Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, wrapped in winter’s cruel blasts, there is much talk of fireplaces. In many parts of the United Kingdom, you may not release smoke from a chimney, which rules open fires something of a rarity. At Christmas, the huddled masses are crouched over their two-bar electric heaters dreaming of the Dickensian Christmas described in The Pickwick Papers:
"The best sitting-room at Manor Farm was a good, long, dark-panelled room with a high chimney-piece, and a capacious chimney, up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all. The candles burned bright, the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth, and merry voices and light-hearted laughter rang through the room."
It seems, though, to enjoy even a smidgeon of such an atmosphere the poor devils were reduced to watching Netflix.
Netflix, I’m told, is an outfit which spends millions on producing programmes of such compelling interest that viewers are enticed away from the free-to-air rubbish and wallow in the pay-as-you-view rubbish. It’s called streaming, and on Boxing Day the most popular Netflix offering was expected to be Squid Game, described as "a Korean dystopian survival thriller horror television series which revolves around a secret contest where 456 players, all of whom are in deep financial hardship, risk their lives to play a series of deadly children’s games for the chance to win a $55 million prize". Now you know why I never watch television. Squid Game is a cultural offering that’s been around long enough to amass 1.65 billion viewing hours, but on Boxing Day it languished behind a one-hour item called Crackling Birchwood Fireplace which featured footage of burning wood on an open fire. The item was on an endless loop providing "snapping, crackling birch logs to set the mood for a relaxing good time as a beautiful fire comes to life with glowing embers and dancing flames".
Netflix has been streaming virtual fireplaces since 2013 when the original Fireplace for Your Home was first shown. Since then there have been a number of variations on the theme including Bridgerton: Fireplace, Mid-Century Modern Fireplace and Family Pack: Fireplace, featuring a campfire.
The spoofers were soon on the job and a "documentary" about the making of this "(wood) block buster" showed the director carefully selecting suitable logs, testing their smell and flammability and then arranging them with great precision in the fire place, even getting halfway up the chimney to check all is well. Finally, he sets the whole thing ablaze and glowing embers and dancing flames are set to burn for eternity in endless loop.
But, wait! It’s a fraud! The fire being shown is just another of those puny imitations you see everywhere, gas or electrically-powered in which the "logs" aren’t logs at all. It looks like an open fire but it’s not. You can easily check if it’s the real thing. After all, there’s no fire without smoke, and those pretenders give off no smoke or sparks or, indeed, any sort of comfort at all.
For the real thing you must seek widely. In Maniototo you’ll find genuine open fires. Of course, many have been replaced by wood burners where the doings are secreted behind a glass frontage and it’s not quite the same as open fire, but smoke still curls from the chimney.
A few pubs still offer the genuine article and they’re worth a winter visit just for that alone. Naseby’s Royal still burns logs in a friendly fire and the daddy of them all is at Danseys Pass. With a fireplace like Dickens’ Manor Farm model, "up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all" and with logs the size of small oak trees, the Danseys blaze provides the warmest winter welcome.
When winter comes with snow on the ground and temperatures close to freezing you may turn to Netflix and their loop of the sun shining in a blue sky with the thermometer hitting 30°C, but I’ll be at Danseys, free of all such frauds.
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
