Your Flat White, sir...

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  Wellington, New Zealand
Tuesday, December 4, 2007

I'm not more than 15 minutes on Cuba Street, Wellington on my first day here and wandering down to the waterfront, soy flat white from Fidel's in hand, when I hear someone yelling my name across the street. It's Ruth Armishaw, the famous (or I am sure soon to be) Wellington Opera singer and good friend. We go for more flat whites (which you can't get in London and I miss terribly) and she introduces me to a whirly rod that some architect on acid has designed and placed on the waterfront. It spins around in a wobbly pattern spouting water, at certain times of the day. Elsewhere, other kitch art upsets the coastline. What have they done to this beautiful city since I've been gone?! I dare not look at the location of my old warehouse apartment - the Bond and Bond building with so many happy memories - now torn down and replaced by a hundred shoeboxes.
 
I've been staying with my friend Sara, her partner Tim and their 4-year old terrorist Ryan and on Thursday I am taken to Sara's quiz night which she hosts

Ruth at her classy best

. She plants me in a team that won the time before, but being away for so long I don't know many of the questions about New Zealand and do surprisingly worse at the ones about England, dragging them down to second place. At least I get a free beer at the end, although an invitation back was noticeably not forthcoming.
 
No visit to Wellington is complete without attending a local protest - Wellington is made up of both the government and a thriving counter-culture, giving the city's vibe a noticeably juxtaposed edge and on the weekend, Green party MP Nandor Tanzos leads the charge. He speaks against police actions over the terror arrests in New Zealand last month in Frank Kitts Park on the waterfront and he made some good points, but I sense that really we're all here for the music.
 
The Friday before the weekend sees me having the first of many government-funded lunches and coffees, with my old boss from the Ministry of Health. Peter tells me that should I wish to come back here permanently, finding a job paying good money would be no problem, there being a real shortage of PR hacks in Wellington. That's good to know as part of my trip is to consider options about when and where I should go when I come home permanently.
 
It also turns out someone I used to work with at National Radio and then took my job at the Ministry of health when I left for the UK, now does a mirror of the job I did in London, with the Legal Services Agency in New Zealand. Imitation is...? Anyway I catch up with Anthony Byers on the Monday and we swap some good notes. I also manage to meet Ria Keenan, another old colleague and government-lunch funder, before I fly to Auckland that Monday evening.

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