The fire service had the Kiwi House outdoor barbecue blaze quickly under control. Photo / Brett Phibbs
The fire service had the Kiwi House outdoor barbecue blaze quickly under control. Photo / Brett Phibbs
After watching the Black Sticks put up the fight of their careers against the dominant Dutch, I had it in mind to go to King's Cross and kick back at Kiwi House. After seeing such good sport, why not relax with a quiet one?
It's funny how quickly things canturn. The high-speed Javelin train takes passengers between the Olympic Park in Stratford to King's Cross station in about 10 minutes. It takes longer to queue up for the train than to complete the journey.
The train was pulling into the station when everything started beeping. First, a Twitter message, followed by simultaneous calls to my New Zealand and British mobile phones: Fire, Kiwi House, right now. There went my relaxation plan in a plume of smoke, and the same was true for at least 300 others, all of whom got away safely.
The black stuff could be seen from the station, about 250m away, and by this point the fire service had it well under control. From what I understand, this was only 11 minutes after the fire and the barbecue gas canister explosion.
It says a lot for the Kiwi sense of humour (and appetite) that one of the biggest concerns among the Great Fire of Granary Square evacuees was the state of the barbecue meat.
There were also rumours concerning some prankster's nefarious plan to claim the Kiwi House banner as a kind of trophy. If successfully executed, it would have almost certainly ranked up there with the cheeky theft of the original Olympic flag in Antwerp 92 years ago.
I like Kiwi House. I think the NZ Olympic Committee and the venue's volunteers have done a great job with it. For starters, they piped in Sky's NZ Olympic broadcasts, and it's no exaggeration to say that seeing footage of the Kiwi athletes anywhere else might have been an impossible task.
I understand there is a divide between the Kiwis who move to London and weave themselves into its fabric as soon as they can, and those who band together. At Kiwi House, it didn't matter so much, it seemed. It was good enough just to turn up, watch the Olympics, enjoy some music, and shout a stranger a drink and a pie.
Cheers to you, Kiwi House.
Oh ... are any of the sausages still good?
TWEET OF DAY
The instruction as I recall it was to always blow on the pie not blow up the pie. #kiwihouse
