Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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On the night we were there, people were walking up and down looking for somewhere to buy cigarettes, which there wasn’t. There’s no after-dark retail at all.
To be honest, I don't necessarily want a dairy down there, and I suspect Waterfront Auckland don't either. It's not the right place for a dairy. And there is a massive Starmart at the base of the Crab - the old AHB building - anyway, about a 10 min walk away.
what was definitely lacking was somewhere to buy water or an ice-cream – or did we miss something?
There are two places to buy an icecream. There is one on North Wharf, and there is a place in the Fish Market building. The crowds may have obscured the North Wharf place - but it is there.
Our overall impression was that it was a great space and will be even better as it gets extended, but the new bridge should have been built twice as wide to cope with the pedestrians.
Agree with the bridge, but frankly, C'n'R wanted the bridge to carry cars so you know, people could drive down there along North Wharf. Actually they wanted a bus bridge so buses could drive onto North Wharf area, but I suspect that was code for cars. Very fortunately they didn't get their way. But yes, a wider bridge would be nice, but until money is found for it, enjoy the chummyness of that very simple yet interesting bridge.
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Hard News: 2011: The Year Of What?, in reply to Mike Graham,
Make mine a radl….oh, wait, I can’t say that any more.
With some vint… cheese?
Don't you mean some herit... oh, you know, old stuff, cheese?
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Hard News: 2011: The Year Of What?, in reply to Rich Lock,
effete 2-shandy screamers are not gay
1. weak, ineffectual, or decadent as a result of overrefinement
2. exhausted of vitality or strength; worn out; spent.Merely straight blokes releasing their feminine side.
Good, got that cleared up. Both definitions apply to anyone regardless of sexuality, but more often to straight men, and if you have problems with that, I'm sure there's a few All Blacks, Ian Roberts and Gareth Thomas, who will put you right. :)
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Hard News: 2011: The Year Of What?, in reply to Rich Lock,
effete 2-shandy screamer.
And no, effete 2-shandy screamers are not gay. Merely straight blokes releasing their feminine side.
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Not having seen snow in an urban context since leaving Canada I was, I admit, a little filled with wonder at the soft snow flakes that I saw drifting past my office window here in positively tropical Auckland.
However, I do feel for people in Chch, and reading about trying to patch up cracks in houses to keep the cold out - well, I just don't know what to say. It would be all so so wearying. All I can hope for is a brilliant summer and a benevolent dictator who would grant Chch people all a week's holiday at the hottest time of the year.
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Hard News: Fixing Auckland, in reply to Sacha,
It can have influence through the District Plan but a) that's a cumbersome and costly way to fix a relatively straightforward problem and b) developers have control of the District Plan. The evidence is all around you.
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I hate the consumerism of the rioters. I wish they were chanting slogans, I wish they were carrying placards, I wish there was a clear political point to what they’re doing. I wish they didn’t seem to be so clearly shopping. I do think that any riot is political, even without a clear political point, but I wish the people taking part in this one were channelling that energy into something constructive.
Consumerism is political. The personal is political. Their placards are the flat-screen Sony TVs, the Carhatt clothes, the iPhone, all of which are pointedly political organisations that engage cheap labour in China, pollute at will, all for $$.
Shopping is clearly a political act. I do it when I buy All Good bananas, Trade Aid coffee, or Dole bananas and Folgers coffee.
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The idea is a fine one, but a typical apartment in Auckland is poorly built with little or no sound proofing or even installed air conditioning – and no one in their right mind wants to open a business where the most trivial noise complaint can send them broke.
Wearing my elected rep hat: Sort-of. The building code specifies 55LbA (don’t ask me what the LbA means and I may even be using the wrong ‘symbol’ for decibels) between apartments, but nothing for exterior walls i.e. those that are on the outside of the building. What that means is you theoretically can’t hear your neighbour’s moans, but you will definitely hear street noise loooud and clear.
There is a historicity to this situation. Those that specify the code have never lived in apartments, and the code was drawn up quite a few years ago, before the apartment boom-rush of the mid-late 2000s. And they never suspected that apartments would be built, you know, downtown. They were meant to be built in the suburbs and fringe areas.
So, I’m not surprised that those that live in poorly soundproofed apartments would stomp all over any noise, but they can hardly be blamed for something that really, was out of their control.
Or they are living in apartments constructed without double glazing and sound proofing – apartments presumably approved by the same council that wants a vibrant street life…
Council doesn’t control the building code. Central government does. So those apartments built without double glazing and sound proofing actually met the building code. What Council should be doing is lobbying the Ministry of Housing – which is what Council didn’t do in the past because all those apartments were, well, invisible to those in power frankly. Now that I’m around I’ll be giving the officers a push and encouragement to lobby, and that should produce results.
Think of the situation as a dysfunctional ‘free market’, only except the ‘free market’ creates more problems that it’ll ever solve in this situation.
I actually thought when the two ends came down that they were going to hold the people on the CBD side for 5 minutes while the WQ side came over and emptied out a bit, but nope, it was a go for it free for all.
I think the bridge is about 2-3 metres too narrow, especially considering possible future growth, expansion, development, and the potential events that there could be. They almost need another raising bridge closer to the harbour where it narrows for the boats to come through. As an emergency backup as much as anything.
At last night’s Local Board meeting I asked Mike Lee about the chances of the trams running through to Britomart. In his answer he explained that the Te Wero bridge actually had piles that could take trams, but the width is obviously too narrow, and thankfully things had worked out as they had because C’n’R wanted to put, as is their wont, a road across that bridge, you know, so they could drive to Karanga, and then through to the Wynard Quarter.
Doffing said hat.
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And really, is there anything more fun that sitting through three hours of a live 'tape' of a 1989 Hacienda House night mix featuring classics (and the blardy whistles) on a Friday afternoon?
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Hard News: An open thread while I'm down…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
It’s more a case of finding some criteria, any criteria, to get from impossible number to read properly let alone interview to something feasible.
Nope. My friend is gay, and really, who wants to be confronted by a nauseating display of heterosexuality? Not him and I don’t blame him.
ETA: As Craig can more eloquently tell you, we fags are really everywhere. :)