Today L and I visted Athens, Corinth, London and Jerusalem all in one day ... here is the proof ...
Yes, they are all Maori settlements along the Whanganui river. So if you are at all linguistically minded you can work out the phonology or Maori - no no no .... no consonants together and words must end in a vowel so usually you add the last vowel in your name to the last consonant as has been done here ... Send yours in ... neatest correct entry wins ...
Believe it or not this is called Main St
 For some reason this picture somes up how I feel about this town. I can't explain it but it does. Went out last night late late late into the night with Dr L, and a guy who calls himself Johnny G. Odd name for a guy who always appeared to be dull, shy and retiring but we had a great time last night. Just ask an Englishman about British comedy ... I have discovered a new cure for a hangover. Get up and have a lukewarm shower. Without drying yourself wrap up in a towel and get back into bed and sleep another four hours. You feel pretty good after that but are confronted with a new problem ... what to do our about the damp bed ... Non-specific Asian restaurant? Among the many indignities that Asian New Zealanders used to face is the travesty of Asian food in mid 2oth century Aotearoa. Invariably the first course would be white bread. Yes white bread with butter. Half a loaf would be put on the table before bland and overly sweet chinese food would be served. Dr L just rang and we are off on another adventure tomorrow. Heruharema (Maaori transliteration of 'Jerusalem') was a religious centre and site of the cultlike commune of the poet J. K. Baxter .... stay tuned ...
here's a house and here's a door
 ПАЛМЕНГРАД - the people's housing Domestic architecture in this city could make you weep. Acres of 'granny flats' cheap breeze block constructions to house those unwanted nanas take up the back blocks of even the most majestic Edwardian villas of the city ... but instead, wanderer, I present to you the people's architecture. The area I live in is named after the glorious socialist leader who pioneered housing for the people. Eschewing the rigours of conventional archtectural practice. The glorious leader visited Depression era schools and asked seven year olds to draw a house, and behold he built every one.  
Our town
ПАЛМЕНГРАД В МАНАУАТУ
Palmengrad of the Manawatu
There are few settlers here in rural Manawatu who travelled the vast distances from the former Soviet republics. It is nice to think though, that should any come more than halfway round the world to make a new home there will be something to remind them of the homelands and the regimes that have been consigned to history.
In fact here in Palmengrad, the cold war continues to be celebrated by sharing and developing its interest in Stalinist architecture here in the free (south) West.
Look how this, the city council building thrusts itself forward a symbol of unabashed relentless progress to a glorious future. Who could not get caught up in its dream of technological development for all humankind?
Behold this concrete beauty. Like the most beautiful of Slavic woman, this face needs no adornment. No cosmetic could enhance its symmetry.
How we could wax lyrical to this hymn of progress. Its modernist forms belie a lightness that contradicts its material presence.
Here her gracious presence dominates the native flora, symbolising to all who come to her, that the future is a place for everyman and everywoman, no matter how humble or how primitive an origin.
But lest dear wanderer you should think the citizens of Palmengrad were too enamoured of the ways of the godless communists, let your eyes fall upon that eternal symbol of redemption. Built to rival the Christ in Rio and funded by public conscription, the cross of Palmengrad, while maintaining the glorious simplicity of the town hall aesthetic spreads its message of peace, love, and above and Christian domination to all in the town.
Wanderer rest here awhile in our humble town. I guarantee more of its grandeur and its heroic citizens will be displayed here so that you may understand the wonders, the marvels, and the sheer humanity that is Palmengrad of the Manawatu ...
actually I really like the seats in the square ...
the memorial to the memorial to the ....
 If blogger can crunch this file down you might just see the memorial with the memorial to it in the foreground. At ground level perhaps out of view is a 1990 time capsule NOT TO BE OPENED IN 100 YEARS ... how could they wait ... perhaps there should be a memorial to it ...
I got kidnapped ... it was great
 So I was planning to let off a borer bomb and had to leave the house. Wondering what I would do, there wasa knock on the door and Dr L is there. I make hima cup of Jasmine tea as he asks polite whether he was interrupting anything .... Well technically I hadn't quite opened the books and started annotating but I shall say that he was my person of porlock anyway. So I released the fumes at least I think I did, there doesn't seem to be a fumy smell s ... ut I am hoping and jumped int he car. Taking the back roads we drove to Wanganui, small river city where there is an elevator that goes up the middle of a hill ... inside the hill ... don't ask me why ... and Dr L wanted to do that ... again don't ask me why. On the Mt Biggs road, where there is not even a whiff of elevation we stopped at a memorial to the first settlers of 1840 ... this area was not settled till the 1850s as they had to chop down a lot of trees to get here. Below the centennial monument to these imagined settlers was another momunent which turned out to be a monument to the monument erected fifty yeards after the initial one. Why celebrate a monument with a monument? Actually I can answer that one. In 1990 the country celebrated the sequicentennial .... the 150th anniversiary of its founding. Incidently the same year that I left the country, if I was paranoid I might imagine they were celebrating ... we will not entertain that thought any longer .... This stop turned out to be a ... and I know it has a fancy name when the entire point? meaning? technique of the novel is revealed in the opening sentence .... though of course you don't know it at the time ... anyway one of those things. We ended up looking at a great number of memorial and historical items. We noticed however settlers not withstanding the middle of the 20c saw a change in method of memorialising the dead. The dead of the first world war you know, the great war, the war to end all wars, were lest we forgetted in phallic marble and concrete rising from the ground where we could imagine they were buried. Those remembered from WWII however ushered in a whole new practical way of remembering of the dead in the building of memorial halls up and down the country. Every village, every hamlet has a hall falling forgotten like the heroes and heroines they strive to remind us of. The Ohakea war memorial hall within coo-ee of the country's biggest airforce base, seems on the verge ofsubsiding into the cornfields it backs on to. So on we go and on we go as the scenery begins to nclude the rolling hills of the rangitikei and we are almost there at Wanga-Vegas when we see the sign for Ratana Pa. Dr L had not been there before and as he is a lecturer in the history of our country with a special interest in its religious history we decided to rectify the situation. Ratana Pa was the site of the last great religious movement of the Maori, when Ratana, in the nineteen twenties discovered that he had become the mouthpiece of God and a healer who would restore justice and mana to, and the treaty (see above) /rights of his people. He founded his own religion and the numbers of adherents at its heydey was around 40 000. Like any good religion they developed a their architectural asthetic and sets of symbols. The temple is still used and loving looked after by the followers who live at Ratana pa. Nearby is whaty appears to be the pa's town hall with the same twin dome motif with paintings and photos of Ratana and his sons. In front of them on the porch roof are 5 models ships. 3 are founders canoes said in Maori history to have brought the MAori here from their homeland Hawaiiki and the Endeavour Capt Cook's ship, and the Heemkerk, Abel Tasman's ship. It was amazing to be there. Oh my god I am being kidnapped again for another driving lesson ... more later
hello? excuse me? You mean what?
So I fell of the non-smoking bandwagon last night briefly. It wasn't my fault. I am pleading peer pressure from strictly social smokers. It was surprising how foul it tasted after only a week. And I am not craving a cigarette at all today so I think I might have this thing knocked ... of course I may be speaking too soon. So went out last night and hit the high spots of this strange town. Chu hai at Mao, and then Tui elsewhere. The formerly dubious bar Deano's has had a makeover and reopened with a really elegant design which doesn't match the fact that it is also a sportsbar for early middle aged beefy males unless this demographic has a keen sense of design ... in which case genius niche marketing! This morning I went out and wandered around and bought a borer bomb which I am about to set off and saw a van parked outside some baptist type clap for the lord church. The van was the commmercial vehicle for some outfit that runs a (no doubt cutting edge) clothing boutique called ... Jesus, the passion, the fashion. Hmm I know that religions ideally are a way of life not just a once a week in the temple kind of thing, but incorporating secular concepts into high fashion and giving them a religious veneer is not fooling anyone.
tomorrow in the battle think on me
I hope someone has opened up a museum of ashtrays as 20 years from now somebody's daughter is going to say 'Dad, why has that saucer got those funny notches in it?' Yes I have joined the ranks of the non-smokers ...(so far). Giving up ... so far so good except for my computers are taking individual revenge on me making me do incredible inane things with tab space and delete on the same 100 page document over and over and over again. Then the fucking printer wouldn't print it ... and then it would 5 times I did have to staple something to my hand to prevent me from ripping the photcopier apart ... surprisingly it hurt very little, I would not recommend it though, kids. And still I didn't smoke. Tomorrow the battle will continue ... So profound thoughts, no, richer? marginally ... better smelling both transitive- and intransitively , possibly. In the work kitchen today after the fridge got turned off for the holidays well, I wish the smellular cells were still on mute ...
surgin' forward
So day TWO, people, My body has not enjoyed nicotene for 48 hours. Weirdly last night was the hardest. Though, probably because I was drinking. Am drinking again tonight for whom I provide the cigarettes. She will take it well, but am not so sure about Locky when he gets back from his jaunts. SO yesterday Pepperbell and I went into town to find coffee and food and were almost forced to go to Barista the restaurant I try to boycott for the smug petit bourgeois styles, precociously 80s menu and smirking service. Finding an alternative was enough to get me cursing under my breath. I thought at first it was the nicotene withdrawal but noticed PB was doing the same. Okay so not much in the way of work-getting-done-ness ... Oh yeah, I had my first driving lesson ... it was terrifying and fun. I am going to do it again today. Then I think it will be enough .... becuase the public holodays end tomorrow so all the cars will be back in the uni car park and that would be too scary
roll on
Back from the big city and crawled back under the cone of silence that is this town ... or at least my life in it. Big city was good, though M was a bit fragile, her father's death the week before will probably ruin xmas forever now. Norms, her mother, (n.h.r.n) was nto coping and would announce the days and hours since her husband's death and kept mentioning the worms ... What do you say to that? Didn't do much, down there. Saw Kong with the other Mel, who was an extra and sat next to the Brody in the theatre scene. Nelly was over from Melbavegaas and we introduced her to Manuka honey vodka. They got along famously. S0 2006 and I have given up smoking. Not bad so far, but had a little trouble getting to sleep, more nicotine anxiety than withdrawal I think. Okay so back to the books. I may go to the supermarket (again) later for some human contact ...
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