You know you're old when...

I suspect I might be getting old. There was no specific moment that told me the worst had happened; it's been a series of small but significant signs. Here is my personal 'you know you're old when...' list:

1. You find yourself saying 'no, thanks, I have work in the morning.'
2. You meet a friend for a drink and order a peppermint tea.
3. You start thinking about going to bed at seven... pm.
4. The sex you see on TV is on the discovery channel.
   
5. The words 'mortgage', 'Avon' and 'inappropriate' enter your vocabulary.
6. Getting a job is more about financial security than the 'sweet freebies' you can score.
7. Your student loan stops being drinking money and starts being a debt.
8. A bottle of wine a night starts seeming excessive, rather than normal.

I'm sure there's nothing wrong with getting old, it just seems to have happened without me really noticing it. I suppose at this point there's not really much I can do about it, is there?


Is there??

Quiet in the library

Call me old, but I like to be able to go for a drink in a bar where I can hear myself think. Library was ideal for a quiet drink on a Friday with a friend.
The pretentiousness levels were sky high, with silly hairstyles on the ladies, wide rimmed glasses on the waiters, and cardigans on the male patrons, but it was refreshing to sit in a comfortable bar with a nice glass of wine (not too bad at $8 for the house wine) and have a conversation at normal talking level.

I loved the library decor, and the fact that the bouncer (a rather good looking gentleman) was only letting in enough people to comfortably fill the space. No fighting to get served at the library!

Since then I have heard that the cocktails there are actually rather fabulous (if pricy) and it's worth heading there for the two for one night on Wednesdays. They also do food, specialising in sweets, and I look forward to saving up enough to give them a go!

Library: Level 1, 53 Courtenay Place, Wellington

A nap a day...

My housemate is a bit of a fan of yoga. I discovered this after convincing her to join the gym with me so she could motivate me to keep going. Instead of fight-do and megadanz classes (yes, that's really what they're called) like I'd envisioned, this morning I found myself, bum in the air, listening to wind chimes and the sound of waves at a yoga class.

I don't mind yoga. I find it gives me a sense of smugness and an urge to eat lentils and do art. But the woman taking this class robbed me of all the smugness I'd hoped for by being a baggy panted contortionist. I'm not kidding, she offered up instructions like 'hook your shoulders under your knees, then place your hands backwards on the floor and balance on your fingertips.' My other favourite was given while we were balanced, upside down, on our shoulders: 'defy gravity! Feel your organs rearranging...'

Now, I don't mind a bit of a challenge, but as I was desperately groping to find the fingers of my left hand, which was twisted somewhere behind my back, I looked to my housemate for a bit of moral support. It was very disheartening to find her casually twisted around one knee, with her hands pressed in the prayer position behind her back, eyes closed, and the smile of the lentil eating art doer on her face.

The part of this class that I was best at was the bit at the end when we got to sit cross legged in silence to find inner peace. In fact, I was so good at it that I fell asleep.

So that's the basis of my new exercise regime. Forget fight-do and megadanz, I'm just going to take naps.

Welcome back to the eighties!

Stop the press. I have some big news.

The eighties are back. Have you heard?

No, seriously. I joined a gym yesterday. Yes, really. But for some reason I didn't lose five pounds automatically like I thought I would, so I actually had to go to one of the group classes.

The only one at a reasonable time today was 'step', which sounded easy. I take like, ten thousand steps a day anyway, so how hard could it be?

Famous last words.

By the end I was sweaty, tired and confused. How did everyone else in the room know how to do these ridiculous, complicated routines? Why had I decided that this was a good idea? Exercise is hard! The only thing that saved it was the flashback experience.

The eighties style dance music was a good start, the shorty shorts helped but it was the overenergetic step routine that was vaguely reminiscent of a Madonna video which was the final wave goodbye to 2010.

I enjoyed it, to be honest. I'm a big fan of the eighties, and now I've found a way to revisit the best decade on a weekly basis.

But it was a LOT easier the first time round.

Never shake a baby

I was at the cinema the other night and among the usual pre-feature advertisements came a public service announcement reminding us to never shake a baby. What kind of society is it that we live in when we have to be told not to shake babies?

It's bad enough that we can't be trusted to smack our children as punishment, because some people don't know how much is too much. But the fact that we seem to need reminding not to shake babies suggests that there is something seriously wrong with our society. It boggles the mind.

We already know that New Zealand has some of the worst domestic abuse records in the world. I heard someone on television the other night say that the most dangerous place in New Zealand is inside our own homes. And our children have it the worst! You don't have to look too far to find examples of this - the Kahui twins are the ones that spring to mind - but there are many others, and I think any efforts taken to counteract this are a positive thing. I just found it interesting that this ad showed before the screening of Boy (a film about a dysfunctional Maori family) and featured mostly Maori males. It seems that we've established where the worst of this problem lies - now how do we go about fixing it?

Because this isn't a Maori problem, as these ads seem to want you to believe. This is a problem that affects the whole of New Zealand society; a society which seems to need really basic instructions in order to function, something we currently don't seem to be doing very well.

Never shake a baby.

Altar

So, I had a friend read my blog the other day to give me a bit of feedback, and he recommended I make my blogs more 'scannable'. I must have looked a bit blank because he sent me this link to illustrate his point. I had a read of it and decided to try to implement some of the suggestions in my next review, so bear with me.

Firstly, the author suggested using pictures, so I threw this logo in there. Nice, right?

Secondly they recommended headings and sub headings, so we'll try this one:

First Impressions
(Notice how it was bolded so as to grab attention? That was another tip.)

Altar on Mount Eden Road is in a large converted villa, very elegant and welcoming. There's not a lot of on site parking, but if you time it right you should be able to snag a spot on the street nearby. It was nearly empty when we walked in for a late lunch, and very spacious and airy. We were instantly greeted by a waiter who gave us a little table in a corner next to some wide open french doors leading to a courtyard and left us with menus and lemon water.

We had arrived just as the kitchens were closing, but they very graciously offered to keep them open long enough for us to order from the brunch menu before they closed to get ready for the dinner service.

Food
(Look, another sub heading.)

The article on 'scannable blogs' also suggested using lists to make key points clear, so here's a quick list of some things on the menu that caught my eye.

• eggs benedict - I'm a huge fan and this one sounded delicious, with the option of spinach, salmon or bacon as an accompaniment.
  
• homestyle hash - potato, salmon, salad, poached egg, hollandaise... what else could you need?
• lemon chicken sandwich - self explainatory.

Good list? My mom and I both ordered the hash, and it was absolutely stunning. A huge bowl of delicious baked potato cubes and salmon with a poached egg covered in hollandaise and surrounded by salad leaves. (I bolded that to emphasis its importance.) It was exactly what one wants for a late lunch, and despite it's being a generous serving, I managed to finish it. My brother ordered the lemon chicken sandwich and I didn't try any but I'm guessing the totally clean plate was an indication that it was a success.

Service

The service was great - very efficient and friendly - and the waiter was dead cute. Which may not be relevant to the level of service, but it certainly helped my enjoyment of the meal.

Now, I'm going to put a paragraph break in here because I'm meant to be using short paragraphs so as not to lose my reader in my big blocks of text.

It was a bit expensive, so this might be a bit of a special occasion spot, but the food was excellent, so I don't hesitate to recommend it, even if just for a coffee, to enjoy the service and the location. They also do tapas in the evening, which I'm very keen to try.

I'm also supposed to be doing block quotes, so here's one from my brother to finish off:

That was delicious! I'm so full! I'll just have a little bit of your potato...

Sushi Moto!

As much fun as it is to write negative reviews, I only have nice things to say about Moto Sushi Bar on Parnell Road. After my last Japanese food experience, I was on the hunt for something better, and I'd heard that this place was a win. A friend took me along for a late dinner on Saturday night and we had no trouble getting a booking for 8.45 (even though I'd called from the car on the way over). We were seated immediately and given hefty leather menus to peruse. The decor was fantastic, a mish mash of different pieces of Japanese art, some big red paper lamps and little stone condiment bottles. We both ordered the Chicken Box, which was very reasonable at $16.50, and water. The miso soup arrived very promptly, steaming and delicious, and no sooner were we done than the boxes arrived. I was in love at first sight; little seperate compartments held all the different components of our meal. There was chicken teriyaki, still sizzling slightly, a salad with a delicious sweet dressing on it, several pieces of vegetable tempura and three pieces of sushi, as well as a little bowl of rice on the side. I loved the pick and mix format, and had a lot of fun eating salad with chopsticks, but the sushi was my favourite, with a selection of chicken and fish pieces that I saved until last.
They were very insistent that they closed at ten, and I suspect that if we'd wanted to linger over our meal they would have had something to say about that, but otherwise I found the service very good. The meal was very well priced for the wonderful selection that we got, and I thought they were the perfect size. There's nothing lavish about this place, but it's cute and delicious for a quick meal next time you're in Parnell.

305 Parnell Road, Parnell (09) 358 1610
Open Mon-Sat 11am-3pm, 5:30pm-10pm

Taxpayer Funded Pornography

I have no problem with porn. I have no problem with people watching porn. What I do have a problem with is Ministers watching porn and charging it to the taxpayer. Shane Jones was recently exposed as having charged more than 50 pornographic film rentals to his ministerial credit card while staying in hotels. Among a series of other ministerial spending indiscretions, all of which, I admit, annoy me, this particular abuse of taxpayers' money I find unbelievably stupid. Bad enough that Chris Carter was caught buying films and flowers for his partner, or that Mita Ririui was busted treating himself to a set of golf clubs, but for Jones to use taxpayers' funds to buy something as contentious and inappropriate as pornography seems incredibly stupid and shortsighted. Surely he must have known that a) it was a totally unacceptable use of his card; and b) eventually it would come to light. He was quoted in the Herald as saying "I'm not a sex fiend or a sex addict but the reality is that I watched blue movies ... " That is not the problem. I would guess that the majority of the New Zealand public don't care in the slightest whether he gets his rocks off on porn or not, the issue here is that he thought it was OK to use our money, the money he was trusted to use in appropriate situations relating to his job as a Member of Parliament and Building and Construction Minister, to pay for it.
I think the recent revelations of Ministers' abuse of our taxes calls for a new ministerial spending system. Instead of handing them credit cards and asking them to behave like the trustworthy adults they claim to be, we should let them foot their own bills then ask to be reimbursed for costs they can legitimately claim are a result of their ministerial duties. If us regular New Zealand citizens can't be trusted with a credit card until we have proven our sense of responsibility, why should Ministers be different?
I, for one, do not want to be footing someone else's porn bill.

Tape - Redmond Barry Theatre Company

Tape, written by Stephen Belber, is apparently a film, directed by Richard Linklater in 2001. Having never seen it, I took my seat in the back room of the Wine Cellar with no idea what I was in for, but I had a good feeling. The Wine Cellar is one of my favourite bars and venues in Auckland, with a really cosy, slightly haphazard, living room atmosphere. The small audience, around thirty of us, were packed onto couches and cushions watching Vince (Paul MacDiarmind) prowl around his motel room full of empty beer cans and drugs, waiting for old high school friend Jon (Devlin Bishop) to show up. When he does, the reunion quickly goes from matey to aggressive as Vince confronts Jon about his encounter with Amy (Romy Hooper) back in high school, ten years ago. He claims Jon raped her, and manages to elicit a confession from him, before announcing that Amy will be joining them for dinner. The three of them discuss what happened, resulting in confusion, anger and, we hope, closure.
Produced by new Redmond Barry Theatre Company, and directed by Hooper herself, this short production was a wild success. The three actors managed to convey very real human emotion, creating palpable fear, anger and intense awkwardness in the audience, helped along by the well chosen intimate set up. The space, of which there wasn't a lot, was used beautifully as the actors stormed in and out, paced, shouted and grappled on and around the sagging bed in the middle of the stage. The play was saved from being too heavy handed by the thread of dark humour running through it, particularly courtesy of MacDiarmind who maintained a wicked grin throughout.
Reaction from the audience was very positive, I heard only commendation around the bar, with many audience members staying to have a drink with actors and producers after the show.
I definitely recommend seeing this while it's on, every night at 8.30 until Saturday when there's an extra showing at midnight. The Wine Cellar, St Kevin's Arcade, K' Road. Visit their Facebook page and tag yourself in one of the pictures to get a ticket for only $10.

Masaka: two thumbs down.

At first glance, Masaka on K Road is fantastic. It's cosy and welcoming, and they were more than happy to move tables around to seat our group of seven. Our orders from a simple but appetising menu were taken quickly, despite a few communication issues, but it was all downhill from there. The order of chicken teriyaki only took fifteen minutes, which was good, but fifteen minutes later when the other dishes had still failed to appear, my friend had to start eating before it went cold. The other dishes appeared sporadically over the next twenty minutes, the eel arriving half an hour after the chicken teriyaki, by which point most of us had finished. The rice we'd ordered to go with the teriyaki dishes came midway through the meal, and some (not all) of the miso soups showed up near the end. The water we'd ordered for the table had to be requested twice, and didn't actually appear until most of us had finished eating. My meal, teriyaki tofu, was bland and overpriced - $12 for three slices of soggy tofu with a sticky teriyaki sauce, and it didn't even come with rice or vegetables. I heard good things about the vegetable tempura, which looked like deep fried carrot to me, but there was a general consensus that it wasn't enough to salvage the experience.
In future if I'm after a cheap and easy Japanese experience, I'll probably be more tempted to grab some boxed sushi from the nearest St Pierre's. Epic fail.

Paeroa: Place or Product?

This consumer commentary will explore locations which, by being linked to products, become advertisements and are consumed as commodities. These locations act as the product and the promotion

For this consumer commentary we will be taking a trip to small town New Zealand, a little place called Paeroa. This town is, in most ways, identical to every other small, hopeless town in New Zealand. Except for one thing; this town is the home of Lemon & Paeroa or L&P - a pop which is, as the label boasts, ‘world famous in New Zealand.’ Although this drink is now made by Coca Cola, it was traditionally made by mixing the mineral spring water found in the town with lemon juice and carbonating it. By naming the product L&P they automatically linked the town to the product, but to take it further they built not one but two giant L&P bottles in the town centre which serve as the main tourist attraction in this otherwise unremarkable town. Paeroa the place is consumed in conjunction with Lemon and Paeroa the product. Around New Zealand Paeroa is known primarily in its relationship to the soft drink – it functions as a constant, self sustaining advertisement. This raises questions; where does the town end and the advertisement begin? Without the consumer culture behind L&P, what would become of the town? Does the town serve as a platform for the advertisement, or is it the other way around?

On a grander scale this idea of consumer culture integrated into a real location can be applied to New Zealand as a whole in its global position as ‘Middle Earth’. Since its use as the location of the Lord of the Rings films, New Zealand is commodified and sold as Middle Earth to the rest of the world. This serves two purposes; firstly it increases tourism in New Zealand and secondly it creates a platform for the consumption of The Lord of the Rings. However, as much as the Middle Earth reputation increases New Zealand’s international recognition, it means that at the same time it is consumed as a single dimensional commodity. New Zealand becomes Middle Earth. It is consumed as Middle Earth. In fact, another small town in the North Island, Matamata, was officially renamed Hobbiton in conjunction with the release of the Lord of the Rings films.

It is important to note that this location advertisement is a two way interaction – Paeroa advertises L&P with its huge iconic pop bottles in the town square, but at the same time, L&P advertises Paeroa by using its name and by giving the town an icon. New Zealand acts as a perennial set tour for Lord of the Rings, and the films were like a nine hour promotional video for New Zealand.

It could be argued that all places and locations are consumed through tourism but I would counter that in these examples the places are actually constructed into consumer goods and sold as such. They become something to be promoted, bought and sold.

Paeroa and New Zealand are two locations which are consumed as commodities. Without their assiociated products, pop and films, they revert simply to locations, they are just places. By being linked to a product they not only become advertisements for themselves and the product, but they become a consumable commodity.