Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Online cemetery faces grave problem
Western Leader | Saturday, 12 January 2008
Cemetery records at Waikumete may soon be available online.
Burial and cremation details for the rest of Auckland’s large cemeteries can already be viewed on the internet.
But a few problems are holding Waikumete back.
"Some families don’t want dead members’ records online," cemetery manager Daniel Sales says.
"It’s become a very sensitive issue."
More than 70,000 people are buried at Waikumete, one of the biggest cemeteries in the southern hemisphere that has about 5000 visitors a year.
"Many people come looking for information about their geneaology," Mr Sales says.
"And many people are interested in viewing inscriptions on tombstones."
He says a number of people oppose having the records online for various reasons – a black sheep in the family, a tragedy or a murder.
Mr Sales is concerned the matter could become a legal issue for the cemetery.
He says staff are meeting next week to find a solution before proceeding.
The cemetery is able to release information such as names, dates of death, and plot details but not addresses or occupations.
Cemetery records at Waikumete may soon be available online.
Burial and cremation details for the rest of Auckland’s large cemeteries can already be viewed on the internet.
But a few problems are holding Waikumete back.
"Some families don’t want dead members’ records online," cemetery manager Daniel Sales says.
"It’s become a very sensitive issue."
More than 70,000 people are buried at Waikumete, one of the biggest cemeteries in the southern hemisphere that has about 5000 visitors a year.
"Many people come looking for information about their geneaology," Mr Sales says.
"And many people are interested in viewing inscriptions on tombstones."
He says a number of people oppose having the records online for various reasons – a black sheep in the family, a tragedy or a murder.
Mr Sales is concerned the matter could become a legal issue for the cemetery.
He says staff are meeting next week to find a solution before proceeding.
The cemetery is able to release information such as names, dates of death, and plot details but not addresses or occupations.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Thousands follow soldier's fate in WW1 'blog'
5:00AM Tuesday January 08, 2008
Thousands of people have been following the fate of a British soldier fighting in the trenches of World War 1 on a website publishing his letters home exactly 90 years after they were written.
Like William Henry Bonser ("Harry") Lamin's real family almost a century ago, the modern reader visiting www.wwar1.blogspot.com does not know when the next letter is coming, or whether the one they are reading is in fact his last.
Many are braced for the dreaded telegram from the army notifying relatives of a soldier's death.
"There are a lot of people saying how keen they are to follow him and are rooting for Harry," said Bill Lamin, the 59-year-old IT teacher who found his grandfather's letters when he was a boy and decided to turn them into a blog.
"They get hooked as if it is happening now. People are rooting for a guy who is in the thick of it," he told Reuters.
The most recent entries from Harry, who served with the Yorkshire and Lancashire Regiment, were on December 30, 1917, after he had moved from the battlefields of northern Europe to Italy.
He thanks his brother, Jack, for the box of biscuits he sent and wishes his sister Kate a happy Christmas and New Year.
Many of the letters are mundane and focus on his wife and child in England, but some offer a glimpse of the horrors of trench warfare that young men faced.
"We have had another terrible time this week," Harry wrote on June 11, 1917, when describing his part in the Battle of Messines Ridge.
"The men here say it was worst (sic) than the Somme advance last July. We lost a lot of men but we got where we were asked to take. It was awful I am alright got buried and knocked about but quite well now and hope to remain so.
"It is a rum job waiting for the time to come to go over the top without any rum too. The CO got killed and our captain, marvellous how we escaped."
In another entry from October the same year, details of British casualties are pencilled out, possibly by army censors seeking to maintain morale back home.
Lamin said the daily number of visitors to his site reached around 20,000 last week after several media reports appeared, although the daily total was normally lower.
"World War 1 has always been fascinating for people, the horrors of it," he said.
Dozens of people have written to the site to comment on Harry's experiences, including many from the United States.
One anonymous contributor wrote: "As a boy I was taught that war was glorious, I now know that it is exactly the opposite and will teach my children the same."
Lamin refused to give any clues as to Harry's fate, listing only his birth date as 1887.
- REUTERS
5:00AM Tuesday January 08, 2008
Thousands of people have been following the fate of a British soldier fighting in the trenches of World War 1 on a website publishing his letters home exactly 90 years after they were written.
Like William Henry Bonser ("Harry") Lamin's real family almost a century ago, the modern reader visiting www.wwar1.blogspot.com does not know when the next letter is coming, or whether the one they are reading is in fact his last.
Many are braced for the dreaded telegram from the army notifying relatives of a soldier's death.
"There are a lot of people saying how keen they are to follow him and are rooting for Harry," said Bill Lamin, the 59-year-old IT teacher who found his grandfather's letters when he was a boy and decided to turn them into a blog.
"They get hooked as if it is happening now. People are rooting for a guy who is in the thick of it," he told Reuters.
The most recent entries from Harry, who served with the Yorkshire and Lancashire Regiment, were on December 30, 1917, after he had moved from the battlefields of northern Europe to Italy.
He thanks his brother, Jack, for the box of biscuits he sent and wishes his sister Kate a happy Christmas and New Year.
Many of the letters are mundane and focus on his wife and child in England, but some offer a glimpse of the horrors of trench warfare that young men faced.
"We have had another terrible time this week," Harry wrote on June 11, 1917, when describing his part in the Battle of Messines Ridge.
"The men here say it was worst (sic) than the Somme advance last July. We lost a lot of men but we got where we were asked to take. It was awful I am alright got buried and knocked about but quite well now and hope to remain so.
"It is a rum job waiting for the time to come to go over the top without any rum too. The CO got killed and our captain, marvellous how we escaped."
In another entry from October the same year, details of British casualties are pencilled out, possibly by army censors seeking to maintain morale back home.
Lamin said the daily number of visitors to his site reached around 20,000 last week after several media reports appeared, although the daily total was normally lower.
"World War 1 has always been fascinating for people, the horrors of it," he said.
Dozens of people have written to the site to comment on Harry's experiences, including many from the United States.
One anonymous contributor wrote: "As a boy I was taught that war was glorious, I now know that it is exactly the opposite and will teach my children the same."
Lamin refused to give any clues as to Harry's fate, listing only his birth date as 1887.
- REUTERS
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Monday, December 31, 2007
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
New Holmes show will call up memories
5:00AM Saturday September 01, 2007By David Eames
David Cassidy, seen here with the Partridge Family, toured NZ in the '70s.
In 1976, tartan pop rockers The Bay City Rollers toured New Zealand. Were you there?
Were you in the front row for '70s heart throb David Cassidy's voyage downunder?
Those who can claim a "once-in-a-lifetime meeting with a big star", or were screaming from the front row of a significant cultural event in our nation's history, will be the stars of TVNZ's latest light-entertainment offering.
The show, Whatever happened to ... ?, hits screens on September 11.
In the early 2000s, New Zealand breakfast radio host and television current affairs personality Paul Holmes travelled the country hawking his self-titled album featuring covers of middle of the road classics, including Wichita Lineman and Where Do You Go To, My Lovely?
Where is he now?
Well, after a stint on Prime Television, the broadcasting legend has returned to TVNZ to host the show, and claims it will be "just the thing for a cold Tuesday night".
"It's not a Paul Holmes comedy talk show," but, rather, "a very interesting concept", he told the Weekend Herald.
It's a show about the big events, and how they affected the people dragged into them, and where those people are now.
Highlights will include meetings with "some formerly very famous musicians" both from New Zealand and abroad, Holmes says.
One episode will re-unite a man with the baby he saved from the Wahine disaster, in 1968.
Holmes - who admits it feels "very comfortable" to be back in the fold at TVNZ - says the show will run archival footage of a news event, then interviews with the participants.
A TVNZ statement says that although content "has yet to be confirmed", Whatever happened to ... ? aims to "revitalise our cultural history for a modern, contemporary audience" by using footage from the television archive.
"In the studio, Paul Holmes interviews the people who were there at key moments and events, to winnow out the human Kiwi experience of national and international events,and finds out what those people are doing now."
Herald columnist John Drinnan yesterday revealed more than $1 million in taxpayer funding had been allocated to the show.
TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards made no apologies. "We hope that it will be [money] well spent, and people will love it. These programmes don't have to be academic - entertainment programmes that tick all the boxes about shared experience, national identity, our place in the world, they're totally legitimate."
Whatever Happened to ... ? premieres TV One, Tuesday, September 11, 8.30pm.
David Cassidy, seen here with the Partridge Family, toured NZ in the '70s.
In 1976, tartan pop rockers The Bay City Rollers toured New Zealand. Were you there?
Were you in the front row for '70s heart throb David Cassidy's voyage downunder?
Those who can claim a "once-in-a-lifetime meeting with a big star", or were screaming from the front row of a significant cultural event in our nation's history, will be the stars of TVNZ's latest light-entertainment offering.
The show, Whatever happened to ... ?, hits screens on September 11.
In the early 2000s, New Zealand breakfast radio host and television current affairs personality Paul Holmes travelled the country hawking his self-titled album featuring covers of middle of the road classics, including Wichita Lineman and Where Do You Go To, My Lovely?
Where is he now?
Well, after a stint on Prime Television, the broadcasting legend has returned to TVNZ to host the show, and claims it will be "just the thing for a cold Tuesday night".
"It's not a Paul Holmes comedy talk show," but, rather, "a very interesting concept", he told the Weekend Herald.
It's a show about the big events, and how they affected the people dragged into them, and where those people are now.
Highlights will include meetings with "some formerly very famous musicians" both from New Zealand and abroad, Holmes says.
One episode will re-unite a man with the baby he saved from the Wahine disaster, in 1968.
Holmes - who admits it feels "very comfortable" to be back in the fold at TVNZ - says the show will run archival footage of a news event, then interviews with the participants.
A TVNZ statement says that although content "has yet to be confirmed", Whatever happened to ... ? aims to "revitalise our cultural history for a modern, contemporary audience" by using footage from the television archive.
"In the studio, Paul Holmes interviews the people who were there at key moments and events, to winnow out the human Kiwi experience of national and international events,and finds out what those people are doing now."
Herald columnist John Drinnan yesterday revealed more than $1 million in taxpayer funding had been allocated to the show.
TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards made no apologies. "We hope that it will be [money] well spent, and people will love it. These programmes don't have to be academic - entertainment programmes that tick all the boxes about shared experience, national identity, our place in the world, they're totally legitimate."
Whatever Happened to ... ? premieres TV One, Tuesday, September 11, 8.30pm.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Save Money
http://www.simplesavings.co.nz/
I wanted to thank you so much once again! We had hit a financial sink hole in the last week and found ourselves with just $40 to make do for the week and having not done the food shopping for our hungry family of four, I was terrified. This caused a lot of stress fights between myself and my husband this last weekend, (my only days off this fortnight!) so ... I decided to look you up again and saw the $21 Challenge. Instead of feeling like a destitute Sad Sally, I am a Happy Hanna again and we managed to just scrape in. Not only that but we are eating well and not wanting for anything! Using tips from the past newsletters I organised the kitchen, made a weeks lunches ahead (something I scoffed at previously!) and pre-made slow cook dinners and have really enjoyed eating 'real food' again. I am extending the Challenge to make everything from scratch which will be fun as I love to cook and can't see why I didn't anyway! I now realise how much money we have been wasting since I went back to work last year from maternity leave, and knowing that money saved equals time with my family, has given me new incentive! Thanks to you we are a happy family again this week and our new motto is 'ugly food = great cook'."
I wanted to thank you so much once again! We had hit a financial sink hole in the last week and found ourselves with just $40 to make do for the week and having not done the food shopping for our hungry family of four, I was terrified. This caused a lot of stress fights between myself and my husband this last weekend, (my only days off this fortnight!) so ... I decided to look you up again and saw the $21 Challenge. Instead of feeling like a destitute Sad Sally, I am a Happy Hanna again and we managed to just scrape in. Not only that but we are eating well and not wanting for anything! Using tips from the past newsletters I organised the kitchen, made a weeks lunches ahead (something I scoffed at previously!) and pre-made slow cook dinners and have really enjoyed eating 'real food' again. I am extending the Challenge to make everything from scratch which will be fun as I love to cook and can't see why I didn't anyway! I now realise how much money we have been wasting since I went back to work last year from maternity leave, and knowing that money saved equals time with my family, has given me new incentive! Thanks to you we are a happy family again this week and our new motto is 'ugly food = great cook'."
Sunday, August 26, 2007
EIGHTY THREE YEARS IN NEW ZEALAND
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~edent/reminisc.pdf Reminiscence if Frederic Clerment Utting - a great read of Auckland 1863- 1946
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Tea and tiny cakes
The Press Thursday, 16 August 2007
Embrace your inner empress, says Kate Fraser, and join the tea-party revival.
If pink is the new black and cupcakes are the new muffins, afternoon tea is the new drinks party.
The last time tiered cake stands, embellished teapots and sugar tongs were regularly used household items, most women's lifestyles were bound by a formality that extended even to all-women occasions such as afternoon tea.
Invitations to these stately occasions were taken seriously, and it was understood guests would wear hats and gloves and carry a good handbag.
The timing of the tea party was informative.
Invited for 3.30pm meant a genteel spread with delicate sandwiches, bread sliced so thinly you could see through it (and only plain butter, never jam), gems and a sponge cake.
The teapot was silver if the tea came from Ceylon or India, and china if China tea was offered.
If asked for 4pm, afternoon tea would be wheeled in on a trolley rattling with matching bone-china cups, sauces and plates, and a polished selection of scone knives, butter knives and cake forks for the dainty scones, savouries, fairy cakes and cream pastries.
Then there was 4.30pm or even a 5pm high tea with hot toast, hot scones, pikelets and homemade jam, sandwiches, fairy cakes and a slice.
It was more about filling the hungry gap between noonday dinner and supper, but whatever the time, the rules were the same: tea poured at the table by the hostess, milk offered before sugar, and plates please – no picking up a savoury and stuffing all into the mouth.
I don't know what has driven the tea-party revival but I suspect it may be the realisation that a drunken night on the town "with the girls" is sad, mad and bad.
Afternoon tea followed by a glass or two of bubbly reeks of style.
As an entertaining occasion it is still
a novelty, but it is catching on.
Maureen Falloon, who started her business The China Cabinet in March, says it began when she and a friend who put on afternoon teas for each other – "with special food, and lovely china and linen, like the ones we remembered our mothers having" – considered the commercial potential.
Falloon had collected good china for many years and knew she had enough to hire it out.
Another friend, Angela Mullen, owner of Brigitte's in Merivale, Christchurch, suggested they combine forces and hold a Vintage High Tea in the cafe.
Falloon provided the table linen, flowers, china, cutlery, teapots, strainers, sugar bowl – the whole paraphernalia that goes with proper tea parties.
Brigitte's staff prepared the sandwiches, savouries, scones and sweet cakes.
The invitations were for Vintage High Tea at 4pm. Sparkling wine was served as well as tea.
Other events have followed.
A baby shower, a 21st, a wedding and a family get-together have all had their tables dressed vintage-style with The China Cabinet's stock of vintage linen, china, champagne saucers and table accessories.
"I do everything but the food," she says.
"I leave that to the caterers I work with."
One of her most popular items is a special-delivery afternoon or morning tea.
She arrives with cups, saucers, plates and the food on a silver tray – "Tea for two mostly, but for greater numbers if required.
"Older people enjoy a tea party because it brings back lovely memories, and younger ones enjoy it because of its vintage connections. I enjoy them because I love to see pretty china being used again."
The China Cabinet: 027 461 9333, or visit www.thechinacabinet.co.nz
Margaret Rose fairy cakes
A modern version of a fairy cake, or cupcake, popular when Princess Margaret was a child.
INGREDIENTS
125g soft butter 200g caster sugar2 eggs 125ml of full-fat milk12 tsp rose waterZest of half an orange150g self-raising flour12 tsp baking powder pinch of salt.
METHOD
Preheat oven to 180deg (fanbake).
Use a food processor to beat soft butter and caster sugar to a cream.
Add 1 egg and process until blended – don't whizz for more than 15 seconds or the mixture will curdle.
Repeat with second egg.
With the machine running, slowly add full-fat milk.
Add rose water (available in specialist food stores – 1 tsp almond essence can be substituted but the flavour will be different).
Zest half an orange (or grate the skin) and add, whizzing briefly to combine.
Now combine self-raising flour with baking powder and salt.
Remove the cover of the processor and sieve the mixture over the butter/egg mixture.
Use the pulse button to blend in the flour, taking care not to over-mix.
Put paper cases in a muffin tray for stability, or put one case inside another.
Three-quarter fill cases with the mixture and bake for about 15 minutes, or until the cakes are golden and springy to the touch.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
When cold, ice and decorate.
Icing
INGREDIENTS
120g soft unsalted butter240g icing sugar1 drop of cochineal2-3 tsp squeezed orange juice.
METHOD
Beat butter and icing sugar in the food processor until fluffy.
Keep the machine running and add cochineal and squeezed orange juice.
Whizz briefly until the icing is a pale pink.
If rose water is not used, keep the icing colour cream.
Embrace your inner empress, says Kate Fraser, and join the tea-party revival.
If pink is the new black and cupcakes are the new muffins, afternoon tea is the new drinks party.
The last time tiered cake stands, embellished teapots and sugar tongs were regularly used household items, most women's lifestyles were bound by a formality that extended even to all-women occasions such as afternoon tea.
Invitations to these stately occasions were taken seriously, and it was understood guests would wear hats and gloves and carry a good handbag.
The timing of the tea party was informative.
Invited for 3.30pm meant a genteel spread with delicate sandwiches, bread sliced so thinly you could see through it (and only plain butter, never jam), gems and a sponge cake.
The teapot was silver if the tea came from Ceylon or India, and china if China tea was offered.
If asked for 4pm, afternoon tea would be wheeled in on a trolley rattling with matching bone-china cups, sauces and plates, and a polished selection of scone knives, butter knives and cake forks for the dainty scones, savouries, fairy cakes and cream pastries.
Then there was 4.30pm or even a 5pm high tea with hot toast, hot scones, pikelets and homemade jam, sandwiches, fairy cakes and a slice.
It was more about filling the hungry gap between noonday dinner and supper, but whatever the time, the rules were the same: tea poured at the table by the hostess, milk offered before sugar, and plates please – no picking up a savoury and stuffing all into the mouth.
I don't know what has driven the tea-party revival but I suspect it may be the realisation that a drunken night on the town "with the girls" is sad, mad and bad.
Afternoon tea followed by a glass or two of bubbly reeks of style.
As an entertaining occasion it is still
a novelty, but it is catching on.
Maureen Falloon, who started her business The China Cabinet in March, says it began when she and a friend who put on afternoon teas for each other – "with special food, and lovely china and linen, like the ones we remembered our mothers having" – considered the commercial potential.
Falloon had collected good china for many years and knew she had enough to hire it out.
Another friend, Angela Mullen, owner of Brigitte's in Merivale, Christchurch, suggested they combine forces and hold a Vintage High Tea in the cafe.
Falloon provided the table linen, flowers, china, cutlery, teapots, strainers, sugar bowl – the whole paraphernalia that goes with proper tea parties.
Brigitte's staff prepared the sandwiches, savouries, scones and sweet cakes.
The invitations were for Vintage High Tea at 4pm. Sparkling wine was served as well as tea.
Other events have followed.
A baby shower, a 21st, a wedding and a family get-together have all had their tables dressed vintage-style with The China Cabinet's stock of vintage linen, china, champagne saucers and table accessories.
"I do everything but the food," she says.
"I leave that to the caterers I work with."
One of her most popular items is a special-delivery afternoon or morning tea.
She arrives with cups, saucers, plates and the food on a silver tray – "Tea for two mostly, but for greater numbers if required.
"Older people enjoy a tea party because it brings back lovely memories, and younger ones enjoy it because of its vintage connections. I enjoy them because I love to see pretty china being used again."
The China Cabinet: 027 461 9333, or visit www.thechinacabinet.co.nz
Margaret Rose fairy cakes
A modern version of a fairy cake, or cupcake, popular when Princess Margaret was a child.
INGREDIENTS
125g soft butter 200g caster sugar2 eggs 125ml of full-fat milk12 tsp rose waterZest of half an orange150g self-raising flour12 tsp baking powder pinch of salt.
METHOD
Preheat oven to 180deg (fanbake).
Use a food processor to beat soft butter and caster sugar to a cream.
Add 1 egg and process until blended – don't whizz for more than 15 seconds or the mixture will curdle.
Repeat with second egg.
With the machine running, slowly add full-fat milk.
Add rose water (available in specialist food stores – 1 tsp almond essence can be substituted but the flavour will be different).
Zest half an orange (or grate the skin) and add, whizzing briefly to combine.
Now combine self-raising flour with baking powder and salt.
Remove the cover of the processor and sieve the mixture over the butter/egg mixture.
Use the pulse button to blend in the flour, taking care not to over-mix.
Put paper cases in a muffin tray for stability, or put one case inside another.
Three-quarter fill cases with the mixture and bake for about 15 minutes, or until the cakes are golden and springy to the touch.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
When cold, ice and decorate.
Icing
INGREDIENTS
120g soft unsalted butter240g icing sugar1 drop of cochineal2-3 tsp squeezed orange juice.
METHOD
Beat butter and icing sugar in the food processor until fluffy.
Keep the machine running and add cochineal and squeezed orange juice.
Whizz briefly until the icing is a pale pink.
If rose water is not used, keep the icing colour cream.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
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