Lighthouses in New Zealand

Today for something new I went to a book launch at the Wellington City to Sea Museum. It  was a marvellous coffee table book - a beautifully published collection of rare scenes of historic lighthouses throughout NZ which are no longer serviced  by the traditional lighthouse keepers, although one was in attendance who had looked after six of the said lighthouses in his long career.

They were extraordinarily beautiful shots and I hope one day to buy the book, when I have a coffee table that is! The museum itself is also worth another visit, to learn more of Wellington's extremely colourful history.

Which is exactly what I experienced later that same evening at a showing, entry by Koha, (donation) at the Film Archives in Taranaki Street.

This was an excellent documentary called 'Who's counting?' by Canadian Oscar winning woman, Terre Nash, about a Kiwi woman, one of the first post-modern feminists cum politician that NZ produced in the seventies. In 1978 she was the sole female Member of Government, and single-handedly, on the issue of no nuclear ships in NZ, brought down the Nationalist government. 

Her name is Marilyn Waring and she is a redoubtable lady, now a professor at Auckland University of Public Policy, gender studies and generally how to fix the world.  Waring's major book, widely sold and which gave her instant notoriety around the world, is called 'If Women Counted' and has gone down as one of THE feminist tomes of the twentieth century. Invited to the UN and to Canada to talk, she showed how the world has been corrupted by Keynesian thinking and how economically the women in the world are actually not accounted for if they are not part of the Gross Domestic Product, which is what all world economies are based upon. This actually persuaded the UN to rethink its policies, thus activating some relief in third world countries. 

It was a fascinating and must-see documentary. Waring  was so much in demand, I think, she just had to return to Auckland to gather her wits together. At twenty-three  she had been the youngest elected woman member of parliament, and represented Raglan where she also stopped the development of a gold mine which all the locals did not want. She is literally the local heroine.

The launch by the photographer of a spectacular coffee table book of Lighthouse photographs in NZ

 Four hundred Santas do a Charity run on the bay