Breaking News - Fire in Wellington

I got home about 5 o'clock and soon there was a nasty smell of smoke drifting up the hill. At first I thought it was someone burning garden rubbish but, looking down towards Oriental Bay it was clear there a very nasty fire there, just alongside a very large apartment block about 1.5 kms from here. Can't see exactly whether it was a wooden house of something else burning. Huge deep red flames were jumping up alongside the apartment block, over 10 metres into the air. Very scary.
Well, now the sirens are still blaring out here along the coast road but obviously the fire is under control (at 5.20) as the smoke and flames have subsided. Must check the news to see what's happened there. A strange day of fire damage on my blog this Friday. It's not the 13th is it?

Anyone seen my moped?

"You can't miss it, it's a red one...quite new..."

(Photo Nikon D300)

Blog Block

The last few days have resulted in a certain kind of blogstipation for me here in Wellington. The weather has been a bit dull and boring and so have I.
Just came back up the hill in the arse rocket after the bi-weekly trip to New World, the Kiwi version of my local K-Citymarket in Myyrmäki back home. Already the store is so familiar after only three weeks that I can prepare a shopping list and subconsciously list needed items into my iPhone shopping app in the order that they will appear on the shelves as I wheel my basket round the store. This is yet another sign of having settled in, I guess. But how nice that there is such an influx of happy young people to the job market here that shoppers never need to pack their own groceries, as we have to in good old Suomi. In general there is a pleasant service culture and people are usually friendly and interested. It takes away some of the stress and angst that we certainly suffer from up there on the North-Eastern rim of Europe.

I was also invited in to have dinner Wednesday by my neighbour 'B' and her friend 'J'. I thought to myself, how many times have I been invited to dinner by my Finnish neighbours? Finns know the answer to that one. So now I know my new neighbour and she knows a bit about me, and my background and family and plans while I'm here these five months on the other side of the wall of our little semi-detached house on stilts. The good neighbour tradition is certainly familiar from the UK. 'B' made a lovely steak and I wonder if she'd appreciate my spicy curries just as much?


I was watching David Attenborough's Life of Mammals the other night. There's a man who can't be said to have 'settled down' for a moment. I doubt whether he would ever confess to have had a disappointing life or dull existence like some people of his age tend to do. And if so, nobody could believe that. I'm from the generation who has seen a large part of the transformation of television in the UK. From the heavily controlled and limited 'picture radio' with broadcasts of news, weather, watch with mother, documentaries of World War II and not much more, totaling only a few hours every afternoon and evening we've moved to the era of 24/7, multi-channel, multi-national, mega-commercial TV animal we know today. And it's hard for me to remember a time when David Attenborough wasn't a part of TV. Well he started working for the BBC before I was born and is now, still working at over 80. I think he is a rather clever and rather lucky man and when he eventually does retire TV will lose one of its few remaining pioneers and masters of the genre of natural history.
Having said that it's also obvious that the Attenborough series are made to a very clever format. The credit for majority of the audiovisual content can hardly be claimed by Sir David for he is only the story teller and the magic of the images and the sounds is the work of some highly skilled professionals, technical innovators and cinematic geniuses. The 'making of' documentaries on the Attenborough DVD productions are real eye-openers! But Sir David surely would not associate himself with the mundane or productions lacking in quality or the Attenborough wow factor. I'm sure every time a new series is being planned that all involved know that it's not going to be an inexpensive operation.
What a contrast to so much programming that comes from our 'television sets' these days (and lets avoid thinking about what a TV really is in 2009!). Here also in New Zealand we are bombarded with all the same old (US) series or formats that I see in Finland, in the UK and, let's face it, most everywhere else too, local censors permitting.
New Zealand's Got Talent? Hmm, we shall see...

Urban Retreats

This Sunday marked the end of my 3rd week here in Wellington and, aided by the most beautiful weather since arriving, I headed off in the road racer for an afternoon trip to the Rimutaka Forest Park. The destination was decided at random from a small booklet I'd bought entitled, Top Walking Tracks of the Wellington Region. It was not a bad choice at all. Having been guided accurately (for once) by 'Nigel', the voice of my GPS in the Nokia E71, I made my way up the approach road and came immediately upon a small but impressive meeting of the Sunbeam Car Club of New Zealand.
My personal interest was not, due to some strange tendency, focused on the three rather well kept Sunbeam soft-top convertibles, but on the familiar powder blue lines of the 1964 Hillman Imp. The reasoning is easily explained as my Dad once bought an identical Imp in the early 1960s and it proved to be the worst car he ever owned. After 6 water pumps or so in the first years of ownership the nasty little Imp was traded in for something more reliable and more hefty. I took up the weaknesses of the Imp's water pump with Gary, the proud owner. He was very well versed in the details of this particular critical part of the rear-engined, low point of British auto engineering dating from the hippie era. Had my father possessed Gary's knowledge back then, and his enthusiasm for stripping down car parts to their basic elements and reassembling them again with improvements then, our old Imp may have had a longer run in the Dean family. Whatever came of 503 BAN? (It's a 'boy thing', remembering the registration numbers from childhood). Maybe, who knows, it's a proud and worthy member of the Essex Hillman Imp Club of Great Britain?

After the pleasant diversion and in-depth discussion on water pump design I finally got moving along the chosen path under a scorching afternoon sun, protected by only lashings of sun screen on face, arms and legs and a transparent backpack (Apple WWDC vintage giveaway from year dot) loaded with two bottles of ginger beer and a pack of plasters in case of mishaps. What a lovely afternoon it was, once under the cover of the forest, all senses attacked from every direction in a constant barrage of sounds, smells and the extraordinary and varied visual tapestry of the ancient hardwoods growing on the steep sides of the Catchpool Valley. The path was rough enough to be interesting to walk but well built and maintained by the Department of Conservation (DOC) so that damage to the forest from visitors is minimised. As the day was especially warm the noise of crickets and other insects was overwhelming. I've tried to make decent recording using my iPhone to help share the experience. I also spent some time trying to catch some of the more spectacular bird songs but Murphy's law came into play and these usually coincided with the drone of small aeroplane engines from the nearly gliding centre. Similarly my attempts at bird photography were thwarted when a playful dog appeared from around the bend of the track and scared off my subjects.
With this I was able to put things into focus and to see that, despite the exotic nature of my walk I am, nevertheless only a 30 minute drive from the city centre and not an intrepid explorer in the dark and hidden depths of some distant rain forest, days away from humanity. These Wellingtonians really are rather lucky.
From the urban retreat of the Rimutaka Forest I headed for Welly and the Urban Retreat in Tory Street. This hidden gem runs as a Yoga business these days but also houses what the regulars describe as, 'the best sauna in New Zealand'. I was very lucky to hear about this place from a guy in the 'nearly a sauna, sauna' of the Freyberg pool. But the Urban Retreat's sauna has a history going back to the 1960s and it is built to a proper Finnish blueprint. The only compromise seems to be the gas heating of the sauna stove which is formidable, even to Finnish standards. After a couple of visits I've now made a few acquaintances and am happily learning more about Wellington and the region from the natives. Here too, sauna really is a good place to relax and socialise away from the hustle and bustle of the city and work.
I go home clean and contented after a day of new places and experiences, new sights, sounds, a few more new acquaintances and with another few gigabytes of images. The only thing I've forgotten to do today is to eat something...

(All pics with Nikon D300).

800 Rubber Suits in Wellington!

No, it's not a convention of Australasian rubber fetishists, but merely one event within the New Zealand Ocean Swim series. I spent my Saturday morning down on the beach at Oriental Bay with over 850 contestants (the ones with the rubber suits) of the three races here in Wellington and a sizable crowd of spectators who were happily not in rubber. The weather is kind, at least for us spectators but, living up to its reputation, there was a fair breeze here in Welly which made progress in the 2.8km race especially, a bit of a struggle out to the lighthouse turning point, but then helped everyone back to the finishing line.
The assembly point and finishing line for the race was next to the popular Freyberg Pool and Fitness Centre where I've been swimming a couple of times a week since arriving here 3 weeks ago. Part of the attraction was also the sauna but, let's say that it's an approximation to a sauna and leave it at that. I am not a sporty swimmer. You'll find me in the slow lane most days, happy to swim the breast stroke for a kilometre or so and never managing to do that in more than a minute or two under half an hour. I've noticed that those in the medium and fast lanes tend to go at a brisker pace. I'm not going to get a complex about it, and anyway, learning how to do the crawl properly at 51 doesn't seem an exciting prospect. So I'm thinking, how long will it take these rubberised Kiwis to swim the 2.8kms, in choppy and chilly sea conditions. The sea is never warm here, hence the need for the rubber.

I missed the start of the 750 metre race but the winners were already back after about 11 minutes! The winner is a woman, Liz Brown, in the time of 10 minutes 56 seconds. She is in the 40-49 age group. I am intrigued.

The start of the 2.8km race was preceded by a lengthy info announcement to all, spelling out the rules, the dangers, challenges and safety procedures. There are a lot of life savers on boats and boards out to watch nobody sinks as well as a helicopter or two. The start will occur in three waves, separated by a few minutes, the fastest ranked go first, the slowest ranked go last. The signal goes off and a couple of hundred tightly rubberised competitors rush into the chilly waves and quickly transform into a swarm of black arms and coloured heads, like a mass of desperate insects unable to escape their watery doom. I was thinking that there must be time for a coffee but I should have realised that in a field of competitors including Olympians the speeds are in a different league to those of even the fast lane in the Freberg pool. The crowd is clearly expectant after 30 minutes and at close range I witness the arrival of the winner, Trent Grimsey, after only 33 minutes 17 seconds. It's an easy win, with second place going to Nicolas Cuthbert who came in over one minute later. The first woman is young Charlotte Webby in a time of 37 minutes 48 seconds. As with most marathons there is a long wait for everyone to make it back and some some do not make it back at all. 630 started the race and the last back to the finishing line, at number 558, was the tired but happy Meegan Brewer in a respectable time of one hour 39 minutes.

So I can be happy, putting apart stamina, tiredness, inability to crawl and unfamiliarity with ocean swimming I could imagine that Meegan and I would have no big problem sharing the slow lane in the Freberg Pool. OK I'm only kidding myself. Truth is that I would have needed the helicopter rescue before the lighthouse. Yes, I am so jealous of these fit, middle aged Kiwis in their glistening suits of rubber.
(Action picture with iPhone, others with Nikon D300).

Lost in translation

When away from home there's nothing like a slice of local TV entertainment in order to help quickly understand the language of the people. It's commonly thought that people speak English here so I wasn't expecting too much trouble communicating with the natives. But a few episodes of the jolly sports magazine show, The Crowd Goes Wild, and a few eye-opening heats of New Zealand's Got Talent and I am sometimes struggling to understand what on earth they're talking about. Wikipedia to the rescue and all is revealed. It is really like Afrikaans so all the brain has to do is switch to South African mode and things will be clearer. Just remember to switch most of the English vowel sounds and, hey presto, almost complete comprehension, even with fast speaking, fast joking TV heads.

So now I can claim pretty good skills in 4 languages, English, Finnish, Rubbish and New Zealandish (New Zealandian?). And by the end of this trip I hope to add at least Australian to the list. Well, I've heard it's pretty similar to what's spoken here except for some vowel sounds. It'd be nice to talk with my cousins in Tassie in their native tongue in April but I guess there might be some exceptional dialects down there, like Cornish in the UK.

My clock says 07.45 on this windy, clearing morning on the side of Mount Vic. Tyime tö git ip, eh!

21st January 2009. So is the world a safer place?

With the inauguration of President Barack Obama we live in hope of a better world than that which George W. Bush has churned up for us during his reign.

Here in Wellington the Obama ascension was greeted with a super summer day and an early morning power cut.

Feeling that I should ignore the US world influence, however, and make deeper investigation of this promised land I headed down Mount Vic and into the famous Te Papa museum. But there's something wrong here...no turnstiles, no security guards to pass, no entrance ticket needed. Nobody

even wants to check my transparent backpack for guns or explosives like in all the other museums in the world that I've visited in recent years. Was it like this here before Obama, I ask myself?

But although I only manage to investigate the 2nd floor of Te Papa, on my first visit to this most casual of national museums, I'm left in no doubt as to why the dangers imposed by global terrorism are not necessarily considered as the main threat here. If you're a Kiwi or a kiwi this land is fraught with natural danger and the natural danger is further intensified for both populations by dubious driving attitudes of the Kiwi on wheels.

Wellington itself is crossed by 5 natural land faults I've learned. On average there is one 'earthquake' here per week but, luckily, a bad one far less frequently. Exhibits on Te Papa's 2nd floor included a small wooden house in which visitors are subjected to the forces of a real quake, intensified by video of real events in recent, local history. The cumulative effect of the multimedia presentations of New Zealand's ever-evolving crust infers that it is only a matter of time before a massive heaving of the earth once again reaps havoc with a community or two here.

And as for the safety of

the national bird, the iconic but sadly threatened kiwi...I'm happy to be a member of the human race threatened by terrorism, boy road racers and local volcanic activity.

Good luck to the new president, but I wonder will he make a big difference for the kiwi... or the Kiwis for that matter. The world here remains a dangerous place.

New Boots and President!!

The strange title for this post derives from an old Ian Dury album that I was listening to the other day, a classic of the late 70s when I was photographing musicians of that era and genre in London. 'New Boots' ? Well I got new rugged sandals as it's summer here, Eh! and getting up and down Mount Victoria in floppy sandals is a sure route to ankle damage and pain I reckon.

'New President' shouldn't need explaining and I'm sure most people reading this will have been watching Obama kicking off his term of office on TV. Not me though, due to the time difference mainly, power outage (which will delay the publication of this post) and 'hangover' from having to deal with rather silly personal accounting things late last night. Loved ones at home reported two bills having arrived in Finland for items that I am not liable. Apart from the fact that it is incredible that a large company selling new motor vehicles (no names) like our new Citroën should be able to generate incorrect billing to its customers, trying to deal with this over the phone with an 11 hour time difference almost brought me to the point of despair. Efforts of the company's central telephone exchange to connect me to anyone who could deal with my problems led six times to the familiar recorded message in three languages, 'Sorry, the person you want to reach is speaking on the phone. Please hold...' Hmm, 'holding' indefinitely at eleven in the evening from New Zealand could be an expensive business, and so, thank goodness for Skype. Eventually matters progressed, 'Can I get them to call you back a bit later today?', asked the receptionist. Oh, the irony of it all! Anyway, it got sorted in the end by bypassing the central switchboard and dealing with somebody with far better service skills. Time to move on, if only I could, as I'm still waiting on power for the ADSL.

Writing the start of this post the electricity here went out, well and truly. Power tools at the house renovation a few doors away have silenced and I can enjoy the early morn to the sounds of birds and crickets instead. Think positive!

To be honest, the highlight of yesterday's 'new things for me here in New Zealand' was having a haircut at a gentlemen's barbers in town, just off the popular commercial street, Lambton Quay. I don't particularly like going to the barbers, at least in Finland. My experience there is that the girls cutting your hair abide by the same rule as most Finnish taxi drivers and don't speak unless spoken to. And they are not, anyway, particularly blessed with the gift of the gab. My other grudge is that they never seem to cut enough length off my hair, even if given strict instructions. It's clearly a ploy to get you back in their styling seat sooner rather than later. Better for business. My positive experiences of barbers stem from early youth in Harry's the barbers in Ilford High Road over 45 years ago. It was an old style working men's place selling haircuts (providing it was short back & sides), hair oil and condoms, and an education in English men's small talk for my brother Stu and I whenever my Dad took us there - which was once a month! Dad and Harry were the same age and as one of Harry's first customers after setting up the shop he remained a loyal customer there for about 50 years, until Harry closed it.

Yesterday, in the Diplomat men's hairdressers, there was no stopping the conversation or the rapid movement of the scissors and comb, and that is exactly what I'd imagined it would be like when I'd first spotted the shop soon after arriving here. One lady barber, one well used barber's chair and a constant stream of customers. The hundreds of postcards from every imaginable corner of the globe decorating the shop interior were surely a sign of allegiance, appreciation and respect. Service with a smile, wit and rapid scissors. Neither did 'Pam' (I didn't actually catch her name but this guess gives me a 50/50 chance) hesitate to answer the phone when it rang, and she knew immediately who was calling, seemingly having first name terms with all her regular, holiday postcard sending customers. No point for an answering service here, 'Sorry the person you are trying to reach is cutting someone else's hair, please try again later...'

A good day; new and improved shoes, new and improved US president, new and improved hair. In the words of the dear, departed Mr Dury, 'Reasons to be cheerful, 1, 2, 3'.

Big Mac or Fish and Chips?

Woke up this evening on the sofa in melancholy mood after recovering from an active public holiday Monday here in Wellington. With the music of the piper on the quay from this afternoon still ringing in my ears, I'm listening to the mysterious, delectable Gaelic tones of Iarla Ó Lionáird, one of my favourites. Táimse im' chodhladth... 'I am asleep and won't be wakened'. Well, chance would be a fine thing!

Living up to its reputation of rapidly changing weather here, the morning started with cloud and rain and a slight Southerly wind, then gradually eased itself into a glorious and almost windless afternoon that just had to be enjoyed down the hill, on the waterfront. Leaving the shock-absorberless Toyota Starlet at home with a good intention of serious fat burning after Doug's barbecue yesterday, I headed off at a brisk pace for a swim down in the Freyberg Fitness Centre. 40 lengths (1.3 kms) was enough and ended with a nasty cramp in the right calf so the fat burn had to continue with a brisk limp along the shore, around the main marina, stopping for photo opportunities (I'm still in tourist mode it seems), and then a beeline for Mac's Brewery Bar for some reverse fat burning; 3 pints of their smashing beer and a silly slimmers fush&chups, NZ style.

The main promenade was really busy with folks of all kinds propelling themselves as they do here, in a variety of fashions, walking, jogging, running, rolling, skating and cycling on devices of all shapes, sizes and capacities. Just a stones throw from the brewery terrace youths were propelling themselves bungie-style off of an approx. 7 metre drawbridge arch into the water...without a bungie. Kiwis.

A little further off the familiar sound of the Scottish pipes beckoned me to investigate a formidable Mac (who spoke nevertheless with a north American accent) resplendent in kilt and sporren, busking by the ferry jetty. The sporren doubled up as a case for his mobile phone: A Scottish innovation for the mobile market. 48 years of practice had not been wasted and those folks with a wee bit of Celtic blood in them, I assume, were happy to throw a few dollars for the show. Must say that I prefer the drones of the Irish Uilleann pipes much more than the Scottish variety, in both sound and contexts. But playing the Irish pipes well, they say, is a black art if ever there was one. Still I'm thinking maybe this is the country made for wannabe pipe players, even ones like me with only 1/8th Celtic ancestry. It could be quite lovely to sit up on a hill, in the wind, and practice your pipes to your hearts content without the slightest possibility of annoying the neighbours. But not in a kilt for me though. Far too chilly and overrated...sometimes said to have been invented by the Englishman, Thomas Rawlinson around 1727 and a few years later banned by the English parliament as a threat to the English way of life. In my efforts to live a healthier former Englishman's life I wonder if parliaments worldwide might lend a hand to the global fight against the flab by banning both the Big Mac and Fish and Chips. That would be progressive and surely a far more useful policy in these modern times than banning the skirt for men was in the mid-18th century?

(Pictures with Nikon D300)

Somewhere over the rainbow

Anne and Doug's barbecue seemed to be a great success and a good bunch of people turned up and everyone seemed to contribute some interesting food and drink to complement the grill. It was a truly international event too with friends and colleagues from, at least, NZ, USA, The Netherlands, Germany, UK, Asia, Chile and Finland, of course. Doug was the wizard of the barbecue, and later donned his wizard's cape, although probably just to keep warm after having completed his marathon. The grill was strategically placed under the car porch to protect it from wind and rain. Memorable specialities (apart from my braised cauliflower à la Singh) were the chocolate, chili with cinnamon flavoured ice cream and the Pisco Sour, provided by the Chilean delegation.

Anne and Doug's place is a typical, ageing Wellington wooden house on a hillside. The rainbow picture is from the balcony out back. But they are moving out very soon, to more modern place with a downgrade in the view and an upgrade in insulation, heating and comfort in general. Conversation here often brushes on the subject of people's houses it seems, and the standard of them in the context of the New Zealand climate. Two weeks here has already taught that the wind here in Wellington is a challenging factor, that's for sure. It seems that the pioneering spirit that brought people here from Europe in the earlier days of this nation lives on in the culture of the housing. In the old wooden places, I've heard that there is typically no central heating, no double glazing, no heat retaining fireplaces and very little insulation. When one colleague, newly arrived from the UK, had complained to his Kiwi colleagues about the cost of electricity to heat his place in the winter, they had laughed and told him to 'put on another woolly jumper'.

Well, I guess as an ex-Brit I can understand the attitude. Even in the 1960s when I was a kid in the eastern reaches of Greater London our house was pretty chilly on winter mornings, no double-glazing, no heat retaining fireplaces, no proper insulation in the loft and not even an electric refrigerator until sometime around 1963 (because for most of the year the kitchen pantry was about 10 deg.C anyway). Having escaped the post-war austerity of the 50s the late 60s and 70s were a time for mass home

improvement in the UK. Even as I kid it was pretty obvious that people weren't happy with their homes and, from what I remember, attempts at improvement included adding good insulation (like fibre glass padding in attics and asbestos in construction leading to massive problems with increases of lung disease), pumping wall cavities with polystyrene foam (which increased insulation but effectively removed the chances of damp escaping inner areas like bathrooms, leading to mould, decomposition of materials and related diseases), replacing windows with fitted double-glazing which is an ongoing practice and rather notorious industry dominated by poorly trained 'cowboys' and which, of course, has limited effect on energy loss anyway if the rest of the construction is not insulated. Then, for those who could afford it, there was the possibility for installation of central heating systems based on gas or electricity using the cheaper 'night rates' for heating water and heat retaining radiators.

So, listening to the complaints here, and remembering the tragic comedy of errors of the UK home improvement boom I think Anne and Doug are making a wise move. Because, despite the commonly repeated old adage that when you come to New Zealand from Europe you should adjust your watch 10 hours or so ahead and 25 years back, I have a feeling that, from what I've seen so far, the standard of building is improving here despite the inheritance of the pioneering culture. Well, it's all a long cry from Finland where, when it's minus 25 outside, we're apt to complain about (and suffer from) the plus 25 degrees or more inside our homes. And, from the sustainability and ecological points of view we're surely forced increasingly to consider the real costs of all the heating (and cooling) and the Eco footprint of modern-day house production materials and other factors of our modern day comfort.

I've heard the New Zealand sheep farming business is in crisis. There are a lot of sheep here, and a lot of farmers. Maybe it actually would be better just to put on another woolly jumper and stop complaining?

(House pics on Mount Victoria with Nikon D300)

Braised Cauliflower and the wind

I was woken up by the rain this morning, grey as hell, could hardly see the other side of Shelley Bay. 'Not too good for Doug's barbecue', I thought. Doug is the head of department here. But by midday the sky was blue and it was as windy as you'd want it. I walked up the hill to the top of Mount Victoria and noticed that my physical condition was massively improved since arriving here two weeks ago ;-)

I'd downloaded some applications for making panoramas on the iPhone and there's no better place for testing those out than the viewing deck up there. The wind was so strong that it was more than difficult to keep the phone in approximately the right direction, let alone the right elevation. OK, judge for yourselves. This effort looks more like a Hockney to me in terms of alignment. Back to the drawing board...

So Doug has also asked for people to bring something nice to accompany the barbecued meat and so I've prepared my old favourite, braised cauliflower, from a 1970s paperback by Mr Singh (one of the many). Tomorrow will now certainly remain windy in Wellington.

Not in Cuba, honestly!

Most people will have seen pictures and reports from Cuba showing how the Cubans have kept alive their pre-embargo American automobiles. It's truly a commendable effort towards achieving the sustainability of Havana's 8 litre V8 gas gobblers.  Yesterday I was also worrying that my Toyota was bound to fail the fitness test. But it seems that there is a certain affinity with the Cuban attitude here. 'Good as Gold' was the verdict at the garage. Surprising as, really, the shock absorbers are as strong as a limp lettuce and, on further inspection today, I found that the one of the drive shaft bearing covers was gaping open. Another year driving with that and there will be a big repair bill, or then it's off to the scrap yard for the old Starlet. 

But this isn't Cuba, despite the similarities of the sea and the wind, and working just round the corner from Cuba Street and having lunch on red tables in the sun at Fidel's Cafe. And I'm yet to see anyone smoking a cigar. As I was approaching the garage yesterday I came across the Kiwi equivalent of the Cuban V8, a lovely old Morris Minor  in resplendent shades of yellow and grey rust primer. Good for another 100 000 kms I'm sure, with or without shock absorbers.

Culture Shock and Shock Absorbers

I realised the borrowed car I have here needed a new road fitness test, like the katsastus in Finland or the M.O.T. in UK. It had run out in November 2008 so there's no point in driving and parking in town and risking getting a fine from a passing traffic warden. Let's see what happens. I am anxiously awaiting the call from the garage at this moment. The car (1991 vintage Toyota Starlet GT Turbo, once obviously owned by a teenage road racer) is needed for travelling to South Island in early February so it would be nice if there are not expensive repairs needed. Will the inspector notice he's removed the shock absorbers? Or will the fact that the hefty bass woofer speakers in the back are not actually connected to the stereo be a cause for failing the test? This is a new country for me and the culture is still pretty unfamiliar.

Making comparisons between cultures is hard to avoid in these early days of my New Zealand existence. In fact, one of the notions of coming here was just the fact that there are quite a few basic similarities between Finland and New Zealand, like size of the country (approx./noin about), young age of nation, size of population (NZ 4M, SF 5+M), position of women in society, educational and social policies, development of research, concentration of population in a few major cities and migration to them, extensive rural/agricultural heritage, affinity to sport, affinity to (long and frequent) holidays, affinity to travel, affinity to nature, affinity to alcohol, inferiority/superiority complex in relation to neighbouring nations, relatively high cultural activity considering the above etc. etc.

So now for Land Hippie's (Landehippi suomeksi, thanks Gumby for the translation) 1st observation of total difference between the cultures of Finland and New Zealand: Quality of bus transportation in the capital city. How many times have you run for a bus in Helsinki only to get the door shut in your face and the driver grinning (or scowling) whilst driving off at breakneck speed to 'keep up with the timetable'. It's been something that people write to the local papers about on a constant basis. Here the bus drivers, driving very similar machinery, greet you personally when you get on, typically wait for you to sit down before they drive off and also don't expect you to stand up to get off until the bus has come to a standstill. Additionally passengers and driver also thank and greet each other when leaving the bus, 'thanks, and have a good one', 'cheers Mate' etc. etc. With this pleasant attitude and buses designed with low-level accessibility it seems much easier for the elderly, the disabled, people with kids and everyone else for that matter to get around town inexpensively. But, OK, I'm not saying that there are not exceptions to the rule, and certainly my driver this morning, despite all the politeness, then proceeded to drive down the 1:5 inclines of Mount Victoria's serpentine streets, weaving between the bends and parked cars in a style resembling the best of Finnish rally drivers. But 'it's the thought that counts', as they say. Maybe the emphasis for bus drivers should be on comfort and service and less about just battling to gain enough time for a cigarette break at the next terminus. Maybe Helsinki City could send a few drivers over for some training. On the other hand, that might be risky should they decide to stay. I heard that the city of Wellington has a need for more bus drivers...

Dylan Greetings from Finland

Had a nice iChat session today with Tarja and friends in Helsinki, their dinner party, my breakfast. It's funny one end of the chat is always in the dark, the other light. Well...OK usually it's dark at the Helsinki end whatever time of day ;-) After the chat I got sent this greeting generated from a Bob Dylan promo site. Really nice multimedia, especially for us old...er...people whose friends elder brothers and sisters were hippies. My friends and I missed that happy age of love, peace and bells by about 8 years. 

Lovely morning here on the side of Mount Victoria and I've no motivation to go into the university to sit in a sweaty room without AC and fight with my new PC. So I'm heading off to do some art with the camera.

I registered for Ping.fm in hope of lowering the threshold and workload for posting to all the networks that I seem to be anti-socialising on. Noticed Jyri Engeström (of Jaiku fame) was using that, so it can't be bad I guess. So I expect that contributions here will be a bit more varied in future, more Twitterlike, Twitterific or just plain Twit! 

BTW the video should be mp4 and iPhone compatible. Let me know how/if it works.

Searching for GPS...

I've been trying to find a workable technical solution for route planning, navigation and the logging of personal location-based information into a map system. I am really not interested in getting tied into some sort of licensed system of mapping software which requires regular subscriptions. OK, I understand that if Nokia spent over 8 Billion US$ in October 2007 to buy Navteq then they have to have some sort of business plan to make that investment work for them. However, I am not interested, and cannot afford anyway, to purchase separate licenses of any software for all my devices. Mobile device software licenses are not easily transferable between devices in the same way you might do that for your computer. This might be acceptable when upgrading from one phone to another but when you want to be able to use several devices that you own with the same software then you are pretty much screwed. And, strange as it seems after their massive investment, I find that the Nokia Internet Pad (a gadget that I'm rather fond of due to its Linux-based OS, called Maemo) is still utilising maps from Wayfinder, a Swedish company. 

Apple's iPhone is interfacing with Google Maps for location-based applications and that is rather uncomplicated and has potential in the long run but, unfortunately, the iPhone's weak implementation of Bluetooth prevents users from using separate GPS receivers (and there are many advantages to be had from such a setup). It seems that the Steve Job's policy on Bluetooth in the iPhone is to keep it pretty much limited to support for wireless headphones and nothing much more. So, for now, that limitation has to be lived with.

So I'm spending some time and effort re-investigating Maemo Mapper, which is an open source software for Nokia's Internet Pad computers developed by John Costigan (aka gnuite) since 2006. It appears to be one of the most popular (useful?) applications available for the Nokia Internet Pad judging by the feedback comments on the Maemo web site. I've run the software in 2007 in the Internet Pad N800 although it also ran in the much less powerful and resourceful original 770 version. Now in the N810 there is more power and more memory so everything should be fine me thinks... The N810 has in-built GPS and the ability to utilise external, wireless GPS modules over Bluetooth. But does Maemo Mapper know how to deal with an in-built GPS and override it? So far, it seems the answer is a possible 'yes' but, in practice, you need some voodoo to get it to work. This is not plug-and-play! Seems some editing of txt files is necessary somewhere. Any hints on specific articles, tutorials and workarounds gratefully received ;-) 

Oh, the picture on this post has nothing to do with this subject but I was just wondering how on earth they got planning permission for that? It was surrounded by otherwise Welly-typical and quaint wooden homesteads. I thought this resembled something out of the late 1960s science fiction drama, The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan.

Communication and Comfort

Having overcome the jet lag and taken over my new office it is time to set up for the research I'll be making here in locative media. There are still some restrictions, as I don't yet have an Internet connection working for me in the office and so I've been Googling and diddling with gadgets at home. Here my Telecom NZ ADSL connection is giving me a wonderful 1500 kb/s download and a scorching 130 kb/s upload. Even getting an e-mail to whoosh off into cyberspace from my MacBook or iPhone can take 10 seconds or more :-(

Despite the speed restriction I've been able to access many local services and dig lots of information that's really facilitated setting up here, moving about on public transport and even preparing my garbage properly for collection according to the prevailing methods and regulations. There doesn't really appear to be anything (I've needed) that doesn't have a decent web site to explain the local or national expectations and norms.

So, as I write this, it's exactly one week since I staggered through the front door here suitably sweaty and weary with my excess luggage after the 17000+ kilometre, 34 hour haul from Finland.

Thanks to Apple's iChat I've had the family at home joining me today, exploring the house and eating together at my breakfast table (a rather late breakfast for them though). With my limited bandwidth I was a bit dubious whether video-conferencing would work here but some short experiments proved that it is totally usable, although iChat being far superior to Skype, in both quality of sound and picture. It's a great comfort to be able to share a relatively natural communication interface with loved ones, especially when the distance between us is so great and possibilities to 'pop over' during the next 5 months are pretty limited. We made a latency test with Tarja in iChat, repeating numbers to each other as quickly as we could, and the perceived speed was amazing (and without any feedback problems). I couldn't help remembering the annual (and extremely expensive) phone calls between our family in UK and my granny in Tasmania when I was a kid in the early 1960s. My only communication with the Australian side of the family was always frustratingly punctuated with silences, or both ends speaking over each other, due to the 2 seconds of so it took for the speech to reach the receiver on the other side of the world. The only way to handle the latency was to use the 'over' command, as used by shortwave radio enthusiasts. "Happy Christmas Grandma! Over."

Additionally, although the iChat setup has been the major improvement to the quality of life here, I also discovered that the components of the TV system included a relatively high quality Harman Kardon powered speaker unit with a hefty sub-woffer box hidden away under all the cables. This has now been transformed into my home stereo system with the addition of the 'retro' iPod I inherited as couple of years ago from our Topi. Oh, the comforts of modern life! What would we do without them?

The Paekakariki beach monster

Summer for a day

People here are complaining about the weather just like they do back home. They're as eagerly awaiting some sultry summer days as Southern Finns are awaiting some proper snow.  Thursday was the first hot day since I arrived and already by 9.00 in the morning I had to open all the windows here in this little glasshouse on stilts in order to make it more comfortable. 

In the morning I spent ages trying to install the 'freely available' Maps application into my Nokia smartphones. In the Vodafone shop they'd warned me that 'you need a PC to install it' but, in reality, the application itself can be installed from the phone itself and using the WLAN connection. But just when I thought I'd managed to beat the PC requirement I found out that the regional maps themselves can only be installed and managed from a PC-based (XP or Vista) application. The excuse Nokia give on the web site is that it would be 'too expensive' to do this from the phone itself. Over WLAN!!? What are they thinking of, I thought this was a SMARTphone (read: For smart people who don't use XP or Vista). Seems that Nokia's software logistics' development is a few years behind their hardware. Imagine the iPhone if you could only install the apps via your 'PC' ?

But there was some hope yet as my 'Maps' application seemed to have some sort of map installed anyway. So having 'accidentally' triggered the 7-day trial of the walk/drive instructions function of the application I decided to go driving and test it out. The Nokia E71 had no problem in connecting with my external Nokia GPS bluetooth module, which generally provides a more practical method of positioning in vehicles. I stick it right underneath the lower edge of the windscreen with Blu-tack and the phone can be placed in easy viewing and hearing distance. I headed up State Highway 1 to visit the nearby Kapiti coast area and the little seaside village of Paekakariki, about 40kms from Wellington. A few kilometres out of Wellington on the motorway the voice assistance in the Maps application stopped working. I was off the map already! Well more work was obviously needed with this thing so the rest of the trip was devoted to sightseeing and photography. Lovely weather, lots of sunscreen needed. Here the sun really bites with a vengeance. I have been warned...many times.

The picture is of Kapiti island. It is a nature reserve but I've read you can make day trips there via a ferry.

New keys and spaces

On Wednesday I walked down to my new workplace at University of Victoria, about a 45 minutes brisk walk (non-brisk is impossible) down the steep serpentine streets. The university has several sites spread widely across the city and the School of Architecture and Design (SOAD) is quite central, being close to the restaurants, cafes and numerous watering holes of Cuba Street and Courtenay Place etc. So I got to put faces to the e-mail addresses with who I have been communicating the last months. I was shown round by Doug, the acting head of department in Digital Media and I now have an office, a key to get in, an employee number, yet another e-mail address, a box of books and brochures sent to me from TaiK, a claim for a 2009 parking permit and, last but not least, a few days wait before they install me a new PC(!?) in my office. Everyone was very welcoming and efficient and the atmosphere was relaxed. Well, students and most faculty are still on holiday till February so it is quiet.

The Digital Media department is on the 4th and uppermost floor and currently well heated by the sun. Air conditioning is also still on Christmas vacation I've been informed. The building was immediately 'familiar', a 1980s? normative design school with large studio spaces on each floor surrounded by faculty and support staff's office spaces on the perimeter. Here in digital design they are having a re-fit, reorganising the space and the cables a bit and installing 50 new G5 Mac workstations. The entrance hall downstairs is also full of huge boxes containing over sized HD TV screens. This doesn't seem to be a university in recession!

As 'visiting scholar' I have very free hands and we've not decided what sort of role I'll play in the department just yet. My sabbatical plan pretty much lays out what I should be doing, basically personal artistic activity (=photography) and researching the state of the art in the region in design and implementation of locative media services and locative media-related cultural productions. One additional task is to make a short report on New Zealand's current Creative Industry development (post-LOTR).

Huge clouds in windy Wellington

I spent most of the day walking around Wellington and trying to get my bearings. Just a short 10 minute 'struggle' up the hill is the lookout point on the top of  Mt. Victoria. It's a great place to take in the Welly panorama. Walking down the hill, through the park and into the hilly side streets with the quaint painted wooden houses I couldn't help being reminded of San Francisco - thankfully less the massive 4x4s and other moving hazards.

So I made a sweeping walking tour of the city and the main sites and streets and bought a couple of Vodafone prepaid phone accounts and then walked along the shore line back home to cook some dinner. What a climb! I will surely lose some weight here providing I stick to walking. 

In the evening the wind seemed somehow to change direction and the sky was full of a massive sweeping formation. The long white cloud I guess...

Settling in

Since arriving on Sunday afternoon I've been settling in and 'making myself at home', doing all sorts of mundane setup activity which is not worth writing about. 

I'm living in a lovely little two-floor, wooden house on stilts, towards the top of Mount Victoria. You can walk over the top and into town. The view is superb and the planes taking off from Wellington airport a few kilometres away pass over the bay ahead of my balcony at regular intervals during the day. Very homely, because in Finland I live right underneath the approach into Helsinki-Vantaa airport. The flight frequency here is considerably less though.

It was a relief to get the ADSL connection working without any glitches and then also doing away with the cable and setting up the WLAN. So now I can work with any gadgets - and there are quite a few -  anywhere in the house. Well actually it is so bright here that, at first, I thought that my MacBook monitor had a fault. Good reason to spend the days outside and the nights writing, communicating and researching stuff on line.

My body clock is still 3 hours off target. I woke refreshed at 04.00 this morning. Now feeling considerably boosted by my first decent cup of coffee since arriving. It took a few attempts to get the proportions right with unfamiliar equipment.  

Two discoveries yesterday: 1. The state roadside rescue service is wonderful and using very impressive mobile gadgets for their logistics and, 2. My VISA card will not be accepted in the supermarkets, being somehow non-compatible with New Zealand card reading devices. And I thought the whole idea of the cards with chips was to make everything more secure and more compatible!?

Arriving at Wellington

How nice it is to fly in the morning in good weather, especially with a window seat. The approach into Wellington from Sydney takes you over the north part of New Zealand's South Island. Not too far away are snow capped mountains but it's all there to see today, the whole beauty and diversity of this land that I want to experience during the next five months. Well, I have an extensive work plan but I think this is going to be something special. Just look at it! Can't wait to get on the ground now. 

Over the Southern Seas

I watched a couple of good films on the leg into Sydney, Eran Riklis' 'The Lemon Tree' and a tragic and shocking National Geographic documentary entitled, 'Solo: Lost at Sea'. Solo tells the story of a young and experienced Australian adventurer, Anthony McAuley, who attempted to be the first person to traverse the seas between Hobart of New Zealand's South Island single-handed in a kayak. That's 1600 kms in seas known as 'the Roaring Forties'! He made two attempts, and eventually travelled for 30 days in early 2007, went through a 2 day gale force 10 storm and survived, capsized several times and survived and, when he was within 80 kms of South Island, something bad happened and he drowned. OK, you have to be quite a special person to make a trip like that, and many would say the word 'mad' is a good adjective. The film's drama comes especially from the footage recovered from memory cards in his upturned kayak after the accident, short passages where he's just facing the lens and explaining his own feelings, fears, challenges and motivations. But the film left the feeling that, really, people shouldn't try to do things like that when the chances of failure are, by all experts' opinion, almost certain. 

So...I'm flying over the Tasman Sea and the skies are amazing. I might have some really nice images, well, as good as you can get with the iPhone's camera. I'm just looking out at all that and thinking of McAuley in his little kayak. Mad.

Leaving Sydney in lovely Summer weather

Well...it's an old joke but, in the circumstances, worth thinking about ;-) In fact, I have an app in my iPhone called 'DownUnder' which calculates the opposite point on the globe from where you are situated, utilising the positioning technology in the phone. I checked the opposite of Vantaa and found myself at least 1000 kms south of New Zealand's South Island. But, anyway, if you want to escape Finland then New Zealand is about the furthest you can go using normal transport systems. 

 

2 Tigers in the terminal at Singapore!

2 cold Tiger beers did the trick! It brought back memories of very cold Tigers drunk in icy glasses in the sweltering evening heat of Singapore's street restaurants a few years ago. So beers and a quick walk around the stores used up my 45 minutes of freedom while our plane was cleaned and refuelled. Then back to the 100 metre check in queue with all the hand luggage to check in and be scanned...again. In the meantime I have discovered 5 other 'Finns' on the flight.

Didn't manage to get a connection in Singapore so this is being sent later. I did manage to apply the DevTeam's yellowsn0w 3G unlock to my iPhone before leaving Finland, thanks to someone who made a step by step tutorial. But is still seems a bit flaky, sometimes the phone fails to give the available network list but restarting a few times seems to work (as I'd read). Hopefully this will be more stable when I'm not changing country every 12 hours.

Flight to Sydney is aided by a tail wind and so I get more than 3 hours to stretch my legs and have a decent cup of coffee in Sydney before the final leg to Wellington. Bit confused as to whether it is good to sleep or not. The eleven hour difference in time zones is going to be a challenge!