Hard times at Hanmer Springs
13th June 2009

From out of the mist a human head appears. Disembodied, it seems to float upon the surface of the water. It glides past me, a woman’s head, blonde.

Other heads emerge and vanish. Some are talking and I hear snatches of conversation:
“So Tom got the farm but the others…”
“I went to another specialist, the best in the South Island…”
I lean back against the tiles and the warm water soothes my body. Looking up I see stars through the mist. The air is very cold.

I prefer visiting Hanmer Springs in the winter. It has always seemed more appropriate to me to enjoy the hot pools when there is snow on the mountains and frost in the air. And I prefer to bathe at night, when light and shadow give the pools an air of mystery and darkness conjours clouds of mist from the hot sulphury water.

The hot pools at Hanmer are one of the few places where the parade of humanity can be viewed close up and unabashed. All the world comes to Hanmer, takes off its clothes and relaxes. The strict rule of keeping one’s head above water to avoid infection by whatever nasty bugs may have survived chlorination adds a dimension of style to this aquatic experience that is missing from beach or swimming pool. At Hanmer women can preserve their makeup and hair styles while bathing so it becomes the only place where they often outnumber men in the water.

The observer’s interest becomes focussed on heads, faces, necks and conversations.

A group of bikini-clad girls emerges suddenly from the rocks at the edge of the pool. One, two, three, four, they clamber over the lip of the pool and splash into the water, all legs and shoulders, laughing and chattering with the excitement of 15 year olds. Their interest is, of course, boys.
“Did you see him?”
“Where?”
“Over there, with the dark hair.”
“Is that Daniel?”
“Daniel! Daniel!”

They wave and giggle. Heads turn, frowning at this disturbance of the peace. A large, soft-bellied youth swoops down the steps and blunders into the group of girls. They shriek and scatter. The boy, Daniel, flings out his arms and dives under the water.

There is a sudden silence, a collective intake of breath. Daniel put his head under! He emerges snorting and dripping, his pale body streaming. Twenty heads turn and gaze at him like otters. The ripples of his dive reach out and claim chins and necks. He surges after the girls and vanishes. Silence settles upon the pool.

Hanmer Springs is silent this winter weekend; a little too silent we thought when we drove in this evening. The streets were eerily deserted, houses dark and frowning. It’s years since I’ve visited and the town has grown. Subdivisions have spread out across the paddocks. Groups of shops - gifts and trinkets and clothing - have sprung up. The pools are surrounded by a tinker’s flurry of tourism: ice cream stands, quad bikes, Krazy Golf, Thai food.

But on this Friday night very little moves outside the ring of light from the hot pools. Seeking dinner we walk past 3 or 4 deserted restaurants which, as a rule, we avoid. We end up at Jollie Jack’s where the landlord turns out to be an old Ashburtonian. We hit it off and over lamb shanks and Cabernet he describes how the combined menace of economic downturn and swine flu are blighting the local economy.

Hanmer, he says, relies upon discretionary spending. All these houses are their owners’ second or third homes. All these shops and concessions feed our desire for recreation.

In hard times this small tourist outpost finds itself marginalised. Gift shops huddle and droop, restaurants blink into an un-peopled darkness.

In the months ahead some will keep their heads above water. Others will go under and be lost in the mist, like Daniel at the hot pools.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
27th June 2009


Is it global warming? Swine flu? The economic dumpster? I can’t put my finger on the exact cause but suddenly everyone’s going bald – I mean men (perhaps women are going bald too but they have products for that sort of thing). The Reserve Bank can add another curve to its graph – call it the follicle forecast – and it’s all downhill.

Perhaps it’s just my age. I’ve crested 50 and the view down the other side is grim. Where once there was a sea of waving hair to the horizon there are now only thinning pates and receding temples.

As far as my own pelt is concerned I’d begun to feel smug. On my head grey was winning over bald. A sudden recession 20 years ago (around the time my kids were born) inexplicably halted, apart from a couple of episodes of glacial creep, leaving my hair to gradually turn salt-and-pepper.

Let’s face it, grey is preferable to bald, so the sudden onset of hair loss around me demanded a swift response.

Enter Dr Kurt Wolff Inc. and the Baldness Calculator. I discovered the Baldness Calculator when I was cruising my favourite hair loss websites. It’s amazing, and free! In just a couple of minutes (less if you’re already bald) the calculator will work out your slaphead probability and how long you’ve got before you can throw the hairbrush in the bottom drawer.

It does this with the amazing power of Q&A. How old are you? How many hairs do you lose each day? (with handy formulae for novices). How bald are you already? (graphic aids to assist). Was your dad a baldy? Was your mum? How often do you stand on your head? On someone else’s head?

With only a little fiddling the calculator declared that I am unlikely to ever lose my hair, with the caution that thanks to my father’s 8 bald brothers I may experience “large genetic hair loss episodes” at unexpected moments.

But there’s more! The Baldness Calculator offers advice. It recommended I use a patented caffeine shampoo, “to provide hair roots with active caffeine”! And a general caution: “at the onset of balding never, NEVER, resort to a comb-over!” Now that’s good advice, isn’t it. I mean, a comb-over is like a massive neon sign on your head – “this guy’s going bald!” In our climate a comb-over becomes hazardous. I’ve seen guys in an Ashburton nor’wester with comb-overs looking like an America’s Cup yacht that’s blown a spinnaker.

Have you noticed how in our society going bald is worse than being bald. Going bald is about as attractive as a moulting cockerel. It looks sleazy when your head starts to resemble an old sofa. But a head that is completely bald captures the spirit of the times - a sort of Bruce Willis sheen of confidence.

That’s why some young men, at the first sign of hair loss, take to the razor and sport a completely bald head. Apart from the occasional chilblain it is a remarkably sane response.

A 30-something acquaintance who maintains his scalp like a skating rink claims other virtues for this practice. He reasons that bald men are more intelligent and points to evolution for proof. The advance from ape to human has been a trade-off between brains and body hair – the smarter we became the less shaggy we looked. It stands to reason, according to my friend, that the ultimate being – Superman – will be completely bald.

Most women disagree. They’ll tell you we can shave our heads but we’ll always be hairy cavemen in other regions.

The lessons of Les Mis
30th May 2009

For the past week my life has been dominated by Les Miserables, so allow me to start this story with a reference to that show. In Les Mis the students of Paris fight for the rights of the poor and the dispossessed. Their iconic barricade symbolises both their struggle for a voice in government and their attachment to Paris itself, the city they “claim as their own.”

It occurred to me earlier this week that the hikoi opposing the ‘super city’ in Auckland touched the same ideas, in a less bloody fashion. Opposition to the super city is about representation and identity. It seems many people living within the template of a super Auckland, prefer their local allegiances. They mistrust the politicians and technocrats who preach the efficiencies of a super city.

We are told that Auckland needs to become a super city to fix its intractable infrastructure problems: transport, electricity, water, housing. What the reformers fail to appreciate is that while infrastructure may be, justifiably, the fixation of local government, it is not the cement that binds a community. It is cultural capital that brings people together and in communities cultural capital is created not with infrastructure but through community assets and services.

This is as true in Ashburton as it is in Mangere. I do not rejoice in being Ashburtonian by virtue of kerbing and drains. I am grateful the District Council has invested $20million to upgrade the sewerage system but flushing the toilet does not make me swell with civic pride. My attachment to this place is discovered through the opportunities it gives me to exercise my talents and live a life I value.

It’s an important point to make as the Council hears submissions to its District Plan, where discussion boils around the timeline for the sports stadium and art gallery/museum. One speaker, a retired accountant, is reported in the local press urging the Council to delay these projects until all the funding is assured. He argues it will be financial folly to give in to pressure from ‘vested interests’ to bring these projects forward, citing the shortfall in funding to build the Event Centre as an example of what can happen when community fundraisers don’t have all their ducks in a line.

Unsurprisingly, what the accountant fails to take into account is the cultural value of assets like the Event Centre and the sports stadium. No doubt my appearance on the stage of the Event Centre every night this week condemns me to a vested interest but it gives me a close up view of just how good this place is for us.

When the final curtain falls on Les Mis this evening 4000 people will have seen the show. For locals the entertainment of Victor Hugo’s great story will be enhanced by the display of young (and less young) local talent in which we all take pride, and in the quality of the venue.

For people from outside the district the show has blown away many of their conceptions about Ashburton as a place of no consequence; like the woman from North Canterbury who, on the strength of Les Mis, persuaded her incredulous friends to have a girls’ weekend in Ashburton. They watched our show, dined in our restaurants, saw our sights. They were amazed – and they spent money.

As the Council weighs the delicate balance of financial prudence and community pride, let me add Adam’s voice to the argument. Adam was the hitchhiker I picked up in Rakaia on Thursday. As we drove through Ashburton he remarked that nothing much ever changes here.

How often have you and I heard this, or similar? Adam’s is the voice of the wide world. I wanted to veer off the road and show him the Event Centre and Lake Hood. I wanted him to meet the talented cast of Les Mis. I wanted to celebrate my Ashburton in some action that would impress the young man.

The students in Les Mis would have thrown a barricade across West Street and fired a few guns to get the world’s attention. We can do the same by creating community assets that bring out the best in us.