CATS awards

No, it is nothing to do with musicals

It is all about Scottish acting

The BBC reports that Alan Cumming and Blythe Duff have won best actor awards at the Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS).

Cumming won for "an unforgettable, bravura performance" in the National Theatre of Scotland's one-man Macbeth.

The Perthshire-born actor, who had previously won a Tony award on Broadway, said Macbeth was "the thing I am most proud of in my whole career".

Duff won her award for playing a convicted husband-killer in Iron.

The 2013 CATS were presented by one of Scotland's leading playwrights, John Byrne, at a sell-out event that also marked the 50th anniversary of the Traverse Theatre.

The special CATS Whiskers award was given to the inaugural artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland, Vicky Featherstone.

It recognised her contribution to Scottish theatre in the seven years since the National Theatre company was formed.

We were particularly pleased to see Blythe Duff's award, being committed Taggart fans.

KIRKS, 150 years later

Kirkaldie and Stains, a Wellington heritage

 

Kirkaldie and Stains, affectionately known as "Kirks," is Wellington's premier department store, where you can browse designer models of everything wearable, and buy top brand cosmetics, as well.

It's a wonderful place to browse, and while filling in time yesterday, I was delighted to find a little museum on the top floor.  It's Kirks' 150th birthday, and the display of artifacts, clippings, and archives is part of the fun.

The little museum is a delight, and a wonderful way to spend an hour.  Professionally curated and skilfully displayed, with a timeline painted around the walls, it commemorates an important part of Wellington history.

John Kirkaldie and Robert Stains

Back in 1863, two enterprising young men met in Sydney. One was John Kirkcaldie, a Scotsman who had served his apprenticeship as a draper, and the other was Robert Stains, an Englishman who had worked in the retail trade in London. They came to the settlement of Wellington, which offered the best prospects for the business they had in mind. Each had a capital of £350, which they pooled, and together they built a small store from the timbers of a wrecked ship, at the southern end of Lambton Quay.  (Today, it is the site of the historic Bank of New Zealand, now an enclosed Victorian-style mall.)  In 1868 it moved a few blocks to the south, and built in a style that is reflected in its grand form today.

During its long history Kirkcaldie & Stains has survived many upheavals, including earthquakes, fire and flood, the famous Tea Room shooting of 1898 and extensive renovations. However through all of the changes the store has continued the tradition of its founders and Kirkcaldie & Stains stands proud today as New Zealand’s premier department store. Most unusually, it is almost entirely owned by its staff and its customers, most of them Wellingtonians.

So, it is quite a heritage to celebrate, and the little museum is a great way to take note of it.





 

PACIFIC PEARL AND VIVID SYDNEY

Today, June 10, is the last day of the VividSydney festival, and tonight is the last chance to see the brilliant light displays that have made Sydney magical since 24 May.

And May 24 and 25 were particularly magical for us, as the Pacific Pearl was docked at Circular Quay, to serve as a canvas for one of the amazing light shows. 

From the deck of the ship, we could see patterns play over the Sydney Opera House...

 

 

   

 

While by taking a stroll down the gangway and around the Quay, wending our way through a thick but very happy and well-behaved, enraptured crowd, we could take in a view of the ever-changing display on the side of our ship... 

 

 

 

To see more, and enjoy the full thrilling ambience, look at their website 

www.vividsydney.com

And be sure to look at the images that fans have loaded.

It's the best kaleidoscope around.

 



Michael King Fellow announced

Announcement from Creative New Zealand

Leading New Zealand author Fiona Farrell has been awarded the $100,000 Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer’s Fellowship to research and write twin books, one fiction and one non-fiction, inspired by her experiences of the Christchurch earthquakes.

Since the quakes struck, Farrell has felt “like a photographer who, after living quietly in Armentieres taking portraits of local dignitaries or photographing wild flowers, suddenly finds that they are caught up in the midst of the action. It’s frequently deeply disturbing, but there is a compulsion to record”.
Farrell’s twin books, both titled The Villa at the Edge of the Empire, will begin with the reconstruction of a city after a disaster, the author says. “The non-fiction book will place the reconstruction in a broad historical and geographic framework, while the fiction book will offer an intimate, emotional perspective.”

The Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer’s Fellowship is one of New Zealand’s largest writing fellowships and supports established writers to work on a major project over two or more years.

There were many applications of a very high calibre for this year’s fellowship, says Creative New Zealand’s Chief Executive, Stephen Wainwright. “This is a fantastic opportunity to support one of New Zealand’s leading writers to record an in-depth intellectual and emotional response to the rebuild of Christchurch."

My sincere congratulations to Fiona Farrell.

WELLINGTON LIVES!

"Where do you come from?"
 
(chuckle) "From Wellington, the dying city."

Or so the opening went for many a conversation on the latest lecturing "gig" on the P&O cruise ship Pacific Pearl.

This time, the passengers were mainly from New Zealand, and they all (even the Aucklanders) knew the joke.

Our Prime Minister, John Key (an Aucklander), declared not so long ago that Wellington is dying.

Dying! Almost dead!

Good lord! Our head of parliament dissing absolutely positively Wellington from his eyrie in the Beehive, which (though he had evidently forgotten) is in Wellington!  Off with his own head, we say! 

Well, the Dominion Post has decided to no longer take it as a joke. Today's front page is a huge cartoon of our cool little capital, with the headline ALIVE AND KICKING.

It's no time to be smug, the paper admits.  Perhaps, to a certain extent, we do have our heads in the sand.

So let's have a good look at our gorgeous little city, they say.  And it's the beginning of a six-part series, The Wellington Report, starting in this paper and on dompost.co.nz today.

New shoot for Hobbit

It's a big feature in Wellington's Dominion Post, today

Filming on The Hobbit trilogy will resume this month on Mt Crawford in Wellington, where a patch of bush has been transformed into a gutted citadel.

Sir Peter Jackson's spokesman, Matt Dravitzki, said the site on Miramar Peninsula was being prepared for a few days' filming as part of 10 weeks of final-cut shooting for the last two instalments of the trilogy.

"We're back filming in Miramar for 10 weeks, here till early July. We will be filming on Mt Crawford for a few days."

He would not comment on the details of the set or the filming taking place.
However, the set most probably depicts Dale, the town of men built in the shadow of the Lonely Mountain. Many of the yellow townhouses with terracotta roofs appear to have been gutted by fire, suggesting the shooting of scenes after or during the attack by the dragon Smaug.

Another set shows an elaborate entrance carved into a stone wall, possibly the gates to Erebor, the lost dwarven city where Smaug lives.

The next Hobbit instalment, The Desolation of Smaug, is due in cinemas in December.

Geeks rule

THE GEEKS SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH

Or so current economic conditions predict.

Luckily for Wonderful Wellington, this is where the coolest little capital in the world excels.

Which is why the theme of the Wellington Gold Awards dinner this year is "Geekonomics, technology game-changers".

The Wellington region has created several household names in the global marketing business -- WETA WORKSHOP being just one of them.

Others are Weta Digital, Icebreaker, Infratil, Trilogy, Trade Me, and Xero.

Amazon axes ties with booklovers' site

The Bookseller reports a mystifying move

The founders of the book recommendation site Lovereading have said they are “baffled and shocked” by Amazon’s decision to terminate its affiliate programme linking titles to the Amazon website.

Louise Weir and Peter Crawshaw, co-founders of Lovereading, have displayed links to Amazon for the past five years without problems. However, the Amazon Associates Programme has now terminated the arrangement, with no further payments of advertising fees, after telling them that the website has violated the EU Associates Programme Operating Agreement.

Significantly, perhaps, Weir and Crawshaw received the communication shortly after Amazon bought Goodreads.

Asked for further explanation, Amazon merely said that the decision was final.

Weir told The Bookseller: “We feel our readers are suffering as a result, they no longer have the ability to click through directly from us to what they see as the best price. It makes no sense. We have linked to them for four to five years with no problem and then out of the blue we get this this.” She added: “It’s a blow for British book lovers, who have become used to being able to choose from all available formats on Lovereading.”

Amazon declined to comment.

Women's fiction prize won

A. M. Homes has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year for her novel, May We Be Forgiven.
The prize, formerly known as the OrangePrize for Fiction, will be renamed the “Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction” next year. Chair Kate Mosse explained the new sponsorship deal in the release:

We were delighted by the range of interest – and enjoyed meeting brands in various sectors – but in the end, the Women’s Prize for Fiction Board felt Baileys was the ideal choice as our new partners. We were impressed not only by the scale of their ambition, but also their passion for celebrating outstanding fiction by women and willingness to help in bringing the prize to ever wider audiences.

From Mediabistro.com

Aussie telco changing tack

At last the consumers’ message has got through

More needs to be spent on maintaining and improving networks, and less on chasing new customers, says Optus boss Kevin Russell.

Russell went on to say that the Australian telco industry has gone backwards in the last six or so years, with an increasing number of customers registering dissatisfaction with their service.

Optus needs to focus more on improving its service for existing clients, so will be cutting costs in other areas.

Marketing will no longer be a priority, with anticipated closure of 45% of its stores.

“We are reducing our marketing budget this year,” he said, going on to state that it didn’t seem to make sense to spend dollars on marketing, “when your core service needs to get better.”

Not before time, I say, and predict that cutting back on marketing to consolidate the consumer base by providing a better service will become a worldwide trend.