Maximus
2 Min Read

While I’m steadily more and more amazed at the sycophantic press coverage afforded to the nuptials of a certain couple this week, not just from the gutter press of No Idea and Women’s Weakly etc, but also from TV1 and TV3, I swore a solemn oath on the fin of my father’s flipper that I wouldn’t cover the wedding, and hence won’t say another word about…

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Maximus
3 Min Read

Speaking bluntly: there’s no cure for congestion. No, we’re not talking one of those bad, hacking coughs, that goes with the congested lungs of your wizened and blackened ex-smoker’s body here, we are talking the lungs of a much more important organism than you. We’re talking about the life of a city here. And with congestion in a city, there’s no cure at all. The Stephen…

Maximus
4 Min Read

Not wanting to put too fine a point on it, but this town needs more public WCs. Come the Rugby World Cup, we’re going to be rivaling Christchurch for numbers of Portaloos deployed in the streets I suspect, for the simple reason that we don’t have enough places dedicated for number 1s and number 2s. We’ve written about this before, in a post (still one of…

Maximus
2 Min Read

Really. I’m staggered at how bad this government is. Take this pitiful offering for example. How did she ever get to be elected? Or the amount of legislation that is passed under urgency – a quite staggering amount, deliberately chosen to stifle debate and circumvent the processes specifically set up to avoid bad law. Seventeen separate Acts where the vitally crucial Select Committee stage has been…

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Maximus
5 Min Read

Christchurch – there’s just so many things I want to write about down there, and sadly, not really that much going on up here. The Government announced yesterday that three suppliers of temporary portable housing have been named: “Three kiwi-based companies were selected to provide the temporary accommodation. A consortium of Hawkins/Spanbild/Fulton Hogan; Jennian Homes; and New Zealand Transportable Units were the chosen providers out of…

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Maximus
1 Min Read

I’ve not got much time to note anything much about this building at present – am still wading my way through the comprehensive Assessment of Environmental Effects – but so I thought I would post it up here in the mean time in case any of you lot have any comments you wish to make. It is, as noted in the DomPost the other day, proposed…

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Maximus
5 Min Read

Moving into winter on this cold, wet Monday evening, with the date of 1st April now behind us, and Phil Goff on the radio loudly proclaiming that he is not an April Fool, I thought it would be nice to celebrate the intellectuals amongst us, by having a look at the musings of those that muse upon the city. Sometimes we muse, sometimes we amuse, but…

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Maximus
1 Min Read

In a shock move this morning, Canterbury architects have confirmed the rumours that the NZIA Architectural Ambassador, Sir Ian Athfield, has abruptly resigned. “Christchurch,” Athfield is reported to have said, “is a one-way street that I’m just not willing to go down.” 70 year-old “Ath” is renowned as an outspoken critic for many things, who also likes skiing – but not enough to stay in Christchurch….

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Maximus
2 Min Read

It’s not unusual for mayoral cycling fanatic Celia Wade-Brown to advocate for cycle lanes. While her recent support for road building has caused some among us to query her how green her credentials are – one thing for certain is that if there’s a road to be built there’ll be cycle lanes attached to it. It’s this dogged attachment to said cycle lanes that the Fish…