Author: llew

Apologies to all readers from Highbury

Sources admit there was a “balls up”.

Full sto­ry here.

Shall I Compare Thee to Oriental Bay?

What’s some­thing that this fair city has been need­ing since it was found­ed in… say, when was Welling­ton found­ed any­way?

That’s right, you guessed it, you KNEW it all along, Welling­ton needs a son­net!

And here’s where you can help: You can write that son­net!

Welling­ton Son­net Com­pe­ti­tion 2008

Welling­ton needs a son­net. Lon­don has ‘Upon West­min­ster Bridge’ by William Wordsworth and in more recent times, oth­er poets have writ­ten son­nets about their favourite cities. So have you got what it takes to write Wellington’s son­net? We are look­ing for the best unpub­lished son­nets about Welling­ton and you could be in to win $1000.

This com­pe­ti­tion, spon­sored by New Zealand Post, is being run as a pro­mo­tion for the Welling­ton Writ­ers Walk, an ini­tia­tive of the New Zealand Soci­ety of Authors, Welling­ton Branch. The walk pays trib­ute to nine­teen New Zealand authors with a series of sculp­tur­al and ‘benchmark’ quo­ta­tions set in sur­pris­ing and unex­pect­ed places around the water­front.

The Welling­ton Writ­ers Walk is con­tin­u­ing to devel­op, assist­ed by gen­er­ous indi­vid­ual spon­sor­ships for each com­mem­o­ra­tion and over­seen by a small, vol­un­tary com­mit­tee. By enter­ing this com­pe­ti­tion, you are con­tribut­ing to the con­ti­nu­ity of the project.

Find out more about the walk here

Prizes
1st prize $1,000
2nd prize $500
3rd prize $250
Plus 10 high­ly com­mend­ed prizes of $50 each

Click here for fur­ther details, an entry form & the small print.

Please note: there are very spe­cif­ic rules gov­ern­ing the con­struc­tion of son­nets: the num­ber of syl­la­bles in each line, the num­ber of lines in the son­net, metre, rhyme scheme etc etc…

Cost of Public Transport Rising

With the cost of oil reach­ing record highs, it stands to rea­son that more & more peo­ple will see the sense in leav­ing their cars at home & enjoy the has­sle free ride to work, in the com­pa­ny of like mind­ed souls, on the region’s bus & train net­work.

The more peo­ple that switch to pub­lic trans­port, the more eco­nom­i­cal­ly effi­cient the pub­lic net­work will become, right? Might even be worth sub­si­dis­ing, would­n’t you think?

But, less cars on the roads might pose a prob­lem for some of the wack­i­er, recent road­ing pro­pos­als — that 2nd tun­nel through Mt Vic­to­ria isn’t being made for bus­es after all.

So what’s a coun­cil to do? I know, they could look for ways to dis­cour­age peo­ple from using pub­lic trans­port at all.

Secret Talks on Increas­ing Bus & Train Fares

Addressed Mail Only — RESULT!! — NOT!!!

It’s true. They were toy­ing with us.

Newspaper Editor Blames “System”

The feud com­mences. I quite like the cur­mud­geon role.

Rob Olsen, the edi­tor of the Welling­ton­ian has respond­ed to my request that The Welling­ton­ista “Addressed Mail Only” sign be respect­ed:

What is your house address?
Rob Olsen, edi­tor, The Welling­ton­ian
474 0147
editor@thewellingtonian.co.nz

To which I replied:

Does that mat­ter?
It’s the one with an “Addressed mail only” sign.
Please respect my wish­es.

Because we’re super heroes dude, we can’t go giv­ing our address out to the media, peo­ple would come & see us chang­ing into our tights & capes.

Which got me this:

Is it 1 Wood­ward Street? It mat­ters if you want the paper stopped.

It’s not, and I think it unfair to all the oth­er “Addressed Mail Only” sign own­ers that we have to per­son­al­ly plead with any­one, to stop putting unwant­ed stuff on our prop­er­ty.

But Rob says it’s out of his hands. It’s the “Sys­tem”.

With­out an address I can’t act. We have to instruct the com­pa­ny that deliv­ers the paper not to deliv­er to spe­cif­ic address­es. “Addressed Mail Only” is obvi­ous­ly not enough info. I am sor­ry to have to labour this point but that’s the sys­tem. Oth­er­wise I sug­gest you take it up with my man­ag­er Diane Clay­ton on 474 0362.
Rob Olsen, edi­tor, The Welling­ton­ian
474 0147
editor@thewellingtonian.co.nz

The first unstamped Foolscap enve­lope bear­ing the two copies of the Welling­ton­ian that were deliv­ered last week should be arriv­ing on Rob’s desk today or tomor­row.

That’s “The Sys­tem” at work.

To the Editors of the Capital Times and the Wellingtonian

A ques­tion of com­pre­hen­sion:

A sign say­ing “Addressed mail only” on a let­ter­box means:

a) only items specif­i­cal­ly addressed to an occu­pant of the premis­es to be post­ed in the let­ter­box?

b) who knows? Bung the junkmail in any­way?

Please note, we’ll be mail­ing any fur­ther copies dropped in the Welling­ton­ista let­ter­box (just below the “addressed mail only” sign) back to you with­out postage. Until it stops.

Bikes free on trains from July 1

In an effort to encour­age peo­ple to leave their cars at home, Greater Welling­ton has announced that from July 1 this year, bikes can ride on trains for free.

At the moment, trav­el­ling by rail with your bike will cost you anoth­er adult fare.

Sounds like a good idea to us. There is a caveat how­ev­er, if the train is full, your bike can­not ride at all.

Stuff cov­er­age here.

A little challenge

The first per­son who can sup­ply us with pho­to­graph­ic evi­dence of any work­men in the city, oper­at­ing heavy or noisy machin­ery, AND WEARING EAR PROTECTORS!!

Will win a 1kg bag of Rahui Lodge Macadamia Nuts.

But I’m not sure you’ll find one.

On the off-chance any­one wants a bag of nuts… pho­tos of ear muff wear­ing Welling­ton work­men can be emailed to andrew.llewellyn@gmail.com.

Congestion Charges — what do you think?

The Welling­ton Region­al Coun­cil is con­sid­er­ing charg­ing all motorists who enter or leave Welling­ton dur­ing “rush hour”, a con­ges­tion fee.

The mon­ey raised will go towards improv­ing the region’s bus­es and trains.

How­ev­er, May­or Ker­ry Pren­der­gast is not keen on the idea at all. We’ll spec­u­late here, that if the mon­ey raised was pro­posed for build­ing a link road between Koroko­ro & Tawa… she & the two motorists who would reg­u­lar­ly use it, might be more favourable to the sug­ges­tion.

Full sto­ry here.

Over at Kiwiblog, DPF sug­gests that rev­enue should be used for oth­er pur­pos­es than mere­ly pub­lic trans­port, such as improv­ing the Bypass. If any­one would like to com­ment about pos­si­ble Bypass improve­ments, feel free.

Most of the Welling­ton­ista walk, bus or Seg­way to & from the office & so we’ll not be affect­ed, but how about you tell us what you think of the idea in the com­ments?

Letterboxes for Writers & Readers Week

I’m just guess­ing that the rea­son the let­ter­box out­side Bor­ders Book­store in Lambton Quay has been hap­pi­ly talk­ing to itself (pos­si­bly with Emi­ly Perkins’ voice) all week, has some­thing to do with Writ­ers & Read­ers Week.

That NZ Post are spon­sors of the week kind of sup­ports that the­o­ry.

Has any­one heard any oth­er postal para­pher­na­lia talk­ing to them?

Please say it’s not just me…