As seen from the windows

Everyone loves pictures.


A pigeon gathers its thoughts, if the word can be applied to pigeons, after mistaking our bedroom window for a low cloud.


The silvereye is possibly New Zealand's most beautiful native bird. But sadly, also quite shy.


The tui: uglier, but more iconic.


I don't want to point fingers, but this might have something to do with why we don't see more silvereyes around.


And finally: our upwardly Møbler dresser.

Eyes on the Tiger

Burning bright

The end of Chinese New Year is party time in Auckland. A truly unbelievable number of people descend on Albert Park to admire the lanterns, eat the food and marvel at the sheer crush of the crowd.

So that we could capture the event properly this year, we invested in a new camera. It's described as a "beginner-friendly" SLR, which means that even though its functions are outrageously complicated, they're not compulsory. It takes a ridiculous number of pixels - the images shown here are scaled down to something reasonable for web viewing, otherwise they'd eat up my storage allowance and bloat your browser into a flubbery widescreen pancake, and nobody wants to see that.

We arrived at Albert Park about six-thirty on Sunday. The smell of deep-fried food was everywhere. Susan's nostrils flared, she vanished into the crowd like one possessed of an insatiable hunger for fish balls; I looked away for a moment, and condemned myself to spend the next 40 minutes combing through the crowd in search of her.

An unusually thin part of the crowd. You can see through it.

Apart from that, we had a great time. There was a Chinese prog-rock group (very 70s - they would have been right at home opening for Hawkwind or Pink Floyd). Unfortunately they only got to play a couple of numbers, before being followed on stage by a marginally rehearsed children's choir. The announcer for this latter act kept telling the audience "This next song is very pretty. You will enjoy it."

China's answer to Rush

Well, Chinese culture does tend towards the authoritarian. Eventually we gave up trying to believe her, and moved off in search of lower culture.

That's why they call it a lantern festival

Hundreds of (lucky) red lanterns hung from the trees, along with various ugly faces and improbably-floating luminous babies. The Tiger, of course, had pride of place among the lanterns; a handful of skittish-looking zebras were in front of him, presumably in case he got peckish. Other set-pieces included animals from previous years (the Ox, the Monkey and others), and the traditional turtle orchestra.

At least they sounded better than the kids

I recommend it, it's a fun evening for all the family. But keep an eye on them.

A bid for freedom

Of night and light and the half light

The Lantern Festival is one of the highlights of our year.

It's an ancient Auckland tradition, passed down from generation to generation since 1999, marking the end of the two-week celebration of the Chinese New Year. A great gathering in Albert Park, full of lantern sculpture, more or less tacky Chinese culture, fireworks, and dodgy Asian foodstuffs. A photo-op for politicians - the prime minister gives a speech and shows off his Mandarin - and a chance for dragon-dancers, martial arts schools and Chinese opera wannabes from all over to grab some limelight for a few minutes. All on a sweltering late-summer night.

Lanterns, balloons, badges, brooches and hideous fridge ornaments take the form of great Chinese cultural icons, such as zodiac animals, dragons, Shou Xing and SpongeBob SquarePants. (Nice to see that the li'l yellow dude has decisively replaced all Disney characters at these events - there was not a duck or a Pooh character to be seen. Take that, Mickey: that's what you get for repressing your fans.)

We left it late, this year - it was dusk before we left home - which meant we missed the daylight events. But the main event - the lanterns - are, of course, seen at their best after dark. Since there is no charge for admission, the crowds are always spectacular, and quite often we found our direction dictated mostly by which way it was physically possible to go. We saw the prime minister, surrounded by dark-suited figures whose purpose seemed to be to shoulder his way through the riff-raff. Perk of the job, I guess.

I love the whole thing. My avatar picture was taken at a festival two or three years ago. Several displays this year would have made for worthy replacements - the ever-popular monkey god, kid riding backwards on a ram, a four-toed dragon pausing in mid-descent, as if to exchange gossip with some random old sage. Sadly, however, my trusty Canon doesn't seem to be entering the spirit of the occasion. Rather than the unimaginative yet honest verisimilitude of earlier times, it prefers to render images as opaque abstracts in dark colours, more like an elderly Whistler than a keen-eyed Rembrandt:


I call this one "Year of the Ox". And to think people say that machines can't do art.