The news game

Tim the weatherman checks his appearance in the mirror, carefully skews his tie slightly off-centre and tussles his hair once more. Wearing his trademark cheeky grin like a badge of honour, he waits for the right moment before turning to face the camera.

The floor manager makes his standard hand movement (index finger raised in a classic ‘up-yours’ gesture) and Tim turns around with a well-rehearsed air of surprise.

“Hullo Noo Zild, gosh it’s nice to see you. Been a bit of a cold old day up & down the country, but we’ll find out more about that a little later on in the bulletin. I’m off for a cup of Bell Tea and a Gingernut and I’ll see you in about 20 minutes. But right now it’s six o’clock.”

As the credits start to roll, Tim looks over to the news anchors with two fingers up in the air.

“And that, boys and girls, is how you do it. Two points for me & we haven’t even started yet.” With a smirk, he turned on his heel and sauntered off to the green room.

Wearing smiles that were both practised and plastic, the two news anchors held their tongue and waited for the floor manager’s signal (a quick grapevine move ending with jazz hands, degree of difficulty 3.2) that meant it was Time. For. The. News.

Anna Macintosh (‘MacSnot’ to her friends) looked up from her notes and smiled at Camera1. Not too big a smile, for she knew the first story was a bad news item which needed a sympathetic opening. Best not to get the plebs’ hopes up with a too-cheery attitude. “Good evening New Zealand, and here is your news tonight.”

Michael Carpenter (‘Carpy’ to his face & ‘Builder’s crack’ to everyone/everywhere else) looked up into Camera2 with his award-winning Sombre Face™ on. “Yes, good evening. We have breaking news just to hand about a major pileup on State Highway One. There are body parts strewn all over the area in what could be the most awesome… I’m sorry, I mean the most gruesome accident on this stretch of road for quite some time. We cross now to our reporter, Shandy Cadwallader, with a live report from the scene.”

As soon as the network feed was no longer showing her co-anchor’s face, Anna leaned over and whispered, “you know that’s an automatic 10 point deduction right there, Mr Awesome”.

“Shut up, I’m trying to pay attention and you’re not helping”, he hissed back.

Meanwhile, Shandy continued with her PTC (prattle to camera). 

“So as you can see now, it’s, well, it’s a bit dark out here, and so there’s not really a lot to see. Although if it was daylight, you’d be able to tell we’re standing just next to a paddock that’s growing those yummy Talley’s peas. But because it all happened hours ago, there’s not even anything to see anymore, that is, if you could see anything out here in the dark. Anywhoodle, it turns out that all the body parts were old movie props from a Peter Jackson film, probably Meet The Feebles. Pretty sure you can get that out on DVD – Grandma will love it*. So, as I was saying, the truck carrying the fake body parts collided with a truck filled with Craig’s Jam, in a variety of delicious berry flavours, which of course made it all look a lot worse than it was. But we missed those scene updates because we were too busy trying to make our satellite link work on the way down here. Back to you in the studio, Carpy.” 

Just before the camera cuts away from the live scene, Shandy raises three fingers in the air and does a celebratory fist-pump after a ‘cross-done-good’. Three points. Top that in a single PTC, Tim, you little prick, she thought to herself.

Anna shuffled her papers with a small-but-noticable furrowing of the brow (the maximum amount her holistic dermatologist said she could do without bringing on wrinkles) and looked up into Camera1. 

“I’m sorry, we seem to be having some technical difficulties there. But now to distract you, here’s a story about a cute little rabbit with no ears”.

Anna tapped her fingers on the desk and added up the scores on the backup script on her desk. Three to Shandy, two to Tim, and minus ten for Mr Perfect. Michael ‘Builder’s Crack’ Carpenter leaned over to have a look.

“Ohhhh shit, are we playing commercial bingo today? I thought it was the P Party, so I loaded up before the bully.” He sniggered like a breakfast TV host who’s just been poached by an offshore TV channel. “That’s probably why the words on the autospew are dancing around like that. Oh well, cutesy bunny story is almost done, time to fake it ‘til ya make it!”

Anna kicked him, and turned to get ready for the pre-commercial break teaser. Beside her, Mr High-as-a-kite Carpenter was still sniggering, and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out a way of getting any products slipped into the next intro. Shit. Can’t even use the cuppa Bell line, ‘cos Tiny Tim snuck that into his first PTC. Mallowpuffs were right out, ever since the ‘Viaduct Incident’ last October during the RWC. Shit. Shit!

Fixing her smiley face in place for the camera, Anna squinted slightly as a frantic message came over the cans. Something about the rabbit. Huh?

Suddenly, the sniggering emanating from the Builder’s Crack turned into a rather loud snort, which was unconvincingly disguised as a coughing fit.

WTF was with everyone tonight? The lights were burning intensely brightly, the floor manager was giving her the hurry-up-&-say-something signal (silent screaming & actual pulling out of hair, degree of difficulty 4.9). The camera was live and she still had no idea what the producer was trying to say.

By now, MBCC had fallen off his chair completely and there was enough of gap in the gasping laughter for her to finally hear the producer clearly. What she heard made her plastic smile suddenly totally inappropriate and so, so wrong for the mood-cue she was supposed to be delivering.

Her face dropped. “Whaddya mean the fucking rabbit died?”

=============================================

The scary thing about this ridiculous little story is that - as the links show - it's not really that far from the standard of our evening news and free-to-air programming in general. 

There is an alternative. But the end of TVNZ7 is nigh.

If commercial bingo news concerns you, not to mention all the other 'entertainment' offerings available non-stop on commercial TV, please come along to the Save TVNZ7 public meeting from 7-9pm on Monday 28th, at the CPSA building.

Join us, and make some noise for public service television.

Some background reading for extra credit:

Save TVNZ7 website, fact sheet here

Russell Brown: 'Media Mathematics' from Public Address Hard News

Brian Edwards Media: 'Adopt it out' from Judy Callingham

David Beatson: 'TVNZ kills ad-free channels for profit'

David Beatson: 'Bang goes another public service TV channel'

Paul Norris:  'Danger signals of profit-driven TV'

Paul Norris: 'Saving TVNZ7 is in the public interest'

*please, do not actually show Grandma the movie Meet the Feebles. Unless she's the kind of grandma who tripped her way through the 60s with the flower power generation and hasn't come down yet.

Scenes from a mall

For the last month I've been spending 2-3 days a week working at the Quake Box in City Mall. This little stint has now come to an end - the Quake Box gets moved to a new location this weekend.

It's been... interesting. So here, in no particular order, are some random incidents and photos from the central city in recent times.

Demolition

 

^^10:30am

It's one thing to know that there's a lot of demolition taking place, but it's quite another to have it happening right in front of you. It was the soundtrack I hadn't anticipated at all... the crunch, crunch, crash of buildings being ripped apart floor by floor. This one, right opposite our site, was the entertainment for my first shift.

^^3:10pm

There are no shortage of demolition sites around the inner city. This is one I passed by every morning on my way into the mall. A fortuitously timed red light allowed me to capture this shot of Scales House midway through the demo process.

We are surely the biggest sandpit in the world. Every toy you ever played with as a kid is here in super-size form. I think the tallest structures we have these days in Shakeytown are the various cranes dotted around (what's left of) the CBD.

Tourists

...make up most of the people visiting the Re:Start Mall. At times we've been an unofficial tourist kiosk, dispensing information about bus routes, demolition statistics, earthquakes (of course), and listening to grand but misguided ideas about documentaries, public transport, and rebuilding priorities.
We've met lots of lovely people - some who have been regular visitors to the city and others who have never visited before - and almost all of them have been shocked by the sheer scale of the devastation & demolition. The emptiness. The closed roads. The fenced-off city. They don't hear about it on the news anymore, and the extent (& cost) of the damage caused by continuing aftershocks has not really filtered through the international media.
All of them were fascinated by the Quake Box project and its goals, even if a few people were disappointed that we weren't a) showing movies or b) an earthquake simulator.

Weather

We're at that time of year when even though the sun is shining, the wind will cut right through you, and Cashel Mall has to be the most bone-chilling wind tunnel around.

 approaching weather, viewed through the Bridge of Remembrance

When it wasn't the rain keeping everyone away, it was the fiendishly cold wind. Most of the inner city's population on any given day consisted of tourists, retail staff or shoppers on a mission to get in, get it done, & get the hell out of the cold by going straight back home.

cue the tumbleweeds...

On the whole, everyone we've talked to has been very impressed with the container shopping precinct and its bright, cheery colours. The trouble is, once you've wandered around the retail area and peered through the fences, there's nothing else to do. It will be such a long time before there is much else to see apart from a flagship department store and a few novelty container shops.

At least our next Quake Box location - Eastgate Mall - should have more of a residential population to draw from, and it's an opportunity to hear from a whole new group of people. I'll be doing a couple more shifts to train up the next batch of Quake Box workers before I leave the project to concentrate on other things.

Filling in the gaps (1)

During my first shift, a young tourist asked me where he could go to see the Cathedral. At that stage, the only option was to walk along the river to Worcester St, where you could stand at the cordon edge and look towards Cathedral Square. If he'd been there a few days later, we could have shown him this view instead:

A reminder of what used to be, now decorating the plywood that boards up a damaged shop.

But there's another way to see what's being/been demolished... as long as you have the right gadget.

Filling in the gaps (2)

On Tuesday, a couple of guys from the HITLab were in the mall, demonstrating one of their latest Augmented Reality (AR) applications.

Built for the Android operating system, the CityViewAR app combines interactive map views (pictured above), and 3D models (pictured below) that show what buildings used to stand on now-empty sites.

It's a lot of fun, and so very useful! Even in a small area like City Mall, it's hard to remember exactly what used to be where. The app is available for free download from the Android marketplace (search: CityViewAR) but a word of warning - it won't work on all Android devices. It seemed to work fine on the HITLab Samsung tablet (although the touch-response wasn't always great) but it will over-tax some older Android phones. I managed to download and install it onto my HTC Magic, which is a few years old now, but every time I open CityViewAR, the app locks up and sometimes my entire phone crashes. Oh well. It's a fun app but not quite a good enough excuse to buy a whole new phone... I've got a house to build after all. Speaking of which...

OBLIGATORY HOUSE UPDATE:

 

All ready now for the foundation to be poured early next week!

Congratulations! It's a...

... hole.
Yep, we're now the proud owners of a hole in the ground.

Given that in the whole of last week we only added a fence, it's nice to see some progress. Already we're a day behind schedule - this digging was supposed to happen last Friday - but at least it's a glorious, muddy start.

There's something about watching a man in a digger that takes me back to my childhood, and days spent with friends in the sandpit or at the beach, sculpting the earth as we pleased. It's quite fun watching man & machine work together to achieve a goal - whether it's construction or destruction. It's become the new local pastime.

Although, I did find myself wondering whether reading 'The little yellow digger' to our kids when they were young would've been quite so much fun if this had been the backdrop at the time:

Right then. What comes down must go up, and this little hole in the ground is a significant first step. Finally, something to show for all those months of planning!

And I'm sure my project manager would be thrilled to know that I even wore my lovely orange vest (but no pics, so did it really happen?!).

Ready, Set, Build

It seems like just the other day I was lamenting the lack of rebuilding going on... oh wait, it was! That may be true for the city centre, but around the edges and out in the suburbs, repairs & new constructions are getting underway.

Just across the road from my PO Box used to be a bookstore, art gallery & dairy. This is what it looked like on March 17, 2011...

Here's the same site today...

So, things are starting to happen, it's just that in the city centre there's still more happening in a downward direction than up. Around my neighbourhood, the only other bare section I know of has recently sprouted a builder's sign. I can also spot plenty of houses undergoing renovation & repairs - many local properties have a rented container parked outside or on the front lawn, in order to store belongings while repairs are carried out.

We've been doing a lot of number-crunching recently, as things are about to get real. The calculations look something like this:
M7.1 + 18m = AE608

Clear?
No?
Oh.

How about this:
AE608 = BD1

608 days after that initial M7.1 earthquake on September 4, 2010, we are about to start building our replacement family home. Today is now officially Build Day One - 18 months after that fateful shake-up, and nearly a year since our old house was demolished.

Look! The section has been marked out and supplies have been stacked. 

Master bedroom goes here!

Early next week the fence goes up and the ground preparation begins. On Tuesday morning I get to meet our project manager and receive my very own flouro vest, so I can be an OSH-compliant site visitor.

Hold onto your hard hats folks, building is about to commence!

Memories on Madras

During a break in the recent Music & Crisis conference someone approached me and asked how the rebuild was going.
'Rebuild?' I laughed. 'We're not up to rebuilding yet, we're still in the demolition phase.'

And every week, it seems, another notable building gets added to the demolition list, some to predictable outcry and plaintive petitions wanting signatures. Other petitions have already been sent off in protest. 

However, on Monday we reached a milestone - the reopening of Madras Street, from Tuam St onwards. Traffic was reportedly busy all day long, and has been ever since too. But I wanted to walk not drive, so I could take some pictures and contemplate the empty spaces at my leisure.

The journey started at C4 for a compulsory coffee, after which I headed towards the freshly-opened roadway.

It's the latest craze in inner-city abandoned sites - the open-air basement bath-house. 

Telling tales: How NOT to eat Vegemite (or Marmite)

So I've just got back from spending a few days with a friend in San Francisco - yep, I went from Shakeytown to the Shakey State. Go figure. But I suppose if you only considered destinations based on perceptions of risk & safety, no-one would ever go anywhere.

My friend, who shall remain nameless, works at an independent grocery store - the kind that reacts to customer requests and is willing to stock oddball products such as wasabi mayonnaise and Vegemite. It's not quite Marmite (if it was, it might be worth a fortune: see 'Marmageddon') but it's close enough to feature in this story.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, and in honour of my impending visit (yeah, Vegemite is Australian but never mind), my friend decided to try this Downunder taste sensation at his work recently. Or, to put it more accurately, he was dared to. Some of his co-workers had found a jar of Vegemite underneath a shelving unit, and it was dangerously close to its expiration date. So they dared my friend to try it.

Quick pic

I approve: