Posts by Robyn Gallagher
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Surely everyone knows and understands it's a reference to central government? Just as "Washington" is in the US?
With the right context, yes, it is obvious. What context does a headline/title have? That requires reading the article below, which never mentions Wellington.
To reiterate my earlier point, Wellington isn't a stand-alone capital city like Washington or Canberra. It's NZ's third largest city and there's plenty that goes on here that doesn't involve the Beehive.
Please be clever, not lazy.
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Well? Ington!
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Surely everyone knows and understands it's a reference to central government?
My issue is that in this case, when the topic is the city of Auckland, it implies that the issue is between Auckland city and Wellington city, when it's actually between Auckland city and the national government.
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Interesting just how sensitive some Wellingtonians seem to be about this though.
I brought it up because the headline made me do a double-take. A sort of "Wait, what's happening to Wellington?!" The sub-editor in me doesn't like it just as much as the Wellingtonian in me.
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Transferring wealth to Wellington
When you use "Wellington" in this context, I assume you're using as shorthand for the government, not actually Wellington itself; the Beehive rather than the Fern Ball.
The trouble is, it doesn't quite work to use "Wellington" as a shorthand for the government. Wellington isn't like Canberra or Washington, in being a city created as a capital city. It has its own life outside of government.
Talk of "Wellington" interferring with Auckland City implies some sort of city feud, when Wellington city has nothing to do with the Auckland Super City situation.
And it's even more complicated when you consider that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Local Government are both... Aucklanders.
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My grandfather used to say "flash as a Chow on a bike" too. I know this because my mum says, "Flash as a Chow on a bike, as Grandpappy* used to say." So in a way, she's saying it too. As am I. As are you.
My other grandfather, Pop-Popps*, approved of Chinamen because they were hard workers.
* Not his real name. -
The tripod in courtenay place is just stupid - why the hell is it still there?
I quite like it. It's playful and is perfectly located - right in front of the Embassy theatre, just down from the Paramount, in the town's entertainment district.
It's taken the skills that the Weta dudes have in designing and building sci-fi models and turned that into a giant alien tripod film-making robot.
And - fortunately - it's not especially laden with symbolism.
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Surely it's the quality of the engineering that's important, rather than the quantity? There's an interesting book about this - it's called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
True story - in the early 1990s, I found "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" in nestled amongst the car and motoring books in the Whitcoulls in Hamilton.
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The 'Mats said it best:
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I saw "The Second Test" tonight. It was deeply moving, to the point where several times I was getting all teary and feeling the desolation and tragedy.
But it's also very entertaining, no doubt due to the comedy chops of actor/writer Jonny Brugh. Particularly funny was the cricket match narrated by the 1950s radio coverage, where the international match commentary was provided by telegrams, one sentence... after... another.
The play requires a basic knowledge of cricket, and that's where I stumbled. There were a few cricket mentions that I couldn't quite follow, but I figure any other Field Theory regular won't have that problem.
If you're in Wellington, see it. It's only $20!