Among several other things, the rules say no nudity or near-nudity, no devices resembling, or which can be used as, a weapon, and, of course, no alcohol. There’s an ocean of bottled beer to buy inside, but don’t try to bring your own because you won’t get it in, a regulation which, I would say, is more strictly enforced than some of the others.
Yes, it has come and gone for the tenth or eleventh year in succession, the International Rugby Sevens weekend in Wellington, when the streets are roamed, the pubs raucously filled to overflowing and the ‘Cake Tin’ as it is popularly known, long since sold out to outlandishly fancy-dressed, overwhelmingly older-teenage and young adult throngs, some with an occasional eye for the rugby, most responding far more enthusiastically, with arms waving, a dark bottle clutched in one hand, hips swaying to the disco music resounding around the stadium at every opportunity, which means very often.
The police were quite happy with the outcome at the end of the first day. Only twenty-eight arrests, mostly for fighting and similar ‘minor offences’ (!), while eighty-two people were ejected from the stadium. Figures for the second day were a little higher, while sixty-to-seventy arrests were made during the all-night street party in town, a result with which the officers of the law were well content.
Afterwards it was congratulations all round. Wellington had done it again. All agree that this weekend is like no other on the International Sevens circuit, which includes Hong Kong and, believe it or not, Las Vegas. The great party had been held once more, with only one dissenting voice to be heard in the correspondence columns of the capital city’s morning newspaper, from a Kiwi resident abroad but who timed his visit home to coincide with the great event. Never again would he subject himself to such a beer-swilling masquerade that used the pretext of the rugby for a rave.
Now most New Zealanders take their rugby very seriously and one can safely assume that other true lovers of the game stay well away, though doubtless following events on the pitch in front of their television sets, where one can assume there is considerably less disturbance. So their voices are not heard in the great chorus of self-congratulations. But wait a moment. Something soon happened to disturb the party-goers and all those who support them - the weekend is worth millions of dollars to the city.
Wellington’s application to hold the New Zealand leg of the Sevens circuit permanently was turned down by the New Zealand Rugby Union Board. The bidding will be open to others after next year’s event, and Auckland and Dunedin have already expressed an interest. This caused great consternation in the capital city, tempered eventually by the confident assertion that no one else could possibly put on such a show.
Auckland and Dunedin evidently can’t rave as well - indeed, their ravers come to Wellington for the weekend and seem happy to continue doing so.
Friday, 19 February 2010
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
A cup of green tea
A cup of green tea cost four New Zealand dollars. I handed over a twenty-dollar note and waited for the change.
The plane from San Francisco is due in Auckland at ten minutes past five in the morning, but was half-an-hour early. So here I was in town having deposited my luggage, but with a lot of time to kill. This coffee bar was one of the few that were open so early.
The man behind the counter put a ten-dollar note in my hand, plus a one-dollar coin. I stared at the money through overtired eyes, then at him. “Four dollars,” I said.
He looked at me uncomprehendingly for a moment. “Oh,” he said suddenly, as though just remembering something, and produced another five dollars from the till. There was no apology.
It is only the second time anyone has tried to cheat me in New Zealand and sad to say, it was by non-native New Zealanders on both occasions, both in Auckland and at the same chain of coffee bars. This has never been a crime-free society, but in my previous experience, such behaviour was unthinkable here.
This is the country where when I phoned the Auckland-dwelling cousin of a Stockholm colleague to convey his regards, I was passed after a chat, to her husband, who asked me where I was staying. I told him.
“You’re not!” he stated emphatically. “You’re staying here!” And despite my protestations, within an hour they had come to collect me. I’d never met them before.
This is the country where, when we once turned up in Invercargill in the evening with our then three-year-old son and couldn’t find anywhere to stay, the chairman of the local motel-owners’ association, whom I had turned to as a last resort, assured me everywhere was full.
“We have a three-year-old child with us,” I said. “So what do we do?”
“You come round here,” he replied. “There’s no room in our motel, but we have a spare room in our house. We have a young child too.”
He later asked where we were going after Invercargill. We told him we’d really like to go to Stewart Island for a few days, whereupon he arranged it for us.
When we got back he had a room for us in the motel. This time we told him we were aiming to go next to Queenstown.
“My wife’s parents have a bach (holiday home) in Queenstown,” he said. “You can stay there. There’s no one in it at the moment.” They gave us bedding to take with us.
This is the country where, much more recently, I booked a bed-and-breakfast weekend in a small township about an hour’s train ride from Wellington, was met at the station by the host, fed afternoon tea by his wife, shown round the area, introduced to a number of people, taken to the biannual fair in a neighbouring town the next day, and given lunch the day after that before being taken back to the station.
Five days later my erstwhile host phoned me in Wellington and asked what I was doing that weekend. Surprised, I explained I was busy the next day, a Saturday, but had made no plans for the Sunday.
“I’ll come and pick you up,” he said. Which he did.
This is the country where I met some friends from Sweden who were on a cruise ship that called in at Wellington and who decided to take a taxi into town. When we got there, they gave the driver a tip - which he refused to take. (I had told them that normally you didn’t tip people here.)
I could go on. So it is doubly sad when someone from another background in the country’s biggest city, which has about one-in-three of the entire New Zealand population, tries to cheat me out of a few dollars.
------------
PS But incidently, the taxi driver I mentioned wasn’t a native Kiwi either.
The plane from San Francisco is due in Auckland at ten minutes past five in the morning, but was half-an-hour early. So here I was in town having deposited my luggage, but with a lot of time to kill. This coffee bar was one of the few that were open so early.
The man behind the counter put a ten-dollar note in my hand, plus a one-dollar coin. I stared at the money through overtired eyes, then at him. “Four dollars,” I said.
He looked at me uncomprehendingly for a moment. “Oh,” he said suddenly, as though just remembering something, and produced another five dollars from the till. There was no apology.
It is only the second time anyone has tried to cheat me in New Zealand and sad to say, it was by non-native New Zealanders on both occasions, both in Auckland and at the same chain of coffee bars. This has never been a crime-free society, but in my previous experience, such behaviour was unthinkable here.
This is the country where when I phoned the Auckland-dwelling cousin of a Stockholm colleague to convey his regards, I was passed after a chat, to her husband, who asked me where I was staying. I told him.
“You’re not!” he stated emphatically. “You’re staying here!” And despite my protestations, within an hour they had come to collect me. I’d never met them before.
This is the country where, when we once turned up in Invercargill in the evening with our then three-year-old son and couldn’t find anywhere to stay, the chairman of the local motel-owners’ association, whom I had turned to as a last resort, assured me everywhere was full.
“We have a three-year-old child with us,” I said. “So what do we do?”
“You come round here,” he replied. “There’s no room in our motel, but we have a spare room in our house. We have a young child too.”
He later asked where we were going after Invercargill. We told him we’d really like to go to Stewart Island for a few days, whereupon he arranged it for us.
When we got back he had a room for us in the motel. This time we told him we were aiming to go next to Queenstown.
“My wife’s parents have a bach (holiday home) in Queenstown,” he said. “You can stay there. There’s no one in it at the moment.” They gave us bedding to take with us.
This is the country where, much more recently, I booked a bed-and-breakfast weekend in a small township about an hour’s train ride from Wellington, was met at the station by the host, fed afternoon tea by his wife, shown round the area, introduced to a number of people, taken to the biannual fair in a neighbouring town the next day, and given lunch the day after that before being taken back to the station.
Five days later my erstwhile host phoned me in Wellington and asked what I was doing that weekend. Surprised, I explained I was busy the next day, a Saturday, but had made no plans for the Sunday.
“I’ll come and pick you up,” he said. Which he did.
This is the country where I met some friends from Sweden who were on a cruise ship that called in at Wellington and who decided to take a taxi into town. When we got there, they gave the driver a tip - which he refused to take. (I had told them that normally you didn’t tip people here.)
I could go on. So it is doubly sad when someone from another background in the country’s biggest city, which has about one-in-three of the entire New Zealand population, tries to cheat me out of a few dollars.
------------
PS But incidently, the taxi driver I mentioned wasn’t a native Kiwi either.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Carbon footprint
As a keen supporter of public transport (though someone who will walk rather than ride whenever possible), a non-car driver and a person who would claim to be environmentally aware, I have a horrendous carbon footprint!
It has been created been far above ground level. In the past year I have flown from Stockholm to Chicago, Chicago to San Francisco, San Francisco to Auckland, Auckland to San Francisco, San Francisco to London, London to Stockholm, Stockholm to London, London to San Francisco, San Francisco to Maui (Hawaii), Maui to San Francisco, San Francisco to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Stockholm, Stockholm to London, London to Stockholm, Stockholm to London yet again, London to San Francisco and San Francisco to Auckland once more!
No, I haven’t suddenly gone to work for one of the airlines, though I am certainly providing some of them with business at a time when they are most in need. I plead special (and very sad) circumstances this year, plus the fact that those closest to me live six thousand miles from my northerly habitat, but must also acknowledge an inceasingly irresistible urge to pack my computer and escape from Swedish winters, of which I have had my very fair share.
So now I’m in New Zealand again.
It has been created been far above ground level. In the past year I have flown from Stockholm to Chicago, Chicago to San Francisco, San Francisco to Auckland, Auckland to San Francisco, San Francisco to London, London to Stockholm, Stockholm to London, London to San Francisco, San Francisco to Maui (Hawaii), Maui to San Francisco, San Francisco to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Stockholm, Stockholm to London, London to Stockholm, Stockholm to London yet again, London to San Francisco and San Francisco to Auckland once more!
No, I haven’t suddenly gone to work for one of the airlines, though I am certainly providing some of them with business at a time when they are most in need. I plead special (and very sad) circumstances this year, plus the fact that those closest to me live six thousand miles from my northerly habitat, but must also acknowledge an inceasingly irresistible urge to pack my computer and escape from Swedish winters, of which I have had my very fair share.
So now I’m in New Zealand again.
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
Surprise, surprise
Some recorded voices are full of warmth and a joy to hear. This one said her name was Åsa and she was phoning from the Stockholm morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, DN. She left what under the circumstances was a remarkably glowing message on my answering machine promising me that although for some reason they had not yet received payment of my bill, the paper would continue to be delivered as usual. She assured me I need have no worries about that, though they would naturally expect payment in the near future.
“Have a nice day,” concluded the amiable Åsa.
Why then did I not appreciate her bonhomie? Why indeed, did I feel as though the walls had given way, the ceiling had fallen on my head, the ground given way from under my feet? Answer: I happened to be twelve thousand miles away and had cancelled the paper more than three months earlier!
Recorded voice number two had none of Åsa’s affability. Instead, this was a stern lady from the landlord’s company wondering why my payment slips for the next quarter had been returned by the PO as undeliverable.
Åsa, I don’t want you to believe your good wishes are not appreciated, but I think you should know I had a thoroughly rotten day, with a succession of thoroughly rotten days to follow, overshadowed by visions of important mail being sent back to people, organisations, authorities and others who would be convinced I’d moved or done a bunk without leaving a new address; of payments, tax-return forms and vital information disappearing into the blue; of thieves lining up to break in, overjoyed to find an abode that was clearly not just empty, but had been so for a long time.
Had they done so, they would at least have performed one inestimable service. They would have forced a passage through the massive, well-nigh immovable, mountain of newsprint that defiantly confronted me when I finally returned, jet-lagged, not having slept for more than thirty-six hours and burdened by all the baggage the regulations would allow (plus some they wouldn’t but that never got weighed). Had the door not opened outwards, it would have had to be removed.
Åsa, I do not wish to burden your conscience with the anguish and frustrations that followed in the frantic damage-limitation efforts of the succeeding days and weeks, nor with the fact that I can never know the full extent of the harm caused. Nor yet am I willing to believe you were the one responsible for not only ignoring my missives about the great unnatural disaster that had darkened my doorstep and my life, accompanied by black-and-white proof of the original cancellation and confirmation of same signed by one of your colleagues. Neither can I possibly imagine it was you who decided to pour salt on the wounds by sending me a new invoice for all the papers I had cancelled.
BUT, pacific though I normally am, that Åsa was what diplomats, politicians and the history books call a casus belli. The gauntlet had been thrown down. Well, if it was warfare DN wanted, warfare it should have. It was for me to choose my weapons and my natural instinct was to go for the keyboard.
So Åsa, I filed a formal written complaint against your company with the Consumer Ombudsman, containing all the irrefutable evidence I had of written cancellation and signed confirmation, and sent a copy to your Managing Director.
Åsa, you may prefer the phone, but it is truly amazing what a fine weapon the keyboard can be, mightier even than the pen. When I entered my flat late one afternoon a couple of days afterwards there were two messages on my answerphone from the head of your department. I’d hardly had time to listen to them when she called again — full of sympathy and understanding.
We had a pleasant conversation Åsa, with just a little bargaining, during which the stakes were raised somewhat. As a result I now have a one-year free subscription to your publication, naturally with all previous ‘debts’ cancelled.
The question now Åsa is what do I do if I go away again before the year is up? Do I cancel a free subscription?? Hmm... I’ll have to think about that one.
“Have a nice day,” concluded the amiable Åsa.
Why then did I not appreciate her bonhomie? Why indeed, did I feel as though the walls had given way, the ceiling had fallen on my head, the ground given way from under my feet? Answer: I happened to be twelve thousand miles away and had cancelled the paper more than three months earlier!
Recorded voice number two had none of Åsa’s affability. Instead, this was a stern lady from the landlord’s company wondering why my payment slips for the next quarter had been returned by the PO as undeliverable.
Åsa, I don’t want you to believe your good wishes are not appreciated, but I think you should know I had a thoroughly rotten day, with a succession of thoroughly rotten days to follow, overshadowed by visions of important mail being sent back to people, organisations, authorities and others who would be convinced I’d moved or done a bunk without leaving a new address; of payments, tax-return forms and vital information disappearing into the blue; of thieves lining up to break in, overjoyed to find an abode that was clearly not just empty, but had been so for a long time.
Had they done so, they would at least have performed one inestimable service. They would have forced a passage through the massive, well-nigh immovable, mountain of newsprint that defiantly confronted me when I finally returned, jet-lagged, not having slept for more than thirty-six hours and burdened by all the baggage the regulations would allow (plus some they wouldn’t but that never got weighed). Had the door not opened outwards, it would have had to be removed.
Åsa, I do not wish to burden your conscience with the anguish and frustrations that followed in the frantic damage-limitation efforts of the succeeding days and weeks, nor with the fact that I can never know the full extent of the harm caused. Nor yet am I willing to believe you were the one responsible for not only ignoring my missives about the great unnatural disaster that had darkened my doorstep and my life, accompanied by black-and-white proof of the original cancellation and confirmation of same signed by one of your colleagues. Neither can I possibly imagine it was you who decided to pour salt on the wounds by sending me a new invoice for all the papers I had cancelled.
BUT, pacific though I normally am, that Åsa was what diplomats, politicians and the history books call a casus belli. The gauntlet had been thrown down. Well, if it was warfare DN wanted, warfare it should have. It was for me to choose my weapons and my natural instinct was to go for the keyboard.
So Åsa, I filed a formal written complaint against your company with the Consumer Ombudsman, containing all the irrefutable evidence I had of written cancellation and signed confirmation, and sent a copy to your Managing Director.
Åsa, you may prefer the phone, but it is truly amazing what a fine weapon the keyboard can be, mightier even than the pen. When I entered my flat late one afternoon a couple of days afterwards there were two messages on my answerphone from the head of your department. I’d hardly had time to listen to them when she called again — full of sympathy and understanding.
We had a pleasant conversation Åsa, with just a little bargaining, during which the stakes were raised somewhat. As a result I now have a one-year free subscription to your publication, naturally with all previous ‘debts’ cancelled.
The question now Åsa is what do I do if I go away again before the year is up? Do I cancel a free subscription?? Hmm... I’ll have to think about that one.
Monday, 19 May 2008
Kiwi-speak
"Awesome!" the girl at the cash desk says when I hand over the exact price of my purchase. I smile back at her. "See ya later!" she adds as I turn to go.
I didn’t see her later, nor was I ever likely to. Some expressions seem to have lost all meaning, or taken on vague new ones. The younger generation in particular are influenced by Americanisms of course, but most Kiwi-isms are either distinctly home-grown, many of Maori origin, or shared with big brother across the Tasman Sea.
To learn the local lingo you should know not simply that your mail is delivered by a 'postie', but that the food you eat in the morning is 'brekkie' (many cafés serve it all day), a person driving a lorry is a 'truckie', a dock worker a 'wharfie' and a person with a hobby that keeps him in a little hut in the garden for long periods a 'sheddie', while the boat enthusiast is a 'boatie'.
The land your house stands on is a 'section', and if it’s a little weekend or summer place by the beach it’s a 'bach'' (from bachelor). The field where livestock are herded together is a 'paddock', hikers are 'trampers', if you are not well you are 'crook' and if people are departing, for example to get their OE ('Overseas Experience'), you can 'farewell' them.
Among Maori expressions that are never translated are 'kia ora' (hello, thanks etc.), 'haere mai' (welcome), 'pakeha' (a person of European descent), 'iwi' (tribe), 'marae' (tribal/sub-tribal meeting place) and 'mana' (influence, power, prestige). 'Waka-jumping' is a more recent one, describing an MP who leaves his party while Parliament is still in session (a 'waka' is a Maori canoe and the term was coined ten years ago after Maori MPs left the New Zealand First Party.)
A 'bogan' is a bore, or old fuddy-duddy, a 'monsoon bucket' a container full of water dropped on a bush fire from the air (more common in Australia), 'pingers' is money and anyone described as 'munted' is probably drunk, or down and out.
Awesome! Don’t you think?
Maybe not. Anyway — see ya later!
I didn’t see her later, nor was I ever likely to. Some expressions seem to have lost all meaning, or taken on vague new ones. The younger generation in particular are influenced by Americanisms of course, but most Kiwi-isms are either distinctly home-grown, many of Maori origin, or shared with big brother across the Tasman Sea.
To learn the local lingo you should know not simply that your mail is delivered by a 'postie', but that the food you eat in the morning is 'brekkie' (many cafés serve it all day), a person driving a lorry is a 'truckie', a dock worker a 'wharfie' and a person with a hobby that keeps him in a little hut in the garden for long periods a 'sheddie', while the boat enthusiast is a 'boatie'.
The land your house stands on is a 'section', and if it’s a little weekend or summer place by the beach it’s a 'bach'' (from bachelor). The field where livestock are herded together is a 'paddock', hikers are 'trampers', if you are not well you are 'crook' and if people are departing, for example to get their OE ('Overseas Experience'), you can 'farewell' them.
Among Maori expressions that are never translated are 'kia ora' (hello, thanks etc.), 'haere mai' (welcome), 'pakeha' (a person of European descent), 'iwi' (tribe), 'marae' (tribal/sub-tribal meeting place) and 'mana' (influence, power, prestige). 'Waka-jumping' is a more recent one, describing an MP who leaves his party while Parliament is still in session (a 'waka' is a Maori canoe and the term was coined ten years ago after Maori MPs left the New Zealand First Party.)
A 'bogan' is a bore, or old fuddy-duddy, a 'monsoon bucket' a container full of water dropped on a bush fire from the air (more common in Australia), 'pingers' is money and anyone described as 'munted' is probably drunk, or down and out.
Awesome! Don’t you think?
Maybe not. Anyway — see ya later!
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Wellington in February (2)
“Is he stupid, or crazed?” The Minister asks. His words are dutifully recorded in the official proceedings.
Yes, apart from sporting spectacles; Waitangi Day celebrations (to commemorate the signing of a treaty in 1840 under which Maori tribes were guaranteed possession of their lands in return for recognising the sovereignty of the British Crown — except that the Maori translation was not quite the same as the English original, large parcels of land were sold for a song, there were land wars, confiscations, and a Treaty Tribunal set up in 1975 is still trying to sort out the claims); parades, including a colourful one to mark the Chinese New Year; a lot of (free) outdoor entertainment; a Fringe Festival; and the start this time round of the biennial New Zealand International Arts Festival; February is also back-to-school and back-to-work month, for the country’s 121 parliamentarians as well as anyone else.
Another Minister gets to his feet. “It is not fair to call him stupid,” he states. “He’s doing his best.” The object of their derision, on the Opposition benches, seemed to have mixed up the figures for one day with those for a whole month.
With an election due later in the year, political battle lines are being drawn and the tone and temper of debate are not likely to become more genteel. The most frequently heard word in the single-chamber House of Representatives will probably continue to be “Order! Order!” from the Speaker’s chair. On the other hand, its equivalent would be entirely superfluous in the Swedish Riksdag, an outstandingly strong contender for the title of dullest legislative assembly in the western world.
General Elections are held every three years, a period that was abandoned in Sweden in favour of quadrennium polls as apart perhaps from the first year, everyone’s eye was on the next election. In New Zealand it was the voting system that was changed, from first-past-the-post (FPP), with a simple majority required in single-member constituencies as in Britain, to the German system of proportional representation, with each person having two votes, one for a constituency member, the other for a party list.
Parliament has been sitting in Wellington since 1865, when it moved here from Auckland. The present neo-classical building was opened in 1918 and provided with shock-absorbing base isolation in this earthquake-prone area in the 1990s. The Executive Wing, where the Government has its offices, known to one and all as The Beehive, was completed in1982.
The single chamber House of Representatives meets on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with proceedings opened by Question Time, when Ministers answer queries within their field of responsibility. They have been given advance notice, but questions can be followed by supplementaries, constant interruptions and general hullabaloo.
“What does it feel like being a straw clutched at by a drowning man,” the Minister of Finance asks the Prime Minister after she has engaged in a verbal duel with the Leader of the Opposition. Whereupon the Speaker informs him and the House that, “The Prime Minister has no ministerial responsibility for that.”
To be fair, it’s not all at this level and not quite as virulent as when a past and particularly pugnacious PM described the then quiet-spoken Leader of the Opposition as “a shiver looking for a spine to run down!” But to think I was once refused admission to the press gallery because I wasn’t wearing a tie on a hot afternoon. “You have to maintain the dignity of the House,” I was told.
Yes, apart from sporting spectacles; Waitangi Day celebrations (to commemorate the signing of a treaty in 1840 under which Maori tribes were guaranteed possession of their lands in return for recognising the sovereignty of the British Crown — except that the Maori translation was not quite the same as the English original, large parcels of land were sold for a song, there were land wars, confiscations, and a Treaty Tribunal set up in 1975 is still trying to sort out the claims); parades, including a colourful one to mark the Chinese New Year; a lot of (free) outdoor entertainment; a Fringe Festival; and the start this time round of the biennial New Zealand International Arts Festival; February is also back-to-school and back-to-work month, for the country’s 121 parliamentarians as well as anyone else.
Another Minister gets to his feet. “It is not fair to call him stupid,” he states. “He’s doing his best.” The object of their derision, on the Opposition benches, seemed to have mixed up the figures for one day with those for a whole month.
With an election due later in the year, political battle lines are being drawn and the tone and temper of debate are not likely to become more genteel. The most frequently heard word in the single-chamber House of Representatives will probably continue to be “Order! Order!” from the Speaker’s chair. On the other hand, its equivalent would be entirely superfluous in the Swedish Riksdag, an outstandingly strong contender for the title of dullest legislative assembly in the western world.
General Elections are held every three years, a period that was abandoned in Sweden in favour of quadrennium polls as apart perhaps from the first year, everyone’s eye was on the next election. In New Zealand it was the voting system that was changed, from first-past-the-post (FPP), with a simple majority required in single-member constituencies as in Britain, to the German system of proportional representation, with each person having two votes, one for a constituency member, the other for a party list.
Parliament has been sitting in Wellington since 1865, when it moved here from Auckland. The present neo-classical building was opened in 1918 and provided with shock-absorbing base isolation in this earthquake-prone area in the 1990s. The Executive Wing, where the Government has its offices, known to one and all as The Beehive, was completed in1982.The single chamber House of Representatives meets on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with proceedings opened by Question Time, when Ministers answer queries within their field of responsibility. They have been given advance notice, but questions can be followed by supplementaries, constant interruptions and general hullabaloo.
“What does it feel like being a straw clutched at by a drowning man,” the Minister of Finance asks the Prime Minister after she has engaged in a verbal duel with the Leader of the Opposition. Whereupon the Speaker informs him and the House that, “The Prime Minister has no ministerial responsibility for that.”
To be fair, it’s not all at this level and not quite as virulent as when a past and particularly pugnacious PM described the then quiet-spoken Leader of the Opposition as “a shiver looking for a spine to run down!” But to think I was once refused admission to the press gallery because I wasn’t wearing a tie on a hot afternoon. “You have to maintain the dignity of the House,” I was told.
Friday, 29 February 2008
Wellington in February (1)
“What have you got in your bag?” the man asks.
“Nothing that would interest you,” I reply innocently with a smile. On either side of me bags have been opened and people are pouring water from their plastic bottles into containers placed there for the purpose.
He gives me a half-smile back and I walk through, one hand reassuringly pressing my shoulder bag with a bottle of spring water and other sustenance, into my side.
That you are not allowed to take alcohol into the ‘Cake Tin’, as Wellington’s 34,000-seat rugby stadium, also used for concerts and one-day cricket internationals, is popularly known, I was well aware of from past experience. Commercial food isn’t allowed either — in neither case out of consideration for the comfort and well-being of patrons, but solely to ensure they consume nothing but the beer and the junk food on sale inside. But water!!
I suppose those who won’t accept such gangster-like demands, or won’t put up with the disco music played at every opportunity, or the rising level of inebriation among many, mainly young males, in the crowd, vote with their feet and stay away. The New Zealand ‘Black Caps’ were playing England in the first ODI of five, but the ground was far from full.
Anyone who thinks all New Zealanders are cast in the quiet-spoken, modest, unassuming Hillary mould should be in the world’s most southerly capital in February. It starts with the two-day International Rugby Sevens tournament, which is turned into a raucous, fancy-dress, beer-swilling, disco, carnival party, with not too much attention paidto what is going on on the field of play.
People come from far and wide to join in, so there are no unsold tickets for this event, yet the stadium may look half or more empty at times. Play may be in progress, but in town you can see little knots of multi-coloured pirates, mini-skirted policewomen, cudgel-carrying Flintstones, escaped prisoners, overgrown babies, suspiciously masculine women and female-like men, dubious-looking clergy, representatives of unknown religious orders, a band of Polynesian Islander ‘doctors’, or Doctours, and many other outlandish figures in the streets and pubs. It’s almost a relief to note there are also normally-dressed people going about their normal business.
The stadium regulations were tightened this year. Dress standards were introduced: no bare bums, minimalist male Boran costumes, fig leaves or potentially harmful accoutrements, although most inflatable swords and the like seem to have made it inside.
The final consumption tally was impressive: 30,000 litres of monopoly-sales beer, 20,000 stadium hot dogs, 21,500 pies and 10,000 hamburgers. Nobody has kept count of what was consumed at the bars, pubs and fast food outlets in town, but it could hardly have been less.
When it was all over there were congratulations all round on the success of the event. Naturally, the organisers were happy, but the police also expressed satisfaction with crowd behaviour. Only 30 people were arrested inside the stadium during the two long days, a further 76 ejected. The party doesn’t stop when play ends, however, and another 32 were taken into custody in town by seven o’clock the next morning, mostly for being drunk and disorderly.
The prelude is a parade through town the day before the real business starts, with teams from all the competing nations on floats, flags flying, bands playing, drums beating, people lining the street and office balconies, hanging out of windows, waving, clapping, cheering, and ending with presentations of each team in a crowded Civic Square.
The cricket is a pale imitation. There’s no trouble at all getting tickets, much less fancy dress, but lots of bottled ale and a growing volume of noise as the day wears on. One young man, standing a little unsteadily in the aisle just below me tries to coach a group of his companions in the kind of protracted, rising call to make as the bowler runs up to bowl. A greatly overweight young gentleman, briefly absent on urgent business, brushes past him with a fresh supply of bottled beer peering from his pockets.
“Give us a smile Ryder,” one wag booms at a New Zealand boundary fielder, who turns and obliges. Jubilation. (A newcomer to the team, he is later to put his international career on the line as a result of his own drunken antics.) Meanwhile, the England players perform as though in a collective stupor, giving the home crowd even more to hoot and howl about.
There are fewer Mexican Waves than I have seen here in the past, less assorted rubbish thrown into the air as the wave goes round. But I leave the Cake Tin with one thought uppermost in my mind: if it’s the cricket or sevens you’re really interested in — watch it on the box.
“Nothing that would interest you,” I reply innocently with a smile. On either side of me bags have been opened and people are pouring water from their plastic bottles into containers placed there for the purpose.
He gives me a half-smile back and I walk through, one hand reassuringly pressing my shoulder bag with a bottle of spring water and other sustenance, into my side.
That you are not allowed to take alcohol into the ‘Cake Tin’, as Wellington’s 34,000-seat rugby stadium, also used for concerts and one-day cricket internationals, is popularly known, I was well aware of from past experience. Commercial food isn’t allowed either — in neither case out of consideration for the comfort and well-being of patrons, but solely to ensure they consume nothing but the beer and the junk food on sale inside. But water!!
I suppose those who won’t accept such gangster-like demands, or won’t put up with the disco music played at every opportunity, or the rising level of inebriation among many, mainly young males, in the crowd, vote with their feet and stay away. The New Zealand ‘Black Caps’ were playing England in the first ODI of five, but the ground was far from full.
Anyone who thinks all New Zealanders are cast in the quiet-spoken, modest, unassuming Hillary mould should be in the world’s most southerly capital in February. It starts with the two-day International Rugby Sevens tournament, which is turned into a raucous, fancy-dress, beer-swilling, disco, carnival party, with not too much attention paidto what is going on on the field of play.
People come from far and wide to join in, so there are no unsold tickets for this event, yet the stadium may look half or more empty at times. Play may be in progress, but in town you can see little knots of multi-coloured pirates, mini-skirted policewomen, cudgel-carrying Flintstones, escaped prisoners, overgrown babies, suspiciously masculine women and female-like men, dubious-looking clergy, representatives of unknown religious orders, a band of Polynesian Islander ‘doctors’, or Doctours, and many other outlandish figures in the streets and pubs. It’s almost a relief to note there are also normally-dressed people going about their normal business.The stadium regulations were tightened this year. Dress standards were introduced: no bare bums, minimalist male Boran costumes, fig leaves or potentially harmful accoutrements, although most inflatable swords and the like seem to have made it inside.
The final consumption tally was impressive: 30,000 litres of monopoly-sales beer, 20,000 stadium hot dogs, 21,500 pies and 10,000 hamburgers. Nobody has kept count of what was consumed at the bars, pubs and fast food outlets in town, but it could hardly have been less.
When it was all over there were congratulations all round on the success of the event. Naturally, the organisers were happy, but the police also expressed satisfaction with crowd behaviour. Only 30 people were arrested inside the stadium during the two long days, a further 76 ejected. The party doesn’t stop when play ends, however, and another 32 were taken into custody in town by seven o’clock the next morning, mostly for being drunk and disorderly.
The prelude is a parade through town the day before the real business starts, with teams from all the competing nations on floats, flags flying, bands playing, drums beating, people lining the street and office balconies, hanging out of windows, waving, clapping, cheering, and ending with presentations of each team in a crowded Civic Square.The cricket is a pale imitation. There’s no trouble at all getting tickets, much less fancy dress, but lots of bottled ale and a growing volume of noise as the day wears on. One young man, standing a little unsteadily in the aisle just below me tries to coach a group of his companions in the kind of protracted, rising call to make as the bowler runs up to bowl. A greatly overweight young gentleman, briefly absent on urgent business, brushes past him with a fresh supply of bottled beer peering from his pockets.
“Give us a smile Ryder,” one wag booms at a New Zealand boundary fielder, who turns and obliges. Jubilation. (A newcomer to the team, he is later to put his international career on the line as a result of his own drunken antics.) Meanwhile, the England players perform as though in a collective stupor, giving the home crowd even more to hoot and howl about.
There are fewer Mexican Waves than I have seen here in the past, less assorted rubbish thrown into the air as the wave goes round. But I leave the Cake Tin with one thought uppermost in my mind: if it’s the cricket or sevens you’re really interested in — watch it on the box.
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