One recreation to another

On Sunday it was a day of rest. I did nothing, literally. What bliss. J meanwhile sat on a bus for an hour to wander fruitlessly around Cribb's Causeway mall again, then get wet before returning on another bus.

Today however we did something. First we visited the Commonwealth Museum, with its special exhibit on the legacy of slavery. The building was another of Brunel's constructions, this time a railway station originally. The museum itself had some interesting stuff but was underwhelming. You get a year's free entry but I can't see us visiting again unless something special is shown. The exhibit on slavery was OK, but I felt that while it talked about the demand for slaves, it didn't really go into the supply very much. It's all well and good landing the guilt on the slavers who went from Africa to the Americas (or from Africa to Arabia), but what about those who gathered the slaves in the first place? We needed a little more on what drove that part of the trade.

The rest of the museum seemed small and insubstantial. I kept looking for something on NZ but we got mentioned about twice. There didn't seem much in the way of analysis going on, just description - an achievement level, not merit or excellence as we might say in NZ education circles. I guess they are looking for broad appeal rather than depth.

Outside the museum we were approached by another begger waving "The Issue" at us. As we are now realising is a common ploy he didn't have any spare copies for sale but could we spare some change? He showed us a very nasty festering sore on his leg so I gave him L2 but later on saw him walking with no apparent difficulty so I'm questioning its authenticity... At least they're polite.

Tonight it was the BBQ night run by the management committee. We had to keep running off because something more exciting was happening outside on the street - the blowing up of the bus for Casualty. They pushed us around from one viewing spot to another before the big bang, but it was kind of worth it. I tried to film it on the wee camera but apparently I put it on standby instead of record and so my footage starts when I thought I was stopping. Ejit. Best part were the hundreds of seagulls that suddenly appeared wheeling through the air. They filmed the scene in bits (get it?) with a man getting blown backwards in a harness being filmed first while we were going to the museum, then his side of the bus being blown out after we returned, then the other side and roof being blown out during the BBQ. Once they're all put together you'd never know.

The BBQ was OK, but the chances are we'll never talk to most of them again. One couple were our next door neighbours and I'd only seen them once or twice before in the 3 weeks we've been here. Of course there was another Kiwi there, from Wellington.

I'm reading Nemesis by Bill Napier. It got a rave blurb from Arthur C. Clarke who must have lost his marbles entirely because it's crap. Crap dialogue, contrived storyline: fills the gap left by TV quite nicely. Lucky it was only L1.