(First published in The Dominion Post, August 14.)
TAKING advantage of a
friend’s offer of her apartment while she was overseas, my wife and I spent
three nights in Wellington last week.
I spent a cumulative 25 years
of my life in the capital but when I go there now, having lived in the
Wairarapa since 2003, I almost feel like a tourist.
The city is changing, and I
don’t just mean the streets and buildings. We wandered along Oriental Parade
with our daughter and grandsons on a Sunday afternoon and although it seemed
all of Wellington had turned out to enjoy the unseasonably balmy weather, I
didn’t see a single familiar face.
That wouldn’t have happened
20, even 10 years ago. Wellington has always felt to me like a big village, but
the city’s population is turning over.
At my wife’s suggestion, I
took my mountain bike and spent a contented couple of hours re-acquainting
myself with the maze of tracks on Mt Victoria. It reminded me what a fantastic
asset the city has in the Town Belt.
Years ago I railed against
the eco-Nazis who ordered the felling of the mature pines along the spine of Mt
Vic above Alexandra Rd; not being native, they had to go. But I’m pleased to
report that the natives planted in their place are flourishing and within a few
years the worst of the scar should be healed.
The removal of the pines
continues. I spent several minutes admiring the coolness and skill of an
arborist perched about 15 metres above the ground, his chainsaw suspended from
his waist as he supervised the removal of the massive crown of a tree that he
had just lopped off. Working in a tight,
confined space, a crane lowered the unwieldy load to the ground as delicately
as a nurse might place a newborn baby in the arms of its mother.
We appreciated the benefits
of the inner-city lifestyle and the proximity to shops and restaurants. We
enjoyed our first-ever meal at the venerable Monsoon Poon – my daughter
couldn’t believe we’d never been there before – but were less impressed by
another celebrated eatery much favoured by the chattering classes. It was over-rated
and over-priced, just as when we last ate there a decade ago. (A friendly
waitress though – from Ohio.)
As pleasant as it all was, I
was happy, as always, to point the car back over the Rimutaka Hill. There is a
steadily growing colony of Wellington refugees in the Wairarapa, of which
I’m happy to be one. * * *
AS ALWAYS, the Olympic Games
was a mixture of the uplifting and the irritating.
The buildup was tainted by
repugnant bullying on the part of corporate sponsors determined to protect
their interests against even the most harmless incursions. Corporate
strong-arming, backed by obsequious governments, now seems an inevitable part
of all major sporting events. But that unpleasantness was largely forgotten
once the Games started.
Our competitors generally
distinguished themselves with their grace and dignity, in defeat as well as in
victory. We met a charismatic new star in the person of cyclist Simon van
Velthooven and were reminded what a gentleman Mark Todd is, although under that
laidback exterior he must be ferociously competitive.
Nick Willis and Valerie Adams
carried the huge burden of a nation’s hopes, magnified by unrealistic media
expectations, and earned our admiration for the way they handled their (and
our) disappointment.
Others, including rowers
Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, did their best to perpetuate the traditional image
of New Zealanders as bashful champions, almost apologetic at having drawn
attention to themselves by winning.
No disgrace, then, on the
part of the competitors. But the same can’t be said for some of the media
coverage, which brought out our least attractive national traits.
New Zealand’s first gold
medal was the cue for an avalanche of triumphalism and hyperbole on TVNZ, with laughable
references to a “gold rush”. On such occasions the nationalistic chest-thumping
of some in the media stands in striking contrast to the modesty of our
athletes.
Similarly, the petty (and, as
it turned out, premature) gloating over our medal count against that of
Australia exposed one of the less desirable traits in the national psyche,
laying bare our inferiority complex and touchiness toward our big neighbour. * * *
THE SO-CALLED war on terror
isn’t just being lost in godforsaken Afghanistan. We’ve capitulated closer to
home too.
English playwright Richard
Bean, interviewed by Kim Hill on Saturday, told how he had been commissioned to write a new version of the classical Greek play Lysistrata,
in which the women of Greece withheld sex from their husbands to dissuade them
from war.
Bean decided to put an Islamic spin on the drama. In his adaptation, the women
of Greece were replaced by the 12 virgins of paradise who reward Islamic
martyrs. The theatre company that commissioned his play loved it, but was too
terrified of reprisals to stage it.
Mad mullahs 1; freedom of
speech 0. 
2 comments:
On Wellington - the most remarkable change I have observed in the last two decades is the complete destruction of the private sector in Wellington. There used to be a sizeable manufacturing and import/export sector that simply no longer exists. The many large factories and warehouses that occupied the city's rim and Lower Hutt and Porirua are almost all gone. The empty shops along the golden mile are evidence that even the omnipresent small retailers are being squeezed out. There seems to be no place in this liberal utopia for people with real businesses and real jobs who ultimately pay for those who don't.
In Rihard Bean's play - he should have used instead Christ's Apostles (and made them female), and he wouldn't have had a problem in our double-standard world.
I was at a party in the Hutt recently (from much further north) and was amazed that almost everyone worked for either local or central government. Depressing, as were many of their attitudes.
Love to visit Wellington.
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