy barbells with a tongue-like dental plate covered in grasping teeth.

This plate folds bilaterally and protrudes out of its mouth, clamping onto the flesh of their prey and retracting back into the hagfish’s mouth.

Catch: Most fishermen despise hagfish, as their primary defence when threatened is to secrete huge amounts of slime, making them impossible to remove from a line, and making a mess of nets or cray pots. They are targeted commercially though, and sold in Korea where they are a delicacy and believed by some to have a Viagra-like effect.

Habitat: Found around NZ and the Chatham Islands as well as the south and east coasts of Australia. While they are found at depths ranging between 1m and 900m, you’ll be glad to know hagfish prefer to spend their time at the deeper end of this range.

Feeds on: Though they have been observed actively hunting fish, hagfish mostly feed on dead

Cook: Brave souls can place a hagfish in a bucket and agitate it to encourage it to release slime – then use the slime as an egg-white replacement!

There’s even a recipe for hagfish scones online – google the museum of awful food if you’re curious.

You might need to seek out a Korean chef if you’re keen to taste the flesh, though.

Did you know? Hagfish slime contains protein threads resembling spider silk, which scientists believe might one day be woven together to produce super-strong, eco-friendly fabrics, and even possibly bulletproof vests.

If they were human they would be: While not an especially beloved animal the hagfish performs an important biological service, cleaning and recycling dead animals from the sea floor.

They are janitors of the sea!

NZ owned

Clothing, footwear, toys & accessories Capital Gateway Upstairs, 34-56 Thorndon Quay Visit our new website bambini.co.nz @bambini.nz

bambini.nz

04 473 7380

EDIBLES

FRESH F O O D , S TA L L S In March 2018, changes to the 2014 Food Act will come into force, and are expected to be felt most by small communitymarket vendors. The changes will require anyone who sells ‘food’ to spend up to $900 in licensing and verification costs. ‘Food’ includes products such as olive oil and herbal teas. Vendors are exempt as long as they grow the fruit or vegetables themselves, or are occasional sellers. The law is intended to create a consistent system for food safety, said MPI director Peter Thomson.

L’AFFARE GETS LIT

NOURRITURE À LA JARDIN GRILL

CHO COLATE COATING

Wellington institution, Café L’affare will shut their doors for six weeks over the holiday break, for refurbishments. They plan to return transformed. The cafe will close from 22 December till 10 February. You will still be able to find familiar faces and coffee only a stone’s throw away at their Moore Wilson’s pop up food pod outside the fresh section. They will also operate out of a shipping container in the Wilsons carpark on Ghuznee Street during the closure.

Around the world, each of the Frenchowned Sofitel hotels finds a connection with France, and Sofitel Wellington has chosen the Wellington Botanic Gardens to parallel the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. The connection is visible, so far, in the name of the grill (above) and the dessert on offer, Le jardin du Printemps. Roy Giam, formerly of Charley Noble, has been appointed executive chef.

Artist Gina Kiel designed the wrapping paper for Aotearoa’s very first single-origin, bean-to-bar, block of milk chocolate. Look out for the distinctive rainbows and goddesses.

Gina featured in Capital (issue #11) and also designed the Christmas tea towel for us in 2014. The chocolate is made with organic Peruvian Criollo beans, and milk from the Organic Dairy Hub Co-Op.

稀攀戀爀愀渀漀

䌀甀爀愀琀攀

娀愀欀攀琀 ☀ 倀氀漀瘀攀爀

匀椀爀攀渀

䴀攀最愀渀 匀愀氀洀漀渀

䌀漀搀攀

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䰀攀洀漀渀 吀爀攀攀

EDIBLES

RARE BEANS Luke Owen Smith, who was head judge at the 2017 New Zealand Chocolate Awards, has launched a chocolate delivery service through The Chocolate Bar, his everyday business. Luke personally selects rare craft chocolates from all over the world, to be delivered to subscribers each month. These include bean-tobar brands such as Marou from Vietnam and The Chocolate Tree from Scotland. First-time subscribers will also receive a personal chocolate tasting notebook.

SOUL FO OD

WHAT’S NEW PUSSY CAT?

ORIENTAL ON THE PARADE

Alexandra Bell & Stacey Horton, met at the University of Otago. Now they run the food truck Soul Boul, creating smoothie bowls inspired by those sold in Bali and packed full of superfoods such as acai, turmeric and matcha. Soul Boul travels the North Island, and has spent the last couple of weeks in Wellington before heading north. They can be booked for private or corporate events, for which they will travel.

Wellington’s first cat adoption cafe is now open in Jackson St, Petone.

Neko Ngeru opened last month to allow visitors to hang out with some kitties and get to know them in a relaxed environment before committing to taking them home. The cat area is separated off by double doors at all entry points, so the cats cannot dash out, and the cafe part is a regular cafe offering the usual fare and bottomless T Leaf tea.

Lily and Laili Chin are the former owners of Eatwell Chinese Takeaways in Heretaunga. Early reviews suggest that they did this very well. They have turned their talents to a more haute cuisine version of Asian fusion in Pomelo on Oriental Parade, in the old White House digs, above Beach Babylon. So far the reports suggest they are transitioning from chicken and chips to fine dining quite well.

THE perfectlY bAlAnced ipA BIrD

DOG

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S H E A R E R S ' TA B L E

Christmas Caribbean ceviche

BY N I K K I & J O R DA N S H E A R E R

C

eviche is a typically South American raw fish dish, marinated in citrus and spiced up with good ol’ chillies. In New Zealand we more often see the milder, coconut-infused version made by our Pacific Island neighbours. The Caribbean’s ceviches, however, combine the best of both worlds. This summer, after you have caught your gorgeous fresh fish, make sure you give this dish a go. Traditional ceviche was marinated for about three hours but since we're no longer in

INGREDIENTS

Ceviche

the 70’s we have sped things up a little and, with the appropriate fish, it can marinate in the time it takes to mix the ingredients, serve, and carry the ceviche to the table. It will probably be gone just as fast! We’re kind of cheating here as there's no cooking involved in this recipe. But, this dish is made for summer days out on Wellington harbour. Just prepare everything but the fish, sit back with wine, and ask the fisher folk what the hold-up is.

METHOD

2 tsp ground cumin ½ tsp ground coriander ¼ tsp white pepper ½ tsp smoked paprika ½ tsp sweet paprika pinch of cayenne pepper 1 clove of garlic 2 red chillies, seeded and thinly sliced juice of 3 limes 500g very fresh white fish fillets, thinly sliced ¼ red onion, very thinly sliced ½ telegraph cucumber, halved lengthwise, seeded, and diced 2 tomatoes, finely diced ½ mango, diced large handful of fresh coriander or mint leaves ½ cup coconut milk ½ avocado, thinly sliced chive flowers to garnish salt and pepper to season

1.

2.

1 ⅓ cup milk 3 Tbsp canola oil 3 cups all-purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder 2 tsp salt 4 cups canola oil flaky sea salt

1.

Tor tilla Crisps

Combine the first six spices together to make spice mix.

Lightly crush a garlic clove and rub all over the inside of a stainless steel bowl.

3. In the stainless steel bowl combine the chillies, spice mix, and lime juice.

4. Thinly slice fish and add to mixture in bowl. Cover and place in the refrigerator for 15–20 minutes until the fish just starts to become firm.

5. While the fish is marinating, prepare the rest of the ingredients.

6. Add the onion, cucumber, tomato, mango and ¾ of the herbs to the fish. Add coconut milk and stir to combine.

7. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

8. Leave in the fridge for five minutes before gently stirring, and checking the seasoning again.

9. Garnish with sliced avocado, remaining coriander leaves and chive flowers.

10. Serve with handmade tortilla crisps.

Pour milk and 3 Tbsp oil into a small saucepan and heat until warm.

2. Mix flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and pour the heated milk on top.

3. Mix together with your hands to form a dough.

4. Knead dough for 3−4 minutes.

5. Cover with plastic wrap and rest for at least 15 minutes.

6. Divide dough into 12 even portions.

7. On a lightly floured surface roll out each portion into circles as thinly as possible with a rolling pin.

8. Cut into triangles (you determine the size).

9. Pour 4 cups canola oil into a heavy-based saucepan and place on medium heat.

10. Heat to 170 degrees or until it turns a piece of bread golden in a minute.

11. Add tortillas in batches and cook until golden, turning as needed. They should only take 2−3 minutes to cook.

12. Drain on paper towels, and season with salt.

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LIQUID BRIEFS

PHOENIX LIVE Beers at the Basin takes place on December 9 at the Basin Reserve. More than 30 vendors are confirmed, including Tuatara who made two of the top six beers in our annual Capital 2017 Beer Necessities tasting (see issue #43). Headlining this day of imbibing will be the Phoenix Foundation, who also turn 20 years old in early 2018.

FRESH AND FRUIT Y

BATS IN THE BELFRY

TEN YEARS CLEAN

New Zealand sports an RTD version of almost every famous drink. So Lilli steps in with New Zealand’s version of alcoholic spritzer in a bottle endorsed by Lindauer. Made with sparkling water and a base of New Zealand apples and grapes, it comes in three different flavours. Lilli has just been released in four-packs for summer.

There’s a steady flow of interesting and quirky beers gracing our palates these days, but the larger breweries aren’t known for being adventurous. Perhaps Macs are trying to dispel this impression with their new ‘Fruit Bat’. This passionfruit IPA is available in a distinctive purple four-pack all summer. It delivers the fruit flavour without sweetness.

Arguably New Zealand’s most famous beer, Steinlager, is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Steinlager Pure by jazzing up the packaging, whilst keeping the recipe the same. It is made with only four ingredients: water, malted barley, Pacific Jade hops and yeast. Tokyo Dry, the newest addition to the range, was released one year ago.

Buon Natale · Merry Christmas

Pandoro or Panettone? Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas in Italy and at Mediterranean Foods without these delicious cakes!

Every year there is a split between the Panettone or Pandoro lovers. Some find Pandoro too simple and buttery, while others dislike raisins and candied fruits which abound in Panettone. If you’re in any doubt, simply get both, you won’t be disappointed!

MEDIFOODS. C O. N Z

LIQUID THOUGHTS

Bubbles for a ll budgets

BY J O E L L E T H O M S O N

In a can, under a screwcap or in a book? Sparkling wine is everywhere right now.

B

ubbles keep appearing this month, and sometimes in slightly disturbing packaging. Prosecco in a can doesn’t do it for me, not only because wine warms up too quickly in hand-held tin, but also because the taste is… well, flat and lifeless are words that sprang to mind.

Big name bubbles can be disappointing too, and I’ve had more than one in my tastings over the past month. It can be surprising to find low-priced, super nice Prosecco and Moscato that offer outrageously good value for money, often delivering more freshness than posh bubbles. That said, New Zealand winemakers are catching onto the idea that our climate is ideally suited to crisp fresh flavours in sparkling wine. With these thoughts in mind, I selected the following as my five top bubbles for the Christmas season that is upon us.

B est b re kkie bub b les ( l ow- i sh a l co h o l ) Castello del Poggio Moscato $16.99 It’s been called everything from girly to retro, but Moscato d’Asti (moscato from the town of Asti) is too darned delicious to ignore. It’s lighter in alcohol than any other wine that delivers this much flavour, thanks to the Moscato grape, and it won a gold medal at the Berlin Wine Trophy awards in 2014. This is the best value Moscato I have found in New Zealand yet.

Drink with pannetone, Christmas cake or bacon and eggs.

Late l unch l usci ousness La Gioiosa Prosecco $22 If you thought Prosecco was taking over the sparkling wine world, well, you’re right.

The Italian fizz first eclipsed Champagne in global sales in 2013 and it’s been on a roll ever since. Prosecco must be made from the Glera grape in north east Italy to wear the ‘P’ name. It’s accessibly priced and rocks a fresh, crisp, lemon vibe. La Gioiosa (pronounced joy-oh-sa) tastes consistently fresh, and won a gold medal at the New Zealand International Wine Show.

Drink with lunch.

After noo n del i g ht Hunter’s MiruMiru NV $25 High-end bubbly has a huge amount of capital tied up in the making of it, so it’s rare to find wine of this quality (dialled up yeasty flavours, super fresh and a long finish) at an affordable price. The wine has yeasty complexity, fresh crisp acidity and a long finish.

Drink with friends and family on Christmas Day.

Fresh French fi zz Champalou Vouvray Brut NV $35 The Loire Valley, known as the garden of France, is home to the town of Vouvray, which is code for top notch Chenin Blanc, made as both still and sparkling wine. This

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year, the Champalou family was named as one of the top 100 wine producers in the world by the USA’s Wine & Spirit magazine.

Didier and Catherine Champalou handpick the chenin grapes for this bone dry bubbly, which is fermented in stainless steel followed by a second fermentation in the bottle (the same method as champagne but significantly better value for money). This wine has spent two years on yeast lees in the bottle following fermentation, which adds complex flavours and a long, clean finish.

Drink with fresh salads, goat’s cheese or seafood.

Di nner decadence Champagne Bollinger Special Cuvée NV $88 to $100 Bollinger is one of the few big name champagne houses to eliminate herbicides in its vineyards. Champagne Bollinger was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2016. Its viticulturist (overseer of grape growing on its 184 hectares of vines) and chef de cave (winemaker) are moving away from chemical sprays. Aside from their green cred, the makers of Bollinger have always been quality focused. The company owns a higher percentage of its own vineyards than most big bubbles producers, allowing lower yields which usually means higher flavour concentration.

They use oak for primary fermentation of the wines, which is unusual in Champagne and softens the wines. They also age their wines for longer than usual in bottle, prior to release. Bolly is consistently very good.

Drink anytime.

SECTION HEADER

BY THE BOOK

N o ve l suggestions B en Schrader We asked the authors and bookish folk

Ben's The Big Smoke: New Zealand Cities 1840–1920 (Bridget Williams Books, 59.99) won the non-fiction prize at the 2017 Heritage Week Book Awards. (see issue #41)

we have profiled recently to share their top picks for Christmas gifts and summer

I’m reading: Redmer Yska’s A Strange Beautiful Excitement (Otago University Press, $39.95). I’d read Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington stories with some recognition of the places she features, but not always pinning them down to an exact spot. Yska forensically unpacks these stories and takes us to these places, while also identifying the real-life Wellingtonians on whom Mansfield’s characters were based. It’s a fascinating read, not least for the way Yska himself mirrors Mansfield’s love/hate relationship with their birthplace, Wellington.

reads. Expect some surprises.

On My Wishlist: A book I would like to receive for Christmas is Fiona Farrell’s novel Decline and Fall on Savage Street (Vintage, $38). Last year I avidly read the companion non-fiction volume The Villa at the Edge of Empire, which documents some of the struggles Christchurch people faced after the 2011 earthquake. The novel also features the event and I imagine it will be equally absorbing.

To give: A book I plan to give to someone else (very close to me) for Christmas is the cookbook Nikau Cafe ($60) by its partowner and chef Kelda Hains. I’ve always enjoyed the sophisticated simplicity of her food and her seasonal approach to it, so I’m looking forward to trying to replicate some of her dishes, although the recipient will have first dibs!

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BY THE BOOK

Ti l ly L loyd

Lee Mur ray

Tilly is co-owner of Unity Books and was a fictioncategory judge for the 2016 Ockham NZ Book Awards. (see issue #43)

Lee is an award-winning writer of speculative-fiction and fantasy who recently co-edited secondary-school anthology Write Off Line: Alter Ego. (see issue #43)

I’m reading: I’m reading quite a lot right now. Diana Wichtel’s book Driving to Treblinka: A long search for a lost father (Awa Press, $45) is a triumph; so too is Jennifer Egan’s literary noir thriller Manhattan Beach (Hachette, $37.99).

Rebecca Solnit’s ‘mansplaining’ collection of essays The Mother of All Questions (Granta, $28) about women who refuse to be silenced is a sequel to bestseller Men Explain Things to Me; I’m wondering if it will get the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. I’m also reading Armistead Maupin’s memoir Logical Family (Transworld, $40), which recounts the conservative ‘straightsplaining’ he endured before landing safely in LGBTIQ San Francisco.

I’m reading: I love the Kiwi summer: time to kick back in a lawn chair and read for pure enjoyment. Right now, I’m indulging in a wonderful sneak peek of an epic fantasy called The Blank Spaces, the second book in Mark Johnson’s enthralling FireWall e-book series, published by New Zealand’s fledgling boutique publishing company Cloud Ink. The first book in the series, The Madman’s Bridge, is available online now, and it’s a fantastic read. Johnson is definitely an author to watch.

On My Wishlist: For Christmas I’m hoping to find a copy of speculative blockbuster Subhuman

by US writer Michael McBride under the tree.

A huge fan of McBride’s work, I always think ‘he’ll never top that’ and then he ups and does it.

Judging from the advance reviews, I’m expecting Subhuman (available online) to be dark, gripping and utterly compelling.

To give: Christmas presents I’ll be giving will include Oliver Sacks’ posthumous essay collection The River of Consciousness (Picador, $38), and two genre-defiant books: Catherine Chidgey’s The Beat of the Pendulum (VUP, $35) which draws from scraps of language she encountered in daily life, and Han Kang’s The White Book (Portobello, $27.99), an illustrated meditation on the colour white. And I reckon Caspar Henderson’s New Map of Wonders: A Journey in Search of Modern Marvels (Granta) looks pretty grunty; possibly the Fruitallica of nonfiction. Highlighting the power of wonder, it spans everything from the origins of the universe to the technological dramas to come.

To give: I recommend The Frankie Files by Wellington author A J Ponder (also available online), chronicling the adventures of intrepid inventor Frankie, with her inquiring mind, dubious spelling, and penchant for trouble. Featuring an escapee tomato monster, a rebellious homework machine, and a dangerously effective time-travelling device, this series of interconnected tales is perfect for the kids.

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BY THE BOOK

M a rco S on zog n i

Al i son Ba l l ance

Poet and literary translator Marco is Victoria University’s Reader in Translation Studies and its Italian language and literature lecturer. (see issue #36)

Alison who presents science show Our Changing World on Radio New Zealand, is the author of New Zealand’s Great White Sharks (Potton & Burton, $29.99). (see issue #40)

I’m reading: Limanora: The Island of Progress (1903), a 711-page dystopian novel

by New Zealand writer Godfrey Sweven.

This book earned Sweven a nomination for the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was nominated by John Macmillan Brown, James K. Baxter’s maternal grandfather and formerly professor of English literature at Canterbury College. It turns out Sweven was actually Brown’s pen name, so he nominated himself for the world’s most prestigious literary award. After all sweven, from the Old English swefn, means a vision or dream.

I’m reading: Much more than a book about birds, Seabirds Beyond The Mountain Crest: The History, Natural History and Conservation of Hutton’s Shearwater (Otago University Press, $45) by English seabird biologist Richard J Cuthbert is beside my bed right now. It’s everything that long title promises and more: an adventure story set in the remote inland Kaikoura Range, an inspiring blend of big landscapes and intricate biological detail that I look forward to every evening.

On My Wishlist: I’ve had geologist Bruce Hayward on my RNZ show a few times, and his stories about the rocks under our feet bring them alive. I have my fingers crossed that Out of the Ocean, Into the Fire: History in the Rocks, Fossils and Landforms of Auckland, Northland and Coromandel (Geoscience Society of NZ, $45) will be accompanying us in the car on our Northland holiday.

On My Wishlist: For Christmas, I’d love to get The 7th Function of Language (Penguin, $35) by Laurent Binet, translated from the French by Sam Taylor, and described by the New York Times as a ‘postmodern buddy cop novel that sends up the world of semiotics’. Having glimpsed the epigraph and the first couple of pages – featuring philosophers Derrida and Barthes – I know this is the crime fiction of my dreams.

To give: I’m planning on giving my mother Bird Words: New Zealand Writers On Birds (Vintage, $35), an anthology edited by Elisabeth Easther that includes 62 essays, poems and book extracts from some of my favourite writers, including Laurence Fearnley, Matt Vance and Sue Wootton. The dainty drawings of natural-history illustrator Lily Daff bring alive birds from the kakapo, kokako and kaka to the sparrow, starling and seagull. An avian delight.

To give: As I’ve been doing for the past 10 years or so, for Christmas I will gift a book by the late Irish poet and Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney. This Christmas it will be Seeing Things (Allen & Unwin, $32.99), one of the most powerful collections of poems I’ve ever read.

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BY THE BOOK

Tin a M a kereti

Sara h Lang

Tina is co-editor of Black Marks on the White Page (Penguin Random House $40), an anthology of Māori and Pasifika fiction (see issue #42)

Capital’s books and culture writer, has been neglecting her towering to-read pile to comb through the best new kids’ books.

I’m reading: I’ve just begun Michalia Arathimos’s novel Aukati (Makaro Press, $38), which I'm excited about for several reasons.

I studied creative writing with Michalia and I know she’s a bloody good writer. The book is about fracking in Taranaki and the dynamics of a protest around that and I was surprised and pleased to see some Greek language as well as Māori in the text. It's not just the mix of languages but also the mix of cultures that makes it really interesting.

Stocking stuffer: My three-year-old Theo’s (above) favourites are Wolfy by Grégoire Solotareff (Gecko, $29.99), a humorous, heart-warming story about a rabbit and wolf making friends, and Oliver Jeffers’ cosmic explanation Here We Are: Notes For Living On Planet Earth (HarperCollins, $29.99). Theo loved discovering whether Dad will cook waffles, eggs or just plain toast in The Longest Breakfast (Gecko, $29.99) by author Jenny Bornholdt and illustrator Sarah Wilkins, both locals. Pat Chapman’s The Tallest Truck Gets Stuck (Upstart, $19.99), and Dawn McMillan’s three-in-one book I Need A New Bum! and other stories (Oratia, $29.99) got lots of laughs.

To give: My Christmas wishlist contains mainly non-fiction.

I'm keen to read Paula Morris's new book False River (Penguin, $35), especially as I understand it contains fiction as well as nonfiction and plays with the boundary between forms. British author Helen MacDonald's memoir of grief H is for Hawk (Penguin, $30) and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Penguin, $30) have been on my list for a while now. And finally Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir (HarperCollins, $28) about how memoirs are written. This is all mixed up with my writing and teaching life, but I'm pretty sure creative non-fiction in all its manifestations is the thing I’m most nerdy about.

To give: For Christmas, I’m giving my niece Gavin Bishop’s perfectly-pitched pictorial history Aotearoa: The New Zealand Story (Puffin, $40), and Lucy Goes to the Lighthouse (Phantom Tree House, $25), Grant Sheehan’s book about New Zealand’s first female lighthouse keeper (in Eastbourne). My nephew’s getting Explore!

Aotearoa (Kennett Brothers, $30) about New Zealand’s pioneering adventurers by locals Bronwen Wall (author) and Kimberly Andrews (illustrator) – and Annual 2: editors’ Susan Paris’ and Kate de Goldi’s modern take on old-school annuals. But I’m keeping The Snark (OUP, $59.95) for myself. After all, David Elliot’s whimsically illustrated, award-winning tale of hunting the Snark and the Jabberwock is aimed at ‘grown-up children’.

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SPORTS BRIEFS

LET THE SUN SHINE IN

CLUB CONGLOMERATE

HEAVY HIT TERS

Luke Browne moved from Hastings England, to Hastings New Zealand in 2007, and then in 2012 to Wellington. He brought his skateboard brand Daylight with him. Last month Daylight released their new featurelength skateboard film, Ozone, which includes Hootie Andrews, New Zealand Skateboarder of the Year 2016 alongside many other Wellington and New Zealand skaters.

Ozone will be available both on DVD and online in December. Daylight maintains a distinctly New Zealand feel to their brand with their design, breaking away from the international market. Skateboards and clothing are available through Cheapskates and Fusion, and online at daylight.nz.

The Toitu Poneke Community and Sports Centre in Kilbirnie, known colloquially as TheHub, has just opened. Toitu means preservation. The community centre is in the old Poneke Rugby Club building on Kilbirnie Crescent. One of the larger clubs in Wellington, its original building needed renovations and the opportunity to create a ‘super club’ was seized. Now with seven clubs calling it home and the opportunity for more to join, it has had a complete overhaul. It has five different areas which can be hired, including a modern indoor training centre and gym, as well as full bar and catering services.

Perennial hometown favourite and two-times former champion Finn Tearney is returning to compete in the Maxim Financial Wellington Tennis Open, which begins on Tuesday December 19.

The $10,000 prize pool is split evenly between male and female players (because we are very sophisticated in Wellington).

Entry for spectators is free over the first two days and a gold coin donation is expected on finals day, (22 December). Finn competed in the ASB Classic earlier this year.

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MAY YOU HAVE A VERY ACTIVE CHRISTMAS STUDIO: +64 4 801 9089 | OFFICE: +64 4 801 9899 | E: STUDIOLIVE@RADIOACTIVE.FM | FB & WWW: RADIOACTIVE.FM

73

ABROAD

Practising community seating The hulking long-haul Amtrak trains have romantic names, like the Sunset Limited (LA to New Orleans) and the California Zephyr (San Francisco to Chicago), the Lakeshore Express (Chicago to Boston) and the resonant City of New Orleans (New Orleans to Chicago). JANET HUGHES recalls random human moments from a succession of Amtrak trips with her family.

Y

ou’re rattling through the wilderness in double-decker tin cans with a bunch of assorted others, for anything from 24 to 50-odd hours. The sheer distances come home to you when mobile connections fail − the train’s wifi fades shortly after you pass through a town, your mobile service soon afterwards. You depend on the train and its staff for survival and everything.

The folk in charge wield power with professional pride, some relish, and no mercy, right from check-in. Sleeping-car passengers are peeled off and corralled in lounges in the larger stations, then led in bunches to the platform in a kind of military kindergarten expedition. Or maybe not – in the gaggle on the LA platform is a chap wearing a rubber-fetish jumpsuit with a fake bare behind that moons us as he disappears up the stairs, and a Santa hat. Well, it’s nearly Christmas.

At Emeryville (across the Bay from San Francisco) a uniformed lady bellows at us in an extravagant Southern accent. We don’t catch exactly who is supposed to follow her. A sour Experienced Traveller sits on his luggage, insisting the sleeping cars always stop right here. He grins nastily as she stalks off down the platform, then looks back and sees the doubters. She bellows that sleeper passengers had better all get our asses down here, now, or get left behind.

A mild-looking guy (retired academic, I reckon) fears his wife may do just that. He has his baggage, the right sleeping car, but he can’t find her. He trusts she will soon emerge from the swarming station, since he has her ticket.

No-one seems too bothered. I suspect she’s done this before.

The train trundles alongside, and the sharp diesel throb drowns everything briefly. The cars sit high on the bogies. The staff plonk down bright yellow steps to help us board, and we haul our bags up the tight stair to the upper-level corridor.

We shuffle past the roomettes (two berths, shared facilities down the hall) to our ensuite ‘bedroom’.

An armchair faces a big couch across the big window. A tiny bathroom is shoehorned into a cylindrical compartment in one corner, with a handbasin notched into the side.

Our sleeping-car attendant converts compartments, deftly making up beds, working around dining-car bookings to avoid getting in the way. He works from a station in the corridor, where there are endless supplies of bottled water, and urn coffee (drinkable!). I overhear him telling a passenger he is a former Marine, and this is his version of the quiet life. The days off are generous. In between, passengers leave and board at any and all hours, necessitating lightning linen changes and cleaning; he also responds to call buzzers, takes meal bookings and delivers room service, troubleshoots, and sometimes he reads.

Our neighbours in two adjacent rooms are a family party presided over by an almost textbook Jewish matriarch. I say almost – she’s tiny rather than stout, exquisitely smart-casual and bejewelled, and there’s something not-quite about the accent, though it’s basically Brooklyn. They order in a lot of food and make sorties for alcohol.

They squabble. She bosses everyone around. And they play cards incessantly. We never do figure what game. Perhaps they don’t either — we heard someone complain there were two games going on

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75

ABROAD

at once and she had the rules to both in her head.

She starts sniping about Canadians, and suddenly the source of the accent overlay becomes clear – she’s talking about other Canadians.

At night the seat of the couch becomes the lower berth, while the back flips up to form the top one.

All comfortable if slightly shabby. On two trips we are accompanied by our adult son – you pay only a tiny coach-class fare for the additional body, on the explicit understanding that this arrangement is not for people above average size. We’re not, but the ‘double’ lower berth isn’t really (son is just fine thanks on the upper one).

If anyone moves, everyone has to move themselves or their bags. Getting into the bathroom with its outward-swinging door involves contortions, especially once the bunks are made up, shrinking the floor-space and adding in a ladder just for fun. Get out of bed and you land on baggage.

Mostly we laugh. Sometime we whack heads or elbows, or each other. Occasionally we sleep, lulled by the smooth ride and steady pace. (The trains are not allowed to travel over 79 mph).

The shower is a challenge. The toilet takes up most of it. Shipboard-style plumbing delivers a 15-second gush of water for each press of a stiff button. The hot water doesn’t run out except when I try to shorten our morning rush by showering at night. No escape once the shampoo is on.

Breakfast is announced at seven and it’s supposed to be all over by nine. The first sitting is always undersubscribed, and the PA calls to hurry up grow more frequent and urgent until a bleary queue forms in the corridor.

The forceful Southern ladies who rule the dining car have a finely-honed double act. The larger one

plays bad cop on the PA, scolding latecomers and enforcing seating rules. The smaller one runs the floor with flattery. We’re all ‘lovely ladies’ and ‘young men’. The Deco-style menus are graphically elegant, but the food is diner-basic if hearty. Meals are included for the sleeper passengers, who must put their compartment number on a chit; those who have to dash out and check soon get better at remembering it.

You don’t just bowl up and grab a table. You have to book a time-slot for dinner and lunch, and always queue in the corridor till you’re called and seated. On Amtrak, we’re told often, ‘We practice community seating’. This means unless there are four of you, you will share a table with a succession of strangers.

Community seating is one of the joys of Amtrak for me. It’s about efficient food service, but it also creates a kind of managed sociability. People mostly introduce themselves, or converse even if they don’t.

Newbies from the last stop ask old hands advice about the rules, the menu, the facilities.

Everybody asks everybody how they come to be riding a train. This reminds you that trundling through the ‘flyover’ states is by definition an odd thing to do. The Art Deco menus suggest it’s a throwback to a golden age of leisurely travel. Most of us are, er, older. Some of us just love trains, like the articulate oil executive who takes a big rail journey every so often to refresh his spirits. Some want to explore their own land, like the Jewish father and young son heading home to Charlottesville.

I overhear a remarkable corridor conversation between the very articulate 10-year-old and a woman, surely a former teacher, about the recent Charlottesville riots, Confederate monuments,

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ABROAD

community and tolerance. I want to see the kid in charge somewhere some day, if his clear reasoning and humane values survive his growing up. Then at lunch I recognise the woman’s voice, and her husband: she didn’t miss the train after all. She was also the voice that elicited the biographical info from the very quiet ex-marine in charge of the sleeping car. Her husband is probably well used to waiting while she disappears into conversations with strangers.

On the shorter legs, rail can compete with flying. A companionable school administrator from Nebraska is taking her sister to a neurologist’s appointment in Michigan, and comfortable slow travel overnight made more sense than the queues and hassles of two airports. It almost certainly cost more – sleeping accommodation on Amtrak is not cheap, although coach class is very inexpensive.

Many coach passengers bring packed food, or eat from the café-bar, but some pay cash in the diner. One unsmiling and rumpled young woman asks us flatly, ‘So are we going to say what we’re doing on this train?’ She and her partner have driven from small-town Illinois to San Francisco as her mother was ill. Their purpose-bought van blew up, hence the train back, but she figures they didn’t do too bad since they got half its price back for scrap. It occurs to me to ask whether her mother recovered, now we are all chatting comfortably.

‘Oh no, she died. She was pretty much dead when we got there.’ Did I say comfortably?

In the glass bubble of the observation car the sky is all around you, the seats angled outward. A drillsergeant voice over the PA scolds the inconsiderate types who put their stuff on the observation-car seats to reserve them – it’s a full train. There will be a raid to pick up misused belongings; the owners will have

to show up at the cafe counter to claim them, and probably cop an earful about sharing.

Watching a huge pink dusk gather over Nevada, I rack my brains for the Spanish word for the dry watercourses that score the desert between the flat-topped mesas (literally tables). My approachablelooking neighbour helps me out: arroyo. And just like that, we are deep in conversation about the landforms and life of the desert. She is an engineerturned-ecologist, lives in a commune in New Mexico.

And she too is freshly bereaved, having lost a son to a mountaineering accident. She is taking a very long, slow way home, to process her loss in relative solitude. Relative only – community comes naturally to her, and she greets a steady succession of new acquaintances as they pass.

Sliding into New Orleans at night, we dine in a fierce thunderstorm. A quiet African-American woman makes up our foursome, takes a while to speak. She is spending Christmas in New Orleans, having lived most of her life there and moved away fairly recently. She explains that hurricane Katrina flooded out her three-storey home, smashing most things but floating her heirloom china cabinet to the ceiling, where it lodged then sank slowly with the water-level, its contents intact. It took a whole year to dry out and repair the house, another to banish the boggy smell they thought would never leave.

They toughed it out, but then her bridge phobia grew unmanageable, as she was confronted daily with countless smashed and replaced bridges around the watery city. Their remnants are still sticking out of waterways ten years on. As we talk the train sways slowly across the Mississippi; when the lightning flashes we all look away from the window.

77

W E L LY A NG E L

Wh a t wo u l d D e i r d r e d o?

GRIN AND BEAR IT.

LET IT GO

My father is a poor conversationalist, he either says nothing or dominates the group conversation and never stops. He expects to give a speech at our wedding next year. My family, including my mother, after several horrendous embarrassments, including his brother’s funeral when he recalled risqué adventures from their youth, have begged me not to give him the opportunity. We have all tried to discuss his conversation and speech-making style with him tactfully but he gets very defensive. How do I handle this?

Ambivalent, Upper Hutt

My mother crackles with hate towards my dad. She accused him of infidelity, forced him to move out and only ever makes contact to insult him. I have heard the phone calls and seen the texts.

She doesn’t listen to anything I or my sibling say. My sibling now just chooses to hang out with her partner’s family and is refusing to join any Christmas activities together. I can see my family dissolving. How do I make her listen?

Her sister and we have all tried.

Tired, Te Aro

He is your father and will totally expect that he should speak. You have two options − grin and bear it and don't make it a big thing, or have a non-traditional custom-made wedding devised by you and your partner. Take the formal speeches out; let him propose a toast, among other toasts − maybe just have the bride and groom speaking? Do it your way but keep it moving and choreograph an event that does not allow for podium pronouncements (you can't stop him and then let others talk). He is your father for better or for worse . That relationship is far more important than his ability as a public speaker.

Too many difficulties here and you really don't know what actually happened in their relationship. Don't get involved any longer. Move on − accept that there will be a split and differing celebrations, and make them work and be fun for those involved. Christmas is for counting your blessings going forward as much as for memories and certainly not for recriminations. Happy Christmas.

MONEY FROM GRAN A few years ago, my grandparents helped my older (by nine years) sister buy a house in Auckland, saying they would help me when the time came.

Now they say they cannot assist, their

investments and or income are not looking good. I am never going to be able to afford a property. I feel it is deeply unfair; how do I handle it?

Racked with envy, Eastbourne Life is never fair. This is a curve ball for you now but circumstances do change and good intentions cannot always be played out. Accept the reality graciously, don't whinge about it, be positive and get on with getting your house your own way.

SKELETONS IN THE CUPBOARD I have been informed that my partner of seven years worked as a prostitute in an earlier time of her life. I know that perhaps this shouldn’t make any difference to me, but I am disturbed by it and by not knowing. Would you expect that to be information shared? Should I ask her or is it none of my business?

Curious, Lower Hutt ‘You have been informed’! By whom?

Troublemaking at its nastiest. This is past history and your partner has every right to keep it there. Focus on the present and your relationship and going forward together.

If you’ve got a burning question for Deirdre, email angel@capitalmag.co.nz with Capital Angel in the subject line.

Fine print, small print, or “mouseprint” is less noticeable print smaller than the more obvious larger print it accompanies that advertises or otherwise describes or partially describes a commercial product or service.[1] The larger print that is used in conjunction with fine print by the merchant often has the effect of deceiving the consumer into believing the offer is more advantageous than it really is, via a legal technicality which requires full disclosure of all (even unfavorable) terms or conditions, but does not specify the manner (size, typeface, coloring, etc.) of disclosure. There is strong evidence that suggests the fine print is not read by the majority of consumers.[2]Fine print may say the opposite of what the larger print says. For example, if the larger print says “pre-approved” the fine print might say “subject to approval.” [3] Especially in pharmaceutical advertisements, fine print may accompany a warning message, but this message is often neutralized by the more eye-catching positive images and pleasant background music (eye candy). Sometimes television advertisements flash text fine print in camouflagic colors, and for notoriously brief periods of time, making it difficult or impossible for the viewer to rea Fine print, small print, or “mouseprint” is less noticeable print smaller than the more obvious larger print it accompanies that advertises or otherwise describes or partially describes a commercial product or service.[1] The larger print that is used in conjunction with fine print by the merchant often has the effect of deceiving the consumer into believing the offer is more advantageous than it really is, via a legal technicality which requires full disclosure of all (even unfavorable) terms or conditions, but does not specify the manner (size, typeface, coloring, etc.) of disclosure. There is strong evidence that suggests the fine print is not read by the majority of consumers.[2]Fine print may say the opposite of what the larger print says. For example, if the larger print says “pre-approved” the fine print might say “subject to approval.” [3] Especially in pharmaceutical advertisements, fine print may accompany a warning message, but this message is often neutralized by the more eye-catching positive images and pleasant background music (eye candy). Sometimes television a colors, and for notoriously brief periods of time, making it difficult or impossible for the viewer to rea Fine print, small print, or “mouseprint” is less noticeable print smaller than the more obvious larger print it accompanies that advertises or otherwise describes or partially describes a commercial product or service.[1] The larger print that is used in conjunction with fine print by the merchant often has the effect of deceiving the consumer into believing the offer is more advantageous than it really is, via a legal technicality which requires full disclosure of all (even unfavorable) terms or conditions, but does not specify the manner (size, typeface, coloring, etc.) of disclosure. There is strong evidence that suggests the fine print is not read by the majority of consumers.[2]Fine print may say the opposite of what the larger print says. For example, if the larger print says “pre-approved” the fine print might say “subject to approval.” [3] Especially in pharmaceutical advertisements, fine print may accompany a warning message, but this message is often neutralized by the more eye-catching positive images and pleasant background music (eye candy).

Sometimes television advertisements flash text fine print in camouflagic colors, and for notoriously brief periods of time, making it difficult or impossible for the viewer to reaine print, small print, or “mouseprint” is less noticeable print smaller than the more obvious larger print it accompanies that advertises or otherwise describes or partially describes a commercial product or service.[1] The larger print that is used in conjunction with fine print by the merchant often has the effect of deceiving the consumer into believing the offer is more advantageous than it really is, via a legal technicality which requires full disclosure of all (even unfavorable) terms or conditions, but does not specify the manner (size, typeface, coloring, etc.) of disclosure. There is strong evidence that suggests the fine print is not read by the majority of consumers.[2]Fine print may say the opposite of what the larger print says. For example, if the larger print says “pre-approved” the fine print might say “subject to approval.” [3] Especially in pharmaceutical advertisements, fine print may accompany a warning message, but this message is often neutralized by the more eye-catching positive images and pleasant background music (eye candy). Sometimes television advertisements flash text fine print in camouflagic colors, and for notoriously brief periods of time, making it difficult or impossible for the viewer to rea Fine print, small print, or “mouseprint” is less noticeable print smaller than the more obvious larger print it accompanies that advertises or otherwise describes or partially describes a commercial product or service.[1] The larger print that is used in conjunction with fine print by the merchant often has the effect of deceiving the consumer into believing the offer is more advantageous than it really is, via a legal technicality which requires full disclosure of all (even unfavorable) terms or conditions, but does not specify the manner (size, typeface, coloring, etc.) of disclosure. There is strong evidence that suggests the fine print is not read by the majority of consumers.[2] Fine print may say the opposite of what the larger print says. For example, if the larger print says “pre-approved” the fine print might say “subject to approval.” [3] Especially in pharmaceutical advertisements, fine print may accompany a warning message, but this message is often neutralized by the more eye-catching positive images and pleasant background music (eye candy). Sometimes television a colors, and for notoriously brief periods of time, making it difficult or impossible for the viewer to rea Fine print, small print, or “mouseprint” is less noticeable print smaller than the more obvious larger print it accompanies that advertises or otherwise describes or partially describes a commercial product or service.[1] The larger print that is used in conjunction with fine print by the merchant often has the effect of deceiving the consumer into believing the offer is more advantageous than it really is, via a legal technicality which requires full disclosure of all (even unfavorable) terms or conditions, but does not specify the manner (size, typeface, coloring, etc.) of disclosure. There is strong evidence that suggests the fine print is not read by the majority of consumers.[2]Fine print may say the opposite of what the larger print says. For example, if the larger print says “pre-approved” the fine print might say “subject to approval.” [3] Especially in pharmaceutical advertisements, fine print may accompany a warning message, but this message is often neutralized by the more eye-catching positive images and pleasant background music (eye candy). Sometimes television advertisements flash text fine print in camouflagic colors, and for notoriously brief periods of time, making it difficult or impossible for the viewer to rea

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30 Years

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T O R Q U E TA L K

AMG: Beauty and the beast W R I TT E N BY RO G E R WA L K E R | P H OTO G R A P H Y BY LU K E B ROW N E

I

am always a bit awed by Mercedes-Benz cars. The history, the technology, and the breadth of their design is a little intimidating.

They do small cars. I have a little Smart. With its three-cylinder 900cc Mercedes motor it is nippy. On the opposite side of the room they also do big serious cars like this AMG E63S which I drove for MercedesBenz Wellington in Cambridge Terrace.

Its 4-litre V8 offers performance which is way past nippy.

AMG began with a couple of nutters in the engineering department of Mercedes in the 1960s.

Herr Aufrecht and Herr Melcher were their names.

(Grobaspach was Aufrecht’s birth town, hence the G).

They wanted performance improvements and got them. More speed and better handling led to a succession of race wins for Mercedes.

Nowadays AMG badges on Mercedes-Benz cars mean they typically have petrol engines, better handling, better stability and more extensive use of carbon fibre than regular models.

And yes, they are more expensive.

They’ve also got all kinds of clever technology.

In the E63S you can (for example): check the tyre pressure without moving from your seat; see a screen where a clever little man up in the sky above helps protect the paintwork by showing you how close you are to nearby objects; and if you’re stopping for 20 minutes or less you can turn the engine off and lock the car, and while you’re out its climate control will keep the interior at your favourite temperature.

There’s much more.

A central knob controls most of the functions, while the ultra-grippy steering wheel, inspired by Formula One, has on it all the other functions to do with the actual driving.

A nine-speed gear-box is moved effortlessly from auto to manual by finger-operated paddles behind the wheel.

The interior is capacious and comfortable.

Seats are adjustable every which way. Finishes are a tasteful mix of black ash, leather and chrome, all fitted together as only the German elves can.

Painted in black, the car photographs superbly.

So, on one hand it’s a four-door four-wheel-drive luxury car capable of a restful and cossetted ride for its fortunate passengers over vast and varied terrain, but it’s really a Jekyll and Hyde.

For me the ‘E’ on the badge signifies ‘electrifying’.

The four wheels are works of alloy art sitting perfectly at each corner of this ripply-bodied muscle beast, and the red-painted brake calipers visible through the spokes breathe a subtle hint of danger.

The AMG E63S accelerates from 0–100km/hr in less than four seconds. That’s just the beginning of its performance.

A quick story. A friend of mine has an E400, only two-wheel-drive though. At a wet intersection near Taupō, he planted the accelerator to get into a gap in the traffic. Too hard; he ended up going sideways for about 200m. Fortunately no damage, and it’s comforting that he saved himself the hundreds of dollars a private hospital would have charged him for a cardiac check up.

The steering is responsive and beautifully weighted. The brakes stop the car quicker than it accelerates. Leave your false teeth at home. Shifting down in ‘race’ mode at speed produces a marvellous symphony of fizzes, crackles and pops, to deeply satisfy my car enthusiast’s ear.

Sadly that aural pleasure is missing in electric vehicles, but personally I reckon passion and nostalgia will keep petrol power alive for a fair while yet.

I drove the beautiful beast in both city streets and open roads. We even whizzed up to the Brooklyn wind turbine to poke a finger at our electric future.

This year Mercedes won their fourth consecutive Formula One Constructor’s Championship.

So a car named after a Greek goddess has begat Lewis Hamilton, now a British driving god.

The car’s dark-tinted privacy glass made me think in an abstracted way that I was seated behind Lewis Hamilton’s sunglasses.

It’s true that I don’t look anything like him, I don’t have a natty chin beard, moustache or earring, nor do I have his appeal to women, but the AMG E63S certainly had me feeling a little bit like him.

81

B A B Y, B A B Y

Ra i s i n g u p b oy s

BY M E LO DY T H O M A S

D

ecember has arrived, bringing much-needed sunshine and for many, relief at the end of yet another intense and draining year. For women especially, the past few months have taken a major emotional toll. Following accusations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein, thousands and thousands of women from Hollywood actors to Facebook friends added their stories of sexual assault and harassment to the #metoo chorus. It got to the point where it might have been easier for the lucky few who’d escaped such harm to put their hands up. At the time of writing, 45 prominent and powerful men – directors, musicians, executives, actors, producers, comedians – have been accused of, and in some cases admitted to, various degrees of sexual misconduct since Harvey Weinstein. In four weeks.

And many more have been hinted at but remain as yet unnamed. Remember when we were all for celebrating the end of the ‘worst year ever’ a year ago? Well, 2017 was a close contender.

This conversation might seem out of place in a parenting column – and it’s a far cry from the celebratory, sundrenched holiday piece I had planned. But with every day comes another accusation, another denial, another career (rightly) up in flames, and I wonder what kind of world I’ve brought my kids into.

As a mother to a boy and a girl, presuming they continue to identify that way, I spend a bit of time thinking about who I should worry about most. I am scared for my daughter, who will be incredibly lucky to get to adulthood without being made to feel insignificant or frightened or worse at the hands of a probably-male predator. Who, should something horrific like that happen to her, will

probably also face being told she is a liar, being asked what she did to contribute to the situation, or second guessing the legitimacy of her experience.

But I am also worried for my son, who despite our best intentions will learn what it is to be a man from his friends, the media, mainstream pornography and society at large. There is so much pressure on teenage boys to conform to a masculine ideal of dominance and strength – to not be a ‘pussy’ or a ‘faggot’ – and if they’re straight, to prove themselves by hooking up with girls. I believe my son will be a good kid, and he is being raised in a great little community, but good kids can still do stupid things if there’s enough pressure and when their sense of self is still developing. How do I protect him from hurting others?

How do I keep him safe?

It’s a lot to think about. But if #metoo is going to signal real change, we need to actively challenge the gender roles that dictate girls should be passive, vulnerable, modest and sweet and boys strong, dominant, independent and invulnerable. A study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health this year found traditional gender roles contribute substantially to risks like pregnancy, leaving school early, STIs and exposure to violence for girls and substance abuse, suicide and shorter life expectancy for boys, and that are well established in kids by the time they are 10 or 11 years old. As actor and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson put it, ‘Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong… It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum, not as two opposing sets of ideals.’

82

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Cnr Tory & Tennyson St, www.frontandcentre.co.nz

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TRA LA LA LA LA Carolling is the best way to get into the holiday spirit. Sadly the door-to-door carol-singing tradition has died out, and there also seems to be a decline in community carol events. But we have found a couple to whet your Christmas appetite.

The big event this year is Porirua’s Christmas in the Park MC’d by Frankie Stevens. It features the Trust Porirua City Brass Band. Saturday 2 December. Te Rauparaha Park, Porirua

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Carols at Cobblestones offers carols and festivities in the gardens of Greytown’s Cobblestones Museum – BYO blanket and booze. Saturday 16 December, Cobblestones Museum, Greytown

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Panasonic Aero Series CS/CU-Z50TKR heat pump air conditioner just $2485 inc. GST and standard install.

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SECTION HEADER

December

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TAKING THE HIGH GROUND

ANGUS AND JULIA STONE

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Looking at the lives of two woman mountaineers, Freda du Faur and Lydia Bradey.

CIRKOPOLIS

6.30pm, Bats Theatre, Kent Terrace

Acrobatic artists with a show perfect for the family.

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1–3 Dec, 7.30pm, St James Theatre, 77–87 Courtenay Place

WATERCRESS TUNA AND THE CHILDREN OF CHAMPION STREET

THE REHEARSAL

Theatre, music and dance performances by New Zealanders most talented Pacific Artists, as part of the Measina Festival.

An adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s debut novel staring James Rolleston.

1–9 Dec, 7–8.45pm, Nga Taonga Sound & Vision

2 THE EXTRAVAGANZA FAIR New Zealand’s largest travelling market for arts, food and live entertainment.

2, 3, 9, 10 Dec, 9–5pm, Waitangi Park, 107 Cable Street CHRISTMAS IN THE PARK Start December with an evening of Christmas carols, live music and festive cheer.

6.15pm, Pataka Art + Museum, Porirua

9 BEERS AT THE BASIN

7.30–11pm, St James Theatre, Courtenay Place BOOK LAUNCH The launch of New Zealand Potter: A Partial Archive, an anthology of articles from the first years of the magazine New Zealand Potter.

11am, The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt

20 WURLITZER CHRISTMAS CONCERT

11–7pm, Basin Reserve, Sussex Street

Paraparaumu

MESSIAH

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NZSO and Orpheus Choir unite to perform Handel on a dazzling scale.

7.30p, Michael Fowler Centre, Wakefield St

FOOTBALL: WELLINGTON PHOENIX V SYDNEY FC 7.30pm, Westpac Stadium

MAHARA ARTS REVIEW OPENING AND AWARDS

2.30pm, St Andrews on the Terrace

7.30pm, Michael Fowler Centre, Wakefield Street

James Theatre.

2–3.30pm, Southward Theatre, Otaihanga Road,

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ORCHESTRA WELLINGTON: RITE OF SPRING

and Julia Stone play an intimate concert at St

Craft beers and local wines, street food and music.

4.30–9pm, Te Rauparaha Park, Norrie Street, Porirua

5pm, Mahara Gallery, Waikanae

Following a sold-out tour in Australia, Angus

WELLINGTON CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

25 CHRISTMAS DAY All day

13 CYNTHIA AND GERTIE GO BAROQUE Two New Zealand comedians make a bold shift into Baroque opera.

31 NEW YEAR’S EVE FIREWORKS Dance to the Wellington Shake-Em-On-

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7.30pm, Circa Theatre, Taranaki St

UPPER HUTT SANTA PARADE

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Wellington’s waterfront.

SOL3 MIO CHRISTMAS ON THE HARBOUR

8pm–12am, Whairepo Lagoon, Frank Kitts Park

6pm, Waitangi Park, 107 Cable Street

FINAL MOMENTS NYE PARTY

3–3.45pm, Upper Hutt City Centre, Main Street FOOTBALL: WELLINGTON PHOENIX V MELBOURNE VICTORY 4.30 pm, Westpac Stadium

ALT-J

THORNDON FAIR

British rock band Alt-J make their way to Wellington on their world-wide tour.

10am–3pm, Tinakori Rd and Hill St

7pm, TSB Bank Arena

Downers, then welcome 2018 with fireworks on

Meow and Caroline joint party for New Year’s Eve with three stages and a mystery lineup 7pm–4am, Meow, 9 Edward St

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GROUPIES

N e w Ye a r resolutions

BY F R A N C E S CA E M M S

W

hen you hear there’s a group called WoRM what do you think of? Gardening maybe? Fishing perhaps? Wrong. Think hills and high views, grass, gravel and mud, smooth waterfront paths or shady bush tracks and you’ll be getting warmer.

WoRM stands for Wellington Running Meetup. With over 2,000 members, WoRM champions get outside and enjoy the abundant running opportunities Wellington has to offer, both on and off road. Founder Ewa Kusmierczyk began the group seven years ago in the hope of finding some running buddies. She was deeply involved at first and organised most of the runs; then ‘slowly the circle became more dense and more people began to lead’. Ewa describes the group as a ‘feral community’. They have no rules other than common sense and respect, no competition, no fees

and no hierarchy. Basically, someone decides they’re doing a run, tells the group when and where, and then whoever wants to join in just shows up.

The group is very inclusive and offers adventures to suit runners of all levels from ‘Get off your bum’ beginner’s runs, to Ultra Marathon training, night runs for ‘Glow WoRMs’ and even yoga for runners. Marlena Wasiak joined in February and has been ‘running with the Wormers’ ever since. She says the Tuesday Spectacular Regular is permanently booked in her calendar. ‘I don’t want to miss any of the sweat and suffering, bad jokes and running banter over beer,’ she says. Even when she was injured ‘I kept coming back just to feel part of the community – a special place to have for a visitor from the other hemisphere.’

Photograph by Marlena Wasiak

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