NZH Canvas - Boxing Day Issue - Dec 2021

DECEMBER 26, 2021

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SHORT STORIES, FOOD, MUSIC, TRAVEL, ART, FILM, STYLE, BOOKS, GIVEAWAYS

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CONTENTS

4 4 5 6 8-10

FROM THE EDITOR I’ve always had a thing for places at the very edge.

The extremities, like Rakiura (Stewart Island). I went there once, latitude 47 degrees south, and it looked like a tropical island — white sand, shockingly blue ocean — but it was ice-cold beneath the surface.

I went fishing for blue cod with a hand line in a kayak, out in the middle of the harbour. I stared out to sea, feeling an equal measure of awe and dread, that just beyond lay the formidable Southern Ocean. I ate Glory Bay oysters at the pub and drank big bottles of Waikato.

This week, for our very special, first-ever Boxing Day issue, Airini Beautrais (Bug Week) takes me right back to Rakiura. She and fellow awardwinning New Zealand writers Becky Manawatu (Aue) and J.P. Pomare (Call Me Evie) have written short stories exclusively for Canvas, and all take me somewhere familiar. In Pomare’s That Boy, in my mind’s eye I’m at Pataua South bridge, where everyone does bombs into the fast-flowing estuary. Manawatu is in Italy — and her story, themed on koha, or a gift, is about food. The food of Italy is surely one of the greatest gifts and central to their culture is the same sense of manaakitanga so valued in tikanga Maori — love, sharing and hospitality. Values that are inextricably connected with this time of year — being with whanau and friends. I hope you enjoy this special issue and a well-deserved break.

Canvas will be back on January 15. Until then, hari tau hou — happy new year.

Sarah Daniell sarah.daniell@nzme.co.nz

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12-14 16-18 20-23 24-25 26-27 28-29 30-31 32 33 34-35 36-37 38-39 40-41 42 43-44 45-46 47

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Design For Living Steve Braunias Taonga Short Stories: J.P. Pomare, Airini Beautrais, Becky Manawatu Is Auckland Really The World’s Best City To Visit?

Whatever Happened To Pop Idol Ronnie?

The Taniwha Of Te Ana Road Trip Quiz Annabel Langbein Restaurant Round-up 10 Interior Design Trends Beach-ready Reads A Cheese Factory Christmas Moving Heaven And Earth Lone Rangers ‘I Promised Mum ...’

It’s Okay To Be Brown & Bougie Review TV Listings Puzzles Canvas Shopping Guide

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EDITOR: Sarah Daniell WRITERS: Greg Bruce, Joanna Wane BOOKS EDITOR: Eleanor Black STYLE: Dan Ahwa CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Paul Slater DESIGNERS: Rob Cox, Laura Hutchins MAGAZINES TEAM LEADER: Isobel Marriner SUB-EDITORS: Sue Baxalle, Jill Stanford, Maureen Marriner, Courtney Whitaker PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Julia Gessler PREMIUM CONTENT EDITOR: Miriyana Alexander COVER ILLUSTRATION: Isabelle Russell INQUIRIES: canvas@nzherald.co.nz SUBSCRIPTIONS: subscriptions@nzherald.co.nz ADVERTISING INQUIRIES: Andrea O’Hagan andrea.ohagan@nzme.co.nz

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UPFRONT

DESIGN FOR LIVING

A

uckland’s pink pathway, Te Ara i Whiti, is a converted section of unused motorway.

The idea came from New York’s High Line, a converted section of unused elevated railway. It, in turn, came from the Promenade plantee, a tree-lined walkway in Paris, also converted from an old elevated rail line.

There may be no new ideas, but there are still many brilliant ways to reimagine old ones. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon probably come into it somewhere too.

The High Line is a garden walkway, planted all the way along its 2.3km, with stopping points to admire the city views, the planting, the itinerant performers and artists and artworks and, for much of the year, to try to squeeze yourself out of the way of the crowds.

It opened in stages from 2009 and the problem it has now is that it’s too good.

Which means it’s ridiculously popular: eight million visitors a year, pre-Covid.

That’s a problem we could do with. There are High Line-inspired parks all over America, and elsewhere.

Daldy St in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter, a beautifully planted linear park with a quiet street down the middle, owes something to the idea. It’s possible the linear park proposed for Victoria St does too.

But let’s look at Queen St. How to restore life to an

abandoned civic amenity is not a bad way to think of the challenge facing the heart of Auckland in 2022.

There are many lessons from the High Line. They called in great designers. They had lots of people living and working nearby, which is invaluable, but Queen St has that too. The larger lesson is that the High Line has drawn tens of thousands more people to live and work in the vicinity.

Also, it’s an actual park. It’s not, as Queen St and Victoria St are currently proposed to be, some benches and a few planters and trees, with pedestrians chancing their luck with bikes and scooters and traffic.

It’s full of things to see and do. Walking the High Line is like being on a stage, caught up in the action of some enormous freestyling show and you don’t want to miss a moment of it. Off one end you can visit the Hudson Yards, all steel and glass and upmarket shopping. At the other you’ll find the great sprawling Chelsea Market, dedicated to tourist tat and sublimely good seafood. Lobster rolls a specialty.

What’s the High Line got to teach central Auckland? Well, it has not taught us that we should elevate Queen St. But why don’t we work out how to turn the centre of the city into a year-round carnival in the park? All sorts of live performances, every night and every day. Thick with beautiful landscaping. A

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fabulous street market, selling everything, run by the local retailers who would all get to strut their stuff, every day and every night.

Why don’t we put together every good idea to bring the crowds, and do them all? Make it so good, people won’t want to go home. New life in the street.

The thing about the High Line is, they aimed high.

The only problem with the High Line is that it gets kind of busy.

5

UPFRONT

AWAY IN AN EXPENSIVE MANGER Steve Braunias on on living the dream under the same star

X

mas in my new house is like I’m living the dream or, more to the point, it’s like I’m living someone else’s dream. I have moved into New Zealand’s most expensive suburb and am so far coping pretty admirably as likely the poorest person in that suburb. But we are all one beneath the Star of Bethlehem and my Xmas is as good as anyone else’s Xmas in this little radius of incomprehensible wealth. I have a Xmas tree. I bought it from a house on my street; I picked it up and walked it across the road.

The next day, Grant Dalton arrived to buy his Xmas tree. He picked it up and would have sailed it across the Waitemata if the price was right.

Xmas in my new house is very, very quiet. It’s like I am living in a zone of incomprehensible silence. It’s like the end of the world in this neck of the woods, somewhere deserted and abandoned — the rich have packed up and gone to their holiday homes, which are possibly as big as their city homes, which are as large as ships. The static of conversations in holiday homes in Coromandel and Wanaka and Taupo and Queenstown linger in the air. I wonder if they’re talking about money, but do the rich actually talk about money? Maybe they just go out and make it. The poor always talk about money. I’m aware that right now I’m talking about money.

Xmas in my new house is littered with petals. The footpaths are stained red with pohutukawa flowers, and there’s a Jaguar parked beneath a jacaranda tree up the street — it’s like an art exhibition, every day the car is covered with a deeper layer of jacaranda flowers and leaves. There are a lot of palm trees. The tallest palm trees are in front of a very, very large house that used to be owned by one of the world’s richest sheikhs. I met someone recently who told me a story about how in the early 2000s she was a waitress at a restaurant around the corner from the sheikh’s oasis of palm trees. One night the sheikh came for dinner.

When it came time to pay the bill, he said to her that he was very impressed with her demeanour, her poise, her professionalism, then explained that he owned 600 houses around the world and that each needed a property manager, then asked her if she would like to work for him as the property manager at his house in Paris. She lived for many years in France. I suppose it was a kind of tip.

Xmas in my new house is lapped by water. There are a series of lovely little bays. The tide creeps in, and the tide creeps out, expensively. I keep noticing an old, tanned guy who arrives at the one of the bays in the late afternoon. He has long hair, wears tight white jeans, and nipple rings that catch the last of the

sunlight. He brings loud music. He takes possession of the beach. Someone always greets him, and he says things like, “Hey man, who’s your lovely lady?”

At low tide, the suburb continues to be lapped by water: there are very, very many swimming pools.

They form a kind of river. I recently read Home Before Dark, Susan Cheever’s memoir of her father, the great author John Cheever. She writes, “The incinerator was often merrily ablaze with letters and manuscripts, journals, and old notes. One afternoon he fed the flames three-quarters of a short novel he had written about a man who swims across a suburban county from swimming pool to swimming pool. The pages he had left became the short story The Swimmer.” I read the memoir on the beach visited by the man with glistening nipple rings.

Xmas in my new home is awesome. My girlfriend arrived from Wellington to stay the week before Xmas; we wandered the scented avenues beneath the jacaranda trees, and swam in the bays. My daughter woke up on Xmas Day and unwrapped the presents beneath the Xmas tree she had chosen from across the road. We are living a dream of the same thing everyone who has any kind of love in their lives is dreaming this Xmas: a dream of incomprehensible happiness.

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UPFRONT

TAONGA

F

or five years I was like a modern-day nomad, living in New York and Berlin. This bronze cast replica of the Venus of Willendorf is one of the precious objects I took with me on that journey, connecting me back to my mother and to my sense of home. Now I keep her on my windowsill, so it’s something I see every day. The Venus is a literal touchstone to me, small enough to hold in one hand.

The original is housed in the Natural History Museum in Vienna and was made [from limestone] around 25,000 years old.I find it beyond fascinating that this totem has time-travelled from the past and that we can hold her in the present — and potentially she’ll travel into the future as a pop icon. A few months ago, I saw that Mattel has made a replica of her as Barbie, which is so absurd but also kind of awesome because there are all these issues around female idealism. My mother [the artist Maree Horner] gifted her to me when I was in my early teens as a kind of female power symbol. I was a 1970s child with a 1970s mother who brought me up to believe girls could do anything. I’m definitely a feminist-plus.

I’m also very sentimental. I own all my teeth from my childhood — I didn’t give any to the tooth fairy — so I’m an archivist from way back.The Venus is important to me because she makes me think outside of my lifetime

‘Mattel has made a replica of her as Barbie, which is so absurd but also kind of awesome because there are all these issues around female idealism.’

and immediately connects in relation to digital platforms.

I made an event on Auckland me to a greater sense of time Live’s digital stage that played as and space. In my ceramics a video piece. It had a soundtrack and clay work, I’m interested in and I animated some of the pieces touch and human trace, and how it affects history geomorphically. so it became quite kaleidoscopic.

It was like a rave, actually. It also Objects tell our times and stories, —Teresa Peters presents some challenges that are and can hold such collective cultural significance.Another layer of connection part of the work because it’s been made in here for me is what I call my German fairy tales. response to the climate crisis, about how we should live in ourselves, what our objects are and how they Some of the people who are pivotal to my life, including are archived and carried through time. We’re all in this my partner [film-maker Florian Habicht] who’s Austrocrisis together and maybe it’s asking some important German, and my grandmother, who’s Croatian, come from a similar area to where the Venus was found. My questions. work operates in a contemporary ceramic context, with — as told to Joanna Wane layers into fine art. It’s quite mad, but on the other hand, it’s quite formal. I am so in love with clay. When it dries Northland-based artist Teresa Peters won it changes energy — almost like witnessing the process the 2021 Premier Portage Ceramic Award with of life and death in nature. For the past six years, I’ve ECHOES, a photograph of a clay collection she really put my head down and been committed to my created for DISASTROUSFORMS.COM, an online exhibition inspired by a trip to Pompeii and Auckland practice in an emerging artist kind of way; it’s not all easy and it takes quite a lot of perseverance and trust.

Museum’s Natural History Collections Online. Work When I got funding from Creative New Zealand to make by all the award finalists is on show at Auckland’s Te the Disastrous Forms project during lockdown last year, Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery until February it sparked some exciting avenues for my ceramic work 27, 2022.

Northlandbased artist Teresa Peters and the bronze replica of the Venus of Willendorf.

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8

THAT BOY H

e pokes his tongue in the gap like a worm breaking through soil, wiggling away.

“Neat alright,” I say. “Make sure you put it under your pillow tonight.” The talk of money mopped up the last few tears quick smart.

Now he’s brimming with energy again.

“Can I go back?”

“Only if your brother goes,” I say.

Jack grew bored of the bridge a few years ago, they always do. Who knows maybe he’ll get off his phone for a bit.

“Everyone is still down there.”

“I said only if your brother goes.”

The last five weeks I’ve been here on the couch, grazing Netflix and scrolling on my phone. Never fully committed to either. I walk at nights, eat what my old man used to call “rabbit food” and I take the pills. It’s hard work. The boat has been begging to get on the lake. Not to mention all the Lion Reds I’ve missed at the pub. Doctors’ orders.

Ra’s back two minutes later. He’s doing that walk, the concrete feet shuffle with his chin bolted to his

collar bone. Dark as an almond already and it’s not even Christmas.

“I’m not going,” I say.

“Please Dad?” “Might be good for you to stay outta the sun for a bit. You don’t want leathery skin like your old man, eh?”

He shifts his eyes to the window. “If you were at work, I’d just go back anyway.”

Mind reader, and he’s not wrong. The boy could talk a pipi out of its shell. I can hear Angela already, And you let him go back down after losing a bloody tooth?

“Tell your mother you wiggled it out.”

He knows where this is going, and he clamps his lips but can’t quite hide the smile.

Light exercise, that’s what the doc said. “I’ll grab my togs.”

Then he shows me that big gap between his teeth again.

Towels slung over our shoulders, we walk on the grass to keep our jandals from sticking to the road.

As a kid we used to look out for tourist buses parked up there. It meant the spring would be full of coins, and we’d take turns diving down deep enough to bring on a headache. We’d surface with coins from around the world, but it was the New Zealand two dollar we prized above all else.

A short story by J.P. Pomare Illustration by Isabelle Russell

It’s only about a k. But Ra skips ahead, then waits, then skips ahead.

Soon we see them through the heat shimmer coming off the tarseal. Brown bodies laid out on the grass. As a kid we used to look out for tourist buses parked up there. It meant the spring would be full of coins, and we’d take turns diving down deep enough to bring on a headache. We’d surface with coins from around the world, but it was the New Zealand two dollar we prized above all else. Then off to the Caltex that doubled as the fish and chip shop, to warm up with a bag of blood’n’guts, extra chicken salt.

“They’re still there,” he says with a bubble of excitement bursting in his voice.

Six boys get up off the grass.

“Kia ora Mr Ruatara.”

“Eh fellas, thought I’d come down to teach you boys how to manu.”

“Eh!” “Tu meke.”

We toss our towels down, and step from our jandals. Marching on to the bridge. There’s a crackle of anticipation, passing between them like static electricity.

Climbing up on the rail, it’s higher than I remember, and my balance is worse. Light exercise.

The old ticker barely registers it at all. Then I leap.

A moment of flight. Ice and pain. Na, not pain. It’s something else entirely. I hit the sandy bottom but not before the water compresses around me and surges up with that old familiar boom.

I surface to howls of chaoo. The current pulling me into the shade of the bridge. Then comes the next concussive splash, then the next as one after the other they throw themselves over the rail. Last of all, Ra hits the water. He’s the skinniest of the lot but he sends a perfect spire of water back up.

“Tu meke fullas,” I call over the train of boys crawling along the current to the shallows.

Towelling off, one boy picks up his phone.

“Go again?” he says. “I’ll chuck it on Tik Tok.” “Tik Tok?” I say, making a face.

I catch Ra staring at the angry pink line running the length of my sternum. I realise it’s the first time he’s seen it. The others all stare.

No one says anything. “Tough scar eh?” I say.

“Ra said you had a heart attack.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend it either. Alright one more.”

“Do a Staple this time?”

“Na, a gorilla?”

Then we’re back on the bridge, a phone pointed in my direction. I can see why Ra’s campaign to get one himself has ramped up the last couple of months.

“You first,” I say to Ra. He climbs up, as graceful as any gymnast. The bar is wet beneath his feet, easy to see how he slipped.

This time he leaps so high he seems to hover for a moment, he folds and turns then hits the water. The splash clears the rail.

“Oosh,” I say. Ra’s head pokes out of the water.

“How big Dad?” “Barely made a splash,” I call. The boys laugh, leaning out to see him drifting in the shade of the bridge.

“Naaa,” he calls.

“Barely made a splash.”

“Nice pin-drop Ra.” Then quietly, to the others, I say, “Actually pretty big, eh. He’s got the gift that boy.”

“Na watch this then,” one says. They all jostle, bump shoulders, pull at each other to be the next one in and I watch on as their heads emerge one at a time to look up.

“Was it big?”

“Was mine big ow?”

“Oh yeah,” I say. ‘Bloody big alright.”

Then I climb up, balancing on the rail with both my feet beneath me and the blue sky above and when I jump I feel for just a second like I might never come back down.

9

J

Stewart Island

dead cow and rotten fish. The walk had pretty enna and Jack quit their summer jobs and much sorted out Jenna’s nausea but the hitch-hiked around the South Island whale smell brought it back. She ate a with everything in two big packs.

A couple of water crackers and helped When they got to the bottom, short story Jack put up the tent.

Jack said, “Stewart Island is the one Jack lit the gas stove and they place in New Zealand I’ve never

by Airini cooked a pot of rice and lentils been.”

“I’ve never been either,” Jenna said. mixed together, which was what Beautrais they ate every night. They threw “Or the Chatham Islands.” in a few spices and some salt, but it Jack wasn’t sure if the Chatham Illustration by still tasted pretty bland.

Islands were officially part of New Isabelle Russell The sky got dark much later down Zealand. Jenna wasn’t sure either but she there. They sat up late into the evening thought they probably were. sitting in the grass talking with Will and They bought ferry tickets and caught the Tamsyn and a few other campers. At least, Jack catamaran over Foveaux Strait. Jack stood up did a lot of talking. Jenna mostly listened. Jenna the front of the boat, watching the sea spray and preferred to listen. She collected other people’s talking to other passengers. Jenna lay on the deck trying very hard not to vomit. She made it. When stories in her head. You never knew when stories might come in useful. Will and Tamsyn talked they arrived at Halfmoon bay, she walked up and about all the festivals they had been to and all down the waterfront, trying to get the nausea the countries where they had travelled. Jack said to subside. It didn’t. Jack said he’d seen a lot of he was going to save for a ticket to India, and dolphins. Jenna felt so sick she didn’t care if she hopefully the borders would be open when he’d never saw a dolphin again in her life, but looked at saved enough.

Jack’s photos anyway.

“Where would you go, if you could go anywhere Will and Tamsyn, who Jack had met on the boat, were doing the 10-day circuit. They were properly kitted out with expensive boots and freeze-dried food. Jenna only had sneakers and Jack was carrying a ukulele. They weren’t going to do the 10day circuit, but thought they might walk in to the first of the DoC campsites with Tamsyn and Will.

Jenna walked at the back. She watched Jack’s ukulele bouncing off his pack. Sometimes when they were hiking along the highways waiting for a ride, Jack would play his ukulele and sing as they walked. He had longer legs and would often stride ahead, leaving her further and further behind, without noticing he was doing it. Jenna felt like she was starting to get sick of Jack but wasn’t sure what to do about him. She didn’t want to hitchhike home by herself, and she couldn’t afford to catch buses.

There was a dead whale on the beach that had disintegrated and washed up the creek. No other animal smells like dead whale. It is a mixture between

in the world?” Tamsyn asked Jenna.

Jenna thought a bit and then said, “The Chatham Islands.” No one knew what to do with that, so they changed the subject.

Stewart Island was a dark sky sanctuary. Neither Jack nor Jenna knew much about astronomy. Jack was studying English and Jenna was studying geography. She had never noticed patterns looking at the stars. Just a whole lot of dots, like spilled sugar. Everyone was looking up at the sky trying to make out constellations, when Jenna farted. It came out sudden and loud. It was really obvious it was her. Jenna froze. In between deciding whether to make a joke about it or to politely apologise, she missed her window. Her face burned and she just sat there. At least there was a night wind, and the whale masked any other smell.

Will came to the rescue. “Good effort,” he said.

Tamsyn laughed, her tongue stud flashing in the gathering dark.

Jenna smiled at the grass. It was too late to say anything now. She had definitely missed the moment. Jenna did that a lot. She would think of a comeback at two in the morning, or the next week.

She wished she had one of those brains that words just came into.

Later, in the tent, Jack said, “I can’t believe you farted in front of everyone and didn’t apologise.

That’s so gross.”

“Sorry,” said Jenna. “It honestly just slipped out.” Jack said nothing.

“It’s all the lentils,” said Jenna.

Jack rolled over in his sleeping bag and turned towards the wall of the tent.

Rats came in the night and ate the lid off Jack’s plastic drink bottle, a hole in the tent bag, and most of their bar of soap.

“I need some time by myself,” Jack said.

“That’s fine with me,” said Jenna. Jack left his pack in the tent and wandered off into the bush. Jenna lay on the beach on her towel, wearing her raincoat and a whole lot of sunblock even though it was heavily overcast, and read her book. She still felt nauseous. She wondered if she was getting sick. The earth felt like it was turning underneath her, way too fast. If she concentrated on the print on the page, maybe it would stop.

10

Transcending language A short story

by Becky Manawatu Illustration by Isabelle Russell

W

e were watching our sons kick a football across a dirt soccer pitch surrounded by brick walls and a chainlink fence when I met Lu. She was standing near and, because I thought maybe, like me, she was from somewhere other than this Italian village of Cesano, I inched closer. Small talk was all I had in my reo Italiano kete and that was fine. She spoke English to me quickly, and our friendship started.

It could be disheartening trying to make a friend outside the circle I was allotted: a rugby wag. Not to be dismissive of the friendships I gained and people I met through my tane’s rugby career. An allotment of friends was fate. Meant to be. You in this club with these people at this point in time, a gift. Rugby clubs were our community. Like communities do, we ate together, we sometimes travelled together, we drank together and hid our ugliness from each other.

Maybe what I mean by disheartening is it was frightening to seek acceptance outside the people bound to you by a logo and a schedule. As a team you form an identity, there’s safety and a certain ease.

Before moving to Cesano we’d lived in Piacenza. I found a free Italian class taught by a nun in a musty church. The class was held on weekday mornings in the town’s centre. An Eritrean woman, Aster, and I started saving a seat for each other in the class, which was, for the most part, attended by people who needed to find work fast. The only language allowed in the class was Italian but the nun treated me special and spoke English, which I appreciated less than she thought I would. Most of the other students were men.

Sometimes Aster and I went for coffee after class and once I invited her over to hang at mine. I can’t remember if we ate food together but I like to think I made her food when she came over because food is the best koha but, straight up, I have huge black holes in my memory, so I don’t know.

When I was a kid, dad would get in from sea and he’d fillet up fish and send us walking to drop fresh hapuku or bluenose at every house on our street. I like to think I made Aster kai. She was important

to me because neither the saved seat nor coffee with Aster were related to how or why I came to be in Italy or who I arrived with. Aster had come to Italy by boat via Egypt, for opportunity and escape.

I had come by plane, excited by how much future was still ahead of us. This was a time before cellphones, so I have nothing of Aster, only these few moth-bitten memories of us sitting in seats we saved for each other, in front of a nun and a blackboard chalked with Italian phrases; Aster and me trying those phrases out at a cafe, cups of dark coffee in front of us.

I do have photos of me and Lu together though.

Lu and I eventually stretched the friendship beyond the soccer sideline to playdates for the boys at my house. Lu was Cuban, baked like a patissiere. She would bring homemade bigne filled with fresh cream and strawberries. I said they were delicious and she said one day she would teach me how to make them.

Our landlords, who lived above us, were good people with a nice pool. We could use the pool as much as we wanted, whatever time of day. Lu would bring Cesar over and he and my son would play and swim. My son’s Italian was coming easy by then, children are sponges. Lu and I would lie back in deck chairs and watch and laugh and use our bits of English and Italian to understand each other. Lu’s partner was Italian. Once we took the boys to a playground and late in a happy, sunny afternoon both our men arrived, so we were all there.

Because we were drunk on sun, Lu and I

She set the food on the bench and searched cupboards for tools. She pulled out a bowl, held up a whisk like she was saying, ‘You know what, f*** those guys.’

orchestrated plans for us to go on a trip together.

Tim felt safest travelling on the bus, in his seat near his mates and, to be honest, this was my happier place too. But both the guys agreed. A few days later Lu and her partner picked us up in a big old campervan to make our way to the medieval city of Siena, stopping via a river natural boasting a hot spring. We camped near the river surrounded by olive and cypress trees.

Tim hadn’t loved the trip. We had no decent seat, let alone seatbelts. Both men were struggling to understand each other. Lu and I were happy enough, but happier sitting alongside the pool, not having to hold our breaths as we watched these larger, gruffer people make awkward exchanges.

The tension grew and just one day in, after we woke to find our son’s bike had been stolen off the back of the camper, the men’s relationship soured.

Later that day they argued on the side of a dirt road near Siena. Lu’s husband found a place he could turn the campervan around and we drove all the way back home in sulk-curdled silence, never reaching our destination.

That night in bed at home I worried: maybe I lost my friend?

Then before I fell asleep, Lu texted me, “I’ll come teach you to make bigne tomorrow?”

The next morning her partner dropped her off at the end of our drive. Tim was at training. I opened the door anxiously and there she stood smiling wide with her koha in her hands. She had a bag filled with flour, eggs, fresh strawberries and cream. She set the food on the bench and searched cupboards for tools. She pulled out a bowl, held up a whisk like she was saying, “You know what, f*** those guys.”

I took Lego out for the boys and, though it was early in the day, I opened some wine for us and she taught me to make bigne.

Later, Tim arrived home.

Lu was quick, “Ciao Bello!” she said, “Try our pastries, try?”

He said the bigne were delicious.

He took a photo of us at the table, the kids all smiling, Lu and I holding up glasses of wine, the food out in front of us like a koha to friendship.

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12

IS AUCKLAND REALLY THE WORLD’S BEST CITY TO VISIT?

W

hen I heard Lonely Planet had ranked Auckland the number one city in the world to visit for 2022, my responses, in order, were: 1. Pride 2. Confusion.

Such lists are obviously nonsense, more so even than the Oscars, but still I was amazed to see the city in which I was born and in which I continue to live, at its top. The best city in the world to visit has always been New York and second is Tokyo, and that seems unlikely to change, but how many guidebooks is Lonely Planet going to sell by writing that every year? So Auckland gets its year in the sun; probably its last, and it will be a year in which visitor numbers are again going to be way down, but how many moments in the sun do any of us get in a lifetime? Even one is a blessing.

It’s hard not to feel a bit ashamed on behalf of Auckland for the long and horrendous road journey new arrivals must endure from the airport to the city, along ugly motorways and through unlovely suburban streets. The city centre, where most will spend at least their first night, is not without its charms but nor is it without its tourist — unfriendly wastelands, including on its main street. Even Lonely Planet seems to recognise the city’s many touristic challenges. This, from the very first paragraph of its entry: “Auckland isn’t the most immediately obvious tourist destination.”

Intrigued by Lonely Planet’s willingness to overlook the city’s limitations, I picked up a copy of its Best in Travel 2022 guidebook and set out to test its hypothesis that there is no better city in the world to visit. The guide identifies five Auckland highlights. Over four days, I visited each of them, asking of each, “Is this more fun than, say, the Friday night my wife and I went to MOMA, then up the Empire State Building?”

DAY 1

Morning, Auckland Art Gallery.

I went upstairs to the north atrium to see an exhibition called vocabulary of solitude. The entire space was occupied by dozens of life-size clown figures sitting and lying in various poses describing what looked like boredom or at least ennui. The notes for the work read: “BE. BREATHE. SLEEP. DREAM. WAKE. RISE. SIT. HEAR. LOOK. THINK. STAND. WALK. PEE. SHOWER. DRESS. DRINK. FART. S***. READ. LAUGH. COOK. SMELL. TASTE. EAT. CLEAN. WRITE.

Waka Stories of Auckland, which, the museum’s website says, “encourages you to look at your city through new eyes”.

I watched a video of a regular guy from Te Atatu taking us around his favourite spots in Te Atatu, arguably the most important of which was the local takeaway. He spoke about going there the day he got his first pay cheque, and ordering from one side of the menu to the other. I found this story surprisingly moving.

Nearby, in the small area devoted to The Kings Arms, I found one of the pub’s old toilet doors, featuring frank messages and illustrations, including testicles and a penis adorned with the phrase “Sex is healthy”. Someone else had written: “Imagine how many people have f***ed in here.” In a blog post titled Collecting the Kings Arms, Museum staff wrote: “The objects we successfully bid for might not sound like your typical precious museum treasures, but they help us to tell meaningful stories about life in Auckland.”

I loved the toilet door, loved how it made me think, specifically about how many people had f***ed in there. I loved the thought that my kids might one day come here and have their views of what knowledge we consider important changed, although hopefully not for many years.

Greg Bruce asks what’s in a city?

DAY 2

DAYDREAM. REMEMBER. CRY. NAP. TOUCH. FEEL. MOAN. ENJOY. FLOAT. LOVE. HOPE. WISH. SING. DANCE. FALL. CURSE. YAWN. UNDRESS. LIE.” I thought about how that list encapsulates most of the things we will do when we travel to a new place, but how we only anticipate or remember doing a few of them. For example, almost never, prior to visiting a new place, do I think about farting there.

Vocabulary of solitude is not a local work, nor is the gallery’s other big current exhibition, Mary Quant: Fashion Revolutionary, but that’s not to say the gallery is short of it. In fact, it’s stuffed with local art: Goldies, Lindauers, Parekowhais, Patersons and so on. It is also an Auckland landmark, a historic building and its recent redevelopment has opened it beautifully on to the lower slopes of the city’s best park for pashing. Still, in spite of its strong sense of place, the function of the gallery is to facilitate artists who wish to use media to transport their ideas from their mind to those of others. That is to say that the Auckland Art Gallery, like any major city art gallery, says something about place, but not nearly as much as it says about people.

DAY 1

Afternoon, Auckland Museum Before I went in, I stopped at the top of the steps and looked out across the parade ground and the harbour, because normally I wouldn’t, and I was trying to see these very familiar things in a new light. “Wow,” I said to myself, “That view is really nice.” I doubted any major museum anywhere in the world could match it. Once inside, I spent most of my time in the area called Tamaki Herenga

Stonyridge vineyard, Waiheke.

Below, Auckland’s waterfront.

Maungawhau / Mt Eden I had planned to go to Maungawhau by myself but Zanna had planned to go Christmas shopping by herself so it was decided I would take the kids.

Shortly before I intended to leave, it started to pour with rain. When I expressed my disappointment and displeasure, Zanna, who was going to an indoor mall, said: “It’s perfect. This is exactly what visitors going up Mt Eden can expect from the Auckland weather.”

It took us two hours to get ready, because none of the kids could find, nor be bothered looking for, any of the stuff we needed to take. I grew increasingly frustrated and then became frustrated at my frustration, because this was supposed to be fun. I also felt increasing resentment towards Zanna, who, 45 minutes earlier, had said, “Okay, I’m going to go”, then left, even though things were clearly going badly for me.

I looked everywhere for 4-year-old Casper’s shoes and he told me he’d also looked everywhere for them, although I’m pretty sure he was lying. I texted Zanna. She replied: “Have you looked in the car?” which infuriated me because everyone knows that’s the first place you look, and I’d looked there twice already. I spent another 10 minutes looking for them while the kids waited in the car, and when I eventually returned, defeated, Casper was wearing them.

“Where did you find them?” I asked.

“In the car,” he said.

We parked on a road on Maungawhau’s western slopes, walked up some stairs that weren’t there last time I came and emerged on to a boardwalk, which also didn’t exist last time. It led us toward the city side of the crater rim, with its perfect view, far away from the concrete and car park and related man-made uglinesses of the summit development.

As the view began to unspool before us, the kids began running towards it, making sounds of astonishment, which matched my own, non-verbal feelings. It felt like I had never before been to this

13 place I used to visit semi-regularly. I remembered convoys of buses, dirty cars filled with rutting teenagers and tyres in the crater, but what I saw this day was how fast regeneration happens when we stop ourselves from preventing it. Strange and beautiful birds landed in front of us on the boardwalk. Grasses and plant life grew where previously there was decay and human detritus. I saw that things want to be beautiful, in spite of us.

What do you guys think? I asked.

“That’s actually pretty beautiful,” Casper said.

“This is so crazy!” said Clara [6]. “We can see everything!”

“I can see the whole world from here!” Casper said.

Clara, seemingly overcome, sat down on the boardwalk and stared out across the harbour, repeating, “Oh my God oh my God oh my God.” “What is it, Clara?” I said.

“It’s just so pretty!”

The view seemed to render them unable to talk at a reasonable volume.

Casper: “WE’RE NOT EVEN AT THE BEACH AND I CAN SEE RANGITOTO!” Tallulah [8]: “I FEEL LIKE WE’RE RIGHT UP

BY THE CLOUDS!” Clara: “THERE’S THE MOTORWAY!” No one else was on the boardwalk. The day was a bit cloudy, and all around Auckland we could see thick patches of rain but we never got wet. We carried on around the boardwalk, right around the crater lip, up to the summit, where we ate grapes and honey sandwiches, again untroubled by human contact, except that between us, which was excited and joyful.

At home later, Zanna said, “I knew it would be great,” which was ironic, because I knew her smugness would be insufferable.

DAY 3

Waiheke I arrived at 10.45 for the 11am sailing and joined the back of a queue so big it was hard to imagine

While Lion Rock at Piha had never particularly interested Greg Bruce, his children loved it.

everyone would fit on the island, let alone the ferry. Everyone was so well dressed and beautiful I assumed there must be some important event on, but when I arrived, Ian, my taxi driver, told me this is just the way it is on Waiheke at this time of year, even in a pandemic.

At Te Motu, I tasted four wines in an outside area under a canopy next to the vines. The tasting concluded with the excellent $140 a bottle 2016 Te Motu but my favourite was the first and cheapest, The Shed rosé ($35), possibly because it spoke to me of the excitement of beginnings, of being in a place where you know someone’s about to take care of you, where you don’t need to do anything but enjoy yourself. Jess, who led the tasting, told me a story about a group she was part of called the Waiheke Wine W***ers, which gathers regularly to do blind tastings from bottles concealed in a camping sock. I remember this story with more fondness than any of the wines, and not because the wine was bad.

From there, I walked across some trampled grass and under a landing chopper, to Stonyridge.

A waiter walked past me to greet the chopper’s occupants with a tray of wines. Janis, the German restaurant manager, steered me towards the beautiful springy couches at the edge of the outdoor, covered dining area, from which I looked across a valley to the hills on which the winery’s famous grapes are grown. I was a bit squiffy from Te Motu and starting to ramble and overreach for meaning, but if Janis found me odious, his warm smile suggested otherwise.

He recited the story of Stonyridge and its place in the pantheon of New Zealand wines, which I found compelling, especially while drinking the final wine, the $375 Larose, but the one I liked most was the first and cheapest, the $95 reserve chardonnay.

I had intended to also go to Tantalus, the next winery over, but I had run out of both time and sobriety. On the drive back to the ferry, Ian told me of how legendary prop Gary Knight once said the All Blacks’ 1977 test match against France was the toughest he’d ever played, and that Sir Richard Hadlee had always believed one’s

14 hand, we were nearly at the top. I looked down at Zanna, who has a pathological fear of bad things happening to our children, and hoped she was okay.

The kids loved it up there. They didn’t want to go back down. “This is the gorgeousest view!”

Tallulah said. “Lion Rock is truly amazing! The view is spectacular!”

Later, I asked Zanna how she felt when we were up there. She said, “I pictured you all falling to your deaths and wondered whether I would be able to get there in time to catch you, then I realised the best thing was not to look, so I turned my back to you.”

In the car on the way back, I asked what everyone thought of Piha. “Great!” the girls said.

“Amazing!”

Casper said, “I told you we shouldn’t go to Piha!”

“Why?” I said.

“Because I’m going to pee my pants!”

But he didn’t.

Rangitoto scores highly as an iconic Auckland view.

skills with bat and ball were far more important than one’s skills with one’s mouth. Mostly I just listened.

DAY 4

Piha It wasn’t easy to generate interest among the family in visiting Piha on a Sunday morning. To begin with, it would be an hour’s drive on windy roads with kids who suffer from chronic car sickness and occasional but intense whininess.

The motion sickness really kicked in during the last 10 or so minutes of the drive, so it was a relief when we rounded the corner that revealed our first view of the beach. We had never been there as a family, so I began a brief lecture about the local geography, of which I knew almost nothing, and I could feel their lack of interest growing, but then I hit paydirt with Lion Rock.

“Are there lions there?” Casper asked.

“Lion Rock is enormous!” said Tallulah, as we rounded another corner. “It’s, like, five times the

size of a lion!”

“I want to kiss Lion Rock!” Casper said. When we got out of the car, he lay down on his tummy, pressed his chest up and said, “This is what Lion Rock looks like.”

I was intrigued by all the interest because Lion Rock had never particularly appealed to me and, honestly, neither had Piha. Of all Lonely Planet’s Auckland highlights, this is the one I was least enamoured of. I don’t surf, I’m not fond of waterbased danger and I have no love for the sun, in part because of my extreme whiteness. I took my shirt off briefly after we arrived, at which point Zanna looked at me horrified and said, “You should not be doing that.”

The kids loved the sand. Casper said, “This sand is really smooth! Tallulah, touch the sand! It’s really smooth!” Zanna and Clara started making a sandcastle, while Tallulah and Casper headed for Lion Rock. I followed, but only because I had no choice. After 10 or so minutes, me inappropriately shod and clinging desperately on to Casper’s

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Had I been alone at the top of Lion Rock or Maungawhau, contemplating the view, or life, or anything else, would I have had as good a time as I did with my family? Would Waiheke have been as enjoyable without Janis’s bewitching smile, Jess’s sock-based stories or Ian’s insights into New Zealand’s sporting history? Even at the gallery and museum, where I was ostensibly by myself, I was connecting with other people, through either their creations or their voices.

Auckland is very nice and I love it and all Lonely Planet’s highlights are good ones, but it’s meaningless to say anywhere on Earth is the best place to visit, or even that one place is better than another. In travel, as in life, the highlights are not the places but the people. Having said that, I really would like to go to Tokyo.

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16

Phil Gifford on the mysterious footnote in New Zealand’s music history ddd.

PHOTO / FFFF

Whatever happened to pop idol

RON N I E? R

onnie Sundin was a Kiwi pop idol. His debut single, Sea Of Love, was a massive hit. He sang to 20,000 people at Western Springs. There was a sell-out national tour in 1960, during which ecstatic fans ripped his clothes. One even wrenched a shoe off his foot and ran into the night.

At the end of that year Sundin turned 17. Then he disappeared.

For six decades he lurked in my mind. In the summer of 1959-60, when I was 13, I’d watched him sing at a packed-out Waihi Beach soundshell.

I’d seen live shows before, but this was different.

Teenage girls crowded the rim of the low-set stage and called out “We love you Ronnie!”

How did a household name, as he was for a heady 12 months, become the most mysterious footnote in New Zealand pop music? Last year I made contact with him by phone and text. But to my genuine regret, between Covid-19 and his heart problems, we never managed to meet faceto-face, and he passed away on May 19 this year.

In the months since he died, I’ve spoken with his family members, old bandmates and a neighbour who became a rugby league legend. A melancholy tale of the sad pitfalls when a school kid becomes an overnight sensation emerged.

Ronnie was a fifth former at Avondale College, just 15, when on September 9, 1959, he recorded the single that would, in his older brother Nils’ words, “basically ruin his life”.

Until then music had been a joy — and there

was a lot of it in the neighbourhood. The Sundins lived at 114 O’Donnell Avenue, Mt Roskill.

Across the road at 113 was Wilfred Jeffs, better known by his stage name, Bill Sevesi, the king of the then-thriving Auckland dancehall circuit.

The Sundin boys’ mother, Clara Elizabeth Cocker, was the daughter of a wealthy British trader, Robert, and Mele Tu’ifonualava from Pangai, once the seat of the Tongan monarchy.

In Nuku’alofa Clara met and married Ron Sundin, an Australian managing the local branch of the powerful Sydney trading company, Burns

Philp. They had three sons, Bill, Nils, and baby Ronnie, born on December 18, 1943. The boys were still toddlers when the family moved to Auckland for father Ron to take a job with Fisher & Paykel.

As a teenager, Nils put together a skiffle group, the Glow Worms, which was evolving into a pop band. “We were practising in Mum’s lounge one day. Bill Sevesi used to listen to us, and we played at the Orange Hall in his breaks. We won Have A Shot twice on ZB. Bill asked Dad if he could borrow Ronnie for a Town Hall concert because the English singer he’d had, Vince Callaher, had gone back to Britain.

“Dad said he could have Ronnie as long as he sang Waltzing Matilda. Dad was a true-blue Aussie. He reckoned he could see Australia if he went to the right beach in Auckland.”

The concert was a huge success, and the next step would change everything for the sweet-voiced school kid.

Auckland record producer Ron Dalton had just come back from a trip to Britain with a copy of Sea Of Love, a song written and recorded by a rhythm and blues singer from Lake Charles, Louisiana, Phil Phillips. The original hadn’t been released here.

Backed by Sevesi’s band, using the name Will Jess and His Jesters, Dalton recorded Sea Of Love with Ronnie, backed by an up-tempo version of Waltzing Matilda. Sundin’s single, released on the local Viking label, was the biggest-selling New

17

Zealand record of 1960.

Almost overnight Ronnie’s good looks, winning smile, and slightly shy stage presence whipped up the sort of audience reaction that, in hindsight, was a hint of the mania that would be in full bloom four years later when The Beatles toured New Zealand.

On a national theatre tour, Sundin had been at a signing session at the DIC store in Lambton Quay in Wellington.

The Evening Post newspaper reported that “Inside the DIC there was a large audience, listening and getting autographs in an orderly way. Ronnie and his manager left the shop after a pleasant evening, mercifully free of incidents.

“However, there was no peace for the popular entertainer, as the teen idol soon discovered. On leaving the shop they were confronted by the largest crowd of teenagers they had yet struck.

They managed to get to, and scramble into, their car but were unable to start off through the crowd.

“Finally, in desperation, Ronnie climbed on to the top of the car with his guitar and started to sing. He hoped they would disperse after a song and leave him to go in peace, but no such luck.

For 20 minutes he had to sing to, and with, a mob of wild teenagers, bringing the traffic on Lambton Quay to a standstill.

“It finally ended when traffic policemen, accompanied by four constables, pushed their way through the crowd to the besieged vehicle with the rock star on the roof playing his guitar, and asked if he had a permit to perform in a public thoroughfare.”

From the outside it looked like every teenage boy’s dream.

At school, says Nils, “the girls reckoned he looked like the film star Robert Mitchum”.

There was more than singing to admire. Talented cricketers, Ronnie and Nils would go to Sunday morning coaching sessions with former New Zealand captain Merv Wallace. Ronnie was a demon fast bowler. His mates basked in all the reflected glory. On wet mornings they enjoyed the fact he would sometimes shout them a taxi ride to school, paying with the cash doled out by promoters and record companies.

Down the street at No 121 lived the Lowe family. To Graham, only 5, but the oldest of four

boys, the Sundin house was a second home, and Ronnie was like a hugely admired big brother.

Lowe is now Sir Graham, after a stellar career as a rugby league coach. To this day his face lights up when he remembers the Sundins.

“They were really kind to me, especially Ronnie.

He taught me chords on a ukelele. Queen Salote of Tonga was related to their mum and used to visit them. One day she called me over to her and showed me how to do a five-finger strum.”

Lowe says, “Everybody loved Ronnie and so did I. At one stage he drove around in a brand new Hillman Minx. Written all down the side was ‘Here Comes Ronnie’. We felt so proud because he used to take us for a drive around the block.” hat few outside his family knew was that Sundin himself felt trapped and grew to hate being a pop star.

“Ronnie didn’t like touring,” says brother Nils.

“He didn’t like the girls swarming all over him.

He really only wanted to do dance halls. And he didn’t like doing cover versions. But all his records were cover versions.”

The first part of Ronnie’s musical career to vanish was recording. In 1960 there were six singles, and a 12-track album, Ronnie, secondhand copies of which currently sell at Real Groovy Records for $79.95.

W

Ronnie was a demon fast bowler. His mates basked in all the reflected glory. On wet mornings they enjoyed the fact he would sometimes shout them a taxi ride to school, paying with the cash doled out by promoters and record companies.

He’d never record professionally again. Why did he stop?

Of all the people I’ve spoken to about Sundin, nobody knows the answer better than Alex Patchett.

Patchett was the lead guitarist in the Sevesi band in 1960. On the cover of the Ronnie album, he’s the chiselled, good-looking man with the beaming smile on the right.

Patchett has lived in London since 1967, first leading a trio that played in Soho strip clubs, then working as a solo cabaret performer. Gracious and erudite, the former Auckland schoolteacher told me how he saw, at close range, Ronnie’s career disintegrating.

“It was so sad. He was very shy, very likeable, and very eager to learn. He was very raw, and he went from school straight into a totally different world.

“We spent hours and hours rehearsing in Bill Sevesi’s garage, where Bill had a home studio. We spent a huge amount of time working through things with Ronnie, preparing him for professional recording. He was very young but he had a really pleasant voice, which was the type of voice that was in vogue at the time, ideal for ballads. He had youthful good looks, too.

“But he took to drink, which made him unreliable. He also had lots of hangers-on, who encouraged him. He was an extremely generous person and I think he was taken advantage of by lots of people.

“He was drinking a lot and the hangers-on influenced his thinking. He just drifted away really. It was very sad. Sometimes he would come in and he’d be blind drunk.”

Viking Records lost interest in Sundin but Patchett kept in occasional touch. By 1961, working under the stage name Al Paget, the guitarist was leading a sextet that played for dancers at the Oriental Ballroom in the city, and the Bayswater Marina on the North Shore.

“My brother Irving played rhythm guitar in the band. He was in the navy and very often we had to find a replacement for him when he was overseas. During that time Ronnie would fill in for him, but only sporadically.

“When he played with me Ronnie would sometimes arrive and he’d still be hungover from the night before. Later I’d hear from

Ronnie Sundin in his heyday with a school friend.

On stage in 1960 and with his dad, Ron snr (centre).

Above, his son, Mark Sundin.

PHOTOS / ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY, SUPPLIED

18

friends how they’d have seen Ronnie drunk in a nightclub. Once the alcohol takes over, and you’re surrounded by friends who are encouraging you, it’s tragic.”

After the sporadic live work with the Al Paget Sextet there were a couple more forays into performing for Sundin but they were almost like dark comedies.

One was a last shot at solo stardom. When a new club called The Shiralee was due to open in Customs St in 1961, there were plans for a Ronnie Sundin group to be the house band.

Then fresh out of Auckland Grammar, Glyn Tucker was the rhythm guitarist in a highly talented quintet, which included musicians who had played with Johnny Devlin, the first Kiwi rock ’n’ roll star.

Tucker, who would go on to run Mandrill Studios, used by Kiwi icons such as Dave Dobbyn and The Dance Exponents, recalls the weird out-of-town trial run. “We went to Taumarunui and did a gig. It was the middle of winter and it was freezing cold. We had hardly anybody in an almost empty hall in the middle of winter. Our van broke down and we came back with our tail between our legs.

“At a rehearsal the following week we decided we’d continue on without Ronnie. The older guys didn’t think he was adding much to it.”

Without Sundin, the group renamed themselves The Embers, and in that guise played the Shiralee before Ray Columbus and Max Merritt stormed north from Christchurch and took over.

Ronnie’s last band was with his brother Nils, who told me, “We were going to run a dance in Hamilton. We went down on a Saturday and the hall was jam-packed. But Ronnie didn’t show up, he was watching rugby. That was it.”

S

undin’s life after music would be blighted by alcohol. Graham Lowe mournfully recalls running into the adult Ronnie in the 1980s and inviting him to join the Kiwis rugby side he was coaching on a trip to Whangarei to a trial game.

“He had a flask with him, and very naively I thought it might be orange juice or something.

He asked me if I wanted a drink. As I put it to my mouth I nearly passed out from the fumes. It was straight dark rum. He knocked that off, found some more up there, and coming back he was just a different person.”

What never vanished, when he wasn’t drinking, was an easy, genuine charm. When his wife Suzanne first met Ronnie she was boarding with her grandmother while going to Epsom Girls’ Grammar. Now living on the Gold Coast, she remembers how “all the girls were talking about him. I didn’t know that much about him, but when I met him he was really polite and nice.”

Suzanne’s mother was slightly horrified at her daughter seeing “an entertainer” but marriage and a livewire baby boy Mark, who had “all of Ronnie’s good attributes and none of the bad ones”, followed.

Both Suzanne and Mark are totally honest about Ronnie’s failings but they still have a deep affection for him. “Ronnie had a shocking alcohol problem,” says Suzanne, “and although we were always really good friends, you can’t live with a child with someone like that.”

Mark, like his father a gifted sportsman, has played cricket in Lancashire as a professional, kayaked across Bass Strait, trekked in the Himalayas, and now runs a successful kayaking retail business in Sydney.

When he and his mother moved to Australia in 1978, Mark says contact with his father “was limited to the odd seven-second-delay toll call and trips home in the school holidays. We drifted apart in the 1990s as I made my way in the world, and didn’t talk for quite a while. Then his brother Bill passed away in 1999 and I came back for the funeral, and we reconnected.

“Without a lot of words, we agreed that would be the last time we’d only catch up at a funeral, and we kept in regular touch.

“I could see then that he wasn’t in great shape.

He hadn’t looked after himself. He was living in Ranui in a pretty crook sort of house with a bunch of old single fellas, and was going down a dark sort of hole.

“The cliche of the rock star who burns out and ends up in a bad place was exactly what was happening.

“In 2005 that lack of attention to his own health led to a pretty dire health scare. He was quite young to be in care, and pretty quickly became the golden boy at the Edmonton Meadows rest home in Henderson.

“For the first time in probably many years he had three square meals a day, and love and care all around him.”

Suzanne always visited when she was in New Zealand. “We’d talk for three or four days. He was just the best company.”

If Ronnie was an erratic father, Mark says he “was a very good grandad. Like clockwork, a present would turn up a few days before every birthday. There was almost always a soft animal toy that sang, everything from a really ugly pig dog that sang Who Let The Dogs Out? to a Rastafarian lion that sang Don’t Worry, Be Happy.

The kids loved them and their childhood was soundtracked by a succession of really awfulsounding animals.”

Suzanne says one topic Ronnie barely touched on in their time together was the teen pop star phase. But Mark recalls one incident that probably sums up how his father looked back on that period, and the impact it had on his life.

“He once saw a photo of my daughter Kiri in a little junior dance costume. His face went ashen.

He said, ‘You’re not going to let her be famous, are you? Whatever you do, the kids can’t be famous.’”

M

y search for Ronnie Sundin was aided enormously by a Rotorua music enthusiast, Ray Tombs, who plays Sundin’s music on his station, Radio Cindy,

Let the

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and visited him at Edmonton Meadows. Singer Midge Marsden, another schoolboy Sundin fan, enthusiastically shared with me his extraordinary range of musical contacts.

It was October last year when I first spoke to Ronnie. He was enthusiastic about a lengthy interview, and we kept in touch. But somehow we always missed sitting down with each other.

His second-to-last text to me came from Auckland Hospital, where he said specialists were about to try a new treatment that would “either put me in the ground, or see me ready to play for the All Blacks”. I promised I’d give Ian Foster advance warning. My last text from a man whose story I believe I now understand, and wish I’d met, was a laughing emoji.

From top: Sundin with his grandson Marley.

Suzanne, Ronnie’s widow, with her grandchild (Mark’s eldest) Kiri.

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The

TANIW Archaeologist Amanda Symon in the taniwha cave at Opihi.

21

WHA I

Joanna Wane steps back in time to hunt for hidden treasure — and discovers it’s in danger of being lost forever

t takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the shadows but then, one by one, three taniwha emerge from the limestone canvas. A shaft of light illuminates the largest figure, drawn in swirls of black pigment on the ceiling of this natural rock overhang that’s been sheltering travellers through this landscape for centuries.

The line of its tail curls around a second taniwha, which has no head. The third is stockier and intricately detailed. Settling into the moment, I let my gaze wander. As more and more images take shape, I realise almost every inch of the cavern is covered with them. Alongside me, archaeologist and kaitiaki Amanda Symon grins.

“Welcome to rock art central.”

T

he origins of the taniwha and what they symbolise is a mystery that may never be solved, but you can find out how to make the black pigment Maori used to paint them at the Te Ana Ngai Tahu Rock Art Centre in Timaru.

Burn some green branches from the manoao tree and catch the smoke in a flax mat. Brush

Copperplate script reflects the arrival of the missionaries at one of the multiple rock art sites at Opihi.

PHOTOS / PETER MEECHAM

of Te Ana

off the soot and then mix with tarata (lemonwood) gum, weka or shark-liver oil, and oil extracted from rautawhiri berries.

In the 1920s, elders shared this traditional recipe with ethnologist Herries Beattie for “an ink that would stand forever”.

While that may not be strictly true — in some cases, its traces have disappeared completely — hundreds of sites still exist around Aotearoa where you can see artworks created by some of the first Polynesians who arrived here more than 700 years ago.

So far, attempts to carbon-date New Zealand’s rock art have been foiled, largely due to the originals being overlaid with grease crayon in a misguided attempt to preserve them.

However, some depict moa and the giant Haast eagle (pouakai), which is believed to have become extinct by around 1400, while the coming of the Pakeha is reflected in drawings of sailing ships and, bizarrely, lettering in copperplate script.

This was no mere doodling to while away the hours on a rainy day. The time and care required to prepare the black and red ochre (kokowai) pigments suggest rock art was as

culturally significant to Maori as other art forms, explains Rachel Solomon, who manages Te Ana (te reo for cave) and organises guided tours to Opihi where the taniwha dwell, a halfhour drive inland from Timaru.

“Sometimes you get these lovely big scenes, sometimes they’re just small, linear pictures,” she says, showing me some of the reproductions on display. Of all the South Island sites, only two are currently under Ngai Tahu control.

“Most of the rock art is on private land, so the connection between the people and the art is broken, and the meaning has been lost. But we get in carvers and weavers [to share their knowledge] and draw on our own stories and legends. Ngai Tahu as a tribe has started to bring all that information together. We look at it as a jigsaw now.”

It feels like one of New Zealand’s best-kept secrets that any rock art exists here at all. A total of 761 sites have been officially recorded in the South Island alone, although some have since been destroyed by slips, floods or erosion, or have simply faded away over time.

Artist Theo Schoon, who made copies of many of the drawings in the 1940s (while being one of the worst culprits for “touching up” the artworks), described the limestone rock shelters

22 Artist Theo Schoon described the limestone rock shelters in South Canterbury as “nature’s finest art galleries. Many sites are now on private farmland.”

PHOTOS / PETER MEECHAM

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‘It’s so tangible because you’re standing in the same place as the people who created the art.We’re so divorced from the natural world these days, but back then, there wasn’t that sharp line. They were embedded in nature.’

— Amanda Symon

in South Canterbury as “nature’s finest art galleries”.

While Maori rock art — ka tuhituhi o nehera — is most prolific on the limestone of South Canterbury and Otago, it’s also been found on greywacke, schist, sandstone and marble. In the Chatham Islands, images were incised into the bark of living trees.

The curator of the Ngai Tahu Maori Rock Art Trust, Symon is tasked with identifying and protecting these wahi tupuna. “Because there’s no means of analysing or delving deeper into it, from an archaeological perspective it’s fallen through the cracks,” she says.

Raising public awareness and engaging future generations play a significant part in countering that. A few kilometres down the road from the pihi site, Pleasant Point Primary has adopted the taniwha as the school logo.

Symon says the journals of previous recorders such as Schoon and fellow artist Tony Fomison have been invaluable, “but because limestone is fragile and vulnerable to wind and weather, a percentage of the sites are completely gone”.

That deterioration is accelerated by changes in hydrology around the sites. “Intensive dairying and irrigation is not a good thing for rock art.”

At Opihi, a positive relationship with the local farmer built over two decades has given the trust open access to multiple rock art sites on his land.

Thousands of native trees have been planted as part of a major restoration programme. A paleo archaeology expert has also been brought in to fossick for bird fossils in the limestone crevices and take core samples in the wetland for ancient DNA analysis.

For Symon, it’s not only about honouring the mana of the rock art and protecting the fragile limestone ecology but bringing life back into the valley. Already, birds are returning and eels have again been seen in the stream, which was once a degraded trickle choked with grass.

“It’s so tangible, isn’t it, because you’re standing in the same place as the people who created the art,” she says. “We’re so divorced from the natural world these days, but back then, there wasn’t that sharp line. They were embedded in nature. We’re kin to everything you can see here — and you should have more respectful relationships with your kin.”

The Te Ana Ngai Tahu Rock Art Centre in Timaru runs guided tours to the Opihi rock art sites from November to April. See teana.co.nz

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2021 CANVAS

QUI

1 2 3 4

Let’s start with some road music — what could be better named than Keep the Car Running, from which group?

Queue up for the car ferry from Kohukohu – next stop where?

What is Piercy Island’s big attraction?

Stretch your legs in the Italian Renaissance Garden, the Surrealist Garden or the Chinese Scholars’ Garden — all in what city?

5 6

Splash out on a bottle of Coleraine, from which winery?

Sunday morning — time for a bacon sandwich or some fresh figs from the farmers’ market at Tomoana Showgounds — in what city?

7 8 9

Where are you if you’re visiting New Zealand’s very own Elvis Presley Museum?

If you’ve left the car and are getting off at Salamanca Station, what’s your mode of transport?

Turn off at Blenheim, drive right to the end of State Highway 6 and where are you?

10 11 12

Pink ponds and pyramids of salt — where have we got to now?

Time for some more road music: “I am a passenger / And I ride and I ride” sang who?

If it’s dark and you’re in the right spot, you might see some Arachnocampa luminosa.

Some what?

13 14

Get out on the water on the Pelorus Mail Boat, starting in what town?

Stop off at St Arnaud for a chilly dip in which lake?

25

ROAD TRIP

UIZ 15 16 17 18 19

Sample neo-Gothic architecture with a visit to the Sign of the Takahe, in which city?

The giant pink doughnut is hard to miss if you’re in what South Island town?

Cruise down Rue Balguerie, then turn into Rue Lavaud — where?

If you’re on the West Coast, try to capture that classic shot of Aoraki/Mt Cook reflected in which lake?

Get on your bike for the Otago Central Rail Trail — a 150km journey from Middlemarch to where?

20 21 22 23

Seek inspiration at Kaka Point, longtime home of which New Zealand poet?

Apple, pear, nectarine, apricot — the giant fruit sculpture is a landmark in which town?

Feeling hungry?

Who can resist a stop at Fat Bastard Pies, in what city?

On a good day you’ll be stunned by the scenery on the road to Piopiotahi — otherwise known as?

24

Got your surfboard?

If you want to compete in the Colac Bay Classic, what part of the country should you aim for?

25

What’s the ultimate selfie spot — 784km from Wellington, 18,958km from London and 2000km from Sydney?

ANSWERS ON P41 — compiled by Mark Fryer illustration by Andrew Louis

26

It’s Boxing Day and you’re faced with an excess of ham, turkey and potatoes? Never fear ...

ANNABEL LANGBEIN

NEXT-LEVEL LEFTOVERS ANNABEL SAYS: Keep a stash of puff pastry sheets on hand in the freezer for the speedy assembly of this tasty tart.

Make individual tarts for a party using a quarter of a pastry sheet for each.

PHOTOS / ANNABEL LANGBEIN MEDIA

T

he Herculean effort required to get through Christmas — all that presentwrapping, feast-making, relationshipwrangling, cleaning (the prep and the aftermath) — it’s little wonder we need a lie-down when it’s all over. Thank heavens for Boxing Day. This is one time of year when you won’t get in trouble for standing in front of the fridge, pulling out anything you want to eat. There’s no longer any “looking food”, now it’s all “eating food”. Everything that needed to make a stylish entrance on the dinner table has already done so, and now there are just lovely leftovers.

Dinner is as simple as slicing up cold ham or turkey, throwing on a pot of potatoes to boil and tossing together a green salad.

Leftover turkey makes fabulous sandwiches, diced up and mixed with enough good mayo to coat, a few toasted slivered almonds or pine nuts, some chopped basil, tarragon or parsley, salt and pepper and a little lemon juice to give it a fresh tang. The crucial element is the freshest soft-crumbed bread.

If you aren’t using bread right away, put it in the freezer as soon as you get home.

Whenever you make a sandwich, take out the slices you want and return the rest to the freezer. Butter the slices while still frozen (the butter stops the sandwiches from going soggy), top generously with your filling mixture and cap with another slice of buttered bread. If you want to prepare ahead of time, wet a paper towel, wring dry and place over the top and sides of your sandwich stack to stop them drying out and curling up like frisbees. Chill if not serving within an hour.

My friend Lina, who hails from Rarotonga, makes a fabulous Pasifika version of these by adding a small can of well-drained crushed pineapple to the filling mixture.

Coronation turkey sandwiches are another delicious tangent — simply add a good dollop of fruity chutney into your mayo turkey mixture and 1-2 tsp curry powder to taste (mix the curry powder and chutney into the mayo and get it tasting the way you like before adding the turkey and herbs, etc).

If you’re taking sandwiches to a picnic, put the filling into a container and keep it chilled, ready to assemble the sandwiches when you want them. You’ll never taste fresher.

Leftover slaw from Christmas day is useful for Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches. Add mint or coriander into the slaw along with some grated carrot and a squeeze of lemon or lime. Mix mayonnaise with a pinch of fivespice powder and a glug of sweet chilli sauce and toss leftover diced turkey meat through this. Layer the slaw and turkey mixture into a split baguette that has a little of the crumb pulled out so it’s not so bready.

When you’re ready to turn your leftovers into something new and different, here are some simple ideas to transform them.

Quick ham tarts Ready in 40 minutes Serves 4 1 sheet flaky puff pastry 200g spreadable cream cheese 2 gherkins, finely chopped 1 Tbsp wholegrain or Dijon mustard 2 handfuls rocket leaves ½ cup (about 100g) thinly sliced ham, cut into fine strips 2 tsp capers 2-3 Tbsp soft herbs, such as parsley, rocket or chives Juice of ½ a lemon Salt and ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 200C. Place pastry on a baking tray lined with baking paper for easy clean-up. Score a line part-way through the pastry, about 2cm in from the edge all the way around. Prick the centre all over with a fork to stop the pastry rising and bake until golden and crisp (15-20 minutes). Remove from oven, flatten centre if puffed and allow to cool.

Mix cream cheese with gherkins and mustard and spread over centre of cooked pastry shell. Cover with rocket and ham, scatter with capers and herbs, drizzle with lemon juice, season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

Match this with ...

M

Elep Elephant Hill Hawke’s Bay Sea Viognier 2019 ($30) Viog Le Leftover ham is tarted up in spectacular fashion when sipped with viognier. Clean, fash focused, packed with flavour, the Elephant focu Hi Hill. It’s the kind of wine that heaves with spice and stonefruit, white peach wi and masses of spiced watermelon notes. Think about how much effort you’ve put into making this tart and appreciate that this wine will slap you on the back and top up your glass and tell you that you’re his best friend.

Do you want ham with that? Oui. finewinedelivery.co.nz — Yvonne Lorkin

27

ANNABEL SAYS: Serve this creamy ham and mushroom pasta alongside a crisp green salad tossed with a tangy vinaigrette.

Fettuccine alfredo Ready in 20 minutes Serves 4 400g dried fettuccine or other pasta 2 Tbsp butter 250g button mushrooms, sliced 2 cloves garlic, crushed 2 cups (about 400g) diced ham 250ml cream ½ tsp grated nutmeg 2 Tbsp lemon juice 1 cup grated parmesan Salt and ground black pepper, to taste Cook pasta for 2 minutes less than the instructions on the packet. While pasta cooks, heat butter in a heavy pot and cook mushrooms over medium heat until lightly brown (about 5 minutes). Add garlic and sizzle for a few seconds then add ham and cream, stirring to lift pan brownings. Bring to a simmer.

Mix in nutmeg, lemon juice, parmesan and salt and pepper to taste. Before draining the pasta, scoop out half a cup of pasta water and put to one side.

Add drained pasta to the pot with the ham sauce and a quarter of a cup of reserved pasta cooking water. Toss over the heat for a minute or two to allow the pasta to absorb the flavours, adding more of the reserved pasta cooking water as needed to give a loose coating consistency.

To serve, pile into a serving bowl and top with more black pepper.

German-style potato salad Ready in 40 mins Serves 4-6 as a side 1kg waxy potatoes, boiled cooled and cut into bite-size chunks 4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and cut into wedges 2 spring onions, finely chopped ½ cup (about 100g) diced ham ¼ cup finely chopped parsley leaves CREAMY DRESSING ½ cup good-quality mayonnaise 3 gherkins, finely chopped 1 Tbsp lemon juice 2 tsp Dijon mustard Salt and ground black pepper, to taste To make the dressing, place all ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine.

Place potatoes, eggs, spring onions, ham and most of the parsley in a mixing bowl. Add dressing and toss through salad, transfer to a serving bowl and top with the remaining parsley.

Match this with ...

20 Hopesgrove Hawke’s Bay Viognier 2020 ($30) This is one of those sneaky viogniers (vee-yon-yays) that makes you think, “This is a nice white wine. Actually, this is a really nice white wine. Come to think of it? OMG. I LOVE this wine!” With subtle apricot and jasmine aromas, a palate packed with stonefruit and spice, it boasts a finish torched with toast. Add to that a splash of butterscotch, and spiced citrus, it’s a dreamy thing to drink. It’s also just the most incredible thing to sip if you’re tossing together a potato and ham salad. hopesgrove.com — Yvonne Lorkin

ANNABEL SAYS: This simpleto-assemble salad is a great way to use leftover ham. It travels well so it’s good for a potluck, and it keeps in the fridge for a couple of days.

Match this with ...

Brookfields Barrique Fermented Hawke’s Bay Viognier 2020 ($27) Ham leftovers are always better when they’re cobbled into a creamy pasta. The saltysweet flavours in the ham take on so much more vavoom when washed down with this delicious thing. If you always thought that all viognier was sweet and blousy, then prepare to get outta the CBD. With its luxurious glycerol-like texture, apricot kernel and citrus oil flavours and impressive mouthfeel, it’s unputdownable. The acidity is also deliciously prickly and gives it some seriously sexy texture. glengarrywines.co.nz — Yvonne Lorkin

28

RESTAURANT

A year of dining

in-house and at home Kim Knight highlights the memorable moments in a year of interrupted eating

T

wo hours after lunch, my bowels clenched. Inside my gut, a game of ping-pong was at fever pitch.

Something had to give.

There are three women’s bathrooms in my downtown office building and I laid waste to them all.

These are the moments restaurant critics don’t talk about.

My stomach is a cast-iron cauldron but autumn’s Auckland restaurant vegetable du jour pushed it to breaking. On menus, the culprit appeared benignly as “earth apples” and “sunchokes”. The one thing I wish I’d known before I ate an entire dish of roasted jerusalem artichokes for lunch? That they are also called “fartichokes”.

The nutty, knobbly root vegetable with a pleasingly chewy skin and creamy interior contains inulin — a non-

digestible carbohydrate, fermented by our gut bacteria.

Not everybody’s digestion will react as drastically as mine. Soaking, peeling or slow baking can all apparently mitigate the flatulent effect — but consider yourself warned: jerusalem artichokes are an easy-to-grow perennial and, as restaurants expand their vegetarian repertoires, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them. Top tip for 2022 date nights: approach the artichoke with caution.

Regular restaurant reviewing was interrupted this year. Figures for the calendar year are not yet in but the Restaurant Association reports that for the financial year ending March 31, Auckland sales were down $656.3 million, or around 13.6 per cent. Those numbers don’t take into account the city’s recent long lockdown. In

total, Covid restrictions cost Auckland’s sit-down dining establishments 17 weeks (around 33 per cent) of businessas-usual. Two long-standing and high-end big names permanently closed their doors — RIP O’Connell St Bistro and Euro. Saxon + Parole (Commercial Bay’s glitzy steak-centric import from New York) also shuttered, blaming Covid-related border closures. The biggest Auckland food trend this year? Breakfast, lunch and dinner at home.

But this is not a story about how much cheese we put on our toast (answer: a lot). For eight heady months, Aucklanders let rip with their credit cards. Overseas travel was off, and the extra bottle of Bolly was on. What was on the city’s menus in 2021? Here are seven of the most memorable trends ...

3

SAY CHEESECAKE Specifically, Burnt Basque Cheesecake. It popped up on cheffy Instagrams during the first phase of the pandemic and made it on to multiple Auckland menus this year. The recipe is simple, but this is a pudding best left in the hands of experts accustomed to dealing with death-defying quantities of cream cheese and actual cream.

It is the haggis of puddings.

Tastes amazing but you really don’t want to know what goes into it. Get your by-the-slice fix at Esther, Candela and countless daytime cafes.

1

4

ROUND FOOD Find your centre. Donut worry. Many people spent this year glazed and confused, when every second cafe seemed to specialise in doughnuts.

Meanwhile, in the round foodadjacent universe, two new and much more interesting stars: Pani popo — aka Samoan coconut buns — got a delicious fine dining makeover at Mr Morris. Across town, Bar Magda’s albondigas — aka meatballs — combined duck and pork, with a velvety liquorice-spiked sauce that I still think about sometimes.

PAUA TO THE PEOPLE You grow up with paua and then you leave home and never eat it again. Until this year. Homeland put paua on toast. Depot put it in a pie. Mr Morris sliced it thin and served it with okra, baby corn and Korean rice sticks. Ahi’s had a hint of hangi smoke.

Onemata (in the new five-star Park Hyatt) served paua in a miso butter-soaked risotto. Suppliers told me prices had come down, but also perhaps a pandemic-weary public was ready for a little luxury.

Recently, ahead of Auckland restaurants reopening under red traffic light Covid settings, I asked chefs to nominate some favourite dishes from their newest menus. Early signs point to crayfish being this summer’s paua. How on earth will we cope?

2

BITE YOUR TONGUE The first thing you need to know about ox tongue is that it might actually be beef tongue. On the farm, oxen are a very specific kind of castrated and domes domesticated animal.

In the kitchen, the language is less other thing about specific. The ot this organ m meat darling? It’s delicious. I couldn’t get enough of the ox tongue at Daphnes Bar souvlaki a Taverna, a all thin-cut and skewered and scorched crispy From souvlaki to on the edges. Fr Mexico to the lamb’s the tacos at Mex tongue at Onslow and on to the bravest iteration of them all. Alma did not attempt to hide the nature of the beast. beas The Spanish newcomer went full tongue — a giant slab, studded with dozens of tiny slices of green olive.

Everything offal is eventually new again and, this year, Auckland enjoyed a civil tongue.

5

A WHOLE LOTTA LAMB In level 3, we killed the fatted lamb. I don’t on’t know what vegetarians ate when restaurants ants ked at opened for takeout, because every menu I looked featured slow-baked hunks of our national protein. otein. oaked Hello Beasty’s red chilli and Szechuan sauce-soaked shoulders scored high social media praise but my ith taste buds were blown by Cotto’s lamb ribs with honey and balsamic. It was my first restaurant-cooked takeaway and it invoked the sense of physical amazingness you feel the day after a hangover. Anything is possible. Everything is going to be okay. (Postscript: when we asked chefs hefs for their summer menu picks, lamb was the mostlauded land-based protein — one of the prettiest st was Andiamo’s, pictured here.)

29

7

6

EVERYTHING ITALIAN When the chips are down, humans eat ... chips. Or, at least, carbs. Hospitality operators read the room and many of Auckland’s recent openings have been built on a foundation of pasta and pizza dough (take a bow Spiga and, also, East St Hall for a tasty post-lockdown pivot).

Italian was the flavour of the year.

One of my favourite experiences was at Pici, the tiny eatery that scored a food trend double — its citrus cheesecake with olive oil and salt was like lying on a fresh-cut lawn under a lemon tree on a very hot day. And if you still haven’t managed to score a booking at Ada, keep trying. I don’t think they could serve a bad meal if they tried.

MOCK MEAT There’s nothing new about the rise and rise of meat-free meals (see: artichokes).

But in November, the big guns landed.

California-based Impossible Foods launched its beef into restaurants in Auckland, Mount Maunganui and Christchurch. The plantbased “meat”, which many consumers claim cooks, looks and tastes like the real thing, is being used in burgers, chawarma, lasagne and kofte at the likes of Burger Burger, Fatimas and Waiheke Island’s Vino Vino.

(If pork belly and seafood are more your faux-thing, head to Ponsonby’s Khu Khu for a mock meat meal that is so visually meaty, you may want to leave bona fide vegetarians at home.)

THE HUNGRY GAMES:

The Leftovers 1 What food tops New Zealand’s food waste charts? a Lettuce b Bread c Bananas d Cooked rice

2 “Bubble and squeak” uses leftover what? a Potato and cabbage b Cabbage and mince c Mince and potato d Ham and turkey 3 What salad uses up stale pita? a Ful medames b Fattoush c Balela d Tabbouleh 4 Where did arancini (made from cooked risotto rice) originate? a Tuscany b Umbria c Sicily d Piedmont 5 Which word means “a warmed-up dish of food”? a Revivre b Relancer c Repeter d Rechauffe 6 When is the best time to eat trifle? a Christmas Eve supper b Christmas Day lunch c Boxing Day breakfast d Any of the above and also tomorrow

Created and compiled by Kim Knight ANSWERS: 1b, 2a, 3b, 4c, 5d, 6d

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10

interior design

TRENDS you need to know about in 2022

We’ll be seeing a lot of jewel colours, curves and tactile textures in the coming year, writes Leanne Moore

STYLE

4

TACTILE TEXTURES

A holiday home is a place for relaxation and rejuvenation, a bolthole from the pressures of daily life. For those who put in the extra effort to create a space that’s unique and authentic, the time and effort will reap rewards. When it’s achieved, as in this Coromandel holiday home

by Edwardswhite Architects, your spirits will lift and your blood pressure will drop the moment you step over the threshold. The key is creating a space that is a combination of all the things that make you. Build layers over time, adding comfy cushions and sofas that invite you to flop down for an afternoon nap. Create tension with contrasting tactile textures, mixing velvet and faux fur with timber and throws. When you get the balance right, you will never want to leave.

To get a snapshot of what’s happening in interior design right now, the Design Institute of New Zealand has done all the hard work for you. The best trends in design and decor are showcased among the work of designers and architects who are finalists in the spatial design category of the institute’s Best Awards. The award winners, including the best spatial designer in 2021, will be announced at a glam industry dinner in Auckland on February 18. Among the spatial design finalists are these wayfinders on the path to directional design.

1

JEWEL COLOURS

After a sea of beige and an ocean of greys, a welcome new colour trend that’s emerging is warm jewel-tones, showcased in the living room décor of this recently renovated home in Remuera, Auckland. Adding a bit of bling to a neutral backdrop, as Space Studio has done, showcases the way confident colour combos can bring a room alive, and anchor the space at the same time. The bold contrast between the warm and cool tones, and pale highlights against the moody darkness, capture the personalities of the home owners, creating an interior that’s a selfreflection of their playful characters.

3

SMALL SPACES

Embracing a “less is more” lifestyle is becoming increasingly popular among New Zealanders. As we begin to seriously question how big a home really needs to be, the tiny house movement is encouraging people to put space-efficient features at the top of their must-have list. The key to giving the interiors of small homes a harmonious feel is a restricted colour palette and limited materials. This holiday home in Wanaka has nailed it. Condon Scott Architects took their inspiration from Japanese architecture, reflecting the compact and considered design of homes in that part of the world. Cladding the walls and ceiling in plywood gives the upper level the illusion of space, with the landing doing double-duty as a children’s play area. It’s a petite home that’s plenty big enough for this family.

2

CURVES

There’s no denying that 2022 is going to be the year of the curve. Smooth and swooping lines that echo the Art Deco movement are everywhere: in buildings, furniture, mirrors, vases, art and kitchen cabinetry (although this custom kitchen island owes more to the site’s volcanic rock formations than current trends).

When it came to his own home, the founder of South

by Southeast Architects, Ken Powrie, responded to the organic shape of the rocks unearthed during the building’s excavation. The curvaceous kitchen island found favour with his clients, wife Sarina and their two daughters, aged 4 and 6. The girls’ brief to their dad was clear: “Somewhere where we can run around the house, even if it’s raining, with the dog.” He delivered on that, too.

5

DECORATIVE CEILINGS

So often, the ceiling is an afterthought when it comes to decor and design. The fallback position is almost always white, but a ceiling that is part of the overall design can be a wonderful thing. That’s what is so refreshing about the contemporary addition to this villa in Ponsonby, Auckland. The patterned ceiling draws the eye upward to the 3.5m high stud. It’s a lovely contrast to the TV room’s otherwise spartan decor. The sofa and rug are the only other decorative elements in the room, offering a pop of colour against the grey concrete walls and floor. Designed by Pacific Environments, the patterned ceiling is crafted from bespoke routered plywood panels. This striking feature also serves a practical purpose, helping to improve the acoustics of the room.

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6

DARK KITCHENS

This kitchen takes its colour cue from the home’s exterior cladding —locally sourced schist. The architects at Bureaux believe in having a connection between the interior architecture and the building envelope. The influence of the natural world continues inside with the thick slab of ocean black travertine that sits atop the kitchen island and also acts as a splashback for the wood-burning stove. Good design is in the detail and the work of Bureaux goes far beyond the bones of the house. The chairs, bar stools, cabinetry and even the plates are all designed by the studio, in keeping with its holistic approach to architecture.

7

OUTDOOR ROOMS

The comforts available to enhance the outdoor living experience expand every season. Think of your garden/ deck/courtyard as an outdoor room and decorate accordingly.

When you take the inside outside, you’ll discover that your friends and family will be happy to spend hours outdoors shooting the breeze. Whether it’s a pergolashaded outdoor dining room or a more substantial structure such as this garden-shed-come-guesthouse designed by Cheshire Architects, relaxing in maximum comfort is the ultimate goal.

8

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

It takes a team to build a house and when the collaboration goes well, the results can be extraordinary. One of the most satisfying aspects of any design or build is finding people to work with who share your vision and enthusiasm for the project.

Architect Ken Powrie says the innovation and creativity among the team who worked on the build of his own home was a key ingredient to its success. “From brickwork, carpentry and internal joinery to the person driving the digger exposing the rock formations, we looked for people with a love of their craft and who were passionate about what they do,” says the founder of South by Southeast Architects. A recycled brick wall adds character and warmth in the bathroom in his own home, plus it’s helping save Earth’s resources, one brick at a time.

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PENDANT LIGHTING

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ROOM-DEFINING RUGS

Iconic American architect Frank Lloyd Wright changed the way we live when he introduced open floor plans last century. His idea of promoting flow between the kitchen, dining and living areas continues to influence architecture today. When it comes to defining a room within a room, a rug is perhaps the single most important item. As well as adding colour and texture, a rug literally scopes out a space to gather, drawing people towards it. Anyone who makes their way to the living room of this home designed by Patterson Associates will find all that’s required is taking a seat to enjoy the fire and the stunning river view.

The best design combines form and function and lighting for your home is no exception. The key is having a plan that covers both task and mood lighting.

For the record, a sea of downlights embedded in the ceiling is not a lighting plan. Well-considered and diverse lighting can make an enormous difference to the comfort and enjoyment of your home, whether it’s being able to see what you’re doing at the kitchen bench or adding a dimmer switch to get the party started.

This decorative cluster of pendant lights signals that dining at this table is going to special, even before any food is served.

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Beach-ready

READS Sarah Pollok’s list of holiday page-turners

A

fter reading hundreds of books over dozens of summers, I can confidently say a great beach read can be surprisingly hard to find.

Light enough to draw you in during the savagely sunny days and meaty enough to feel like a worthwhile read.

The balance is fine but here are some (old and new) titles that have it nailed.

THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO

by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Simon and Schuster, $23) Few books have been so talked about this year as Taylor Jenkins Reid’s latest work. The talent behind the popular Daisy Jones & the Six, Reid dives again into the glamorous past. This time, she tells the story of Hollywood bombshell Evelyn Hugo, who, now in her 90s, has a secret to share with an unsuspecting journalist.

The perfect mix of history, celebrity and mystery, with an unexpectedly poignant and challenging ending, it’s a winner that will surely be passed around this summer.

ONE STATION AWAY

by Olaf Olafsson (Ecco, $35) Beach reads don’t get better than Olaf Olafsson’s One Station Away. The 2017 novel revolves around three women; a pianist who finally receives fame after decades of dismissal, a dancer who dies suddenly without explanation, and a mystery coma patient. However, the story is really about Magnus, the New York neurologist who binds them together. As a son, a lover and a doctor, he plays a significant role in each of their lives. So much more than a simple love story, Olafsson deftly exposes the complexities found in relationships between family, partners, strangers and, most importantly, ourselves.

ANXIOUS PEOPLE

by Fredrik Backman (Atria, $25) A lot of terrible things have happened in 2021, so if you need a reminder that the world is full of flawed but goodhearted people, this is it. The delightfully bizarre plot and rich, well-developed characters are entertaining enough, yet Fredrik Backman takes it one step further, throwing in two plot twists that you absolutely won’t see coming.

Once you read and love the book, keep an eye out for the coming Netflix adaptation and read Backman’s equally stunning Beartown or A Man Called Ove while you wait.

THE ECHO CHAMBER

by John Boyne (Transworld, $37) Still confused about the consequences and definitions surrounding “cancel culture”? John Boyne’s provocative and savage piece of satire is an imperfect but challenging dive into the gnarly topic. Be warned, this book isn’t exactly the most classically enjoyable to read; Boyne seems to test how unlikeable characters can be before readers fail to engage and some content can appear absurd to the point of senselessness. But you can bet the politically charged plot will start up some good conversations among friends and family.

THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH

by Eddie Jaku (Pan Macmillan, $38) Whether you love history or enjoy inspiring biographies, centenarian Eddie Jaku’s memoir will appeal. Like many fellow German Jews, Jaku’s life changed in November 1938 when he was sent to a concentration camp. The next seven years held unimaginable horrors at Buchenwald and Auschwitz that Jaku recalls with startling detail. However, what transforms this devastating tale into an uplifting and inspiring story is Jaku’s perspective; that life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful. So, with every challenging event described as a chapter, it’s framed as a series of lessons we can all take into those difficult seasons.

IT ENDS WITH US

by Colleen Hoover (Simon and Schuster, $23) How on earth could someone let themselves get caught in an abusive relationship? Why do they stay? These are the questions explored and explained in Colleen Hoover’s tender and moving story. Living in Boston with her own business, Lily has come a long way from her small-town upbringing in Maine. Things only get better when she meets the confident, beautiful, and slightly arrogant neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid. He’s ambitious, sensitive and as their relationship deepens, would do anything for Lily. But love eventually comes at a cost; one that grows so slowly, one doesn’t notice its size until it’s too late.

THE GREAT BELIEVERS

by Rebecca Makkai (Little, Brown, $25) Regardless of the season or occasion, the best novels teach you something while making you feel something and Rebecca Makkai’s heartbreaking story about the HIV crisis in 1980s America nails both. The story starts in 1985 Chicago, where Yale Tishman’s life turns into a revolving door of funerals as Aids claims every one of his friends. Only his best friend’s sister, Fiona, is left.

Jump ahead 30 years and Fiona is in Paris searching for her estranged daughter and wrestling, in her own way, with how the virus devastated her life. While it follows a different virus in a different time, the story of heartbreak, chaos and grief for the way things could have been is a story that is still deeply relevant today.

THE CHILDREN ACT

by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape, $26) Find a quiet patch of beach and a long afternoon, because this is a story that will reach through the first page and hold you captive till the last. As a fiercely intelligent High Court judge in London, Fiona has faced a lot of tough cases, but few beat Jack’s; a 17-year-old whose Jehovah’s Witness parents refuse a lifesaving blood transfusion. So, if you are a few years late to the 2014 novel, consider this the reminder you need, especially if you love novels that dive fearlessly into morally ambiguous issues, religious faith and questions without answers.

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A cheese factory

CHRISTMAS

In the early 1970s, with much of south and Southeast Asia in political upheaval, the region was descended upon by armies of ‘hippie’ adventurers, most unprepared for what was unfolding around them. In an extract from his memoir Me. And me now: A 1970s’ Hippie Trail Adventure, former journalist and academic Alan Samson recalls a Christmas Day respite at 3000m, recovering from an Everest trek without a jacket and in jandals.

M

y idiotic 34-day trek to and from the Everest hinterland was notable for its speed, ignoring warnings about altitude sickness, and poor preparation — no jacket and unbroken-in boots.

The last error of judgement had me virtually crippled in the ascent and most of my hike done in jandals. Astonishingly, I made it to the top of the Kala Patthar summit (5500m), then a desperately needed break on the homeward leg. A remote cheese factory at Thodung (3125m), although still above the danger level for altitude sickness, proved the perfect spot.

PHOTO / GETTY IMAGES

DAY 29: Thodung (3125m)

Christmas Eve. I climbed, exertion upon exertion, but the effort was worth it and I was happy enough when I passed a summit spur with glorious views of the fertile valley of Bandar hanging below. I strolled down to the river but from there the walk grew harder. The valley was long and uncompromising and I found this latest uphill haul deceiving and taxing.

Thodung came. It had to. But I was not prepared for the early hour and, in consequence, plunged into teas and cream curds rather carelessly, sitting outdoors under a benign sun with husband Parsay.

He had studied in Taranaki and had much to show me: photographs, a Kiwi badge, and an embossed postcard of Christmas greetings from the Hillary family. He asked me what a New Zealand Christmas was like and, a little homesick, I did my best to convey the occasion. “Most important, is family,” I told him. “Christmas is all about family.” And perhaps that was why, alone at a remote cheese factory at nigh-on 3350m, I felt suddenly lonely and went to bed early.

DAY 30: Thodung

“Happy Christmas,” they said, expecting some sort of festive reaction. I showed none. I sat quietly

with my thoughts in front of a huge log fire when a broad Australian voice broke the calm: “Anyone else ’ere?” There was indeed, and I rose from my chair to pass yuletide greetings. Soon there were three more, an Austrian, an American and, finally, an Englishwoman. All intended to continue but, possessed of extraordinary powers of persuasion, I convinced all that the 25th was not a day to be spent trekking. A New Zealander arrived and we joined forces to convince him too to stay. All had guides and porters, but these were happy to be dismissed for the evening, opting for a party of their own at a neighbouring village. One Sherpa had engaged a porter for himself out of his wages, but I was not into mockery, this most festive of days.

We began the day by demolishing the factory’s cream curd supplies. We drank coffee out of china teacups then devoured cheese with freshly baked crusted breads. Afterwards, we sat in the sun and explored each other’s adventures. A middle-aged Englishman in Nepal to recruit Ghurkhas for the English army arrived. It was interesting the English still had pulling power in independent Nepal. But much foreign exchange was apparently generated.

He was a trifle condescending, however, and no one was disappointed when he decided to continue to the next village.

I shared my favourite view of primrose Gauri Shankar at sunset, drug-free, then we adjourned to the lounge fire till the call for dinner had us filing expectantly to the kitchen. Before us were consomme soups, enormous plates of ham steaks, chips and grated white radish. All this at a remote cheese factory at more than 3000m, aeons from cars, flush toilets and electricity, aeons from home!

We scraped our plates then spontaneously began crooning Christmas “carols”, slaughtering such extremes as Silent Night and Click go the Shears.

After raksi was produced, I attempted a Maori haka. Our hosts chipped in with an enthusiastic

rendition of a children’s song featuring animal noises and we responded competitively with Sweet Molly Malone. A little tipsy, we concluded with Auld Lang Syne.

Back in our outhouse, we huddled around a fire and continued the hilarity. There was even a gift unwrapping, for the Kiwi had been carrying a present from home, with a message asserting the contents would be “sorely needed” by this stage of the trek. Predictably, it was cologne, and we Dean Martin-ishly passed the bottle around. We did sleep. I am sure we did, for the final reward to the evening’s frolic was a kiss from the English girl, Lynne, and there could have been no more fitting finale to an extraordinary day. In lieu of mistletoe, we had hung the Australian’s polka dot underbriefs from a roof beam.

DAY 31: Those (1930m)

Ready for the onward trek, I caused a bit of a furore when I appeared in short pants and jandals.

The others all sported woollen jumpers, jackets, thick woollen socks, and imposing tramping boots designed for the Everest summit. Tagged “the mad New Zealander”, I became the target of a frightening array of cinematic machinery. After fond farewells to the Thodung staff we all climbed down to the Bandar Pass summit where my friends turned left and I turned right. Their Everest adventures lay before them; mine were almost done. I had no great desire now to cover great distances so descended with frequent rest stops.

I shared my cheese with a passing Sherpa then refound valley floor where I wandered dreamfully till Those [the next village] persuaded my halt.

Those was a strange antiquity. Its houses, all two or three storeys, faced each other, and the way between was of such trifling breadth that a museum arcade rather than a township was indicated. I found a teahouse, unconcerned that midday had barely arrived.

Me. And me now: A 1970s’ Kiwi Hippie Trail Adventure and Wars Apart: World War II letters of love and anguish from Cairo to Christchurch by Alan Samson are available on Amazon, paperback about $25, e-book, $7.50, and as e-books from other online suppliers.

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Joanna Wane previews an Auckland exhibition of Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Chapel frescoes that’s turned the world upside down

MOVING HEAVEN AND EARTH

M

onty Python aced it when they depicted Michelangelo copping an earful from the Pope for painting an early version of The Last Supper with 28 disciples and three Christs — on the grounds of artistic licence.

When the real Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to decorate his private chapel at the Vatican in the early 16th century, he requested the 12 Apostles.

By the time “Il Divino” finally descended for the final time after four years on the scaffolding, every inch of plaster on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was covered not only with the entire Genesis creation story but hundreds of other biblical and mythological figures.

Driven by what one art historian describes as a desire to “glorify man as a creature of nobility, beauty and power”, he later created another masterpiece, The Last Judgment, to cover the altar wall. The number of nudes caused such a scandal

‘Our idea was to do something different and put the ceiling on the floor, so you can look down and see it from above, but there was a real discussion because up there is heaven and down there is hell!’

— Michael Schaumer

that, after Michelangelo’s death, one of his students was brought in to restore a sense of decency by painting on some clothes.

“He was a rebel of his time,” says Michael Schaumer, of the master artist, sculptor, poet and architect whose famous Sistine Chapel frescoes feature in a suitably controversial exhibition, Michelangelo — A Different View.

Schaumer is production manager of the international exhibition, which opens at Auckland’s Aotea Centre next week. And as it turns out, he’s a bit of a rebel himself.

In the late 70s, the Berliner founded cult New Wave band P1/E and fell into a career in event management, booking gigs for the likes of US punk rockers the Dead Kennedys. When Canvas caught up with him via Zoom, Schaumer was in Sudan preparing for a huge culture festival being held on the banks of the Nile.

There are actually two rival Sistine Chapel

Right, clockwise: The Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.

A Different View exhibition allows visitors to look down rather than up.

The David and Goliath fresco.

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The Creation of the Sun and Moon, detail from Michelangelo’s frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

exhibitions currently doing the rounds, the result of a falling out between the business partners who originally came up with the idea. However, A Different View holds the high ground, despite its unorthodox approach, after winning the Vatican Museum’s official stamp of approval.

Pre-Covid, five million visitors a year trawled through the Sistine Chapel, gawping up at the vaulted ceiling more than 20m above. In A Different View, the heavens have been brought down to earth, so visitors can admire high-quality reproductions of the frescoes literally laid out at their feet.

“Our idea was to do something different and put the ceiling on the floor, so you can look down and see it from above,” says Schaumer. “But there was a real discussion because up there is heaven and down there is hell!”

The concept was championed by church historian Cardinal Walter Brandmuller and, after much negotiation, access was given to a series of slides taken of the frescoes in the 90s, following a 12year restoration of the Sistine Chapel to remove centuries-old layers of soot and candle wax.

Photographer Roland Ursprung then digitised the images, correcting colour inconsistencies and repairing damage caused by scratches on the slides.

Using what’s known as a sublimation process, they were then transferred on to fabric panels for the exhibition.

The most complex challenge was “flattening” the reproductions of the frescoes, which curve across the ceiling of the chapel. “It took [the photographer] weeks,” Schaumer says. “That was actually the most expensive part.”

From Auckland, the exhibition will head to Asia — one of four iterations on tour next year, including a downsized edition for smaller venues (we’re getting the full-scale version here).

In March, the show will finally make its US premiere, in Baton Rouge, after being delayed for three years — cancelled by Covid-19 in 2019 as the shipping container was en route, and then called off again at the last minute in August as Hurricane Ida swept towards Louisiana.

The nine Book of Genesis panels, with the iconic image of God’s outstretched finger passing the spark of life to Adam, will undoubtedly be the main drawcard.

However, dozens of Michelangelo’s other Sistine Chapel masterpieces also feature, including the heroic tales, the prophets and sibyls, and The Last Judgment, while the Quattrocento frescoes (by Botticelli, Perugino, Ghirlandaio and Rosselli) will be displayed at the entrance.

The Sistine Chapel remains at the heart of the Catholic Church today and is where the papal conclave is held when the cardinals gather to elect a new pope.

Father Merv Duffy, a Marist priest and lecturer in theology at Auckland’s Good Shepherd College, spent four years studying in Rome and has a special interest in art and archaeology. He visited the Sistine Chapel several times, joining a queue that stretched for a kilometre around the outside of the Vatican.

“I remember being shoulder-to-shoulder with a huge crowd of people, getting a crick in my neck leaning back [to look at the ceiling] and being just gobsmacked because it was so gorgeous and so hard to take in,” he recalls.

“Some of it is just fascination — he had to paint at a ferocious rate, on wet plaster, covering a huge area. And when he was lying up against it, how did he work out how it would look from down below?

“Every tourist and every pilgrim going to Rome wants to see the Sistine Chapel if they can. It moves you at all kinds of levels.”

Michelangelo saw the (male) body as a work of great beauty; his marble statue of David is considered the peak of physical perfection. And “like many creatives”, he was a genius who didn’t always follow the rules, says Duffy, who loves the idea of being able to examine the frescoes more closely laid out on the floor.

“It was done for the glory of God, so it was painted on the ceiling, in a sense being offered to God. But this was also a Renaissance prince of a pope who wanted his private chapel to have the best artist in the world decorating it. So it’s some serious showing off.”

Michelangelo — A Different View will be on show at Auckland’s Aotea Centre from January 3 to 30.

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LONE RANGERS

PHOTO / GETTY IMAGES

37

Richard Langston walks our most famous track and discovers the wonders of Fiordland and the lonely dedication of our backcountry rangers

O

ne of the rituals after a day’s tramp in our national parks is the nightly hut address by the park ranger. The experienced ones are notable for their laconic back country commonsense, a knowledge of the bush built up over seasons and what might even, on occasion, rise to be called wisdom. Not that they would ever be so grand.

Ian, the ranger on our third and last night on the Milford Track, told us to take the last day slowly. “If you’re looking down at your feet all the time you’re going too fast and you’re missing out on what you’re here to see.”

He told us the story of the tramper who finished the last 18 kilometres of the track in four hours. That is at least two hours faster than the recommended time to take through this final tract of beech forest, river and streams, and mountain peaks. Apparently the tramper was disgruntled with his fellow hikers and wanted to shoot through.

When the tramper arrived at the end of the track, Ian asked him why he’d been in such a hurry. The tramper wanted to know how Ian had reached the end of the track before him.

Ian told him: “I left the hut at five to nine and it’s now three minutes past nine. I came in a helicopter because I’m cleaning windows [in the shelter at Sandfly Point] all day.” Ian’s slow shake of the head suggested his bemusement at anyone who could want to move through such memorable country in haste.

We’d met Ian earlier that day out on the track where he was rearranging rocks to make a small section of track more negotiable. “You’re walking on the water table taking that side,” he said. He looked down at the track again, “How can I stop people doing that?”

Such are the conundrums of the park ranger. We were unaware of such things as the water table as we

‘If you’re looking down at your feet all the time you’re going too fast.’ scrunched past him in our boots.

Ian had worked on the track for six hours that day. Half of his time paid for by the Department of Conservation and half by the private companies that offer guided walks on the Milford Track. He thought that was a pretty good deal for all concerned.

Ian’s worked for 17 years at Dumpling Hut. He took some pleasure in telling us this was a year longer than his veteran colleague, Ross, who is based at the first hut on the track. “He was my apprentice for three years,” Ian said, with just the trace of a grin. (In fact, at 77 Ross is the country’s oldest park ranger and says he, too, has done 17 seasons — let them fight it out!)

Ross is long and lanky and stooped and he knows everything about the trees and birds around his hut site, such as the leaves of the juvenile lancewood being too tough for a moa to eat. On a more practical level, he also reminded us to tie our boots together and hang them up on a wooden peg outside.

Otherwise kea will have a play with them, he said.

They would drag a boot into the bush and pick out the insoles and run off with them.

Besides singing the praises of the flora and fauna, and telling us how birds were making a comeback after years of the trapping of stoats, Ross reminded us not to leave any clothes behind — “they’re unlikely to fit me”.

Trampers often clap when rangers finish their talks. We’re appreciative that their knowledge is hard-won over years of observation and living quietly alone in our remotest places. And they always offer practical advice for the day ahead.

“The weather looks good for the next few days and for your climb over the pass,” Ross said, holding up his crossed fingers, “but in Fiordland you never know!”

There is where they measure annual rainfall in metres. Fiordland gets up to nine of them. Nine.

Seven metres on average.

Simone, recently out of Whakatane and the ranger on duty at Mintaro Hut, had immersed herself in bushlife to the degree she could mimic the call of the kea, expert enough to elicit a reply from one perched in the nearby beech trees.

“They have three different calls,” she said. She called again and again, just like a local. Rangers are immersed in where they live, and work from their hearts rather than for in consideration of their bank balance.

Ross had advised us to dip ourselves into Lake Mintaro on our following day’s walk and wash away two days of sweat. He said, with the hint of a challenge, it was glacial cold.

He was true to his word. It was ankle-shatteringly cold. We drew breath and dipped our heads in and whooping with disbelief, fled for shore. A young woman from Auckland plunged in and stayed for five minutes. Swimming serenely past us.

Feeling less than hardy outdoor types, we had the compensation of sun to revive us and sunlight on the wall of mountainous rock that is the backdrop to the lake.

The following day we tramped up and up, toward the Mackinnon Pass — the highest point of the track and the place that offers the most spectacular views.

There was mist in the valley obliterating everything we’d come to see. The magnificence of the Milford Track behind a grey curtain.

At the top, the wind blew. It was still grey. We hid from the elements in the lee of the stone memorial to Mackinnon — the Scots explorer was the first European to discover the route. Maori had walked it for centuries in search of pounamu.

We walked on to the Mackinnon shelter which is at the highest point of the walk — 1154m. We waited. Kea flew in circles above us, fanning their wings as they went past the window.

“Look at the beautiful colours under their wings,” someone said.

After an hour, we decided to leave. No sooner had we started the descent than patches of blue sky appeared and the sun broke through. The mist rolled away to reveal mountainous peaks and vast bodies of granite wet and shining in the light.

They sat regally across the valley, encircling us and enducing exclamations and long periods of silent awe.

This is why people want to walk the Milford Track and this is why it is regarded as one of the finest walks. Anywhere.

It is a good thing to be distracted by the views, as the descent is hard on the knees. It’s rocky and made less brutal only by the strategic placement of rocks, stones and rails by those who look after the track.

There is also the accompaniment of bird song and the sound of a river as you descend on to the valley floor. The power of water in Fiordland is immense.

Rivers smooth huge boulders and carve out clean channels through rock. Waterfalls fall in thick white ribbons.

We see evidence of past floods — hundreds of trees washed down towards the valley. Ian tells us that trampers often have to be airlifted out after storms and floods make the track unnegotiable.

We were lucky. Very lucky, in fact. We had fine weather. If Fiordland goes without rain for 12 days it is regarded as a drought.

After fours days of walking through it, I feel as if I know this ancient, mossy and vertiginous landscape and its moods a little better. A little. The way mist hangs in its peaks and crags, the clarity of its streams, the sheer opacity of its river pools. Their blue mineral quality.

In the winter months, when I hear the weather forecast for Fiordland of heavy rain or snow I will envisage the dry creeks of boulders and rivers swelling to impassable torrents, and the shelters and huts — free of rangers and trampers — silent under their coverings of snow. This remote, primal corner of the country, once again left to its own natural devices.

38

I promised Mum I’d never get married without her by my side.

Thirteen days later she died.

I

remember the day my mum met my husband Darren for the first time. He’d stepped outside and she pulled me aside.

“Oh, Ambs,” she whispered.

“I think he’s a keeper.”

There’s a pohutukawa tree near Mum’s house that will always bring the greatest joy and most intense heartache. It was under that tree that Darren and I stood while Mum was in hospital.

He pulled out a ring he’d crafted from a wine barrel and asked me to be his wife.

I called Mum. At this point she was delirious but she understood. She told me the news was “wonderful”. She asked me when and I told her it had happened that afternoon. I thought she meant the engagement. She thought I meant the wedding.

“No, you can’t without me,” she cried.

I laughed. And promised her I’d never get married without her by my side.

Ten days later we brought my mum home from the hospital. Three days later we held her as she died.

I try not to think about that conversation these days. That promise I made still haunts me.

When I look back to 2020, the year is a blur. Within it were both the happiest and one of the worst days of my life. And through it all we — like everyone else — tried to navigate a pandemic that was completely foreign and terrifying to pretty much everyone.

Mum had been sick a while, but she went downhill quickly during level 4 lockdown.

The roads on the way to Whangarei Hospital were empty and the emergency department — usually bustling — was eerily quiet. They had us in a cubicle and at one stage I stepped out to find a bathroom. A nurse spotted me and snapped at me to get back behind the curtain.

Because of lockdown, I couldn’t stay with Mum. I told her I loved her, and that I’d be back to get her in a few days. It was our last coherent conversation.

I was staying at Mum’s with her cats that night. At some stage I had a call from her doctor. She told me Mum was sicker than they realised. They were expecting her to get much worse throughout the night.

“I hate to do this over the phone,” she said.

“But if she goes downhill, do you want us to attempt to resuscitate?”

I hung up the phone, two hours from Darren, and sat alone — waiting for a call to tell me she’d died.

She survived the night and doctors seemed to think her condition would improve. The doctors aggressively treated every issue, but with every treatment she seemed to decline in other areas. She had a feeding tube. She was bloated. She was confused.

And she was alone.

Darren came up one day to help clean Mum’s house. It was that day that Darren took me to the beach when we finished and proposed under that pohutukawa tree. We drove home and I smiled for the first time in a while. That night, we celebrated among the chaos with vodka and blue Powerade, as that’s what we had at home.

Shopping during lockdown was something that needed to be planned ahead.

For the first time in a long time, I was truly happy.

We decided on a quick engagement. I’d lost my dad and brother years earlier and Mum was my only surviving family. And I’d made her that promise. She had to be there.

Within a few days I had a call from the hospital. They wanted me to come in to chat with the doctor.

He sat me down in the visitor’s room of the ward. Right now it was empty, because visitors weren’t allowed. He told me they were fighting a losing battle. That they weren’t getting anywhere. That Mum was suffering through treatment they didn’t think was working. That they’d been aggressive because she was fairly young but that they weren’t winning.

“What do you want to do?” he asked me.

I said I wanted to take her home. Immediately hit with self-doubt. I asked him what he’d do if it was his mother.

He looked at me for a moment.

“I’d take her home,” he told me.

He made the arrangements and I went back to Auckland so Darren and I could arrange to head back north the next day.

A few days earlier we’d been celebrating the

Amberleigh Jack reflects on love, loss and life during the pandemic

start of the rest of our lives together. Now I was faced with losing one of the biggest parts of my life until this point. I remember being so angry at the thought that she’d never get to see either of her children marry. It seemed so incredibly unfair.

The next few days I barely slept. With level 4 lockdown I couldn’t let any of Mum’s friends visit. The hospice caregivers came in twice a day. Every other hour was simply Darren and me. When Mum got upset and was in pain one night, there was nothing I could do and nobody I could call.

Mum died in my arms at 8.40am, three days after arriving home.

The funeral directors couldn’t give any of their usual comforting touches that are standard. At one point I noticed if I accidentally stepped forward, they would take a step back. As they wheeled her away, I remember crying at them to please take care of her. Then I collapsed on the couch and sobbed.

I felt like my world was crashing and I had no idea how to stop it.

After my brother died, Mum found a sense of solace in fantails that would follow her, and convinced herself that one particularly cheeky one was him.

Moments after she died I went outside and immediately had two piwakawaka turn up and dance around Mum’s deck. I smiled for the first time that day.

Lockdown made everything harder. We weren’t allowed a funeral with friends or family. There were no gatherings at home or people stopping by for chats or hugs. To top it off, I now had a wedding to plan. The thing that had brought me so much joy a week earlier, suddenly felt completely overwhelming.

I felt guilty that something so amazing was becoming something I was dreading.

I wanted desperately to marry Darren but I was drowning in grief. I remember days when I’d simply cry, then I’d have intense and frightening dreams, only to wake up and start again.

I missed my mum. I missed my whole family.

And the thought of not being able to share my wedding day with them made the grief almost unbearable.

But we were getting there. Our wedding party had planned a combined stag and hens do, the deck was built, the booze stacked

39

Darren and Amberleigh on their wedding day.

PHOTO / ETHAN LOWRY PHOTOGRAPHY

in the garage and the marquee ordered.

Everything seemed to be coming together and I just desperately wanted the day to arrive.

And then Covid hit again.

The country went into a second level 3 lockdown, weeks before the wedding. We were due to come out of it before the day, but Darren and I sat down and made a list of the 10 people we’d have with us if we remained locked down.

The hen and stag celebrations were cancelled.

The small wedding party came for dinner instead.

And a week later we listened to Jacinda Ardern announce the reduction of alert levels.

Darren and I and our 50 closest people were free to celebrate.

And then, suddenly, it was wedding week.

The house was ready, the caterers and flowers and drinks organised. I woke up in a hotel room one of my bridesmaids and I had shared the night before and felt calmer than I had all year. I knew I was where I was meant to be.

My florist had created a mini version of my bouquet for me to take to Mum’s grave that morning. She would have loved it. I told Mum — through tears — that I loved her. That I wished she could be here.

The actual wedding is a blur. But I remember the important parts. I remember being incredibly grateful that my father-in-law was happy to take my arm and walk me down

This baited poster was eaten by predators in the New Zealand bush. Here, 72,000 native birds, chicks and eggs are killed every day. Protect them from rats, stoats and possums by donating at forestandbird.org.nz/protect

the aisle. And turning to the aisle and seeing Darren. I remember the little reminders of my family — three roses on an empty seat at the front, a few mementos in my bouquet and a song that was incredibly important to my whole family being played during the ceremony. I remember crying and laughing and dancing and being so grateful to have our friends and family with us after a year that we’d all happily forget.

And I remember waking up the next day and crashing. I realise now that the wedding, as stressful as it had been, had given me something to focus on and plan. And without it, the year caught up to me in a big way. It probably took the best part of the rest of the year to start really smiling again. And many more months after that to start to feel like myself.

So many times this year I’ve thought about how unfair this has been on my husband. That his wedding day was marred by my grief. That his celebration was tied into my heartache.

Do I wish I’d waited to get married?

Sometimes. But then I wouldn’t take it back for the world.

I think the day would have been tinged with sadness no matter when it happened. That I’d always be very aware that there was an empty seat with three white roses in place of my family. That my mum, dad and brother would have given anything to see me and celebrate

with me on the happiest day of my life.

But one thing I know is that I would never have survived last year if not for Darren, his family and some incredible friends that may not be blood but are family just the same.

The family I married into is my future, and I love them for it. But my past — the family I grew up with — the family that was by my side for every triumph and heartache — is gone.

My new family don’t know the little details of the history that made me who I am. We don’t have in-jokes that we’ve shared since we were kids. They weren’t there for the deep and meaningful chats over beers on the deck, the tears every time we lost someone we loved, the laughs we shared and traditions we created over the years.

My new family mourn for me but never had the chance to know my family and mourn with me.

But we’re also creating our own little family of misfits. Darren, me and the animals. Shortly after the wedding we adopted a kitten. We named him Jack — he’s doing a great job of keeping the family name adorably chaotic.

Despite everything, the heartache, the madness and the joy of 2020, I’m pretty damn lucky to be where I am.

And every so often, just when I really need it, I’ll look up to see the piwakawaka flying around the backyard and wonder if maybe my family aren’t so far away.

New year.

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40

BOOKS

‘It’s okay to be brown & bougie’ E

Lana Lopesi on what following fashion can mean when it crosses cultures

arrings were always a site of rebellion for me. By the time I was 10 I had three piercings on each of my earlobes, so I could wear three pairs — six earrings in total — at any given time. This was a nightmare when I was at school, where you were only permitted one pair, but even with the constant fear of being caught it was worth it. I thought I was so bad. Since then I’ve also had my tragus pierced and three helix piercings (on the cartilage part on top of the ear), because when your whole lobe is full so early, where else is there for you to go? Adorning my ears was a pastime of crafted rebellion.

Now, I have 20-plus pairs of what I would call Pacific earrings. They’re a combination of materials — seashell, faux tortoiseshell, clay, metals and fabric. They range from minimal to huge, discreet to very bright. A pair for every occasion. The tortoiseshell hoops get good mileage because they go with anything; they’re acceptable for my day job, a conference or a nightclub — or those days where those spaces blend into each other. Then there is a simple pair of drop earrings with a loop of metal and five white seashells threaded on. These are equally versatile, but I wear them when I want the spiritual homecoming comfort of having something from the ocean by my ear. I have some in clay by Auckland-based company Aolele that are any combination of colours and shapes; a

black-and-grey variety for my allblack outfits; and a bright pink-andyellow combination which also goes well with black.

Fashion has been an important fixture of Pacific diaspora life here in Aotearoa, with each generation and each era having a trend of their own. Within the past four or so years, a burgeoning Pacific earring culture has, in particular, been solidifying for women in the diaspora. Shells, seeds and weaving have a solid place on the ears, sold amid ripped blue jeans and retro Harley-Davidson T-shirts. I knew the trend was real and mainstream when I saw Asos was selling faux-tortoiseshell hoops — a material I had first known from the coveted bangles sold at Apia’s markets (after the ban on using the real tortoiseshell). These bangles would be brought home after some relative’s trip to Samoa, only to live forever in the dark of the bottom drawer. The earring trend feels like a new phase in Pacific adornment, embraced by women, femme-identifying folk or just whoever is keen to look a little cute, and is a part of a wider reclamation of Pacific culture, a renaissance of Moana cool, that can be seen in a variety of aesthetics and contexts, from urban wear to professional.

When the current Pacific earring trend hit, however, I wasn’t an early adopter. “Cultural wear” was something I associated with things like church, family occasions, a feeling of cringe;

my grandparents coming back from Samoa with a new puletasi that would be stuffed in the back of a cupboard until a family occasion, normally a funeral, summoned it out; occasionally a forced performance or item. I associated Island fashion with those familial situations — and it was definitely not my clothing of choice. I thought that Pacific fashion outside these situations was worn generally by those who didn’t have other ways to access their culture, so dress became of particular importance to them, a type of performativity or symbolism in lieu of something else.

I remember when a friend came over to visit days after returning from their homeland. They had brought back with them a huge bundle of cultural swag — adornments for their hair, flags, T-shirts, hoodies, jewellery, you name it. When they left I said to myself, It’s cute how much they value that stuff and how it has been incorporated into their aesthetic. But I also wondered why it wasn’t an aesthetic I shared. Fundamentally, I just didn’t think it was cool. I defended my refusal of Pacific fashion as refusing cultural performativity, but this was combined with an actual devaluing of Pacific fashion.

This shifted when I found myself in a string of international settings and at international speaking events. I can’t remember what I’d previously worn to these kinds of things — I guess something understated, because no great outfit comes to mind. But I found myself caught

41

out when I was in Taiwan and was asked to speak at an Indigenous design conference. I didn’t realise that part of the conference was everyone attending in their cultural dress; and of course not only had I not taken anything to Taiwan, I didn’t own a single piece of “Pacific fashion”. I was bailed out by the only other Samoan I knew in Taipei who, thanks to a diplomatic career, did see the value in cultural attire and had a mena dress I could borrow for the conference. Seeing everyone at that conference dressed in their cultural garb and dripping with pride was eyeopening.

If expressions of fashion can be acts of selfdefinition, protest and cultural reclamation within a Pacific diasporic context here in Aotearoa, the same is true of tatau like taulima and tauvae (arm and ankle bands) and tualima (the traditional women’s marks on the top of the hand and the fingers). Earrings as a form of body adornment connect to other expressions of body adornment, such as tatau, in both its customary and contemporary forms. Both can be interpreted as ways of holding on to culture away from homelands, which may otherwise feel very distant, and reconstructing that on the body.

In 2020, I got my tualima done by Tyla Vaeau, a woman who picked up the traditional tools under the tutelage of the Suluape family. I remarked to Tyla that tualima today are like the taulima and tauvae of the 2000s: a clear new trend in the diaspora, this time predominantly for women, choosing customary tatau practices.

Tualima are unhideable. Like earrings that frame your face, they are brazen, a huge-ass middle finger to expectations of “appropriateness” and the limitations of cultural expression. Pacific reclamations of culture through glam aesthetics, allowed into and beyond their professional sphere, are part of Indigenous statements the world over that combine measured protest and luxe performance with a touch of “f*** you” mixed in.

When it comes to earrings, however — and in particular my beloved faux-tortoiseshell hoops, the form is not a Pacific customary fashion revived for today. Instead they are a style adopted from elsewhere, influenced by our contemporary environments, identity constructions and relational affinities, and remade with references to our material culture.

Specifically, I think many of the earring trends at play in Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific pick up on a glamour aesthetic that has a particular political history in the context of Chicanx, black and brown women in the United States.

Puerto Rican fashion writer Bianca Nieves writes on hoops that, “There’s something about moving away from your homeland that activates a longing, a need to connect with your ancestors. I wear them as a reminder that I can decolonise myself and my mind every morning when I get dressed. Plus, besides pulling my outfits together, I’ve discovered they have an

extra, unexpected magic power. Wearing them makes me feel the same way they did when I was young — like I am home.”

While I’m sceptical that a cute pair of earrings is enough to perform the ongoing acts needed for decolonisation, there is something tangibly powerful in reclaiming parts of oneself. I know the superpower that Nieves writes about from my own experiences of popping in a pair of faux-tortoiseshell hoops, or a recently bought pair of gold hoops made in the form of coral.

They give you a charge that can pull you through a tough morning or help you take up space in an intimidating room. It also puts the moana or the fanua — whether literally or symbolically — next to your ears, like the ancestors can have a direct line to you.

However, acknowledging the origins of borrowed items like hoop earrings is important too, and helps us to see that without an acknowledgement our refashioning of hoops — whether they be faux tortoiseshell, wrapped in tapa, or faux bamboo with the word ‘seki’ in the middle — implicates us in a longer legacy of appropriation of American and black or Chicanx fashion.

I also think it’s important to consider the role of class in our statement fashion. What does it mean that only some of us in the diaspora or “actual country” can afford tatau or fashion accessories? Pacific earrings and other items of identity fashion are common in workplaces for arts workers, public servants and educators. In a recent New York Times article called “Bold Red Lipstick Is a Political Uniform, Too”, political reporter Jennifer Medina writes about a number of women of colour in American politics and their fashion choices for the recent Democratic National Convention, including Yvanna Cancela, who wore “the reddest of lips and biggest of hoops”; Deb Haaland’s dangling turquoise earrings; and Michelle Obama’s “bracelet-size hoop earrings”. These fashion choices are “expanding the definition of what it means to look like a politician”; they’re a form of reclaiming what has “long been considered trivial, or a liability”. The article quotes scholar Rhonda Garelick, who argues that acknowledging glamour as part of making a statement, and using it as a politically powerful tool, is and always has been a profoundly feminist act.

When I think about a diaspora woman wearing Pacific earrings, I ultimately picture a Pacific professional who works in government, the arts, tertiary education, corporate organisations or professions like law. These are environments that are predominantly Western — both structurally and in terms of those who work in the sectors; environments where there is a

real power in adorning oneself in a cultural power suit and not assimilating into a sea of black or navy blazers. These are also sectors that enable people to be upwardly mobile; where they can afford to adorn themselves culturally and professionally in intentional ways.

For the Pacific professional, earrings and other glam signifiers like bold lip colour mark a way of bringing identity into the sphere of corporate attire. They seem important in an era where more Moana women are entering these kinds of workplaces and want to be their whole selves within these spaces. But they also signal a divide between those with and without class privilege, those with and without Western training and education, those with and without the time and space to think about cultural dress. Between those who are brown, and those who are brown and bougie.

There is a growing brown middle class, and I don’t think it’s too cynical to say that it can be symbolised by Pacific earrings and tua lima.

Being brown and bougie, and acknowledging that fact, is perhaps the diaspora dreamcome-true of the migrant generations working hard to give themselves, their children and grandchildren better lives. In that sense, being brown and bougie is part of a working-class aspiration, and manifestations of diaspora fashion can be tied to class mobility under capitalism. Looking back, I see that what I think is cool has changed, for sure, but so has my ability to afford diaspora fashion, to support Moana earring-makers, and my need to bring little cultural protests with me as I move up and through spaces not used to many islanders within them.

I noticed the eruption of Pacific earrings in the world because it was a communal thing; a fashion statement that women and femmeidentifying folk were suddenly wearing en masse.

I want to reclaim the Pacific earring — so easy to dismiss — for the politics that it holds. In a context where Pacific women are encouraged to assimilate into Western patriarchal norms, encouraged within our own communities to be meek, plain and unnoticeable, claiming earrings and taking up space is a big deal. Part of that, though, is the need to examine one’s place (my own place) within the woke diaspora; the need to acknowledge aspects of class privilege, taking up space and upward mobility, or diasporic changes that the ‘actual country’ may look askance at.

It’s okay to be brown and bougie. But let’s also ask ourselves what that means.

Edited extract from Bloody Woman, by Lana Lopesi (Bridget Williams Books, $40)

QUIZ ANSWERS

1. Arcade Fire.

2. Rawene.

3. The “hole in the

rock”.

4. Hamilton.

5. Te Mata Estate, in Hawke’s Bay. 6. Hastings.

7. Hawera, in Taranaki.

8. The Wellington Cable Car. 9. Invercargill.

10. Lake Grassmere, in Marlborough.

11. Iggy Pop. 12. Glow-worms.

13. Havelock, in Marlborough.

14. Lake Rotoiti (the South Island one).

15. Christchurch.

16. Springfield.

17. Akaroa.

18. Lake Matheson.

19. Clyde.

20. Hone Tuwhare.

21. Cromwell.

22. Invercargill.

23. Milford Sound.

24. Southland.

25. The signpost at Stirling Point, Bluff.

42

REVIEW

ON SCREEN: ONE MARRIAGE, TWO REVIEWS Greg Bruce and Zanna Gillespie watch When Harry Met Sally She saw

He saw

I

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suggested we watch When Harry Met Sally for our final review of 2021, for two reasons: the big declaration of love happens on New Year’s Eve and it’s a story about a man and woman who can’t agree on anything but fall in love anyway. Whether this is a good recipe for marriage, Greg and I can’t say, but we’re nine years deep with no end in sight.

It’s not hard to charm Greg or me with stories set in New York City — the scenes of Harry and Sally carrying the Christmas tree through snowcovered NYC streets made me instantly regret buying a fake tree this year. Add to that the fact Sally heads to the Big Apple to pursue her dream of becoming a writer and you’ve sucker-punched Greg into submission.

I wrote an exegesis at university on everything that’s wrong with romantic comedies from a feminist perspective but I love this film, a benchmark of the genre. Surprisingly, it stands up very well today, thanks to the excellence of screenwriter Nora Ephron.

Romances written by women are far more likely to have fully realised female protagonists instead of the prototypical “preoccupied career woman who has forgotten to fall in love suddenly realises she has a desperate need to get married before all her eggs dry up and she becomes a crazy cat lady” narrative.

I

Don’t get me wrong, there first saw it when I was 12, are some cringe-worthy which was at least a year lines — mostly from Harry before I learned from my (Billy Crystal) — but far fewer father what an orgasm was, than I expected. I had also so the movie’s most famous completely forgotten — or scene meant little to me, perhaps I never noticed given although I was in love with he was always an old man to Meg Ryan for a long time me — how good looking he afterwards, so it’s possible the was back then: surprisingly scene gave me a little frisson hunky on a superficial level. only my blossoming body fully Unfortunately, though, he’s understood. obnoxious, which I don’t find My strongest memory of hunky at all. that first viewing, Pondering the film’s prior to my central question, second last Scores Greg seemed week, was Number of men with God to concur with Billy Crystal’s complex (movie): 1 Harry that men claim, “No Number of men with God can’t be friends man can be with women they friends with a complex (review): 1 find attractive, woman that he although he was finds attractive”, being very evasive which is some and non-committal in his powerful and probably answers, probably because damaging relationship I began listing all his female ideology for a 12-year-old boy friends and accusing him to ingest. It was probably no of being attracted to them, coincidence that it would be which we both enjoyed very years before I had any female much. Initially, I thought the friends, or that most of those film agreed with Greg, given friendships would be ruined that Harry and Sally end by the lingering psychological up together, but on further remnants of that quote, or at reflection I realise the question least by something inside me has more than two answers. that it accurately identified.

It isn’t either yes, friendship The movie has not aged. It’s can continue when attraction funny and fresh — a landmark is present or no, sex will ruin piece of cinema, written by it. There’s a blatantly obvious the genius Nora Ephron and third option that seems to directed by Rob Reiner, who evade Harry, but not Nora: was, at the time, the hottest Men and women can be director in the world, having friends and be romantically made This is Spinal Tap, Stand involved. Take us, for example:

by Me and The Princess Bride My husband’s my best friend. in the space of three years

In the grand tradition of BIG NIGHT, CHOCOLAT and BABETTE’S FEAST

leading up to this, his magnum opus.

I told Zanna that I’d read an interview in which he said Harry and Sally did not end up together in the original script and that he changed the ending after meeting the woman who would become his wife. I said to Zanna that this was the ultimate instantiation of the sort of privileged thinking so typical of the middle aged white man with a God complex: The way you perceive the world is the way it must be.

Zanna, who usually loves this sort of critique, and who so often applies it to me, disagreed. “He was in love,” she said. “Love changes people. It affects the way they think.”

I couldn’t believe it. I’d taken a position so uncontroversial in this household as to be essentially scripture, and still somehow she’d found a way to disagree with it.

Harry and Sally end up together or they don’t, and, at least according to Reiner, these are both equally plausible outcomes of the preceding series of events. That’s a pretty unromantic view of one of the world’s most famous romantic comedies, but those are the beliefs of a middle aged white man with a God complex. Who am I to argue?

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44

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Yesterday, at 7.30pm

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Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2, at 8.30pm

6am The Attitude Awards 2021 0 Preview.

A glimpse of the finalists in the build-up to the 2021 Attitude Awards.

6.25 Cowboy Builders 0 7.15 Tagata Pasifika 3 7.40 Praise Be 3 0 8.10 The Living Room 0 9am Secret Scotland 3 0 10am Milk And Money 0 Baz MacDonald travels New Zealand exploring the impact of the dairy industry on the environment, health and community.

10.20 My Maori Midwife 0 10.55 The Great British Sewing Bee 0 The sewers are tested on the three core fabrics – cotton, wool and silk.

11.55 Attitude 0 12.25 Mind Over Money 3 Nigel Latta looks at why money makes us weird.

12.55 Billionaire Babies 3 0 2pm L Cricket: Super Smash Women’s 0 Canterbury Magicians v Otago Sparks.

From the Hagley Oval in Christchurch.

5pm The Chase 3 0 6pm 1 News At 6pm 0 7pm Extreme Cake Makers 0 Michelle makes a cake for charity, Parkinson’s UK; a statement wedding masterpiece to feed 300 guests.

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Himesh Patel, Lily James.

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Rescue Bots Academy 3 0 Bluey 0 Toon Bops 0 Masha And The Bear 3 0 Powerpuff Girls 3 0 Ben 10 3 0 Moomin Valley 0 Island Of Mystery 0 Bunnicula 0 M Teen Titans Go! To The Movies PG 3 0 2018 Animation. A villain’s plan for world domination sidetracks five teenage superheroes who dream of Hollywood stardom.

Greg Cipes, Scott Menville, Khary Payton.

Almost Never 3 0 Shortland Street Omnibus PGC 3 0 Home And Away Omnibus 30 The Voice US PG 0 5 Gold Rings 3 0 Renters PG 3 0 Harry Potter: Hogwarts Tournament Of Houses PG 0 Superfans answer questions about the world of Harry Potter to earn the title of House Cup Champion.

Hosted by Dame Helen Mirren.

M Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 MV 3 0 2017 Action. The intergalactic avengers must defend their family as secrets of Quill’s past come to light.

Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana.

M The Conjuring 16V 0 2013 Horror.

Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga.

Mysteries And Scandals PG 0 Hashtag Murder MV 0 The Price Of Duty M 0 AP Bio PG 3 0 Infomercials Religious Programming Infomercials

Three

Prime

4

Power Rangers, at 12.50pm

Walking Britain’s Lost Railways, at 6pm

6am Life TV PG 6.30 Brian Houston @ Hillsong TV PG 7am Charles Stanley PG 8am Life TV PG 8.30 Turning Point PG 9am Life Of Kai PG 3 0 Maori culinary artists share tips and tricks to give Maori kai a modern edge.

9.30 Hotels By Design 3 0 9.50 One Of A Kind 0 10.15 One Of A Kind 0 10.40 Dr Jeff Rocky Mountain Vet PG 0 11.25 Rescue My Renovation 0 11.50 Ultimate Tag PG 3 0 12.50 M Power Rangers PG 3 0 2017 Adventure. Five ordinary teenagers are accidentally imbued with ancient powers, which they must use to save the planet from a vengeful and powerful evil.

Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott.

3.10 Millionaire Hot Seat 3 4.05 Home Town 3 0 5pm The Fishing Show Classics PG 0 Fishing action from around New Zealand and the world.

6pm Newshub Live At 6pm 7pm The Block Australia PG 0 The judges decide who to crown the winner of the master ensuite week.

8.25 M Forrest Gump M 0 1994 Comedy Drama. The story of a man who, over the course of three decades, and despite having an IQ of 75, leads an extraordinary life.

Tom Hanks, Robin Wright Penn, Gary Sinise.

11pm Emergency Call USA M 0 11.55 NCIS M 3 0 12.45 Infomercials

6am 10am 11am Noon 1pm 2pm 3pm

5pm 5.30 6pm

7pm 7.30

8.30

9.30

10.30 11.30

12.30 1.30

Religious Programming Which Car PG 3 0 Antiques Roadshow Outback Truckers PGL 0 Surveillance Dashcam PGVC 3 0 Traffic Cops 3 0 L Basketball: NBL Tasmania JackJumpers v NZ Breakers.

From the MyState Bank Arena in Tasmania.

Mighty Machines PG (Starting Today) 3 0 Prime News Walking Britain’s Lost Railways PGC 3 0 Rob goes to a well-hidden freight line built to traverse the tricky landscape of the Lake District.

Storage Wars PGL 3 0 Outback Truckers PGL 0 Car wreckers Mike Elliott and Michael Bozza push their trucks to the limit to reach the remote Gnaraloo Station.

Mountain Men MVLC 0 Jake goes to extremes to get his injured dog to the vet; Tom and Jack are left high and dry when the well on his ranch stops pumping.

World’s Most Unexplained MC 0 A telephone operator answered a call from a woman who claimed US president John F Kennedy was going to die. Less than an hour later, he was assassinated.

SmackDown PGV Love Island UK 16LS Paradise continues on Love Island as the summer of a lifetime goes on.

Love Island UK: Aftersun 16LS Infomercials

0 Closed captions; 3 Repeat; (HLS) Highlights; (RPL) Replay; (DLY) Delayed. Classifications: 16/18 Approved for persons 16/18 years or over; C Content may offend; L Language may offend; M Suitable for mature audiences; PG Parental guidance recommended for young viewers; S Sexual content may offend; V Contains violence.

BRAVO

12

SKY Movies Premiere 30

7.36 Half Brothers MVL 2020 Comedy. 9.13 Infinite MVLC 2021 Action. 10.59 Little Women 2019 Drama. 1.14 The Legend Of Baron To’a 16VLSC 2019 Comedy.

3.01 Greenland MV 2020 Action.

5.01 Baby Done MLSC 2020 Comedy.

6.36 The Courier MVLC 2020 Thriller. 8.30 Godzilla v Kong MV 2021 Action. Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown.

10.25 The Night House MVLSC 2020 Horror.

12.10 One Night In Bangkok 16VLSC 2020 Action. 1.57 Dragged Across Concrete 18VLSC 2018 Thriller.

4.35 Black Water: Abyss 16VL 2020 Horror.

Rialto

39

UKTV

7

TVNZ DUKE

SKY Movies Greats

SKY Movie Classics

34

Living

17

23

33

6.28 Assault On Precinct 13 16VL 2005 Action. Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne. 8.13 My Week With Marilyn ML 2011 Drama.

9.48 The Italian Job MVL 2003 Action Thriller. 11.35 The Martian ML 2015 Drama. 1.55 La La Land ML 2016 Musical Comedy. 4pm Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason MLS 2004 Romantic Comedy. 5.45 Interstellar ML 2014 Sci-fi. 8.30 Miss Potter PG 2006 Drama.

Renee Zellweger, Ewan McGregor.

10pm The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 16 2011 Crime.

12.35 8 Mile MVLS 2002 Drama.

2.25 The Italian Job MVL 2003 Action Thriller. 4.12 The Martian ML 2015 Drama.

6.05 Minari PG 2020 Drama.

8am It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Story 16 2018 Documentary.

9.55 Military Wives M 2019 Comedy.

11.45 Lazy Susan M 2020 Comedy.

1.15 The Unusual Suspects M 3.05 The Unusual Suspects 16 4.55 Olympia 16 2018 Documentary.

6.35 Another Round M 2020 Drama.

8.30 Brassic 16 (Mini-series) 9.20 Lucky Grandma M 2019 Comedy.

10.50 Stunt Women: The Untold Hollywood Story M 2020 Documentary.

12.20 Lowdown Dirty Criminals 16 2020 Comedy.

1.45 The Unusual Suspects M 3.35 The Unusual Suspects 16 5.20 Olympia 16 2018 Documentary.

6.05 The Night Of The Generals PG 1967 War. Omar Sharif, Peter O’Toole.

8.25 Housesitter PGL 1992 Comedy.

10.05 Once Were Warriors 16V 1994 Drama.

11.45 Stand By Me ML 1986 Drama. 1.15 Love With The Proper Stranger PG 1963 Comedy.

2.55 Major Dundee PG 1965 Western.

4.55 Dirty Dancing PG 1987 Drama Romance. 6.35 Sudden Impact 16V 1983 Crime. 8.30 Saving Private Ryan 16V 1998 Drama. Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Edward Burns.

11.15 Fargo 18V 1996 Crime Drama.

12.55 Pale Rider PGV 1985 Western.

2.50 Dante’s Peak M 1997 Action Adventure.

4.40 Awakenings PGL 1990 Drama.

6.10 Would I Lie To You? PG 6.40 Father Brown PG 7.30 Qi M 8am Would I Lie To You? PG 8.30 EastEnders PG 10.30 Grantchester MC 11.35 Qi M 12.35 Midsomer Murders MVC 2.05 Father Brown MVC 3.05 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown M 4pm Qi M 4.35 Would I Lie To You? PG 5.10 Qi M 5.45 Would I Lie To You? PG 6.20 Qi M 6.50 Grantchester PG 7.40 Mallorca Files PG 8.30 Call The Midwife MC 10.20 A Touch Of Frost M 11.50 The Singapore Grip MV 12.35 Casualty PG 1.20 Mallorca Files PG 2.15 Who Do You Think You Are? USA PG 3am A Touch Of Frost M 4.15 Grantchester M 5.05 London Kills PG 5.50 Mallorca Files PG

6.15 Salvage Hunters PG 7.15 Love It Or List It Australia 8.15 Long Lost Family PG 9.35 Pub Rescue With Tom Kerridge PG 10.35 Salvage Hunters: The Restorers PG 11.35 Delicious Miss Brown PG 12.05 The Pioneer Woman PG 12.35 Delicious Miss Brown PG 1.05 30 Minute Meals PG 1.35 Girl Meets Farm PG 2pm Escape To The Country PG 3pm A Place In The Sun: Winter Sun PG 7.30 The Great British Dig PG 8.30 Back In Time For Dinner PG 9.35 The Weekend Workshop PG 10.25 Escape To The Country PG 11.25 A Place In The Sun: Winter Sun PG 4.15 Back In Time For Dinner PG 5.20 The Weekend Workshop PG

19

6.30 Waiata Mai 3 6.40 Kia Mau 3 6.50 Taki Atu Taki Mai 3 7am Mahi Pai 3 7.10 Tamariki Haka 3 7.20 Te Nutube 3 7.30 Purakau 3 7.40 Smooth 3 7.50 Polyfest 3 8.20 Potae Pai 3 8.30 Whanau Living 3 9am Oranga Ngakau 3 10am Waiata Nation 3 11am Whaikorero 3 11.30 Iwi Anthems 3 Noon My Party Song 3 12.30 Haka At Home 3 1.40 M Get Santa PGC 2014 Comedy. Jim Broadbent.

3.30 Pio Terei Tonight 3 4.30 Tagata Pasifika 5pm Te Ao Toa 6pm Marae 3 6.30 My Party Song 3 7pm M Charlotte’s Web 2006 Animation. A frightened pig hatches a plan with a spider that lives in his pen to ensure he does not end up on the dinner table. Julia Roberts, John Cleese, Oprah Winfrey, Dakota Fanning.

8.45 M West Side Story MC 1961 Musical. The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet set in the slums of 1950s New York. Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn.

11.20 Closedown

Sky Sport 1

51

6am All Access: Black Ferns 6.30 All Access: Black Ferns 7am All Access: Black Ferns 7.30 Playmakers 8am Ireland v All Blacks (RPL) 10am All Access 10.30 Cricket: The Ashes (HLS) Australia v England: Second Test, Day Five. 11.30 L Cricket: The Ashes Australia v England: Third Test, Day One. From the MCG, Melbourne.

8.05 Playmakers Ravinder Hunia talks to Dr Stacy Sims, who specialises in helping women better understand their bodies and to rethink the way we look at taboo topics. 8.35 Best Of All Blacks (RPL) All Blacks v Springboks.

10.35 Cricket: Big Bash League (HLS) Hobart Hurricanes v Melbourne Stars.

11.10 L Cricket: Big Bash League Perth Scorchers v Melbourne Renegades. From Marvel Stadium, Melbourne.

3.10 Cricket: Big Bash League (HLS) 3.30 NPC Cup (HLS) 4am Super Rugby Aotearoa (HLS) 4.30 Super Rugby Aotearoa (HLS) 5am NPC Cup (HLS) 5.25 L Gallagher Premiership Bath v Gloucester. From the Recreation Ground, Bath.

26Dec2021

6am Love It Or List It 3 9.20 Millionaire Matchmaker PG 3 10.10 Millionaire Matchmaker PGLSC 3 11am Hoarders PG 3 11.40 Undercover Boss PG 3 12.30 Botched PGLSC 3 2.20 Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles PG 3 3.30 Shark Tank PG 3 6.30 Love It Or List It 3 7.30 M When Harry Met Sally MC 3 1989 Romantic Comedy.

Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal, Carrie Fisher.

9.30 M The Five-Year Engagement 16LS 3 2012 Comedy Romance. Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Chris Pratt.

11.55 Vanderpump Rules M 3 12.45 Infomercials

6am On Duke Today…

7am Dukebox Music 1.10 Motorsport: Extreme E Qualifying. 2.35 Building Giants 3 0 3.30 River Monsters PG 3 4.25 Impossible Engineering 3 0 5.30 L Cricket: Men’s Super Smash Canterbury v Otago.

9pm Top Gear Christmas Special M Freddie, Chris and Paddy play car secret Santa for a festive road trip across Britain, transporting a giant Christmas tree as they head to Top Gear’s very own winter wonderland.

10pm Spiky Gold Hunters 16L 3 11pm Damian Lewis: Spy Wars PG 3 Midnight 12 Monkeys 16V 12.55 Duke Back In The Future

Maori

compiled by

Comedy Central

11

MTV

15

6am Seinfeld MLSC Jerry challenges George, Kramer and Elaine to pool their money in a contest of self-denial.

Midnight South Park 16 The boys start feeling a sense of deja-vu.

12.40 Tha God’s Honest Truth MVLSC 1am Roast Battle UK 16LS 1.40 Archer 16 2.25 Comedy Central Xmas Movies 16VLSC 3.55 Doing The Most With Phoebe Robinson 16LSC 4.40 Bad Education 16 5.10 Tosh.0 16 5.35 Archer 16

6am MTV Breakfast Club M 7.15 MTV World Stage M 8.10 Wild ‘N Out M 9.20 Ridiculousness M 11.05 Catfish: The TV Show M 3.10 Ridiculousness M 5.30 Deliciousness M 5.55 Ridiculousness M 6.55 The Challenge M 8.05 Teen Mom UK: Mums Move In M Teen Mom’s spend a weekend with a family whose lifestyle and approach to parenting differs from their own. Amber stays with the oldest mother of quads in the UK. 9.55 Messyness M 10.40 True Life Crime UK M 11.40 Ridiculousness M 1.50 Jersey Shore Family Vacation M 4am MTV Plays Music… 16 5.15 Snack-Off MC

45

PUZZLES

Puzzles and horoscopes Cryptic crossword )

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ACROSS 1. Branched lamp man with blue card can supply (11) 7. Early showing for VIP we reorganised (7) 9. In Ireland it's a pound for a boat (4) 11. Use curling-tongs with credit on one person at 24 (5) 12. Cured fish for the captain (not a starter) (6) 14. Chic poetry North produced about fireworks (11) 18. Inflammable material in can turns red (6) 20. Little fish always available around start of lunch (5) 22. The stigma of being an Evangelist (4) 23. Naval ratings love change – pardon? (7) 24. The British Parliament in terms newt is responsible for (11) DOWN 2. A facility that gives me a tiny adjustment (7) 3. Area of grass tended to look like fine linen (4) 4. Endlessly pursue it like this and unjustly take possession (5) 5. It is highly flavoured and somewhat risqué (5) 6. Bad weather in August or March (5) 8. River Pom diverts - but he'll make it better (8) 10. Wealth shown by credit note shires produce (8) 13. Not many watts, the iron takes (3) 15. Get one mixed up in love perhaps when about five (7) 16. Put foot down hard to prepare it for posting (5) 17. Move very slowly like a person who cringes (5) 19. Look after one making runs at Edgbaston initially (5) 21. Has a right to hold an Indian garment (4)

WordWheel

WordBuilder

Insert the missing letter to complete an eight-letter word reading clockwise or anti-clockwise.

1189

Quick crossword 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

S E

A R L ?

E P A C L

How many words of three or more letters, including plurals, can you make 2&(* $03 >"3 -3$$3&%8 #%/)1 3<50 -3$$3& only once? No foreign words or words beginning with a capital are allowed. ,03&3+% <$ -3<%$ ()3 >"37-3$$3& ;(&46 Good 12 Very Good 16 Excellent 19

T I

ARIES (Mar 21-Apr 19): You'll put something together – a puzzle, the clues in a mystery, two people you think should know each other. The assembly you manage will be fantastically lucky.

TAURUS (Apr 20-May 20): You'll instigate the fun.

You'll address the challenges of the day by $<./)1 /)/$/<$/"38 %0(;/)1 4&/"3 <)4 =3%0/)1 out the details of your imagination to great effect.

GEMINI (May 21-Jun 21): Thinking about the future can be much more pleasurable than the &3<-/$: :(# >)4 ;03) :(# 13$ $03&36 !-- $03 more reason to indulge in the pleasure of dreaming.

CANCER (Jun 22-Jul 22): There's joy in going along for the ride. Giving in to the decisions of others will bring surprises and fun. Tonight, dollars will not be the currency that buys the good stuff.

LEO (Jul 23-Aug 22): You'll want to control the experience you're about to have, but it's precisely your lack of control over it that will make it fun. Tonight, you'll reveal something about yourself in a comfortable, open environment.

VIRGO (Aug 23-Sep 22): You're respected. You will say what others have said before and get a completely different reaction. People want to act on your ideas because of who you are.

LIBRA (Sep 23-Oct 23): You expect much of yourself, and you're capable of delivering on those expectations. The team will help, and you will also help the team – so much so that by the end of the day, your own agenda will be a distant memory.

SCORPIO (Oct 24-Nov 21): ?(#9-- 13$ &3'#3%$% $0<$ seem forward, but it's only because you are so comfortable to be around. Your lack of pretence makes people feel they know you better than they actually do.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22-Dec 21): Your cosmic gift is easy social rapport. Focusing on the needs and wants of others takes the pressure off of you – no need to come up with an agenda, and you'll enjoy the results more than anyone.

CAPRICORN (Dec 22-Jan 19): Your mind holds expansive visions and you've been dreaming a little bigger and more colourful, too. It is now possible to bring your fantasies into a real-world scenario.

AQUARIUS (Jan 20-Feb 18): You'll be casting someone for a role. The one who is best for a job may defy typical criteria. You'll make wise decisions, though even you may not fully understand what the reasons are.

PISCES (Feb 19-Mar 20): Despite all you've experienced you still have the hope of the innocent.

Because you see life as wondrous and beautiful, others around you see it that way too.

Previous cryptic solution

Across: 1. Comfort 5. Patch 8. Lined up 9. Exist 10. Antipasto 12. Dye 13. Erase 17. Lap 19. Companion 21. Sauce 22. Narrate 24. Treat 25. Enjoyed Down: 1. Cellar 2. Monitor 3. Old 4. Tapes 5. Phenomena 6. Third 7. Hatred 11. Prescient 14. Privacy 15. Closet 16. Indeed 18. Pause 20. Manse 23. Raj

8

Previous solution: WEEKENDS 9

10

11

Previous quick solution 12 14 15

16

17

www.thepuzzlecompany.co.nz 26/12

18

20

Across: 1. Soar 3. Airwaves 9. Intends 10. Lined 11. Irresistible 13. Abroad 15. Aghast 17. Gallivanting 20. Climb 21. Leisure 22. Deepened 23. Begs Down: 1. Scimitar 2. Actor 4. Insist 5. Walking on air 6. Vanilla 7. Suds 8. Unassailable 12. Staggers 14. Realise 16. Svelte 18. Inure 19. Acid

13

Sudoku

19

21

Across 1. Is present (7) 5. Scooter (5) 8. Embarrassed (4-9) 9. Also (3) 10. Start point (6,3) 12. Small, tasty piece of food (6) 13. Unfolded (6) 15. Each person (9) 16. Immeasurably long period of time (3) 18. Well informed (13) 20. Solid (5) 21. Indecisive (7)

Down 1. Strong point (5) 2. A hot topic (4,2,3,4) 3. Requirement (9) 4. Parody (4,2) 5. Raincoat (3) 6. Able to be uttered (13) 7. Go downwards (7) 11. Reimbursement (9) 12. Hiked (7) 14. Covered in trees (6) 17. Destitute (5) 19. Perjure (3)

Previous solution: add, adder, are, dad, dare, dared, dead, dear, dread, ear, era, rad, read, readd, red, redd

PREVIOUS SOLUTIONS

Fill the grid so that every column, every row and 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9.

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46

PUZZLES

KenKen

Kropotkin Across 1. Opening of question: Does Rex escape from Sunbeam Tiger crash?

(6,6) 8. Some sliding movements in Sinfonia Antartica openings? Just the opposite! (9) 9. A band of little crooks (5) 11. Acknowledge a request by ruler linking animals together (6) 12. ‘Polite chap here mid-morning before due time’ – no answer found (8) 14. Stand in cricket match against Transport Arbitration (10) 16. Game could be spoilt – opener missing? (4) 18. Musical man, a rather diminutive one, embraces redhead (4) 19. Having to contend with leader of the Lloyds people – Eastern people?

(10) 21. People having reservations run out after one team leader withdraws from game (8) 22. One under 3, hard in place (6) 25. Film soldier, and possibly another one (5) 26. Old minister in a place of worship put on weight (9) 27. The ones we don’t want to be visited by, so offensive in a suit (5,7) Down 1. Being in the groove is such an oddity (5) 2. Hamlet set here relies on cast (8) 3. This number is only half of Just Like A Woman (4) 4. Tenor holds strange endless ritual on Sunday. These might accompany him (10) 5. See me with King’s follower in the film River (6) 6. Bearing in turbine broke down – it might need a pump to get going (5,4)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7 8

9

11

10

12 13

14

15

16 17

18

19 20

21

22

23

24 25

26

27

7. Fruit, bird, and fish – the first one heard to be a late developer (4,8) 10. Response to silence, for example, shows an unidentified object (3,9) 13. Iris adapts, becomes another plant (10) 15. A man of note is someone here on time (9) 17. Acid spill? Call up Transport! (8) 20. Saw a boat coming in (6) 23. Pet ones are curiously not one’s favourites (5) 24. Sort of blue stuff causing black marks (4)

Last week’s solution ()=included, []=excluded Across: 1. change of heart 8. Berg 9. decry(PT)ing 10. Z(ill)ion 11. [t]eardrop 13. C-hero-kees 15. stag-e 18. e-duct 19. magnesite 21. car p-o-o-l 23. fencing 26. c-o-MP-at-riot 27. reef 28. force(d) landing Down: 1. cher-i-she’d 2. A-L(Go)L 3. g(adz)ooks 4. ouch! 5. he(y)day 6. ant(idote)s 7. Ton-TO 12. J-e-had 14.

Rice paper {Tim Rice} 16. G-utenBerg 17. Anderton 20. bottle 22. Adolf 24. co-r-GI 25. dill

Observer Everyman 2

3

4

5

6

9

7

8

Last week

10

O V I I D E OO E I D

E R E F E L U I L F A L B T A L H Y R O S E O P T E A T I T R S L O R E L E O E W I T

11 12 13

14

15

16

17

18

See the next Weekend Herald for solution

19

20

F AM I L I V N L I O T R I N E A G R E C C J WA V E S R C A MO N T E N L S G ME S R K S I E I T R E N U S T G E N S T

A R U W UMP H B I I A N S B K G AMY B E G R O N T OO S T C L A C L E H E I N

Junior crossword solution 21

23

24

25

26

Across 1. Not just any flyer for a movie? (3,7) 6. Russian ruler ‘beats a retreat’ ... bottles it (4) 9. Employee appraisal at the House of Lords? (4,6) 10. Repelled a raven, largely predatory beast (4) 12. Deaf-ish nans treated, being well looked after (2,4,5) 15. More sickly, kind of green, perhaps slalomer’s heading off (7) 16. Morally improved duke earlier, becoming exalted (7) 17. Artist’s empty landscapes’ sad lines (1,1,5) 19. Hates seeing sights with son not about (7) 20. A sad, a bleak king ordered pudding (5,6)

22

23. In France, one is where courses take a long time to get through (4) 24. Hoping for an ‘h’ sound (10) 25. Made pencil portrait of Andy (4) 26. Brand new day, etc, for coward (7-3)

Across: 1. Alphabet, 6. Girl, 7.

Cobweb, 9. Maybe, 11. Scowl, 12.

Nears, 13. Round, 16. Second, 18.

Buzz, 19. Sparkler.

Down: 1. Arguments, 2. Party, 3.

Back, 4. Tobacco, 5. Ice, 8. Bulldozer, 10. Burrows, 14. Usual, 15. Idea, 17. Eel.

1

26/12

8. To talk with enthusiasm in talk about hard earth is exhausting at first (10) 11. This acid rain alarmed campaigners (9,3) 13. Mesmerized by Alexander Graham’s weight, according to Down Spooner (10) 1. Gratuities regularly shunned; at a 14. Arrangement of elements: push, Everyman will chip in (4) potassium, nickel, iron and silver, in 2. Days before, golfer becomes upset part (5,5) (4) 18. Membrane unusually scaly? OK 3. State broadcast assessed value of ... (4-3) Wimbledon champ (8,4) 19. File ‘requiring less effort’, 4. Guide daughter to wear a sunfancifully? (7) blocker (7) 21. Realise, after losing six balls: it’s a 5. Lover Federer admits was record (4) excessively giving? (7) 22. Commonly, Norseman 7. Spirited grittiness, tough in the underestimating tides, primarily? (4) extreme (10)

How to play It’s like sudoku: each vertical and horizontal line has to contain the numbers 1-6, and the numbers can’t be repeated in any row or column. The numbers in each heavily outlined set of squares must produce the number in the top corner.

For example, 5+ means the numbers add up to 5, 15x means the numbers multiply to 15.

Last week

© 2020 KenKen Puzzle LLC. All rights reserved

Junior Crossword Across 1. Letters A to Z (8) 6. Young woman (4) 7. A spider spins this (6) 9. Perhaps (5) 11. Frown angrily (5) 12. Gets closer (5) 13. Circular shape (5) 16. Follows first (6) 18. A bee’s noise (4) 19. A firework held in your hand (8) Down 1. Quarrels (9) 2. Birthday celebration (5) 3. Opposite of front (4) 4. Cigarettes contain this (7) 5. Frozen water (3) 8. A big, earth-moving machine (9) 10. Rabbit holes (7) 14. Normal (5) 15. A thought (4) 17. A long fish (3)

Solution beside Observer cryptic )

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Weekend Radio RNZ NATIONAL These programmes are subject to change depending on Covid alert levels at the time of broadcast.

Sunday: 6.08 Storytime 9.15 Mediawatch 12.12 The best of Standing Room Only 2021. A look back at the 2021 arts year. 1.10 At the Movies 3.05 Classic Drama. Highlighting radio playwriting and performance. Today a special presentation for Boxing Day — New Zealand's comedy duo the Flight of the Conchords as we go back to their live performance at Wellington's Downstage Theatre in 2003. 4.06 The Arts Hour from the BBC World Service 5.00 The World at Five: News and sport 5.15 Heart and Soul.

Spirituality from around the world 6.06 Matangireia. An encore listen to the second series of conversations examining the legacies of Maori Politicians. 6.40 Best of Voices 2021. 7.04 Smart Talk Conversations from Aotearoa and worldwide, including the TED Radio Hour. 8.06 Sunday Night Retro

Planet FM 104.6FM Arabic — Sat 2.05pm Bengali Sat 6.45pm Cook Islands — Thu 6.30pm. Dalmatian — Tue 7.20pm. Farsi — Wed 3.20pm Wk2/4 Fijian — Thur 6pm. Irish — Wed 10pm. Italian — Sun 11.20am Khmer — Tue 2.10pm, Thu 12.00pm, Sunday 1.50pm. Kiribati — Wed 11.35am Konkani — Sat 3.45pm Korean — Weekdays 9.40am Māori Fri 3.50pm Nepali — Fri 6.50pm.

Niuean — Tue 8am, Wed 6.35pm & 7.40pm.

Panjabi — Tue 3.50pm, Fri 11.35am. Polish — Sat 9.35pm WK1 Portuguese — Sun 1pm.

Romanian — Fri 8.30pm Samoan — Tue 11.35am, Wed 8am, 9.05am Sinhalese — Wed 8.15pm, Fri 7.25pm Spanish — Mon 11.35am Syriac — Sat 2.05pm Tagalog — Sat 12.25pm, 5.55pm, Sun 4pm. Tamil — Wed WK4 2.10pm, 5.35pm Fri 7am, 7.35am, 8.10am, Sat 7.15am, 7.50am, Sun 8.25am, 9am. Tokelauan — Thu 7.05pm Tongan — Mon -Thu 7am, Mon 5 am, 7am, 8am, 2.10pm, 7.40pm, 9.45pm, 10.20pm, Tue 7.55pm, 10pm, 11.05pm, Thu 4.50pm, 7.40pm, 8.45pm, 10.20pm Vietnamese — Wed 3.20pm Wk1/3/5.

10.00 The 10 O’Clock Report 10.15 Mediawatch 10.45 AUT Documentary. 11.04 The Retro Cocktail Hour 12.04 All Night.

RNZ CONCERT Sunday: News and Weather: 6 am, 8am 9am, 12 noon; 6.00 Sanctuary — Music for the spirit and soul 7.30 Hymns on Sunday presented by Robyn Jaquiery 8.00 Grace Notes 9.00 Weekend Brunch 12.00 Pick and Mix 1.00 Onstage — a weekly spotlight on artists and musical matters 3.00 The Musical Omnivore with David Morriss 5.00 New Horizons with William Dart 6.00 Opera on Sunday 9.00 Made in New Zealand 11.00 New Music Dreams with Ryan Smith 12.00 Music Through the Night.

www.planetaudio.org.nz SPECIAL INTERESTS Books — Sun 9.35pm Deco-Retro — Wed 2.10pm Wk2 Disabilities — Fri 6pm Gardening — Wed 2.45pm Green — Thu 8am. Property — Mon 4.15pm Rainbow — Sat 11.50am Music — Fri 7.25pm, 8.30pm, Sat 3.10pm, Sun 7.10pm, Jazz, Blues, World, AC, 12am to 6am Pasefika Health — Mon 9.45pm, Tue 11.35am, Wed 9.05am, 7.40pm, Thu 6pm, 6.30pm, 7.05pm.

Seniors — Sun 5.25pm Sports — Mon 12.30pm Resettlement — Sat 4.50pm Social/Political — Mon 5pm, Wed 2.10pm WK4, 3.55pm, 4.25pm, Fri 4.55pm, Sun 10.45am, 11.55am Women — Wed 5pm, Sun 6pm WK4 Youth — Mon 10.20pm, Wed 2.10pm WK1 BELIEFS Cantonese — Wed, Thu 1.30pm English — Fri 8.40am, 9.15am, 2.10pm, 2.45pm WK1, 3.15pm, Sat 6.40am.

Gujurati — Sun 7am. Hindi — Sun 7.15am Mandarin — Mon, Tue 1.30pm, Sun 9am Niuean — Sun 9.35am Romanian — Fri 9.35pm Tongan — Thu 3.20pm, 3.55pm www.planetaudio.org.nz

47

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