Tag Archives: Napier

Here’s to You, 2022!

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2022.

Of all the years we’ve had, it was one of them!

I DIDN’T travel outside of Hawke’s Bay, win Lotto, or change jobs to something higher paying and more in line with my skills and dreams, and I only ticked off 6/10 of my goals for the year.

I DID catch Covid, albeit thankfully all but asymptomatically, made more money here and there, and did some things I wanted to do and bought some things I wanted to get.

It wasn’t a fantastic year, but it wasn’t terrible either.

So here are some of my highlights, events and thoughts from 2022:

Loveliest moment of 2022: Planting Harakeke with my daughter.

As part of my job I’ve gotten to volunteer to go out once a year with a primary school for Conservation Week. We go on a bushwalk at Hawke’s Bay’s White Pine Bush, then do a tour of the Guthrie Smith Arboretum at Tutira and plant some native flora there.

I’ve done this with my old school, Tamatea Primary and, this year, when I saw my daughter’s school on the list I offered to go with them. A week later (without telling her what I was doing at work) my daughter said we had to give permission for her to go on a field trip. “Oh, where?” we asked. “To White Pine Bush and Tutira” she replied. 

She seemed happy that I was coming along, but I was expressly “forbidden from embarrassing her on the trip”! (she still has a lot to learn about parenting) and on the day I sat on a different part of the bus to her and her friends, but I was allowed to help chaperone her group on the bushwalks.

The penultimate event before heading home is the plantings, and she wanted me to help her plant her harakeke – NZ Flax, which I did, then we planted another spare flax and I took a selfie of us to commemorate the occasion. I loved it!

 A Year of Constructive Confidence…

I got to make lots of stuff this year, stuff I had wanted to make for a while, stuff I’d only dreamed of making, and other stuff I just did to prove to myself that I could.

A long-held vision of recreating the Tomcat vs. MiG 28 “Inverted” scene from the movie Top Gun was finally realised. After a few production delays I decided to go DIY and the multi-media (plastic, wood and metal) result I came up with was even better than I’d expected.

 After only being able to dream of owning one as a kid, I finally got to buy, build and run my own Tamiya radio-controlled car! I even bought and decorated up a second body shell just to prove I could do it!

Finally, a-semi spur-of-the-moment idea resulted in a fantastic looking “Beached Spitfire” diorama and involved my first experience using clear casting resin and making gel waves.

I was fortunate that (almost) all the models I built this year went together so well – It was a boost to my confidence in using known and new skills in creating cool stuff!

..But a Writing and Wireless Wasteland.  

After being commissioned to write two or three items a year over the past few years for local magazine Bay Buzz, I had just one commission this year – focusing on the local music scene and how it was dealing with Covid and event restrictions. I really enjoyed writing it and the finished product looked really great, but that was it.

Bay Buzz has been able to employ a number of journalists in the last few years under the Public Interest Journalism fund, which is great for keeping multiple sets of investigative eyes regularly focusing on and writing about Hawke’s Bay regional issues which NZ’s commercial media networks have failed to do over recent decades. But I have still missed being involved and getting commissioned to write more.

I still appear to be persona non grata with Radio NZ and still don’t know why and, as for local commercial network media, it can’t be long before our regional paper becomes a couple Hawke’s Bay pages in the NZ Herald and local airwaves regurgitate Jono and Ben 24/7 across the country. Spare us!

This year I did rediscover that even “almost seven years old, Still a bit six” me on Bay City Radio in 1984 could do a better job on local radio than those cronyism clowns can on any of their many simulcast shows across multiple commercial networks.

I do still hold out a faint hope for the TVNZ/RNZ merger, despite commercial networks’ and executives’ worst, self-interested lobbying efforts to scuttle the bill.

I have kept writing, too. If for no other reason than my own entertainment, or to keep myself sane and not feel like I’m just completely, continually screaming into the void.

And I do still seem to be pretty good and capable at it:

A piece I wrote on the sorry state of Hawke’s Bay roading infrastructure, and the State Highway 2 bridge over the Esk River apparently being suddenly unfit for purpose garnered over 1700 views since publishing in August.

Movie of the Year: Top Gun: Maverick

I think I only saw three movies at the cinema this year – Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Top Gun: Maverick and Thor: Love and Thunder.

Doctor Strange and Thor both had their good points – I got to see Love and Thunder in a cinema all to myself, after taking an afternoon off work to see it, and the Guns n’ Roses soundtrack throughout was gloriously nostalgic – But were reasonably cookie-cutter Marvel fare overall.

Sitting in the darkening cinema as the opening credits started rolling for Top Gun I wondered for a second if the whole movie was just going to be the 1986 original remastered and played in full as the Top Gun Anthem again crescendoed into Kenny Loggins’ epic and timeless “Danger Zone”.. Until F/A-18 Hornets and F-35 Lightning IIs rolled through the carrier deck steam.

The movie was great, and packed with yet more nostalgia, but also more emotionally mature themes – Pete “Maverick” Mitchell had grown, as had his original audience, but still held some old scars and memories, as did his audience.

A scene I loved was where Pete and his old flame and love interest in the movie, Jennifer Connelly’s ‘Penny Benjamin’ are getting intimate when Penny’s teenaged daughter (from a previous, non-Maverick, relationship) comes home unexpectedly.

Pete and Penny are nervous and embarrassed, not wanting her daughter to learn about the rekindling of their relationship, Penny makes Maverick sneak out her first-floor window like a teenager, comically slipping and falling off the roof. He stands up, dusts himself off and come’s face to face with Penny’s daughter – The audience laughs – Busted!

The daughter, stone faced, tells Mitchell “don’t break her heart again” and the laughing stops dead because the audience has been there, too, since 1986.

But, yes, awesome flying scenes, CGI, explosions and a fair chunk of heart also helped make Top Gun: Maverick my movie of the 2022.

Mood of the Year: S.A.D.

Hawke’s Bay saw one of its wettest winters on record in 2022.

Not that it was completely a bad thing – I remember “proper” wet winters growing up in the 80s and, by comparison we’ve had insanely dry years over the past decade where it rained in April and that was it until October, turning Central Hawke’s Bay hills peroxide blonde by November, and outright dead and dirt brown by February, so rain wasn’t altogether unwelcome.

But rain for days and weeks on end made many people sad, or even S.A.D.

Not to be confused with “Unhappy”, though the two can go hand-in-hand, Seasonal Affective Disorder is a form of depression that is often triggered by a change of the seasons, usually in, or towards the winter months.

And in 2022 the winter months just seemed to go on, and on, and on.

Days and weeks of persistent (rather than heavy) rain disrupted events, canceled sports and ruined thousands of plans.

It was the last thing we needed after thinking we had recovered sufficiently from Covid for normal life and events to largely recommence.

All the while the skies remained a morose overcast grey and rain continued to drizzle and drip, dragging the “winter blues” into spring and summer as well.

Score of the year: A Kane Williamson Signed Cricket Bat!

I bought myself a Funko Pop! figure of Indian cricketer Virat Kohli for my birthday this year.

Well, I actually bought TWO.

They were on special at EB Games in Napier for only $15 each, and one’s box was a bit smushed so, in the spirit of my “Year of Creativity” I bought a second one intending to put it into a cricketing diorama of some sort, like I’d done with a Marty McFly Pop! recreating a scene from Back to the Future a couple years ago:

But before I even did the diorama, I made another creative change.

Looking at the figure I realised it wouldn’t take too much to change India’s cricket captain into New Zealand’s captain, Kane Williamson!

They both have similar hairstyles and beards and are both renowned batsmen, so it wouldn’t take much to change one to the other with some paint and finer details.

So that’s exactly what I did!

Other than repainting the head, hair and body the other changes I made were adding Gray-Nicolls stickers to Kane’s bat to make it look like his current NOVA blade and using 1/72 scale model aircraft decals for his shirt number (22) and “New Zealand” branding.

I was happy with the prototype and hoped to show it to and get it signed by the man himself when Napier got its sole men’s international game for the season but, sadly, captain Kane had other plans.

Never mind. I ended up being busy with work and other projects, and the Pop! went on display in my house.

Coincidently I entered a competition to win a signed Kane Williamson bat through Auckland’s Players’ Sports on Instagram a few weeks later..

AND WON IT!

It was a great, fortuitous way to finish off the year!

Now I just have to figure out what sort of display case I’m going to design and make for this full-sized cricket bat in 2023!

Here’s hoping your 2023 is creative, fortuitous and supportive, and thanks for reading Napier in Frame in 2022!

AF

Twelve Days of Christmas Deliciousness 2022 (Kiwi) Edition!

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The inspiration: A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree
Adapted by Kingi M. Ihaka and illustrated by Dick Frizzell

For almost 15 years now, Mrs InFrame has been coming up with a special 12-day menu to celebrate the “Twelve Days of Christmas”.

She alternates each year between the traditional and the New Zealand version, otherwise known as “A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree”.

This year was the Kiwi Christmas Deliciousness Edition!

Most of the dishes usually have a direct correlation to the songs (Five Big Fat Pigs = Pork/Ham/Bacon), others use a fair chunk of artistic license as, if we stuck COMPLETELY to the original “Twelve Days” song’s days’ feathered features, we’d be swimming in poultry with French Hens, Swans a Swimming, Geese a Laying etc. etc. otherwise.

I’ll do my best to explain the pairing concepts as we go.

So sit back and enjoy as I reveal to you what my true love made over the Twelve Days of Kiwi Christmas Deliciousness for 2022

A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree

Pea Soup

Pukeko, otherwise known as the “Australasian Swamp Hen”, when not testing physics by riskily residing on or near roads in varying forms of dimension from three to two live, as their name suggests, in wetlands and swamps – represented here by the pea soup.

Two Kumara

Kumara and Chickpea Burgers

Kumara are a sweet potato. This dish combines kumara and chickpeas for a vegetarian burger!

Three Flax Ketes (“Kits”)

Orange Saffron Syrup Cake

Harakeke, the New Zealand Flax plant has a distinct red/orange flower/bloom That my wife thinks looks like Saffron – the stigma of the crocus plant’s flower.

Woven flax Kete are used as baskets and bags to carry things like food. This cake held a lot of Saffron syrup!

Four Huhu Grubs

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing

Huhu grubs are a creepy crawly larva-like delicacy usually served at most “Wild Food” festivals. They are renowned for their gooey-squishiness when you bite into them. Lots of people compare the Huhu grub’s taste and consistency to the equally gooey-squishiness of peanut butter.

The Chocolate cupcake represents the mud/dirt/ground cover or rotten tree trunks the grubs reside in.

Five Big Fat Pigs!

Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding

Pigs like to wallow in mud and this pudding – a Frame Family favorite, wallows in a rich, sweet, “muddy” chocolate sauce.

Six Pois a Twirling

Stuffed Onions

Poi are little bags on woven string used in Maori dance and cultural performances.

We think stuffed onions look like Poi, E(h)?

Seven Eels a-Swimming

Stuffed Sausages with Mushroom Gravy

The Longfin Eel are native to New Zealand. and can be found in lots of muddy waterways – even the creek that runs past our house. These eel-like stuffed sausages swim in a muddy mushroom sauce, with green baby spinach along its shoreline.

Eight Plants of Puha

Detox Green Juice

Puha is a leafy, green, wild vegetable that usually grows near water, so a verdant detox drink made of celery, cucumber, spinach and green Granny Smith apples seems appropriate on liquid and color categories.

Nine Sacks of Pipis

Seafood Pie

Pipi are a bivalve mollusc like cockles. We went a little more up-(fish)market with salmon and prawns in our pies!

The flaky pastry, when puffed up, looks like a sack, too!

Ten Juicy Fish Heads

Snapper Curry

The image painted by Dick Frizzell in the Pukeko in a Ponga Tree picture book is of Snapper heads. These can be a bit stinky (as well as reasonably visually horrifying) when left out, and we have more than enough flies in the house this time of year, so fresh Snapper fillets simmered in a curry sauce was a far better alternative.

Eleven Haka Lessons

BBQ Whole Beef (and Vegan Pulled BBQ Pork)

The Haka is, of course, synonymous with New Zealand’s national rugby team. 

Mrs. Frame thinks the All Blacks and others who perform haka have strong, meaty/beefy legs, which gives the quad-slapping motion lots of haka have that distinctive muscley sound.

Twelve Piupiu Swinging

Tamales

Piupiu are a Maori grass skirt, as can be seen in the iconic Poi e music video. When the dancer wearing it sways or spins the individual threads spread out and sway.

To make Tamales we had to strip down some corn husks into long strands, much like harakeke flax is stripped down to make piupiu, to tie the bigger corn husk Tamale casings together.

We hope you’ve been inspired to try some of these, or your own version next Christmas.

From the Napier in Frame family to yours, we wish you a Merry Kiwi 2022 Christmas and a safe and happy 2023 New Year!

Because I Was Inverted

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Do you feel the need?

The need for SPEED?!

Ever since the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun catapulted Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, Nick “Goose” Bradshaw and their Grumman F14 Tomcat off the deck of an aircraft carrier and into action film folklore with Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone blaring through the speakers I have loved the movie and, especially, the F-14 Tomcat.

With twin engines, twin seats, and variable-sweep wings (they move – “Swing” in and out: Out-stretched for slower and more stable take-offs and landings; Swept back, like an arrow for getting places faster than the speed of sound), in my opinion, the Tomcat remains one of the sexiest pieces of aeronautical jet engineering ever.

Undeniably the coolest scene in Top Gun is in the opening minutes when Tom Cruise’s Maverick flips his F14 Tomcat upside down and flies very close to scare off the newly discovered “MiG 28” enemy fighter jet that is locked onto, and has spooked, his wing-man Cougar.

Maverick says “Greetings!” and flips the bird (gives the finger) to the enemy pilot, while Goose takes a close-up polaroid photo of the enemy aircraft from his RIO’s back seat (for military intelligence purposes).

The plan works, and the MiG “bugs out”, leaving the American jets to return to their Aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise.

I have long dreamed of recreating that “inverted” scene as a model diorama, but there were several hurdles in the way.

I had made a number of model Tomcats over the years in different scales (1/72, 1/48 and 1/144), but had never been able to find one with Top Gun markings until I was on my way home from my last trip to Auckland and stopped for breakfast in Taupo.

With the sequel “Top Gun: Maverick” on the horizon Airfix had re-released their original 1/72 scale movie kits and I grabbed this kit the moment I saw it in Taupo Hobbies.

I took my time building it slowly and carefully, not wanting to make any errors. It came together really easily and well! There were no problems from construction to painting.

I even masked and painted canopy lines for the first time ever, with the results far better than I had expected!

The decals went on without issue and, again for the first time, I sprayed clear coat over the plane to seal them and stop the decal insignia from eventually flaking off like has happened on a few of my older kits.

I even painted the figures with colored helmets to resemble Mav’ and Goose, tilting their heads back with pliers to look like they are looking (up/) down on the MiG’s pilot.

Aircraft anoraks will readily tell you that the “MiG 28s” in the original Top Gun weren’t MiGs, or even Russian at all – They were American Northrop F-5E (single seat) and F-5F (twin seat) Tiger IIs.

The continuity in Top Gun’s opening dog fight scene flips and flops a bit – The plane that Maverick sneaks up on is rather clearly a single-seat E variant from the distant shots:

But then, seconds later, as the inverted Tomcat and the “MiG” are almost canopy-to-canopy, the MiG has miraculously morphed into a twin-seat F-5F!

(We’ll forgive them – It was the 80s and lots of movies that tried to replicate Top Gun’s aesthetic made far worse errors – At least Tony Scott had the same model of plane…)

Try as I might, I was unable to find an Italeri F-5F – the ideal twin-seat kit for what I wanted, but I was able to get a single-seat “MiG 28” from Twitter friend Justin Ryan who had ordered some kits from Japan and kindly added a Hobby Boss F-5E kit to his order for me.

Once again, an easy uncomplicated build, paint and marking job had two elements of my dream diorama all set.

Now for the diorama itself!

I had seen a couple model recreations of the “inverted” scene online that used clear plastic rods as the supports for the planes, with the rods drilled into a wooden base and heated and curved up and around before slotting into the planes’ jet exhausts to give them a near-horizontal (the rods inevitably drooped under the weight of the planes along the long length of the acrylic rods), mid-air appearance.

But these displays were all open and uncovered – A disaster waiting to happen when it came to dusting, which they would inevitably need in short order.

So I started thinking of covered alternatives.

Boxes were too cumbersome and framing could block some angles of view or wreck the illusion of flight that in was trying to replicate.

So I considered a clear plastic tube, or perhaps the whole thing in clear plastic!

In Napier we have a plastic fabricating company called Classique Plastics who I previously used for the clear sheet on the front of my recycled Rimu Pint Sized Hero display case.

When I went to scope my.plans out they happened to have a cut-off of the exact diameter and length of clear tube I was after already in their stocks!

I asked for them to make an all-acrylic display I had planned amd sketched out, but they ended up being very busy with commercial jobs and after a few weeks I decided I wanted to try something different, as i was uncertain the plastic rods would hold the weight of the planes as I had imagined.

So I designed something more multi-media.

I bought a slightly longer than originally planned length of clear plastic tube from Classique (this alone was over $100, so I dread to think how much the whole thing in clear acrylic would have cost!) and went in search of some round Rimu and stainless steel rods.

The rods I couldn’t source locally, but found and ordered from Bay Hobbies in Tauranga.

I got recycled Rimu floorboard “plug” ends made to fit on a CNC machine by local woodworkers Stim Craftmanship.

I had one edge of the round Rimu trimmed flat so the display could stand by itself without rolling everywhere.

Then I took one of the plug ends to my father-in-law’s workshop and very carefully measured and drilled holes for the stainless steel support rods to fit into, making sure they would be close enough together to replicate the inverted scene from the movie, but not so close that the planes touched.

The results were pretty neat perfect:

I’ve been fortunate this year to have a very successful streak of crafty creations.

Aside from a few speed bumps along the way with this project everything went exceptionally well and i am really happy with the result!

Radio (Controlled) Car-Car!

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When I was younger, I dreamed of owning a Tamiya radio-controlled car.

At the time they were far too expensive and technical for my pocket money, or engineering ability.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more confident in my creative capabilities.

I also earn slightly more pocket money now than I used to when I was ten…

So, when I was able to cash in on some of my favorite childhood toys I took the opportunity to fulfill my Tamiya target!

As usual, I went to my local hobby shop, Cool Toys, who have a fantastic range of radio-controlled kits and ready-to-run vehicles.

After watching far too many YouTube videos I decided to get a Tamiya TT-02 kit, as it is very adaptable to different forms of bodies and on-road and off-road formats.

I must say I was still quite intimidated when I opened the box and was confronted with numerous bags of screws, multiple sprues of parts and an instruction manual the size of a novella.

The first part of the kit I made were the shock absorbers.

I had been tempted to get oil-filled performance shocks but decided to start off easily (and cheaply – Oil-filled shocks are over $100 for a set of four). They were also an easy part of the kit to build and give a sense of the kit’s construction being well under way.

(This wouldn’t ACTUALLY be the case until I started on the drivetrain.)

Gears, grease, screws and repeat, gears, grease, screws and repeat!

This is one of the parts of the build I feared stuffing up the most, as it appeared so fiddly.

As we know, however, appearances can be deceiving, and everything seemed to fit together without too much hassle, stress, blood or hair loss.

Next the motor went in (and out a couple times later on testing out the wheels), and the gear housings covered up all the greased-up bits.

The shocks I made up first off were no longer held in suspension (see what I did there?) as they were finally attached to the wheel assemblies on either end.

Universal joints and drive shafts will also provide power to all four corners of my RC beastie!

Giving the car some direction was next.

Steering set up was another rather intimidatingly technical bit, not least because I had heard and read several times about over-tightening screws de-threading softer plastic parts, so there was some added caution in this part of construction.

I think I got it all Goldilocks – I.e. not too loose, not too tight, JUST RIGHT!

On went the wheels (the smell of Tamiya rubber tyres has always been intoxicating!) and we were pretty much done! (after disassembling and reassembling half the bloody drive assembly because I unknowingly had the driveshaft and wheel bearings around the wrong way until trying, unsuccessfully, to fit the rims on..)

With the steering servo connected up It was time to give the chassis some cover and curves.

The kit I chose came with a 1998 Ford Escort shell.

The early 90s WRC Escort Cosworth was one of my favorite rally cars of all time. I made the scale model of the 1994 Cosworth RS many years ago, so this was an easy choice.

After buying the special curved polycarbonate scissors from Cool Toys I carefully cut around the exterior of the body shell to get it the right shape.

This body came with the wheel arches pre-cut, which made life easier, and the kit look smoother than my later work on the other body I bought.

After masking up the windows (also one of the more stressful parts of the build – you don’t want to get this far then ruin its appearance!) I sprayed the body (you spray the INSIDE of these models – the plastic body helps shield the finished paintwork) in four coats of Tamiya PS16 Metallic Blue giving it a similar color to the Subaru Impreza WRC rally car of the same era.

I managed to avoid any paint bleed under the masking and once that and the outer coating were peeled off and decals were added to the outside of the body the results were STUNNING!

I sprayed the windows in Tamiya PS31 Smoke to help hide the electronics inside the car.

One of the underlying reasons I chose the Escort and painted it in metallic blue is that my first long-term car (my very first car was a Ford Anglia that Dad and I partially restored in my last year of high school until it died of rear crossmember rust about a year later) was a metallic blue 1983 Ford Laser – kind of the Escort’s Mum/Dad.

It was an awesome, incredibly reliable car that served me really well, so I built this kit as a homage to that Laser.

I even used a label maker to recreate its number plate!

Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? Not it’s V8 Supercar!

While scoping out my RC car purchase, I noted that Glen at Cool Toys had a Tamiya TT-02 Ford Mustang body shell and an after-market sticker sheet with the livery for Dick Johnson Racing modern Kiwi legend Scott McLaughlin‘s Australian V8 Supercar:

Despite being a fan of DJR arch-rivals Holden Racing Team from back in the Peter Brock and Mark Skaife days I couldn’t resist – I had to have a go at replicating the awesome looking DJR Mustang!

So, once I had completed the Escort, I moved onto the more complex task of cutting out, masking and painting (, and masking and painting, and masking and painting) Tamiya PS1 White, PS2 Red, PS6 Yellow and PS31 Smoke onto the Mustang to give it DJR’s iconic three-tone paint scheme.

With several coats, different colors, respraying, decalling and a few whoopsies I was finally able to make a realistic recreation that looked pretty bloody awesome if I do say so myself (just don’t look at the back of it..)!

Final Thoughts

Over-all this was a really easy, enjoyable experience with almost everything going right!

If anything the one big downside of the build is that I’m really annoyed at and disappointed in myself that my fear of inability kept me from building one of these kits a lot earlier in life!

(This is probably moot, though, as it wasn’t until recently that I had anywhere near the disposable income to afford making one.)

My Twitter friend Justin Ryan very kindly donated a hand controller and receiver he had spare to help get me going, so now I just have to get a nickel metal hydride battery, and I can start burning RC rubber!

Old Pain, Financial Gain!

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MASK produced a series of children’s books which I collected. These were bought by a guy from Philidelphia, USA last year!

Nostalgia has been getting the better of me of late.

Whether it’s appearing on radio as a child, or dreams of building radio-controlled cars I could never afford, the past has been a bit of a focus for me recently

I had a bit of a clean out a few months ago.

I’ve slowly been whittling down the stockpile of 80s toys I grew up with and the most recent collection I divested myself of was my MASK toys.

MASK, or “Mobile Armored Strike Kommand” (sic) was an American toy line and kids’ cartoon series that began in 1985 and featured regular-looking vehicles that transformed into fighter planes, helicopters, boats, submarines and other types of offensive and defensive mobile weapon platforms.

It was very cool and very popular!

I was fortunate enough to collect several of them over the years, mainly on birthdays and Christmases (I got Rhino for Christmas in 1985 or 86), eventually holding onto four that I liked the most:

Condor – The smallest, cheapest and first MASK toy I got turns from a cool green motorcycle into an even cooler mini helicopter!

Thunderhawk – Quite possibly the coolest, Thunderhawk was the “hero vehicle” of the series and the prime vehicle of MASK leader Matt Trakker

Jackhammer – The only VENOM (Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem), “baddie” vehicle I got, but also one of the coolest looking, being a black Ford Bronco 4X4. I got this for my 8th birthday.

And finally, the biggest and best:

Rhino – MASK’s big-rig mobile command vehicle. Huge, with lots of chrome, buttons and spring-loaded features!

While they were very cool and I loved them, they had also spent the better part of 30 years in boxes in various wardrobes, seldom seeing the light of day, which was a shame because they should be out being appreciated and enjoyed.

YouTube is full of videos of toy collectors’ hordes in brightly lit glass display cases.

I decided my MASK toys deserved that and, maybe, the money I made from selling them could help finance my new radio-controlled car goal, so I shared some pictures of them on an 80s Toys Facebook group I belong to and, from the reactions listed all four of them on Trademe.

With starting prices amounting to around $250 (not unreasonable given their age, rarity and great condition – I loved and looked after my toys) I was stunned to earn over double that when the auctions ended!

All the toys were ultimately bought by the same bidder, so it was good to be able to keep them all together in their new home.

With the money raised I had enough to buy the Tamiya RC car I desired!

But that is a tale for another post...

A Blast From the Radio Past!

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Napier’s “Broadcasting House”, now renamed for current tenants NZME. Bay City Radio occupied the top floor. The studio I did the kids’ show in was the windows directly above the main ground floor door.

Years and years and years ago I was on the radio.

This is before appearing on RNZ’s The Panel a mere six times in 2018-19.

Or doing midnight-till-dawns for six months on Hot 93 in Hastings in the dying days of local radio in the mid 90s.

Or even volunteering at Radio Kidnappers Access Radio while in high school.

In August 1984 I got to be the “Co-Pilot” on Bay City Radio’s Sunday morning kids’ show.

Bay City Radio 1278AM was THE local radio station for Hawke’s Bay for years and years. This is back when radio was broadcast locally, the announcers were locals (and some became minor local celebrities) and its constant focus was the local community.

There was a weekday breakfast show, talkback radio from about 9am until midday, with music in the afternoon and evenings.

On Saturday mornings all the upcoming local sporting fixtures for the weekend were promoted or dissected and commentary of big games, like the HB Magpies playing at McLean Park were often broadcast live in the afternoons.

On Sunday mornings there was a kids’ show, which had a local kid as co-host, or “Co-Pilot” (I don’t remember pressing any buttons, or taking charge of any controls, though.)

The Tamatea Hawks! I’m middle, back row (as always) Robert Stewart is to the left of me with the rounded collar. That’s his Dad, the radio announcer who coached us that year.

My friend Robert Stewart’s dad worked at Bay City Radio for a bit (they moved away not long after) and I though radio was pretty cool – I listened to the kids’ show every week, so must have written in, like so many others, asking to be part of it and I got selected.

I remember excitedly reading the letter we received confirming my selection in the driveway of our home one Saturday morning.

There was a few weeks’ notice of my appearance on the show, but I don’t remember much more than that, or the events of the big day itself.

Dad took me to the station early on Sunday morning (it was after dawn, but not by much), while Mum stayed at home and recorded the event on a cassette tape (kids, if you don’t know what one of these is, ask your parents…. Actually, you might be best asking your grandparents.)

I had found the tape when I was clearing out things at Mum and Dad’s place years ago but more recently looking through the mementos in my shed, I couldn’t find it and thought the tape was lost to the ages.

A couple weeks ago we gave away a large pinboard we had been given by a friend, but never got around to using. It had been leaning up against some garage cupboards that I had limited access to.

In one of these cupboards I found the metal cash box I wrote about originally finding amongst my folks’ possessions.

I looked inside the cash box AND FOUND THE CASSETTE TAPE!

However, I didn’t know if it would even still work – We no longer had any cassette players in the house, the tape itself was close to 40 years old, and I remember it got tangled up at least once or twice during replays years ago, so I wasn’t certain if any audio was recoverable.

I took the tape into Dean Mardon at Electric City Music in Napier, just down Dalton Street from Bay City Radio’s old studio, now “NZME House” (see top picture, ECM is down the road to the left in the picture) to see if he could digitize whatever was on there for me.

The condition of the tape wasn’t nearly as bad as I had feared and there was almost a full hour of recording!

I gave the file to a work colleague, who happens to be a former TVNZ audio man to clean up and, to avoid copyright infringements, remove any songs so I could upload it to YouTube.

For those playing at home the songs removed are: The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, “Flick the Little Fire Engine”, “You’re a Pink Toothbrush “, Rolf Harris’ “Two Little Boys” (hindsight is 20/20 etc…), “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from Mary Poppins and the show closes out with, quite prophetically, Kermit the Frog singing “Rainbow Connection”.

You can listen to the edited version of it here:

I cried listening to it for the first time in over 35 years.

It’s a bit funny, a bit cringey, certainly nostalgic and, today, a bit sad, because I can hear my Mum’s voice, or rather her speech patterns in how I talked back then, and I can remember Dad sitting quietly in the corner of the studio, over my right shoulder, pleased as Punch.

For years I remembered it as my friend Robert’s dad as the host of the show, but it was a man named Colin Harris.

We talk about my school, Tamatea Primary, my apparent bus driving career aspirations (??), what I was doing in the school holidays (my studio stint was in the middle of the second and third term of the year – there were only three school terms back then), I say “Hi!” to my friends and <Gasp!> girlfriends (I was only six, OK?!)

I even got to do the weather!

Time has sadly robbed my memory of some of the finer details – I have no recollection whatsoever of a couple of my friends and one apparent “love interest” mentioned, and the fact I had to Google the movie “Sword of the Valiant“, which I say I wanted to see (most likely at the State Cinema diagonally across the Dickens / Dalton Streets intersection from the station) probably indicates I never got to see it.

Mrs Unwin’s class, 1984. I, back row, middle, look like a serial killer in waiting because the photographer kept telling me to “look down” so I would fit in the picture. I took stage instruction seriously.

My first foray in front of a microphone probably wouldn’t win many awards with several long, thought-filled pauses (dreaded “dead air” as it’s called in the industry), but there are still some moments of brilliance for an almost seven-year-old that make the likes of today’s simulcast announcers sound like a pack of un-funny men-children (#SpoilerAlert: That’s not hard to do, but sadly no one better is given the chance to!)

It was, however, the start of a lifelong dream for me to be on radio. A dream that has mostly only seen failure over the last three decades, as local radio in Hawke’s Bay has been cut back and cut back, undermined and undermined.

I have said that I don’t suffer from the “old pain” of nostalgia, but some recent events do poke at old wounds, gnawing “what-ifs” irritate and sometimes you just miss your Mum and Dad who did lots of little things like taking you to a radio station, and recording you on a cassette tape years ago.

I would be “almost seven, still a bit six” in this photo

Spit in the Sea

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I love making models.

It reminds me of fun times with my Dad, and is one creative pursuit I’m not rubbish at!

I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, but more seriously in the last 15 or so years, getting more detailed and technical, but still never to the level of a “rivet-counter“, or “anorak“.

I thought it was making a post out of this build, though, because it’s one of the most technical builds I’ve ever done.

Picture and excerpts from the book “A History of the Mediterranean Air War, 1940–1945: Sicily and Italy to the Fall of Rome 14 May, 1943–5 June” by Christopher Shores et al

Background

The picture above is of a Mk.Vc Supermarine Spitfire that had been forced to crash-land / “ditch” on the beach of Salerno, southern Italy in 1943 after being hit in the engine during the allied landings as part of their invasion of the country in World War 2.

I’d been wanting to built an American Spitfire for some time and this picture caught my eye.

It was an American squadron – The big white star surrounded by a blue circle was one of the US Air Force’s insignia during WWII – and the subject matter looked cool: it was partly submerged / beached.

Being beached I could do something new I had never done before – use clear resin to cast water as a base!

Get Your Kit On

I found the ideal kit – An Airfix 1/72 Mk.Vc Spitfire which happened to have the exact “MX P” markings at my local model shop, Cool Toys, in Napier and got it on sale with another Airfix kit of a German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 over the Christmas / New Year holiday last year.

During my summer break I built them with another model I had in my stash – an American P-51D Mustang.

I tend to make models in batches of two or three, so you can do parts of one while waiting for glue or paint to dry on the others.

I also have a thing where for every Spitfire I build, I have to do a Mustang, too – I currently have eight of each in 1/72 scale. I have to keep my display balanced!

It helps that these two planes are some of the most prevralent model subjects out there and, particularly the Mustang, are a fantastic chrome canvas for so many different squadron paint schemes and types of nose art.

I did a bit of “kit-bashing” by cutting out the drop-down pilot’s door, which was just cast as part of the fuselage.

The kit came together really easily and was a pleasure to build.

It looked pretty cool once painted and decaled, too!

(Don’t) Drop the Base.

By father-in-law had some scrap 10mm plywood lying around his workshop that happened to be just the right dimensions for the diorama’s base.

I squared it up, then used his bench saw to rout out 3/4 of the ply to form the part where the sea would be, with the higher section being the beach.

I knew I wanted to use clear epoxy resin for the sea, but wasn’t sure if I wanted it all to be a freestanding block, or contained somehow.

As this was my first attempt at casting resin I decided that using a base with a frame would be easier, so I cut four additional 1cm thick strips to surround the base, nailed and glued them in place and gave it a quick squirt of varnish.

Next, for the beach I used model railway ballast – a course sand that is spread over model train tracks and scenery to simulate gravel.

The two 1/72 figures were given to me by my Twitter friend and fellow modeler, Phil Tanner.

Unlike the original scene where it appears the men are a soldier and a Military Policeman (hence the arm band), I used a pilot figure and another airman. It gave more of a “Well, you stuffed that up!” vibe.

I slathered the base in PVA glue, before liberally shaking a capful of the ballast over top and shaking off the excess sand.

Voila! A beach worthy of Napier’s Marine Parade!

Resin to the Challenge

Time to make the sea!

After some online research and emailing the retailer with some questions I ordered Easy Cast clear casting epoxy from Resincraft in Auckland. I also got some blue dye to give the resin a more aquatic tinge, but when finished I don’t think I put enough in, as it still looks pretty clear.

The mixing and pouring only takes a few minutes, but I took my time getting the measurements right so I didn’t have too little, and the plane would look like it was sitting in a mere puddle, or too much and I waste resin, or it overflowed everywhere.

Once mixed and poured I spent some time getting rid of the tiny bubbles that float to the surface through the mixing process, but they dissipated quickly and 24 hours later “the sea” looked glossy, clear and solid!

The resin set perfectly, but very smoothly. Some ocean motion was required.

Final Flourish

Lastly I got gel medium to make some waves.

While the resin looks fantastic, it also looks like flat glass, not the ideal facsimile of an Italian seaside).

There are a bunch of YouTube videos on how to make waves with gel medium, though they’re normally part of bigger videos of casting resin as water / sea. They give good demonstrations of the best application techniques for getting general oceanic surface disturbance.

Even with the gel medium still wet (it dries clear) it looks.like a blustery day on Hawke Bay!

I got another Twitter friend, Steve Blade of Davy Engravers Hamilton, to make a little name plate for the scene.

As the soldiers in the original photo were looking quite bemusedly at the beached plane, and I had heard the term several times in jest recently I thought what better title than “You Can’t Park There, Mate!”.

I’m super happy with the finished product!

Some builds fight you every step of the way – this was not one of them.

Everything just went right, making this a really fun, enjoyable build and an educational extension of my modeling skills.

I think Dad would be pretty proud!

Troubled Bridge Over Waters

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Waka Kotahi, New Zealand Transport Agency, is becoming a bit of a dirty phrase around Hawke’s Bay of late.

When it looks like the region is slowly being cut off by road from the rest of New Zealand it’s no wonder.

In recent months we have seen:

Slowing access to our region from the south, north and west (approaching from the east you would likely flood the carburetor.. and the rest of the car.. in the Pacific Ocean.)

Then on the afternoon of Wednesday 24 August it was suddenly announced that travel across the 81 year old Esk River bridge, part of State Highway 2, just north of Bay View, Napier would be reduced to 30km/h from the following Monday (Aug 29) stating the bridge:

“Wasn’t designed to carry the frequency and weights of modern-day trucks and other heavy transport”

Well, naturally!

81 years ago (1941, for those playing at home) we didn’t have multi-wheeled, thousand-horsepower, 60-tonne trucks hauling cargo across the country.

But in more recent decades we DID have a New Zealand Transport Agency whose job it was to monitor issues like the integrity of state highway bridges and fix them before they became an issue.

From Transmission Gully, to the Waikato Expressway and rebuilding the highway along the Kaikōura coast after the 2016 earthquake there have been lots of roading improvements and developments all around New Zealand.

All except Hawke’s Bay it seems.

“The “temporary” limit will be put in place on Monday and apply until further notice”.” the release said.

Quotation marks around “temporary” give a sense of insincerity, and the fact it’s “until further notice”, with no indication of how long that could actually be don’t fill you with confidence for a quick resolution, or one at all.

Because other wording in the release was quite concerning:

“”While we understand this will be an inconvenience for road users, it is critical everyone complies with the temporary 30km/h speed limit to keep vibrations to a minimum to reduce the impact on the bridge structure and prevent further deterioration.””

30km/h is very slow, considering this is a 100km/hr zone, but it is standard practice and a safer speed for vehicles passing sites where road workers are active.

But saying it’s critical for the hundreds of light and heavy vehicles that travel across the Esk River bridge every day to slow down by over half the regular speed limit there to “reduce the impact on the bridge structure and prevent further deterioration“?

This makes it sound like this bridge, which has done a great, solid, bridgey job over the last 81 years, could now suddenly give way at any minute – Which is extremely concerning!

A Vital Link

It’s concerning because a kilometer or so up the road is one of Hawke’s Bay’s biggest industries, Pan Pac Forest Products, also one of the region’s largest employers, which relies on a fleet of around 100 trucks of different configurations (mainly logging trucks) each crossing the Esk River bridge several times a day carrying thousands of tonnes of products vital for the mill’s operations, as well as the mill site’s staff, who number in the hundreds, commuting to work each day.

But more importantly the bridge is the only sealed route north of Napier towards Wairoa, popular holiday spot Māhia (home of Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1) and Gisborne with a combined population in excess of 60,000.

For the most part if you want to get to Wairoa and Gisborne you have to get there via Napier, SH2 and this bridge.

The North Island’s East Coast region, north of Gisborne is accessible by road from south eastern Bay of Plenty, but it would be a hell of a detour to get to Wairoa that way.

A Long-Standing Problem

Issues with his section of road aren’t new.

For decades the intersection of State Highways 2 and 5 just south of the Esk River has been considered a dangerous spot.

An angled approach for those coming from Taupò limits clear visibility for crossing onto SH2 continuing south towards Napier.

A sandstone hill on the right limits views of north-bound traffic, while the heightened, curved Esk Railway Bridge, which leads onto the troubled river bridge cuts visibility to the northeast to less than 50 meters. Far from ideal when 50 tonne logging trucks stream over it towards the intersection.

There have been numerous crashes at the intersection but, apparently, not enough serious crashes to warrant drastic remediation by Waka Kotahi.

The rail bridge climbs quickly to get over the East Coast railway line and Esk River stopbanks and it is curved – nerve-wracking at the best of times, let alone when you are trying to share the narrow curved bridge with fully loaded 18 wheelers coming the other way.

The bridges are even less than ideal when you are not driving over them.

Cycling over these bridges is dangerous enough sharing the narrow concrete walled spaces with cars and trucks, but especially so just after dawn when crossing the river bridge north-bound faces drivers straight into the rising sun all but cutting off visibility at times.

Walking over the bridges doesn’t even bear thinking about.

This section of road has been like this for decades and successive transport agencies have known about it for decades, but chosen not to fix it.

Now it may be too late.

A Civil Engineering Emergency

Mid-morning on March 8 2018 all non-operstional staff at Pan Pac Forest Products’ Whirinaki site were told to leave as a storm had flooded the neighboring Esk River valley and the water level was getting dangerously high. It was decided that staff should leave before high tide, as the river getting any higher could threaten travel across the Esk River bridge.

Flash forward four years and who will now feel safe or secure crossing this potentially structurally compromised bridge the next time there is significant rainfall in the nearby hills?

Recent severe weather events have proven that Napier’s infrastructure is not up to handling even current standards. It’s not too surprising sadly though, given years of successive council administrations being hell-bent on keeping rates down at the expense of repairing and replacing their beloved city “assets”, turned major liabilities.

But when it comes to roads Hawke’s Bay pays its’ share.

Fuel tax, income tax, Goods and Services Tax.

Hawke’s Bay truck owners pay Road User Charges.

So why doesn’t Hawke’s Bay get a fair return on our regional roading infrastructure for the taxes and charges we pay for using it?

The numerous drop-outs on our under-invested high country regional highways is bad enough. Losing such a crucial bridge will literally be the straw that breaks State Highway 2.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

A few years ago there was word that the SH5/2 intersection was going to get a massive upgrade and redevelopment.

It never occurred.

With such a dire situation now upon this section of road why not revisit those plans and make then a reality now?

“Roads of National Significance” were a big deal under the last National government when the Waikato Expressway section of State Highway 1 was redeveloped.

Surely State Highway 2 must be the nation’s second most significant road by numerical order at the very least.

I believe the canceled concept involved an over/under pass for access to / from SH 5 and one big bridge spanning both the rail line and Esk River, rather than the current two inferior smaller bridges.

Lining this new, longer bridge up with matching bends that already exist north and south of the river would make the section of road straighter and give motorists better, safer vision along this area.

The slight change of angle would also lessen the chance of sunstrike for those traveling north across the bridge as the sun rises.

This realignment could be well timed, as a section of land on the seaward side of the current bridge, where this new bigger bridge would ideally go happens to currently be for sale!

Pedestrian / cycling lanes on this new bridge would also be extremely advantageous.

Having a bigger, better, newer bridge will also go some way to future proofing this section of road to imminent climate change, sea level rise (Hawke Bay is only few hundred meters downstream of the current bridge) and the ever-present threat of flooding from upstream and the Hikurangi Subduction Zone off the east coast of the North Island

As it currently (barely, according to Waka Kotahi) stands the Esk River bridge won’t withstand too many more trucks going faster than the suburban speed limit over it.

That is simply not good enough.

Rebuild the Bridge and Get Over It

I am a passionate advocate for all things Hawke’s Bay.

I’ve seen my region ignored and undermined for years and I’ve been writing about it, trying to get these inequalities fixed for almost ten years now.

This is no different.

Despite forecasts of doom, gloom and constant belittling Hawke’s Bay has surged ahead, launched itself into space and prospered in recent years to become the fastest growing and happiest region in New Zealand.

It’s just so sad that a government agency like Waka Kotahi lags so far behind in recognizing regions like Hawke’s Bay need far better roads and transport infrastructure than what they have.

If it really is critical that traffic traversing the Esk River bridge must now travel over it at 30km per hour to prevent further deterioration of the structure as Waka Kotahi said in their statement, then we can assume it’s too late and the bridge is doomed.

State Highway 2 is a nationally significant road.

To allow such a major, important structural part of it to degrade to this level is inexcusable.

This is a Civil Engineering Emergency.

Hawke’s Bay deserves better!

Footnote (Nov 2022):

Since writing this piece Waka Kotahi has limited the speed and weight limits on YET ANOTHER Hawke’s Bay State Highway bridge!

The 70-year-old State Highway 50 bridge that crosses the Ngaruroro River at Fernhill, Hastings, like the Esk River bridge, suddenly now no longer has the capacity to maintain current heavy traffic demands.

This really is ludicrous!

Burying the Lede-r,

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I’m a bit disappointed that Hawke’s Bay Today appeared to try and bury the lede in their attention-grabbing story of a “serious culture issue” at Napier City Council recently.

It took six paragraphs for the article to reveal the person making the allegations is running for mayor, so one would expect the public to be alerted to the fact these claims are being made by someone with such skin in the game in the article’s headline or introduction.

Comparatively, Gianina Schwanecke over at Stuff shows how it’s done, revealing the claims’ source in only the second paragraph in her coverage of the allegations.

Cultural Challenger

Mayoral aspirant Nigel Simpson a first term, Taradale ward councilor declared in his running for the mayoralty ‘I entered local politics last election because I couldn’t figure out what was wrong in Napier City Council, after a short period inside I figured it out alright, that’s why I’m running for Mayor.”

“Taking major items in and out of the long-term plan and having a considerable number of unbudgeted items is simply poor leadership and inappropriate governance of Napier, it’s time for change.” he said.

“A significant number of opportunities have been missed by the current Council, it’s time to get Napier back on track.”

If that’s the “Mayor Dalton and CEO Jack Track” he’s referring to getting back on then I think his train is going in the wrong direction, and voters with a memory longer than three years will likely leave him at the station.

What missed opportunities he is referring to are unknown too, unless he means supporting Three Waters Reform, but Simpson, along with all bar one Napier councilor voted to support NCC’s opposition to that.

Other than obviously not being a fan of the current mayor it’s hard to know what he’s getting at.

Because there is quite a list of options:

This term’s council has failed rather spectacularly to fix many or any of the issues that were the major points of contention last local body election: Napier’s War Memorial still hasn’t been reinstated, debate continues on where Napier’s Aquatic Centre should be (at least the council appear dedicated to listening to locals this time, rather than a single casting vote deciding its fate) and whenever it rains for more than a few hours across the city wastewater is still making its way into Ahuriri Estuary, despite NCC partnering with HBRC and local Iwi to mitigate and fix the issue.

Speaking of water, as I said before NCC has inexplicably joined with other Hawke’s Bay councils in opposing the government’s Three Waters Reform.

I don’t know what they think they are doing there, as years of council underinvestment have turned their treasured infrastructure “assets” into huge, incredibly expensive liabilities that they expect ratepayers to foot the massive bill for while not receiving acceptable service from.

And thoughout all those issues this council term you may have forgotten about the global pandemic that closed borders and workplaces, disrupted workflow and supply chains and killed and incapacitated millions.

It’s remarkable any culture above fungi survived!

Change of Culture

There has certainly been a change of culture at Napier City Council, with a new mayor, controversial former CEO departing with a hefty golden handshake and now several of his lieutenants following suit, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Just ask anyone who found the previous council’s stances and actions on water infrastructure, velodrome obsession, Skating Club demolition, Aquatic Centre development, or War Memorial desecration hard to fathom or utterly repugnant and I doubt they will show much sympathy to the departure of those who led or contributed to such debacles.

The Jack / Dalton administration also saw a number of high-level managers and experts leave, or be made redundant, but Councilor Simpson chooses to ignore this in his “serious culture issue” claim.

His urging the council to leave selecting a new CEO until after the local body elections is also disingenuous, as he, the council and even the Hawke’s Bay Today know “July is the start of a three-month hiatus in which councils cannot make major decisions in the three months leading up to the local elections” as reported in another council article in HBT barely a month earlier at the end of June.

Sometimes it takes a shot of penicillin to cure a bad culture, other times a new broom to sweep out all the dead wood, or clear a new path.

Turning Over a New Page

Napier City Council may not be the only place undergoing a change of culture, as Hawke’s Bay Today has a new editor starting this month.

Chris Hyde, who had formerly been Hawke’s Bay Today news director before moving over to Stuff in Hawke’s Bay for a few months will return to take over the local newspaper’s reigns.

Recently the paper has not only been “burying the lede”, but burying local opinions under not necessarily as relevant reckons from outside the region.

And, while not new or uncommon, advertising dressed up as news is still always disappointing.

In his first Facebook post as editor Chris asked what readers wanted. The responses were resoundingly “The truth” and far more relevant local content.

Good luck, Chris – I hope you can clear a new local paper path without too much interference from out-of-touch out-of-towners and management!

Ra Whanau Ki a Koe, Breakfast!

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Next week on August 11 TVNZ’s Breakfast show turns 25 – a quarter of a century on air!

Prior to 1997 live weekday morning news television in New Zealand was pretty much non-existent. We were aware places like America and Australia had it, but it wasn’t on the NZ public, or media radar.

The only similar programme I can think of in terms of live production in the mornings with such a long legacy is What Now! which has been going on Sunday mornings (originally on Saturdays) for almost 40 years.

1997 was long before the 24 hour news cycle, the spread of the internet (we still had dial-up at our house until the late 2000s) and social media, so if there was live television on New Zealand televisions in the morning it was either an All Blacks game / the Olympics on the other side of the world, or something very bad had happened locally.

Today breakfast news often sets the televisual tone and topic for the day – Covering what has happened at home and overseas during the night, outlining important events that are expected to occur locally that day and interviewing those involved. The lunchtime bulletin at midday acts as a progress report and the traditional 6pm news – the pinnacle of New Zealand’s news landscape for generations almost acting more as a roundup and post-mortem of the day’s events.

Breakfast’s first of many hosts in 1997 were Mike Hosking and Susan Wood.

Breakfast felt cool and new. It was off the cuff, like local breakfast radio, but larger, more dynamic and on screen. Live filming made it feel more genuine, original and informal than the polished, rehearsed news bulletins.

This was also before Hosking’s career and ego made the Fourth Circle of Dante’s Inferno look like broad daylight. He was more down to earth and even, dare I say it, “cool”(?) then, to the point where he was (good naturedly) parodied on What Now and the local comedy skit shows of the time.

I had dreamed of being part of TVNZ, or just TV IN NZ, ever since I was a kid growing up watching What Now, After School, Telethon, Town & Around, Children of the Dog Star and the plethora of fantastic, locally produced shows that were created in that golden era of NZ television production – the 1980s.

Watching Breakfast brought this dream into adulthood. I remember seeing a Christmas “Behind the scenes” segment at the end of the first or second season that made me want to get into television again (and develop a brief televisual crush on a bespeckled reporter named Pippa).

I’d been working in radio only a year or two before and this looked like the next logical, aspirational goal.

I never got near that goal.

I did, however, soon get a job that would see me doing breakfast television hours, just without the cameras, fame, or fortune for the next 18 years.

And now as a parent the chances of watching Breakfast much on my mornings off are few and far between, as my daughter usually wields the remote and The Moe Show, Bluey, or more recently YouTube and Disney+ rule our sole television screen, so I seldom get to see much of the show past 7am.

Missing out on a large chunk of Breakfast’s mid to late 2000s and 2010s wasn’t all bad – I did miss out the majority of the supernovaing of Hosking and Henry as hosts and their cults of “(TV) personality”.

But Breakfast did at least go where many other TV shows had never gone before – Regional New Zealand!

On the Road

With it’s early morning hours Breakfast is unlike many NZ television shows, and unlike most New Zealand media networks simulcasting across New Zealand, it actually gets out there amongst the locals and different locations across the country on a regular basis.

Breakfast has made it to Napier on a couple of occasions, broadcasting live from the Soundshell on Marine Parade, showing off our region and stunning live sunrises over Hawke Bay.

TVNZ Breakfast broadcasting live from Napier’s Sound Shell February 2020

These shows usually had one of their cast inevitably be dressed up in Art Deco attire, or some similar interactive performative element. It’s certainly something associated with the city due to the architectural style at the time of rebuilding after the 1931 earthquake, but for us locals it began to feel a bit forced, twee and repetitive, after a couple decades of being ever-present and ever-pushed by the city council’s promoters, Art Deco devotees and local tourism organizations.

Their roving reporters and weather people often get out and about, too.

The morning after the deluge of Napier’s November 2020 floods Breakfast’s Matty McLean was reporting live from a semi-submerged Whitmore Park in Marewa – the suburb hardest hit by the flooding as well as visiting and interviewing those whose homes were effected or damaged by the flooding.

This provides an important, tangible connection with viewers as it proves (at least some of) “these Auckland media people” are actually real, and not just some disembodied and disenfranchised voice or face that only exist in the form of broadcast media.

During the nation-wide Covid 19 lockdown of 2020 the show helped provide a steady stream of news, information and, most importantly, personal connection at a time when we were all quarantined at home.

During that period Breakfast even had viewers Zoom, or Skype in to be “guest weather presenters” and do the forecasts for the show.

My Twitter friend, and fellow tall, hairy Andrew F, Andrew Feldon, who runs Mouthwater Coffee in Palmerston North was one of these Sky Soothsaying Skypers. It was like l’d almost fulfilled my dream vicariously!

The Dream Team

I had a recurring dream last year in which I got to meet John Campbell in person. I’ve interacted with him on social media several times, but never “IRL” (“In Real Life”, #Hashtag, YOLO GST, PhD etc…)

In the dream I meet John on set or behind the scenes at Breakfast and he promises to get me on television, either Breakfast, or my own show. It’s unclear how, or why as the dream ends about this point and the details disappear with conciousness.

Many in TVNZ’s news and current affairs talent pool have gotten their big television break, or at least worked on Breakfast at some stage in the past quarter century.

From fame to infamy and, in some cases later on in their lives or careers, being enabled to be purposefully inflammatory and even outright conspiracy misinformationy a number of people have presented and been involved in the show, but my favorite core presenters over the last 25 years has been the most recent lineup of Indira Stewart, Jenny-May Clarkson, Matty McLean, Melissa Stokes and John Campbell.

They were almost certainly the most diverse group to host the show and together represented a wider cross-section of New Zealand than ever before.

When he left the show to pursue more in-depth journalism with TVNZ, John gave a marvelous parting monologue pointing out the diversity of the show and his fellow presenters – Te Reo now being an integral part of the show’s vocabulary, the advancement of LGBTQI+ rights, recognizing the wrongs of racial discrimination and actions like the dawn raids of the 70s, and the importance of inclusiveness and multiculturalism to modern New Zealand society and media.

The more readily outraged out there would call this “woke”, or “PC gone mad!”.

It’s not.

It’s recognizing injustice. It’s being sympathetic, empathetic and supportive. It’s shining a light into dark places that need illumination for the wrongs there to be exposed and righted.

It’s human, it’s New Zealand, and it’s beautiful.

Not a dry eye in the house.

Love your work, team!

NZ’s Next Top Breakfast Presenter

The presenter they brought in to fill John Campbell’s immense shoes (and incredibly stylie socks) didn’t last long and the fallout of that is still ongoing.

Other media networks gleefully trumpeted imminent doom for Breakfast on the eve of it’s anniversary, but that was simply never going to happen.

One fewer host does not a Breakfast show un-make.

It may be worth remembering that the stars of some of these networks had significant roles on Breakfast or with TVNZ in the past, which aided them getting where they are today. Crying “nepotism!” now may not be the stable moral high ground they think they are on.

But it did expose something that had been quite obvious to outsiders for a while now: That, like other NZ media networks, TVNZ’s talent selection processes, in this case at least, had been less than open or diverse.

The chances of Andrew from Palmy and/or Andrew from Napier getting any full-time job in television despite their best weather presenting, writing, or Tweeting efforts are microscopic compared to a favored few who somehow seem to get multiple hosting rolls across multiple networks and multiple media formats without the amateur meteorological, journalistic and social media skills, or talent.

Here’s to Another 25 Years!

Here are my suggestions for how Breakfast can keep going for another 25 years:

1/ Keep Broadening the Talent Pool:

The show has proven how reflecting a wide cross-section of New Zealand society and cultures is an important part of a truly representative media.

We constantly hear the term “a plurality of voice” bandied about in terms of goals for New Zealand media.

To me that means voices (plural) from all walks of life, from all across New Zealand on the airwaves.

To media executives in recent decades it means the same few voices simulcast across the country on a plurality of stations and frequencies who used to have their own individual voices, or the same people who host a nationally broadcast radio show in the morning being given another platform on national television in the evening, or vice versa.

This isn’t a true “plurality of voice”, and it certainly isn’t fair on all the voices we don’t get to hear.

2/ Keep Getting Out There!

The world is a much smaller place than it used to be.

Television shows that “had” to be produced in Auckland no longer do. Providing you have a good internet or satellite connection you can record and broadcast from anywhere – Even Hawke’s Bay!

Imagine getting your morning news fix with this as the live background!

Spreading assets across the country also means less chance of disruption if unforeseen circumstances cause one centralized studio to be out of action.

Despite their slogan in a recent ad campaign this is one assumption TVNZ got badly wrong.

The rapid advancement of technology also means it is far cheaper to run and maintain small-scale broadcast facilities in multiple locations. Imagine what a difference to our viewing and listening landscape reinstating teams of TVNZ and RNZ reporters across the country (not just in the main centers) would make to the diversity of news coverage!

These ideas are particularly relevant given the upcoming merger of Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand has a strong emphasis on public broadcasting and Public Interest Journalism. There is more impetus than ever before for more NZ media to spread their wings like Breakfast has done and rove across the country telling locals’ stories.

If they need someone extra in Napier I know a guy… Even if he has a voice for television and a face for radio…

So happy 25th birthday, TVNZ Breakfast!

Here’s to another 25 years of informing, entertaining and exploring Aotearoa!