Little Bushman - Last Night of Garden Magic

It's 19.28 when I call a cab and the show starts at eight. I'm in Hataitai having popped home for a little lie down and the Botanical Gardens are right the other side of town. However, thanks to Wellington's instantaneous taxi service I'm stood minutes later on the corner of Cuba and Ghuznee. A swift pint, another cab hailed on Dixon and I alight at the top of the cable car with minutes to spare. Snaking through the gardens I follow the sound of a band warming up - first closer then further away as the path wiggles down towards the shell stage. The great thing about these guys, I think to myself, is that I reckon it's going to take them a while to get going. But still - the mounting excitment of rushing a stage as a band you want to see strikes up it's first few chords. With no Glastonbury since 2005 I'd kinda forgotten what that's like. And then you're there and it's packed, much more so than on previous nights. Even the paths around the corner are rammed but somehow with a hop, skip and a little bit of luck there's room with plenty to spare for one more on the slope overlooking the lawn. Ok so the sound is a little woozy, the band a little noodley but I'm happy. See, I heard the album on a listening post in town and liked it enough to bend my no buy CDs, no buy DVDs rule. It was the 'Made in Aotearoa' on the sleeve that convinced me I could - well, I have to sample some homegrown. Got the album back to my room and realised they were playing this final night of Garden Magic - fantastic! The perfect accompaniment to a Summer's evening. And it was. So what if they lost themselves - or maybe just me - a little in the middle there. And I'm still not sure from where I was sitting if the rendition of the radio friendly 'Where We Get Born' was the right or the wrong side of loose. But by the time 'Little Bird' crescendoed - and with it a host of tiny bubbles flew night skyward like so many Celestials leaving for the mothership - well I was numb bummed and maybe a little bit stoned from all the second-hand smoke and I was contented and thankful which I hadn't anticipated after a weekend like this one, which up until this afternoon had been a complete and utter write-off. Still, even Little Bushman almost over-indulged at the end and I had just decided to leave - the sound of bottles dropping in the bank beginning to drown out the band - when 'Onus' breathed it's last few chords. With perfect timing - a dusting of rain. No hunting glow worms tonight, instead out of the park and on the road into town - couldn't help but be reminded of Ashton Court - a stroll down Lambton Quay and a number 14 bus home past the Christmas trees of Oriental Bay. Just in the nick of time as the rain thunders down, a hot shower soothes sunburn, a cuppa'tea and the National radio jazz forecasts more storms at dawn. Midnight, goodnight x

HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2007!!

December just flew by and Christmas Day marked 3 months in Wellington. Felt a pang of something - nostalgia? - that day when, seeking sanctury from a front room full of nubile Germans still in their PJs I tuned into a Radio4 programme on the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Winning first prize in the Brunel competition was certainly the high point of 2006. Have already decided that my word for '07 is 'spontaneity'. Getting to the other side of the world took a lot of planning and form filling and I think it would be good to be a little more spur of the moment. Having said that I've already a whole list of things planned for the coming months. We'll see... So, in answer to Milla's comment I haven't been posting and this is what I did in December: Discovered Eggs Benedict and ate them at every oppourtunity, jumped out of a plane 15,000 ft above Mordor, walked to the Moon and back in an afternoon, celebrated the New Year as 24 hour party people, started reading The Bone People, treated myself to a PSP, Said goodbye to a housemate, Realised I was one and a half grand poorer than I thought I was, & finally, but not for the first time said thank you to, well, not quite ready to share that just yet, but THANK YOU! & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Kiwis: A lot larger than I expected...

View from Mount Victoria by night, Wellington

In the past two weeks I have: Got a new tattoo, wrestled grown men to the floor, watched Roger Corman films on TV, tried to read Spillane, gave up and read Anais Nin instead, got drunk, sobered up, booked a skydive in Taupo next month, done my Xmas shopping over the internet, listened to Spiritualized and experienced Guitar Wolf live. I've enrolled in a Maori language course starting next year, sat eating cake and drinking tea at 2am in a Cuba Street cafe, visited the Observatory and learnt how to find South using the Southern Cross before emerging from the planetarium to the sound of bagpipes coming from Sunday somewhere in the Botanical gardens. This made me want to read 'The Spring Tune' by Tove Jansson. Neither Arty Bees had any Moomim books but I did meet Moses for the second time...

Retrospective: 30/10/06 - Wellington Film Society screening of Grey Gardens at the Paramount Theatre.

'The unbelievable but true story of Mrs Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie, aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, recluses who live in the decaying 28-room East Hampton mansion known as Grey Gardens, a place so derelict that the local authorities once threatened to evict them for violating building and sanitation codes.' (Chicago International Documentary Festival).

Neighbours back in Bristol had recommended this movie to me so when I saw the screening advertised I wrote it in my diary in pen. The film was shown at the Paramount Theatre by the Wellington Film Society. The theatre seemed vast compared to the smaller arthouses and multiplex screens I've become accustomed to. The audience wore black and I left the film feeling unbearably sad but it took me the bus ride home to work it out... **SPOILER ALERT** ...throughout the film Little Edie wears a kind of improvised turban which she is constantly adjusting. You never see Little Edie without it and if I recall correctly no explanation is given for her wearing it other than one reference she makes to her hair growing back. Then in the closing seconds of the film, as her (gin-soaked?) mother sleeps, a lone Little Edie dances seductively in time to the songs of her yesteryears. Perhaps unbeknown to her we watch through the bars of the banister; a child's-spy view of an adult's private party. In the moment before the film cuts to black you realise that this particular turban is made from a transparent guaze - and you can see through it! I found this final reveal shocking but it wasn't until I got off the bus in Hataitai that I figured out why. Throughout the film mother and daughter are exposed, their celebrity and eccentricities laid bare, and the makers Albert & David Maysles - the brothers who were also behind Gimme Shelter, the chilling account of the Stones '69 Altamont Speedway concert - are open to accusations of exploitation. But the film's moving account of the complex and contridictory relationship between mother and daughter - 'the regrets and recriminations' - means that this is more than just a freakshow. I did not get a sense that the filmakers meant to cause hurt to their subjects. So why, considering the pains Little Edie takes throughout to ensure that her turban is in situ - assuming that while she welcomes these filmakers into her life she clearly doesn't want to be seen without her head scarf - could the Maysles not have saved her from this final indignity - left her this last vestige of privacy. Maybe as someone who in recent years has come to embrace any opportunity to wear any kind of head gear I sympathised with Little Edie. Maybe, and this has occured to me only as I've been sat here writing this, I merely imagined I could see through that final scarf and the power of sugestion did the rest. Further reflection that night was hampered by the house full of housemates who greeted my return. Subsequently whenever I try to replay that final scene in my head I find that the soundtrack of bygone gramophone has been replaced by The Cult song 'Edie' and that waltzing Little Edie morphs back and forth between herself and Ian Astbury wearing the purple bandanna he sports in the 'She Sells Sanctury' video. Help! Think I'll take to my bed with a tub of ice-cream and an improvised spoon x

World Headquarters of the Verb: Part II

Re-reading my post from September 29 I realise that since then I have put this idea much more succinctly. Being 12 hours ahead of England - I'm already sober Sunday when you're Saturday Night Live! P.S. when after months of dilberation I sat down to write this blog I immediately realised that I didn't want to fill my profile with all same old junk that I'd accumulated over the years - favourite book, film, etc - that wasn't what this gig was going to be about. However, this decision has left my profile looking a little barren. So instead I've decided to use that space to chart the films, books, songs etc that I discover during this trip. Enjoy.

A Tribute to All Those Who Have Come to These Shores

Yesterday was the one month anniversary of my arrival in New Zealand and I must admit when I woke up in the morning I was feeling a little under the weather. I'd worked all weekend and Labour Day - the wettest, windiest, coldest, darkest Labour Day weekend in a decade. 76mm of rain fell on Wellington over the holiday compared with the usual average of 6mm! Not that I minded - I was working and when I wasn't the rain beat on the tin roof of my room while I was snug inside. But it carried on raining on my Tuesday day off; cabin fever was creeping in and on the way back from a Tim-Tam run I caught myself thinking about going to the pub. Now I knew when I set out on this little escapade that in order for it to have any chance of succeeding certain old habits were going to have to die - no matter how hard - and top of the list was that well worn favourite 'Drinking alone'. So I was pleased to hear a strange voice in my ear telling me to go home and have a cuppa tea with my new housemates instead. Which I did. If I carry on winning battles like this I might just win the war. Still, by yesterday morning I was feeling out of sorts. Even though the rain had stopped and the sky was clear I was feeling blue. So I breathed deeper, opened my eyes and ears wider and struck out in a new direction - namely Roseneath. I followed the road which winds all the way to the top of Mount Victoria and from there surveyed the city which is now home. Fantastic. On a clear day like yesterday you can see all the way out to the Cook Strait, to the Rimutaka Range and north to the Hutt Valley. To one side the suburbs of Hataitai and Kilbirnie, to the other the towers of downtown and Lambton Quay. And one-by-one, from out of the sky above comes plane after plane, banking hard over the harbour, lower and lower over Evans Bay and now it's below you and it seems it's too low and it's going to crash but lands safely on the Lyall Bay runway. From here I descended down onto Courtney Place and over coffee and cake saw a listing for a film that very hour at the National Library - 'Beyond the Roaring Forties - a history of sealing and whaling, of shipwrecks and marooned castaways and of man's doomed efforts to settle and farm New Zealand's sub-Antartic islands. Fantastic! I don't know about beyond the roaring forties but I was certainly the only person in the auditorium under 40. The film dated from the early 80s and featured many a bearded jumper - the kind that if worn in the Orkney rather than the Auckland Isles would certainly still bear a well-worn Blue Peter badge. Footage of oily seals and penguins sent me home feeling refreshed and best of all - a call from a friend to say she is coming to stay next February. Perfect x

Lyall Bay, Wellington NZ

So much has happened since my last post and I haven't the time to tell all right now so meanwhile here is a panoramic view of Lyall Bay I took yesterday afternoon. The sun on the screen made it hard to see but this is the first picture I've uploaded from my phone so kinda exciting. You can't see the surfers but you can just about make out a plane on Wellington Airport runway. The planes were silver coming out of the blue, the surf was white and the surfers themselves seal black against the sea. That was yesterday. Today the wind and rain has lashed me to my room with nothing but my new ebony guitar for company. The bar across the street has been playing the blues all afternoon and now that my housemate Sarah is awake we're going to try and make it out the door. We may be gone for some time x

I love going to movies by myself

I love going to movies by myself. Without a friend or date beside you sharing your popcorn you can completely lose yourself, firstly in the anonymity of the darkened theatre and secondly in the celluloid world on the screen. And afterwards, if the film is particularly good, you can walk all the way home with your head still lost in that world, without interruptions asking you 'What did you think?' Don't get me wrong, I love going to movies with friends and discussing it afterwards. But I think people should go to the pictures by themselves more often. I've been twice this week. First, I went to see Nacho Libre. Jack 'cartoon' Black and his technicolour blue skies brightened up another dreary Wellington day. However, these paled compared to the film I saw last night. This week I finished reading 'The Black Dahlia' by James Ellroy and I was thirsty for more period- America LA noir. 'Brick' was showing at the Rialto cinema in town. I wasn't sure at first- loved the soundtrack, loved the look but was worried these hip speaking kids weren't going to pull it off. I was wrong and by the time we got round to the scene between Brendon and the Principal/Police chief I was grinning from ear to ear and didn't stop till the final reel/reveal wiped the smile right off of my face. My walk home was scripted by Raymond Chandler with a voice over by Bogart and I'll be reading Sam Spade once my library card is through. As I said, I love going to movies by myself. It's my birthday the day after tomorrow and if I don't get a better offer maybe I'll go to the pictures. If anybody wants to buy me Alabama for the night, I'll be in the Dream City Film Club from 9 x

Rocktober 1st, Wellington NZ

Last night (Saturday) went to the BATS theatre here in Wellington to see 'Yours, truly', a play about Jack the Ripper. Rarely has a production been so suited to it's surroundings. It was as if the theatre had been dressed especially. The play was an enjoyably macabre romp throught Ripper mythology with all the usual suspects present and correct - Sickert, aslyums, Masons, etc. The casting was excellent, the portrayal of William Gull particularly impressive and the whole performance was served with a nice slice of almost Rubenesque pie on the side. Afterwards in the bar, the spirit of Boss Christ came over me - F**k yeah! Picture Jack Pierce's Werewolf of London dressed in Springsteen's blue jeans and sleaveless T and you've pretty much got it. Latin tinged guitar instrumentals and a local version of Folsam Prison Blues made my night. Managed to drag my sorry arse out of bed this morning despite the clocks going forward (so that's why I've been only 11 hours ahead instead of 12!) and visited Te Papa which is excellent. I anticipate many a return visit - far too much to see in one go. Particularly liked the exhibit on earthquakes - when Maui hauled his fish out of the sea and made Te Ika-a-Maui (aka the North Island) I think he must of left his line in cuz the whole island is still writhing on the end it. The western edge of the Pacific plate runs right through here like a fishing wire - and Wellington has swallowed the bait. First day on the job tomorrow so early night tonight but before I sign off - Happy f**kin' Birthday Chris and hope u had a good one. TTFN x

World Headquarters of the Verb, NZ

There is an inscription by the city to sea bridge on Wellington harbour front that ends by declaring that this is a city of action - 'the world headquarters of the verb'. I kinda like that. There is also a bit about not being here by chance and I kinda like that too. Being half a day ahead of folks back home I feel acutely aware that as my day is drawing to a close theirs is just beginning. They have time to spend which I've already spent, bets to place I've already made, minutes I've already wasted. Certainly makes me ask myself as I climb into bed - what have I done with my life today?

Newtown, Wellington NZ

Fourth night Wellington and it's hard to know where to start. Kinda like living in a GTA city with an Oriental Bay and Basin Reserve, skyscrapers at one end and long straight streets with taxi cabs and a map slowly revealing its self to me. Visted the unit yesterday. Staff seem really friendly. Scariest thing about the place was it's unfamilarity. That and the thought of finishing at 11pm. Now that's what I call a late early! (Can I come in at eight?). Also - 33% tax! B#$*!@ds!! "spose with all those thermal pools can't be cheap to keep the glaciers cool. Speakin' of cool - Cuba Street. Tattoo parlours and strip joints. Punk shop clothes and retro record shops that make me want to stop swopping files on the internet and start clutching vinyl to my chest all over again. Oh and Oirish pubs piping music out into street, warming the homesick hearts of those huddled outside for a fag. And maybe it's because Rocktober is just around the bend but I've notice this city seems to have an (un)healthy taste for the macabre including a Jack the Ripper play entitled 'Yours, truly' premiering next week and on Black Friday the 13th a zombie parade through the city streets. (Yes Milla, I do realise it will be full of goths). On a lighter note there is a tree climbing competition this Saturday and I would certainly be attending this evenings ukelele concert if I hadn't already a ticket for the World of Wearable Art show which looks spectacular. Oh, and it feels like Fall and the start of a new school even though I know it's not and I feel very happy and hope you do too. TTFN x

Coral Bay, Perhentian Kecil, Malaysia

I am pleased to announce that I am now a qualified open water suba diver! Spent the whole week diving and finished my PADI yesterday. I had anticipated a huge sense of relief simillar to how I felt after safely completing the tandem free fall i.e. I NEVER HAVE TO DO THIS EVER AGAIN but actually having got over a bit of a panic early on day 2 (Drinking cocktails at a Long Beach bar late into the night before? Guilty) I think I'd like to see what underwater worlds I can explore in NZ. This morning booked my boat back to the mainland. It's the end of the season here and most of the bars on Coral Bay where I've been staying have already shut up shop. Yesterday not long after my last dive a mighty wind came in off the sea and everyone ran for cover. Nothing to do but have a cuppa tea and a little lie down. My room is the last room on the left of the beach and this has suited me just fine - it has a sense of solitiude that I've enjoyed. Had hoped to spend the day reading Murakami on the beach but the weather is not so good. It's overcast and from where I'm sat I can see the surf starting to swell in the bay. Time to pack up and go. Expect to be in NZ come Monday. Love u all, Kingkongkahuna.

Retrospective: Heathrow Airport, UK

And who should I think I see ahead of me in the departures queue at Heathrow? Only a certain ex-girlfriend that's who! That distinctive gait and red dyed hair, I'd recognise her anywhere. Or at least I think I would. As some of my regular listeners will know, departure lounges and me haven't always seen eye-to-eye.

And there was a time when the synchronicity of such an event would have spun my head around. I would have attributed huge significance to such a coincidence. There's me embarking on a new life on the other side of the world but still dragging my baggage through check-in.

But not now. Actually it would have been nice to say hello. Actually I wonder if see wasn't off on her honeymoon - I'm sure I heard she was getting hitched. I didn't see her again in duty free and by boarding time I was beginning to doubt my own mind.

Though on Long beach that first bright day

I'm sure I saw her look away.

And the Monster House in the movie last night

Now what was the name of the man's dead wife?

Goodnight.

Bristol, UK

3 full days & 10 minutes to go b'fore departure. Had half-a-mind this morning for a new tattoo but went for breakfast instead. It was the largest Bedmiefriedbreakfast I have ever eaten. Going into town this afternoon to buy Francesca a dress for her b'day. More farewell drinks this evening, again in Hotwells but this time it's 'Happy B'day dear 'Cesca, Goodbye Kingkongkahuna, say Hello Kelly Walker' whose back from Oz after nearly a year. I see carnage and ceiling licking ahead x