Opera School patron picks up a Grammy

Wagnerian tenor Simon O'Neill, Opera School patron and Grammy winner, here performing during Opera and Aroha on the River in January 2019 in Whanganui. Photo / Paul Brooks

Look who got a Grammy!

Patron of New Zealand Opera School international tenor Simon O'Neill picked up an award for his role as Dr Marianus in Mahler's Symphony No.8 under the baton of conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

His Grammy is for Best Choral Performance. Simon is a regular in Whanganui during Opera Week and has performed here often, including one unheralded appearance on the Waimarie in 2019 during Opera and Aroha on the River.

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New plastic items to make the planet sicker.

Since the day when a group of smart but short-sighted people thought replacing everything with plastic was a good idea, we've had consequences like no one would have believed at the time.

The realisation that plastic was bad news for the planet led to changes and the removal from production of things deemed dangerous, like those things that used to hold six-packs together.

No, not muscle shirts: Plastic yokes, notorious for ending up in the ocean and killing marine life. Things like synthetic clothes and carpets are not so easy to get rid of and there are some plastics we really can't do without, most of which are used in medicine and surgery ... oh, and vinyl records. We saw paper bags return to the grocery business — they should never have left — but too much food packaging is still plastic with little change noticeable.

And just when all things ecologically sound was being heard and voices demanded new materials and a new perspective, along came a pandemic and we all took a few steps backward.

Now we have new plastics to try and dispose of, and it's not going to be easy. Face masks and RAT kits are the new pestilence.

Face masks are like tumbleweed, rolling in the wind down streets and around carparks, catching up against fences like flood debris. They are disposable, see, so some people are taking that too literally and disposing of them wherever they will, creating a new unsightly nuisance.

Those elastic loops are perfect for snagging on anything and we can imagine what will happen when they, like six pack yokes, find their way to the sea. Some hapless marine animal or fish will get caught in them.

RAT kits are everywhere and are completely plastic. Used just once before disposal, we have tonnes of the testing kits finding their way to landfill, and like all other plastics, will not break down for millennia.

Masks and RAT kits were produced in huge numbers in response to a pandemic that was making people sick. Their disposal after use is dangerous to the health of the planet.

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So a few stragglers turned out for yet another protest in Wellington. Not sure what the reason is, but a suggestion is that it's the "you've taken away our reason to protest" protest.