25Nov2004

Well it was inevitable wasn’t it? What with soaring real estate values. Wining the Second Division of rugby. Snatching a Super 12 rugby game for the Crusaders next season. King of the sunshine stakes. Nelson was on a high. Well that was until last week when two blocks of homes around the Ridgeway in Stoke scientists discovered them to be invested by dreaded Argentinean ants. Reports say that it is unlikely that Nelson, let alone Stoke, will ever be fully free of them. This is serious. Nelson’s catch cry was “Live the day”. This could now become “Catch the ant”.

Over the last few years hundreds of foreign investors have flocked to Nelson with the promise of sunshine, art, pottery, free love and wine. What a great environment. Only now to be confronted with a plague of biblical proportions of not locusts but, wait for it, ants. The Nelson City Council keen to preserve this realty gold rush was planning a controlled poisoning programme. Next thing fleeing Aucklanders will be looking on LIM reports not for contaminated soil but ants. The Council are warning residents not to try and deal with the ants themselves. Rod Witte, planning and consent manager for the Council, said that if residents take it upon themselves to deal with the ants they could go in to what he termed a breeding frenzy. I presume he’s talking about the ants. The warning was obviously that ant hills as tall as the Cathedral Tower or the Rutherford Hotel would suddenly appear not only on the Ridgeway hills but around the Port area and heaven forbid up along the prime real estate of Britannia Heights. When I suggested to him that these ant hills were already manifesting themselves in the form of mushrooming apartments around Port on Wakefield Quay he dismissed this. “You’re just trying to make mountains out of ant hills.”

Landcare Research entomologist Richard Toft (an entomologist is one who studies the form and behaviour of insects) said the omnivorous ants had the ability to form super colonies. Well what’s an omnivorous ant? Well I found out this is an ant that feeds on many kinds of food especially plants or flesh. This was getting really serious. Here we have this nirvana. This promised land. This Nelson over run by parasites. Just imagine walking down Trafalgar Street doing a spot of Marlborough Anniversary Day or Christmas shopping and outside Whitcoulls a swarm of Argentinean ants alight on your forearm and start devouring. Paul Mathieson, Nelson’s mayor was unavailable for an interview. He and his council were sequestered in an ant free chamber in the bowels of the Council buildings attempting to deal with the crisis. Mr Witte was more forthcoming. “We plan to contract a company to find out how large the infestation is and co-ordinate a bait poisoning programme. Landowners would be asked to pay for the ant bait. Forty dollars a tube.” The idea was that when you saw an ant you smeared the bait from the tube on the thorax of the ant. This is a very similar process to that of catching birds by putting salt on their tails. I told him I tried this as a young boy. When I bored my father to tears he’d give me a handful of salt and tell me to go out and catch a few birds by putting salt of their tails. I never caught one. I hesitated to suggest to Mr Witte that his ant poisoning scheme would be as successful.

In this ant crisis how does the manager of the Crusaders now feel about staging a Super 12 rugby game in Nelson in February? “Well if we’d known about the ants we might have given the game to Marlborough. But we are playing Queensland. That Stoke is infested with cane frogs and there’s a chance they might bring a few of them with them in their baggage. Cane frogs love ants. They might just get rid of them.” All I can is that if you’re thinking of going to Nelson for Christmas shopping or the Super 12 game be wary of the ants.

11Nov2004

Last week was a bad week. It started off on Thursday morning with the news George W. Bush had been re-elected as President of the United States. Deja vu again. Well given time I could deal with that. What really concerned me was the news that Ma’a Nonu All Black and great rugby player could have been wearing makeup in the final of the National Provincial rugby Championship two weeks ago. Wellington against Canterbury. For those of you who couldn’t give a toss about rugby bear with me. It’s alleged that Nonu, before he took the field against Canterbury, stood before the mirror in the dressing room under the Westpac Stadium and began applying eyeliner to his eyelids. He explained this behaviour as a natural extension of wearing his hair in streaky dreadlocks. “I was making a fashion statement”. Old timers were horrified. Alex “Grizz” Wylie interviewed at his North Canterbury farm whilst pruning his roses with a chainsaw said he was shocked. “Fashion statement my foot. In my day the uglier you looked the greater chance you had of winning. I always walked on to the field looking ugly. Real ugly. No way would you catch me wearing eyeliner. In fact I wouldn’t even touch aftershave three days before a test match in case the opposition would get a sniff and see this as capitulation.” Could I quote him on this? “Well yes as long as you spell “capitulation” correctly.” I have. Colin Meads in between sinking another three hundred tanalised fence posts on his Te Kuiti farm for a television ad said he thought this eyeliner thing was a hoax. “I don’t know about these Wellington fellas. The closest I ever got to eyeliner or perfume for that matter was linament. The dressing room stank of it. If we were going to go down this fashion path I can see Charlotte Dawson or Nicky Watson for that matter in the dressing sheds before kick off spraying everyone with L’Oreal or Issy Miake. When I come to think of it if those lovely ladies had both been there in Africa in the 1960’s then we might have beaten the Springboks.

Chris Laidlaw, former All Black, ambassador, Member of Parliament and now commentator and columnist had this to say. “I was criticized for my hairstyle in the 1970’s. In fact I was told by the selectors to get a haircut. They thought that with my flowing mane I mightn’t see the ball coming out of the scrum or rucks. I ended up with a traditional short back and sides. I’d have to admit I never thought about eyeliner.” Hard man Norm Hewitt when asked for his opinion said “I just hope he’s not going to get a nipple ring or an earring in the right ear next”. I asked Ma’a Nonu what he thought of Norm’s comments. “I can’t guarantee the nipple ring but I can assure Norm I won’t be getting a navel ring. For the reason that if I got caught in the ruck and the navel ring became dislodged my bum might fall off.”

Sir Clive Woodward who is bringing a big circus of Lions and clowns here next year said he didn’t see makeup as a problem. What would worry him would be if balding referee Paddy O’Brien wore a toupee, fishnet stockings and a touch of rouge. Amanda Nicolle a Kirkcaldie & Stains makeup lady thought it was gorgeous that Nonu was wearing makeup. When she was a Mary Quant girl in the 1970’s she applied foundation to the fullback All Black Joe Karam to promote a new range of men’s products. Did wonders for his kicking. “More than ever what we need in our backline is for it to have a firm foundation. I’m all for it.” And the final word from Ma’a Nonu “they tell me that to be a great All Black you need the X-factor. That’s what’s behind my present campaign. I think my eyeliner is what the selectors are looking for. The Ma’aX factor.”

04Nov2004

I went North last week. North as in North Island. And I came across a Greek tragedy. It wasn’t Kevin the undercover camera cop I wrote of last week disguised as an artificial willow tree on the Himitangi straight. He’s long gone. But where his gnarled willow roots stood there stationed in the full resplendent gold, blue and white finery of his patrol car was his very visible replacement. But although the traffic ticket count may have been low because of his obvious presence the behaviour of passing cars was exemplary.

In the course of my journey I called into the annual craft and pet day at Mahoenui School. Present roll 13. Mahoenui doesn’t feature on too many maps. Apart from the school tucked away on a prime hill site back from State Highway 3 you could easily miss it. The only other building of any consequence is the Mahoenui Memorial Hall down the road. It has just celebrated 50 years of community gatherings. Fifty or more years of Gay Gordons, Valettas, military two steps, after-match functions of the once proud local rugby team. Now no longer. Back to the school. It was, depending on your allegiance, an azure blue North Taranaki – southern King Country day. The whole community had turned out to view the years handiwork of the school’s 13 pupils. Through the carpark past mud splattered, dust encrusted farm work horses, Toyota landcruisers and kingcabs. Up the driveway festooned with a guard of honour of rhododendrons in full bloom all this led past to the sole teacher’s immaculate cottage long empty to the upper hill and the school rooms. The whole two of them. Inside the year’s art work was on display. The theme is “ancient Greece comes to Mahoenui”. Greek Gods sculptured in dun coloured Mahoenui clay holding rough bowls of clay olives and rolls of bread. Vividly coloured paintings of just about every Greek mythological figure you could name as seen through the eyes and crafted through the hands of these Mahoenui kids. Socrates and Aristotle would have wept for joy. Two tiny classrooms jam packed with handiwork of outstanding craftsmanship. The children proudly explained to parents, grandparents, neighbours and friends the more complicated exhibits. On the tick of one o’clock a loud buzzing heralded the airborne arrival of the father of one of the kids strapped to a micro-light, it’s wings rivaling the colour of the rhododendrons. As it swooped over the lower sports ground the pilot, a local farmer who had generously given up a days crutching showered the squealing, racing, tumbling kids with Mackintoshs toffees.

We then adjourned to the show ring. This was a rough and ready quadrangle created by docking netting supported by warratahs. The first exhibitors paraded their pets. Mostly lambs. Perendale/Suffolk. Pure Perendale. Romney cross. Well I didn’t have a clue as to the breeds but this is what I was told by one farmer who was standing back from the show ring. Standing with his neighbours from down the road. All wearing the same uniform. Half gumboots, thick socks, short shorts and swandris. Everyone of them wearing broad brimmed, grease stained brown strap around the chin hats. Into the show ring a young girl led her reluctant lamb. Tugging at the lead as it found a fresh outcrop of grass to munch on beneath a clump of tussock. Three more lambs. Then the judging. Ribbons of red, blue and gold were wrapped around the lambs torsos by the judges. Every entry seemed to be awarded something. There was proud parental applause.

I don’t think the kids were aware that this is probably the last time this event would take place. Rumour had it that this wonderful little country school along with so many throughout this land might soon close. Falling rolls and the costs of resourcing would see to this.

An old weather beaten grandfather proudly told me that his Captain Cook pig had got him a red ribbon in 1936. He still had it hanging above the fireplace. I assumed he was speaking of the ribbon not the pig. The show over, the kids herded their livestock on the crated decks of the farm vehicles. They rolled up their paintings and carefully carried out their sculptures of Greek Gods. Possibly for the last time. Surely a Greek tragedy. Paradise lost.