The wind will blow them all away

Ah, Glover Park. In the 90s it was a seedy place, dark and leafy, where you might get a fright walking through. Strolling along, you would look up to find you were surrounded by silent drinkers; half-hidden in the nooks and crannies, screened by big old trees, low walls and shrubbery. 

All the familiar faces would be in there at some point – the people you didn’t know, but saw nearly every day. They were always around, wandering aimlessly through the streets or sleeping on benches in Cuba Street, drinking in the bus stops at the top of Courtenay Place on a rainy day. The little crumpled lady with the Egyptian eyeliner, Happy Santa, the impossibly skinny, white-haired man in the gabardine raincoat and the wild eyed beardy man who shouted all the time. And dozens more, all part of the fabric of the city.

Then in 2006 the park got a facelift. Now it’s a breezy, urbane greenspace, open and airy, with a clear view from edge to edge.

There are no signs that say “No Rough Sleeping”, “No Homeless”, “No Drinking”.

But without the shelter of the natural alcoves, arranged around the old rambling central path, there are no longer any private, semi-enclosed spaces. Now a wide, straight path cuts right through the centre, and the entire site is open to the sky.

New businesses had crept in: a designer fabric shop here, an upmarket French Café there. More and more pressure was put on the Council to do something about the park’s residents. No place in hipsterville for hoicking, swearing, old-school drunks in sleeping bags. So, first a remodel of ‘Alky Park’ to make it less fit for purpose for rough sleepers, and two years later a new bylaw: the Central City Liquor Ban.

Fittingly though, alcohol is still a feature at Glover Park. These days a bar, ‘The Rogue and Vagabond’ sits at its edge, and a corner of the park beside it is roped off on sunny days for the private use of its customers, who can take their ease on

Photo credit: Dreamstime

beanbags on the grass. It could be that when alcohol is a commercial transaction, licensed and regulated, it is less likely to cause a nuisance than when it’s guzzled secretively from a bottle in a brown paper bag, on a dark park bench. Or it could be that the Central City Liquor Ban was not designed to control drinking in the area so much as to penalise and exclude an already marginalised section of society, a community of rough sleepers who had no voice, no place to go, and very little economic power.
Craft beer, anyone?

Land of birds

What would I have thought, when I stepped off the boat? A barren and inhospitable land, too much bush, too many loud birds? Or just, oh dear, someone lives here already?

I suppose like everybody else I’d have been homesick before very long, and if I had the means would have set about sending back to the motherland for familiar things to make me feel at home. Granny’s sideboard, my second-best bustle, some bunnies and sparrows. Maybe a weasel or two.

And maybe it was me who accidentally brought in seeds wedged into the soles of my boots: thistles, dandelions, burdock.

With the benefit of hindsight though, it’s hard to imagine that I would have thought

New Zealand's wildlife: stuffed.
Photo credit: Te Papa

it was a good idea to bring in stoats to eat the rabbits, after I realised the rabbits were out of control. After all, there were so many flightless birds out there, just minding their own business. Enormous, placid parrots, tiny defenceless wrens and ground-nesting native ducks. Surely I would have considered the consequences?

Easy to judge though, at this late stage.

I can imagine thinking gorse was a good idea, having come from a country where farmland hedgerows were so traditional. But decades later when gorse was recognised as a pest, would I have thought introducing gorse-hungry weevils, spider mites, moths and thrips worth the risk? As with all biological controls, in an unusual ecology like ours there’s always a chance these introduced control agents will discover they prefer the taste of something native (and knowing Aotearoa’s luck, something on the verge of extinction).

The possums I definitely would have voted against, while making the sandwiches at

Photo credit: unknown

my local branch of the Acclimatisation Society. Assuming I had any kind of voice of course. But if I’d had anything to do with it, the landscape around you might be quite different today. Wombats, for one thing. They would have been a better choice than the possums. Probably some zebras, because, zebras. And some quokka, who would have been a much better bet than those pesty hedgehogs. If you’re going for ‘exotic’, well, might as well go crazy. How about some giraffes?

Sea cucumbers

I was interested this week, on news of the sad death of cricketer Martin Crowe, to hear that he’d chosen to treat his cancer with 'natural therapies' rather than follow doctors’ advice.  Each to their own, of course. But, given the alarming influence that sportspeople have in this country, well. I despair. One minute it’s weetbix sandwiches, heat pumps, and the joys of crippling debt, and the next thing you know it’s all what a nice flag and eat your sea cucumbers.

Google sea cucumbers and you’ll find there’s no shortage of people who believe they do cure cancer, but actual research is only in its infancy, and is not

Here, kitty
Photo credit: theeggadventure.com

conclusive one way or the other. 

Now I’m in no position to scoff at anyone suffering a severe illness who tries anything that offers hope. I once, in desperation, saw a naturopath in the hope that ANYTHING she could suggest might (might) help me with the crippling pain of endometriosis. Hope was enough. Strangely the waving of a pendulum gave me no relief, though I’m sure Dr Crystal-Muncher would say my skepticism ruined the effect. And this would be so, if she was talking about the placebo effect. But actual medicine works whether you ‘believe’ in it or not, surely?

I’m all for people experimenting with different methods of pain control and quality of life enhancement, don’t get me wrong. Whether it’s prescription painkillers, liquid marijuana, yoga stretches or a nice cab sav, we’re all different in what works for taking that edge off – and if you’re suffering from a terminal illness or any health condition that compromises your ability to enjoy yourself, you should be able to try whatever you like to improve your physical comfort and your state of mind.

But please don’t experiment on yourself with sea cucumber extract, vitamin C , turmeric and baking soda expecting an actual cure for your condition. If you want to know

Quack

whether some wacko treatment works, why not get yourself involved in a clinical trial, and then we can all have some proper evidence about your alternative medicine.

But then as Ben Goldacre has explained there’s no such thing as alternative medicine. Because if it doesn’t work, it’s not medicine. And if it works, it’s not ‘alternative’ is it? It’s just 'medicine'.