Inner Wheel Club of South Wairarapa

Because I inadvertently forgot last month’s article, this will cover both months. The Marlborough Fair is over for another year with lots of positive feedback from the Rotarians for whom we catered on both Fair days. While it involved a lot of work it was also a lot of fun.  Our club was also a presence in the Rotarians Information Tent, flying our new banner, which helped get our presence in the community a bit more ‘out there’. 

Our speaker at the March meeting was Annabelle O’Meara who told us about the new Cobblestones Exhibition which opened on 24 February called 38 Sections, 38 Stories. See photo below of the Research team at the opening, with Koumatua Nelson Rangi

Annabelle became involved with the exhibition when it was intended to commemorate Greytown 100 years ago as well as to tell some stories of young men from the Wairarapa who left for WW1. Funding and perceived over-exposure to the WW1 days led to a changed focus. When Thomas Nieuwenhuis, a graduate from the Victoria University of Wellington Architecture department came to Cobblestones on a three month residency, he made an exquisite model of the Main Street in Greytown, which became a ‘shot in the arm’ for the Research Team. This cost $3000 and was funded by the Cobblestones Trust Board. Some of the components of the impressive exhibition are as follows: … Continue Reading

I’m Waiting for a Journalist to Tell Me What I Think

BY JOHN ANSELL

I’m waiting for a journalist to tell me what I think

And then I’ll know precisely what to wear and when to blink

So I can get the latest word on whose opinions stink

I’m waiting for a journalist to tell me what I think

I’m waiting for a journalist to tell me how I feel

What virtues I can signal to broaden my appeal

It’s really not important if the news is fake or real

As long as some nice journalist will tell me how I feel … Continue Reading

Having our say

If last year’s cancellation of a speaking engagement by the former Opposition Leader, Do Brash, showed anything, it should have been that the culture of free speech needs support in New Zealand.  Instead, Justice Minister Andrew Little has called for a hastening of a revue of an existing statute that make it an offence to say or publish words that incite discrimination.

It is one thing to urgently review gun laws in the wake of the atrocity which claimed 50 lives by gunfire but it would be a quite different thing to allow one man’s criminal rampage to curtail in any way New Zealand’s freedom of speech. Owning firearms is not a cornerstone of democracy; free speech certainly is.

Andrew Little says that current legal provision of ‘hate speech’ is very narrow. If so then New Zealand is lucky to have so far escaped the zeal with which some countries have tried to proscribe the views that people are allowed to express.

The law should err on the side of supporting free speech because there is a principal that matters more than the discomfort that free speech expression may cause some people on some occasions.

Andrew Little told RNZ National in an interview “that people expected statutes to be very clear and unequivocal and I think that’s the point we want to get to”. 

It may be where some people want to get to. But many other people believe that political and public debates should be robust and that the public does not need protecting from ideas, opinions or, at times , even insults and prejudice.  … Continue Reading

From the Museum

The Martinborough Cook Book (undated) was published as a fundraiser for the Martinborough and District Women’s Rest Room, a now vanished but once important amenity in the town.   Each of the 100 recipes recognises the person who provided it, creating a wonderful record of the women of the district at that time.

The book includes the usual range of baking but with self-sufficiency often a necessity it also contains some very interesting household recipes.

There’s a cough mixture that’s guaranteed to make you happier if not healthier with its “threepennyworth each of laudanum and paregoric” (both opium derivatives).    

The hair tonic is innocuous enough until you reach the line that asks for “two ounces of spermacetti”.   That’s a substance obtained from the head of sperm whales (best not to ask how it was harvested).   The embrocation recipe, intended to ease aches and pains, seems guaranteed to increase them. It requires the cook to “beat the mixture for one hour”!

You can see this and other historic cookbooks at the museum Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays between 1.30-3.30pm