TV shows are like...well let's say Aladdin's Cave..are like ....well like a trip to Switched On Gardener...funny how the jury found 2 of 5 guilty, but then again I didn't shit through 9 weeks... opps I mean sit through, of embarrassing tripe from the NZ Police...well done operation Lime and Bitters, and therein lies the sting, telling the gardening store your muther has cancer, can you help me with her... with her pain.....Well done chaps, I biffed the TV, and all that is left is fantasy gardening at SOG...switched on....indeed...what did Plato say about caves? It's all a bit Dutch...

...with those odds..it's great the church Casino... has braved the odds and opened...rising from the red zone...wow staff intact...hey it is the Monaco GP this weekend...will the germon energy drinks man triumph over the whiskey silver machine...do ya still get a free meal on ya birthday? (Only if you show ID)

In regard to the Red Zone. Actually it’s a metaphor for what was there previously, because it certainly doesn’t exist anymore. The inner city had been in decline for quite sometime. The pressure from Uber mall developments around Chch had sucked the CBD dry. Small population with too much shopping area per head of population. The malls offer the globalised smoke and mirrors of brand/label goods, together with cheap Japanese cars, and all you can eat, it’s deadly. All that was left was to put a bigger louder exhaust on, in the hope you’d be noticed…. by someone. (well Judith did) We are what we consume, generic shops full of goods largely made elsewhere.

We had some quaint ideas for central city redevelopment. Mr Henderson’s SOL Square and his vision of the Sydenham Village, two tilt slab walls and a large hole, thank goodness the Council stepped-in and banked the Dave Henderson sites/land, I’m sure they will now be useful. Perhaps Bob Parker should dust off the Dave Henderson “Design Briefs”, might save CERA much work and Dave won’t want them back now. I don’t think Dave Henderson skimped on the Architectural Vision. Anyway it “all” got mired down in red ink, a vision but no tax.

We use to make stuff like shoes and clothes. Even Lane Walker Rudkin stitched it last stitch last year, savage competition from the Orient. What about all that LWR factory land? How will the Receivers market that? It might have a fancy phrase, something like “excellent opportunity for redevelopment”. Actually, it might just be as big as Rolleston, get creative.

What to do…what to do with acres of wobbly jelly land, how do you make the space productive? As we have cows half way up the Southern Alps, there’s an idea, I’m sure a few more near the coast will not be noticed. Less distance to the milk powder factory, that makes good carbon sense.

I saw John Key talking on BBC Hardtalk…the quake was mentioned. Actually just the other day Key jokingly said that both EQC and Fletchers were examples of businesses that had grown as a result of the earthquake.

I called round to a friends house, we swapped quake stories, she showed me the plumbing account…. $900….for “repairs”. Would you look at that, $150 for parts….whoa nice hourly rate for two hours work…..don’t worry I said…it’s just market forces.

Funny story to end, I was walking home from town one night down Cashel Street. We came upon a man who had driven his car through the front door of the new IRD building. He was sitting in his car inside IRD at 5 in the morning. Glass everywhere, but the driver didn’t have a scratch. Apparently he was an IRD employee proving that the new IRD building was vulnerable to a terrorist act. I think he was probably right…

I love the irony of how Dave Henderson purchased the one time IRD building, he threw them out, turned it into a hotel…and now he owes IRD tax…. Phew…only in Christchurch---- aye…..

Thanks for the article Russell. Indeed, riding a bike around Ch-ch is the best way to see everything bent-out-of-shape. But I think, you should have worn a hard hat, rather than a black beanie, you may have looked like a looter, in black.

I have just arrived back after three months to my rented house on the east side, getting it ready for winter, taking some things I need, like some warm clothes. Actually I’d much prefer to be loading the whole lot in a shipping container, but unfortunately don’t have a destination yet, perhaps that is a good thing.

Some observations, while contemplating my house-lot of goods and starring into a coffee cup. The place is indeed very quiet, no boy racers, not much traffic. At home no bumbling spoodle or family chat, at least they are safe up north. The aftershocks continue, they seem different now, they feel like jelly wobble, I think we are sitting on some water-logged substrates and now it’s winter….not good….

In the past, my experience of earthquakes, would be perhaps feeling the event. The second part, was the social part, in the smoko room, conversations invariably went “…did ya feel that quake last night?”. So I had formed a view that earthquakes would be an “event”. However, after months and thousands of shakes the whole matter has expanded my breadth and depth of earthquake experience. It’s emotional, fearful,dreadful, it’s all the time deciding fight or flight, organic chemical driven state of mind for nine months. I am now a full time Geonet junkey, I can locate the street of the epicentre on Google earth, make a mental picture of those dots, and then I’m like Ken Ring, just wait till the Greendale fault attains it’s goal and meets up with Banks Peninsula…spectacular!

part two shortly

Miroir d'Eau...mmm and those granite tiles in the square, cause I'm sure we'd want to recycle them...sure, "grand designs" but as I shiver in the north easterly gale, it's no place to gather, it was enough with my toddler in the gardens back in the day. And as for the other days, the howling westerly will just create waves, there will be no mirror. Sorry it's just too grand, great for it's hemisphere, but not roaring 40's.

I'm just not sure anyone at the CERA should be putting forward civic "gather" projects, the role is to make decisions, proper economic ones as you say David, and to facilitate matters between Council and Government and Community. I Think Brownlee said after the September quake he didn't want a Top Down Politburo in charge of the repairs....leave it to the market he said. umm...so what is CERA then...skating anyone? Perhaps, it's because under Bob the Council has sunk under it's own spin. Actually in this hemisphere what way does water go round the plug hole?

So may I ask David, why is your focus on the area you live, do you propose all rivers and streams in Chch be "sured-up"? If so, what is the cost? If there are not enough resources, how would one decide, for example to exclude the Heathcote over a "sure-up" of the Avon? How much shoring-up secures the future of the city? I think as soon as we get specific about location then the glasses become somewhat fogged.

Oh and..."Easy Steel" is that a Fletcher Company, part of the social fabric? So old school when it comes to monopoly trading in the market.

Rumors can be upsetting, this is true. I heard a rumor once that South Canterbury Finance was the one of the best run companies in the lending game. While the above article makes a case against a rumor and suggests engineering solutions to the whispers and indeed, it's a well argued point of view from a property owning pressure group, who appear to not want to change.

Christchurch faces many challenges, just exactly what parts ought to be rebuilt and just what the future of the city is, remains unclear. Continued aftershocks, Dr Berryman from GNS said these could go for 30 years and what damage may this cause? But whatever the outcome in the earths crust, the possible rebuild is only made viable by the injection of vast amounts of social cash from all New Zealanders (Govt, Eqc etc).

Questions of social fairness and equity will need to be carefully considered. It may be desirable to have a home beside a river, or at the top of a cliff as close to edge as you dare, but the moment owners start asking for collective money to sure-up, housing land in questionable locations, then I think we have some deep issues. Will some land become more valuable as a result of "shoring-up" works, while other parts will be abandoned because it is too costly to fix the land?

In regards to retrofitting new foundations I think the costings are underestimated by the author. In addition these sorts of works will only be viable if there is a new central business area is built. Because otherwise there will be no reason to live there and enjoy the ducks. One of the bigger questions we all face in NZ are the brutal facts of globalisation and just exactly what role a re-bulit Christchurch might play. As we have been warned so many times selling each other expensive housing besides rivers will not earn our way in the world.

In an bleak first interview on National radio new CERA CEO Roger Sutton mumbled something about his vision for an ice skating rink in the centre of Christchurch, as a focus, it could be a paddling pool in the summer, a place for people to "gather". It's this sort of muddled thinking that makes me think the river bank fissures should just run their course. I'm all for, the newly proposed park land along the Avon, if nothing else, it will shake-up the population and cause them to react with renewed vigor.

It's time to be forward looking, the heritage beside and along the river was from the coal age. In an age of global warming we should be very careful when we look at the topography and make our social decisions on what was New Zealand's second largest city. That right there, might just be the only heritage fact left to ponder while walking along Avon Park walkway.... near the old site of Christchurch City.

Sorry for being so grim.