Taonga

The Screaming Meemees had a song called Rena. Rena, according to the song, “had the biggest pissflaps in the land”. Now we have the cargo vessel Rena grounded on the Astrolab reef and leaking oil into the sea within sight of Tauranga harbour. This happened over a week ago and only yesterday was... Sign in to see full entry.

I was going to write about the Coptic Christians and the Muslims in Egypt as an example of why religion needs to be kept out of politics but recently Dr Robert Jeffress in the good ole USA proved the point more powerfully. In attacking Mitt Romney, for being a Mormon (described by him as an... Sign in to see full entry.

The people of the Chianti region of Italy thought they were liberated from German Occupation in 1944 by the US Army (for the reason for this misconception listen to my podcast “Movie Chronicles” Ep 1914). In the 1990’s the then mayor of Tavarnelle discovered the truth when he began researching a... Sign in to see full entry.

The most disturbing thing about this trial is the decision to restrict the evidence only to the 72 hours leading up to the singers death (although I do agree with the decision not to allow testimony of the singer’s mental health or finances - both are irrelevant to THIS case). My fear is that this... Sign in to see full entry.

Art historian, Hamish Keith, has re-opened a can of worms. But first… a little geography and a little history. The Auckland Art Gallery is on the corner of Kitchener and Wellesley Sts. It forms a corner of Albert Park. Wellesley St leads down to Queen St (the CBD). It’s about 100m walk away.... Sign in to see full entry.

And so the national elections approach (about seven weeks to go) and the National Party, currently polling streets ahead of anyone else, has managed to turn 1/3 of the voters against it. Meanwhile New Zealand is politicking in the UN to have UNESCO declare Auckland’s 52 volcanoes declared a World... Sign in to see full entry.

When I wrote the title for this article I had a clear idea of what I wanted to say. Something short and pithy on what the Prosecution would need to prove to get a conviction and some commentary on the confused Defences being presented. As I wrote I realised there are a slew of other issues... Sign in to see full entry.

6 months ago Auckland had its Council elections. In the 6 months since Auckland Council had to integrate:- the transport systems of seven different cities, two different water systems, seven sets of council departments, create a town plan for the new Super City, etc, etc, etc [without Government... Sign in to see full entry.

Yesterday was an interesting time for the ACT Party. The last one of its current members in Parliament announced he was not going to contest the coming election. All new blood was going into the contest. Don Brash, leader of the Party, instead of trumpeting this as a good thing, chose this moment to... Sign in to see full entry.

When the National Party came to power three years ago it made two decisions that influenced the outcome of the Rugby World Cup opening ceremony. The first was to appoint Murray McCully as Minister for the World Cup. How his ego made this a disaster I have already shown. The Government is claiming... Sign in to see full entry.