Maximus

Consultation on the NZTA’s solutions for “roading improvements” around the Basin and through to the Airport (the tail end of State Highway 1, if you will), closes today. I’ve been taking a bit of a back seat on this, watching from the sidelines as the alternative proposal put forward by the Architectural Centre “Option X” gets some decent airtime. From what I can gather, it is…

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Maximus

There seems to be no better time to say it than at this time of year, following on from an excellent week of serious winter weather: Merry Christmas or rather Joyous Antipodean Yuletide Felicitations! In years to come they’ll still be talking of this week, and people will hardly believe that we had so much snow. I’m always curious though, that the news reports it as…

Maximus

Welcome back! Oh no, sorry, it’s us that has been gone. I must say, I’ve been amazed by the riots of last week – how quickly the thin veneer of civilisation can be stripped away, to be replaced with outright thuggery in a single night. It seems that everyone is affected. At first it just seemed like another weekend bit of bother, the kind of thing…

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Maximus

We sit here today at the start of what could be just another week, or what could be a week of financial meltdown, with the US monetary system in potential (further) calamity. Little old New Zillun is unfortunately at the head of the queue on this one, with the downgrading of America’s credit rating occurring last thing after the bell on Friday, and the NZX being…

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Maximus

We like a little bit of self parody at the Fish. This is brilliant. Sad, brutally honest, and yet, still brilliant. Listen to the lyrics y’all. Taking Jay-Z and Alicia Keys best work in the best city, and applying it wholesale (what else, given the locale)… Best / most poignant line for me was when she sang that “nobody would even care… if the City was…

Maximus

As far as Architectural SuperStar news stories goes – this one has to be a biggie, surely. Japanese architect Shigeru Ban designing a new cathedral for Christchurch out of cardboard? Fantastic ! Despite lots and lots of anguished stories about heritage buildings being destroyed, or at least – not saved, this is the opposite story – a ray of hope and light in an otherwise derelict…

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Maximus

Having waited for over 2 years for the NZTA’s announcement of the Basin Overpass, it was good to see the scheme given some decent coverage in the DomPost the other weekend. Finally we got to see some graphics on what it may look like – although seeing as this is more or less exactly the same as what was intimated 2 or 3 years ago, you…

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Maximus

Like many, probably all of you, I’ve been horrified by the carnage in Norway this weekend. Right-wing neo-Nazi extremism, racial bigotry, hatred, Christianity, Freemasonry – whatever the misguided foolish notions of Anders Behring Breivik’s tiny brain, all he has done has left a massive hole in the hearts of an entire generation of Norwegians. I feel sick to the stomach by the brutality and senseless of…

Maximus

We’d heard rumours at the Fish HQ of a proposed sweetener deal of a Grandstand, but have been caught off the hop by this – I didn’t think it was going to surface just yet. It is a curious proposal – and all seems rather Fishy to me. In a country notorious for its distain for, and freedom from corruption, is this the first openly blatant…