Posts by Biobbs
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: When the Weather is the News, in reply to Bart Janssen,
You have my sympathy David and I so hope someone in power sees fit to make intelligent and compassionate exceptions to the blanket decisions made so far.
I still don't understand why the NZ media aren't all over this problem? It has everything they usually love in a story - why aren't they camped on Gerry Brownlee's doorstep, shoving microphones in his face and demanding answers on how, when (and if?) this will be fixed? Why should people like David have to go through this, when our forefathers set up EQC specifically to deal with things like this. You'd think it would be a banner headline every day on Stuff, given how many people are affected. Yet if it wasn't for reading about it here on PAS, I'd hardly even have heard about it.
And for god's sake let's mandate some decent compulsory building insulation standards in the ChCh rebuild, if that's not too 'nanny state' for the usual suspects. Here in Denmark my apartment building has 40 cm thick walls, and my annual winter heating bill is about 20% of what it was in ChCh. And the winters here are only slightly colder, although they are much longer.
-
I love that Speaker has a guest post from Stella Duffy. Tart Noir forever!
-
As an expat, most days I am proud to tell people over here what country I come from, when they ask.
Today isn't one of those days.
-
Muse: Some Link Crack To Tide You Over..., in reply to Ngaire BookieMonster,
Apropos of that Dan Kois piece, Phineas and Ferb are TEH AWESUM!
Yes, yes they are.
-
Hard News: Here's one I prepared earlier, in reply to Leigh Kennaway,
MoH advises lots of fluids. And cuddles.
I believe that would be Colin's specialty.
Fluids are Colin's speciality? I'm sure he's house-trained.
-
Southerly: One Hundred and Thirty-one…, in reply to Gee,
Agreed. But if we could 'Denmarkise' our penal system as well as our urban planning that would be a brilliant thing....
Oh yes, definitely that. And the health system. And the public broadcasting. :-)
-
Latecomer to this thread having been away for a week but a couple more things:
The large number of cycles is not the only thing contributing to safety here - driver education and laws about how cars behave around cyclists are a big part of it. The onus is on cars to stay out of the way of bikes, and woe betide if you can't get that through your head. Drivers are indoctrinated right from the start about their obligations to cyclists: I have now mastered the twist-your-head-over-your-shoulder-until-your-neck-cricks-in-agony contortion that is compulsory when turning right in Denmark, to ensure you don't hit cyclists passing on the cycle lane on your inside. (I don't own a car, can't afford one - so for me this is only when using a work vehicle). So one thing NZ could do cheaply to promote cycling is some relatively minor changes to the Rode Code that more strongly shift the burden of collision avoidance on to motorists.
Agree with some others above that we need to get some of the cycle lane infrastructure in place before we start on the 'stick' rather than 'carrot'. But it isn't going to work if we don't get the 'stick' part underway early on: there is no doubt that the high costs of cars, petrol and drivers licences here are a big contributor to the cycle culture, and NZ will never approach similar uptake without it. When there is a 180% tax on cars, you don't buy one unless you need one. In my workplace of 20 staff, only 3 are two-car families, and in none of them do any of the late-teen-early-20s kids have their own cars like they often would in NZ. With a driving age of 18, tough tests and very high costs of getting a licence, many people don't bother until well into their 20s. How politically acceptable this would be in NZ- especially as it would have to apply nationally - will be the biggest challenge of all in shifting NZ to a cycle rather than car culture. But if we don't start thinking about it now, circumstances will force it on us sooner or later.
And the link of the cycle culture to the way the cities are built is a big part of it. Someone upthread said 'let's Denmarkise New Zealand' and while that is definitely something we *don't* want to do (there are some seriously fucked up things about Denmark), in urban planning it's hard to deny they've got it right. I live five minutes' walk from the central railway station in one of the main cities, in a neighbourhood that mixes apartments and shops and commercial premises in easy walking distance, with a maximum height restriction of 5 storeys. It is a magnificent way to live - surrounded by life and relaxed inner city dwellers, and yet there is still plenty of green space, especially the large shared gardens inside the apartment areas (google aerial views of any Danish city to see what I mean). So what Christchurch needs in the rebuild is some strong town planners to simply shut greedy property developers and real estate agents and road planners out of the discussion altogether, and let the experience of places like this show how to make a people-friendly central city that is vibrant and fun to live in. If you let those people into the debate, you end up with the Auckland shoebox Nelson St apartment block syndrome, a tragedy that rooted what could have been a chance to make our biggest city a pleasant place to live.
I've lived all of the last 18 years of my life in either Christchurch or Denmark, and feel a strong bond to this: I want my NZ city to be Danish hyggelig* while still retaining what's good about NZ.
*A Danish word famously difficult to translate into English, usually rendered as 'cosy', but is much more: it encompasses everything about comfortable living, good times, good friends, and general well-being.
-
Here's a curiousity. In 1980, Auckland University fine arts student Justin Keen designed, built and operated a campus TV station for Orientation.
OMG! Orientation1980! I was there, a fresh-faced Stage I, and at the Toy Love gig!
Thanks for the memory - terrible to think it is so long ago though.I love how articulate the students are in the interviews. "Did you like the film?" "It was OK". "Did you enjoy yourself?" "Oh Yeah". "Will you see any more of these films?" "I guess".
David Merritt as Vitalstatistix
That's a name I haven't heard in a long time. He used to do an amazing Fred Dagg impersonation too (especially the weather forecast sketch).
Another obit: Yvonne du Fresne, one of our best and most underrated novelists. Wrote wonderfully about the experiences of Scandanavian immigrants in the Manawatu. Can recommend "Motherland" to those who haven't read it
-
When you live on the far side of the world, PAS is the only place you can get sensible information and news about what's going on at home. So I'm in too - and thanks to everyone at PAS for a place where we ex-pats can get a taste of kiwi and remember that we still all belong to Aotearoa.
-
We wrote the song about a kid in the year behind us at school who looked exactly like Joe 90, so when we sing the chorus we're actually singing about him, not Joe 90.
But Joe 90's theme is by the great Barry Gray! I'm sure I can hear echoes of this on some of the Dimmer albums. An early influence maybe...