25 posts tagged “aotearoa”

Don’t you hate it when the place you are staying at has dodgy wifi and no SMTP server? It’s probably the most troublesome wifi I’ve had ever: I can’t connect yet three viruses managed to come through via the wifi system. At least the weather is nice, as is my lovely 2008 Ford Focus 2·0 organized by the lovely Brie Elder of the Ford Motor Company.
   I’m also back at my regular haunt at the Cintra Lane apartments, where I always stayed at the beginning of the century. I went to other properties between 2005 and 2007 out of curiosity, journalistic duty and the Cintra’s owners’ decision not to upgrade to broadband. Now I am back, I notice that they at least have wifi installed, but it’s very patchy.
   Still, better patchy wifi than dial-up, my antivirus (AVG on this laptop) and spyware scanners are up-to-date, and I love having my familiar penthouse view (Richard Gere: ‘It’s the best’) again. Whomever runs the place now has upgraded or replaced the TV, TV channels, DVD player, curtains and carpet.
   Thanks today to Simon and Marie Young for letting me use their office’s server to send off emails today!

I have had a record number of monarchs in my garden this year. This one was on one of my paths, and let me come up real close. They were actually from April, not May as the captions state.
   Earlier today, when attending a photo shoot for Lucire, what did I spot among the props?

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of visiting the Horrobin & Hodge spa in Manakau, north of Levin, for a future issue of Lucire. These are just random shots; the real 35 mm and digital ones will appear online and in print in due course. You can get great spa treatments there with products from Hema and other top-end lines, and I was pampered with a massage. A big thank-you to Sarah and Jacquie for making me feel so welcome, for an amazing lunch (meat from the farm next door and vegetables grown on site) and for letting me sleep on the day room couch when I was in sublime relaxation!
   Basically you are looking at world-class treatment but country-style hospitality—which makes the hour’s drive from Wellington well worth it.
   The first four shots are from the day room, both inside and the views toward the west and north.

   The reception is way cool: the lights are 110 ml milk bottles in a crate, acknowledging the rural heritage of the site. The old-fashioned telephone is actually push-button and not rotary, but it looks great alongside the Dell computer screen.    And, nearing sunset, one last shot before driving back to Wellington.

I had to share this. My friend Jennifer Hamilton (as Baby Spice in this video) and her group, Avidiva, performed at the closing ceremony of the NZI International Sevens in Wellington this year. I did the Avidiva logo’s hand-lettering (based on Jennifer’s idea) and website (also her concept). Stars in Their Eyes’ (the New Zealand edition) Freddie Mercury is behind them. It’s really cool to see Avidiva do so well from humble beginnings.

Yay, I heard from Ellipse, one of the mods on the old New Zealand group, just now.
   It seems I was removed and banned because of what they felt was the irrelevance of my posts, although I am having a hard time figuring out which ones. I did tell her I was careful but it may be the case of a differing judgement call.
   For example, I might have sent my Toyota Corolla post there and that could have been one. Some might think it irrelevant to New Zealand; I would have seen it as relevant given the cars were the number-one seller in New Zealand for over a decade and many Kiwis grew up with them. Everyone in New Zealand has a Corolla story.
   I don’t know if that’s the one but it is an example. I have asked her to take a peek if she wishes to, so maybe we can find out what caused this. We may as well reach an understanding on what crosses the line.
   She thought I had been cautioned before, which is why she took a sudden action, but now realizes I hadn’t been, and effectively apologized and reinstated me.
   She agrees that not getting a warning is ‘not cool’ and was disappointed in herself for making the call, which we can put down to human error.
   Gosh—I’ve had over a year of posts I sent there that have all disappeared, which is a bit of a shame to those browsing the group now and wanting to get a full record, but mistakes happen.
   I think it was good of her to reply and admit to an error. I told you I liked her and I am glad my first impressions of her weren’t wrong—though I fully own the earlier emotions I had when I was first banned. I was calm, just not ecstatic.
   Oh well, we now have two NZ groups with different memberships and I still stand by my earlier comment that Vox is big enough for both. What I might do is send the unambiguously Kiwi ones there out of respect to Ellipse and the rest where the NZ connection is perhaps more tenuous (e.g. discussions of policy or maybe even Lucire) to the new group.

A big thank-you to those early members who have joined the new New Zealand group on Vox: I really appreciate it. Now I am off to a very Kiwi thing: a barbecue. May post photographs later …

Interesting. I notice as of today I am not welcome on the old New Zealand—Aotearoa group on Vox and have been blocked from rejoining.
   All my posts have disappeared.
   I thought it was rather sad that neither moderator could come to me with their concerns, since they have both visited this blog, commented and we have had fairly civil discussions. I like Brenda’s intelligence and Ellipse’s passion for this country. We might not always agree (usually due to misinterpretations or clumsy wording on my part), but it’s always been civil. I private-messaged the following:

Please may I ask why I have been kicked off and blocked from the NZ group?

If you had a problem with my posting, then I would have been open to (a) toning it down, (b) post less, (c) post only positive NZ posts—but I thought it was rather untoward to be booted off just like that.

   I know I sometimes reveal the good and the bad, and maybe the latter upset them, I don’t know.
   In every internet group I have run, the member is usually given a chance to make amends and I thought that sort of fairness was what New Zealand stood for as a country, too.
   The only exception has been on groups where the posts are so clearly irrelevant to the subject that it looked like spam, and even then I indulge it for a time before taking action.
   Usually I just delete the offending posts, not the member.
   And if I have linked back to my own sites in my posts, I’m sorry: I am afraid can’t easily separate my job from my country.
   But even then, a small note to ask me to refrain from doing that would not have gone amiss.
   I felt I contributed a lot of good and helped keep the group up-to-date, and the moderators themselves have joined in discussions here. I really liked them.
   I know, I know: big picture. At the end of the day my posts get a good airing here among my neighbourhood and in other groups I am a member of.
   And if the New Zealand group didn’t appreciate telling me then I should just try to respect the moderators’ decision and move on.
   If it was accidental, then that’s fine, too, but as I have deleted members, I know there is an ‘Are you sure?’ stage. So I really annoyed someone.
   Therefore, as of today, there’s a new New Zealand group at aotearoa.groups.vox.com. I’d welcome you all to join (even the moderators of the old group), especially if you like reading about what goes on in this country. Vox is big enough for two.

Samantha Powell (Miss Universe New Zealand 2008), Rebecca Connor (Miss Wellington), Rhonda Grant (second runner-up, Miss Universe New Zealand 2008), Kylie Anderson (second runner-up, Miss Universe New Zealand 2006).

Why is it that they stem from Christchurch? Are there more anti-pageant types down there?
   Last year, The Press ran a piece on how Laural Barrett, the winner of Miss New Zealand 2007, had allegedly stolen shoes along with her sister, when anyone reading between the lines of journalistic double-talk could tell the writer had used enough ‘seems’ and ‘allegedly’ in an ill-researched story based on a leaked rumour. It would have been fitting on a gossip blog, not a metropolitan newspaper.
   But hey, it sells newspapers in a land where tabloids can successfully masquerade as broadsheets. I had to go on the warpath that time and accuse Fairfax of tall-poppy syndrome with unpatriotic journalists appeasing foreign owners. However you looked at it, that Press story was poor, poor journalism, which only fed blogs, rumours and envious teenage girls.
   Now we had that liberal professor down at the University of Canterbury attacking 2008 second runner-up Rhonda Grant for being good-looking and effectively sending a message that her degree is valueless and that she should not be fêted for her success. Shame.
   I’m just glad that Samantha Powell has managed to steer clear of controversy this year, but then, she didn’t go to university—which obviously means that she escaped the liberal pen of an American Studies professor.
   But given that beauty pageant winners’ academic successes should not be celebrated according to the Association of University Staff—since the release was sent under its banner then I take it to be policy—it’s just as well Sam received on-the-job vocational training rather than have a worthless degree from a New Zealand tertiary institution.
   I sure hope I never joined the Association unwittingly when I was a lecturer, since I cannot agree with its position.
   I believe in individual excellence, working hard and being treated fairly.
   Unless Assoc Prof Maureen Montgomery’s aim was to send out a nothing story—when I first read it I had no idea anyone cared and nearly advised Val Lott, pageant director, to ignore it, and a contact at a TV network actually agreed with me—and see how trivialities can propagate in the New Zealand media.
   Because that made a fascinating study. I held off sending out a release till the morning because I had no idea anyone—from Paul Holmes on the wireless to TV1’s Close-up—would be interested.
   All Dr Montgomery needed was a willing conspirator in the form of the New Zealand Press Association, with the weight of the Association of University Staff behind her, and the publication of the wire story by The New Zealand Herald.
   From there, the story suddenly had legitimacy, even if I think the Irish-owned Herald should have sought comment from the pageant or Massey University side before publication of a clearly biased article.
   Perhaps Dr Montgomery’s Irish roots and the Herald’s part-Irish ownership just went hand in hand and there’s some unwritten rule to help your own inside the newspaper.
   I shall send my future releases to the Herald under the name O’Malley.
   If this was a study of the lowering of media standards and their (and the public’s) obsession with trivia, then I actually applaud Dr Montgomery, with a standing ovation.
   Being London-born, Dr Montgomery will have seen the lowering of standards in her lifetime before she left Thatcher’s Britain (she said ‘escaped’, which shows her thoughts on Thatcherism) with the Australian takeovers of two tabloids and The Times. And, perhaps out of interest, this was an experiment to see how far these tendencies went in New Zealand, a protest against the technocratic injustice that has been emerging over the last quarter-century—again something she has witnessed after her arrival here.
   I don’t know. If that were her aim then I thought it rather cruel to target a young woman who has never done anything against her.
   But as I said, there was a part of me that enjoyed it because it was darned good profile for the pageant and for Rhonda.
   Rhonda spoke well on TV for someone with no media training, and I think she did better on the live interview with Mark Sainsbury on Close-up than the recorded piece with John Campbell on Campbell Live.
   The other good thing was that Rhonda was one of two contestants who identifies with the Christian faith, which allowed her to put this into perspective of a greater plan.
   I shall be interested to see what happens next—or possibly next year. Will Christchurch go for the hat-trick?

[Cross-posted] ‘Oh, duck! I canardly believe it! The new Mini Cooper S Clubman!’
   One of the shots we won’t publish (in print) from my 35 mm roll.

Auckland, as seen through the Mini Cooper Clubman’s door mirror.
   This isn’t even rush hour—and a good example of why I don’t think I could live there.