11pm-12am: The midnight hour

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Just before midnight, Warren Stone walks down Remuera Rd swathed in white, splattered in fresh scarlet blood.

A dead pig, its tongue lolling, is slung over his shoulder. It is a vision bordering on the grotesque, as the night slides into a deeper pitch of darkness.

This is the last hour of every day - as one world shuts down, the kaleidoscope that is life at night is just beginning to sparkle. For some, the working day is just firing up.

No one is certain how many New Zealanders toil through the darkest hours, but at least a quarter of the labour force works shifts outside the typical nine to five.

The meat carrier is one of these unseen workers, stocking up Auckland's butchers before daylight arrives.

Most humans are starting their slumber now - 10 pm to midnight is the most common bedtime - but not everyone is rewarded with a good night's sleep.

Experts at the Sleep Wake centre in Wellington believe there may be more than half a million people with chronic sleep disorders, and 350,000 others who occasionally have problems dozing.

For New Zealand's favourite creature, the kiwi, though, midnight equals lunchtime. The 72,000 forest-floor dwellers have been fossicking for their next meal since stirring half an hour after sunset.

But inside Auckland Zoo, it is the exact opposite.

Bizarre as it may sound, the birds' days have been turned upside down by the lighting inside their nocturnal house, so that when visitors come during zoo opening hours, the kiwi are full of life.

So the kiwi sleep at night along with most of the other animals - while the restless tiger prowls his den.

Out on the city streets, and even on country roads, restless teenagers wander in small herds, without a care for sleep.

In the top office in the land, the Prime Minister is up and about, almost always working until midnight. The light burns on the ninth floor of the Beehive as she sits and deals with paperwork.

During the night, the Prime Minister's staff sleep, but their mobile phones never do. The phones are left on, next to their pillows, in case of a national or international emergency - from an earthquake to a war or nuclear disaster on the other side of the globe.

Not everyone who works at night can save the world. But people like Robert Lyden do their bit to keep the country a cleaner place.

In central Auckland, Mr Lyden wages a lone night crusade against taggers. From 11 pm to first light, he scours bus stops, park benches and the face of every parking meter to erase the illegible street branding.

"They've even tagged my truck when I wasn't looking," says the Auckland City Council contractor. "It's not easy when it's one man against what seems like a thousand of them. They think it's art - I think it's bloody horrible."

Last month, he scrubbed, waterblasted and painted over more than 8000 tags and ripped down countless unwanted posters.

Some of the scribblings take longer than others to erase.

"A woman painted a letter to Helen Clark on the footpath on K Rd, saying how she had ruined the country."

Her message never survived to see daylight - "She would have been better off using a pen and paper," laughs Mr Lyden.

The works of more discerning wordsmiths line the walls of a late-night bookstore down the street. Night owls, some cross-legged on the floor, nose through books and magazines at Borders Books and Music on Queen St until the doors close at midnight.

"On Friday and Saturday nights it's really hard to get people out the door," says the shop's inventory manager, David Dromer.

But the effort is worth it - about 40 per cent of sales are made after dark as book-hungry people file out of movies and shows nearby.

Back outside the Bassett Rd butcher's shop in Remuera, the meat man is delivering beasts from the abattoir before the boners with their glinting knives come later in the night to carve up steaks and joints.

One million lambs went to slaughter around New Zealand last week, joined on the butchers' hooks by 96,000 mutton sheep and 60,000 cattle.

Mr Stone sometimes cops abuse from young vegetarians walking by and battles with animal rights activists who glue the locks of the butcher's shop doors. "But I've also been asked to pose for photos with American tourists - with the pig in the middle," he says.

Health rules demand that he wear the white boots, overalls and what he calls his Ku Klux Klan hood to cover his hair. He keeps his face baby smooth, or else he would have to wear a mask.

Almost doubled over, he hauls up to four pig carcasses at a time on his back until just before midnight. "It's like getting paid to go to the gym," he grins.

Then he lugs a couple of sheep carcasses and half a side of beef from his truck into the empty butcheries.

At the stroke of midnight, one day has ended, but the night is still young.

Night file:


1.Victims of sleep apnoea stop breathing for several minutes while asleep. American research says it affects 4 per cent of men and 2 per cent of women.

2. At least 1200 people work through the night on trains, ferries and trucks for Tranz Rai, l carting thousands of tonnes of goods, from milk logs, people and cars.

3. The most common kiwi is the North Island brown - there are 30,000 of them. There are only 200 each of the Haast tokoeka and the Okarito brown.

4. At least 15,000 New Zealanders buy an after-midnight snack from the 20 McDonald's 24-hour restaurants every weekend.

5. At least seven planes fly into Auckland International Airport each night between midnight and 6 am, carrying passengers and freight.