Posts by Ana Simkiss
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Someone who understands how these things work may be able to answer the following question: who operates the council-owned pools across Auckland and is this being looked at? Can't seem to find any information about this.
My experience is only at Auckland City facilities which as I understand it are (all?) run by private operators on behalf of the council. Is this the same across all of Auckland and does it explain the sometimes very high cost?
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Hard News: My Year in Culture,
I subscribed to the Silo this year (a joint Christmas pressie with my beloved). It was the best present I have got myself in years. Actually got us off our backsides into the theatre every few weeks and the Silo had a brilliant, brave and varied season. Will do again.
Also the ATC production of Cabaret was super rude and absolutely wonderful. I was mystified as to why the whole audience (except yours truly) was over 55?
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Hard News: Unreasonable people vote,
If you haven't, read this - Matt Taibbi on the Tea Party
Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it's going. But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I've concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They're full of shit. All of them. At the voter level, the Tea Party is a movement that purports to be furious about government spending — only the reality is that the vast majority of its members are former Bush supporters who yawned through two terms of record deficits and spent the past two electoral cycles frothing not about spending but about John Kerry's medals and Barack Obama's Sixties associations. The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending — with the exception of the money spent on them.
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Field Theory: Though I never liked how…,
Amusing comment from Russell Baillie on the song with some alternative lyrics that are pretty spot on: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10635748
"Right here, right now/ There is no place in this ground for me/Right here, right now/ Watching the World Cup on my TV."
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I'm having a weekend like that this weekend! cricket on Saturday, Summer Series on Sunday...I've also promised to drop in on the Wet Hot B*tches who have a repeat performance Sunday 3pm. Now I need the Auckland weather gods to cooperate.
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Island Life: So, what do you think of…,
What George Darroch said. And I've definitely seen worse immigration points/border crossings than that.
Also, didn't someone somewhere recently say that the bulk of cruise ship passengers are processed by NZ immigration on board the ship?
The haste of all this is not justified, and the half arsed-ness of it is inevitably going to produce poor decisions. What's more, I simply don't see this as a decision in which the people of Auckland have been allowed to properly participate, what with the aborted competition, the surprise "winners" and "options" that emerged a couple of weeks ago, and the heavy leaning that's being done by the Government and the RWC Minister.
I could go on.. .after fence sitting on this issue I now find myself firmly in the "taihoa!" camp.
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Speaker: The Architecture of Elsewhere,
Hi Simon Wilson,
Thanks for the good work you are doing in Metro re the super city and other issues that we should all care about a little more. I do wonder sometimes whether the reason why Wellington has a wonderful and mostly public waterfront has something to do with the high level of citizen engagement. I've yet to see much of the same here in Auckland but we live in hope.
Simon, I'm largely with you on the Queens Wharf - no need to rush into anything when we can deal with World Cup needs quickly and take a bit of time to consider more permanent structures. The other matters I'm not yet persuaded either way (in particular - why must there be a cruise ship terminal on Queens Wharf? what is Banks' obsession with a convention centre and where does that belong?). I will continue to inform myself and I am glad publications like yours are doing somethig to air the issues.
What I'd really like to see is a coherent long term plan for the waterfront from Tank Farm to the Port. We need more public space in the city, and piecemeal private development has not done us many favours in Auckland. We can wait a few years to get it right.
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Speaker: The Architecture of Elsewhere,
Hello Patrick, are you Patrick Reynolds the photographer found @ http://www.patrickreynolds.co.nz ?
As a recent returnee to Auckland I'm fairly disgusted with what's been built in my absence, with a (very) few honourable exceptions. I walk through the future slums of Hobson Street every morning and afternoon and I live with an architect so I am acutely aware of the (to generalise) lack of value placed on design by developers, builders and the public.
GJ Gardner, anyone?
On a related note Metro magazine had an excellent article this month about the Queen's Wharf debacle. I disagreed with the conclusions by the writer, whose name I have forgotten (Simon something?) but he gave an excellent account of Bank's rather meretricious behaviour.
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OnPoint: 2009: "Blithe" (Part 1),
Mmmmm, stagnant pie, washed down with shitty coffee. Thanks boomers!
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OnPoint: Taskforce 2025: A Space Odyssey,
The GFD really has changed everything, it's very discouraging to see the same Chicago School Douglas/Richardson/BRT approach trotted out. Again.
Slightly OT but if any of you have not yet read Paul Krugman's takedown of the true believers of the Chicago School, then may I recommend you take the time: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html