Posts by nzlemming
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Speaker: David Fisher: The OIA arms race, in reply to Sacha,
How much of that culture is coming from their new Minister?
To be fair, that's always been their culture. One of the problems with the public service is the SSC. And it's structural as well as cultural. They don't actually do anything, except appoint CEOs.
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Hard News: News from home ..., in reply to Deborah,
Less than 24 hours after the result of our leadership election has been announced? I think it’s okay to keep on talking it over for a few days.
It's not that they're talking, it's the way they're talking...
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Hard News: Garbage in, garbage out, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Not the upcoming Freed site? I’m hoping against hope that it’s not Breitbart with a Kiwi accent.
If Slater is involved, your hope is misplaced.
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Hard News: The Boom Crash, in reply to Jack Harrison,
Jack, are you Shulgin under another name?
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Hard News: The Boom Crash, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Looks like what we’re almost certainly going to be doing – around Waikanae isn’t exactly hipster heaven, but a manageable place with good bones would leave us with enough that you could afford to redo a “tired” bathroom and/or kitchen and splash some paint around without taking out a second mortgage on the immortal soul of our improbable first-born. (Though one does have to draw the line somewhere – mine is Levin.)
Wait at least 5 years. There's a massive shortage on the coast due to the expressway workers gobbling up homes (mainly so they can go to meetings and say "I'm a ratepayer too, y'know" - bastids), so prices are climbing. Also, electrification of the rail line to Waikanae has pushed the commuter belt that much further north. Te Horo is still affordable, as is Otaki, but the old Saturn cable network only goes to the south side of Peka Peka Road (it was a significant factor in where we bought, trust me).
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Hard News: The Boom Crash, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
It's pre-electronic, unfortunately, but if anyone's in Auckland and wants to have a look at the University copy (or wants to do an interloan from elsewhere), it's Webb, Larisa, 1999. Living together? : change and continuity of a New Zealand intentional community. MA Thesis, University of Auckland. Library listing here. And I'll ask her if she happens to have an electronic copy at all.
1999 was hardly "pre-electronic"! :-D
There's another MA thesis by Robert Jenkin which is online and refers to her paper, if anyone is interested.
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Busytown: Beware of the Leopard, in reply to Jolisa,
Rochelle (and nzlemming) that’s such a dispiriting story; makes you wonder what environment the EPA thinks it’s protecting. The only bright spot, I suppose, is the Environment Court’s ruling re Patricia Grace’s ancestral land… although will the highway simply veer around it, and continue on its monolithic way?
Correct. The only chance of stopping it was a change of government or (still possible) they find out we weren't kidding about the water table around here and someone dusts off the old Transit/NZTA reports that said this is so completely the wrong place to build a motorway.
It was great to be at the Māori Land Court hearing regarding the Grace block. As usual, NZTA did their standard, shocking performance but this time they ran up against a judge with substance, rather than a panel appointed by the government to rubber stamp the application, and again in the Environment Court. Hopefully, the Basin Flyover debacle will see them pull back on using their bullshit Boards of Inquiry process to push these crappy projects, but I imagine their "RMA amendments" will deal to that scant hope.
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Busytown: Beware of the Leopard, in reply to Rochelle,
And the monstrous Expressway with C/B Ratio of 0.4 is going full steam ahead.
Actually, the C/B is 0.2
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Hard News: The uncooling of the inner West, in reply to Sam F,
Huh? Please tell me I’m not the only one completely confused by this element of the thread…
You are not alone.
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Hard News: Music: The Homecoming Queen, in reply to paddy free,
Check out David Byrne’s great TED talk about the relationship between music and the venue it’s performed in.
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_byrne_how_architecture_helped_music_evolve?language=enVery nice, but he’s really hard to watch ;-) Seems very uncomfortable in front of a crowd without music as a shield.
I agree with him, from a different artform – theatre. I’ve been performing, directing, lighting, etc for 35 years. The first venue I worked in regularly was the old BATS on Kent Tce in Wellington, when it was an amateur society. Great little black box to work in, once you learned its tricks. For 20 years after that, when I read (or wrote) a script, that was where I pictured it, props and set were considered with it in mind, lighting, sound etc. In the early 2000’s, I was part of Stagecraft when we moved from an old Victorian villa in the way of a motorway to a purpose built (also black box) space in Ghuznee St, the Gryphon, and that has since become my “go to” mental theatre space as I know it more intimately. If I read a script, that’s where I first picture it being produced, regardless of where it will actually happen. This can be an issue when you realise the ceiling of the real venue tops out at 2.5 metres (!) as opposed to the 4.5 at the Gryphon or BATS, but you have to have a starting place and be ready to adapt.