Friday Five: Cricket grounds

Spider-cam at the W.A.C.A.

Don't worry, I won't mention the cricket. I won't even whisper the word 'Ashes', which is all that is left of England's dreaming. I will, however, mention some grounds where I have seen the game played (by one team at least). I enjoy watching cricket, as I have said before, and I have see it in some fine locations. I am omitting the Westpac(Trust) Stadium in Wellington because it is not a particularly good ground. I did once watch England play an ODI there against New Zealand and it was my turn to go the bar when England were halfway through the batting order on a run chase. I returned with the required four pints to be told, 'drink up; we're all out'.

5 Great Cricket Grounds:

1. Worswick Memorial Ground, Rawtenstall - I've seen Rawtenstall play here (with Michael Bevan as their professional) and I've also seen Roger Harper when he played against them with Bacup in the Lancashire League; cracking stuff!
2. The Basin Reserve, Wellington - from England to my nephew's under-eight team, I've seen a variety of entertainment here this big-hearted little cricket ground.
3. The Events Centre, Queenstown - with grass bank seating and some of the finest views in the country (the Remarkles form the backdrop to many a dropped catch) the cricket has to be pretty spectacular to gain the spectators' attention. It usually isn't.
4. The W.A.C.A. Ground, Perth - it was hot and I saw some records including Captain Cook's first ever golden duck and the highest number of runs scored in an over in what is possibly the last Ashes test ever at this venue.
5. The MCG, Melbourne - one of the greatest sporting arenas in the world.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground

Friday Five: Shopping in Wellington

Last week I spent a couple of days in Wellington and in between watching plays, spending time with my sister, reading with my niece, and playing cricket with my nephews, I mananged to visit some shops and buy a few things. In a twist on the old game;

My Aunt Went to Wellington and She Bought:

1. Some cheap and cheerful sparkly fashion jewellery from eQUIP
2. Lots of deliciously scented bath bombs, soaps and massage bars from Lush
3. A new green leather wallet from Bags of Difference
4. Several books from Unity Books
5. A pint of Best Bitter from the Sprig and Fern on Tinakori Road

Welly Wouldn't!

I loathe the idea of the 'Wellywood' sign. For those of you who have matters of importance to worry about, this will probably have passed you by, so let me explain. The owners of Wellington Airport (Infratil: 66% and Wellington City Council: 34%) have decided that it is a good idea to spell 'Wellywood' out on the hillside approaching the airport in big white letters, a la Hollywood. Many Wellingtonians disapprove.

For a start, it seems like a waste of money. We are told that it is not really for Wellingtons but for national and international visitors alike to admire when they fly into the capital city. Apparently fixing a 3.5 meter high steel word to a hill turns a place into an item on people's bucket list. I have never felt an urge to visit Hollywood, sign or no sign, and Mosgiel hasn't exactly got them flocking. Besides, most passengers who arrive at Wellington airport are too busy clinging onto the seat in front of them, utilising the sick bag or praying to the gods of wild weather, to notice anything other than a safe landing.

Yes, it is extremely derivative. Wellington has a thriving arts culture, comprised of theatre, dance, music, literature, film and television. Actually, scrap that last one, seeing as that is what is happening to Avalon studios. Just because Peter Jackson and Warner Brothers can over-ride the rights of the workers in this country with a snap of their fingers, should Wellington rent out prime advertising space to them as well? And when I say rent, I mean give for free, because of all the so-called benefits they will bring the economy regardless of the draconian and dictatorial changes to employment law.

Cobham Drive (the road down which nearly all traffic must drive as it leaves Wellington airport) already has plenty of original sculptures which interract with the one force Wellington doesn't lack - no, not bureaucracy; wind! Petty-minded people vandalise these on a regular basis. Do you really think they would leave those letters intact? You might as well write 'Steal Me' up on the cliff - I'm sure that a giant 'O' would become the latest in haute-decor for student flats in Newtown.

Actually the Hollywood sign is unsprisingly copyrighted, and the people who own the rights to it have threatened Wellington Airport with legal action if they persist with this quest for mediocrity. This potential crusade against the world's most litigious people isn't really worth fighting, is it?

One digital media agency, Skull and Bones have created their own sign generator with which techno-folk can mock-up their own copywood message. The responses are spectacularly uninspiring and unoriginal (with 'I'm a cliff'; 'Hamilton' and 'Help' being the best offerings) thus indicating that unoriginality isn't unique to the owners of the airport. Hardly anyone outside Wellington cares enough to notice, but those who do are defintely having a larff!

Thrillingly threatening art

Séraphine Pick

Wellington City Art Gallery, 20 February – 16 May 2010

If I had to use one word to describe the art of Séraphine Pick, it would be ‘disturbing’. Her paintings illustrate several stages of her development but the themes are constant. She includes spectral dresses, leaky baths and teetering suitcases in her psychologically charged dreamscapes.

I like the barely-there white paintings such as A Place of Passage and High Rise, both from 1995. They are like sketches but deliberately so. Domestic objects hold powerful memories: bandages, bags, beds, ladders, trees, balloons, shoeboxes, colanders, cheese graters; their perforated sides and leaking forms suggest the past that slips through your fingers.

Speak (1996) features two tiny central figures overwhelmed by their background. A year later, Insomnia suggests images of past relationships fraught with uncertainty, misunderstanding and emotional tension by positing half-erased doodles on a classroom blackboard.

Things become altogether more surreal with the half-forms of Room. The people with wings, skewed perspectives, and man with a rabbit head deliberately confuse and disconnect us. Pick deliberately undoes our expectations of hierarchy and perspective, piling vignette views on top of one another and causing our focus to shift restlessly from scene to scene.

Huntress with Wall Flowers (2004) has a pre-Raphaelite/William Morris style beauty with a cruel edge of hauteur. He (disappeared into Silence) (2004) references Henri Rousseau, the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, and Victorian styling. Sensuality, violence and unfurling imagination combine in this lush, exotic and erotic, make-believe and fairytale world of the eternal feminine.

The flowers, plants and birds (including NZ native ferns and toetoe along with large tropical orchids and a pair of huia) reclaim the landscape. The women look sideways and shifty in full-length ball gowns while the solitary male is naked; his genitals prudishly covered and he holds a limp lily in his hand. The entire affect is thrillingly threatening.

Meanwhile there are hints of Dali in Girl (with offered eyes) (2004). A dishevelled blonde in beaded flapper underwear stands holding one shoe in a desert with random images of a married couple, poodle, cowgirl, dead bird scattered about. Is there a meaning in these emblems?

Looking Like Someone Else also defies interpretation: the succession of portraits is either blurred or the face is obscured in some way; hiding behind their hair, superimposed one atop another, or revealing only the back of the head.

Pick moves on to the influence of Francisco Goya’s nightmarish malevolence with Phantom Limb (2007), Devil’s Music (2009) and Hole in the Sky (2009). The human figures look like zombies or clamouring demons. The crowd at a concert or children around a bonfire are profoundly unsettling. The colours and composition draw out their potential for violence and malignancy.

Once again Pick resumes the theme of domestic warfare with Burning the Furniture (2007). She seems to ask if there is any point in preserving symbols of the past. Personal effects are piled on the ground like a marital funeral pyre or a carefully-balanced arrangement while the figures positioned beside them seem disturbingly detached.

Her art is certainly confronting – if you like things that make you feel warm and content you should steer well clear, but if you fancy an artistic thrill, you could do a lot worse.

Lunchtime art

What to do on a cold, wet lunch-hour, but head to an art gallery? Art makes me happy. It’s something I can admire without aptitude. I don’t paint, draw, sculpt or sew myself, so I simply enjoy other people’s work without any sense of artistic envy. I don’t necessarily wish I had their talent (like I do maybe with performers or athletes), but I’m glad that they have it so I can appreciate their creations.

I read a review of the South Coast Gallery on Cuba on the Texture website. This passage particularly caught my eye:

Cameron allowed me the space to look over the work, then when I’d had the time to take the exhibition in, asked me what I thought. I mention this because I’ve too often been subject to a) the owner who jumps on me as soon as I open the door (Desperate) or b) the one who ignores my presence completely (Snob). Made a nice change I can tell you.

I’m a big fan of the South Coast Gallery in Island Bay and have been known to stop by on my weekend bike ride. So I thought I’d check this out and I’m glad I did. The featured artist was Gennie De Lange who fires ceramic glazes in kilns. The results are bright and quirky – that’s the design as much as the technique.

Many of her colourful squares feature my favourite things; cats, wine and often a cyclist glimpsed through the window, although I’m not so sure about reclining in the nude and a feathered hat.

The glazes produce glossy, warm or cool colours – The Sheep Takes a Dip looks pretty chilly while Hitting the Right Note is comfortably cosy. There is often a mottled patterned effect, which is ideal for less than perfect flesh, and the voluptuous ladies are justifiably admired by the spindly men.

My favourite is Free Spirits, not just because the ladies are wearing fabulous frocks (although it is one of the few pictures where they are clothed, and that’s not to say I’m a prude) but because they look like they have just stepped off the stage – perhaps two of the witches from Macbeth, letting their hair down but still plotting schemes.

Gennie writes, “What I get most from these works is the great sense of companionship. In each and every case there is a realized companionship and in a few instances there is the addition of a distant, unrealised. Desired companionship.”

There is also a selection of Tony Drawbridge’s drawings of Wellington junctions. Trolley buses and cable cars sit alongside horses and carts in these bustling depictions of intersecting lives from Te Papa to Thorndon; Kelburn to Island Bay. I find myself scanning the pictures for recognisable features – taking childish delight in the Lady Norwood Rose Gardens; the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary; the City to Sea Bridge; the bucket fountain; the wind wand; and, of course, the South Coast Gallery.

I am fascinated by the image of the Basin Reserve like a fortress surrounded by a moat and patrolled by a ship. A skewed perspective enables everything to be laid out before your eyes and although the streets appear strangely flattened, there is also a heightened dimension.

You can see things from above while others are in profile. If Escher and Picasso ran a town planning office, their designs might look like this. The mixture of strict technical drawing with elaborate whimsy creates a unique ‘artist’s impression.’

Opening Night

Tonight is the opening night of Necessary Targets. Naturally, I am nervous. Hence this is a very short post. If you're in Wellington, come and see it; if you're not then you won't be able to. I'll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, I manged to take a night out from rehearsals last week and went to see Strange Resting Places at Downstage, which combines Māori and Italian culture and song. It was well-worth seeing and is going on tour around the country - it's been up in Auckland and is heading to the Festival of Colour. I would recommend catching that too, if you can.

Wellington Summer Festivals - Something for Everyone

There's always something going on in Wellington, and that's why I like living here.

We've just had the Sevens and there is cricket coming up. The fact that sailboats are constantly whizzing about on the water suggests that there are regattas and whatnot occurring for the boatie folk. Events are planned or have been raced for swimming, dragon boating, running and 5-a-side football.

Circus artists are performing on the wharf and the Cuba Street Carnival is on this weekend. There are outdoor film screenings, Shakespeare productions and music festivals. Recently we have had concerts in the park form a variety of artists, the One Love concert, featuriung dub, roots and reggae, and even some decent acts - Fur Patrol and David Byrne among them. In the coming weeks saxophones and double basses will abound in the Jazz Festival.

Festival is the word of the summer with one for the Chinese New Year, a Pasifikia one, and a beer festival in Waitangi Park coming up in a couple of weeks. Touring exhibitions include one of Leonardo da Vinci's more imaginative creations, and the Boston exhibition of Monet and the Impressionists at Te Papa.

Amidst all this is the Fringe Festival. I am trying to get to some shows - so far I have seen two (both of which I have thoroughly enjoyed) with more scheduled for next week. I hope to write reviews of them, but in the meantime here's my review of The Mountain which was published on Lumiere.

Wellington is a wonderfully compact little city (little more than a town really) and it's pretty easy to get to any of these events. It markets itself as the 'culture capital' and this summer it has certainly showcased its assets. From ballet dancing to Billy Connolly, there has been something for everyone. And there's plenty more where that came from.

Wellington Sevens Dress-Ups

What to wear to the Wellington Sevens? Believe me, it’s a big issue. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing I like more than seeing a few people dressed up in ridiculous costumes at a sporting event. Scooby Doo often turns up to the cricket and it’s very amusing to see him talking to Marilyn Monroe or Gene Simmons in the pub later on. Shrek, stromtroopers, legomen and traffic cones all stand out for various reasons.

But for some reason, everyone (well, about 90%) in Wellington who goes to the Sevens feels the need to dress up. A friend reckons New Zealanders are so repressed that they can only be ‘whacky’ when dressed as someone else. Him Outdoors reckons it’s a personality substitute (which he says is why Kiwis hold more dress-up theme parties than anyone else) but let’s save that nugget for another day…

I was going with a group of girls, and trying to get them to formulate a plan on which they can all agree and then put it into action is like herding kittens. You see, in general, women also want to look good. And they will invariably have different body shapes and comfort zones, so what looks good on one will not suit another.

You could all go as variations on a theme, but a simple costume repeated on a large number of people has dramatic impact, as evinced by the monks and the Flash Gordons.

There are actually rules as to what you can and can’t wear. Let’s start with the revealing. Certain costumes – such as the Borat-thong – have been banned for showing too much flesh. This smacks of double standards as women are allowed to (and frequently do) wear the shortest skirts and lowest tops. This is deemed acceptable as most of the photographers and cameramen are male, and most of the females want to get in the papers or on television. Apparently the way to do this is to thrust your cleavage at a lens and you’ll get all the attention you can handle.

60+ years of feminism fighting for equal rights and to be taken seriously, so that teenage girls can flaunt their sluttishness in public – their parents must be so proud. Perhaps they are; their offspring are ‘famous’ for five seconds, until the next piece of meat comes along. There are skanky cheerleaders; sluttish schoolgirls; tarty nurses; lewd airhostesses; indecent policewomen; vulgar prison officers – do you see the pattern emerging? Incidentally, the most stylish group of women I saw were the Spitfire Girls dressed stunningly in 1940s glamour.

Another taboo is the too-large-for-the-seat category. Sumo suits and people dressed as sofas are out (although these are amusing). The wheelchair-bound bloke dressed as Thomas the Tank engine, however, was a star! Some people were dressed as Barbie dolls in boxes (their aspirations couldn’t be clearer) or cardboard i-pods. These people are actually very annoying to sit behind if you are – heaven forbid – actually trying to watch any rugby, or to stand behind if (as is more likely) you are in the beer queue.

For hours. Buying warm Speights with a 15% sur-charge. Come on Westpac Stadium, as if you weren’t creaming it anyway – I’m certain you could afford to pay your staff without ripping off your patrons. If, as reports showed, people stayed in town for longer drinking at bars with big screens, decent beer and no sur-charge (not a bar that I went into on Friday had one) it serves you right for your shameless exploitation of the people you claim to cater for.

And then there are the weapons. Anything that looks like it could cause bodily harm is unacceptable – and rightly so. It is somewhat disturbing to see the SWAT team casually swigging beer while holding semi-automatic guns, but they were denuded of these (the guns, not the beer) and then must have felt vulnerable – not to mention hot.

There were heaps of Spartans and gladiators – all with bendy swords. Friends of ours went as droogs from A Clockwork Orange, and had their canes examined. They were permitted, after they promised not to indulge in any ultraviolence.

There are no rules about bad taste – as one man’s offence is another one’s humour. Hence people blackened their skin to appear as belly dancers, snake charmers and Arabs. A line of black-hooded, orange-jumpsuited Guantanamo Bay inmates (not folk from Guatemala, as my dad referred to them) may be considered tasteless, but what about the black-and-white-striped chain gang?

Adam and Eve wearing not much more than their fig-leaves were allowed in, but a bloke wearing a full-length fully-flesh-concealing penis costume was not.

By the end of the weekend (or even half-way through the first day) several costumes – and bodies – were severely worse for wear. Some had neglected to slip, slop, slap and there were acres of flesh, usually hidden but for some reason exposed, that was now bright red. The Mexicans with their giant sombreros had the right idea – there was no excuse for them to get sunburned.

We saw a bee with crushed wings and antenna, separated from her swarm and bringing a new interpretation to bumbling at 1pm on the first day. We saw brides vomiting rather than blushing in the seats behind us – although the ‘soldier’ she had picked up didn’t even seem to care, or even to notice. A match made in heaven. I’m sure everyone had a good time. Later they will dress in their civvies and resume their normal bland personas, but for this weekend they came; they drank; they dressed up.


For the record, we went as 60s throw-backs. We could choose our own skirt length and neckline, although the high-heeled boots were not a good idea in hindsight. My dad said I looked like my mother from yesteryear.

The boys went as Morris Dancers. When England won they waved their hankies and jingled their bells – even though some of them were Irish. Seeing them dance with Oscar the Grouch in the street at 1am was one of those surreal moments that make up major sporting tournaments.

Entertaining Children

My brother, sister-in-law and their children are visiting. This is wonderful as I haven't seen my brother for a number of years and before two weeks ago had never met their youngest child. Whenever we have friends and family to visit, we take them on tours of Wellington and environs, but we don't really do this with people with children so we wondered how to entertain them?

Fortunately they love to entertain themselves, telling themselves stories and disappearing into their imaginative worlds. On Christmas Eve they 'helped' me bake the biscuits which were to comprise presents for the parents and other adults. We made star biscuits and hundreds and thousands of the sprinkles were consumed, along with blue icing which is now decorating the kitchen benchtops.

They enjoy playing with their Christmas presents, colouring books and dot-to-dots. It seems we are more amused by table football than they. One day we went along to a park and took a football. My brother and Him Outdoors played with the football for about an hour while the children were content with the swings and the slides.

As we usually do, we took our guests to the wineries out at Martinborough. I can thoroughly recommend Vynfields as a place to take little people. The wine tastings come on a tray so you can take them away and sit in the magnificent garden with a platter too if you like. This means you can enjoy them at your leaisure while keeping an eye on the children playing in the wide open space.

Apparently rocks under trees can be converted to peanut butter sandwiches for yellow aliens (don't ask) and stone tables make excellent space ships.

Ata Rangi also has a large area for running around and playing stuck-in-the-mud or Peter Pan. I was slightly surprised that Wendy and the crocodile were the characters to be as I had always thought Wendy was a bit wet, but I think the drawcard here was that she could walk a plank (or a bench, if we're honest). Meanwhile we could get stuck into the Craighall Chardonnay with impunity.

A typical Wellington childhood entertainment is Te Papa, and we went along to see the colossal squid. I thought it was a little odd that bits of it were cut up and put in specimen jars, although it was still pretty impressive stretched out in it's entirety.

The children liked the 3D video that accompanied the exhibit, although the two questions they kept asking were, 'What killed it and why?' (Answers: fishermen; for our entertainment) and, 'Where are the dinosaurs?' (Answer: there aren't any, but there are some fossils). In fact, dramatic though the squid may be (and we are reminded that it is a colossal squid and not one of the giant variety - they are quite a different kettle of fish apparently) it lost out in the popularity stakes to ice cream.

Movenpick on Herd Street does delicious flavours - hokey pokey, vanilla (with real seeds from the pods) and the raspberry/strawberry sorbet ('It's healthy!') were among the favourites.

A short stroll along the waterfront to the playground at Freyberg Beach meant everyone could play on a variety of vomit-inducing contraptions which finished off the afternoon nicely. So there we have it; how to entertain children for a weekend in Wellington without driving adults to distraction.

Road trip - Wellington to Taupo

Driving up to Taupo from Wellington and back, we drive through some quintessential Kiwi-land with iconic scenery and towns. Allow me to share it with you.

The town of Bulls has pictures of the beasts everywhere and a slightly disturbing anatomically correct statue outside a medical clinic. It boasts it is ‘not just a turn-off’. No, it’s more than that; it is the home of terri-bull puns. The real estate agent sells houses for $200,000 that are ‘live-a-bull’ and ‘own-a-bull’ and a shop that sells cheap designer gear is called la-bulls.

Bulls does have a really good shop called Bili Tees which sells great t-shirts featuring koru, rainbows or fun slogans from ‘Taupo – it’ll float your boat’ to ‘NZ – the grass is just greener’ or ‘Shut the Hutt up’ – Him Outdoors reckons that last one could drop the last word and still be effective.

It is, indeed, very green with lots of rolling hills in the distance and flat farmland and appalling impatient driving in the foreground. Acres of pleasant iconographic scenery are marred only by Tui billboards; isn’t it time to put these out to pasture? The ‘Yeah, right’ slogan was vaguely amusing when it emerged five years ago but now it is tired and lazy and a poor excuse for humour that unintelligent letter-writers use to share their unoriginal drivel with the nation, thinking they are oh-so-witty.

Taihape welcomes you with a corrugated iron Wellington boot and a ‘Gumboot café’ (Translation – gumboots are what Kiwis call Wellington boots). The town seems to have built itself entirely around said boot and they even have a festival where they set records for the furthest distance one can throw a boot. This all came about because ‘Taihape Promotions’ wanted to promote their town in the 1980s. Due to the decline of the railways and the removal of government subsidies on agricultural supplies, the town was suffering and population fell from 3,500 in the early 1960s to about 1,800 in 1985.

In an attempt to reverse the economic downturn and attract people to their town, the promotions people came up with the idea of marketing themselves as living in gumboot country. According to the Taihape Information Centre, Gumboot Day was invented to ‘entice travellers to stop and see what Taihape had to offer.’ It’s astounding what passes for entertainment in some places, but they do honest burgers on proper buns that don’t taste processed, so full marks for that.

There are ringing bells and flashing lights but no barriers at a State Highway 1 level crossing just outside Taihape as we wait for a train to pass. How much would barriers cost to install? Surely they’d be worth it. With the scarcity of trains in New Zealand you’d have to be very unlucky to get caught out on a level crossing but the Ministry of Transport figures reveal that between 1998 and 2004 there were 158 accidents at level crossings – 55 of them fatal. That seems like 55 too many deaths to me.

Ruapehu is enveloped in cloud as usual as the pylons march along the desert road. It is dry, windy and barren with nothing but studs of tussock punctuating the swathes of dirt. Caravans and boats crawl across the landscape with snail trails of impatient traffic in their wake.

Passing through Waiouru, warning signs advise us that ‘Army exercises are conducted at any time’ and ‘live firing and explosions’. They suggest we stay on the road for our own safety. Where else are we going to go? The road twists, turns and dips like a rollercoaster in a bizarre lunar theme park.

Long-haired kids in t-shirts and low-rider shorts swing on the gun barrels and stand on the tanks’ turrets at the Army Museum. The Oasis Hotel looks stunningly uninviting. I know it’s the end of the desert road (there’s that ‘humour’ again), but you’d be more tempted to die of thirst.

Straight roads are lined with uniform fir trees and bright bushes of gorse. Sharp-beaked magpies wait for roadkill and the clouds are pushed out to the edge of the horizon like frothy suds around a bottomless blue pool.

Turangi is apparently the trout capital of the world, with an obligatory model of a big trout. The scenery changes to babbling brooks, weeping willows and neat roads fringed with green and pampas grasses. We catch our first sighting of Lake Taupo at Mission Bay where two black swans usher their cygnets jealously away from onlookers.