Life in the Crosshairs

Man Booker nominee Lloyd Jones talks up his home town of Wellington in a travel article for The Times. He describes the city’s world-famous wind as a source of both embarrassment and pride for its citizens. “This is hardly the stuff of postcards or likely to threaten the Costa Brava with its balmier and more predictable climes. But give me Wellington any day,” he writes. “The city squats head down in the crosshairs of southerly and northwesterly weather systems … The city’s population occasionally feel scandalised by the unseemliness of it. We often apologise to overseas visitors on its behalf. But among ourselves a more tribal view emerges. We are quietly proud of its excesses, of its raging character and its Olympian quest to flatten the city and scatter its inhabitants. We love it.”