So I was at this party in Christchurch, the party destination . The Ibiza of New Zealand. The Mexican escape to Tijuana. Technically, as Christchurch is so alive or something, I went to two parties but the one I felt really old in, really haggard. As if my receding hairline and mid-middle life crises were all paralysing me in one go. And I seemed so paralysed at that party with kids with expensive cameras photographing my eyes, and by kids I mean one precocious post teen photographing my eye. God knows why. At the real party of the weekend, the Gatecrasher club anthem, the climax of the Gatecrasher club anthem - where the drums do that electronic 1/16th beat crescendo thing, my brothers friend said he wouldn't have missed all of the aftershocks and all of the boredom in post quake Christchurch for anything because "there is a real sense of change in the city, everyone is way nicer to each other, so much more considerate." And this was a really nice sentiment and you know I want to have the best, and nothing but the best, impressions of the place. Holy revelations in the cherry trees lining Deans Avenue in full blossom, the daffodils coming up through cracks in the pavement on Memorial Avenue. Tears falling like Catholic miracles from statues, my hands bleeding in stigmata all as one holy moment. But as I walked back to the place I was staying, three keen Christchurch boys wound down their window and yelled "Fuck you faggot..weeeeeee" as the joy of that ecstatic release and the wind in their faces filled them with the compassionate post quake good feelings, as the suburban/quake malaise failed to impact on their saturday night and they went round looking for ways to prove that my decision to move away from home was a sensible choice. As if walking on a Saturday night makes you automatically a target or something. And I wanted to believe my brothers friend about this social change, but in a town full of jerks if you aren't a jerk you are doing something wrong. Fact.