Posts by Robyn Gallagher
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I was halfway through entering the comp when I went back to the post to check what the subject line needed to say (Ciccone Youth!) and was saddened to see that it had already been given away.
Wot, does this mean I'll have to actually buy the album?
-
What an excellent piece of writing. Thanks for telling your story, David.
-
A friend of mine has suggested we could next have a referendum asking "Should a whack as part of good husbandly correction be a crime in NZ?"
It's disappointing that the citizens intiated referendum process just seems to be a really costy opinion poll, except with questions that professional polling companies wouldn't use due to them being poorly written.
-
There is also the untested assumption that without buildings the public won't use the area.
Big wide open spaces aren't very appealing, whether it's a car park or a playing field. Spaces need things in them - people, buildings, sculptures, businesses, seats.
The Meridian buildings on Wellington's waterfront has a Mojo cafe and Wagamama restaurant. The Wagamama particularly has splendid views over the harbour. But it's not like these views are exclusive to Wagamama customers. There's plenty of seating around the building, and on sunny days, you'll see nearby office workers eating their lunch around there.
Without the Meridian building (or similar) that space would be bleak and empty.
My take on the whole waterfront development is that New Zealanders don't like to acknowledge there are cities in this country. The national image is an aerial shot of the Southern Alps or Milford Sound. We forget about urban areas (witness the resistence to the new Auckland city promos).
And when we do build new things, we try to evoke the "traditional" New Zealand things. Britomart has a Kauri grove, ponga, large illuminated photos of native bush and metal tree sculptures. It's as if it's totally embarassed to be a modern urban transport centre and is trying to disguise itself as a pre-European forest.
By filling up the waterfront with exciting bars, cafes, restaurants, public art and seats, it's definitely acknowledging that this isn't one of those isolated windswept beaches with a craggy pohutukawa; it's an urban harbourside area with concrete and lots and lots of people.
-
Correct me if I'm wrong but the Wellington water front was simply created for the people, not car races or rugby or the ballet.
Well, Frank Kitts Park was designed specifically with the Nissan Mobil 500 in mind. It has tall walls on three sides (Wakefield Street, the waterfront, the lagoon side) which were designed to protect punters from the speeding cars. Today it stands fortresslike, and has resulted in prime waterfront land used as an enclosed carpark.
And I've heard that Te Papa's solid, unfriendly facade was also designed with the Nissan Mobil in mind.
By the way, if you want to see how much the Wellington waterfront has changed in the last 20 years, check out this dashboard cam lap video of the 1990 Nissan Mobil 500. Wellington then is almost unrecognisible from how it is now.
-
So can you explain why building "grands projets" is a better use of public money than insulating homes and improving the public transport network for people to get to work and school?
Because people don't spend all their time at home, school or work.
Is it really such an outrageous proposition to want Auckland to have a pleasant waterfront area that ordinary people can use for pleasure or recreation?
Give us bread and give us roses.
-
Yep, it's as Kiwi as pavlova or kiwifruit. Nah, seriously, it's not in any dictionary I can find. Dibs it's ours.
Have you googled it? Cos the googles suggest its in widespread use in the English-speaking world.
I believe the rising inflection at the end-of non-questions is ours too?
Wikipedia concurs that the Australiasian version of high-rising terminal originated in New Zealand but was popularised by Kylie Mole on "The Comedy Company". But there's also and American version.
Interestingly, it's usually used by people who consider themselves of a lower social status than the person they're talking to, as a way of being friendly and equalising thing.
-
I pride myself on ofing excellent English.
-
do any of you chaps have *any idea at all* of how smug, closed-ranking...
Hey, that's uptown top ranking.
-
And they might even be correct in assuming that their target market is over-educated lefties.
Perhaps their target market is actually people who will click through, look at it, then tweet about with "WTF is this?!" and then engage in some lolz with their friends about its absurdity.