Innholdsfortegnelse for January - February 2019 i Metro NZ

A library of Metro features and columns is available at www.noted.co.nz. Designed as a home for quality long reads and inspiring journalism, our website gives you current reviews, new food openings and guides to the city, plus all the best stories from the Listener and North & South. New at www.noted.co.nz 01-BEST OF WELLINGTON A city guide to all the must-dos on your trip to the nation’s capital. 02-UNWINDING COLONIAL LEGACIES Auckland Museum undergoes a cultural transformation. 03-FOOD: FIRST LOOKS The latest in restaurant, bar and cafe openings, including new Asian fusion restaurant Gao in Albany. 04-TOP 50 CHEAP EATS Fill your stomach with Auckland’s best for $20 or less. FOLLOW US- On Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, our username is @metromagnz METRO ON YOUR IPAD- Download…

Traffic nightmare Despite the $28 billion budget documented in the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) announced recently, Auckland’s traffic is destined to continue to become worse. Why? Because the ATAP lacks innovation and aspirations. It has no new modes of transport and, despite the $28 billion, it will not provide world-class commuter travel. It continues the past record of Auckland choosing second-rate options, which started with the Harbour Bridge’s four lanes 20 years after Sydney’s 12-lane bridge was constructed. The initial construction of the intersections of SH1, Upper Harbour Highway and Paul Matthews Rd continued this. I became interested in Auckland’s transport when a letter to the Herald claimed that 150km of elevated rapid rail could be constructed for the cost of the City Rail Link. Auckland Transport’s (AT) construction…

It’s a cold, crisp July morning in the Karekare Valley. I’ve been walking an hour in icy streams before I leave the track and head up through the dense bush. I’m on a mission to get to a stand of kauri that I’ve been watching for the last 20 years. They are giants. Healthy and strong and perhaps 1000 years old. Thousands like them once stood throughout the Waitakere Ranges, but these are the lucky ones. The cliffs saved them from the axes and saws of the Karekare millers and they have — so far — survived the dreaded kauri dieback. It’s a new death sentence on these glorious sky-reaching treasures of the New Zealand northern bush. Kauri dieback is sweeping through the northern forests and into the Waitakere Ranges…

Sahil Patel, mixologist at 1947 eatery, knows that a great cocktail is about so much more than a pour of soda, nip of vodka and some ice garnished with a wedge of lime. That’s why he’s stepped things up a notch at 1947, a moody midtown bar and restaurant in Auckland’s CBD. Creating an extravagant list of bespoke cocktails, his attention to detail matches the level of care taken in the kitchen. “We take the drinks as seriously as the food,” he says. Testament to 1947’s commitment to quality, a giant 60-litre ice block replaces the need for an ice machine – Sahil chips individual pieces off the block to order, using them to keep customers’ drinks cool. The garnishes, syrups and infusions Sahil uses in his cocktails can take…

At Eternity’s Gate Directed by Julian Schnabel “Maybe God made me a painter for people who aren’t born yet,” says Willem Dafoe’s van Gogh. There’s an inescapable dramatic irony to every biopic — we know how the story ends. But this is next level. The post-Impressionist masterpieces that launched a million greeting cards with well over a billion dollars in sales and stood in for sensitivity on every other student’s wall were originally considered so intense and confronting that he is known to have sold only one painting in his entire lifetime. Julian Schnabel’s sensual, immersive film shows us a tragedy bigger than simple poverty while contending with the ubiquity of the paintings themselves and our instant familiarity with the sad, short life of Vincent van Gogh. It’s a life…

Three readers whose letters to the editor are published in the next issue of Metro will receive an Auckland region map valued at $179. These beautiful 3D hydrographic maps are designed and created by The Furnace. Good design is central to everything this small New Zealand company does, from considering the use and look of every item, to all aspects of how it is made, assembled, packaged and shipped. Each art work is made of layers of sustainable bamboo ply and presented in an FSC timber frame, hand-painted using eco-friendly dyes and packaged in an elegant eco-friendly gift box. See thefurnace.co.nz  for more. Terms and conditions: Entry is open to New Zealand residents. Employees of Bauer Media Group (LP) NZ, their affiliates, agencies and…

The Opposition’s best attack in 2018 was lampooning the Government’s 182 working groups, which it claims are costing taxpayers over $250 million. The Government denies both numbers, but even those totally uninterested in politics know why it is funny to say they’ll get a working group to clean the barbecue. Like the Key regime, Jacinda Ardern’s government was elected without any clear programme other than half a dozen one-liners developed solely for electoral appeal. Some of them, like the fees-free tertiary education promise, were surely designed simply to keep Labour’s vote respectable before another term in opposition, without any real intention they might be implemented. Nevertheless, most were ticked off quickly under Ardern’s so-called 100-Day Plan. The working groups enabled Ardern and her unexpected government to recover from the shock…

The Harley-Davidson Award for Late-life Craziness by a Silly Old Duffer goes to Neil Finn. We thought Finn had done pretty well for himself, what with the international hits generating a generous income, the two great bands — Split Enz and Crowded House — he’s been part of, the rich and evolving musical partnerships he’s had with brother Tim and other family members, the side projects he put together with stars from around the world, and the cool little Auckland studio through which he’s been able to share the love with other musicians. But all that wasn’t enough for the Neilster, apparently. Oh no. When he should be winding back and resting on his laurels, he’s only gone and joined frigging Fleetwood Mac, one of the biggest bands in the…

A summer holiday in Sydney is always a good idea, thanks to the sparkling weather, beaches, galleries, food and more. But it’s an especially good idea from January 9-27, when Sydney Festival takes over the city with an explosion of cultural activities. Here are four top reasons to jump on a plane and be a culture vulture this summer. #1 SUNSHINE AND FREE OUTDOOR ART Sydney in January is warm, picturesque and drenched in sunshine, so your best bet is to get outdoors and explore. Sydney Festival features four free outdoor art installations dotted around the city, all within walking or cycling distance of each other. One sculpture, ALWAYS, sits on the harbour’s edge and recognises Aboriginal sovereignty over the land, while the three other interactive art works (including Moon…

Another wretched waterfront stadium. We’ve been subjected to a string of these mad, grand designs since 2006. So many schemes, so much nuttiness, so déjà vu. This latest incarnation, the Bledisloe Wharf sunken-stadium-for-free fantasy, began with the usual breathless over-excitement. October 19, 2018: “Jaw-dropping plans for a new National Stadium sunken into the Auckland waterfront are being unveiled today…,” gushed the Herald’s Bernard Orsman. Hyperbole that was depressingly similar to April 30, 2017: “Jaw-dropping concepts for an iconic new national stadium have been pitched to Auckland Council, proposing a state-of-the-art arena be submerged into the city's waterfront,” enthused the Herald’s Simon Plumb. We have design and marketing man Phil O'Reilly to thank for this bonkers idea, which emerged some years after the Warren and Ma-honey design for a stadium for…

TINY RUINS OLYMPIC GIRLS (Ursa Minor) It must be a hard thing to live down, this queen of New Zealand’s folk revival tag. And how to follow up a record as great as Brightly Painted One ? That 2014 album was near-perfect in its lustrous reinvention of a style made famous by doomed English minstrel Nick Drake — a haunted gothic folk that entranced and beguiled. It’s taken four long years but Hollie Fullbrook has found a way to navigate her way forward without simply repeating herself, yet without losing what made her music so compelling in the first place. There’s been an awful lot of touring and international attention and a few intriguing if flawed diversions, like the rather aimless EP recorded with The Clean’s Hamish…

Shortland Street — The Musical opening night — ASB Waterfront Theatre 01-Abbi Lister & Anna-Maree Thomas. 02-Carla Van Zon & Angela Green. 03-A visitor from Hawke’s Bay, Luke Bird & Andrea Kelland. 04-Shoshana McCallum & Laura Hill. 05-Lily Galvin & Michael Galvin. 06-Robyn Malcolm. 07-Anna Jullienne & Antonia MacAvoy. 08-Vivien Sutherland Bridgwater & Graeme Pinfold. New Zealand Dance Company fundraiser — Civic Theatre Wintergarden 01-Belinda Simpson & Miriama Kamo. 02-Julie Hart & Jock Fowlie. 03-David Dorrington & Dona White. 04-Gabe McAlpine & Zane McAlpine. 05-James Wallace & Greg Innes. 06-Bruce Hopkins. 07-Hayley Elrick & Lori Harvey. 08-Greg Innes & Georgina Cervin.…

Festivals & events The best... New Year’s Eve party Wondergarden at Silo Park on December 31 offers a full afternoon and evening of food, drink and song, with a line-up including Ladi6, Peach Milk, Hugo Jay, Avantdale Bowling Club and JessB. One-stage wonder No fear of missing out at FOMO By Night on January 9 at Spark Arena: all the acts are on one stage, so you see the whole thing, including the Katayanagi Twins, Nicki Minaj and Lil Pump. R&B eats January 27, the Sunday of Auckland Anniversary Weekend, sees the inaugural Vine Days festival at Villa Maria Winery, featuring good food, good wines, and an R&B-themed lineup including Craig David, All Saints, Aaradhna and Opensouls. Tenth anniversary The 10th Laneway festival kicks off in Albert Park on January…

For many of his toughest critics, the University of Auckland’s longstanding vice-chancellor, Stuart Mc-Cutcheon, is the archetypal manifestation of the free-market-era campus boss. At the library-closure protests in May, banners and placards reading “VC McCutcheon, Whose Side Are You On?” and “Stuart’s Got 2 Go” summed up a growing mood of discontent about his leadership and a sense of betrayal, particularly among arts students and faculty. (In fact, he is going: aged 65, he’s retiring at the end of 2019.) There’s his apparent fixation with STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — and flash buildings to do it in. The $700,000 salary. The sharp suits. The Northern Club membership. The CEO swagger. On his watch, some of his critics say, top-down managerialism has become standard practice at the university,…

Simple pleasures… Smooth, full-bodied New Zealand Kamahi Honey folded through delicate Kapiti Chamomile Ice Cream is subtle and decadent. The iconic nature of ice cream is what makes it such a perfect dessert — and with its golden colour and creamy, fragrant flavours, Kapiti Chamomile and Salted Kamahi Honey Ice Cream is no exception. Complement with... The exotic freshness of pineapple provides the perfect foil for ice cream. Charring the pineapple adds a smoky depth to its traditional flavour, offsetting the sweet saltiness of kamahi honey and fragrant chamomile in the ice cream. Serve with a light riesling for an elegant dessert that sings the praises of summer. SET THE SCENE Summer entertaining calls for pretty, inspired scene setters. Think softly-coloured hues for serveware and fresh, crisp linens to showcase…

In 2018, a shoulder-shrugging fug seemed to settle over the Auckland art world: a lack of blockbusters at the Auckland Art Gallery; a lot of dreary, over-curated thematic exhibitions in other public spaces; an absence of intelligent, regular exhibition reviewing; and a dealer scene that felt, too often, like it was simply going through the commercial motions. There were some highlights, sure — Ruth Buchanan winning the Walters Prize, Susan Te Kahurangi King’s wild, brilliant drawings at Artspace (which only just survived the heavy-handed exhibition design), Kalisolaite ’Uhila’s performance work at Michael Lett — but on the whole, things were a bit… meh. It’s a worry for a city that has so long prided itself on being the beating heart of New Zealand’s contemporary art scene. But it’s also helped…