A new world -

of wearable art.
A previous winning garment - 2007 if I recall right...


There are some events in a person's life that deserve to be commemorated in style. One of those is a 40th wedding anniversary. Well, at least we agreed that it was an appropriate thing to make into an excuse to have an expensive - and expansive too - weekend off.

One of the things we have promised ourselves for quite some many years has been the annual "World of Wearable Art" event.

This uniquely NZ event is, by their own promotion, "indescribable". It is a competition. It is undeniably entertainment. It started as a personal desire of a Nelson woman to transfer art to something wearable; not as body paint but far more sophisticated than that. That was 20 years back. The show has since been sold to Wellington City.

So it was that last Thursday SWMBO and the probligo climbed into the silver budgie and got themselves transported from Auckland with 16C and gentle SWers, to the 6C and light SE'ers of Wellington. For those who live in "temperate maritime" climes no further description will be necessary. For those who do not, I can not imagine living in snow for three months of the year either.

Checked in, checked out, showered and shaved, and then dinner was sought. As time was disappearing somewhat rapidly and we had not been able to (completely) agree what we wanted, or to understand what the hotel was providing, we ended up with a $60 per person set menu as part of the hotel's promotion of WOWA. What a time to try and work out the "polite" way to eat prawns (the Aussie king variety). The beef filet was acceptable. The desert - what was it? I can not remember. Wellington weather being what it is we (wisely as it happened because it rained, twice, during the trip) taxi'd from hotel to Events Centre (yes, that is what it is called).

Thursday night was the opening night of WOWA, and in the absence of the cash required to buy a stage-side table, or the influence to nab an awards night seat from the hoi-polloi, this was the best night we could choose. It gave us the opportunity to outwit the judges; and we think that we did because we still think our award selections were far better then theirs. Anyhoos, any show that starts with the Topp Twins wandering on stage initially in the dark like patrons who have got themselves lost somewhere twixt door and seat, wondering "why the f??? are we here?", and then combines two hours of non-stop entertainment with the showing of "clothes art" in five different classes passes any description other than "Go see it for yourself!!".

Wellington weather being what it is we were able to walk from Events Centre to hotel completely dry though almost suffering from exposure (hypothermia) by the time we returned.


Friday was spent with the exploration of immediate vicinities. Our hotel (if you must know) was right at the nor'west end of the central city a step or three from Parliament and the rail station. So during the morning we covered most of Lambton Quay, Featherston St and the area down to the waterfront. That included Wellington Museum (not to be confused with Te Papa a Tongarewa which is scion of the National Museum). The Wellington Museum is well worth the visit too. Interesting, well presented, with several probligo family connections even if the name was not mentioned specifically.

As I mentioned at the beginning, one of the excuses for this weekend of excesses was our 40th wedding anniversary. That event was celebrated Friday night. We had hoped to eat at one of NZ's finest but again did not have the where-with-all to buy someone else out of their table, so there was a couple hours spent Thursday afternoon debating the likely risk attending the choice of one (of the very many) other eating establishments around town. We got it down to a choice of two, from which (sorry Bisque at Bolton) we selected Arbitrageurs. It happened that Arbitrageurs was an easy walk down the street from the hotel, the weather was fine if somewhat chilly but sufficed to refresh the appetite.

So a very delicious meal was enjoyed. I will start with the recommendation. If ever you find yourself in Wellington at the same time as having a desire for good food and wine, then I would stake my life on Arbitrageur providing the necessary satisfaction at the very least provided that the chef remains under the present management. The only caveat is that it is not the cheapest eaterie in town. The other side is that the food is absolutely first rate. The cellar is enormous. We shared three courses and wine by the glass to match our respective selections at a total cost of $180. We came away with the feeling that we had spent very wisely. For the record the selections were; Pea and ham soup, beef casserole, creme brulee for her; vegetable soup, roast pork loin in piece and creme brulee for the probligo. Oh, and finding Arbitrageur is not easy. There is only a single wood door to the street with a discrete sign over. Inside, seating (by my count) for about 80.

That said, a sleep-in on Saturday morning was almost compulsory. An energetic walk to the far end of town for breakfast was well-rewarded with good standard NZ fare in abundance (Vivace, thank you) followed by more walking through the "entertainment precincts" of Manners Mall, Cuba St mall, and the near eastern end of "town". In between times we thought we should go have a look through parts of Te Papa that we may not yet have seen. We got no further than the main foyer where there were people presenting and celebrating PRC's 60th birthday. That made for a couple of interesting hours between lunch and heading back to the hotel. There ensued a fairly serious discussion on food for the evening meal given that a) we were pretty near broke; b) travelling back to Auckland the next day; c) still felt well fed from the previous evening; d) wanted something fairly simple to eat.... and ended up selecting Habibie, a "Lebanese" restaurant in the entertainment district we had frequented during the day. An enjoyable meal with friendly staff for a very reasonable $75 including a glass of wine.

Sunday. A day of rest for some. A day of worship for others. For us it was up at 6a.m., no breakfast, and taxi to the rail station. Rather than travel by silver budgie back to Auckland and then spend the rest of the day doing chores we had decided that we would take the silver dinosaur (in the form of The Overlander) and spend some 12 hours watching the scenery passing by at close range as against 4 miles down. There was an element of trepidation in this because the weather had been so foul as to likely preclude any interesting scenery but we were most lucky.
The mountains were magnificent. The greens in the bush and fields were straight from McCahon.

To add to the attraction was the addition of truly dinosaur propulsion between Fielding and Taihape in the form of a WAB 4-6-2 steam locomotive. What is more it was fed with real live dirty COAL.

Lunchtime at Ohakune...
It was a very tired probligo and wife who were met at Britomart just after 8 that evening by a rather lost but definitely not prodigal number one son who kindly completed the circle for us back to Howick.

Well laid plans of ...

For some years now (perhaps as many as 20!!) SWMBO and the ol' probligo have promised themselves the opportunity to attend the World of Wearable Arts originally when it was held in Nelson but the desire has remained to this day.

Now, with the stars aligned as close as we could get them to 12/69 comes the opportunity. We booked about 8 months back. No problems at that time with getting tickets to the event, nor accomodation; fly down, and we train back.

To explain.

My father was "mad on trains". The reason for the quotes will be a mystery to all except those who have read "Anthony and Antimaccasser" and The Potentate of Raspberry Jam. Anyhoos. We had everything booked and then we get a message from TranzRail saying that our train will arrive in Auckland an hour late. This is 7 months before the trip and they already know it will be an hour late? But then the explanation. There will be an extra two engine changes. The first in Feilding, to replace the enormous Diesel with a far more interesting steam 'J' (Pacific Class for the spotters) and then again at Taihape to remove said very interesting engine and replace it with a more mundane electric. So that single event was enough to transmogrify a pleasant jaunt to an event which I have looked forward to for years into a double-header of pleasure and memories.

In the meantime, good ol' BE is at the tail of Granny Herald once more with his analysis that it is not a broadsheet but far more tabloid in nature. He points out as evidence the teasers and whatnot at the top of Page 1. Brian, me old mate, shurely it is the content, the writing, that is of far greater import than whether Pamela Anderson is pictured on Page 3? If you had applied some effort to the critique of "mass media news" - which term I think covers the intent rather than the means of broadcast - as published by Herald, Dom Post and the others rather than the very simplistic "It looks like The Sun" your point would have been far better made.

As it stands, Herald along with a very large number of "reputable" news media has become lost in the cost-cutting editors room where news stories are judged by cost rather than worthiness or content. You can find the same stories for free, by-lined PA and Reuters, even MSN and Fox can feature, spread over a very wide range of publishers. To get anything different, the Independent sometimes puts its own people on a story, Guardian likewise, but one has really to go to the likes of Aljazheera to get anything like a "different perspective".

That said, the picture of Auntie Helen, and more recently Jonkey, holding a mobile press conference whilst in transit to the House is truly a neat caricature of the relationship between news media and politics in this country. I doubt that it differs in others. In fact we might even be lucky to have reporters in the House, instead of a daily meal of government political party announcements and pre-recorded releases.

Come to think of it, TV1 and TV3 do little more at present than provide a free service in place of what would otherwise be paid for by the government.

As for knowledgeable analysis of that "news"? I dispair.

Until I turn on Maori TV that is.

Who watched The Aunties last night? They ran through the services provided to a woman with breast cancer and gave her a bit of jolly-up at the same time. All told 30 minutes of excellent tv; informative, critical when necessary, go with the flow presentation, co-operative and not antagonistic. Great stuff!!