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Music, New Zealand, Sport

Devil Dared Tweekenham Glory

16th October 2007

Rugby rugby rugby! Yay for England, of course I never had any doubts that we’d beat the French, nope not even one! We attempted to make the usual early morning journey to the Sports Cafe to see the game but it was closed! We were shocked but could very much still believe it, Kiwis don’t care about rugby when they lose, so we had to go to the Courtenay Arms instead, which is an English bar. There was a great atmosphere in there, it was packed and there were even a dozen or so Frenchmen (and women) in there too and a good time was had by all. Throughout the game there was a significant vocal minority of whining Kiwis complaining about how ugly the England team play but if ugly = winning then I can’t see any reason to complain or change. They’re still so bitter about losing to what they’re increasingly referring to as a ‘poor French side’. Surely they couldn’t have been that bad if they managed to beat what the New Zealanders are decreasingly referring to as ‘greatest side in the world, ever’.

Anyhow, it’s still good to be having all the glory and I’ve no idea at all about the final. Hopefully we can get some points and take it from there.

Last Friday, I went to a club called Mighty Mighty with Holly and saw a powerpop band called The Tweeks who are from Dunedin and I enjoyed them quite a lot. They were supported by Libra Accord, who I think are from Auckland (don’t hold that against them), who were probably better (in my opinion) and played music some like to describe as electric folk. Together with $12 jugs of Mac’s Gold, a very good night was had. Holly went out later with some of the others to a couple of pubs but I just wanted to head back to the hostel and see what poor excuse for a film was on Sky Movies.

Today, Tuesday, we (Holly, Matt and myself) have just come back from the cinema where we saw The Devil Dared Me To, which is about a stunt man and it is probably the best film to define New Zealand and New Zealanders. It’s really daft, funny and has a good sense of humour, it’s good to see the North and South Islands making jokes at each other’s expense.

Apart from all that, not much else is happening. Welly is still very windy but getting quite warm now too, we get about 6 or 7 different types of weather each hour so that adds variety to the day at least.

Mark has a place now so it’s only me and Holly left in the hostel but I really like it here, we’ve been at base since we arrived in Welly and we know everyone here so things are going well, which is nice. I’m off to see what wonderful programming is on the TV, wish me luck.

New Zealand, Sport

The Rugby

7th October 2007

I’ve just come back to the hostel after watching the New Zealand v France game with Mark at the Sports Cafe and even though I have a huge grin on my face, I can’t help but notice there’s now going to be an extended period of national mourning for their loss (or at least that’s how all the Kiwis are looking).

We were at Matt’s last night watching Stranger Than Fiction on DVD and got back at about 11 or some time around then, had a small power nap and met up with Mark again at about 1:45 am in the hostel lounge to watch the England v Australia match. Neither of us were entirely confident about the game, it’s probably more accurate to say we were both expecting England to get a bit of a hiding and the first few minutes of the match didn’t really fill us with confidence! After that, though, England steadily improved and thanks once again to the left boot of Mr Wilkinson, somehow managed to scrape through. It was definitely worth staying up for! I still can’t quite believe we won, especially after the performances of the group stage.

After the game, I got talking to a Brazilian guy in the kitchen and he was complaining about his country’s lack of success or indeed lack of anything meaningful in the world of rugby but the conversation quickly changed to football and he seemed more comfortable with that! I couldn’t really mention anything positive about English football so I had my ribena and returned to bed at about 5 after watching a little bit of the Aston Villa game.

Begrudgingly got up again sometime around 7:30 this morning after something I can’t even attempt to describe as a power nap, very quickly made myself reasonably presentable and met Mark again to head on over to the Sports Cafe for the All Blacks (silver and blacks, or so it seemed) game and breakfast. It was very busy in most of the bars on Courtenay Place, even at that time in the morning, so the atmosphere was good in the Cafe (it’s essentially a huge sports bar despite its name). When New Zealand raced into a 13-0 lead or whatever it was, we both (and everyone else in the bar aside from the lone Frenchmen brave enough to show up) assumed it was a done deal. However, somewhere and somehow, the French managed to find themselves something resembling a fighting spirit (better late than never) and to give them credit they came back well. There was some quite abusive language towards the English referee from the crowd in the bar and even some from the professional, neutral ex-All Black commentators on the TV, especially over the sin bin incident and the forward pass that led to the French try.

Anyway, the defeat was met with utter disbelief and shock. Ever since I’ve been here, everyone has taken it very much for granted that the cup is heading back to New Zealand, it was never questioned. Well that’s not happening now! Such a shame. Everywhere seems to be so quiet, I think there’ll be some sore heads in the morning but not in the way the Kiwis were expecting. It worked out well for England though, I highly doubt they’d have pushed New Zealand anywhere near close if they’d have met each other. At least we stand half a chance against the French.

It’s all quite funny though but I’m careful to hide my joy when surrounded by locals! I might head off to bed again in a few minutes, Welly’s always quiet at weekends anyway and today’s result will probably exaggerate that further. It’s very surreal, I can only describe it like there’s been a death or some national emergency or something like that.

Ah well, there’s always 2011… or 2015… 2019…

Music, New Zealand

Aotearoa

21st September 2007

Good afternoon. I’m now in windy Wellington, have been since Saturday but, for completeness, I’ll briefly mention what has been happening in the past week or so.

Got into Auckland some time on Monday morning (last week) and we were met by Abby the local IEP person who then took us on a brief tour of one of Auckland’s 7 or so volcanoes. It was a bit of a culture shock at first, certainly compared to the pure heat and humidity of Hong Kong, Auckland was cold and windy. Anyway, we all took some photos of Auckland from our volcano view and then hurried back into the bus. Then we got into Auckland Central Backpackers and tried to ‘power nap’ ( © Mark ) but that didn’t work out too well so we wandered round for a bit. We went out on Monday night, ended up in an Irish bar called Father Ted’s where myself, Matt and Mark were enrolled in a killer pool competition with half a dozen or so of the locals. I wasn’t really sure what was happening but at least I didn’t disgrace myself in the competition. Then we went back to the basement bar next to the hostel for a few drinks and met more of the locals.

On Tuesday morning, I went on a Kiwi Experience tour of Auckland with Mark, Izzy, Charlene and Keely (I think that was all who went) and we picked up some other people at different hostels, so I think they’d have been about 17 or so in total on the tour, different nationalities for that cosmopolitan feel. I can’t really remember the order of events but we went to the Auckland Harbour Bridge, were supplied with helmets and security rope things and then proceeded to climb this 40 metre bridge. It was a lot of fun, it got better when I told Mark to have a look down and then we saw the rushing water flow beneath our feet through the walkway. At the top there was a pod thing (climbing the ladders to it wasn’t that much fun, I have to admit) and one of the girls on the tour decided she’d do a bungy of it – I think she enjoyed it. We climbed back down after that, had a bit of a sit down in the reception area and then it was back on the bus.

Next was a place called North Head, a kind of military fortress gun placement building that was designed to defend against a Russian invasion in the late nineteenth century. Unfortunately, the building of this coincided with a huge gold rush in the South Island and so there were only about 40 old men and kids left to defend New Zealand against a possible Russian attack. In the end, only a single Russian ship came to Auckland, had a bit of a look round and then quickly left. In the 1980s they fired the gun at North Head (it’s the biggest in New Zealand) just to see if it actually worked but the blast from the gun shattered loads of people’s windows in the area and now they’re never allowed to fire it again! Our tour guide was quite funny, he was joking about the state of New Zealand’s army and he said that if the country ever fully mobilised for a full scale war, they’d have enough ammunition to last for about 7 minutes. Good to know.

After that we went for some feesh and cheeps off a guy affectionately known as the Angry Croatian. He was in a good mood when we got there and the chips were nice but salty. When we got back into the city, we drove past an Alcoholics Anonymous office which is next door to an off licence. Genius.

Nothing much was done for the rest of the week, just some banking stuff and more wandering around, I think it took us a while to get fully over all the flying.

I went to see Snow Patrol on the Friday night with Keely at the Vector Arena, if that’s what it’s called. It was a good gig, one of the support guys was called Iain Archer and I recommend him highly.

I’m not sure what else happened in Auckland, I can’t remember but anyway, we’re in Wellington now and the details of that can wait for another day. Should be off to see the mighty Wellington Phoenix play against the equally impressive Adelaide Utd on Saturday with Mark at the Cake Tin.

Sweet as, bro.