Glamour and glitz? Yeah right!

BY PHILIP MATTHEWS

There is the official story of Cup Day at Addington - and the unofficial story.

Over the PA system and on the big screen, a spokesman for a sponsor called NRM New Zealand is wittering on about the effectiveness of his agricultural product, but it makes more sense to just tune in to the conversation of two young guys next to us.

"You betting?"

His mate shakes his head.

"Just getting on the piss?"

Then from over the PA, more of that hopeful droning: "It's always pleasing to see a horse winning on NRM feed."

The late Hunter S Thompson famously talked about the Kentucky Derby being decadent and depraved. Cup Day at Addington has generated the same kind of reputation around New Zealand as one of those peculiarly Christchurch dualities: all glamour and finery on the surface, witlessness and drunkenness beneath.

So let's leave the Lindauer Lawn - the site of that glamour and finery -and cross the track to the looser zone of bare dirt in the middle of the course. Does anyone even have a name for that part of Addington? "No-man's land" is one suggestion.

First sight as we cross over: a guy urinating against a fence. Is he in shorts, a kilt or has he just lost the bottom half of his trousers during the course of his day? Anyone's guess.

It's mid-afternoon. The girls are starting to stagger and the guys are starting to pick fights with each other.

We got our first sighting of that Cup Day icon - a drunk woman in a mini-skirt carried out by two blokes and followed by security - about an hour earlier. It's when the event stopped being sedate and started to become its opposite.

Try to put your finger on the mood out here in no-man's land. It's about nothing but drinking.

Police and bored security guards lean against a fence, waiting for taunts and play-fights to get serious.

Word is that they pulled about five guys out of here earlier and one had a go right back at the police. So he's in the wagon.

You can smell marijuana for a second and then it's gone. A guy with a tattoo on the back of his neck waves his joint in the direction of the police. They either don't notice or they're treading lightly.

The police say they have had a quiet day, at least compared with last year. There was more booze around then and it was hotter.

Being drunk and sun-struck brings out the worst in everyone. Today is colder, bleaker. Instead, you worry about those girls in mini-skirts, their sore feet and purple legs. Can we also thank a well-publicised crackdown on alcohol? This was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everyone looked for Cup Day to be subdued and so it was.

But there are two observers from the Alcohol Advisory Council begging to differ. The obvious line: our much-discussed problem with alcohol is plainly visible on days like this.

The problem is when alcohol becomes the event.

But no-one likes a wowser. Isn't unpredictable drunkenness a New Zealand tradition?

In the crowd, another tap that looks like it could start a fight. Another stilletto heel breaking on the hardy ground. And the guy on the PA system still talking about animal feed and disease control.

- © Fairfax NZ News