Posts by Tom Beard
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Investment in capacity is another.
Unless it's motorway capacity.
-
Good divisive word: "moist". People either think it's sexy or revolting.
"To be gorgeous and high and true and fine and fluffy and moist and sticky and lovely, all you have to do is to believe that one is gorgeous and high and true and fine and fluffy and moist and sticky and lovely." - Stephen Fry
-
to innovate on things like use of online tools for citizen engagement
There are at least two things there in which the current government seems to have little interest" "innovation" and "citizen engagement".
-
You cannot seriously be putting skinheads and nazis in the same boat as pro life groups, can you?
I'd like to. Preferably a small, leaky one in the middle of a Cook Strait southerly.
-
"Sport is the study of the human being under pressure."
Though that would also apply to exams, debates, job interviews, poker and the performing arts. Oh, and most jobs.
Personally, I'm happy with a definition that includes non-physical activity, and always used to defend my school mates from the thugs who scorned the fact that they could get sports blazers because they represented the school in chess. Whaddarya?! However, the definition with which I'm most comfortable is "a competitive recreational activity with an element of skill".
That would include chess and most card games, but exclude pure gambling. It would exclude things such as work, which are often competitive but not usually performed as recreation. It would also exclude purely recreational activities such as going for a run, catching fish or climbing mountains, unless you're explicitly trying to do those things faster, bigger or earlier than someone else. Dancing, cooking, drinking or spelling? Probably.
-
I think this is at the heart of the complaints. The Auckland CBD just doesn't look like that. It's more scruffy, more lively and a hell of a lot more Chinese.
That's true, and I love the scruffy, lively, Chinese bits as well. The tone of the ad was very odd, and could have done with a bit more grunge and vitality, but its encouraging to see Auckland actually viewing centrality and urbanity as an attraction, rather than something you suffer on the way to the boat or the bach.
I wonder if its because it could be pretty much anywhere - the first clue that its Auckland comes when you can see Rangitoto behind the boats.
I think that's what appealed about it: it didn't show the same old natural attractions and sparkly outdoorsyness, but tried to show the streets and buildings as an attraction in themselves. It was all a bit too floaty and fey to really capture the energy of a big city, but the idea that you might go to Auckland for the food, drink and urban environment rather than to see a pretty island is really encouraging.
After all, what are the most likely reasons for someone visiting Auckland? It's either because there is a specific show/event on, or for business, or to visit family. Very few people, I imagine, go to holiday in Auckland 'just because it's Auckland.'
Well, the last time I visited was for a gig, but that was partly just an excuse to spend some time wandering. I went for the shopping, for the restaurants and bars, to visit the museum and galleries, to photograph the architecture and graffiti, and just to explore the city streets. Pretty much what I do most days in Wellington, really, but different.
-
that's pretty well ingrained in the national psyche, isn't it?
Well, it is to some extent, but psyches can change, and the more we keep on telling ourselves that it's ingrained, the harder it will be to change. It's actually heartening to see ads like this, cheesy and improbable as they are, because they say something like "Hey, you know how much you enjoy the buzz, variety and vitality when you go on a holiday to Melbourne, New York or London? Well, maybe our cities can be just a little bit like that too." At least for a few hours, then you run out of city.
I sometimes dream of what it would be like if all the interesting bits of NZ cities were mashed up together. The best bits of central Wellington, Auckland and Dunedin (oh, and Christchurch if you insist) all within walking distance of one another, with Napier just a short ferry ride away.
-
I made him ... watch that ad for Auckland. Then I said, "What was that an ad for?" His reply? "Wellington."
Which goes some way to explain why it's the only ad for Auckland that ever made me want to go there.
But when I last visited (about a year ago) I was struck by how much I had forgotten about the few blocks of the CBD that actually had an established big city feel about them, and I really enjoyed wandering around the streets just exploring. Of course it's exaggerated into fantasy land by the ad, but then Wellington buildings aren't actually wrapped in ribbons, either.
The Spare Room post and commentary seems very snarky to me. Of course it's not representative of Auckland, but then to be representative of any NZ city you'd have to show endless suburbia and motorways. I cringed at the comments about how they should be showing beaches, sport and bush walks: when are we going to get to the point where we can actually celebrate our urban cultures?
-
inconsistency between local authorities about what is ok for the environment
I can see the frustrations about that, and in some cases it is silly. Nick Smith said something about there being different standards for cellphone mast radiation in Northland and Invercargill, and that would be pointless because radio waves and human flesh are pretty much the same everywhere. However, the visual effects on cellphone towers, and the impact of their cabinets upon footpaths, will be different, depending upon the nature of the built or natural environment for which they are proposed.
Decisions between local authorities can and should be inconsistent at times, because cities are inconsistent. And thank god for that: it's what we call "sense of place".
-
It's interesting to see the MSM headlines used to report this: some could almost be read as positive (references to "People Power" in the Herald), but the general emphasis was on "traffic chaos". I'd have thought that an interesting way of describing it would be "Auckland Harbour Bridge breaks efficiency records", since the footage of the throngs on the bridge highlights just how spatially wasteful private vehicles are as a mode of transport.