Oh dear. That’s awkward. Twas a weekend of weird events and catastrophes. First we had one fifth of our Navy hit a snag – searching for an undersea reef – “I’ve found it Captain!!” and then sink. Ooops. A $100,000,000 oops, it seems. I mean, to lose a ship in battle is one thing, but to lose a fifth of the entire Navy during peacetime is another achievement entirely! And what is worse is that it was our salvage vessel – and now it lies, unsalvageable at the bottom of Samoa’s coral reef system. We are the very definition of a Mickey Mouse nation. It would be hilarious if it was not so pathetic.

Oi !! ‘Murica!! Behave yourself! I’m speaking!

And then we have out Foreign Minister going to the UN and saying that the grown-ups should stop and listen to the little ones. Hmmmmm. Methinks that New Zealand’s luck, pluck, and Don’t Give a Fuck attitude has run out.

Whakaari / White Island – take a trip to a live volcano! It’ll be fun, they said!

Exploding volcanos killing tourists. Earthquaking cities, flattening 101 students in a language school and turning them into meat patties. Suffering one of the worst slaughters of a white-power terrorist worldwide because we didn’t think it could not take place here. Sacking 13% of the civil service and then asking the remaining people to come into work and stop hiding away at home, and spend some money on our dying retail scene, only to be told “No, shan’t!”. Destroying not just our commercial news TV3 but also our “state” news TV One. Closing down our Library, our Town Hall, our Civic Square, our Council Building, our theatres all at the same time, so that as a city of Culture, we suddenly have none and then wonder why our city has lost its Mojo. But at least we still have our Mojo coffee shops.

Before ! Unsinkable salvage ship !

Having our Air Force planes routinely break down more than they routinely fly. No Air Force to speak of. No strike fighters, no trainers, a collection of museum-era Poseidons Orions that need to be put out to pasture. A massive fleet of Army LAVs that we cannot fit onto our aging air freighters, so we can’t move anything like a LAV around our country, other than one at a time, with the wheels off. Ferries that have their propellers “fall off” in Wellington harbour. Ferries that routinely waft around at sea and occasionally run into the sides of the Sounds for unknown reasons. And now, after both major ferry companies losing power while crossing the Strait, we are now sinking our own Navy for shits and giggles, also it seems, because we “lost power”. It is beyond a comedy routine. It really shouldn’t be happening.

After. This is beyond a joke!

So to look at a more relaxing subject, how well did we do during the weekend’s 5am wake-up call, a 5.7 magnitude quake? Well, pretty good apparently – I had some things fall off shelves (one book, one jar of Vegemite), because I am in a non-base-isolated apartment building, as are most people in town.

Famous for its cantilever…

There are only a lucky few, who live in a base-isolated tower, the wonderful new Victoria Lane Apartments, which as the developers proudly tell us, is the country’s very first base-isolated apartment building. And how did it fare, this technological, expensive marvel? Apartments started at a $million a pop. Must have worked well?

Is it as resonant as a large bronze bell? Can anything resonate for 11 hours?

Errrr, ummmm, it seems that it was “vibrating” (according to just one resident, it seems, despite being 11 hours after the actual quake) and had to be evacuated for several more hours, on a cold, wet, southerly night. I am not sure whether I should laugh or cry. Was that the base isolation working better than expecting? Is it lead-rubber-steel isolated, or is the building on the new-fangled curved dish bearings? Or does it have viscous dampers to stop it wobbling? Whatever it has, it sounds like it needs some tweaking. Anyone want to spill the beans? How was it in the massive cantilever?

Victoria Lane apartments, the “safest” apartment block in town, in a future state with additional bits
Fish

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