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Bowl of Brooklands
The moat surrounding New Plymouth’s Bowl of Brooklands (ducks not to scale) (Image: Tina Tiller)

OPINIONOpinionJune 14, 2022

For ducks’ sake, leave the Bowl of Brooklands moat alone

Bowl of Brooklands
The moat surrounding New Plymouth’s Bowl of Brooklands (ducks not to scale) (Image: Tina Tiller)

Womad? If they cover Aotearoa’s most famous moat I’ll be Wo-bloody-furious, writes Chris Schulz.

He sang, he shrieked, he beatboxed, he pulled off a pretty decent cartwheel, and then he tried to breakdance. In 2016, at the age of six, my son made his live performance debut at a venue that can hold 15,000 people. He was undaunted by the occasion, pushing his tiny frame to dance from one side of the massive stage to the other, before bowing to the applause and exiting stage left. 

It was picturesque, serene, a special family moment that Facebook reminded me of recently. Footage taken at the time shows a beautiful moat glistening in front of the stage, separating my son from the crowd.  That video also shows my son returning after his performance, sticking his head around the corner so he could see the audience’s reaction. 

Bowl of Brooklands
A tiny child performs on a giant stage. (Photo: Chris Schulz)

The response was rapturous — as rapturous as two adults, one baby, and about 50 ducks can be, anyway. We were the only ones to witness my son’s impressive impromptu display that sunny day at the Bowl of Brooklands. While picnicking on a grass bank, distracted by the demands of a toddler, he’d gone exploring and found an open gate that led onto the stage.

New Plymouth is one of our family’s favourite places to visit. People laugh when I say this, but I’m serious — you can’t beat the surf beaches in summer, or Mount Taranaki in winter. The museum is ideal for kids, the waterfront walkway is great for an evening stroll, and it’s got one of the best vantage points to scoff burgers and shakes in your car if it’s cold.

We’re going again in a couple of weeks, and once we’re settled in we’ll be heading straight to Pukekura Park. If you haven’t been, grab a coffee and a maple glazed doughnut from The Public Catering Company, then go for a wander. You’ll find several hours of entertainment, including a stunning cricket ground, lush greenery, a great playground, a free zoo, and, at Christmas, a really incredible light festival.

If you wander far enough, you’ll come to a small bridge that leads into a grassy amphitheatre, a picture-perfect spot that is surely New Zealand’s best outdoor music venue. Promoters love booking artists there, because artists love playing there. As Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Santana, The Pretenders, Neil Finn, Maple Staples and Don McGlashan have discovered, it’s an arena like no other.

When it’s not Covid times, the Womad festival is usually held there too. It’s also the place where one of my favourite concert photos (taken at a show performed by one of my least favourite musicians) was snapped. And when R.E.M. performed there in 2005, some remember fans jumping into the moat during the song ‘Nightswimming’. How could you not?

Every time a major act plays there, they’re separated from fans by the stretch of water surrounding the stage. While you can dip your toes into the surf at Splore, stroll through grape vines at Rhythm & Vines, or snuggle onto a picnic blanket with a glass of wine at Villa Maria, no other stage in Aotearoa is separated from the crowd by a body of water. 

This is what makes the Bowl of Brooklands special. It’s what makes it unique. It’s the first thing people talk about when they go to a concert there. I still remember the chills I got from Aldous Harding as she spat ‘Heaven is Empty’ out and across that water during a spine-tingling Womad performance. 

But some want this to change. As journalism legend Jim Tucker discovered earlier this year, and as reported by RNZ over the weekend, a New Plymouth District Council discussion document suggests that the moat should go. Permanently covering it would allow venue capacity to expand from 15,000 to 20,000, making it a more attractive proposition for promoters, thus meaning more visitors to New Plymouth.

It would also save money, as that same council spends $70,000 covering the moat up every time a major act plays so it can fit in more people into the venue. “You’ve got to ask yourselves … do you want to be a straight-up really attractive proposition?” promoter Brent Eccles told RNZ. “I think it’s a small concession to cover the moat.”

Basically, he wants it to go from this…

Bowl of Brooklands
A stunner at the Bowl of Brooklands. (Photo: New Plymouth District Council)

To this…

Bowl of Brooklands
Won’t someone think of the ducks? (Photo: New Plymouth District Council)

No other venue in Aotearoa can boast having a moat around the stage. In fact, The Spinoff could find just one other venue in the world with a moat, and that’s all the way in Dalhalla, Sweden. Take away the moat, and the Bowl of Brooklands becomes just another outdoor stage and just another outdoor venue, a carbon copy of all the others.

Don’t do this. Put the discussion document in the shredder and forget it was ever suggested. Without the moat, I bet my son wouldn’t have wanted to perform on that stage – and whether the crowd is 50 ducks or 15,000 people, the same applies to touring musicians. Please, for ducks’ sake, leave the moat alone. 

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Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

OPINIONMediaJune 13, 2022

Thank god no one tried to out me

Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

First the Sydney Morning Herald threatened to out Rebel Wilson. Then they complained about being ‘gazumped’ when she refused to play by their rules. The sheer audacity, writes Mad Chapman. 

I’m trying to imagine what I would have done if a journalist threatened to out me. If a journalist emailed me to say they’d heard I was in a relationship with a woman and I had two days to confirm or deny before publication. I probably would have done exactly what Rebel Wilson did on Friday: share my relationship on social media so that it wasn’t news any more. Except unlike Wilson – who captioned the Instagram photo of herself and her partner with “I thought I was searching for a Disney Prince… but maybe what I really needed all this time was a Disney Princess” – I would have named the journalist and outlet and made sure everyone knew what they’d tried to do.

Wilson didn’t do this. Instead, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Andrew Hornery narked on himself with a column complaining that Wilson had “opted to gazump” the outlet’s planned story on Wilson’s new relationship, which was being celebrated by fans online.

“It was with an abundance of caution and respect that this media outlet emailed Rebel Wilson’s representatives on Thursday morning, giving her two days to comment on her new relationship with LA leisure wear designer Ramona Agruma, before publishing a single word,” he wrote.

“Big mistake.”

There’s something unbelievable about not only planning to out someone in 2022 (the editor has since denied that this is what the outlet wanted to do), but then complaining when that plan doesn’t work out. It’s literally unbelievable. I read Hornery’s words (it only took him 341 words to ruin everyone’s day) and genuinely did not believe that they were real. Does this sort of thing really still happen?

How Andrew Hornery’s column on Rebel Wilson began

I got my first real job in media (or anywhere) in 2016. I realised I was gay in 2021. Why it took so long is for me and a paid professional to figure out. But I certainly never factored a public outing into my thinking. In my time as a writer I have seen few, if any, instances like this in New Zealand. But they have happened. Alison Mau was simultaneously outed by the Herald on Sunday and Woman’s Day in 2010 (In 2017, Rebel Wilson won a defamation case against Woman’s Day). In 2014, Stuff ran a story about a sex video involving a New Zealand actor and a rugby player. Scroll down to the bottom of that article and it reveals the story was originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

I’m not famous like Wilson, but the process of coming out is still the same. Once I knew (a very unceremonious realisation one Saturday morning while hungover on the couch), I immediately wondered who I should tell and how. I was advised by a friend that I actually didn’t have to tell anyone, but I wanted to make sure people knew when I wanted them to, and not because someone saw something and told someone who posted a comment somewhere public. I had those thoughts as a 27-year-old random in Auckland. I’m sure Wilson had many more thoughts as a world-famous actor.

“Considering how bitterly Wilson had complained about poor journalism standards when she successfully sued Woman’s Day for defamation, her choice to ignore our discreet, genuine and honest queries was, in our view, underwhelming.”

The entitlement in this line from Hornery is astounding, not least because it reads as though he really believes it. The editor of the Sydney Morning Herald responded to the backlash by saying he hadn’t decided whether to publish a piece about Wilson’s relationship by the time she posted about it herself. They were just asking questions.

Hornery then went on (yes there’s more even though it was, as I said, only 341 words) to suggest that because Wilson had had a boyfriend in the past, “It is unlikely she would have experienced the sort of discrimination let alone homophobia – subconscious or overt – that sadly still affects so many gay, lesbian and non-hetero people.” Oh buddy. What a beautiful car crash of a sentence. To express something so ignorant while being semantically inclusive with “non-hetero people”. Like carefully polishing a massive piece of shit.

Ultimately, the Sydney Morning Herald could have published absolutely nothing and that would have been the correct course of action. Instead, they pulled the classic move of forcing, and then inserting themselves into, someone else’s coming out story. Some of us are late to our own queer parties, and some may choose never to talk about it. That’s the beauty of choice.

One thing’s for sure: anyone choosing to be open about themself and who they love will never “gazump” a media story about their own life. Hornery was pissed about that, and likely about the reader traffic lost as a result. Sadly, his self-own and the editor’s hamfisted response has resulted in maybe even more traffic for the website than if they’d gone ahead and outed her. Sex and sexuality sells. But so does ignorance.

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