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?