I’ve been reading the Flight of the Creative Class – it hasn’t been difficult reading, but it has been somewhat uncomfortable. For years I’ve been uncomfortable about New Zealand’s potential as an economic powerhouse in the future. On a global scale we’re a bit more like an economic outhouse. I just couldn’t see NZ cutting it in the so-called export led recovery. After all, our fish exports don’t consitute more than about 5% of the world fish supplies. There’s only so much butter and dairy products. Trees, yeah. Altogether it’s all about primary products, at commodity prices.
Manufacturing – yeah, right. When was the last time you bought a manufactured product 100% made in NZ? I doubt there’s anything 100% made here anymore – perhaps the kete or two. A muka enhanced paua shell necklace. Not much else. So what’s left? Software? Games? Call centres? Oh yeah, as if. Somehow NZ’s trying to compete on numbers – as if we have more numbers of skilled programmers than say Brazil or India.
So what’s New Zealand – Wellington, specifically, to do? According to my professor of choice, Peter Murphy, a port is a hallmark of city of distinction, throughout time. Ok, Wellington could be the Hong Kong of the New Zealand. According to Richard Florida, the other card Wellington could (and does play) is the creative card. And there’s no doubt Peter Jackson, winner of the Peter Murphy look alike award, has done great work in terms of creating a forum for the development of creativity in Wellington and NZ in general. I know of one film clan who shoot in their garage on weekends. I know a low power radio guy. I know an artist. All here in Wellington. And there are others. And it’s great.
Florida suggests a way forward. If I have interpreted his writing correctly, NZ needs to open its doors to creative individuals, ideally those with investment funds, and entreprenurial aspirations. Well, if it expands the creative vibe here in the capital, bring it on. As for Florida’s book – interesting reading. I can imagine living in other places, but now I’d be interested in rating the creative base as well as the rest of the aspects of any new society being considered.
We came across a thicket of strange trees – perhaps four or five meters tall – with the most unearthly ‘flowers’. The flowers turned out to be more of an adaptation we might see in carnivorous plants on Earth. The sticky tips of the ‘tongues’ are charged with a form of bioluminescence which attracts the many ‘fireflies’ seen at night. It is unclear if the insects detect the glowing tips as food, social companions as in an urge to form a swarm, or whether as an invitation to mate. Not that it matters, the end result is the same, the insect is captured and delivered into the cup at the base of the stem. The lips of the cup fold over and the contents are digested without dilution from the rain. It is as though the plant has considered the initial plans for the Earth species, Drosera, Dionaea, and the Sarracenia, and added its own unique variations. One of the adaptations is the leaves are exceptionally densely packed, and quite thick and leathery. The leaves, as so many species here, are reddish in colour on the underside, to take advantage of any reflected light. The dense leaf cover achieves three outcomes – the ‘flowers’ are sheltered from the driving rain, there is less light underneath the canopy so the bioluminescence is more obviously for longer times periods, and the darkness also help suppress other species from growing underneath.
Bioluminescence appears to be a common technique employed by a number of species here. It is common to see rock walls covered in ‘lichens’ – fungi perhaps, glowing blues and greens eerily in the dark. Most nights, unless the rain is too heavy, we are treated to vibrant swarms of glowing insects, flying like madly animated fireworks.
Another interesting form of ‘lichen’ we have encountered is found in the drier places – they’re rare enough, but they do exist. The lichen eats into rock surfaces – pock marking it into lunar-like surfaces – in what appears to be remarkably rapid time frames. If the rock surfaces were exposed to heavy rain the craters would fill with water and waterlog the lichen. We can’t tell if the lichen ‘eats’ the rock surfaces, or whether it secretes some sort of corrosive enzyme to extract the nutrients from the rock, perhaps in something like the way a house fly drools saliva on its food before re-consuming the saliva and nutrient solutions. 
It may be possible that the lichen has some kind of micro-roots, similar to the nano-fibres on the feet of geckos. These micro-roots could split out minute chips of the stone – dust at the largest, part of the on-going erosion and rebuilding of a planet.
Lately I’ve been spending altogether too much time playing with the calculators over at 