How many 1 in a 100 year events have we had lately? 400mm of rain in Akaroa down south sounds suspiciously like this is more of a 1 in a thousand year event – that’s rainfall in Westport proportions! And meanwhile, of course, we have some rain up here in Wellington and inevitably, Plimmerton gets flooded out. Why is this? I’m glad you asked. Plimmerton Roundabout…
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nemo
3 Min Read
First thing I find when looking at the proposed new Climate Zones, is that in going from the current (somewhat silly) three Zones for Climate, they have instead gone for Six zones, nicely colour-coded, from Red for Hot in Zone 1, down through the rainbow of orange and yellows and greens, to end up with a cold southerly Blue for Zone 6. Brrrr!!! Chilly!! My question…
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nemo
1 Min Read
You know when you’ve been waiting for something to arrive for ages, and then when you finally realise it is here, the time for comment is almost up? No? Is that just me then? MBIE has put out a discussion document (a month ago, apparently, in April) that they want your / my / our feedback on by May 28th on their proposals for Building Code…
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nemo
1 Min Read
Last night, on Prime TV, there was a programme on living in apartments in NZ. Specifically, apartment hell living in leaking apartments and badly built apartments. It wasn’t a particularly brilliant doc, mainly because it had a maudlin speaker and poor sound quality, but I got the gist of it: NZ seems to be rubbish at designing and building apartment buildings. Some of the examples were…
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nemo
6 Min Read
Monasteries have always been freeloaders on society – for the last 2000 years or more. I’ve never quite understood the mystique of the monk or the nun – and their insistence that someone else pay for their way of life, essentially doing mindless things like praying 14 hours a day or keeping silent for years on end. Get a job, you schmucks! Try actually working for…
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nemo
2 Min Read
The Government is getting light rail back on track by involving Wellingtonians in a six-month process to come up with a city-shaping project. Transport Minister Michael Wood today acknowledged Wellingtonians had been shut out of the multibillion-dollar project between the CBD and Wellington Airport, which went on hold in the middle of last year after being blocked by NZ First. He said an establishment unit has…
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nemo
4 Min Read
Fascinating to see the hubbub over the announcements today from Labour of a revised policy over housing sales. From the Nats there is a wild panicked squealing as their fat little piggies suddenly realise that perhaps they should not have all their spare money in property. Accusations of a new Capital Gains Tax from Ardern, despite there already being a “Bright Line” test in existence, which…
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nemo
4 Min Read
Some extra-ordinary goings on in Palmerston North this week, centred around the fate of the All Saints church in the heart of that flat and boring city. You may think that nothing much of importance ever happens in Palmy, but apparently you would be wrong. There’s not much of great architectural significance in PM, but All Saints is one. It is a Frederick de Jersey Clere…
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nemo
4 Min Read
Waking at 2.27am this morning, as we all were, for a moment I thought that my lover was gently rocking me to wake up. Then I remember that we broke up years ago and I’ve been single ever since. Who else was in the bed with me then? Why, it was my old friend Mother Earth, tugging at the heart strings with an earthquake revival a…