Muse: Hooray for Wellywood (Really!)
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But I wish someone would posit those questions – TBH you rather lost an opportunity there and awful little gnomes don’t quite qualify I’m afraid.
Probably, but I do feel much better for getting the bile out of my system. :) But quite seriously, if a gnome don’t count (and they’re my personal answer to coulrophobia) how about a four foot high concrete cock and balls (see above for link to NSFW image)? Would it be more/less/equally offensive if it was carefully positioned so it wasn’t visible from the street, but visible to the neighbours?
Have I really made a mistake reconciling myself to the simple reality that the Sky Tower isn’t going anywhere?
Do I really really need to get laid?
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Since the series is a revision, I don’t need to wring my hands over whether Benedict Cumberbatch is better than Jeremy Brett :)
Weird thing is Cumerbatch's performance reminds me of Jeremy Brett's, in a good way -- both a wee bit camp, detached but desperately searching for something, anything, to keep the black dog of boredom from the door.
Something else I really loved about Sherlock is that they didn't make Lestrade a buffoon or a dribbling moron you can't believe is competent to go potty without help, let alone become a senior Police officer. Rupert Graves very nicely plays him as The Brig to Cumerbatch's Third Doctor. (Would that make Martin Freeman Sarah Jane? :) )
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Tom Beard, in reply to
ENORMOUS (much bigger than the District Plan actually permits)
Well, that's complicated: there's a lot of difference between a "permitted activity" and that which is anticipated by the District Plan. "Permitted" means that it doesn't need resource consent. If it's not "permitted" it doesn't mean that it isn't allowed: far from it, since there are usually objectives, policies and guidelines to help Council officers make an assessment of such activities. For instance, in Wellington's Central Area there is pretty much no such thing as a "permitted" building: every new building needs consent and must be assessed by planners, urban designers, traffic experts and so forth. It doesn't mean that, in laypeople's terms, buildings are not permitted. It's only when the proposal gets to a stage known as "Non Complying" that there is a strong presumption that it shouldn't be consented: and even then there are cases when such a proposal might still meet the overall intent of the Plan.
In this case, the Airport rules are unique and perhaps a bit odd. To be "permitted", a free-standing sign must be no more than 8 sq m (for masochists, please see rule 11.1.5.1.3 in this document). This makes the Wellywood sign a Discretionary (Restricted) activity, which is another example of the brain-bending oddness of RMA language, since it doesn't mean that the activity is restricted: instead, Council's discretion is restricted to certain aspects, and they're not allowed to look at any other aspects. In most parts of the city, this discretion extends to the visual obtrusiveness of a proposed sign, but not in the Airport Precinct. Instead, under Rule 11.3.4 (same document), Council's discretion is limited to position, dimensions, lighting and traffic safety. What's more, that rule contains a standard that says "the maximum height of any free standing sign must not exceed 9m". This sets an expectation that signs up to 9m high are anticipated by the Plan, which would make it pretty much impossible for a planner to say that the "position and dimension" effects of the 3.5m tall Wellywood sign would have a "more than minor effect" compared to an anticipated much larger sign.
One might argue (and I won't, since my code of conduct makes me nervous) that Objectives such as 10.2.6 (in this chapter) require Council to look at the visual effects of the sign. But that would still be compared to the scale of activity anticipated by the District Plan, and when a standard says that 9m is the maximum height, in the strange world of RMA law it's hard to say (in the absence of discretion over qualitative aspects) that there are any quantifiable negative effects beyond that.
Oh, and there are two aspects that WCC couldn't consider under the District Plan: the content of the sign, and notification.
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Islander, in reply to
I saw that image as a lingham Craig - a religious image for a lot of people (as you very well know) & not offensive.
As for - anything else- hey, go play-other matters - may I agree totally with mattgeeknz? This is how we all learn to disagree - civilly, definitely, and not blowing anyone up?
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
other matters – may I agree totally with mattgeeknz? This is how we all learn to disagree – civilly, definitely, and not blowing anyone up?
The most delightful kind of disagreement. In my own defence, I really think Mr Herkt's choice of false equivalence was remarkably ill-judged considering my low opinion of the ACC’s treatment of Askew One’s mural in Poynton Terrace (which was not “tagging” in any rational sense) is no secret. (And while it’s earned me some odium from the Kiwibog crowd, I find the idea that Bruce William Emery was justified in stabbing an alleged tagger to death beneath contempt.)
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Sacha, in reply to
very smart, in a postmodern fashion, but with style and grace
I loved the text overlays
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Craig, can I say I'm sick of this. Why do you think it is okay to dismiss this particular grievance as opposed to others? You don't have to live it. You don't have to experience it on a day to day basis. Yet you claim privilege over my right to object, as someone who has to live and live with this thing sitting over the eastern suburbs of my city.
This, despite it's "frivolous" nature as presented by Auckland televised news media, isn't a side-bar to any kind of debate. This is my fucking city you're fucking mocking with your gnome equivalences. To put it bluntly.
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Sacha, in reply to
the content of the sign
Which sadly renders planners impotent over the core issue (though Council always has other avenues of influence like their ownership stake in the airport company). I guess there would be nothing to stop owners putting a big sign on their cbd office block saying "Absolutely Poxily Wellington" then.
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Speaking of incivil disagreement, if one of my more charming e-mail correspondents is reading this, a usage note.
"Fucking JAFA" is not only a tautology but one that uses a cliché that was whiskery when Roger Hall trotted it out in Market Forces fifteen years ago.
Try 'Rangitoto Yank' instead. I'm a sucker for well-tailored vintage.
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I do apologise for my foul language in my previous comment. But I do feel aggrieved, very aggrieved, that my desire to love and live and love-and-live in my city is declared to be no more than objecting to "a painted garden gnome" by this writer.
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Steve Parks, in reply to
just where do you think the influence for that sign
is coming from? Hmmm?Personally, I quite liked most of Jackson’s earlier films, especially Heavenly Creatures. I thought the LOTR trilogy was okay (although despite that I have no interest in The Hobbit). King Kong was rubbish, and I haven’t seen The Lovely Bones, but strongly expect it to be rubbish as well.
All of that is entirely irrelevant. Jackson could have made the five best Hollywood films ever, each of which I’d watch over and over again, and I’d still be against the proposed ‘Wellywood’ sign. The problem per se is not that Jackson has made Hollywood films in Wellington, and it’s not the content of those films. The problem is Wellington Airport’s daft excursion into ‘tourism promotion’: taking a fairly lame epithet and trying to turn it into an indelible sign of the city.
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Thanks, Steve.
Let us from Wellington explain this once again:
- this is not about film making
- this is not about Peter Jackson
- this is not about cultural sideshowsThis is about Infratil deciding, on behalf of an entire city that a significant piece of landscape is to be permanent home of a dad joke! Or, as Queen of Thorns wrote very well, the equivalent of a George Clooney moustache.
And don't raise the straw man of Moa, or the Asteron building, Craig. You can't justify the sign on Moa's advertising, you know that. And you also know you can't find the opposition to the Asteron building, as compared to the opposition to the WELLYWOOD sign. Straw men like that are easily burnt.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
This is my fucking city you’re fucking mocking with your gnome equivalences. To put it bluntly.
OK, Scott, I’ll shut the fuck up about the city I’ve lived in for two-third of my life and still adore no matter how often it breaks it my heart. And just between us that kind of domesticated jingoism was something I didn’t miss while desperately homesick for years after my partner moved us up here because no matter how wonderful Welly is it’s no place to be unemployed in your late 50s. For that matter, it’s no less noxious in Super-Shitty Dorkland. (See what I did there?)
There’s so much that wonderful about Wellington, along with stuff that drives me nuts. Which, in the balance of things, make it remarkably similar to everywhere else. And, yes, my visceral loathing of a harmless garden ornament is absurdly disproportionate to the nature of the aesthetic offence. (I also used to be a spectacular bore about the Sky Tower. Don't ask for examples.) Which is exactly how I feel about what I consider an over-reaction to a fucking sign. Please feel free to put the counter-argument, but if you really want to play “STFU JAFA”, you’re going to be playing by yourself.
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*sigh*
You say over-reaction. I say justified reaction.
You may talk about a city you lived in half you life, I talk about a city I've lived in all my life. That doesn't matter to me. It is neither here nor there.
But, for me, it comes down to you telling me to "get over it." That itt is just a colourful gnome. You are telling me how to feel about my living space, my city. That a sign like this is just like an annoying garden ornament in a neighbour's lot.-
No, it isn't. Not at all. It is my heartland, my home. You can call this an over-reaction (but, please note, as I'm sure you have, I've rounded on Moa for their campaign). But i still feel so strongly against this sign, this thing that will sit over Evans Bay. And "stop over-reacting" isn't helping, in fact, it is exactly what Infratil keep saying...
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Finally, Scott, do I have your permission to keep mocking a brewery based in Blenheim and run from Auckland that thinks dyke-baiting and offering booze for criminal offending (“no questions asked”) is clever?
Don’t even get me started on troll marketing with the chutzpah to invoke the “civil disobedience” practised at Parihaka, Montgomery and during the Salt Satyagraha. I thought this was tacky enough…
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Steve Parks, in reply to
I also liked the Sherlock revision a lot. At least that first episode.
I have also, just recently, by DVD, discovered that Matt Smith is definitely my favourite Doctor since Tom Baker.
I slightly preferred David Tennant. (While we're at it, here's my take on the 10th Doctor's death, and the Doctors' "regenerations" in general.)
But Smith is good, too, and new showrunner Steven Moffat is the most consistently interesting DW writer, for sure. I'm only watching series 6 on broadcast tv, but the first episode, The Impossible Astronaut, is the best season opener the Doctor's had. Moffat's credited on the Tintin script - I might have to watch the darn thing just for that alone.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
You may talk about a city you lived in half you life, I talk about a city I've lived in all my life. That doesn't matter to me. It is neither here nor there.
It really mattered to you when you decided to come in my house and tell me to STFU because nobody outside Wellington has anything to say about the matter, Scott. I think the most constructive response from my end is "we really need to agree to disagree and move on".
But just for the record, I have a lot of sympathy with folks who complain about Public Address being rather Auckland-centric and for various practical reasons, it's going to take a while before that substantially changes in my corner. But I don't put geoblocks on discussion, and I'm not going to be very patient with Auckland based PASers who try.
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Come to think of it, the most die-hard supporters of the Wellywood sign point to the fact that Parisians were initially up in arms about the Eiffel Tower, but later came to embrace it. One big difference: the Eiffel never pretended to be an ersatz imitation of anything.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
One big difference: the Eiffel never pretended to be an ersatz imitation of anything.
It was still widely loathed by the “creative community” of Paris (Maupaussant supposed took his lunch every day in the tower’s restaurant because it was the only place in Paris you couldn’t see the damn thing) and the only reason it wasn’t demolished when its permit expired in 1909 was because the City of Paris found it rather useful as a radio mast.
But, no, I'm not entirely convinced it's a particularly useful helpful exhibit for either the prosecution or the defence. (Though part of me would love to see someone try to get resource consent for a 325m tall lattice tower in the middle of Wellington. Just for the sheer entertainment value.)
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(Though part of me would love to see someone try to get resource consent for a 325m tall lattice tower in the middle of Wellington. Just for the sheer entertainment value.)
Or a Skytower built over a casino!
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Kracklite, in reply to
-pation.
...Rupert Graves very nicely plays him as The Brig to Cumerbatch’s Third Doctor...
Kewl. Casting is surely an art in itself. I've sometimes wondered what Star Trek would have been like with Stephen Fry as Spock, The Stig as Sulu and Anthony Hopkins as Bones (or Beans as he'd be renamed...).
Definitely looking forward to the DVD set with all the extras and commentaries.
BTW, The Truman Show was filmed here. I prefer Portmeirion.
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Kracklite, in reply to
325m tall lattice tower in the middle of Wellington. Just for the sheer entertainment value
Bah, if we’re going to be shamelessly derivative, we need the genuine audacity and virtuosity embodied in this:
It can even include cycle tracks.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Kewl. Casting is surely an art in itself
That it is. Apparently, the first actor who auditioned for Watson had more luck with Moffat a week later. :)
"We’d already cast Benedict Cumberbatch [as Sherlock Holmes] and the very first person we saw for Dr Watson was Matt, who came in and gave a very good audition.
“But he didn’t have a chance in hell of getting it ’cos he was clearly more of a Sherlock Holmes than a Dr Watson. There was also something a bit barmy about him – and you don’t actually want that for Dr Watson, you want someone a bit straighter.”
Moffat added that he felt that Smith was “clamping down on his barminess” for the audition.
I’d really like to see Smith’s Who audition tape one day…
Definitely looking forward to the DVD set with all the extras and commentaries.
Quite -- would be very interested in seeing the 60 minute tabloid-enraging pilot version of 'A Study in Pink' -- which is an extra on the UK-US DVDs but wouldn't assume would wash up in R4. (For that matter, I'm still pissed the backdoor pilot of Being Human isn't on the series one DVDs.)
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Tom Beard, in reply to
(Though part of me would love to see someone try to get resource consent for a 325m tall lattice tower in the middle of Wellington. Just for the sheer entertainment value.)
Well, the District Plan specifically allows the Council to consider "a building of exceptional height in comparison to every other building". But the plan also says that, on top of all the usual considerations of wind, shading and urban form:
Developing an exceptionally tall building would bring with it certain responsibilities. Such a building would become a landmark feature in the Wellington skyline, and a prominent feature in all future images of the city. As such the building should be truly iconic and display a quality of design that befits its status as being one of, if not the most visible building in Central Wellington.
Personally, I would very much doubt that a replica or parody of a famous building would meet this requirement. But it would be interesting to have to make that decision. So far, I haven't had to do that.
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Tom Beard, in reply to
I guess there would be nothing to stop owners putting a big sign on their cbd office block saying "Absolutely Poxily Wellington" then.
Nope, or at least nothing in the RMA. We assess billboard applications based upon the assumption that we can't control the content, so we would assume the worst, at least regarding the visual impact of the content. We have no discretion over the semantic content of a billboard (one-off, unique signs may be differenr), but there are (I think) advertising standards that would cover notions of offensiveness.
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