PUB CRAWL

phoned up the last journalist who wrote about the Okoroire Hot Springs Hotel and told him he’d got it all wrong. The story, he believed, spent far too much time on the negatives and, as a proud resident of Okoroire since 1983, he had taken it upon himself to invite the journalist and his wife to visit the pub for a few beers and a game of pool. Petersen was of the firm opinion he would give them a walloping on the pool table, but enough of a good time to warrant a new and improved story. He invited me, too, when I rang and spoke to him. Had I visited the hotel, he wanted to know. I told him I had. What was the story going to be about, he wanted to know. Oh, you know, the history of the place, the locals, the predicament it’s in. Because I don’t want to be a part of anything negative, he said. All this trouble recently with the liquor licence, the fighting. He wondered if the police, the council, and the licensing committee “just wanted everyone to sit at home and do knitting every night”. Then he said: “You can’t blame where a