Posts by Russell Brown
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Up Front: One, in reply to Emma Hart,
You can “get” Avonside by driving down Fitzgerald Ave, you don’t have to crawl around River Rd pointing.
And yet, riding along River Road on a bike was part of my experience, and without experiencing the creepy hush of Avonside -- it actually felt awkward when I occasionally encountered people -- I wouldn't have understood it.
So I suppose there are degrees, and a difference between a Sunday sightseeing drive and quiet observation on the way a place in the middle of the zone.
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Hard News: Those were different times ..., in reply to Ian Dalziel,
occasionally (read as ‘days when lots of mail orders for Duran Duran books hit the RIU PO box’) we might be treated to the Vietnamese place at the back of the Civic, facing Aotea square, if my memory serves me well…
I think there was also the Mekong, on Victoria Street.
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Hard News: Te Qaeda and the God Squad, in reply to Paul Campbell,
My guess is that the cops crossed some (still secret) line in their evidence gathering – there was a lot of cellphone and texting intercepts going on here, maybe someone didn’t get the required warrants? will there be repercussions
They obtained the warrants under the Terrorism Suppression Act, and then couldn't use most of the evidence after the Solicitor General declined to approve TSA charges being brought, but said the police investigation had brought to light "some very disturbing activities".
At that point, the police were fucked -- and it's entirely their own fault. They could have obtained intercept warrants under different laws, but they got excited about having a terrorism case.
My view remains that there were things going on that warranted the attention of the police, even if was mostly idiocy. Sadly, they managed to be bigger idiots than the "terrorists" were.
I strongly suspect that if the original police affidavit isn't released after the trials, it will be leaked by someone.
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Up Front: One, in reply to BenWilson,
Isn’t disaster tourism one of the only possible good outcomes, keeping all the peripheral business cranking?
Which doesn't account for the feelings of the people who live there. I was very careful about photographs around people's homes, or even just staring too hard. No one wants to feel like an exhibit.
OTOH, it was noticeable that around the south end of the CBD red zone, almost all the foot traffic was rubberneckers -- either inbound tourists who had nothing else to do, or locals who also wanted to see the CBD.
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Hard News: Just don't call it "Party Central", in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Yeah, and if I wanted to be bitchy about it Len Brown’s been basking in the opening day glow of Q and ACAG that were well advanced before the amalgamation.
Quite. He does bask well, though.
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Hard News: Just don't call it "Party Central", in reply to Sacha,
no disagreement. maloeleilei
Also maximum respect to the entire Tongan community for turning out at the airport to meet their team and turning airport-area traffic to gridlock for hours afterwards. Lolz.
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Hard News: Just don't call it "Party Central", in reply to Sacha,
True, but a fair amount of the development was happening regardless.
Yeah, but this is a bunch of stuff landing in quite a short time period,. I'm not so bothered about when various projects started. In the last two weeks, a major new theatre (Q) and a major extension of the Auckland Art Gallery have launched. The new Outer Link bus route launched last month, Queen's Wharf tomorrow, Wynyard Quarter a couple of months ago. Even the odd whoopsie, like the K Road overbridge, adds to the general sense of excitement.
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Hard News: Those were different times ..., in reply to Simon Grigg,
What was that place next to Strangely Normal in Hobson St? That – and it may be a false memory given the bar was so low – was pretty ok in the 80s, but that was about it in the central city at the time.
Wun Loy.
It was good. Murray Cammick used to take us there on Rip It Up deadlines. I’m struggling a bit to recall, but it was maybe the top end of the common Chinese takeaway style. They served their nasi goreng with a fried egg on top. Murray asked for it without the egg once. Did not go down well.
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Hard News: Those were different times ..., in reply to Simon Grigg,
It’s a long way from the days when your reasonable Chinese food options (i.e. not just variations on Chop Suey, Egg Fu Yung, Sweet & Sour or Chow Mein) could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
When we brought the Singaporean blogger Mr Brown over several years ago, he was amazed by the quality of some of the downtown Chinese restaurants. He had a local fan club to take him places, but clearly, the places were there.
The head chef at Flourishing Cafe comes from Canton in Kingsland, and the menu is quite similar -- just a bit better and a bit more expensive. The place itself was Sunday night bedlam, but you adjust to that. We had a really good time stuffing ourselves full of good food.
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Hard News: Just don't call it "Party Central", in reply to Craig Ranapia,
’d say exactly the same thing about the Auckland City Art Gallery 2.0 – much as it makes my inner fiscal dry get all Gollum-y, with minor reservations I’d have to say it’s been a shit load of money well spent.
And it's worth noting that the fashionable thing to say at the time the design was announced was that it was an abomination, it should have been down at Wynyard, etc. Sometimes people know what they're doing.
Ditto for the Viaduct Events Centre – from the outside it’s got all the wow of a block of fresh tofu but as a working space I’ve get to come across anyone who’s got a disobliging word to say about it.
And that's really encouraging, because it suggests that there are good systems there -- unlike the licensed establishments it faces.
The RWC deadline has created a fascinating time for Auckland. I really wish some people would embrace that, rather than just carping.