It's a bit like Blenheim: everyone buggers off to more interesting places ASAP, so the rest of the country is populated with ex-Nelsonians.

I know someone who left home to live in Nelson and started up a Pizza restaurant there, mind you, he did come from Palmaston North.…

the movie theatre monstrosity

It is hideous. And dangerous for kids. And for people who are nervous about heights, sort of scary. But at the same time, it's so totally nuts that it's almost appealing: a grand folly. Every time I go in there I marvel at how user-unfriendly it…

I'm going to go and eat worms

As in this old vegetarian rhyme, Amy?

Nobody loves me, everybody hates me
I'm going to go eat worms
Long thin slimy ones, big fat fuzzy ones
Ughey gooey ughey gooey worms

Long thin slimy ones slip down easily
Big fat fuzy ones…

I'm going to go and eat worms. In my affordable Golden Bay bach. To which my trip will include driving SH60 along a completely unpopulated coast to Motueka. Without meeting…

Note to self, do not make days-gone-by cracks about Nelson on internet.

It's a bit like Blenheim: everyone buggers off to more interesting places ASAP, so the rest of the country is populated with ex-Nelsonians. And, unlike Blenheim, it's popular enough for holidays that plenty of people have fond holiday…

where DKD used to be

Sigh. The seuss-ish steps. That latticed private outlook over rainy Queen St. Yummy cakes. Fine people.

He has earned the moniker of “Minister for Ratepayers” for his determination to crack down on red tape and needless bureaucracy, and because of his focus on the rights of ratepayers and residents, rather than councils.

There's something so wrong about this?

Not Wellington?

Or Alexander I?"

Well, Nelson's winning of dominance of European seapower both prevented invasion of Great Britain, and predated Wellington's activities in the Napoleonics by about four years. So yes, thinking in those terms, Nelson…

The Dunedin merger was equivalent in scale to the Auckland's.

What Sacha said. Dunedin now, merged and grown, has a greater population than any of the three districts (Franklin, Papakura, Rodney) within Auckland Region, but is distinctly smaller than any of the four cities. It's not even a third of…

A ticket to the Wearable Art show with cake afterwards at Chez Eelco?

Very sweet of you, though it'd require time travel since Wearable Art got snapped up by Wellington. In which case I might opt to go all the way back to Eelco's lonely predecessor, the Piccolo Paradiso, just…

The Dunedin merger was equivalent in scale to the Auckland's

For some sense of the word "scale". Surrounding areas are part of a sustainable city region, to encompass environmental buffers and supplies of water and food.

Nelson. What do I win?

A ticket to the Wearable Art show with cake afterwards at Chez Eelco?

It is my view that the current state of the media/political nexus here is that everyone is desperately trying to find ways…

I was over there last week, and I did notice this.

People would ask in the street "Hey, you're from that Noo Zeeland. Whaddabout that Donkeey, eh?". LAX has been decorated with banners welcoming him during…

I assume he also earns a fee for this 'speaking tour'

Doubt it, personally. An adoring audience would be payment enough.

I wonder if a Taypayer Bill of Rights would deal with…

goes it's holy wholly oldoldly way

kia ora

(... Nelson, if he'd lost the world would have been a better place)

Not Wellington?

Or Alexander I?

On the other hand in primary school we had to be able to do…

Corn on cob for one cent.
Fresh kaimoana one minute walk the other way. Had so much it put me off for years.

Ah, nostalgia.
That much fish & chips (spreads arms wide} for 25c.
And as the bigger kids used to sing, when I were a young 'un:

__In a…

Fresh kaimoana one minute walk the other way. Had so much it put me off for years.

(Dunedin got its cathedral by stealth – the good Presbyterians who ran the town didn't go in for cathedrals and were surprised one day to suddenly discover one being built in the Octagon)

I would love for someone to curate our iconic SMALL telltale foodie buildings- as paintings/whatever thereof. I've got the poems (as have others.) From "the Shanty by the way" they've occurred in song -

Actually we might have had a chip shop too – my parents didn't do that much – I think I went out to a sit down dinner with my family once before I left home (my uncle's 21st – he really did get a key). Cars…

There were NO fastfood places (except in Oamaru – excellent Chinese, and an indifferent fishnchip. O, and the dire pub/hotel meals...where males could get a pienchips.Or something.) No piecarts in…

. . . or a cathedral (points for anyone who knows the only place that didn't first qualify on population – the answer was required general knowledge when I was in primary school)

Nelson. What do I win?

Now if you had said One Ring. In The Darkness. That would have been amusing.

"supersized". Dunedin City

Hardly comparable. Dunedin has ~ 122K people while Waitakere, smallest of the four existing Ak cities has over 200K people and the new superAuckland will be 10 times the size of Dunedin,

But 'swallowing local boroughs' for 100 years? What an appetite.

I interpreted Mallard saying Joyce would "do a better job for National" as meaning that he would pursue a more explicitly right-wing agenda than English. Perhaps I'm giving Mallard too much credit there.

I interpreted Mallard as making a joke at English's expense. I'm not sure any more ought be…

It sure is the last week of term. I've got nothing left, teenagers have drained me of every last ounce.

And next week, they take on the malls..

slightly irked that Trevor Mallard has said he hopes English doesn't lose his job because Steven Joyce would do a better job as finance minister.... it just annoys me that an MP would openly celebrate mis-management of our nations economy as it suits his political aspirations.

I interpreted Mallard saying…

have been trying to find info but the brain is on go slow. It sure is the last week of term. I've got nothing left, teenagers have drained me of every last ounce.

openly celebrate mis-management of our nations economy as it suits his political aspirations

The Standardistas complained recently about political journos getting completely distracted by the theatre and mistaking it for the substance.

I thought they had just backed down completely on the northern border?

They may well have (god I hope so), this information junkie has been on half rations in the last few days due to a bloody crap chest cough.

I guess I knew he was a dancer
Someone said that he was overseas
I guess he is a dreamer
who just can't stand Auckland has trees.

That's scary.

Especially given the upper limits have been sucked in nice and tight

I thought they had just backed down completely on the northern border?

Gossip is so much simpler when there's only one decent beach. :)

Scorching Bay is our best beach, we have a few other quite nice beaches (Days Bay, umm Lyall Bay). So there!

Also, in any here slightly irked that Trevor Mallard has said he hopes English doesn't loose his…

Well that's obviously the reason for our low productivity and lack of ambition then. No need to improve management skills or any of that socialist fluff.

If I read Kiwiblog correctly, it's because 4 out of 5 teenage girls prefer to get pregnant and stay home "living the life" on…

http://brucejesson.com/media/1/20081008-BJF%20lecture%2011-08.pdf

I've written to some contacts at the local liberal rag to alert them to his presence. (Today's headline should show how much they like to stick it to conservative fucktards).

If it's a slow news day, they might just take pot shots…

What with your $20b of assets sitting there and the wolves salivating in…

Rodney's "Regulatory Responsibility Bill" was drawn from the ballot in 2006, went to select committee, and is currently parked up on the Order Paper.

Rodney as Minister also introduced as a Government Bill the Regulatory Improvement Bill in May this year and it is currently…

I wonder if a Taypayer Bill of Rights would deal with…

I would hope that Jacobs Ladder is retained, at least as a heritage walkway. But it could be made a lot safer. Then again,…

striding along the Oriental Bay promenade

Gossip is so much simpler when there's only one decent beach. :)

Or that the Regulatory Responsibility Bill is presently just a press release

No its not – I have a copy. And I blogged about it here.

He was striding along the Oriental Bay promenade on Sunday with his blonde companion, looking confident and tanned.

His companion? Or Rodney? And will this have any implications for the foreshore & seabed debate?

Who characterized it as a shemozzle? I couldn't find any shemozzles in the link, apart from inferred ones.

Sorry — wrong link. Should have been this.

He is not, of course, a Cabinet minister, and I've never heard anyone refer to him as the "Minister for Ratepayers", but that's showbiz.

I understand he used to be a dancer.