Columns by Mike Crowl, from the Dunedin Star Midweeker, Dunedin, New Zealand

Column Eight - 19th Oct, 1994

Water Matters

This is a column with a good deal of local content - hence the considerable number of footnotes.

Three people came to my rescue after last week's column, two to tell me that the back of the knee does have a name, and one to suggest something I might write about.   Thanks, readers: Your responses prove that at least three people read last week's column, in spite of its probably being one to dedicate to the taxman. I now know that the back of the knee is called the Popliteal Fossa - and the inside of the elbow, additionally, is the Cubital Fossa. I can see why neither of the names has caught on in common parlance, and why most anatomy students forget them as soon as their exams are over. I spent a few moment debating how these names might be transformed into something useful, but I couldn't make much progress. Plital and Bital? Pop Fuzz and Cube Fuzz? Nah, they just don't have any sort of ring at all. The other reader about matters aqueous, as many Dunedinites are presently doing. Her main concern was that the physiotherapy pool is being quietly flushed down the plughole. This pool is one of Dunedin's best kept secrets - I don't credit that comment with any originality - and is in grave danger of departing not only without a proper burial, but without any real replacement. The phys-pool threatens to go in the same way as the Star fountain: Put the thing in mothballs for a few months and then quietly forget it ever existed. Curious how some aspects of our communal life get this 'you've passed your use-by-date' treatment. Some locals want to relocate the pool. But sticking the pool up the hill, far away from the hospital, is a daft idea. The thousands of dollars needed to transport people there and back can't even be counted by a person with six fingers on each hand. There's no lack of vocal supporters showing the continuing need for the phys-pool - in its present location. So let's keep these decision-makers on their toes, folks, lest we forget! Meanwhile other citizens have been making sharp and testy noises about the Star fountain, which continues to hibernate. In fact, if the present council has anything to do with it, its dormancy may continue until the next century. What forward planning - to be able to specify what will be on the agenda in six years. Various letters to the editor have already suggested places, like the Botanic Gardens where the fountain might find a new home. However, the fountain had a proven ability to impress tourists. Why park it out of the way? If it doesn't suit the new (but invisible) "Flemish Garden," put it in the Exchange. With a bit of reshuffling there's room in front of John Wickliffe House. Or as a second-best, there's the Queen's Gardens. Two of Dunedin's longest-established hotels are in the Exchange area and the only thing of visual interest at present is Cargill's monument (which some tourists must go home thinking is a 19th century traffic hazard). Jet-lagged and time-zone-confused tourists are always floating around looking for something to use their video film up on. and the Exchange could do with reviving: it's been neglected by our so-called city fathers for too long. Letting our fountain rust away has been an insult to Dunedinites. The fountain might have had its silly moments (like some of the music it dance to) but with an increase of imagination (and extra computer technology) it could become something not only tourists would delight in, but locals. The fountain was a gift to all people of this city, not merely to the councillors. The latter have acted like mean-spirited parents deciding that one of the birthday presents their child received wasn't really suitable. And they've tossed it into the basement out of sight.

The physiotheraphy pool was threatened with closure at the time this column was written, in spite of being used both by those physically needing its heated waters, and many others for relaxation.   In spite of what was written here it still exists in its old home.  [Back]

The Star Fountain, on the other hand, ten years after this column was written, remains in pieces, somewhere in the city.  It had been gifted to the city by the Star newspaper (these columns were written in a free paper distributed by the same company) but after a long period of giving pleasure to people with its displays, it was dismantled - for repairs - and replaced, eventually, by two of the most tedious 'fountains' you can imagine.   Ten years on, its lack of restoration still rankles in the city.  [Back]

Botanic Gardens - situated more than two kilometres from the Octagon, where the fountain used to play. [Back]

Flemish Garden - now situated in front of the Railway Station, a major tourist attraction, within spitting distance of the fountain's original location.   At the time the column was written, merely an idea in someone's mind.  [Back]

John Wickliffe House - named after one of the earliest ships to arrive in Dunedin, this is situated in what used to be the heart of the city, the Exchange.     The Exchange is now an uninspiring open space occupied by Cargill' s monument and three bronze penguins who, unlike real penguins,  stand several metres apart from each other.   [Back]

Queen's Gardens - formerly a small but pleasant oasis near the Exchange.  Now cut in two by traffic, and inhabited mostly by tai chi people, martial arts practitioners, folk on their lunch-breaks, traffic fumes and the Cenotaph, a massive war memorial - and Queen Victoria's statue. [Back]

Cargill's Monument - an extraordinary memorial to one of the city's founders, it has been moved more than once, and even acted for a number of years as a kind of 'cover' to a men's underground toilet in the days when we had less respect for our historic monuments. [Back]

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