Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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Hard News: It Began ... in Chicago, in reply to Mike Hollywood,
Ahhh, Allenby Steps. I used to live in a flat in a a huge old two storey house on those steps... and I remember going to Naked Angel a couple of times.
I particularly remember leaving the Box one morning at 5am and walking home, Cuba, Manners, Willis, Boulcott, and just as I was coming up Boulcott, in the early morning summer's light, a light rain began to fall, and Our Lady of Grace looked so wonderful in that light...
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Hard News: It Began ... in Chicago, in reply to Mike Hollywood,
I didn't know that it was Chicago / Detroit at the time, and didn't know until quite some time later. I just knew it as House. I remember Clares, but can't remember Naked Angel or Sub Club. Being a young gay then (and still am thankfully) I mostly went to Alfies, which played generally R&B, soul and disco. But we did go to the Box quite a bit to get something different. I probably went once or twice to Clares with my flatmate at the time, and Madeline and Katy.
I remember being introduced to House through the quarterly Gay Community Dances held up at the Student Union Hall. The DJ's there came from within the community, and Mark Harris was one of them. He had been to London and brought back a pile of new music with him which was Acid and House. It's fair to say that Acid was more popular, possibly because London was where people travelled to, because that was where the strongest air/cultural links were, rather than Chicago / Detroit, but House was also mixed in and was just as popular.
Russell reminded us of discussing Trax music a while back; I discussed the Londong influence in NZ in the late 80s - saying that it would make for a great book, and wound up contacting author Tony Simpson (?), who much to my surprise said yes he was looking at such an idea...
But I remember buying a few TRAX records. There was one compilation that I played often. It had 'Jack my Body', 'Love can't turn around', 'Move your body' and a few others... I moved overseas and unfortunately my records disappeared. But I wound up buying a tape in Seattle that, not realised at the time, was the next iteration of Chicago / Detroit house. I played that quite a bit living in Vancouver. But the music in Vancouver was different - no Acid really, and little House, but mostly West Coast music from LA.
It's quite strange discussing music of your late teens - it has such an impact on you. We didn't know it then, but there was a great sense of freedom - we were young, flatting, independent, at uni, and we could listen to all sorts of great music (Smiths, Talk Talk, House, Acid, Look Blue Go Purple etc). We had affairs to music, and the Wellington winters were endured with the help of music. We went to cool clubs, and Alfies which was like another home to us. It was a very intense time...
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OMG - how wicked! A post about my favourite periods in my life - house music in the late 80s - OMG... such memories... Wellington, The Box, listening to house music on my turntable in my bedroom... Gay Community dances at Vic Uni with house music brought in by Mark Harris... it was such a great time....
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speaking personally... it's called a holiday highway cause not only Key but Joyce also has a holiday home at Omaha, or somewhere near there. Joyce needs the motorway so he can get to his bach faster.
The Campaign for Better Transport analysed the problem and found that you could solve the issue as Mr Poole notes:
For less than the cost of Joyce’s wet-dream, the road could have full median barriers and edge barriers installed, some realignments of the worst sections, and the northern rail line upgraded to a standard that would make it an attractive alternative to road freight. It would also be possible to complete the road works within three years and probably the rail work within five, as opposed to at least 10 years before the section of highway to Warkworth is completed and over 15 until it reaches Wellsford.
It's called Operation Lifesaver.
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Hard News: Getting dressed for the party, in reply to MikeE,
Thanks for that - I will, wearing my ER hat...
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Hard News: Getting dressed for the party, in reply to Russell Brown,
They went retro and got in Gliding In style staff. With walk shorts, beige knitted socks and cardies. And attitude to match.
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Hat time...
But I’m hoping that the libraries are going to be the norm not the exception that proves the rule – while the integration hasn’t been flawless, they just got on with an enormously complex job and (to be honest) did a much better job than I expected.
The libraries are wonderful aren't they? They had a head start. 5 or so years ago, some bright cookie suggested that the libraries agree to work together on back office things, like ordering books/journals, repairs, binding, developing a computer cataloguing system etc. Cause a book in Rodney is a book in Franklin. Thankfully libraries management agreed, and met regularly to align back office functions, while keeping individual 'fronts' i.e. Auckland City Libraries. My librarian contact told me that it took about two years before people started to see the benefits of working together.
Libraries were the role model for how regional integration could occur while still remaining 'separate'. Other departments were just starting to develop the same model e.g. resource consent processing, or transport. Then Napoleon came along and the rest is history.
But given the work that the libraries had done in the past, they are the one shining spot in terms of integration.
I’m not trolling you, Christopher, but I really think Brown’s earned a bare pass on this – but the worse thing about screwing up is not learning from it and doing better.
Well, that's a bit better. A bare pass is better than what you have been tagging Brown with so I'm happy. I'm sure Brown has knocked a few heads together and I'm sure Doug McKay has had a few hard words with appropriate people but we won't know the results of this unfortunately.
My main concern now is to ensure that the replacement artwork is NOT dictated by Council.
Doffing hat...
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Hard News: Getting dressed for the party, in reply to andin,
Yes, they restored them after moving them. Just look at the stone fence bordering the street. Top notch stuff. Not a full restore mind, just rewiring, gibbing, etc I understand.
The kitchen and bathroom were done in corporate style - you know, bright lights, soap dispenser, big roll of toilet paper, the ubiquitious dish drawer and signs telling people to "Freakin' clean up after yourselves already" and "Would you leave a mess like this at home?" and "The fridge will be cleaned out regardless on Mondays".
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Sigh. Unleashing my hat - today, of all days - but nursing a blardy cold so I can't be present at the unleashing being done today by Mayor Brown...
Russell's analysis is bang on, and far better than anything I could have done. Thank you Mr Brown.
And the observation:
the culture that some Auckland City staff brought to the mix.
Yes, indeed. The mixing of staff cultures has been a mixed bag to say in the least. From what I can observe, quite a number of staff were employed from Auckland City Council because that Council was the largest in the region, and had better training systems, operating systems, etc, so it made sense to employ them.
During the days of CEO Bryan Taylor (predecessor to David Rankin), who was an evangelical pastor in his spare time, a particular culture emerged. So the culture represented Taylor's worldview - there is a God, what god says goes, and god is supreme and everyone is ranged hierarchically below. So naturally, lots of mini-gods emerged everywhere.
David Rankin deserves credit for softening this culture and did much to push the culture in a more inclusive and supportive direction, and by and large succeeded, but some staff naturally were resistant.
As a result, there is naturally much errr, apprehension felt by other staff employed from other Councils. Doug McKay will have his work cut out for him in terms of creating a much better culture and I don't envy his job. On the few times I've meet him he's very engaging and committed so I'm reasonably happy that he'll do his best.
Penny Hulse is very aware of the issue and I suspect is working politically to create a more inclusive culture, and bury the 'Auckland City' culture.
Time will tell if the desire to create an alternative culture to the ‘Auckland City’ culture will be greater than the inert residual bulk of the ‘Auckland City’ culture.
Doffing said hat…
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Wearing ER hat...
3 Mill seems like a lot to pay?
Two houses were removed from an area where the next door neighbors have capital values of 720 and 740 thousand dollars (courtesy auckland city’s own website, I guessed 29 walters and 8 sandrignham were close enough?)… so there’s half the budget blown before you’ve moved a house or turned a sod…
The beauty of large organisations is that pots of money are very flexible and moveable. The total amount of road works in the area (extending beyond Sandringham works package) was $26m, so presumably removing houses came out of this budget.
Council also paid to move three villas back some metres to create a wider Sandringham Rd. The workmanship done on restoring those houses will be top notch and will be a bargin to whoever buys them.
Doffing said hat...